Oddity #7 A Tragic Day at the Track

It was the big race. Everyone came from miles around and camped beside the track. Bike and scooter companies provided water to the competitors and boosted morale to a fever pitch. Loud music couldn't drown the cheering of the crowd. Suddenly tragedy struck: A bike and scooter collided. The dreadful impact caused them to fly into the stands and hit a fan!





Detective Wuggins first Case

Rhyming Quandary in a Limerick

An elderly fellow named James
Complained, upon seeing the Thames,
I can't understand
All the guides in this land
They certainly can't pronounce names!

He Felt Cold

He felt cold.
The first strange thing…
And he shivered like a God had never done.
He felt hunger from the journey
Such an unfamiliar weakness
Something wanting
Something needed
And—as feelings go—another unknown one.
He felt rigid pain, swaddled cramping.
Heard the sounds of sobs and shouting,
He saw those too poor to matter as they gathered mute and awed
And the smell of field and fold knelt around his newborn soul
As they worshiped him and wondered how a baby could be God.
No one interfered to hinder their first uncertain touch:
“He’s a human! and so fragile!”
“He's a human--one of us!”
“Why would God trade endless splendor for a vapor and decay?”

He felt cold.
It was morning.
Another first—a very early, cold and hungry Christmas Day.







I wrote this very early Monday morning--December 21, 2009...and adapted it for the
Three Word Wednesday Prompt-Rigid, Journey, Hinder I posted it here, because I wanted it to be up for Christmas Day.

Those Old Sycamore Trees

Lining the street in front of my house, casting long evening shadows and shielding us from the wrath of the western sun, stand four huge sycamore trees. They are beautiful and shelter doves and all that stuff...but oh my goodness they are a mess.

In the fall: they drop huge leaves, enough to fill about fifty large garbage bags.

In the winter: sticks come crashing down all over the driveway every time we have the
tiniest little ice storm. (this is probably where the nursery rhyme comes from: "five six, pick up sticks" but the next line of the rhyme is not about sycamore branches because you could never lay them straight.)

In the spring: they drop golf-ball-like green bombs that litter the driveway and get squished by the traffic, grinding them into the gravel.

In the summer: the green bombs burst into a carpet of yellow, baby-chicken-like, fluffy seeds which blow in the wind and fill every cranny, including between roots of trees, behind gutter spouts, and in the middle of the iris bed. These then sprout into a new crop of trees, which have to be snipped off with pruning sheers...or ignored and eventually cut away with a chain saw before they grow into the air-conditioner. They also make a soft bed for the poison ivy leaves which come flying in from the creek, land on the fluff, cuddle down, and decide to stay and attack the shins of some hapless, lawn-mowing victim.

Wait, there's more: I know I'm out of seasons, but the trees are not out of mess-producing functions. They bark. Like Hank the Cowdog. No, like four Hank the Cowdogs barking up the sun.

Who knows what triggers them. There seems to be no reason for it: the trash man goes by, they shed large sheets of bark on the ground behind him; a kid whizzes by on a bicycle, they shiver and drop more bark. It rains. They shed. The wind blows. They shed. They see a newly-mown lawn. They shed with wild abandon and laugh in naked white glee.

Sometimes I wish God had never dreamed them up.
But then...
What would that wee little Zacchaeus have done?

Three Peas in a Pod

Well...not exactly.

I really wasn't prepared to have children so strikingly different.

The oldest, Carina, stepped promptly into a management role at three, telling me what to do, and making sure I had remembered everything. Always an early riser, when she reached the very responsible age of five, she got up at six thirty, fixed herself a bowl of cereal, packed her books and her lunch, then woke me up to take her to kindergarten. When she was in the third grade, I went back to work. Since I drove a school van, and left early, I hired her to wake up, dress, and feed her little brother and sister so they would be ready to take to day care when Turtle got home from his night shift at the hospital. She took to the task with great competence, and has been helping me organize their lives ever since. She married a responsible man and now has her own children to manage, but we remain close, talking on the phone and solving the world's crises one at a time.

