We got pictures today from Greyfox‘s sister in Pennsylvania, of the deep snow there.  Ours is pathetic, all slushy with muddy patches showing through.  I’m getting oh-so-sick of listening to the sound of dripping water.  Tens of millions of people in the Eastern U.S. are distressed over this Blizzard of ’03, and a few thousand Alaskans are seriously inconvenienced by the warm weather we’ve been having.  As my double-Libran old fart says, it all balances out.

He had planned to go to Talkeetna today, open his stand and do a little business.  It is early in the season and he usually only works weekends this time of year, but the weather forecast was for precipitation all weekend, so he thought he’d beat it to the punch and get at least one workday this week.  This morning, the precip showed up earlier than predicted, so he’s staying home.

He and Doug have gone on a water run, which allowed me to slip in here at the computer for a while.  I would have driven Doug to the spring, and probably would have taken the camera along and taken a batch of ugly pics of muddy ground, but for several factors.  First and foremost, I suppose, is this beastly fibro flareup I’m having.  Also, since my car, Streak Subaru, is loaded up with the stand merchandise, the water run must be done in Greyfox’s shiny new red used car with the cracked axle, bad tires, misaligned suspension, and that other thing (which escapes me) that Greyfox said was the “worst” mechanical malfunction of all.  I’m glad he didn’t go to work today and leave me to herd that thing down the highway.

This won’t come as any news to my fellow fibromites who read it, but I’m having trouble getting enough oxygen today.  Shortness of breath is one of the more serious, potentially damaging or life-threatening things on the long symptom list for fibro.  For years, I (and my physicians) thought that my asthma, the pain, stiffness and incoordination, the vision problems, etc., were separate things.  Knowing better really does help, even though it doesn’t make the symptoms any better.    For me, taking the mystery out, being able to stop wondering what the hell is going on and why, makes it all a lot easier to live with.

Even so, I’m not in a very good mood today.  The mood may or may not be independent of the biochemical effects of the disease.  I’ve got enough on my mind without trying to sort EVERYLITTLETHING out.  Sometimes flareups are easier to take without letting them get me down.  This time, I’m restless.  It’s cabin fever season.  I’d love to be out doing things, or over there in front of the VCR punching and kicking with the TaeBo video.  If I was in tip-top shape, I might even go to Anchorage tomorrow for the start of the Iditarod, but probably wouldn’t, anyway, because of the crowds, the air pollution and all.  On each trip to Anchorage, about the time I get past Eagle River, my eyes and throat start burning and I start sneezing.  Cities suck, in general.

My current mood sucks, in general.  Don’t mind me.  I’m outta here.  I’ll try to cheer up a bit before I come back.

Unintended Consequences

I’ve been working on this blog for a couple of days. I prudently started it in a text editor as I do with most of my lengthier pieces. I consider this a prudent course because xTools tends to dump my work into some black hole somewhere when I least expect it. Today’s blog has circled back upon itself in such rampant self-referential splendor so many times that I’m surprised Notepad hasn’t crashed on me.

The inspiration came from one of the videos Greyfox brought home: Blood Work, produced and directed by and starring Clint Eastwood, from a book by Michael Connolly. Early in the story, before the ace investigator barges in, the cops are assuming that their new serial robber-killer is a two-time-convicted felon intent on making sure there are no living witnesses to his subsequent robberies. This reminded me of unintended consequences.

Escalated homicidal violence in what used to be simple stick-ups is only one of many unintended consequences of the three-strikes-and-you’re-out law. I wonder how many of the hysterical law and order advocates and legislators responsible for the law even paused to consider consequences. I’m always tracing time-lines into the future, projecting what might result from this or that choice I might make. The Old Fart tells me that not many people do this. I wonder why.  Even with my foresight, limited as it is, I have enough unintended consequences blindsiding me to keep life interesting. I breathe a little sigh of relief each time I cruise past the wreckage of some poor reckless fool who winds up on some reef that I’ve avoided.

When I decided to blog on unintended consequences, I immediately thought of Mary Catherine Bateson. When I first heard of Cathy Bateson, I envied her. She’s the daughter of two people I’ve long admired: Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead. Mead made anthropology sexy and trendy with Coming of Age in Samoa. Bateson made diverse disciplines come together in Steps to an Ecology of Mind. He coined the term cybernetics. He could electrify a lecture hall–I heard him at Lane Community College in Eugene, OR, in ’68 or so. When I first thought about being the daughter of such a pair, the dinner conversation… wow!

