May Literary Birthdays

Benjamin McLane Spock (5/2/1903) wrote The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care
Lyman Frank Baum (5/15/1856) wrote The Wizard of Oz
Lorraine Hansberry (5/19/1930) wrote A Raisin in the Sun
Arthur Conan Doyle (5/22/1859) wrote The Hound of the Baskervilles
Rachel Louise Carson (5/27/1907) wrote Silent Spring
Samuel Dashiell Hammett (5/27/1894) wrote The Maltese Falcon
Ian Lancaster Fleming (5/28/1908) wrote Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Walt Whitman (5/30/1819) wrote Leaves of Grass

You found it here in April
..top 10 April search engine string queries
10. seinfeld rhetoric of
9. pap smear photos
8. miss nc 2001
7. krispy kreme contractor
6. chicago marathon medal
5. bite
4. screwed by ata
3. magnificent mile
2. lord of the dance plot review act i

and the most popular search engine string in April is...
1. pictures of spider bites

Last weekend went by in a flash. For starters, I participated in the Bach Festival concerts Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday afternoon. Singing Carmina Burana is quite a work out. I don't know how many calories worth as "singing" isn't listed on the fat burner calculator. Of course a week's worth of rehearsals in addition to final exams, projects and presentations all of which were on top of my duties as semi-loyal worker bee left me too exhausted to recall much of the other works performed in concert. There was what I describe as a symphonic poem featuring cello called Casanova which was a very exciting newly scored piece that could have been pulled from a movie soundtrack, but it wasn't. Sections sounded like Zorro saving the girl, Indiana Jones procuring the treasure while out-racing a giant boulder, or even Superman saving the day. Does everything have to sound like John Williams these days?

In the flurry of activities, my new laptop arrived on Friday and I was able to retrieve it by going in to work an hour early (so I could leave an hour early) and just barely getting to the Fed-Ex pickup by 5 pm. Working Saturdays makes running errands nearly impossible. The new laptop is nice, as far as I can tell. I haven't had much of a chance to do more than turn it on and configure it. I had planned on spending Sunday after the concert loading it full of software but a client needed me to do some emergency updates to her website, and train her sister on how to edit the content. So I now my new laptop languishes while waiting for me to break it in.

It was nice to read that Dewayne enjoyed the UCF - Shakespeare Company's presentation of Two Gentlemen of Verona, which Daniel and I attended on April 18. The 80's motif was a little "far out" unless you bought into it. The opening dance sequence tribute to "O Mickey" had me laughing with tears before the first taste of iambic pentameter. Also enjoyable was the tribute to Michael Jackson's Thriller, a tribute to Caddy Shack, Jessie's Girl riffs, and a special appearance by a Mister "T" look-a-like. Strange as it all sounds, the choices all contributed to the story without being a distraction. Go laugh yourself to tears before the production closes.

Exerpt from Living Better by Eda LeShan, WOMAN'S DAY, 9/22/81
THE RISK OF GROWING

I recently celebrated my fifty-ninth birthday. As usual I was utterly astounded by the passing of the years. It seems to me that last year I was only twenty-five and the year before that I was about twelve. But no matter how surprising they are, I find birthdays useful. They remind me that I must not waste a minute of my life--and that I must keep on growing and changing in order truly to celebrate my birthdays.

A number of years ago I wrote a book called The Wonderful Crisis of Middle Age. I thought middle age could be called wonderful because it seemed to be a chance for a second adolescence-- a time during which I could make new and better decisions about the rest of my life. While I was writing the book, I met and oceanographer who asked if I knew how a lobster was able to grow bigger when Its shell was so hard. I had to admit that learning how lobsters grow had never been high on my list of priorities. But now that he had mentioned it, how in the world could a lobster grow?

The only way, he explained, is for the lobster to shed its shell at regular intervals. When its body begins to feel cramped inside the shell, the lobster instinctively looks for a reasonably safe spot to rest while the hard shell comes off and the pink membrane just inside forms the basis of the next shell. But no matter where a lobster goes for this shedding process, it is very vulnerable. It can get tossed against a coral reef or eaten by a fish. In other words, a lobster has to risk its life in order to grow.

