Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Laughing, Crying, Cheering, Working Magick

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" Did you know that scholars have counted more than 350 Celtic deities alone? Some of them were highly localized. Why don't you adopt one for your backyard? I did, and I'm a better person for it!

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A little navel-gazing today.

1. Last night my younger daughter, The Spare, and I did a short ceremony in our Gnomehenge, honoring the dark of the moon. My sister gave The Spare a Native American flute. (Sis can play them like she was born to them, and fortunately they don't adapt to Judeo-Christian hymnals.) The Spare played some tunes. Then, out of the blue she just started warbling James Taylor. Except she sang:

"Shower the people you love with money,
Show them your Visa Card,
They are gonna love you better
If you spend real hard."

Of course we both cracked up, and I asked her if that was a "Weird Al Yankovick" song, and she said no, she made it up. It's classic Spare.

A firefly landed on my pinkie, rested a moment, and launched into the sky. Something told me to go check my email.

Ah, readers, goat judging! Goat judging! I've gotten a small offer from a brand new customer, Classic Feta of Pickering, Ontario! That's the second small contract from a new customer this year! Hooray!

I seriously thought I was going to have to call the janitor at the Vo-Tech about painting the classrooms.

(To Rick Santorum: Have you ever heard of a woman who would willingly part from her kids to paint schoolrooms all day, just for the sheer joy of being away from the brats? PS - You're a moron.)

Okay, on to the crying portion. My oldest daughter, The Heir, took her first driving lesson this morning. She was gone three hours, during which time she and her teacher (a lovely old gent) geared up and toured the entire county.

When I learned to drive, the first road I took was the Sharpsburg Pike. In those days it ran through farm fields dotted with battle monuments and tour signs. I doubt if more than three cars passed me in thirty minutes.

My daughter's first lesson encompassed one of the most congested counties in America, a mere 8 miles from Philly, and crammed to the plimsol line with irritable drivers who live to ply the horn. But up she drove to our house, at 11 o'clock on the dot, got out of the car like a strutting peacock, grinning from ear to ear.

Readers, I wept. My best friend has changed from a chubby little tot to a superb young woman with a job, and no bad habits, and consistent individual interests. How will I bear it when she goes away to college? How did this happen before my eyes?

(Again to Rick Santorum: Don't you dare tell me I spent too much time away goat-judging. I didn't. Mostly I take my daughters with me in the summertime. And both of them are well-nourished, and they've learned that in the real world you need two incomes to make ends meet. PS - You're a moron.)

Last but not least. I'm still after Wegman's, The Posh Pit Food Emporium of the Rich and Idle.

Wegman's (see below) just opened up not far from here. They sent me a coupon book to entice me to try their posh little shop. Thanks to "Joe Sixpack," famous international beer expert, I learned that Wegmans brand eggs come from brutally tortured chickens. Hardly what you'd expect from a company that bills itself as posh and chic, eh?

Today I happened to leaf through the coupon book. The Super Offer for Week 6 was a dozen Wegmans eggs, absolutely free and extra large to boot!

Out comes the coupon from the posh little booklet. I write on it, "I'm going to tell all my friends you torture chickens." Then I stroll to the post office (same Zip as Posh) and have them hand-cancel the envelope.

The faeries loved it! Can one customer, properly demographically located, change a posh store's poultry policies? I doubt it, but you never know. So that's my "glamor bomb" for the day (others might call it magick).

May a firefly land on your finger, may a local deity take residence in your yard. (Bring the deity inside when the weather turns cold.)

FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS
GAINFULLY, IF NOT LAVISHLY, EMPLOYED!

4 comments:

Hecate said...

Lovely!

Anonymous said...

Gah!--350+ gods, but I've yet to see an actual list. I'm trying to compile one right now, using Roman Inscriptions in Britain and the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, but I'm still having a hard time.

Do you know where this number came from? Was it Ellis's book? Damn it, he never uses footnotes or gives us his sources.

Anne Johnson said...

Yep, Ellis's book. I would never write a book for a general audience without including footnotes and references.

On the lighter side, you might want to consult God-Checker (in my sidebar). They have Celtic deities, nothing like 300 though.

Anonymous said...

I'm up to somewhere in the 200s, so I'll give God-Checker a try. Thanks!