The Southwest... now there's a beautiful sight!

We left California Friday, having done Nanny Time for our daughter and her husband. The first few weeks of the school year are always difficult for them, with Heather going back to school a week earlier and Brian's leave time sometimes difficult to arrange.  So we stepped in to help.

To be effective nannies, you have to have a car. There's schedules to keep with 3 children and 3 different sports activities and school schedules.  And since we weren't sure how long our nanny duty was going to take, we drove to California via the southwest.  We drove across Central Colorado, Central Utah then headed south towards Las Vegas and then to Southern California.

I often complain about how long and boring that drive can be, but really it's also very beautiful.  You really begin to appreciate how great the US is when you go by land across it. On our usual drive, you cross over the Rockies and through  Glenwood Canyon and Glenwood Hot Springs in Colorado.

rafting in Glenwood Canyon

No Name rest area in Glenwood Canyon

Continuing on there's Utah's Canyon Countries and Dinosaur Circle. In the area between I-70 and Salt Lake City there's petroglyphs galore - and more dinosaur bones if you choose to step off the main roads and explore.

Just off I-15 there's Zion NP, Bryce NP and  Cedar Breaks ~

Bryce National Park

Zion National Park

 and you drive through the Virgin River Canyon in the southeastern corner of Nevada. Then if you want a little man made beauty... there's neon town a.k.a. Las Vegas. About the only part of the drive I have yet to find redeeming beauty in is the drive across the desert from Las Vegas to Orange County, California.  I suspect I might even find something there too, if I ever stopped long enough to explore.

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Eat Your Words

I was browsing through a recent AARP Bulletin today and found a most enlightening editorial by Russ Allison Loar of Claremont, CA.  AARP asked readers to respond to the topic a Favorite Teacher and Russ "won" the essay contest.

During one long fourth grade day, Russ had drawn a portrait of his teacher Mrs. Voss, at the blackboard that was unflattering to say the least.  To add insult to injury he had also added some unsavory descriptive remarks intended to amuse his friends whom he intended to share the artwork with. Unfortunately for Russ, his teacher had seen him hard at work at something and wandered by his desk to check it out.  She picked up the sheet, asked him politely to see her at the end of class and continued on with her duties.

After class, Russ crept up to the her desk, and was asked nicely by Mrs. Voss to read to her what he had written on his drawing, which he shamefully did, then told him "Now you know what it is to eat your words."

 Politicians and commentators often write or speak ill of others in public forums, often untruthful or without any facts to back them up because they want approbation from their constituency.  They are seldom ever forced to say those words to the face of the person they have maligned. For that matter gossip behind a person's back is much the same.  Are we not seeking approval of our friends by stabbing someone else in the back?

Newspapers, radio and tv stations should demand more accountability from their contributors ... if it's a lie, don't print or say it.  If it's innuendo, be prepared to back it up. I for one am going to attempt to never speak ill of someone, not that it isn't tempting to do, and it's a habit hard to break. I shall just try to ask myself, would I say this if that person were there in front of me.

Maybe if more of us were forced to eat our words ... hurtful or denigrating remarks we've made about others ... we might have a more civil, if not better world.

Publicity vs Public Image

We've been staying at our daughter's house helping out with getting 3 kids to and from school and practice for 3 different sports and school schedules. Thankfully kindergarten goes on regular primary schedule after two weeks, so they'll only have 5 different locations to be instead of 6. But that's a topic of a different blog.

Our daughter follows the entertainment world news in her VERY few spare moments via US Weekly - the only adult reading material around the house, so I've been perusing USW too, catching up on what's what in the plastic world of Hollywood.

Apparently Hollywood cares for nothing except body image.  Poor Kim Kardashian has been hiding out in her home since the birth of her child North because she can't wear a bikini without showing the weight she's gained. This was splattered all over the front of one cover.   And Mariah Carey had to have a leather studded sling to go out in public after injuring her arm.  Who wore a designer dress best takes up two pages of the weekly publication, poor starlet that doesn't get high marks!

