Peace

Why should I feel discouraged, why should the shadows come, Why should my heart be lonely, and long for heaven and home,

When Jesus is my portion?

My constant friend is He:

His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me...

Superman does a drug bust, but Richard wins the day

Okay, question for all you movie/comic/Superman experts (that means anybody who knows more than me, which is everybody); I have a question for you.

Tonight I watched Superman Returns. I never watched Superman Came the First Time (if there was one), and I never read the comics but Superman is just a part of everybody's childhood, so I imbibed some his histoy by osmosis.

But my question is... at the end of the movie did Lois go home with Richard, or did Richard drive off into the sunset all by himself while Lois went home with the kid to hang around waiting for Superman to "be around" every once in three blue moons?

WHAT IS THIS??!!!??

Okay, okay, I know this is Lois Lane, and he's Superman, but why drag a perfectly innocent bystander into the situation, make him a really nice guy (of super-human qualities actually), who actually saves Superman's hide, is a really good father, and loves her so much, and she ditches him to go for some muscle-bound dude in a cape who is never around? Besides that he has a sickening smirk and a stupid curl in the middle of his forehead.

Actually this really is a question, not just a rant. I really wasn't sure at the end of the movie which guy she stayed with. Can somebody tell me?


On to the drug bust:

So, my dad does interior painting for a living. I also make a living painting (myself, the floor, and other people included). Current job is in a low-income section of town. We were painting the dark panelled walls of a tiny house owned by a really sweet black lady of 75 or 80. She keeps a loaded pistol in her bedroom. I saw it- cute little thing.

So one day I was at home writing instead of painting. I called Daddy to ask him a question and he calmly starts telling me the neighborhood news.

He was minding his own business painting away, when he happened to glance out the window. And nearly dropped his brush, I'm sure. Across the street a full SWAT team was surrounding an ugly pink house. He counted 6 or seven vehicles and lots of big guys in full gear with large guns all around the house. Some suspect was hand-cuffed to a chair in the yard.

Funny thing is, he never heard them coming (which is the point, I guess). He just looked out the window and there they were.

And guess what folks, that's about it to the story. The SWAT team searched the house, left with on suspect- not the one hand-cuffed to the chair- and drove off into the sunset. End of excitement.

Just think if somebody had started shooting? Nice tiny house across the road made out of paper and cardboard? And Daddy stand at the window calmly telling me all this? RUN FOR COVER!!!!!!

I hate templates! but drug busts can be entertaining

Argggh!!! Trying to find a template I like (and Daniel doesn't reject out of hand) is SO HARD. Good thing its the Sabbath and I don't have to worry about it. I can just go to bed.

...

But I'd rather post something since I haven't in absolutely forever.

I have a couple different jobs, both money-making and otherwise. I paint house interiors with my Dad, I write things for a Biblical Museum just starting up in the area, and I teach my brothers history.

The writing is basically paid education- I just don't get to pick my major. Right I am researching and composing overviews of the various archaeological periods. Sound dry and boring? Well it is!!!! :-) Words like Neolithic, Chalcolithic, and Palaeolithic hardly penetrate to my retina, let alone travel to my brain, they are so boring.

But now I get to know all about them and I'm really happy about it. Interesting things really did happen way back then.

For example, there is this really cool cave in the Judean desert, about 12 km from Ein Gedi. It is part of a series of caves along a wadi. Recently it was explored and found to have been inhabited like 3,500 years before Christ. It wasn't somebody's permanent home but more likely the temporary hole-up for shepherds. Skeletons found inside weren't even native- they were from people all the way up in Mesopotamia (think Tigris and Euphrates, the Garden of Eden, and what in the world did find so attractive in the Judean Desert?).

Anyway, weirdos from Eden aside, they explored further in the cave and discovered a reed mat (nice dry air to keep it preserved) stuffed in a crack at the back of the cave. Inside were over 400 things made out of copper or bronze! There were things that looked like crowns and things that looked like mace heads and things that looked like poles that you would hang flags on.

But here is the cool thing- nobody really knows what they are! I think "they" just put their scholarly heads together and mutter things about religious rites, and symbolism, and blah, blah, blah.

Probably if they don't know what it is, they just say it must have been part of some ancient agricultural religious ceremony, or that the figurine in question must really be a representation of the goddess of war. Maybe it was just some kid making a clay doll of what their mom looked like when she yelled at them. :-)

Off topic. Back to dusty reed mat in stinky Judean cave.

Who wraps 400 bronze objects up in their bathroom rug and stuffs them in the back of a cave and leaves them there for 5,000 years? Just think- that cave hasn't been entered by any human for thousands of years!

Imagine a security camera pointed at that cave for all those years and we get to watch the videos fast-fowarded.....

First we see bats fly in and out. The wadi fills and empties, the grass is green for a split second and the rest of the time dead. Some Mesopotamian dude comes by with his nasty goats. He wanders in and out for 10 years. Then just bats for a few decades.... then wait! Pause the video... what is that?

Some dude running down the wadi? His sandals are loose and he is staggering with heat exhaustion (NEVER run about the Judean Wilderness without your water bottle!). The pack on his back clanks and rattles and must really weigh a ton. He keeps glancing behind him with a fearful eye. Suddenly he spots the caves! He climbs into the first one, hastily removes his pack, pulls out a reed mat wrapped around something (or 400 somethings), stuffs it into a crack, and runs back out. A few seconds later five evil-looking characters with iron weapons (hey, 3,500 is the beginning of the Iron Age) jog by the cave entrance.

But we don't see what happens to him because our video is aimed at the cave. Maybe they caught and killed him and the lions ate him.

Video is boring for the next 5,000 years because all we see are generations of smelly bats flying in and out with bugs.

Then the funny white guys with pith helmets show up... but we already knew that.

I mean, why would YOU hide 400 bronze objects in a cave? Especially if you didn't know what they were.

Okay, okay, I'm sure he did know. And my story is influenced by the fact that 12 km down the wadi is Ein Gedi, the site of a temple from that same period. It was destroyed and never used again. Maybe the guy was a priest running away with religious objects to protect them from the barbarians? Or maybe he was stealing them!!! and left them in a cave and lost the memo the identified the correct wadi and cave.
Maybe, umm, the Mesopotamians carried them around as bartering items and left them by accident?

Maybe we don't know what they are because it was just somebody practicing their molding techniques!

Maybe I have no idea what I'm talking about?


Okay, as you can see, I am having fun.

And no, there is nothing about drug busts in this post. That was my other job and I'll tell you tomorrow, DV.

Happy Birthday!

Hey Guys, today is Lisa's 29th Birthday.
She is spending the day tromping around the safe parts of the Old City by herself. Could you all take a moment to comment on her blog and wish her a happy birthday?
Thanks!

HP M-16s

My parents' laptop recently gave up the ghost for the third time. It has outlived two warranties, a new motherboard, and other issues. The thing has been more problem than it is worth.

Multiple phone conversations with HP seem to have worn Daddy's patience down to a fine point- evidenced by the following phone conversation overheard this evening.

Bob Adams vs. HP automated voice activated customer service recording.

