The Private Language of Movies

Maybe I'd have better luck being Scarlett if I wore this dress.

I think most couples and families have inside jokes; phrases they say that have particular meaning to them. What I've come to realize lately is that many of these sayings come from movies. One of my co-workers and her husband often quote a line from "Elf" to each other. Perhaps you know the one?

Buddy Elf speaking. What's your favorite color?

They use this as their phone greeting to each other, so I hear it several times a day. Another co-worker says this line every time she wipes off her glasses and puts them back on:

I can see again! It's a miracle!

I didn't realize it was an obscure movie quote until she told me it was a scene in "Ferngully" and she and her family say it every time they do anything involving hiding and unhiding their eyes. We have a few of these inside joke quotes in my family, too. Probably more than a few. My mom and I are fond of quoting Katherine Hepburn from the movie "On Golden Pond." In one scene, daughter Jane Fonda pulls up to the cabin in a rental car and Henry Ford starts questioning her about what make it is and what kind of engine it has. Jane, like Mom and me, has no knowledge or interest in cars and replies, "I don't know. A green car?" And Katherine Hepburn clasps her hands together with joy, trying to smooth the tension between father and daughter and trebles,

Oooohhhhhh, a greeeeeen caaaaarrrrr.

We say it like that, too, any time someone asks us a car question. And at home, I can't resist using one of Scarlett O'Hara's lines. Whenever I'm hoping someone will do something for me (because I'm too lazy to get up and do it myself), I try to use Scarlett's Southern belle charm that worked so well at the barbeque. As the men fight over who can fetch her dessert, she finally alights on Melanie's brother and says,

I think Charles Hamilton may get it.

He thanks her profusely and rushes off to retrieve her dessert. My family is not as quick and eager to do my beckoning, but I try it anyway. What about you? Do you have movie quotes that have become common inside language/jokes in your house?

Guest Post: A Merry Christmas and a Smile

by Mike Jones

It never fails. Anytime I pass a red kettle, I feel an overwhelming urge to give money. Change, bills, it doesn’t matter. It’s almost a compulsion. I do not say this to pat myself on the back. I say it because it is so.

This year, I decided to do something a little different. The church we attend signed up to collect money for the Salvation Army at a local store. I decided it was time for my daughter to give back and signed the two of us up for a shift.

We showed up for business on a cold December night. Wearing Santa hats and clutching two bells, we set to “work.” It really wasn’t work though. It was just fun. I told Isabelle as soon as we started that you could not be frowning or in a bad mood if you were volunteering. I challenged her to try to frown! Sure enough, she couldn’t do it and we were soon merrily ringing the bells as people walked out.

We were doing Gangam Style-- Salvation Army Style. And laughing away.

 I also decided to try a little experiment. We counted. The number of people who walked by; the number who acknowledged us with a nod or “Merry Christmas”; the number who gave money, and the number who ignored us.

There were seventy people who walked by in the half hour we collected.  Out of that number- 58 replied to our “Merry Christmas” with a reply.  Twenty five of those 58 with a donation. One man made it a point to thank us for saying “Merry Christmas” and not a generic “Happy Holidays” like the employee he had just encountered.

The amazing thing was that 12 people walked by and deliberately ignored a twelve year old girl ringing a bell and smiling. She was not begging. She was not harassing. She was just smiling, ringing a bell and wishing people a “Merry Christmas.” Twelve!

Not a smile. Not a nod. Not a wink. Just looked at her and looked away. I explained that maybe they were ashamed that they could not give anything or they were sad. Or maybe they did not celebrate the holidays.

12.

I am not one of those twelve. I celebrate. I love this holiday!

MERRY CHRISTMAS! Have a great day!

Kicking Off My Christmas Spirit - Literally

Every year there is one event that moves me from a distanced, Oh yeah, Christmas is coming to actually being in the Christmas spirit. It's not putting up the tree, or buying gifts, or watching Charlie Brown, or baking cookies. No, for me, it's going to the children's Christmas program at church. Watching the preschoolers and Kindergartners tickles me every year, and kick starts my Christmas mood.

You never know what they'll do. And that's the beauty of it.

