Happy Birthday, Ellie!

We love you.

Here are a few nostalgic pictures.

With Grandma A.

With Aunt Margaret

Unknown Birthday.

Negishi, with Bonnie.

Negishi with siblings.

And Ellie now, with her boys (3 of them).

With her guy.

Tanti Auguri

お誕生日おめでとう

2010 2009 2008 2007

Pest Control

I just finished reading (or rather listening to) Bob Fitzhugh’s zany “thriller” Pest Control. I would describe it as a cross between Shakespeare’s “Comedy of Errors” and the Abbott and Costello routine “Who’s on First.” The characters constantly misunderstand one another’s meanings, causing a simple exterminator unwittingly to get involved in the dangerous business of contract killing. Fitzhugh loves to play with words and phrases, especially exploring the variety of idioms used to describe identical situations in various languages and cultures. He also describes various insects and their cousins in excruciating detail, making this book a delight to etymologists and entomologists alike! The Last Word Audio book is expertly narrated by Colby Elliott, whom we had the pleasure of meeting recently.

Synopsis on amazon.com

PROFESSIONAL EXTERMINATOR
FIFTEEN YEARS FIELD EXPERIENCE!
GONE PRIVATE WITH LETHAL NEW
CONCEPT! NO PEST LEFT ALIVE!

Bob Dillon just can't get a break. A down-on-his-luck exterminator, all he wants is his own truck with a giant fiberglass bug on top--and success with his radical new, environmentally friendly pest killing technique. So Bob decides to advertise.
Unfortunately, one of his flyers falls into the wrong hands. Marcel in Paris needs an assassin to handle a million dollar assignment, and he figures that Bob Dillon's his man. Through no fault--or participation--of his own, an unwitting bug-killer from Queens has become a major player in the shady world of contract murder. And now he's running for his life through the wormiest sections of the Big Apple--one step ahead of a Bolivian terminator, a homicidal transvestite dwarf, meat-headed CIA agents, cabbies packing serious heat...and the world's greatest hit man, who might just turn out to be the best friend Bob's got.

Availability/Reviews on audible.com.

From Library Journal
Fired from his job with a pest control company in Queens, New York, Bob Dillon starts his own business using his environmentally friendly technique: hybrid killer insects that eat cockroaches. Meanwhile, Marcel, a broker who contracts for assassins, is looking for a reliable newcomer to complete a million-dollar hit. He advertises and Bob responds, neither understanding the nature of the other's "exterminating" business. Very shortly thereafter, ten of the most dangerous hitpersons in the world descend on Queens, which is pretty dangerous itself and more than up to the challenge. Broadly satiric, extremely funny, and tailor-made for film (rights have already been sold to Warner Brothers), this is not exactly demanding reading, but it is fun and likely to be popular. A reasonable purchase for most public libraries. Edwin B. Burgess, U.S. Army Combined Research Lib., Fort Leavenworth, Va. Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

9th Annual Central City Opera Weekend—2011

This year we saw two of the Central City Opera's offerings, Bizet's "Carmen" and Handel's "Amadigi di Gaula."

The "Carmen" presented this year was quite different from what we had seen at the opening of the Ellie Caulkins Opera House in Denver in 2005. It was very good, very entertaining, just different, and that is one of the things that makes the Central City Opera productions so much fun. They are not afraid to do things differently, to try new things, to perform operas that are not often performed. It keeps us coming back year after year!

"Amadigi di Gaula" was different from most operas we have seen. A Baroque Opera, it focused more on the music than the story. It also made use of the countertenor voice. The lead in this opera was sung by South African countertenor, Christopher Ainslie, making his Central City and North American debut. The musical score allowed the performers to demonstrate their virtuosity on many levels. For lovers of Handel, it was a feast. From the opening chord and every note thereafter, it was unmistakably Handel.

I love this quote from the 2011 Opera Insider, "Amadigi di Gaula is a Baroque 'magic opera' based on a Renaissance story about a Medieval knight. It is also an Italian opera written by a German composer for an English audience, based on a French play, based on a Spanish book." I might add, "and performed in a mountain gambling town's nearly sesquicentenarian opera house for an American audience."

