It's been three weeks since I began the Great Blog Experiment of 2010... And now I need a vacation. My thanks to my reading public -- those I invited into my daily life and thoughts -- all eight of you! Your comments and your presence have made me smile. When I resurface on the web, I shall let you know. My wish for all of us: safe travels and bold adventures!

On the agenda today: getting together with the gals who I made pals with from my internship site. We're going to write notecards to some folks from the church who don't get out much (no, not me) or who we think would like a cheerful surprise in their mailbox. I'm supplying the cards and the Valentine stickers.  

My cache of writing paper is noteworthy -- in its extent. I used to write a letter every day, more or less, during undergraduate school and twenty years beyond. I stopped around the turn of the century. Things took a turn... Maybe I ran out of things to say. But I didn't stop acquiring stationery, so I am glad to share the wealth for this endeavor.

When I set this up, I didn't realize it would be SuperBowl Sunday. I was going to watch, albeit not that intensely. Just needed an excuse to graze on snacks. 

My fractal plan went ka-floo-y. (It's a technical term.) I got to the museum in plenty of time, ready to get my ticket for the show, whereupon I found out that the show was already sold out. The 6 o'clock show, the 7 o'clock show, and the 8 o'clock show. What kind of a nerdy town is this? A throng gets advanced tickets to the planetarium, a $10 ticket for a 45 minute presentation on advanced mathematics...? On a Friday night!? Date night for the pocket-protector crowd? 

So I'll do some advanced planning of my own for the next First Friday Fractal night in March. I'll use my gigantic brain to buy a ticket early.

Looks like Saturday is about over. I was scheduled to pick up a friend at 11:30 this morning to go to a birthday party for the father (turning 88) of another friend. I woke up at 11 am. Seems like I've been behind ever since. At least we beat the father to the party, who was moving slower than me.

I love HBO. Been a fan now for a year and a half. I don't know how I've lived so long (sooooo long) without it. Last night I watched a new documentary put together by Rosie O'Donnell called A FAMILY IS A FAMILY IS A FAMILY. It consists of short interviews with young children about their take on what "family" means. The kids were cute, and very savvy. Of course, families run the gamut of possibilities -- inter-racial parents, single parents, moms and grandmothers, two moms, two dads, etc. Several kids spoke gleefully about being adopted. A girl at the end summed it up nicely, that your family is who tucks you in at night.

The show had great music, too. One song was about a girl who celebrates being an only child. She's never lonely because her parents play with her, and the uncles and aunts and cousins and grandparents come over to visit. Another eye-opening song was the girl who ponders what to do for her science project and then decides it should be about her -- she loves the fact that she was conceived in a laboratory dish. O the times, they are a-changin', eh? It was a fun show.

And the fun continues today as I ponder science up close and personal. (Not so personal as to create a new person -- pleeease!) I'm heading over to the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, my first visit. It's around the corner from the art museum which is a favorite hang out of mine. They've got a special presentation on fractals going on that want to see, being the detail oriented person that I am. [A fractal is "a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is (approximately) a reduced-size copy of the whole," a property called self-similarity. -- Thank you, Wikipedia.]

Doing laundry. Watching TV. What a life, eh? I just learned, via the History International channel, that the mummified dead of the Incas got dressed up in jewels and fine clothes, and went to lavish parties with other mummies. (Now that's the life... or death?) They accomplished this by means of a devoted class of attendants, who also carried them through the streets on parade, and carried them into battle. They owned all the best land and the best stuff, and were catered to day and night. These "Royal Dead" sounded more like the Royal Pain.

On the other had (and isn't there always the other hand, mummified or not), these so-called devoted attendants got to eat and drink the food and beer that was set before the Royal Dead. Got to live in their palaces. Got to look spiffy in parades. Ok, there was the occasional battle. Nevertheless looking after the dead was a cushy life. They got to "speak" for the worshiped Royal Dead, making deals with the living. They became devoted to their greed. Thus the Inca empire unraveled. True, there were other factors like the Spaniards and their small pox.

