Saturday, December 31

Mild and sunny for the last day of the year.  We rake our leaves into piles and the neighbor twins come over and join us in jumping into them.

Friday, December 30

Last workday of the year.

Thursday, December 29

A colleague at work today spoke at lunch about summers growing up with parents who were both school teachers and so the whole family would go to Europe for three months, backpacking their way around.  They did this every other summer four different times.  He said he has as a result been to very European country.  They ate by buying food from grocery stores and stayed at youth hostels, but felt they really became part of the fabric of the countries.

Tuesday, December 27

I received for Christmas the recent biography of my favorite poet Dr. William Carlos Williams by Herbert Leibowitz.  It is aptly titled, “Something Urgent I Have to Say to You.” It is a line from one of Williams’ poems and I think sums up what any writer, artist, human being, living thing is designed to do…communicate. Energy communicates.

Wednesday, December 28

Dispositional prayer, sometimes called meditation or contemplation is described as “listening to God.”  That is, being open to Godly thoughts entering your mind or focusing on something so as to have Godly thoughts about it.

Tuesday, December 20

We attend what has become known as the Traveler’s Service at our church.  It was designed for those who wanted to have Christmas worship at their home church before leaving town to visit family and friends.  We attend because it gets our week started so well and is less crowded than Christmas Eve or Christmas Day services.  It ends with everyone lighting an individual candle and filling the room with light.

Wednesday, December 21

Lights are synchronized to music at the Frisco town square where they also have an outdoor skating rink.  We also drove by the nearby neighborhoods to look at Christmas lights with Hallie, our beagle with us too, spending her first Christmas with us.

Thursday, December 22

Light is the main theme in my three favorite spiritual Christmas songs:

1)     O Holy Night;

2)     Come All Ye Faithful; and

3)     Noel.

My three other favorite Christmas songs are:

1)     Let It Snow;

2)     Sleigh Ride; and

3)     Winter Wonderland.

Friday, December 23

We enjoyed dinner at my sister’s last night with many Italian Christmas favorites like prosciutto, soup with parsley/parmesan croutons, rapini (also known as broccoli rabe or broccoletti) and figs.

Saturday, December 24

Holiday open house at our neighbors and delivering this month’s “Yard of the Month” signs to the homes with the best lights in the homeowner’s association.  One winner had the leg lamp from A Christmas Story in their window.

Sunday, December 25

We host Debra’s parents and enjoy many of her family favorite recipes like: cherry salad; dressing made with biscuits, corn bread, onions, eggs and sage; cranberry brownies; and almond tea.

Monday, December 26

Still a few more Christmas cards to get out and take some time to read the many newsletter year end updates from family and friends.

Monday, December 19

Holiday candy making in our kitchen then deliveries to our neighbors from my wife’s family candy recipes.

Sunday, December 18

Nice evening at the ManeGait volunteer appreciation dinner.  Many recognized for their work helping physically, mentally and emotionally challenged children ride therapeutically on horses.

Monday, December 12

Over a hundred years ago, in Abruzzo the Molino (mill) of the Pastificio (pasta factory) of the De Cecco brothers, began producing pasta by producing the “best flour of the surrounding countryside” in his stone mill in Fara San Martino, a small village at the bottom of the Maiella mountain. A low temperature drying device which enabled pasta to dry regardless of weather conditions was developed. Up to then, pasta had always been sun dried, which was the only way known to guarantee a high quality product and its preservation. In 1908, the country girl from Abruzzo, carrying the wheat stacks, becomes the company’s trademark. A new production plant is built to replace one bombed by the Germans in World War II and business takes off, with increasing attention to foreign markets.

Tuesday, December 13

My sister gave us eight boxes of pasta: Capellini; Spaghettini; Spaghetti; Penne Rigate; Fusilli; Cavatappi; Elbows; and Orecchiette (we used to call these “priest ears”).  The pasta is De Cecco imported from the province of Chieti, Abruzzo in Italy where my family is from and made in the town of Fara San Martino.  I think they might make over a hundred different kinds of pasta, all shapes and colors.