Friday night we arrived in town, and after checking into the Inn, we shared our traditional dinner at the Ameristar's Centennial Buffet (one day, I'll have to take a picture, but we're always so intent on eating that I forget). For Saturday lunch, we wandered Central City and came upon a place called Stella's, in an alley near the Teller House. Inside, it looked enchanting, but the service was not good, and we do not recommend it.

Saturday, we had our traditional dinner at the Kevin Taylor restaurant operating out of the Face Bar at the Teller House. They may lose us next year, however, as the portions had grown smaller, the prices higher, and they did not serve Truffle Fries, which is one of the items we especially liked on their menu.

Sunday, we like to stop at Millies, an old-fashioned family restaurant above the Easy Street Casino in Central City. They have a fairly extensive menu, fast, courteous service, and reasonable prices.

Cheese Fries at Millie's (in our defense, four of us shared this culinary luxury). 

And of course we stayed at our favorite B&B, the

Chase Creek Inn.

Here we are, preparing to enjoy one of Karen's marvelous breakfasts.

Yum.

A nice cup of java before breakfast.

The relaxing porch with rocking chairs is one of the many attractions of the Chase Creek Inn Bed & Breakfast that keep us coming back year after year. Hummingbirds buzz around the feeders to quietly keep us company.

I like to tell people our favorite B&B, the Chase Creek Inn, is around the corner from all the hustle and bustle of the casinos (it's behind and around the corner from Bullwhackers in Blackhawk). Here's a view off the back porch.

Another attraction of the B&B for me is Chase Creek itself. The babbling brook, the chortling creek, the gurgling stream can always be heard. As we drift off to sleep, we can hear the pleasant sound of the creek in the background.

Click on the video with speakers on to hear Chase Creek's pleasing tune. 

This weekend is a highlight of our year. This was the 9th annual weekend relaxing in the mountains of Colorado, enjoying a lovely weekend of fellowship with friends, drinking in the fresh air, walking around the quaint towns of Blackhawk and Central City, as well as the Chase Creek neighbohood, and enjoying wonderful musical entertainment at the Central City Opera House.

Former Weekends:

2010, 2009, 2008, 2007

25,000

Fifty-nine!

Birthdays make me reflective. We humans love to commemorate big landmarks, e.g. the Market hits another 1,000 level (10,000, 11,000, 12,000, etc.), the mercury hits triple digits, a batter gets his 3,000th hit, a pitcher 300 wins, or we mark another decade of life (30, 40, 50, 60). When I hit 30, my wife made me a cake in the shape of a hill to mark my approaching decrepitude (over the hill, you see). At 40, my favorite Skipper, Capt B, gathered my family and co-workers in the conference room with cake and balloons to mark the occasion. At 50, I realized that the best thing about being over each hill was that another lay in the distance. How many more hills I climb is out of my hands. That I keep climbing my best is not.

I have not yet reached 60, but at 59 I realize that I ought to be thankful not only for living another decade but for another year, another day—in fact, for every new breath. Every breath is a gift from the One who first breathed life into the first lump of clay to bring it to life. In the same way, miracles happen every day. They consist not only in the parting of the Sea or the manna in the wilderness or the resurrection from the dead. The creation itself is a miracle. The birth of a child (or grandchild), the ability to earn a living, the rejuvenation of sleep, the nutrition of food, the list is never-ending. These are everyday miracles in the physical realm.

Love is a miracle: that we love others; that others love us. Kindness is miraculous: that people perform acts of kindness without ulterior motive. Comprehension is a miraculous gift from above. As Abraham Joshua Heschel put it, "even the very act of thinking baffles our thinking, just as every intelligible fact is, by virtue of its being a fact, drunk with baffling aloofness...What fills us with radical amazement is not the relations in which everything is embedded but the fact that even the minimum of perception is a maximum of enigma. The most incomprehensible fact is the fact that we comprehend at all." These are but a few of the miracles in the emotional and intellectual realms.

So, here are just a few of the miracles from my birthday. I opened my eyes at 6:00 a.m., something I have taken for granted my entire life and for which I am learning to be consciously grateful. After completing a circuit to bring artificial light into the room, I twisted a handle to start water flowing so that I could wash the phiz and brush the teeth. In addition to electricity itself being a miracle, ours was out until our electrician and a helpful Xcel repairman brought it back to life. Shower, shave, mirror, shave cream, after shave, everywhere I turned a miracle of technology.

