7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

Other than Writing Things (look for me in Living Faith on Monday, by the way) – a music-heavy week around here. The big state competition is Friday – and may even be over as you read this. So there’s been a lot of practicing, especially of the Kabalevsky concerto movement that he is playing with his teacher.

I’ll have more to say after it’s over. I’m superstitious that way.

I may even post some video.

(If you follow me on Instagram, you’ve seen it in Stories – snippets through the week.)

It’s not that I’m any kind of stage or Tiger Mom as far as this business goes. It’s simply this: He’s been working on these four pieces for almost a year. He’s performed them in various settings (including retirement homes and a temporary residence for cancer patients as part of the requirements for being in the Honors Ensemble). I don’t give a flip whether or not he “wins” – I simply don’t want him to walk into this, bearing the fruit of a year’s worth of hard work, and then blunder in a way that throws him off and then throws off the piece – the consequence being that in this particular setting, the fruit of his work won’t be evident.

— 2 —

The work is bearing fruit in other ways, to be sure. He’s just begun taking jazz piano, which is coming fairly easily to him – but only because of the kind of work he’s been doing in classical piano for three years. Same with rock – his friend down the street takes rock guitar lessons, and they’ve invited M to play with the band for the recital – and he can pull it off with not much time because of Beethoven and Kabalevsky.

But still….dozens, if not hundreds of hours on this Kabalevsky, in particular….it sure would be nice….

— 3 —

So there’s that. Stress levels have also been heightened this week because of

AP Physics exam

The end of the 2^nd year of law school

Ready for the school year to be over. Oh, and you know how parents of older children always say to parents of younger kids: You’ll look back to the years of no sleep and potty training and think…that was easy.

There’s a reason. It’s true. Cleaning up a puddle of urine on three hours of sleep is nothing compared to the stress of giving counsel to young adults worried about the course of the rest of their lives and their relationships  and then watching them drive away in 2-ton death machines.

— 4 —

And then there’s son #2 who has his own news – a writer of many stories and a few novels, all unpublished, he has decided to go the e-book route, and going about it in a very methodical way. He’s publishing short collections of stories over the next few months, and then releasing a novel in the fall.

You can find his website here. There are links to all the collections.

The collection you can purchase now is here.

And here he is on Twitter, chronicling the process of writing his next book.

Please go check it out!!

— 5 —

 Okay, this is fantastic:

https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fstpaulsbhm%2Fposts%2F2020270931557798&width=500

 

Come to Birmingham for Pentecost!!

— 6 —

The Lumen Christi Institute:

Founded in 1997 by Catholic scholars at the University of Chicago, the Lumen Christi Institute brings together thoughtful Catholics and others interested in the Catholic tradition and makes available to them the wisdom of the Catholic spiritual, intellectual, and cultural heritage.

They’ve just started making podcasts of their sponsored talks available as free podcasts. The page with links to the various podcast sites (Itunes, Google Play store, etc.) is here. 

— 7 —

Mother’s Day is  Sunday, so it’s too late to order this online, but I’d bet your local Catholic bookstore has it: 

It would also be a great end-of-year gift for a teacher or DRE! 

For more Quick Takes, visit This Ain’t the Lyceum!

Read Full Post »

7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

It’s that time of year…

…the time of year in which spring starts really spring, and the outdoor events and festivals start popping…

…and we can’t go to any of them because of Activities.

And we don’t even do that much. No spring sports – it’s just that with piano-related events and serving Mass and my older son’s work – we get kind of stuck on the weekends. Not that the youngest and I can’t go on our own – and we do – but still, it’s not the same. And I walk around in a continual state of low-grade irritation because of it.

Well, after this weekend, things should wind down. The last major piano thing will happen on a Friday, then the older kids’ exams begin and end..and then…freedom!

— 2 —

In case you missed it earlier in the week, I had a post on the present lackadaisical status of homeschooling around here. Nothing’s changed since Monday. In fact, it might have gotten worse.

Well, “worse” in terms of “academics” – but the reason is music: three lessons of three different types, plus extra practice with the teacher for that Friday event. If he were in regular school, he couldn’t do this – which is why we’re loading up on it now and trying to lay solid groundwork before he returns in the fall.