Daughter number two, Claye, is a plodder. (We called her turtle as a very young child; some families name children after their fathers and ours is no exception.) All her life she has struggled with writing and math and excelled at reading comprehension and visual memory, a mystery to the analysts of such things. She deplores swarms of people and socializing, having to be encouraged to attend even the most important of events. She'd rather sit up all night in a fourth floor studio at the old art building on campus, working on a sculpture, than call somebody on the phone and chat for ten minutes. She takes an inordinate amount of time to decide what to do. Once she decides, however, she perseveres with unusual patience. This persistent, moving-along slowly-with-her nose-toward-the-goal helped her graduate from college--with honors--to the amazement of all the hares-like her brother, for instance.

Elijah jumps from one grandiose plan to another, showing tremendous ability but no organization. Every deadline has to stretch to accommodate his careening into it at the last possible moment, doing a flourishing dance, and handing in the masterpiece to the drama of a four part jazz ensemble background. He rushes onto every stage of life in time for the finale, and usually manages to pull it off ten seconds before the absolutely last call. Of course when he gets back out to his car, he discovers that he's locked his keys in it and has to call his mom, dad, or one of his sisters to bring him another key.



Here's a picture of them all--including my daughter's husband--taken about five years ago. I would post a recent one, but I think I don't have one. If Carina were here she would tell me to set up an appointment for family pictures immediately. Claye would shrug and say, "What does it matter? It's the same people." and Elijah would write a melancholy ballad about the passing of time and how we are all mortal before he dashed off, fifteen minutes late for one practice or another.

I Just Don't Know Yet

I did walk by the alley again. The hole is nicely covered--level, no grass 0n it, just red dirt. The wood is still stacked beside it. I wondered though, maybe it never was a hole in the ground. Maybe the shadow cast by the noonday sun and the roof of the shed deceived me into thinking wet dirt and depth. My husband thinks I should forget it; it's a bunch of overactive imagination and too many detective books. And I could do that...if I only saw the wife, happily knitting or something. Still, I don't really want to walk over with a plate of cookies. It would look too suspicious. See, in the seven years I've lived here, I've only seen her twice. Once, sitting on the front porch in a rocker(I waved; she didn't) and once, standing in the driveway with lots of family members all around--a reunion or something. The husband is friendlier though. He and Turtle have chatted a few times, chiefly about his backyard building projects--a shop, complete with a little office, a nice cement driveway, and the shed. Also, Turtle bought a chipper, shredder from him at our last town-wide garage sale. He couldn't possibly be the kind to do mischief. Why, he even mows the back hill of our lawn occasionally--getting carried away after he mows his. I think I'll just have to wait until I catch a glimpse of his wife again. Then I'll feel relieved...but I probably won't stop reading those mysteries.

There is one thing though. When I drove down the street today, I looked toward that house into the narrow space between his house and his other neighbor's garage. What is he digging there? Sewer drainage leak? New basement sump pump system?Place to put a nosy neighbor?

The 200th Post

I've been blogging just over a year, and today I noticed that this would be the 200th post.
Well, since this is a milestone, I should have something dramatic to say.
Something witty.
Something apropos.

Well, this is the only thing that comes to my mind: "I can't believe I have actually written this much stuff--silly and serious; well-thought out and spontaneous; lyrical and stilted; meaningful and trivial; for a broad audience and for a narrow one (sometimes only for myself and it would have better been left in my mind and not on the internet blackboard for the world to read).

I tried to archive the whole blog, so I wouldn't lose it in a crash, and it proved difficult.
Just imagine if all the conversations we had were archived like this...in their entirety, no corrections or "I thought better's".
What a silly mess for God to sort through...that's what I say.

"Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, Oh Lord, my Strength and my Redeemer!"

