A QUESTION ABOUT SYMBOLS

Mark Making to Create an Alphabet

Numbers and letters are so ordinary, aren't they? We don't think much about their origins. We all accept that "2" means two of something, but the symbol 2 doesn't utilize counting marks to show us the value. Most of the world uses the Hindu-Arabic numerical system even in places such as China, and Japan, where numbers were originally written differently. 

The trading routes through China, India, and the Middle East helped to develop the Hindu-Arabic system and moved away from tally marks to notations that were quicker to write. You can see how the tally could easily be changed to the symbol 2 by someone in a hurry. 

Writing with different instruments, such as a piece of bamboo, which I used to make both "Mark Making to Create an Alphabet" and "Finding Letters," could also change the character and form of letters and numbers. On a busy trading route, someone's version of counting or writing could travel along with the traders. More and more people would see the symbols and accept what they represent.

Finding Letters

I was intrigued by an article in Scientific American that explains how Inuit students and their teacher developed a new written form of the oral Inuit counting system, which was suppressed in North American schools in the 19th and 20th centuries as was much of their culture. Their number system is based on the human body and is grouped into 5, 10, 15, and sets of 20 (think of counting on fingers and toes). The students call their new written system Kaktovik after their village. The result is elegant and easy to use and is now being adapted to computer systems.  The Kaktovik method seems to incorporate both tally marks and quick notation symbols. Maybe we all should give it a try.

Variations of Number Symbol Systems

Looking at the Kaktovik numbers, I was reminded of Douglas McClellan, a college art professor, who studied alphabets in order to design a stained glass window that became part of the Scripps Library. His research included the idea that our alphabets are based on the development of weaving. Without weaving, we wouldn't understand how to cross one line over another. For a class assignment, he proposed that we design an alphabet from another planet without the grains or plant life we have on Earth. What would inspire beings from the other planet to create a written language? Looking at the alphabet I made and the numerical system by the Kaktovik students, I was struck by the similarities in design and how often we human beings think alike even when we are from different cultures.

An alphabet based on a planet of silicone, with faceted, crystalline structures

Read more about the Inuit students who developed a written version of the Inuit counting system:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-number-system-invented-by-inuit-schoolchildren-will-make-its-silicon-valley-debut/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=week-in-science&utm_content=link&utm_term=2023-04-14_featured-this-week&spMailingID=72874659&spUserID=NTM4NjE5NjQxNzA1S0&spJobID=2341157255&spReportId=MjM0MTE1NzI1NQS2 

Both of these sites give excellent examples of the development of numerals and mathematics: 

https://www.math.uci.edu/~ndonalds/math184/india.pdf

https://math.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Applied_Mathematics/Math_in_Society_(Lippman)/14%3A_Historical_Counting_Systems/14.03%3A_The_Hindu-Arabic_Number_System

COMFORT FOOD

Some people collect figurines, others treasure artwork, and some accumulate cookbooks as a friend did all her life. She left her daughter with bookshelves full of 300 cookbooks. My friend loved to cook and enjoyed thumbing through the pages for inspiration even when she stopped cooking later in life.

I have a small bookshelf with a couple dozen cookbooks that I've culled down from a larger collection. They include a copy of my mom's The Culinary Arts Institute Encyclopedia Cookbook, whose name says everything about this large volume. As a kid, I loved to turn the cut-out page inserts to see recipes, black and white photos, explanations of weights and measures, how to organize a kitchen, how to set a table, cooking hints, and menus for each month of the year. After college, I purchased The Joy of Cooking, my early bible for cooking, and I've kept several slim books from the Time/Life series of cooking from around the world. The Italian edition taught me how to make besciamella and pesto sauces.

I rarely go to these recipe books now. Instead, I search the internet for recipes. I subscribe to several food websites, such as the Food Network and Eating Well. One of my favorite food blogs comes from Jane Evans Bonacci who writes The Heritage Cook and whose mac and cheese recipe is delicious.

As the winter weather subsides, I still look for comfort foods and found one at Taste of Home called Spaghetti Squash Meatball Casserole.

I used my own simple recipe for meatballs: 1 pound hamburger, finely chopped onions, one egg, some breadcrumbs, Starlight Herbs & Spices Idaho Mountain Blend mix, and salt and pepper. I made the meatballs a day ahead, covering my hands in olive oil so the meat didn't stick to my hands as I rolled it into balls. I baked them at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes.

