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Ashes, East Winds, Hope that Rises - A Story of Rohan - Chapter 4
Chapter 4
by ErinRua
Outside the long braying of war-horns rang their summons from roof and street, as Théoden bid us to join him for a hasty meal. Éowyn awaited us there, but she and I found no time to speak ere she took up station serving our king and guests. Over our meal only Théoden and Gandalf spoke, the treachery of Grima Wormtongue at last laid bare. I listened in growing horror as all my suspicions took shape, the long years of plotting and whispering, false counsel and hindrance, discouragement and lies, and all the while with an open door to Isengard, though we knew it not. If danger lay north, he wished us south, if west, he wished us east. Fifteen dead men suddenly filled my mind, and brave Théodred dead at the Ford of the Isen, and I saw Wormtongue's black hand in it all. I could have taken horse right then and ridden him down like a marauding dog, and my meat tasted as ashes in my mouth. Éowyn drifted like a ghost about our table, but ever and anon our gazes met, and I saw in her the mirror of my own loathing. Gentle sister, aye, yet the steely echo of myself. At last I looked across the table at Aragorn, and willed myself to find calm in the steadiness of his grey eyes.
I kept my silence as Théoden ordered accouterments of war brought to our guests. Where they had come like whispers upon the grass they would leave as princes, bedecked in mail and jeweled shields. Gimli the Dwarf chose a smaller shield that had been our king's, when he was a boy. Then I could finally smile, at the vision of a Dwarf bearing the device of the House of Eorl. He saw the humor as well.
"Indeed sooner would I bear a horse than be borne by one," he said, dark eyes twinkling. "I love my feet better! But, maybe, I shall come yet where I can stand and fight."
I matched his smile readily, and thought that I would very much like to see this doughty warrior in battle. Yes, and I looked also at the shining eyes of Legolas the elf, and willed that we might all stand thus together. Not for love of battle did they come, however, but for love of the man beside them, Aragorn with calm drawn about him like the mirrored face of a deep pool. Yet I no longer envied them this, for my own lord stood forth in his rightful place at last. Though we might ride to defeat, we would live our last moments in savage freedom, and suddenly I wondered how much of this was owed to Aragorn, who remembered his promises and also brought salvation to my king.
Soon we were done and thence a cup was drunk, brought to each of us by Éowyn's fair hand. Aye, and there shone a light in her that had been too long dimmed, and she was beautiful as sun on white silk. If it was the smile of Aragorn, king-that-would-be that kindled it, I begrudged him not. Swift as lightning flashed the thought that hearts should not be given on the eve of war, but as swiftly I realized there might be no tomorrows in which to give them. Better it seemed to die with a living dream, than to live in silence and wait dying with no dreams at all.
And still the horns blew, crying down the long wind and echoing from house to meadow. From the fields rumbled the passage of many hooves, as horses were brought to saddle, and the high yips of the herders rang as cries of hoped-for victory. I could not but marvel as Théoden went once more before us, striding as in much younger days, with his hand upon his noble blade and purpose blazing in his eyes. I was grateful for Gandalf's cure - how could I feel otherwise? - but guilt gnawed a dull ache within me. How could we who most loved him have failed him so? How could we have not seen the deceit of Grima Wormtongue in time? How could we - could I - have let the man who became as father to me fall so far? Where in the name of all that was blessed had I been, that I had allowed Shadow to almost drain the very manhood from him?
At the end of his great hall Théoden paused, and turned to look at me.
"While I am attempting to set aright things too long neglected . . . ." He smiled an odd, sad smile and laid his hand upon my shoulder. "Can you forgive me, sister-son?"
He asked for my forgiveness? The shock could have been no greater had he slapped me. With Aragorn and his friends listening at our elbows, I felt my face flush hot.
"My lord," I stammered. "Speak not so! There is nothing to forgive! It is I who failed you. I stood useless while Wormtongue cast his foul lies."
"Nay," he rumbled quietly, and his fingers tightened as I fell silent. "You spoke, and you stood ever at my right hand, though I was as a man blind and deaf. Come now, Éomer, will you grant your pardon?"
I felt the warmth of his hand flood through me like poured honey, and found my throat suddenly too tight for me to more than whisper, "Yes, lord."
His eyes smiled like blue sky, and he chuckled gently. "And what of your sister? Will Éowyn forgive an old man's near-fatal foolishness?"
"My lord, she has forgiven you daily." I smiled as I followed the thought. "And twice daily, if it seemed needful."
He laughed, a golden and joyful sound, and smote my shoulder firmly as he turned away. Then he strode forth from his hall, and before all the chieftains and lords gathered there, he changed my life forever.
"I have no child," he said to their attentive silence. "Théodred my son is slain. I name Éomer my sister-son to be my heir."
The floor tilted under my feet and my ears felt briefly full, and thankful I was to lay eyes on Háma's faithful, smiling face. From behind a hand steadied me, Aragorn, I thought, and my king spoke on.
"If neither of us return, then choose a new lord as you will. But to some one I must now entrust my people that I leave behind, to rule them in my place. Which of you will stay?"
The only sounds were the soft rustle of clothing, a clink of mail, a scuff of shoes on stone. Verily, what man among them would stay, when Théoden rode at last to war - perhaps the last riding the Riddermark would make?
Nonplused, Théoden looked to his captains with keen eyes. "Is there none whom you would name? In whom do my people trust?"
"In the House of Eorl," answered Háma stoutly.
"But Éomer I cannot spare, nor would he stay. And he is the last of that House."
"I say not Éomer," Háma replied, and a knowing smile lit his face as his gaze shifted to the king's side. "And he is not the last. There is Éowyn, daughter of Éomund, his sister. She is fearless and high-hearted. All love her. Let her be as lord to the Eorlingas, while we are gone."
Oh, Éowyn, my sister, mad we are, and mad the world had become. If all fails it will be you who stands among the shield-wall at the last gates, and my every wish is to spare you - but if I come not again to these halls, there can be no other. Though dread seized me, there was no staying the swift hand of fate. So it was declared and so it was done.
While Théoden spoke further to his lords I at last found myself at my sister's side. Éowyn stood now with the sword of her new office upright between her feet, hands lightly grasping the hilt, and I swept her into my arms, sword and all. The hard pommel gouged my ribs as I held her tightly, and I laughed into the magnificent fall of her golden hair. Hard and soft at once she was, bedecked now in cold mail and yet fragile as a dove in my arms.
"I will rue this day, I know," I chuckled. "You will find the moment to hound me as to whom the true master is - and I will have no choice but to bow before you."
"Fool," she grumbled, and pushed me firmly away, but her eyes were laughing. "The woman is ever master, when wit must suffice where strength fails."
"Indeed, my lady," I said, and placed my hands on her shoulders, the bones there slender and strong as bow staves, to give her a gentle shake. "And it is your wit that I should heed more, for we have already seen my strength fail."
"Speak not of that," she replied, her smile fading to solemnity. "Until this morning all our strength was failing."
"Aye." I looked over her head to the tall form of Aragorn, standing beside Théoden and Gandalf as they conversed earnestly with the chieftains. "We have both banner and Sword and a king to lead us, at last, and none of it looked for last night."
"Yes," Éowyn replied, and turned within the circle of my arm to also look. "Gandalf the Grey is returned White. Théoden King has found healing and himself. And the son of Arathorn walks out of legend, bearing a Sword older than memory - and reforged from a time when Men faced the same darkness."
"I think it is called hope, little sister," I said lightly, and grinned at the impatient glare she gave me.
"Hope," she said, and did not smile back. "Yet what hope for me?"
"Éowyn!" I exclaimed, but she stepped from my reach.
"I fear to grasp hope," she said softly, and I wished I dared lift the sorrowful dip of her chin. "Lest it be stolen from me. Even while it stands before me, hope seems but a passing bit of Sun among too many clouds. I am warm for the moment, but I will be cold again as soon as the clouds return."
Words failed me, for I am often confounded by the deep turns of feminine thought, but never so sadly as now. Already the light I had seen in her was faded, and I wished briefly, madly, that I could take her by the arms and shake some good sense into her. How could she not see it? None of us were promised long lives or ease, but here at last was our courage returned to us, our King standing boldly before us, and if in the end we must fail, we would fail while striving as free men. And more, she was fit, she was worthy for the grave duty now thrust upon her, and she had our people's faith. Though I feared for her now more than ever, I trusted her in the duty she had been given.
"Éowyn," I said quietly. "Shadow and fear chills us all. I barely remember a day when it did not. But now is our time, you and I, to lend our strength to our people. My éored looks to me. Our people who must stay look to you." Carefully I reached to take the hand not occupied by her sword, and found her fingers cold. "Keep them for us, my sister. Keep a place for us to come back to."
"And what if you do not come back?" she asked softly, and suddenly I looked into eyes so naked with anguish that it frightened me. "How long do I wait in this house, looking out from this high porch, willing my eyes to see sign or dust or glint of spears that may never come again? Why must I forever stay and bid what might be our last farewell?"
"And what would you?" I spoke more harshly than I meant to, but the turn of her thought baffled and chilled me, at once. "Would you wish instead to see us fall? To see the men of the Riddermark cold in our own blood while the crows pick at our eyes? By all that is blessed, Éowyn, be thankful that you are spared this!"
"Spared?" She pulled her hand free of my clasp, and took a step back. "Mercy is not always kind, Éomer. But mercy I would wish for, if it spares me from the day when there is no one left between me and the Enemy, and the crows come for me."
"We are all alone, at the end." That was a cold warrior's truth that she must know.
"Never so alone as in the dark of unknowing!" she shot back. "Yes, I would rather see you in your own blood and know, than spend all my days smothering alone in supposed safety, wondering! I would rather follow and risk every sword and arrow that Isengard and Mordor possess, than linger here whilst all I love ride away to a doom I may never know."
With difficulty I smothered the urge to find something - anything - to throw with all my strength. Every word I chose struck ill, I wounded her where I would rather have offered comfort, and I could not for the life of me fathom what it was she sought. Fear and sorrow we long had shared, but whence came this sudden madness?
"Éowyn, there is no comfort in rushing to meet doom before its time."
