My inner stickler

Today, while I was wandering around the local bookstore, I saw this book in the used book section. I bought it years ago right after it first came out, and I was enchanted with it. So much so that I lent it to some friends, and after they read it (or bought their own copy), somehow the book didn't come back to me. I had lent it to someone and when it didn't return, I had a couple of chapters yet to read.

So today I bought it so I could enjoy the ending. Here's the reason the book has this title:

A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and proceeds to fire it at the other patrons.
'Why?' asks the confused, surviving waiter amidst the carnage, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.
'Well, I'm a panda', he says, at the door. 'Look it up.'
The waiter turns to the relevant entry in the manual and, sure enough, finds an explanation. 'Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.'

This book has spent some time on the New York Times bestseller list, and when first printed in the UK in 2003 became a sleeper hit, which nobody expected. You may have noticed that I had a career as a writer/editor, and I have always had an "inner stickler" that cringes when I see certain grammatical errors. The Internet and email are simply filled with these things. Wikipedia has, of course, a great page with all the critiques, good and bad, about the book here.

I think the thing that gets me the most is the misuse of the possessive its. Lynn Truss actually goes a bit farther than I would, but I tend to see this grammatical error everywhere, including in newscasts, headlines, and everything else. It drives me a little crazy, but not as crazy as this (quote from p. 43 of the book):

To those who care about punctuation, a sentence such as "Thank God its Friday" (without the apostrophe) rouses feelings not only of despair but of violence. The confusion of the possessive "its" (no apostrophe) with the contractive "it's" (with apostrophe) is an unequivocal signal of illiteracy and sets off a simple Pavlovian "kill" response in the average stickler. The rule is: the word "it's" (with apostrophe) stands for "it is" or "it has." If the word does not stand for "it is" or "it has" then what you require is "its." The is extremely easy to grasp. Getting your itses mixed up is the greatest solecism in the world of punctuation. No matter that you have a PhD and have read all of Henry James twice. If you still persist in writing, "Good food at it's best," you deserve to be struck by lightning, hacked up on the spot and buried in an unmarked grave.

Like I said, okay, she's gone a little bit off the deep end here, but I get a pretty strong visceral response when I read it. And I see this particular grammatical mistake everywhere. I wish there was something I could do to lessen its frequency. Oh, wait: maybe that is what I'm doing!!

Please get the book and read it, if you want to have a thoroughly entertaining read and one that is also quite illuminating to the average person. I have enjoyed it on the second reading, probably more than on the first.
:-)

Truth in advertising

Does this hamburger look good to you? It's from an advertisement (I think) for a thick, juicy hamburger. Now I've not eaten one of these for almost forty years now, being a semi-vegetarian since then. For years I didn't eat red meat but chicken, turkey and fish, and then I learned how poultry is treated and processed and stopped eating chicken, staying with fish and sometimes turkey. Now I only eat turkey on holidays, and fish I try to eat once or twice a week, for my heart health.

But this hamburger just doesn't look good to me any more. I don't eat white bread, either, so this bun also doesn't look like food. Whole grain bread made at my local bakery is about all I eat these days. I just signed up to do the 30-day throw-down over at Robynn's Ravings because I guess I feel pretty much like it would be an easy thing for me to do: eat no fast food, only healthy, energizing, "real" food for 30 days. This hamburger would probably be verboten, if I usually ate such things.

In just one morning, I have found myself wondering about the latte I drink without thinking about it: where did the ingredients come from? Does coffee count as "real" food? Oh my! What have I gotten myself into? Looking at what I eat, thinking about what goes into my body should be an interesting exercise.

Since I don't go to McDonald's or Taco Bell, I thought it would be easy, but already I'm wondering what is really good, nutritious food? Ice cream? (probably not) Cream cheese from Wisconsin? And it must be good for the planet if it's good for me... right? Hmmm. More later.
:-]

Joy's ride

We decided to head on up to Pacific Skydivers to make some jumps outside of Vancouver today, since our reserves are due for repack. We met Joy while we were there. She came up from Prince George, BC, to make a tandem skydive (click any picture to enlarge). Joy is 88 years old and lost her husband last year. What a go-getter she is! This was not her first jump; she made her first tandem seven years ago, and returned with her entourage to make this one. No one else who came with her made a skydive, but she did!
Just look at her striding to the plane. I mean, STRIDING at 88 is exactly where I want to be, and this woman is simply, well, fearless. She and Rob are walking to the "big airplane" (the King Air) which goes to 12,000 feet, not the wimpy 10,000 in the smaller plane she did on her earlier tandem. "I want to go all the way this time," she said, and was willing to wait until the plane could be filled.
This picture shows their return to the planet, after the jump. Rob is the consummate professional, which is why he was her tandem master. But she was calm, cool, and collected in the plane, smiling hugely the whole time. The young woman she used to be is still present; she told me she is 28 inside, not 88. And I believe her!
This is her family who came out to watch her make the jump. There are sixteen in this picture, if you count the pregnant woman twice who is two days overdue, and at the Drop Zone with Auntie Joy. All of these relatives are inherited from her late husband, she told me. I couldn't help but wonder why she was the only one making a tandem... they were all heading home to celebrate. She only drinks scotch and gin, she said, because years ago she developed gout and the doctor told her no wine or beer, just the hard stuff. Her family said she makes (and enjoys) a mean martini!
And here is the featured foursome: Rob (tandem master), me, Joy, and my husband Skratch walking back from the landing area. It was a beautiful, magical day, and Joy is my latest BFF! Blue skies, and many more years to enjoy your exceptional life, wonderful lady!
:-)

