Maya Angelou writing, lying on the carpet, a stack of cards dealt out.

Speaking, Writing

Judy Carter's blog

Appearing on NPR

6 days to giving a ted talk or any inspiring presentation

Safety and Design

In Because I said so, author Ken Jennings writes about 'never play around refrigerators'. It takes us back to the time when refrigerators had a mechanical latch. Now they have magnetic door seal. Thanks GE.
Its always a terror when kids go to the back of the refrigerator where they are placed in the open nstead of the corners that are specially located for the appliances in the US. The way, the stove,oven, fridge and all are attached, you would think the kitchen was born with them.
 Refrigeration safety act

What passed down?

10 pieces of wisdom from Because I said So

Some more myths and their truth

Remember the movie Running with Scissors? I never saw it. I didnt know that never run with scissors is an expression. A warning. An admonition.

I remember a friend telling me of an incident where heir son was bleeding an the father held the baby's head back. Ken Jennings, the author of because I said so says not to lean the head back when the nose is bleeding, as it wont stop the bleeding and will force the blood to take other paths like throat or esophagus.

Puzzles and creativity

The cover of the book Imagine has paper quilling.

Benefits of travel

The book has stories of mask tape, barbie, 3M products invention.

Flip Flap fun

Fish Follies (Flip Flap Fun Book)

The page is divided into boxes of flaps. Its fun even for adults to open the flap and compare the top and underneath the flap to reveal an event, a story. It works as find the differences as well as providing a dynamic into the picture with an event happening instead of just the missing or addition of a person or object.

A book with word diarrhea

The book is colourful. You can easily get lost in the details of a Moose's house - A toy bear lying on wheels. The story beats around the bush for a long time. But the things  going for this book are the illustrations - if this is your first time into a Moose's house, you will wander in the house, the text is placed on a table cloth hang on one page. Thats good use of space.

While reading the book, I realised why the pediatrecian has it in her office. It has a doctor in it, where the moose's mother calls in. Knowing the author is an MD, it all falls in place, why the informational - what is diarrhea translate into a captivating story.

Conciseness is Walt disney's cinderella book with about half a dozen pages.

Grandma and her pet

Looking at the pictures, you cant but notice grandma's colourful clothes and her colourful character. The grandchild's voice is prominent even with just his shoes showing beneath a curtain when they play hide and seek.Grandma appreciates the grandchild's baking skills even if the muffins turn out hard even for a hammer. This is shown in a thought bubble. 

Grandma's pet bird too takes part in the chaos.

daily connoisseur

New research into babies and their comprehension of intention

What others are reading

A friend showed me the book she was reading for her book club. Waiting by Ha Jin.

She said China, divorce and I was reminded of an article on divorce and tax in China. When I told her of this, she said that the tax process is straight-forward and independent of dependents.

Show me your diary

Excerpt

Tyvek mask

Attaboy
Rubbish

In Day in Day out, Sedaris shows how sometimes it is better to keep the  I out of shinelight. He maintained a diary apart from the one that he was required to show in the class. In a nonfiction class, our professor asked to see the journal we maintained.

The building business

subcontractor

Musings

Buddhist mob is such an anti-thesis as a word. Why do we put so much pressure on a religion to deliver peas(sic). And how can certain religions be targeted as fundamentalists when cultures and societies following a religion are alive. If its not sustainable, they would collapse. The intermingling of cultures will decide the survivor.

Events that happen in a life are like the landscape. if you were in a desert, it would be difficult to travel on the sea of sand with a mono landscape.  This 'sea of sand' reminded me that we learnt of camels as ships of the desert. again you dont want the ever shifting sanddunes, then navigation and GPS is hurt. So welcome sadness and happiness.

Keys to french parenting

Connecting sleep cycles

How to teach kids to wait

salmon creole
tomato coulis

Bringing up baby - old movie

Rhyming title

Ms Lagrange is strange

Today I talked to a kid about a book she was reading. She didnt know what its about. 

Salt and pepper shaker

Chyron

Stephen Lloyd Webber

Eddie says breathe backwards to taste the wine.

Eddie Osterland

Greeting card

A Hallmark greeting card with 3D daffodil and stem wound in green.

