Melville, honey, you're crazy.

We were talking about Moby Dick today in literature, specifically how Melville uses the color white to symbolize evil.

Teacher: "He mentions the great white shark, polar bears, the albatross, the Tower of London..."

Me: "Uh, the Tower of London is not white!"

Luke: "Maybe he was talking about the birds on the tower."





p.s. Happy, happy day! We have our computer back! I and all my neighbors are very delighted that I no longer have to go begging for a computer, and I've decided to give our computer an Official Name in honor of his return. (Because giving things Official Names is really fun; my straightener has a name, my hairdryer, my tooth brush, the three little freckles on my hand...)

I think our computer has earned itself a name besides just Happy Computer.

So...

hold your breath...

here it comes...

Pete. (or not, as you'll see below.)

It's nothing fancy, but our computer isn't very fancy, and Pete is a good, reliable, steady name. And those are all the things I desire in the inmost parts of my heart for our computer.

Welcome home, Pete.


p.p.s. don't you love how my post script was longer than the post?


::UPDATE::

Mama doesn't like the name Pete for our computer. Don't ask me why. After much deliberation, she decided Eustace would be an acceptable name. (She liked Simon, but said "that ugly man on American Idol is Simon and I sure don't want anyone thinking I named anything after him." She hates American Idol, probably because she's never watched more than five minutes of it. Not that I'm a huge fan or anything, mind you.)

Eustace is impatiently asking if his name is finalized; he wants to have his towels monogrammed. Yes, it's official, Eustace. And what on earth do you need towels for?

You can stop worrying about my life now.

Have I been kidnapped by aliens?

Buried alive underneath a ginormous mountain?

Gone to live on the moon in a little tent with a cat and three pet alligators?

(Whoa, Katie, that was random. Because alligators would eat cats, DUH.)

No.

Turns out, the Nasty, Cruel, Evil, Dark Virus which is holding our Happy Computer ransom was a lot stronger than we thought. So, I'm just using whatever computers come my way, leaping for them like a frog on a fly. I showed up at my cousin's house a few minutes ago, freezing, like a little waif, begging for some computer time.

What did our fore-fathers DO without these things?

A Better Language.

"When one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but is translated into a better language."

-John Donne

Tonight, my uncle's chapter was translated into a better language. Now, he sees Christ, not through a glass, darkly, but face to face. Now, he knows as he is known, not merely in part. Now, the term is over for him and the holidays have begun... the new Chapter is upon him, the Chapter none of us here know anything about, but can imagine with joy. Joy unspeakable.

today's EPIC post brought to you by my Totally Awesome Sister.

Okay, Katie has asked me to write a guest post on her blog, which I consider to be a great honor, so here goes.
Well, Sunday morning Trey went out to crank the car for us to go to church about five minutes before time to walk out the door. He shortly came back in saying we couldn't take the car cause it stank so bad inside - like soured towels or something. Now, I must confess here to not putting much stock in this report, as Trey has a particularly sensitive sniffer, and absently replied that I couldn't imagine what it could be, but I was sure it wasn't that bad. He went back out to put something in the trunk, and came back in with a look on his face that can only be described as sheer horror. His eyes were huge and somewhat fierce, his neck stiff, his voice severe. "You will never believe what was in the trunk."
I must stop here to relate some history of the car over the weekend. On Friday, we went to co-op as usual, came home somewhat late (after dark) and I backed up to the door for Trey to unload my groceries, as he always does, being my "Mary Poppins Husband - practically perfect in every way". He did so, then went back and shut the trunk. Saturday morning I got up (very early) and went and picked Heather Duley up and we drove the two and a half hours or so to Greenwood, Ms, to collect signatures for the Personhood Amendment. We were there for several hours, driving around town some, but mostly standing in front of a grocery store in the increasingly cold wind-turning-to-rain trying to get people to sign our petitions. Afterward, we drove back to New Albany, made a couple of stops, and I dropped Heather off and came home. So Sunday morning when Trey went to open my trunk and was hit with a Most Horrible Stank, he didn't know what to think. He moved aside the car seat that I had put in the trunk earlier in the week to find, crouching and terrified, Darcy and Reepicheep - our two cats who had very stupidly jumped into my trunk as Trey was unloading groceries Friday night, and spent two nights and a day trapped there. I must also add that the first half of the drive to Greenwood is very twisty-curvey, and I DID get a call from Caleb Fredrick who was behind me wanting to know WHY I was driving so fast. I suspect the cats were wondering the same.
We had to leave for church and were gone all day, so when I went out today to clean said trunk in which said kitties had left many...gifts...I was overcome with dismay. It was a beautiful day, the warmest we'd had in a while, but I was unable to fully appreciate it, as I was leaning in far to reach...gifts... and also twisting my hand down behind the torn-down liner of the trunk which was where they had oh-so-conveniently decided to make their potty. Oh yes, very yuck. My brave youngest son did climb in and crawl back to reach some things I couldn't, and confessed later that he DID hold his breath, which I thought was a definitely hopeful sign. Lee, however, said he breathed through his mouth so he wouldn't smell, which was infinitely grosser (is that a word?) to me.
Katie is now making fun of me for how long this post is, but when you've lived through this kind of horror, and now can tell about it, you want others to fully understand how stanky that Stank was.