They may remember to put on their paper antlers. They may jingle their bells (and many will throughout the entire program). They may even do a few hand motions to the songs, though you can be sure that each child is watching the others to see what they're supposed to do, so it's never quite in unison.

One or two children will know most of the words to the song. You can usually count on one responsible girl to memorize them all, stand up straight, and either belt them out, or barely whisper. She's the one to watch if you want to see what's supposed to happen. And many of the children will be watching her, too, with a look on their faces like they've never seen any of this before.

If there's a gimmick, or any vaguely naughty sound effect, the boys will shout it out nice and loud. Laugh, and they'll repeat the performance over and over.

But these are all the things you come to expect with young kids. What's most wonderful about the Christmas program is the element of surprise; the things you just can't see coming.

This year was no exception.

The class sang a song and then stood up. They turned the gold blocks that had seemed to be nothing more than gift boxes around and spelled out the word J-E-S-U-S. But they were too far apart; scattered wherever the box holders had (uncarefully) placed them. So one little boy took it upon himself to straighten them up -- and kicked all the Jesus boxes into place.

And suddenly, I was consumed with Christmas spirit.

You probably had to be there, but it was just so wrong that we were all stifling giggles. It kicked off my holiday, all right. I can't wait for next year's show!

Politics & Neighbors

A good old political statement out by the road.

Perhaps it's different around here than in the rest of the country, but here in the swing state of Ohio, politics between neighbors is starting to get ugly.

I googled the Cincinnati Enquirer's website in search of a story I wanted to share about a couple in another Cincinnati community. He's a Republican; she's a Democrat, and they both put yard signs in their front yard, side-by-side. Then they took their dog for a walk and came back to find that her Obama sign had been stolen. The husband was outraged on his wife's behalf.

That was the story I was going to share, but when I did a search on the newspaper's site, dozens of other stories popped up. Apparently sign-stealing this election is widespread and big news. Some of the offenders have been caught with hundreds of signs that they've removed from people's yards. Across the border in Kentucky, it's local election signs that have been removed almost as soon as they're put up.

Politics are creating some pretty bad neighbors among us.

My mother's neighbors, who are the kindest, sweetest, most neighborly people in the world, have suddenly turned on her. These are people who come over and  let her dogs out when she's gone for long, who feed her horses, who help shovel snow off her porch and who she exchanges Christmas gifts with. But now, they're barely speaking to her since they disagree on politics. And instead of putting out yard signs, they've placed an empty chair in their yard expressing their support of Romney, Clint Eastwood-style.

At our house, our Obama sign lasted less than 24 hours. We put it in our yard, went to bed, and woke up to find it missing. There's no trace of it, and few other Obama signs remaining in the neighborhood. We suspect our neighbor -- the same man who brings us vegetables from his garden in the summer. His daughter even told us it might be him.

All we can do is shake our heads. Stealing our yard sign isn't going to change our vote, but we may think a little harder about the cliched saying that 'fences make the best neighbors.'

Yee-Haw! The Sheriff Done Arrested My Ma!

I long suspected that my mother was an outlaw. She goes by Josie sometimes; "Jo" to others. It shoulda been no surprise that even when we walked into the Cross-eyed Gun Fight at the Old West Festival, the sheriff sought her out with a warrant for her arrest in his hand. The charge? Wearing one earring instead'a two. Her son-in-law got thanks for turning her in. And despite her pleas and excuses, they threw her in the county jail.



Okay, so we paid $5 to have her arrested. But She didn't see it coming and we had a lot of fun. We followed up those antics with a medicine show and a covered wagon ride (which was a Little House on the Prairie dream-come-true for me).



Then we had some root beers and vanilla cream sodas to wash down our rattlesnake chili before we headed into the Long Branch Saloon to see Rider Kiesner in action.


Story has is that Kiesner got a Will Rogers trick-rope kit for Christmas when he was 9-years-old. He practiced and practiced and began performing at age eleven. Now 20, he's a three-time WWPAS (Wild West Performing Arts Society) World Champion trick roper. He got up on the saloon stage and twirled ropes and cracked whips and started spinning guns like nobody's business. He even cajoled a few audience members into getting on stage with him. He cracked two bullwhips around a nervous young teen-aged girl while he was blindfolded. She was visibly shaken when she got off stage, but it didn't stop Kiesner from slicing the head off a flower sticking out of a saloon girl's mouth moments later.