"Pavilion ZD7000."
"Laptop."
"No, its a laptop."
(at this point the recording is insisting that he actually has a printer)
"LAPTOP!"
"You are INSANE!"
(the recording says, I didn't understand you, what did you say?)
"M-16."
"I HAVE ONE AIMED AT YOUR HEAD! LAPTOP! LAPTOP! LAPTOP! LAPTOP! LAPTOP!
(Mom in the background- "Bob, stop it!)
"LAPTOP! LAPTOP! LAPTOP!"

CLICK.
(he hangs up)

(to the rest of us in the room)
"I think we got off on the wrong foot."

(Daniel breaks in with this happy thought)
"Daddy, sometimes they record these calls for security reasons."

Dinner

Dinner conversation ranged far and wide tonight. We were calmly explaining to David that Daddy was not related to Mommy, and that yes, we were related to our cousins, but not people like the Murrays. I think he was struggling with the difference between blood relationship and marital relationships.

Suddenly in the middle of the discussion he said, "Do you know how you could stop an avalanche?" Always willing to leap from one conversational saddle to another we followed him. After successfully stopping avalanches and establishing various preventive measures, we touched lightly on the topic of blowtorches and the relative inflammatory nature of baking powder (or was it soda?), and swiftly passed to bigger and better things.

Would a 55 gallon drum of gasoline explode when lit, or merely burn forever?

Asked Daddy, "Well, is it closed or open?"
"Open," David answered promptly.
"It would light with a big woosh, then burn for a very long time."

So Daddy explained what would happen if you sprayed it with water, what would happen if it was closed and half full of oxygen and again we leaped a step higher.

Who lights oil wells on fire anyway? So we learned how to put out a burning oil well (place explosives all the way around and detinate them simultaneously to remove oxygen from the area). We were all very impressed until Stephen pointed out that it wouldn't work in the ocean.

"Well, there are underwater explosives."
"Nothing is going to be burning under there anyway!"
"Yeah, just oil rigs."
"And if they are on fire you can just sink them."

Moving right along we discussed the guy who was in the middle of a huge underground gas explosion and survived because he was in the center, kind of like the eye of a storm.

And the lady who got hit by lightning multiple times.

And the lady who was minding her own business sitting on her couch and got hit by a meteorite. For some reason we found this highly amusing.

And how Daddy saw a meteorite flaming across the sky while he was raking leaves with his mother and brother.

And that is the absolute truth.

From the Backseat

David to Daniel in the backseat of my car:

"Often when I am in the car I imagine I am a gyroscope."


Me too, kid.

fun with mud

Years ago, when our family first moved down here, I dug up a section of the back yard, mucked about in it, added fertilizer and eventually planted an herb garden. Most of the plants died, but two survived. Those two grew and flourished and took over the whole garden- a sage bush and a rosemary bush. More recently the rosemary bush has been pushing the sagebush over.

A couple Sundays ago I decided to dig up the sage and move it farther away.

So David and I went out dressed in old clothes, tied up the bushes, soaked the whole area with the hose, and started digging.






Pretty soon we seemed to be getting a bit too friendly with the mud...









Then Daniel wandered by all shiny clean and innocent. So we lobbed a few lumps of mud at him. He defended himself with this:









Things continued to degenerate:











but good clean fun was had by all involved (except maybe the photographer, who kept on yelling something about not getting mud on her Sunday outfit).

Conversation over dinner cleanup

Katie is washing dishes while Daniel takes care of the food.
Katie turns around to discover Daniel mashing down the leftover rice to make more room in the container.

K. Daniel! Don't do that! That makes it nasty!
D. Well you can compress files.
K. It doesn't improve the quality.
D. If you compress a .tif file to a .jpg file it only changes the quality a little bit.
K. Rice is not the same as computer files. Besides, space over quality? We have plenty of space for it!
D. Well it cost more money to get more memory.
K. (putting the rice in the fridge) It's a temporary file, Daniel. We can alway erase it later if we need the space for something else.

I have been messing about in the Valley of the Kings, learning how to mummify someone, exploring the interior of the Great Pyramid, and otherwise soaking up Egpyt. This is what I have to say: heathen though they most certainly were, they had a gift for beauty in design and detail. I hope God had some of them design part of my mansion in heaven.

This is one of the most delightful things I have found:

compilation of various inscriptions describing the Queen Nefertiti (her husband was responsible for changing the national religion from polytheism to monothesism- a step in the right direction, I suppose. I think she lived roughly the time of the Judges);

Heiress, Great of Favour, Possessed of Charm, Exuding Happiness, Mistress of Sweetness, beloved one, soothing the king's heart in his house, soft-spoken in all, Mistress of Upper and Lower Egypt, Great King's Wife, whom he loves, Lady of the Two Lands, Nefertiti.

Suddenly she seemed like a real person.

reality

Last night I dreamed that I was at Fairwood. Mindy was there too. She was standing by the steps by the swingset. She saw me at the same time I saw her- we ran towards each other and hugged enthusiastically. Matt was behind her, smiling at her.

In the dream I felt no sense of incongruity. I had no uncomfortable feelings or remembrance of death. Mindy was there, as she should be, and I was glad to see her. That was all.

Some day, when we have been in heaven for a few minutes, I think the sense of surprise will wear off a bit. Things will be normal in a heavenly sense. I mean that it will not seem odd at all to find Mindy alive, any more than it was odd to have her around during Bible School.

She still belongs in the land of the living, just not our part of it. Some day we will see her anytime we want. Gloriously, the novelty of it will wear away to be replaced with the familiar comfort of shared memory, close and frequent contact, laughter and labour.

Guess what my friends! Mindy is alive.

the end

Tomorrow is my last day of work at Ye Ole Foode Place where I have been working for nearly a year. I have rushed up to it so fast that I am hardly excited, though definitely not sad at the prospect.

For those of you who didn't know, I am removing my person (if not all my belongings) to the South. I have no idea how long I will be down there, nor when I will return, if ever. :-) Just Kidding. And anyway, I'm not changing things like license plates or bank accounts so I guess I have to come back sometime.

As usual:
"Thou'rt come to lead me into paths I do not know;"

So:
"like dear Rebekah, with Thee I will go."

fenway

Thanks to the impetus of other people and Rachel's willingness to take over for me at the old people's home I took my first trip to Fenway a few weeks ago.

We were too late to see opening ceremonies (if they have any) or the first pitch, we had standing room tickets over the White Sox dugout, it was hot and I had dressed for cold, damp weather, I missed the one Red Sox score of the game because I was in the bathroom, I missed almost every other significant play because I was distracted, when we finally did get seats, the guy a few seats down had a repetitive and offensive vocabulary, we lost 8-1, and yet.... I had a wonderful time!

I saw somebody with a רד סוקס t-shirt! Very cool.

Did you know that Fenway was so small? I think the best moment was when we first walked through the door and up into the stands. The crowds were so loud but so small- everything was close to me and there they were- right there! I mean that guy a few feet away was Ortiz! Doesn't get much better.

Did you know that a broken bat can spin off large chunks all the way past first base? How do the infielders manage stay focused?

And the Green Monster was such an odd structure. It made it really hard to tell if a ball was going to be a home run or an out.

