German Dutch Baby Pancakes

This morning is a quiet one. After a week with mom, College Boy returned last evening via Greyhound bus to Drury University. I do not recommend travel by bus, at least not Greyhound. When I was a college student myself eons ago, I once made the 90-mile-trip home from the University of Alabama to Prattville on a rickety old Trailways bus. Let’s say the trip motivated me to find another way home. I think I can safely say the same for CB, who definitely picked up a couple of stories to write about. Some things never change.

CB is good company though, and I do miss him already. We watched a couple of movies, Crazy Heart (recommended with a caveat or two: It reminds me of Robert Duvall’s 1983 Tender Mercies — whose plot summary according to IMDb is: “Alcoholic former country singer Mac Sledge makes friends with a young widow and her son. The friendship enables him to find inspiration to resume his career.” Well, Duvall won an Oscar in 1984, and so did Jeff Bridges this year, and who I am to question reusing plot lines if it works. But I did ask myself what the heck moved a young thing like Maggie Gyllenhaal to shack up with a broken-down man like Bad Blake?). CB and I also watched Blind Side, and being from the South and loving football, how could we not like this one?

One night, elder son made us homemade pasta and sauce (Bolognese with pappardelle), and another night, I barbecued (a.k.a. burned up) some chicken slathered with the remaining Montgomery Inn barbecue sauce I was saving for a special occasion. The chicken was accompanied by my potato salad, which CB had requested.

On my morning off, CB and I went over to our favorite Batavia breakfast spot, Lume’s, and indulged in a Dutch Baby German pancake. If you have never had one, I recommend you try them. In these parts they are rather expensive, and I thought I’d give making them at home a try. And thus, I discovered, they are amazingly easy to make and right tasty too.

• Here’s my version with slight modifications to the recipe found at How to Make German Pancakes—Dutch Babies. I used the smaller version, which the author says serves 2 to 4. First revision: I ate the whole thing but would say it would serve 2 non-gluttonous individuals quite well.
• The eggs and milk were just out of the refrigerator. I am an impatient sort.
• Forget the business about bread flour as opposed to all-purpose flour. I can’t imagine my Dutch Baby any higher.
• I used more vanilla and skipped the cinnamon and added about a quarter cup of sugar and 2 tablespoons of butter instead of 7 teaspoons, which might be the equivalent but I didn’t want to calculate differences in tablespoons and teaspoons.
• I used a well-seasoned 8-inch cast-iron skillet and would recommend a 10-inch instead simply for the reason that instead of a quarter-inch bottom, I ended up with a half-inch depth. Not bad—just might have been a tad better if it had been thinner. Be sure to follow the recipe as to getting your oven and skillet hot before adding the butter (probably ought to melt it) and then the batter. My Baby cooked in approximately 15 minutes. So, I would suggest you check on your pancake prior to 20 minutes just to be on the safe side.

Well, you can see from the photos the Baby turned out pretty pouffy. After sifting confectioner’s sugar over the Baby, I served it with lemon slices and syrup. Somehow I felt the Baby deserved an upgrade from Hungry Jack Lite syrup, but that was all I had in the house.

Happy Saturday!

I Wonder

Nothing happens until something moves.
— Albert Einstein

Elder son asked if I had written anything on the blog lately. I said, “No.” And I started to wonder why. Certainly, I’m never short of something to say. However, I am a bit tired these days. Tired of politics for sure, shaking my head at the seemingly impossible impasse at which our two political parties here in the U.S. find themselves. I don’t recall feeling so discouraged in quite a while.

I could rail on the need to address the greater good but find I am fighting an urge to turn inward and tend to my own good.

Remember in the 80s when Looking Out for #1 topped the New York Times best-seller list? I am, of course, dating myself, but I have grown tired of self-help books like Robert Ringer’s as well as the “wisdom” dispensed by Oprah Winfrey. Life’s complicated and if I’m going to figure it out, I’d just as soon trust my own instincts rather than theirs.

