Sorry I Haven't Blogged

There is so much I want to blog about but just haven't had time. Shirin & family were here last weekend but as soon as they went back home I had a 24 hour bug (more like 36 hours) that put me to bed and now I'm packing for a trip to visit my Illinois family. I'll catch up one day... maybe... probably not.

Shirin's Graduation May 1, 2010

I had A LOT of fun looking back over these pictures and videos from the weekend we celebrated Shirin's graduation from Vet School, and Ken and Cyrus' birthdays. Some of the pictures are from my camera, but many are from Martha and/or Ken's camera, so thanks to M & K for some great pics.

Martha and Ken arrived in Athens a day ahead of us.

Did Ken know the mirror would catch him in the act?

Remember this picture from August 2006?

Here she is four years and one & three fourths babies later!

The seat Shirin always sat in.

Posing with Vet School UGA bulldog.

Posing with Martha on the steps of the School of Veterinary Medicine building.

We arrived just in time for dinner at the Olive Garden.

How many people does take to blow on the soup? At least two.

Don't ask me what I was doing in this picture... rolling my eyes at whatever Martha was telling me? I hope not. But there aren't that many pics of Martha and me together so I'm using it.

The next day we prepared to go to the graduation ceremony. I showed Cyrus what I'd do to him if he opened his mouth and made a lot of noise at the ceremony!
(just kidding)

It was a lovely ceremony- just enough pomp and circumstance, just enough humor, and of course getting to see Shirin receive her diploma was so exciting.

Cyrus was so good through the whole thing.

I had the pleasure of his company for a lot of the ceremony.

See? No tape.

Shirin receives her diploma.

Ceremony over, everyone gathers for congratulatory hugs.

Group shot, minus Ken, the photographer.

Relieved that it's really over!

Proud Gabriel with his doctor wife.

Proud parents.

Saeed gazes happily at the proof of his daughter's accomplishment.

In case you're wondering what the oath is:

Outside with Denise and Beth, her two best friends through vet school.

Martha and Ken taking the picture above!

One last shot before Shirin can't take it any more and has to take her gown off. It was pretty hot.

Cyrus points out all the "balls" on mommy's dress.

We headed over to a Thai restaurant for dinner and the opening of cards.

Cyrus cooperated by napping through the whole meal.

Once home it was time to celebrate the two birthday boys. Ken's birthday is May 2, Cyrus' May 9. Cyrus wasn't really sure about the whole thing:

Shirin got a cake for Ken and the adults and made Cyrus a healthier version (and truly his favorite) - a muffin!

Shirin and Ken instruct on the blowing out of the candle, but Cyrus just has eyes for that muffin.

Notice that at first he tries to sniff the flames, but after some instruction successfully blows his candles out:

Stealing a kiss from an almost two year old cutie.

It's only two seconds long but this video shows that Cyrus was perfectly happy with the muffin as his birthday cake.

And presents too!

Ken has a long history of 'harassing' children in order to get good interviews. He tortured both Shirin and Anahita when they were little, and although there's no video to prove it he tortured me when I was young as well! It's a rite of passage in our family, and Cyrus survived.

At some point that weekend Shirin received her graduation gift - a new phone.

Although they look quite serious in this picture everyone was playing with and investigating Gabiel's new iPad, an early birthday present.

Atheist Joke

I've been trying to work on some older photographs that I never posted (such as Shirin's graduation) but am having trouble moving them from my laptop to my desktop. I've made a zip file, I've put them into my email photo folder, etc. but have as of yet been unsuccessful. I may just have to save them onto a CD but I'm trying to figure out something purely e-tech. You may wonder why I don't just put them on my blog from my laptop? Because my desktop is the one with my photoshop software and my backup memory. Plus in an effort to stay up on the latest things I'm trying to solve computer problems just for the sake of solving them.
(*addendum* I just figured it out! Next post: graduation!)

In the meanwhile I'll post this joke. I love it, especially since there are several atheists in my family.

AN ATHEIST IN THE WOODS 

 An atheist was walking through the woods. "What majestic trees"!   "What powerful rivers"!   "What beautiful animals"! He said to himself.

