The Druid's Walk

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" I'm not Jimmy Page or anything, but it's been a long time, been a long time, been a long lonely lonely lonely time. What I mean is, it feels like a long time since I last wrote. No matter how I resolve to work less, my job sucks me in at 7:00 in the morning and rarely spits me out before 5:00, at which time I come home to fix dinner. On the weekends there are chores. And yes, Spare does help me with the chores and the cooking ... but it's a big job.

When the bored gods began to speak to me, I didn't know anyone else who followed the Pagan path. The only place I knew about where Pagan events were held was Four Quarters Farm, and it's out near my place on Polish Mountain. A long hike.

Then I started reading newspaper articles about an Episcopal priest over west of Philly who had lost his sinecure for putting Celtic-themed liturgies on his web site. The newspapers mentioned that he had started a Druid Grove that met at Ridley Creek State Park near Media, PA.

On Beltane in 2006 I blithely set off for Ridley Creek State Park with no more than the newspaper hint and a mapquest for directions to the park. Turns out Ridley Creek Park -- in addition to being beautiful and home to a state champion Black Oak -- is very, very large. Nevertheless, I eventually found the Druids at a picnic site.

Thus began a pleasant and spiritually fulfilling four years of Rituals in Ridley Creek Park, and a few close friendships with like-minded people. But our group was small, and fully half of it came from faraway Allentown. From a high of about 15 people, we soon dwindled to six, then four, then three, and last Samhain two. Imbolc has come and gone with no contact.

This is not alarming to the bored deities that we honored during our Rituals. The group has not disbanded in apostasy or schism. All members are still involved in other groups, mostly closer to where they live.

One of the first people to leave our group was its founder, and I recently heard from him. He has founded another group, Celtic Christians who meet in each other's homes, also in that area out west of Philly. I've heard a little bit about Celtic Christianity, but it's not for the bored God Mannanan MacLir, and it's not for me.

So it is with sadness that I sit here on a sunny afternoon, recalling Imbolcs past at Ridley Creek State Park.

My sadness is deepest when I think about the people in that Druid Grove, because it really and truly is difficult for me to fit in most places, including in Druidic groups. I'm apt to give a nod to some other bored deity rather than the prescribed ones. Not that anyone in my particular Druid Grove ever cared, but to a Druidic purist, saying howdy to Manitou might not be kosher. Also, I've never been accused of being a deep thinker (as anyone who reads here knows). All of my worship is through immediate sensory experience. Ergo, almost all of my knowledge of the bored Celtic deities comes from poetry, art, story, and vision, not from the vast literature of modern Druidism.

I know of a Druid Grove here in New Jersey. Once Spare and I went to one of their Rituals, and it was there that I got to meet Isaac Bonewits and hear him talk. But the evening Ritual held by that group disturbed me deeply. I sure didn't like the way they went about their praise and worship. (I've written on this before. Isaac didn't like it either, I later learned.)

The New Jersey Grove has a Facebook page. It's larger and has a dynamic leader. There are all sorts of Pagans at those Rituals, even people who worship the bored deities of Greece and Rome. Still it's not a fit for me.

Today I walk alone.

There's a beautiful mature oak grove that I can literally see from my window as I write this. But I'm not in the least tempted to try to start a seed group. You would understand completely if you had attended (with me) the New Jersey Pagan Pride day last fall, about three miles from my house.

All too often, Pagan Pride events bring out Satanists who are truly just worshiping their notion of Satan as an opponent to Yahweh. This group was well represented at the New Jersey Pagan Pride Day. It is the position of "The Gods Are Bored" that Satan is not bored. Satan is busy. And people who worship Satan as the anti-Yahweh are not even Pagans.

This is the opinion of "The Gods Are Bored" and need not reflect your own.

Having spent the happiest hours of my youth alone in the deep woods, I will return to that practice of immersing myself in some dark hollow, or some sunny meadow, or some ancient grove so remote that the loggers didn't figure it was worth the trouble. I know of these places, back home where I came up.

In the spring, if I'm able, I'll probably drive up to Allentown.

From whence do I draw comfort today, though? Ah, Ah! I'm not at a total loss.

My friends, this Druid bids you adieu to go to Wenonah, New Jersey, in order to watch a large flock of vultures descend to their nightly roost. If I'm going to do Rituals by myself, they certainly won't look or sound quite like anything sanctioned by any praise and worship team devoted to any particular pantheon.

Imbolc 101

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," on Imbolc 2011! Blessed be the Goddess who presides over our homes and hearths, the Goddess who sparks our creativity and who bathes us with Her warmth! It was She who spread her cape over the world to rid it of evil creatures and make way for humankind. Don't believe me? Walk outside tomorrow morning, and you will find threads of that cape sparkling on the ground.

There's no "written-in-stone" scripture to tell us how to praise and worship on Imbolc, the holy day of Queen Brighid the Bright. I see this as an opportunity. We at "The Gods Are Bored" are not dedicated to any sort of liturgy that can't evolve with changing circumstances.

That being said, here are my tips for those of you who want to celebrate this sacred day.

1. It's against our green intentions, but just for this one night, turn on every light in your house. Have your whole home blazing in electric glory. This will emphasize to you the blessings Queen Brighid has visited upon you, to provide you with a warm home that beats back the cold and gloom.

2. Be mindful of the popular traditions. Groundhog Day? You're kidding me, right? Isn't that disrespectful of Queen Brighid? Pish tosh! Imbolc symbolizes the crushing of winter by the first vestiges of spring. In our modern times, this is played out by a fat rodent held up for cameras. So what? Either way we have only six more weeks of cold weather, and then spring arrives! Embrace your inner groundhog.

3. Do you go to work? Ah, yes. Anne's personal dilemma. After all, the only authentic holy days on the Celtic calendar are August 1, October 31, May 1, and February 2. Can you imagine our nation's Christians going about their daily toil on Good Friday? Well, the truth of the matter is that many of them do, and they aren't struck by lightning. And their god is big on lightning strikes, so I hear. So if our nation's workers can shuffle in and punch the time clock on Good Friday, then we who hold Queen Brighid dear can take joy in our toil and work on Imbolc ... just not very hard, and leave early if you can.

4. Do you want to honor Queen Brighid in a way that will touch her heart? Build a fire, write a poem, bake a cake for your kids, light a candle against this dreadful winter chill. Make some resolutions and have Her bind you to them. Reach down and touch the earth. Find the softness of Her mantle through the week-old snowdrifts. Know in your heart that when the Sun warms the Earth, you will either be here to feel the change ... or with Her in the Summerlands.

5. Laugh. Always laugh. If you can't chuckle, chortle, guffaw, snort, or snicker, get a coach and work on it until you can roar! Delete all mental files having to do with self-pity and guilt. Back up the files that empower you to see the humor in everything that harms no one. If you are worried about politics at this time, just remember that Queen Brighid has seen it all and survived every last bit of it. Tra la la! Laugh!

6. Pour exactly 8 ounces of wine outside for the faeries. Neither pour thou 6 ounces nor 9. Eight thou must pour. And then slap down a nice piece of high-end dark chocolate. Voila! You've pleased the faeries and also satisfied your inner Monty Python. Win win.

More free advice from "The Gods Are Bored!" How can we give this away? I don't know, it's dumb luck so far. Or the work of Queen Brighid the Bright. We prefer to consider the latter. Helps us sleep at night.

Praise and Worship Announcement

East Coast Vulture Festival Children's Fair is Returning to Wenonah in 2011

 

For the 6th consecutive year the East Coast Vulture Festival will salute the Turkey and Black Vultures that soar the winter skies of Wenonah, perch on out rooftops and sit serenely atop our water tower. On Saturday March 5th 2011 the free Vulture Children's Fair will transform the quaint and historic Wenonah Community Center (the historic train station) into a celebration of vulture culture. This free and family-oriented event will include educational displays, games, crafts, and maybe a few surprises. Naturalists will be on hand to tell us about these remarkable birds and guide us to a close up view of the vultures in the roosting areas. We will have more to tell you about the Fair as we get closer to the date, so look for additional announcements and an updating of our website in the near future.

 

 

One thing will be different this year. After careful discussion, we have decided, at least for this year, to take a hiatus from the ticketed Evening Roost event. So this year the festival organizers will be putting our efforts and inspirations into the afternoon Vulture Children's Fair. This wonderful event does so much of what we founded the festival to do and we look forward to a great day in celebration of the vultures and the lessons they can teach us. We'll see you at the Fair on Saturday, March 5, 2011.

Kind of Blue

I've got a case of Crazy Luke blues. Hoping Imbolc will shake them out of me.

When It's Good To Live in Snobville

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," where we got a little over a foot of snow in five hours last night. We're talking thunder snow. It was nuts.

Before we got the snow, we had about an hour of sleet. Needless to say, today is a snow day...

Only one more snow day before the Fairie Festival is impacted....

Anyway, I'm a sucker for a snow day. Here's what I like about them.

*All of the neighbors I never get to see come out to shovel. It's an impromptu block party without the pasta salad. And since so many of us who were shoveling this morning are secondary earners in the education field, we had a great gabfest about Governor Fat Ass and his assault on the public school teachers who are the second best in the nation.

*I have a neighbor named Mr. F who is a gadget junkie. He can be really annoying with his leaf blower in the fall. But when a heavy snow falls, and the plow double-buries the cars, Mr. F is a Gods send. He has a heavy duty snow blower, and he loves to use it. He cleared my driveway. Now I'm making him brownies.

