AWAKE! and a book and art....

Hallelujah ladies and gentlemen, I am able to say today that I am NOT exhausted. For the first time since we arrived in Canada about three weeks ago now, I feel good. Like James Brown put it. WoooHOOOOOOOO.

What a delightful feeling. Have to say, I am probably still tired in the grand scheme of things, but I am not simply dragging my sorry ass around from one thing to another fighting the numbness in my head. What a fantastic feeling.



OK, on to something more interesting. One of the things I noticed when I got here is that as far as I can tell, everyone and his hairy nose-picking uncle was reading, or at least had purchased Blink by Malcom Gladwell. Now this made me curious, and since we have some challenges around getting new books, there would have been times I would have fallen on it with GLEE. Not now. I started it, but really. Meh. He wanders all over the countryside in these really long examples that only shallowly illustrate what I think he is trying to get at. Pop psych. Blech.

What I picked up at work, always a fascinating place to find a good read, especially since some of my co-workers are deeply intelligent and passionate readers, was "The Hand" by neurologist Frank R. Wilson. The subtitle is "How its use shapes the brain, language and human culture." This I am dying to read. I have long believed for a variety of reasons that the close realtionship between the hand and the mind is one of the keynote factors in our humanity. That is aside from the mundane pincer grasp non-sense where we can do stuff because of our refined tool using. I think that this ability to make and use tools was shaped by, and was also instrumental in the sculpting of our minds, intelligence and human spirit. I am anticipating a good read. I'll try and let you know. Since those few lines of Blink are all I have managed in the last three weeks, which is profoundly pathetic for me, I am anticipating a pleasant evening as I may even stay awake for more than a paragraph!

Here are some pictures of some of the things that the kids are making at camp:


A troll's head if I am correct,



THe troll's fingers, one made by each child...



A musical instrument made by youngest and a buddy out of found materials from our walk yesterday...



Have a lovely day, I have.