As he was walking alongside the river, he heard a rustling in the bushes behind him. He turned to look. He saw a 7-foot grizzly charge towards him. He ran as fast as he could up the path. He looked over his shoulder & saw that the bear was closing in on him. He looked over his shoulder again, & the bear was even closer. He tripped & fell on the ground. He rolled over to pick himself up but saw that the bear was right on top of him, reaching for him with his left paw & raising his right paw to strike him.  At that instant the Atheist cried out, "Oh my God!" 

Time Stopped.

The bear froze.

The forest was silent.

As a bright light shone upon the man, a voice came out of the sky.  "You deny my existence for all these years, teach others I don't exist and even credit creation to cosmic accident." "Do you expect me to help you out of this predicament? Am I to count you as a believer"?   The atheist looked directly into the light, "It would be hypocritical of me to suddenly ask you to treat me as a Christian now, but perhaps you could make the BEAR a Christian"? "Very Well," said the voice. 

The light went out. The sounds of the forest resumed. And the bear dropped his right paw, brought both paws together, bowed his head & spoke: 

 "Lord bless this food, which I am about to receive from thy bounty through Christ our Lord, Amen." 

Rotating Pastures

Farm Sanctuary is one of my favorite animal rescue organizations. I have donated to them for years. They rescue farm animals, provide medical care so the animals can recover from their horrible experiences, and then live out safe, comfortable lives. This video is so sweet it makes me tear up. Below the video you can read what I cut and pasted from their website about the nice lady in the video.

Susie Coston, Farm Sanctuary's national shelter director, joined us in March 2000. In the six years prior to coming to Farm Sanctuary, she worked for a veterinarian and at a sanctuary in West Virginia. Before that, she earned a master's degree in special education and worked with kids with disabilities. As a committed farm animal caregiver for more than a decade, Susie has been a mentor for many of her peers (who have started their own sanctuaries throughout the U.S.) and is well-known for bringing the animals' stories of love, loss and life to the public. Currently, she oversees a full department of caregivers, feeders, cleaners, and project workers at the New York Shelter, ensuring that hundreds of animals are given the best possible care at every stage of their lives. Aside from working at Farm Sanctuary, Susie cares for her own 10 cats, two dogs and two roosters.

Giving To Charity

As we approach the end of the year many people are looking at their donations for income tax purposes. I just wanted to remind folks that they may want to check out the prospective charity on two accounts: how they manage their money and whether they abuse animals in their research. To look up an organization's financial health go to Charity Navigator. To find out whether an organization does bad things to animals in the process of doing good things for others go to The Council on Humane Giving's Humane Charity's Seal of Approval site, represented by the symbol you see in this post. From their website: The Council on Humane Giving offers an ever-expanding directory of charities that fund only humane, human-based research or patient services, as well as a list of corporations that have pledged to support such charities.

I forget what I was doing the other day but the result of my 'click' would have initiated a donation to BreastCancer.org. I looked it up on the Humane Charity website and there it was: APPROVED! YAY! On the other hand my company participates in the annual walk for the Susan G. Komen organization (also raising money for breast cancer) but I never participate because of their persistent practice of inhumane animal testing. BLEEP! NO WAY! "Race for the Cure"? Yes, but not at any expense, not at the expense of unwilling innocents.

White House Goes Solar

Since I just blogged about the book Solar, I thought I'd mention that President Obama plans to put solar panels on the White House.

In the 1970's President Carter  (I love Jimmy Carter) was the first to put up solar panels and in his infinite wisdumb President Reagan removed them. An organization called 350.org has campaigned the White House to do it again, saying that it (the White House) can become the symbol, the billboard for renewable energy and for solar energy specifically. I hope they do it and I hope it becomes the cool thing to do, like Michelle's backyard gardens.

Then they need to find a way to make it affordable. Really.

Solar

We discussed Solar by Ian McEwan last night at book club. Some of you may be familiar with one of his previous books, Atonement, which was made into a movie. I've never read McEwan before and although there were things about this book I didn't like, he is, without question, a very good writer. As an avid reader I feel qualified to say that, but the host of last night's discussion was Leila's mom, a retired Lit professor, who ought to know! She helped me to see many things about his writing style I hadn't observed on my own.