It was a wonderful show. We couldn't get over Kiesner's talent. Eventually we caught up with him outside and he even roped our daughter into a picture.


After that, we got outta Dodge before my mother could commit any more crimes. 'Cause I'm pretty sure that even if the sheriff couldn't catch her, Kiesner's lasso could.

Today We Saw the President!

President Obama
Seasongood Pavilion, Eden Park, Cincinnati, Ohio
September 17, 2012

When my husband was younger, he saw Reagan. My son's marching band performed at a George W. Bush rally. But today it was my turn to see a president. My daughter and I suddenly found ourselves with tickets and headed down to Cincinnati to see President Barack Obama. It was fantastic!

Somehow, in the course of 45 minutes in which I stood in the same spot, I snapped 27 pictures. I just couldn't believe I was there. The crowd was wonderful. There was a spirit of community that I've found again and again in Cincinnati. Everyone was considerate of each other, making sure that no one was blocking anyone else's view. We were all there for the same thing: to see the President and cheer him on toward "Four More Years." I can still hear that vibrant chant in my ears.

Obama talked about all the expected issues: taxes, education, bringing our troops home, Obamacare, jobs, etc.. It was all very moving, but I don't need to tell you about that here. You can read that in the papers. I'd rather share what it was like to be there with my 12-year-old daughter, who may not have realized the enormity of getting to see a President today. I think that will come later, in hindsight. She did remark that he was very funny. He did crack quite a few jokes. I was glad she was paying attention.

What may have made even more of an impression in the immediacy of the day was the good deed a woman did on our way there.

In order to get to the Seasongood Pavilion in Eden Park where the President was scheduled to speak, we had to park up a steep hill, walk down the hill past the pavilion and approach from an even steeper angle. We didn't mind. We certainly understood the need for security and closed-off streets. What surprised us was a woman who came down the hill and waved us over to her SUV. She offered us and four other women a ride up the hill. We gratefully accepted and jumped in her car. Another van pulled over and picked up some other event-goers.

"Are you part of his campaign group?" I asked her as I thanked her for the ride.

"No. I'm actually a Republican," she said, "but it's a really steep hill, even if you're used to it."

And that, my friends, made my day. The coming together of differing parties to unite in an historical event in Cincinnati. No matter your party affiliation, we should all honor the office of the President. This woman kindly gave us a ride, then drove away and picked up more people at the bottom of the hill. This is not the first time I've been impressed with Cincinnatians and their graciousness and I know it won't be the last.

I will remember her kindness as the second greatest thing that happened to me today. But nothing can to seeing President Obama in person. My son and husband got to see their presidents. Now my daughter and I have seen ours, and I think we saw the best.

The Scoop and the Poop on Running a Marathon

Yesterday I attended a third Air Force Marathon at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio. It was magnificent as always. A Stealth bomber flew overhead to mark the start of the race. Thousands and thousands of runners began their 26.2-mile journey and I waited on the sidelines, cheering on my husband this year, rather than my son.

Mike is a little more forthcoming about what it's like to run a marathon than my son ever was. Non-runners like me want the inside scoop without having to run. Mike shared the little details that I've wondered about.

For one thing, when the runners start and they're clustered around their pace leaders, it gets a little dangerous. I always thought I'd hate that part: running in a mob of people. One man tripped and fell hard this year. Right past the start gate. He's lucky he wasn't trampled. As it was, I'm not sure whether he was able to continue the race or not. A year of training for naught.

There were food stations and water stations nearly every mile. For some reason, they handed out bottled water instead of cups. (I was wrong, as noted in comments below. They handed out cups of water and Gatorade. The bottles on the ground were the ones they brought with them.) The ground was littered with them. It was hard for my husband to just throw his bottles down on the ground; we're huge recyclers and we don't litter. But he had to. There were bands playing at stops along the way, too. He really liked that.

This year, they had buses taking family supporters out to the 10-mile mark. We'd wanted to do that last year when my son ran, but they didn't have buses. I hope they continue this. It was wonderful to go out to a midway point in the route and cheer my husband on as he passed and he said it made a big difference to him that we were there.

