List Day Thirty-One: The End

Over the last month, for thirty-one days including this one, I have posted a list each and every day, just like I promised I would do when I signed up for March NaBloPoMo. When I say I’m going to do something, come hell or high water, I do it, and I try very hard not to do it half-assed. I appreciate the lovely comments from those of you who said you enjoyed my lists. And when I say appreciate, I mean that I truly, madly, deeply appreciate those comments. I have gone around bleary-eyed from lack of sleep (like when I was a lawyer, except now there’s no paycheck), lived for an entire day on one giant-sized serving of granola and a cup of coffee (more than once), and had an urgent conversation with the cable company last night about the importance of getting my downed Internet connection fixed so that I could upload a post to my blog (cue cricket sounds from the other end of the phone). Will I do April NaBloPoMo? Not on your life. But really, it isn’t because I don’t want to do it. I cannot commit to posting every day in April for reasons that I’ll post about in the next day or two. Meanwhile, I need to rub my eyes, eat solid food, and put some duct tape on my cable modem because I wore it out.

I did March NaBloPoMo, in part, because I love to write. I love to write because I feel good while I’m doing it and satisfied when I’m done. Um, uh, it kinda sounds like I’m replacing someone with my computer, huh? But before March, I wasn’t writing daily, or even almost daily. And so, in March, I did. Which brings me to the other part of why I did March NaBloPoMo, why I wanted to write daily, or almost daily. I’m practicing for when I grow up and become a writer. I have had a couple of “scholarly” articles published in law review journals, but I’ve never sold anything. So, I’m officially joining the ranks of the many bloggers who dream of getting paid to write. And for me, in particular, I want to get paid for writing what I like writing. Is that a tall order? Perhaps. Do many, many, many bloggers share my dream? Definitely. And while I've been pondering if and how I could live the dream, this shared dream, I’ve been reading what some very awesome writers post on their blogs (some of them have even sold their writing, wow). I have been awestruck by the sheer volume and degree of talent out in the Blogosphere. Here’s a little sampling of some of my favorites.


A Not-So-Random Sampling of Great Writing


1. In Newly Wed, the irrepressible Mrs. G. over at Derfwad Manor shares sensible secrets to a successful marriage. She’s simultaneously serious, silly, and sensational. (I know, I know, I’ll have to get past my overuse of alliteration if I’m to matter as a writer.)


2. In On Being a Better Parent Than My Parent, the outspoken and well-spoken Aaryn Belfer, digs deep and writes about what a small man did to his very special daughter. But rather than wallow in what’s dished out, the daughter comes up with a plan to break the cycle and be a great mom.


3. From Jamie at choosing my own . . . comes one of the most insightful and inspirational pieces I’ve ever read. She expresses gratitude and admiration when others might be bitter and cry “abandonment.” She will make you smile and cry when you read her Letter to My Dead Grandmother.


4. The Minnesota Matron is everywoman, but she writes about it better than most. I keep telling her that she should be writing screenplays. Is her life funny or does she just tell it that way? In a post on her blog yesterday, aptly titled "The Matron's Favorites," she confesses to reading her own blog, and lists her favorite posts. Do check those out. Meanwhile, I'm linking you to one of my favorites. Read for yourself how she can turn a simple can of soup into a rollicking adventure in Although The Matron Occasionally Stretches for the Sake of a Story.


5. As the name suggests, BipolarLawyerCook is a blogger who wears a variety of hats, and she writes on a variety of topics, and on more than one website. Are we sensing that there's a pattern here? I have been moved by many of her posts. I have linked to a post so chock full of a variety of lessons that I’ve re-read it several times to make sure that I didn’t miss one. Read: Have you washed anyone’s feet this week?


6. You’ve heard the term voting a straight ticket? And, of course, that typically means voting a straight-Democrat or a straight-Republican ticket. Over at Professor J’s Place, she makes the case for voting a straight-woman ticket, which is kinda funny coming from Professor J. Make no mistake, Professor J doesn’t dis’ Barack Obama, and, in fact, she says she’d vote for him if he’s on the ticket in November. Professor J eloquently explains in Why Hillary? why Hillary has Professor J's support.


