I Speak of Dreams

Meet Mr & Mrs. Scholar Man

as always, click on the image to enlarge

Left to right, the mother of the groom, the bride, the groom, and the stepmother of the groom.  The ceremony was lovely and the reception a great success.

I'm so happy for them.

What My Youngest Sister Did for Thanksgiving

She and her husband took the kids to Six Flags for beaucoup roller coaster rides.  Then they deep-fried the turkey -- electric, not propane, far, far away from any danger points.

I do like deep fried turkey, despite the dangers.

Gothy McGoth

Jumper Girl is appearing in a play next weekend.  Her character is meant to be a sort of chavette or female ASBO

So we just dyed her hair black -- part of the look, innit?

Thing is, with her coloring, it failed to make her look menacing. 

Personal Update

Another horse show week.  JumperGirl is doing even better than in Santa Barbara.    I think I'll be able to make about 2/3 of BlogHer tomorrow.

George A Ditz jr

George Armand Ditz, jr.
1917-2006

The memorial service will be Tuesday, June 20, 2006 at 1:30 pm, at Grace Cathedral, 1100 California Street, San Francisco.

He was my father's brother.

The obituary left out a few things.

He was a wonderful raconteur with a very dry sense of humor. 

He was a good cook, and all his sons are likewise skilled in the kitchen.  The daughters aren't bad either. 

And oh, my, did he love his children and grandchildren.

If you'd like to leave a message for the Ditz family, feel free to visit the guest book.

Applause

JumperGirl's grades came.  I've been holding my breath, because the Honors Chemistry was a make-or-break deal.  She got the best grade of the year on her final exam (pulls to her weak suits)!  Hooray for her.  A lesser grade might have meant repeating the class at community college over the summer.  Yikes.  And the rest of her grades were great.  Way to study, JumperGirl!

And in a related post, Community College Dean Dad writes about The Three Kinds of 'A' Student.  Go read.

I don’t worry about the ‘Brilliant’ group; they’ll survive anything, the lucky bastards. But I worry sometimes that academia is too geared towards the Dutiful, and too quick to punish or shame the Maniacal. The “overall” gpa as an indicator definitely favors the dutiful over the maniacal, even though the maniacs’ best work is almost always better. ‘Distribution requirements’ were written by and for the dutiful. The concept of ‘prerequisites’ has Dutiful written all over it.

The Sun Is Setting

My father had was the youngest of three, and died first.  His sister, Janet Ditz Ford,  left second, in 1995.  She lived a life that a proper matron did then--mentioned only at her wedding and at her death.   The sun seems to be setting on dad's older brother, and as dad always called him,  Brother George. 

A story: during WWII, both my father and his brother were in the Navy.  They were quite close, and both were at Stanford. 

Sister Janet

Since I wrote about my sister Nance and my sister Suz, here's a word about my sister Janet Sarah Ditz Tarr.   It's Janet and Bill's 10th wedding anniversary. 

Never Too Old to Excel

My sister Nance was the first American woman to cross the finish line in the 1988 Olympic marathon (Nance started as a fitness runner)  Now Anna and Ennis have told me about the best living desi athlete: 94 year old runner Fauja Singh. 

He not only set a new 200m title, but halved it from 76.8 seconds to a mere 49.28 seconds. He has also set the UK record for the 400 meters, 800m, 1 mile, and 3000m.

I wonder if he also plays gatka.

 

The Lavender Farmers Take A Chance

Suz and Fred, my sister and brother-in-law, took a chance that paid off.  Rancho Alegre hired workers from Community Gatepath.