He enjoyed the scenery of running through parts of Dayton we've never explored before. There was one stretch on the Air Force base that he described as boring.

We'd had a lot of discussion about a factoid he'd read in his runner's magazine. It said that 1/3 of all marathon runners have to stop for a bowel movement during the run. We thought this was an odd thing, but my son thinks he knows why. He says it's the body's response to fight or flight. Running a marathon is hard on your body and when it gets physically taxed, it goes into fight-or-flight mode and voids itself of excess waste just as it would when panicked. It makes sense to me. We're going with that idea.

A few people were taken off the course by medics. The sag wagons and ambulances were always nearby along the race. We saw one woman escorted across the finish line by medics. Others were cheered on by the announcer who shared that many of them, like the heart transplant patients and cancer survivors, were advised by their doctors not to run it, but there they were, crossing the finish line after running 26 miles. Again, I'm not a runner, so I don't get risking your health for this, despite it being a great accomplishment.

My husband says the last half-mile was one of the hardest. We scanned the runners off in the distance, hoping to spot him before he was actually right in front of us. There were a few runners we thought might be him, dressed all in black and about his size. But it wasn't until I actually spotted him and realized how well I know his gait, even from half a mile away, that I got excited. He'd just run a marathon. He'd trained for a year, conditioned himself to do this, and there he was: running toward the finish line with a gigantic smile of achievement on his face. And almost immediately, he talked about doing it again.

A Different 9/11 Story



The greatest security filing cabinets in the world.



I'm going to tell you a story about 9/11 that you haven't heard. It's not about lives lost, or anything emotional unless you count pride as an emotion. It's a story about my dad, and the design he created that survived the attack on the Pentagon.

My dad in an engineer who designs locks, safes, vaults, and government security furniture. So picture this:

It's September 11, 2001 and a plane has just crashed into the Pentagon building. Smoke and fire ensue. Panic erupts. And a cascade of papers confetti the grounds as classified documents scatter from desks, offices, and file cabinets; papers that were never meant to be seen by people outside the Pentagon's walls.

A group quickly began gathering the scraps of debris littering the grounds. They sorted information and catalogued documents as they collected the papers spilled from security drawers.

But not all the cabinets were split open in the attack. The security filing cabinets my dad designed and built withstood a plane crashing into the building. They sustained damage; there were dings and dents galore. But the locks and frame held. The top secret papers inside were still secured. The filing cabinet held together so well, in fact, that they finally had to use the jaws of life to open them.

There are so many smaller stories surrounding the tragic events of that day. I like to think of this one because it provides a sense of pride in my dad's creations rather than the overwhelming sadness that is inevitable when we remember September 11th. It's just one more story.

Dog Lessons

After a week last Christmas, they got this close.

I sometimes watch "Dog Whisperer" and now "Dogs in the City." Our dog Chipsy is fairly well-adjusted, but he does have one glaring obstacle that we've yet to overcome: he's scared to death of my son.

We've tried to figure out the cause. There may be many contributing factors:

• We didn't get Chipsy until Mac had already left home, so when Mac comes home to visit, he's always a stranger suddenly staying in our house. BUT, Mac's friends come with him and Chipsy isn't afraid of them. It's not all men that he's afraid of. Just Mac.
• Mac is a big guy: 210 lbs, 6'3" and he's usually wearing military boots.
• Mac has a deep voice.
• Mac probably smells like cats and ferrets, since those are his household pets.

But our two predominant theories are that:
1. Chipsy is protecting my husband Mike from Mac. Mac is bigger than Mike, and Mike is Chipsy's master.
2. My theory is that Chipsy subconsciously remembers that Mac is the one who carried him away from his mother when we adopted him. Mac set him in the grass for the first time ever, and then held him on his lap during that scary, scary car ride to our house. It seems like that could have made Chipsy love him, but maybe in some dog way he connects Mac with leaving his mother? (Only a mother could come up with this theory...)

