I might out line the magic of that meal and how much I wanted to enjoy it after losing a part of the family. I’ll save those stories for a different post, and instead post this photo of a double rainbow we saw on the way to Linda’s Funeral.

Inside the book are many paintings of things that have delighted Maira. For example, a chair, a hat, food, a sink, old people, people walking, pictures people have taken, or paintings of other paintings.
The book makes me think Maira spends her life finding wonder.
I too look for wonder.

But I don’t live on the streets of New York. I live in a suburb. I spend a lot of time in a car, or carefully constructed shopping habitats.

I realize that instead of finding wonder in such places, I spend time on my computer looking for wonder on the internet. I enjoy clever videos or songs. I delight at compilations of photos featurings cats in strange situations, with subtitles that juxtapose meanings that are not apparent. I get angry about politics. I don’t want to be angry about politics, but how can you ignore such things as government?

In the spirit of Maira I have added a photo I took at a music concert. See how many people have taken out their phones and hold them up while the music plays. I too held my phone up, so that I could take this picture. We all want to contribute to finding wondrous things by placing what we find on the internet. Just as I am doing right now.

Today, Laura left for Oman. I hope she finds wonder while she is there. In May we will return to Bologna. I can’t wait.

Here it is.

A Song To Mother © 2011.

I quickly got to Cob Ovens and the rocket stoves. But they were so big and in a style that would not work in our home. And really, this is the fireplace I had to work with.

I couldn’t find a rocket stove that was a heater and was small enough to use in an existing fireplace. So I figured I’d have to make one. I had a few pieces to consider as my criteria.

1. It had to be cheap. I didn’t know if it would work, and would need to disassemble it easily.

2. It had to be small enough to possibly work in the fireplace in our home. All the ones I found on the web use 55 gal. barrels. That would never work for me. My experiment is now based on the notion that one doesn’t need a big fire to get big warmth.

With that in mind I went to the hardware stores. I didn’t know what I needed, just that I would find it only if I looked. The big box stores didn’t have what I needed to find. So I went to Andersons, a sort of “we have everything” kind of place. That is where I pieced together the following supplies.

I metal seed bucket.
A 5×4 Reducer (on sale .99)
A 4×3 reducer
2 6×5 reducers
A 4 (or was it 3) inch flue
2 4 inch elbows (or are they 3 inch)

Once I had it mostly figured out I grabbed some Perailite (sp) from the garden section of the same store (~4 bucks) for a total of less than $50. I went home, and began work. In all it took me about an hour to put it all together.

Put the 4×3 on the 5×4 for height. I trimmed the rim off one of the 6x5s and dropped it over. The two 6x5s hold the perilite in.

Here are photos of the steps.

I then positioned the pieced on the lid that I needed to cut. Then I cut out the holes with metal cutters I already had.

I slid the bottom of the 5×4 into the opening to give room in the bucket to burn off the extra carbon – as is the theory – I think. After than I used Aluminum tape to put it all together, and filled in the perilite.

I then put the lid on, and notice I bent the handle so it didn’t rub the side – essentially making it portable. Extra Bonus.

Next time I hope to add more information about building the place for the fire – and I’ll correct spelling errors. This was done really quick.

UPDATE:
So, I tested it out, and there are some big flaws in my design. I will post video, perhaps, of what it looked like, but this project has not achieved what I hoped that it would.

Addie must be in a stage of some sort, because at the beginning she kept wandering away from us. We spoke sternly with her a few times, but it didn’t really make an impact. It wasn’t until we were on an elevator did she actually get the lesson.

The door opened and some people walked off and Addie went right along with them.
She turned around in time to see us still on the elevator looking out at her. “Addie, you’ve wandered off again.”
“I’m sorry.” The door closed with her outside the elevator.

Laura and I were inside with Griffin and some other people, and neither of us could hit the open button or stop the door from closing.

“I’ve been telling her all day not to wander off,” I said to the people in the elevator, ready for the elevator to rise and carry us up. I was thinking about how I might be able to find her.
“She’s been doing it all day,” Laura said.

From behind the door Addie said, “I am holding the door open with my fingers.”
It was then that I realized we hadn’t actually move. The little bit of pressure she had been able to apply to the outer doors was enough to keep us from leaving the floor.

Laura started pushing the button on the wall until someone pointed out she was actually pressing the button marked, “Close Door.”

At last we got the door open and Addie rejoined our party, a little bit wiser. At least she didn’t get lost at Universal Studios.

By far this was my favorite theme park visit ever. It was a little crowded around the Harry Potter world, so we skipped the Hogswart ride and went for a tour of the castle. Somehow we ended up at the at the ride, having walked past everyone else. So, of course we took advantage of it. And, that was the best park-ride I have ever been on. It is a must do for someone looking for something to add to their bucket list. I can’t say enough, so I won’t say much more, other than it truly brought the books and moving to life. Amazing. We stayed all day and none of us really wanted to leave.