7. Over at katydidnot it is a laugh a minute, or, er, a laugh a post, um, er, no, it is always more than one laugh a post. You know? I’ve always got tea or coffee or water all over my keyboard because it shoots out of my nose from laughing out load while reading her posts, particularly the conversations between her and her kids. She’s so dang funny. But here in this post, katydidnot opens up the subject of body image. What would we women be if we weren’t troubled by something about our bodies? Hips. Thighs. Butt. Gut. Something. She finds things to love about her body, and gets me thinking that I could be finding things to love about my body too. I never looked at my body that way before, all lovingly and in a positive light and stuff. Read: certain of my disassociated body parts.


8. Speaking of seeing the glass half full, Jenn at Juggling Life gets right to the heart of matters in her posts, and she does it with her typical candor in The Glass is Half Full, in which she openly opines on optimism. (I swear I’m not actively trying to be annoying about alliteration, but perhaps purely passively.) Jenn once left me a comment that her husband juggles (as does mine), but really, Jenn, have you read your own masthead? You juggle, and with aplomb. How do you do all that you do and find the time to write about it?


9. Over at Apathy Lounge, Anastasia Beaverhausen will be sure to have you nodding your head in understanding and holding your sides from laughing as she discusses the miracle of the Uterine Tracking Device: It's Not Just For Birthing Babies Anymore!





10. I purposefully saved for last the post from the woman who was my first online relationship. I was inspired to start blogging after following Sam’s adventures in China while adopting her little girl, Jarrah. She is a fabulous writer on a variety of topics, but I was drawn to how openly she shared herself. I felt like I knew her before I ever met her because I did, kind of. And then I did get to meet in person the woman behind the screen at Little Dragon Fruit. (I’ve even seen her in a bathing suit.) She’s just as delicious in person as she is on the screen. But enough about my love for Sam, read Little Mysteries and see if you don’t just fall in love with someone who once fell in love with a picture.


Dear Readers, never show up empty handed, it's not polite. So when you go to visit, please leave these bloggers nice comments. If there is one thing that can be said about bloggers it's that we're comment 'hos. Be sure to tell them that Blog This Mom! sent you.

And tell me, where can I find samples of your favorite posts?

P.S. I totally plan to do another one of these lists of favorite posts from other bloggers again, just as soon as I get over this unexplained onset of list-o-phobia. I have more favorite bloggers whose archives I want to explore more fully, but I could no longer see straight by midnight, and I had to post it then because I have to go get a root canal later this morning time did not permit me to add anymore to this list. (I'm serious about the root canal.) More than half of the writers I included on this post had the advantage of my already having read their posts from way-back-when and I knew my favorites already. Also, Trish, you're not on this list because I already wrote an entire list about you.

List Day Thirty: Why I Love Lucy

Although I Love Lucy has been fodder for feminist criticism, I would argue that Lucy Ricardo was, in her way, and in her time, a pioneer in the feminist movement, unintentional though she might have been. I like, maybe prefer, looking at Lucy that way. To be sure, I had some “’splainin’” to do when my daughters watched episodes in which Ricky doled out Lucy’s allowance, would not permit her to cut her hair short, or turned her over his knee to spank her. And so as I introduced my daughters to the antics of Lucy Ricardo, we had discussions about historical context, traditional gender roles, anger disguised as humor, and how mixed up it was that married couples had to sleep in twin beds, but it was fine to smoke cigarettes on television shows.

Nevertheless, just for today, not for always, but just for today, I want to set aside the deeper feminist arguments, overlook the sweeping social messages, pass by piercing perspectives on stereotypes, and steer past any strict moral discourse. Just for today, I want to share some simple thoughts about Lucy Ricardo. Because in a simple way, Lucy Ricardo’s approach to life shaped me, perhaps it even saved me. The warm glow that was cast from the afternoon broadcasts of I Love Lucy reruns through the screen of the little B&W television set that was in my childhood bedroom is still in my heart today.

Lessons I Learned from Lucy Ricardo

1. Challenge authority with grace

Lucy may have retreated under Ricky’s bullying, but she was never defeated. Lucy never spoke out against the patriarchy; she took action. She waged battle against Ricky’s superior attitude, often by outsmarting him. Her schemes were creative and courageous, but they were never mean-spirited. When Ricky told Lucy to “be a good little girl,” she complied by finding a good way to get into his act. She indulged her husband, always with her upper hand, but gloved like the ladies wore in the ‘50s.