Then I learned that Cathy Bateson was, “the most studied baby in the world.” Mead observed and recorded her every move.  I wonder what unintended consequences there were to Cathy’s psychosocial being.  I wonder, but I wouldn’t want to find out for myself.  That did it for me, no more envy. It would have been “interesting”, but I’m okay with not having grown up under a microscope in the hands of a control freak.

Mead was one of those anthropologists who introduced her own customs and values into the exotic cultures she studied… as opposed to the ones who went native, more my style. Bateson and Mead had an ongoing debate over unintended consequences. Bateson advocated not tinkering with natural or cultural systems, basically a philosophy of, “if it works, don’t fix it.” Mead thought it better to “fix” things that were “wrong” with the exotic cultures. There are Samoan Christians in muumuus in Alaska, mostly in Anchorage, thanks to Margaret Mead.  I have met some of them. The ones I talked to are New Sourdoughs: sour on Alaska and not enough dough to get home. Whenever I see a Samoan around here, it reminds me of Margaret Mead.

In case you missed it, this is related to my corpus callosum blog just before this one. Or, at least they’re connected in my twisted mind. Thinking or not-thinking about what one believes has a potentially catastrophic connection with thinking or not-thinking about probable consequences of acts. Catastrophic cascade effects can follow inadequate or ill-advised tinkering with ecosystems, sociopolitical institutions, structures of all sorts, and people.

Often a law meant to deter some practice just makes the practice more chaotic or intense in its expression. For example, take alcohol prohibition. In some sense, all change, all growth, is revolutionary and catastrophic. Sometimes it’s productive, sometimes not, and often no one knows and few even consider what would have been down that road not taken. I can’t help considering it, and wouldn’t want to stop if I could.  Here’s a sampling of what I found on Google:

• “The law of unintended consequences, often cited but rarely defined, is that actions of people–and especially of government–always have effects that are unanticipated or “unintended.” Economists and other social scientists have heeded its power for centuries; for just as long, politicians and popular opinion have largely ignored it.” Rob Norton The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics

• Chlorine compounds used to disinfect water supplies react with organic matter to produce chloroform and a variety of other trihalomethanes (THMs). Several THMs are known carcinogens and U.S. EPA standards limit them to a range of parts-per-billion in water sources. Claiming that they were responding to the questions raised by the U.S. EPA over the safety of THMs, officials in Peru began, in the late 80s, shutting down some of the chlorinators in the capital city, Lima, as well as in other cities and towns.
  
  “In January 1991, an outbreak of cholera began in several towns just north of Lima. Within weeks the epidemic of this dangerous disease (the first epidemic of cholera in the Western hemisphere in a century) spread throughout Peru and eventually through much of South and Central America. Once introduced into a city, town, or village, the disease spread rapidly through contaminated, but now unchlorinated, water supplies. By Dec. 31, 1992 – 23 months after the epidemic began, a total of 731,312 cases had been recorded with 6,323 deaths.”

• “…Violence against Women Act. This law, passed as a part of a larger crime bill in 1994, makes it illegal to possess a firearm after conviction of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence. Furthermore, the law amended the Gun Control Act of 1968, which had allowed those convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence to have a gun. Now, this same group of criminals forfeits its gun rights. Because of this provision, prosecutors think twice when charges are brought against soldiers for domestic abuse. If a conviction occurs, the solider now loses the only item that makes them useful: their gun. But, if prosecutors do not pursue the charges, offenders may well believe they can get away with domestic abuse or other crimes again.”

High Road or Low?

UPDATED

When an ignorant young person impertinently parrots some arrant
self-serving nonsense learned from equally ignorant and self-serving,
but also reactionary and pompous, elders, is the correct response to
ignore the misguided whelp, put him down with a scathing rejoinder, or
engage him in civilized debate?

When a member of an elite ruling class, a powerful minority,
criticizes and castigates members of the oppressed majority for having
become warped, underhanded and cruel in their dealings with their
oppressors, does the impeccable warrior of the underclass take a little
sarcastic snipe at the self-important critic, then retreat and live to
fight another day–or does she get right in his face and give him hell
and bring down on herself the wrath of the oppressors? Or is there
another, preferable, course?