"How would you know?" Her eyes blazed blue fire and her low voice was very nearly a growl. "Could you stay in my place, son of Éomund, and keep the floors swept and the kitchen neat until that doom bursts in the gates? Could you sleep, not knowing when you might be torn from your bed?"
"Woman, what do you want of me?" I demanded. "There are no certainties in this world, and I will not lie to give them to you! All I can give you - all any of us have - is that hope which has been returned to us!"
"Yes," she said softly, and was suddenly very still. She looked at me as if across some vast, impenetrable distance, and I had the sense that if I touched her she would shatter like ice sheathing a blade of grass. "Yes, we have hope. And when you leave, hope rides with you."
Words defied the grasp of my wit and the gaping of my mouth, and she turned from me, her head bowing so that the mantle of her golden hair fell forward, half-shielding her still face.
"Go to your men, brother. They will want you. I will see you before you go."
"Éowyn -." The words wanted to stick in my throat, yet desperation rose in me reach across that cold space now yawning between us. "Promise you'll wait. Please say you'll be here when I return."
She made no reply, nor did she look at me, and my fear grew. "Sister, promise me!"
"I will wait, brother," she said, and her voice was thin as a breeze beneath an ill-sealed door. "This once more, I will wait."
And so she stood apart from me on the porch of Théoden's great hall. She was my sister, mine in some soul-bound way that had held us since our parents died, mine to tease and to teach, mine to protect from nightmares and spiders and things that bump in the night. But now when she needed me most, it would seem I failed entirely. I would not have others know the helpless anguish fallen upon my heart, and I turned my eyes from Aragorn's questing glance as we started down the stairs. As much as I had lain at Aragorn's feet, what more might a woman's heart devise? Severely I turned my mind from the question. The muster of Rohan had begun, and I looked for Éothain as soon as the gate below swung open.
Ah, how they cheered, for the world moved beyond the concerns of a single man. A thousand Riders with a thousand spears saluted their king's coming with a paean of joy; Théoden! Théoden King! Ferthu Théoden hál! The baying of their voices rose like a swift wind, and hard hands smote my shoulders joyously in passing. Éothain I found easily amongst the jostling crush of horsemen, simply by the smile wreathing his face. To my surprise he rode towards me leading my horse, already saddled.
"We were waiting, Éomer," he said, and leaned from the saddle to seize my arm in an iron grip, white teeth shining. "For whatever you and our king might ask."
"Then what I ask, brother," I said, and returned his clasp tightly. "Is that you ride with me, and together we follow the Lord of the Mark to battle!"
His fierce growl of assent was all the reply I needed. However, my thoughts were grim as I took the reins and stood to assess the muster shaping around me. Though we seemed a steel-tipped sea of strength, suddenly I feared if that strength would be enough to stand between all whom we loved and the Shadow rising against us.
Tall Hasufel and quick Arod were brought with my king's mount, Snowmane, and I took pleasure in seeing my faith so truly rewarded. Neither cruel use nor unkindness marred the animals I had lent, and I was amused to see Arod still bare of either saddle or rein. Turning, I found Aragorn at my elbow, and once again felt myself pinned by that iron-grey gaze. Yet he smiled, the warmth of it at once casting aside my unease.
"Will you trust us with your horses once more?" he asked.
"Now, and always," I replied. "And if my word bears any least weight, there is no horse of the Riddermark you may not have, saving only the king's own."
Smiling briefly, Aragorn stroked his horse's long grey muzzle. "Hasufel serves me well enough. He is both faithful and strong."
"A match for his master, then," I replied. Then the matter of faith startled a long-forgotten thought back to my mind, though I hesitated to speak of it. "Aragorn, forgive me, but I would know, how was it with your quest? What news of your two friends, the Holbytlan?"
To my surprise, Aragorn's smile returned and birthed a sturdy chuckle. "The Hobbits are quite well, I am pleased to say. Better than we, in fact, for they are in the keeping of the Ents."
Certainly I must have stared like a simpleton, as there was open humor dancing in his eyes before I found voice again. "The Ents! Tell me you jest! The Entwood has long been a place of dark mystery, but I have not - I do not - how?"
Still smiling, Aragorn nonetheless answered in all seriousness. "I do not jest, Éomer, nor can I tell you more than this. The Ents have awakened, thanks to our young friends, and Isengard may well have greater foes than it knows."
I could only shake my head in amazement. "Next Eorl himself will come riding down like thunder from the hills, and then all legends will take flesh before us."
Arod suddenly flung up his graceful head and blew, and we turned to see what so drew his attention. There among the milling, stamping press of horses and Riders walked Legolas the Elf, tall and princely in the gleaming mail of our king, and beside him strode sturdy Gimli, with Théoden's shield slung upon his back and his battle ax laid upon his shoulder. One almost supposed the Dwarf feared he might have to hew a path through so many heavy bodies, lest he be trod upon.
"There is a most unlikely friendship," I said. "Legolas son of the Greenwood, and Gimli son of iron and stone. I should wonder what fires could forge such a union of such unlikely metal."
"Yet their faith is true as the steel they carry," Aragorn said. "To each other and to the task before us. My intent is simply to be worthy of that faith."
"You are their captain," I replied. "No matter what king leads us or what banners fly, it is you they follow."
He glanced down, then back at me, and there seemed a gentle shadow in his eyes. "We travel perilous ways, you and I. And yet our fear is never so much for ourselves, is it? We long ago accepted that our own hurts, even our own deaths await us as the possible wages of our endeavors. But we give our hearts to those who follow, and their loss is the scar slowest to fade."
My chest tightened at the sudden grasp of bitter memory. Fifteen men in a barrow at Fangorn's marge. Théodred my foster-brother newly dead at the Ford of the Isen. And so many others whose memories arose nigh to choking, that I was glad for the quick surprise of Aragorn's hand grasping my shoulder.
"Ah, and here they are!"
Legolas smiled in greeting, an expression of such bright good nature that I was pleased to have his favor. An auspicious portent as I judged it, considering we had begun by trying to slay each other. I would much rather have such fierce loyalty on my side.
"Poor Arod," he then said. "He had hoped for a cozy stable and extra corn."
He laughed while the horse bobbed his head as if in understanding, and then butted into the elf's chest. He drew his long fingers over Arod's snowy forelock and spoke in strange, soft liquid tones, Elvish I guessed. Watching while the horse snuffled and blew at Legolas' hands and the elf smiled back at him, I could only shake my head. The two of them appeared like nothing so much as oddly-matched children. Aragorn perhaps thought the same, for he wore an indulgent smile of his own.
Ah, but there was one more not to be overlooked, and I stepped past Legolas and his silly communion, leading my horse towards Gimli. Poor fellow, the Dwarf looked not at all happy amongst all that heavy-footed forest of horseflesh. Now, if ever, was my chance to mend a bridge between us. He marked me as I drew near, his dark eyes sharp as darts above the thick brush of his beard. One would never call him handsome, but there was a robust magnificence to both his form and the fierceness of his expression. Whatever he lacked in stature was more than matched in spirit, for his was truly a warrior's heart. Trusting this, there was more than a little recklessness in the greeting I gave him.
"Hail, Gimli Gloin's son!" I said. "I have not had time to learn gentle speech under your rod, as you promised. But shall we not put aside our quarrel? At least I will speak no evil again of the Lady of the Wood."
Stern his face remained, yet there was suddenly keen humor twinkling in his eyes, as he replied. "I will forget my wrath for a while, Éomer son of Éomund, but if ever you chance to see the Lady Galadriel with your eyes, then you shall acknowledge her the fairest of ladies, or our friendship will end!"
"So be it," I laughed. "But until that time pardon me, and in token of pardon ride with me, I beg. Gandalf will be at the head with the Lord of the Mark, but Firefoot, my horse, will bear us both, if you will."
The glance he cast my faithful Firefoot fell leagues short of enthusiastic, but he consented. Yet a Dwarf seemed ever mindful of bargains and conditions, his now being that Legolas should ride beside us. Little might he know that this was not my boon to grant, but my wish to ask for. Thus I looked with delight upon Legolas' handsome face - the elf through for the moment with bewitching his horse - and Aragorn's stern but kindly one.
"It shall be so," I said. "Legolas upon my left, and Aragorn upon my right, and none will dare to stand before us."
Aye, if we died, we at least would not die cowering in fearful darkness. Amid the shouts of men and the trampling of a thousand sets of eager hooves, I turned and swung to saddle without touching my stirrups. Legolas and Aragorn were also mounted, and I turned Firefoot dancing to find my new companion. Sternly the Dwarf glared up at me.
"You will use prudence in your governance of that beast, I trust?"
"He will bear you as gently as if you were my own grandmother, friend Gimli!"
Legolas joined in my laughter as he reached to take Gimli's ax. "Come, Gimli, I will vouch for your safety. And I promise I'll wait for you, if you should fall off."
Grumbling and huffing, Gimli managed, with greater spryness than I would have credited to him, to find his seat behind me. Nor did he clutch in unease, but instead settled himself neatly in place with his great ax hugged firmly to his shoulder.
"Master Legolas has taught you well," I said over my shoulder.
The growled reply at my back was echoed by Legolas' bright peal of laughter, and so we were ready.
Ready, aye, but for what? For battle, but my heart forebode that it would be like no battle we had ever known. Though my horse shifted light-footed and anxious beneath me suddenly I watched as if from a dream. All about me sprang the steely forest of Rohirrim spears, swaying and surging as though swept by a silent wind. Among the heaving sea of restless horses I noted with odd clarity the many hues of grey, whether dappled or steely or shining like silver, and red that gleamed like burnished copper. Long silvered fingers of sun reached through the many-hued clouds riding low upon the plains, and helms and faces were suddenly gilded in golden light. Bold faces, brave faces, laughing and waiting and fierce as birds of prey, and I would remember them. If I lived, I would remember them all.