(Also earlier – a rambling Monday morning post.)

— 3 —

For some reason, in that Monday post, I neglected to talk about the one jaunt we were able to squeeze in between serving and something else on Saturday, which was a festival at St. Symeon Orthodox Church, located just down the road from us. We’ve lived here for five years, and it’s been interesting to watch it grow, as they’ve gone from meeting in a multipurpose building to constructing their church. The parish is part of the Orthodox Church in America (in its origins, associated with the Russian Orthodox, but now separate and rather oriented towards converts, and any more than that I will not venture because while there is nothing more confusing in contemporary Christianity than the Anglican communion, the Orthodox come mighty close.)

Anyway, they had a festival last Saturday, which means that we finally had a chance to see the interior of the church – it’s absolutely lovely.

 

 

— 4 —

Much has been written about the terrible case of Alfie Evans. I found these two to be particularly worth the read:

Carter Snead of Notre Dame wrote a piece for the CNN site that, I would imagine, introduced the fundamental issues in an accessible way:

Is this some fictional, dystopian, totalitarian nightmare? Sadly and shamefully, no. It is the reality of the modern-day United Kingdom — a nightmare from which the parents of toddler Alfie Evans cannot awaken.

Little Alfie Evans has recently passed away, but the struggle over his treatment provoked a worldwide conflict over parental rights, how to care properly for the seriously disabled, and the appropriate role of the state in such intimate and vexed matters. What it revealed is that the law of the UK is in desperate need of revision to make room for the profoundly disabled and their loved ones who wish to care for them, despite the judgment of others that such lives of radical dependence and frailty are not worth living.

— 5 —

And then, more strongly, Stephen White at The Catholic Thing:

Margaret Thatcher famously said, “There’s no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families.” That was always a rather anemic view of social life, but the way the Alfie Evans case played out, one wonders if she may have overstated the case. Are there just individuals and their interests – and the state employing experts to instruct the former in regard to the latter?

Catholics know better, or we ought to. Pope Francis grasped what was at stake in the Alfie Evans case – meeting Alfie’s father, Tom, and tweeting his steadfast support. Statements from the bishops of England and Wales were mostly of the pastoral-by-way-of-not-taking-sides; in other words, flaccid and perfunctory. Some Catholics – British writer and papal biographer, Austen Ivereigh, for example – were indignant, insisting that protests against the abrogation of parental rights were somehow evidence of libertarian contagion coming from the American Church.

“The contention,” wrote Pope Leo XIII in Rerum novarum, “that the civil government should at its option intrude into and exercise intimate control over the family and the household is a great and pernicious error.” Pope Leo, it should be noted, was neither American nor libertarian.

When the ministers of the law, purporting to act in the interest of an individual, isolate that individual from the bonds of family, which are the very foundation of human society and which the law exists primarily to protect, they do violence to the individual, to the family, and to society. Again, Pope Leo put it well, “If the citizens, if the families on entering into association and fellowship, were to experience hindrance in a commonwealth instead of help, and were to find their rights attacked instead of being upheld, society would rightly be an object of detestation rather than of desire.”

Alfie Evans was treated – not as a person in full, the son of a father and mother – but as a naked individual whose dignity consists in his “interests,” and who was subject to the ministrations of impersonal forces of the state. The state made itself an object of detestation.

— 6 —

Ascension Thursday is next week. And yes, it’s still Ascension Thursday even though our episcopal betters believe us incapable of celebrating it then.

Click on graphic or here for more on Daniel Mitsui and this piece.

Speaking of art – my friend and collaborator Ann Engelhart is on Instagram now – follow her here! 

— 7 —

Mother’s Day is a week from Sunday – have you considered this? I have loads here if you’d like a personalized copy – just go to the bookstore or email me at amywelborn60 AT gmail.com

 

For more Quick Takes, visit This Ain’t the Lyceum!

Read Full Post »

7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

Some you might have seen my earlier post about our Bishop Emeritus David Foley, who passed away Tuesday evening. Go there to read a bit of a personal reminiscence. I’ll add a summary of a story told by our music director, who posted that a few months ago, he encountered Bishop Foley at the Cathedral, stocking up on his oils because he was headed to a prison to say Mass and celebrate some confirmations. At the age of 88.