Here is the rest of the recipe, which I reduced to serve 2 meals for 2 people:

Set oven to 350 degrees

Grease a small baking dish

You need:

1 small spaghetti squash, cut in half lengthwise

1 medium onion, chopped

2 cups dark salad greens

1 cup ricotta cheese

1 plum tomato, chopped

1 cup tomato sauce (make your own or use most of a 14 oz. can of prepared pasta sauce)

1 cup shredded cheese mix (I had fontina, gruyere, and white cheddar on hand) or mozzarella

 parmesan cheese

Salt and pepper

Microwave cut squash, uncovered, cut side down, for 20 minutes on high

Use a fork to separate spaghetti squash into strands

Saute onion in oil till tender

Stir in dark salad greens, ricotta, and salt and pepper

Stir spaghetti squash strands into greens/ricotta mixture

Transfer to baking dish

Top with meatballs, tomato sauce, and chopped tomatoes

Sprinkle with parmesan

Bake, uncovered, for 30 minutes.

This casserole is just right comfort food before the seasons change. Soon we will be gathering fruits for a refreshing salad for warm weather feasting.

Do you have a favorite comfort food recipe?

Check out Jane Evans Bonacci's blog The Heritage Cook: here

https://theheritagecook.com/old-fashioned-creamy-mac-and-cheese-gluten-free/ 

Find good herbs and spices at Starlight Herbs & Spices:

https://www.starlightherb.com/collections/rubs-blends/products/idaho-mountain-blend?variant=3660445249

Check out cooking websites:

https://www.foodnetwork.com

https://www.eatingwell.com

https://www.tasteofhome.com

GOOD ENOUGH

Ink drawing by one of my students, Sara Kearns,
which shows some of the principles of design:
positive and negative space, repetition, contrast, shape/line

"I didn't think I was good enough," explained Ginni Rometty, the former CEO of IBM, who spoke in San Francisco recently. She described how every job she was offered seemed beyond her ability, but she took them anyway. Seeing Rometty, a tall, blonde, confident woman, you might expect her to have come from a family of privilege. She commands a room and I was surprised by her childhood story. She and her siblings were raised by their mom alone after their father abandoned them. Her mom worked at low-paying jobs, juggled child care while attending college, and became Rometty's best role model.

Yet even Rometty has the doubts that so many of us develop in early adolescence and beyond. I thought of Rometty's talk as I sat on a small stool in our garage and sifted through nine binders of lesson plans that I developed in my career as a junior high school "utility" teacher. Back then I taught art, PE, English, journalism/yearbook, and a class called Quest, which the Lions Club sponsored to help students to learn to get along better with friends and family and to develop the character needed to overcome life's challenges.

Advance and Do Not Fear the Thorns in the Path by M. Slavin

During Quest class, we sat in a circle and went over the day's lesson. One was particularly effective for the students as well as when we shared the story with their parents who had to commit to attending sessions of the class in the evening. One student in the class held a can and some small stones. Another read the story which begins early in the morning when the character sleeps in. The first stone clinks into the can. Each time something negative happened throughout the day, another stone would drop into the can. By the end of the story, the can was almost full and the looks on the kids' and parents' faces had a new understanding of all the negative actions than can occur during the day.

I remember a student in my English class who I thought had all the promise in the world, but who rarely turned in his work. He had a horde of excuses, including my favorite. He told me, "I was walking to school, my homework flew out of my hand and landed on the grill of a passing car and disappeared forever." Creative, yes. Feeling like he wasn't good enough, yes too.

Playful Butterfly by M. Slavin used as an example for a lesson plan

Most people who asked me what I did for a living, raised their eyebrows and shook their heads as they remember their own tumultuous times in junior high. Teaching that age level filled my day with a series of small defeats and rewards and sometimes a moment of pure joy when I watched a student comprehend something new. As a teacher, I always had doubts about myself. When I left teaching, I thought to myself, "After teaching junior high, I can survive anything!"

Looking at the binders and carefully constructed lessons that I created, I'm glad I looked through them knowing that sometimes something that I kept from my past gives me a new understanding of myself. I could tell my younger self that as a teacher I was good enough. 

A simple lesson in type design by M. Slavin

**********

Check out what Ginni Rometty's about changing the world in her new book,  Good Power: Leading Positive Change in Our Lives, Work, and World 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2023/03/08/former-ibm-ceo-ginni-rometty-good-power/

Check out the Quest Program for Social and Emotional Learning here:

https://www.lions-quest.org/explore-our-sel-curriculum/middle-school-social-and-emotional-learning-program/ 

A HOUSE OR HOME?