*Other than the plowed-in driveway, the rest of the shoveling fell to me. Mr. J is ill, and Spare is a wee little thing. She opted to clean up the kitchen and make lunch. So out I went to ply the snow shovel.

When I first moved to Snobville,  I was so dismayed about the tiny little property. I can sit at my dining room table and see my neighbor making her supper next door. If the windows are open, we can converse. Tight quarters.

But when a foot of heavy snow falls, how much sidewalk and driveway do you want to be responsible for? I'll tell you: not much more than I have.

I'm a Cailleach of a certain age, not in very good shape, and I cleared the front porch, sidewalk, and cars (and around the cars) all by myself. Without Mr. F's help I would still be out there, wrestling with the heaviest piles. But as it was, I got my little section of sidewalk all done in about two hours. Came in and took the Advil right away.

And oh, is it lovely this morning on my street! The thick snow is coating all the branches and shrouding everything on the ground. Kids are strutting by with their sleds, all dressed in bright winter wear. The sun has come out, and everything looks so shiny and clean!

When my Fairie Festival plans become impacted by this unusually snowy weather pattern, I will look back on mornings like this one and remember that big snowstorms have their special sweetness. The bright sheen of snow against sky, the kindness of neighbors, the joy of two hours' extra sleep.

We take what we can out of life. Snow days are gifts. Blessed be to Beautiful Sedna for sending them!

Do Not Visit Staunton, Virginia

Staunton, Virginia is one of the portals to the Skyline Drive. It is also a Washington, DC exurb full of museum quality morons.

The residents of Staunton are being visited by a winter flock of vultures. Staunton's response to the visitation is to try to scare off -- or kill -- the buzzards.

And the reporter at the Washington Post who wrote about Staunton's big, ugly problem was too lazy to Google and try to find other towns with similar winter vulture roosts.

If the Washington Post reporter of record, Darryl Spears, had done his proper research, he would have discovered the enlightened borough of Wenonah, NJ, which inherited a winter vulture population and has since made a clear profit of $10,000 on an annual Vulture Festival.

Speaking of the ever-popular East Coast Vulture Festival, it will be held on the first Saturday in March, 2011. At this festival, the children of the region will learn the following Religious Truths:

*Just because someone's droppings stink, that doesn't make them bad.
*Vultures do not kill kittens, puppies, or anything that isn't already almost dead.
*Vulture roosts are a WINTER season event only. As in winter, when it's cold. In the spring, they disperse.
*Vultures do not kill pine trees.
*Vultures only throw up on people who try to shoot them with paintballs. (LOL, that was in the Washington Post story. Someone had it coming!)
*Vultures are a protected species. If you kill one, be prepared. You're gonna pay.

On many occasions I have mused about the possibility of moving back into the Blue Ridge Mountains, to some bucolic McMansion-laden, Walmart-saturated bedroom suburb like Staunton, Virginia. But then I look around me at New Jersey ... sagging old New Jersey, with its refineries and its Snookies and its fat Republican governors, and I say, "Wait. This is Jersey. We treat vultures with respect."

Home sweet home.

Staunton, next time I go to the Skyline Drive, you won't even smell the exhaust from my car!

Jesse and Me

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," where we delightfully dally with deities daily! If you need a bored god (or goddess), just check the sidebar, where we feature a new one every day.

Today, however, we put aside our deity devotions for more worldly matters.

As I drove to work this morning, I learned that Jesse Ventura is suing the federal government for the pat-downs he receives at airports.

Probably very few of you have the fond feelings I hold for Jesse "The Body" Ventura. Back in the 1980s, after he had been a Navy Seal -- but before he became governor of Minnesota -- Jesse was a professional wrestler with the World Wrestling Federation. And he was funny as the day is long. The guy was inspiring. My kind of humor, too. Witty put-downs, oversized boasts, flamboyant boas and statements and strutting. I started every Saturday morning with Jesse "The Body" and even went to live events at the Joe Louis Arena (much to Mr. Johnson's chagrin).

Everyone else must have forgotten Jesse "The Body's" antics, because he was the last dude on the planet I ever thought would be elected to government. (Oh well, not necessarily. We've got Arnold in Cali after all.) From time to time I have wondered how "The Body" would do in national politics. He's got the gift of gab, big time.

Let's put all of that aside, though. Here's an ex-Navy Seal who served as a state governor, and when he flies he has to be patted down. Why? Because he has a titanium hip.

I too have a titanium hip.

I don't fly much in the apparent world. The last time I was on a plane, I had a real hip with no problems in it whatsoever. It's rather disconcerting to know, however, that when I do get ready to board a plane, chances are good that I'm going to be frisked like a caught crook. If Jesse "The Body" gets patted down, what will Anne "The Druid" get? Full cavity exploration?

The automobile is looking better and better.

Jesse "The Body" was a wrestler in the 1980s, so he must be quite a bit diminished by now in terms of physical prowess. Nevertheless, I would not like to be the one who had to say, "Okay, Mr. Ventura. Hands on the wall, spread your legs." Jesse didn't get a titanium hip because he got arthritis. He must have busted every joint in that wrestling ring. Or in the Seals ... the friggin Seals! We are frisking Navy Seals!

Go Greyhound. The energy saver.

Hatred Imbalance Restored

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" You know what fascinates bored deities? Television! They can't get over it. And they all say that if they'd had it as a praise and worship tool, they wouldn't be bored today.

When I hear this, I turn on some televangelist, or Glenn Beck, or another hater of that ilk, and I ask the bored deity, "Is this who you would want drumming up business for you?"

Some of them are fine with it. Others are dismayed. You're gonna get a mixed bag of answers from deities of multiple pantheons.

Television is definitely a powerful tool for molding peoples' sentiments. (The computer is not far behind it just now and probably will overtake it.) It doesn't matter what political views you hold, chances are you can find some hater on the air who will stoke your inner fire and make you want to drag a sign to some rally.

I'm reflecting on this topic tonight because of Keith Olbermann's abrupt departure from his television show -- a program of left-wing ire that put MSNBC on the map.

Like him or hate him (or his politics), you have to admit that Keith took a page from the Rush Limbaugh playbook and doled out strong opinions with a "progressive" zeal.

As for this "progressive" crap, when did we stop being liberals? The new name feels so 1984-ish somehow, like we were hoodwinked into it by the vilification of our original name.

Anyway, back to Keith. I've been watching his show for at least two years, every night but Friday.

To be perfectly truthful, I've been falling asleep to his show for two years. That would be the amount of time I've been teaching. Before that, I watched him. Not with rose colored glasses, either. "Worst person in the world?" Hater. Funny hater, but a hater all the same.

The reason I supported Keith with my viewing habits was that, to me, he offered a counterbalance to all the hate from the other side of the political spectrum, which I will, from now on, be calling the "regressives." Rush, Glenn, Bill, Sean -- they needed someone to blow Bronx cheers across their bows. Someone similar in temperament and completely opposite in point of view.

New ownership has arrived at MSNBC, and rumors about Mr. Olbermann's big ego and head-butting against management are rampant. So the hater isn't well-liked. I imagine Mr. Beck's not always on the best of terms with his handlers, either.

I'll miss Keith because he was a righteous hater, a counterbalance to the vile fumes across the divide. Now that he's gone, I think I'll read more. Should have been doing that long ago. Oh yeah, and I'll get a laugh out of watching MSNBC fade back into the obscurity it tried so hard to overcome. Sorry, dudes. You fired your matinee idol. Or he quit. Either way, ciao, baby, from someone who didn't much care for Keith but who actually watched MSNBC every night.

Are you reading this, you who buy commercial time on MSNBC? The progressives are progressing elsewhere.

Sheesh. Progressives. When was the last time that was used? Maybe in the era of William Jennings Bryan?

Let Justice Be Fun

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," a faerie-friendly site where we dote on deities! Here, we banish the word "myth" to the rubbish heap. Everything's real, baby. Everything's real.

This past September I felt it my teacherly duty to sign up as a club advisor. Except I'm always getting tapped to do school newspapers and lit journals and stuff like that. This year I wanted a little variety, so I signed on to co-coach our school's Mock Trial team.

Mock Trial is a state and national competition. Every year students get a "case." The students become the witnesses and the attorneys, and they prepare the "case" for "trial" against students from other schools. The "case" is then heard in a real courtroom and judged by a real trial judge. Each team has a volunteer attorney coach that helps the students with the finer points of jury trials.

This year's "case" was actually pretty interesting. It's a civil case of double negligence: Who's at fault, the distracted kid driving a big red Corvette, or the distracted pedestrian kid texting while crossing an intersection?

The students on my Mock Trial team not only prepared for the competition, they worked together like a team. For the last few days I've really only had to sit back and listen while they grilled each other, more or less reassuring them when they got nervous. Today they performed splendidly against teams from some of the most expensive prep schools in South Jersey.

I took my daughter The Spare along for the day, and she had a great time. She got to be a bailiff in the second round, so she even had a role to play. Now she likes the fact that she can connect faces to the names of kids I talk about all the time. And for the record, my students were very friendly to her -- not the sort of treatment that might have awaited them if they had come to her school instead.

So this was a win-win-win from my point of view. I got to spend the day with the Spare. I got to watch my students at their very best. And I actually went to the Superior Court building without having to face jury duty.