Those are rhetorical questions, dear readers, but feel free to
respond if you think you have an answer. The First Amendment to the
U.S. Constitution is the first thing I would rise up to defend. Just
beware: answering rhetorical questions leaves one open to an ensuing
debate, and even to ridicule if the answer one presents can be
successfully refuted.

For me, the one answer to all of the above is, “It depends on the
circumstances.” I’m a firm advocate of situational ethics. I think that
any one-size-fits-all, stock response to any given eventuality is going
to be inappropriate in some situations. My regular readers, the
attentive ones, have learned that I am engaged in a quest to transcend
my beliefs. I don’t believe that, “everyone needs something to believe
in.” I’ve given myself a free pass on that one, and will extend one to
any brave souls out there who desire to join in this quest.

I do NOT “believe in” situational ethics. It is a basic foundation
of my paradigm, a principle that guides almost every decision I make,
but I don’t take it on faith. My experience with by-the-book living in
my own life and those of others I’ve observed, has taught me that there
are incidents and contingencies not covered in any book. I’ve read a
lot of books, have delved deeply into studies of religion, mysticism,
and metaphysics. I worked for several years as a book critic. It’s not
a matter of my being able to read critically. I am unable to completely
suspend the critical response. If I encounter flawed logic or
flawlessly reasoned arguments based on bullshit premises, I notice.

Frequently, I wonder why people don’t think about what they believe. Over 108 years ago, T.H.Huxley,
President of the Royal Society, believed that the time was already
fifty years in the past, when, “It was possible for very eminent and,
at the same time, perfectly sincere men, to keep their scientific and
their other convictions in two separate logic-tight compartments.” I
truly do understand how he could have been so wrong. When one’s own
awareness is broad and lucid, one tends to forget that there are still
others who live in very narrow, dark, little reality-tunnels. Even now,
the world is filled with people who have never bothered to apply the
abilities of one cerebral hemisphere to an examination of the contents
of the other one.

That much is excusable, understandable because many of us lack any
active neurological crossover via the corpus callosum between the
hemispheres. The wetware is there, the physical neurochemistry exists.
What’s missing is the electricity, the neural activation. Even for men,
however, whose mentation occurs almost exclusively in the left
hemisphere, some logical examination of data stored there, in the light
of other data stored there, a little compare-and-contrast among the
files, should be possible. Am I the only one who thinks it would also
be helpful?

Civilized debate it is!

A comment from TheHorseYouRode prompted this update.  He wrote:

“now, i don’t know diddly about situational ethics, but doesn’t the mere definition of ethics negate wavering of any kind? can you suggest a book i might read on the subject?”

I recognize that he might be putting me on, there. 
“Situational ethics” has been a pejorative term for most people
throughout more than half my lifetime.  Sources that
condemn seat-of-the-pants morality far outnumber those that
promote or defend it.  I prefer to take the comment as
an opening to extend the debate and expand the scope of it.  The
first book that popped into my mind was How to Believe in Nothing and Set Yourself Free by Michael Misita but, although an excellent book, it’s only tangentially related to ethics.

That definition question is valid.  Although my paper
dictionary has slightly different wording, the effect is the same as
what I found at Merriam-Webster OnLine.

Main Entry: eth·ic
Pronunciation: 'e-thik
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English ethik, from Middle French ethique, from Latin ethice, from Greek EthikE, from Ethikos
Date: 14th century
1 plural but singular or plural in construction : the discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation
2 a : a set of moral principles or values b : a theory or system of moral values <the present-day materialistic ethic> c plural but singular or plural in construction : the principles of conduct governing an individual or a group <professional ethics> d : a guiding philosophy

Until you toil through and get to d, it’s all about
moral systems and sets of rules.  I can see how someone could
think that that is all there is to ethics.  But one can have an
ethic that isn’t written down in any book, one based on subjective
values such as love.

In his seminal 1966 work, Situation Ethics,
Joseph Fletcher did base his system on love, and used a debatable
biblical reference to support it.  The book-thumpers jumped on
that.  You can find their response to Fletcher at the
website of All About GOD Ministries, Inc.

Google is great; Google is good.  I’ve been having a blast
searching and refining my search.  Among thousands of serious web
references, I found one that’s actually funny. 
Which brings me to something I’ve noticed about a lot of people. 
They tend to practice situational ethics, the vast majority of people
whom I’ve observed.  Bending the rules to fit the circumstances
seems to be the way of the world, currently.  The ones, I’ve
found, who don’t occasionally bend a rule do tend to be quite humorless
as well.

