Tika & Trivia Today

When my daughter and I visited Old Sturbridge Village (supposed to be an 1830s New England village) there was one house where you could lay upon the beds and pick things up.... a "touch and feel" house. So I did plop down on this bed!

This was a rope bed and it was surprisingly comfortable. You've heard the expression, "Sleep tight tonight?" Well (as I understand) it has to do with these ropes.... when company came the ropes were tightened up making a less-saggy and more comfortable bed. Now you know..... would you enjoy a rope bed?

Tika was quite overwhelmed when I explained to her:  Folks living in many different countries are enjoying Tikas Teachings......... U.S., Canada, France, Turkey, Russia, Latvia, Japan and Malaysia. Would love to know what those folks think of Tika's blog really.

Tika says, "Did you know?  A mile on the ocean and a mile on land are not the same distance. You will burn 7% more calories walking on dirt than pavement. Only male turkeys gobble. And you burn more calories sleeping than watching TV. Well now you do!"

Tika & Glass

I photographed these glass windows at the House of Seven Gables in Salem, Massachusetts, last May. Both my daughter and I were fascinated by the irregularities in the glass which, we were told, were original. Did you know that glass is made mostly from sand melted at a high temperature? This famous old house was constructed in 1668 so they knew how to make glass for windows, albeit crudely, even way back then.

In the earliest times and especially on the frontier, our ancestors' homes did not have glass windows. The reasons for this were two: it was heavy and fragile to transport and it was expensive to buy. Some places, some cultures, put a tax on the number of glassed-windows in a house.

Glass windows are a luxury that we today totally take for granted. Not so in days gone by.

"Phooey," says Tika. "I'd rather my glass be sandy places where I can run and go swimming!" 

Tika & The Fish

This is Fish. He is a Japanese Fighting Fish so he lives alone in his bowl. I've put some ivy cuttings down into the bowl to give him a more natural environment. The first picture shows him in all his colorful glory:

This next picture shows the point of today's lesson. I feed him once daily with proper fish food which he gobbles up. (I've trained him to come to the surface when I spoon-bang on the rim of the bowl.) One day I thought, "well, he is a fish and fish like insects so I'll feed him a tiny bug." Ha! He eyed them and circled them but did not recognize them as food (even the live ones squirming in the water) and did not bite at them. Finally I took a spoon and removed them...... and fed him fish food!

Here's the point of the story: are we, as working, practicing genealogists, so bound by tradition or custom or whatever that we do not recognize a new opportunity when it's presented to us????? Do we "bite" to use a new website or a new technique or do we circle and go away??

Tika says that even a dumb fish ought to have been able to recognize such a great opportunity. "And you're smarter than a fish!" she said emphatically.