— 2 —

EWTN will be broadcasting both the Vespers and the Funeral Mass – Sunday night and Monday.  Even if you don’t know anything about Bishop Foley – if you are in the least interested hearing some of the finest sacred music in any Catholic church in this country – tune in.

—3–

No adventures this week to speak of. It’s been about music lessons (X3), a teenager looking at a car, mom losing sleep over the prospect of this teenager buying this car, and waiting for the weather to finally warm up in a permanent, serious way. Friday is often an adventure day, but won’t be this week because, well, there’s that patio door that is finally going to get replaced – an errant stone flung from a weedeater was the culprit – several weeks ago, and it took this long to get the door and get the guy to come take care of it. But finally, I can get the plywood and tarp out of my living room. (And yes, it was that way while we were in Mexico – obviously super secure plywood and tarp, right?)

Oh – I was in Living Faith on Sunday. Another one coming soon. 

 

–4––

Speaking of the Cathedral – which we were, just a minute ago –

My youngest takes organ lessons at the Cathedral, and during his lesson this week, a class of some sort – they looked to be either high school seniors or younger college students – filed in, sat, listened to a short presentation, and then scattered about the church, sitting with handouts, looking and writing.

I never did find out where they were from or what their class was about, but just remember that the next time someone tries to tell you that there’s a conflict or dichotomy between taking care to construct beautiful and substantive churches and a “simple”  – implication – better  – faith.

A beautiful church building is a witness to Christ in the midst of the city surrounding it.

–5 —

 

Tomorrow (April 21) is the memorial of St. Anselm. This is from a blog post from last year:

I will always, always remember St. Anselm because he was the first Christian philosopher/theologian I encountered in a serious way.

As a Catholic high school student in the 70’s, of course we met no such personages – only the likes of Jonathan Livingston Seagull and Man of La Mancha.

(That was a project senior year – do a visual project matching up the lyrics of “Impossible Dream” with the Beatitudes. JLS had been Sophomore year. It was a text in the class. It was  also the year my religion teacher remarked on my report card, “Amy is a good student, but she spends class time sitting in the back of the room reading novels.” )

Anyway, upon entering the University of Tennessee, I claimed a major of Honors History and a minor of religious studies. (Instapundit’s dad, Dr. Charles Reynolds, was one of my professors). One of the classes was in medieval church history, and yup, we plunged into Anselm, and I was introduced to thinking about the one of whom no greater can be thought, although more of the focus was on his atonement theory. So Anselm and his tight logic always makes me sit up and take notice.

–6–

If you want a good modern translation of Anselm’s Proslogion – I dug this one up. It’s a pdf.  

I like the way it begins. Anselm shares some good advice:

Come now, insignificant man, leave behind for a time your preoccupations;
seclude yourself for a while from your disquieting
thoughts. Turn aside now from heavy cares, and set aside your
wearisome tasks. Make time for God, and rest a while in Him.
Enter into the inner chamber of your mind; shut out everything
except God and what is of aid to you in seeking Him; after closing
the chamber door, seek Him out.

 

–7–

Seeking gifts for First Communion, Confirmation, Mother’s Day…etc?

Try one of these!

For more Quick Takes, visit This Ain’t the Lyceum!

Read Full Post »

It’s that time of the year

 

Gift time. Guess what? None of the links below go to Amazon. They either go to the publisher or my bookstore. All the books are on Amazon, of course, but most should also be in your local Catholic bookstore or an online Catholic store.  Start there. And if they’re not…request them. 

I have some of these books available in my bookstore – I will ship and sign! Those I have in stock are indicated with a * . If you have any questions, contact me at amywelborn60 AT gmail. 

And yes, there is a new book forthcoming this summer – information about that should be available in a couple of weeks. Check back for more soon! 

First Communion:

(Painting from Friendship with Jesus)

The Loyola Kids’ Book of Saints

The Loyola Kids’ Book of Heroes *

Be Saints! *

Friendship with Jesus 

Adventures in Assisi *

Bambinelli Sunday *

Confirmation/Graduation:

Any of the Prove It books. *

The Prove It Catholic Teen Bible *

The How to Book of the Mass *

New Catholic? Inquirer?

