Beautiful, Beautiful Buzzards

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," your premiere outlet for vulture worship on the World Wide Web! Where would we be, I ask you, without vultures? Consider the plight of India, where steroid use in cattle has decimated the vulture population. In its place there's been an explosion of feral dogs -- and decaying carcasses, including the enlightened Farsis who dedicate their mortal remains to the sky.

One of my most pleasant memories of recent weeks is the afternoon when my daughter the Heir and I went buzzarding. It was her suggestion, because she wanted to see me happy.

How does one buzzard? (I've made up my own verb! Cool, huh?)

In the hamlet of Wenonah, New Jersey, there are clusters of tall pines in peoples' backyards. The countryside around Wenonah has been slash-and-burn developed in recent years, but there's still an active landfill in the area.

Every evening beginning about an hour before sundown, vultures by the dozens descend upon the pines of Wenonah in that inimitable vulturous way, soaring in with nary a wing flap, then suddenly alighting in a tree. Eventually the trees become packed with buzzards, all jostling one another for the best roosting limbs. Kind of like an extra large Christmas tree decorated with big black birds, all moving around restlessly.

I suppose most people would not find this entrancing, but I do.

For the first time on this particular buzzarding expedition, the Heir and I actually heard the buzzards making sounds. Vocalization is not something vultures are known for. Nightingales they are not. But when they've got a claw around a good roosting branch, and another of their kind challenges them for it, they emit a noise that's like a combination of a hiss and a quack. I've never heard anything quite like it. I tried to duplicate it with my vocal chords but couldn't. And I can caw like a crow -- and get the crows to respond.

We all must strive to improve ourselves as we pass through life, never stopping and heaving a sigh of satisfaction at the status quo. I am therefore dedicating myself to learning the vulture vocalization.

So if you're in my neighborhood, and you hear somthing hissing, it's probably me. If you hear a bagpipe, that's the dude in the next block who is not allowed to practice his instrument in the house.

This is the time of year when I begin my vulture posts in anticipation of the blessed East Coast Vulture Festival. It is held in Wenonah, New Jersey. No leap of logic in that.

Remember to keep the Sacred Thunderbirds in your hearts and souls, dear readers. They are Mother Nature's golden purifiers.

Want to learn more? Our operators are standing by to take your call.

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," reassuring bland blather in a topsy-turvy world! Think of us as as a comfy McDonald's at a rest stop on the turnpike of life. You want to super-size that?

Lots of people were steamed when President Obama (still loves it) invited Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at the inauguration. We all know why President O did it. Gotta try to woo the Christian fringe that thinks Obama's either a communist or a Muslim, or both. (This is a mighty small fringe, I hope, but it is out there.)

Sometimes things work out better than you hope. Warren's invocation was blander than the blandest post ever churned out by the staff of "The Gods Are Bored." In contrast, the benediction offered by Joseph Lowery just crackled with righteous flame. Practically a smackdown of Mr. Purpose Driven Life, and certainly an uplifting moment no matter what religion you choose to follow.

Needless to say, President Obama did not include Pagans in his shout-out to all the different races, faiths, and sexual identities out there. Does that mean that Pagans don't have to pay federal taxes? I don't think I'm going to take a chance on that one.

I've lived to see the day when an African American man sits in the White House. I hope I live to see the day when the swearing-in of a new president eschews the Bible and the "so help me God" because Pagans have become numerous enough to command attention and respect.

If I live to see the day when a Druid offers the benediction at a presidential inauguration, I will hate to die, because the nation will truly be an interesting place.

I'm Anne Johnson, and I approve this message.

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" Five minutes until scheduled outage! Type fast, Anne!

Tonight's post on Rick Warren, Barack Obama, and Niccolo Machiavelli will be re-scheduled for tomorrow, or whenever Anne has a minute, or whenever Blogger isn't scheduling an outage.

Or whenever the bored gods bestow upon Anne a free moment.

Blessings to all.

Inaugural Navel Gazing

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," where you never know what a well-scripted day will bring! Inevitably some actor's gonna blow the entrance or miss the mark. And another one will pick up the slack. Come to think of it, this is an argument for the holy workings of polytheism.

I went off to work today as a tutor for African American and Hispanic teenagers at the local Vo-Tech. As might be imagined, they were pretty pumped about this inauguration.

My daughter The Spare had persuaded her dad to come get her from school so they could watch the swearing-in together at home. Alas and alack. The Spare was watching the pre-swearing ceremony in the auditorium at Snobville High, checking her cell phone every other minute to make sure she didn't miss the time when her dad was coming to pick her up. A teacher nabbed the phone. Dad arrived at the school, but the office staff couldn't find The Spare. By the time The Spare got her phone back, Dad had returned to Chateau Johnson -- and The Spare missed the swearing-in and the speech.

Meantime, I was watching same in a classroom with a business teacher and about a dozen seniors of color. Out in the cafeteria there was rowdy cheering when Obama finished his oath (in a most un-Constitutional way, blah on that "So help me God."). But the seniors in the business shop were serious throughout. Reality is setting in with them. They know they soon will be sailing into the jobless blight outside, and they're hoping President Obama.....

AHHHHHHHHHH! PRESIDENT OBAMA! LOVES IT!

Anyway, next thing I know I'm being hunted throughout the school like some fugitive from a chain gang. Informed of this, I hustled to the principal's office, readying my excuse for allowing the 6th period tutorees to watch the inauguration instead of answering multiple choice questions about Tom Sawyer.

The principal radiated concern. The Spare had phoned the Vo-Tech in obvious distress. Can you believe that the principal of the Vo-Tech vacated her office so I could call The Spare back? (I know this honeymoon can't last forever.)

Spare sobbed: "I missed it."

Remember how I said I was going to be at work during Barack Obama's inauguration? One should never make bold statements.

As luck would have it, my ninth period tutoree was absent. So I signed out of work, drove back to Snobville, and pulled The Spare out of class. She was very touched that I did that. She was also concerned that her dad might have missed the swearing-in, because he was raised in Baltimore, same age as John Waters more or less, and he knows something about racism.

Here's where the magic enters. Yesterday, on Martin Luther King Day, we had a little meeting here at Chateau Johnson. The Spare is the president of the local chapter of the Children of the American Revolution. As our Day of Service project, we made treat bags for the 52 homeless veterans at the nearby veterans' center. Well, you know that all Children of the American Revolution bashes have to start with a pledge to the flag. I had to ask an adult helper to bring a flag -- and she brought one of those kinds they put on servicemen's gravestones.

So the Spare missed the swearing-in, and here we stood in the house, staring at a little grave flag. Spare said: "Let's go to the cemetery."

When President Obama (ooooooo! I am gonna faint with joy!) won the nomination, the Spare and I took our Obama/Biden lawn sign and put it in a "colored cemetery" where more than 100 African American Civil War veterans are interred. That's where we went today, with the flag.

The Obama/Biden sign was still where we left it, among the African American Union Dead. The Spare affixed the American flag to the sign, and we told the spirits: "Your day has come."

Then we went and got a Philadelphia cheesesteak and some fries, and we laughed with the other people at the sandwich shop about how glad we were to see George Bush go. Then poor Spare trudged into the dentist office and had four cavities filled. The novocaine has still not worn off. She looks like Elvis.

It's funny how things work out. I had planned to be at the Vo-Tech when Barack Obama became president, and I was. But by strange twists of fate, I also wound up making a memory with the Spare.

There won't be many people who, when asked where they were on the day Barack Obama was sworn in, will answer: "In a rime of snow amongst the holy Union Dead, proclaiming that they did not perish in vain."

Yep, that cemetery wasn't crowded ... with living people, anyway.

May all the bored deities everywhere bless Barack Obama and guide him, and us, back into a place of sanity and pride.

Win-Win

I believed my daughter The Spare when she said that her teachers at Snobville High would not be showing the inauguration, except the world civ teacher she has from 1:45 to 2:30, when it will be over. So I wrote her a note to come home with her dad.

As for me, I'm going to work. But it's slippery as a rink outside this morning, both Camden public schools are closed, and the Vo-Tech -- although open -- draws its student body from Camden.

If five students are absent, I will be able to leave work early and watch the inauguration with my daughter. If not, I will be able to watch the inauguration on a big-screen t.v. in a classroom filled with minority students who adore Barack Obama.

There's no losing proposition here.

National Night of Prayer

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" And so we have sailed the seas and have come...

