I had to take a few days hiatus to work on my entries to a Ghost, Fable and Fractured Fairy Tale contest. In the meantime, we've had rain, rain and more cold rain. This morning was no different, which is why my theme song today is Lady Gaga's Rain on Me (below). Here's a great article from TeenVogue regarding the song's 22-year-old co-writer Nija Charles's experience as a young black woman making pop music: https://www.teenvogue.com/story/rain-on-me-songwriter-nija-charles-interview. I highly recommend sharing and discussing with your teen and tween kids, particularly if they are into music and the Arts.

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Given that it's another rainy weekend, you know I took a long hot bath, which means I listened to another TedTalk. And, as usual, my chosen talk hit just the right spot. Though you reserved, quiet folks don't need to hear it as much as we boisterous, talkative folks do, I'm sure everyone can benefit from Celeste Headlee's short, entertaining and incredibly pertinent message. Here's the link: https://youtu.be/R1vskiVDwl4.

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This weekend, I also made and delivered Valentines with my 10 YO for his classmates and friends. Why buy cards when you can redesign the leftovers in the basement from Valentine's Days past? And why pay postage when you can spend two hours driving around to deliver them in person? There are actually a lot of reasons (wink); but now that it's done, we're both feeling satisfied.

While driving around, we heard a blurb on NPR about the first 3-D printed steak. I looked it up when we got home; and, sure thing, Aleph Farms Ltd. and the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering at the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology have made the world's first 3D printed edible ribeye steak without genetic engineering and without slaughtering any animals. My husband and two sons are pescatarians (vegetarian + fish) and are big fans of Impossible and Beyond meat. Given both sons' previous love of meat and their current preference for what I call "fake meat" (Morningstar sausages, Quorn chicken patties, and other plant-based meat-like products), it'll be interesting to see if they'll go for 3-D printed steaks that, though made from animal cells, do not require animal death, injury, or even husbandry. Here's a link to Forbes's article on the matter: https://www.forbes.com/sites/lanabandoim/2021/02/12/worlds-first-3d-bioprinted-and-cultivated-ribeye-steak-is-revealed/.

If you missed my last post, which contains a read-aloud of Charlotte Wood's beautiful picture book about Alzheimer's disease, you can find it here: http://www.melissarooneywriting.com/blog/2021/02/edelweiss-and-remembering-for-both-of-us-readaloud/

Stay tuned for my next post about why you should help your teen start a Roth IRA the day they start their first job.