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These flower pens, left, are from my daughter's wedding last month, set at the guest book.

Now they sit by my phone.  In earlier days I would have used them on yet another clip board, to pass at yet another PTA meeting or such, to get people to sign up for something.  I can't imagine using one in the office, to put a flourish on the moment.  Those are Mont Blanc moments, maybe.

Putting our name to paper.  I was here.  I will do this task. I have read the above. Sign on the dotted line.  At a wedding, it is a blooming time.  White for purity. White for hope.

Pretty pens, they are.  If you could write your hopes with flowers, what flower would it be, what hopes would you write?  We are, this weekend, visiting the area of her new physical domain.  She is full of tales of how she is beginning penning her future with a metaphorical red rose of love.

Ramble: Among the Aspens...

Yesterday we went rambling 4 miles along a path, 33 degrees, starting as the sun was just coming up through gorgeous groves of aspen trees. The day before I'd hiked another vista higher up but they weren't quite yet turning there.  Here I reached out to touch the quivering gold leaves, image-wise, as I captured them digitally, right as the sun began to lick the trees.

We talked and walked, walked and talked.  Nothing like a good ramble for married couple conversation.  We enjoyed our own company. An article yesterday in the NYTimes says that men apparently enjoy being with their parents, while women find time with their mom and dad to be slightly less pleasant than doing laundry.  I dunno.  My mom and dad come next week and I'm looking pretty forward to it.

Online ramble: Working Mother Magazine's  list of top 100 companies to work for? Becky at Deep Muck Big Rake looks into it the p.r. of it all. Most of those companies advertise in the magazine so how real is the list? Now that I am way past taking my children to the potty, I had a good laugh at Antique Mom's story of getting her sunglasses out of the john after holding up her son over the loo.  Go wish Claude a happy 68th -  her birth story is interestng.

Me? I'm hoping to do more hikes as the leaves turn, learning where they turn and when. Isn't it grand to be outside as the seasons change?

White Blood Cells, Science & Technology...

We live in exciting times.  We need to understand and engage. I don't see the minutae of the matter when I bleed, but they are there, fighting infection, those white blood cells.  These red and white blood cells are magnified 3,000X. With the digital image capturing techniques paired with light microscopes, what we can now see and scientists can study is absolutely amazing.  The future well-being of the United States and beyond depends upon continuing innovation in the development and use of advanced technologies and we need to understand these things and teach our children how to engage in this work of science, math and technology.

As a mother, I care about the health of my family and the larger health of those beyond. Junior League women in California had a vision which led to the establishment of The Tech Museum of Innovation in Silicon Valley.  The institution is an educational resource with a mission to engage people "in exploring and experiencing technologies affecting their lives, and to inspire the young to become innovators in the technologies of the future." That part of the country has become a hinge to our future.

The museum is opening the BodyWorlds2 exhibit September 27.  Two of my children - but not me - saw this fascinating exhibit of real human bodies preserved by Plastination when it was in NYC when we lived there. I'm sorry I missed it and  now live between the two coasts.  If you are near, go.   If not, visualize these matters.

photo: Zooming Into DNA, The Tech's Understanding Genetics

How Do I Tell You I Love You?

I do thumb love with my youngest daughter. xoxoxo.  Txting is her form of communication.  To my husband's blackberry I send ((hugs)).  My son does cell and txt but won't do email.  My oldest gets my love via email and cell.  My mom? Landlines and email.  My brother? emails but he only reads the first line on his treo.

Love is complicated.  I'm excited for parent's weekend to give mother love in-person.  ;)    Live love is best.  My latest oft-repeated phrase to my husband, "Have I told you today that I love you?"

I used to sign my personal letter closings (when I wrote them) -- Love,  (me).
Here I just say Cheers and if I love ya, I'll link.

Long Toes: Signs of Wisdom...

If you notice the long second toe of Sekhmet, ruler of Thebes, (statue in the Metropolitan Museum, Egyptian collection) it is longer than the big toe.  This is a sign of wisdom and I wanted to, as a long middle-toed person, to make sure this gets proper documentation.  There have not been any major studies of this topic as far as I am aware.  If there are art students out there, this could be your thesis.

