Welcome to "Thy Gods Are Bored!" If ye with patient eyes attend, what here shall see is naught to offend!
Have you ever, just for the fun of it, written something in which you mimicked the style of a famous author? Confession here: I do this sometimes for the fun of it. It's kind of a nice cerebral challenge.
What do you know? It turns out that this particular talent is one that will determine whether our high school students are college and career-ready.
I wish, oh how I wish that I was making this up. But the latest teachers' meeting regarding our nation's new standardized testing brought more information about what is in store for our youngsters. One task they will have to complete -- on computer -- is to finish a narrative in the style of its author, taking care to follow the plot and character interrelations.
Are you confused yet, reader? Here's an example:
The test will give students the first 1,000 or so words of a story like "The Gift of the Magi," by O Henry. This was written, I think, between 1890 and 1910. After the students read the passage, they will be expected to continue the narrative, using O Henry's style and higher-level vocabulary. Another example used a passage from Frederick Douglass with the same instructions: read it, finish writing it, use his style.
The task must be completed in 50 minutes.
Did you do this in college? I didn't do this in college. Not for an assignment, anyway. Maybe it was my major that didn't require this kind of assignment. Oh, wait. I majored in creative writing.
We teachers also got treated to another of the tasks we must teach in our English classrooms. Students will have 80 minutes to read two pieces of informational text (probably scientific or health-related), study a chart or other graphic, and watch a YouTube. Then they will have to write a position paper and use the information to support their point of view, taking care to quote from the texts and videos. This sounds more like college, but a whole hell of a lot less like the high school English classes I took, where we did such useless things as reading Charles Dickens and Oedipus Rex.
Basically these new standardized tests could expect high school juniors and seniors to be able to write like Shakespeare. Even though the highest talents in the world have not produced another Shakespeare in 400 years.
Needless to say, every teacher in my meeting, which included all the faculty for history and English, was appalled. Remember, we teach in an urban school where more than three quarters of the kids get free breakfast and lunch every day. But I'm also wondering how this will play out in Levittown. Even in Snobville, where one of the snobbiest things is the school system.
But wait. There's more.
Fourth graders. Fourth graders will be sitting for one 50-minute session of writing (narrative) and an 80-minute session of writing (analytical), followed by two 50-minute sessions of math. All on computer.
When I was in fourth grade, the only thing we did for an 80-minute nonstop stretch was watch the Baltimore Orioles in the World Series one afternoon in October.
If you are reading this, and you are a parent of a school-aged child, I urge you to find out all you can about your state's standardized testing platform. (New Jersey is using the more difficult one, PARCC.) Ask yourself: Will these high-stakes tasks fill my son or daughter with a joy for learning? Will these tasks spark their individual creativity? Will they have the mental endurance to complete the tasks at the tender age of ten?
Parents, you've got to fight this. If we teachers try to, we'll be called slackers.
Oh, gosh! I almost forgot! Look at this splendid YouTube video my daughter The Spare shot for one of her classes! (Below) Please leave her some kind words of encouragement. She's taking Shakespeare in college right now, but she's not being asked to write like him.
Friday, March 07, 2014
Thursday, March 06, 2014
My Very, Extremely, Wonderful and Green Transportation Machine!
Welcome to The Gods Are Bored! Decibel and I are here today to tell you about our fabulous and wonderful life, just a few days shy of 55! (Actually Decibel is 55-27= 28.)
In a way it's the same old story. You know the drill. You're hard up for money, you're driving the same car you drove in the 20th century, and the old bird just ain't what she used to be ... even with large infusions of cash. Then she dies, and the mechanic who lavished such $$$ attention on her offers you the princely blue book sum. And suddenly a two-car family becomes a one-car family, second car also being a junker on the brink.
One of the only things I really had going for me in these belt-tightening days of taking in boarders and shepherding 87 urban kids into basic literacy was my little putt-putt economy car. But now that our big, burly sedan has gone to the scrap pile, the putt-putt becomes dual property.
And somehow I can't bear the idea of being picked up and dropped off at my urban high school when most of the senior class has cars.
But you know me, right? Is Anne one of these "woe is me" kinda gals? Oh HELL no!
My daughter The Spare has a roadster that has sat idle so long it's kinda rusty and faded. But that lil' baby works. All I need is a visit to the bike shop for some oil, seat adjustment, and a helmet, and off I go into the wild blue yonder!
I used to ride my bike everywhere when I was a stripling. And I grew up in some seriously hilly country. The only hills in these flatlands are the inclines on the overpass bridges. It's 4.5 miles one way to my school. Come on, Joe. That's seriously a piece of cake.
The timing could be a little bit better, because daylight savings time starts Saturday, which means it will be pitch dark at 6:15. I might have to suck it up and get driven to school for a few more weeks. Then spring will arrive, and with it blue dawn mornings, and by golly, they say you never forget how to ride a bike!