The How to Book of the Mass

The Words We Pray *

Praying with the Pivotal Players

Mother’s Day

The Catholic Woman’s Book of Days *

End of Year Teacher/Catechist Gifts

Any of the above…..

 

Read Full Post »

7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

Oh, my word, this In Our Time podcast on Mary, Queen of Scots was fantastic. Fast-paced, but thorough (up until the end, when they ran out of time), typically fair-minded and balanced. If you have any interest in this period of history, do listen.

— 2 —

Earlier in the week I caught up with another earlier episode, this one on John Dalton. The content gibes nicely with last week’s commentary on the IOT episode on Roger Bacon. Dalton, like Bacon, was a devoutly religious man of science – in Dalton’s case, an observant Quaker until the day he died. It’s another very useful antidote to the current and very stupid conviction that Science and Religion are AT WAR.

One of the points in the broadcast that interested me the most was this:

Dalton was a Quaker and as a dissenter (like Unitarians, Methodists…Catholics) was prohibited from studying at Oxford or Cambridge (he could have studied at Scottish universities however).

At the same time, as the industrial revolution changed the social and cultural landscape of England, particularly the north, the rising classes began to shape new ways of discovering and sharing knowledge that were 1)outside the established educational structures of the south  and 2) reflective of their particular priorities: commerce, technology, industry, practical science and their hope for their children to be able to fit into traditional educational paradigms as well.

And so Dalton, both self-taught and the product of an alternative network of Quaker tutors and schools, lived, worked and researched.

(We remember him today for many things, but most commonly his contribution to atomic theory.)

One of the presenters made the very interesting point that if Dalton had come from a more privileged background, had been Anglican his path of study would have been far more traditional and circumscribed and not as amenable to outside-the-box thinking.

Of course this resonated with matters I often contemplate and prompts me to wonder, once again, why those who like to present themselves as progressive advocates of the individual tend to be such advocates of pedagogical groupthink and homogeneous mandatory educational programs?

— 3 —

It’s Friday! It’s the weekend!

But…is that a good thing? Is it a Catholic thing?

Hmmmm

Saturday-Sunday do not for a Christian constitute the end of the week, but the end-and-beginning. Most calendars reflect that too; Sunday appears at the head of the week.

Does it matter? Supremely so. How we mark time shapes everything that we do, for it is the context in which we do it. Time is the first “thing” God creates. In creating things outside of Himself, God introduces a before and an after, which means time has come into being.

— 4 —

Speaking of days of the week and holidays, how about this idea from England’s Labour Party?

A Labour government will seek to create four new UK-wide bank holidays on the patron saint’s day of each of the home nations, Jeremy Corbyn has announced. The Labour leader said the move would bring together England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, while giving workers a well-deserved break.

The plan would mean public holidays on St David’s Day (1 March), St Patrick’s Day (17 March), St George’s Day (23 April) and St Andrew’s Day (30 November).

So interesting to see the stubborn persistence, in whatever form, of religious foundations…

— 5 —

A great concept from Matt Swain, now of the Coming Home Network!

Check it out- the covers for my two upcoming puzzle books w/@avemariapress are done, feat. endorsements from @ShaunMcAfee and @peerybingle! pic.twitter.com/sYXg7NMi91

— Matt Swaim (@mattswaim) April 17, 2017

 

— 6 —

Holding this space for a link to a piece that will be appearing on another website sometime later today….

Update:  Here it is – an excerpt from Praying with the Pivotal Players at Aleteia: “Catherine of Siena: Drunk on the Blood of Christ.”

— 7 —

Are you in need of gifts for First Communion, Confirmation, graduation? Mother’s Day? End-of-the-year teacher gift? Perhaps I can help….

(For children, mom, sister, friend, new Catholic….)

For more Quick Takes, visit This Ain’t the Lyceum!

Read Full Post »

Remember…

Books for sale…..Easter…New Catholic? First Communion…Confirmation. 

 

I also have copies of all the Prove It books on hand – so check out the bookstore page for prices on those. 