My Best Gluten-Free Bread Yet

Here’s a little glimpse into the Mad Nutritionist’s experimental kitchen.  Most readers won’t be interested, and even some of the cooks who read this will wonder what’s so special about gluten-free bread.  I’ll tell you.

For many people, gluten is acceptable.  Wheat, oats, and some other grains contain gluten, so most of those things commonly called simply “bread” in Western culture contain gluten.  Most of the “cold cereal”, the boxed flakes and shapes found in supermarkets also contain gluten.  You get a dose of gluten in your donuts and in your burgers.

Gluten is the gooey, stringy stuff that forms as a wheat dough is mixed and kneaded.  Agronomists have bred strains of wheat to be higher in gluten and milling companies supply high-gluten flours to baking companies because it makes “superior” cakes and breads, which rise higher and fluffier, faster and more uniformly, without big holes in the bread or cake.

Gluten is also the stuff that forms “nests” in our guts for Candida yeast to grow in.  Yeast spores, being tiny and light, are airborne in most outdoor and indoor environments.  People with healthy intestinal flora can inhale or ingest live yeast without a problem.  People who have lost their healthy intestinal flora (Lactobacillus acidophilus, Bifidobacterium, etc.) usually because of treatment with antibiotics, but also for other causes such as eating raw yeast dough and overwhelming the bacteria with yeast, have no way to kill it off.  If it finds some glutinous stuff in the gut to grow in, and some sugar to grow on, it multiplies.

Yeast is a parasite.  Intestinal and vaginal yeast “infections” or infestations cause a number of uncomfortable and unpleasant symptoms.  If left untreated, a resultant systemic yeast infection can really be nasty, and even life-threatening.  Anyone with a history of yeast infections has a good reason to eliminate gluten (and sugar) from the diet.

Others with a personal interest in gluten-free or wheat-free recipes are those in blood group A.  My blood type is A.  One of the most significant recent improvements in my general health followed my reading Eat Right 4 Your Type by D’Adamo.  It was there that I learned that those with my blood type do not tolerate dairy foods, the nightshade family (tomatoes, peppers, potatoes) or wheat/gluten.  I feel better and function better without those things.

That is the “why” of it.  Now for the what and how.

My first gluten-free bread was coarse and grainy.  It tasted okay to me, but it crumbled badly and wasn’t suitable for any kind of spread, and not even for sopping up the yolk of an over-easy egg.  My husband and son tried it, but wouldn’t eat much of it.  I finished off that batch by myself.

My next batch was a little bit better, but the guys still didn’t like it.  I think those first two efforts, made with strong flavored grainy things like amaranth and buckwheat, put them off the concept of gluten-free.  They  didn’t even taste the batch before this one.  That’s okay.  The store-bought bread is what they like, and so I only have to bake for myself every week or two.  I freeze my gluten-free muffins, and eat one or two a day.  Besides corn tortillas, they are the only bread I eat.

I kept trying to improve the recipe.  I read labels in the health food aisles at the stores.  I went to the Bob’s Red Mill website and read the gluten-free recipes there, and came up with two ingredients to make my bread more like the bread most of us are used to.  A small amount of tapioca starch “sweetens” and softens the bread.  Xanthan gum makes the particles stick together so that they rise nicely and don’t fall apart into crumbs after baked.  The last batch before this one was good, but the batter was extra stiff and the muffins were rough on top, not pretty.  So I tried again.  This latest batch is my best yet.  The experimental kitchen is now closed.  I’ll stick with this recipe for a while.

Gluten-Free Muffins

Makes about 18 medium muffins.

Preheat oven to 425 and line muffin pans with paper cupcake cups, oil lightly, or spray with non-fat cooking spray.

In a large bowl, combine and whisk together thoroughly:
1 1/4 cup garbanzo flour
1 cup sorghum flour
1 cup rice flour
1/4 cup tapioca flour
1 1/2 cup nonfat dry milk
1 teaspoon xanthan gum
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. salt

Beat in a separate bowl:
2 large eggs

Add and mix thorougly:
1/4 cup olive oil
1 cup lowfat plain yogurt
2 cups water
2 Tbsp. honey

Make a “well” in the center of the dry ingredients, pour in the liquid and blend with a few quick strokes, just until all the flour is moistened.  Spoon into muffin cups and bake at 425°F about 12-15 minutes.

