Of Goddesses and Birthday Angels

 Did you ever have something happen to you that absolutely defied all odds and just seemed basically incredible? I have experienced this a few times, and it's always startling. Makes the most logical person scratch their head, because it is just magic.

Two weeks ago, after a long day at work, I popped into the thrift store. They always have a shelf of trinkets right inside the door -- they have Christmas stuff on it all year around, as well as other little do-dads and statuettes and such.

The moment I looked at the shelf I saw her:

EXHIBIT A: THE ODDS ARE PHENOMENAL

This is a Lefton birthday angel ca. 1966. I have never seen anything ceramic of this vintage in the thrift store before. And of course, March is my birthday month.

It gets better.

You see, I actually had a birthday angel like this, had her for decades in fact.

I gave her away as part of a fundraiser to save Terrapin Run.

Only my oldest of old-timers will remember how a rural community in Western Maryland had to pay a land-use lawyer to fight a developer who wanted to build housing for 11,000 people alongside a little Tier I stream called Terrapin Run. While the lawyer supported our cause, he needed to eat. So the little consortium to save the stream had all kinds of auctions and such to pay the lawyer bills. I sent them jewelry, and I sent them my little March angel I had owned since I was a kid. Had tears in my eyes when I turned her over.

In addition to giving what I could to the fundraising, I worked magic along the bank of Terrapin Run. For years. The Goddess I petitioned was Venus Cloacina, the Roman Goddess of the sewers. I figured if any deity would object to a crystal clear stream being turned into a wastewater dumping ground, it would be Cloacina.

Developers almost always win these battles. But this developer didn't. He lost like an egg-sucking dog and limped his saggy, broke-ass butt back to Washington, DC.

Ever since then I have thanked Cloacina whenever I visit that area, because I truly believe She answered my prayers.

Back to the present: What are the vast odds of finding a 50-year-old ceramic angel, exactly like the one I donated, just sitting on the shelf at the thrift store I visit twice a month? (By the way, she cost me $3.50.)

It gets better.

I had been waiting six weeks to hear from the attorney in Bedford who was handling my purchase of a property in the land of my ancestors. Not two days after bringing home the March angel, the documents and paperwork arrived in my email.

I am as scientific as the next guy, but that angel was nothing but an omen. Sent by Cloacina.

Don't pish tosh me now, reader. Terrapin Run is less than 10 miles from the property.

Which is now my property. It has closed.

I have land. And a Goddess. Bless them both.

A New Goddess Joins the Magical Battle for America

I'm just off a short but memorable vacation, and when I got home my computer was so sick it can't be used. So this very important post lacks images (not that they are necessary).

Let's start with a mental image: Picture a beautiful Goddess of the Greco/Roman pantheon. She has curly hair and fine, keen features. Of course she is attired in a flowing toga. What makes her unusual is that wherever she walks, pristine water sprouts behind her steps. Her name is Cloacina.

In ancient Rome, Cloacina was charged with water purification. All of those elaborate sewer systems and aqueducts were dedicated to Her. Sometimes she is named Venus Cloacina, which tells you how beautiful She is and how highly the ancient Romans esteemed her.

Years and years ago, I petitioned Cloacina to safeguard a little dry run out in the land where I grew up. A developer bought a 900-acre tract and planned to build housing for 11, 000 people on it, mostly in the form of high-density townhouses. Since there's no infrastructure for 11,000 people in that part of the world, someone would have had to build stores. The local fire department would have had to expand, as would law enforcement. Traffic would have been a nightmare, since the only road to the entrance of this proposed development is curvaceous, two-lane Route 40.

The dry run's name is Terrapin Run. (A dry run is a small stream that can go completely dry, or just become a series of shallow pools, when the weather gets hot and dry.) I became involved in a citizens' campaign to save Terrapin Run and block the development. Since Terrapin Run is a Tier II waterway (meaning it's pretty damn pure), I thought Cloacina might be interested in helping with this campaign.

Cloacina is the very essence of a bored goddess. In modern times she is nothing more than a name for an orifice we all have below our waists. She was only too happy -- indeed, She was thrilled -- to have an important miracle to perform in the here-and-now.