Invasion of the Philistines

It's happened. Other people have decided to exercise too. That in itself isn’t so tragic, I guess. I mean, this is America where everyone has the right to eat too much, get overly fat, whine about it and finally drag their bodies to a place where there are mirrors all around to push one onto the torture machines of exercise. They have the right to exercise. Granted. They could have all gone to any number of health clubs and gyms in this area—bustling rings of activity with trainers and other loud, chatty, sweaty patrons.

They could have, but no. They chose to invade mine-- Aargh!--my quiet little exercise room on the village square. Why? It's only one long room, with windows on the square, antiquated, fuddy-duddy. There is even a mural on the wall overlooking the heavy-duty weight lifting area where the boys acquire buffness. It’s a serene painting of an English garden tea party—all greens and flowers and staid and soothing. It’s not at all suited for their type of exercise. Surely they could have gone somewhere else! But no.

I walk into my normally quiet gym, looking forward to forty-five minutes of Mendelssohn and a good book, and what do I see? Two ambitious middle-aged ladies punching away at their impending senior status with teen-age-like angst. They are running on my treadmill, pounding at 3.5 miles an hour. The radio is blaring some sort of rock/hip/rap mumbled screams and--worse--the big screen television is on at the same time. News. Advertisements. Propaganda. Can't tell which is which. In a few minutes a man walks in. Imagine. Four people. At once. I'm overwhelmed. In a state of shock, jerking inwardly as I'm slammed by the beats of the blaring radio, I numbly finish my routine on the exercise machines and stumble over to my treadmill to see if there is any tread left. Alas. Both machines are still busy being abused and talked all over by the commandos. I try the gazelle-looking machine instead. Up, down, up, down as I try to walk. It feels like I'm riding on a camel. Reading is impossible. They are jabbering—loudly so they can hear each other over the media din--about how quiet it was when they got here and how they couldn’t exercise without some noise. After ten minutes, I give up and flee the gym in utter frustration.

Today I'm going to be the first there--right after school. I'll fly. Just you wait. When they come in I'll have the CD blaring Hebrides! Ha ha! Take that, you Philistines!

Escape Into No Man's Land.

The angel leads the way
dividing the darkness
with his light sword

Then a weary man walking, and
a donkey bearing a wife worrying,
holding gently her mortal baby boy

The very one who once lit stars
and commanded angels to sing.

Now he nods quietly in the darkness
as the angel leads them on
away from a sobbing Bethlehem


The picture is from Kevin Ryan's website.

Mad Kane's Humor Blog

In times like these...stock market going wild, people scurrying around with question marks on their faces...well you can't be serious every minute, or your body will explode with ulcers. I stumbled upon this site once where a retired lawyer invites people to write limericks and haiku. Today her topic was : Dentists, so I slogged out a verse reminding me of a particular dental disaster I endured about three years ago, when a dentist pulled out a tooth without ex-raying first and ended up fracturing my jaw and creating a hole through to my sinus cavity. Needless to say, I switched dentists, but on cold days my face still hurts from the trauma. Anyway, what do you do? Laugh about it. Here is my limerick... and the haiku.

At first I considered my cavity
A disaster of no special gravity
But the dentist—Forsooth--
Wrenched out the whole tooth.
In an instant of mental depravity

“Million dollar smile!”
“Puts money where your mouth is”
Disproportionate.

The Power of Three Little Words!

Well, it turned out to be a good day after all. We had a little trouble getting the tank here, and some not-too-bright, un-named sponsor tried to switch spots and set it up next to the seniors...before the school insurance agent pointed out that if a softball hit one of the plate glass windows behind us, we would lose all our profits...for the next twenty years. So I ordered it back to the original spot, blocking the alley--since a barbecue wagon had taken up our marked spot as well as theirs. Fortunately nobody needed to use that alley anyway. We had no dignitaries to sit for us...not even youth pastors...who stayed away in droves today. Nope. Mainly, we had little brothers of juniors. Only one of my juniors was brave enough to splash in herself. After she left, and the later shift began, the three girls who were manning the booth refused to sit there. One of them had a brother who volunteered...then his little friends volunteered. We actually made more money than I thought we would...of course I thought we wouldn't make any at all and would have to chalk this one up to experience. So how did I avoid being railroaded into sitting on the tank. My three little words:
Sure, after you!

