Loose Leaf Notes

1. Babysitting my grandsons yesterday: I don’t know why they call it babysitting when there is no sitting involved.

2. Seven month old Liam’s t-shirt read: “Sorry, I’m taken.” My favorite t-shirt of his almost 3-year old brother Bryce says: “I do my own stunts.”

3. When I was a girl I thought the old woman who lived in the shoe with so many children she didn’t know what to do and Mother Goose were one in the same.

4. Mother Goose is the Santa Claus of nursery rhymes. She is credited with stories and rhymes, but no specific writer has ever been identified. The rhymes come from many sources, have been passed down in folklore fashion (some even written by famous authors) and perpetuated by publishers, frequently without author attribution.

5. The Greater Good is a new documentary about childhood immunizations that could intensify debate around the potential dangers of vaccines. The film, which premiered Saturday at the Dallas International Film Festival, aims to create “a rational discussion” about vaccine safety. Clip HERE.

6. I think of autism as the human version of colony collapse in honeybees, caused by a myriad of environmental factors that weaken the immune system, including too many vaccines.

7. In April when others are doing taxes, I’m counting a different kind of income: the heads of daffodils and the buds of tulips and the blossoms on the dogwood tree.

8. Although tulips are often associated with The Netherlands, commercial cultivation of the flower began in the Persia and Turkey and the word “tulip” is derived from Persian dulband (“turban”).

9. The boasting crocus /woke us singing/ Dandelions were roaring/ and bluebells were ringing/ Loose-lipped tulips /made the red poppies blush /The iris joined the chorus/ and the crabapples fussed … Read the rest of this poem HERE.

10. My own Mother Goose inspired nursery rhyme starts:  Liam Pat wore his hat/ all the way to the laundry mat/ The only time he took it off/ was when he went to the barber shop.

11. Liam Pat wore his hat/ seven days a week/ The only time he took it off /was when he went to sleep.

12. More wise words from my dharmacratic friend Will via Facebook: The Clinton administration left us on course for a surplus!! which Bush promptly gave to the very wealthiest Americans with his huge tax cuts that cost us 1.8 trillion bucks, that’s 1.8 million billions ( while he started two wars) and now the republicans want to call failure to extend these tax cuts a tax increase. The wealthy used the extra money to unfairly game and destabilize the financial system, BTW.

13. “The difference between high-functioning and low-functioning is that high-functioning means your deficits are ignored, and low- functioning means your assets are ignored.” Laura Tisoncik

More playing 13 Thursday HERE.