Remembering the words of the creative Molly Ivins

There’s a game we like to play at the weekly Toastmasters meeting, 6:15 p.m. Thursdays at Sutton Associates Wealth Management across from Lakeport’s historic Courthouse Square. Somebody brings a vocabulary word and the rest of us try to use it during the course of the meeting. Imagine the flexible and creative thinking that this encourages in us!

Vast numbers of cats and dogs are euthanized

I recently found a missing photo album that had a picture of my cat Elizabeth when she was just six weeks old. Each of Elizabeth’s ears was as big as her entire face. She was so comically adorable! She looked like a fluffy little bat.

Lake County welcomes fifth Poet Laureate

Sandra Wade and Mary McMillan

Local writer Mary McMillan is Lake County’s new Poet Laureate. During a recent gathering at the Lake County Arts Council’s Main Street Gallery, departing poet laureate Sandra Wade introduced her successor.

McMillan is the fifth poet to hold the office of poet laureate. The first poet laureate was Jim Lyle, who was followed in turn by James BlueWolf, Carolyn Wing Greenlee and Wade.

McMillan, who has lived in Lake County three years, is a licensed marriage and family therapist. Continuing a tradition begun by her predecessor Wade, she hosts a monthly writers’ group on the first Thursday of the month at the Main Street Gallery.

Our previous poets laureate were involved in judging among poetry submissions. BlueWolf and Greenlee shared during the reading that they were impressed by McMillan’s courage and imagery.

Part of the poet laureate’s responsibility is to raise the profile of poetry both in-county and within the surrounding area.

Two of McMillan’s local projects involve promotion through the local media. McMillan is working with Richard Martin on doing a radio show on local station KPFZ. McMillan also works with Wade and local writer Richard Schmidt to screen work for “Creative Expressions,” a publication of poems and “flash” fiction (700 words or less) that appear in the Lake County Record-Bee.

From the Spring 2008 ArtNotes,
quarterly members’ newsletter of the Lake County Arts Council

World Autism Day promotes awareness

A resolution by the United Nations in November 2007 established World Autism Day on April 2 of each year. The resolution was introduced by the nation of Qatar and World Autism Day was celebrated this week for the very first time.
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Class presentation for Read Across America Day

The class presentation on Monday, March 3, went really good. It was for a group of kids ages 12 to 13 and I've been asked to pay another visit.

I'd originally suggested March 3 because it was "Read Across America Day." This is an observance organized every year by the members of a national teachers' group. One of the most prevalent ways in which our local teachers observe it is to read Dr. Seuss books since the date falls near or on Dr. Suess's birthday. "Read Across America Day" was technically March 2 but since that fell on a Sunday, March 3 was selected for the actual observance.

Another emphasis of "Read Across America Day" is promotion of diversity so I suggested that it would be a good time to read "All cats have Asperger syndrome." The teacher and I had been talking for months about my coming to her class but hadn't previously set a date.

So at the beginning of my presentation, I read "All cats have Asperger Syndrome" and I showed the students the book's darling photographs. The children really enjoyed the book and so did the teacher.

Afterward we did a Q&A about what it was like for me to learn as an adult that I had Asperger Syndrome and what were some of the coping strategies I'd adopted over the years on my own.

The kids asked some really good questions too, such as is AS contagious? So I explained that I couldn't give you AS by shaking hands but that doctors believed AS was passed on through the genes.

Other kids asked about various behaviors and whether or not they were associated with AS so I answered either from experience if I had one or from what I had read. I think it went very well.

Originally posted to DailyStrength.org