So anytime you get two atheists together, you get @@?

Only if they blog.

Heh.

I am currently wasting time before sending an email so the recipient doesn't think I'm actually that fast all the time. Because NO.

Now, do I have the nerve to email it to my mother?

You are absolutely welcome to do so. In fact, anyone may distribute it or point to it as they feel is helpful.

Also, I definitely encourage you to interview and record your parents' history. We did so with my grandmother years before. In fact, I have the cassette copies sitting on my desk right now, waiting to be run off to cd and distributed. And my sister & brother-in-law videotaped her in her home, describing objects and people and stories. We did it while she was in good health and memory, specifically for that reason.

It is absolutely invaluable to us now, in her memory.

I think the relevant conversations may be easier than you imagine. If you are thinking about the mortality of your parents and grandparents, the odds are fairly good that they're aware of their own as well. Your interest in their stories and history is likely to be taken as badges of your love for them, and valued, rather than rejected and refused.

Sometimes I'll see a woman with a small child crossing the street at a crossing light, where they have a "don't walk" signal but the woman runs across the street with her child.

I am a firm believer that kids learn from what we do as much as they learn from what we say, and that they absorb our bad habits along with our good ones, so I don't cross the street against the light. Besides, my daughter tends to skip/dawdle and can't be trusted to cross quickly.

As for Advanced Directives, ITA with Liese about their importance.

I have a cassette interview of my grandmother (who died in 2004) and her two living sisters where they talk about their childhood and sing together that I really need to get digitalized. I haven't been able to listen to it since she died (not because I don't have a tape player just it would be too sad for me).

I should get that done and give it to my family for xmas.

I am rather confused why , as an atheist , I would need a symbol. Esp since I don't like the whole concept of symbols. ( and I don't really ID as athiest- partly because I don't really want to be group )

I am rather confused why , as an atheist , I would need a symbol.

Lots of atheists are.

They have their reasons. I just forget what they are. Or maybe I dismissed the idea as silly and never read their reasons.

Am tempted to ask atheist-but-culturally-Jewish roommate to buy me an atheist shibboleth for Christmas.

I have a cassette interview of my grandmother (who died in 2004) and her two living sisters where they talk about their childhood and sing together that I really need to get digitalized. I haven't been able to listen to it since she died (not because I don't have a tape player just it would be too sad for me).

At my Sister's wedding last year, one of my Uncles surprised the family with a forty year old recording of my Grandfather singing Sunrise Sunset that had been found in a box at the church they'd attended as children.

Since none of us had heard his voice in a decade... well, you can imagine the reaction.

I am so cranky. I just spent way too long dealing with an annoying person who doesn't seem to know anything and wants me to do her job for her, I hate the new Yahoo mail thingie, I don't know what else, but I'm CRANKY!

Maybe I'll cut out early.

[link]

Last week, we had the distinct pleasure of a visit by rock legend Neil Young. Neil is touring the country in a soon-to-be converted 1959 Lincoln Continental Mark IV named Linc-Volt, spreading the word about plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) and vehicle-to-grid technology. As part of the trip, Neil and his crew are filming a documentary of their travels and the folks they meet along the way.

...

Regarding his vision for the Linc-Volt and its unique potential to draw attention to sustainable transportation solutions to combat climate change, Neil summed it up this way: "Classic Americana from then meeting the Americana of now."

From Mountain View, the journey continues to Wichita, Kansas, where the Mark IV will be converted from a carbureted gas guzzler to a bio-diesel series PHEV. After Neil's fall tour and annual Bridge School Benefit Concert, the Linc-Volt will undergo interior restoration. Then the bio-diesel-electro-cruiser will power on to Detroit; back to its factory in Wixom, Michigan; and then to the east coast.

Huh. No photos of Neil's '59 Lincoln, so you have to google image search to see photos: [link]

Like Neil Young, I have a '59 Lincoln Continental Mark IV, except mine's a black convertible....