Life in an Alpine Desert

Located at the base of the Rocky Mountains, my city's official altitude is just over 6000 ft. (We're MORE than a mile high city!) A lot of people think this means cold weather and heavy snowfall, but that's not the case. Our average annual snowfall is just over 3 feet, average precipitation 17," and average humidity about 50%. With over 300 days of sunshine each year, we are one of the sunniest places in the country--our meteorological classification is "alpine desert."

Even in the middle of winter, during our lowest temperatures, our skies are clear and sunny (unless it's snowing, haha). The sun's intensity at this elevation melts the snow, and fast! The low humidity is terrific--you don't sweat, and it makes the cold and hot much more bearable. You don't need air conditioning in your home, and swamp coolers are a terrifically inexpensive alternative (and they work only in dry climates).

Back in the 1800s, one of the big attractions here was the weather. The low humidity and high altitude was ideal for tuberculosis patients, who came from the east to settle here.

It's March, and we get the majority of our snow in March and April. (No snow yet this month, but it only takes a storm or two.) Regardless, it won't get that cold. In fact, we planted grass seed last week to cover the area that was under the trampoline.


Trees have started budding.


Most people don't drain their sprinklers, and we don't empty out our backyard pond. We had the stream running today.


The winters are warm enough that most plants don't die.


The native cacti get along just fine.


A little too fine, if you ask me. This stuff below is NASTY and quite abundant. The spines will go through your shoes.


Whether it's 20 or 70 degrees, the sky pretty much always looks the same.


The real temp was 65 today. But this was my front porch. (And I'm not complaining!) I fell asleep out in the sun today. Maybe I'm getting old, but it felt great, and I'm out of sync with the time change.


Even the post-sunset was beautiful. That's Venus there, with a plane trail alongside.


I'd never think I'd love living in the desert, but this is pretty perfect here!

Backing up to Sunday

The rain was gone and it was beautiful outside!


New recipe for dinner that turned out pretty good. I adapted something I found on Food Network.

BEEF STROGANOFF

1 lb. top sirloin (cut into 2 inch long and 1/4 inch wide)
3 T. butter
1 small onion, finely chopped
8 oz. mushrooms, thinly sliced
1 c. beef broth
1 t. Dijon or brown mustard
1/2 c. cream or half and half
1/2 c. sour cream
2 T. flour
Salt and pepper
8 ounces medium egg noodles, cooked1 T. butter
2 T. dried parsley
Heat a large non-stick pan over medium high heat and cook meat on all sides. Remove to a bowl. Wipe the pan clean and heat the 3 T. butter. Cook onions and mushrooms together until soft, about 10 minutes.
Lower heat, add flour and cook stirring for a minute. Blend broth, mustard, cream (or half and half) and sour cream together.  Whisk in broth mixture along with any meat juice in the bowl and simmer, without boiling, until sauce thickens, about 5 minutes. Return meat to sauce and heat, without boiling until meat is warmed through. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Toss cooked noodles with 1 T. butter and parsley; top with stroganoff sauce. Serves 4.

* * * *

Robert thought it was pretty good but likes his pieces of meat smaller. I prefer rice instead of noodles. The kids ate it up nicely too.

Holly and I watched The Amazing Race last night. AAARRRRGGGGHHHH. I am SO mad at myself. I "peeked" at an AR spoiler website a few weeks ago, and I KNEW that Rob and Amber would go tonight. WHY do I look at these things??? Of course, I know who wins it too, and I am NOT happy. (Because AR is a popular show, tourists snap photos of the teams, and it's pretty easy to figure out who's left and the general path their traveling takes around the world.) I do this sometimes with book endings, spoiling it for myself. I don't think I'll ever learn . . .

This week's menu

cheeseburgers, wilted lettuce salad, baked beans

BLTs, chips, pasta salad

brats, pasta salad (leftover from the BLTs)

quiche, spinach salad, rolls

spaghetti

Emily's Tortilla Soup (ooh, this looks good!)
OR
French onion soup, salad, bread sticks

YOYO dinner (You're On Your Own)
OR
take out??


On the back burner (as a substitute for something this week, or planning for next week):

cutlets Romano, salad, ??
a main dish to go with Dorothy's Baked Rice with Cheese and Green Chiles
French onion soup, bread, salad
bockwurst, sauerkraut, mashed potatoes, canned fruit
Emily's Greek Soup, Cheese Gougeres (new recipe)

Wacky weekend weather

A big gray cloud hung over the Peak for the entire day, and the sky was grey all day too. It was warm enough, hitting 60, but it seemed cold. After wanting to all day, the sky finally let loose a few hours of light rain this evening. Nice, and I'm not complaining about rain in March!