Anyway, we watch these shows looking for clues on how to get Chipsy over his fear of Mac. We've done almost everything Cesar and Justin say to do in these cases, but nothing has worked. It's a shame because Mac always wanted a dog and is very good with animals, but when he comes home for a weekend or so, we spend at least one full day listening to Chipsy bark his head off and tremble every time Mac moves.  We haven't figured out the solution yet, but we'll keep trying.

Summer Reading Programs

Yay, yay, yay! Our local library has a Summer Reading Program for adults. For every book we read, we drop a slip of paper in a box for a chance to win an unspecified prize at the end of summer. I don't even care what the prize is; I just love library reading programs.

When I was a kid, my mom took us to the library every week. I loved it. Absolutely loved it. At one time, I thought I would methodically read every book on the shelves and started out with that intention by checking out about 10 books at a time. But I quickly discovered that not every book interested me and I was afraid I'd waste valuable reading time on books I didn't like and miss out on ones that might be further down in the shelves; books by authors with last names beginning in "W" or "Z". So I gave up that project.

I loved the summer reading programs. One summer I read 92 books and won the top prize. I would have read more if my mother hadn't forced me to play outside on nice days. (Yes, I'm still bitter, Mom...) I continued participating in summer reading programs for as long as I could.

Now it's my daughter's turn. She's finally excited about reading this summer after many heartbreaking years of not liking to read. And the grand prize in her summer reading program? A bookmobile visit at your house, just for you!

Oh, I would have loved that!!! I hope she wins just so that I can climb aboard a bookmobile in my very own driveway. It doesn't look hopeful. She's a kid who actually likes playing outside more than staying inside to read. She's going to be beat by other bookwormish children like I was. Oh well. It's fun to think about. And maybe I'll get surprised and discover that the prize for the adult reading program is a bookmobile visit, too. Probably not, but I'm holding out hope.

My Boy

Penguins have a distinct mating call for each other. They mate for life, and even when they’ve been separated by months and miles of freezing tundra, when they hear the call of their beloved, they recognize that song right away.

The same thing happened to me when I had my son.

Twenty-three years ago today, they handed my baby to me and I studied every fingernail and toe. He was absolutely beautiful; a perfect creation that I couldn't believe was mine. We bonded briefly, then they wheeled him away to clean him up and finished tending to me as well.

I was taken to my hospital room and got settled in. Then, down the hallway in the distance, I heard a baby's cry. My ears perked up. My heartbeat raced. My milk flowed. That was my baby. I just knew it. Somehow, though we'd only spent a few minutes together so far, I knew he was mine. I knew his cry.

Crayons to Computers

Work is keeping me busy. We're moving to a new office and have been spending days going through storage rooms filled with things we thought we just couldn't do without. We've filled dumpster after dumpster with outdated materials, but still had two pallets of books and office supplies that were perfectly fine, but won't be useful to us anymore.

Luckily, in Cincinnati there's a place called Crayons to Computers(http://www.crayons2computers.org/). It's a freestore for teachers, especially those who teach in inner-city schools. They base teacher shopping eligibility on the percentage of free or reduced lunch programs implemented in the schools. Teachers from eligible schools can go "shopping" every five weeks. Teachers from other schools can volunteer a few hours to earn shopping privileges. In fact, anyone can volunteer. After all, someone has to sort and stock all the donations that companies like mine donate.

I filled my car twice with everything from...well... crayons to computers! I was thrilled to drop it off not only because I hate seeing things go to waste, but also because I'm married to a teacher and know just how much teachers contribute personally to their students and their classrooms.

I don't know whether other communities have similar programs and non-profits to benefit the schools, but I'm glad we do. It's just another reason I'm Cincinnati hometown proud!

RV Tutorial

In preparation for our upcoming camping trip, my aunt gave us a tutorial on how to use my mom's RV/camper. First things first, we had to learn how to mount the hitch to the truck and then attach the RV to the hitch. My aunt couldn't help with that; we used the instruction book instead, AND a lot of patience.

We worked on the attachment in spurts. We'd get pieces in place only to discover that we were missing hooks or tools. Then we'd go in search of those and figure out the next step. In all, it probably took an hour of sweating in the sun, but we did it! The truck was attached. 

We got a quick lesson in how to do the pop-outs and the awning, and then we were off!