To the final night of the George W. Bush presidency and the dawn of a day I never would ever have thought possible.

Yesterday after I dropped The Heir off for her second term of college, I heard on the radio that a pastor from the Philadelphia African Methodist Episcopal Church has asked everyone to engage in serious prayer Monday night in anticipation of the transition to the Obama presidency.

I doubt that the pastor in question thought that people would be praying to bored gods on behalf of President Obama (OH THAT NAME SOUNDS LOVELY). But here is my personal inaugural prayer:

O great Gods and Goddesses of the ancestors of Barack Obama.

Ye gods of dark skin, whose people were wrenched from their homelands and from Your praise, whose people were thrown into chains and tormented unto ten generations, ye gods whose existence has been denigrated by white-skinned missionaries with powerful antibiotics: Stand at the right shoulder of Barack Obama, child of Your creation. Be with him, and us, as this new era dawns.

O great Goddess, Queen Brighid the Bright, shower your sweet love upon Barack Obama and the people of America. May we all learn tolerance and respect from his example. May we live to see the day when all children of all Gods and Goddesses can rise up and say, "We are here! Our deities are great! Prepare a place at our national table for Them. And so shall They bless us, every one."

A new man goes to the White House. But there are still bridges to build. A bridge for Gay. A bridge for Pagan. A bridge for Newcomer. A bridge for the big, broad, flexible outlook.

And there are bridges to burn. The bridge of Greed. The bridge of Me First. The bridge of Mine Is the Only Way. Light the matches, kindle the flame, tear down those walls.

May there be peace throughout the world. Awen. Awen. Awen.

Well now. Isn't that a nice prayer? Not bad after a long Day of Service, if I might say so myself. Time to feed the cats!

Bob or the Buzzards?

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," occasionally -- very, very occasionally -- tackling a serious topic! Today's is a whopper.

When I was a teen I had a very good friend, male, who was 10 years my senior. He was the leader of the church youth group, and, unlike so many youth leaders, he never hit on any of the girls. Or the boys. He was a straight arrow.

He went on to be a regional leader in Big Brothers/Big Sisters of America. He adopted the boy he fostered as a Big Brother. He also raised that boy's daughter. In the mid-1990s he ran for the state legislature and won in his little rural district. After his first election he was re-elected several times. He ran unopposed because no one wanted to waste their time trying to unseat such a popular delegate.

Last year it was discovered that this man's computer was chock-a-block with child pornography, the most graphic kind, the most heinous offenses. No one came forward to accuse the man of any actual abuse, and the videos were not of him, but needless to say the law moved in.

My onetime friend and mentor has drawn a 37-month sentence at a low security prison 30 miles from my house. This prison is quite some distance from his hometown, in another state entirely. It's safe to say the guy isn't going to get many visitors.

I feel like I ought to go and see Bob, but doggone if I can think of what I would say. The details of what he did are atrocious, even though he himself never touched a child (that we know of).

Honestly, readers, I need your feedback on this. Do I go see Bob? Or not? If so, what do I talk about? I cannot and will not condone what he's done or absolve him in any way, even if he says he is insane. On the other hand, it pains me to think of him sitting down there, so far from home, with no prospects of gainful employment or comfort when his sentence expires.

Perhaps I should just abandon him to the Pine Barrens and go watch the buzzards in Wenonah. I'm really stuck on how to handle this one. Bob, or the buzzards?

Where Will You Be?

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," the mid-life ramblings of no one in particular! Fire ants have a more exciting life than me. But that's okay. Boring is better than catastrophic.

Occasionally I watch MSNBC at night. Yesterday evening I saw a commercial. It showed heroic portraits of Barack Obama, with heroic music, and asked the question, "Where will you be when history is made?"

This having to do of course with the inauguration. And of course the implication is, WATCH MSNBC.

Thanks for the invitation, Keith and Rachel, but I'll be at work.

When I was a kid, my parents wouldn't have dreamed of keeping me home from school to witness a historic event on television. I consider myself fortunate to have been a preschooler in the John Glenn era, because I saw all those rocket liftoffs and splashdowns. Also, I believe that the moon landing was in the summertime when I didn't have school.

Otherwise, for good or ill, I work through everything that isn't posing an immediate threat to my life and limb. On 9/11 I watched the event unfold for about 90 gut-wrenching minutes, and then I said to myself, "Damn. I'm going to work." And I did. In those years I worked at home, was my own boss, and could set my own hours. Skyscraper 100 miles away attacked and destroyed? I'm not there. Back to work. I'll grieve later.

I am 100 percent certain that Barack Obama is going to be a far, far better president than the pile of barely sentient protoplasm he's replacing. But is all this hoopla beneficial to our national psyche? I've heard parents say they're keeping their kids home from school that day. My daughter The Spare has declared she's staying home that day. (Nope, sorry, you're not.)

Did anyone propose that we stay home and watch Jimmy Carter be sworn in? Presidential inaugurations are fabulous events, full of optimism, but how genuinely historic are they? The quotable moments get played over and over ("Ask not what your country can do for you..."). The rest is a parade and some prayers.

You may really disagree with me on this because of Mr. Obama's race and his spectacular success story. Okay, convince me to stay home next Tuesday. Hit me with your best shot, fire away.

Coming soon: Treatise on the Rick Warren inaugural prayer.

Weird Ways of the Bored Gods

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," marvelous manifestations of multiple miracles since 2005! I'm your host, Anne Johnson. If you address me, please be sure to include the "e" on the end of my name. It's a sign of class.

In August of 2004 I lost the job I'd held and loved for 20 years. I would have been devastated, except my dad had suffered a terrible accident the same week -- I was more worried about him.

But as the weeks and months wore on, the lack of income became more and more distressing. Then Dad died early in 2005, and within a few months my efficient and morally upstanding sister had dispersed to me my share of his estate.

These funds kept us going at Chateau Johnson while I got the certification to be a substitute teacher. I was planning to substitute at Snobville High School, the whip-cracker of an institution that my daughter attends.

In the summer of 2005 my daughters and I took a day trip to the Jersey Shore, there to spend some time on the beach with my daughter The Heir's friend, who I'll call May. While the teens lolled on the beach, I chatted with May's mom back at the bungalow she'd rented. I told May's mom about my employment problems, and how I planned to start subbing at Snobville High.

She said to me, "I'm the principal of the Vo-Tech. It's an eight minute drive from Snobville. You should put in your paperwork with us."

The Vo-Tech draws its students from Camden, a city that will probably regain its distinction as the murder capital of America when the next list rolls around. But from Day One I liked the Vo-Tech. You know, kids are kids, and you're going to have smart alecks everywhere. But the difference between Snobville High (where I subbed a little) and the Vo-Tech (where I subbed more and more) is that the kids at Snobville look right through substitute teachers as if they don't exist. Boy, I hated that.

When an English teacher went out from the Vo-Tech for a prolonged operation and recuperation, I got my first long-term sub job. Smack in the middle I got a little certificate that isn't exactly a teaching certificate, but sort of a certificate that could lead to a certificate. If you've ever had to deal with state bureaucracy, you know what I'm talking about.

Anyway, I moved myself up through the substitute ranks at the Vo-Tech. Last week I started working at the Vo-Tech as an English tutor. My employer is the federal government, No Child Left Behind. In the haste to push and shove Americans up to the academic standards of the rest of the world, kids like the students at the Vo-Tech just struggle like salmon leaping up a waterfall. I'm here to help them now, every school day.

The point of all of this is that the bored gods work in weird ways. I never thought I'd become any kind of teacher, let alone a tutor of inner city kids. Besides that, I never would have thought I would enjoy doing it. I spent 20 years sitting alone in a home office, writing reference books. I liked that. But I find I also like being around people.

To whatever Goddess threw me this opportunity, I would like to say, "Thank you. I intend to be a civil servant who actually serves."

Please wish me luck. Of course it's still part-time contract work with no benefits, but it's a paycheck. But more important, it's something I can do, and something that could help two dozen minority students get their high school diplomas. And we all know how important that is.

I never petitioned the bored gods for this opportunity. Not with the world the way it is, so many people out of work, out of homes, starving in Third World countries. But some sweet Goddess somewhere just placed this in my lap. How nice of Her!

Rat Fink

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," strolling down memory lane into a day when kids played with toys! When I was young, my sandbox was my best friend.

Nowadays you see these plastic portable sandboxes that have lids. A sandbox with a lid! Heck, what's a little cat crap in your sandbox? Didn't kill me. Here I sit.