Trevor had basketball today. The whole team seemed to really gel this time. Robert got in on the action too, as the regular coach was gone, so I volunteered Robert to help the assistant coach. This is the asst. coach's first year with this program, but I have known his wife and kids for several years as they also hs. Holly was mortified by Robert's nonstop shouted encouragements--but the boys all listen well to whoever happens to be frantically yelling, and don't seem to mind!

I made a couple of deliveries of hs materials that people grabbed up, just because I happened to be close to people's houses. For the longest time, it seems that I hold on to most of my stuff, waiting to use it with Trevor. Now that he's getting older, I can begin selling more of it off, and I got $65 today, making me quite happy!

We did usual errands, Sam's Club, library, WalMart, and Holly has a friend spending the night. I'm not looking forward to losing that hour tonight, and I'm trying to finish up The Places in Between so I can begin Climbing Parnassus.

Our favorite Sam's Club pizza was the buffalo chicken, which they discontinued last year. A lot of people must have complained, because it's baaaaccccckkk. And it's goooooooodddd!

Food Network . . . and Latin?

I really like watching most of Food Network. I wish I liked Paula Deen. I WANT to like her--maybe that's why I keep watching her. But I can't stand the way she gets so simpy, trying to be flirty-cute, batting her big, black mascaraed eyes making every attempt to look like a puppy dog. My stomach begins to turn when she takes a taste of something and then shares the spoon with someone else. BLECH!!!!

Lucky for me, Paula was followed tonight by Alton Brown, who managed to talk for a whole half hour about pomegranates. I have loved pomegranates ever since I saw someone trying to eat one in sixth grade. Shortly after that, I tasted my first Shirley Temple--7-Up with grenadine, which is pomegranate syrup.

It wasn't until watching Iron Chef America that I saw the real secret to getting the fruit out--cut the pomegranate in half, holding one cut end in your hand in a deep bowl, and beat on the top with a large soup spoon. It will loosen the seeds and they'll fall into the bowl. It sure beats peeling the pomegranate, it's about ten times faster.

And I learned something new tonight.

pomegranate
grenadine
hand grenade
the country of Grenada

All of these words have the same Latin root, "granatus," meaning "having many grains." "Pomegranate" comes from "pomun" (apple) and "granatus." The hand grenade both resembles a pomegranate and has "grains" of gunpowder. The symbol of Grenada? A pomegranate, of course.

Consider garnet, grain, granite, grenadier . . . all the same origin.

Linguam Latinam amo. I love Latin. It's fascinating to see how our seemingly quirky language evolved and really does make sense.

More photos by Holly

Holly's photography class studies different elements of picture taking each week. She was looking for a natural frame for her picture and snapped this one of Romeo, one of the horses she rides at her lessons. I don't have much contact with the teacher, but he made a point to tell me how much he liked this one.


This past week, the class focused on patterns, and this is the picture that Holly turned in.


And I'm including this one she "caught" of Trevor (who was faking sleep).

Book Review - Shepherding a Child's Heart by Tedd Tripp

I've read this book before and liked it, enough to remember to check it out again. I like reading parenting books in general, and this is a good one. I didn't finish it and wasn't able to renew it this time around, and I almost bought a copy for myself. But then I remembered. I am a parenting book junkie. There are several good ideas, but it's difficult to apply more than one or two different parenting theories, even if they are similarly themed.

My favorite parenting book is Scott Turansky's Say Goodbye to Whining, Complaining, and Bad Attitudes . . . In You and Your Kids, followed closely by Kevin Leman's Making Children Mind Without Losing Yours. The Turansky book focuses on teaching children honor, which can be applied across the board in everything you do. Dr. Leman's book teaches "reality discipline," which dovetails nicely with encouraging honor. (Dr. Leman has a many terrific books, and in addition to being knowledgeable and intelligent, he's entertaining to read.)

I'm in no way dismissing the Tripp book. All three emphasize changing "heart" behavior, which I believe it vital--there's really no point in making a child behave just because they should. I want my kids to WANT to be good, to WANT to treat others honorably.

But I need to stick to my tried and true favorites at this point. It's a long and never-ending process, and I've learned a lot, a lot, a lot too.

No time to post!