Candidly, while it's completely Druidic to be a school teacher, I've never felt like the role fit me very well. Today the shoe fit, and I even got to be proud of the team ... and of the bailiff, who had to keep time on each bit of testimony and each lawyer statement. Proud congratulations to the Vo-Tech, and its students from Camden, who more than held their own against the Future Masters of the Universe.

School vouchers? Don't use them. The best education can be had in your own public school. No matter where it sits on the map.

Snow Days

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" This is my little slice of "me" time in a very busy day -- so indulge me if you will, and say howdy to some great deities along the way!

Some things you grow out of as you get older. For me, one of those things was Christianity. Another was pro football ... but that only happened after the Eagles blew a chance to win the Super Bowl. I used to love baseball too, and cotton candy. Back burner now. Can take them or leave them.

One thing I have never grown out of is a love of snow. From flurries to blizzards, I just love each and every little flake that descends.

Growing up in the country, I awaited each and every snowfall, not so much for the bliss of a snow day, but for the fabulous group activity of sledding. Ah, sledding, sledding! There was a Mennonite farmer near where I lived who had a gigantic hill. He would clear a path down to the grass on one side, and have a doggone ski slope on the other side, and a big bonfire at the top of the hill. Oh, bliss! And, ahem ... we did our own version of snowboarding way before it was invented, by standing (or trying to) on gliders and regular sleds.

I had a Flexible Flyer that I inherited from my uncle. It was an antique and better than any sled on the hill. Everyone wanted my sled, if only for one trip. Even the adults.

Out in the Panhandle, we had our share of big snowfalls. And when I lived in Detroit, I was in hog heaven, because there it snows a little every day. The whole time I lived there I only saw one big storm, but two inches, three inches, flurries ... there were always flakes flying in Detroit, from November to April.

You would think that the cruel Michigan winters would have cured me of my snow fixation. Maybe they would have, if I'd been living further north, where the stuff piles up like money in a fat cat's offshore account. But in Detroit, it's just a gentle little snowy pattern, the last vestiges of lake effect that blow across the state from Lake Michigan. Loved it!

Here in New Jersey (which just was ranked #2 in the nation for school success), we get these whopper Nor'Easters sometimes. If it's cold enough, a low pressure system can get cranked up over the Atlantic and haul in plenty of moisture. This produces your garden variety blizzard, with high winds, zero visibility, and as much as two feet of snow (in 1996 we got three feet in one storm).

I'm not a teenager anymore, and digging out from a blizzard is hard work to me now. But there's nothing quite like waking up in the morning to white-out conditions, howling wind, and snow inundating everything that moves and everything that doesn't. The fact that I worked at home for so long, and now I'm a school teacher, makes these events even more thrilling.

If you detect a change in my tone from my previous ramblings about the perils of Paganism and snow days, you're right. It seems that our school district -- reeling from last year's winter wildness -- built three snow days into the calendar. We've only used one so far, so I have two more snow days in the bank before I face the dilemma of trying to get a day off work to go to the Fairie Festival.

That being the case, I have petitioned the fabulous Goddess Sedna to send two more ... and only two more ... snow days to break the long march of school from now until Easter. White stuff from the sky. If it isn't volcanic ash, I love it!

I Want Real Winter Weather, and Lots of It!

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," where this morning we are pissed to the gills and then some!

This morning's weather was a no-brainer for a delayed opening of school. Everything is glazed over with ice, since it's been sleeting or dripping freezing rain all night. But my alarm clock went off at 5:20 as usual. There was no phone call from the school. I checked the school's home page -- nothing. Checked the Philly news radio page. Our number was not there.

I showered and dressed. Mr. Johnson got up and went outside in the ice to scrape off the car. As I was eating my breakfast at 6:20, the call came in. Two-hour delay.

Due to the nature of our district, I'm sure some of the students were also up, dressed, and maybe even headed to their bus stops.

I've been sitting here catching up on my grading and some other administrative stuff, the kind of paperwork that used to be paperwork and is now online (thank goodness). My mind keeps drifting in another direction, though.

We have already had the full-day-out snow day that will have to be made up on Friday, April 29 -- the first day of the May Day Fairie Festival at Spoutwood Farm. It's a ticklish situation. I'm a non-tenured teacher, and I want to go to that festival.

My best recourse is to take a call-in-sick day. I have 20 days of sick leave already accrued, so barring a catastrophic illness, I should have the time. I also have a doctor (I call him "Dr. Mushroom," and that says it all) who will gladly see me for some referrals I need anyway, and then write me a note when I explain the situation.

It just galls me that I have to do this.

I can't take the chance of putting in a request for a personal day at the end of a long vacation, even if I ask for it for religious reasons. Beltane is May 1, a Sunday. It's not April 29, a Friday. The Fairie Festival, in recent years, has gone out of its way to ease up on Celtic praise and worship -- to the extent that, if I were to call it a "religious event," I would be stretching the truth.

Lies, lies, and more lies! I feel like all of this is going to give me bad karma.

I am therefore hoping for another bitterly cold and snowy winter like last year. If we get one or two more full snow days, more of the Christian spring break days will be lopped off the week. And if we have school on Wednesday and Thursday of that week, then I can ask for the personal day!

Isn't all this bureaucracy annoying? Just once I would love to see all the Christian teachers in the state have to bargain, call out sick, or take a chance of rejection for a leave of absence on Good Friday!

What a way to begin a week. Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks!

Dodge on the Delaware

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored." As you read this, the City of Camden, NJ has had to lay off 170 police officers. One of the most dangerous urban areas in this nation has lost half of its law enforcement in one fell swoop.

Oh well. It's Dodge City, right? What happens there, unfortunate as it might be, doesn't matter to people living snug in their middle class neighborhoods, where Girl Scout cookie season is about to begin and the grocery aisles are loaded with Valentines.

Welcome to the modern world. The world where we balance state budgets on the backs of the poorest residents. But is this a world where only they will suffer?

We are no longer living in the Middle Ages, in a time where people walked to and from most places that they visited in a lifetime. Oh no. We've got cars, and an El train, and we can really get around.

Who benefits most from the huge reduction in the police force of Camden? Two groups. Drug dealers. And their customers.

Who are these customers? Ah, here's where we differ from Dodge! The majority of drug customers depending on Camden are residents of the wealthier communities surrounding it. The junk rolls out of Camden in cars that wind up driving slowly through white-bread neighborhoods all done up for Christmas. And the users of street pharm drive themselves to corners in Camden, where they get what they need before sprinting back to the McMansion.

In this modern world we are all connected. Police are laid off in Camden, and the students in The Spare's high school come to class with hooded eyes and dilated pupils. Police are laid off in Camden, and a cranked-up driver on the New Jersey Turnpike sparks a multi-car pileup. Police are laid off in Camden, and grandmothers weep. Grandmothers in Camden, grandmothers in Snobville, grandmothers in the Pine Barrens.

Our governor is sending a message: No one cares about you, Camden. Get over it. But the message will resonate throughout a whole region -- everyone under the sun that rises over Camden.

Fewer cops in Camden? You can hear the sighs of relief from the drug dealers ... and from their customers far and wide.

Shame on this state. Shame, shame, shame. Threefold Law upon those who have brought this about.

A Public Service Message for Nervous People

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" We here at this site stand as one with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Let us judge one another not by the color of our religion, but by the conduct we display!

Hmmm. Maybe I didn't get that quite right.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day has become an official day of community service. So we at "The Gods Are Bored" cheerfully join this effort by alerting you to a community resource that you may never have heard of.

Our second biggest pet peeve here at TGAB (behind how downsized deities are called "myths") is the discrimination against mental illness in our health care system. If you hurt your back pulling the Thanksgiving turkey out of the oven, you can get all kinds of treatment for it, all for a simple copay. But if every day of your life is a battle against anxiety or depression, you'd better have a deep wallet. The "good" doctors don't participate in any of the bogus HMO plans, and if you go to the HMO "doctor" ... assuming you can even get an appointment within the next six months ... well. You get what you pay for. If you pay $15, that's exactly what it's worth. Maybe less.

I don't know about you, but I'm a nervous person. I get all worked up about things. And when I get worked up, I either beat up on myself or lash out at the people I love.

Does this sound like you? Have you spent a fool's ransom on therapy bills?

I never had a fool's ransom at my service, so for many years I've suffered in silence. About six months ago, I found out about a terrific non-profit organization that exists to help nervous people. After going to meetings for half a year, I feel secure in recommending this AFFORDABLE and ACCESSIBLE program to you!

The program is called Recovery Inc. Don't let the dot com fool ya. A meeting will set you back a whopping five bucks. And the book, herein pictured, costs $25.

As the folks at Recovery Inc. will tell you, this is not a quick fix, but it is a workable one. There are group meetings almost everywhere (22 countries), and you can talk to someone on the phone or have an online session. The goal of Recovery Inc. is to teach you how to modify your thinking and behavior in order to control anxiety and depression.

Back in the 1930s, there was a school of psychotherapy that promoted the idea that we can change our mental health by willing our brains and muscles to behave differently than they are behaving. Yes, you can change your mindset for the better -- and this is not some cult, or guru-led outfit. It's practical, sensible, AFFORDABLE behavior modification.

I keep harping on this "affordable" aspect, because after six months I can truly say that I've gotten more help from Recovery Inc. than I ever did from an expensive (or especially an HMO) therapist. This is sort of a 12-step program for nervous people, run by volunteers, and whoever shows up is there. It's not "group therapy." There's a process that allows you to remain anonymous.

