Team Texeira

I signed up today to do a 6! mile walk on October 12th. This is part of the Step Out: Walk to Fight Diabetes walkathon. It will be in San Jose on Sunday, October 12th. Oh I already said the date. Anyway, I just wanted to let everyone know about this. We have a team called, appropriately enough, Team Texeira and as befits a blog mistress, we even have a blog!

Anyone reading this who lives around here (or wants to travel!) is welcome to join our team. Just follow the above link or the one on the blog & click on join a team. There are a couple of things I should point out. 1) I didn't name this blog. The official team captain did. 2) I'm not the official team captain, Stephen is. He says that it was accidental but I'm a little suspicious. Anyway I'm the unofficial captain & the one whose good side you want to get on (don't ask me why, I just thought it sounded good). There are only 3 people on our team so far: Me (the REAL captain), Stephen (the FAKE captain), and Cindy (who doesn't care who is captain). Please join us!

If you can't join us, certainly feel free to sponsor a walker or the team! Follow the same link & click on sponsor a walker.

Robin, the lonely blog mistress

Silent Sunday

This is one of Jill's plants. Bilsbergia Newtans. Honestly that is what she told me. For the rest of us, it is called Queen's Tears. It's on my deck & I really like it.

My Secret Fetish

Ok, fetish may be a strong word for it but I got your attention, didn't I? Since no one else has posted! I had to come up with another subject so I thought I'd share my secret fetish with you. I love the smell of tomato plants. As fetish may have been too strong a word, love may be to weak. I think I could sit all day & smell tomato plants. I'm trying to convince Jill to make a perfume that smells like tomato plants but she is to busy in her yard now. At this time of year, when all the nurseries are full of tomato plants, she won't even go to a nursery with me. She says it is embarrassing trying to explain to people why I'm standing at the display sticking my nose into all the plants. If Jill is embarrased, it must be pretty bad.

In an effort to keep my vice safely at home, Jill has kindly planted some tomatoes and put them in a pot on my deck. Now I can go out every day and sniff all I want. I get kind of high from the scent, so future blog posts may be significantly more interesting.

I'm sure that you would all like to learn more about tomatoes and probably go out and buy your own plants to sniff. Just don't come over here & try and sniff my plants - I'm very territorial. To save you the trouble of looking up tomato information online! I'm including some links for your edification. The California Tomato Growers Association has a nice site that includes a lot of information and recipes. Here is a Britannica article on tomatoes also. You will be tested.

Did you know:

• Tomatoes are in the nightshade family, whose plants are poisonous and the American colonists were afraid to eat them.
• The roots and leaves of the tomato plant are in fact poisonous; they contain the neurotoxin solanine.
• Most of the vitamin C in tomatoes is in the pulp.
• Its name is derived from the Náhuatl (Aztec) word tomatl.
• The tomato is by definition a fruit, but in 1893 the U.S. Supreme Court declared them to be vegetables. (I thought I was being very clever & asked Jill if a tomato was a fruit or vegetable. She told me exactly this. I told her she was a smart-ass. You're wondering what possessed me to think she wouldn't know. No idea, periodically I hope to be able to say aha, you're wrong.)

So there you have your little lesson on tomatoes. As you probably figured out, I'm not yet blind as I'm still posting. My eye still hurts though (see previous post for why). Last night I was looking things up online and decided I had Hyphema (bleeding in the eye), which is a medical emergency. I considered going to the ER then but it was late & I was really tired. I decided to wait until this morning & now my eye looks better so I guess it is ok. Although as I am typing this things are looking a little blurry. Anyway, the point of this is to give you all some advice - don't poke yourself in the eye with a pencil!

Robin, the lonely blog mistress

National DNA Day

Today, April 25th, is National DNA Day. This is an annual celebration commemorating the completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003. This is a really cool site to browse and you can learn a lot about DNA and stuff (being unscientific I used stuff). Here are a few facts from the site:

• A genome is the complete set of DNA instructions in your cells.
• The genomes of any two people are more than 99% the same.
• The 1% accounts for variations among humans thus making us different.
• You have 75-100 trillion cells in your body.

You can check the site if you'd like more information!

Just because I can do it, here is a link to an article on DNA fingerprinting from the Encyclopedia Britannica. I can do this because I'm an official web publisher and signed up for their free service. This allows me to link to articles for your edification. Aren't you glad you are reading this blog?