We took the RV on a test drive down country roads so we could get a feel for what it will be like to pull it. The ride was smooth and prompted us to start gushing about all the things
we want to see and do at Natural Bridge.

After my mom and my husband both took their turns on roads with no shoulders, we headed back to my mom's house and my husband impressed us with his parking skills. He backed up and parked the RV like he was born to it. We debated leaving it there, hooked up, until we leave in a week then decided we couldn't. We needed to gas up the truck and get an oil change. So we started to dismantle the hook-up and took everything apart, but couldn't get the ball cover off of the hitch.

My husband decided that we'd have to pull the truck forward onto lower ground since we just couldn't raise the tongue anymore. It was as high as it would go. So we re-assembled the hitch and were congratulating ourselves on our new skills; we could now do the whole thing (okay -- by "we" I mean mostly my husband) in about a minute. We were like an Indy 500 pit crew!

So he pulled the truck forward about 6 inches and we started dismantling it all again. But we still couldn't get the hitch out from under the ball cover.

As luck would have it, a farmer who helps out at the farm stopped by. He walked over to say hello and flipped a safety release on the ball hitch, innocently thinking that we'd just forgotten to. Nope. We never even knew it was there. Then he asked us if we wanted him to put the cotter pin back in? Cotter pin? What was he talking about?

You know - the pin that locks the hitch and cover into place so that it can't come undone while you're driving. The pin that keeps the trailer attached to the truck. The pin we knew nothing about!

We confessed that we'd been driving all over those back country roads without one. Then we all shook our heads. Boy, had we gotten lucky! All I could picture was a cartoon where the trailer starts racing down the hill next to the truck it's supposed to be behind. Those cartoons never end well...
We might have been done with RV camping forever before we'd ever even taken our first trip.

Spotting Angelina

I would have walked right by her if it hadn't been for the paparazzi.

As promised a few months ago in my Welcome to the Rileys post, I'm finally sharing the story behind the picture I got of Angelina Jolie in New Orleans.

I'd taken a carriage tour earlier that morning that featured the sights of the French Quarter. The tour guide pointed out Nicholas Cage's house, as well as Angelina and Brad Pitt's home. Both were behind gated walls that lead to courtyards and entrances like many homes that line the narrow French Quarter streets.

As soon as the tour was over, a friend and I raced back over to the street where Brangelina live so that we could take a picture of the outside of their abode. As we rounded the corner, we were stopped by a policeman and men in suits who held us back and told us to stay on the side of the street we were on. We didn't understand what was happening until we noticed photographers with zoom lenses as long as my arm pointing their cameras down the street. Naturally, our line of vision followed theirs and then we saw her: Angelina Jolie, walking on the opposite side of the street with children in tow.

We whipped our cameras out, too, and snapped her picture. We were giddy with excitement and were about to take a second shot when the suited men said, "That's enough," and ushered us on. We were the only tourists on the street. It was just us and the paparazzi as my friend and I continued walking down the street, passing Angie and the kids as we tried to contain our excitement.

The same picture I took was soon featured in People, or some other magazine. (I can't remember which. This was in 2008.)  Later, I was ashamed of myself for not letting her walk down the street to their house in peace. But honestly, who could have resisted that opportunity! I justify my actions by saying that I didn't intrude on them personally. They were the only people allowed on their side of the street. Still, I could have let them be. But I was too starstruck to be respectful.



*Please do not copy this image without the express permission of the photographer.

Locks of Love vs. Pantene Beautiful Lengths

Yesterday I wrote about love-locks. Today I'll write about Locks of Love vs. Pantene Beautiful Lengths since both of my children have donated their hair to these organizations in the past.

A side-by-side comparison does not quite give the whole picture. Locks of Love seems to have updated their mission statement and criteria after a backlash of criticism a few years ago. Many accounts reported that they were selling most of the hair donated; not using it for wigs. They were also criticized for selling their wigs to children with cancer.

Here's what I know. When my son donated his hair right before he went into the military, he had to go to a salon where the stylist cut his ponytail and sent it in to Locks of Love. That was the end of that.

