You can't fix Stupid!

Molly on Monday

 Molly here,
 
BG was gone Friday night and all day on Saturday.  But he arranged for Jon to come over to keep me company for a while.

I was checking out the back yard and it is still there.  I do think that others come into the yard when I am not paying attention because I can smell a lot of different stuff when I go out there.

Later I crawled up on BG's lap and he took some pictures of me.  He was playing around with his camera and took some close ups.

Most of them are pretty ordinary but the last one is kind of nice.  I really like it.  Which one do you like best?

I've got my eye on you.

Thanks for coming by. Have a wonderful week. Hugs,

Ginny's Birthday

60 years ago my grandmother woke me up to tell me that I had a sister.  Thus began a journey that has been full of love, frustration, joy, sorrow, fun, sometimes problematic and always interesting. 


We lived in Atlantic, Iowa when she was born, moved to Jackson, Nebraska shortly thereafter and for one month in South Sioux City, Iowa.  Then we moved back to Ames to live with our grandparents when Mom and Ginny's dad divorced.  We went to Gilbert, Iowa to school.  Ginny went through the 6th grade there and then we moved into Ames and I went away to College.  

I can remember times when I laid in the car holding her because she was crying. In many ways she was the center of my life. I loved her unconditionally. 

 You can see how adorable she was.  However I want you to know that this is not Ginny.  She is/was not a dresses and fru fru type of girl.  She was the one who was in jeans and climbed the trees and played in the woods and loved being outside.  She loved her animals and always had a fun attitude.  


Every year we went to the Lake (Leech Lake in Minnesota) for one, two or three weeks and she (we) lived for those times.  Mom and Ginny would plan these trips for months before we left and they would both bawl for miles on the way home.


One of the places we loved to go was to Deer Valley.  Ginny loved the animals and she met the son of the owners and wonder of wonders one year she decided to stay.  She and Mike had a lot of fun at the park and Mike's folks were wonderful friends of all of us.  

 Things did not work out with Mike but they remained friends and Ginny came back to Ames.  30 years ago she brought her son Jon into the family and her mother and I could not have been happier.  Jon has been a real joy.  


There is more to the story but it is Ginny's and not mine to tell.  

 Several years ago Ginny took up flying lessons.  But she was in her little pick up truck and she was thrown from the car and broke her back.  She wound up in a wheel chair and has had to overcome many things but you know she has a great outlook on things.  She went back to school and got her degree and is volunteering at the Reimann Gardens and the Red Rock animal center in Des Moines. She just started a job at Iowa State University.  She runs the Information Kiosk on University Blvd.  It doesn't pay a lot but at least it is a job and she is happy to have it.   

The Queen just celebrated her diamond jubilee. Sixty years on the throne. Ginny  is celebrating her 60th Birthday July 1 and I told her that makes her a sexigenerian. Having just gone through that decade (it's the only time in my life that I was sexy) I feel that I can give her advice.  But only if she asks for it.


A long time ago I wrote a poem about her. I based it on the poem My Shadow by Robert Louis Stevenson.  I can only remember the first two lines.

I have a little sister who goes in and out with me,

And what can be the use of her is more than I can see.

That is because she followed me all over the place.  We were each other's best friends.  I will always be grateful that I have that little sister and I wish her a very Happy Birthday.

Sunday Salute - XIV

Jehan Sadat was born in Cairo, Egypt. When she was fifteen, she met Anwar Sadat who had been recently released from prison where he had been confined for many years because of his fierce resistance of the British occupation of Egypt. On May 29, 1949, Jehan married Anwar Sadat, thus beginning a journey that would last for more than thirty-two years with a man who would become the President of Egypt and would change the course of history not just for the Middle East, but also for the world.

Today, Jehan Sadat’s mission is to maintain her husband’s legacy, keeping alive his memory so that future generations will know that Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat was a “man of peace.” At the same time, she continues to deliver her own views concerning the rights of women, the importance of the family, and world peace.

One of the biggest disappointments in my life was the time I became ill in Cairo when I was there in 1976 and I was not able to attend the meeting with Mrs. Sadat with the other members of my group.  We were there for 6 weeks to write curriculum and collect materials for Iowa Students to study through the International Office at the University.  

