Excerpt

I've been working on a children's poem for awhile . . . OK a long while. I tend to be a perfectionist when writing so if I can't get it perfect, I put it away until I have the time and patience to work on it again. Recently I have taken it back up to try to smooth out and finish it up. We'll see how it goes this time. But here's the first few stanzas for your casual perusing. Comments, criticism and compliments welcome. Jk about that last one. The story is suppose to be about how dragons began to breath fire.

Dragon Fire

*

A dragon from the icy peaks

Of winter mountains high

Awoke with cold

Shook his scales

And took off to the sky.

*

Flying high above the ground,

he saw the earth below,

Saw mountains, valleys,

Rocks and trees

All covered deep with snow.

*

Sitting on the highest ledge

For miles and miles around,

He held his breath

And strained his ears,

To listen for a sound.

*

But all along those snow-bound cliffs,

No breath could ere be heard,

No bubbling brooks

No whispering wind

Nor even one small bird.

*

The dragon then with practiced ease

Let out a roar of song,

A loud fierce tale of loneliness

The wind, then sang along.

*

From his breath rose icy death,

A sad song of lament

Of dragon woes, nobody knows,

And frozen years, long spent.

*

Then as the echos died away

He shook his scales of blue,

Spread wide his wings

And flew up high,

In search of places new.

Christ in Christmas

Its Christmas day, and I am at work. We celebrated early this morning knowing that I would have to be at work by three. Fortunately? Unfortunately? I'm still adding up the pro and cons of this working on Christmas thing. Pro: I get to leave just when the kids are getting really annoying with those stupid new Nerf guns -- Con: I had to leave before figuring out my Wii fitness age. (my mom is 72 and my dad is 68 I am hoping to come in at a low 50) So here I am, and there's nothing to do, so I'm reading blogs.
I keep seeing all these ads and mentions of keeping Christ in Christmas, and I have to tell you what I think. Well I've been seeing these for a few weeks now, and I have to tell you, the first one I saw on a little church sign, made me think. Keep Christ in Christmas, because without Christ all you have is mas and that's no fun at all.
Every time I see that now, that's what I think, but then I begin to wonder . . . What is mas?
The obvious choice seems to be mass. Christmas mass, which is probably repetitive. But Its not spelled mass, its spelled mas. So here is a list of things Christmas might be without Christ.

Mas:
mas - slang for massive
mas - abbreviation for masculine
mas - Modula-2 Algebra System
mas - mobile atmospheric spectrometer
mas - Muslim American Society
mas - Country house or farm in the south of France, usually made of stone.
mas - Monetary Authority of Singapore, mas is Singapore's central bank.
mas - The Musicians' Answering Service was established in 1976, since then the diary service has built its reputation within the classical music business for professionalism and reliability.

Now I'm sure you all found that helpful and informative, and I just want to say, that unless your a massive male mathematician looking to invest or convert, please keep Christ in Christmas.


MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL AND TO ALL A GOODNIGHT!

The Christmas Crunch

My shopping isn't finished yet
Nor is yours I'd dare to bet

My pocket book is running low
I'd wager that yours is also so.

I have a million things to do
Quite probably then so do you

But here I sit and waste my night
As you do -- reading what I write

working

So I'm sitting at work, and my pt are all registered. I have an hour ten minutes and fifteen second till I can leave . . . but I'm not counting. The lobby tv is playing an investigative show on giant rats that people are reporting in Florida, new york, and Alaska. I'm talking rats bigger than your little dog. probably cuter too.

I'm alternating between trying to think of all the things that I need to do before my party on Saturday, and trying not to think of all the things I have to do before my party on Saturday.

I'm hungry, since I haven't eaten since breakfast and its now ten something (10:19:26) so I got to talking with one of the other ladies who works here and she's on a diet, so we sat together for awhile and looked at delish.com a website that lets you create menus, search recipes, and view instructional videos. So now I'm really hungry.