And She performed it brilliantly. Not a spade of earth was turned on that development! The entire property sits idle, with Terrapin Run burbling through it, when it does burble, which is usually springtime.

Now I have asked Cloacina to take on a much bigger project. I'm sure you're all aware that our sitting president has ordered his cabinet members to roll back regulations on clean water and pesticides. This means that all of our major waterways could degrade from their current condition. Cloacina is all about clean water. She kept the Romans alive and healthy, and they loved Her for it! She can do this for us as well. We are, after all, another vast, militaristic, and far-flown empire, like the one that provided Her praise and worship team.

My friends, I am asking for you to find a place on your altar for Cloacina. I'm asking you to petition her to protect our sacred waterways from degradation. She wants to join the Magical Battle for America. She wants work. Let's give Her a big job, with full faith that, if we worship Her, She will deliver us from evil.

Please find room for Her in your heart! This Goddess delivers.

Smart Growth

On Wednesday evening I will be attending a gala dinner at which the keynote speaker is the governor of Maryland. I am an invited guest of the nonprofit organization responsible for the gala.

I'm a little bit nervous. I'm not even sure my best behavior is good enough for such a bash.

This nonprofit group, which has been instrumental in keeping development out of Terrapin Run, is all about "smart growth." Smart growth is amazingly logical. It's an intentional decision to grow communities where infrastructure and residences already exist.

The state of Maryland has a dizzying array of ecosystems. It has ocean beaches. It has the mighty Chesapeake Bay. It has the rolling farmlands of the Piedmont, and in its nether reaches, it has mountains. At its far western extreme, there's one place that actually has a few hundred acres of Arctic tundra (it's called a "frost pocket bog").

Maryland also has Baltimore. And the suburbs of Washington, DC.

Beginning in the 1960s, people moved out of the big cities in droves, to suburbs that kept cropping up farther and farther from the urban areas, in those beautiful natural regions of Maryland. The line of suburban sprawl has crept across the state in every direction. There are many people who drive 70 miles one way to work, so they can go "home" to the Chesapeake, or to the mountains, or to the Mason-Dixon Line.

 If you want to see something sickening, go visit the Antietam Battlefield and then travel around that neck of the woods. You'll be cruising along a country road, and all of a sudden, up springs a hideous development of over-sized houses, with brick fronts and vinyl sides and grassy front lawns. These developments suck up farmland while older suburbs (and downtown real estate like Hagerstown, MD) abound with unused housing.

Smart growth advocates are trying to change that. They want to rehab existing houses in neighborhoods closer to urban centers. They want to concentrate housing on smaller parcels to save open spaces and farms. And they want to preserve wild lands in the state.

These are extremely laudable goals.

My heart, my soul, and my grave are in Appalachia. But it's easier for me to deal with not living there if I feel like I'm a "smart growth" kinda gal. And I am. There are 11 houses on my block. I can walk to the grocery store and the El train. This tiny plot of land where I lay my head could not be more different from the magnificent, empty vista that I cavorted through, summer after summer. But it's smart growth. I'm not sprawling in some former farm field. I'm not bulldozing trees for a mountain view. I live in a crowded neighborhood in a crowded county at the edge of a huge city.

It's idyllic to want to go "back to Nature" by living in the deep woods or on the edge of the rolling Chesapeake. Truth is, though, people don't go back to Nature. They bring the city with them when they move ... and suddenly Nature isn't natural anymore.

I pine for my mountains. I do. But when the fickle finger of Fate dropped me in Philadelphia, I just indifferently looked for a house near the El. Turns out I was a smart growther before it got called "smart growth."

My house is 90 years old. The yard is tiny. But suddenly, this expatriate hillbilly feels better. I'm proud to be part of the smart growth movement. It's one way to respect Mother Earth.

Nary a Spade Has Been Turned

Have you ever seen a cat that knows it has a mouse cornered under the refrigerator? That cat will sit there for days, totally attentive, waiting for the mouse to emerge. Cats are tenacious that way.

