Marian Anderson and My Grandfather

The other day my Aunt invited me to be her escort to a cocktail party of her garden club.  My Aunt is such a dear woman that without hesitation I said "Of course!" and then thought "Good Lord, what have I gotten myself into?"  I was, at 53, the youngest one there.  It was held at the Scott Fantom Museum in Danbury, where I used to volunteer when I was in high school, so it was fun to see the old place again and they had added, over the course of the past 35 years, quite a few new things.
The cocktail party was held in the Marian Anderson Rehearsal Studio, one of the new additions.  "Who is Marian Anderson?" I asked.  "Well, you know who Marian Anderson is!" my Aunt replied as she rolled her eyeballs.  I really did not know who she was.
Embarrassed by my lack of knowledge, I studiously read the exhibit plaques.  It turns out Marian Anderson is the famous opera singer who sang on the steps of Lincoln Memorial, after she was denied a performance by the Daughters of the American Revolution. She broke all kinds of cultural barriers as a black performer.  And she lived right here in Danbury! Who knew?! 
After a few exclamations on my part, my Aunt went on to tell me about our family connection!  Marian Anderson was an avid gardener and my Grandfather owned Zinser's Florist.  She bought all her potted plants and flowers, cut or potted, from him!  My Grandmother would have her daughters (my two Aunts and Mother) inside and they were allowed to peak at Mrs. Anderson through the curtains but they could not disturb her.  My Grandmother was in awe and my Grandfather said Marian Anderson was quite a lady! What a small world it is really.

Mini-lesson Version 3

A Procedural Mini-Lesson on Writing an Essay on Energy Resources in Connecticut


I. Connection: Discuss the following questions in your small groups in order to stimulate your ideas and to help you make connections. Prepare one group member to share your answers with the rest of us in a whole class discussion.

1. How did you use energy this morning when you made your way out of your home and came to school?

2. Where did this energy come from?

3. What was the ultimate source of this energy? What kind of fuel was burned to generate the energy?

II. Teach: (Using guided practice. Explain to whole class.) The following are guidelines for writing an essay based on your previous work of graphing energy usage in CT from the excel spreadsheet.

1. Please take out your graphs and data table from yesterday. Notice how, over the past 40 years, some sources of energy in Connecticut have been used extensively and some have not. The use of some has grown over time and the used of others has not changed much or has declined.

2. Your task today is to write an essay about just one of these sources of energy and how it has been used over the past 40 years in Connecticut.

3. First you must internet research on the energy source you pick. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this source of energy? Does this source of energy support Connecticut’s initiative to reduce CO2 emissions by this year?

4. Remember to use reliable internet sources and to develop a reference list in MLA format!

5. Your essay should discuss the following things:

• An introduction

• A paragraph on the benefits of this energy source.

• A paragraph on the disadvantages of this energy source.

• A paragraph describing how this source of energy has been used in CT over the past 40 years.

• A paragraph describing your prediction of how this source of energy will be used in the future and why. Tell me if you think using this energy source supports our initiative to reduce CO2 emissions.

• A concluding paragraph which states your main points.





III. Active Engagement: Are there any questions about the assignment?



IV. Link: (Class Discussion) In this unit on Environmental Chemistry we have been discussing the combustion of fossil fuels and the impact that using them as an energy source has on our environment. As the accident in the Gulf illustrates, our heavy reliance on fossil fuels has detrimental effects on the environment in the air, water, and land. This accident has happened just recently, but we have been burning fossil fuels for 150 years. Should we continue to rely on fossil fuels as an energy source or encourage the development of cleaner alternatives which have less of an impact on the environment?



V. Writing and Conferencing: You now have an opportunity to work on researching and writing your essay. I encourage you to stay on task, to use reliable sources and to maintain your reference section as you go. Here are some reliable resources for you to use as you begin your research:

Connecticut’s Research Engine http://www.iconn.org

Nuclear Energy Resources

Energy Information Administration, Nuclear http://www.eia.doe.gov/fuelnuclear.html

Office of Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology http://www.ne.doe.gov/

Hydroelectric Energy Resources

National Hydropower Association http://www.hydro.org/

Power Matters: Hydroelectric Power http://www.tva.gov/power/hydro.htm

Biomass Energy Resources

Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy http://www1.eere.energy.gov/biomass/

Connecticut Clean Energy Fund (click on Biomass from the list)

http://ctcleanenergy.com/BasicsofCleanEnergy/TypesofCleanEnergy/tabid/66/Default.aspx



Coal Energy Resources

Office of Fossil Energy-U.S. Department of Energy

http://www.fe.doe.gov/programs/powersystems/cleancoal/index.html

Coal Fired Power Generation http://www.rst2.edu/ties/acidrain/IEcoal/how.htm



Natural Gas Energy Resources

• Adventures in Energy

http://www.adventuresinenergy.org/main.swf

• Natural Gas Supply Organization

http://www.naturalgas.org





VI. Sharing: You have an opportunity to share your work with each other and to get feedback on the content and writing skills involved after completing the essay by posting them on this blog.

