School Spirit

Following very closely on the heels of those dang inedible Buckeyes horse chestnuts from my last post, some of you will "get" this.  The rest of you...well...go ahead and roll your eyes.

This is that time of the year when it happens.  Shuffling through the fallen leaves.  The smell of their burning raked-up piles.  Dancing with the cold, crisp air.  I'm immediately transported back to those home-game Saturdays, walking across campus with the rest of the school body to the Big House. 

We were electric with excitement.  Our previous night's game-rally was still coursing through our blood.  We were already tasting victory.  Hail to the Victors Valiant!  Hail to the Conquering Heroes!

Some Saturdays were more important than others, like when sister Ruth's school dared to enter our stadium.  Even in my own family, them are fightin' words (good English).  When Ruth's school beat mine a couple Saturdays ago (while Astrid and I were in Atlanta), I was reduced to GD swearing.  Seriously. 

Sweet little innocent Wolverine Ginnie.  Look at her up there on our headboard.  Of all the things I could have gotten rid of before moving!  The wee one on the right represents me as a college girl in the 60s.  The one with gray hairs is, um, still fighting strong!

Astrid says I become a different person during those games.  She looks at me sideways, wondering if she really knows me?

But she hasn't seen nothin' yet (good English)!  Wait till the BIG one comes two Saturdays from now.   Our REAL arch rivalry.  Even after almost 50 years, I can still work up a sweat about the outcome of that final game of our season.

That final game, btw, was ranked by ESPN in 2000 as the greatest North American sports rivalry.  

Who cares, you say.  I DO!  And so does one of you.  I know who you are.  Are you squirming yet?  Sweating?  Our Big House will be packed to the gills, waiting for you...all 110,000 of us.  Who cares that you've won our last 6 match-ups.  This is the year.  No mercy.

Let the stats speak for themselves:

Michigan–Ohio State rivalry
First meeting	October 17, 1897[1] Michigan 34, Ohio State 0
Last meeting	November 27, 2010[2] Ohio State 37, Michigan 7 (Win vacated by Ohio State)[3]
Next meeting	November 26, 2011
Total meetings	107
Series record	Michigan: 57–44–6 Ohio State: 43*–57–6 *2010 vacated win not included
Largest victory	Michigan, 86–0 (1902)
Longest streak	Michigan, 9 (1901–1909)
Current streak	Michigan: 7 losses (2004–2010) Ohio State: 6 wins, (2004–2009)
Trophy:	None

I'll be gracious in victory, of course.

And if we lose...yet again...we'll do what we always do with those dang inedible Buckeyes horse chestnuts:  we'll chew them up and spit them out!

 GO BLUE!

[Sadly, the recently reported sport's sex scandal at another of America's great universities was disclosed after I had drafted my post. It could have happened anywhere, of course. Please know I grieve with all the victims who are part of this very sad story.]

Trick or Treat

Okay, okay.  I’m a week early!

But Astrid and I are in Atlanta as we speak, having just spent a glorious weekend in the north Georgia mountains with my kids and grandson.  Halloween is everywhere.  However, for this post, my thoughts are back home where we live in the Netherlands….

Where THOUSANDS of these chestnuts have fallen to the ground from the HUNDREDS of trees that surround our citadel city.  Seriously.

Actually, they had all but fallen by the beginning of this month.  OCTOBER.  AUTUMN.  FOOTBALL.  They sprinkled the ground like lost-n-found money.  Like gems from the sky.  I became the little girls and boys everywhere who came with their mommies…and bags…to collect their treasures.  “Look, Mommy!  Look at this one!”

One day I took out my own bag and collected my own.  Enough to sink my imaginary ship.

TRICK:  Not a one of them was edible.

All my life I had heard about chestnuts roasting on open fires at this time of the year.  Though I had never seen or experienced it, I envisioned crackling fireplaces in cozy, romantic homes.  No one ever told me about the 55-gallon oil drums around Europe's open-air markets, spitting their fires underneath iron plates sizzling with sweet chestnuts.  The kind you eat. 

Who would have known there were two kinds!  I first found ones like these in Germany years back and raced home to roast them in the oven.  I had eaten my first roasted chestnuts in Munich a few years before and could hardly wait to taste them again.  I thought I had found money on the ground.

TRICK:  Those weren’t edible either! 

And that’s when I found out they either are or they aren’t, depending.  The ones that are are sweet chestnuts.  The ones that aren’t are horse chestnuts or buckeyes!  Another trick and what a waste, since the Buckeyes are my archrival. 

  

Nevertheless, I found myself a perfectly-shaped specimen from the above stash (where I live surrounded by chestnut trees--the ones that are non-edible tricks), and turned it around tenderly in my hand on my daily walks…until it felt like a TREAT.

And because the Dutch don’t seem too keen on the edible variety (why is that???), I now wait eagerly for our trip to Düsseldorf, Germany, in early December, to visit the Christmas market…and to find my chestnut vendor on the corner who will serve me up a paper cone full of the sweet delicacies.