I really know nothing about baseball game traditions- I mean, I know about the seventh inning stretch, but what was that song everybody started singing at some other point in the game? Never heard it before. And why do so many guys feel it necessary to propose to their girlfriends on the billboard? Wait... how come the White Sox lined up to high five each other, but they didn't do it with the Red Sox?

The guys selling peanuts and hot dogs were so loud! I wonder if they have to do a voice tryout before they are hired? They were also pretty clever about getting food to people down the line. Some guy ordered a hot dog and the vedor threw it to him- someone caught the outer wrap, the next person got the bun, and the third person got the hot dog. Okay, maybe it was just two people- one with the wrap and one with the hot dog, but it sounded better with three.

I think I'm glad we lost the game. If it had been a particularly exciting one, I still would have been to completely distracted by the people, the place, the noises, the wave and the people batting beach balls around to have gotten much out of it.

fascinating.

Anybody want to go with me again?

<

I went to Fenway.

<

Going Back III- More Firsts

Okay, so reallllllly quick because this was so far back I have almost lost interest:

We went to Six Flags!!! 14 of us all together! What fun we had. Well, fun in a manner of speaking. It was my first encounter with roller coasters and not really a case of love at first sight.

I went on some wooden thing called the Thunderbolt. It wasn't very big but it was pretty much the scariest thing I have done in a LONG TIME. It jerked around and shook and lifted off the tracks and seemed on the verge of sailing into the wild blue yonder around every corner. I nearly cried when I got off. Really.

But being a masochist I tried another. I also decided I was either going to follow everybody else around all day watching them have fun, or I was going to keep on trying. Maybe continued exposure would make me inured to the terror?

I tried Flashback next. It had the advantage of being all metal and not prone to scary creakings and groanings and gnashing of teeth. I hated that one too. In fact, I don't think I had my eyes open for more than a split second.

After that we tried a water ride or two, relaxed, ate food, etc. The fun thing was that we actually managed to stay together for most of the time. 14 can be an unwieldy number but everybody was relaxed and had similar interests.

Third time is the charm, right? So I decided to try the second biggest ride in the park- Batman. I think I might adopt him as my new favorite superhero or something. I loved it! Sitting in the seat before the ride started I came very close to climbing out the other side. But I procrastinated and then it was tooooo late. :-)
I rode Batman twice. The first time I had my eyes closed most of the time- in the pictures they took I looked pretty funny- all scrunched up with my eyes screwed shut and a death grip on the bars. The second time I had my eyes open most of the time and smiled at the camera!

I think I might actually like rollercosters.

But not Superman. Kimberly and I stood on the deck, waving soggy hankerchiefs at our departing troops as they ascended the slope of Superman. We even prayed. And one sight of Davy stepping onto dry land shaking like he'd drunk three cases of Red Bull was enough to convince me that shunning Superman was the best decision of my life.


So that was all good. Then I went to Georgia with Andrea the next day. We bounced from traffic jam to traffic jam all down the east coast, eating yummy food, reading out loud, and taking boring and random footage of the journey on her sister's video camera.

2nd first.... wait, this deserves a new blog with a title all its own.

Going Back II- Sailing

I went sailing for the first time in my life!!! If I had a 30 by 30 list (which I don't) sailing would have been near the top.

My only experience with wind-powered boat travel was on the Lake several years ago. Mr. E.S.'s hair-brained shceme was to sail across the Lake using three canoes a, tarp, several stout poles, and a bike. He raised enough interest and we set off- Anna, Bria, Aaron, Ethan, Kim & George, Mr. E.S., myself, and possibly someone else I'm forgetting.

We lashed the three canoes together with the stout poles, put the bike in the middle canoe so that Ethan could ride back around the lake to get the van (our steering mechanism was too primative to think about tacking back), and arranged ourselves according to weight and skills. We must have paddled out a little way before raising our sail. For sail read Anna and I and the tarp. Yep, I was the mast. We stood up in each in the bow of the outside canoes and raised the tarp. It flapped about, caught the wind and filled to a beautiful taut roundeness and pulled us forward. We braced against it and our trimarinne shot forward, skimming across the lake at incredible speeds (cough, cough). I was enchanted!

At the other side we lowered the tarp and leaped over the side to enjoy a spot of swimming while Ethan biked back for the van and trailer.


Okay, so I went over to Bria's house a couple weekends ago for our first annual Shakespeare weekend, another story all to itself. But that got interruped when her father told us he was planning on going out the next day on his thirty-foot sailboat. Would we like to go? Would we ever! We dumped Shakespeare like a ton of bricks.

The sun was out, the wind was perfect, the boat was lovely. The sky was a gorgeous blue with little fluffy clouds. The sun was deliciously hot and the breeze refreshing. Since have I no practical knowledge of sailing (aside from knowing how to be a mast) and there were several other much more competent individuals aboard, my only responsiblity for the next several hours was just to keep from falling off the boat. :-)

I did actually steer for a few minutes while we were still under motor power coming out of the harbor. It was an interesting experience- nothing like steering a car because the whole boat is in front instead of behind. It had a delayed response to any turn of the helm, and was affected by outside forces in ways a car is not. Weird.

After my two minutes of activity at the helm I moved on to several hours of inactivity. We sat about the deck talking or being quiet as we felt lead, dangling our feet over the edge to feel the cool spray, learning to avoid the beam, eating snickers and granola bars, avoiding Cheech's crumbs, watching the waves, the coast, the clouds, the sails, dozing or just sitting. I wasn't scared at all, and I only felt slightly nauseous when I went below.

My cell phone was out of hearing, it was the Sabbath, and all obligations and worries were beyond my control. I wish the day could have gone on for a week at least.

I know that sailing can be pretty miserable in adverse weather or winds, but 100% of my sailing experience has been 100% positive. Pretty good, eh? I suppose I should stop while I'm ahead. I suppose the odds of ever having such a wonderful time again get worse with every sailing trip I take. :-)

Anyway, here are my words for sailing: peace, joy, beauty, intensity, light, grace, heat, cool, speed, movement, silence, stillness, timelessness, decadence, bliss, perfection, solitude, wonder, companionship.

Well-rounded

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.

Specialization is for insects.

-Lazarus Long

Food for thought and one more picture for the road

This quote may seem random in the extreme, but it isn't- really! I have recently been rooting about in the topic of classical education. I've aquired a few new books and some new ideas. Rachel and I have even embarked on a project for the improvement of our minds with the aid of a book titled "The Well-Educated Mind" (blessing on you, Bria!). So really this quote is one of the long-handled spoons stirring up the pot of my brain (okay, its late at night). More to come on the subject later (maybe).


"For we let our young men and women go unarmed in a day when armor was never so neccessary. By teaching them to read, we have left them at the mercy of the printed word. By the invention of the film and the radio, we have made certain that no aversion to reading shall secure them from the incessant battery of words, words, words. They do not know what the words mean; they do not know how to ward them off or blunt their edge or fling them back; they are a prey to words in their emotions instead of being the masters of them in their intellects. ... We have lost the tools of learing, and in their absence can only make a botched and piecemeal job of it."
-Dorothy L. Sayers, "The Lost Tools of Learning"

And one more picture because I love it!