The moral of the story: When one group decides to be the spokespeople for another group whose voices aren't as loud (yes, I know, in this case they were dead -- but I'm making a point here), exploitation follows. And centuries later it becomes an expose on TV for viewers who wonder during the commercials if their whites will come out bright. Deep thinking on a Thursday.

The first Wednesday of the month is free admission day at the Albuquerque Museum of Art and History. But it also turned out to be a snowy/cloudy/cold day. So I stayed home. Let's see, I could be arty all on my own... and I guess I am, here in my creative blogworld. That's not to say I don't have buckets of arts-n-crafts material (stuff) lying around the apartment. If it really were in buckets, I'd be way ahead of things.

Sometimes for a lark I watch a show called "Hoarders". Or maybe it's for shock therapy. Boy O boy, them those people really have problems. The fact that there is no place free of debris to sit down in my casually kept home should give me a clue to my own hoarding tendencies. On the other hand, I don't understand people who don't bring their own chairs with them, wherever they go. I mean, really. How short-sighted of them.

Tuesday. Casino Day. Ate discount buffet. Won some. Lost some. Lost as much as won. Coming out even I claim as a victory.

Had technical problems with the blog tonight. I blame Comcast. This after watching Frontline on PBS this evening about the cutting edge internet world. Study done at MIT on their students, how the kind of multitasking used in emailing, googling, gaming, etc. makes overall performance sluggish and disjointed. How on an exam over material that could have been processed by minimal attention in class and on the reading assignment resulted in a grades of 75. This from the best and the brightest at MIT as they sit in classes with their laptops.

Commentators did say that there were plenty of nay-sayers when we went from letters to telephones. With every tech advancement we lose something and we gain something. Hmm, maybe life is a Casino after all.

The sunshine is beckoning me out of the apartment. Destination unknown. The food in my fridge is boring so I see a restaurant in my future... And I'll take a library book along for company. Not the one about crows. I'm into a novel set in a small town outside of Santa Fe: two sisters, one an artist who paints for a small greeting card company; the other an actress whose Hollywood experience has been small time roles. 

Hmm, "small" seems to be the word on parade here, but the book is rather lengthy and I am only a small way into it. And the library would like it back today. Small chance of that happening. In gloriously sunny ABQ, the public library has no late fee. O Happy Day.

It's so late in the day, it's almost tomorrow! I guess the bloom is off the blog, but I will try to add a little something every day.

I just watched the latest episode of HBO's "Big Love". I've been following the ups and downs of this polygamist family for over a year. Who knew that three wives and one husband could be so entertaining. A prime-time soap opera, the main characters are good-natured, and the show puts a love-centered spin on multiple marriages. But, of course, there are complications. Like one to one relationships aren't complicated enough! 

It's late in the day for me to be posting, but I suppose I can make up my own blog rules as I go along. My breakfast movie turned into a lunch movie -- not the same movie, but a variation on a theme, as it turned out. Both movies I had seen before, and enjoyed enough for another viewing. First there was "Sense and Sensibility". Any period movie with Emma Thompson is worth seeing again. Or any movie, period? The internet site I just checked says she was the one who turned Jane Austen's novel into a screenplay. Must have had my eyes on my oatmeal during that part of the credits. 

Later came another English countryside drama, "Gosford Park". This one has Helen Mirren in it, another classy actress whose movies captivate. It's set about 100 years after "Sense" but remarkable are the similarities in how they portray the upper-class / lower-class dynamics. The often idle rich stew about keeping their money and position, because heaven forbid they should tumble and become one of the background people. At least the main family in "Sense" is amiable, not haughty -- maybe because they do get a taste of an economic tumble.

Both movies speak to the powerlessness of women in either century. Louder still is the book "Sense and Sensibility" itself, published in 1811. It was Austen's first published novel, which she wrote under the pseudonym "A Lady". Shocking it was for women to be writing books! And yet both movies, though focusing on women with limited choices, show ladies living as dynamically as they can within their prescribed worlds. Yeah, ok, they're both chick flicks.

Her ladyship Sandie of Bloggingdom currently seeks a nap. A dynamic nap.