When my daughter donated her hair to Pantene Beautiful Lengths, we brought her ponytail home with us and mailed it in ourselves. She got a very nice acknowledgement letter and we knew that the ponytail had gotten to the right place. Locks of Love seems to have adopted this same approach now.

Donating hair is a worthy cause, regardless of what organization receives it, but I preferred my daughter's experience.

Pantene Beautiful Lengths

Beautiful Lengths is a partnership between Pantene and the American Cancer Society. The role of Pantene is to help women grow long, strong, beautiful hair and provide the funds to turn this hair into free, real-hair wigs for women with cancer. So far, Pantene has donated 18, 000 free real-hair wigs to the American Cancer Society’s wig banks which distribute wigs to cancer patients across the country.

·         Ponytails and braids must be at least 8 inches, tip to tip, with no maximum length.

·         Gray hair is acceptable, if no more than 5% of the donation is gray.

Locks of Love

Uses donated hair to make hairpieces for economically disadvantaged children who have lost their hair due to medical illness.

·         Must be sent in the form of a ponytail or braid, at least 10 inches, tip to tip.

·         Hair that has been colored or permed is acceptable.

·         Shorter hair and gray hair are separated from hair donations and are sold to another company.

Alternatively, for those who don't have long hair:

Matter of Trust (www.matteroftrust.org) encourages salons, groomers, wool farmers and individuals to donate hair, fur, wool, clippings and nylons for their “Hair for Oil Spills” program. “We all get it,” their website states. “We shampoo because hair collects oil.” Shown here are Metamorphosis’ Catherine Nesbitt with the box of hair and Cara Apsey in the background.

Search & Rescue

My son took part in a Search & Rescue hunt yesterday for a missing 10-year-old boy. He was found today after wandering away from his school on Tuesday. Apparently, he was hiding in the woods from rescuers. My son described it this way:

Searching for someone in unfamiliar woods where they are familiar is very unnerving in a sense. I kept seeing tree clusters that looked like little forts, but who knows if they were or not. Maybe he was there watching us... It was just a very strange experience. He was running/hiding from us, so he had a massive upperhand.

I always thought I'd like to take part in something like this, though now that he's shared his experience, I see that it may be nothing like what I imagine. I think we forget -- sometimes the missing don't want to be found.

Words of Wisdom from Elie Wiesel

Sorry the picture is so grainy. It's hard to take a close-up in an arena!

Not surprisingly, Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel delivered messages of hope for the future to a packed arena last night. Students from more than 90 local schools attended, and submitted questions for Wiesel to answer at the end of his program. The one that resonated the most with me was this: How did you find the courage to relive the horror of the Holocaust while you were writing your memoirs?

Wiesel’s answer:

I could not be silent. A silent witness is not a witness.

"B" Movies

My aunt went to the video store over the weekend and rented a couple of movies for $0.50 each. Needless to say, she and my mother did not make it all the way through either movie. They turned them off after half an hour. I chuckled to myself as my mother described the movies because it brought back so many memories from my teen years.

We were one of the first among my friends to buy a VCR. At first, we made careful choices, choosing movies we'd wanted to see but missed at the theatre since rentals were not that cheap when VCRs first came out. I even remember the first movie we rented: Grease. Things seemed to go downhill from there.

We'd often send my father to the video store with specific titles to rent. But somehow, while he was there, he'd be drawn to the shelves of "B" titles; movies no one had ever heard of, and for good reason. For reasons still unknown today, my father always picked movies from that shelf. He'd come home with losers such as Basket Case (a ridiculous horror film) or Fatal Attraction, but NOT the Fatal Attraction starring Glenn Close. No. Instead, we saw the nonsensical plot lines that never made it to the big screen.

We'd beg him not to look at those shelves. We'd question his choices. We'd groan, and threaten, and write our movie choices down. We'd do anything to prevent him from going. But every now and then, he still made his way to the video store and returned home with another gem. It became a running joke. We knew we were watching movies that no other family in their right minds would watch.

I suspect if he were sent there to rent a DVD today, he'd still find that shelf of "specials." And you know who he'd run into? My aunt.