I won't go into details about how Recovery Inc. works, but it's a very simple method. If you think of your mind as an orchestra, anxiety can be the big tuba that drowns out all the pretty violins. Recovery Inc. will help you stifle that tuba and bring a balance to your life.

To put a Pagan spin on this, I'll add the following: I've always been leery of the idea that our deities "help" us. If deities alone could solve our problems, we would all be rich and thin, with perfect kids and loving spouses. To this Pagan's way of thinking, our deities want us to effect our own solutions to the dilemmas we face every day. They will come along at the end to take us to the Summerlands.

In the meantime, I, Anne Johnson, nervous person, do hereby recommend Recovery Inc., not only because it is AFFORDABLE mental health care, but because it works.

Did I mention that this is something you can afford? Stop being nervous for less than a McDonald's Happy Meal? No wonder Recovery Inc. is such a secret!

More Fabulous Free Advice from Annie the Cailleach

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," live from Snobville, New Jersey! I'm Anne, a fine lady of a certain age. And with age comes wisdom ... if not money. I'm poor, but I'm smart.

The thing about wisdom is that every experience adds to it. It accrues, if you aren't a forgetful moron.

Tonight I accrued some new wisdom and recalled some old wisdom, and it all boils down to this: Don't go looking for those brightly-colored Christmas houses two weeks after the Christmas season ends.

Remember this. You heard it here, so don't do it.

Earlier this evening, the Vo Tech had its annual talent show. My daughter The Heir is about to go back to college this weekend, and I didn't want to spend another long evening at school without her. So I asked her to come over and be with me in the after-school hours (I'm co-leader of a club) and then go with me to the talent show.

Heir's dad dropped her off at 4:00, and we attended the talent show at 6:00. It ended at 7:30, and we started driving back toward Snobville. When we got to Snobville, the whole place was lit up like Christmas never ended (We've had a few snowstorms here, and the wealthy residents don't care about their electric bills).

Heir and I, not wishing to call it a day, decided to go into the neighboring borough and scope out one of our all-time favorite Crazy Christmas houses, just in the off chance that it was still lit up. We drove to the neighborhood, and slowly drove around looking for the house. Found it -- cruised by -- it not only wasn't lit, but it also looked forlorn, because not all of the decorations had been put away yet. So I slowly eased toward the main thoroughfare again ... and suddenly there was a cop car behind me, lights flashing.

I pulled over, wondering what the Sam Hill could possibly be wrong. I sure wasn't exceeding the speed limit, and I'd recently had my car in the Vo-Tech shop, so I knew no bulbs were burnt out or anything. But here came the cop with his flashlight, asking me for my license and registration.

He said, "You were driving slowly and making frequent stops."

I said, "Yes, we were looking for that crazy Christmas house. You know, the one all lit up."

He said, "That's four miles from here." (Were do they get these men? Heir and I were one block from a house that has been featured in the Philadelphia Inquirer.)

I said, "Well, I know this is silly, because it's way after Christmas, but I was hoping the lights were still on."

He said, "There's been a lot of drug activity in this neighborhood, so we are pulling over anyone who's acting suspicious."

(New Jersey and you ... perfect together.)

The cop bid me farewell, and Heir and I tooled off toward Snobville.

I was reminded of a time when my mother was getting elderly and she was out driving at night. A policeman stopped her and made her walk the white line because she was driving too slowly. He thought she was lit. She chewed him out because it was cold, and she was old -- and he made her late for her bridge game.

Annie's free advice for the night: Drive fast. And don't look for Christmas lights on January 13. If you can't get the Christmas house thing done by the time Santa plops down his last sack of coal, bag it.

Can you think of anything more embarrassing than being pulled over by a cop for driving too slow, and then your registration has expired?

Yeah, I'm Annie the Cailleach. Learn from me.

Guenevere, Bobby McGee, and James Baldwin

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" I'm doing it again. I'm doing it again. I was chased out of school at 5:00 p.m. because some janitor saw a flake of snow. There, I was grading papers. Here at home, I'm blogging. With the papers sitting neatly beside me.

Oh well, la di dah. Blogging is fun! (Not that I'm complaining about grading the papers. My students tried hard and are earning good grades. Yowsa!)

I just finished a novel about Guenevere called Queen of the Summer Country. Can't recommend it, even though it's definitely Pagan-friendly. The reason I can't recommend it is because I have trouble picturing the mighty characters from the Arthurian saga weeping, moaning, and groaning as much as they do in this book. Yes, there's tragedy aplenty in this classic revealed Scripture, but moaning and weeping on nearly every page? Oh please.

All of us ladies have a little bit of Guenevere in us. Married, dutifully, and loving our husbands, we are nevertheless bowled over by Lancelot.

You are one of my readers, and you say, "Wait a minute. There's no Lancelot in my life." Well, then, I'll bet you've got a Bobby McGee. You know who I'm talking about if you ever turn on classic rock. You can't miss Janis Joplin's heart-wrenching take on the one who got away. She would trade all her tomorrows for a single yesterday of holding Bobby's body next to hers.

My three male readers are now thinking, "Oh, this is chick stuff." Okay, no they're not. Because flip the gender, and you're in the same troubled waters, right, dudes? Maybe your Bobby McGee is a Bobbi McGee, but she's there in your memory, isn't she?

Whenever I read about Guenevere, the story fills me with melancholy. Even in the hands of an inferior writer, this is powerful stuff. The infamous love triangle, gilded with royal trappings. Likewise, "Bobby McGee." When I hear that song I just want to cry. We've all been there. Otherwise Janis wouldn't have had a hit with the doggone song. (By the way, it was written by Kris Kristofferson, a dude of the first stripe.)

Forbidden love. Lost love. Why does this appeal?

It happens that, long ago, I wrote a reference book entry on the author James Baldwin. I read a few of his books, and I also read some magazine pieces he wrote. James Baldwin thought that unrequited love was the most powerful kind of love that people could feel. (One could certainly argue that F. Scott Fitzgerald felt the same way.)

What is it about people that makes us want what we can't have, or what we had and lost? You could seriously look at our species and call this a major failing.

To me, this is not a failing. It's just one more thing that makes us want to create poetry, songs, and stories. Unrequited love makes us passionate. It informs our vision of everything around us. It makes us want to howl at the moon and shoot out the lights ... but that's a damn sight better than sitting in a chair watching the Weather Channel.

I could write a sonnet, or a saga, on this particular theme. Oh, but speaking of themes ... I've got that grading to do! My friends, I wish for you an evening of sweet dreams about your Bobby /Bobbi McGee, because in dreams everything is always so doggone beautiful, it just makes you want to cry.

Wren Fare

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" Must one be insane to start shooting at people in a crowded place? I think so. But it's funny how some of these insane people show so much doggone method. When a madman shoots a Congresswoman smack in the face, and kills an innocent child for good measure, some of us are tempted to search for a motive beyond mental illness. Completely crazy people open fire on shoppers at a mall, not at members of Congress who have been criticized by right wing politicians and commentators. (And completely insane people often miss their targets. They're almost never fatally accurate.)

I could go on and on about this, but I'll just compare Sarah Palin to Charlie Manson and leave it at that. Hey, I can be extremist too! This is my little corner of the First Amendment right here ... I can say what I want.

 Lighter fare now: On Christmas Day in the morning, we discovered a little house wren flitting about inside our dwelling. Since then, we've had five more wren visits. This morning, it being about 25 degrees outside with a stiff wind and three inches of snow, I was loathe to send outside another little wren hiding in the Christmas tree.

I called the local wildlife refuge, and they told me what to do. Consider this another bit of free advice from Annie the Cailleach!

In cold weather, house wrens will gain entry to a home through any little cavity. Then they can't get out again. So if you see a wren flitting from the living room curtains to the dining room settee, just open a window. Doesn't matter how cold it is, or how snowy. Wrens don't migrate, so they know how to deal with winter weather.

That's what the nice gal at the wildlife refuge told me when I said I didn't want to let the lil' fella out into the elements.

This has proven a terrific blow to my cats, Alpha and Beta, who see these little wrens as winter entertainment.

Free advice and First Amendment rights, all in one place! I really should charge for my services.

All, or Nothing at All

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," where we do not believe in segregated water fountains! But think about it for a minute. Our holidays in this nation (so long as working people will be allowed holidays) mostly revolve around the Christian calendar.

For a Pagan, this can be a hassle.

Last school year, my district had about four snow days. Those days had to be made up in June. By the time we got out of school, it was almost the Fourth of July.

This year, any snow days we accrue will be taken off the calendar during our much-ballyhooed Spring Break, beginning with Friday and proceeding backwards through the week.

Having grown up in farm country, I never had a Spring Break until my college years. And school never lasted beyond the 8th of June. Often it was finished by Memorial Day.

Spring Break in my district begins on Good Friday and lasts all through the following week. Ah, and here's the rub. The Friday after Good Friday, April 29, is the first day of the Glen Rock Fairie Festival ... which is already in the planning stages.

School districts far and wide frown upon, and often don't grant, personal days that dovetail with holidays. So, if we get even one snow day this year, I will be scheduled to come in and placed in a very delicate situation if I request a personal day for religious purposes.