Determination

Let me tell you a story about Turtle's grandmother. One day when she was 87 years old her daughter Gladys walked into the house and found her standing on the kitchen cabinet painting the ceiling.
"Mom," she scolded in concern, "Why are you up there? You know the doctor has told you over and over, no climbing!"
"I didn't climb," answered her mother, " I just took three little steps...stepped onto a stool, stepped onto a chair, and stepped onto the cabinet."
"Well, you are just stepping down. You know you might fall and end up in the hospital."
Gladys helped her down and made her promise that she wouldn't stand on anything off the ground in return for the assurance that she would get someone to come over that week and finish the ceiling. Things got a little slow for grandma that week, however, and when Gladys arrived with the promised help, they found the kitchen ceiling all finished.
"You promised you wouldn't climb," said Agnes.
"Oh I didn't. You needn't worry about me like that."
"So how did the ceiling get painted?"
"I just tied a paint brush onto the end of my broom."
Turtle comes from stubborn stock.


I was reminded of all this yesterday while painting eaves at the cabin. Little by little I'm getting the outside finished...but it makes me feel like I'm 87, well maybe not. Hey. I got three more little wall sections done and it's looking gorgeous, but I had to take some time out to mow so I didn't get it all cut in. Maybe next time.

New Energy Bursts from the Smoldering Ashes

Somewhere...

even in the midst of this crazy year, I've discovered new energy in teaching my Christian Studies IV class. That class always takes preparation, but after ten years of teaching it, I could ease up a little and rest on what I already know; not this year though. More than ever, I'm finding myself preparing hours for that class and excited about teaching it.

Why?

Well I believe I've self-analyzed it down to one thing: This summer, a month before school started, I received a letter from one of the students who was going to be in the class. She said: "I'm so looking forward to being in CS IV next year." On enrollment day, another couple of seniors came up to me and said the same thing: "We can't wait for your Bible Class."

You do see, don't you? How could I do less than my best?

I think that's what every teacher needs. Maybe other people too.
Hmm. I'll have to think about that one.
Hopefully, I'm not too old to learn a lesson.

Sunday Scribblings

Scary Words for Non-computer Nerds

Update! Do I Have To?

There are two terms that bring trepidation to my computing soul: power surge and new updates.

Our power isn't the most reliable here in the heart of Oklahoma; occasionally--most often during a high wind or winter ice storm--the electricity will fail. On rare occasions it will decide with its dying breath to seize my modem and drag it along to the grave for company. New modems aren't something I like to pick up with the groceries. They cost money and they may or may not work when you first install them. That's frustrating because you can't go online for the fix when the line is what's broken. Arrghh! However, when they do work, they work well. You see the three green lights all solidly on, and you experience the peace of a junkie waiting for the euphoria...well maybe that's carrying it a bit far, but you know what I mean.

The other problem isn't so simple: new updates. Now I realize that these should be met with wonder and glee: "Wow! What has Firefox come up with now? I can't wait to see!" "Oh, look at this: Google Earth has added a dimension; now we will be able to explore the seventh planet from the sun, if it is still a planet," but in my experience it's as risky as taking a random bottle from the medicine cabinet: "Oh wow, these little red pills look good for today, so round and harmless!" At least the manufacturers of those pills put all the "may cause" warnings: May cause violent stomach cramps and that other word that's hard to spell and harder to live through. The update people don't have those restrictions. And they are insistent: Everyone must be brought up to snuff. So I get tired of the messages popping up at the bottom of my screen: "You have 5 new updates ready to install". My hand hits the yes button before my mind is awake for the day...and I just lost the whole firefox option. It's gone. To gain internet access at all I have to go back to my former browser. Of course, that browser is miffed at me for having left it, so it won't remember all my passwords and proudly bring up my favorites. I lose "bloglines" and all my shortcuts and find myself having to access my blog through two other blogs...well you get the idea. But that's the least of my troubles; It seems my computer just took the opposite of the little red pills when it swallowed those updates. Lag lag lag. Arrghh! OK. Time for a system restore and a computer clean up operation. I'll have to be satisfied with googling earth in the old fashion way but my Firefox is smokin'.