2. Be radical within the system

Lucy Ricardo challenged traditional gender roles in television’s earliest and most conservative days. For example, she left Little Ricky with his grandmother to go on a working tour of Europe, not her work, to be sure, but she balanced career and motherhood in the 1950s and viewers watched. When Lucy and Ethel switched roles with Ricky and Fred, they had to lie about their work experience to get hired at a factory, and they ended up eating a lot of chocolate, but Ricky and Fred made a shambles of their domestic chores. Was the lesson that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side of the fence, or did Lucy stir up deeply ingrained notions of traditional gender roles in the workplace and home? The more apparent feminist identities of characters such as Maude, Gloria Stivic, Mary Richards, and Ellen were still decades away, yet Lucy was a radical figure in her day.


3. Strong is beautiful

Lucy had her glamorous moments, but those weren’t the moments most recalled. We remember and love her best when she was covered in starch, grape juice, or with her fake nose on fire. Lucy was an incredible physical comedian, perhaps the best ever, and that required physical strength. Lucy could hoist and take home John Wayne’s stolen cement footprint. She scaled a tall wall to steal a grapefruit from Richard Widmark’s tree. Lucy was lowered from a helicopter to the deck of a cruise ship, bicycled through European border crossings, tangoed until the chicken eggs she’d hidden in her shirt were smashed, and she could bend like a pretzel to fit inside a trunk. Lucy might have worn a frilly apron around the kitchen during an era when a woman’s physical strength was not considered valuable in our culture, but the strings were tied around abs of steel.


4. Never give up on your wildest dreams

Lucy made no bones about wanting it all, marriage, career, motherhood, fame, a movie star’s autograph, and a designer dress in Paris. But Lucy didn’t just sitting around wanting, Lucy pursued. She may not have had the talent (whether it was singing, dancing or playing the sax) necessary to get into fictional show business, but Lucy Ricardo’s tenacity carried her every step of the way to those hilarious moments in those fictional nightclubs, movies, and television commercials.


5. Laughter is the best medicine

At almost any time of the day, in almost any place in the world, you can turn on the television and find Lucy Ricardo being attacked by a giant loaf of bread, frozen in a freezer, eating snails with tongs on her nose, talking Martian on the Empire State Building, being rescued from a ledge by Superman, or getting soused on Vitameatavegamin. Perhaps what makes her comedy still relevant today is that it arises from her flaws, flaws that we all share. Lucy Ricardo was stubborn, submissive, ambitious, vain, confrontational, and scheming. But she was never mean, never a doormat, always eager, self-deprecating, approachable, and zany. Lucy makes me laugh, and laughing makes me feel good.


6. Women’s friendships with each other are the perfect blendship

Oh sure, Lucy and Ethel had their feuds. Like when they unknowingly bought the same outfit to wear to a charity performance, and then ripped the other’s dress to shreds while singing a song about being perfect friends. But Lucy and Ethel loved each other unconditionally despite the trouble in which Lucy’s relentless plotting got Ethel. They were the embodiment of loyalty and were inseparable, going together to Hollywood, Europe, and eventually to live in Connecticut. They were Ya-Ya sisters before the phrase was coined. I will leave you with a little video montage that I found, set to the tune of “Friendship” as sung by Lucy Ricardo and Ethel Mertz. If a picture paints a thousand words, a video montage might just say it all, or at least enough for today.

List Day Twenty-Nine: An Adoption Story

When Tom and I met in our first year of law school, Kristen and Courtney were eight and six respectively. Three years later, we graduated from law school, passed the bar exam, and got married. We were all facing many changes, and in order to do it successfully and joyfully, each of us in our own way had to become a bit fearless. Tom had to move into an All Female Household (no small feat for the oldest of a three-brother family), and we had to make room for a certain amount of testosterone-induced behavior (no small feat for three women who lived for many years without a man in residence). Tom was bigger and had more upper-body strength. We had him outnumbered three-to-one. And so we learned the fine art of compromise. Tom never left the toilet seat up, and we gave over the television set on Sunday mornings and Monday nights to NFL. There was that time Tom found and rescued Courtney’s escaped mouse in the middle of the night. We tried to be patient during March Madness. And we had some fun too. Kristen and Courtney liked doing Tom’s hair and nails. And Tom reaped the benefit of living with three women who were experienced at exterior illumination (read: we hung the outdoor Christmas lights every year).

