"So Many Enemies, So Little Time"

Subtitled "An American Woman in All the Wrong Places", this book was written by a journalist and former history professor who began a year teaching journalism as a Fulbright professor in Kyrgyzstan just before 9/11. During that year, she visited several of the "Stan" countries that used to be part of the USSR as well as Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq. She returned home through Russia, Mongolia, China, Vietnam, Cambodia and Myanmar.

It's a fascinating description of encounters with "ordinary citizens" of countries that are supposed to hate us, and the predominance of slanted and incomplete information on both sides. It is full of contradictions: those who wonder why Americans interfere in other countries, but want the US to solve their problems and help restore their economy. The Americans who go to other countries determined to "respect indigenous traditions", but are horrified at some of the specifics of those traditions. The Muslims who can't believe their American visitor would refuse to join them in drinking vodka.

I can't imagine taking some of the excursions that Elinor Burkett took, but I'm very grateful that she wrote about them.

Hurrah for weekends

It's a beautiful sunny day today. I appreciate that so much more since I expected clouds and rain - at least, that was the forecast. It is quite windy, however, and a touch cold.

I went out to the barn this morning. What a mess out there! There must be at least 3 inches of mud most places between the barn and the pasture. I was thankful that I did not come home covered in it from head to foot - it would have been very easy to slip while leading Lark in and out. And it was so windy from the pasture side that I took him all the way around to the front, rather than trying to leave the back doors open. Luckily, he still had his blanket on, so most of his body was clean - just his legs were totally muddy. However, it's supposed to be in the 60s most of the week, so I took the blanket off. I expect we will want to bathe him soon anyway.

I took him into the arena (and the door was blown out of my hand) and started to lunge him. Then I realized - I had the whole arena to myself. So I took off the lunge rope and free lunged him. It was so much fun! First he rolled. Then he took off running. He made S shapes, kind of - started off in one corner, raced around the end, across the middle to the other corner, then reversed. Then I finally got him to make circles. It was pretty easy when he was going clockwise, but going counter-clockwise he kept wanting to reverse. I finally convinced him I wouldn't allow that.

Right now, I'm washing his blanket. Then I need to take Bravo out. And this evening I plan to go to the Skating Show at BIG. I can't believe that is finally possible - most years I am not available the weekend they have it. Tomorrow there's the May Day parade. And I could go to World Agility Team Trials either today or tomorrow. But I don't think I will make that one - can't do it all!

Here's another picture from the Boulder trip. This was at an open-space park at the north end of Boulder. Click on it to see it bigger - otherwise it's hard to see the paragliders.

Here's a close-up of one of the paragliders.

May Day

It's May Day, so to me that means flower pictures are in order. Boulder's Pearl Street Mall had lots of flowers. Some daffodils, some pansies, probably others, but mostly, there were tulips. I was going to build up to this picture - the buds yesterday, then the daffodils, then finally the tulips. But besides being May Day, it's gotten cloudy and we expect rain, so I felt color was needed.

I took a lot of tulip pictures, but the one below is my favorite. So many colors, plus the little pansies peeking out at the bottom.


Jason, I have to tell you that I LOVE The Family Tree. I'm about 3/4 of the way through, and things just became much more clear. I'm sure you know what I mean. Anyone else, I highly recommend it - the author is Sheri S. Tepper.

Happy May!