 

Friends have cleaned out the clutter from their home and put their house on the market. The house has been staged and looks inviting on the website; but for them, it has lost the feeling of home, and they find they can't be in the house for long. Their move reminded me of our move to Tokyo when we had six weeks to decide what to bring with us. We had to arrange for packing and shipping, find a school in Tokyo for our son, try to learn a little of the language, say good-bye to old friends, and a million other things we needed to do. If you ever were an ex-pat or moved frequently within the U.S., you know how the whole process goes. Because our move was a corporate one, we had a lot of help. We were told to pack for two shipments, one small one filled with necessities that would arrive when we did, and another filled with furniture and other possessions that we needed, which would appear at our door six weeks later.

When we arrived at Hiroo Towers, we discovered that the apartment complex we chose provided a completely furnished temporary apartment for the six weeks before our sea shipment was delivered. Not knowing about this wonderful set-up, we packed within our essentials shipment all the things we thought we would need: forks and knives, plates, toilet paper, sheets and towels, and just enough clothes to get by. Except for our clothes, most of these items were provided in the temporary apartment. This thoughtful planning by the Japanese owners became our first introduction to the Japanese way. What we really needed came six weeks later.

One early evening before we left home in the U.S., I walked out into our backyard to say goodbye to our house. I looked through the window to a room filled with golden light reflecting across bookshelves filled with books and blankets bundled in baskets by our chairs. The light brought back the memories which made this house a home. I remembered sitting on the kitchen floor with our son, a big piece of paper spread between us, as we used pencils and pens to draw our own versions of home and neighborhoods. I thought of the times when Bill and I moved out of each other's way in our "kitchen dance" as we made breakfast in the morning, or as we stopped to watch the birds at the bird feeder at sunrise, or when we had friends and family gathered around our dining room table or when the kids who tumbled about in our son's room, ran outside to the hill in our backyard and then came back into the kitchen looking for something to drink. Home: more than just a structure.

As we de-clutter our house and ponder what will come, we ask ourselves if should we stay where we are, move to a smaller place, travel, or seek different kinds of living spaces? I think of our move to Tokyo and the choices we made of what to bring with us and what we packed away and know whatever we do will probably be wrong for a while until we begin to invite people to share our table. 

Another version of what home means:

Watch Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, a whimsical stop-motion animated short, about a mollusk who lives in an Airbnb with his grandmother. The two of them build all kinds of Rube Goldberg-like contraptions, including a tennis ball that Marcel converted into a vehicle, to help navigate the human-sized house. The house was more livable because of their inventiveness, but what Marcel missed were the dozens of relatives who had accidentally been moved when the house owner moved away.

Watching the film reminded me that home isn't just the structure around us, but the memories, treasures, and most of all, the people who have populated that house through time.

BLUE SKIES, NOTHING BUT BLUE SKIES...

Sometimes traveling can discombobulate me.  Recently I spent five days in Southern California for a calligraphy conference. While there, I rented a car, a dark grey Honda Civic, at the airport. Hondas are common in California. I got to the car, opened the door with the clicker on the key fob, inserted the key, turned on the car, drove out of the lot thinking that I had checked all the boxes for renting a car, and paused to look at the beauty of the rugged San Gabriel Mountains in the distance. I drove to Cal Poly Pomona and parked my car and went to sign in for my classes.

At the end of the day, as the sun went down, I drove to a local shopping center and parked the car. As I walked towards Target, another Honda Civic drove by me and turned to park near my rental. I went into Target, made some purchases, had a quick dinner at a local eatery, went back to where I thought I had parked, opened the trunk of the Honda, put my bags and purse in the trunk, closed the lid, tried to open the driver's door with the clicker on the key fob. Nothing happened. I tried to open the trunk. Again nothing happened. I looked at the key fob in confusion and discovered that the license plate number on the fob didn't match the license plate on the car. It was too dark for me to see inside the car to verify that the Honda was my rental. I thought, "Wrong car. Could I really have put my purse and purchases into someone else's trunk?"

 I decided that I must have parked in a different lane or maybe I had opened the other Honda that looked just like my rental. But no, the other Honda parked in the same row also had a different license plate from the key fob. I recently read that Honda Civics are top of the list of stolen cars which made me wonder if my car had been stolen. So, whose Honda was this that now contained my purse and bags?