Although Tom is amazing in so many ways, I’m sure it goes without saying that he has not been a perfect father. But really, who is besides Jim Anderson? (For you young ‘uns, Jim Anderson was played by Robert Young on Father Knows Best.) Sometimes Tom lost his patience and sometimes he didn’t pay attention when needed. The line between dad and the older brother he was in his family of origin was sometimes blurred; Tom would tease the girls or poke fun, sometimes when it didn’t feel funny to them. Other times the father role was wielded with gusto. Heaven forbid Kristen and Courtney would be sleeping in on the weekend. Sleeping past 9 AM on a Saturday meant that it was time to wake them up to do a chore, and often it was a chore that I had asked him to do. And what was up with that music? Why didn’t they listen to good music, he wondered aloud, like Kansas and Rush? But make no mistake about it, our children weren’t perfect either, especially during the teen years, when I wouldn’t have blamed Tom for moving out – I would have, but I gave birth to them, so I felt obligated to stay and see through what I’d started. But really, what teenagers are perfect anyway except for David and Ricky Nelson? (For you young ‘uns, David and Ricky Nelson were played by David and Ricky Nelson on The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet)?

Through both the good and the challenging times, Tom willingly and fully stepped up to the plate and became Kristen and Courtney’s father in every way. Over the years, he went to class plays, attended dance recitals, volunteered at school functions, helped with homework, coached Y-basketball teams, and barely batted his long, black eyelashes when it came time to foot the bill for college tuition for two, simultaneously at that. He has treated Kristen and Courtney as though they share his DNA, and they have said that when they were small, he was more fully present for them than many of their friends’ biological fathers. Around the time that they first hit their teen years, they came to us in unison (they had a way of ganging up on us like that) and asked us why Tom had not adopted them, since he was their de facto father anyway. Tom told them that while he’d always been willing, he chose not to adopt them when they were little simply because he could, but rather we decided to wait until they were old enough to choose adoption. They told him that they wanted him to adopt them, and that it was important to them that he do it as soon as it was possible. It is said that adopted children are chosen children. In our house, the father and two oldest children chose each other.




And so, in honor of adoption, and in the spirit of my commitment to post a daily list in March, here is the list that Kristen gave to Tom for his fortieth birthday just over five years ago. It hangs in a frame in his office.

To My Dad With Love on His 40th Birthday:
In No Particular Order,
40 Reasons Why I Love My Dad
by Kristen

1. He loves me.
2. He loves my sisters.
3. He loves my mom.
4. He’s willing to miss the last four seconds of an NFL playoff game to get Laura a glass of juice.
5. He can juggle.
6. He gave me my goldfish, Trixie, God rest her.
7. There is no one better with whom to discuss Fear Factor strategies.
8. He can do impersonations (the best are the Simpsons and Matrix characters).
9. He took me parasailing and went up with me.
10. His lectures are always in my best interest.
11. He can stick an entire dinner roll in his mouth.
12. He can burp words.
13. He is responsible for most of my clever nicknames.
14. He can taste something and know all of its ingredients.
15. He gives me the cool shirts he doesn’t wear anymore.
16. He can do flips off the diving board.
17. He does handstands in all kinds of public places.
18. He came with a wonderful family that loves me.
19. He will edit anything I write, over and over.
20. I can never get away with simply knowing how to do math; I have to understand it.
21. He’s fun to play golf with.
22. He wakes me up in the morning in unique ways.
23. He’s a father out of love and choice – never obligation.
24. He’s a Democrat.
25. I can tell him anything.
26. He will listen to me.
27. He’s nice to any guy I bring home, even the losers.
28. He’s great at Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy.
29. He wants me to be happy.
30. He has always supported me financially.
31. He never lets me escape anything without trying to teach me something.
32. He’s serious enough to be my dad and fun enough to be my friend.
33. I’ve always been in great company because the friends he surrounds himself with are great.
34. He always works very hard at whatever he has or wants to do.
35. He respects me even when he doesn’t understand me.
36. He took me to the Father/Daughter Banquet at a church.
37. He can remember amazing things like Chemistry after having taken it twenty years ago.
38. He loves to compete.
39. He always questions his world and surroundings (like during Christmas season, asking why our neighbors put a dog with lights and a red nose on their lawn).
40. I will never stop counting the reasons why I love my dad.