The next day was cold and LJ had her conference, and the kids went swimming until Griffin’s lips turned blue. The next day was Disney’s Magic Kingdom. We started the day with Griffin crying. Apparently he didn’t want to leave, and we had just begun!

For us parents the park was a bit of a let down. I visited this park as a kid, and we also went there two years ago. I must inform you that I was severely disappointed and we won’t be going back. Not until we are being pushed around in a wheel chair by our grandkids, or something like that.

It was way too crowded, and the rides kept breaking down. It seems Disney’s idea of crowd control is shoving hundreds of people into spaces that were not designed for that. Because it was so crowded we visited some attractions that are outside the perhaps typical experience. The Tiki house was quite enjoyable, in a throwback-to-the-60s kind of way. As was the Carrousel of Progress, which Griffin said was great.

Each day passed too quickly and I was sad to leave both parks. Oh. And when we left Universal, Griffin made us stop and leave him. We had to go far away (About 30 feet) so that he could dance to music coming out of a speaker on a street light. He danced amid the crowds leaving the park, walking past him as though he wasn’t there until they nearly tripped over him. I’ll post that video soon.

I have a song to share. It’s a really very old idea that I don’t think has ever been recorded, so I am happy to present it here for the first time.
Teenage Bride of the Mexican Mummy Monster, from Outer Space. © 2011.

Here are more pictures of the trip.

Besides getting Addie into her new school and Griffin back at his day-care, we have been busy going to concerts. This summer we saw Ke$ha at the Ohio State Fair, and then we did Brittany, which was not good (but thanks to LJ for getting the tickets anyway), and most recently we all saw Katy Perry in concert, which was very good – the attached picture is from that one. Addie is too close to me in this pic to be seen, and you can see two friends who were visiting us seated on Griffin’s left.

An interesting side-note about one of those friends is that after the concert she found a praying mantis on my car – that I safely removed – and then she found another in our house when we got home (see attached pic) and, she found out later, that very same day her husband found one back inside her house.
One can’t help but wonder at possible significance with such coincidences like this. I find I ask myself deep questions, such as, Was there a mantis meeting that decided their group must try to contact her? If so, what do they want with her?

I suppose they should learn to speak English or at least how to write if they do hope to communicate with her, because the two creatures I dealt with ended safe in a tree, and showed no signs of trying to communicate except to perhaps to look around, as if they wondered where the heck I was taking them so quickly.

On the music front I have been recording and loving it. Among other things, I have mostly completed the music cover below of Aimee Mann’s “Deathly”. I really love the way this song plays its structure and brevity.

In shaping the various parts of this recording, my interpretation of it shifted; its meaning transformed from the Magnolia-imprinted slow, maudlin song and became a rock-and-roll mocking of the lyrics’ target. I didn’t change the words (hardly), but in this version it strikes me as a more aggressive piece, as though it’s being sung to a loser at a party who’s hitting on the singer.

I have also learned so much about recording from taking on this song. If you’ve listened to some of my other stuff you might notice I allow a sloppy, natural affect in my music. I struggled with this piece to achieve perfection while maintaining single take tracks. That said, it’s not too off.

Anyway, here it is:
Deathly © 2011.

That’s about it.

Reuters Story

Add to the above problem, lobbyists push and campaign for stricter sentencing so that prison owners can make more money (tax money, mind you). It quickly becomes apparent that there are drastic costs to privatizing prisons.

When states run prisons the government wants to limit the number of citizens behind bars, and time they spend there. When private corporations bilk the government to run prisons, it is in their own interest to have the most people in prison for the longest amount on time.

I find that private prisons amount to modern day slavery.

At first it was just the few rows near him that were captivated by his style. Soon more people started to notice. Some people left their seats in other sections to watch and packed into the isle-ways cheering him on and taking videos. The crowd in the section behind us were on their feet watching and cheering. At one point another guy (who LJ says was trying to dance elsewhere) joined Griffin. The guy was really nice and tried to dance with Griffin. In the video below check out Griffin’s hip hop poses as though he’s in a dance off.

I am trying to move away from Youtube – because of some action Google took recently. It occurred to me that having all my stuff on Youtube and Google may not be so wise. One must have back ups. So, here is the four-year-old dancing before the Kesha concert. If accessing this video is too difficult I’ll go back and post it to Youtube, so please leave a comment and let me know how accessible it is. Thank you.

BTW. Addie had fun – we all did, and Addie got her first funnel-cake.

- Update. The video from this site has to be down loaded, so I have gone ahead and added an embedded video on youtube. *Sigh* Well, we do what we can, right? Here’s the embed.

For download->
Grif Dances Kesha Medium

Here is the video I uploaded to youtube.

And, while I’m here, I want to post this awesome pic of Addie.