August market

You know what this is, right? It's the bottom of an heirloom tomato, just in case you didn't know. I bought this at the Farmers' Market and was enchanted with the design, and I'm still trying to get myself to eat it instead of just admire it. (Click any picture to enlarge and admire.) SquirrelQueen at The Road to Here has a Farmers' Market Challenge going on today, so this is my entry.
The Bellingham Farmers' Market is held every Saturday downtown, with luscious veggies and tomatoes like these. Look at that amazing tomato just above the blackberries! Every Wednesday a smaller market is held in Fairhaven for a few hours. The downtown market will continue until sometime in December, moving inside and concentrating on other things than just food, but root veggies and pumpkins will be there as well.
This was taken this Saturday (today) with little to no direct sunlight, which allowed me to show the detail in all these beautiful fruits. The vendors take the time to make their wares very attractively displayed, just like these.
Garlic, anyone? These cloves look like something you might want to hang in your kitchen to ward off vampires. Or is it demons? Certainly to my mind garlic breath might do the trick all by itself!
Mushrooms too! I love these exotic looking 'shrooms and bought some shitake mushrooms from this vendor last year. They are not out yet, I guess, but hey! Let's try some of these oyster mushrooms now.
Chele of Henna Moon painted a beautiful henna mandala on her hand, which I captured last week, her first day back from vacation. I asked about these henna art projects, how long they last, and she said the paste stains your skin (or hair or nails) and deepens to a dark shade of brown permanently and must grow out to disappear completely. Cool, huh?
And of course, late August flower bouquets were everywhere. Fruit, veggies, clothes, jewelry, henna, massage, food, and much much more grace the Bellingham Farmers' Market. Am I lucky to live here, or what??
:-)

Sunny Herman Saddle

This trip to Herman Saddle (click any picture to enlarge) could not be more different than the trip last year, when it rained all day, except when it was snowing and blowing. We had warm temperatures, and we stopped for lunch here at Iceberg Lake. This hike takes us up over Herman Saddle and then down past several lakes (the Chain Lakes, the largest of which is Iceberg), then back up the other side around Table Mountain, and back down to the start. Since this is a loop, you don't cover the same ground and go back a different way.
Here I am at the top of Table Mountain, and in the background you can see a forest fire and Mt. Shuksan to the right. We had been told this fire has been going for a couple of weeks, almost getting under control, and then starting up again. Other than that, the scenery was gorgeous, and I'm not sure I will be able to keep my excitement up there at maximum if I get too used to this! (Oh wait, it was only two weeks ago that I was in the rain all day long, so scratch that.)
Our view this time included a slightly different angle of Mt. Baker. I was humming along as I walked, "I've looked at Baker from all sides now, from up and down..." because I definitely have been treated to this beautiful mountain from so many different viewpoints that it is beginning to feel like an old friend.
This beautiful person here is Karen (also featured in other pictures), allowing me to try out my fill-in flash feature, which worked wonderfully! The bright sunlight was obscuring people's faces, so I tried it and was so pleased to see how well it works. It does help sometimes to read the manual.
Fred is sporting his new headband, a present from me. He was complaining that my new hat doesn't sparkle enough, like the old one, so I brought this for him and told him it's now his job to be our sparkly one. Several people on the trail commented on it, so I took this picture so he could see how great he looks. Twenty of us made this trip yesterday, and all I can say is, thanks, Senior Trailblazers, for the fabulous memories we're building together!
:-)

Religion

The comments on my last post have given me a great deal to think about. In asking what people use as possible avenues to serenity, most have mentioned prayer or meditation. That got me to thinking about my own religious background.

I grew up in a home without any religious education at all. My father was agnostic, and Mama was a lapsed Catholic when they married. Since she was so young when I was born (just 19), I think the difficulty of being the wife of a military officer and the mother of two young children (which eventually became six) caused it to just fall by the wayside. We moved around my whole childhood. Religion was never an issue; in fact, I never felt the lack of it when I was a youngster.