UPDATE–Caution!

These things are too good!

I wrote the recipe and history above on my laptop, started it while still eating a warm muffin, my second.  I said “18 muffins” in the recipe because my 12-cup muffin pan hadn’t been big enough.  I ended up baking the extra batter in a loaf pan.  It took too long to bake the center of the loaf–three times it was returned, doughy, to the oven.

By the time it was finally done, I was salivating from the sight of the cooling muffins and the aroma of the baking loaf.  I weakened and ate the test slice that had been returned to the pan a few times.  Even overbaked and a little dry for its experiences, it was still good. 

The problem was that it would have been best for me to have stopped with one muffin.  Two would not have been too harmful.  But after eating the third piece, I got an inflammatory / glycemic response.  Now I’ve got the burny diabetic neuropathic nastiness in my feet.  These cupcakes sneaked up on me.  Cut the honey down to 1 tablespoon or eliminate it completely if carbs in general are a problem for you.

Men and Women

I owe Exmortis  for the inspiration for this.  He had obviously been giving a lot of thought to the feminine gender when he wrote, of “The vast majority of women between the ages of 17 and 38,” that:

“They are utterly insensitive.
They are horrendously over-valued.
They are as dangerous as an un-exploded landmine.”

The first point, the insensitivity to male feelings that is exhibited by many women is, I think, self-evident.  I was very young when I caught on that the cool mask of machismo was a pose meant to disguise a man’s passions and help him maintain at least the outward semblance of self-control. What is it about so many of my sisters that makes them deny all their own intuition and empathy and buy into the macho myth of men’s emotional invulnerability?  Look around, ladies.  The evidence of men’s sensitivity and tender emotional vulnerability is everywhere.  Check out the works of Will Shakespeare, Steven Spielberg, and Ron Croxton for a good representative sample, if your own near and dear boys and men haven’t shown it to you.

What?  Did I hear a soprano chorus of dissent?  Yes.  It trilled, “But I caught onto that, too, at a very early age.  It gave me leverage, a little edge in dealing with the Master Gender, the Kings of the Earth.  A girl needs all the leverage she can get, ’cause the guys have all the clout.”

Ah, yes.  There’s that.  Personally, I wouldn’t call the power games many women play with men, “insensitivity,” because some of them are quite sensitive to the effects of their manipulations.  I’d call it something more like, “depraved indifference.”

I agree that nubile, fertile, young women, good breeding stock are, “horrendously over-valued.”  Oddly enough, many of the men who value them so highly as sexual partners appear to  have no interest in their fertility.  Guys get vasectomies, use other forms of contraception, insist and expect that their partners use contraception, have abortions, or rear children alone or on welfare or under the protection and support of another man.  I can’t blame the guys.  Their attraction to young nubile women is hard-wired.  It stems from many sensory stimuli, ranging randily from the preference for visual symmetry and tactile softness, to the men’s unconscious hormonal responses to invisible pheromonal scents.

The biological attraction is reinforced by cultural expectations.  If a man happens to be attracted to little girls, he’s in deep trouble in our culture.  If he keeps company with older women, he can be a laughingstock, an object of either ridicule, pity, or Oedipal speculation.  Although most of the developed world recognizes overpopulation as a problem and approaches it with a variety of solutions, the child-bearing years of a woman’s life continue to be overvalued by men… or, maybe it’s the rest of the woman’s life that’s undervalued.  Whaddaya think, girls?  Anything to say on that topic, crones?

That young women are, “as dangerous as an un-exploded landmine,” is, again, self-evident.  Three for three, Ron.  Growing up in this culture, shielded from the harsher aspects of reality, living under the influence of soap opera and fairy tales, the young ladies are indeed dangerous.  Each of them has the full power of a complete human being, and yet they are not just encouraged, many are coerced to believe or at least profess that they are inferior to and subject to men.  Anyone who doesn’t know her own strength has no motivation to rationally and humanely wield her power with restraint.

By the time we’ve reached cronehood and are no longer attractive as sexual partners, many of us have learned our limits, owned our power, and developed some empathy.  From my current cultural perspective, it is much less surprising to me that young women are overvalued, than it is that older women are so horrendously undervalued.