List Day Twenty-Eight: Marketing Myths Exposed

I bought these smokin' hot shoes, which I mentioned a few lists back to wear to a company party celebrating my husband's ten-year employment anniversary. I decided that the smokin' hot shoes would look best with tan legs, straight hair, and nice-smelling armpits in a black dress. In order to achieve these goals, I had to purchase a few beauty products. I used said beauty products as directed. However, somewhere along the way, things went sideways. I cleverly assessed the situation and came to the conclusion that things went sideways because I fell prey to the traps set for me by the marketing geniuses of the beauty-product industry. Those giants of capitalist industry, who make billions of dollars annually by feeding off purchases made from vanity and insecurity, might have fooled me, but because I am a nice blogger and I look out for my blogging friends, I am posting a warning list so they don't fool you too.

Marketing Myths Exposed

1. Wash Hands Immediately After Use
To Prevent Discoloration of Palms? Not.

2. De-Frizz? Not.

3. Dare to Wear Black? Not.

Dear Readers, do you have any marketing myths to expose? Please share.

List Day Twenty-Seven: Lessons from The Rock

The History of Alcatraz Island

1. Alcatraz Island (known simply as Alcatraz or commonly as “The Rock”) is located in San Francisco Bay, California and can be reached only by a short ferry ride from Pier 33 at Fisherman’s Wharf. Alcatraz Island served many purposes over the years. Today, it is an historic site, operated by the National Park Service, and the former prison is open for public tours. Audio headsets guide visitors around the prison and provide a fairly colorful narration by former inmates and correctional officers of the prison’s history and a peek into the prisoners’ daily lives.

2. The discovery of gold in California in 1849 created an urgent need for a lighthouse as an influx of ships made their way to San Francisco Bay. The lighthouse began operating in 1854.

3. In 1853, the U.S. military began fortifying Alcatraz as a coastal battery to protect against invasion through the bay. During the U.S. Civil War, cannons were mounted, but never used. Eventually, Confederate sympathizers were held prisoner on the island during the war.

4. Alcatraz Island became a military prison when the fort was decommissioned in 1907. In 1915, Alcatraz was renamed “United States Disciplinary Barracks, Pacific Branch.” It wasn’t long before conscientious objectors to WWI joined the inmate population.

5. In the 1930s, the War Department transferred Alcatraz to the Department of Justice. The newly created Bureau of Prisons was interested using the island as a maximum-security facility to house the proliferation of criminals arising from the violent crime wave created by Prohibition and the Great Depression. In 1934, Alcatraz reopened as a federal penitentiary. Prison guards and their families lived on Alcatraz Island. The lore is that Alcatraz families rarely locked their doors as it was considered a safe haven from urban crime. The children who grew up there took a ferry to and from school. Due to increasing maintenance and operating costs, U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy closed Alcatraz in 1963.

6. In 1969, Alcatraz was home to a Native American occupation. Political activists arrived on Alcatraz, claiming it in the name of the “Indians of All Tribes,” which was considered a landmark event in intertribal cooperation. The Native Americans claimed that they were entitled to Alcatraz Island under the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 between the U.S. and the Sioux, which conceded all retired, abandoned or out-of-use federal land. The location of the protest and growing national awareness of Native American issues lent itself to mostly positive media support. However, as time passed media attention began to erode and with it the money required to keep the occupiers of the island (lacking in modern facilities) supplied with food and water. The full-scale occupation lasted for nineteen months until federal agents removed the Native Americans. Graffiti from this time can be seen on Alcatraz today.



The Federal Prison

1. The prison consisted of several cellblocks. B and C Blocks were for the general population, and were stacked on three floors. (The A Blocks were rarely used.) Prisoners were allowed out of their cells only for work, meals, and brief periods of daily exercise. The main cellblocks contained row upon row of tiny cells, three levels high, all of which were occupied by a single prisoner (these "private" cells were considered by inmates to be one of the “perks” of Alcatraz), and were furnished with only a toilet, sink, and cot.