What Skulls Can Tell Us

Catacombs in Paris

As I sat listening to presentations by first a forensic artist who does facial clay reconstruction of skulls, and then a forensic anthropologist who showed us several pictures of skulls and what we can learn from them, I could not help touching my own head and feeling for the deep bone buried beneath my skin and tissue. I started to wonder what it looked like.

I was surprised to learn that facial clay reconstruction (which I'd actually never given ANY thought to before) relies on charts and graphs and mathematical calculations. Twenty-some points are identified on the face and small place markers are glued to the skull, demarcating how thick tissue (clay) should be applied in certain areas according to the estimated age, gender and race of the skull. Forensic artist Brenda Stewart made it seem so simple, like a paint-by-number that anyone could do. But I was not fooled. This was a delicate art that she has mastered over the years. It was fascinating to watch a face come to life simply by her application of clay strips to a skull.

Equally fascinating was the variety of differentiation in skulls. I know this sounds silly, but I'd never considered that one skull looked any different from another except for size. But once Dr. Elizabeth Murray, Forensic Anthropologist, started showing a slide show of skulls and the details that help her identify age, sex, and other things, I was amazed. Again, I wondered what my skull looks like under all this hair and skin? It was strange to suddenly think that it would appear uniquely mine, and that someday someone could find my skull and reconstruct my face from it -- if Dr. Murray and Brenda Stewart were around.

Scrambling for Easter Egg Roll Tickets

I’m not sure our German exchange student, Thomas, ever fully appreciated our excitement concerning the 2007 Easter Egg Roll at the White House. He certainly couldn’t understand why we would wait in line all night, with snow and sleet coming down, and call it a vacation. But he was game for anything, and so were we. After all, we were in Washington, D.C. for the first time, and wanted to take advantage of every opportunity while we were there.

            Going to the Easter Egg Roll at the White House would be a once in a lifetime event, and we were willing to do whatever it took to make it happen. After all, this would be our last chance. According to the criteria, a maximum of five tickets would be issued per person. Children of all ages could attend, as long as there was at least one child seven years old or under and no more than two adults per group. Figuring in our 16-year-old son and our German exchange student, we just met the criteria. Now all we had to do was stand in line for tickets.

            We’d already missed the cherry blossoms by the time we got to Washington, D.C. in April of 2007. A cold front had moved in and the pink blossoms had changed to gray puddles on the ground. Rain mixed to sleet as we planned our strategy to get Easter Egg Roll tickets. Passes were to be distributed at 7:30a.m., so we wondered how early we should we get there: 5:00am? 4:00am? We were warned that people waited all night, but just how long was “all night”?

            We decided to stroll by at 10:00pm on Sunday to check it out. Much to our dismay, there were already people in line! By the looks of their tents, they’d been camping out for a while. There wasn’t really any choice. If we wanted to take our daughter (who would be 7 later that year) and our German exchange student on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, we had to act. So I gave my husband a kiss, and he took his place in line.

            It was cold that night. And we were tired from traveling, but we wanted this. My son woke up at 2:00am, and walked through the cold, rainy streets of D.C. with a thermos full of coffee for my husband. The Metro wasn’t running during the wee hours, so he had about a 2 mile walk from where we were staying. He passed along the coffee and replaced my husband in line so that he could come home and change into dry clothes. After a much-needed reprieve, he went back to stand in line and my cold, wet son came home to take a shower. By then, it was 5:00am and they were distributing passes for those lucky few who would receive timed entrance tickets. My husband called from his cell phone. We’d made it!

            I woke up my daughter and our German “son” and we hurried back to the White House lawn. We had a while to wait, so we enjoyed breakfast and entertainment in the waiting area on the ellipse. We could see the festivities beginning over on the White house lawn and heard a cheer from the first group to enter.

            Finally, it was our turn, and we shivered our way onto the most famous lawn in the world. We partook in all the events. My daughter rolled an Easter egg. The boys listened to the band and wandered around all the exhibits. We took a million pictures of ourselves with the White House in the background. And Thomas had a souvenir shot of himself to take back home and show his friends.

            But the picture we framed upon our return was the one sight-seeing venue that only our family could appreciate: the spot on the sidewalk where my husband had waited all night so that we could enjoy our once-in-a-lifetime Easter Egg Roll event. That little spot on the pavement was where lifetime memories were made.