A letter says
what you would
otherwise
say in person
when you meet

Writers in debt

 Elegy Owed by Bob Hicok

In Pilgrimage, the poet says
" I put birds
in mos poems and rivers, put rivers
in most birds and thinking, put the dead
in many sentences..."

Yesterday lunch time, I saw a not so humpty dumpty egg fallen on the tar, broken a bit. There was something inside. I went in to get a paper to lift it onto. My husband looked at it and concluded that the little  bird inside was dead.

In 'Soundscape', the poet asks
".. wondered why we call it
playing catch and not playing throw"
I think I know the answer for this one. I was teaching my kid to play ball. In the rhythm of throwing and catching it was hard to tell whose action I was shouting out, mine or hers. my throw is for her to catch. It is easier for kids to catch, than throw at first. From the kids point of view, its always a catch game. And if they miss, like one kid put it, you missed (you missed throwing the ball in such a way that it could be caught).

In 'One of those things we say', the poet says
"breathe and throw a party for the house when the mortgage
has lost its teeth."
What a time to look forward to.

In The Missing,
" a different girl with her own
missing eyes, her own beetle
in her mouth. ..."
With 'her own', spilling from the previous line, the poem gets surreal, presents a world to each person, living and dead, a world just and unjust.

In 'Elegy to unnamed sources'
"I've tasted your ashes twice, once today,
once tomorrow"
Visceral.

The abundance of baskin robbins scoop incites austerity.
In 'Very small bible' Jesus with amnesia walks around the dead.
The order of things is a nice swap poem.

Hyacinth cookie in Speaking American

Exercise: In Sunny, infinte chance of rain, the poet uses the happy dancing couple on wedding cake as the stage for the  real life events. Poignant. Look if any of your situations can use metaphors to better reflect the happening.

Cards fixed to spokes in Moving day. Enhanced bicycle. The only decorations that I can think of bicycles in India - beads on spokes, pom poms. Watch the sound made by clipped cards on bicycles on youtube.

I thought Making it in poetry would be like How to succeed in Po Biz.

Writing

Reading to write

Seize the moment

Bright Glass

I saw the sun
in the building
at
the neighbor's
stopped for tea break
at sunset
the shine through their
kitchen
window


While getting into the car, I noticed the neighbors window was aflame.
At Chandler Library, there was a board for National poetry month. Just the opportunity to  put the moment into words. Only while writing it down did I anthopomorphize the sun.
And windows are so different. Here its glassed. In India its wooden.

Crossing designs

The math of a sunshade folding down.





What happens when you cross a sunshade with a goal net. You get goalee.
You might have seen how the sun shades fold into a small circle. Thats nothing compared to how the goalee folds up. Its portable, light, easy to setup. It comes with its bag that can be worn on the side. Easy to transport. And when its not in use, it stashed away carefully.

Turnabout night

A colleague told me of the Night at the zoo that his child's school had. I was thinking of the animals in their habitat and if it had to be a turnabout night to make it fun for the animals too.

Animal pyramid

Lizards could reduce Lyme disease. Recently a friend told me about an observation she made after 5 years of how her cat kept the scorpions at bay. When I brought this up with another scorpion infested house owner, he said that lizards helped in reducing scorpions.
Cats and Scorpions
Lizards and scorpions

Inspiring workspaces of the famously creative

Thats Font Creatica

When the book  Sark's new Creative Companion said that you could read lying down as it was written that way. Close to sleeping, I was doing just that.

Retaining the creativity you are born with

As part of Tina Seelig's Crash course to creativity, I read few articles on ecorner. In the lecture, Tom kelley says that the youngest grade students called themselves artists. 

Torrance test of creative thinking

According to the book, ask your kid of what all things remind them of red, for unusual answers to pick up on their creativity.

The author suggests making a mural on a blackboard around a subject which can then be used as background for roleplay.

Some of the things the author suggests:
Making baby obstacle course for a story
Making finger puppets - crafts
Baby bag with surprises

opposites cards
body chart
Touch and guess game - Once at SanTan Mountain center, a mom encouraged her kid to feel something in a cardboard box. It was fur.
Weather wheel