Yet our lives were not to be kept, but to be spent dearly as rare coin and sharply as a driven sword. Though many might fall, would fall, we must not fail. Éowyn waited as all our folk waited, and we few were all that stood between them and destruction. Gandalf had hinted of a secret hope, of unseen events yet unfolding to the east, if we could only hold on, if we could but stand unbroken a little while more. And hold we must. Behind us would begin the sad exodus to the Hold of Dunharrow, babe and greybeard, wife and maid, all making the long trek up the ancient, twisting road to the Firienfeld. The Hold was thought a refuge none could breech, and yet they who had founded it were lost to the dusts of time. Would any remember us, who left only songs in the wind upon the grass?
For I was afraid. Not of death, but of leaving so very much behind. A great surge of emotion welled within me and I knew it at last for love. Love of all that I beheld, brave men and fine horses, the greening fields and the chill little breezes, the shifting silver sky that bathed the waking earth in bands of sunlight and sweet rain, and a slender figure in white and silver mail who stood atop the ancient stairs. How I loved them all - and how I would hate to go, when it seemed only now did I see how precious all were.
I turned my head to face that quiet voice, and was not surprised to find Aragorn beside me, tall Hasufel settling to stillness at my stirrup. Absently I noted that Aragorn's keen eyes were the same hue as the sun-touched grey clouds beyond. I wanted to speak, but found my throat too tight for words.
But perhaps he understood. He nodded slowly, and sighed as he rested both hands on his pommel, turning his gaze towards the cloud-caped mountains afar.
"Stand with me, I bid you, Éomer," he said. "We cannot choose the doom that awaits us, but we can choose who is beside us when we meet it."
I felt Gimli's strength waiting behind me and caught Legolas' fierce, hawkish glance, and knew I could choose no better. Then voices were clamoring for Gandalf's horse, bold Shadowfax who now refused the touch of any man. Where away was he? Down to the ford well below the hill of Meduseld, and yet he flung his head up at the wizard's carrying whistle, frozen at that summons like an ivory sculpture. Thinly on the damp breeze his reply rang back, a long, shuddering neigh of imperious defiance. Then he tossed his lordly head and towards us he came at a run, his long legs reaching and bunching in powerful strides, his tail a white banner and his mane a whipping flag. The swift play of muscle and bone beneath that shining coat seemed echoed in the very earth beneath his pounding hooves, and my heart rose as if in answering flight.
"Were the breath of the West Wind to take body visible," I breathed. "So it would appear."
Ah, a joy it was to see that magnificent creature thunder to us in a reckless flashing of hooves, and then tuck himself into a sliding stop that left furrows in the sod. One last toss of his head, and he walked mildly as a dog to the master of his choice. Softly Gandalf spoke, and his strong, gnarled hand caressed the noble head that bent to him.
"The gift seems already to be given," Théoden said, eyes twinkling, and then raised his voice to a firm, carrying tone. "But hearken all! Here now I name my guest, Gandalf Greyhame, wisest of counselors, most welcome of wanderers, a lord of the Mark, a chieftain of the Eorlingas while our kin shall last; and I give to him Shadowfax, prince of horses."
Then giving his thanks, Gandalf sprang astride with agility no one would imagine that old frame possessed, and neither saddle nor bridle was needed in that union between souls. Hatless and with his old grey cloak flung back from snowy robes, he was light embodied and a flag on a white wind. He was power and purpose and a beacon of hope, though Shadow reached black hands towards us from both East and West.
Beside me Aragorn suddenly laughed, a bright, fey joy in him to match my own.
"Behold the White Rider!" he shouted, and my people roared the cry back to him.
"Our King and the White Rider!" shouted a voice I knew as Háma's, and again roared a tide of answering sound. "Forth Eorlingas!"
Thus we rose on a wind of trumpets that swept us away in a torrent, outwards into the day and down upon the rain-sweet plain with thunder rumbling above and below. Let come doom, let come what may, we rode with hope - and hope rode beside me. Hesitation and doubt must be abandoned now, for there remained only one road before us. One road, which would end in Shadow for us all, or would pass us through Shadow to find the shining sun on the other side. This day, I believed in the sun.
Comments or questions to Erin: email@example.com
Author's Notes ~
NOTE 1: Special and fond thanks to my fellow adventurers at The Burping Troll - http://www.burpingtroll.com - you are my inspiration, my courage and my support. Thanks to Dwimmerlaik of Henneth Annun - http://www.henneth-annun.net/stories/index.cfm -, for making me think, dammit, and to all who helped with my Éomer/Théodred questions. And special thanks to Adrienne for volunteer proof-reading.
NOTE 2: The forty-five leagues traveled by the Three Hunters in search of Merry and Pippin is the American equivalent of 135 miles in about three and a half days - on foot.
NOTE 3: When one studies "The Lord of the Rings" as well as "The Unfinished Tales," there seems to be equal arguments as to whether Éomer knew of Théodred's death before he rode on his orc hunt, or after. However, I have written my depiction based on various factors which were brought to my attention, including things he and others said - or did not say - which would seem to preclude his having knowledge until after he returned to Edoras.
NOTE 4: Éowyn did wait as she promised, staying to aid and guide her exiled people in the Hold of Dunharrow until the Riders returned victorious from battle at Helm's Deep. Then, however, Aragorn returned only to ride to presumed suicide upon the Paths of the Dead, Théoden and Éomer rode away again to join Gondor in their last extremity, and Shadow at last darkened the skies as physical proof of the Dark Lord's power. Then Éowyn did forsake the duties her king left to her, apparently abandoning hope for life when it seemed there was no hope, and instead embracing hope for a death of her choosing, beside her brother and her king. When the Rohirrim rode one last time, among them went Éowyn Éomund's daughter in the guise of Dernhelm, a Rider of Rohan.
NOTE 5: Tolkien wrote Éomer as being surprised that Éowyn's despair ran as deep as it did, telling Aragorn in the Houses of Healing, "Yet I knew not that Éowyn, my sister, was touched by any frost, until she first looked upon you. Care and dread she shared ... but that did not bring her to this pass." However, I would doubt that Éowyn kept her heart entirely secret from him, supposing rather that her brother was submerged in the burden of his own concerns about war, treachery and a failing king, and he simply failed to pay closer attention to her warning signs. Thus I have allowed her to speak to him as she did in this story, as we are often blind to what afflicts those closest to us.
NOTE 6: I do employ direct quotes of Tolkien's dialogue at times which seemed unavoidable; your forgiveness and understanding is my blessing.


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Opinion: Mary Landrieu's Interior Struggle
Potomac Watch columnist Kim Strassel on whether Democrats from energy-rich states will confirm Rhea Suh, a presidential nominee who opposes drilling. Photo credit: Getty Images.
This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.
... I ... I ... the committee is the the this week on ... the controversial nominee who has ... had a lot of attention in the mainstream press ... bike sheds ... our Potomac Watch columnist Kim straw soul is on the line from Washington to explain why and ... who is really SCU in what is she being nominated for ... so Reince Annalise is ... currently an interior Department ... employee she's been at the interior Department the Obama ... officials since early two thousand and nine so longtime Obama person ... and she has now been nominated to be the assistant secretary for fish wildlife and parks of the interior Department ... of fish wildlife and parks that doesn't sound very controversial Gemini what what what kind of harm can she possibly doing a job like that ... so I hear the story I had the head of fish wildlife and parks I meant to would be in charge of all the decisions that are made over endangered species ... including ones that are going to have big decisions in coming months or years like that of St grass the lesser prairie chicken ... now ... in effect at protections are given to all of these BT it has the potential to lock up my ... the thousands millions of acres of land in the West ... land with a lot of people are looking at for natural gas drilling ... oh it sounds like ... a lot of American should be paying attention to this but ... footprints in the early states that are energy rich ... what her Senate Democrats like Mary Landrieu God can do ... about this nomination because ... they need the energy to create jobs done that ... when Mrs. were this gets interesting Mary Landrieu had just taken over the Senate energy Committee as her committee that will be holding them both on Thursday over Mrs sale ... I she is that man from Flanders of her very tough re election she's eager to show her pro Energy credentials ... on and so there's a lot of focus on how she can handle this because medicines background seems to be very anti drilling ... she worked for many years that's an outside environmental foundations of the Hewlett Foundation in particular which gave out ... modes of money to groups that alrite oppose natural gas and fracking ... and as soon as this up on the record in the past that not so long ago claiming that gas drilling is the single greatest threat to the West can have a lot of focus on how Landrieu and the Democrats are going to handle that can everyday I feel like a re newspaper stories or editorials on a page ... about how this massive federal government is just doing everything they can this not businesses ... from investing expanding in drawing ... I mean what one says to come to an end ... yet Mr. third particular threat of ... its traditions like the one missing ones that they want seem to fail because ... this is the ability to literally tie Apple public and private e it upright acreage that spanning across ... ten eleven twelve states that are some of that ... the best positioned to really do something good with resources and create a lot of jobs and so she's gonna have an enormous amount of power and this nomination the BOE really should matter the idea and you wonder why we're growing at two percent a year are unbelievable ... Potomac Watch columnist Kim straw soul thank you very much for being on show ... thank you

subset: commoncrawl


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Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Juggling Balls
This is my first crochet pattern to include in this blog... and only the third one I've ever worked out. The other two were a washcloth (but it was based on another pattern) and I also wrote a pattern for a mummy finger puppet that I will be including in my next installment.
I know that there are probably thousands of patterns for crocheted juggling balls out there... and I'm sure that this one much different from others out there on the web... but when I was knitting these up I didn't have Internet access due to a broken computer... so I put this little pattern together and I thought I'd share it.
You can either use all one color for these... or mix it up however you like.
The first set of these I made I used cotton yarn... I love the look... but I found that when I stuffed with beans the filling sometimes came out the holes... Cotton stretches and a few loose stitches on the decreases and you will find beans all over the place. Only one of the balls leaked... so it might have been the brand of cotton I used (I love this cotton from hobby lobby).
The second set I made of these I used a bulkier yarn and I was much more pleased with the way they came out. I used a size F crochet hook for both versions... In the future I just might opt for a smaller needle size when using worsted weight cotton... OR I could just work on getting my stitch size more consistent on my decreases... I'll continue to experiment with this pattern and let you know what I come up with.