Such is life's sermonette.  Sometimes you have to pick through the tricks till you lay your hands on the TREAT!

Heaven On Earth

When we say "it's like heaven on earth," everyone knows exactly what we mean.  Because it is!

We were at a heaven-on-earth a week ago when we had the chance to take the 15-minute ferry from Den Helder, north of the Netherlands, to Texel (pronounced TESS-el), the Dutch island nearby.  Astrid had told me about it for 4 years and I finally got to see and experience it myself.

Such a heaven is usually a place, something we see, but it can also be something we taste (like an angel peeing on our tongue, as the Dutch say), or something we feel...or something we do. 

Eons ago when my back-then husband was ministering to college students, he became licensed to administer the SIMA profile:  Systematic Inventory of Motivated Abilities, a proven, predictive process for identifying people's unique patterns of motivated behavior.  What I most remember is that two components have to exist to qualify as a truly motivated ability:  you enjoy it and you do it well.  If both are present, it leads to exceptional performance and superior results.

Kinda like God creating something and saying "It is good."  We are made in that image, says Holy Writ.  It's like heaven on earth.  God in us.

Technically, to do something well usually means there is significant positive feeback confirming the abilities we enjoy.  This happens at work when we're promoted.  Or when our art becomes famous and puts money in our purse. 

Look at what we do here at V&V, as well as on our own blogs.  We read each other's posts.  We look at each other's images.  And we leave positive feedback.  This builds our self-esteem as well as our virtual communities. It's a Mutual Admiration Society.  We stroke each other's backs.  We build each other up.

Is it possible, however, to really enjoy something and do it well without feedback from others?  I notice, for instance, some of the excellent photographers at my Shutterchance site who never receive comments.  How does that affect them and how long will they continue "creating?"  Will they stay motivated?

My guess is we all thrive on affirmations.  When we have them, we fly higher than a kite.  When we don't, we fall into the slough of despond.  But can we, I wonder, create heaven-on-earth in whatever we do no matter who gives a hoot?  Can we be excellent and say of ourselves and our art "It is good" even if no one sees our proverbial sunset or hears the tree falling in our woods?

In other words, can our art exist in a vacuum?  I've been pondering these things in my heart because I hate being "dependent" on the affirmations of others to determine if what I do is good.  And by whose standards?  I want to know within myself that when I really enjoy something and do it well, it is good.  Period.  No matter who sees it or likes it.  No matter what the exceptional performance and superior results.

But then, maybe even God needs a "Man!  That's good!" from time to time?  And if so, why not we who are made in God's image!  It does seem to work wonders for the motivation factor.

Collaboration

col·lab·o·ra·tion Noun
1. The action of working with someone to produce or create something.

Remember when Astrid and I had the good fortune to meet up with Vision and Verb cohort, Petra, back in February?  Well, chalk up another one:  our own virtual reality named CherryPie becoming real in England!

Here's where the collaboration comes in.

Astrid and I met each other as virtual realities on 31 August 2007 when we first commented on each other's Shutterchance blog that day.  Actually, she started it.  And true to Blogging Ettiquette 101, I followed suit.

Just before that time in my life, I had been typing away day after day on my other blog, documenting all the traveling I was doing with my ex-partner.  Half of every month we lived in Atlanta.  The other half we lived first in Hannover, Germany, and later in Amsterdam.  Because of all the pictures I was taking, I wanted to start highlighting certain images in a bigger/better space for just one image/day.  Bigger images, fewer words.

That's when I picked Shutterchance (SC), at the end of 2006, a photoblog originating in the UK. By the time Astrid joined the same photoblog and found me in 2007, I was already pretty "established" in the core group of Shutterchancers, building a sweet little community.  In just a matter of time, Astrid, too, became part of the core.

Within 3 months of our first comments to each other, we had the chance to meet while I was  in Amsterdam...and, well, you know how they say the rest is history!   By 5 February 2010 we were legally married, living together here in the Netherlands.

That was last year, and for our honeymoon, we flew to England to be with Shutterchance friends, meeting up with 14 of them.  THIS year, in celebration of our 4th anniversary of meeting virtually, with those first comments, we flew back to England and had another meet-up.

And this is where CherryPie comes in! 

Our SC friends collaborated and planned a meet-up at Dudley's Black Country Living Museum on Sunday, 4 September, while we were visiting.  CherryPie, from England, who visits and comments regularly on my SC blog, read about the meet-up and wrote me that she would like to join us, even though everyone else was from SC. She was willing to brave the unknown...just so we V&Vers could meet!  And we did.

Are we happy or what?!  (Astrid collaborated by taking the image.)  Two women of a certain age met each other virtually on the WWW because certain other women conspired and collaborated to make a blog called Vision and Verb.  Within a short matter of time, BINGO:  they too/two were able to meet in real life.

My guess is this is not the last time it will happen...for me or for the rest of us.  Don't you wonder who will be next?  (Yes, Astrid and I are taking reservations should you like to make it to the Netherlands!)