luck, schmuck....

Brendan luck! Yay! A happy blog! Last night we went for a night-walk through the woods. Snow said something to the effect that she is never happier than when in the woods. We were walking the trails by the dam with it's pseudo-waterfall. I'm sure i have mentioned it before. It's the place where you park under the biggest cherry tree in existence & the home of the tree around which we filmed the lovely fall footage set to Rodrigo Y Gabriela. We took the side trail which doubles back by the river, then makes a loop back to the bridge at the start of the trail if you take a shortcut across the railroad tracks. We all had headlamps, but didn't need them due to the super bright light which Ben carries that has it's own little extension cord leading to a battery which he carries in his pocket. Ahem. So, anyway with such a headlight, we were all able to trail behind with enough light to pretty much black out the scenery & it was chilly so we were moving at a magnificent pace. Daniel even carried Emmeli, bc her little legs were not able to keep up. Speaking of trains, I would like to mention that a train did pass by on the tracks, which was cool and served well to drown out the barking of a neighboring dog aroused by all of the flickering and tramping and rustling of leaves. Okay, on to the point. So, when we arrived, as Ben passed out lights and we gloved our fingers and covered our heads, Daniel and Hannah took the trail under the bridge and grabbed up some small boulders. So as we crossed the bridge, Daniel lobbed them in and we all leaned over to admire the graduating rings in the river in the moonlight. Ben mentioned that sound waves travel in a similar pattern and i felt proud to have such a scientific husband, especially since i was off-duty. So here it is, the crowning glory of this lucky tale...this morning, reading about Leonardo da Vinci (Larry da Vinci as Emmeli likes to remember him), Hannah & Emmeli heard it straight from the horse's mouth. Leonardo wrote a treatise on the motion and measurement of water. Not having known that myself, and especially since this tidbit was buried in a chapter titled "The Last Supper", this certainly was not a planned follow-up to last nights ad hoc experiment over the river. He recorded his thoughts on the connection between the behavior of water & that of air. "As the stone thrown into water forms various circles, so a sound spreads in circles through the air." And i exuberantly (i thought for sure that that word had an H in it- it definitely deserves an H) pointed out, "Just like we saw last night." At the end of the chapter, predictably, and like the good teacher that i am, i gave my students some creative writing time so i could come here to share the good news. P.s. i don't believe in luck. See "brendan luck" (2011, February) .