My dad built my sandbox, and it was the envy of all my friends. Every spring he would buy two or three big bags of white sand, dump them in the box, and Sis and I would go to town.

In those days there was a hot rod culture with an artist named Big Daddy Roth. He created a leering critter called Rat Fink for the speedster set. And someone got the idea to mass produce little plastic Rat Finks in all sorts of colors, lock them into round plastic pods, and shove them in gumball machines. You could buy a Rat Fink from a gumball machine for a nickel. And that was in the reach of even the poorest kid.

Sis and I had a whole village worth of Rat Finks. (Those original ones with the whiskers are now selling for fifty bucks a pop on Ebay. Even in this economy.) I had one I particularly loved that was a unique magenta color. And another that was orange and had whiskers. Both got stolen. I was in eighth grade at the time -- too cool for toys? No way. I cried.

Many and many a sunny afternoon, Sis and I (and maybe a cousin or friend or two) would build whole complex communities of buildings and roads and pools and balconies for our Rat Finks. The sandbox was a world unto itself. Each Rat Fink had a name, and a personality, and likes and dislikes. Some lived together in spacious holes with cubbies to sleep in. Some were lone wolves on high crags, staring down like the Grinch ... plotting. The Rat Finks were perfect for the sandbox because they could be hosed down at the end of the day, and all the sand came off them.

At one time when I was about nine and Sis about five, we must have had three dozen Rat Finks between us. But you know how it is. You play with something, it gets away, you don't find it, or Mom thinks you're through with it and throws it out. Of that vast treasure trove, Sis has only one original Rat Fink left. I have none. We replenished our supply about 15 years ago when Big Daddy Roth's web site issued repros. I can still see my dad's face light up when I showed him a handful of repro little plastic Rat Finks and asked him to choose his favorite color for his key chain. (He chose purple. Sis has that one now.)

If you're keen to have a repro plastic key chain Rat Fink, you can get one here. They're cheaper by the dozen. I think.

Sometimes I see the little girls next door playing in their plastic sandbox with a lid. First of all, the lid limits how much sand can be in the box. Second, the toys they use in the sandbox are shovels and pails. Sis and I didn't have either. We used our hands and arms, and the skill of our fingers as we dexterously crafted living quarters and surrounding amenities for sharp-toothed, wide-grinned Rat Finks.

In this fabulous portrait, you can just make out the necklace of Rat Finks my daughter The Heir wore to the 2007 Fairie Festival at Spoutwood Farm. The Heir loves her Finks, wearing the necklace only on the most special occasions.

As for me, my repro guys are scattered here and there. I'm afraid to gather them up as a group, because Sis is having the very devil of a time with a tricky little faerie who's inciting hers to riot. (See below.)

I think what I liked about Rat Finks was that they had no inherent identity beyond a certain likable badness. They weren't animals, they weren't people, they certainly weren't little clothes horses with big tits and accessories. Didn't seem to matter to Sis and me that the gender was uniformly male. In Rat Fink world the rules were different. No guys, no gals, just individuals who behaved in predictable ways.

Keep your gaming systems. As for me and my house, we will play with Rat Finks.

The Ongoing Magic of Grizzabella the Faerie

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," partying with pantheons too often ignored! Some deities are busy, others need work. So pray for the bored gods. Throw them some perks!

My sister has always loved teeny tiny things. I did too when I was little. We had a whole village of trolls and Rat Finks and little rubber eraser animals and space aliens, the kind of stuff you got from a gumball machine for a nickel, back in the day. The difference between Sis and me is that Sis kept all her stuff. Mine got lost or tossed.

It's starting to make sense to me that leaving a teeny tiny gumball machine faerie at Sis's house, hidden in a drawer, was just the thing to do. Not that I am attributing any special powers to this particular faerie (named Grizzabella). Its just that her size and appearance has helped her blend into my sister's menagerie. And take control, in that Only Faerie way.

Here she is, teaching my sister's Rat Finks to do the Electric Slide. It was New Year's Eve, Sis tells me, and the Finks got a little too much gasoline in their britches or something.

What's interesting about Grizzabella is that she spent almost a year hidden in a dark drawer, and when she was discovered, she liberated all the other old teeny tiny toys from their dark storage as well. Sis hasn't messed with the Rat Finks and the rubber animals for decades. All of a sudden, she's going to be mounting an art exhibit of the photos she's taking of them!

Kind of makes me wish that faeries would put their talents to serious use. We'd have world peace, instead of Rat Finks doing the Electric Slide.

Some folks might say this means that faeries are not serious spiritual beings. Well, ahem. How come all those serious angels haven't gotten the World Peace thing done, then? My guess is, when kick-turn comes to shimmy, angels are just as flippant as the fae.

Woosh!

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," painting precious portaits of popular pantheons since 2005! Has a deity done you dirty? Ditch that dud! The soul you save may be your own.

There's only one thing worse than being too busy, and that's not being busy enough. I've had quite enough of the latter over the past few years, and it's always led to worries about keeping rooves over heads and chickens in the pots. So now the worm has turned, I'm maxed out with duties to others, family, and self. Behold yet another multi-tasker, o ye bored gods!

I must run off to work, but before I do, rest assured that the foster cats, Bamp and Bambi, are recovering nicely and starting to tame up just swell. I'll try to remember to get The Heir to take some pictures of them. If I haven't lost The Heir in the shuffle. No, there she is. My precious. Asleep.

Good day!

Do You Remember High School?

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," pondering big questions since 2005! Today's big question: Who cares?

I have commenced my new job as a tutor preparing students for the state's high school proficiency test. You cannot obtain a high school diploma in this state without passing all parts of this test.

In preparation for my duties I've been taking sample HSP tests. And I've come to think that, in order to live in New Jersey, one must be a rocket scientist.

One of the reading samples was Patrick Henry's "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death" speech. Have you perused that little item lately? A tough slog, even for a T. Rex of a reader like me. As I read it, I kept thinking, "What? Huh? Say again? Hey, Pat, how about using an easier word?"

I'm a college graduate.

Who makes up these tests? Wow, damn good thing I don't have to take the Math portion. I'd lose my high school diploma!

Today I open the floor to you, readers. How hard is too hard? Should a high school graduate be able to read any college-level piece of literature, or is there still some literacy learning to be done at the collegiate level? I vote for the latter. A high school graduate ought to be able to read anything printed in a newspaper, but I don't know about Patrick Henry and Edith Wharton.

Does your state/country have a high school proficiency test?

As of this morning, the fosters Bamp and Bambi seemed a little perkier. Isis must have heard the petitions.

Fostering's Not for the Faint

Yesterday I said all of my pets were the picture of health. Alas, my new feral foster kittens, Bamp and Bambi, are deathly ill. Please petition the Goddess Isis on their behalf. I'll do what I can on this end. Sometimes when I foster I just can't believe that any cats make it to adulthood.

PS - Foster kittens come with medications, etc. from the animal shelter. Otherwise I couldn't even afford to take them in.

The next 24 hours will tell.

A Nobler Goal, Thanks to Heather

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" Have you ever had an "Uh oh" moment, when you opened a work assignment and found it to be three times the load you thought it would be?

Dumb question. This is happening to almost every American worker who hasn't been laid off.

Anyway, that's my plight today. And how else would I spend a Saturday? It's been a long time since the word "weekend" had any meaning.

I began this web log in 2005 after reading about a woman who blogged about her sick dog and received over $500 in contributions from readers. That sounded good to me! I have a parrot, DECIBEL THE NOISY AND VICIOUS, and two cats -- Alpha the Sweet and Beta the Stupid. At present we also have two foster kittens from the animal shelter, Bamp and Bambi. They are "hissy spitties," meaning that they're feral and in need of taming.

All of these animals are the picture of health. So put your checkbook away, dear reader.

However, I did make a request on this blog about a month ago. I discovered that the dinosaur magic I'd been doing with my daughters had hit a five-year low. We had been leaving plastic dinosaurs at a local mini-park since about 2003 ... anonymously. The magic kicked in when other anonymous donors also left dinosaurs at the same site.

On occasion there have been as many as 40 dinos in the park. Last month there were none. The bench was empty. Oh, what a sad sight!

It being the Yuletide, I was unable to purchase any new used dinos at the thrift stores and flea markets that usually serve as my supply depots.