2. D Block, or solitary confinement, was where prisoners were segregated for violent behavior. In D Block, the cells were slightly larger than in the main prison, but prisoners in those cells were not permitted to leave or to have books or other such materials. D Block was also the location of “the hole” where those cells contained nothing but a cement ceiling, walls, floor, and a solid door, leaving the punished man in total darkness.

3. After the shower stalls were removed to create one large open space, the dining hall was then considered the most dangerous place in the prison. It was the one place at which all of the inmates (except the D Block inhabitants) were gathered three times a day and “armed” with flatware.



4. Although they did not get to go to there to read, prisoners who were not on D Block had access to books from the prison library.

5. The prisoners (except the D Block inhabitants) had use of an outdoor yard, which provided taunting views and sounds from the city of San Francisco.



Notorious Inmates

1. Robert Stroud (known as “The Birdman of Alcatraz”) spent seventeen years at Alcatraz (six of them in D Block) beginning in 1942. Although he was called the Birdman of Alcatraz, he actually kept his birds in Leavenworth while serving time there.

2. Al Capone (known as “Scarface”) arrived at Alcatraz in 1934, where he was said to have continued his racketeering ventures by paying off guards.

3. George Kelly (known as “Machine Gun Kelly”) was a bootlegger, bank robber, and kidnapper. As the story goes, Kelly took a pee on his arresting officer. He came to Alcatraz in 1934.

4. James Joseph Bulger (known as “Whitey”) served three years on Alcatraz beginning in 1959. He is now a fugitive wanted on drug trafficking and other charges. He currently holds a place on the FBI’s Ten-Most-Wanted List. Bulger’s story inspired a “ripped from the headlines” Law & Order episode.


Comings and Goings

1. In the twenty-nine years that Alcatraz was a federal penitentiary, 1545 men arrived on the island to serve their sentences. The average sentence served on Alcatraz was eight years.

2. Fourteen federal prison-era escape attempts have been documented. The best known was in 1962 when Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin used raincoats as floatation devices, believed bound for San Francisco. Although they were never found, neither were their bodies. The official finding was “missing, presumed drowned,” arguably leaving Alcatraz’s escape-proof reputation intact.

3. No prisoners were ever executed on Alcatraz. Eight people were murdered on Alcatraz, five prisoners committed suicide, and fifteen men died of natural causes.

4. There were no women prisoners or guards on Alcatraz. The only women living on Alcatraz were the wives and daughters of guards. At any given time during the federal prison-era history some 300 families lived on the island.

5. Prisoners were allowed one visitor per month, and such visits had to be approved in writing by the warden. Visits took place only through a small glass window.



Pop Culture

1. Many movies have been made about Alcatraz and its inhabitants, including Birdman of Alcatraz (with Burt Lancaster), Escape from Alcatraz (with Clint Eastwood), Murder in the First (with Kevin Bacon, Christian Slater, and Gary Oldham) and The Rock (with Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage).

2. Alcatraz is the setting, basis for, or playable level on video games such as Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4, San Francisco Rush, Yuri’s Revenge, Shadow Hearts, Tibia, and Guitar Hero III (the venue “Shanker’s Island” is said to bear very strong resemblance to Alcatraz).

3. On television, shows such as Charmed, SpongeBob SquarePants, and Lost all have episodes “on” or referencing Alcatraz. In a 1988 television special, illusionist David Copperfield escaped from an Alcatraz cell.

4. Numerous books, nonfiction and novels, have been written about Alcatraz and/or its inhabitants (prisoners, guards, families, and wildlife). An Amazon.com search using the keyword “Alcatraz” reveals over 6,000 titles.


Random Thoughts and Feelings

Alcatraz Island today retains its beautiful natural history and continues to be an evolving ecological preserve. The island is home to mice, salamanders, and insects. Hawks, ravens, geese, finches, and hummingbirds are frequent visitors. Western gull and black-crowned night heron colonies actively breed there, and the National Park Service closes parts of the island during breeding season to protect them. Cormorants and other birds roost in more isolated spots on the island’s rocky cliffs.