A Rare Gift

Although my grandchildren don't realize it yet, and probably won't for many years, they are being given a rare gift: a father who plays games with them. No, they aren't old enough for T-ball and baby soccer; they are still at the very imaginative stage where they want to act out adventures a la "Blues Clues". It's inconceivable to them that adults wouldn't want to join in the fun.

Last Saturday Zaya decided that Lupe, his stuffed wolf, had become a "detector" and was going to "discover mysteries". As per usual, that became a theme to intermingle with the adventures of Mario and Luigi, stolen from video game worlds.

Mim came running in to the den on a mission:
"Please, Daddy, won't you play an adventure with us?" she asked with a baby charm.
"Sure," he answered, "What character are you going to be?"
"I'm going to be...Lupe."
"So who will I be?"
"You can be Peach."
"Peach?"
"Yah"
"Couldn't I be someone a little less girly?"
"Ok."
"I'll be Mario"
"Yes, and Luigi can come with us. Come'on, Luigi," she yelled to her brother, "Let's have an adventure!"

So they were off...off to the far away living room to use their "special skills", lighting the night with the white flashes from Luigi' fingertips and shooting down spiders with Mim's red fire balls so they could eat the amazing apple star fruit huddled under a small, promotional blanket for the local football team--a blanket that has yet to be used at that kind of entertainment. Daddy Mario assured them that the blanket was a "floppy submarine." His "skill" for the adventure lay in "singing old Beatles' songs badly". His two cohorts weren't sure how this skill would help the adventure, but they loved the submarine and the song--We all live in a floppy submarine-- that served as the roar of its engines as they tunneled through the deep blue sea. "

In a few minutes the blanket submarine slinked into the den, all three characters crawling under it, and emerged at the golden chair, where it docked. Mario slipped out of character long enough to whisper to my daughter and me in the kitchen that he needed some dinosaur sounds. We produced them: I was the tyrannosaurus and Babystepper was the saber-toothed kitty---lots of growling and meowing. We were rewarded for our efforts with showers of white and red fire balls. Then the submarine submerged and slid back into the far away living room.

Few children can say that on a Saturday, after a challenging week of solving problems most people aren't capable of understanding, their father makes some time to enter into their little world--a world they, themselves, will outgrow very quickly and remember only faintly.

Zucchini Baby

I feel very fortunate to receive fresh vegetables
from time to time in the summer even though I don't
tend a garden. My friends bring from the overflow...zucchini,
yellow crook-neck squash, acorn squash, potatoes,
real green beans, cucumbers, and, occasionally,
true tomatoes--the dark red kind that aren't mushy or mealy--
but I do have to admit that not every single veggie
suffers the fate of the oven or the frying pan.
You see. I have grandchildren who visit.

Meet Zucchini Baby, who single-handedly managed to entertain two pre-schoolers for an hour and a half. They dressed her, rocked her, gave her a bath, listened to her heart beat, and took her little blood pressure. I dragged this old doll bed of their mother's down from the attic, and there she sleeps still.








Shhhh! Nevermind. Her eyes are open now.

Raining in the Trees

It's strange to walk this morning. The ground is wet and the streets are shining. From the north, comes a mist-laden breeze and everywhere I hear the dripping and rustling sound of steady rain. Out in the street, away from the trees which gather to gossip at the creek, the rain is over. It was a good rain though. You can tell that by the lively, green rustle of the Virginia creeper, which has lately drooped over fences in a languid protest at this July heat. I walk a mile alone. It's Sunday. Everybody is sleeping in. Church doesn't start until ten o'clock, but you can't tell that to the birds. They are singing already. Loudly. Incessantly. Joyfully. That's what rain does for the thirsty.