Yesterday afternoon a whopping big box arrived on my front porch. The mailman struggled up the steps with it. The box was addressed to me, but when do I get to open my mail? My daughter The Spare had at it while I situated the new foster kittens. (As hissy spitties go, they're not bad. Once a hissy spittie bit straight through my thumb.)

When the box was pried open, it was found to contain one zillion beautiful plastic dinosaurs, enough for years of magic at the park! It was a multicolored multitude of prehistory, arrayed on the living room rug ... every species imaginable, and some that are probably mostly imagination.

This was one of the best holiday gifts I received.

Thank you, Heather of Baltimore (but really Appalachia, like me), and especially your sweet son who gave up his abundanat herd of Jurassic playthings! The dinos will be parceled out sparingly and will be played with by little kids who expect to see dinosaurs at a park dedicated to a famous dinosaur.

Wow. I am blown away!

My First Half Century Ends Tonight

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" It has been our pleasure to serve you in 2008! Thanks for your patronage!

Fifty years ago tonight, I was getting along very well with my mother. That's because I hadn't been born yet, but was growing and developing nicely in situ. Tonight when the gong sounds at midnight, I'll commence the second half century of my earthly sojourn. I'm going into it with accumulated wisdom ... a wonderful thing to have.

For the vast majority of my first 50 years I was a Christian. It was the religion I inherited from my parents, and their parents, and generations of ancestors, as far back as I've been able to chart.

In my case, the tight seam of Christianity began to give way easily at first. I married a lapsed Catholic boy and heard his mother, grandmother, aunts, and sisters all praying to the Blessed Mother. Everywhere I looked in those East Baltimore rowhouses, I found a statue, or a picture, or some weird icon, of the Blessed Mother (or St. Theresa -- She's in my dining room now).

The Protestant religion deep-sixed the Blessed Mother, so all I knew about her was that she gave birth in a stable and asked her kid to turn water into wine, and cried at his execution. I had no idea that people actually prayed to her.

I started praying to her myself. And that's when I learned that she was more than the mother of Jesus. She was the Mother of God. Which in my book makes her a Goddess.

Now, that there's a leap of logic. But what happened to me in 2004, after years of drifting toward polytheism, was a full-fledged conversion experience.

I stuck my feet in the spillway at Berkeley Springs State Park, and all of a sudden I was surrounded by deities, and faeries, and elemental spirits, and ... of course ... the Sacred Thunderbirds overhead. I could feel a thousand different sorts of divinity simultaneously. It wasn't a shabby moment. I changed, in the blink of an eye.

It is this celebration of the diversity of deity that underlies The Gods Are Bored, no matter how silly I become, no matter how cynical I seem at times, no matter how nasty I get about turnpikes and mega-grocery stores and No Child Left Behind legislation. The best impulses of humanity seek Greater Powers. Every culture, every individual, we all embrace or deny -- at least we think about -- the concept of deity. With that in mind, I believe that no culture's deity does not exist. No culture's deity is inferior to another's. If one culture has 300 deities and another has just one, well, so be it. All deities are holy and sacred and deserving of the coin flicked into the fountain, the prayer whispered into the pillow.

I'm Anne Johnson, about to turn 50, and I approve this message. Our operators are standing by to take your call. And thank you for visiting my page. You are very important to me. A blessed 2009!

Devil, Defeated

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," where holidays make hollow heads! It's hard enough to get everything done on a normal day. Along comes a holiday, you've gotta cram two or three normal day loads into a single day. Phooey.

Everyone in New Jersey talks about the Jersey Devil, a strange creature that lurks in the Pine Barrens, biting the heads off who-knows-what. I'm here to tell you that the Jersey Devil is not a lurking creature. It's a highway.

The celebrated Jersey Turnpike is the route of choice between All Points South and New York City. It is eight (some places twelve) lanes of asphalt mayhem, populated by millions of people who would rather be anywhere else but where they are at the moment. When it moves, it hurtles along at heart-stopping speeds. When it crawls (most of the time), it's hell on Earth.

I will not dwell upon the landscape lining this thoroughfare. It's either large swaths of trackless bog or larger swaths of smoke-belching chemical plants. At Newark there's an airport. At New Brunswick you glimpse a few high rise buildings. But glimpse at your peril, driver. Better keep your eyes on the road.

The ultimate irony: You've got to pay to use it. Like you pay the doctor for that painful root canal.

Two days ago the Johnson family set out on the dreary trek to Croton-on-Hudson, New York, a tony suburb of Manhattan located in the picturesque Hudson Valley. We have family there. (Actually it's Mr. Johnson's family, I lay no claim to these persons.)

In order to get from here to there, it is necessary to take the New Jersey Turnpike. A long way. Right up to another, even more pestilential roadway, the Garden State Parkway. You might ask what's grown along the Garden State Parkway? Rowhouses. If you've seen the opening credits of "The Sopranos," you get the picture. (If anything, the GS Parkway is worse than the turnpike, because it has toll booths every three miles right on the highway.)

We Johnsons piled into our car and set out on the Turnpike, and as the bored gods are my witnesses, we got exactly two exits from home when we saw the dreaded message board looming over the highway: DRIVE WITH CARE ... CONGESTION AHEAD.

Looking ahead, we could see the congestion. Miles and miles and miles of it.

And so I said to Mr. Johnson: "Get off this road. We'll chart another course." We were right by an exit, so that's what we did.

We were still close enough to home that we quickly found Route 130 North, one of those old four-laners that's lined with diners and no-tell motels and gas stations and landscaping shops and auto parts stores.

Our little GPS device went nuts. "Make a U Turn. Make a right. Then make another right. Turn around when possible."

And then I did the unspeakable. I reverted to the primitive times of the 20th century. I opened the glove box and within found a paper map of New Jersey. Unfolding the map, I quickly charted a new route to Croton that not only avoided the Evil Turnpike, but also bypassed the Smokestack State Parkway!

The GPS bleated in vain. "Make a U-Turn! Turn around when possible!" Finally The Spare said, "Oh, shut up, Celeste," and turned it off. (I dubbed the GPS "Celeste," and usually she's very helpful.)

To recap, we made the trek from South Jersey to the Hudson Valley without resort to the New Jersey Turnpike or the Garden State Parkway. We still got in heavy traffic on I-287 going up, but coming back was a pleasant little drive ... and timely too. It was with great satisfaction that we listened to all the dire radio reports about backups on the turnpike, spiked by Jets fans and holiday travelers such as ourselves. We had nothing more than the stop lights on 130 -- lots of them, but hey. We moved.

Say what you will about our modern times, but there's nothing quite like a good ol' road map made of paper. The hardest part is folding it back up, and a former boss of mine showed me how to do that eons and eons ago.

Safe traveling to you. And remember, sometimes the four-laner with stop lights moves faster than the interstate full of stressed maniacs.

My Navel's Still There

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," where unfortunately a little navel-gazing is sometimes necessary! My memory isn't what it used to be, and I might want to re-visit my life at some point. (The better parts of it, anyway.)

It seems like an eternity ago, but it was just Monday past when daughters Heir and Spare, and artist Seitou went on a crawl through the New Jersey suburbs looking for over-the-top lawn displays. Some that we visited are "old standards" -- folks that have been doing this for years. And some have evolved over time from modest to lavish, as folks keep the old and add the new. Heir and Seitou opted to stay in the car while Spare and I prowled the exhibits. Spare and I weren't trespassing. One dude who does a Crazy Christmas House sits on his porch dressed like Santa Claus, dispensing candy canes. (I'd have pictures, but the faeries hid Spare's camera ... again.) Another one has a collection box for leukemia research. Now that's magic! Put your obsession to use for a good cause!

Seitou made an odd suggestion during the Crawl. She thought we ought to go to Snobville's most posh neighborhood, locale of the 4mil-and-up houses. It has been my experience that these kinds of people do not fill their yards with plastic snowmen and vinyl bubbles with penguins dancing in snow to cheesy holiday carols. However, when we got to Lane Of Success, we discovered a mansion with huge trees in the front yard, and from the trees hung glowing balls of light in many colors. Seitou did not know this would be there, which made it all the more special. We discovered a faerie world in high-end Snobville! (We did not prowl this property, but instead ogled it from the street. No use courting a release of the hounds.)