Wednesday, December 14

My mother remembers when the Fara San Martino plant was bombed by the Germans.  She remembers washing clothes in the river that flowed to the mill that helped grind the wheat that made it into pasta.

Thursday, December 15

I call Mom on her 86^th birthday.  The content of her communications now is even more about the past than ever before which was a lot even then.

Friday, December 16

At work today there is a ceremony honoring Dr. Bruce Beutler for his being awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology of Medicine for discoveries concerning the activation of innate immunity, a few weeks ago in Stockholm, Sweden.

Dr. Beutler identified the cell receptors in mice that respond to a substance in the coat of bacteria and that can set off septic shock if overstimulated.  

Saturday, December 17

Dr. Beutler shared the award with two other immunologists Drs. Steinman and Hoffmann. All three scientists were honored for discoveries of essential steps in the immune system’s response to infection.

But it was Dr. Steinman who actually used his discoveries in the laboratory to try to save his own life. His career-long quest had been to develop a vaccine against cancer for humans, having shown 20 years ago that such a treatment could be effective in mice.

Four and a half years ago, after he was found to have pancreatic cancer, he began tailoring an experimental vaccine against his own tumor.  

Pancreatic cancer is among the most aggressive malignancies, in part because it arises in a gland deep in the abdomen that is hard for doctors to feel with their hands and because usually it produces symptoms only after it has become advanced.  About 20 percent of patients with pancreatic cancer survive one year after detection and 4 percent after five years, according to the American Cancer Society.

Dr. Steinman died just days before he was awarded his Nobel Prize.  But it is impossible to determine whether Dr. Steinman would have survived as long without his self-tailored experimental treatment.

I remember being told my father passed from a burst pancreas.  Here I go now thinking about and mentioning the past.

Sunday, December 11

Last night at Mom’s 86^th birthday dinner she reminded us that Dad used to get on his knees with my two older sisters and say bedtime prayers with them.  This is a cherished antidote for me as Dad passed when I was 13.  It inspires me to renew that tradition with my own daughter.

Saturday, December 10

I made for the first time last night the cake that Mom made for me for so many birthdays so that I could surprise her with it on her 86th. 

It brought back a flood of childhood memories like the color that egg yolk makes when mixed with sugar.  It is a yellow like you would see on an Italian fresco.  (Renaissance painters used to mix egg yolk in their paint to add pigment.)

The kitchen was alive with the smells of lemon zest, orange zest and anise extract.

I felt comfortable in what I was doing and seemed to instinctively know when the sponge cake was fully baked and when the cream had thickened enough, as if Mom had passed the knowledge on to me through osmosis from all the years as a kid hanging around her licking spoon fulls of batter and cream.

I forgot no steps, like making sure to soak the cake with coffee.

There were small victories, like getting the egg whites to beat into a fluffy peak.  (Whoever thought of doing this?  When did they say to themselves, "This slimy oozy egg white if beaten to a frenzy would be great for baking.")

Friday, December 9

The Holiday 2011 Monticello catalog from the Thomas Jefferson Foundation is especially beautiful this year as they have photographed Mr. Jefferson’s home in the snow, framed by an expansive Virginia blue sky and tree branches having long since shed their leaves.  The great house sits majestically with its red brick and white columns as if on a fluffy powdered blanket.

My wife and I visited during late October one year when the trees were bursting with yellow, orange and red and the house seemed engulfed by its expansive green lawn.

Thursday, December 8

Reading From Rags to Riches, The Phenomenal Rise of the University of Texas, Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, by Dr. Errol C. Friedberg in preparation for my new job there on Monday.  There are over 12,000 medical, research and academic professionals at this medical, patient care and research school, including five Nobel Prize winners.  I will be assisting with workplace conflict management.

Wednesday, December 7

'When Walt Whitman said that who touches this book touches man, I feel that he could have been speaking for me. I like you to open my door the way you open a book, a book that leads into a magic world in your

imagination. I created this bookstore (Shakespeare & Company in Paris) like a man would write a novel and the people who come in here are coming into a novel.' - George Whitman

Tuesday, December 6

Throughout most of its history the American Academy in Rome has sponsored summer programs. Consistent with the Academy's mission, these programs are intended to provide American scholars the opportunity to experience and draw upon the resources of Rome and help found an understanding of the growth and development of the city of Rome through a careful study of material remains and literary sources.

