New blog: Check it out!

I have posted new photos on my other blog at www.aarp.org/community/renrae

That blog contains my birding journals. I am currently taking two weekly bird walks at either Havenswood State Forest, in Milwaukee, WI or at Kletsch Park along the Milwaukee River in Glendale. This is the first year that I have followed the spring migration weekly. It is interesting to note the chronology of bird arrivals.

My husband's photo of Iguasu Falls in Argentina (above) got bookmarked by the communityhost of AARP blog site.

Among my world wide travel photos at that site, the elephant photo got the most hits, nearly twice as many as any of the other photos in that album. I wonder why! I have a whole series of elephant photos leading up to this one. Perhaps I should locate the whole series on the aarp site. Check it out and let me know if you want to see more of these anatomically correct photos. Interestingly, our guide told us that these two elephants were both males, because they were in a herd of young males, traveling together. Females and their offspring are in other herds and a male and female only is together long enough to mate. This photo raises a question about that or else young male elephants are like dolphins and humans.

The farmer and the Jew story.

     I am a frustrated writer. That means for years I have scribbled all sorts of thoughts, dialogues, smidgins of plots, and fictional scenes. I have a large trunk full of these scribblings. I have even come up with a title for my dreamed of book -- "Jewish Stories by a Schikza." I am a schikza and I certainly have the stories from my 43 years of marriage to an Israeli sabra. I have been working on this book to some degree lately. The following story which, I think, shall appear in the book,  is true and speaks to the stereotypical thinking that would provide the background and guts of my "Schikza" book.
     Click on Read More below to read one of the stories from my future book.

Havenwood: Nature Notes: Patterns

Here's a site I found which shows a wonderful view of nature. There's a nice poem on it right now, and some great photos. Posted by an Indiana couple, I think written by the wife, after moving to a farm and therefore really appreciating nature.
Havenwood: Nature Notes: Patterns

Also, VERY IMPORTANT! I have established another blog. I seem to have been overcome by this blogosphere thing. What happened was -- I got on the AARP site and discovered that I can put a blog on that site for free. I have decided to make that site my Birdwatching journal and also a photo album of some of our travel shots and eventually some of my hubby's shots of birds of the world. Here is the new site:

http://www.aarp.org/community/renrae

Did you ever google yourself or your family members?

I am not talking about tickling your little grandson to make him giggle, or goosing your great aunt to make her scream or any other physical handling of another person. I am talking about entering a personal name into google and running a search on that name.

Purchasing another home

     The last 10 days have been an emotional roller coaster.

    

Ice Hockey!!!

     Wow. In the third period of the US vs Canada Gold Medal game of the Olympics, the US just pulled the goalee and managed to score a tying goal in the last 24 seconds. How often does that happen?  I white knuckled the whole game, cheered from my comfortable seat beside the TV, watched that puck with wide open tense eyes. I thought, now, Wow, whoever loses now, it will be so very painful. And indeed, it was very painful. Canada scored and won in sudden death overtime. But I do think Canada was the slightly better team and it showed. Anyway, what a game!

     It recalls my former love of hockey years and years ago. When I came to Madison, WI to medical school, I met my husband to be. He was an Israeli sabra but in spite of that he learned to like Wisconsin ice hockey. As a medical student I didn't have too much time for dates. Mostly we just got together to somehow spend time together. But one of the rare dates was when we went to a hockey game. At that time the Wisconsin games were played in an unheated corrugated steel shed with a few bleachers along the edge of the ice. But I found that I loved the game. There is no spectator sport that is so very very fast. And at that time, the TV technology was such that you couldn't watch a game on TV. The camera lost the puck repeatedly. So you had to be there at the site. As my medical school years wore on, Wisconsin began playing hockey games at the Dane County Coliseum. But there were still very small crowds in that larger venue. After I graduated from medical school after we moved to Milwaukee, we tried to see some Wisconsin hockey in Milwaukee. There was an annual Invitational Tournament held in Milwaukee on the Arena ice. We got tickets for that tournament in the first few years. But slowly without the college connection, we stopped seeing hockey. So this game recalled my love for the sport. I don't think there is any sport that so produces tense emotions in the spectator. It is a great game!

     So ends the Olympics. I have spent so much time watching all the events that I have not even taken time to keep this blog going. But like all exciting and good things, it must come to an end. Back to our regular life.

An Unusual Experience:

    
This last week I had an unusual experience. Let me tell you about it: