Dogs and Cats

Someday soon I hope to get back to actually writing something original. Until then this will have to do. Someone sent this in an e-mail to me the other day. I laughed out loud.

From a Dog's Diary...

8:00 am - Dog food! My favorite thing!
9:30 am - A car ride! My favorite thing!
9:40 am - A walk in the park! My favorite thing!
10:30 am - Got rubbed and petted! My favorite thing!
12:00 pm - Lunch! My favorite thing!
1:00 pm - Played in the yard! My favorite thing!
3:00 pm - Wagged my tail! My favorite thing!
5:00 pm - Milk bones! My favorite thing!
7:00 pm - Got to play ball! My favorite thing!
8:00 pm - Wow! Watched TV with the people! My favorite thing!
11:00 pm - Sleeping on the bed! My favorite thing!





From a Cat's Daily Diary...

Day 983 of my captivity.
My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects.

They dine lavishly on fresh meat, while the other inmates and I are fed hash or some sort of dry nuggets. Although I make my contempt for the rations perfectly clear, I nevertheless must eat something in
order to keep up my strength.

The only thing that keeps me going is my dream of escape. In an attempt to disgust them, I once again vomit on the carpet.

Today I decapitated a mouse and dropped its headless body at their feet. I had hoped this would strike fear into their hearts, since it clearly demonstrates what I am capable of. However, they merely made
condescending comments about what a 'good little hunter' I am.

There was some sort of assembly of their accomplices tonight. I was placed in solitary confinement for the duration of the event. However, I could hear the noises and smell the food. I overheard that my
confinement was due to the power of 'allergies.' I must learn what this means and how to use it to my advantage.

Today I was almost successful in an attempt to assassinate one of my tormentors by weaving around his feet as he was walking. I must try this again tomorrow -- but at the top of the stairs.

I am convinced that the other prisoners here are flunkies and snitches. The dog receives special privileges. He is regularly released - and seems to be more than willing to return. He is obviously retarded.

The bird has got to be an informant. I observe him communicating with the guards regularly. I am certain that he reports my every move. My captors have arranged protective custody for him in an elevated cell,
so he is safe. For now ...

Dancing in Church

I have nothing to say other than to warn you against drinking anything while watching this.

Signs You Might Be A Fundamentalist

A friend of mine told me about this recent thread over at Sharper Iron. I couldn't help but laugh out loud at some of them. This was what I grew up with and some of these (very funny, but often true) examples are why I am no longer a fundamentalist. Most of these I have pulled from the thread, though I will add a few of my own. Enjoy!

* If you've ever watched Sheffy on New Year's Eve.
* If you can tell a person's spiritual condition by a passing glance at their CD rack.
* If you actually believe NIV stands for Non-Inspired Version.
* If none of the preachers you know called "Dr." have earned degrees.
* If you've ever worn culottes, over snow pants, while skiing.
* If you've roller skated to Majesty Music.
* If you've heard more rock music played backward than forward.
* If you ever dressed up as a Bible character in late October for "Harvest Festival."
* If you know what a "six inch rule" is.
* If you were taught that the better option than the "six inch rule" was to place your KJV between you and your date.
* If you've had to get on your knees to have your skirt length measured, and you ever carried safety pins in your purse to pin necklines and skirt slits.
* If you are scientifically certain that the hottest flame is black.
* If you've ever raised your hand to indicate you're not saved because you were distracted during the invitation.
* If you believe NaCl (or any simple chemical formula) will leap into flames when in contact with water on the face of a man who played with it at a party.
* If you know for a fact that rock music kills house plants.
* If you have thrown a stick in either a fireplace or bonfire on a Friday night.
* If you've heard it preached that the letters in "Santa" can easily be rearranged to spell "Satan."
* If you have a Hollywood Video or Blockbuster card in your wallet but think "not supporting Hollywood" is a good reason not to go to the theater.
* If you've ever worn guys shorts (as a girl) so that they'd be long enough to "check."
* If you regularly tell co-workers that you went to a "small, private college," instead of an Independent Fundamental Baptist Bible College in a town they've never heard of.
* If you have your doubts about any preacher with facial hair.
* If you understand that the term "mixed bathing" has nothing to do with personal hygiene.
* If you have ever held hands with a girl (or guy) during the prayer at a youth rally because you knew it was the only time the pastor wouldn't be looking.
* If Sissy Seagull was your first crush. (for guys)
* If you know who Ace, Baba, Christy, and Pudge are.
* If you can't have a church picnic with the other independent fundamental churches in the area because their standards aren't the same as the church that you attend.
* If you ever changed the last part of the chorus of "Now I Belong to Jesus" to "not for the years of Tom Malone."
* If you felt "dirty" when the pastor didn't give an invitation after his Sunday night message.
* If the front of your Bible has your hand-written note of the exact date and time you were saved....from all 7 years you went to camp.
* If you checked your parents' bedroom to make sure they were still there for at least a week after your church hosted the multi-night series of A Thief In The Night movies... er, films.
* If you are offended by any of the content above.

Feel free to add your own.

Effects of the Weather

On Tuesday of this past week the temperature outside went from the mid to upper 30's in the morning to -30 below zero with windchills by midnight of the same day. That type of 60 degree swing is not exactly normal, but the saying in Wisconsin has always been, "If you don't like the weather, wait a day." Those cold temperatures can really make the air dry and we realized yesterday just how dry it had gotten in the house. Hannah walked across the room, sat down on the couch, and this is what we got! It was our impromptu science experiment for yesterday!

Tiny Tidbits

What a funny word! Tidbits! Say it. Let it roll off of your tongue. It will bring a smile to your face. I don't know, it just struck me as an amusing word as I typed it in.

Well I haven't posted in a little while and I wanted to throw forth a few items I think may be helpful, amusing, interesting, etc.

First. I have added links to some of the books that I am reading or have read. If you click the title, it will take you to Westminster Books where you may then purchase the book if you would like. Great book store, great prices, $5 flat shipping fee. One of my favorite internet purchase destinations.

Secondly, this past Tuesday found me again in the history classroom. Since we had been off for a while due to Christmas vacation and what not, I decided that a game quiz was the way to refresh the memories of the students. One of the questions that I asked was, "Who was the first person to physically circumnavigate the world?" If you answer Magellan, you would be incorrect. Magellan never actually made it all the way around since he died in the Philippines prior to his ships making it back to Europe. Actually, Sir Francis Drake, in his ship the Golden Hind, physically made his way around the world first. When I asked the question, our youngest participant, Joshua, raised his hand and said, "I don't remember his name, but his ship was the Golden Rear." Golden Hind, Golden Rear, priceless.

If you look down the column on the right hand side of the blog's home page, you will see a button for Sitemeter. Sitemeter records how many people view my blog, where they are from (approximately, as in by region, not your street address), and how they found the blog. Interestingly enough, the majority of people who pop into the blog after finding it via Google search, arrive when they are searching for the term, "dactylic meter". Who knew?

Lastly, this was sent to me yesterday. It is truly amazing.

Nowhere Man

"He's a real nowhere man
Sitting in his nowhere land
Making all his nowhere plans for nobody"

Disclaimer: This is a continuation of Beatles song themed posts. I only include this because it is one of the funniest stories I know. It is a story about a young man we will call Ted. Ted was someone I met many years ago and was a very casual acquaintance. As in, Ted may actually be his real name, I don't remember. That is how casually we knew each other. He was a party guy and this story involves one such party. I was not there and do not condone the behavior I will relate to you, but the story did actually happen. If anything, read this as a warning to what can happen when you willing inebriate yourself to the level which Ted did.

