And He Quoth

I have decided to simplify my FB "Info" page and give the Ad-Masters less data to work with. To preserve the quotes I had collected there, I will paste them here. Thus:

All great masters are chiefly distinguished by the power of adding a second, a third, and perhaps a fourth step in a continuous line. Many a man has taken the first step. With every additional step you enhance immensely the value of your first.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

He who would give up essential liberty for a little temporary safety deserves neither liberty nor safety. ~Ben Franklin

Green is the new red.

Give a man a fish, and you will feed him for a day. Maybe two days, if it is a big fish.

Cattle are driven, sheep are led.
~Randy Ludeman

When I was young, I admired people who were clever. Now that I am old, I admire people who are kind. ~Abraham Joshua Heschel

And that is the end.

As a Child Grows...

her observations become more entertaining and precious.

Yesterday we were working outside in the yard, the sun was bright and it was a comfortable 55°F. As I was messing with the snow tires that I was removing for the season, Miriam reflected in her most mature and thoughtful air:

"Dad, it's such a beautiful day. On a day like this, I can't see how anyone can stay inside and watch TV."

Then, this morning, as I was helping her find something or other to get out the door for school, she showed me the fancy scarf that she planned to bring.

"Guess what, Dad? I'm bringing this scarf to school, I really need to. We're going to pretend like we're Hebrew girls with scarves on our heads, and we're going to talk to each other in Hebrew Horse Latin."

And then she gave me a sample of the Hebrew Horse Latin, a quick hug, and headed happily off to school. It's such pleasure to see her grow up.

That Smell

The song for this morning: "That Smell" by Lynyrd Skynyrd. Two big olfactory adventures filled the space before work today:

1. The rotting remains of our prize pumpkins from the garden last summer. Pumpkins are one of those things that seem so neat and useful and good: pies, filler for sweet breads, roasted pumpkin seeds. But practically, they are just too big (at least in the mind) to start processing, so they sit in cold storage awaiting their turn, until, well, they end up looking like the pumpkin I dealt with this morning. The outside was mottled with black mold and the structure of the pumpkin had collapsed in a puddle of fermenting ooze on the lid of an 18-gallon Rubbermaid tote. I was able to scoop the biggest pieces into a garbage bag and mop the rest with a towel. I didn't think to get the nitrile gloves and so I have gotten occasional whiffs of pump-rot throughout the morning.
2. A rather expansive pee puddle from our rather diminutive dog. Although I don't care to confess it, I actually saw the puddle yesterday, but assumed it was something else, and at any rate, didn't want to investigate because if it wasn't the something else then it really could only be what it is, or was, now that the mess has been cleaned. And I didn't want to deal with that yesterday. For this job, I used the nitrile gloves. Samson deserves the following notes of approbation:

• He went in the basement on the tile floor, which is pretty easy to clean.
  
• He peed because he had to, his owner(s) was (were) deficient and didn't let him outside enough. This would probably be me forgetting to turn him out right before bed.
  
• He didn't lift a leg on anything, just made a puddle on the floor, confirming the previous point. If he was exacting revenge or claiming territory, he would have lifted a leg, probably in more than one location, and marked a rug or couch or book (something he had a problem with as a puppy).
  

I am happy to say that he does not often urinate in the house, and if he does, it's generally our fault. He's a patient little fellow, and is at least becoming more considerate with his indiscretions.

A final note: finding and removing these twin stench generators this morning greatly improved my outlook on a used mattress that we have been trying to clean. We expected the malodorous when spraying it down with bleach, but expected the bleach and oxidized biomass smells to improve greatly as it dried. This mattress was in the basement area drying and it seemed like it wasn't getting much better (and maybe it isn't). My positive outlook says that if we subtract rotting pumpkin and stale pee from the mix, we should be able to tell by tomorrow.