The Green Bag

We had special guest speakers for both the Ignited and adult services at church last Wednesday night: former University of Michigan Defensive Tackle Shawn Lazarus and former Ohio State University Defensive Tackle Joel Penton. In the spirit of college football rivalry, we were encouraged to wear the colors of our favorite teams. Not being a big sports fan, my choices were limited to Detroit Red Wings or my Orrville Football shirt from when we all came to see Tom's game against Wooster.

I’ve decided I want to record the fun I’ve had this evening for posterity, for whatever that’s worth, so it’s blog time again.

First, of course, I have to set up the scene.

I just saw the biggest woodpecker I've ever seen in my life! There are numerous woodpeckers of various kinds in Central Florida, but most of them are about the size of a robin or similar bird. I was out on the screened porch, talking on the cordless phone, and this bird landed on one of the trees and my mouth dropped open. The dude has bright red plummage with a mottled black body and must measure at least 18 inches from bill to the end of his tail. Holy cow! The people up north must be laying out huge amounts of wild bird feed or something.

The most amazing and spirit-lifting thing happened to me yesterday.

When Micah and Teri were making their plans to visit, they had told me that one day while they were here, they wanted to go to Daytona Beach for one day, because Marissa had asked for that for her birthday (two weeks from today). With the weather being so iffy early in the week, they decided that they’d do their six days at Disney, giving Hurricane Ike time to make up its mind about where it was going to go (those poor people in Texas).

I spotted one cardinal fledgling this morning. Have been seeing a pair for the past three or four weeks - annual visitors for the past few years. Well, I really haven't the faintest idea if it's the same pair. This year the male has been extremely flamboyant and active.

When visiting Rebecca's family in February, Hallie "made" me (which I am so GLAD she did!) watch a BBC television show called "The Simple Life". We watched two episodes and I really enjoyed them. Upon returning home, I checked into our local library to see if they had it on their shelves. Sadly, they do not, though I haven't looked into borrowing from another library, nor have I let them know that if they got them for the library, I would certainly check them out. They take suggestions all the time, apparently, so I need to simply turn in the form!

With all of the recent posting of retro catalogs and other novel items from the 1970's, [url=http://www.pointlessmuseum.com/museum/usbornebookofthefutureindex.php]The Usborn Book of the Future[/url] really jumped out at me when it showed up on my newsfeeds late last month. First published in 1979, this book offered "A trip in time to the year 2000 and beyond. See the robots, machines and cities of the future, and then travel to the stars."

I’ve debated since this afternoon about the addressees for an email I want to write, and have finally decided to make this a blog entry, instead. I will be asking Micah, Mandy, and Daisy to read it, but I’d like my sisters to read it, too – and Sheri, because it might be particularly relevant to her at some point. Then I realized Tiff might find some value in it because of her brother. And Beth has expressed wanting to learn about health in the family, to help protect her children.

Every Four Years, It’s Embarrassing to Live in Florida

Honestly, I don’t know what’s wrong with this state. Or maybe it isn’t just Florida – maybe it’s just Florida issues that I read about in the Orlando Sentinel. But, if I remember correctly, the whole “chad” business was reported nationally in 2004, when it held up Bush from assuming the victory in the Presidential Elections that year.

By an interesting coincidence, this morning's SF Chronicle had an article on research done by Doty Horn of Benjamin Moore paint company on the most popular colors of the last four decades. I laughed when I saw all the browns that were popular in the 1970s but then a few minutes later I was at my computer browsing the catalog pages that Jenni loaded into her gallery. When I saw that lovely all beige outfit with the blouse with the bow, I decided I wanted to share the article on the most popular colors with you.