Housing developers are tenacious, too. Once they've bought a parcel of land, it doesn't matter how much common sense, local opposition, and state regulations stand in their way. They just keep sitting there, waiting for the pay day, waiting for that moment when a commissioner can be bribed, or the administration changes in the state capital, or the opponents run out of money for a land-use lawyer.

One such determined individual, Michael Carnock, has now been trying for years and years to get something built on a choice morsel of land that is hell-and-gone into the mountains of Western Maryland. The aforementioned morsel is called Terrapin Run, named after a delightful seasonal stream that tumbles through it.

Mr. Carnock's plans for a 4,000-unit, 11,000-person town in an area where there is currently nothing but a two-lane road and lots of woods has hit upon a few snags. As in, there aren't even any churches in the neighborhood, let alone schools, sewage treatment plants, or CVS pharmacies. Finally seeing the light, the bone-headed Mr. Carnock has scaled his plans back to 900 units. Even this has met with a polite but firm "no way" from Maryland's natural resources people. So of course Mr. Carnock is suing everyone in sight, like a cat whose coveted mouse slipped through a hole in the siding and escaped.

Sometimes, when developers buy mountain land and can't build cities on it, they timber it to smithereens. I've driven past Terrapin Run at least once a year for the past decade, and I don't think the land has been disturbed at all. (It had been timbered by previous ownership. That helps.)

Oh, but you should just see that pretty little stream, Terrapin Run! I know you've seen one like it. The water is so pure that you can count the stones on the bottom. And it makes that charming swishy, trickly noise that those cunning little dry run creeks make.

Awhile back, I placed an intention on that land and petitioned the Goddess Cloacina to guard it for me. She has been doing a fabulous job as the litigation drags on. In July I'll be going up that way again, so if you want to add your protective spells to the place and its sacred little stream, just communicate with me or Cloacina.

If all else fails, if Maryland is suddenly beset with a Koch brother as governor, or a clamor arises for housing units 35 miles from the nearest doctor, we still have an ace in our hands, my friends.

 The Terrapin Run watershed is home to Harperella, a bona fide endangered plant that relies on seasonal fluctuations in freshwater streams. Granted, our federal endangered species laws are being trampled, but this plant literally only grows on two waterways. I'm pinning my faith on a little white flower.

We who love the land should love not to build on it where it otherwise has been undisturbed. That should be a tenet of sensible world stewardship. Rebuild before starting something new.

I'd be willing to bet that you're seeing such foolishness in your own community -- big, ugly developments springing up like pimples on a cheek, while nearby sit older neighborhoods just ripe for rehab.

If it's your lifetime dream to live in the mountains, take some advice from this expat Appalachian: Move to an established town. If you thought this past winter was bad, just re-live it in your mind, but add complete solitude and steep, windy roads to the mix. Mr. Carnock not only neglected to provide for churches and pharmacies when he proposed his fetching hamlet. He forgot all about the weather. He could have asked any Johnson. We'd have been glad to tell him how much and how often the flakes fly in that neck of the woods.

May no spade be turned on Terrapin Run. May no spade ever be turned on Terrapin Run. In this little slice of the world, may the peace of the land prevail.

Sermon's over! Time to watch a baseball game!

The Awesome Magickal Victory of the Great Goddess Cloacina

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" I'm Anne Johnson at the helm. And doing the dishes. It's just me running this ship. No wonder it's drifting aimlessly!

Actually, though, all is not aimless drift. The magickal intention I began in 2006 has been realized!

Here to celebrate with me on this blessed day is the great bored Goddess to whom I entrusted the magick, and to whom falls the continued task of protecting a pretty little mountain waterway. Please give a great, glad, warm and wonderful "Gods Are Bored" welcome to Cloacina, Goddess of clean water, sacred to Ancient Rome!

Praise and worship to you, Wonderful Awesome Cloacina! Here's the text of an email I received over the weekend from our little group, Citizens for Smart Growth in Allegany County, Maryland:

PNC Bank filed an action on September 16, 2010, in Allegany County Circuit Court to foreclose on three of Carnock's properties - Church Road Development, PDC-Collingbrook, and Terrapin Run.  A group called TR Forty, of which Michael Carnock is Manager, had taken a pre-development loan for $5.5 million from PNC Bank in 2007 as nearly as I can tell and had pledged those properties as security.