I found myself preoccupied with the lobster story for days after hearing it. I finally realized that it was a symbol for the book I was writing. The lobster could teach us that the only way to endure the passage of time and limits of our mortality is to know that we are growing and changing, that we are becoming more than we have been with each year of our lives.

We all know when our shells have gotten too tight. We feel angry or depressed or frightened because life is no longer exciting or challenging. We are doing the same old things and beginning to feel bored. Or we are doing things we hate to do and are feeling stifled in our shells.

Some of us continue to smother in old shells that are no longer useful or productive, That way we can at least feel safe--nothing can happen to us. Others are luckier; even though we know we will be vulnerable--that there are dangers ahead--we realize that we must take risks or suffocate.

In honor of my birthday, I invite you to share the party I always go to-the one where I shed this year's shell, despite the dangers, in order to get ready for new and better adventures.

I have not researched if this article was actually published in Womans' Day in 1981.

Day two of back to reality and I'm missing lazy afternoons in the sun soaking up skin cancer through SPF 15. The spot on my scalp that burned, peeled yesterday giving way to large dandruff-like flakes along the part of my hair. I picked up a nasty sinus infection that has turned into a nastier cough in paradise. Nope, I don't think its Norwalk, Legionnaires or SARS.

As you might be aware, I have been closely following the progress of the construction of a Krispy Kreme Doughnuts store on University Blvd (the Golden-Fried Mile) in Orlando. Yesterday I spotted a sign near the site: 15 Days Until Hot Coffee and Doughnuts. Yes, I did the happy dance right there in the car. Doughnuts before the first of May.

Has anyone else been infatuated with my latest secret television joy? American Dreams, a show that airs Sunday nights at 8pm on NBC has drawn me in since the first episode. The plot takes place in 1963, the year Sidney Poitier took home the best actor award at the Oscars, the first time for a black man. The story centers around the Meg Pryor, a catholic high school student in Philadelphia, PA and her family. She dances on bandstand, which means that each and every episode has great music, and original American Bandstand footage. The issues and nostalgia of the era as well as the presentation in this show make it a Sunday night guilty pleasure. Tune in.

Hamlet's Cat's Soliloquy
from "Hamlet's Cat"
by William Shakespeare's Cat

To go outside, and there perchance to stay
Or to remain within: that is the question:
Whether 'tis better for a cat to suffer
The cuffs and buffets of inclement weather
That Nature rains on those who roam abroad,
Or take a nap upon a scrap of carpet,
And so by dozing melt the solid hours
That clog the clock's bright gears with sullen time
And stall the dinner bell. To sit, to stare
Outdoors, and by a stare to seem to state
A wish to venture forth without delay,
Then when the portal's opened up, to stand
As if transfixed by doubt. To prowl; to sleep;
To choose not knowing when we may once more
Our readmittance gain: aye, there's the hairball;
For if a paw were shaped to turn a knob,
Or work a lock or slip a window-catch,
And going out and coming in were made
As simple as the breaking of a bowl,
What cat would bear the household's petty plagues,
The cook's well-practiced kicks, the butler's broom,
The infant's careless pokes, the tickled ears,
The trampled tail, and all the daily shocks
That fur is heir to, when, of his own free will,
He might his exodus or entrance make
With a mere mitten? Who would spaniels fear,
Or strays trespassing from a neighbor's yard,
But that the dread of our unheeded cries
And scratches at a barricaded door
No claw can open up, dispels our nerve
And makes us rather bear our humans' faults
Than run away to unguessed miseries?
Thus caution doth make house cats of us all;
And thus the bristling hair of resolution
Is softened up with the pale brush of thought,
And since our choices hinge on weighty things,
We pause upon the threshold of decision.

He was a skater boy, she said see ya later boy
he wasn't good enough for her
She had a pretty face, but her head was up in space
she needed to come back down to earth.

