Crop Circles and the Salty Devil
Mamacita says: My hero Steve Spangler will be appearing on Ellen again this Tuesday; don’t miss it! Check your local TV Guide for the time and station. Steve is SO MUCH FUN to watch!!!!!!!!!!! Let your kids watch, too. You’ll all learn something.
I took the small mower out to what I like to call the North Forty yesterday, to try to get some of that tall grass down before velociraptors started making creepy trails underneath it, and before the neighbors showed up at the door with a petition. After about six turns around the acreage, the mower died. It still had several gallons, or approximately twelve thousand dollars worth, of gas in it, so I couldn’t figure out why it had died. I pulled up the blades and turned the key; it started right up. I put down the blades and it instantly died again. Rinse, repeat. So I gave up and drove it back to the garage, called it a few choice names which I shall not repeat here lest I lose my wholesome reputation – but then, it’s probably far too late to worry about that, isn’t it, mwahahahaha – and haven’t had time to try again. So, my house is now the one with the really odd formations in the grass; no doubt a television crew will show up any minute now to make a big deal out of how the aliens have been in the county again.
If you like poetry, please consider calling in to Fausta’s Friday Night Poetry Slam, at 7:00 p.m. southern Indiana time, and I couldn’t tell you what the official name for our time zone is because it keeps CHANGING, thanks to some politicians who shall not be elected ever again. Use these next few days to find a poem you especially love, call in to Fausta’s podcast, and share it with us. If you say you don’t like poetry, I don’t believe you. Somewhere on this planet there is a poem you like, even if it’s one that begins with “There was a young girl from Cape Cod.”
So here I am tonight, my house in the midst of alien crop circles, my freezer full of fresh vegetables and frozen berries, a fresh loaf of whole wheat bread in my breadbox, a new loaf of white hidden safely in the oven (I have bread-loving cats) and a gallon and a half of milk, neither of which will expire for over a week, in my refrigerator. I’m going to gather up all of the processed, salt-laden foods in the pantry later tonight – anything to get out of grading essays – and package them up for giveaway. If you want some, come on over.
And by the way, don’t pay the least bit of attention to the clever marketing device called “euphemisms for salt on labels.” “Low sodium” probably means 500 mg instead of 800. “Healthy choice” probably means 450 instead of 900. “Less than half the sodium” means 450 instead of a thousand. Forget it, because there ARE no completely sodium-free packaged processed foods out there. Give up and go home and make something from scratch, and even then you have to read the labels carefully on packages of flour and bottles of oil. Somewhere out there is a very clever salt merchant who made a deal with the devil.
I’ve met the devil, actually. I used to work for him. I’m not kidding.
But I digress, and don’t you hate it when people use that expression? But I really WAS digressing.
Where was I? Oh yes. Crop circles and the salty devil.
I could probably make a poem out of that. Maybe I will. I’ve got several days until the Slam on Friday.
Sarah, Sarah, Plain and Tall, What's The Deal With Jacob, Y'all?
Mamacita says: Consistency in literature is very important to me, possibly more important than it is in real life. For example, when Jacob Witting tells his new wife Sarah that he and his brothers and sisters all loved the land, he should not then turn around in the next volume and tell her that he was an only child whose father walked out on the family early on, forcing a very young Jacob to quit school to help support his mother because there was no one else to do it.
What the heck? Not even Christopher Walken could get away with an inconsistency that big! What’s the deal, scriptwriters?
And since it was Christopher Walken, I suppose I should have said “brahthahs and sistahs.” But since it was Christopher Walken, who really cares? That man is SEXY, whether he be a sweet wholesome father or one of the creepy murdering sexy psychopaths he usually plays. Sexiest of all, of course, is when he sings and dances. He’s even sexy when he dances and lip-synchs. Or asks for more cowbell.
Ah, Christopher Walken, I know you were only reciting your lines, but after that huge inconsistency, a lot of the story was spoiled for me. I still love the three books, of course, but I can’t quite believe anything Jacob says after he changes his story.
Few people are as picky as I am, of course, and thank goodness for that, but when it comes to a piece of literature – and yes, kiddie lit is literature – I want consistency.
As Jean Kerr says, not in these exact words but ALMOST, it’s okay with me if you say the bed is a piano, but after that I expect that no one will sit on the piano.
Mm, Jean Kerr. She was one of the funniest writers EVER. If you don’t know Jean, shame on you, and go to the library as soon as it opens in the morning. I mean, this is the woman who said: “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, it’s just possible you haven’t grasped the situation.” and “Now the thing about having a baby – and I can’t be the first person to have noticed this – is that thereafter you have it.” and”One of the most difficult things to contend with in a hospital is that assumption on the part of the staff that because you have lost your gall bladder you have also lost your mind.” I adore Jean Kerr.
Besides which, the Kerrs lived next door to the Killileas!
Tangent much?