 

 

Read Full Post »

7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

Well, hello there. It’s been a busy week – the revisions for the Loyola Kids Book of Bible Stories came in and needed to be gone through before our trip. It was an interesting experience, as it always is, and is not yet over, so we’ll see!

It was illuminating because at some distance from the actual writing, I can re-see what I was originally trying to accomplish, discover that I actually did it, and it’s not too bad, after all.

 

— 2 —

Other than that, it’s been driving around Birmingham, as per usual, and trip prep. No, not trip prep in the sense of “packing suitcases” – I don’t do that until right before we leave! Ridiculous! No, it’s “trip prep” in the sense of….pouring over discussion boards, renting a camera, and watching Simon Schama videos. But after I get this post done, I’m going to do a trip prep post, so look for that in a few minutes.

— 3 —

Of course, a trip to London that takes place just a few days after a terrible, tragic terrorist attack will give one pause. But not for too long. Here is my philosophy: I am not going to put us in danger, but what can one do but always be ready? Look, a few months ago, there was an armed robbery in the parking lot of the Whole Foods in the wealthiest part of Birmingham.  Some of you might have caught the news about the young woman who was kidnapped/carjacked and forced into the trunk of her own car, and escaped? It made the national news (and by the way, they arrested a suspect in the case Wednesday night) 

Do you know where that incident happened?

Three blocks from my house.  Last night, my son and I walked to an open house at a maker space, and our path took us right there.

It’s a horrible thing, and heartbreaking. So, no foolish risks, but honestly  – should we just sit in our houses behind locked doors?

— 4 —

Daniel Mitsui is back!

Well, of course, he never went away, continuing to produce fine art – one of the most interesting and important Catholic artists working today.

But he has revived his blog – the link is here – and it’s worth following. Mitsui has a very interesting long-term project he is about to begin, and you can read about it here. 

An example of the kind of material he posts: “Sacred Art and Cryptozoology”

The bias against belief in stories of legendary creatures legends is so strong, that they probably would be dismissed even if evidence of their plausibility were made plain. My older son was for a time deeply interested in the deep ocean. In at least two of his books, I read some commentary that basically said: The giant oarfish may have inspired legends about sea serpents. Now look at a picture of an oarfish:  [go to the blog to see]

This creature grows to lengths of at least 36 feet (in the deep ocean, perhaps longer). Its head is covered with red spikes. It takes a practiced sort of scientistic myopia to look at it and say: This may have inspired legends about sea serpents instead of: Hey, look – a sea serpent. I mean, look at it; it’s a sea serpent. I expect that if small mammal resembling a white bearded horse were to prance up to a group of biologists and poke them with the long spiraling horn protruding from its forehead, the biologists would say: This heretofore uknown creature may possibly have inspired legends about unicorns.

 

In honor of tomorrow’s feast. More about this piece here.

 

— 5 —.

Deacon Greg Kandra served his first Mass celebrated ad orientem. He writes about it here. 

And, I have to say: any controversy about this form of worship strikes me as wildly overstated. Most of the Mass proceeds exactly as it is normally done today; the total amount of time the clergy spends with backs toward the congregation is less than 20 minutes—maybe a third of the Mass. (It actually reminded me a bit of the Divine Liturgy I experienced when I was in San Diego a few months back; there was a similar sense of mystery and intimacy and transcendence at the altar.)

I know this form of worship isn’t ideal in every setting—some modern churches just aren’t designed for it—but I found it uplifting and surprisingly moving.

I hope I get the opportunity to serve this way again—and to pray this way in the pews, as well.

I’ve written about this quite a bit in the past. I’d love to see Mass celebrated like this all the time,everywhere. It would go a long way to minimizing cults of personality and clericalism. It clarifies the role of the priest in a bracing way. No, being in the person of Christ  is not  defined by how winningly Father makes eye contact with you when he prays. 

 

— 6 ––

Tomorrow – is a feast! 

The angel and the girl are met.
Earth was the only meeting place.
For the embodied never yet
Travelled beyond the shore of space.

— 7 —

Starting to think about Easter gifts? First Communion? Confirmation Mother’s Day?

Check out my bookstore. It will be closed from 3/25-4/2, so you might want to get on those Easter orders….If you order today, I can ship this evening, no problem.