There are pictures of my sister and me dressed up for Easter when we were 4 and 7, and I guess we went to church, but maybe we just went to somebody's home and searched for Easter eggs in a backyard. It's a mystery to me -- and nobody ever told me what Easter was really about. But when I was 17 or 18, somewhere in there, I discovered religion. I read St. John of the Cross who was a Spanish mystic in the 16th century. He wrote "Dark Night of the Soul" and I was attracted to the title. Interesting what pulls us into major life shifts, isn't it? Here's a quote from my favorite source, Wikipedia:

St. John of the Cross is considered one of the foremost poets in the Spanish language. Although his complete poems add up to less than 2500 verses, two of them—the Spiritual Canticle and Dark Night of the Soul are widely considered to be among the best poems ever written in Spanish, both for their formal stylistic point of view and their rich symbolism and imagery.

I immediately began to look for a church and was drawn to the Episcopal Church when we were living in Albany, Georgia. The vicar, Father Shipps, came to our home and eventually I and all my siblings were regular attendees. I then got married and moved away, but the religious seed that had been planted in my family continued to grow, and I believe all of my siblings are either Christians or agnostics (claim neither faith nor disbelief in a higher power).

As an impressionable young woman, I was always seeking out some form of spiritual guidance. I have the dubious honor of having been saved four times by Billy Graham. I went to Catholic churches, charismatic ones, Southern Baptist, you name it. I learned a lot, but I never found anything that I felt was my journey, not someone else's.

During my hippie years, I meditated and went in several different directions: Ram Dass for awhile, week-long vision quests, retreats. When I lived in Boulder I got involved with the Urantia brotherhood and read that long book. A Course in Miracles was my path for awhile and I went through the entire series. And then I started skydiving, and everything else fell by the wayside, except my job, which I needed just to keep jumping. I was no longer a hippie, I had a job, a career, and an avocation that took all my energy and extra time. That was in 1990.

Today, I jump occasionally for fun. It no longer has the central place in my life it occupied for almost two decades. I am now retired from my career. That's gone, too. But all those years as a seeker have left within me a deep and abiding faith. I call on it daily, and I also pray and believe that I am heard. No, I actually believe that God is everywhere, and that when I pray I attune myself to hear God. And now I am drawn to read books like The Intention Experiment and other books considered to be the current new-age equivalent.

What brought you to your present state? Have I got any fellow travelers who arrived here, but took another path?
:-)

Serenity

I'm enjoying myself at the Drop Zone with my friends, and we're getting ready to plan our next jump. I smooth my jeans, and suddenly I notice that my wallet is not in my back pocket where it usually is. What happened to it, I think. I reach back there again as if I had just missed it, but it's still not there. I feel a familiar sensation: a tightening around my heart, a squeeze, and all my attention is now focused not on the jump I am getting ready to make with my friends, but the lost wallet.

First I go through all my things: my purse, the car, every place I can think of where it might be. My hand continues to go to the spot where I expect it to be, hoping that I had put it somewhere else by mistake. After awhile I realize that it might be at home, as I was unsure about which pants I would wear, and I tentatively let it go and begin to concentrate on other things. But in the back of my mind, the nagging worry about where it might be continues to bother me.

Does this sound familiar? Isn't it interesting that I can be living my life, enjoying myself, and suddenly something like this happens and all my energy is focused elsewhere?

I am reading an interesting book right now: The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself, which discusses the state of serenity and the lack of it. What is happening to cause this? Do I identify myself with the missing wallet? Fortunately, this wallet is not where I keep my credit cards and crucial identification, but some cash, bus pass, business cards, and various replaceable punch cards. In order to regain my serenity, I consciously let everything in that wallet go, and I immediately felt better. The tightness around my heart lessened, and I went on with my day.

In my purse I carry a larger wallet, with checks, credit cards, driver's license, the whole enchilada. Sometimes when I am getting ready to pay for something I'll reach inside my purse and root around for it. Not finding it right away, thinking to myself that maybe it's gone, I left it somewhere, oh no! and then I find it. I've been known to take it out and kiss it fervently in thanks for it being there.

What I am learning in reading this book is that I am at the mercy of these storms of emotion, and I'd like to find some serenity, some real serenity, in these cases. The reason is obvious: life is filled with these events, and I want to learn how to deal with them in ways that are healing and not gripped with paralysis. What will I do when the day comes when I have to deal with something much more life changing than losing a wallet?

Now I've been through a bit of this already. For those who don't know about the loss of my two children, read this. Or the terrible accident I experienced in 2000. But! I am on a journey of exploration, how to find my way to serenity within this life of constant change. At the age of 66, although right now I'm able to jump, hike, play, work out and blog, something could happen tomorrow to change all that.

I want to find the way to serenity. Any ideas?
:-]