Going Back I

Its been quite some time. Yep. So I'm going to go back a few weeks and work my way up through the blog-worthy events of my life.

A few weeks ago I was on my way home from taking care of the neighbor's horses. It was around seven o'clock and one of those misty mornings when the rising sun seems all the brighter or vivid for having to go through the moisture. The back road I was on suddenly became wonderful. I wished I had a camera. I don't own a camera. Sigh. I kept on driving. But wait! Rachel was in the car with me the other day, and I think she left her camera on the back seat! Sure enough, it was there, and isn't God good? I turned my car around to find the particularly lovely bit of road I had passed, parked, and leaped out. I stood in the middle of the road snapping pictures with glee. Here are some of the results:

Moving

Photoguy is moving Here

Yes I got it! (a bit blurry though)

A Buck and a Doe

Moon

Both of these pictures where taken around the same time, the one on top was taken with a slower shutter speed [I don't remember exactly what speed] but the one on the bottom was taken whith a faster shutter speed [1/320] Click on them to see them full screen.

More pix [Sorry people with dial up]

In the woods At the Holschers
Just flowers [i have no idea what kind]
Hawk in our backyard
Owl, Riverview Florida [the Demmes river house]
On the square in Mcdonough
It was 10:30 At night!

Here It Is!

For those of you who are interested in the technical Stuff of my new camera, Click Here

News Flash!

Okay everybody, I have added a new team member to my blog- my brother Daniel!

He just got a new camera (wicked cool digital thing with a big sceen and great technical features beyond my ken), and will be using my blog to show what it can do!

This is also possible because my family finally invested in DSL. They have been thinking about getting DSL for some time, but I think Lisa's new job pushed them over the edge. I am so thankful!

Cool Shots

Rabbit in the park

Pink Flower

Train In the park across the road

Maybe we should get another one of these instead of the gray vans!

Several months ago I transported the scanner up to Fairview and amused myself by sorting through Mrs. P's vast store of photo albums looking for treasures. I probably have old photos of most of you who read this blog at some stage in your lives. So, feel free to ask me to send them to you, or better yet, post them on my blog sight unseen! :-)

Jewels

Lindsay took me out to dinner Sunday evening for my birthday. She also bought me these....




Pretty impressive ain't they? I wore them to the Texas Longhorn Steakhouse. They probably thought I was visitng royalty.

The jewel came out of one of the earrings and the clasp of the other one broke. Good thing I had them insured.

Bliss

One rainy Sabbath afternoon by myself in my own little apartment.


And thanks friends for a lovely birthday celebration! Couldn't have had a nicer bunch of friends to spend it with. (I am wearing the cozy socks you gave me, Andrea)

Laughing in the Dentist's Chair

Today I went straight from work to a dentist appointment. I hate dentists. I loathe them with a bitter and deep-seated loathing surpassed only by my loathing of burnt rice at the bottom of cooking pots.

But that isn't really what I wanted to write about. I'm going to focus on the one gem of humor in the middle of my otherwise rather torturous imprisonment in the dentist's chair.

So I was sitting in the Dentist's 'Lazy Boy' (sadistic sense of humor she has) with the worthy medico fishing about in my mouth. Suddenly she said "Oh my!" and my heart sank.

"Have you been sick recently?" This question didn't do much to relieve my fears.

"Ummm, no, I haven't."

"Because your tonsil is very large!"

"Oh." What does that mean? And wait, don't I have two of them? What about the other one?

She called a friend over. Suddenly I had not one but two curious dentists peering down my throat and exclaiming over the size of my tonsils.

"Wow! I've never seen one as big as that."

"It's really huge!"

Then they haggled over who I should have look at it to make sure it wasn't wildly infected or something. Yes, but what if I just have naturally big tonsils?

Anyway, the upshot to my impromtu throat viewing is that I have to go back in two weeks when the resident oral surgeon is in residence (possibly indicated by a large flag hanging outside the building and bearing the image of two pairs of pliers rampant). He will also peer down my throat to view the phenomenon and pronounce me either dead before dinner or just the possessor of really big tonsils.

But don't come asking to see them.

Boston

For those of you interested:
I made it to Boston from RI without getting lost at all.
I also made it back from Boston to RI with only one side trip into the center of Boston for a few minutes.

You may all think of me as Katie The Girl Who Always Gets Lost. Granted I don't think I have ever made it from NH to RI without some aberration. But instead why don't you think of it as creative driving? I mean, the whole point of a trip is to get from point A to point B. I have never failed at that yet. I may add vehicular flourishes in the middle but those are the creative part! When else am I going to be able to see odd sideroads in Mass. or downtown Boston in the middle of the night?

oh yes, I also picked up Lisa.
(haven't seen her in a quite some time)

Compliments and accomplishments of dubious worth

Yesterday at work we ran into a lull in the general rush of lunchtime. Those of us making sandwiches were standing around, doing odds and ends of cleaning and amusing ourselves with rather aimless chatter. Somehow we suddenly found ourselves trying to see if we could touch our toes without bending our knees. I, being the oldest by far, should have been the least limber. Actually I was the only one able to touch my toes. I can even touch the floor. The 19-year-old and the two 18-year-olds could hardly get past their shins. How young and agile I feel! What a pointless exercise! How odd we must have looked from any customer's point of view. :-)

Today I was informed in heartfelt tones by my friend Kristen that I was the most Catholic-minded Christian she had ever met! I took it as the compliment she meant it for, but it does sound odd. I can just hear Andrea laughing...

Obligatory post

My friends tell my I most post. They say I have not posted in a long time. This would be an obvious statement. I have not posted in a long time.

Let us explore the reasons for this.


Possible reasons for Katie's lack of posts:

1. I have nothing to say.
(highly unlikely. I always have something to say. Just ask my sisters)

2. I have more important things to do.
(well, I can think of few things more important than writing on my blog. Except right now. My friends are thinking about Doing Something. I have very low expectations for what Doing Something means. Some people really mean something when they say this. Some people say let's Do Something and then go Climb Mt. Everest. Some people say let's Do Something and then organize a peacekeeping task force and send it to Rwanda. In the case of my dear friends I am pretty sure that when they say let's Do Something they mean let's go watch Nanny McPhee.

3. Maybe I am lazy.
(Naaaaa...)

4. Maybe I am waiting to write a masterpiece of a post and until I do I refuse to write anything.
(Entirely possible. I am a frustrated perfectionist after all.)

5. Maybe I am involved in some vast covert operation under the direction of Donald Rumsfeld. I may be spending my weekends flying to and from foreign destinations gathering vastly important information using only a flashlight, a Buck knife, and my keen sense of smell.
(Well, it SOUNDS good.)

Okay, for whatever reason, I don't write very often. But I am not going to end this post by promising to improve this blog by either quality or quantity.


The end.

Size is Relative

Okay, so this morning on the way back from taking care of the horses my car was attacked by a huge, scary, muscle-bound red squirrel. I'm sure it works out at the gym every day without fail.