I stuffed the juggling balls with beans to give them the weight necessary to juggle... but I also made another set of these in cotton for my daughters that I stuffed with poly-fil. Many patterns I've seen suggest stuffing them with plastic pellets... but I was unable to find any pellets in my local craft stores that would work... they were all tiny and would have leaked through even the tightest stitch... the ones I did find were pretty expensive as well.
Make a ring and chain one.
Round 1- SC 6 into the ring.
Round 2- SC 2 stitches into each SC around (12)
Round 3- *SC, Increase (SC 2 times in one stitch)* repeat from * to* around (18)
Round 4- *SC, SC, Increase* repeat from* to * around (24)
Round 5- *SC, SC, SC, Increase* repeat from * to * around (30)
Round 6-11- SC around (30)
Round 12- *SC, SC, SC, Decrease (Single crochet two together)* repeat from * to * around (24)
Round 13- * SC, SC, Decrease* repeat from * to * around (18)
Round 14- *SC, Decrease* repeat from *to * around (12)
Round 15- Decrease around (6)
Fasten off and fill with beans or pellets for juggling balls or poly-fil for indoor balls.
Please let me know if you try this pattern (or any of my patterns) and let me know what you think. I'd love to hear from you so feel free to comment... or send me links to your projects on Ravelry (profile name lovecurry).
4 comments:
These look fun!ReplyDelete
I really like these! And they could double perfectly as a hacky sack. Linking up at Tangled Happy next week. Thanks for sharing this fun pattern. :)ReplyDelete
- AnonymousJune 3, 2011 at 2:23 PM
WOOO HOOOO thanks! been looking for a ball pattern!ReplyDelete
- courtneyDecember 16, 2011 at 1:25 AM
you can take and put the tiny plastic pellets inside a knee high before putting them in the ball, I do that when I want to make a weighted stuffed item. I am about to make these balls doing that as a christmas gift for my sisterReplyDelete
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The Miami Dolphins will most likely be looking for a new running back this offseason because it is doubtful that both Ricky Williams and Ronnie Brown will return, and it is also possible that neither will be a Dolphin next year.
So, the Dolphins will have to look to either the draft or free agency to find a new starting running back.
ESPN Draft Expert Mel Kiper has Miami picking running back Mark Ingram with their 15th overall pick in the 2011 NFL Draft. While that wouldn't be a bad pick for the Dolphins, it isn't the best thing that Miami could do.
What they should do instead is sign pending free agent RB DeAngelo Williams as soon as a new CBA is reached. Williams had a bad season with the Panthers this year, and it is likely that the Panthers won't resign him. So, when the Panthers elect not to re-sign Williams the Dolphins must try and pursue him.
Williams' speed is exactly what Dolphins GM Jeff Ireland claims to be looking for, and Miami would be foolish not to go after him as soon as he is available. The Dolphins lacked breakaway speed this year from R&R, and DeAngelo Williams has that breakaway speed.
If the Dolphins can sign him and retain either Ricky or Ronnie, then we could have an extremely good rushing offense next season. That will, in turn, help take some of the pressure off of whatever young quarterback Miami ends up starting.
Signing Williams will also be beneficial to the Dolphins because it will free up their first-round pick and they will be able to pursue a quarterback instead. I know that Mark Ingram is a really good prospect with a lot of potential, but why not just pick up an experienced running back with a lot of talent instead and then use the pick that they would have used for Ingram to fix another problem on the offense?
As long as we don't have to worry about the running back position in the draft I will be happy. There will be other free agents available, and I wouldn't mind Miami going after one of them instead, but I think Williams is the best candidate for the job.
Hopefully, Jeff Ireland and Tony Sparano do pursue Williams. He would help the team instantly in more ways than one.
Thanks for reading, and let me hear your reactions.
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tried any other WM?
I think fluxbox is a over grown bug tihi :]
To err is human... to really foul up requires the root password.
a bug tihi?
tihi is a evil form of "hhihihihhihhih".
To err is human... to really foul up requires the root password.
you mean CTRL+ALT+F1
"Be conservative in what you send; be liberal in what you accept." -- Postel's Law
"tacos" -- Cactus' Law
"t̥͍͎̪̪͗a̴̻̩͈͚ͨc̠o̩̙͈ͫͅs͙͎̙͊ ͔͇̫̜t͎̳̀a̜̞̗ͩc̗͍͚o̲̯̿s̖̣̤̙͌ ̖̜̈ț̰̫͓ạ̪͖̳c̲͎͕̰̯̃̈o͉ͅs̪ͪ ̜̻̖̜͕" -- -̖͚̫̙̓-̺̠͇ͤ̃ ̜̪̜ͯZ͔̗̭̞ͪA̝͈̙͖̩L͉̠̺͓G̙̞̦͖O̳̗͍
tihi is a evil form of "hhihihihhihhih".
got it.... i was thinking like Hawaii-speak....
tihi laki mauii (i made that up)
tihi laki mauii (i made that up)
You made it up? It means head like a big island. (I made that up)
some things to check:
run a "ps aux" and check to see if you have 6 gettys running... one for each terminal.
switch over to non-X runlevel (init 3) and see if you can switch there...
run the x key program (whos name escapes me at the moment) and hit F1, F2,etc and make sure your keyboard is still sending the right signals...
did you change your keymap or modmap any keys recently?
no, but i did have to make that switch from keyboard to kbd to satisfy the new xorg config...i'll try all that but i am away from my box at the mo
thanks for the on topic post
(as much as i would like to flame oscar about his/her choice of wm...i can't be f*cked. aside from the slit hang problem i have not seen a bug in cvs that has remained for any significant time at all. besides, it's pre 1.0, it's allowed to be buggy)
.:after thought:.
fluxbox = overgrown bug
kde and gnome = overgrown
.:after after thought:.
i see you are a gnome user, how ironic you are,
ah...flame war!
The window/desktop manager debate always ends with ion and/or wmi. We'll just end this one right here, shall we?
Now, lets not start the ion vs wmi debate...
saw this - had seen it ebfore but not made the leap - i have been ill...
(EE) Couldn't load XKB keymap, falling back to pre-XKB keymap
i really don't want to break anything right now some advice would be lovely
it works ok in run level 3
besides, it's pre 1.0, it's allowed to be buggy
I've never really understood this argument. How does it matter whether the version number is bigger or smaller than one? Is aterm (which is at version 0.4.2) considerably more buggy than alsa-lib (post 1.0)?
For commercial software, the version number is often abused to communicate somthing about the quality of the product. When it comes to free software OTOH, my experience is that it's sole purpose is versioning.
(This question wanted to get out, sorry)
All of your mips are belong to us!!
More on topic; I never changed my keyboard section after I moved from xfree86 to xorg, it still looks like this:
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard"
Driver "keyboard"
Option "XkbOptions" "ctrl:nocaps"
Hope this helps. (It doesn't, does it?)
All of your mips are belong to us!!
if you have the latest xorg maybe...
i am using fluxbox-cvs, you can;t deny the right of that to buggy at least a few days of the week?
i think i have seen the fact that Arch is pre-1.0 used in it's defense of not being foolproof?


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January, 2009
Research during the past two decades has raised public awareness of the brain's role in regulating how much food we eat, but our current picture of appetite and food intake emerged much earlier, when in the 1950s nutritionist Jean Meyer discovered that glucose levels in the blood regulate hunger. Meyer went on to study obesity, which he called a "disease of civilization," and he helped to link excess weight to other substances in the blood and to structures in the brain.
Neuroscientists have since taken up Meyer's fight. In 2008, researchers reported findings that provide a greater understanding of the role of two (out of a dozen or so known) important appetite-related hormones, ghrelin and leptin. Researchers also determined how a popular class of anti-obesity drugs can affect brain wiring and found evidence of a potential link between obesity, diabetes, and Alzheimer's disease.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention designates the labels "obese" and "overweight" for ranges of weight greater than what is generally considered to be healthy for a given height. Bodymass index, or BMI, measures body fat based on a person's height and weight. Clinicians consider a BMI of 25–29 to be overweight, while anything over 30 is obese.
Meyer helped to identify the brain's hypothalamus as a regulator of appetite, but that brain structure influences a number of other bodily functions as well, including body temperature, blood pressure, and fluid and electrolyte balances. A collection of neurons in an area of the hypothalamus called the arcuate nucleus coordinates our need to eat in relation to how well our body is fed via cross talk with signals arising from the gastrointestinal system and adipose (fatstoring) tissue. Two specific neural circuits within the arcuate nucleus promote or suppress appetite, regulating our body's nutritional state and helping to provide balance to our body weight, respectively.
In addition to the hypothalamus, the brain's limbic structures and reward circuitry contain information on food preferences acquired over our life span based on aspects such as taste and smell. Our sensory organs send food-related signals to the brain that release dopamine, a neurotransmitter that plays an important role in motivation and reward. More than food itself, our expectations—what we associate with certain tastes and smells—cause the secretion of dopamine. Thus, eating really starts in our brain before we even put food in our mouths.
In a study of neural connections between brain regions, neurons from the arcuate nucleus (bottom left), which has been linked to appetite control, extend axons toward the paraventricular nucleus (top right). (Sebastian Bouret, Ph.D. / University of Southern California)
Several factors contribute to the world's obesity epidemic. A growing number of people find themselves unable to defy the desire to eat more food than is healthy. While many of us know that the food we eat adds inches to our waistlines, some people cannot control themselves at the dinner table. And despite spending countless hours and millions of dollars on diets and weight-loss products and services, many people lose weight only to gain it again.
Research on appetite control in the 1970s and 1980s focused on two neurotransmitters, norepinephrine and serotonin. Both are messenger chemicals that travel across the synaptic gap between neurons. Doctors prescribed amphetamines to enhance the release of norepinephrine and thereby control appetite, and targeted serotonin for its role at the hypothalamic control centers for appetite. However, the discovery of two important hormones in the 1990s led to a finer understanding of how appetite is controlled and how, when something goes awry, obesity can occur.
In 1994 Rockefeller University researcher Jeffrey Friedman and his colleagues published a landmark paper in Nature that identified a hormone called leptin (Greek for "thin") produced by the obese (ob) gene.1 Leptin is made by the body's fat cells, which help to regulate food intake and energy expenditure (the amount of calories we burn). Friedman showed that mice lacking the ob gene do not produce leptin and become extremely obese. After both normal and ob-deficient mice were injected with synthetic leptin, they became more active and lost weight.