They have eliminated the giant rat being a cappabeara, but they have caught one now and are running DNA tests.

Tuesday in lab we looked at pond water thru microscopes, and let me just say, I will never swim again. Sitting here thinking of that makes my skin crawl . . . or that could be the pt who had bedbugs.

So they found out the rat was a giant African something or other that had been originally imported as exotic pets, then were found to carry monkey pocks and were outlawed, so some dumb breeder released his remain eight into the wild. And since rats can breed within four week of birth, have eighty some spawn a year, well, the Florida keys have a problem.

Well. since its now 10:57:39 I had better go finish my job so I can leave. only 26 minuets, 21 sec, 20, 19 . . .

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

So, officially, my favorite season of the year is Autumn. I love the leaves changing and the weather and everything. But I must tell you, that my favorite holiday season has arrived.

ITS CHRISTMAS!

*according to Nichole's Rules, the christmas season begins the moment the Thanksgiving meal is over, and last until the ball drops on New Years Eve. During that time it is mandatory to listen to holiday music.

Thanksgiving was . . . unorthodox this year, so we broke tradition by not decorating immediately after the meal. Usually this is when I convince everyone that we should put up the tree, decorations, and villiage. My most persuasive argument is that I will gladly drag all one hundred of our Christmas box (big beefy boxes) out of the basement/garage/attic/ or where ever they happen to be stored that particular year.

So I drug everything out on Friday, and we began to decorate. But another hang up! Due to rats (blast those creatures) the old fake tree is retired to porch duty, and we were without an inside tree. We planned to get a real tree this year and wait till after the season to get a new atrificial. So no tree on Friday.
We also had a few complications with the villiage, which is my dads baby, so it was half up when I left for work. Eight some hours later when I came home (thanks dad for picking me up) I discovered to my delight, a tree in the dinning room!!!!! I worked very hard to convince myself not to stay up into the wee hours of the morning decorating it.
Saturday was another kink. The whole family, myself excluded were going to Indiana to have a late Thanksgiving meal with relatives. I had to work, and therefore had to stay. I sat and stared at the tree. It stared back. (maybe not really that bad) But I knew, that if I began decorating it without the rest of the family, I was so much dead meat, smoke me and use me for stocking stuffers. So I waited. Until Sunday.
Sunday was well . . . interesting. Due to circumstances not quite beyond my control I slept on the coach, which means no alarm. Mom woke up dizzy and lightheaded, Dad woke up sore throat and nauseous( they can't even agree on their symptoms when their both sick!) So, when everyone woke up, church people were already filling out We Missed You Cards.
I think that God organized this little break from the week, (The most spiritual resting day I've had for awhile)
Needless to say, we finally decorated the tree!
I got the ball rolling by mentioning that the whole family was here (tech. Tiff was on the way, but soon to be present.) and that I had to work at three so could we please, please, please, decorate the tree. Sniff. I think it was the tears and grovelling that finally got them, and my volunteering to untangle the lights.

We went with colored lights because we didn't have enough white lights (not that I'm light-racial or anything, I only prefer white lights for that classic look rather than color for the traditional look.) Apparently no one in my family likes putting lights on the tree either, so I did that too. By the time I finished everyone was getting in the spirit, which means the radio was on, the kids were arguing about who got to put on the angel, and dad had found himself a project in another room.
Bulbs first, then snow flakes, then icicles (plastic not tinsel) then the special ornaments.
Every year, everyone in the family gets a new ornament, with their name and the year written on it. We try to coordinate, like the year we got, precious moments, or Winnie the pooh, or snowmen in candy cane stripped outfits, or the smore/marshmallow fig. You get the picture. So everything got put up (and I do mean everything, mom still insists on hanging the can lids that we punched nail holes into and ran a string through during some craft time)
Toward the end it was a scramble for hangers, but I made do for the last three with modified paperclips -- in a festive green -- which I'm going to have to remember when I put up my tree.