Of Mice and Men

Yesterday I was over at my friends house.  I was reading chapter 8 in our text book in an easy chair in the basement when I saw a mouse run across the room.  My friend was upstairs but I told him and we set out poison.  Later we were both downstairs and I saw the mouse dash behind him as he was sitting in his desk chair.  I yelped that the mouse was running around again and with that my friend (this titan of industry, this sailor who has crewed yachts from here to the Bahamas and climbed the main mast in terrible storms) screeched like a girl and jumped up on an ottoman.  Even Superman had his kryptonite.

Goldfish Bowl

You can feed the goldfish by clicking on the water!  It's kind of mezmerizing.

The Kayak Incident

If there is one thing a single woman is good at, it is giving herself opportunities to have fun.  You just learn, over time, not to rely on others for anything.  So last Monday, after caring for my beau all weekend who had a bad back, I decided I needed to go kayaking.  I transformed my Honda Element into a boat carrier by putting down the front and back seats and slid the kayak in.  Then I spent an hour looking for the paddle, a $200 paddle.  Could it have been possible that the last time I used the kayak I left it behind?  I called my friend and exclaimed "I lost the paddle! I can't find it anywhere!"  "Did you look in the kayak?" he asked.  "It is definitely not in the kayak!" I replied.  But I looked and there it was. 
So off I went, on a beautiful Memorial Day, to the lake.  There was quite a walk from the parking area to the launch site and the kayak is 40 lbs, but it was no problem.  I dragged it most of the way.  And I had to trudge through some poison ivy in my sandals but I got her launched without tipping over or getting wet.  Off I went.  It was an interesting lake, 2 islands, and the wind was picking up.  It began to blow so strongly that it pushed me slightly ahead of the waves so that I was surfing.  Apparently, I'm so broad I act as a sail.  This was exhilarating going with the wind, but eventually I realized I was going to have to paddle back to the launch site.  The launch site, where was it?  All the woods looked the same now! 
I turned around and began to paddle into the wind.  I worked hard but it was good exercise.  No one else was on the lake now.  The sky was getting dark.  A storm was definitely coming in.
Eventually, I found the launch area, pulled the kayak out of the water through the poison ivy and back to the car.  But I was hurrying a little, and not realizing my own strength, pushed the kayak from the back of the car, over the back seat, over the front seat, and through the windshield!
The good news is, although my feet are covered in poison ivy, that the insurance will cover the broken windshield.  They're going to put in a new windshield on Monday while I'm at work.  Life just doesn't get any better than that!

Foibles and Follies of Being 53 and Single

It seems like some of us have some real challenges and grief in our lives through no fault of our own.  And I just thought perhaps some of my stories here, recounting some of my dating episodes, might bring us all some humor and relief, if only for a short time.  It's all true.

Three years ago I found myself single, which I never expected to be, ever in my life.  And since then have been dating, which wasn't easy when I was 20 and at 53 still isn't easy.  Although, I have a greater sense of who I am now and of what I can and cannot tolerate, what my strengths and weaknesses are, so in that sense it is easier. 

I have been dating a wonderful man for a year now.  He's divorced too and all of our children are in college or, in the case of my daughter, have graduated.  He farts and I snort when I laugh.  We're good together.  My daughter says we are the two nerdest people she has ever met.  But we enjoy each other's company, so what does it matter if he collects clocks and I have a periodic table on my refrigerator?

But the issues of meeting each others children is a rather tricky one.  His 3 girls are protective of their Dad and my son thinks the idea of his Mother dating is just strange.  We try to make good impressions and hopefully win the hearts of each other's families.

Take, for instance, last Sunday.  It was his birthday, and after conferring with his daughters, not wishing to intrude on any family traditions, we decided to have brunch at my house.  Cooking is not my forte, but I was determined to make an impression.  It started off fine.  Almost everything was ready right at 10:00 a.m. and all the guests had arrived.  But when my date came through the door he was walking doubled over, which looked awkward to me.  He explained he'd thrown his back out the day before power washing his deck, and was in a lot of pain, but being the trooper he is, showed up anyway.