(None of this would matter if I had tenure, but Governor Fat Ass Christie is trying to see to it that I never get tenure. Me and every other poor soul who had the bad fortune to begin teaching during his blighted administration.)

Before you tell me to demand my Pagan rights, there are a few mitigating factors. First, the Fairie Festival is not strictly a religious event. In fact, the Rituals have been structured so as to remove any affiliation with any particular Path. Second, the day I would be requesting is April 29, and not May 1, which is a Sunday and which is on the sanctioned list of holy days (students only can stay home without taking an attendance hit, not teachers).

I'm sure those of you visiting here for my Druid take on life will feel my frustration. I'll sit home, or hit the laundromat, on Good Friday. I'll sit home on Easter, drowning my sorrows in Peeps. And I'll have to miss a whole day of the Fairie Festival if we get one snow day.

Now, think about this. If 700 students have a whole week off and are told they have to come to school for one day on Friday, how many of them do you think will show? We had Three Kings Day this week. More than 300 kids stayed home. And that wasn't a Friday at the end of a vacation week.

One snow day, and I'll find myself sitting in an empty school building with a handful of kids vying for perfect attendance, while the Fairie Festival commences with a Ritual that I have supplied.

It's snowing here today, with more snow forecast for Tuesday. Due to the nature of my school district, we're often among the first to cancel for the elements. I therefore think it beyond any petition to the bored gods to so arrange the weather that we have no snow days this school year.

Instead, tonight's Shrine of the Mist petition will go to the bored deities of the Siberian steppes. Bring on the white stuff! Lots and lots of it! Lop all the days off Spring Break, not just Friday! Thursday, Wednesday, Tuesday! Can I get two blizzards here?

Heck, if we have to work Wednesday and Thursday, then I could take off Friday with no hassle!

I think I will put in for the personal day anyway, mindful that the moment I get tenure, I will never work on May 1 or October 31 ever again.

Gatsby Update

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" Can you repeat the past? Of course you can, old sport!

So speaketh the Great Jay Gatsby, and quite a few religions make a tidy living supporting that outrageous proposition.

But not here at "The Gods Are Bored!" We operate volunteer services that help ancient deities become computer-literate and environmentally aware. Don't believe me? You should have seen the shock and disdain on Cernunnos's face when I first used silk/plastic mistletoe in a Ritual. Then I explained to Him that silk/plastic can be used over and over, it causes no harm to living mistletoe, and in fact it ought to be kept out of the landfill because a buzzard can't tell the difference between a plastic berry and a real one until the berry is consumed. Cernunnos got on board in a jiffy, and He even donated a wonderful thrift-store silk piece to my Yule altar!

That's what I call keeping up with the times.

I'm off-topic, though. Let's talk about Gatsby in the hood.

There's always somebody slinking into my classroom with a clipboard in hand, evaluating me according to the latest educational philosophy, which currently is something called Marzano. Today I got yet another visitor, without a clipboard, smack in the midst of one of my un-structured Great Gatsby lessons.

At most American high schools, teachers fling a copy of GG into their students' hands, assign them a certain number of chapters a week, lob on the symbolism and vocabulary, and generally create a massive hatred for a novel that I consider emblematic of the American experience.

With my class, we have read almost all of the story out loud, acting out parts in turn, and stopping frequently to comment upon these crazy rich people and their skewed values system. I have done zero vocabulary and nearly zero "language arts" lessons. We've just been reveling in the story.

My students love it. Even the ones who can hardly read at grade level love it. You know why? Because buried within all that lofty (and beautiful and difficult) prose is a fantastic story.

Today we were acting out Chapter 7 under the watchful eye of an administrative spy. I suggested we skip a few paragraphs of lofty prose, and you know what? My students would have none of it! "We want to read every word!" One of them said, and the rest seconded the motion.

(I was not reading it to them. They were round-robin reading it, randomly selected.)

Even the macho boys who hated the very idea that they might be forced to read something mushy are solid with this tale. And why not? Is it not about a clash between Alpha Males (among other themes)?

Long story short, the administrative type asked me after class if my students were enjoying the book. As if he had to ask! They would have stayed another 40 minutes, busily engaged with it.

Then the admin told me that the students at our sister school hated GG.

I write this because on Monday next, the Superintendent of my school district will be observing me as I teach The Great Gatsby. (We are almost finished the book.) My future employment is entirely in his hands, but I'm not changing my strategy one bit.

Great literature is only great if it says something about what we value. And readers who aren't terribly sophisticated can lose their grip on this book if they get bogged down in the prose. How terrible is that? Gatsby is a classic! The "American Dream" dissolves before your very eyes! This story makes you question all the answers ... so long as you don't have to dissect every other paragraph for vocab and crap that proves you aren't using Spark Notes.

For the record, I actually Googled Spark Notes so my students could see that they have a tool they can use to help them understand the story better. I told them that we would skip any word we didn't know, and if they needed to know it, I would just tell them what it is. Because my aim should be to increase their vocabulary skills, but my intention is to make them think.

They like it! Hey, Mikey!

When I get the pink slip, I will still feel that I have accomplished something ... great.

Bored God of the Boiler Room

Welcome to ... pant pant pant ... "The Gods Are Bored!" pant .. pant. I'm your scorched hostess, Anne Johnson. Hot! Hot! Hot!

The school building I work in is 80 years old and counting. It has an old-fashioned boiler room.

When I arrived in my classroom after Christmas break on Monday morning, the temperature hovered ... I kid you not ... at least in the 80s if not nearing 90. It was like walking into a sauna.

Our New Jersey governor is all for firing teachers and busting our union, but I wonder how much moolah the state could save if it upgraded old boiler rooms.

In an effort to lower the output of hot air (in my classroom, not from the governor's mouth -- latter being impossible), I took a hike downstairs to the boiler room to see what was up.

And here's just the problem that arises when there are bored gods around with no meaningful employment. Lounging in the boiler room I found Vulcan. He was staring vacantly at the furnace, occasionally adjusting the intake valves.

Granted, there are some bored gods who we can live without, and Vulcan certainly is one of them. Who needs a volcano erupting all over the place? Just ask those poor folks in Pompeii what they think of Vulcan. All the same, this Dude is out of place in a public school.

I'm frankly afraid to do a praise and worship for Vulcan, to get him out of the boiler room and on to bigger, better things. I didn't even say howdy to him. For all I know, I could offer him an interview here at TGAB, and he would respond by blowing my house sky-high so my humble belongings will make the lunar eclipses red. On the other hand, I have to spend 10 hours a day, sometimes more, in a room where it's becoming impossible not to sweat the small stuff.

I guess I'll have to approach Vulcan and, picking my words carefully, offer Him some sort of olive branch. Somehow I feel like He won't be any more enthusiastic about turning down the heat than the school janitor. More capable, yes. More willing, no.

Perhaps I'll send Vulcan an anonymous note gently suggesting He may wish to visit the Mid-Atlantic Trench until March or April. I could even pass myself off as one of the World Cultures teachers, in case Vulcan gets pissed. Something's gotta change, though. In this era of energy conservation, I hate having to open windows on the coldest day of the year.

On Being a Chosen One

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," where we tackle tough questions every day! Here's a tough question that I'd like to sack for a 20-yard loss:

What's the best way to handle the "chosen ones" amongst us?

The question came up one day over this holiday when I was discussing Harry Potter with my daughters. My feeling was that the Harry Potter series comes apart on about Page 50 when it becomes clear that Harry is a "chosen one." Special as he is, all of his superiors hide essential information from him ... constantly. If I was a chosen one, I would like to learn as much as I could, as fast as I could. It was supremely frustrating for me, reading that series, because just once I would have liked Harry to say, "Damn it, quit beating around the bush!" And then Dumbledore should have spoken up about everything, including being gay. But then it wouldn't have been a very exciting story, huh?

This is why King Arthur works -- after a thousand years. As a kid his life was in danger (like Harry), so he was hidden in a forest and not told who he was (unlike Harry), all the while being groomed in martial arts (better than Harry) and the attainment of wisdom (more systematically than Harry). When he finally discovered he was a king, he was ready to go whoop ass and rule, without ever having had to deal with the angst of nagging doubts about the quality of his teachers and what they might or might not be telling him.

One last fictitious chosen one: Luke Skywalker. Again, better than Harry. As a kid his life was in danger (like Harry and Arthur) so he was hidden away on a planet (like Arthur) watched over by a benign hermit (more Dumbledore than Merlin). Thrust into the fray, Luke had to learn by doing (unlike Arthur but somewhat like Harry). The difference? Luke's dad was a bad guy. (In some versions of the Arthur tale, Uther's no gem either, but he's never a Darth Vader.)

On to the chosen ones in the real world. It has never made sense to me that Jesus got visited by wise men and angels as a child, and then spent 30 years doing carpentry with his dad. I wonder if the historians got that part right? Actually, if you read the New Testament closely, you see that Jesus was rather confused at age 30 about who he was and what he was expected to do. I blame the parents in this situation. Every Christmas, at the very least, they should have reminded Jesus of the circumstances of his birth. Maybe he would have gotten started on his mission earlier, and lasted a little longer.

Another chosen one: The Dalai Lama. Heads up, fiction writers! If you want to see how it's done, watch this process. The dude was deemed a chosen one at a time of life when about all he could choose for himself was whatever he could grab. And yet, have been deemed the chosen one, he was carefully brought up and tutored by the finest minds of the generation. End result: an extremely intelligent, humble, practical man. I doubt if there's one Dumbledore in the Dalai Lama's past.