For more Quick Takes, visit This Ain’t the Lyceum!

Read Full Post »

Mother’s Day

Quick! Have you gotten anything yet?!

Well, you can still grab this – perhaps your local Catholic bookstore has it (if they don’t…demand it!), but you can for sure order it online.

I have a few copies here, and if you contact me at amywelborn60 – at – gmail.com  we can talk about non-media mail shipping.

It’s a 365 day daily devotional for Catholic women. Because it was written to be used beyond a single year, the daily devotionals couldn’t be tied to a specific season, except for most feasts (except Easter).  But I did my best to be as reasonably seasonal as possible – so the entries from February-March tend towards themes of penitence, April-May, Eastery-themes and December, Adventish.

It’s also written for women of any state in life. It doesn’t presume that the woman reading and praying along has children, is of a certain age, is married, works outside the home, is a stay-at-home mom, and for sure does not presume that all women are into shopping or shoes. That sort of thing.

So check it out!

 

And don’t forget…First Communion and Graduation! 

 

Read Full Post »

7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

One of the dads of my son’s 8^th grade class writes icons.  So for the class school auction contribution, over a period of several weeks, the class worked with this dad to write an icon.

They worked in small groups, and on the day it was your turn, you were prepare beforehand by fasting and praying.

The completed icon was blessed at the liturgy at the local Melkite Rite Catholic Church.

(We couldn’t go because the boys were committed to serve elsewhere that morning. I was sorry to have missed it!)

Then it was purchased at the auction and donated back to the school, where it will hang.

We had an 8^th grade appreciation dinner the other night, at which the icon was displayed, each 8th grader received a lovely copy of it,  and a video about the writing of the icon was shown. The soundtrack was haunting, fantastic Greek Catholic chant.

— 2 —

The thing is, when you talk about Birmingham, Alabama and Catholics, people don’t realize that along with the Italians, it was Eastern Catholics – Melkite and Maronite – who were the earliest Catholics inhabitants here, along with Russian (the first Russian Orthodox church in the South was founded in Brookside, a tiny community just north of Birmingham)  and Eastern European Orthodox. They came as miners, ironworkes, railroad workers, and shopkeepers.  Add the early, vibrant Jewish presence in Birmingham, and you have a community that has a surprisingly strong Middle-Eastern and Mediterranean historical subculture.  There’s great Mediterranean food here, both in local (but growing) chains like Taziki’s and Zoe’s Kitchen, both of which originated here, as well as in independent restaurants, including one of the newcomers, Eli’s Jerusalem Grill, where we ate last weekend, and which served the best falafel I’ve had here, and delicious shawarma.

What this means (back to the religious conversation) is that because the Catholic population as a whole is relatively small, but also with historical roots that are deep and diverse – for example, my son’s former Catholic school celebrated a Maronite Catholic liturgy twice every school year –  Birmingham Catholics tend to have a good, healthy understanding of the cultural  breadth of “Catholic.”

(By the way, Fr. Mitch Pacwa is bi-ritual and often celebrates the liturgy at the local Maronite parish)

— 3 —

Speaking of Catholic schools….how about an end-of-the year gift for…

….your children’s catechist?

….your parish DRE?

….your school or parish library?

— 4 —

May crowning at the convent.  I never have good Mass photos because I really don’t like to take photos during Mass.  This is about as good as it gets. My ten-year old is holding the crown of flowers over there.  The older one was camping, so he went to Mass somewhere in Georgia….

What is better than my photos is the quality of preaching we hear at the convent  – which along with the sound, simple, reverent Catholic sacred music – is a primary motive for our attendance there. Since it is retreat house, when there is a retreat, the Sunday liturgy is celebrated by the priest offering the weekend, so you know the preaching is going to be good.  Over the past weeks, we’ve heard homilies from Fr. Paul Check, director of the Courage apostolate, and Fr. James Kubicki, SJ, national director of the Apostleship of Prayer.  And when there’s no retreat, the celebrant is generally one of the Franciscan Missionaries of the Eternal Word, so that’s pretty good, too!