SECURITY

iWon – News

Doughnut shop quarantined

In our household, some of the side-effects of terror paranoia and increased airport security, etc., are viewed with reactions ranging from amazement to amusement.  We are less and less amazed as time passes and such reports become commonplace, but our capacity for amusement remains fresh and vital.

The news story linked above tickled my funny bone.  The story is about a Saudi Arabian college student who sprayed a little cologne and, “caused authorities in Philadelphia to quarantine a hospital emergency room, a doughnut shop and a drug store on Wednesday.”  It was the “doughnut shop” that got me.  The cop/donut connection is a cliché, I know, but it still struck me funny.

One more quiz today:

What’s your claim to fame?

When I saw that on JOMBIE‘s blog,
I decided to take the quiz, even though I already know what my
current claims to fame are.  Interesting how it came
out.  I certainly wasn’t looking for fame when it came up and
grabbed me.

Among a select group of people scattered all over the planet, I’m
famous for my cooking, especially the FUBARS (look for the Xanga
cookbook logo in my left module, then click on FUBARS for the recipe)
that keep coming back to haunt me years after I was selling them to
supplement my pathetic legitimate income.

Likewise, when I started publicly doing Tarot readings, fame wasn’t
any part of my objectives.  I was broke and needed funds, and I
was appalled at the witch-hunt mentality that was making life miserable
for everyone I knew who had gone public with their psychic work. 
My little booths at local crafts fairs were picketed by fundies, my
clients were harrassed and harangued by them, and a few of the fundies
themselves (those who were not afraid to try a reading for themselves)
had their heads turned around.  Mission accomplished.

I hesitate to seek print publication for my memoirs, because even
though the “fortune” half of fame and fortune would be welcome, true
widespread fame (as opposed to this big-frog-in-a-small-pond stuff I
already have) would seriously impinge on my lifestyle.

JADED (not)

As I’m getting to know my new complicated camera, I’m growing to love it.  I know that were I younger I would not have this difficulty learning all its buttons and menus.  It’s not the camera’s fault, not my fault; it’s just the way things are.

Here’s an overview of some of the three pounds of jade bits currently taking up space on my worktable.  With the old camera I might have been barely able to focus at that distance, but certainly no closer, and it would not have shown the true colors of the stones.  At one setting, the old point-and-shoot Kodak digital would have rendered it bluish, and at another setting it would have had an orange cast.

The new Fuji Finepix S602Zoom doesn’t require me to specify a different light setting for daylight, fluorescent or tungsten.  In that way, it is easier to set than the old one.  I’m looking for every advantage I can find in the new camera, psyching myself up to love it and use it more.  The more I use it, the more I see advantages to using it.

This closeup of the little box holding my most recently discovered pairs of stones for earrings would have been a blurry, off-color mess if I had attempted it with the old camera.

Above the open box is a stack of eleven more little boxes full of pairs.  I don’t count what I have until I get them into their findings, but each box averages ten or more pairs.  I don’t know how many more boxes of jade I’ll have before I get weary of working on jade and move on to the garnet or to the new stones, tiger’s eye and rhodonite, that are now waiting for me at the post office in Willow.

(Aside, to Lisa:  if you’re waiting impatiently for the samples, try to relax.  I won’t be picking out your bits and labeling them until I’ve opened every last bag, so you’ll get the widest possible variety of rocks.)

In this shot, you can see some of the other pairs of stones I’ve already selected:  rose quartz, aquamarine, celestite crystals, lapis lazuli, and amethyst.   There will be fewer pairs of them than of jade because the jade, being the quintessential Alaskan stone, is my best seller.  If you look closely, at the upper left corner above, you can also see the Spongebob Squarepants card my great granddaughter Miranda sent me for Christmas.  She’s a great kid, but that relationship is great-grandma to sweet kid:  she’s the daughter of my eldest grandchild.

Okay.  If you’ve hung in here with me through all the shop talk and gramma stuff, you deserve a little eye candy for a treat.  This is one of the first images I captured on the new camera, last month.  I see these entwined birch trees out my front window, but today’s view lacks some of the snowy charm that was in the scene last month.

Not until today, and with Doug’s help, did I get these pictures saved to my hard drive.  Xanga wasn’t kind when it came to uploading them.  I had to try about three or four times for each one, and more for some of them.  After my work, I feel like I deserve a treat.  And I got one.  My newfound affection for the Fuji, and my growing facility at using it, are ample reward for me.