I don't know about you, but I'm pretty doggoned skeptical of people who get "chosen one" status as adults. Look at your popes. A mixed bag at best. Seems to me that if you're a chosen one, something major should happen at your birth, or soon thereafter. In this, our real world could borrow from fiction -- assuming King Arthur is fictitious (which I don't, I think He's a bored god).

If someone tells you he or she is a chosen one, do a background check. An improperly-trained chosen one is a rather dangerous entity. Behind every chosen one should be a good teacher or two. I'm not just saying that because I'm a teacher. I'm saying it because the vast majority of humans don't operate purely on instinct, so they'd better have learned something before they begin issuing orders and battling evil.

Resolution

I woke up this morning all snuggled against the cold night air, and I got to thinking about the fact that my life is maybe two-thirds over. So what sort of resolutions should I make, given that fact?

I began thinking about some of the things I've dreamed of doing that I've never gotten around to doing. We all have a list of those, don't we?

My list doesn't include climbing Mt. Everest or hiking to Maccu Picchu. Never was very intrepid.

However, there is one thing I've always wanted to do. At least since 1987. I want to march in the Philadelphia Mummers Parade.

The tradition of Mumming belongs to the bored gods: to Saturn and to the Celtic deities who brought you Wren Day. By joining a comic brigade, I will be proving my devotion to the bored gods. And proof it will be indeed. Even the sorriest brigade of Mummers practices for months, sewing or purchasing expensive costumes in the process.

This is resolved. I want to Mum. So might it be.

Gazing at Buzzards and Navels ... in That Order

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" We all have favorite haunts on New Year's Eve. This little spot is mine. Another round on the house!

This afternoon at 3:00, my daughter The Heir and I set out for Wenonah, NJ to do some buzzard-watching. Over 200 vultures descend on Wenonah every evening at sundown, there to roost in just a few trees. It's an amazing sight, and this was the first day of weather temperate enough to enjoy it.

The Heir went along with me on this trek because she enjoys my company. And that's a lovely thing for a mom of a 21-year-old. We had a serious heart-to-heart chat during what turned out to be a lengthy excursion.

You see, we arrived at the buzzard roost before sundown, and I forgot to turn off the lights on my car. This proved to be an issue for the vehicle; namely, its battery.

Heir and I watched the vultures pull into their roost for about 30 minutes. Then I tried to start the car. It wouldn't start. So I called Roadside Assistance for a hot shot, and Heir and I spent another 60 minutes at the vulture roost.

Thanks to a dead battery, Heir and I had ample opportunity to worship at the Shrine of the Sacred Thunderbird. Throw in a gorgeous sunset, and a good time was had by all.

This is what we added to our store of knowledge about the Sacred Thunderbird:

The sunset brought about a flurry of activity, as each bird sought the perfect nighttime roost. Two whole trees looked like they were exploding as the vultures vied for the best branches. Then, it started to get dark, and ... boom! You wouldn't have known there was a single bird in the tree. Perfect silence, perfect stillness. Awesome.

This is what Heir and I added to our  store of knowledge about people, after it got too dark to buzzard-watch anymore:

If you love someone, it really hurts to watch them do self-destructive things. You have to decide whether you'll stand by and watch, whether you'll try to bend fate, or whether it's better to detach and just let everything take its course. Heir and I did not come to an easy answer on this. And I have to say this sad fact shakes my faith in the Sacred Thunderbirds. Aren't they supposed to dole out easy answers to every tough question?

Oh, no no no! Am I questioning the power of the Sacred Thunderbird on New Year's Eve? Where's my flail?

I. Am. Not. Worthy!

If you didn't read yesterday's post, your opinion is sought and appreciated. And now I must prostrate myself before the Sacred Thunderbird and beg forgiveness for my inflated expectations of  enlightenment in the shadow of Their mighty wings.

Do All Druids Act Like Me?

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," sister bickering edition! I'm Anne Johnson, sister to one and sister-in-law to several.

Starting with the "several," my sisters-in-law led my mother-in-law to believe that she would be traveling with them this holiday. Alas, they stiffed her, and Mr. Johnson is now bringing her here to Chateau Johnson for the remainder of the Christmas holiday. Oh well!

The bigger quarrel is with my natural sister, and it's not so much a quarrel as me calling her on some Facebook behavior that she says I haven't given her an opportunity to explain.

In the past 18 months my sister has adopted eight pets: two dogs, five cats, and a tarantula. She already had a dog and a parrot. She is soon to be 47 and wants to adopt a child.

A few days before Christmas, a dog fight erupted in my sister's house. The first dog she adopted got mauled by the other two. This sort of thing happens when dogs try to establish pack order, especially in close quarters. Sis posted a photo of her injured dog on Facebook. She also posted a picture of her hand, swollen from the bites she received trying to break up the fight.

I scolded her severely, first for putting up a picture of an injured dog, and then for posting her plans to curb further fighting (plans include shock collars and obedience school). This is not the sort of thing a person puts on Facebook.

What got under her collar was my suggestion that she ought to take a look at her overall behavior pattern and ask herself if it seems logical -- everything in her life at this moment, and all the plans she has.

This is all the detail I'll give on this, because all of this is already on record on Facebook.

Anyway, she left me a message on Facebook that my behavior is abusive, and she wonders if all Druids act like me? This is because I would not sit and listen to her rationalize the behavior of her pets.

She calls it abuse, I call it tough love. If you knew more about our family history, you would know that I'm not mad at her at all ... only worried. And I wasn't abusive ... only elusive. Because I had to kowtow to my mom, but I sure am not going to do it with my sister.

I wrote her back and said that if she is happy, then so am I. What's bugging me is this nagging feeling that she's not happy, that she's anything but happy, and that the hubub around her is her distraction from unhappiness.

Sis has not taken down the picture of her injured dog, and I'm wondering how those who judge people fit for adoption will feel if they see it on her Facebook. Maybe the rest of you Druids know more about this than me.

Asking, especially but not exclusively Druids -- did I overreact? Do you want to see the photo?

The Cailleach Shops for a Cell Phone

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" Do you understand this new millennium? No? Well then, you're in luck! I'm Anne Johnson, the Cailleach, and I will explain all.

The day before Christmas, my cell phone broke. It was two years old, almost to the day, so of course it fell apart in my hands. Now, in the previous millennium, one could use a telephone for two decades without need of repair. But this is a new era. Things wear out much quicker. They are made to wear out quicker, so you need to buy a new one.

I had to go to the phone store to purchase a new cell phone. This is what I discovered there:

1. The price listed on the phones is not the price you pay. The price listed is a price after a mail-in rebate, which you need to fill out the paperwork for yourself, and which comes to you in the form of a Visa gift card.

Okay, I don't curse here much, but this is bulls@$@#. If I wanted to be royally scammed, I would go to a car dealership or a televangelist.

2. Buy one, get one free. Again after the same mail-in rebate, the same false prices, and the same Visa gift card, which -- trust the Cailleach who loves you -- is not the same thing as cash or a check or a money order, or a traveler's check, or even green stamps.

3. Get a phone with a keyboard for easy texting. My thumbs already ache, sales boy, and that keyboard doesn't look user-friendly. And just so you know I'm not withering on the vine, let me just say that I can see into the future, and within just a few years we'll have voice-activated texting. I'll wait for that.

4. The phone you're choosing doesn't take pictures. Cameras take pictures, not phones. If someone takes my phone, do I want them also to be able to see pictures of my beautiful young daughters?

5. Here's a nice feature: a button that calls 911 for you with one click. That feature sucks. Suppose you hit it by mistake? It's right there where it would be easy to hit by mistake. However, since this is the only @#$@# phone in the store with a real price on it, I'll just have to be careful how I use it, won't I?

6. Are you sure you don't want to take advantage of the special offers available through your account? Yes.

My daughter The Heir tells me that I just bought a "senior citizen phone." Screw that! I bought the only phone in the store with an honest, affordable price, with no features that I'll never use (except the bloody 911 button ... Gods willing), and which serves the purpose for which it was designed: urgent communication with others while abroad from home.

Free advice from the Cailleach: At the rate technology is changing, wait it out. Get all the life you can out of your current phone, then buy another affordable one, and in less than a decade you'll be able to shell out seriously for that voice-activated technological wonder. And remember, nothing lasts more than two years, so do not waste your money on a protection plan. By the time you need it, a better gizmo will be out there to tempt you.

Don't get me wrong, youngsters. Phone booths were gross. Cell phones are good. But, buyer beware. Even if you get the paperwork filled out right, and the Visa arrives in the mail, you may leave a few pennies on the card when purchasing something. That money adds up ... for them, not for you.

As always, this advice is given freely and with joy. 



Cailleach image one of many by the incomparable Thalia Took, see Sidebar.

How We Acquired a House Cup

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" The wind outside is howling at 30 mph, there's a foot of snow on the ground, the telly is showing "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," and the sun is setting in blazing glory over the smokestacks of Philadelphia. I tell you, these are good times. Good times!

I have a cousin who was born on Christmas. I'll call her Sugar Plum.

Sugar Plum is at least a decade older than me, maybe more. So as I was growing up, she appeared only as a sort of beautiful princess who I rarely saw. I was still a kid when she left the home county for good, and I only saw her once after that. We have corresponded irregularly over the years.