The very next evening, Heir and I went to Pizza and Poetry in Camden. Those of you who have visited TGAB for years will recall our ongoing friendship with the Monkey Man. He runs Pizza and Poetry. On this occasion he was wearing a multi-colored top hat with a sunflower growing out of the top of it. His monkey spent half of last year at the spa (ungrateful wretch worried the Monkey Man sick). But monkey is back with man now, so all is well. We read Emily Dickinson and haiku. (Haiku is big in Camden, that's where Nick Vergilio lived.) I actually had something of my own to read this time -- from the peerless Six Word Blog!

Wine flowed freely. We re-enacted the Twelve Days of Christmas. Leave it to the Monkey Man to get a stodgy Rutgers professor to flap his wings like a partridge.

Christmas morning at dawn I worked an empowerment spell for someone. If I don't recall it in years to come, it won't matter. Just making note of it.

For Christmas The Spare gave me a Witch's calendar with all the phases of the moon on it and all sorts of astrological information that I will find extremely useful. It's a beautiful calendar. Heir gave me dragon's blood incense and a lilac-scented candle. They know me! They really know me! Mr. Johnson signed me up for a reasonably-priced gym that has a pool. So now I can regain my strength without over-taxing my legs doing weight-bearing exercises.

I watched "It's a Wonderful Life." The part that always chokes me up is when the angel points out to poor old George Bailey that because he wasn't there to save his brother, his brother died as a kid. And because his brother died as a kid, his brother didn't live to become an Air Force pilot who saved the lives of 150 soldiers. All those soldiers died. See, that's how I think magick works. A series of insignificant events, having no foreseeable consequences, work together to become a miracle.

Friday Mr. Johnson's second family came to visit. (His dad divorced, remarried, and had three children by the second wife.) This family has a brand-new baby ... and we all know there's nothing more fabulous than that! Lucky kid too, to be born into a family full of urban professionals with good educations and level heads.

Today we are driving to Croton-on-Hudson, New York to see Mr. Johnson's first family. This is the kind of trek that makes me wish I was a buzzard -- three hours of New Jersey Turnpike and related roads that run way too close to Manhattan. It would be so much easier to spread one's wings and fly there! But I also have some fabulous nieces and nephews from this family, so it will be great to see them. (I've got to run out and get them some candy. Hooray for the post-Xmas sales!) We are spending the night in Croton, also a plus. The Hudson Valley is beautiful. I would love to see more of it.

Saved the best for last. My sister sent me a beautiful Pan faerie pin that she bought at a celebrated Wiccan shop in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. I have seen a sea change in Sis since she discovered the tiny faerie in her spare bedroom. Her outlook is definitely broadening and becoming more flexible! Planning to go see her this coming spring. Will take Spare to Shepherd University, which I think would be a good college for Spare.

When I get back from Croton I have a new gym membership, a few writing assignments, and a full-time (sans benefits) job at the Vo-Tech. Oh yeah. And I turn 50 in 2009, so I'll definitely want to see some fireworks on New Year's Eve.

This has been navel gazing by Anne Johnson. Thank the bored deities -- and you -- for the patronage!

Chaos

Hey, life is disorderly, all right? You think it's an easy transit from Point A to Point B? Think again, shiftless mortal!

I, the Goddess Chaos, am reporting for Anne Johnson. She is an alpha female. It is the holiday season.

Any questions?

Good!

Look both ways before you cross the street. A lot of good it'll do you if I happen to be pissed.

Crazy Christmas Time

Welcome, & etc. Busy night.

Last evening, myself, Heir and Spare, and Seitou went on a crawl to see some of the Crazy Christmas Houses in our area. We had a blast. I hope to have pictures up soon.

Tonight Heir and I are off to Pizza and Poetry in Camden, New Jersey. I've finally got something to read ... from my Six Word Blog.

Are you pulling out your hair yet? The traffic around here is unbelievable.

Of Male Druids and Mistletoe

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," sunshine in our souls since 2005! Have no fear, Solstice is here!

Yesterday was one of those days when it was just Sam Hill foolish to be out in a car driving around. We got a glaze of freezing rain that just made every surface stone cold perfect for a hockey game.

This can put quite a crimp in a Druid Grove ritual if your members are stretched out over a 70-mile radius.

I suppose it was last Friday that I suggested our Grove meet at my house pending the precipitation. (We usually meet in a gorgeous state park in Pennsylvania.) I live just a few miles east of Philadelphia.

Considering the elements, we had a nice turnout ... six brave gals who live in the general vicinity of Philly, or within the city limits itself.

Everyone was late, of course. This was one of those afternoons when you had to de-glaze the car before you could move it. But eventually we assembled, had lunch, and contemplated doing our ritual in a little swath of county park near my house. (Former home of the dread Tiki, now banished.)

Our group faced two stumbling points. For the first time we had no Male Druid to read the Male Druid lines. And we had no mistletoe. The Druid who planned to bring the mistletoe lives in Allentown, PA, where every kind of frozen thing the sky can dish out was falling in quantity.

Hmmm. Mistletoe is central to the Solstice ritual. What's to be done?

This is what I love about having a religion that has no written record dictating every little picky thing. It happened that I had a swag of silk mistletoe. I said, "Would the ancient Druids object to our using this? I think not." So we used it.

EXHIBIT A: SKIP COULDN'T MAKE IT

Male Druid. On this date we were an all-female company. So I went to Mr. Johnson's home office, where he sat hunched over his email.

"We need a Male Druid," I said.

He said, "I haven't washed."

"Doesn't matter," I said.

He said, "You are kidding, right?"

I said yes, of course, I long ago had enough of trying to push religion on family members who haven't washed. So he begged off.

I did the Male Druid part myself. Again, do I think this offended the bored gods sacred to the Celts? Of course not! They're thrilled that anyone would gather in a woods and pray for peace from the Four Quarters! They even showered our ritual with unexpected sunshine! When I turned to face West, that big old star just beamed right into my eager eyeballs.

If your religion is written in stone so you can't adapt to changing circumstances, perhaps you're in the wrong religion. There are many, many, many bored gods and goddesses out there with the big, broad, flexible outlook. Silk mistletoe? No prob, my dears. Gender imbalance? Who cares? Everyone's equal in the love of the bored gods.

Our operators are standing by to take your call.

Here Comes the Sun

On behalf of bored gods and goddesses of many, many pantheons, we at "The Gods Are Bored" wish you a blessed Solstice. The sun will return, and then we'll plant our fields again.

If you've got a music server, we recommend listening to "You Plant Your Fields" by the New Grass Revival. It's a perfect Solstice anthem.

Title Here

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored" on Postmodernist Night! We've got absolutely no topic to blog about, but here we are writing anyway. This is the very definition of postmodernism. Has blogging become exhausted as a medium? Who cares? Even the modernists didn't care. The postmodernists are way too cool to care.

I'm a stupid, boring prat, sitting at a computer, looking out at the black darkness of near-solstice, not even thinking of something like sex, let alone something original, insightful, and world-changing. There are cookie crumbs on my shirt. Speak, crumbs. Never mind. They're just crumbs.

Life has no point, and then we die, so why write? But, why not write, if just to fill the unspeakable void between birth and death? Death. Gonna die. That's it, goodbye. What will they do with the titanium peg in my leg?

Oh, Anne. Bad postmodernist! You rhymed! Don't you know that rhyme went out with the nineteenth century? It's so out of vogue. You're supposed to go on and on, line after line, and make no sense whatsoever. Because if you make sense, that's not postmodernist. Postmodernism makes you work to find the meaning, and then gleefully lets you know that you're absolutely wrong, there is no meaning!

This is the kind of stuff I was taught in college. Is it any wonder that the best I can do for employment at midlife is to be a substitute teacher?

Thingy Snowman Draws Raves

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," where we've proven that it matters how you spin something!

When I called my "Great Christmas Giveaway" snowman ornament a "stupid thingy," no one wanted it. In fact, some commenters begged me to pass them over.

Then I posted an eloquent persuasive testament to the brilliance of the unique Yankee Candle Fragranced Porcelain Ornament, demanding that my commenters be equally eloquent in order to enter the contest.

Oh, what beautiful little essays you penned in search of this prized item! I will let you know later today who the big winner is. Right now I'm at school, and hungry. So please come back later today, or tomorrow.

Note that this item is a snowman, therefore its usefulness transcends the traditional holiday season. Meaning, if you don't get it by December 25, you can still make use of it. I will try to have it out to you by then.


PS ---- The winner is Maebius, purveyor of pleasant prose! Congrats, my dear!

Where Are the Books?

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," where we're always south and east of the snowstorms! Here's some free advice: If you like snow, don't move close to the ocean anywhere south of Boston.