Monday, December 5

Mom’s Sponge(Yellow) Cake with Cream –

Makes two cakes - cut each in half to make a three layers cream cake.

Grease and flour two cake pans and set aside.   

Preheat oven to 375.

12 eggs at room temperature

2 c. sugar

2 c. flour

2 tsp. baking powder

·       Mix flour and baking powder and set aside.  Separate whites and egg yolks into two bowls.  

·       First beat egg whites until it forms a nice peak, set aside.   (This step needs clean blades or it will not peak.)

·       In a large bowl beat egg yolks, gradually add sugar and beat until well mixed.

·       Gently fold in egg whites into batter.

·       Then gently fold in flour mixture a bit at a time so as not to form lumps.

Pour an equal amount in each pan. Bake at 375 for 30 min. or when center of the cake is cooked. (Insert toothpick to test it.)    Depending on stove temperature…it could also bake at 350 degree!

Vanilla Cream

3 egg yolks

1 egg white

3 Tbs. flour

4 Tbs. sugar

1½ cups milk

Mix together first four ingredients, add milk and cook on medium heat. 

Stir constantly with a whisk until it thickens.

Remove from heat and add lemon peel.

Chocolate Cream

2 egg whites

2 Tbs. flour

1 Tbs. sugar

1 Tbs. Nestle Quick

2 cups milk

Mix together first four ingredients, add milk, and cook on medium heat.

Stir constantly with a whisk until it thickens.

Remove from heat and add orange peel.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Sis’s modified version

7 egg yolk

7 Tbs. sugar

7 Tbs. flour

2 ¼ whole milk

Add lemon or orange peel. 

Sunday, December 4

I am delighted to have discovered that one can get jelly filled donut holes at Dunkin Donuts.

Saturday, December 3

Living with a beagle now we can better appreciate the humor and charm of why Charles Schultz called the beagle in Peanuts, Snoopy.  He must have lived with one or more beagles and certainly was a keen observer of their wonderful penchant for sticking their nose in every room, closet, cabinet, drawer, bag of groceries, purse, package or envelope you are opening, garage, trash can, car and they sniff everything on walks, constantly.  They may be where the expression "nose for news" came from. 

Friday, December 2

Launched in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton, The Paris Review is considered by many as the nation’s preeminent literary journal and as they themselves state, “the defining voice of contemporary literature.” Published four times each year, the Review today has original writing, including fiction, poetry, and commentary by established writers from around the world.

Thursday, December 1

Ever just stare at the Google world webcams for awhile? 

Take a tour to Oneonta, New York; Portland, Maine; Konan, Japan; Brookings, South Dakota; Fayetteville, Arkansas; Marzano, Italy; Interlochen, Michigan.

Look at a passing car; cafeteria; wharf; building; something obscured by the night and poorly lit; a newborn baby in a hospital; a woman walking on a gray day.  

Ever stop to consider this?

Wednesday, November 30

Three key human pivot points:

We must live with ambivalence since the ones who can satisfy us can also frustrate us;

There is nothing inherently bad about the universe, so we can try to make it better, while guarding the tendency to want to be regarded as better than others.

Self is not determined solely in one’s head.

Tuesday, November 29

My wish for my writing is that one day a literary critic will comment, “He created a new genre whereby one could find more truth in his novels than in the media discourse of today’s current affairs.”

In terms of my speech I hope to be:

Fluid and open, good at listening to questions, engaging them on their own terms, and delivering prose quality responses extemporaneously.

Monday, November 28

Two new appealing biographies out in time for the holidays are:

Catherine the Great, Portrait of a Woman, by Robert K. Massie.  I read his great biography of Peter the Great while on the train from Saint Petersburg to Moscow with my wife and our newly adopted children; and

Something Urgent I Have to Say to You, The Life and Works of William Carlos Williams, by Herbert Leibowitz.  I have Williams’ complete collection of poems. He was a doctor with a daily practice and a poet.