So anyway. I just wanted to let everyone know that I am happy. Our house is Christmasy. And I just love this season!!!

big picture/small picture

I was always fascinated by those giant pictures made of of thousands of small pictures. I even tried once to make one. But I couldn't see the big picture. I saw faces. Faces of friends, family, even complete strangers, but I could not do away with the pieces to create a larger work.


At first I thought that must mean I am a small picture kind of person. I have since learned that I am nothing of the sort. I don't do details. In my last two jobs I have struggled with remembering all those little detail. I have the over all idea, but I forgot something here, another thing there.


I must, I suppose, dwell somewhere in between, (story of my life) not really catching all the details, not really getting the big picture. But I have moments where I come close to one or the other. There are those few times, when looking at a picture or a person everything seems clear, or I seem to get a deeper sense of what or who they are. Likewise, I occasionally get a glimpse of the larger world around me.


Like the other day, as I rode the bus in to work. I saw an old man, coming down a set of stairs, a young man, shaking leaves out of some bottle crates, and a little boy playing at push ups in a car wash lot. As I sat there in my seat, I began to get a glimpse of the world around me. How many thousands of people do I pass every day? And how many do I see? Three. Three people that made an impact on me, the thousands of others slip by like drops of rain, significant only in great numbers, and then only in registering their presence.


Always we are ourselves, living our life every minute of every day. But occasionally we get to take part in someone else's life. Sometimes we are more than just ourselves. Sometimes, we are, family, seeing and living as a group. Sometimes we are friends, getting deep inside the world and emotions of others. And sometimes, we are a crowd, feeling a little of the combined consciousness, mind, and power of many people. But mostly we are one, just ourselves, staring out the window, unable to see the forest for all the trees.

I wondered, as my bus careened along, what was I to those people? Did the old man coming down the stairs see a girls face staring back at him from a bus window? Or just traffic? Did the young man see another human being with acknowledgement in her eyes? Or just feel the breeze of cars passing. Did the little boy look up and see someone watching him play? Or did he only hear the sounds of car horns, more distant to him than his imaginary army base. Did anyone see me? Or was I just a drop of water in a bucket?

Maybe I was the girl running for the bus. The person in your bus seat. The stranger in the crosswalk. But did you see me, or did you notice me? Was I one out of millions? Or was I someone who caused you to think about the little pictures that make up the big one. Did I walk past you before you even knew I was there, or did you go home and blog about me?

P.S. If you saw me, could you tell me how I looked? because I wasn't really sure about that outfit . . .

unusual, unorthidox, unethical?

We went out to eat for Thanksgiving!

I could hardly believe the news when my mom announced that due to the Thanksgiving style meal we had enjoyed with our grandparents about a month ago, we were going out to eat. She informed us that in no uncertain terms was she going to slave away in the kitchen to provide a second Thanksgiving meal. I mean what is that all about.

Ok. So sacrilege aside, how was the food?

Well, it ain't like momma used to fix it.
The stuffing was dry. (so they tell me. I don't actually eat stuffing.)
The turkey was . . . turkey. (not my favorite meat.)
The sweet potato casserole. well lets just say that it was fixed by Yankees. (they can't really help it.)
The rest was ok, but I did find a disturbing lump of quivering red goo, which my dad said was supposed to be cranberry sauce, (eww) but we managed to convince Letha it was jelly and she rather enjoyed it on her biscuit.

All in all, the no prep/no clean up factor did not really make up for the no taste/no leftovers. But However, I will not complain, because there was pie.
Not just any old pumpkin or pecan or apple pie, this was an apple pumpkin pecan thingy.
I have no idea where they put the apple, mostly it seemed to be pumpkin pie with pecan crumble on top, but served with a generous helping of whipped topping, cut into huge slices, the pie, well lets say the pie made me happy.

Lesson learned?
Next year we cook the meal at home, but go out for dessert.