Owls

Obviously, I am having an owl year, and I'm delighted.

Scientifically, an "owl year" occurs when the huge tundra loving snowy owls are short on prey (lemmings and snowshoe hares) in their far northern habitats. These ghost-like owls come south in search of munchies, causing bird watchers in the northern tier of America much joy.

I spotted my first snowy sitting on a telephone pole a few weeks ago just as dawn was breaking. I'm always on the lookout for raptors but was shocked when this one turned out to be white with black flecks and a big facial disc.

My second owl in a month was much more minute, in fact, only three inches tall and the world's smallest owl. The elf owl was ensconced in a natural habitat at Tucson's remarkable Sonoran Desert Museum, which, despite its name, is one of the top zoos in America.

Elf owls hang out in holes in saguaro cactuses. The openings are made by Gila Woodpeckers who build their nests in the cavities and abandon them when their young fledge.

Elf owls dine entirely on arthropods which are captured in flight. Moths are a special treat. When water is scarce, these little owls can get needed moisture from eating juicy beetles and other buggy prey. Scorpions and centipedes are also on their menu, and they remove the stinger before feeding scorpions to their young.

I'm grateful I never had to say to my kids, "Eat up all your scorpion, dears, so you will grow up to be strong and healthy."

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Pajamas

"Don't ever send your children to a school where the kids call teachers by their first names."

This nugget of wisdom was the chalkboard "thought for the day" at my favorite French bakery. I heartily concur. If a teacher has no more status that a playground buddy, scant education will result.

I would like to add two school selection criteria of my own.

First, never send your child to any school that has the word "academy" in its name. If you doubt me, just try the following simple test. Walk into any classroom in an "academy" school and ask the students to write one short, grammatically correct, coherent paragraph in their native language. The results may shock you.

Second, don't send your child to any school that has more than one "crazy" day per school year. Crazy days are rampant... crazy hair day, mismatched clothes day, backwards day, crazy hat day, pajama day, stuffed animal day and on and on.

I truly believe it is harder to teach a bunch of hyper kids who have green faces, mismatched socks, flannel PJ's, purple hair and gigantic pandas in their arms, than a normally attired class.

Conversely, I find students hindered by a teacher in her chenille robe and bunny slippers.

I've never been a fan of school uniforms, but I might have to change my mind. Our school administrators seem to have lost theirs.

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Ampersand

I am a fan of ampersands (&), those flamboyant little symbols that fill in for the word "and".

Shunning secretarial classes in high school, I was not formally introduced to the ampersand until I started doing graphic design. I was smitten. Even the word is fun to say.

Ampersands have been around since Roman times; however, the name is more recent. After perusing numerous web sites, the following history is the clearest. Be a bit patient, the explanation is convoluted.

 The name "ampersand" certainly sounds as if it should mean something terribly exotic, coined in the misty yesteryear of typography, but its roots are actually quite humble, and we have the long-suffering schoolchild to thank for the word.  It comes from the practice once common in schools of reciting all 26 letters of the alphabet plus the "&" sign, pronounced "and," which was considered part of the alphabet, at least for learning purposes.

Any letter that could also be used as a word in itself ("A," "I," "&" and, at one point, "O") was preceded in the recitation by the Latin phrase "per se" ("by itself") to draw the students' attention to that fact.  Thus the end of this daily ritual would go: "X, Y, Z and per se and."  This last phrase was routinely slurred to "ampersand" by children rightly bored to tears, and the term crept into common English usage by around 1837.  Courtesy of The Word Detective May 2003

When choosing a typeface, I always check out the ampersand first. That symbol is often a wee showcase for font designer's creativity.

A small gallery of ampersands with a decidedly romantic bent follows. Happy Valentines Day!

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Breezy

The other day it sounded as if the Acheson, Topeka and Santa Fe was roaring through the house. Wind gusts were up to 45 mph, and the cats were all hiding in the rafters. I wanted to join them.

I have friends who find wind invigorating and exciting. I, however, view a windy day with unease. Aren't those big wind gusts just a practice run for sinking an ore boat in Lake Superior or blowing away some poor little Wisconsin town? And it's historical fact that many pioneer women who lived in sod houses out in the plains went mad from the constant howling of the wind.

Wind was a foe even when we lived in the city. Our yard was graced with a magnificent, mature willow tree. We all treasured it. But, don't believe all that gentle wind in the willows nonsense. After every storm, we could be found in our yard raking up willow tree debris for hours.

The phenomenal power of wind was fully revealed to us when we moved into our current country home. We are on a seventy foot bluff with open fields around us. When a nor’easter gets whipping, the noise in our upstairs bedroom is deafening. The whole house, including the bed, literally shakes and groans.

I think the wolf got miscast in The Three Little Pigs. The wind should have been the character that said, "I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down."

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