When it was our turn to go the entire group chaotically and cautiously stumbled across the Champion Chip Timing mats. With no momentum, it was best to just walk across the mats. Yet to do this in skates, with stumbling people ahead of you and anxious people behind you was no easy task. Soon enough we were off and skating. As I turned left from Victory Lane on to the Osceola Parkway, not even a mile into the course, I had already lost all of my group. They told me they'd yell for me to slow down if I got too far ahead, but I must not have heard them. They were no where in sight. It was too crowded and dangerous to stop and wait.

After a short up hill the first challenge of the course appeared, a nice crowded downhill. With so many people around, it was too dangerous to go fast. I wanted enough space between me and the people in front of me so that if one of them went down, I could avoid a similar fate. I braked the whole way down the hill leaving me with no momentum for the up hill that followed and led us to the Disney-MGM Studios. I passed lots of skaters on the up hills, skaters who must have trained on Florida's flat trails. Once in the Studios, I stopped at the Sunset Blvd crossroads to chat with a co-worker and to wait for my friends. It wasn't crowded and was safe - mostly to consider stopping. Nearly 5 minutes elapsed before I saw the friendly faces of two of my training buddies. I set off with them on the news that the two slower members of our group were well behind them.

The three of us glided through the parking lot, across several more Champion Chip mats, where I learned that the best approach is to bend your knees and keep moving. We skated on towards the boardwalk where I gained even more time on my two pals. I stopped 3 times in Epcot for photos, but my training buddies didn't catch up. I figured I'd go the rest alone, when the elite skaters started passing me on their second loop through the course.

The elites flew by in a single file peloton capitalizing on the benefits of drafting. Every minute or so there would be a switch and the person in front would float to the back of the pack and await his or her turn to lead and break the wind again. The police enforcement barked at us "not-so-elites" to move to the right, but there is only so far to the right you can move before your in the grass. So I moved as far to the right as I was going to and braced to be passed by the elites.

The trip back from the Yacht and Beach resort to the Wide World of Sports and the finish line was over less scenic and much rougher roadway. There were 2 highway clover leaves to navigate. The first was a down hill on reasonable good asphalt. The second was an up hill that got the better of many skaters as I passed them up the hill and even more on the flat high way that followed as they slowed to recover and I plowed on with a heart rate unaffected by the steep grade. Knowing I was close to the finish line, I sped quickly through the final 2 miles to the finish line. I crossed in time to have been allowed to skate the whole course again; less than an hour and a half.

I figured two of my training buddies were close behind, certainly within 5 minutes or so. I had my timer chip removed and grabbed a orange slice and a bottle of water and skated up to the spectator side of the finish line to watch for friends. The two training buddies that I met up with at the Disney-MGM studios were closer to 15 minutes than 5 minutes behind me. I was able to capture their finish on my disposable camera. They came around and joined me in waiting for the rest our group. I figured the last two would skate in around 2:15 after the first start, which would be about a 2:07 half marathon for them. They came in just ahead of my estimate at 2:11, almost making the 2 hour time limit for the half and collecting finishers medals just like the rest of us.

In exchanging stories I learned that I was the only one among our group that didn't have problems with the elite skaters. Perhaps this is because a group of one is always single file. I don't know if the two pairs of my skating friends got in single file when being passed by the elites or not. Two members of our group took mild spills but nothing that couldn't be turned into a good story but still could be covered up with a band-aid.

I didn't see anyone juggle along the course like I did for the NYC running marathon. I did see some skaters do dance-like moves you see pair ice skaters do in televised competitions, like arabesques, twizzles, and cross chases. Although the term, "couples skate" came to mind, they looked like they were having fun. I passed many people for whom the course got the better of them. I saw skaters that had signed up for the full race, but were denied a second loop through the course because they didn't reach the half way point by the hour and a half cut off.

The race was fun and better organized than I expected for an inaugural event. I can't wait to sign up for the full race next year! I hope I can enlist a few more faster friends to join me.

Below is a picture of 4 out of 5 of us holding up the t-shirts from our packets that we picked up the day before the race.