Category Archives: Just for Fun

It’s Caturday

Just for Fun, Life,

A beautiful tabby cat appeared on the farm during Covid Spring. She was friendly and ready to become part of the family, but our big dog Spot was not a fan. We figured she could be a porch cat as she seemed happy being outside. One memorable night, however, I woke to hear Spot chasing her through the house. She had gotten in through the dog door. We named her Circe after the goddess in The Odyssey. (My first cat was Calypso, also borrowed from Homer.)

After that, it was just a matter of time and as summer turned to fall, we welcomed Circe into the house full time. Spot was wary but eventually they became friends, sometimes snoozing together on the same chaise. Our blind beagle, Major, was mostly scared of her when she tried to make friends.

Now, Circe shares her home with Josie the dog who wants nothing more than to smell her butt and share her treats. At three years old, Josie still has a lot of puppy energy and can be a bit rambunctious for Circe. But she also has a healthy respect for the claws.

Lately, Circe has taken to laying on my desk as I work and is especially fond of sprawling on my journal as I write. Pencils are one of her favorite toys, and she will pick them up in her mouth to carry them away. Not sure what has prompted the change as she has several favorite resting spaces around the house and my office that are much more comfortable. When discouragement didn’t work, I cleared a pathway so she isn’t scattering paper and books as she makes her leap.

Here is the cat tax, as they say on the socials:

a tabby cat sitting on a desk with a pencil and a coffee cup in the background

Belated Wishes for Happy Holidays

books, Just for Fun, ,

Two major holidays were celebrated over the weekend:

August 8 is National Sneak Some Zucchini Into Your Neighbor’s Porch Day. It was created by Tom Roy who, with his wife Ruth, has created lots of different holidays. I feel a close connection to them as they lived for many years in Mt. Gretna, Pennsylvania, one of my favorite places on earth. Enjoy this video I made in 2013! I found it when I was searching for blog posts and had long forgotten about it.

August 9 is National Book Lovers Day. I often joke that my husband convinced me to move into our old, sometimes challenging farmhouse, because it had a library where my books could be out for the world to see. I have had a lifelong love affair with books and a few of those on my shelves have been with me for decades. Now, as we consider downsizing, I am considering how to cull what has become a sprawling collection that long ago outgrew the library. There seem to be books everywhere!

Giving away books I have read is no problem. But, it may be time to give away books that I haven’t read. As I sort through piles, I consider the possibility that I will probably never read certain books. It may be time to release them to the wild to find someone who will read them. So far, it hasn’t been as hard as I thought it would be. Some books just don’t speak to me the way they did when I acquired them. And, unlike when I began my book collecting, books are widely available at the click of a button. I don’t have to worry that losing the physical book means never having the opportunity to read it.

The hardest pile to whittle has been the professional books. I have a collection of some classic books about educational technology including manuals for teaching with this new thing called the Internet. I will share some of the titles in a future blog post.

Meanwhile, it is not too late to share some zucchini with your neighbor before curling up with a good book. And, if you are intrigued by these holidays, you can browse the full calendar at National Day Calendar.

Origin Story

Just for Fun, technology

I met my students last evening and had fun getting to know them and starting to dig into the course. I worry a little that I tell too many stories of the old days when it took minutes to connect to the Internet, and we were unable to move from our tethered devices.

Last night, it was the story of my middle school that, via a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, had such early access to the Internet that we went for at least two years without a filter as such technology was still being developed. It was early days so “bad” websites were not as widely available, and we talked to the students about responsibility as well as closely monitoring their usage. Remember, this was the mid-90s so access was on desktop computer in labs or classrooms. 1:1 and BYOD were not part of the regular vocabulary.

I have a few memories of accidental, inappropriate access. Whitehouse.com was a funny parody of whitehouse.gov and one dear child tried to get to Playboy by typing palyboy.com, which then kept coming up in the address bar. The venerable elementary school principal, a wonderful woman, went searching for pictures for her website and we were all surprised when the first one depicted a scantily clad, buxom young woman sprawled on top of a desk in front of a chalkboard. We had a good laugh and moved on.

Oh dear, I just told a story, didn’t I? I threatened to tell my students the origin story of witchyrichy, my standard username since I joined the Internet, but sadly did not have time. I don’t think I have shared it here either so, dear readers, another story for your amusement.

It is Halloween, October 1996, the year in which my middle school received the afore mentioned grant. I was teaching 8th grade communications skills in a computer lab. Yahoo was two years old and the Google of its day. Everyone wanted a Yahoo account but needed some help figuring out how to do it. When I sat down at one of the lab desktops to create a Yahoo account (I think I had been using a Virginia PEN account but that’s a story for another time), it seemed that many variations of my name were already taken. So, I took a look at that year’s costume choice with pointy black hat and long black dress, and witchyrichy was born.

I am a little embarrassed to admit that I did briefly egosurf in front of my students last evening. As I scrolled, I was reminded of all the various sites that have come and gone over the past 20 years from bookmarking tools to online communities. I think I feel a story coming on…