Actually it was just a normal red squirrel, not even as big as one of those nasty grey ones. It was sitting in the middle of the Fairwood driveway coaching a baby squirrel across the road. Or maybe they were just sunbathing. Anyway, I stopped when they didn't leap out of the way.

The baby was about half the size of its mother (I assume it was its mother), with a rather pitiful bottlebrush tail. It seem to have no concept of either danger, or of obedience. The mother got pretty excited about my presence and seemed to be alternately urging her progeny on and trying to forcibly remove it. Then she abandoned the baby and ran straight at the car. She disappeared under it. I wonder if she was leaping up and trying to bite the bumper. She did that a couple times, in between encouraging her rather idiotic child on or standing with her paws around it glaring at me fiercely. Finally she picked him up by the back leg and walked off with him wrapped around her head.

Homesick

I bought Gefilte fish and horseradish sauce at the grocery store today. Now to see if it tastes as good as the stuff I had at Herb and Rachel's Passover table over a year ago.

I miss Israel so much.

The Importance of Being Kate

Embarrassing situation at work for your reading pleasure:

So the other day a lady named Meg came in to work. I knew she was someone important, but wasn't sure of her job description. She only shows up every few weeks and stays for a whole day. Turns out she is the training overseer for the area. She comes to observe us all and fine tune our procedures so we are all doing things right according to the book.

I was at a register in the bakery when she came up to me and started a conversation. It went something like this.

"Hi Kate. I'm doing position reports. I've been working on yours with Tim (GM)." She shows me the paper. "We'll look over yours together, and then I show you how I do them. I want you to understand them because I'll be having you do them in the future." (surprised silence from Kate).

Meg responds to my expression, "You are looking for promotion, aren't you?"

I am actually not sure what I said to Meg at this point. Probably something clever like, "Maybe," in a dubious tone of voice.

"We want you to be the training coordinator for the store. You won't necessarily train everybody, but you will be responsible for the paperwork and making sure that people actually get trained."

Kate's mind is racing, "Me? Umm, I haven't had much training myself! Sounds like fun, though. I'll kind of do the job that Lindsay does! I enjoy training people. But how come this random chick is telling me about this and not Tim (GM) or Brenda (shift manager)? Oh well, I'll reserve judgment until I see how the wind blows."

So throughout the day I thought about it and discussed it with my Dad during my break. After work I sat down with Meg to ask questions. We talked over the condition of the store's training, the various needs, and the upcoming training time which she wanted me to observe so that I could do future sessions. Cool. But Tim never said anything to me about it, which was still weird.

Next morning at 8 am I walked into the office. Tim turned to me and said, "So, yesterday Meg thought you were Kate F- (the new manager with MY name)."

Apparently Meg had called him the night before to report about her nice talk with Kate. She went on about it and then mentioned that I had been a bit unsure of extended hours because I was considering returning to Israel. At that point light dawned on Tim's head. He told Meg she had talked to the Wrong Kate.

Shift scene back to one awkward moment in the Wrong Kate's life. She is standing on one foot in the doorway of the office, feeling silly and rather younger than 26.

Sigh. I suppose I should have known. After all, I am a mere part-time cashier who has only worked at the store for 4 months. What was I thinking?

"Well," I replied, "that was a happy mistake! I think I really could be your man for the job. I love working with people, I love to teach new things, and I have had previous experience teaching a variety of age groups! I may be new, but I learn fast, I am detail-oriented and motivated. Please consider me, in the future, if not immediately."

Wow! Sounded pretty professional, didn't it? Alas, that is what Daddy would have said if he were in my shoes. But when it comes to salesmanship I am not my father's daughter.

This is really what happened: I did some hasty self-deprecating verbal backtracking, laughed it off, beat a hasty and sheepish retreat to my corner of the bakery, and avoided Tim for the rest of the day. Periodically I would start thinking about it and get embarrassed all over again. It was a great day.

God is GOOD!

Warning- this post is all about shopping. If you find this boring you might want to just come back another time.

So yeah, Andrea and I went shopping yesterday. She wrote about it on her blog. You might want to go there first, because I'm not going to repeat what she said.

I have never enjoyed shopping so much, or had it be so productive! The best was of course J.Jill. I have always enjoyed looking at J.Jill catalogues and imagining how nice it would be to buy things from them. I was expecting to do the same thing in the store- just a chance to windowshop. But we bought so much stuff in there! We were in the store forever, looking at the racks, carrying loads of things to the dressing room, and trying them all on. The bestest for me was a cool brown skirt (retail value $99.99) which was marked down repeatedly until it reached somewhere under $20. It fit! It looked good! I loved it! I took it to the checkout and it was another 25% off! Yep, I paid under $12 for it.

We got out of J.Jill with bags of stuff and I said to Andrea, "Now I just need to sit down somewhere and cry." Cry out of sheer happiness of course!

But we kept going! More good stuff at the next store. In fact, I think I got almost everything on the list of needs I had started out with. And you should see the funky shoes I bought for $10!

Now I can actually understand all those girls who spend hours in the mall. :-)

Seven Stanzas at Easter

I wanted to post a poem yesterday but copyright laws would have been infringed. It is such a good one! So, for any who have a moment, Google this: "Seven Stanzas at Easter" by John Updike. Come back and comment here if you actually read it, and tell me what you think.

Repeat

I am almost positve (though I am too lazy to doublecheck) that I posted this sonnet once before. But, as it is still my favorite sonnet to date, and as I was freshly inspired by Bria to post literary gems, I am posting it again.

Batter my heart, three-person'd God; for you
As yet but knock; breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
-John Donne
Holy Sonnets, XIV

Stuff

So Isaac, I found it amusing that you started using random names when you went to Panera for lunch! Yesterday I thought of a a couple that would be fun to try out:

Elvis- somebody actually gave me that name, and it was all I could do not to burst out laughing, or ask him if he was joking.

St. John- People really used to name their sons this, and pronounced it Singin kind of run together. It would be fun to see how people spelled it. :-)

Or how about Tintin! or Hezekiah! Endless possibilities.


Today contained several small pleasures, the sort of little incidents that make you thankful to be alive, and thankful to know Who to thank!

First of all, the weather was stunning! I can practically feel the bones of New England creaking with pleasure as they bask in the sun.

I drove with my shoes off and my windows down. Too bad my favorite tape is stuck in my tape deck. Otherwise I would have blasted loud classical music.

Today I got my paycheck for barn work, with and extra $10 and a note saying I was to celebrate spring. Don't mind if I do! So on my break I called Grandma and Sarah and set up an date to go to one of my favorite places- The House By the Side of the Road. Its a greenhouse for all those not in the know. It has everything from giant ferns and cacti to orchids and herbs. I LOVE it! It even has fish ponds down the center of one of the greenhouses with huge hideous goldfish swimming around lethargically in them.

I wandered about looking at all the beautiful plants and thinking about how dead they would be if I decided to bring them home. How I wish I had a green thumb.