Something's gotta give! Besides going through 17? 20? boxes of kids' stuff, I'm going through old kids' books, with more than a box to sell. I've gone through school books and have a box of those to sell (most of which seem to be going to one person, yippee!!). I had Robert take my bookshelf down from the basement staircase, so I've been shifting all of that around too, weeding out more things from my big bookshelves in the basement.

Holly and Trevor ate Ancient American food for lunch (sort of anyway). Somehow *I* ended up stirring the tapioca for 20 mins. while they disappeared. Together we made fry bread, and ate beef jerky, pumpkin seeds, dried blueberries, and strawberries. I told them this would have been a real feast . . .

I made a cake today from scratch. (Why don't I stick with my two tried and true favorites?)

All of my books (I hope) have come in to the library, and I'm feeling overwhelmed with what I have waiting to be read. For now, I'm eagerly waiting to read them all, but soon the panic will set in!

Daylight Savings Time -- are you ready?!

The dates for "Daylight Savings Time" have changed this year, and we'll be changing the clocks four weeks early!

The clocks "spring forward" this weekend. Other signs of spring include:

Mom wanting to be DONE with the school year.
No fires in the fireplace for several days.
Robert planted grass seed last week where the trampoline was.
Watering the lawn!!!! (Did this today!)
Trevor wearing shorts to karate and basketball.
It RAINED today!
Kids playing outside. Without coats.

I'm not truly physically affected by the weather, but all of this makes me feel

Create your own at MyNiceSpace.com

Bible verse

This promise is in the sidebar today. I have a few favorites, but this is one that I'm not familiar with.

Wednesday

It was mild today, with a lot of clouds at sunrise.


The kids did school work as usual, and I took Trevor to his karate class at co-op while Holly stayed home with Robert. The new "thing" for the boys seems to be Attacktix. They run around with their boxes of toys, having battles, trading figures. It's been fun to see Trevor bonding with so many other kids with this as the common interest. They drift from place to place, playground, inside table, hallway floor, and other kids will come in and out to play or watch.
Late in the afternoon, he played football with Robert and his friends.






This menu planning on my blog is working out really well for me. I'm not running off to the store every day at 3:30, trying to figure out what to fix for dinner that night. I'm sticking to it better than I would have thought. In the past three weeks, I've only "deviated" from my menu twice, both times this week. Tonight was manicotti. Walmart is currently selling 32 oz. cartons of ricotta for $1 each (YES!), and I had leftover french bread from the other night.

EASY MANICOTTI

26-30 oz. jar spaghetti sauce
1 clove of garlic, minced
2 c. ricotta cheese
2 c. cottage cheese
2 egg whites
4 T. fresh parsley, chopped or about 1 T. dried
8 oz. box manicotti shells, uncooked (14 shells)
1 c. water

Pour a little spaghetti sauce on the bottom of a 9x13 pan just to coat.

Mix garlic, ricotta and cottage cheeses, egg whites, and parsley in a big ziplock bag. (I prefer freezer bags because they are stronger.) When blended, open bag to remove all air inside and reseal. Cut off 1/4 to 1/3 inch from a bottom corner of the bag. Hold a shell over a plate or waxed paper, and pipe cheese mixture into shell, filling it. Repeat until all shells are filled, and arrange in single layer in baking dish.

Top with remaining spaghetti sauce. Pour water evenly over the top. It'll look watery, but it will be absorbed as the shells cook. Cover with foil and bake at 350 for 50 mins. Remove foil and bake 10 mins. more. Serves 7. Leftovers reheat fine in microwave.

More homeschoolers in the news

Today's article about public universities and homeschoolers, "College application policies easing for homeschoolers."

A day at the zoo!

Today was the perfect day to go to the zoo. It was warm, in the low 60s. It tied in very nicely to the kids' study this week of the Ancient Americas. Well, that seemed like a logical argument at the time . . .

We did school in the morning, ate lunch, and took off. Robert stayed home to wait for the furnace guy. We have three great zoos all within an hour's drive. They are very different from each other, and I chose the cheap one.


Pueblo is generally thought of as the armpit of Colorado, but I don't think that anymore. Every time I've been there, I've been pleasantly surprised by the friendly feeling in general and the nice people. And they have a fabulous little zoo. Built during the Depression, the zoo still retains some of the original architecture. (Check out the building in the background too. Once the aviary, it now houses reptiles.)


It has animals I don't typically think of as "zoo" animals, yet we don't get to see them close up anywhere else either. (And dead on my Thanksgiving table doesn't count.)