High levels of leptin activate nerve cells in the brain and create a feeling of fullness, while low levels signal hunger. Friedman alsoshowed that humans who lack the ob gene and eat large amounts do not experience that feeling of fullness and end up extremely obese.
Five years after Friedman's discovery, Japanese researchers identified another hormone, ghrelin, which they called the "hunger hormone." Ghrelin is made in the stomach and tells our brain when it's time to eat. Ghrelin levels rise just before mealtime and fall after we eat.2
These two hormones played an important role in 2008 research aimed at discovering how to regulate food intake in obese and overweight people.
In 2007, researchers at Harvard Medical School developed what they call a "right brain hypothesis" for obesity. The right hemisphere of the brain's prefrontal cortex (PFC) plays a critical role, they say, in the cognitive control of food intake, which refers to our capacity to process information and make decisions regarding what we eat. The PFC controls a number of complex behaviors that separate humans from other species.
The Harvard researchers say that a certain amount of activity in the right PFC is required to control appetite. While the PFC is not damaged in obese people, they say, activity in this area of their brains is diminished. In addition, the right PFC is critical for what the researchers call "moral cognition," our ability to give values to different foods, which influences our decisions about what we eat. Dysregulation of the right PFC, the Harvard researchers say, could lead to inappropriate conclusions about food choices, which could contribute to obesity.
As more research supports hypotheses that emphasize the involuntary processes that lead to obesity, many scientists now view addiction as a potential contributing factor to our growing waistlines. Research studies are currently under way to examine the underlying psychology and biology behind this hypothesis. Some of these studies have focused on the neurotransmitter dopamine, which plays a role in the brain's reward circuit. In 2001, researchers at Brookhaven National Laboratory reported that obese people have fewer receptors for dopamine than people without weight problems, implying that obese people may eat more to try to stimulate dopamine pleasure circuits in their brains, just as drug addicts do by taking drugs.3 Others, however, believe that factors such as poor eating habits, lack of exercise, and genetics contribute more to overeating than do either physical or psychological dependence.
In 2008, scientists at Eli Lilly and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center independently discovered an enzyme that is responsible for putting a fatty acid on ghrelin, the so-called hunger hormone.4, 5 Without this fatty acid, ghrelin might not have the same effect on appetite. The identification of this enzyme, called GOAT, or ghrelin O-acyl transferase, is the first step toward developing medications to treat obesity.
Ever since ghrelin was discovered, scientists have sought ways to manipulate the hormone to help tame hunger. With the discovery of GOAT, researchers are now testing compounds that block the enzyme from attaching to ghrelin. One promising approach uses antibodies to sop up the enzyme and block ghrelin signals to the brain.
In February 2008, researchers at the University of Southern California showed that a predisposition to obesity might be hardwired in the brain at birth.6 The researchers selectively bred rats that were prone to becoming obese and found that the regions of their brains that control appetite were abnormal. The arcuate nuclei of the obese rats were defective, leaving their brains less receptive to leptin, a hunger-suppressing hormone. These abnormalities showed up in the mice as early as the first week after they were born.
Under the direction of Sebastien Bouret, the USC researchers discovered that the obesity-prone rats had fewer neural projections from the arcuate nucleus, a problem that continued into adulthood. These projections enable leptin to signal from the arcuate nucleus to other parts of the hypothalamus. Bouret's team said that appetite and obesity are built into the brain during development and that the propensity to gain weight cannot be reversed. Scientists are trying to determine how to treat this abnormality during early, critical phases of development by rewiring the brain so that leptin signals are adequately relayed.
Researchers have begun to develop treatments to prevent children from carrying extra weight into their adult years. Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), however, have found that anti-obesity drugs that suppress appetite by blocking so-called cannabinoid receptors in the brain could also interfere with children's brain wiring during development.7 Synthesized in the brain, cannabinoids are structurally related to tetrahydrocannabinol, the active ingredient in marijuana and a known appetite stimulant.
Bone density scans provide images of body composition in wild-type (left panel) and leptin-deficient (right panel) mice. Leptin deficiency is associated with increased fatty tissue. (Sebastian Bouret, Ph.D. / University of Southern California)
The anti-obesity drugs include rimonabant, marketed by Sanofi-Aventis under the trade name Acomplia, which has been approved for weight loss in Europe and awaits approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in the United States.
The MIT scientists used a well-known experiment to examine brain plasticity (its ability to change based on experience); they temporarily covered one eye in mice soon after they were born, inducing a loss of synapses in the covered eye. Even one day of vision loss caused the synapses to shift to the uncovered eye. Injecting the mice with a cannabinoid receptor blocker stopped the synapses from shifting, suggesting that the cannabinoids play a key role in the early stages of synapse development. Blocking cannabinoids, as anti-obesity drugs such as Acomplia do, could hinder this development process, the researchers say, suppressing the brain wiring necessary for normal development in children.
Researchers caution, however, that psychiatric problems, including severe depression and suicidal thoughts, may be a greater potential problem linked to cannabinoid antagonists than childhood brain development. In 2007, a panel recommended that the FDA not approve rimonabant for use in the United States because of this increased risk.
Approved treatments have limitations, as well. While many people on weight-loss plans successfully shed pounds, others, especially those who typically overeat, become hungry when dieting and increase their food intake even as they attempt to lose weight. Researchers at the Columbia University Medical Center/New York Presbyterian Medical Center reported in the Journal of Clinical Investigation that low levels of the hormone leptin cause changes in food intake and energy expenditure that lead to weight gain during dieting.8 Using visual food cues, the scientists showed that leptin-mediated changes in areas of the brain that regulate the emotional and cognitive aspects of eating led to overeating after weight loss. The researchers say their findings "support the pivotal role of leptin in body weight regulation as a primary 'defense hormone' against loss of body fat following otherwise successful weight loss."
Other research gives extra incentive for researchers to reduce the prevalence of obesity. In the Cellular Neurobiology Laboratory at the Salk Institute, David Schubert has shown how obesity, type 2 diabetes, and Alzheimer's disease may be linked.9 While the research is not directly related to obesity, Schubert's findings show that people with type 2 diabetes, a leading cause of which is excess weight, are nearly 65 percent more likely than those without diabetes to develop Alzheimer's disease.
Schubert's research builds on other studies showing that obesity and Alzheimer's are linked. In a May 2008 paper in Obesity Reviews,10 a team of researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health examined two decades' worth of research that coupled obesity with an increased risk of Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia. In most of the studies they analyzed, the researchers said obesity increased the risk of Alzheimer's by 80 percent. Preventing or treating obesity at an early age, they said, could "play a major role in reducing the number of dementia patients."
As the 2008 research findings show, curbing obesity will require more than simply eating less and exercising more. Scientists continue to further their understanding of the biochemistry of appetite, and drug companies seek new drugs to help rid us of unwanted pounds. In the United States, policymakers push for better food labeling and nutritional information on food packages. An increasing number of schools alter their cafeteria menus to offer a more healthful diet. Many companies offer incentives to employees to lose weight (and thereby reduce the companies' health-care costs).
Countries such as Brazil, Australia, and Singapore have started to address their growing obesity problem; however, it will take time for their strategies to be implemented and for results to become evident. The International Obesity Task Force, part of the International Association for the Study of Obesity, has established a program aimed at the prevention and management of obesity through raised awareness of the problem among governments, health-care professionals, and the community. And the World Health Organization, through its Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity, and Health, is helping to create public policies that promote the availability and accessibility of low-fat, high-fiber diets, as well as monitoring the response to the burden of obesity and associated medical conditions through clinical and training programs to ensure effective support of those afflicted with obesity.
They have their work cut out for them: currently there are more than 1 billion overweight people in the world—nearly one-sixth of the population—and 300 million of those overweight people are obese.
1. Zhang Y, Proenca R, Maffei M, Barone M, Leopold L, and Friedman J. Positional cloning of the mouse obese gene and its human homologue. Nature 1994 372(6505):425−432.
2. Kojima M, Hosoda H, Date Y, Nakazato M, Matsuo H, and Kangawa K. Ghrelin is a growth-hormone-releasing acylated peptide from stomach. Nature 1999 402(6762):656−660.
3. Wang G, Volkow N, Logan J, Pappas N, Wong C, Zhu W, Netusll N, and Fowler J. Brain dopamine and obesity. The Lancet 2001 357(9253):354−357.
4. Gutierrez JA, Solenberg PJ, Perkins DR, Willency JA, Knierman MD, Jin Z, Witcher DR, Luo S, Oniya JE, and Hale JE. Ghrelin octanoylation mediated by an orphan lipid transferase. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2008 105(17):6320–6325.
5. Yang J, Brown MS, Lian G, Grishin NV, and Goldstein JL. Identification of the acyltransferase that octanoylates ghrelin, an appetite-stimulating peptide hormone. Cell 2008 132(3):387–396.
6. Bouret SG, Gorski JN, Patterson CM, Chen S, Levin BE, and Simerly RB. Hypothalmic neural projections are permanently disrupted in diet-induced obese rats. Cell Metabolism 2008 7(2):179–185.
7. Liu CH, Heynen AJ, Hussain Shuler MG, and Bear MF. Cannabinoid receptor blockade reveals parallel plasticity mechanisms in different layers of mouse visual cortex. Neuron 2008 58(3):340–345.
8. Rosenbaum M, Sy M, Pavlovic K, Leibel RL, and Hirsh J. Leptin reverses weightloss induced changes in regional neural activity responses to visual food stimuli. Journal of Clinical Investigation 2008 118(7):2583–2591.
9. Burdo JR, Chen Q, Calcutt NA, and Schubert D. The pathological interaction between diabetes and presymptomatic Alzheimer's disease. Neurobiology of Aging 2008 (March 27, 2008, online edition).
10. Beydoun MA, Beydoun HA, and Wang Y. Obesity and central obesity as risk factors for incident dementia and its subtypes: A systematic review and metaanalysis. Obesity Reviews 2008 9(3):204–218.