The nineteenth and early twentieth century brought us numerous novels that sought to change society. People like Charles Dickens and Victor Hugo, Theodore Dreiser and Upton Sinclair, and Harriet Beecher Stowe used stories of fictitious characters to engender sympathy from a wide reading audience. Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin is widely credited for its introduction to the horrors of slavery among sectors of American society that had been unaware of the institutionalized brutality. Dickens advocated a more charitable social system and more humane treatment of the poor. Upton Sinclair revealed horrific working conditions in America's factories.

During the Great Depression, John Steinbeck penned The Grapes of Wrath, a novel that hides its communist message about as well as you could hide a cow on a subway.

Where are the books and the movies today that address what's happening in our modern world? We're sliding back toward a Victorian-era "only the strong survive" mentality, and no author has arisen to challenge it.

This sad state of affairs may be the fault of writers, or, more probably, it is the fault of the publishing industry -- a cluster of conglomerates for whom the current social climate is just a-okay.

Please don't write to me and say, "Anne, why don't you be the one?" Readers, I've tried and tried to get my fiction looked at by agents. I've got a folder full of one-paragraph rejection letters. An editor once took me out to dinner to "discuss" my novel, but after that I never heard from her again. She was portly in the extreme, and my guess is that she wanted to expense a big dinner.

What we need is for a best-selling author to address these issues. Call me sour grapes if you like, but Nora Roberts is a dreadful writer who churns out basically the same book over and over again. Is she so cocooned in luxury that she wouldn't consider penning something like Oliver Twist? Remember, Charles Dickens was no literary genius, and Harriet Beecher Stowe had never written a novel before Uncle Tom's Cabin.

We need more people like Michael Moore, especially in the world of print. We need that righteous indignation, those snapshot anecdotes of poor souls who are one broken elbow away from bankruptcy. We need a novelistic expose of Wal-Mart, of the broken insurance industry, of the plight of the growing population of "independent contractors" who eke out a living without any benefits and then wait ... and wait ... and wait ... for the check to arrive in the mail.

Again, I can't do this myself. I'm not Nora Roberts. I'm not Mitch Albom (thank goodness). I'm a nobody who sees a niche that needs to be filled.

If you're somebody, and you're reading this, and it inspires you to write the next great Uncle Tom's Cabin, thank you. You're our only hope.

Time To Bake More Cookies

I have a friend who lives in Vermont. She fell on the ice and broke her elbow. Her family is always just on the edge, and now -- being a contract worker -- she can't generate a paycheck. She has no health insurance, nor do her children. Her husband's company only insures him, but they just laid off everyone but him and one other employee.

So I'm sure you'll excuse me if I go downstairs and bake up a batch of cookies for this family. I will pretend that each cookie is a Spanish doubloon, culled from a pirate shipwreck off the coast of far Tortuga.

Dino Disaster

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," o ye of good cheer! Curmudgeons are not welcome here!

All ten of you who follow the exploits of "The Gods Are Bored" will know that we have been leaving toy dinosaurs in a local park anonymously for about five years. The park is dedicated to a famous dinosaur found locally. Before we began our white magick, the site was marked by a plaque and a bench. *yawn* We decided to make the little spot more kid-friendly. And we succeeded, as measured by anecdotal evidence.

About a month ago, the Philadelphia Inquirer ran a story about the aforementioned famous dinosaur. Lo and behold, there on the front page of the Science section, was an artful picture of our official "Gods Are Bored" dinos, arrayed across their bench! The caption reads: "Toy dinosaurs are left at the site where Tyrannosaurus Oliviana was found in 1847."

I was so proud! Anonymous magick, given colorful, front-page coverage in a major metropolitan newspaper!

I'll bet you can guess where this is leading.

Today when I went to the dino park, all of the toy dinosaurs were gone. The bench stood completely empty for the first time in five (or more) years.

Luckily I had four dinos in the trunk of my car. I put them on the bench, at the very far edge, in a craven cluster. It's almost as if they're saying, "Please don't steal us! Just play and move on!"

Then I went to the thrift store to get more dinosaurs. But alas, it's the most wonderful time of the year. The toy dinos they had there were great-looking, and big, and high-priced, and definitely items anyone would steal.

If you are tripping over unwanted plastic dinosaurs in the dark of the night, send me an email. I'd like to replenish the population. No, let's say I will replenish the population. There are plenty of thrift stores and flea markets around here with affordable merchandise. As soon as Christmas is over, the dinos will start accumulating again.

It's just sad to see, after all these years, that some person decided to pinch the toys. I hope at least that they're going to a kid who loves dinosaurs and wouldn't get any otherwise.

Let There Be Light!

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," in these dark days! How do we beat back this blackness? Let there be light!

My neighbors have all swathed their houses in lights. Is there some contagious component to this? Because, like I need to spend money, but ... I wanna do it too!

What is better than cruising through a neighborhood full of holiday-lit homes? I love the over-the-top ones. We've got those aplenty around here. I don't spend much time thinking about what I would do if I won the lottery, but launching a Crazy Christmas House would definitely make the list.

Tomorrow I think I'll go to the local hardware store and see if they have any of those newfangled LED lights. I saw some on a house near here. They looked like happy faeries, thumbing their fluttery noses at this cursed darkness, this sunless season. I wouldn't need thousands, just a few to wind around my porch railings.

Peace to you and yours, my friends.

Take It to MySpace

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," a civil rest stop in turbulent times! Park your crappy attitude at the curb, or you shall have no pie!

Early on in the life of "The Gods Are Bored," a commenter named BBC appeared on my site. Over time I've found his comments mostly amusing for what they reveal about him -- which is nothing particularly pretty or uplifting.

BBC has shown himself to have a God complex. On many occasions he has proclaimed that he is all the god he needs. Which may be true, but why would he darken the doors of this website more than once? We at "The Gods Are Bored" do not recognize BBC as a bored god. Bored, yes. God, no.

BBC calls the human race "monkeys," which of course is entirely untrue -- monkeys are monkeys. (I'm not trying to argue Intelligent Design here. Our species is Homo sapiens, "thinking ape." The genus Homo has been differentiated from chimpanzees -- genus Pan, and from all other monkeys, for instance, genus Ateles, spider monkeys. Humans are not monkeys.)

Whenever I write about faeries, BBC accuses me of smoking marijuana. This is an illegal activity in which I do not indulge. Nor is it necessary to partake of mind-altering substances to have a relationship with faeries.

The man has chided me on multiple occasions for trying to bring all religions together. I wonder if he can read. The mission of "The Gods Are Bored" is to foster respect for different religions than one's own. Granted, this sometimes includes mocking those who can't bring themselves to be tolerant, but our main goal is to bring back the Old Ones and give them meaningful work among Their people.

All of this frequent commentary I have looked upon with a sort of benign indifference. But I should have acted sooner. In fact, I did try to shut him out after he wrote shockingly nasty comments and emails to another blogger in my sidebar. He has done the same thing again to another blogger on my sidebar. And now he has used my comments section to insult someone else.

BBC's profile picture shows a distinguished-looking man with gray hair. His behavior, sans photo, would indicate a snot-nosed 14-year-old with unfulfilled sexual desires alleviated by nasty cyber bullying. That kind of stuff is the fodder of MySpace, not "The Gods Are Bored."

If I knew more about computers, I would selectively block BBC from this site. I tried a year or two ago, thought I'd succeeded, but he came back. Now, regretfully, I am turning on the comment moderation, so that he can no longer use this space as a forum for his tantrums.

Bye bye, Billy. You are a man, not a monkey. Therefore you should behave like a man. A grown man. Give it a try, and remember ... practice makes perfect.

But no matter how quickly you clean up your act, the faeries have asked me to tell you that you are no longer welcome here. Out on your ear, my dear, I fear. Don't peer here. Is that clear?

Christmas Giveaway, Spun

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," fa la la la laaaa, la la la la! 'Tis the season to be jolly! Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose ...

What can be better than a warm hearth, lightly scented with the fragrances of Yuletide? You bask in the glow of candlelight and family, the winking lights on the tree, the family cat nestled in a holiday basket, lined with a cheerful fleecy throw.

Outside, a gentle snowfall heralds the coming of winter, its glistening white magnificence, its happy calls of children as they sled on the neighboring hill ... or gather in a jolly band to create a snowman.