I did finally get back to the gym this weekend after letting the excuse of a bad cold sideline me. I’m in better spirits. As I walked at a goodly clip goin’ nowhere (listening to my favorite Chris Isaak CD) on the treadmill, three posters on the weathered brick wall in front of me caught my eye. One said, “Possibilities,” another “Opportunities,” and the final “Action.”

That about sums it up as best as I can see. Life is about action. When we succumb to inaction for whatever reason, I believe we are merely walking through life zombie-like. I think that it’s a worthy goal to be that person of action. It becomes #4 on my list of resolutions.

Split Infinitives and New Year's Resolutions

Never much for New Year’s resolutions, I have nonetheless resolved the following:

1. I will try to live in the now and not the past nor the future.
What is this day like? Can I enjoy it and not worry about the number of days or years that I may have left? Can I banish the ‘what ifs’? What if the car breaks down (oh, I know it will eventually—it’s got quite a few miles on it just like its owner)? What if I get sick, or slip and fall, or lose my job, or become homeless, living out of the car with quite a few miles on it? What will I do now that I am living alone for the first time ever—just yesterday College Boy left for a new college a day’s drive away? What will be my passion? Should I return to school? Should I join a group to stave off loneliness? If I do, what kind of people should I surround myself with?

Can I let go of past hurts? Can I hold onto pleasant memories without wishing to relive them? Can I go forward al a Star Trek with a personal “five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before”?

We shall see. Perhaps, yes, with these fears and old habits verbalized.

2. I will finish reading more books, and subscribe to some magazines and the newspaper.
This is doable. I already read a lot, but since chemo, my concentration has been off and sticking with a book seems like an impossible chore. How many books I have started and put aside! That can change. I am nearly finished reading a book now. Strangely, for a person who majored in journalism, I have fallen away from reading magazines and the daily paper. What a shame! TV is a poor substitute. I resolve to change.

3. I will move forward with creative pursuits.
This is the one resolution I am most excited by, but more on this later.

Three resolutions, about the right number I think. I have a couple of others but they are the rather common ones that we all seem to share and then quickly toss aside. You know—lose weight, eat right, exercise, save money.

Happy New Year! May the coming days be filled with good health, good times, growth, and kindnesses both given and received.

Krystyna

I had seen her only once before—the day when she came into the center to pick up birthday boxes for her two grandchildren and to ask if we could help the family for Christmas. That day I learned a bit about her. The boys’ mother, Krystyna’s daughter, died this year from a brain tumor. Krystyna, a woman near my age, was faced with raising the two young children and their older sister. With a thick Polish accent, she wondered aloud why some in her apartment building always seemed to get the help they needed but not her. “It’s not fair,” she said.

“We can put your name on our waiting list for Christmas help,” I told her, adding, “if we can help, we will call you.” I really wanted to help her. Every time I start identifying like this, I find I am pulled deeper into lives than is wise. By that, I mean I am haunted by a life that is not mine but that I imagine very well could be. That’s primarily the reason I left a social services job at the county a few years ago.

Since that time,I have learned to keep an open heart without becoming too involved. Krystyna was my test. Maybe, it was the grandmother thing. I don’t know.

So, as the time neared to start contacting the waiting list families, I was happy that our donors had been generous and we had plenty of toys and gifts left to give the waiting list families.

Krystyna showed up the first day. I saw her sitting off to the side. “Krystyna,” I called out to her, “is someone helping you?” “They say my name isn’t on the list,” she said. “Let me check,” I replied. As I flipped through the pages of names, I spotted hers. “There it is,” I said. “It’s okay,” I said, “I know Krystyna.”

When she had big bags of gifts at her feet, we hugged. Krystyna told me how the children had been baptized recently. “The priest found godparents for them,” adding with obvious pride, “a deacon!” I know little about their lives. I know she struggles. I know I would do the same if I were in her place. She and I share that—maybe little else—the grandmother thing. Life’s lessons always come at a price. And while I think of Krystyna’s struggles, I know it is best to focus on my own, knowing I can still keep my heart open for the time when the next “Krystyna” comes along.