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Neritina pulligera. Top and bottom views, and an operculum. The Neritidae live in both marine and fresh water environments. The freshwater Neritidae are stream dwellers, usually inhabiting swift streams. Their shells have evolved into a more streamlined shape to resist being dislodged by water currents. Opercula in the family are characterized by a peg that is imbedded in the foot muscle for added firmness of attachment.
John B. Burch (photographer; copyright holder), Mollusk Division, Museum of Zoology, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
This resource may not be downloaded and used without permission of the copyright holder except for educational fair use.
The Animal Diversity Web team is excited to announce ADW Pocket Guides!
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To cite this page: Myers, P., R. Espinosa, C. S. Parr, T. Jones, G. S. Hammond, and T. A. Dewey. 2019. The Animal Diversity Web (online). Accessed at https://animaldiversity.org.
Disclaimer: The Animal Diversity Web is an educational resource written largely by and for college students. ADW doesn't cover all species in the world, nor does it include all the latest scientific information about organisms we describe. Though we edit our accounts for accuracy, we cannot guarantee all information in those accounts. While ADW staff and contributors provide references to books and websites that we believe are reputable, we cannot necessarily endorse the contents of references beyond our control.
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation Grants DRL 0089283, DRL 0628151, DUE 0633095, DRL 0918590, and DUE 1122742. Additional support has come from the Marisla Foundation, UM College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, Museum of Zoology, and Information and Technology Services.
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Friday, December 17, 2010
Studio 5 Excitement
So I have to admit, I have been working on this system for quite some time, and now I have finally completed it! Thanks Studio 5!
I mentioned on the segment some fun tips and giveaways ... and so lets get to the first giveaway! (That is right ... there will be 2!!!)
I created my Recipe Binders using this DARLING product from Doodlebug Design.Doodlebug has been SO generous in giving away a lucky reader some of these cute products so you can get to start your new recipe binder. Leave a comment to tell me why you deserve to have these products!!
Next is something I didn't get a chance to talk about on Studio 5, because there wasn't time! A few years back I got this book.
IT CHANGED MY LIFE! and I'm not just saying that ... nor is the author giving me anything for endorsing her book. Up until 3 days ago, I never knew Marie Ricks ... but now after meeting her I respect her even more. What an amazing and talented person. Her website is www.houseoforder.com
In this book is some AWESOME tips for Menu Planning. I don't know if you're like me, but I often find myself wondering at 5pm what is for dinner, and then if I am too tired to do anything about it ... it is the $5 hot and ready option :)
As I was hoping to explain how amazing this system is ... I found a website that is FREE until January! They will start charging to sign up in a few weeks, so I thought I ought to let you know about it! Go here!
This website allows you to create a meal plan by Selecting pre uploaded recipes, or uploading your own recipes. Then it will calculate what you need to buy at the grocery store, according to your menu plan, You can add it to your phone so you can check off the things you buy! (This would be fantastic for me, because I always loose my list before I get to the store :)
Each week I plan out a menu of what I am going to eat each night. Then I make a list of the ingredients and head to the store. This will help you prepare so you get a wide variety of foods, and can do it quickly!
If online isn't your first choice, I am giving away Marie's other book: This is a $10 value, and really great to get you started! Be sure to leave a comment.
I will pick one winner randomly for the Doodlbug Prize, and one for the Book! If you become a follower of my blog, You can have 3 chances of winning! Good Luck!
54 comments:
I just saw you 5 minutes ago on studio 5 I have re arranged my cook books a hundred time and finally yours seemed so easy and its so cute too, I can't wait to do it!
Sign me up for the giveaway please
I also follow now too!
- December 17, 2010 at 11:07 AM
- Sarah Mullanix said...
Oooh fantastic giveaway!! I am in such need of that collection to create a recipe book as well...I have soooo many recipes that have been passed down to me from my mother and grandmother that needs a good home. They are our traditional family food, side dishes, and deserts that we all look forward to having anytime we get together so I definitely need to create a beautiful and safe home for all of these family recipes so that I can one day pass them on to my children! Thanks for the chance ton win!! :)
- December 17, 2010 at 11:08 AM
- Sarah Mullanix said...
almost forgot, I'm a follower too! :)
Happy Holidays!
- December 17, 2010 at 11:09 AM
I saw you on Studio 5 today. You don't know how much I needed to see your ideas. My receipe stash needs HELP! It's been bugging me for awhile now so now I have some cute ideas to get started. No excuses! Would love to get the cute paper. Thanks for sharing.
- December 17, 2010 at 11:12 AM
- joel & ginny said...
This is a project I've wanted to start for some time, and I love the colors in that DB kit! Can't wait to see the segment. I follow you using Google Reader.
- December 17, 2010 at 11:12 AM
- Donna said...
I'm a follower now too!
- December 17, 2010 at 11:16 AM
- KIMLEY said...
Hi Mandy! I loved your Studio 5 segment. I also love the way you've put your recipes together. The Doodlebug papers are so cute! I will have to check out Marie Ricks as well - looks like she has some great ideas as well.
- December 17, 2010 at 11:46 AM
- KIMLEY said...
I'm also a follower now!
- December 17, 2010 at 11:48 AM
- Laura T. said...
What great giveaways! Thanks for the chance.
- December 17, 2010 at 11:51 AM
- Laura T. said...
I have become a follower of your blog.
- December 17, 2010 at 11:52 AM
- Summer Miller said...
I am inspired to get this project done!
- December 17, 2010 at 11:56 AM
- Summer Miller said...
I now follow your blog!
- December 17, 2010 at 11:57 AM
- Knudsen's said...
I'm new to your blog after I saw your segment on Studio 5. Great job, bytheway. You've inspired me to do something with my overgrown pile of recipes! After the holidays, that's my first order of business! Thanks! Camille
- December 17, 2010 at 12:13 PM
- Camillia said...
I would love to win these!! I have a recipe book that has so many loose recipes that I need to find a home for. I love to cook and it would be so much easier if I could get organized. I have been wanting to do this for a long time and now after watching your segment on Studio 5 and I am going to!! THANKS!
- December 17, 2010 at 12:33 PM
Loved your segment! You gave me some great ideas!! I would love the giveways! Thank you for sharing!
- December 17, 2010 at 12:38 PM
I would love to win either of these wonderful prizes! My future husband is an extremely picky eater, so any and all recipes that he will eat go in my recipe box - which is in total disarray. Thanks for the chance!
- December 17, 2010 at 12:54 PM
- Britney said...
Repeat follower here! Love the segment, great job!
Thanks for the chance to win!
- December 17, 2010 at 1:14 PM
- Britney said...
I'm a follower too!
- December 17, 2010 at 1:16 PM
- ruth said...
I follow your blog and enjoy the inspiration. To be honest I do not deserve this any more than anyone else. But I would be putting it to good use. My DS is getting married next fall (our first to get married) and I am creating a cookbook of family favorites and would use this for it.
- December 17, 2010 at 1:50 PM
- Annette said...
So, just this week I looked at my pile of recipes.. overwhelmed. I have been unemployed and thought I would "get to it" and compile them into a book. Your ideas are great and just what I had in mind. Another job has passed me bye, so I guess I will start on the recipe pile. Winning the Doodlebug paper would make it a "Fun and Happy" booki!
- December 17, 2010 at 1:53 PM
- Annette said...
I became a follower.
- December 17, 2010 at 2:14 PM
Awesome segment on Studio 5 today!! I've been married for 7 months and I still have not put all my recipes together that all the ladies in my family have given me! I loved all your great ideas! I am really excited to organize them now and the Doodlebug supplies would definitely make it easier for my budget!!
Sign me up for the giveaway and thanks for all the tips!
- December 17, 2010 at 2:55 PM
- Heather said...
- This comment has been removed by the author.
- December 17, 2010 at 3:13 PM
- Heather said...
I absolutely LOVE this idea. I have recipes everywhere... stuffed in other cookbooks, in my top drawer, on the computer and hidden on the counter behind the Kitchen Aid mixer. I am normally a very organized person, but this is one area that I could use some serious help. Thanks for the wonderful idea. The paper is adorable and I would LOVE to win it. Thanks again. I also love your blog.
- December 17, 2010 at 3:15 PM
- sheri said...
I saw your segment today on Studio 5. I started collecting recipes from the people I would babysit for from the age of 14, I am now 54 and the collecting never has left! I need the challenge to organize in a better manner than what I have tried!
Merry Christmas everyone!
- December 17, 2010 at 3:55 PM
- sheri said...
I am now a follower!
- December 17, 2010 at 3:56 PM
- Erica Hettwer said...
This looks awesome!
- December 17, 2010 at 5:17 PM
- Erica Hettwer said...
Oh, and I already follow your blog. ;)
- December 17, 2010 at 5:17 PM
- sarahw said...
I promise myself each Sunday I will sit down and figure out the meals for the week. Sometimes I do and other times I don't. This is perfect for organizing all of that.:) Thanks so much for the chance. I am also a follower.
- December 17, 2010 at 5:52 PM
- Pam said...
I have followed your blog for quite awhile. I would love to win this giveaway. My recipes are a disaster...scraps of paper thrown in a cookbook. Everything else is extremely organized in my life, but I really need help with this!
- December 17, 2010 at 6:09 PM
- Becky said...
Love your ideas! This is a task I have been wanting to tackle for some time now! You make it soooo easy! Can't wait to get started! Thanks!!! :D
- December 17, 2010 at 8:46 PM
- MELODY said...
WOuld love to win one of the books! I am always looking for new ways to organize my crazy life!! I would also love to organize my pile of recipes!
- December 17, 2010 at 9:12 PM
- MELODY said...
I am already a follower of your wonderful blog!
- December 17, 2010 at 9:12 PM
- Wendy Sue said...
Hi Mandy! I missed Studio 5 today (I was out VT-ing)...so I need to get online and watch it. I always love your ideas so I'm excited! :o)
- December 17, 2010 at 9:17 PM
- Brandi said...
WooHoo, I'm a follower :) Great job today and thank you for sharing!
- December 17, 2010 at 9:20 PM
- Wendy Sue said...