Ah, snowmen! Can any other icon capture the true spirit of the Yuletide quite like a portly snow fellow? See the bright stocking cap someone has donated for his shiny pate! The bright orange carrot, so tempting to the forest creatures as a tasty tidbit. Two eyes, made out of coal, twinkling like the diamonds they could have become ... in time.

Now you ... yes, you, can combine all these fabulous holiday sensations in one precious package! Our magnificent Yankee Candle Fragranced Porcelain Ornament will enliven your tree and infuse your dwelling with the gracious scents of a gay and merry Yule. Yankee stands alone among the makers of fragranced candles. Yes, none can compare to Yankee. And our Yankee Candle Fragranced Porcelain Ornament is a proud product of the superior Yankee brand!

Best of all, this one-of-a-kind collectible fragranced ornament can be yours. Free!

Here's how it works: All you need to do is leave a comment, begging for the unique item. Pull out all the stops, spare no compliment, because if you are the most eloquent petitioner, you will win this coveted prize!

Competition is sure to be keen for the Yankee Candle Fragranced Porcelain Ornament, so make your comment early, make it earnest, nuanced, and inventive ... and cross your fingers! You just might be the best among the best, a true creative genius vastly deserving of this unparalleled offer!

Good luck ... and have a wonderful Yuletide, perhaps made even merrier by your very own Yankee Candle Fragranced Porcelain Ornament!

Why I Love Peter Pan

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," merry faeries and chocolate covered cherries, and mistletoe with waxy berries!

Please don't mind me. I rhyme to please the fae.

Hecate has a post up about Peter Pan. Who exactly is Peter Pan? Do we understand him?

It would be easy to dismiss Peter Pan as a figment of J.M. Barrie's imagination, a hero who appeals to kids because they're kids and to adults who remember childhood with nostalgia. It's equally simple to scorn Peter Pan because he's so blythe, so inconsiderate of the females who swoon over him, so wrapped up in being the leader of a gang of boys who refuse to accept adult responsibility.

There's a forgotten component to all of this. Peter Pan is immortal.

Peter Pan refuses to grow up. He is therefore unlikely to die of age-related issues. He lives in the suggestively-titled Neverland. Never gonna die. Nope, not me.

It's a tragic fact that many youngsters have horrible childhoods, marked by terror and abuse, by over-work or neglect. But in an ideal situation, where they are loved, human children enjoy a period of ecstatic happiness in their early years. They play with their peers, they snuggle under the covers with beloved toys, they run to Mom when something goes wrong ... and she fixes it. Dad takes them sledding, and to the ballpark to see the Orioles, or to the marsh to see the herons. They've got dogs and cats who love them and grandparents who spoil them.

If you consider that immortality will contain vestiges of the human to it, and not consist of some amorphous otherworldy positive energy, how would you like to live forever? Is it a coincidence that so many depictions of angels and faeries are of children?

To me, Peter Pan is not a bad little boy who's mean to girls and just likes to fight and take charge. He's immortality idealized. As a kid I loved Peter Pan, even went through a phase where I wouldn't answer to any other name. It never occurred to me that I couldn't be Peter Pan because he was a boy. I didn't even think of him as a boy. I just thought of him as a kid.

Now I know, of course, that Peter Pan exists in the ethereal world, that many cultures have met him and befriended him, and that he's ancient as the universe but still playing, playing like a happy child, mothered by Goddesses when necessary. Always his band of Lost Boys grows larger, because you see, they aren't lost at all. They're saved.

Our operators are standing by to take your call.

Great Christmas Giveaway Continues: Stupid Little Thingy

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," giving Santa Claus a hand this season! Due to global warming, his workshop disappeared beneath the waves early this summer, and he's set up on a temporary barge in the North Atlantic. I graciously volunteered to help him out, poor fella.

First, congratulations are in order for the richly-deserving Mrs. B, who won last week's Giveaway, an authentic, members-only 2009 calendar from the Daughters of the American Revolution. Twelve boring photos of colonial samplers on cheap paper. What a great gift!

This week's Great Christmas Giveway item is even greater. It's a stupid little thingy.

You know how stupid little thingies work. Someone gives you a Christmas gift that might have been given to them by someone else. That probably was given to them by someone else. You do your part, passing it along to the next person on your lengthy Christmas list.

I got this stupid little thingy the last time I bought a Yankee Candle. I love Yankee Candles, but they're costly, so I don't buy them often. But a local store was having a 20 percent discount day, so I got one for the holidays. And the clerk gave me this stupid little thingy along with the candle.

The thingy in question is a Yankee Candle Porcelain Ornament with fragranced oil. The ornament is a kind of stupid-looking snowman. He is accompanied by a vial of oil. You drop a few drops of oil on the back of the ornament, and it smells good. (Or so they claim, I haven't opened it.)

These items were so popular in 2007 that Yankee Candle didn't sell a doggone one of them, so the stores are giving them away this year.

I'm past the age where I have kindergarten teachers or choir directors or crossing guards upon whom to bestow stupid little thingies. But I'll bet you could use one. Leave a comment between now and next Friday, and you'll be in the running for this awesome, never before re-gifted stupid little thingy!

(If you don't have a blogger account, be sure to leave your email so I can contact you if you win.)

During this upcoming week, I will embark upon a search for the ultimate, no-holds-barred best Christmas Giveaway Item: an UGLY CHRISTMAS SWEATER! Can't ever have enough of those.

In the meantime, a thingy can be yours ... You know what to do.

Recipe

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!"

VERY EXCELLENT HOLIDAY COOKIES

Ingredients:

*two people (one who knows how to cook)
*lots of flour, sugar, butter, oil, baking chocolates, flavorings, various morsels and tidbits, eggs, and baking powder
*wonderful kitchen equipment
*neat old oven
*cookie sheets, measuring spoons and cups, cooling racks, storage containers
*radio playing holiday music

Directions:

Make cookies. Listen to music. Depend on the person who knows how to cook to make all decisions and suggestions. Thank that person profusely for her help, her wonderful old oven, her Kitchen Aid appliances, and her companionship.

Eat raw cookie dough. Eat finished cookies. Eat more cookies. Feel queasy. Laugh about it.

Bring cookies home and hope the faeries don't steal them all.

Serves 12-16 people, depending upon faerie pilferage.

Stunned

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," sowing the big, broad, flexible outlook since 2005! If you want some seeds, just holler.

A very curious thing happened today. I got a job.

I've always worked, ever since the summer I turned 16. But in all that time (and it's a lot of time, baby dolls), I've only been a salaried employee for six years. Otherwise I've freelanced it.

This new job is still only part time, no benefits, vacation pay, or sick leave. You know the drill. But it is a regular, dependable paycheck ... not a big one, but dependable.

I will be tutoring small groups of students at the Vo-Tech in language arts and literacy to help them prepare for New Jersey's impossibly rigorous (and mandatory) High School Proficiency Test.

I like the students at the Vo-Tech. And there's no better way to work with them than in small groups. So wish me and my faeries luck as we embark upon this new venture!

Rest assured that "The Gods Are Bored" will continue to publish. I love this doggone blog. It's helped me to connect with so many top-notch individuals. Like you!

I'm Glad It's Fun

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored" ... a slap of this ... a dash of that ... sprinkle generously with affection, do not overbake. Cool completely before serving. Six generous portions.

Don't mind me, I'm just playing in the metaphors again.

Maybe some of you who read "The Gods Are Bored" regularly will recall that I was anticipating the publication of my novel this fall. It appears that the publishing date will be delayed due to economic recession.

I'm willing to wait. Anyone who would write a novel purely in search of monetary gain would be far better served to buy a metal detector and go beachcombing where the tourists flock.

My chief joy in this life has been reading and writing. My mother taught me to read before I entered school. She said she had to teach me, because all I did was follow her around and ask her to read to me.

As a kid, the highlight of my week was the arrival of the Bookmobile. Even the cranky guy who drove it smiled when he saw me coming, my skinny arms crammed with dusty, well-thumbed library lit.

I became complete as a human being the summer before my freshman year of high school. That summer, much to my fury, my parents enrolled me in a typing class. Off I trundled to the school each day, and by August ... I could type! Fast!

When you're a teenager and people ask you what you want to do when you grow up, and you say, "I want to be a writer," they either scoff, laugh, or try to talk you out of it.

When you're an adult and people ask you what career you follow, and you say, "I'm a writer," they gape in amazement. Aren't all writers supposed to be rich and famous, with loads of autograph engagements on their calendars? How can someone be a writer and also clip coupons? Because if you're a writer and you're not famous, then you're not a writer.

