Happy 4709!

First thing this morning I heard that traffic will be a mess in DC due to the Chinese New Year's festivities--So I got to wear my Chinese Zodiac earrings after all!

As I thought about how to photograph them, I considered searching for something Chinese, something my father or his father or his father before him had brought back from a trip to China. My dad lived in China from 1946 to 1949, working with UNRA on construction projects. His Fa was a missionary with Yale in China. My great-grandfather traveled around the world in his youth, and brought many treasures home. I closed my eyes to think of where to look... something Chinese. And the ensuing grin spread from ear to ear. I'm surrounded by stuff that was made in China!

Here is my quick assemblage of Made in China: silk from China, cotton from Hong Kong. I thought I'd found yoga pants from Taiwan, for polical balance. But they're from Thailand. My dad lived there (it was called Siam then) after he left China. But I feel guilty for not trying harder.

So here's picture of a family artifact from China before the revolution, a carving on a trunk that one of them used to transport some of his purchases. Temples and junques and an overhanging forest of bamboo.

Happy Year of the Metal Rabbit: 4709!

My World Encased in Ice

This morning my world was coated in ice--even the air looked hoary. When I persuaded myself to step out into the chilling mist for a necessary trip to Battery Mart to replace my failing car battery and climbed the treacherous hillside to the car, I considered the possibility that the car and I might not make it safely to the foot of the mountain and that I might have to abandon the car and walk back home.

I painstakingly negotiated the slippery slope back to the porch to get my snowshoes and poles, then clomped back up to the car. With snowshoes, I feel free from fear. I know that I can walk over deep snow and up icy slopes. When I returned with my new battery and my carefully calibrated pair of shopping bags filled with food and supplies, I clomped back down over the ice, so glad to be wearing my shoeshoes.

My earrings remind me a of world encased in ice. My daughter Käthe made them for me once upon a time. Tonight I made her potato broccoli soup recipe--comfort food against the cold--and then discovered that she had cooked it tonight, too. The thermometer reads 32˚F outside, 65˚F in my kitchen. Snowshoes, soup, and a woodstove. And earrings to tie the story together! 

Hyperbolic Eccentricity

Today I wore the earrings I bought at the Smithsonian’s Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef exhibit last month. Having not studied the hyperbola in 40 years (9^th grade Algebra II), I enjoyed exploring it a bit on the web. The word origins are especially delightful to me:

Hyperbola derives from the Greek word uperbolh which means “excessive.” We call deliberate and obvious exaggeration hyperbole. What’s excessive about a hyperbola?

Well, it turns out that Apollonius of Perga, the Greek who wrote about Conic Sections in the 2^nd and 3^rd centuries BC, compared other curves to the circle. All points on the circle are the same distance from its center. The circle is defined as not having any eccentricity; other curves are rated for their eccentricity. How wonderful is that? I come from a long line of eccentrics, myself, but I hadn’t thought about how that means we are pushing the curve out of its circular orbit. We’re not square pegs trying to fit into round holes. We’re actually stretching the holes to fit us!

So. A circle has zero eccentricity. An ellipse has an eccentricity between zero and one. (In Greek, ellipse means deficient!) A parabola has an eccentricity of one. (In Greek, parabola means comparable.) And those crazy hyperbolas are the most eccentric with their eccentricities that exceed one. (How excessive can you get?)

My earrings clearly fall into the excessive category with those swirls of crocheted green and tufts of teal jutting out from the lilac base. They were made of recycled cashmere and silk yarn by Sandy Meeks who sells her wares at www.meekssandygirl.etsy.com.

To make hyperbolic crochet that curves eccentrically, you just add stitches at regular intervals. How does this connect to my day? Today our math consultant Monica Neagoy visited my classroom. Watching her teach is an inspiration! She taught the culminating lesson in our investigation of repeating patterns. Hyperbolic shapes form when you follow a repeating pattern of increase. QED.

Addendum: I think mathematicians should examine curly hair like that of Apollonius. Hyperbolic? Truly!

Bokbocekleri

I googled arkadangling today, and found my blog postings. And there, in their midst, was this one, translated into a language that I don't know.

I'm pretty sure the blog is about scarab beetles.

http://bokbocekleri.blogspot.com/

I'd say what the date of the posting was, but I don't read the language. I think it's Jan. 31: 31 Ocak 2011 Pazartesi

Postage Française

Today I was torn. Chinese New Year (my Chinese characters say monkey, not rabbit, which is this year), or 3rd Grade Strings concert?

I opted for my French postage stamp earrings. A perfect choice since my students argued at length about whether my earrings picture a violin, a viola, or a cello (the three instruments that they play), or whether the two halves represent two different instruments, since the colors of the two earrings don't match precisely.

Playing before their entire school, the children took such pride in what they have learned in a few short months. Students in higher grades remember their concert. Younger children look forward to theirs. Tradition. It's a big day--worthy of an earring tribute!

Two together

Today is the 85th birthday of my remarkable mother-in-law, Marian, who has taught me so much in the close to 30 years (well, 29 years and 3 months) since we met in the fall of 1981. With kindness, laughter, and patience, she has welcomed each new arrival into her growing family and made each of us feel that we are loved and valued.

Today I wore this lovely pair of silver earrings that Marian gave me a few years ago, along with the scarf she gave me this Christmas. Today is 2/2, which suits these 2 earrings with their 2 orbs each. This date has always seemed like a perfect one for Marian. Whoever she is with, family member, friend, or stranger, she seeks to share of herself and to create a common bond. Two, together, is where she finds her joy and where she has brought joy to many lives.

Approaching infinity

Yesterday I wore sea glass, today lampwork glass beads. Sadly, I own three pair of earrings made of these beads, and I don't recall which is which.

1. One pair I bought in Bermuda at a glass shop after watching the artisans work for several hours. Such painstaking work. That pair I remember. They are aqua, not blue.
2. Another pair was a gift from my daughter Kathe. As I recall she bought the beads at a bead store and made them into earrings. These are not those either, I'm pretty sure.
3. And I don't remember where the third pair (this pair, I guess) came from. Perhaps from a student? Or did I buy them because of the swirling of blues that I can't resist?

However they came to me, I love the blues. And the notion that someone heated the glass and placed those tiny dots of molten glass on each spot. Such delicate craftsmanship.

I wore this pair today with my newly finished infinity scarf, in celebration of making it through my first month: Today makes 32 different pairs of earrings worn, 333 to go. And in honor of my father-in-law's 90th birthday. To infinity and beyond!

I read that our symbol for infinity, ∞ , was suggested in 1655, and based on an Etruscan symbol that meant 1000, a number considered too big to count. Like 365 pairs of earrings. I still haven't counted all of mine. I get too distracted...