I'm a dork - I was reading your post through my blog reader - but when I clicked over to your blog, I found that you have your segment right there! Thank you! LOVE your projects and tips! :o)
- December 17, 2010 at 9:21 PM
Loved your segment! Very nicely done. I love the Doodlebug designs and would love to attempt to organize my recipes. Thanks for the chance.
- December 18, 2010 at 4:47 AM
I soooo need to do this, great video.
- December 18, 2010 at 8:39 AM
- amyp said...
Wow!! Great Job!! I can use any help I can get to organize my meals for my family. My husband tells me all the time that I should cook something different. The book sounds like it could help me out!!I am going to check out the website as well!!! Thanks so much!!
Oh, and I already am a follower.
- December 18, 2010 at 11:15 AM
- Cindy d said...
Fabulous! I'd love to win the Doodlebug stuff- they're one of my favorites and I'd definitely put it to good use organizing my favorite recipes.
- December 18, 2010 at 1:08 PM
- Jennifer said...
I am so bad at meny planning and would love anything that would help me.
- December 18, 2010 at 5:52 PM
- Kari said...
Hey Mandy,
Thanks for sharing your segment. You did awesome. Sign me up for the giveaway if it's not too late. I've been wanting to redo my recipes for quite sometime. I just end up calling my mom and getting it again instead of digging through to find it in my mess!
- December 18, 2010 at 8:24 PM
- Angela said...
My recipe binder is out of control! Your ideas will help tremendously - thanks! And thanks for the chance to win some seriously cute stuff to get started on this project with!
- December 19, 2010 at 8:02 AM
- Angela said...
I have been following your blog in my Reader, but now I'm official on the Follower section of your blog! :)
- December 19, 2010 at 8:03 AM
- wendy said...
Organization for cooking??? Sign me up! Thanks for a great chance to win. I've been reading your blog for a while, now I'm an official follower.
- December 19, 2010 at 8:27 AM
- Naomi said...
what a great idea!!
thanks for the info :D
- December 19, 2010 at 6:53 PM
- Wendy said...
I would love to get the recipe for raisin custard pie that comes up on the video window when you first open this blog post, please :)
- December 19, 2010 at 7:29 PM
- Erin said...
I have a recipe that is kinda organized but could be way better! I loved your segment and plan on getting my books in order but would love the Doodlebug stuff to do it!
- December 19, 2010 at 8:12 PM
- Erin said...
Blog follower!
- December 19, 2010 at 8:13 PM
- LouAnn said...
I always have the best intentions of organizing my recipes. I have so many that I have printed from the internet or torn from magazines. They are such a mess. Someday I hope to get them manageable.
- December 20, 2010 at 7:38 AM
- LouAnn said...
I'm a follower.
- December 20, 2010 at 7:39 AM
- Julie said...
love this stuff! I'd love to win!
- December 20, 2010 at 11:55 AM
- Wendy said...
P.S. You did a fantastic job on Studio 5!
- December 20, 2010 at 8:46 PM
- cmay said...
I would love these papers. As a scrapbooker myself I have been wanting to make a recipe book of my grandmas reipes. This paper would be to perfect and cute. Thanks for a chance and I hope Im not to late. email@example.com is the way to get a hold of me.
- December 28, 2010 at 3:12 PM


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Like many RV owners, Kenmure residents Mike and Georgie Farmer spent the summer traveling across the U.S. Unlike most travelers, Mike pedaled the 4,285-mile route on a road bike.
FLAT ROCK — Like many RV owners, Kenmure residents Mike and Georgie Farmer spent the summer traveling across the United States visiting friends, family and places of interest.
Unlike most summer travelers, Mike pedaled the 4,285-mile route across the nation's northern tier on a road bike to benefit three charities, with Georgie providing support from their motorhome.
The couple left Bar Harbor, Maine on May 29 and arrived in Anacortes, Wash. 104 days later, having crossed 15 states. The Farmers' journey raised about $27,000 for three charities: Kenmure Fights Cancer, St. Gerard House and the Guide Dog Foundation for the Blind.
On Tuesday, friends and supporters toasted the Farmers' return home with a celebration at the Playhouse Downtown in Hendersonville. Just two weeks off the road, the Farmers look back on their journey with a renewed sense of joy in America and its generous people.
"You know, it's crazy, but I'd leave again right now if I could," Mike Farmer said. "Just putting my foot on the pedal and throwing my leg over the bike and taking off in whatever direction you're going — and having a new environment every single day, never seeing the same thing twice — it was incredible and so relaxing."
It was the second cross-country bike trip for Mike. Fifteen years ago, Georgie followed him from Astoria, Ore. across the nation to the Atlantic Ocean in a conversion van to mark his retirement from corporate life.
Initially, this latest trip was to commemorate Mike's 70th birthday. But after talking with leaders of Kenmure Fights Cancer, the Farmers decided to make their journey a benefit for that charity and two others. Mike serves on the board of St. Gerard House, a nonprofit serving kids with autism, and Georgie has raised guide dogs for the blind for 20 years.
They even traveled with a labrador-golden retriever puppy named Quincy, one of about a dozen dogs Georgie Farmer has volunteered to train for service to the blind.
"What has really been a shock to me is the people who contributed that we just met on the street and talked to for 5 minutes, 10 minutes," said Mike Farmer. He recalled stopping to take photos of a mountain stream near Sandpoint, Idaho and chatting with two local couples out for a drive; they later sent in a $500 donation.
The most physically challenging part of his bike ride was climbing the Cascade Mountains during the final, 462-mile leg of the trip from Sandpoint to Anacortes, Mike Farmer said.
"They weren't necessarily high passes — one was 4,500 feet and the highest one was 5,600 feet, I think — but they started at 1,000 feet, so you had about a 3,000- or 4,000-foot climb," he said. "Normally, on the flats, I'm doing 15 or 18 miles an hour. On those uphills, you might be going 6 miles an hour."
As frustrating as those slow, grueling climbs were, Farmer said the beautiful surroundings and downhill glides on the other side made them well worth the slog.
"Coming out of someplace in Idaho, I rode downhill for 9 miles without turning the pedals," he said. "It was wonderful. The only thing I do that's probably not the brightest thing is I take pictures, even though I'm doing 35 miles an hour."
Mike only busted two bike tires during the entire journey and suffered just one injury: a fall that sent him to an emergency room in Chester, Mont. with a strained or torn muscle in his torso. After four days of rest, he resumed riding his average 51-mile days.
The most mentally challenging part of the trip, Mike Farmer said, was riding Interstate 94 in North Dakota while 18-wheelers buzzed by his bike 15 or 20 feet away. He had to ride 50 or 60 miles at a stretch on that interstate because the normal back road routes they favored weren't available.
Those backcountry roads solidified the Farmers' view of America as a diverse, awe-inspiring land. But Mike Farmer said it also drove home how hard the recession has hit the nation, "the number of buildings that were closed and all the houses for sale in small towns we rode through."
But another benefit of the trip was it allowed the couple to bond with each other, their daughter, Jenny, and their twin 13-year-old granddaughters, Sidney and Alex, who rode with them from Montana to Washington and back east.
"Both Georgie and I are involved with some charities in town, and I think we were too involved and we were kind of passing in the night," Mike Farmer said. "But when you're in an RV for 113 days, seeing each other 24 hours a day, you can reconnect. It was just fun and it wasn't stressful. We weren't worried about making meetings or doing reports."
As they neared the end of their journey, the Farmers met a young college-aged couple who were also riding cross-country.
"I asked the kid, what has this ride meant to you; what have you learned?" said Mike Farmer. "He said, 'I've learned that America is far more beautiful than I thought, and that the people of America are nicer than I thought.' This is coming from a 25-year-old college kid. That kind of said it all."
To read Farmer's blog on their journey, or to donate to their charities, visit www.ibike4them.org.


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The Home of Fashion Film and Live Fashion Broadcasting
Report by Lou Stoppard on 1 July 2013.
Military references are a staple in fashion- think JPG's saucy sailors or even the camo fever from recent seasons - but Browne's collection shows that fashion can have too much of a good thing.
FINALE.... See show CLOSE UP, the Spring Summer 2014 THOM BROWNE #ThomBrowne @ThomBrowneNY #parisfashionweek # http://t.co/xr8alamLrI
Thom Browne http://t.co/9mhVLJMPMV
"Love is all you need" #PFW #thombrowne http://t.co/dAVLTrkBK7
A touch of red - Thom Browne http://t.co/1KoHHUWYRh
Thom Browne's troops on parade #fashion #SS14 http://t.co/4tXjVQMiIK
Thom Browne http://t.co/AhjAGSDOFN
Bruce Pask and I at the Thom Browne bake-off. Sunny here as the men's shows end http://t.co/3svKUkYjvB


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NEW YORK, N.Y.—AMC's Breaking Bad is the champion of a new television metric: more second-screen activity on Twitter than any other TV series.
The Nielsen company, for the first time this season, is measuring how many people are reading Twitter messages about particular TV programs the night they are on the air.
Nielsen said Monday the drug-dealing drama starring Bryan Cranston had an average of 6 million people seeing tweets for each episode. The show was boosted by its finale last September, where the number shot up to 9.1 million.
Another AMC series, The Walking Dead, came in second with 5.17 million.
For individual events, the Super Bowl and the Oscars led the way, just as each year both events generally have the most viewers.


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As much as I loved finally being able to play Dark Souls on PC, the port itself was a disaster. From Software's inexperience with PC led to a game with no graphical improvements and only the barest-bone keyboard and mouse support left many feeling let down with the title.
Contrast with CD Projekt RED's Xbox 360 port of The Witcher 2. The game looks and plays remarkably well on the Xbox 360---in fact, its gamepad support is so good I switched to an Xbox controller for the PC version as well.
In fact, the Xbox 360 version had some choice graphics upgrades compared to the initial PC release, though all those enhancements were released, free of charge, for PC players as well. So while the console port may not look quite as good as the game does on your custom-built gaming rig, it still looks amazing.
This is a port done with all the care and attention to detail a game as quality as The Witcher 2 deserves. Hopefully the next in the franchise will release across consoles and PC. And hopefully it comes out soon. The wait, as they say, is killing me.