Merry Christmas!

Price-less Gifts

Gifts of remembrance are to quote MasterCard’s ubiquitous tagline, “Priceless.”

When you remember a person’s name or personal preferences, it can make his or her day, thereby becoming a gift completely price less.

The young clerk at the bakery near my work gives me a gift of remembrance each time I stop in. By the time my hand is on the shop door, she is reaching for a chocolate-iced cake donut. “Maybe I will try a muffin one day,” I say, as she rings up the purchase—86 cents. I hand her a dollar bill and toss the 14 cents in change into the plastic tip cup. Yes, I know chocolate-iced cake donuts are not on my South Beach Diet, but how can I resist when I am thus rewarded?

And I am again rewarded when at work I recall a donor’s name as she or he brings in a bag of gifts this busy season. Tom brought in bag of basketballs last Christmas for the kids in our programs, and this year I happened to be at the front desk when he returned with this year’s donation: 10 basketballs. “You must have gotten quite a deal again,” I said as Tom smiled broadly.

My boss says we all wear a big invisible sign around our necks that says, “I want to be recognized.”

I am beginning to understand just what she means.

Awesome Crimson Tide Christmas Present

Work with me here folks. I am supposed to be doing my annual Christmas Countdown and while one of my readers suggested I post a photo of the Christmas tree when I got it up, I'd rather post about a non-Christmas subject--football. Well, except I think I have found a way to tie the two together.

Here goes. I really was thinking about Christmas and visited some Web sites selling University of Alabama merchandise looking for ideas for gifts. No hints here, but I think the intended recipients are clueless since they don't usually read the blog.

But lo and behold, I discovered a new product which I think is worthy of comment. You see it pictured here. No intended gift recipient has a satellite dish, but I thought, "How neat!" Now you can show your team spirit and cover that boring dish with the Dishrag. I really liked the name too.

I will have some more Christmas posts--so many I am practically bursting at the seams. Only, I am so crazy-busy at work (I am one of Santa's Elves, after all), that it's hard to find time to write.

Meanwhile, Happy Shopping dear gentle readers.

Tide Swamps Florida

Pardon my brief deviation from the Christmas theme this morning, but in a way the University of Alabama’s rout of #1 Florida last night is an early Christmas present for the Tide Nation. Coach Nick Sabin coached like those with the big bucks hoped he would, and the players played with heart and desire. Doesn’t get better than this with college football. As much as I respect Florida’s quarterback Tim Tebow, his faith in God, and his talent, I just wanted to say to him, “Tim, there’s no crying in football.”

All is well—least football-wise. The New York Times summed up my thoughts: “In football-crazed Alabama, it will mark a return to order in the football universe.” Happy Sunday!

Sheila’s Christmas Countdown

I’ve written so many Christmas-related posts since I started blogging that I really am taxed to come up with something new. In my first Christmas post back on Nov. 24, 2006, I wrote about my favorite Christmas book. I won’t repeat what I said there except to say, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever is still the best ever.

However, this year I will first be reading a recent book and invite you to read along--an on-line book discussion group if you will. The New York Times story on “29 Gifts: How a Month of Giving Can Change Your Life” (Da Capo Press) by Cami Walker focuses on the notion that generosity improves your health.

Each day, I see the good side of humankind in my job at a small, grassroots not-for-profit organization, the Humanitarian Service Project. If you want to see the other side, watch the news. It’s all there.

For me, though, I know the power of goodwill and generosity firsthand. My attention was immediately captured when I read the story about Walker's book, and a stop by the bookstore will be on my list of errands today. That, and a stop by the Christmas tree lot, which is a departure from last year when my little apartment had no Christmas tree. For the first time since 1971, I did not decorate a tree. Freshly single after 36 Christmases, the ritual was more than I could handle. However, as it is with most challenges, you adjust.