I wanted to pick out something fairly easy to care for. I almost bought a huge fern in a hanging basket. But then I thought it would completely overwhelm my room so I didn't. Instead I came home with something that has thorns, needs fertilizer, pruning and full sun all day (which I don't have). Silly me! But it reminded my of Israel and I loved it and wanted it and that was that. It will probably be dead before dinner. Lets see if I can find out how to spell the name....

well, here is a picture: http://www.utexas.edu/rfsa/Assets/images/Copper%20Canyon/More%20Bougainvillea.jpg

Lovely, ain't it? Mine doesn't look a thing like it. Mine is small, skinny and scraggly: a close relative of Charlie Brown's Christmas tree.

Okay, I have gone on about plants long enough. Next nice thing about today:

Regulars
I love the regulars at Panera! Thankfully we have no regular whiners. I guess that makes sense; if they whine they don't come back.
So ummm, where was I?

Regulars:

1. The middle-aged guy with very short hair who strides in with a purposeful air. Without a smile or a 'Good day' he says, "One Ginger Peach Tea, double cup, two bags, to go." After I get the tea and take his money he says, "Thanks kid," and walks out. Despite this brusque behavior I never get a sense of impatience or unkindness. I like him. I like being called kid. (I hope Clyde doesn't read this blog and start calling me kid.)

2. The classy lady who likes my cappiccinos. I find that I love making espresso drinks! In fact, I get much more pleasure out of making them than I do out of drinking them. Anyway, this lady is blonde, dresses to the nines with a lovely camel-colored coat, and has a delicious English accent. She also asks for skim milk in her drink, which makes a much better head of foam than 2% milk. Now you know.

3. Roger, the retired school teacher who knows my name, and wanders about the store like he owns it. He is part of the retired couples crowd which comes in most mornings and stays half the day. They all get their own pet things from the bakery every single day, pull tables together and sit around shooting the breeze.

Roger asked me today what I thought about the Israeli election results. We talked about it for less than two minutes, a good amount of time for political discussions, and went back to our respective meals (mine was a yummy bagel with raspberry cream cheese, an almond pastry and a cheesy, eggy, pastry thingy- think of all that fat!)

Enough about regulars.

Now I am going to go out in the dark and dig the dirt out of the bird bath by our front door. It has been growing moss and wimpy pansies for years. This spring I decided to gut the thing and start over.

Bye.

Quick Reminder

Pray for a miracle tomorrow in the Israeli elections!

Golden Girl

Today (March 24th) is Rachel's Golden Birthday: twenty-four years old on the twenty-fourth of March!

I know I'm posting this on the 23rd, but it really is the 24th over there!

Happy Birthday O most wonderful of sisters!

Joy

Saturday I walked down from my apartment to the Main House. On the way I saw Jeff Aldrich (2 yrs. old) at the end of the house all by himself. He was kicking a small blue plastic watering can and laughing. He would kick it, listen to it clatter down the driveway a few inches, laugh gleefully, kick it again, and laugh again. What blissful love of life!

I bet God likes to see Jeff enjoying the sound of a plastic watering can on pavement. I bet He likes it when he sees me enjoying the beautiful everyday things He has created.

Heaven... or Hell?

Today my favorite manager, Brenda, informed me that she and Kaili (college-age girl who works morning shifts with me) had decided that I would go to heaven.
Despite this obvious opportunity to spread the gospel, I am afraid that my less than pious response was this:
"When I get to the pearly gates I just say, 'Brenda said I could come in.'" Brenda laughed.
"Come visit us!" yelled Kaili from the other end of the bakery.
"Where are you going to be?"
"Brenda and I decided that we were going to H-E-double toothpicks."
I allowed as how I didn't think that was necessarily true.
Kaili said I didn't know how wicked they had been.
She hesitated for a second, then said, "But that could all change, right?"
"Yes, it could."

Yes, Kaili, you can get to heaven, and it isn't about how many wicked things you have done, or how nice you can be to other people. It has all the world to do with how much the Crown Prince of heaven loves you, Kaili, and Brenda, and how he died to give you life that goes on forever, and a mansion in heaven as a gift of love.

pro-Bush, republican, pro-Israel

I have discovered an evil side to customer service- one has to be nice all the time. Sigh. When I am sick I think my tolerance level for stupidity, meanness and fools in general goes down about a hundred points.

The other day I some lady was just plain rude to me. She was impatient, unsmiling, and talked to me like I was stupid. One side of me quietly served her, smiled, spoke cheerfully while the other was irritated almost to the point of anger. "She has NO RIGHT to talk like that to anybody! Didn't her mother ever teach her the law of basic kindness? Doesn't she know that she isn't the only person on this globe? Good night, she needs a spanking! I sure would have gotten wupped for that!" Me and my highly developed sense of justice. Someday I'm afraid its going to get the better of me, and I'm going to get fired.

Anyway, putting the rude ones aside, there is another frustrating class of people whom I find facing me across the counter- the outspoken liberal. Some comment or other sets them off, and there they are expounding anti-Bush principles to the smiling cashier. Of course she agrees, of course she loves to hear me say ignorant things about Israeli peace, of course she can have no objection to liberal principles. Who in their right mind does?

Today a customer told me how they had known another employee for years- and had had many a cheerful political discussion with her. He was always trying to convince her how bad those horrible Republicans were. He never did convinced her. Duh.

The only thing close to as irritating is when Yankee fans come in and expect me to serve them with a smile.

Happy Valentine's Day!
I'm all cozy on the living room couch, drinking Yoplait banana yogurt and eating sesame bread. I just spilled my yougurt on the floor and down my quilt, but it has been One of Those Days and I feel philosophical about the mess. At work today I spilled one iced green tea all over the place and dropped four loaves of bread on the floor. I admit to occasionally spilling drinks, but I almost never drop bread. Some of those loaves are so expensive! On days like this I sometimes think it would be adventageous for them to just send me home; I must be losing them more in dropped breads than I am making in sales.

I have so many interesting things to tell you! But I won't write about them all tonight, and don't get excited because none of them are that exciting- just amusing anecdotes of work.


Interesting name watch:
1. Hammer
This guy had a foreign accent which I couldn't place, and which was very difficult to understand. Our conversation went like this:
"What name do you want on the order?"
"Hamma"
"What was that?"
"Hamma, like the tool."
Katie looks confused. "Could you spell that please?"
"H-a-m-m-e-r"
"Oh!" Katie looks embarrassed.
2. Clover
3. Odelia (actually one of the employees)
4. Athena
5. Tiberius

That last one was middle-aged gentleman with a well-developed sense of humor. I asked for his name, he gave it, and I was instantly curious. I asked him if he was named after Tiberius, the place. He said yes. There was a momentary pause, then he said, "For today," in an explanatory tone. I looked properly astonished. Apparently he randomly chooses a different name whenever he comes in, and today just happened to be Tiberius! Some people have all the fun.

Random observations on names and height:

How is one supposed to respond to really weird names anyway? One wants to be frank and say, "Whatever possessed your parents to name you Hammer?" Or, "For Pete's sake! Why Pepper, of all things? Was your mother fond of sneezing?" But I suppose they get inane comments all the time and are always spelling their names or explaining their origin. I think I am going to name my kids John, Chris, Jared, Lisa, Michelle, and Nichole. Nothing unfamiliar about those.