Really?  First of all what are we teaching our children if we can't go out in public without being dressed to the nines, and slimmed to the bone... and that who wore it best is more important than why spend a fortune on the outfit in the first place. Yes appearance is important in the plastic world of Entertainment, but shouldn't we be focusing more on what people do with their spare money than what people wear or how they look? I have much more respect for Angelina Jolie for taking up causes than buying up Gucci. And I bet if she went to the thrift store of her choice she'd come out looking great because it's all in the style of the person not the clothes. A dashing belt here, a sparkly bracelet  there (who knows whether it's diamonds or rhinestone), and you can look good in just about anything. Mariah probably could have served 20 homeless people meals for a week with the cost of that sling. And worn a statement on the sling to boost her standing in showing how compassionate and giving she is.

Finally, Kim Kardashian might as well go out, we all know she's gained weight and must look hideous - not. Hey if you've got big boobs, chances are they're gonna get bigger when you're pregnant.  and boobs and tummy are the first to come and the last to go. So don't go out in a bikini, work on losing some weight and go out proudly with your new baby in something flattering and and a bit more covering. You're a mommy now, not just a reality show star.

The Crusades - the role of women in the modern world

Larry's reading Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth and a few days ago I glanced over his shoulder and happened to see this paragraph:

"They did not suspect her for a moment.  It did not occur to them that a woman could be dangerous.  How foolish they were!  Women could do most of the things men did.  Who was left in charge when the men were fighting wars, or going on crusades?  There were women carpenters, dyers, tanners, bakers and brewers.  Aliena herself was one of the most important wool merchants in the county.  The duties of an abbess, running a nunnery were exactly the same as those of an abbot.  Yet these wooden-headed men-at-arms did not expect a woman to be an enemy agent because it was not the normal thing."

Men have always considered themselves the superior of the species.  They often as a group, and individually, treat women as chattel, as inferior creatures good only for a good fuck and bearing children.  Yet they leave them to raise the children they spawn and run the mundane every day world while they pursue "men's work." What is the mundane every day world?  The checkbook, the household, teaching children to become responsible adults? Running the family business while they pick a fight with some other "clan"? Women are now earning more bachelor's degrees and because they have more of the "people skill" such as flexibility and creativity they are more valued in our rapidly evolving economy. (The End of Men and the Rise of Women by Hanna Rosin.)

Maybe we as women need to educate our young that WE are the superior sex and men ARE only here to provide us with children and then we let them go play at being useful. By the time they grow up to be functioning adults maybe the reality of the world might sink through - that men and women are equal and have equal skills and intellect and can together run the world - a lot more peacefully and efficiently than one "superior" sex can alone.

Much ado about nothing...

Hi all,

It's been a year since my last blog from the African Safari.  I've decided to forego writing bloglets on Facebook and start blogging for those who want to hear more from me on our online Wandering Stevens site.

Larry might choose to add posts as well as we go along.  I've often threatened to put his journal up (see below) but he often gets too close to the root of his true feelings about things and I'd have to edit a few lines here and there to keep half my friends. Smile!

So here's my first blog of the new format.... Much ado about nothing!

Larry Stuart Stevens is suffering from PPSD.... post paper stress syndrome.  He grew up with paper.... newsPAPERS, books on PAPER, reading PAPERS.  He has overcome his PPSD to the extent that he loves to sit and write his daily journal on the computer, but he still prints out PAPER copies and puts it in folders on the shelf.  Newspapers online? Horrors!  Books on Kindle... ok, but more for travel than anything else.  He still wants his tomes to be bulky and heavy.

Larry visited the Armacost Library at the University of Redlands yesterday, after buying an alumni sweatshirt at the student store and went into shock.  There were no books in sight! Just computer stations.  Of course there are books upstairs I'm sure, but he couldn't get past the entry... it was too tragic to see the stations and no books.  Poor guy, a refugee from the paper age lost in a sea of online media.