The main character, Michael Beard, a most unlikeable man, won the Nobel Prize in Physics in his youth and hasn't had an original idea since. An overweight, narcissistic slob, he somehow manages to snag the ladies and goes through wives like a like he's trying out new flavors of ice cream. We discussed at length what women see in men like that (we all agreed that we knew lots of lovely women who've married fat, unattractive, useless men!) and decided it was the allure of being married to a professor supposedly smart enough to win the Nobel Prize.

The appeal of the audacious Michael Beard character is that we all see a bit of ourselves in his neurotic thinking. And since he's someone it's OK to hate, McEwan has Beard suffer through many a funny fiasco. We sat around the table and each told which of his blunders we found funniest. He's also the vehicle through which McEwan delivers the message of the book: that global warming matters and that finding renewable energy alternatives is the only way to save ourselves. That even if personal issues, academic sabotage, and politics are an unavoidable part of the scientific community, the energy issue must be dealt with. And as much as I harp on being green it was McEwan's rather lengthy scientific discussions interspersed throughout the book that dragged it down for me. Some of the information had to be there and some of it was quite interesting (like being able to reproduce the process of photosynthesis as a means for energy production) but eliminating 80% of it would have been fine with me.

I'm glad I stuck with it though. There are some classic events in Beard's life, such as the time he ate the chips of the man sitting next to him on the train, all the while thinking they were his (his were still in his pocket.) Beard glares at him ferociously the whole time the guy keeps reaching into his bag of chips. Beard was too frightened to actually confront him since the man was young, had an earring (Beard spends much time trying to figure out the significance of that earring,) tall, and could probably beat him up if sufficiently angered, so Beard turns his back on him and later hits him hard in the shin with his briefcase. When he discovers his own chips still in his pocket he feels a fleeting moment of remorse but then lets it go. Then there's the wife's lover who accidentally slips on an area rug in Beard's house and dies, and Beard's realization that he would get blamed as the angry husband who kills him after coming home to find his wife's lover in the house. So he implicates one of his wife's other lovers who ends up getting convicted and imprisoned.

I would only recommend this book if you want something really substantial to explore. It was a great book for book club; the human relationships, the psychological  peculiarities of the main character, and the voice McEwan chooses to deliver his message provides much for discussion.

Tita's Visit

*New picture added to bottom of post.*

For anyone who doesn't know, Anahita flew into Charlotte on her way to Charleston for Saskia's wedding. We didn't get to see her then but she drove back late Saturday night so we could be with her for all of Sunday and a good chunk of today. At this moment she's on the airplane heading back to SF :-(

I took a few pics of our picnic Sunday at Winthrop Lake, our family's special place. Usually we're missing Anahita's presence, but this time Shirin, Gabriel and the boys were absent. Hopefully one day...

Three Gardenburgers to go please! I can never get Saeed to cooperate for pictures. The weather was gorgeous.

Anahita asked the guy walking by to take our pic. He was participating in the Disc Golfing Championship but was kind enough to stop.

So, this is Saeed's "I'm smiling for the camera" face, making both of us laugh.

Tita poses while he complains about having to pose for pictures.

With sandwiches demolished and naps for the old folks, Tita jumps up to climb the tree.

Not bad for a 30 year old!

They found it funny that I kept my napkin from blowing away by holding it between my toes. Personally I think it's rather ingenious.

A father gazing on his daughter's face, memorizing it for those times it's far away.

It was a lovely visit. We watched movies, took a walk, and went shopping. Not sure when we'll see her again...

 Oops! I forgot about this picture and our "tour" of Rock Hill. After being gone many years now, Tita realized that RH has grown quite a bit. We took her on a tour that had to include Winthrop, both for old times sake and to see the many changes. She saw the 'funny tree' that the girls used to climb on when they were little, she saw and spoke with her (and Shirin's) former piano teacher Dr. Barban who has retired but still sees private students and performs, and here she is exiting Saeed's building. The girls spent quite a bit of time here during their elementary school years. While I was at work Saeed would pick them up from school and they hung out in his office till he could take them home. He must have fed them crackers for a snack because as we drove up Tita said, "Oh, that's where we used to eat crackers!"  My favorite story, though, is when the girls went to Bill Murdy's office and saw a box on his desk, and thinking it contained raisins asked, "What's in there?", hoping to be offered some raisins. Murdy in his dead-pan delivery style said, "Cigars, you want one?"