ANNUAL

Happy New Year's Eve.

This is Lloyd's and my wedding anniversary. We had what you might call a whirlwind courtship. When he was pointed out to me by a mutual acquaintance, a voice in my head said, "You're going to marry that man." So, when he proposed to me—not eight hours later—I said yes. That was just before Christmas, and our wedding was barely two weeks later on New Year's Eve.

We've been married forty-two years now. We have raised two only children: our daughter was born nearly fourteen years after our son. Both of us are cancer survivors. Both of us have been able to find work when we needed it, and Lloyd was able to retire in 1996 at the age of 66. God has been good to us.

Sometimes people ask how we have been able to stay married so long. A determination to work things out between us is a key. Humor is another. If either of us were incapable of laughing at ourselves and the situations in which we have been, this marriage would have been on the rocks many times. Another point in our favor was that both sets of parents showed us in many ways that they loved and respected our choice of partner. (I always said that were I to run away from home, I would run to his mom as mine would just send me back.) We stayed away from those relatives who disparaged our relationship.

When we were first married, Lloyd worked for an aircraft field service team that contracted to repair, replace and retrofit airplane parts. His job has taken us from border to border, coast to coast and even to Puerto Rico. We have seen so many wonderful places and met many wonderful people.

We settled in Wichita in part because of the job market here, and also because Tim had attended eight different schools in two years. It was time to settle in one place. Even after we established our home here, we have been able to travel to see relatives and to just see the country. And we have been able to continue the courtship long after the wedding.

Our word of the day for December 31, 2008 is "annual" — Pronunciation: \'an-yə(-wə)l, -yü-əl\
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French & Late Latin; Anglo-French annuel, from Late Latin annualis, blend of Latin annuus yearly (from annus year) and Latin annalis yearly (from annus year); probably akin to Gothic athnam (dative plural) years, Sanskrit atati he walks, goes
Date: 14th century
1 : covering the period of a year [annual rainfall]. 2 : occurring or happening every year or once a year : yearly [an annual reunion]. 3 : completing the life cycle in one growing season or single year [annual plants].

Our quote for the day is from Wallace Stevens (1879–1955), U.S. poet. Journal entry, March 4, 1906. Souvenirs and Prophecies: the Young Wallace Stevens, ch. 8, ed. Holly Stevens (1977):

Poor, dear, silly Spring, preparing her annual surprise!

:^)

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BIBLIOPHILE

My sister invited me to join LibraryThing the other day. This is a site to inventory your library, or just list all the books you've read. There are chat rooms and billboards and that sort of socialization for librarians and others who work with or just plain love books and reading.

One of the easier ways to enter data for LibraryThing is something called a Cuecat, aka a barcode reader. Way back in the mid-ninties, Radio Shack was handing out these clever little critters (they are shaped like a stylized cat) left, right and center. The idea was that you could read the barcode on a product and get information above and beyond what was on the lable. Well, I never was able to find anything that had info out on the web. I really think the reason for their existence was to allow advertisers to develop a database of people who bought whatever objects and target them for further advertising. They are a lot more subtle about collecting their data now.

Anyway, I thought, that's just the ticket. I don't want to have to type in a kazillionty-three ISBN numbers (which is what the barcodes translate to) to populate my portion of the site. So, I did an exhaustive search, mostly moving piles of books and computer literature into other piles, until I found my Cuecat. Calloo, Callay, O frabjous day! HOWEVER, my Cuecat is ancient in technological terms: not a USB device. Either I find a converter, or I'll have to bite the bullet and acquire a new one. Maybe there will be more on this.

The word of the day for December 29, 2008 is "bibliophile" — Pronunciation: \ˈbi-blē-ə-ˌfī(-ə)l\
Function: noun
Etymology: French, from bibli- + -phile
Date: 1824
: a lover of books especially for qualities of format ; also : a book collector.

Our quote for today is from Pablo Neruda (1904–1973), Chilean poet. Memoirs, ch. 11 (1974, trans. 1977):

A bibliophile of little means is likely to suffer often. Books don’t slip from his hands but fly past him through the air, high as birds, high as prices.

;^)

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METEOROLOGY

It is amazing. Yesterday we had a cloudy, but warm, day. It was 54F. at 8:00am and 65F. at 8:00pm. This morning it is only 30F. with a projected high of 35F. and a winter storm advisory. Time to batten the hatches, I think. I do need to run out for a prescription refill, which I will do as soon as I finish this and put the kitchen dishes in the sink.

This sort of weather is typical of South Central Kansas: balmy one day, frigid the next and warm again a couple of days later. We don't normally get much snow, but ICE...

I use the word typical advisedly. When we moved to Kansas 35 years ago, people who mentioned the weather always would say, no matter what the weather was: "But that's not normal for this time of year." People are still saying this; ergo, there is no normal weather in SCKansas.

One meteorological phenomenon that is constant is the wind. Indeed, Kansas is named for a Native American tribe whose collective name translates as "People of the South Wind." I sometimes joke that there are only three days a year without at least a 10mph wind, and those days we get our own smog instead of Oklahoma City's.

The word of the day for December 27, 2008 is "meteorology" — Pronunciation: \ˌmē-tē-ə-ˈrä-lə-jē\
Function: noun
Etymology: French or Greek; French météorologie, from Middle French, from Greek meteōrologia, from meteōron + -logia -logy
Date: 1620
1 : a science that deals with the atmosphere and its phenomena and especially with weather and weather forecasting. 2 : the atmospheric phenomena and weather of a region.

Our quote for the day is from Adrienne Rich (b. 1929), U.S. poet. "Storm Warnings" (l. 12–14). Norton Introduction to Poetry, The. J. Paul Hunter, ed. (3d ed., 1986) W. W. Norton & Company:

Weather abroad
and weather in the heart alike come on
Regardless of prediction.

;^)

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