THE END
there, Katie, you happy now?

an ode to canned peaches. (yes, really.)

I have this crazy obsession with canned sliced peaches. Eating them is like eating slivers of golden sunshine surrounded by a smooth syrup of liquid gold. No, really. Triumphant music should begin to play and those brightly colored flags, (like at fairs and such,) should madly wave when the top of the can is peeled back, revealing the goodness inside.

I know canned peaches sounds gross, because generally canned goods are mushy, goopy messes that looks nothing at all like the brightly colored picture on the front.

But canned sliced peaches are different.

Oh, my. They're fantastic. The way they slip down your throat, the way they taste, the way they look, it's all such a delightful experience.

(Yes, Laura, I know that they probably aren't even remotely related to real peaches - not even by marriage, but I could care less.)

And yesterday I came home from school to discover six cans lined up by the sink. SIX CANS.

Because, you see, my mama knows how much I love them. She's heard me praise their golden, tasty beauty at every opportunity, and so she bought me six parcels of sunshine just 'cause. Needless to say, I did a happy dance and told her she was my hero. Or heroine.

Or just my mama. Because my mama is thoughtful like that.

Canned Sliced Peaches? Y'all make my life a wee bit brighter. I hope you like being eaten. Because otherwise you're out of luck.

I'd better put 9-1-1 on speed dial. Right away.

Today in the van, while getting a wet wipe out of the little container, mama's thumb got really stuck in the tiny hole. This is how it went down:

Mama: "KATIE!! MY THUMB IS STUCK!!! Aaaahhhhhhh! Get it out, get it... don't laugh, this hurts! Get it out... oh, that hurts! Oh, my poor thumb!! Stop laughing! oh, oh, oh!!!!!! oww, owww, it's stuck, ican'tgetitout! STOP!! you're just hurting!" (keeping up a continuous flood of yelling with a little bit of laughter thrown in; she couldn't help but see the humour of the situation)

And yes, I was laughing a little, in between trying to pull her thumb out without leaving the tip in, but I was trying hard not to. Finally, she wrenched it out, and her poor thumb was purple and red. She almost curled up in a corner and sucked it, but she stopped just short of that. (She did, however, talk to it, and tell it how sorry she was and what a good thumb it was.)

So, after a few minutes of thumb recuperation, she got out of the van to go in Kroger. She takes some trash to throw away in the garbage can in front of our van, and...

Her whole hand got stuck in the slot.

Yes.

No kidding.

She did a little pain dance, quietly shrieking and hopping around, clutching her hand, while I tried to be sympathetic.

Then. Yep, that's right, we're not finished.

She goes in, stays gone, comes back, limping slightly.

Me: "You okay?"

She: "I probably broke my foot. Just drive straight to the hospital." (she was semi-joking about that part)

Me: "What on earth did you do?"

She: "I dropped a can of rotel on my foot and nearly crushed it."

But the great thing was, she was way more concerned about her leather boot than her foot. Oh, I love my mama.

Well, I feel like a failure.

I am not the best at remembering things. It's not my gift in life.

Today, I realized that I had totally forgotten Eleanor's birthday. I knew it was coming up, but I thought it was the 21st instead of the 7th, so not a word, not a card, not a gift, not a hug did she get from me on her EIGHTEENTH birthday!

I feel pretty bad.

Eleanor? I'm sorry.

You mean a lot to me, whether we're scaring the people at Wal-Mart with our craziness, practicing our fingers off for a recital, staying up late, late, late talking about everything under the sun, drinking Dr. Pepper, bravely taking the Gileskirk tests together, or rolling Julia's room with toliet paper. (That was SO much fun. We should do it again.)