This guy was over 6 feet tall. He seemed very friendly, and as Trevor ran up and down the fence, the ostrich would follow him, flapping his wings gently and making soft noises. Really, it didn't seem aggressive at all, and we got such a kick out of him.



Trevor rode the wild dolphin.


Holly and I brought two cameras and took 200 pictures total.


There were three lion cubs, 4 and 5 months old. There was a man camped out with his super duper giant fancy camera with the telephoto lens, and I felt like a dork with my little auto-shoot digital. But I'm happy with the pictures it takes!

It was a perfect two hour visit. We left just in time to beat rush hour traffic, and on the way home, Holly commented that Pikes Peak sure is ugly from this side.


I definitely prefer my view.

Kids' art work

After spending a week learning about Alexander the Great, Holly drew a map showing his travels.


Trevor drew a picture of Alexander and some of his generals, along with Bucephalas.


For a few days, I was allowed a glimmer of hope. Alas, today it was back to drawing Sponge Bob--more affectionately called "Spongey" at my house.

It's all good

I woke up yesterday morning to find that our furnace had stopped working during the night. It was 58 in my house and COLD! Robert figured out that it had something to do with the motor.

Good news: It was going to be a warm day anyway (what if it was one of those 15 degree days?)

This morning, Robert called a furnace guy.

Good news: We had been planning on having our furnace cleaned and serviced anyway, and we'd already received a referral from a friend.

Good news: They could come out today.

Good news: Our furnace is in "great" condition. (This IS good.)

So the furnace guy replaces the motor but the heater still won't kick on.

Good news: It's NOT the $$$ motor, it's just a burnt out motor switch, which will cost us about $200 less.

Whew! I'll have more good news tomorrow morning when I wake up to a warmer house.

Homeschoolers in the news

Here's an interesting recent article from The Harvard Crimson about the acceptance of homeschoolers into Ivy League schools, "In a Class of Their Own."

Incredible scenery in Alaska

I've written about my amazing group of loopy friends, and a lot of us have turned to blogging (with only each other to blame--DOROTHY, lol). There's some I read regularly, but I try to check most of them out weekly or so. Each individual personality shines through, and it's very different than "chatting" with each other on the list.

I've also written that some of us have had the opportunity to meet in person. Dody and I met in Denver at the CHEC conference while she was living in Wyoming. A few years later, she moved to Alaska. Mmm. Nice. I imagine it to be cold. Vast. Isolated. Pretty to visit I'd bet, but I wouldn't want to live there.

But then Dody began blogging.

Everyone's seen pictures of Alaska's stunning beauty. I've looked at it through slightly different eyes, as my mom went to high school in Juneau. My grandmother divorced her husband, packed up her three kids, and traveled by ship from Seattle to Juneau. She'd never been there, she didn't have a job, and Alaska wasn't even a state. But she'd heard for years from my seaman grandfather how beautiful it was, and she went, living there for about 15 years before returning to Seattle.

My mom left as soon as she could. Graduating early at 16, she moved with her older sister to California. ("Fled to a warm place" is what I really think.) But Juneau, and Alaska, hold a special place in my mom's heart. She's been on a cruise or two, and she's returned for a few high school reunions. She still has her flag with 48 stars on it, and surely because of my mom, I've probably read more books about Alaska than most people.

With two AF bases and the Academy in town, I see a lot of Alaska license plates. But I never gave it much thought until another loopy friend of ours shared that, after being stationed in Alaska, she and her husband consider it to be their "home" and can't wait to return permanently once they leave the military. I realized that these Alaska license plates are part of an effort to maintain their Alaska residency. Which means people really might want to live in Alaska.

I still didn't get it until Dody started her blog, click HERE. Do you want to see incredible, personal shots of Alaska? These aren't the sterile, stark, almost generic beauty that we've become used to seeing. This is Alaskan LIFE. You'll never again wonder why, or how, what the attraction really is. Dody, your photos are so unique, so special, and you have really opened my eyes to a bit of Alaskan life. It might be cold, but what a trade off!

This week's menu

pork chops and rice OR stuffing, yellow squash

manicotti, garlic bread, salad, vanilla cake

Beef Stroganoff for Noodles (new recipe)

Emily's Greek Soup, Cheese Gougeres (new recipe)

Sam's Club buffalo chicken pizza

bockwurst, sauerkraut, mashed potatoes, canned fruit

YOYO dinner (You're On Your Own)


On the back burner (as a substitute for something this week, or planning for next week):
Emily's Tortilla Soup (ooh, this looks good!)
cutlets Romano, salad, ??
a main dish to go with Dorothy's Baked Rice with Cheese and Green Chiles
quiche, spinach salad
French onion soup, bread, salad

Whose line is it anyway . . . ?