For me as a writer, it's always been about the process and never about the product. Which is why I have to clip coupons.

I love dreaming along in my head, watching characters I've imagined as they gain depth, undergo trials, fall in love, overcome obstacles, make idiots of themselves, stand up for what they believe in ... the list is endless.

The novel I have completed (it took 15 years) is entitled Gray Magic. There are five major male characters in Gray Magic. I had a love affair with every one of them ... and never cheated on my spouse. They were in my head, you see, in all their glory.

If someone were to ask me to name the most fascinating person I've met outside my family since 1987, I would say Pierre de Bologna. Except I never met Pierre de Bologna. He was a Knight Templar. He disappeared in 1310 and was presumed murdered. The most comprehensive scholarly books on the Knights Templar might devote two or three pages (out of 300 or 400) to this man, but I feel like I have known him, and loved him, as much or more than anyone of his era knew him or loved him. Furthermore, I know my love was rightly bestowed, based solely on the few words Pierre de Bologna uttered that have passed into posterity.

I've been to Paris, but I've never been to Paris. How can that be? Well, I've immersed my imagination in Medieval Paris to such an extent that I've got no burning desire to see the Eiffel Tower. Paris? Been there ... in 1310.

Some people write brilliant novels, and recognize them as brilliant, and can't get them published, and commit suicide. This I find a little bit baffling. Because if you know you can write a brilliant novel, and you finish one, can you not just start another, damn the torpedoes?

This is my way of saying I'm starting a new novel, just exactly the same way I started the one that took me 15 years to write. For me it's not the destination, it's the journey. If I'm alone in the tour bus, worried about paying the bills, well ... at least I'm on the doggone bus, taking a journey, falling in love, rooting for heroes, designing villains...

Maybe I'll put a Bookmobile in this one. Its working title is My Merlin.

A Few Things Anne Wonders About...

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," where it's dusk at 4:30, and that feels completely appropriate.

You ever get in a mood where you start wondering about a bunch of weird stuff?

1. I wonder if vultures are always hungry when they're flying. Do they ever just soar for the fun of it, or is there always intention behind it?

2. Why do they put commercials for prescription drugs on t.v.? They didn't do that when I was a kid, and people got sick then too. Every time I hear one of those commercials, I swear never to take the drug ... do you listen to those side effects?

3. Why do my hands feel so grimy after a day teaching school?

4. Which bored deity sees to it that you're never home when the FedEx guy has something you have to sign for?

5. Wouldn't it be nice if you could stash romantic love in a jar and stow it away somewhere, and when you were depressed, you could get the jar out and let a little out into the air? Even if you weren't the intended target of the romantic love, wouldn't it be fun to see two chipmunks suddenly stop hauling acorns and start rolling together on the lawn?

6. You know those people who don't seem to have any problems? I'd like to get them really drunk and press them on it. At least if it's true that they don't have problems, they'd still feel shitty and hungover the next morning ... a small victory for the troubled amongst us.

FROM ANNE

THE MERLIN (IN ABSENTIA) OF BERKELEY SPRINGS

With the Naked Eye

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," and it's nice seeing you! Yes, I'm looking at you! Not closely. So you don't have to worry about that big pimple. Oh wait! Sorry! Well, it does show up to the naked eye.

Two things I absolutely love: birdwatching and star-gazing.

Two things I loathe: binoculars and telescopes.

Somehow, the moment I separate myself from the reality of the moment by gazing into a piece of equipment, I lose all interest. This is particularly true in bird-watching. Even if the bird I'm watching is tiny and far away -- so tiny and far away that I can't even identify it -- I don't want a pair of binoculars.

Yes, that makes me deficient in the warbler department. Guilty as charged. With warblers, you at best see a blur of yellow feathers scoot through a glade.

On the other hand, I've seen cedar waxwings, indigo buntings, scarlet tanagers, and yellow-crowned night herons without resort to technology. I can look at a bird soaring in the sky and tell you whether it's a hawk, an eagle, or a vulture. (Not a reach for me on this.)

Once I had the great privilege to be at the very northern end of Long Island during a prime waterfowl migration weekend. We're talking Montauk Point -- oh, what a lovely sight on its own! The whole area was plastered with birders, shoulder to shoulder, with the world's best telescopes, all primed and posed. Since I was young, pretty, and friendly, I got invited to peer through many of the finest scopes ... at scaups, I believe. But when I pulled away and took a stroll, far more exciting to me was that steady line of who knew what kind of bird, flying low across the waves, furious to beat it to the warm South before winter set in.

(No few of the birders, up close and personal, were a sight for the eyes as well.)

Having grown up in Appalachia, I have the same philosophy when it comes to stars. For the love of fruit flies, the mountain skies are so brimming with stars, how would one ever pick just one to gaze at?

Telescopes are no good for meteors. I am therefore a huge meteor addict. Give me a meteor shower, and I'm happy for days. It's also heartening to be able to pick out the constellations, which show up even in brightly-lit New Jersey. Orion is my favorite.

I write this because, last evening, an unusual celestial event occurred. A crescent moon was paired with both Venus and Jupiter. The clouds cleared just long enough for me to glimpse the spectacle, then it disappeared behind another front of rain.

The article I read alerting me to the event said that if I had a telescope, I could actually see some of Jupiter's moons.

That's okay. The moment was stunning to the naked eye.

In a way, my primitive star-gazing connects me to the Ancients, who had only this method at their disposal. They did pretty good with both birds and stars, and perhaps they felt more a part of the universe than masters of it. At least that's the way I feel by depending upon my naked eye.

The Great Christmas Giveaway Continues!

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," Pagan humor and essential upholstery maintenance tips since 2005! Damask? Just ask!

Ahhhh. Thanksgiving is over, and that means one thing ... time for the hog-wallow, hard-to-swallow, flee-or-follow debacle known as Christmas!

I call it Christmas because I'm afraid if I don't, Bill O'Reilly will rear-end my car.

First I'd like to congratulate Yellowdog Granny on her big win of the neon-colored candy canes! Use them wisely, Granny.

Today's Christmas contest item is far more practical. In fact, you may crave it to the point of grovelling.

Every family has an Auntie Em whose dearest goal in life is to qualify for the Daughters of the American Revolution. Even though she's searched her family tree back to a cluster of Armenian refugees who arrived at Ellis Island with nothing but a work ethic, she's still tugging at the roots of the old ancestral bush, hoping to find just that one Minuteman who fled at the first sound of gunshot from the highly-trained and well-equipped British Regulars of 1777.

Auntie sighs whistfully as she scans the Society Page and sees all the D.A.R. poobahs at their teas. Oh, to belong! To have a sash, a ribbon, an insignia pin!

Yours Truly has all those things. Except the sash. You gotta be a Grand Poobah to earn a sash, and I'm not even a Marginally Functional Poobah. I just pay my D.A.R. dues every year, hoping one of these days to be brimming to the plimsol line with empty hours to fill by sipping tea at luncheons.

Ah, but help is on the way for Auntie Em! And you will be her favorite niece/nephew for an entire year! (If that Armenian work ethic has paid off -- probably has -- you might get some nice $$$$$ out of this.)

This week's Great Christmas Giveaway is ... a 2009 Official D.A.R. calendar!!!!

Yes, folks, it's the annual calendar the Daughters of the American Revolution sends out to all its membership, hoping to glean a little extra donation over and above the dues.

This year's calendar features full-page color pictures of elaborate samplers created by young females in the era of the Revolutionary War and beyond. Imagine your eight-year-old daughter, sitting by a sunny window for eight hours straight, stitching away at a slice of linen, just to prove she can do pretty work!

Field hockey practice is starting to look good, huh?

But anyway. Auntie Em will just faint over this calendar. She can hang it in a prominent place, and everyone who visits her will assume that she belongs to the D.A.R. -- how else would she get the free calendar? It's sent exclusively to members!

All you have to do to be eligible for this superior freebie is to leave a comment between now and Friday next. I'll choose a winner at random. Be sure to put your email address on your comment if you don't own a blog of your own.

How can I be this generous with such a fabulous (cheaply printed) calendar? Well, not to brag or anything, but my family is chock-a-block with Minutemen who cowered behind rocks. And my calendar needs are filled by the school/community calendar that Snobville produces each year and mails to me (requesting a donation).

Take advantage of this incredible largesse! And if you can't think of anything to comment about, tell me what you think of Bill O'Reilly.