As I stated above, Ted was a party guy and was also a frequent pot smoker. He was either in his senior year of high school or had recently graduated with no plans of further education. Either way, the Memorial Day weekend was coming up and Ted's friends planned a large drinking party over the holiday weekend. Someone they knew had a piece of property a couple of miles from town that was secluded and located on the river. The property was bare other than a pier that ran out into the river for docking boats. It was really the perfect place for a party since there were no houses or people around.
So the party takes place on Sunday afternoon/evening. There is a good group of people and they get a bonfire going. Someone at sometime has brought some old furniture out to the party place, chairs and even an old couch. The party is going in full force and Ted is well on his way to destroying more of his brain cells. As the party gets into late evening, Ted manages to find a place on the couch which is located out on the dock extending into the river. The party continues on and Ted eventually passes out on the couch.
Well, the evening is getting late and people start to leave, including Ted's ride home from the party. Of course he doesn't realize it because he is sleeping his buzz off on the couch. Or at least he was until he rolled off of the couch into the river. Cold, late May river water has a startling wakening effect on the inebriated sleeper. Fortunately, Ted woke up and was able to stand up and get himself onto dry land. He comes to the realization that it is really late, like early morning hours, and that everyone has left him there with no way to get home. Of course he is also very cold and wet due to his sudden baptism and he is still drunk. He decided that the best thing to do was to go back to sleep and in the morning either someone would remember to come and get him or he could walk back into town. Not wanting to continue feeling cold and wet, and since no one was there, he stripped naked and laid his clothes out near the bonfire so they could dry. He then climbed back on the couch to sleep.
Well the sun finally woke Ted up and he had some vague memories of what had happened during the night. As he got up off of the couch to retrieve his dried out clothes he realized they were no longer where he had placed them. It seems that he had laid them a little too close to the fire and that they had all been burned up. So we now have a naked man two miles from home without a ride. However, Ted is not without resources. Cell phones weren't around yet so he couldn't call anyone. He didn't feel quite right about walking to the nearest farm house naked and having to explain that. But, he did have the couch. Of course a couch that has been relegated to riverside party life is probably not the nicest couch. Imagine grandma's 1971 burnt orange and brown polyester couch and you are probably getting the picture. Well, Ted realizes what he needs to do and really should be commended for his ingenuity. He takes one of the couch cushions, unzips it, pulls out the foam cushion part, and punches two leg holes in the cushion cover. He then steps into the cushion with the zipper portion around his waist and begins his walk home wearing his improv couch cushion "shorts".
As he finally nears his house after walking the 2 miles into town, the full weight of his previous nights actions began to sink in on Ted. For Ted lived directly across the street from Veterans Park. It was Memorial Day. In the town that Ted lived in, they had a parade every Memorial Day that finished at Veterans Park. So as all of the parade goers watched, Ted scurried past them to his house wearing nothing but his couch cushion shorts.
I also strongly considered "Mother Natures Son" for the title of this post. But since Ted went on to do not much of anything as far as I know, this title fit him best. The last time I heard about Ted, he had just survived being struck by lightning. It seems that he really wanted to smoke some pot, so he sneaked out and hid under the tallest tree during a thunderstorm while getting his high.

Happiness is a Warm Gun

Disclaimer: The following story may make some who are vegan or PETA types slightly queasy. However, the overall story is worth getting to the end for and I hope that you would try to persevere.

I had no intentions on participating in this. But yesterday, this memory came to mind as did this song title. So here is the story and its list of characters.

I come from a family of seven boys. Yep! All boys, no girls. I am number six from the top otherwise known as the second youngest. I will refer to my brothers by their first initial and a number that represents where they are in the birth order. D1, B2, K3, D4, R5, E6(me), and on the end A7. Most of my brothers have nothing to do with this story but are included just to confuse you. Actually, the story's only characters are myself, R5, A7, and a mutual friend named Chad.

At least 10 years ago, R5, A7, our friend Chad, and myself went out deer hunting. Now in Wisconsin it is practically your duty as a citizen of the state to participate in the annual gun deer season. It provides revenue for the state by way of a "tax" called a hunting license. It is also a virtual means of self defense for the rest of the year, due to the amount of deer actually in the state and their natural desire to run around looking for ways to hurtle into your car while you are driving at speeds of 60 MPH. Either way, I used to hunt but didn't enjoy it enough to go back into the woods in the last 10 years.

On opening weekend of whenever this story took place, R5, A7, Chad, and I were hunting on some state owned public hunting grounds near the center of Wisconsin. I remember that we hadn't seen anything to shoot all morning and had met up together by mid morning to discuss our plan for the rest of the day. We decided to head back out for a little while longer before lunch time and see if we could find anything. So we split up and starting walking back to our deer stands where we hoped for some unsuspecting deer to pass us by. Shortly after entering back into the woods, I heard a shot and then another. They were close and seemed to come from the area where R5 was sitting. I sat a little longer, listening for more shots, and looking to see if the shots would scare up any deer who would pass my way. No such luck, so after waiting a few minutes I left my stand to go and see if someone in our party had gotten a deer. When I got to where R5 was, he was standing over a dead deer. He had just gotten to his stand when the deer came walking through and R5 shot. Shortly after I got there, Chad found us with my brother A7 being the last to show up for the "look at the dead deer" party.

Now I should explain a little about my younger brother, A7. He is a very good outdoors-men, loves to hunt, fish, hike, etc. He knows all these different plants and barks that you can eat if you get lost in the wild without food and would prefer not to starve. He also has a litany of various hunting/outdoor stories that have a tendency to run towards the side of excessive exaggeration. I refer to him as the "Last Great White Hunter". He also is quick to take the hunting thing to a bit of an extreme, such as drinking the blood of the first deer you kill. You get the picture.