As of July 6, 2010, amounts owed were Principal - $4,727,240, Interest - $402,209, and Late Charges - $7,621 for a total of $5,137,070.

Now, to my three regular readers, you know what all this $$$ stuff means. For the rest of you, a little back story. Take it away, Cloacina!


Cloacina:  The man named "Carnock" in the above-mentioned foreclosure statement is Michael Carnock. In 2006 or thereabouts, Michael Carnock bought several large wooded tracts of land in a rural area of Allegany County, Maryland, with the intention of creating a residential/commercial town of 11,000 people -- more than 400 units of housing, a business area, and a water treatment plant that would have placed a dam on one Tier II stream and sent the sewage runoff into Terrapin Run, a little wet-weather brook that trickles alongside the boundaries of a wildlife refuge. Have I got that correct, Anne?

Anne: Absoluetly, Great Goddess. Continue, please.

Cloacina:  In order to block this action, Anne began to do magick at the place where Terrapin Run passes under U.S. Scenic Route 40. If you want to find this place, take the Little Orleans exit off Interstate 68 and follow 40 west to the base of Town Hill. There's a little stone bridge. It's easy to miss. Terrapin Run (my precious baby) is very small.

Anne: Size doesn't matter, does it, Goddess?

Cloacina: Oh, indeed it does not! To continue my tale: After working solitary magick for awhile, Anne summoned Me and petitioned My aid. Anne prayed that I would settle in and protect Terrapin Run from Michael Carnock and his bulldozers. I was eager and willing! Words do not suffice to describe how bored I was until Anne gave Me this assignment. And I cannot say enough about the beauty of Allegany County. Talk about stunning countryside! I've seen all kinds of animals that I never saw in Ancient Rome, from rattlesnakes to raccoons to luna moths. Salamanders! Newts! Crayfish! Oh, I adore my Terrapin Run!

Anne: This is the end of the demon Michael Carnock, but our job is not finished along Terrapin Run, is it, Goddess?

Cloacina: No, dear. Now the property (bought at inflated prices) belongs to PNC bank. Rest assured they will try to find another despoiler. It won't be easy for them to identify another chump as clueless as Michael Carnock, but they will try. Remember, this area lies overtop that Marcellus Shale deposit that's full of natural gas ... PNC will be all over that.

Anne: Then we will continue our Work. Together forever, Anne and Cloacina! Blessed be! May all the deities of all the pantheons bless our Work to save Terrapin Run from any ill-conceived development or mining that would foul its shining waters! Cloacina, please stay for dinner. Homemade chicken cacciatore and a special red velvet cake just for You -- and the altar candles lit with praise prayers for You as well.

Cloacina: Music to my ears. And while I'm here, I'll take a look at that little pond in the next block, across the street from the Monkey Man's childhood home. Looks like it could use some Work.

Anne: Knock yourself out. Dinner's at six.


Readers, when I heard about this huge, ridiculous housing development, I vowed to do everything in my power to keep Michael Carnock and his corps of destroyers from even breaking ground on the Terrapin Run development. In addition to on-site spells, I gave the Citizens for Smart Growth monetary donations, fine jewelry and collectible ceramics that belonged to me, and shout-outs all along the way. If any of you gave money to the Citizens, this victory belongs to you as well as me!

As to my "zero tolerance" vow, I'm not sure they didn't bulldoze a road back into the heart of the property (and they blazed some trees they planned to cut down), but not one foundation was set. The land lies untrampled, and one greedy hellhound of a developer must be doing fry-cook night shift at the Waffle House.

A busy god might not have heard my cries for help on such a seemingly insignificant petition. Cloacina embraced Terrapin Run ... and saved it. May Her name be holy unto all.

White Magic Going Bad?

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," counting down the days until my daughter The Heir goes to college.... Seven. *weeps*

Okay. Enough of that. Self-pity ain't pretty.

Did you see Stuart Shepard from Focus on the Family ask his viewers to pray for a torrential rain on Barack Obama's acceptance speech? You did? Tell me how that is different from black magic. The dude is even holding a wand! (Actually it's an umbrella, but he uses it like a wand.)