Quotation Saturday
Mamacita says: I had such a good time last night at Fausta’s Poetry Slam! It makes me really happy that she’s going to have another one next Friday night at 7:00. Find your favorite poems and join us! If you don’t have a favorite poem, because “poetry sucks, ewwwww,” just print out the lyrics to your favorite song because, guess what, song lyrics are poems. Duh. NOW tell me you hate poetry. Yeah, that’s what I thought.
1. The saddest thing I can imagine is to get used to luxury. –Charlie Chaplin
2. A man should keep his little brain attic stocked with all the furniture that he is likely to use, and the rest he can put away in the lumber room of his library, where he can get it if he wants it. –Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
3. It ain’t braggin’ if you can do it. –Dizzy Dean
4. All that hot stuff that happened in the bible is happening today on every street. –Robert Fontaine
5. I’ll try being nicer if you’ll try being smarter. –Unknown
6. He bears an unmistakable resemblance to a cornered rat. –Norman Mailer
7. Raphael was employed to decorate the Vatican not because he was a great painter, but because his uncle was architect to the Pope. –Lord Melbourne
8. He had a lot of fat that did not fit. –H.G. Wells
9. The world is gradually becoming a place where I do not care to be any more. –John Berryman
10. We are almost always wearied in the company of persons with whom we are not permitted to be weary. –La Rouchefoucauld
11. When a woman has had nine children, she begins to have suspicions about some of the beautiful passages in love stories. –“Reflections of a Bachelor,” 1903
12. Everywhere is walking distance, if you have the time. –Stephen Wright
13. Writing is easy; all you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until the drops of blood form on your forehead. –Gene Fowler
14. The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time. –Bertrand Russell
15. I wept not, so to stone within I grew. –Dante
16. An obstinate man does not hold opinions – they hold him. –Joseph Butler
17. From the earliest times, the old have rubbed it into the young that they are wiser than they, and before the young had discovered waht nonsense this was, they were old, too, and it profited them to carry on the imposture. –W. Somerset Maugham
18. To aim at the best and to remain essentially ourselves is one and the same thing. –Janet Erskine Stuart
19. Nature should have been plased to have made this age miserable, without making it also ridiculous. –Michel De Montaigne
20. He felt like a nightmare that had yet to be dreamt. –Stanislaw J. Lec
21. Our names are labels, plainly printed in the bottled essence of our past behavior. –Logan Pearsall Smith
22. I listen to the voices. –William Faulkner
23. We have to distrust each other. It is our only defense against betrayal. –Tennessee Williams
24. When women are depressed they either eat or go shopping. Men invade another country. –Elaine Boosler
25. Circumstance does not make me; it reveals me. –William James
26. They always say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself. –Andy Warhol
27. When it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change. –JFK
28. Is it progress if a cannibal uses a fork? –Stanislaw J. Lec
29. Be the change you want to see in the world. –Gandhi
30. Ninety percent of everything is crap. –Theodore Sturgeon
31. Forgiving those who hurt us is the key to personal peace. –G. Weatherly
32. Doubt is not a pleasant state, but certainty is a ridiculous one. –Voltaire
33. There is nothing certain in a man’s life but that he may lose it. –Owen Merideth
34. Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune. –William James
35. Laugh at yourself first, before anyone else can. –Elsa Maxwell
36. No great deed is done by falterers who ask for certainty. –George Eliot
37. Dwelling on the negative simply contributes to its power. –Shirley MacLaine
38. Poor is the man whose pleasures depend on the permission of another. –Madonna
39. It is easier to fight for our principles than it is to live up to them. –Alfred Adler
40. To each man is reserved a work which he alone can do. –Susan Blow
41. Be not afraid of growing slowly; be afraid only of standing still. –Chinese proverb
42. We all have the extraordinary coded within us, waiting to be released. –Jean Houston
43. You have all eternity to be cautious in when you’re dead. –Lois Platford
44. The cure for grief is motion. –Elbert Hubbard
45. IF you’re looking for perfection, look in the mirror. If you find it there, expect it elsewhere. –Malcolm Forbes
46. The course of life is unpredictable. . . no one can write his autobiography in advance. –Abraham Joshua Heschel
47. Having harvested all the knowledge and wisdom we can from our mistakes and failures, we should put them behind us and go ahead. –Edith Johnson
48. . . . (he) sold his soul and lived with good conscience on the proceeds. –Logan Pearsall Smith
49. Growing old gracefully should begin with youth. –Walter B. Wolfe
50. Without adventure, civilization is in full decay. –A.N. Whitehead
And now I want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and I’m going to have one because it’s my house and I can. Yes, I am quite sophisticated.
I wanted one last night, too, but we didn’t have any bread. Now we do. Come on over. PB&J for everybody! (Bring chips.)
P.S. Happy Birthday to my Other Sister! (It was yesterday.)