Anyway, R5, Chad, and I are standing around the recently deceased deer when A7 comes walking down the pine tree row. In an attempt to try and show his ability and knowledge in hunting, A7 asks if he can gut the deer. For those who don't know, a freshly killed deer must have all of its organs and what not removed soon after it is killed to preserve the venison for eating. Well, R5, Chad, and myself all have the ability to gut the deer, but if A7 actually wants to do it, then who are we to stop him. So, A7 leans his gun against a tree, pulls out his hunting knife, and lays the deer on its back. Now to properly gut a deer, you start by cutting through the skin from just under the neck between the front legs and then all the way across the stomach to the tail. The slight problem that arises in trying to do this is that dead deer do not lay on their backs well and due to the fact that their legs are always pointing straight, it is a little difficult to keep the deer on its back, with legs spread out wide, so that you can cut open its chest. I hope you get the picture. To help A7 out with the deer organ removal process, Chad stood on the deer's right rear leg and I stood on its left rear leg. This allowed the deer to be completely spread eagle like, on the its back, waiting for A7's impending knife point. At this point A7 gets down on the ground with his knees right behind the deer's tail and leans over the deer to began the cutting sequence. Something else you may not know, but should be reminded of is that dead animals have involuntary muscle twitches shortly after their demise. Back to the story. As A7 leans over the deer and begins to cut, the deer's ear moved. I know what you are thinking, but no, the deer is dead this is just involuntary muscle twitching. So as my brother continues to operate with his knife, more muscle twitches. A7 sees the twitches and in this loud voice filled with hunters bravado begins to mock the dead deer. He is actually laying across the dead deer with his knife pointed in the open eye of the deer mocking it. "Oh! Think you're still alive! You're not 'cause we killed you and now we are going to eat you." It was a little weird but not out of character for my brother. It was at this moment, as my brother lay completely straddling the deer, that the moment we have all been waiting for arrived.

Some things in life you come upon, while others are thrust upon you. This moment was the latter. It is not every day that you are standing over a deer, watching your younger brother acting with such bravado over a dead animal. It is also not every day that one has such an opportunity and so you can not just let it pass by without acting. So as he lay with his face just inches away from the twitching deer face, with his knife pointed at its throat, mocking it loudly and verbosely as he stared into its eyes, that was the moment that I intentionally lifted my foot. Remember, I am standing on the deer's hind leg. When I lifted my foot, the leg took off like a catapult that had just been released, snapping back towards its own stomach and directly towards the backside of my sprawled out brother. That leg hit him in the rear end with a loud snap and A7 thought the deer had come back to life while he was spread out over it. He let out this loud yell and jumped up and backwards as his knife flew 30 feet in the air. He started yelling and looking for his gun to shoot the deer. I don't think I have ever seen anyone so scared in my life. However, he quickly realized what I had done and started calling me every name in the book. He also continued to reach for his gun, but I think he was looking to shoot me at that point. I remember Chad, R5, and myself laughing so hard we were crying and that I wouldn't let A7 near his rifle for the next half an hour for fear that he would shoot me. So, while happiness is a warm gun, happiness is also holding your warm gun and your bother's warm gun whom you just played a prank on.

Sir Walter Raleigh

This past Monday, October 29, marked the anniversary of the death of Sir Walter Raleigh in 1618. Purely by coincidence, the history class that I teach was studying that period of time and specifically Sir Walter. A couple of things we found extremely interesting about the chap.

First of all, I love the following quote. He was sentenced to death by beheading and he actually examined the very ax that would carry out his sentence. As he looked it over, he remarked, "This is sharp medicine, but it is a physician for all diseases and miseries."

To appreciate the next tidbit you need to realize that the class is almost equally made up of boys and girls. As boys and girls are prone to be at the ages of 8 to 13, they have some very different interest when it comes to history and life. Obviously the girls enjoy the historical characters whose lives are surrounded with great love and passion, while the boys thrive on stories of death, conquests, and plagues. Well we are in luck, for Sir Walt (we are on nickname basis by this point) was a true Renaissance Man who wrote poetry, fought battles, loved passionately, and died bravely which of course pleased everyone in the class. As we finished the study on Sir Walt, ending with his death, we concluded with one last gruesome detail for the boys. History records for us that upon his untimely head and body separation, that his body was buried in Westminster and his head was embalmed and given to . . . his wife! She kept the head of her dearly departed in a velvet bag for some time until she could no longer tolerate the stench and she had it reunited with the rest of him. At this point in the class, my 10 year old son, Caleb, raises his hand and says, "I'm guessing she never remarried. Seeing as how not many guys want to date someone who carries their dead husband's head in a bag." How very true.