You gotta be careful what you ask for, Stu. The family of four swept away in a Rocky Mountain flash flood may be your own.

Magic is very, very tricky. My two white magic projects are making me feel my amateur status quite painfully.

1. Spell #1: Saving the Small Stream

For several years I've been engaged in trying to save a small mountain stream from becoming the sewage sluice for a town of 11,000 people. That town doesn't exist right now -- the tract of land is free of human habitation. Attempts to keep it that way are still slowly grinding forward, a victory here, a setback there. You know how it is with developers. They never give up.

I asked the bored Goddess Cloacina to guard the stream for me. She is the ancient Roman Goddess of Cleanliness. Cloacina was eager to have the work. She paid her own transportation costs to the site. But in typical ancient Roman fashion, She has used every tactic in Her considerable power to git r done.

The proposed Appalachian Mountain development is called Terrapin Run, after the pretty little stream. Its developer, the shadowy PDC Corporation, has made the news lately for lapses in completion of other Maryland developments. These lapses have led to burglaries (because PDC did not install mandatory street lights), and automobile accidents (because PDC did not complete storm water runoff ponds). My source for this information is a July 24, 2008 article in Gazette.net: Maryland Community Newspapers Online, by Andrea Noble.

Has the bored Goddess I petitioned actually tried to scuttle the Terrapin Run project by allowing innocent folks in other suburban developments to be burglarized?

This is why I never, ever pray for rain.

2. Spell #2: The Enchanted Plastic Dinosaurs

My legions and legions of readers will recall that my daughters and I decided to liven up a local park that was dedicated to dinosaurs (but had only a boring plaque) by putting toy dinosaurs out for kids to play with. Of course we do this anonymously. And we've watched happy kids play with the dinos. This looks like a white magic slam-dunk.

Nope. While my daughters and I have always put out only larger dinosaurs that cannot be swallowed, it seems that other anonymous folks have taken up the cause, and some of the dinos they leave could be swallowed by a little kid. Now my family has to prowl that site vigilantly, removing all undersized plastic dinos. But are we vigilant enough? What sort of dangerous project have we unleashed here?

Can you tell I'm a little insecure today? Advice, anyone?

This Works on Every Level

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" This morning we're finding religion and social justice in up-ended junk stock cars! Pinch me on this one, I think I'm dreaming.

An Ogden, Utah farmer found his life transformed when a developer put in a subdivision at the edge of his farm.

The newly-built "luxury homes" sold pretty quickly, because everyone likes to gaze out on a peaceful farm scene as they gulp their coffee in preparation for a long commute to work.

But then reality set in. Because the farmer really does farm. He has cows. They eliminate waste, and the product does not smell nice. He also makes hay, which makes dust, which rises through the air and lands on upholstery. And all that machinery! It's noisy!

The farmer's neighbors complained. He offered to split the price of a privacy fence. They declined, saying that they didn't want to ruin their view of his pretty property.

So the farmer evoked the bored gods. He went out and got a few junked stock cars, fired up the backhoe, and upended those suckers in the ground, in a nice array, at the edge of his property.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you

REDNECK STONEHENGE

That's what this inspired farmer called his creation.

I remember sitting in the breakfast nook of my sister's new "luxury home," staring down upon a pair of unhappy Old Order Mennonites as they did their farm chores with full knowledge that they were being gawked at. I thought to myself, "Gosh, if I suddenly found myself surrounded by monstrosities of vinyl siding on every boundary line, I think I'd just shuck my clothes and start doing my work buck naked."

Oh, my lack of imagination! Why work naked amongst horse flies when you can erect a henge? Heck, you don't need old cars. You could use just about anything stiff enough to stack. Like laundry baskets. Or junked computers. Or random pieces of furniture, trash-picked from sidewalks.

Of course, all of that pales in the presence of a Car Henge, but we can't all operate back hoes.

If you need a henge in your life, beseech the wisdom of the bored gods. They will help you with your creation. And those pesky neighbors deserve just what they get.

Our operators are standing by to take your call.