I'm sure you'll all be pleased to know that yesterday the Senate passed the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act by a vote of 95-0. This protects you from discrimination based on your genetic information. What I find most interesting is that this has been debated in Congress for 13 years. It took them 13 years to decide non-discrimination was a good thing? Your tax dollars at work.

I would have posted more information from the site but my sight has deteriorated due to a freak accident. Well, deteriorated may be overstating it. I bent over to pick up my purse last night and a pencil that was in a cup on the end table poked me in the eye. It hurt quite a bit! I really can see but my eye still hurts and is a little red. Since I'm injured hopefully someone else will POST something!

Robin, the lonely blog mistress

One Final Poem

One final poem for you in honor of National Poetry Month. This one I didn't have to copy & paste because I know it by heart! Why do we say we know something by heart? That is kind of an odd phrase isn't it? Oh well

All That Is Gold Does Not Glitter

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.

From the Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien
Written by Bilbo Baggins for Aragorn

An interesting note. I went to Amazon to get a link for the book and when I searched, the first thing that came up in the search results was the movie. Mind you (I used to have a boss that said that & I always liked it), I loved the movie but the book is far, far better (read it if you haven't already done so). I don't know if the search result is a sign of popularity or price - since the book costs less than the movie - or just a fluke. I found it interesting though.

By the way, speaking of hobbits. Did you know that a hobbit comes of age at 33? Next year, 2009, Jill will be 33. Jill is a hobbit - furry, distrustful of technology, loving the land. Consequently, there will be a huge birthday party planned for her 33rd birthday to celebrate her coming of age. Everyone is invited so be sure and hold that date. Well I'm not sure what the date will be yet but hold it anyway. Just as an incentive, hobbits do not receive presents on their birthday, they give them away to their guests. I think Jill is a bit worried about that part.

I've only seen one person, aside from myself, post. Where are you people? Let's get busy - I want to see posts from other people. I have so many boring subjects in my head that I could write about - I'm sure some of you can come up with something more interesting. And as an additional threat, remember that I have Jill. Now that the IRS audit is off her mind, all I have to do is suggest pretty much any topic, sit her in front of the computer and you'll be reading some esoteric treatise on plants or language or worse. POST!

Robin, the lonely blog mistress
(who wouldn't be lonely if more people posted!)

The Duke is Back

Okay, just a few words about the election today in Pennsylvania. Senator Clinton won the state by either nine or 10 percentage points. Two months ago she was up by close to 20 points. At that point she was saying that she would win by a landslide. In reality, she won by a squeaker that in some people's estimation was really a victory for Senator Obama in that he won back a significant portion of those who were at one point committed to Senator Clinton. I leave it for you folks to decide.

A few other things about tonight. Hillary's out of money and Barack's money is rolling in like a tsunami. Hillary is taking more and more of a hit for her negative campaigning and it's hurting her throughout the country. And last but not least, Hillary came out today and said should Iran launch an attack on Israel that we would "obliterate them." I assume that she meant she would find some way, if she were elected president, to eliminate the leaders of that country who initiated the attack. I assume that she did not mean that she would literally use the military might of the United States of America to destroy the people of Iran. I know that she (I'm sorry, her campaign), can be something of a hate monger and a dirty dealer, but threatening to destroy an entire people? An entire civilization? At a time when our country is losing credibility throughout the world (which is contributing in no small measure to the declining dollar), we need a foreign policy that is focused on resolving regional and global conflict through diplomacy with our allies, not some John Wayne rhetoric that sounds all too familiar to those of us who had the misfortune to be paying attention for the past eight years.

I will weep for our future should Senator Clinton find some way to get elected.

Flowers

I like flowers. They make me smile which I'm pretty sure is a good thing. Rarely do I not have a vase or two of flowers in the house. You all wonder why I'm telling you this don't you? I have to do a post about something because NO ONE else has posted yet! Actually there is a point. I read a posting on the Cognitive Daily blog about a study done that shows flowers produce positive emotions. I've known this for a long time but it is nice that there is a scientific study to back me up.

According to the study, there is more positive emotion involved when someone receives flowers then in just looking at them. Since I can't send everyone flowers you'll have to get by with looking at the picture. These are the flowers I currently have in my living room. Hope they produce positive emotions in everyone!

Robin, the lonely blog mistress