My Oldest Friend

A Sunday Scribblings Prompt

She’s ninety five, and because of a stroke, her limbs are of no more use than branches on a backwards tree. So every day someone dresses her, as if she were still going to her old job at the courthouse—soft knit dress, slip, hose worn like knee socks, and brown penny-loafers— then lifts her out of bed to the recliner, where she sits patiently, watching television in the dusky living room. The house is old around her, filled with the furniture of her grandparents and carrying the smells of two bygone centuries. This is her entire world, well almost. Every evening, her son pulls out the wheelchair and the two of them go down to Benny Jack’s to eat catfish and hushpuppies. It’s like an expedition to the carnival: lots of noise; loud, lively music; real people crowded into booths and tables so close the waitresses must take turns passing by. The gossip is delightful to her old ears—who’s getting married, whose son became a fighter pilot, and who’s having trouble with that bunch of amateurs up at the courthouse.

I met her this summer when her substitute caretaker ran into some problems and asked for my help. Imagine meeting someone the first time when they come into your room holding a bucket and asking if they can give you a wash.

“Are you a nurse,” she asked suspiciously. (Much can be forgiven nurses.)

“No. Just a friend of your friend here”

“I’m not going to let you do it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“This is one of those emergencies,” interjected the sitter, “You don’t really have a choice, because I can’t do this by myself.”

“What’s your name?”

“Lilibeth”

“Mine’s Mim. You don’t hear a name like that much anymore.”

“It’s a pretty name, and it happens to be the name of my little grand-daughter.”

“Well imagine that! Her parents named her Mim, huh?”

“They did.”

“Well, if we’re going to do this, we’d better get started.”

So we did. It’s an odd way to meet someone, but it certainly does away with all the social airs and graces and lets one get on with just being friends.

That wasn't the last time I ever saw her, for life has a way of letting people meet again.

Three weeks ago, when I told her goodbye, she was sitting stiffly in the recliner, funny little hose still rolled at the knee, smiling in spite of her strait-cast life, ordering the sitter to sit over by the window and quit being so nervous and fluttery.

My old friend Mim.

Props for Prisoners at Philippi

My hands are tired: painting and typing.
I'm writing the curriculum for our VBS this year, because we wanted to use the same setting as our last year's program, but the cycle for the company was three years and we wanted at least one more scenario. First we were in Jerusalem, then Bethlehem, then Capernaum, and now we are going to Philippi. Paul and Silas have to arrive and be introduced to Lydia's prayer meeting down by the river. (oops, we'll have to make a river) The slave girl has to be delivered--in the market place (At least we already have a market place from last year; we just have to drag all the pieces down from the church attic and set them up). We will need a jail this year, and an Olympic booth. (This is ancient Greece after all.) There are skits to write, and songs to plan and stories to tell. We need a costume for a huge Roman soldier and we need a project for the carpenter's shop. Today one of our board members brought over some chains and manacles that he had made for the prison scene. They are made of PVC pipe and chains. I painted them dull black. My fingernails look really grungy, but the typewriter keys don't care. I've typed and typed--four days worth of lessons.
Now I want to say: THANK YOU, Microsoft Word!
Why?
Well, I had an abnormal shut-down of the computer, but, thanks to their extreme courtesy in creating an instant save mechanism, I did NOT lose it all. Not any of it, actually.

Ah. I love technology.

Just Desserts

Here are two limericks for Mad Kane's Humor Blog.
The topic was Food and Drink.

# 1

I ate your ice cream bars, he gloated
Creamy, and rich—chocolate coated!
Now you’re feeling trim,
But how about him?
Well he’s feeling lethargic and bloated.

#2

My stomach keeps calling for more
and no matter how much I deplore
the sugar sweet snacks,
I have to face facts:
Those rascals are winning the war!