— 5 —

School proceeds apace.  The older son will be done with his school in a week, so the sort-of-formal homeschool will wind down then as well, although both will continue with math in some form all summer, and we’ll do a little bit of Latin every day (or close to it) as well.  Plus all of the other TEACHABLE MOMENTS, you know.  That never stops.  Poor kids.

Recent rabbit-holes:

(I judge the quality of our homeschool day by two things:  Did Math get done and were the rabbit holes interesting and plentiful?)

• Latin vocabulary word was scutum, which means shield.  He knew he had heard something related before, so  he pulled out the big Oxford dictionary (for things like this, we use the print dictionary instead of the internet – you get a better sense of the breadth and depth of word roots and derivations with a dictionary).

Well, of course – a scute is a kind of/part of a reptile scale….so yes, he’d heard of it.  And learned some more as we poured over various related words.

• Next up was lignum  – wood.  That, too, was familiar, but for a different reason.  I pulled out the coal samples we’d studied a few weeks ago, and we remembered that yes, one of them was lignite, so called because of all the forms of coal, on it, the outline of the original wood can often be most clearly seen.
• Today’s saint was Flavia Domitilla, from Ponza…an island off the coast of Italy, which neither of us knew existed, so we looked that up and learned about it.  Archipelagos came up for some reason, so that was pursued, and various animals native to various islands were followed…and on it went.
• I’d checked out a fun, cartoonish book on animals in history.  He’d read through most of it the other day, but we poked around it a bit more before returning it to the library, talking about Magellan, Napoleon, Newton, Mozart, and spending some time on Seaman, the Newfoundland who accompanied Lewis and Clark, and who is around in most of the statues commemorating the exploration, including this one – I’d remembered the statue, of course, but completely forgotten about the dog – from Saint Charles, MO, which was the starting point of the journey.

And earlier in the week, there’s been, after the piano lesson, time spent at the botanical garden (one of our city’s treasures…and, like the other treasure, the art museum….free) and the zoo, with old friends.

— 6 —

I have mentioned this on Twitter, but I’m not sure if I have mentioned it here or not – this great site that has loads and loads of quotes and poems related to every month and season of the year.  It’s just a lot of fun to peruse, period, but especially so if you want seasonally-related quotations and poetry to share with kids – say, for copywork or memory work.

As I look beyond Getting Started With Latin, I’m poking around various other Latin curricula, and considering an unhurried journey through Cambridge. While on that site, I discovered this really astonishing section on “Classical Tales” – complete with beautifully done audio retellings, printables, links….wow.   

— 7 —

Still time?  Maybe!

For more Quick Takes, visit This Ain’t the Lyceum!

Read Full Post »

7 Quick Takes after Chattanooga

— 1 —

….a few days after.

The older brother was on an overnight school trip earlier in the week, so the ten-year old and I took the opportunity to go up to the 4th largest city in Tennesse to revisit the Aquarium (he’d been 2 or 3 years ago, but was ready for a return and his brother wouldn’t mind being excluded) and see the zoo, the children’s museum and whatever else we could fit into about 24 hours. (We couldn’t leave until after his piano lesson on Monday)

— 2 —

Having lived in Knoville during my teen and college years, I have random associations with Chattanooga:

• One of my best friends from college was from Chattanooga and taught me all about the prep/boarding school/High Episcopal culture of the city.
• When I was in high school in Knoxville, our newspaper staff attended a high school journalism convention in Knoxville.  Something I wrote won me an autographed paperback copy of a book by Barbara Walters.  No, I don’t still have it.
• On that same trip,  some of the senior girls went out after curfew to some bar. (They may have even been 18, so it might have even been okay…remember that was the drinking age then. Wiser times.) One of the girls met a guy there – a guy in his twenties – and Chemistry Happened. She was giddy about it when she got back to the hotel room. We lowly, gawky sophomores and juniors were in awe.   They made plans.  He’d come up to Knoxville in a few weeks and they would go to the Dan Fogleburg concert together.

(And of course)

She waited and waited at the Civic Center…

He didn’t show up.

Longer than….

— 3 —

No such drama or awards this time.  Just animal-crazy kid-centered fun.