Some people might say, "Anne, you're going backwards! You've had your own car for 13 years!"
Well, I have some witty reposts for that:
*I am going backwards in many things, so what's one more?
*First World problems! There are plenty of hard-working miners in Sierra Leone who would love to have a rusty roadster!
*It's time to lower my already-rock-bottom carbon footprint even further! Living close to where you work, or working from home, is one great way to save the planet. Now I'll be driving even less!
*Yes, this sucks, and yes, I have had to make extreme compromises due to the changing employment climate. But damned if I'm going to wallow in self-pity. Okay, maybe I'll allow myself a little self-pity. Okay, maybe I'll wallow. But I'll do it in the plastic chairs on the front porch, because (not exactly sure of this) tears may stain upholstery.
When all that's left to me is my flawless chintz settee, at least I'll be able to point to it and say, "That's my chair, and it is perfect."
In a way it's the same old story. You know the drill. You're hard up for money, you're driving the same car you drove in the 20th century, and the old bird just ain't what she used to be ... even with large infusions of cash. Then she dies, and the mechanic who lavished such $$$ attention on her offers you the princely blue book sum. And suddenly a two-car family becomes a one-car family, second car also being a junker on the brink.
One of the only things I really had going for me in these belt-tightening days of taking in boarders and shepherding 87 urban kids into basic literacy was my little putt-putt economy car. But now that our big, burly sedan has gone to the scrap pile, the putt-putt becomes dual property.
And somehow I can't bear the idea of being picked up and dropped off at my urban high school when most of the senior class has cars.
But you know me, right? Is Anne one of these "woe is me" kinda gals? Oh HELL no!
My daughter The Spare has a roadster that has sat idle so long it's kinda rusty and faded. But that lil' baby works. All I need is a visit to the bike shop for some oil, seat adjustment, and a helmet, and off I go into the wild blue yonder!
I used to ride my bike everywhere when I was a stripling. And I grew up in some seriously hilly country. The only hills in these flatlands are the inclines on the overpass bridges. It's 4.5 miles one way to my school. Come on, Joe. That's seriously a piece of cake.
The timing could be a little bit better, because daylight savings time starts Saturday, which means it will be pitch dark at 6:15. I might have to suck it up and get driven to school for a few more weeks. Then spring will arrive, and with it blue dawn mornings, and by golly, they say you never forget how to ride a bike!
Some people might say, "Anne, you're going backwards! You've had your own car for 13 years!"
Well, I have some witty reposts for that:
*I am going backwards in many things, so what's one more?
*First World problems! There are plenty of hard-working miners in Sierra Leone who would love to have a rusty roadster!
*It's time to lower my already-rock-bottom carbon footprint even further! Living close to where you work, or working from home, is one great way to save the planet. Now I'll be driving even less!
*Yes, this sucks, and yes, I have had to make extreme compromises due to the changing employment climate. But damned if I'm going to wallow in self-pity. Okay, maybe I'll allow myself a little self-pity. Okay, maybe I'll wallow. But I'll do it in the plastic chairs on the front porch, because (not exactly sure of this) tears may stain upholstery.
When all that's left to me is my flawless chintz settee, at least I'll be able to point to it and say, "That's my chair, and it is perfect."
Monday, March 03, 2014
Not So Fast
For the past two days, every weather forecast on every web site and every television station predicted six to ten inches of snow for my location. For my money, the best weather site is the National Weather Service. It too issued a winter storm warning for six to ten inches of snow, plus a trace of ice.
Given that forecast, most local school districts cancelled during the early evening hours, meaning that today, Monday, was yet another snow day! I love them one and all!
But the certainty of that forecast got me thinking about computers.
Weather forecasts used to be based on barometric pressure, and these were far less certain about how much precipitation would fall. Now computers do modeling, based on far more specific data, including the behavior of every other winter storm since data began to be stored. Despite this blossoming of computer-generated forecasting, the actual storms are still not terribly predictable. We know snow is coming, but we don't know how much we'll be getting until it ceases to fall. In today's case, the six-to-ten-inch forecast yielded a scant three inches, if that.
A little twist in the sermon here, but follow me on it:
Have you ever sat, stone-faced, as someone talked at you? I did it just last week when someone who evaluated me took me to task for not demanding that one of my students stand for the pledge to the flag. This person went on and on about it, and I just nodded blandly. All the while, I was thinking to myself, "This is utter nonsense, this woman is clearly clueless on federal pledge policies. Now I'm going to smile and nod and tell her she's right just to shut her up. But what a moron. I can't believe that I have to listen to this moron and take her seriously. Hmmmmm. I wonder if I brought in enough firewood? It's going to snow day after tomorrow. What am I going to make for dinner? I wonder if I can bring in firewood while dinner is cooking. Is she finally finished? Wow! She is!"
And then I said, "Oh, yes, you're right. I'll speak to that student."
After which she re-asserted her point at length, leading me into another reverie, this one about the new season of "Vikings."