I began serving drinks, orange juice, pomegranite juice, iced tea, or water, and quickly realized the orange juice had gone sour.  No problem, we had lots of choices.  I took the egg casserole out of the oven at 10:04 but it was not yet done and I put it back in for 15 minutes.  This was a little glitch because we were on a rather tight schedule.  So I served the fruit salad with the yogurt, the cinnamon rolls and the croissants.  Are you supposed to take the center out of the pineapple? It was hard as a rock and not ripe.  Neither was the honeydew melon.  There was no sweet green flesh, as had been promised by the grocer.  But no one exclaimed or complained.  I was hoping they didn't notice.   

But then they began to pass the rolls, which looked excellent.  The cinnamon rolls were so easy to make.  They came in a refrigerated package.  All I had to do was crack them open, put them on the cookie sheet and bake!  I iced them and served them on a pretty glass dish with a paper doily.  And then the guest to my left, boyfriend of one of the daughters, picked up a cinnamon roll and stuck to the bottom was the metal disk from the top of the icing that came with the package of dough.  I had baked it into the roll!  He peeled it off and although gave me a quizzical glance seemed unfazed.

I escaped by running into the kitchen to check on the eggs.  They were still runny as soup, so I turned up the temperature to 325 degrees and set the timer for 15 more minutes.  To distract everyone from no eggs, and figuring a sugar high might lighten the mood, I brought out my coup de grace: chocolate covered strawberries served on another glass platter on a white paper doily!  I had made them the night before and the instructions on the chocolate package said not to refrigerate.  So I didn't.  But I should have.  Because the strawberries had mold growing on them which I didn't notice when I served them in my embarrassed reverie.  But the boyfriend noticed and wondered out loud what the white fuzzy stuff was. 

Rising up off the floor, I went back into the kitchen to check on the eggs.  They were still soupy but I decided to serve them anyway and pretend the raw eggs were a sauce.  I think I carried it off.

In stunned silence I served dessert and coffee.  The girls had brought apple crisp (the perfect brunch food because of the apples and oatmeal) and cheesecake with strawberries on top.  These were delicious and perfectly done.  And it was finally time to open presents.  I think he liked mine: a pottery bowl I had made and one my instructor made, a book of Bob Dylan's lyrics, a deck of cards and a rule book.  The rule book for games turned out to be the hit of the party.  The boyfriend is a champion cribbage player and led us all in a few games!

After everyone had gone, I was satisfied.  I think I had accomplished my goal.  I had really made an impression.

Mini-Lesson Version 2

A Procedural Mini-Lesson on Writing an Essay on Energy Resources in Connecticut

 

I. Connection: Answer the following questions to stimulate your ideas and to help you make connections.

1. How did you use energy this morning when you made your way out of your home and came to school?
2. Where did this energy come from?
3. What was the ultimate source of this energy? What kind of fuel was burned to generate the energy?

 

II. Teach: (Using guided practice.) The following are guidelines for writing an essay based on your previous work of graphing energy usage in CT from an excel spreadsheet.

 

Please take out your graphs and data table from yesterday. Notice how, over the past 40 years, some sources of energy in Connecticut have been used extensively and some have not. The use of some has grown over time and the used of others has not changed much or has declined.

 

Your task today is to write an essay about just one of these sources of energy and how it has been used over the past 40 years in Connecticut.

 

First you must research the energy source you pick. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this source of energy? Does this source of energy support Connecticut’s initiative to reduce CO2 emissions by this year?

 

Remember to use reliable internet sources and to develop a reference list in MLA format!

 

Your essay should discuss the following things:

•  An introduction

•  A paragraph on the benefits of this energy source.

•  A paragraph on the disadvantages of this energy source.

•  A paragraph describing how this source of energy has been used in CT over the past 40 years. Use observations from your graph. Interpret your data.

•  A paragraph describing your prediction of how this source of energy will be used in the future and why. Tell me if you think using this energy source supports our initiative to reduce CO2 emissions.

•  A concluding paragraph which states your main points.

 

III. Active Engagement: Are there any questions about the assignment?

 

IV. Link: In this unit on Environmental Chemistry we have been discussing the combustion of fossil fuels and the impact that using them as an energy source has on our environment. As the accident in the Gulf illustrates, our heavy reliance on fossil fuels has detrimental effects on the environment in the air, water, and land. This accident has happened just recently, but we have been burning fossil fuels for 150 years. Should we continue to rely on fossil fuels as an energy source or encourage the development of cleaner alternatives which have less of an impact on the environment?

 

V. Writing and Conferencing: Now you have the opportunity to work on your research and write your essay. I encourage you to stay on task, to use reliable sources and to maintain your reference section.

 

VI. Sharing: You have an opportunity to share with each other your work and to get feedback on the content and writing skill involved after completing the essay by myself and other students by posting your essay on this blog as a comment!  Good luck!