Meeting Emma's Standards -- Sort Of

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," cheating bankruptcy one day at a time! If you, too, are insecure about your future, welcome! We're pretty sure the fat-cat industrialists graze somewhere else.

Please be advised that "The Gods Are Bored" will be offline until Monday, April 9 and will resume at that time.

On Wednesday, April 4 my daughters (The Heir and The Spare) and I will be taking a little road trip. Our destination is the same every time. Let the fat cat kids jet off to Vienna! As for me and my house, we will go to Berkeley Springs. Terrapin Run. And points nearby. Meet and greet us at the Road Kill Cafe, Artemas, PA on Thursday night for country ribs and two sides.

Two people I admire, one of them being Hecate, have touted Druid books by Emma Restall Orr. These tomes by a respected British Druid aren't easy to find. I had to use Alibris.

Two dear little volumes arrived about four weeks ago. Just now I inspected them more closely and found they're the same words in two different packages! I therefore recommend the hardcover, titled simply Druidry.

I didn't see the similarities sooner because Ms. Orr begins her book(s) with a strict admonition. One must case one's house and find something of value that reflects one's life. Then one must pack a light lunch and a nourishing beverage, bung on the comfy walking shoes, and stride purposefully into the deep wilderness. There, after a sufficient period of meditation, one must either leave the valued object behind or prepare to part with it by giving it to a stranger or a thrift store.

Ms. Orr says not to read anymore of her book(s) until this job is done.

I have spent a great deal of time thinking about this. Yeah, I know I should get a life.

See, I really really want to read the rest of Druidry. There's just one problem. It's the valuable item thingy.

I have one -- a valuable item -- namely, a Selenite crystal about the size of a small magick wand. I bought the crystal in Berkeley Springs because when I picked it up I got a chill. (I like the word frisson better.) I soon learned from holding the crystal that it wanted to be re-committed to the earth from which it had come. So it's a no-brainer to take the crystal and give it the old heave-ho into a deserted rocky place.

Wait a minute. Emma, can we talk? Let me count the ways this becomes a task of monumental proportions.

1. I'm taking a trip into the mountains. I will have my soon-to-be 13-year-old with me. You try walking into the wilderness for hours of meditation with a kid who lost her ear to a cell phone and won't leave home without two pounds of makeup. I guess I could leave her with relatives, but ...

2. The relatives will want me to sit and chat all day, because I get home so seldom. Which leads me to ...

3. Close relatives living cheek-to-jowl with the swimming hole that I wanted to throw the crystal into. You can't just lob a crystal this size into a rushing stream. Someone's gonna see it and take it, and ooooooo, will that crystal be steaming mad. But if I pull up to the swimming hole with my big sedan carrying Jersey plates, I'm gonna be seen. By people who love me so much they want me to return to the Christian fold forthwith.

4. This throws me back on Plans B and C. Neither one appealing or perfect.

5. Plan B: The bridge under which Terrapin Run flows. A suitably thorny descent and scary dark bridge underside. But human re-discovery of crystal highly likely when it gets tumbled in a flash flood.

6. Plan C: Remote Wilderness Area full of big, tumbled boulders. An Appalachian gap so deep that no cell phone will penetrate its rugged and stunningly beautiful interior. And that brings us back to ...

7. The Spare and her cell phone. It takes more than an hour to walk into the wilderness area. No bars, trust me, from the moment you embark. And although the destination is a rugged wilderness area, it's not people-free. I will have to bury that crystal under a heaping big cairn that looks like part of the landscape. With Spare strutting and fretting all the while.

So Emma, I'm on the case, dear. But please note the difficulties. Don't hate me for them.

If I'm unable to bury the crystal with sufficient stealth, I think I'll drop The Spare at the nearest thrift store. The book just says something of value ...

FROM ANNE

THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS

See you Monday!

Principles of Bad Faerie Control

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" We're always here with helpful suggestions for upholstery maintenance! Out, out, damned spot!

Today we're going to share some tips on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happy faeries. In other words, we want you to be free ... free of bad faeries who will make you say words you don't want your children repeating in front of the Sunday School superintendant.

