Bears and pajamas in the same song

On my Lyrics Game group on facebook, in the same month someone put up "lions, tigers, bears, oh my" (play any of those), and someone else put up sleepwear.

I posted this, after playing in both from the same songs:

Songs with "bear/bears" and "pajamas" both.

These things might have come up because there's a six year old at my house.
I'm not makine a serious play, just pointing out that in one day, these two came up: Bananas in Pajamas theme song, and "Down By the Bay" by Raffi. smile emoticon

It's possible there's a third. The world is weird like that.
Teddy Bear's picnic is close, but no... pajama.
(And no specific bedclothes, when their parents take them home to bed.)

I didn't post the videos there, but will here:




Brie Jontry brought this:

I had to Google a little to make sure this was right - it is! I remembered it from an "Alaska songs" radio show smile emoticon

"Talk of your cold, refrigeratin' mamas,
Brother, she's a polar bear's pajamas!"



From the movie "Pete Kelly's Blues" - 1955

Super Beaver

Davina Harrington, who lives in Western Australia, sent this:

Hi Sandra,

I took this photo the other day while we were out. It reminded me of your "Leaning on a Truck" writing. The kids and I go out on what we call music drives. We hop in the van and my daughter Jette connects my phone to the stereo and we choose songs and sing along and chat as we drive. Sometimes we have a destination in mind, other times we make it up as we go along. Each time we go on one of our jaunts we learn something and we connect. Whenever one of the kids or even myself suggests going on a music drive it's instant excitement. Reading "Leaning on a Truck" helped me to move from being a mum who might not have said "Yes! Let's go" to one who smiles whenever someone suggests it.

I feel less doubt the longer we unschool.
Thank you for the time and effort you put into helping others.

It's a Leyland Super Beaver. We loved the name.

Some exchange of info about these photos:

Me/Sandra: HOW COOL! The story, and the truck. I was sorry, in Australia, not to be where I could see a road train, but this is like a road barge!! (If you read the sign, it says when the truck was loaded they wouldn't drive more than 35 km per hour. That's 21.7 mph. A crawl.)

Davina: We have so many road trains here! I will get some pictures for you Port Hedland also had the world record for the longest train one year too!

Me: The same company also made a "Super Hippo" with cattle cars.

Davina: It's at the Don Rhodes Mining Museum in Port Hedland in Western Australia.

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Davina send a note about a big wheelbarrow recently: Giant wheelbarrow in Western Australia

Artsy Reflections

This is a photo by Sam Jones, scanned from an article in People Magazine (September 30, 2011).



It has been in my office with a note saying "scan this."

Nice reflection of the Hollywood sign. The whole article had photos taken of Neil Patrick Harris and that sign and that car.

I wanted it to go with my collection here: Reflections on Mirrors: http://sandradodd.com/mirrors

That has lots of notes and images, some of my relatives, some of strangers.

Holly did this all herself:


Here's the future Baron of al-Barran:


And the rest of my family, though none of that is in chronological order:

Connections at 20,000 feet

I've brought something written when Holly was 12 years old


April 17, 2003

Holly has asked this week about "worthwhile" and "ruthlessness." She wanted to know what they meant and why they meant that.

Then yesterday we were watching an old Twilight Zone episode, Nightmare at 20,000 Feet (with William Shatner) and at the end Rod Serling intones a long speech Holly understood none of. We wound it back a couple of times for me to try to write it down for her. I missed a phrase, but we quit trying. In 1963 nobody could have wound it back or looked it up on google. One pass and probably most of the viewers said "what?"

But after I had it scribbled as well as I could in two passes, we were discussing these terms:

"The flight of Mr. Robert Wilson has ended now, a flight not only from point A to point B, but also from the fear of recurring mental breakdown. Mr. Wilson has that fear no longer, though, for the moment, he is, as he has said, alone in this assurance. Happily, his conviction will not remain isolated too much longer, for happily, tangible manifestation is very often left as evidence of trespass, even from so intangible a quarter as the Twilight Zone." **

conviction
isolated
tangible manifestation (and then discussed "redundant")
"evidence of trespass"
and "so intangible a quarter as The Twilight Zone."

"Quarter" has a LOT of meanings, and a couple of them very intangible kinds of things!

When we were sitting down to watch Twilight Zone, Holly had to move the Tank Girl comic books she had been reading. One was called "The Odyssey." Then the DVD menu came up, and one of the episodes is called "The Odyssey of Flight 33." I was in the next room and she yelled to tell me about that, and I said "You saw the word 'odyssey' twice in an hour? Cool!"

"I saw the word 'odyssey' twice in one MINUTE!
What IS an odyssey?"

I told her it was a long adventurous trip, often unplanned. Reminded her of Jason, fleece/argonauts, and she said "and next comes the saga?"

She's right. Mixing languages and cultures, except where they meet in English.

That's a lot of vocabulary and history tie-in to come in the small space between the 1990s' Tank Girl comics and some late 50's/early 60's Twilight Zone on a Wednesday night, and it wasn't anything I could have planned, but I was happy to go with it when Holly brought it up.