Despite a crazy-busy work schedule filled with long days (our Christmas Offering is in its own countdown to Christmas), I need a Christmas tree this year. If nothing else, I need to smell the fresh scent of evergreen when I wake up. I need a reminder that the promise of Christmas symbolized by the tree can still be in my heart.

Happy Saturday!

Making it Better

First, I wanted to share one little thing that happened on my way to work the other day. Well, I shouldn't be stopping by Dunkin Donuts; but when I went through the drive-thru lane and after ordering a coffee and blueberry muffin, I got a surprise. I pulled up to the window to pay and the cashier said, “You don't owe me anything. The person ahead of you paid for yours.” The lady in the red SUV was long gone. Now, that has never happened to me. I had a big smile on my face though, and it made me think about what a better world we would have if we had more like the lady in the red SUV.

And then when I opened the e-mail this morning from Idealist, my earlier experience took on a greater meaning.

What is proposed (the short version) is:

In one sentence: It’s time to build a global network that will serve and support all those people who want to make the world a better place, online and in person.

The key to doing this is to bypass all those specific issues that can overwhelm and divide us, and instead focus on three challenges that affect all of us:

1. There is often a big gap between our good intentions and our actions.
2. Our problems are connected, but we are not.
3. The world is full of good ideas that don't spread quickly enough.

What we need, then, is a network, a movement, an ecosystem that will:

* Make it easier for people and organizations to move from intentions to action.
* Connect people, organizations, and resources in every possible way.
* Find good ideas wherever they are, and distribute them as widely as possible.

If we can do this, and do it well, most of our local and global challenges will be easier to deal with.

So, I have signed up. I need a mission. Maybe this is it. Maybe we could stop saying, "That's a shame. It shouldn't be that way." Maybe, boldly, we could actually make it better.

Happy Saturday from the Land of Lincoln my cyber-friends.

Who You Gonna Believe

Running in to the Jewel for a few random items like whole milk for Nicolas (he’s visiting later today while his mom and dad attend a wedding in Chicago), I took a few moments to glance at the tabloids lining the checkout lane. Wow, I am worried. According to the Globe, President Obama has lung cancer. Republican right-winger Sarah Palin might ought to stay closer to home, because one tab reports her husband is cheating on her. Or did I get that wrong, and she cheated on him?

Ever since the National Enquirer got it right when it broke news of John Edwards’ affair, I look at these salacious pubs with a different eye. Could they be right? Anyway, they make fodder for speculation and help pass the time in line. Happy Saturday!

21 Years

Today is Scott’s 21st birthday. I struggled to find an appropriate card at the Jewel last night. Hallmark, American Greetings, and the like seem a lazy way to recognize a milestone birthday. I understand, however, that when we are rushed and tired, it is easier to let card wordsmiths say it. I will give him the purchased card with cash tucked inside. He can go buy something that will soon be forgotten, but I hope he remembers one thing—his mother loves him. Always.

Photo--Uncle Scott introduces Nicolas to video games. Well, Nicolas is just happy playing with the controller.

Be Well

It is October, and October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Panera Bread brings out the Pink Ribbon bagels, and advertising reminds us all of what many would sooner forget. However, I noticed today, someone bought some of my cards over on CafePress. Thank you to all who like my designs enough to plunk down some cash. I wish you or those you love the best. As one of the volunteers at the Montgomery Cancer Center always said, “Be Well.”

Seasons Come and Go

Stacked high. Waiting for me to figure out what goes and what stays and where to put it all.


A pile of summer clothes. Books brought out of the closet. You can tell a lot about the books a person surrounds herself with. I don’t have a lot of books now, and so the ones I took when the marriage dissolved have special significance. A slim volume of One Hundred and One Famous Poems inscribed in Mother’s handwriting, “To my dear daughter with love. Mom. Xmas 1969”--Tennyson, Whitman, Keats, Frost, and Kipling, whose “If” is a favorite of mine, are the standards I grew up with.

