Florence Ellinwood Allen’s life and judicial service can be described in many “firsts.”  She was the first woman assistant county prosecutor in the United States and the first woman elected to a judicial office in Ohio.  Later, she became the first woman in the nation to be elected to a court of the last resort--the Supreme Court of Ohio--and the first woman appointed to a federal appeals court judgeship.  Allen was the third child of Clarence Emir and Corinne Tuckerman Allen, born on March 23, 1884 in Salt Lake City, Utah.  At age 16, she entered Western Reserve University, now Case Western Reserve University, in Cleveland.  During her junior year she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 1904.  After living in Germany for two years, Allen returned to the United States, where she accepted a position as a teacher at Laurel School in Cleveland.  She also enrolled again at Western Reserve, where she graduated with a master’s degree in political science and constitutional law.  At the time, Western Reserve did not admit women to its law school, so Allen entered the University of Chicago Law Department in 1909.  She was the only female in a class of 100 students.  At the end of the term, she was second in her class.  She supported herself by cataloging French and German legal treatises for the university library.  At the end of the term in 1910, Allen moved to New York City where she assisted newly arrived immigrants for the New York League for Protection of Immigrants.  She also worked as a lecturer of music in public schools and libraries for the New York Board of Education.  Read more at  https://www.supremecourt.ohio.gov/SCO/formerjustices/bios/allen.asp 

Washington, D.C.’s Tidal Basin—the man-made reservoir adjacent to the National Mall—currently suffers from crumbling seawall infrastructure and twice-daily flooding.  The National Trust for Historic Preservation; the Trust for the National Mall; the National Park Service; Skidmore, Owings & Merrill; and American Express unveiled the Tidal Basin Ideas Lab to address these issues through design.  The Lab has engaged five renowned American landscape firms—DLANDstudio, GGN, James Corner Field Operations, Hood Design Studio, and Reed Hilderbrand—to create proposals to protect and reimagine the site, which includes memorials to Thomas Jefferson, Martin Luther King Jr., and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, as well as 3,000 cherry trees whose blooms are celebrated each year.  “With over 36 million visits annually, the National Mall is the most visited national park in the country,” says Catherine Townsend, president and CEO of its trust.  Accessible online, the Ideas Lab is an exhibition that allows the public to give feedback on the five design schemes for the adjacent basin, known as “America’s front yard.”  Addressing the apparent immediate needs of the Tidal Basin and considering climate change, visitorship, and use of the basin’s park, the proposals offer diverse solutions for its future, presented digitally by curators Donald Albrecht and Thomas Mellins with the historical narratives that informed them.  Elizabeth Fazzare  See pictures at https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/washington-dc-tidal-basin-redesign 

Enjoy a film about New Hampshire, and see the world’s largest arcade at 4:01, the location of the house in the movie On Golden Pond at 11:40, the world’s largest candy counter at 12:14, and the Mother Pluckers, a ukulele band at 13:59.  https://www.pbs.org/video/new-hampshire-r6wnha/  26:46   

If you didn’t know that Ohio was home to America’s official cat museum, you probably didn’t know that Ohio is also home to the Cat Fanciers’ Association (CFA) Headquarters.  The Feline Historical Museum in Alliance is housed on the first floor of the CFA headquarters, which showcases all things cat themed.   posted by April Dray  Find location, hours and see pictures including the cat house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright at https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/ohio/feline-historical-museum-oh/ 

hermitize  verb (third-person singular simple present hermitizes, present participle hermitizing, simple past and past participle hermitized)  to isolate oneself; to become a hermit   (mathematics) to cause to become Hermitian  https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hermitize 

While most people have fallen for tiny houses in the past few years, Brent Heavener has been fascinated with the small dwellings for decades, dating back to his teenage years.  “When I was 16 my dad sent me a picture of a shipping container that had been transformed into a fully functional tiny home,” he says.  “I was sold.  These small, unique, inspiring spaces fed my love for simple craftsmanship and sovereign living.  I was fueled by the freedom and sense of boundless creativity tiny homes sparked within me.”  Heavener’s family also lived in an eclectic mix of spaces during his childhood, from a condemned 1900s home in the California high desert to an abandoned Baptist church.  Elizabeth Stamp  See beautiful pictures at https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/beautifully-designed-tiny-homes-make-want-downsize   

The piebald horse is one with large, non-uniform patches of black or white on their coats--that is, those two colors exclusively.  Skewbald horses encompass the rest of the spectrum, having coats of white and any other color. A pinto is a horse with any, typically large white areas on there body--a paint patterned horse of any breed.  A paint horse is specifically any pinto with western stock in their bloodlines (thoroughbred or quarter horse).  The American Paint Horse is specific breeds with patterned coats, whereas pinto, piebald and skewbald describe coat markings only and are not a specific registered breed of horse.  Paint horses are breed-specific, pinto is a term based on coat coloring alone, regardless of breed.  April Lee  Read much more and see pictures at https://www.helpfulhorsehints.com/paint-horse-vs-pinto-vs-skewbald-vs-piebald/ 

Clothes horse is sometimes used to refer to a portable frame upon which wet laundry is hung to dry by evaporation.  The frame is usually made of wood, metal or plastic.  It is a cheap low-tech piece of laundry equipment, as opposed to a clothes dryer, which requires electricity to operate.  The term clothes horse describes men and women who are passionate about clothing and always appear in public dressed in the latest styles.  From 1850 the term referred to a male fop or female quaintrelle, a person whose main function is, or appears to be, to wear or show off clothes.  In this context, the term is similar to "fashion plate", which originally referred to a lithograph illustration of fashionable clothing in a book or magazine.  See pictures at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clothes_horse 

The Biggest Literary Stories of the Year: 50 to 31--Not All of Them Are Bad, Promise by Emily Temple  https://lithub.com/the-biggest-literary-stories-of-the-year-50-to-31-2/   

The Best Reviewed Mystery and Crime Fiction of 2020 Featuring Tana French, Don Winslow, Ivy Pochoda, Liz Moore, and more by Book Marks  https://lithub.com/the-best-reviewed-mystery-and-crime-fiction-of-2020/   

December 2020 looks like a fun month for stargazers, with a spectacular meteor shower promised for the middle of the month—clear skies permitting, of course.  Known as the Geminids, the meteor shower occurs annually as Earth moves through the trail of debris left behind by asteroid 3200 Phaethon.  These thrilling “shooting star” events will be visible from Dec. 4 to Dec. 17, with activity peaking on the evening of Dec. 13 and into the following morning.  “The Geminids produce a good number of meteors most years, but they’re made even better this year as the shower’s peak coincides with a nearly new moon. thus making for darker skies, with no moonlight to interfere with the fainter meteors,” NASA said.  Trevor Mogg  ttps://www.digitaltrends.com/news/how-to-watch-the-geminids-meteor-shower-this-month/

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2298  December 16, 2020