First thing about Chattanooga:  the city is a model of tourism development and marketing.  It’s the smallest of the Big Four cities in Tennessee, and probably has the least attention-grabbing cachet.  No blues/Elvis/Mississippi River, no country music capitol, no Smokey Mountains gateway. But it’s taken what it has – the natural attraction and history of Lookout Mountain and the Tennessee River, as well as its location as the city through which a good chunk of the Florida-bound traffic must pass  – and built on it.

There’s a degree of artificiality about it, but at the same time, this downtown area of Chattanooga, on both sides of the river, is clearly also for residents, and it shows.

— 4 —

We couldn’t leave until after the Monday piano lesson, but even so, since the Aquarium doesn’t close until 7:30, we had plenty of time to explore.

There are two wings, one devoted to oceans and one to rivers.  The latter is the original, appropriately themed, since it sits right on the lovely Tennessee River.   There is not a whole lot in the ocean wing, but there were penguins and some great rays.

The river wing is well designed:  you ride the escalator up to the top, then wind your way down on mezzanine ramps that branch out into exhibit halls on the sides.  My son’s favorite is the paddle fish – he says it looks prehistoric to him and it does.

I like the Tennessee Aquarium more than I do the Atlanta aquarium, which always seems like such a mob scene to me.  It’s expensive, but then all aquariums are – they are expensive to operate – but it’s worth it.

Then some walking:

The Bluff View area directly east of downtown is lovely, and here’s another great feature of Chattanooga planning:  public art.  It’s a priority for the city, and the placement of all of this statuary adds ongoing interest to an already eye-catching walk up and down hills and over a pedestrian bridge.

The Walnut Street Bridge – threatened with demolition until a little over twenty years ago, the community joined together to restore and revive it as a pedestrian bridge.

— 5 —

Tuesday morning, we took a ten-minute drive to the zoo.  It’s small, and half-priced with our Birmingham Zoo membership, I paid a little over seven bucks for us to get in.  It was us with scores of school groups, but most of the time we managed to stay ahead of them and enjoy the animals without too much ecstatic squealing in the background.

My ten-year old is a zoo afficianado, with one of the great regrets of his life being that he was only four when he went to the San Diego Zoo, and he doesn’t remember it.  His favorite so far is the New Orleans Zoo, but he approved of this one, too, comparing it in size and scope to the Montgomery Zoo and he’s right.

So, no big animals here, which is fine – the biggest cats were jaguars, and supposedly there were chimps but we never saw them.  The highlights for us were the Fennec foxes, which are new and very cute, and the sloth

I’ve seen sloths in zoos before (Birmingham has one), but I’ve never seen one do anything but sleep.  We had been through this exhibit once earlier, had some extra time, so we decided to go back to it once more before we left, and it was great that we did: the sloth, previously curled up and asleep was seriously on the move:

Their Edward Scissorhands hook paws are pretty weird.

It was a good couple of hours and walking around, looking at animals, and listening to my ten-year old tell me all about them.

Then back to town, where we spent some time at the Children’s Discovery Museum.  I was unsure if it might be a little young for Michael, and he was right on the edge, and we wouldn’t return, but the music and art rooms were particularly good and provided him some interesting ways to spend his time.

Then, this happened:

— 6 —

You can’t miss the High Point Climbing and Fitness.  The outdoor climbing walls loom high over the riverside area. We took a brief walk around Monday night, and I told Michael that yes, he could do it on Tuesday…and so he did.  For two hours. Indoors and out.  Arms sore at the end, heels blistered from the shoes, but very, very happy.

And he was pretty excited to learn that they are opening their second facility in 2016….in Birmingham.

And then back home to pick up brother at 11:30 pm at school from his trip.

We’ll go back to Chattanooga for a couple of days sometime this summer to do Lookout Mountain/Ruby Falls/Rock City (which my older son said was really kitschy and actually kind of weird) and Chickamagua.  My big goal of this summer, locally, is to get to Cloudland Canyon State Park, which is just a little south of Chattanooga – it looks amazing.

— 7 —

Had a nice chat with Matt Swain on Thursday morning about the two B16 picture books, available here, of course:

And for Mother’s Day:

For more Quick Takes, visit This Ain’t the Lyceum!

Read Full Post »