“If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; . . .
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same. . . .

Scraps of paper with ideas for art projects I’ll probably never have time to get to. Fabric. My addiction. Lots of that. Clothes waiting for me to iron them. Who am I kidding?

My place is small. The one bigger closet is about half-filled with my clothes. Art supplies take up nearly the other half, competing with quilts, Christmas decorations I didn’t even put up last year, and a box of photos. You get the picture. Something has got to go.

I’d rather get rid of the clothes than the art supplies. Who knows, I might find a way to have my own studio. Hey, I am old, but I still dream.

Today, I purge. Farewell striped pink blouse. What was I thinking! Socks, I can never wear all of you. Cute black and white Keds, you guys hurt my feet. I will hang on to Mother’s Day cards long ago given and 21-year-old ‘Happy Mother’s Coupons,’ which certify son Jeff will clean the bathroom and make his bed. I’ll even keep another 21-year old artifact: an anniversary card emblazoned with “The Marriage that Would Not Die.”

Triumph and Disaster aside, the lesson here is to make room and time for what really matters in my life and a reminder of what was once upon a time.

The world is but a canvas to the imagination.

There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly. Buckminster Fuller

Most grants and funding made to social service agencies addresses basic human needs. The not-for-profit I work for, the Humanitarian Service Project, does that too with our summer Feed the Kids Project. At Christmas time, we help families with two to three weeks of food and gifts for all of the children. And year-round our Senior Citizen Project delivers a monthly food package to needy seniors in our area.

But there is more to life than basic needs. Our Children’s Birthday Project, is described on The Common Grant Application as “an early intervention program for children ages 3-12, to bring joy and self-worth to poverty-level children on their special day at an age while they were still impressionable but before they were subject to intense peer pressure and the appeal of negative influences such as gangs.”

That’s a mouthful but what it boils down to is we think even poor kids should know their birthdays are worth celebrating!

So, we collect new toys and books, school supplies, and stuffed animals. Every box also includes what we call a party-in-a-box with all the makings of a fun birthday celebration like cake mix, frosting, paper plates, streamers, and party favors.

Now, we are hoping to include an arts and crafts kit in the birthday boxes if our donors support the idea. Arts and crafts kits with drawing and painting supplies of all kinds, craft supplies—you name it. We see it as a creative and positive opportunity to enhance the lives of our program’s children. With schools cutting back on funding for art education, I think many kids grow up failing to discover their innate creativity. And poor families just scraping by surely don’t have money left over to spend on art supplies.

All week I have been caught up with this notion. I have a growing list of ideas with over 30 suggestions so far. If any of my readers know of organizations or manufacturers who might be able to help as we get this underway, please let me know. We are a small grassroots organization, highly regarded, but also with a small staff.

I am excited about the possibility. Here is the list I have come up with so far. Wonder what I have forgotten?

Where Is We in We the People?

Utterly ridiculous! Unpatriotic! For shame you Republicans who applauded America’s failed bid to host the 2016 Summer Games as a personal failure for President Obama. When the International Olympic Committee turned down Chicago’s proposal yesterday, gleeful opponents of Obama cheered. Rush Limbaugh called the U.S. delegation “Ego-obsessed imbeciles on parade representing the United States. Oprah is now eating Denmark.” This is strange, and if Democrats did it, Fox News (right-wingers for those of you outside the U.S.) commentators would be all over it like white on rice.

That hacks me off. This is still America. Where is your national pride? This was not about Obama. This was an American city trying to capture an important world event. However, this time it was not our turn. South America has never had a chance. For that reason and some apparent Olympic committee bad blood, more than Obama failing, the International Olympic Committee said no thanks to Chicago. It’s a blow to the City of Big Shoulders, but I believe when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade.