I have admired Mrs. Sadat for many years and I think she is worthy of a Sunday Salute.  You may visit her web site here.


Quotations

When you feel discouraged or simply lazy, as is bound to happen sometimes, remember the millions of people in the world who have not had your privilege. Remember the poor and obscure lives of those countless millions who suffer from every sort of deprivation and frequently find themselves the unwilling victim of wars, and a variety of cruelties, perpetuated by man on man. Is it not significant that the first bid for self realization, among the poor and downtrodden, is to assert their right to education?

Peace is the defining theme of my life. After my husband was assassinated, it was a very hard time for me. But our love together made me feel a kind of peace inside, and instead of staying at home doing nothing and just living in grief and sadness I tried to come out and start working again—teaching. It is much more peaceful for me to feel that I’m doing something, which will please his soul also.

As a Muslim woman, I feel that’s it my duty and the duty of all Muslims—reasonable Muslims, not the fundamentalists, of course—to enjoin others to live a life of brotherhood without distinction. We are to respect and treat all human beings as equal, regardless of creed or color, whether man or woman, civilians or soldiers, rulers or subjects, rich or poor, whatever they are. Islam is in fact a spiritual democracy, radically egalitarian and deeply, deeply concerned with human dignity.

it seems to me that waging peace happens on three fronts. The first is through the good offices of governments and international organizations as they negotiate treaties, hammer out compromises, and craft carefully worded statements. This work is as difficult as it is essential, and from past diplomatic efforts, including my husband's initiatives, we can draw crucial lessons for the future. The second takes place on an interpersonal level, in our behaviors and actions toward our presumptive enemies. In such a context, we all -- Israelis and Arabs, Muslims and Westerners -- are called to be wise, skillful, and visionary. And with these in short supply, we cannot afford to sit back and hope that presidents and policy experts can solve our problems for us. Treaties alone cannot overcome generations of animosity -- but grassroots action can.

In Islam, it is not just our deeds that are important, but also the contents of our hearts when we undertake them. Indeed, there is a famous saying of the Prophet that "all actions are judged by motives, and each person will be rewarded according to his intention." Peace is always treated as such an impossible goal, a utopian dream, but if regular people can cultivate the intention of peace -- toward ourselves, toward the planet on which we live and the people with whom we share it -- theninsha'allah, God willing, we can achieve it.

"I never again want to see the face of a starving child or hear the weeping of a mother who has lost her son to war. Peace, this is what my husband gave his life for, and I want the world to know that he did not die in vain. Peace, this is what will make me very happy."

Previous Salutes
  Jane Goodall    Mohandas Gandhi  
 Eleanor Roosevelt    Lyndon B. Johnson      Michelle Obama
Helen Hayes   Marion Wright Edelman     Bishop Gene Robinson
Bishop Desmond Tutu       Rachel Carson          Helen Keller
Martin Luther King, Jr          Dalai Lama         Dag Hammarskjold

Knee High by the 4th of July! - Photo by Bob Kelly

There is an old farmer's expression that the corn should be, "Knee high by the fourth of July."  It used to be true before more modern and efficient ways of farming.  The corn in the photo below, was not knee high, but rather was about six feet high and the fourth of July is three days away.  Notice the tassels on the top of the corn are ready to make pollen, which with the wind's help, blow down to the silks you see half way down the stalk.  Each single silk strand will become pollinated from the wind, and on the corn cob, a single kernel of corn will form.  So for the next few months there is lots going on in the cornfields as the pollination occurs, and the corn kernels grow!  As if this isn't enough to know…..when the moisture levels are just right and it is very hot, the corn will grow very fast as the stalk shoots upward.  It IS possible to "hear" the corn grow if you sit out in the middle of a field, and are very quiet! (TRUE!).  It makes a squeaking noise as the stalk grows taller and taller.   It is somewhat like the sound you hear when one is out on a frozen lake and ice fishing in the winter, as the ice is constantly expanding and making "pinging" noises.  Ahhh such wonders Mother Nature provides!

Ode to Joy is one of my favorite pieces of music.  Look at the joy on the faces of the people watching.  Wonderful