One night I sat down to watch some old silent home movies of the family. The movies were shot before I was born, but Sugar Plum was in them, a darling little girl in crinoline and patent leather shoes. So the next day I wrote her an email, just to say that watching the home movies made me think of her and hope that all was well.

About two weeks ago I returned from work one evening to find a big box from Sugar Plum. Upon opening it, I found a note ("Dear Anne, this is called a 'butter keeper.'")

The object in the box was a round, symmetrical item about the circumference of a duckpin bowling ball. It is sterling silver, with a domed lid and a glass dish that sits down in a base that has legs. On the lid is a circular engraving with farm scenes, geese and milkmaids and such. There's a butter knife that fits into "arms" that extend from the base. The knife is engraved with the initials of my great-great grandmother.

Spare came in while I was staring at this odd and elegant item, and she summed it up perfectly:

"Who sent us a House Cup?"

For that is what it looks like -- an exotic silver relic reminiscent of a carefully-constructed background scene at Hogwarts.

In 1860, I'm certain my well-heeled female ancestors used this item to keep butter on their festive tables. But I am me, the purpose-shifter. The "butter keeper" is now a House Cup, its knife having been dipped in the waters of Berkeley Springs to bind it to me.

At present the House Cup does have some butter in it. We've been dining in during the holidays, and it's very posh to butter one's bread from a silver domed chalice. After the holidays, however, the House Cup will be dedicated to new and creative uses.

I draw the line at burning incense on the plate, but anything else is warmly possible. One possibility springs to mind: hiding essentials from the faeries. Car keys and cell phones, for instance. Great-great Granny would never have thought of that.

How kind of Sugar Plum to send me a House Cup that belonged to our mutual ancestors! May her year be bright, and may she wander into my path!

Wren Day

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored" on Wren Day 2010! Classy little bird, the wren. All hail!

Yesterday as family Johnson was engaged opening gifts, I looked into the dining room and saw a little wren hopping across the floor. It then took off and began flying around, landing briefly in the Christmas tree. (Fortunately, Alpha had found an empty box to snooze in, and Beta was nowhere to be seen.)

If this little birdie had been brought in by the cats, it was resourceful in the extreme, because it was completely hale and hearty. I doubt that the cats even knew it was in the house, because once a cat knows it has the possibility of bagging a bird, the cat will forgo all snoozing and noshing and all else in the glory of pursuit.

I opened some windows and the back door, and within moments the wren had rejoined its family outside. Where it is now shivering through the early stages of a Nor'Easter that is looking more fierce by the minute.

Could be that the faeries brought in the wren. Today is Wren Day, after all -- yet another celebration on behalf of the bored gods that is nearly lost to the mists of time. Long ago, the ancient Celts saw the wren as a symbol of the waning year, so when the daylight was at its shortest they sacrificed a wren to herald in the months of the robin (often confused with our popular robin here in America, though not the same bird).

Here's a little bit of Wren Day poetry:

The wren, the wren, the king of the birds,
On Stephen's Day was caught in furze;
Up with the kettle and down with the pan,
And give us some money to bury the wren."

 Before anyone gives me sass about the cruelty of killing a wren, I say to you: Wrens, doves, goats, people ... we live in the 21st century now, and few cultures kill living things for their deities. Religions -- all of them -- change with the times, some more quickly than others.


Wren Day marks the return of light and the expectation of spring. This is ironic here today in New Jersey. Our first winter storm has begun, and it is my aim to save wrens, not sacrifice them. Off to the store for bird seed!

Santa to Spare: Forget It!

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," Stimulate-the-Economy Edition! Buy now, pay later. After all, it's what our government does -- and who's to argue with Uncle Sam?

A week or so ago, I posted a letter that my daughter The Spare wrote to Santa Claus in a shamelessly pandering attempt to demand request some Christmas gifts. Today Santa's response came, and it's starting to look like no Christmas is coming! I reprint Santa's reply below, in total:

Dear Spare Child,

I have received your letter of 12/15/10, sent by Tardis. My reply comes via the same route. I will address the pertinent points in your communication and make resolves and recommendations as appropriate.

First, your excessive flattery does little to incline me to grant your wishes. I happen to know that YOUR TRUE HEROES are all Internet geek nerd comics, not me. Don't you remember that I see you when you're sleeping and know when you're awake (in a totally tasteful, legal, and appropriate way, of course)? Do not think that you can spend hours and days watching Internet and television comedy shows, and then -- at the 11th hour -- come begging for presents! Why don't you ask those punks at College Humor to get you some t-shirts? Oh, I know! Because THEY are writing to me asking for a new t.v. show!

Now, let's look at your claim that you are good. Oh, pleeeze! Check out your Zip code! I don't even stop in Snobville! Everyone there is either a spoiled rich kid whose parents can buy everything they want, and then some, or a piano-trashing stoner party animal, discarding poppers while escaping the police. I save 16.2 seconds by ignoring Snobville, and in my line of work, it's all about timing. You want gifts? Move to Wenonah.

I don't mind your little fires all that much. But it has come to my attention that you are a terrible American. My reputation would seriously plunge if I rewarded terrible Americans. So get that patriotic piece together before you so much as ask me for a single strand of taffy.

As a corollary to your terrible patriotism, it has not escaped my notice (nothing does) that you are incapable of bestowing respect and obedience on people who have no respect for you. Do I need to name *cough French Teacher* *cough Drama Coach* *cough School Bully* names? Grovel or shovel (coal), Spare Child!

Last but not least, I wish to remind you that much largesse has already been bestowed upon you this year, principally in the form of numerous trips to thrift stores and flea markets. Why should I bring you new merchandise when you can find similar stuff at bargain basement prices elsewhere?

Therefore, I will bestow upon you the following:

*You will never have to clean the cat box.
*You will never have to attend youth group meetings.
*You can have 16 crickets and three stink bugs. Just look under the Christmas tree. They'll be there, bright and early on Christmas morning ... as long as it's just like every other morning in  your house.

As for the whole "Xmas" thing, just you remember -- Solstice is the reason for the season!

Peace,
Santa Claus

Beautiful Show on Solstice

The sky was cloudless, the air was brisk, and the lunar eclipse was fabulous! I built a bonfire in the back yard and began watching Luna at about 3:00 a.m. The Heir sat with me a long time, and The Spare came out to see the total coverage. But I sat there until the last of the shadow faded from the face of the Pale Goddess, alternately meditating on the vast universe and the return of longer moments of daylight.

Blessed be to all who await the return of the Sun, and blessed be to those who send the Sun back to us to warm our old bones.

Solstice is the reason for the season.

Lunar Eclipse on Solstice

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" Stare at the sky? Why? Because it's there!

Tonight, smack dab on Solstice, there will be a total lunar eclipse. The bored gods have arranged this unusual celestial event to recognize the hard work of Pagans everywhere, toward the goal of re-establishing Divinity in all its fantastic pluralism.

And so, my friends, arise tonight in the darkest hours, wrap yourself in warm blankets, and behold a gift from Those Who Would Be Re-established!

Smile, Luna. All eyes are on You tonight. Blessed be Luna, now and forever.

Santa, Postponed by Republican Idiocy

Today I was going to post Santa Claus's response to The Spare's Xmas demands,  requests, as listed below. However, when I sat down to type the Jolly Old Elf's letter into this space, I saw a news story that explained how the Republicans successfully blocked a bill that would provide a citizenship status to upwardly mobile young people who came into this country illegally.

I, Anne Johnson, member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, am sickened by this.

Why do people pick up their belongings and leave the countries of their birth for a new, strange land where they don't speak the same language?

 Here's the scenario: "Kiss your abuela goodbye, Juan, we're leaving the Dominican Republic on a whim because we like Big Macs."

Oh, pleeeeze.

Then as now, no one packs up and leaves a native land for any other reason than desperation. This nation has always welcomed the desperate of other places, and those immigrants have made our country vibrant, interesting, and the envy of the planet. Now, even though our population is diminishing, the Republicans want us to deport people. Not just slackers, but serious young people who would not only become part of our intellectual pool, but who would also vote Republican, because so many of them espouse the values of the religious right.

Every year I teach persuasive essay-writing, and every year I get a student or two who writes about seeing a cousin, brother, father, deported. I remember one girl who wrote so hauntingly about a cousin of hers who had been accepted to college, who spoke no Spanish, who had been in America since she was eight years old. On the eve of moving in at her dorm, she was deported to the Dominican Republic, where she had no immediate family and no knowledge of the native language.

Just so you Red Ebenezer Scrooges know, you will be adding that poor would-be American to the long chain of sins you have visited upon the working class in America. I hope this vote comes back to haunt you. I hope that the growing number of Hispanic voters in this nation stay firmly in the Democratic ranks. You Red morons are sending "home" the very people who would vote for your conservative agenda -- good Roman Catholics who believe in the values of hard work and self-sufficiency. Oh yeah. Let's send them home to the DR and Mexico!

Do you Republican numbskulls know how hard I have to work to make absolutely certain my Pagan family values don't seep out into my classroom? The people you're deporting think the way you do. My students would be mortified to know they were being taught by a Pagan. They and their families are "God and country" all the way.

Go ahead. Send them home. The word "moron" does not begin to describe you. That foot you're shooting? *snort* It's yours.

Long Strange Trip Offer, Act Now

Yours free to the first person who comments: 1981 Grateful Dead t-shirt, size small. New, but has makeup stains on collar that will probably wash out in the first laundry trip.

