A Midsummer's Miscellany

So, did somebody at NASA, or someplace, decide that it was just too crass to pronounce 'Uranus' as 'Yer-Anus' (which did, after all, make for a whole line of, um, 'earthy' humor)? OK, I suppose maybe I can sorta see their point, kinda; but did they really think that pronouncing it as 'Urine-Us' was a major improvement? Just, you know, wondering. . . ------------------------- I don't know what it's like where any of the rest of y'all are at, but around here, the corn on the 4th of July is more like 'me-high' than 'knee-high'. Seriously, when I go out riding my bike among the cornfields around Our Town, it's at least as tall as I am. . . ------------------------- Spent the holiday weekend visiting my parents, and it was a really good time. Dad is doing well, but it's good for him to have visitors from time to time. We spent some time working on some new information we've recently gotten on the family tree, and he gave me copies of some wonderful old photos that I'd lost track of. I had probably the best visit with my mom since she's been in the nursing home. Several times, in response to some little bit of humor, from me or one of the others (I went with my brother, his wife, and their two daughters), Mom just burst out laughing. At the appropriate time, and everything; like she understood and got the joke. Even though it wasn't apparent that she even knew who I was. . . ------------------------- Yesterday, we spent the day clearing out the debris from the maple limb that fell in our yard a couple weeks ago. And I do mean we spent the DAY. And it was a really, really HOT day, pushing 100F if it didn't actually quite get there. Jen and I and the younger kids, along with Pat and John, a couple of teenaged neighbor kids, spent the morning trimming and binding up all the 'small' branches (ie, the ones with leaves on the ends of them), using an assortment of nippers and loppers and hand saws and axes (the teen boys - and 7M, who's 12 - really liked swinging the ax) (so yes - ax-swinging lessons were given). In the afternoon, 4M and 5M came out, and our other neighbor Jim came over with his chainsaw, and we cut and carried away the big stuff. I wish my digital camera were working better; the photo-sequence from beginning to end would be pretty striking. In the morning, it was like we were working in a jungle - we could barely see each other's heads through the dense foliage. By dinnertime, we pretty much had our yard back. And all it cost me was a new chain for Jim's saw, and a six-pack of beer for us to share. And we all slept really well. . .