"A Small Bottle of Perrier" by M. Slavin

I walked around the parking lot trying to get a car to respond to the clicker on the fob. No response. I waited and waited by the car that wouldn't open, thinking that someone was shopping and would return so I could get my stuff out of the trunk. No luck. 

When I called the rental car office numbers, all I heard was a recorded voice giving me their office hours, which were long past closing. Finally getting a little desperate and cold, I called the police. They responded but couldn't do anything with the car. One of the officers walked over to Target to see if the car owner could be identified. No luck in the store. As the officer came back, I remembered that I had a bottle of water in the cupholder of my rental. I asked the officer to shine his flashlight into the car. Tucked into the cup holder was a bottle of Perrier, which made it obvious: this was my rental car. The officer used the key, not the clicker, on the key fob to open the driver's door. I groaned with relief, took a deep breath, and shook my head. The officer tried very hard not to laugh. In the end, I didn't get hurt, my car wasn't stolen, and the police were helpful. All of this occurred just because of a dead battery in the key fob and two license plate numbers that didn't match. 

It's okay to have a good laugh at this story. I did when it was over.

My sage advice coming from this travel tale:  when you rent a car, check that the license plate number matches the one on the key fob and that the key fob has a new battery. Otherwise, dark clouds could ruin your day.

LOOKING FOR FUN IN ALL THE RIGHT PLACES

 

Sometimes we just need to have some fun. I'm taking a cue from one of my favorite cousins (they all are my favorite cousins) to be a little goofy in my life. 

Bill and I started inserting ourselves into trompe l'oeil murals around the Bay Area recently and are having fun with the results. We've also been surprised when we walk by this statue in Walnut Creek that almost seems alive. It fool us every time.

We've inserted ourselves into artwork from a show at the deYoung Museum. 

And draped our shadows over spaces.

What better way to enjoy Spring, the time of year to wake up, roll your eyes, stretch, and be a little goofy in the sunshine (that is, if you can find some sunshine.)

March 2023 marks my ninth year of writing Postcards in the Air every Friday. I want to give a big thank you to all of you who have consistently read my blog each week. Thank you!

Bill has been accepted in the Pacific Art League's photography exhibit which runs through March 28. You can see his photo as well as others by clicking this link or visit Palo Alto and see the exhibit in person:

https://pacific-art-league.square.site/shop/artwork/4?limit=60&page=1&sort_by=category_order&sort_order=asc

A CHANCE FOR SPRING

Yesterday, we looked at each other and hollered at the rain:  "Enough already!" Even we rain-starved, California drought sufferers had reached our limit. We've had more than average rainfall, with 10 more feet of new snow in the Sierras (where most of our water comes from) after the latest set of storms. We know there are more storms to come before March is over and we head into flood season, and then dry season before our next, we stand with fingers crossed waiting for the wet season that starts in late November.

Today, we forgot our hollering because we walked out the door and discovered Spring is here. The deep cerulean blue sky, wispy clouds, and warm sun on our shoulders led us down the street for our first walk after a rainy week. In California, we have a burst of early Spring in February with the daffodils competing with the Winter poinsettias and primroses still in bloom. The daffodils lift their heads to be pummeled by the rains, but that doesn't stop them from rising each year.

My Winsor Newton travel paintbox

Today as we walked, we saw California Spring with everything in bloom all at once. Azaleas, camellias, flowering trees, and lavender have burst out in their splendor while the roses and dormant trees, still in their winter-dead look a week ago, have sprouted leaves curling open against the craggy bark of their branches.

Today as we walked, my thoughts went back to Japan and its more disciplined seasons: first camellias, then azaleas and rhododendrons, then flowering cherry trees, iris, hydrangeas, and finally chrysanthemums to welcome the fall season before the leaves change. Each flowering variety showcases itself with masses of color but makes way for another variety as the seasons change.

Spring reminds me that I can't resist writing another tribute to what I love about Spring. I love Spring season's fresh yellow-green. I love the reawakening of trees and shrubs. I love the birds scurrying around and swooping from one tree to the next. I love the blue skies and still chilly weather. I love the promise and hope that Spring offers. 

It is time for me to go for a walk and bring my traveling paintbox to paint a palette of Spring hues.

What do you do to celebrate this change of seasons?