Here's a recipe for a hard-to-fall-asleep night. Watched "Mega-Disasters" on the History International channel, the episode on Ice Ages past and future. The so-called Little Ice Age lasted from the late 1300's till 1900. This is little? It was instrumental in the devastation caused by the plague, favoring the creatures who could breed quickly -- and I say "Rats!" to that. Fast forward to New York at the end of the 19th century, when people could walk from Long Island to Staten Island. Well, maybe they skated.

An earlier Ice Age may have played a role in the demise of the Mayan civilization. Which doesn't make any sense to me -- they had hot chocolate to drink. Actually their part of the world had a long lasting drought, the flip side of glacier advancement in the northern hemisphere. Next came scenes of projected calamity, global warming leading to global cooling. In my corner of the globe, that plus multiple bowls of ice cream lead to body cooling. And blanket huddling. And a propensity toward penguin graphics.

Today it is really, really snowing. Really. And this kind of reality I can fully appreciate indoors. I shall make soup. I shall make merry. But I can't make hay because the sun is not shining. That's ok -- don't have much of a hankering for hay anyway.

Watching the President's State of the Union address last night was interesting. The audience stood up and sat down, stood up and sat down... like it was a Lutheran church service. Except for the clapping. Of course, the standing/clapping part came mostly from the democrat side. The left side (go figure) as one looks at the podium. 

I believe the republican side did do more standing and clapping than at previous State of the Unions, though. The President did some careful crafting of phrases. You can't help but stand up for "jobs", the tenacity of the American people, America leading the global market, etc. Well, I didn't stand up, but you get the idea. 

Came home from the casino with money, more than what I started with. Still a little behind for the month of January. (I'd be lucky if I had a little behind, but I digress...)

This morning I lounged in bed and read more of my current library find (soon to be overdue, like all the books I check out), Crow Planet: Essential Wisdom from the Urban Wilderness by Lyanda Lynn Haupt (2009). It's full of, well, wisdom. She quotes Louis Pasteur who said "chance favors the prepared mind" -- applying it to the benefits of studying the wealth of written resources about a particular subject you are trying to observe in the wild. The more you read up on crows, the more crows you will see, for example. The more you will see them do interesting things. She cites researchers who state that crow intelligence ranks right up there with that of primates.

So, how can I prepare my mind for favoring my chances at the casino? This is a question that not even Pasteur may have hit upon. A question that may rank my intelligence below crow.

Recently I saw my first tumbleweed of 2010. Not sure if that's a sign of an early spring, like a robin in other parts of the county. 

Speaking of robin -- make that robbin', as in "I've been robbed" -- today is Casino Day. Tuesdays the buffet is half price ($5, including a beverage) for the elite Gold Card members. Such as I... 

My destination, Sandia Casino, has tasteful decor, a maneuverable layout, and new penguin theme slots that are my current favorites. We shall see if all I get to take home is a cold fish. Holy Mackerel!

It is 20-something degrees this morning. And I am going out? A question for myself. I did -- and do -- have a plan to take a sandwich over to the church office (internship site) and eat lunch with my friend the secretary. Monday is Pastor's day off so... The coast is clear? (Another question?) The sun is shining. That seems to counteract temperatures that ordinarily would keep me indoors. 

Yesterday's free slideshow/lecture cost me $42.50. I bought the book. Well, it was at a bookstore that I like, independently owned, and the lecturer, a PhD guy from the University of New Mexico, was a character who had things to say that caught my imagination. Structured settlements in the Southwest as early as 1250 BCE. I want to feel rooted in my new world of New Mexico, and these are some pretty ancient roots.

Let's revisit yesterday. By the time I left my apartment, 11:30 am, the snow had disappeared. All except for that which fell on the Sandia Mountains. And I'm all for snow on the mountains.

My friend with the soup has an interest in all things outdoors. She and her mule are frequent visitors to Sandia. Her new wrinkle is getting Tilly the mule to pull a cart, which involves a special harness -- a new purchase that requires a lot of my friend's time. The leather needs vigorous treatment with saddle soap and beeswax before it can be used effectively. 