I also ingested three tiny tablets to keep my blood pressure and cholesterol in check before dressing and walking (ambulation—miracle) to the shed to grab my golf clubs, which had been carefully crafted to make my shots straighter oftener when I hit the balls that were designed for maximum distance. Tossing the clubs in the trunk, I turned a little key in a switch and my powerful horseless carriage roared to life.

Arriving at the driving range, I joined my good friends: a coworker; my employer, my cousin’s husband, who is like a brother to me; and his son, my cousin-nephew. Green grass, sunshine, fresh air, good shots, bad shots, joy, frustration, conversation, a typical round of golf. So many miracles. Were I to list them all, this could go on forever.

Then when I turned on my computer, the electronic impulses representing 1s and 0s became intelligible English words, as the birthday greetings started pouring in from around the country and the world, close to a hundred from friends and family. So many everyday miracles went into making this possible, I won’t even try to list them, but the miracle of the love and appreciation of others, and the communication skills to express these sentiments to one another, touched my heart all day long. That is not to mention the friends, family, coworkers who wished me a happy birthday in person, all miracles of human communication, kindness, expressiveness and interaction.

Having reached the exalted age of 59, am I to feel old? I don’t. Oh, I’m not saying I don’t have aches and pains. Sometimes, as some comedian said, my aches and pains have aches and pains. But I don’t feel old. I more and more identify with my mother-in-law, who used to say she would get confused by the woman looking back at her in the mirror because she felt like a 16-year-old girl. I feel more like 25 or 30 (and male), but I now know what she means.

Tomorrow will have its challenges, to be sure, and I will face them as optimistically and as confidently as when I was 30, 40, and 50, and I shall try to be more aware of the myriad miracles surrounding me every day as I walk through this life for another breath, another day, another decade, gratefully.

A 4th of July Seder

Prager University has put together a marvelous, brief program to remind us what the 4th of July is all about and why we celebrate it. Here's what they say about it:
"Welcome to our 4th of July Declaration!"

"We have modeled this Declaration on the best known commemoration of a historical event in the world — the Jewish Passover meal. It has successfully kept the memory of the Israelites' exodus from Egypt alive for over 3000 years."

"As Americans we need to reconnect with our Founding Fathers. We need to rediscover the meaning of our country's creation. And we need to do it every year. That is the reason for ritual — to enable us to remember. Without ritual, the memory fades. And without memory, life — whether of the individual or of a nation – loses its meaning."

"If you follow this simple ceremony, this holiday will not just be another barbecue. It will be the meaningful day it was meant to be: a celebration of the birth of our exceptional country, the United States of America."


To find out what materials you'll need and to download a copy of the Declaration of Independence, check out the entire program here.

Our Night at the Capitol Hill Bed & Breakfast

We had a wonderful, one-night stay in a beautiful downtown Denver Bed & Breakfast, the Capitol Hill Mansion B&B the Sunday before the Memorial Day holiday. We were so delighted with our short stay, this B&B made our top five.

Kath arrives at the stately mansion.

The gardens are as meticulously cared for as the mansion.

Just a 15-20 minute walk from the 16th Street Mall, the Capital Hill Mansion B&B is ideally located in Lower Downtown Denver. We decided to eat on the Mall. The Cheesecake Factory was packed, but Ling & Louie's, right next door, seated us at an outdoor table on the patio immediately upon arrival. We enjoyed the Black Orchid Ahi, among other delicious dishes.

My lovely date perusing the menu.

Kath's favorite apéritif, a Midoritini.

Capitol Hill Mansion by night.

The huge whirlpool in the room was relaxing after our dinner and stroll.

The 2011 Festival opens June 25th. Check it out here.

Check out the "Central City Opera Festival Blog: Behind-the-Curtain" here.

Capitol Hill Mansion B&B

We are getting away to a new B&B this weekend. Can't wait.

Pasque Flower Suite. Whirlpool in the turret of the Victorian manse.

Apparently the Capitol Hill Mansion Bed and Breakfast has a great view of the Colorado Capitol, hence the moniker. We'll see.

Check out their web site here.