Charles Lane over at the Washington Post said

The bid for a Chicago Olympics was to put a large American city, and probably the state and federal governments as well, deeply into hock constructing velodromes and the like, in return for the thrill of watching a bunch of steroid consumers try to break ephemeral world records in obscure sports.

Some say President Obama was ill-advised to put his prestige, and that of his country, at risk in a losing effort, especially when he has so many other important issues to worry about. Actually, it was a mistake, win or lose.

Yup. President Obama did the right thing as did President Bush in supporting Chicago’s bid. On hindsight, it is for the best that we lost. Chicago can now turn full attention to more pressing problems like finding a way to keep teenagers from killing each other.

However, a recent column by Thomas Friedman of the New York Times lays out a more disturbing concern interconnected to the lost Olympic bid. In Where Did ‘We’ Go?, Friedman writes about the poisonous political climate in Israel in 1995 that surrounded Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin before he was assassinated.

Friedman writes:

Others have already remarked on this analogy, but I want to add my voice because the parallels to Israel then and America today turn my stomach: I have no problem with any of the substantive criticism of President Obama from the right or left. But something very dangerous is happening. Criticism from the far right has begun tipping over into delegitimation and creating the same kind of climate here that existed in Israel on the eve of the Rabin assassination. . . .

Even if you are not worried that someone might draw from these vitriolic attacks a license to try to hurt the president, you have to be worried about what is happening to American politics more broadly.

Our leaders, even the president, can no longer utter the word “we” with a straight face. There is no more “we” in American politics at a time when “we” have these huge problems — the deficit, the recession, health care, climate change and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — that “we” can only manage, let alone fix, if there is a collective “we” at work.

I thought Obama might be the leader to bring back the ‘We’ in “We the People of the United States . . .” from the U. S. Constitution. Now, I question, can any one?

Camping Renewal

Last weekend was too perfect for these parts. The cornfields stretched for miles, but with some roll to the countryside, it wasn’t a boring drive to Oregon. No, not THAT Oregon. Illinois has a little town called Oregon and that’s where my drive took me.

Past rustic red barns and horse farms, past a make-shift sign pointing to a blessing of the harvest, past so many road kill raccoons I have to make mention. Solitary but not alone, a two-lane road with so many motorcyclists you’d think they were all going to some big convention. I think, however, they just knew this weekend was one of the few left for their passion until spring.

As each cyclist passed another, they extended their left arms downward. Not being clued in to motorcycle culture, I imagine this some kind of “secret handshake,” akin to the cub scout or boy scout handshake.

On hindsight, this is an appropriate segue since scouts camp a lot and that’s where I was heading. Years ago when my son Jeff was a cub scout, I somehow got snookered into becoming a den mother. Of course trying to wrangle eight elementary-age boys into after-school crafts projects is like herding cats. Bless my friend Molly’s heart, she knew better and passed on the opportunity to lead. Her son Christian, my son, and the co-leader’s son, ring-led the other boys into all kinds of harmless mischief. I had fun but not at the time. Does that make sense at all?

Eventually, Jeff graduated cub scouts and moved onto boy scouts and his dad took over as a leader. At least on my watch, the boys didn’t try to burn down the forest on a camping trip. The boy who a attempted that was, as they say, “troubled.”

So, when Jeff felt it was time to introduce camping to Natalie and little Nicolas, I was at first reluctant. Fifty-seven year old bones don’t like sleeping on the ground in a tent. Ever the boy scout, Jeff offered up an AeroBed, clinching the trip for me. The other appeal, besides being outside on a lovely fall weekend with people I love, was Jeff’s cooking.

By the time I pulled into the crowded campground at Lowden State Park, one former Governor Rod Blagojevich closed last year due to budget troubles, Jeff and Natalie had already set up camp. Sweet! Minor items forgotten and a burnt apple cobbler in a new Lodge Dutch oven were our biggest issues. Small price to pay for stars over our heads, a roaring campfire, S’mores, great steaks, campers’ breakfast, and being with people I love.