Eighteen.

It's an impressive age. You can vote! You could be drafted, (if you were a guy. Which you're not.) Graduation is right around the corner! Responsibility as an adult looms ever closer.

And I know that's a little scary for you. It is for me, too.

But I want to remind you that you do have a wonderful Friend, a Helper, a Counselor, a Mediator in Christ Jesus, and I am praying that in the year to come, more than ever before, you seek Him with your whole heart... seek to become more like Him, seek to rest on Him, seek to love Him more.

I love you.

Happy Birthday from a forgetful friend.

A Technological Fairy Tale of Sorts.

Once upon a time, there was a Happy Computer. It loved being used by its Nice Owners, and it tried to do all it could to please them. (Except when the Mama used it; this Happy Computer unexplainably didn't care for her, and often ate her emails and documents and minimized pages.) One day, our Happy Computer was merrily tripping through the lanes and winding roads of the internet when a nasty, dark, cruel Virus saw it coming. The Virus hid behind a website, waiting. When the Happy Computer skipped by, the Virus leaped out, grabbed the Happy Computer, strangled it, beat it up, called over all his cousins and friends to help, and generally mistreated it until the now Unhappy Compter was so contaminated it couldn't even turn on for its Nice Owners.

But that isn't the end.

The Nice Owners loved their Happy Computer so much that they promised to take him to a computer superhero who would search out the nasty, dark, cruel Virus and all his relatives, make them regret the day they attacked the Happy Computer, and send them on their miserable way without so much as a souvenir.

Right now, the Nice Owners have to come over to Laura and Trey's house to use their computer, which isn't half as thoughtful and faithful as Happy Computer.

Plus, their house is so cold that my fingers are like little pieces of ice after ten minutes of typing.

Get well soon, Happy Computer!

Oh, I could say a lot about this one.

"...what a good thing, for instance, it was that one princess should sleep for a hundred years! Was she not saved from all the plague of young men who were not worthy of her? And did she not come awake exactly at the right moment when the right prince kissed her? For my part, I cannot help wishing a good many girls would sleep till just the same fate overtook them. It would be happier for them, and more agreeable to their friends."

-George MacDonald



This quote came at just the right time for me, and I'm thankful it did.

Excuse me. I'm at the Back of the North Wind right now.

I am reading At the Back of the North Wind by George MacDonald. And although I have a sorry little feeling at the bottom of my heart that the little boy is going to die in the end, I like the book. I can't describe the story to you; I daresay you would call my description silly. In fact, if you are not the Right Sort of Person, I daresay you would find the story itself silly. But it isn't silly unless you make it so.

And no, I can't explain that either.

I suppose it's a sort of fairy tale, but then, it's more about fairy tales within the reality of daily life, and about how we view dreams and thoughts... whether we take them at face value, or ignore them, (a very unwise thing to do, in my opinion,) or mine them for useful gems. And whether they are the best sort of gems - helpful gems - depends on the dream, or the thought, and that depends on the kind of person you are. I think, too it's about what we can learn from things that God sends us, whether stories, dreams, conversations, people, or incidents. We can use them, as the little boy did, to do better work, to love better, and to think better, or we can brush them off and go about our business, little knowing we're missing out on what could have been. And I don't necessarily mean dreams like the kind we dream at night and remember in the morning as mumbo-jumbo. I think the dreams of the little boy are supposed to stand for something bigger in our lives, something that can't be defined except as "a dream." I'm just not wise enough to put my finger on what. Or perhaps George MacDonald never meant for us to be able to put our finger on it.

Oh, just go read the book. I'm making a mess, and trying to do what I said I wouldn't. Now you understand why.


Anyway, here's a quote which I like a very great deal:

"His head was full of the dream he had dreamed; but it did not make him neglect his work, for his work was not to dig stars but to drive old Diamond and pick up fares in the cab. There are not many people who can think about beautiful things and do common work at the same time. But then there are not many people who have been to the back of the north wind."

Just so long as someone brings peanut butter crackers.

I told mama this morning that our grey cat, Irene, has been missing for the past two days. Mama sarcastically remarked, (because she thinks it's too good to be true that Irene is missing - she's never liked her-) that we'd better prepare for her funeral.

AnnMarie, who was quite frustrated with our slowness in producing her breakfast of peanut butter crackers, mumbled under her breath, "Maybe there will be crackers at the funeral."