Saturday, November 26

The Michigan Wolverines beat “Ohio” 40 to 34 in Ann Arbor, the game coming down to the final 4^th down play by Ohio which was intercepted by Michigan.  The seven year losing streak to Ohio is ended.

Sunday, November 27

My daughter invites a friend over to share in our traditions in putting up the Christmas tree.  They have ice cream, popcorn and pizza (in that order) while decorating and watching a Christmas movie.  They enjoy my struggles with getting all the lights on the tree to work, which my wife finally manages to do.

Thursday, November 24

Thanksgiving

Having undertaken, for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith, and honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God, and one of another, covenant and combine our selves together into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the Colony, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience.

-The Mayflower Compact

Friday, November 25

Finished reading today Great Expectations by Charles Dickens which was e-mailed to me a page a day for 229 days by DailyLit on-line service.

Wednesday, November 23

The Oxford Union, one of the oldest and maybe most venerated debating societies recently debated the following motion, dubbed “the Silicon Valley Debate,”

"This House Believes That the Average Worker is Being Left Behind by Advances in Technology"

Proposition:
Erik Brynjolfsson - Schussel Family Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management & Director of the MIT Center for Digital Business.

Patrick Chung - Co-head of NEA Consumer investing practice.

Reid Hoffman - Co-founder & President of LinkedIn and Co-founder & Vice-President of PayPal.

Andrew McAfee - Principal research scientist at the Center for Digital Business in the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Opposition:
Tom Hayes - Vice President of Corporate Marketing at Marvell & author of best-selling books on digital business and culture.

Kal Patel - Partner in Vantagepoint Capital Partners.

Kim Polese - Former CEO of SpikeSource. A 'Time' magazine former '25 Most Influential Americans'.

Padmasree Warrior - Chief Technology Officer and former Executive Vice-President of Motorola.

The debate was sponsored by the Said Business School of Oxford University, Oxford, England.

Tuesday, November 22

The heart of writing, said Israeli novelist David Grossman, is getting to know a book’s characters intimately, in a way that is impossible with other human beings.

Monday, November 21

The Michigan/Ohio State game looms this Saturday at noon.  My Wolverines are 57-44-6 against the Buckeyes, however not having beaten them since 2003’s 100^th anniversary game in Ann Arbor.

I first watched the game in the early 1970s before even attending Michigan while living nearby in Dearborn Heights.  Back then Bo Schembechler was in the midst of the great ten year rivalry with Woody Hayes, his mentor,  which became known as the “10-Year War” (1969-1978).  They were tight games often won or lost on a made or missed field goal.  Bo and Michigan went 5-4-1.  Classic.

Sunday, November 20

Treated to Starbucks by my daughter.  Eggnog latte and gingerbread.  Getting in the holiday spirit.

Saturday, November 19

Mom’s Taralo (spelling based on my approximation of the Abruzzo dialect word for Italian Tort, recipe based on my watching Mom on January 28, 2003 make one of her many unwritten recipes)

1 cup milk

1 stick Land-O-Lakes unsalted butter or olive oil

8 eggs (yokes and whites)

2 cups sugar

4 cups sifted flour

2 ½ tablespoons sifted Baking Powder

¼ cup orange zest or to taste

¼ cup lemon zest or to taste

Anise seeds, optional

Mix above then add to buttered Bundt cake pan.

Sprinkle cinnamon and sugar over top.

Bake at 375 degrees for approximately 45 minutes or until done.

Friday, November 18

I sense Americans are justifiably experiencing a loss of faith and trust in our bedrock institutions as the Washington debt crisis, the Wall Street mortgage/banking crisis and Penn State’s child endangerment crisis have all come to a head this year.

The crisis in each case boils down to a lack of honesty on the part of leaders, a desire to put off hard decisions and an inability to resolve conflict.

There seems to be a shortage of ethics at the highest levels.

Two favorite books of mine related to lying and ethics are:

Lying, Moral Choice in Public and Private Life by Sissela Bok; and

Approaches to Ethics, Representative Selections from Classical times to the Present, 2^nd Edition, Jones, Sontag, Beckner and Fogelin.

But you do not need to read a book to know that what is ultimately best for society as a whole and long term is to tell the truth.