So after soup she got out the soap. Rubbing and rubbing, she explained that the leather soaks up the suds, no rinsing involved. The moisture is absorbed making the leather more pliable and supple. It's followed by a coat of beeswax. The process is repeated again and again to make the harness comfortable to wear. That harness is heavy -- it can at least be comfortable. Besides, the metal parts (the rings and such) don't line up well unless the leather strapping is softly bendable.

It sounds like life to me, and the process of learning. New experiences and knowledge gets rubbed into our minds and we absorb and become more pliable. More supple. Subtle changes. I am going to a slide show lecture at a book store this afternoon about the ancient history of the Southwest... beeswax for the brain.

Day whatever. There's snow outside. Not the Dubuque kind of snow, the kind that starts falling on Thanksgiving and the very same snow is still there on Easter, under lots of other snow. I am going to be brave and get out of my apartment, into my car, and go over to a friend's house for lunch. She's got a pot of soup on the stove. I have a box of snack crackers and a package of cookies which I discovered last night -- both bought for the Christmas holidays and both put in a place that I had been overlooking. And, as of last night, both gotten into because, let's face it, the season of snacking never really ends.

Day 4. My political savvy only slightly exceeds my technological savvy, mainly because I tune into MSNBC on occasion. Weeks ago I heard Keith Olbermann's (his show Countdown comes on in the evenings) impassioned plea about health care reform, and I was moved. Last night he treated his audience to a foretaste of democracy's demise due to the Supreme Court's new ruling about corporations funding political campaigns. And I was depressed.  

Afterwards I watched Nova on PBS about the Sphinx. In spite of over 4000 years worth of sand blasted erosion, with many features worn away, it still persists. Not by magic, coincidence, or by the undoubted prowess of its creators. Subsequent civilizations saw the value of it and sought its preservation. After a thousand years of neglect, a king in Egypt's 18th dynasty revamped it. Later Greeks and Romans added stone blocks to negate the crumbling effects of time. The work goes on.

So to lull my throbbing head to sleep, I consoled myself with the thought that life continues. Our way of life may change (it always does anyway, doesn't it?). Likewise our form of government. Maybe the torch (or flicker) of democracy will be carried into the future by even-tempered Scandinavians. Back home in America, attempts to shore up a crumbling democracy will be made. The result will be something different than what it used to be. But it still may be something special to see. 

Day 3. Weather: cloudy. Breakfast: oatmeal. I'm off to a great start, eh? The day is full of possibilities. Such as... Lunch: ?

I learned something interesting last night from a show on PBS. Educational television, indeed. This was the last of the three part series titled "The Human Spark", hosted by Alan Alda. One of the experts used the term elsewhen, a play off of the word elsewhere. 

Consider those so-called idle moments we experience when doing mundane things, like driving (not in heavy traffic, let's hope) or mowing the lawn (can't say for sure but it doesn't look like a mental strain). When you think your mind is a blank, that is when brain studies show it is in its most active state. We engage in time travel, placing ourselves in situations past or future or in some other reference than where we are at the moment. We are being active in our heads. We are elsewhen. 

My conclusion to the prevailing question "What are you doing out there in Albuquerque, Sandie?" is that I have been very busy while misleadingly appearing idle. 

Day 2 of new adventure. Still navigating (fiddling with) the ins and outs of blogspot. Once I figure out how to use my digital camera -- once I find my digital camera -- I shall be uploading photographic evidence of my life in the Land of Enchantment. Meanwhile I am playing with free web images.

Welcome, Sandie Fans, to my new experimental blog. I really don't know what I am doing -- and that can be taken on so many levels...

I do know that I am wanting my voice to be heard, or my text to be read. This is a prototype of things to come. Here is my first venue onto a world-wide stage with my creativity in the spotlight, as well as my out-of-the-loop computer skills.

If you have received an email notice of this new blog, how lucky are you! You must be one of the handful (yes, I can count them on one hand) who might be interested in my musings.

I think Rule Number 1 of effective blogging is: keep it short. So ends today's installment.