But I have studied these long toes in all of the famous museums and it is a sign of classical integrity and those long toes are the classic look, I'm here to tell 'ya.  This is a many-year content study that uses careful observation of rendered physiques in both paintings and sculpture on this continent and abroad.  Long toes are the dominant form.  And I did read somewhere that it is a sign of wisdom but this is a blog so I can invoke opinion and mix with fact and not give a notation because I don't remember where the source information was.

If you happen to have short companion toes, you are o.k.  Don't be discouraged.  You might want to question my observations like my (smart) short-toed husband does.  Maybe short toes are a sign of a logical mind.

Cultural Soup...

Warhol-inspired tomato soup for the soul.  I'm off to lunch with an old college friend in Albuquerque.  Politics is NOT chicken soup for the soul and so after two long pieces - one a regional story not written elsewhere (the Balloon Fiesta) and another on media and free speech, I'm off.

Later this week I'll be off hiking even more. Sunday was an 8-mile hike to see exactly where the aspens stood, color-wise.  The aspen have started to turn and the mountain paths beckon.

Spirited Civil Debate & Media...

Media matters and messy debates, words and ideas... Today's New York Times front page carries a photo of the protest at Columbia over the University's allowing Iran's president a platform with the story about the speech.  This week's NYTimes has also confronted free speech regarding its running the MoveOn ad about Gen. Petreus/Betray Us two weeks ago.  Both issues revolve around free speech.

It is my  opinion that we are confronting immense issues and conflicting values in many arenas and that debate, civil debate, fosters understanding. I found the speeches at Columbia to be interesting with each speaker speaking as an academician.

Words.  They shape our ideas.  They shape us. They shape our enemies and allies.  A mother knows that words can kill the spirit in a child.  Words are powerful.  So is the freedom to use them. 

Balloon Fiesta: Mass Spectacle & Amazing History...

This year is the 254th aniversary of the start of hot-air ballooning and the 5th for the first solo flight around the world and the 19th for the world altitude record and 19th for the record-breaking trans-Atlantic flight. The history is as colorful as the mass annual event gathering, the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta  in New Mexico. From the invention of the hot air balloon in 1783 with a launch of a rooster, pick and a duck, it has ballooned today to a mass spectacle nine-day event drawing over 700 balloonists from 41 states and 19 countries and a crowd of 900,000. Starting on October 6th, the begins with a mass ascension with all balloons lifting off in under two hours. Imagine the colorful, magical spectacle in the clear skies!

Albuquerque natives Maxie Anderson and Ben Abruzzo are probably most responsible for the blossoming of ballooning, the push and inspiration to break records and the people behind the beginnings of the mass balloon-orama. Distance and height barriers have only been broken in very recent years.

With next year being the big 250th anniversary of modern ballooning, the 20th for the first big record-breaking flight and the 20th for altitude records, ballooning has gone big time in recent years.

I haven't seen it since 1983 when I was first pregnant and ballooning myself (my stomach, that is).   Big things with a lot of people as spectators? ( Not the birth of my baby. ) The two-hour lift-off rivals the Superbowl half-time show as far as things dancing around untethered.

More on the flip...

Uneven Expressions, Neurology & Politics...

As mothers, we learn to read the faces and expressions of our children.  We also learn to understand the facial expressions of others.

Presidential Candidate John Edwards presents an uneven expression, leading to distrust.  Neuroscience can show us that true emotions play on one side of the face and masking on the other.  I forget which side is which for the "real" emotions but this is why Bush's smirk makes us uncomfortable.

Reason and logic are sometimes not used as much as gut feelings and emotions, especially with politics. 

The role of semantics and neurology in politics is something I'm interested in. Drew Westen, a professor of psychology at Emory University, has a book, “The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation,” and it is one that might make for good reading.

Imaginary Friends...

My grandmother had imaginary friends named Hallelujah and Mr. Sand and I enjoyed it when she would talk to me about her childhood in a small rural town. Neither I nor my children had imaginary friends, but I've always thought this intriguing, the idea that children can have an imaginary playmate.

How common is this?  I wonder if others have stories to tell.  I wonder, with television and dvds and structured play, do children have more or less experiences with imaginary friends?

Photo: Worth1000 by Downside.