Sandra

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Now, years later, technology makes explorations and connections even easier.
Some people might be able to see the episode here: http://www.hulu.com/watch/440824

But it's not any one TV program or book or film that helps. It's a quantity of various things, and having a mind that is not closed down with fear, shame, self-conscious, so that connections will come easily and joyously.

If one wanted to continue down this 20,000 foot path, though, here is something on NIGHTMARE AT 20,000 FEET & EPISTEMOLOGY — a transcript of a podcast called The Sci Phi show. "Epistemology" is a pilosophical term referring to how and why we believe and know what we think we know. That episode is thick with material for those thoughts. Seeing, thinking, expression, reflection.

Don't disparage the sources. Let thoughts flow.

…and a burrito

Once when playing Writey Drawey, a lake and a wombat turned into a gerbil and a burrito, and then a guinea pig and a burrito. Nice!


Today someone posted this on Hallie Kasiri's facebook page:


I used to make one-drop pancakes for Holly's pet rats.
We have given tiny watermelon slices to prairie dogs.
Same effect—they hold them and look SO CUTE!

Reflections, Projections and Shadows

Sometimes light makes a picture on a wall, or table, or ceiling, because it passed through, or didn't pass through, some object or substance. Sometimes it's water, or a treebranch in the wind, and the image has motion. Sometimes it's through a tinted window or a prism, and the image has colors. Some things are shadows, and some are projections, and some are combinations. This first one is my shadow, and the frames of the windowpanes in the front door, falling on a map of the U.S., at Emily Schnarr's house in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania.

(metal colander inside a plastic one, winter sun coming in low through a second-floor window)

"Objects in mirror…" message reflected or projected? Some and some?

This one is a blue plastic pitcher sitting behind a cloth screen, with low winter sunlight coming through both.

Sunset in a laundry basket:

Holly at the bean in Chicago:

Holly at the zoo one day:

Mysterious mysteries

When I create a new post on Just Add Light and Stir, sometimes I check to see if the title I'm about to use has been used before. Yesterday's was "Mysteries." It had not been used.

There are amusing mysteries, spooky mysteries, beautiful mysteries and sacred mysteries. Sometimes a thing is just a thing, and sometimes it's mystery. Other mysteries here: SandraDodd.com/mystery photo by Sandra Dodd

I liked that to one called "Everyday mysteries," with a slightly similar photo. But there were others, by name and theme, and I'm gathering them together here.

Everyday Mysteries (July 27, 2011): We don't know what will happen today. Plans can change. Unexpected things happen, and we don't even know whether they will be pleasant surprises or oopsies. Life can be mysterious. Learn to love surprises! SandraDodd.com/martyninja photo by Sandra Dodd A beautiful mystery (June 2, 2013): "I want to see Lucas Sven Leuenberger's math rock band. But where? When? "The future is a beautiful mystery." —Doozy Dodd One doesn't need to know what math rock is to appreciate the comment about the future. SandraDodd.com/holly photo by Colleen Prieto The Mystery of the Moment (January 11, 2013): "What's in there?" Even before children can talk they wonder. They want to look in boxes, suitcses, open drawers, look into cabinets. Life is a mystery—a puzzle full of wonder with things inside other things, surprises in disguises. When I was a kid, I was curious about buildings, houses, garages and sheds in my home town. I had a goal of going into every house. I tried to go into every business. Visiting friends, selling cookies, trick-or-treating and Christmas carolling got me peeks into private homes. Some folks are curious about how machines work, or similarities in the skeletons of different birds. Some learn how guitars are built, or what makes a soufflé rise. Notice what your children wonder about. Help them explore the world. Nurture your own curiosity. You can't know what will happen, or what you will find, and some of it will be wonderful. A mom named Amy left a comment on a Just Add Light and Stir post: I had always wanted to learn to be live in the moment, but it seemed a great mystery. Having my daughter and becoming an unschooler, I finally get it! . . . We are living together, happily, every day. What a nice way to be. Amy's comment is here photo by Sandra Dodd

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There was one with "…a sense of mystery…" in a 2002 quote from Ren Allen.

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Open and willing (March 23, 2013): I don't worry anymore that my children won't learn everything they need to for this life. I also see that joyful learning can only happen if we are open and totally willing to see every moment, every interest, everything as opportunity. We never know what a tidbit of information, or an experience might lead to...and not knowing can bring a sense of mystery to this whole Unschooling life. If we keep that sense of mystery, that feeling that this COULD lead to big things, (but if it doesn't that's ok too) we will so much better be able to serve our children well when supporting and encouraging their unique interests and pursuits. That's what it's all about for me. Being an avenue instead of a closed door. —Ren Allen April 2002 SandraDodd.com/ren/squirrel photo by Sandra Dodd I did use this squirrel on another post. If you follow the link to the rest of what Ren wrote, you'll know why I brushed it off for this. I saw this squirrel in Lyon, France. It was carved in the 17th century (at least the carving above it says "Maison fondeé en 1684").

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Looking at those as a set, there is something interesting. One is from July 2011, and all the rest were 2013. It could be coincidence. Literary analysis would suggest I became more interested in mystery as a theme, this year. Yet another mystery!