Leave your address at luvbuzzards at yahoo dot com.

I'm going to the post office before noon on Saturday, so chop chop!

Spare Writes to Santa

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" Last night I found this letter written by The Spare, addressed to Santa Claus. I reprint it here as written. Santa's reply will be reprinted Saturday.

Dear Santa,


Hey ... How goes up in the North Pole. I guess it would be kind of cold right? Do you ever go on vacation to a warm place? Like the earth's core or are you actually just a polar bear dressed as a man like Al Gore & Hulk Hogan are (to be fair hulk hogan is actually a black bear). Whats your favorite bear? Anyway hows the Mrs? Hope you are keeping her away from those elves ... awkward ... Speaking of Eleves I hear they want to organize a union. If you need any advice on how to rip up a union, Just ask Chris Christie! Did you know that your name is Atnas spelled backwards. Its kinda like Atlas. I was never good with maps. But I guess you would have to be good with maps to get around the world? Or do you Just use M*A*G*I*C*? I love Magic, I'm a wizard you know. This year was my third year @ Hogwarts. Anyway I guess you could also use the tardis to get around on Christmas Eve ..... OHMYGEE! It all makes sense now... Your a timelord! Suh-weet!

Santa your my Hero, did you know that? Your Jolly and cheery. I wouldn't call you fat like some of the other kids, their mean. Nah, you're just robust maybe even big boned! Your also superfly for a white guy. I saw white because I think that the only time I've seen an african american santa was in a tyler Perry movie. Santa I have been totally awesome this year. I only set like 18 fires ... on purpose. But come on bro (can I call you bro) I don't use the fire to smoke so that should count for something right? No? OH COME ON! I'm so good! Look this paper is recycled that makes me an Earth Warrior! By recycling this I am stopping Global warming & saving the polar bears which, if you indeed are a polar bear, is saving you! So here is a list of my demands requests:

--Friends (real ones)
--Some busted Tee's shirts
--Converse shoes (black hightops)
--Ed Hardy perfume (in the pink bottle)
--good make-up brushes
--Ipod touch & Itunes gift card
--Super Mario Bros games for Gamecube (you can give to Heir to share)
--cute accessories i.e. Necklaces
--furry animal hat from Hot Topic
--a tardis (life-size lol) JK
--a pony
--and something unique!

Also Santa, please keep my Family safe & Happy this holiday. Also help my mom remain stress free. Guide my Dad with the Book. Help my sister with anixety & help me be a comedianne. Good luck with XMAS (why is it with an X?)

XOXO
Spare Child Johnson

John is the Signpost

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" Can it really be possible that this is the 30th anniversary of John Lennon's death? Where has the time gone?

As it turns out, I recall vividly where I was on the night Lennon died. I had a date with a new fella, a young journalist I'd met while interning at a newspaper that folded many, many years ago. This fella and I went out to dinner, and back to his apartment, and we've been together ever since.

I wish I could offer you some ironclad advice on how to spend 30 years with a significant other. But alas, I only know what has worked for me and him. In this and this alone, I feel like my life is a fingerprint, never to be repeated by anyone else ever again. Not that we've been the only couple to last a long time, but that our particular circumstances are unique.

Ask me how to make a wand, how to handle a tame vulture, how to save a little stream ... I can tell you that. But how to spend 30 years with the same partner? Beats me.

I think I make him laugh.

Phoenixville, PA: I Love You, I Hate You

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" Quick question: What bursts into flames and then regenerates?

Damn it, Spare! Shut up! I'm not talking about Dr. Who tonight. I'm talking about the Phoenix!

Ah, the Phoenix, the Phoenix! A supernatural creature that has never become bored! Sacred to the ancient deities, this bird that possesses magical powers, who dies by bursting into flame and then is born again from its own ashes, is immortality that would be bearable! All hail the mighty Firebird!

Way out on the western fringes of Philadelphia there's a little town called Phoenixville. As with many little suburban towns, it's always on the prowl for ways to bring in the tourist dollar.

One way that Phoenixville attracts the madding crowd is its summer Blobfest. Turns out the film "The Blob" was made there, and every summer the locals re-enact the famous "movie theater scramble" from the film. This is part of a weekend of Blob-related activities. And yes, my friends, this festival is already on the Johnson 2011 calendar.

On Sunday afternoon last, my daughter The Heir and I toddled over to Phoenixville from Heir's college, which is about six miles away. And what to my wondering eyes did appear, but a festival any Pagan would hold dear!

This coming Saturday, December 11, Phoenixville will host its 7th annual Firebird Festival. The citizens have erected a 28-foot-tall wooden Phoenix sculpture. Anyone who crafts a clay bird can place it underneath the sculpture. Anyone with a resolution for the coming year can place it in a box that will be put in the sculpture.

I'll bet you can guess the rest.

During an evening of music and drumming, this Phoenix sculpture will be set afire. The clay sculptures will be fired by the heat. And the resolutions will be transported to the bored gods. All of this a mere six miles from Heir's comfy college dorm room!

There's just one hitch. I have a long-standing reservation for a spa weekend in Berkeley Springs. Spouse and I have been planning this trip for four months. CANNOT CANCEL for a FIREBIRD FESTIVAL. @#@#$@#$@$#@$#!!!!!!!!!

Okay, Phoenixville, PA. Would you do me a favor? Would you spend a little more money advertising your calendar of events? Because this is not the first, but the SECOND festival I would have attended in your borough, my pockets stuffed with cash and my heart full of revelry ... but I didn't know! I was ignorant of your Firebird Festival until I happened upon it much too late! Now I'm sitting here staring at the fabulous agenda (after having ogled the magnificent wooden Firebird sculpture), and the long drive to Berkeley Springs now seems like a second-place finish ... and a lot farther away.

If you live in the Delaware Valley and are inclined to praise and worship the Sacred Firebird, by all means take my tip and biff on over to Phoenixville, PA, 4:00 p.m. until midnight, December 11. (One of the most compelling aspects of this fest is its complete and utter lack of any Christmas symbolism.)

And mark my words: Next year ... if there is a next year ... I will be in Phoenixville. Blobfest in July, Firebird Festival in December. This town is chippin. It needs better publicity. Oh, if only I had known!

Spare's Night Out

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" It's rip-roaring around here tonight! Heir is at college, Spare and Mr. J. are in Manhattan, and I'm here at home. You know what that means -- bored god party! Bring on the lively music and the fatted parrot! Let's dance and sing the way they did in the days before yore!

Spare has gone to New York City to see a comic troupe she's been watching online for about a year. The troupe is called College Humor (sums it up), and they're giving a live show. Our family is gifted with a beautiful young auntie, still on the young side of 30, who lives and works in NYC. Spare and Auntie are off to the show, while Mr. J. enjoys his second favorite pastime, browsing the shelves of the celebrated Strand Bookstore.

Spare wants to be a comedienne. Trouble is, no one thinks she's funny. It is often thus with prophets in their own home towns, yes?

So, in honor of the Spare's night at College Humor Live, I'm posting "Jabberwocky" (below), even though the sound is funky.

If you watch this and think Spare isn't funny, let me know so I can steer her to her second choice career, taking toll money on the Pennsylvania Turnpike's Northeast Extension. Please hurry, because the dues will soon need to be paid to Future Toll-Takers of America, and we want to get the exact change lane discount.

I must hurry away. Loki is smashing the stemware.

Jabberwocky for the Spoutwood Fairie Festival

A New Creature Crawls from the Swamp

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" It's nice to see you. I'm sorry I haven't written this week, but my eyes are giving me trouble. Too much staring at spreadsheets in this era of data-driven instruction.

I'd like to think New Jersey has a monopoly on moron governors, but oh please. It seems that many states require people to flunk basic IQ tests before they can move into the statehouses.

Having said that, our latest foul, putrescent excuse for a hominid, Chris Christie by name, is attempting to tame New Jersey's high taxes with ham-fisted Republican politics that would do Louis XVI proud.

At a time when our sitting president is deploring the national test scores, Governor Fat Bastard has slashed the state education budget and promises to crush the teacher's union and put an end to the "evil" known as tenure. GFB is also out to get all other state unions that have negotiated and paid into pension plans. He's a dip-your-lance-in-your-opponent's-blood kinda guy.

But his latest conceit moves him out of the realm of ordinary political moron and into the rarified atmosphere of a salaried menace to society.

Chris Christie plans to cut Camden, NJ's police force in half.

Yes, this is the notorious Camden that perennially ranks among America's murder capitals. It's the same Camden from which most of my students come.

I can't think for this statehouse ape. But from my point of view, it seems as if he really doesn't care if the citizens of Camden live or die. Could he look into the eyes of my students every day, the kids from upwardly mobile immigrant families who just want to get a little bit ahead in the world? Could he read what I read every day -- sad tales of friends killed in gang violence, poorly-spelled vows to stay out of trouble, tributes to family members lost forever?

Go ahead, Chris Christie, you fat bastard. Take my pension. Make it impossible for me to achieve tenure. But by all the deities of all the pantheons both known and unknown, may They all reign forever, do not make Camden's streets more dangerous for my students.

At least don't do it without looking them in the eye. Straight in the eye as you say, "Well, the billionaires in Fort Lee are tired of paying taxes to subsidize your police force."

I evoke the Threefold Law upon Governor Chris Christie. Go ahead, Governor Girth. Make my day.