In stark contrast to the peaceful natural history and remaining wildlife, is the remaining physical evidence of man’s less-than-peaceful history. The tiny cells that housed the misery of the men confined for the violent acts that they perpetrated on each other still contain their ghosts. It is a solemn and sad place to visit, really. You cannot help but feel the weight of the human condition in its most wretched form when you first walk into the prison, much like you feel the humidity when you first walk out of a hotel in Orlando, Florida. I walked through the souvenir shop and barely looked around, without making a single purchase. I did not want to carry home any reminders.

Although revisiting certain periods in history can be a weighty effort, it is important that we make opportunities to learn about our shared human story, whether it is maintained in national parks, museums, or books so that we learn from our mistakes and do better in the future. Although Alcatraz made me feel sad and contemplative, I was fortunate to go there surrounded by my loving family, and that we visited the island on a warm and sunny day, with just enough of a breeze to carry off my thoughts in a positive direction.

List Day Twenty-Six: Our Excellent Easter Adventure

1. The day started with the requisite morning egg hunt at home.



2. After the egg hunt at home, there was a short flight to San Jose.



3. When the three sisters are gathered in one place, Mommy thinks she's won a trifecta.



4. There was another egg hunt in San Jose, this one shared with sisters.



5. Eggs were dyed.



6. There was even a Princess Leia egg and a Mr. Spock egg.

7. Someone, who shall remain nameless, spilled some dye and tried to deny it, but someone's wife is a blogger and always ready with a camera and laptop to faithfully record and publicly display embarrassing evidence of her family's follies.



8. Our holiday was attended by one chef, two bakers, and a very grateful dishwasher.

9. Our holiday included delicious roast lamb with mint jelly, baked yams, spinach salad, and crusty artisan bread with olive oil for dipping. Dessert was freshly baked carrot muffins with Neufatchel cheese and pineapple frosting.

10. After dinner, our family bonded in our own special way. (The Stevie Wonder impersonator on the far left is Courtney still recovering from laser eye surgery.)



11. Laura spilled her Cosmopolitan cranberry juice all over herself and Kristen's carpet. She cried but did not stop playing Wii baseball; it was her turn at bat after all.

The End

List Day Twenty-Five: How "Mr. Whiskers" Recovered from Easter

1. On a bright and sunny day in March, after a busy holiday season, the Easter Bunny traveling incognito Mr. Whiskers went to Napa Valley for a well-deserved vacation.



2. Mr. Whiskers began his adventure with lunch at the hip Uva Trattoria Italiana at Clinton and Brown streets in Napa. He ordered a lovely organic spring salad with extra carrots. He thought the honey vinaigrette dressing was heavenly.



3. For dessert, Mr. Whiskers stuffed himself (no pun intended) with tiramisu and enjoyed a delicious cup of espresso.



4. After lunch, Mr. Whiskers took in the view. He thought the vineyards were lovely at this time of year, when the grapevines held the promise of things to come.



5. Mr. Whiskers decided to do a little wine tasting. First he signed the guest register and added his name, hole, and warren to the mailing list.



6. Mr. Whiskers waited for a moment or two so that the wine could interact with the air, then he inhaled deeply so as to fully appreciate the rich bouquet of a delicious Pinot Noir.



7. In between tastes of different wines, Mr. Whiskers cleansed his palette with water.



8. After Mr. Whiskers had tasted a variety of vintages, he selected a lovely bottle of St. Supéry Cabernet Sauvignon.



9. Mr. Whiskers got a bit carried away and drank too much Cabernet. When Mr. Whiskers gets his wine on, he becomes a bear.



10. Mr. Whiskers was 86'd from the tasting room. He went outside to hang around and sober up before driving home.



11. Although he was feeling better, Mr. Whiskers was concerned that his blood-alcohol level might still be above the legal limit. He decided that the responsible thing to do would be to take the train back to his warren.



12. On the way home, Mr. Whiskers listened to Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" on his iPod.



13. Back home, safe and snug in his hole, Mr. Whiskers did a little reading by the fire.



14. At the end of his adventure-filled day, Mr. Whiskers snuggled deep into his 300-thread-count cottontail sheets and fell fast asleep.

The End