America’s Most Stressful Cities and One That’s Not

Forbes ranks America’s most stressful cities. I’ve lived in several cities on the list: Houston, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and was born in one—Washington D.C. However, I am presently located in Chicagoland—Chicago being the most stressful of all. I can agree that driving on the expressways when necessary is stressful. I try to take Metra when I go into the city. Paying through the nose to park a car only adds insult to injury.

While I love all that Chicago has to offer after you get there, I have settled in the far west hinderlands of Chicagoland. Batavia to be specific, which is ironically the only Illinois city to make Money Magazine’s list of America’s best small towns. Ranked at number 56, my little slice of Chicagoland is a stark contrast to the big-city buzz.

Here in Batavia, the biggest thing going on a Friday night is the local Batavia High School Bulldogs game—a real Friday Nights Lights just down the street from me. Life here is simpler—farmers market on Saturday, volunteer fair at the library, arts shows, bikers up the wazoo (we are on the bike trail along the Fox River). My bank, cleaners, insurance agent, hair salon, favorite coffee shop, drugstore, and the library are all within a mile or walking distance of my place. That cuts down on stress for sure. Batavia calls itself the City of Energy and the local landscape is dotted with windmills, an omage to its once booming windmill manufacturing status.

So, let Oprah Winfrey celebrate Chicago this week as well as celebrate her 24th year in TV with what the Chicago media has dubbed Oprahpalooza as she takes over three blocks of Michigan Avenue for her show, throwing even more stress onto the shoulders of commuters. It’s okay. This is the City of Big Shoulders afterall, but I think I’ll stick to my little corner of the world.

Including Samuel (and Nicolas)

Including Samuel, a documentary by Dan Habib that is airing on television stations in the U.S, chronicles a family’s journey to include their disabled son in all that life has to offer. Samuel has cerebral palsy. My long-time readers may recall that my little (born Feb. 23, 2008 at 26 weeks—1 lb. 12 oz.—101 days in the NICU) grandson Nicolas has been diagnosed with cerebral palsy.

So, this film hits home. I’ve just seen the 12-minute trailer. I hope you will watch this film if you have the chance. I know I will. At least click on the link and watch the trailer.

Closer to home though, as I watch little Nic crawl around army-style on the floor, I hope for the best. Hope the therapists who say they think he will walk by “three or four” are in one sense, right—that Nicolas will walk—or wrong in that Nicolas will walk sooner. Mostly, I try not to think too much about what ifs. I know that human spirit can overcome some labels and that much is left up to Nic’s spirit and determination. He has been given a tough hand to play. Many are helping him but no one can really predict. Labels are hurtful, limiting, unfair.

And that’s why inclusion is important. Not just because to me this is personal. But because all of us need to know that we have a chance to overcome, excel, fly—to soar wherever our talents may allow us to go. To walk, run, swim, create, speak, heal, cure, invent, teach, and to participate in all the other possibilities of life.

Googling BedBugs

I put Google ads back up on the blog since I am trying to make it to my $100 threshold. I don’t write to make money, but I would like to get the few bucks Google says I have earned. However, I thought it funny that three of the ads were about bedbugs. Well, that’s because I wrote about the Poundin Bedbugs Playskool toy and the fact that Colorado State didn’t have their annual sofa roundup because of the little critters. I will try to watch what I write about from now on.

My Favorites on America’s Got Talent

America’s Got Talent: Guilty pleasure, manipulated reality talent show—that’s my take and I’m there. So far, I’m a big fan of former chicken catcher Kevin Skinner, aspiring country-ballad singer. If he’s genuine—there’s always a part of me that holds on to a bit of skepticism with these competitions—he has my vote. Then, those three Texas Tenors look awfully cute in their cowboy hats. Soprano Barbara Padilla sings beautifully, plus she’s a cancer survivor—she’s high on my list. Next week brings more semi-finalist performances. Hope they are as good as the last round.