With no further ado, we offer:

Faerie 101: Tips for Essential Bad Faerie Control

1. Keep your surroundings tidy. Bad faeries hide in piles of junk. They hide your important stuff in there, too. So, hard as it is for you and me, we've got to throw out those old newspapers.

2. Make proper offerings to your faeries. They love alcohol, chocolate, cheese, fragrant candles, and any kind of dessert. Never open a bottle of booze without setting aside a portion for the faeries. Put your offering in a corner, and when you've finished your portion, take up the faeries' portion. Angela-Eloise reminds me that you never say "thank you" to a faerie. It insults them. Try saying, "My, that was some kick-ass Budweiser, eh faerie?"


3. As Tennessee Jed puts it, try not to make matters worse. The more riled up you get, the more bad faeries you'll attract. Jed mustn't have a bad faerie to his name, because he climbs baseball stadium light fixtures to change the bulbs. You just can't do that if you're surrounded by bad faeries.

4. If the bad faeries will not leave you alone, get dressed up in your finest and go to a service at the nearest mega church. Let them think you're converting to the religion that belittles their existence. Okay, so this will be hard for you, too. It's called tough love.

5. If you have a baby and you're afraid the bad faeries are going to try to substitute a changeling -- well, that's gotten easier to control than ever. Just buy one of those nursery monitors and keep it on when the tot is in bed. You'll find a nursery monitor has many valuable uses beyond merely protecting a babe from bad faeries. So it's win-win.

6. It has been my experience that bad faeries can be driven from a home by repeatedly playing your DVD set of "The Honeymooners." This may drive you from your home, too, but you'll come back and they won't.

7. Try to understand where your bad faeries are coming from. They may be cranky at having to spend time in the mortal world. Invite them for a drive in the country, stop at some beguiling spot, and suggest they explore. I have in this manner infested a little stream called Terrapin Run with a veritable army of bad faeries who will rain bad karma on any developer who tries to build a town for 11,000 people along the creek banks. Are you reading this, Michael Carnock?

So, with all these handy tips, you should be able to tame those pesky faeries and get them into shape. Truth to tell, though, it's sometimes fun to have a few bad faeries around just to make life interesting. Until they get into your computer, that is. I've got a couple doing the jig in mine just now.

FROM ANNE

THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS

My Very Strange Bedfellow

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," lovely liberalism lavishly applied! Blue isn't good enough for us. We say, Go Green!

Today when I came home from work, there was an email waiting for me from a reporter at Fox News in Baltimore.

Yeah, well, there are more than 341,000 Anne Johnsons in the U.S.A. Some of them must watch O'Reilly. Sure as hell not me.

Then I read the reporter's note: "Please call me if you're the Anne Johnson interested in Terrapin Run."

Bingo. That's me. I called Fox News. Me. Anne Johnson, calling Fox News. Geez, it's like taking lunch with Darth Vader.

But wait. Let's not jump to conclusions here. The only thing we at "The Gods Are Bored" jump to conclusions about is the indisputable fact that ALL POLITICIANS CURRENTLY IN OFFICE ARE POCKET MONKEYS FOR THE RICH, RICHER, AND RICHEST.

The kind young reporter alerted me to a sneaky bill that will be introduced in the Maryland State Senate on February 20, just a mere 3 weeks before the issue of Terrapin Run (a little stream trying to avoid becoming a sewer hole) was to be taken to Maryland Circuit Court.

I rapidly directed the kind young reporter to the head of Citizens for Smart Growth in Allegany County.

Here are the two kickers:

1. The reporter at Fox News said: "Yes, we're ultra-Republicans, but we oppose this bill and the ramifications it has for the environment in Western Maryland."

Anyone with this attitude is welcome in my circle of friends, no matter where they may be employed.

2. Big kicker: The reporter tracked me down through this blog. Oh yes, I am proud to say that Fox News firewalls "The Gods Are Bored," but he found a computer that lets him read about Zeus.

And so my magickal quest to save Terrapin Run and its environs from townhouses, asphalt, shopping centers, and fatal deer-vs.-SUV encounters has found an ally in ... drum roll ... Fox News.

Yeah. I've pinched myself black and blue.

FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS
SAVE TERRAPIN RUN!