Here is another group of people who excite my desire to say stupid things: really tall men. Every once in awhile some gentleman of NBA proportions will come order a sandwhich from me. I am in awe of them. I feel stunned by the sheer overwhelming height of them. I suddenly feel small and insignificant. I want to take a step back, crane me neck, and say, "Wow! You are really tall!" Now isn't that brilliant?
It isn't as if I don't know any tall men. But I guess I'm not as aware of the height difference if I know them well, and I really don't know any 7-footers. Once in Israel I stood in line behind a family of Dutch Afrikaaners. The father, the mother, and the two teenage boys were all well over six feet tall. Behind them I felt dwarfed in a way I rarely experience. I loved it! I had gotten used to feeling large in a sea of Middle Eastern smallness. I think I'll move to South Africa.


Have you every heard of singing valentines? Early afternoon, when things were fairly quiet in the restaurant, I suddenly heard a humming, and somebody said, "They are going to sing!" I looked up to see six men in a semi-circle by one of the other registers. Somebody found the pitch, and suddenly they were singing "My Wild Irish Rose" barbershop quartet style. What a delightful surprise! Everybody gathered round to listen and clap. They sounded so good! One of them explained to me what they were. Apparently you can hire them to come sing to your true love ( for a fee) as a valentine. They had around 176 appointments today!

Okay, goodnight to you all. Must needs get up sooner than I want.

(feel free to tell me if there are any gross grammatical or spelling errors in this. I am too tired to go back over it.)

More paint

Last night I dreamed that I was married to a middle-aged polygamist who looked exactly like Agatha Christie's Poirot. In the dream I also had just had thirteen boys- at once. And you though septuplets was bad.

Maybe I should have realized this morning that after a dream like that my day could hardly be normal.

After church was all set to charge right into my latest amusement- getting my room ready to paint. At the rate I am going I'll be prepping til doomsday with nary a drop of paint to show for it!

Megan came up to help me and we merrily banged in nail pops, filled dings and holes, sanded bumps, and washed walls. The number of things I have to do before I actually get to the walls keeps growing: I need to finish prep, sand and paint the ceiling, sand the woodwork (of which there is a considerable amount), prime woodwork, and tape things up. One whole wall of the room is actually wood doors to my closet. I took down all of them and was working on sanding down the varnish on the framework when the real excitement began.

Sanding the frame had the funniest side affect- things on the upper shelves would vibrate to the edge and fall off. A small can of paint hit me on the shoulder, and a little while later a aerosol can of static stopper hit me right on the head. That was mildly amusing (and painful), but I was blissfully unaware of darker evil lurking above, just waiting to be vibrated off....

I had just sent Megan down to the Main House for more dropcloths and was on a stepstool continuing to sand the framework, my head safely above the danger of falling objects, when I heard a thump. I looked down at the floor to see what else had fallen and roared in complete horror. A quart can of brick-red paint lay on its side on the carpet with the lid off!

Now most of you probably don't keep random quarts of paint in your clothes closet, but I do. I had bought it on sale at Home Depot, and was hoarding it until the right surface came along. THIS WAS NOT IT!!!!

There, in the middle of my tan carpet was a spreading, oozing pool of very red paint. Disaster of the first magnitude! Pain! Agony! Frustration! This kind of thing is not supposed to happen! I leaped down, grabbed the nearest receptacle- a purple mop bucket- grabbed the paint can and dumped it in. Then I found a putty knife and started scooping, using the knife and my hand. Ridiculous! Nothing comes out of carpets. I ran to the intercom to call the kitchen of the Main House, told Sarah to tell Megan to grab rags and GET UP HERE RIGHT NOW!!!! I was feverishly scooping paint when she arrived.

She called Dad on the cellphone for advice, while I continued to roar (and pray) in the background. Suddenly from the other side of the closed door Grandma asked, "Are there people dying in there?" Silence. "No Grandma," I answered, "Not many people, just a couple." That satisfied her for the moment. Megan got me a bowl of soapy water and ran down to the garage for the shop vac.

The place looked like a particularly dramatic scene from ER, with instruments scattered about, and blood everywhere.

I kept playing with the paint- pouring on soapy water to keep it all wet and trying unsuccessfully to transfer it to the bucket with my hands. At one point while I was waiting for Megan to return I had one of those brilliant moments of inspiration which come to me under stress. The end of an extension cord had gotten into the paint. I grabbed it with my painty, soapy wet hands and used them to clean out the holes. Of course it was plugged in, and of course I got zapped. I put it down.

Megan returned with the shop vac. While she continued to dump water on the spot, I sucked it up with the hose, and the shop vac spat it out onto the wall. We abandoned the shop vac in favor of wailing to Gerry for help. At this point I could no longer hide the situation from Grandma. Thankfully she didn't hit the roof (she rarely does). In fact she had the brilliant idea of using her rug shampoo machine.

Megan left for dinner, Gerry went to look up advice for the situation on the internet, and I started vacuuming. Dump water on rug, scrape rug with putty knife, suck up water with vacuum, pull out water container and dump in toilet, fill bowl with water, dump on carpet, scrape, vacuum, dump, fill, dump, scrape, vacuum, dump.... two hours later the water was still coming up painty and the carpet stubbornly blushed a pale pink.

Fine, I like pink carpet.


Points on removing paint from carpet

1. DO NOT let it dry!
2. Get as much of it up as you can before you start dumping on water. Try blotting it with rags.
3. When you do start dumping on water, pour it around the edge of the spill, then use something to scrape it in toward the center. I didn't do this to start with, and the result was a six-inch spill spreading over three feet of carpet.
4. Rug shampoo machines work great! We have one, so let us know if you ever plan to dump paint on your carpet. We would be more than happy to lend it to you.
5. Putty knives are a great tool for scrapping water around and encouraging the paint up.
6. 1/2 quart of paint can discolor a large section of carpet, and tint endless gallons of water.
7. No carpet is worth bursting a blood vessel over.

Interestingly enough, I think the bigger the physical catastrophe, the more relaxed I become. It is so clearly beyond me to fix, that I find it easy to turn it over to God. There are few more permanent combinations than dark paint and a light carpet, and I felt so helpless as I started to scrape it up. BUT there is something almost refreshing about a mistake of this magnitude- I really cannot go back in time to change this, nor can I be sure that the end results are going to be perfect. I will now do my best to fix the problem, but the results are ultimately up to God. It was funny how cheerful I felt during those two hours. When Grandma came in to sympathize my response was,

"You know what? God is good!" What is one old carpet and two hours extra work compared with his goodness and love and care of me?

Now I am going to sleep, and pray I do not have any more weird dreams.

Russia

Last night I watched the movie K-19 The Widowmaker. I enjoyed the movie as entertainment, but was more detached than I usually am when watching intense movies. Which was a good thing because when people are drowning, burning, or sloshing around in the malfunctioned nuclear reactor plants of submarines it is better not to be too involved emotionally. But that isn't really the point of this post. What I really want to say is that

I really have a hard time understanding why God created Russia.

I know, I know; that is pretty harsh. But I'm not saying that there isn't a good reason, I'm just saying that I am having a hard time identifying it. I guess watching that movie helped me suddenly focus on how negative I was about Russia.

