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I can't believe the school year is almost over. Lucky for me, I like graduation ceremonies, because I'll be going to a few of them this year. Whether it's a college, high school or even middle school rite of passage, the ceremony marks the students' accomplishments as they go forward into a new stage of their lives.
Graduations aren't just rites of passage for students. We parents pass into a new life, too. We pass from being homework helpers, chauffeurs and football moms and soccer dads to being "empty nesters" whose kids call home from college to ask for money or to say thanks for the care package. Instead of telling them to clean up their rooms, we try to figure out if the newly emptied space will be an office or a craft room. We pass from child-adult relationships to adult-adult relationships with our children.
But even after college, after marriage, after children of their own, sometimes we'll still look at them and see a child in diapers looking up at us with wonder and curiosity. Those moments never leave us. As my sister says, "Memories. That's one of the best things about being a parent."
April 13 is National Scrabble Day. It's not a well-known holiday — except to word lovers. But it can be a fun day with family and friends. I went poking around on the 'Net to see how people celebrate the wordy holiday and here's what I found:
First, of course, play scrabble! But there can be more to it than that.
Throw a scrabble party for friends, relatives and other word nerds.
Play one of the new and fun Scrabble-based games to make play more difficult and interesting.
How about serving up some Scrabble tile cookies? Here's a great recipe.
Use new words added to the dictionary for the New Age like "selfie", "bromance" and "hashtag" and let the challenges begin!
Find a local tournament and play against the best of the best.
Finally, try to use the word Oxyphenbutazone, which is an anti-inflammatory drug, to get the highest possible score for one word. Of course, your odds of being able to do that are similar to winning the lottery, but if you did, you'd score 1,778 points in one play!
Baseball season is here! The action starts on Sunday, April 3 with three matchups, including ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball game, and then really kicks into gear with 12 games on Opening Day, which also happens to be Square Root Day, April 4.
When I was a girl, I loved baseball because I loved watching the boys — on the field and off. But now, when the "boys of summer" return, I'm in it mostly for the game. Mostly.
Real baseball fans know that the game isn't the only reason to head out to the ballpark. Ballparks have dozens of attractions and amenities now, including our own Tropicana Field which has a 10,000 gallon fish tank where you can see and touch cownose stingrays. Fans like me care about a great ballpark almost as much as whether our team is winning. And "The Trop" as we call it around here, gives Rays fans a truly great place to go on game day.
But it's still the universal experience of a day at the park that keep fans going back to games. Things like like tailgating with friends, the smells of greasy food, doing "the wave" and singing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" at the top of our lungs in the seventh-inning stretch...that's the stuff summer days are made for!
And getting an eyeful of the boys of summer, well, that doesn't hurt either.
The City of LaGrange Animal Shelter in Georgia took in two motherless, homeless puppies with a big problem: they were too young to eat solid food.
Enter two mama cats. Both of the friendly felines were nursing their own litters of kittens and it seemed they have no problem adopting another mouth to feed. Despite the fact that those mouths belong to their natural "enemies".
I guess their mama's instincts overcame any canine-feline differences. The cats will continue to nurse the pups as part of their family until they're healthy and ready for adoption.
Your "Things That Make You Go 'Awwwww...'" Gift Guru,
Linda
Do you believe in fairies? These barren circles in the dry grasslands in the Namib Desert in Namibia, Africa have long been called "fairy circles" because no one could explain how they got there. Locals believed they were created by fairies dancing in circles during the night.
For a long time, it was thought that this was the only place these circles existed. But two years ago, researchers discovered similar circles in another dry landscape — the remote outback of Australia. Locals there thought the circular gaps were made by dragon's fire and some believed they were UFO landing spots.
But scientists are a tenacious lot when they get curious. So researchers started looking into these fairy-dragon-UFO spots. They came up with three plausible explanations:
Carbon monoxide gas was rising upward from underground, killing all the vegetation.
Insects were feeding on the roots of the grasses.
The grasses organized themselves in the mysterious patterns to obtain water, which is scarce in the region.
After finding similar patterns in other dry and remote areas, such as trees that organize themselves into stripes on mountainsides, they were able to settle on theory #3. Which is all very interesting, but sort of takes the fun out of it, right? Me? I like to think the circles might still turn out to be something mystical and magical — like fairy dances at night.
Did you know that the "wearing of the green" on St. Patrick's Day is a symbol of Irish rebellion? Do you celebrate by cooking up a lamb stew instead of corned beef and cabbage? Do you serve your stew with a room temperature Guiness instead of a cold green beer? If you answered "yes" to just one question, you're either a history buff or you're "true Irish."
Lots of Americans become Irish on March 17th. We go to parades, sing Irish folk songs, wear the green and drink Irish spirits. My family celebrates along with the rest of the country, but for the last few years it's been different. I'd always suspected it, but about 5 years ago we found out for sure: our family tree has roots in the Emerald Isle!
My uncle stumbled upon an Irish ancestor when he started researching our family history and turned up a whole branch of the family we knew nothing about.
Now when we gather on St. Patrick's Day, my uncle shares all the new new information he's uncovered during the year. We've learned so much about our family from his efforts. But there are still so many questions. Was our family Celtic? Did they speak Gaelic? Whose sides did they take in Ireland's many occupations and revolutions? What was their religion? And what brought them to America? I can't wait for our very special St. Patrick's Day celebration this year. We still have so many questions!
We all know Doge, right? The super-viral Internet meme that sprang to life in 2013 is one of the most shared and shareable pieces of content on the web. Well, this little dog might just displace Doge as the world's most shareable dog.
In a video created by Google's robotics company, Boston Dynamics, little Fido takes on their giant (by comparison) robot dog, Spot. Seems the life-like movements of the robot dog caught the attention of the real canine, who refused to be intimidated by the mechanical beast. Watch as this little guy takes on the sort-of-scary robot:
Someone says, "Come on, take him big dog!" But Spot is no match for little Fido, who doesn't let the strange headless, mechanical dog get away. Even when Spot displays submissive behavior, Fido keeps after him. And (spoiler alert), Spot finally concedes dominance to Fido.
Venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson posted the video to YouTube on Feb. 27 and it's already received over 1.5 million views. Something tells me Fido is going to give Doge a run for his money!
