At The Donut Barn in Odon

Eric helping a couple of customers Sunday afternoon - day is just about done for the donut makers.

Oma (Diane) chats with Ian. Ian was looking forward to closing up shop and heading home - Avatar was on the agenda and he was looking forward to seeing it again.

Yann Martel's Beatrice and Virgil, a good read

Finished this little book, Yann Martel's Beatrice and Virgil, sent by Random House's Rochelle Clark a few weeks ago.  It's unusual and unique - consider this - Beatrice is a donkey and Virgil is a howler monkey.  And if some kind of hell comes to mind with those two names, well, this book takes you into a kind of hell - torture, pain, starvation, desolation, despair, destruction, death.  Not nice the kind of things we suffer upon each other.  Martel's book again reminds us of our humanity and the things that we are capable of.  A goody.  Go here for Beatrice and Virgil's own web site - you get to meet them.

More Photos from last week's sports extravaganza in Loogootee

Hannah LaMar with the mien of an athlete dead set on the mission at hand - throttling the competition.

Lucas Bird (grandson) wondering (?!) if the guy in the orange shirt is ever going to drop that ball. Well, maybe just paying attention to words of wisdom from one of the ND coaches.

Hannah and playing partner, Ashton Matthews, who did go on to win their doubles match against the girls from Washington. Dave Wininger told me that Lindsey and her partner also won.

Boys of Spring

North Daviess played Loogootee in a game in Loogootee the other night. Here one of the ND lads (Alex Wittmer?) is stepping in to the incoming pitch.

Tennis in Loogootee

Word of the Day: Ikigai

Ikigai

-from Wikipedia:

Ikigai (生き甲斐 - pronounced "ee-ki-guy") is the Japanese equivalent of the French, raison d'être. In English, these translate respectively as: 'something important one lives for', and 'a reason for being'.
Although the meanings are similar, cultural attitudes towards the concept they embody, differ.
Few possess a raison d’être, but those who go through life with an enduring passion for something, can be consumed by it to the detriment of social relationships and a "normal" lifestyle. Thus, there are seen to be both desirable and undesirable aspects to having a raison d’être.
Everyone, according to the Japanese, has a hidden ikigai. Finding it requires a deep and often lengthy search of self. Such a search is regarded as being very important, since it is believed that discovery of one's ikigai brings satisfaction and meaning to life.

Found at dkos' Abreviated Pundit Round-Up which was referring to a Boston Globe oped, A Life Worth Living.  That oped is talking about Japanese seniors and their continuing pursuit of 'ikigai.  I like it - the word and the meaning.  Now to find a visual representation of it...

Author Paul Hendrickson's Biography/Memoir of Marion Post Wolcott

Just finished Paul Hendrickson's Looking for the Light, the hidden life and art of Marion Post Wolcott, a fascinating look at another photographer, this one gaining her fame through her work with the Farm Security Administration in 'shooting' photos of Americans and America during the latter years of the Depression and the first years of WWII.  After a relatively brief stint - three years, Marion Post Wolcott disappeared from the world of photography and was later (like forty years later) 'discovered' and given the acclaim that she deserved.  In brief: she got herself married and had kids and pretty much had far much to do to think of picking up her camera.  The author mixes biography with memoir (he became friends with Marion and her one and only husband, Lee) to tell a tale that is informative, revelatory and very touching as he tries to understand why the silence of the artist lady who traveled the South (and other places) in her convertible taking photos back around 1940.  More on Marion Post Wolcott at wikipedia.com and here for some of her photos.

Tiled Corner

My first tiling project - floor protection for a wood stove that will heat the addition. Painting all but done (95% by Diane) and the flooring needing to be installed - Diane had hoped that would have been completed before she returned from the Seattle area (visiting daughter Danielle and granddaughters Naomi and Leah in Kirkland). She returns this Saturday night and the floor is going to be looking about what it looks like in the above photo.

Cascarones, etc.

Goings on at Easter dinner up in Noblesville. Marty and Laura hosted and cascarones were part of the fun (out in the back yard).