Here's why:

In my mind Russia has gotten the short end of the stick in a number of ways. Russia has pretty much the worst weather of any country in the world. Russia has one the stinkiest governments ever. Russia seems to be spiritually depressed all the time. Russia is one of the ugliest places ever.

All of my mental images of Russia involve snow, grey skies, barren wastelands, and subzero temperatures. How's this for an incongruous sentence: "Sunny Russia, favored holiday destination for millions, is basking in yet another glorious summer day- bright sunshine, blue skies, and balmy temperatures will continue all through this week and well into the next." I bet they don't even have a word for summer in Russian.

Of course, I don't equate good weather solely with warmth; I do appreciate crisp, clear winter days, and even English foggy days have their appeal. But Russia seems to have this perpetual grey, dingy look, as if all the buildings had been built poorly 20 years ago, with only economy in mind, all the natives dressed in shades of brown and grey, and the sky had that sort of heavy feel and color to it which comes from smog.

Russia means gulag, Crime and Punishment, communism, fruitless, endless, mindless suffering, vast emptiness, slavery, faceless masses of people with no personal identity, dishonest politics, mass deception, tortured history, uncertain future, mind and body-numbing temperatures and basically everything bad I can think of.

In conclusion I'll add that Russia is absolutely the last place on earth I would ever voluntarily visit or live in. Bar none (except possibly Amsterdam).

Having said all that, I would sure love some balancing opinions. Do any of you have anything good to say about Russia? I would LOVE to hear anything good! I don't really want to think so negatively about the place, but I can't help it. I think I have watched too many movies. :-)

I think I might do some research on my own. Surely lots of good things have happened there. Maybe there are some spiritual giants who originated in Russia. Of course there is Russian literature (even there, I can't really think of any happy books written by Russians), and Russian music...

paint

My room has been taken over by wallpaper. It hangs about the room in damp, curling strips, occupies the recliner, armrests and all, it wanders across my bed, clings to my clothes, sticks to the bottoms of my feet, lies in drifts againsts the walls, and follows me out the door. I hate gunky wallpaper stuck to my socks.

But, once I have it all banished from the walls I shall be so much happier! The wallpaper really wasn't particularly garish or offensive, but I never liked it. I put up with it all through my stay in the same room (under Mrs. Sweet's occupation) and survived. This time I decided that it was me or the wallpaper. Right now the wallpaper is winning, and I am sleeping on the couch. :-)

Monday I visitied most of the paint shops in town, comparing prices and collecting lovely little paint samples to bring home. I had so much fun wandering around Fairwood subjecting other people to viewings and soliciting opinions. I must have come home with over thirty different color choices. Most of them are shades of green, pumpkin, gold, or maroon, with a couple gray and true orange thrown in. Not a blue among them! I may even decide to paint the room two different colors, if I can't narrow it down to just one. Oh the joy of endless possibilities and nobody to say me nay! What fun to be able to paint it anything I want, even if I hate it afterwards! :-)

You shall all have to view the results when I am done. I may even borrow a camera and post a picture. I bet you are all thrilled and can hardly wait.

Beauty in the Unexpected

Here is a link you really need to check out. It's an advertisement I actually discovered via somebody else's blog and I loved it! Melissa, I thought of you especially. If possible do the extended version of it, but you really need wireless. It took forever to download even with Gerry's highspeed connection.


www.bravia-advert.com

How come I can't get this to publish as an actual link?

Cookies!

We are having a cookie selling contest among the cashiers at work! I am ahead, but feel free any of you to drop in and increase my lead! Just make sure you get in my line so I can get credit for selling it to you.

I am also going to start keeping track of the odd names people have. Here are my first two:

Kully (guy)
Pepper (girl)

The "E"s

Meet Emma and Evelina- the two girls from Sweden who spent Christmas with us. What fun we had! They had been sight-seeing all down the East Coast, so when they arrived at our house they were all ready for some quiet days. Neither of them had ever been away from home for Christmas, so staying with a real family was ideal.

We spent ages sitting around talking, laughing, discussing languages, discussing cultural differences, and generally enjoying each other. They had never eaten turkey before except in deli form, so out grand bird was a big attraction. I think they even took pictures of it! They had fun adding new words to their already excellent English vocabulary (such as pine needles) and we learned tiny bits of Swedish. Did you know that the name Thorpe is the Swedish word for a certain type of house in the woods? Or that the Swedish word for knife is knive?

I had previously decided that Swedish was an unexpectedly beautiful language and was glad to be exposed to it again. The two of them chattered away with each other in Swedish, leaving us clueless but amused. The funniest was when their Dad called them from home. They were in the living room with us. One would be on the cell phone while the other kept up a patchy translation for our benefit. "Evelina just said that..." "Our Dad is teasing her because..."

Christmas trees are very similar in Sweden, but Christmas dinner is a different kettle of fish (quite literally). Swedish traditional Christmas meal consists of sausages, omelettes, various fish dishes, mashed potatoes, and I am forgetting the rest. Most of it was equally gross. Christmas morning they have cooked rice for breakfast. In the evening they mix the leftover rice with cream and serve it for dessert with fruit sauce. Sounds lovely, what?

Okay, enough on Swedish/American Christmases.

And the title? My family called them the "E"s before they arrived because they couldn't remember their names. It stuck even after they arrived. :-)

Observations on my life that have little or no import

1. One of my (managers) has the dubious distinction of being named John Brown. I find this highly distressing because every time someone uses both of his names my mind instantly supplies this phrase: "John Brown's body lies a molderin' in the grave."

2. Pet peeve- turning signal blinkers that blink twice as fast as normal ones. One feels like the car has ADHD or is high on caffeine.

3. The wind patterns across the rear window of my car are fascinating. As I was driving home from work today I noticed them because tiny, wet chunks of snow kept sliding down from the roof and getting trapped on the glass. They would track aimless but rather graceful patterns across the glass, chased by small eddies of wind. Good thing I didn't get into an accident while I was watching them in my rearview mirror.

4. Snow costs money. People have to get paid to plow, people have to fix their cars after they crash because of snow, and in the restaurant business one loses money because you staff the whole place waiting for customers who never show up because of the snow. This restaurant worker was bored all day long because nobody came in. There are only so many things you can do to keep busy if you have to stay by your register. I wiped counters, straightened stacks of paper bags, and restocked pastries repeatedly. Then I was left to contemplate the dust bunnies near the ceiling and talk to the other clerk (who doesn't have the gift of the gab). Thankfully they let me out a half-hour early.

5. I want to read Ann Coulter's book, How to Talk to Liberals (If you Must). The second-hand bookstore down the road has it. I know, because I have seen it on the shelf the last three times I have gone in their. Alas, I haven't the guts to buy it because the title makes me nervous. I don't want to get into a political discussion with the bookshop owner. I also don't want him to get the impression that I think all Liberals (including himself... wait, I don't even know if he is or not) are so foreign, and so illogical, that I need Ann Coulter to tell me how to communicate with them. Maybe he will be offended. How is that for wimpy?

6. Actually, I also don't buy it because I think Andrea has it, and I could always borrow it from her if I really thought I would actually read it.

7. The End.