"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

Erma Bombeck? Bill Cosby? Seinfeld? No, no and no. How about Matthew. As in the Apostle.

I stumbled upon this quote today in an e-mail. I laughed and didn't believe it at first. But it really is from the Gospel of Matthew. 6:34 NIV. Read in context, it's an admonition to not worry, nothing funny about it.

But what do you like to read? Sweeping historical epics? Adventure? Drama? Romance? War? Mystery? Poetry? Character building? Prophecy? The Bible is sure to have it--and you can find comedy too. It's all in there. We use the Bible here to teach history and moral behavior, to be inspired and encouraged. Parts are passionate enough to make me blush, and I don't share those with the kids (!). But any way you read it, it's a book that can change your life. For eternity.

Eclipse Saturday night

You won't see this total eclipse if you're in the western half of the U.S. But the eastern U.S. and Europe will. Read more here.

The heavens declare His righteousness,
and all the peoples see His glory.
Psa. 97:6

Book Review - The Language Wars by Ruth Beechick

I've said before that I enjoy reading Ruth Beechick's perspective. In many ways, she reminds me of a Charlotte Mason style of teacher, specific yet gentle, and that's a nudge from which I can always benefit. The Language Wars and Other Writings for Homeschoolers is a collection of 25 articles all written by Dr. Beechick and published in various homeschool magazines over several years.

Although I don't agree with everything she says, I liked the information that was in this book. It was different than her "how to" books that I've read. I'd recommend it to my hs friends who follow Beechick and can get this book through their library system.

Wrapping up the week

(The pink is from the sun glare, not the cloud color.)

The week ended up well. Here are some highlights from the second half:

After ten days, $1200, and a new door later, Robert finally got his car back from the shop. It sounds silly, but I'm weepy enough this week that I cried when I saw his car back in its usual spot. It feels like a piece of the "normal" puzzle is back.

Holly had her eye exam. We can always tell when she needs a new prescription. She's been failing our school's eye test and can't see the microwave clock from the kitchen table.

Trevor and Robert caught a PBS show about the Lighthouse at Alexandria. Trevor's already learned about the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and he's learning about Alexander the Great this week (who named Alexandria after himself when he conquered Egypt). Trev took it upon himself to take notes from the tv show. That was great!

Robert is working on the wall that was damaged a year ago when we tried to put a new 35" wide refrigerator into a 36" space. We learned you can't believe refrigerator measurements--it really was 35.75". He's torn off the old wallpaper, put something metal on the corner to make it nice again, did the mud/plaster and sanding stuff, and will be rewallpapering. It's a good thing he knows what he's doing, because I sure don't.

At Holly's horseback riding lesson yesterday, her instructor told me that Holly "is a natural" with her riding posturing. Holly just began learning "carrot sticking," and Melanie said she's caught on to this better than almost anyone she's worked with.

After putting it off for a week, I finally got everything together for the kids to do their fossil project for zoology. It was more of a mess than I'd anticipated, and the playdoh they used to form the fossil stuck in the plaster (hence the tint). But they had fun. It's supposed to be a "fossil" of a pterosaur hatching from an egg. It might make a good Rorschach test, however.


Robert and I got to go on a "date" to Home Depot, just the two of us. (Believe me, this is a huge treat!)

Robert made his famous beef noodle soup for dinner. (Since I don't like it, I made fish and no one even complained about the smell!)

Trevor played a basketball game last night and improved a lot over the past week, getting kudos from his coaches for his defense work.

I've gone through 7, 8, 10? boxes of baby clothing in two days. Robert's been wanting me to weed through for, oh, four years. Turns out all he had to do was bring the boxes up from the basement and leave out empty boxes marked "sell," "donate," and "keep." So far, I've only kept one box worth of things.

We have finished 122 days of school, with ten weeks remaining.

I turned in my second "Reader's Passport" to the library. For every six books I read and rate, there is an organization that will donate a new book to a specific "participating organization." I've chosen the local VA clinic, and I hope to complete one more passport before the program ends on 3/18.

I made a new recipe, Spaghetti Carbonara. In an unusual turn of events, everyone else liked it better than I did. It wasn't bad, but I don't really like bacon (and bacon grease) with my spaghetti . . . I took a great photo of it, but it got lost somewhere between my camera and my computer.

And that's about it. Nothing super exciting but all good.

Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.
Ps 30:5b

The long and short of it

Trevor's math curriculum introduced long division a few weeks ago.

And no, contrary to what I thought before we began hsing, you don't just decide to sit your kid down one day and teach long division. Like any other student in any other school, the children are led up to it.

I have to back up. Math comes very easily to Trevor; he "sees" the numbers differently than most people. We were using a different curriculum last year, one that spent weeks on teaching very simple, single digit addition and subtraction facts, and it was already glaringly apparent to me that this curriculum was not going to be the best fit for Trevor. I chose a different math program and gave him the placement test. Although he was only "supposed" to be learning single digit subtraction, he could solve the three digit subtraction problems, things like 321 - 286 -- and he was solving them in his head. It seemed that switching to a curriculum that moved more quickly might be a good thing.

From that point on, I began asking Trevor HOW he was getting his answers. It wasn't just multi-digit subtraction, he could add easily in his head too. In the beginning, it was difficult for him to verbalize, but I knew I had to get some sense of how he was thinking, and that this would help both of us down the road.


Meanwhile, he preferred to do as much work as possible in his head, and I worked at making sure he understood he didn't have to do it this way, that most people don't, and that sometimes it would be easier to write problems out.

When we hit long division, I showed him over and over how to do it on paper. We used manipulatives, and then we used the manipulatives along with the whiteboard to show how the numbers connected. He continued to be frustrated and couldn't understand what in the world I was doing. We'd work on it, and I'd finally think he got it, but nothing would "stick." At one point, he thought perhaps something would click from Schoolhouse Rock and sat down to watch all the math videos looking for the "key." He really wanted to learn how this worked.

We took a few days to think about it. I knew it wasn't his problem, it was that I didn't know how to teach it in a way he could understand. I felt like I was speaking Chinese to a French kid. It finally occurred to me that since he already self-taught keeping numbers straight in his head, he might do better with short division.

He picked up short division instantly. I was able to see that his mind is faster than all the long division steps and he couldn't connect those steps with what his brain was thinking. After working a few problems, he quickly decided that short division is "fun." I was able to breathe a huge sigh of relief, yet I wondered what might have happened if he were in a classroom of 25 kids and expected to pick this up like everyone else.

Fast forward to this morning. Holly and I were discussing the various ways to find what percentage 32 is of 40. Trevor walks by, picks up the calculator (which he never uses), shows me the ".8" answer on the calculator, and says, "Yep, Holly's right, it's 80 percent."


At first I thought he just pushed point, eight to get it on screen, until he told me what numbers he put in to get the answer. But I still think that was a fluke. Every time I think about the possibility that he knew was he was doing . . . well, I try not to.

***

Disclaimer: Everyone has strengths, and everyone has areas in which they could improve. This just happens to be one of his strengths. It'd be really nice if it were one of mine.

For my loopy friends (and anyone else)

From the "blog" thread, here's the link to Pioneer Woman's funniest post. This was not something I'd want linked forever on the list, but I'm happy to link it here. :)

The Softest Substance Known to Man

Don't say I didn't already warn you. Don't be drinking anything while you read. Come to think of it, don't be eating anything either.

Pardon me, your slip is showing

I have been contemplating two different topics as posts this week, one on Latin, and one on current politics involving Mexico and the U.S.

In an interesting twist of irony, I stumbled upon this news article this morning. And no, I don't lounge around and read various city newspapers, this came to me through a hs e-mail list.

Bill Would Mandate Nicer Term for Illegals

Florida State Senator Frederica Wilson wants to ban the term "illegal alien" from the state's official documents. "I personally find the word 'alien' offensive when applied to individuals, especially to children," said Sen. Wilson, D-Miami. "An alien to me is someone from out of space."

Okay. I'm not a rocket scientist, but I immediately thought "alien" was probably not a word first associated with little green men from Mars. I pulled out our school dictionary, which I specifically chose because of its inclusion of word origin. (By the way, it's called "Dictionary for Students" and my guess is that it's aimed at middle schoolers.)

The word "alien" is derived from the Latin "alienus," meaning "strange" or "stranger."

"Strange" comes from the Old French word "estrange," meaning "foreign." "Estrange" goes back to the Latin word "extraneus," meaning "external" or "foreign."

I admire people who twist word meaning to suit their purpose. Unfortunately, I think Senator Wilson is in the Ignorant Camp. Why do I continue to assume, to hope that politicians are a little brighter than this? If they can't be smarter than me, why can't they at least have one staffer that might be?