Then again, we won't have to wait long...at least for some news.


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Herve Leger by Max Azria Pre-Fall 2016 CollectionCategories:Fashion
BCBG and Herve Leger were revealed at the same time. It looks like Max Azria is on a roll and it is full steam ahead! The latter brand gave the designer's works the raw sophistication that was missing from BCBG, unveiling the Herve Leger pre-fall 2016 collection that was a lot more on the fun and Western side. Max and Lubov Azria gave the raw sophistication another twist though, this time sticking to sporty versus the chic, giving it all a more relaxed attitude, while still including body-con dressing.
Boyish oxford flats were on every model's feet, loosening things up and dressing down the looks that are achieved with the dresses and outfits themselves. While BCBG covered up the legs more so, the Herve Leger brand gives us a good view of long and lean limbs.
The whole collection is an interesting one. With twenty seven styles to be found, the first of which is a diagonal striped single shoulder body con with an added pleated skirt that has asymmetric hems and a rather Alexander Wang appeal. We notice that the colors to this line differ from the BCBG as well, this time including a good amount of light purple hues, also featuring scarlet, dove greys, forest greens and diver blues. The patterns noticed are quite futuristic and meant to give comfort as well as style.
Most all are dresses, some with looser ends than others, while two include trousers and contour the body beautifully. Shoulder cutouts are a common look, deeper cuts to the necklines are enough to ramp up the sexy, and the colors are meant to amplify the figure. The layered diagonals are intense and gorgeous, while the strategic cuts on the chest are made to really pull up the bust.
There is nothing more beautiful than a woman confident in what she wears, the mostly short skirts and intriguing lines only adding to the bondage loving sexy womanly figure. Some golden belts on the waistline are more than enough to bring focus to the long and lean figures they cut.
Herve Leger by Max Azria was originally founded by Herve Peugnet, also known as Herve L. Leroux. He was the one who pioneered the bandage dresses, where the materials used could be associated with foundation garments and the bandage dresses would shape and mold the wearer's figure like bandage strips.
The BCBG Max Azria Group acquired the brand in 1998 and thus the original creations of Herve Leger, thus known based on Karl Lagerfeld's helpful suggestion to give him a name that Americans would be able to pronounce. The body conscious dresses of the founder still continue to be created, with a touch of Azria added now.
There is nothing we love more than a Herve Leger bandage dress and we are lucky enough to have the sweet sophistication of it mixed with sexy and sporty all at once this coming year, for the Herve Leger by Max Azria pre-fall 2016 collection.


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James Reimer stops 37 shots as Maple Leafs rout rival Canadiens 6-0NHL.com @NHLdotcom
MONTREAL - James Reimer made 37 saves and Leo Komarov scored his first NHL goal only 59 seconds into the game as the Toronto Maple Leafs defeated the rival Montreal Canadiens 6-0 on Saturday night.
Tyler Bozak scored later in the first period, James van Riemsdyk and Phil Kessel added second period goals and Korbinian Holzer and Dion Phaneuf, with his first of the season, scored in the third for Toronto (7-5-0).
The Leafs completed a sweep of a three-game road trip and are 6-1-0 away from the Air Canada Centre this season, including a 2-1 victory in Montreal in their season opener Jan. 19 with Ben Scrivens in goal.
Toronto jumped past Montreal (6-4-1) in Northeast Division standings. The Canadiens are 0-2-1 in their last three.
Reimer was a rock in goal, especially the second frame when Montreal had a 2-7 edge in shots. He made a deft glove save on an Erik Cole one-timer and thwarted Brian Gionta on back-to-back chances in his seventh career shutout.
Montreal outshot Toronto 37-27 overall.
The game wasn't a minute old when Nikolai Kulemin tipped the puck past Andrei Markov at the blue-line and the Montreal defenceman ??? coming off two knee surgeries ??? was unable to get back as Kamorov went to the net to tip in the pass on a 2-on-1.
It was the first-year winger from Estonia's first goal in 12 NHL games.
The goal seemed to throw Montreal into disarray, and the Leafs capitalized as van Riemsdyk banked a puck off Carey Price to an unguarded Bozak for a shot into an open side at 6:33.
Kessel put a move on the Montreal defence at the side of the net and fed the onrushing van Riemsdyk for his seventh goal 3:36 into the second frame.
Kessel got his second of the season and second in as many games on a power play as he picked the top corner from 15 feet out at 18:01.
After Holzer made it 5-0 four minutes into the fight-filled third period before Phaneuf scored from the slot at 13:15 while on a two-man advantage.
Price let in all six goals and finished with 21 saves.
Notes: Komarov was moved onto a line with Mikhail Grabovski and Kulemin. . . Ryan White was a healthy scratch a game after taking a costly penalty in Thursday's 5-4 shootout loss in Buffalo. Yannick Weber and Tomas Kaberle were also out for Montreal. . . Mike Komisarek was scratched for a fourth straight game for the Leafs and Dave Steckel didn't dress for a second game.


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Fantasy Spin: Leafs have most promising tandemby Pete Jensen
When the Toronto Maple Leafs became the first team in NHL history to lose a Game 7 after leading by three goals in the third period, fantasy owners probably weren't expecting an endorsement of the team's goaltending only a few months later.
But when reflecting on James Reimer's development over the past year and the team's acquisition of former Los Angeles Kings backup Jonathan Bernier, the future looks crowded -- and bright -- in Toronto's crease.
So, just about as suddenly as their lead slipped away in Game 7 against the Boston Bruins in the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals, the case can be made that the Leafs sport the League's best timeshare fantasy goalie tandem.
Bernier brings a ton of upside to Toronto after playing in the shadow of Jonathan Quick since entering the League. He allowed two goals or less in 11 of his 14 outings during the shortened season, and was one of only four goalies with a save percentage greater than .920 and a goals-against average lower than 2.00.
He remains unproven in that he has only appeared in 62 career games since entering the NHL in 2007-08, but brings a 2.36 career GAA to Toronto, where he'll be given a chance to start more often – likely without the burden of a 60 or 70-game workload.
Reimer, meanwhile, has dealt with negative perception after Toronto collapsed in a big spot against the Bruins while he manned the crease. But, despite that forgettable loss, there are many positives to take from his emergence as the Leafs' starter last season.
He was a huge reason why the Leafs snapped their lengthy playoff drought and his ability to stop 72 of 74 combined shots on goal in Games 5 and 6 against Boston helped Toronto overcome a 3-1 deficit and take the series the distance. Reimer's playing time during the shortened season (33 appearances) can be compared to his workload in 2011-12 (34), but his production this past season drew rave reviews from fantasy owners. He had 19 wins and set career bests in GAA (2.46) and save percentage (.924).
Reimer's regular season was a huge step forward, but the bottom line is that if he didn't fall victim to a historic rally in the playoffs, Toronto likely would not have gone out of its way to trade for Bernier. For that reason, one can expect Bernier to be the leading candidate entering training camp to land the No. 1 goalie job.
But that can certainly change in a flash, which is why targeting both could be most beneficial in fantasy. Another positive to consider is that, regardless of which player gets the nod more often, Toronto had the second-best penalty kill unit in the NHL last season (87.9 percent), and the team's top-six forward arsenal is expected to consistently give both goalies offensive support.
The Ducks have the only returning pair of goalies where each -- Jonas Hiller and Viktor Fasth -- posted 15-plus wins last season. They paid fantasy dividends despite near-even totals in games played (Hiller 26, Fasth 25), but with Hiller's contract expiring next offseason and prospect John Gibson waiting in the wings, this package deal is much less of a sure thing next season.
In St. Louis, Jaroslav Halak and Brian Elliott are entering contract years and each will compete for time while making a case to be in the team's future plans. When healthy, we've learned over the years that St. Louis goalies are a quality option – both individually or as a tandem -- but we've also seen how unpredictable they can be when the Blues deal with injuries or decide to ride the hot hand. With sleeper Jake Allen (9-4-0 last season) also in the mix, St. Louis' goalie competition presents red flags for fantasy owners looking for reliability.
Martin Brodeur, and the NHL's most efficient one over the last three seasons, Cory Schneider. Retirement could be looming for Brodeur when his contract ends after this season, and Schneider has never played more than 33 games in a single season. New Jersey plays a League-high 22 back-to-back games in 2013-14, so each goalie will get starts by default, but it's far from a given that New Jersey will be a playoff team after losing Ilya Kovalchuk and David Clarkson.
Toronto's pair of netminders should be able to focus solely on the competition that looms, considering Reimer will only be a restricted free agent next offseason and the Leafs didn't deal him over the summer after bringing in Bernier. Each of these goalies is 25 years old with something to prove, which bodes well for their fantasy value.
With only 30 to 40 fantasy-relevant goalies in the NHL entering the new season, your draft strategy can make or break your team. If you like what you saw from Reimer last season and believe in Bernier's potential, don't hesitate to grab this tandem after stocking up on premier forwards and defensemen.
Your best bet is to draft Bernier once other timeshare goalies start going off the board and then grab Reimer a few rounds later. If you think investing in two goalies from the same team is the right move for your fantasy squad, the Leafs have the tandem worth taking a chance on.


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Teacher resources and professional development across the curriculum
Teacher professional development and classroom resources across the curriculum
In this session:
Observing Student Communication
Exploring Communication
Defining Communication
Applying Communication
Evaluating Communication
Young children enter school with a natural sense of curiosity about their world and about one another. They draw on their intuitive ideas to make sense of the world around them. Various forms of communication enable young children to share their ideas with the teacher and with others. As students have opportunities to work together and talk about their ideas, they begin to compare their own ideas with their classmates'. Just as important, communication helps children clarify their own thinking and understanding about mathematical ideas.
In this session, we will illustrate and reflect on different aspects of communication in helping young children to make sense of mathematics.
Learning Objectives
This session shows you how to help students do the following:
NCTM Communication Standard
Instructional programs . . . should enable all students to --
Principles and Standards of School Mathematics (NCTM, 2000). For more information on this Process Standard, see the NCTM Web site.
|Teaching Math Home | Grades K-2 | Communication | Site Map | © |
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