Triskaidekaphilia!

Eschew Triskaidekaphobia.

Give Triskaidekaphilia a chance!

13 is a lovely number.

Check it out here and here.

13 is a Lovely Number!

If 13 is an unlucky number, why is the great "Love" chapter of the Christian scriptures 1 Corinthians 13 and its 13 verses?!

By the way, the numeric value of the Hebrew word for Love (Ahavah) is 13.

1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant

5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;

6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.

9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part,

10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.

11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.

12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 13

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day, Mom!
I hope you've already received this card in the snail mail.
Here are the words, which are difficult to read in this picture.

A Mother is...
someone who has
a generous heart
and a capacity for giving
that's as limitless as the sky.
With her understanding
and caring,
she creates a safe place
for her family...

Thank you for being that mother!

Love, Your son

Happy 6th of May!

As I pointed out in my Seis de Mayo post last year, Cinco de Mayo. is not as important a date in our family as Seis de Mayo (the 6th of May). Many, many (!) years ago, my brother, John, was born on that date, and not nearly as many years ago, I met my wife, Kathy, on that auspicious date. Johnny and Jimmy (as we were then called) one Christmas in front of the tree.

Dad, Johnny and I with Puppies. My beautiful wife posing in Cadiz, Andalucia, Spain just months after arriving in Spain for our first tour of duty at the Rota Naval Base.
My still-beautiful wife in our "mile-high" living room a few years ago.
A day of celebration for our family, the 6th of May. Happy Birthday, my brother. Happy Anniversary of our Meeting, my wife!

Phizzog

A friend playing Words for Friends recently intimated that I might not know the meaning of the word Phiz, which I had just played for a hefty number of points on a Triple Word score.

I owe my knowledge of this lighthearted, little word (and its cousins, phizzog and physiognomy) to two sources: Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe detective novels and Carl Sandburg's poem, Phizzog. I have read all of the (nearly 50) Nero Wolfe novels multiple times (of course, by reading I also mean listening to the unabridged audiobooks). They are among my favorite books, and Nero's (Rex's) love of language has improved my own vocabulary, grammar, and diction immeasurably over the years.

So here are some quips and quotes from the novels. Invariably the speaker is Wolfe's sidekick, assistant, and man Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, the celebrated detective, Archie Goodwin. (Wolfe, himself, despised slang and never used it!)

"Then I proceeded to cleanse the form and the phiz and get the figure draped for the day."
—The Rubber Band (1936)

"The one in front was a six-footer with a long narrow phiz and grizzled hair…"
—“Too Many Detectives” (1956) from Three for the Chair

"Cocking an eye at his earnest phiz, which was passable, but no pin-up, I would have said that she was overpricing him."
—“When a Man Murders” (1954) from Three Witnesses

“ 'I see.' Jessup looked at me, saw only an open and manly phiz, ready to help, and went back to Wolfe."
—Death of a Dude (1969)

"I had of course done a survey on him, including the contrast between his square-jawed rugged phiz and the indications that the race of fat and muscle would be a tie in another couple of years, but I wasn't ready for a final vote."
—The Second Confession (1949)

"She is not amused but after looking at Archie’s 'open, intelligent, interested, sympathetic phiz…' "
—Please Pass the Guilt (1973)

"It was no pleasure to look at Wolfe’s gloomy phiz, so I looked back at the performers."
—“The Next Witness” (1955) from Three Witnesses

"A peep through the glass showed me a phiz only too well known, so I slipped the chain on before I opened the door to the extent of the six inches which the chain permitted."
—“Bitter End” from Death times Three (1985)


PHIZZOG
By Carl Sandburg
This face you got,
This here phizzog you carry around,
You never picked it out for yourself
at all, at all—did you?
This here phizzog—somebody handed it
to you—am I right?
Somebody said, “Here’s yours, now go see
what you can do with it.”
Somebody slipped it to you and it was like
a package marked:
“No goods exchanged after being taken away”—
This face you got.


These slang/shortened forms (as well as alternate spellings such as phizog, vizzog, fizzog) derive from physiognomy, the face or countenance, especially when considered as an index to the character: a fierce physiognomy. See http://www.dictionary.com/. (Note the similarity also to the word visage.)