When she asked if I had any questions, I said no, everything was great. While of course, in my head, I had all kinds of questions, beginning with, "Lady, do you know anything about our essential freedoms in this country?"
My point is this: If this educated woman could sit two feet from me and have no idea what was going on in my mind, with the full force of her brain power focused on me, how could a computer possibly do a better job under exactly the same circumstances?
Some people are easier to read than others. Individuals may have nervous tics or fluttery eyes, or they may drum their fingers impatiently when they're angry. But a person who is making a conscious effort to mask his or her emotions can damn well do it.
I think, in the absence of truth serum, a computer would have no less trouble reading the human mind than another human. We are a long way from the time when computers will be able to pick our brains. I have no doubt that day will come, but not tomorrow or next week.
The great wonder of the human brain is how it can compute but also be totally random. A very discerning evaluator might have picked up on my annoyance at her because she was asking me to pester one of my most emotionally fragile students. But there's no way she would have followed the rest of my mental meandering, which was basically tuning her out completely while pretending to listen carefully. People can do that. Human brains can do that. How long will it take computers to be that sophisticated?
I figure that when I look at the National Weather Service, and they get the forecast 100 percent correct, right down to the start time, end time, and exact amount of precipitation, then I will have to start worrying about some computer picking my brain. In the meantime, if I just go on being weird, and thinking randomly while nodding seriously, I need fear no mechanical tool.
Go ahead. Read my mind. You'll see that I'm just jamming with Jimmy on "The Immigrant Song." AaaahhhIIIIaaaaaHHHHHAAAAA!
Given that forecast, most local school districts cancelled during the early evening hours, meaning that today, Monday, was yet another snow day! I love them one and all!
But the certainty of that forecast got me thinking about computers.
Weather forecasts used to be based on barometric pressure, and these were far less certain about how much precipitation would fall. Now computers do modeling, based on far more specific data, including the behavior of every other winter storm since data began to be stored. Despite this blossoming of computer-generated forecasting, the actual storms are still not terribly predictable. We know snow is coming, but we don't know how much we'll be getting until it ceases to fall. In today's case, the six-to-ten-inch forecast yielded a scant three inches, if that.
A little twist in the sermon here, but follow me on it:
Have you ever sat, stone-faced, as someone talked at you? I did it just last week when someone who evaluated me took me to task for not demanding that one of my students stand for the pledge to the flag. This person went on and on about it, and I just nodded blandly. All the while, I was thinking to myself, "This is utter nonsense, this woman is clearly clueless on federal pledge policies. Now I'm going to smile and nod and tell her she's right just to shut her up. But what a moron. I can't believe that I have to listen to this moron and take her seriously. Hmmmmm. I wonder if I brought in enough firewood? It's going to snow day after tomorrow. What am I going to make for dinner? I wonder if I can bring in firewood while dinner is cooking. Is she finally finished? Wow! She is!"
And then I said, "Oh, yes, you're right. I'll speak to that student."
After which she re-asserted her point at length, leading me into another reverie, this one about the new season of "Vikings."
When she asked if I had any questions, I said no, everything was great. While of course, in my head, I had all kinds of questions, beginning with, "Lady, do you know anything about our essential freedoms in this country?"
My point is this: If this educated woman could sit two feet from me and have no idea what was going on in my mind, with the full force of her brain power focused on me, how could a computer possibly do a better job under exactly the same circumstances?
Some people are easier to read than others. Individuals may have nervous tics or fluttery eyes, or they may drum their fingers impatiently when they're angry. But a person who is making a conscious effort to mask his or her emotions can damn well do it.
I think, in the absence of truth serum, a computer would have no less trouble reading the human mind than another human. We are a long way from the time when computers will be able to pick our brains. I have no doubt that day will come, but not tomorrow or next week.
The great wonder of the human brain is how it can compute but also be totally random. A very discerning evaluator might have picked up on my annoyance at her because she was asking me to pester one of my most emotionally fragile students. But there's no way she would have followed the rest of my mental meandering, which was basically tuning her out completely while pretending to listen carefully. People can do that. Human brains can do that. How long will it take computers to be that sophisticated?
I figure that when I look at the National Weather Service, and they get the forecast 100 percent correct, right down to the start time, end time, and exact amount of precipitation, then I will have to start worrying about some computer picking my brain. In the meantime, if I just go on being weird, and thinking randomly while nodding seriously, I need fear no mechanical tool.
Go ahead. Read my mind. You'll see that I'm just jamming with Jimmy on "The Immigrant Song." AaaahhhIIIIaaaaaHHHHHAAAAA!
Sunday, March 02, 2014
Personal Best: The Gods Are Bored Goes 5K
Yesterday I did something for the first time. I participated in a 5K race.
The cause was fighting the stigma of addiction. (Look! I finally learned how to link!) The location was scenic New Castle, Delaware, a town even more hysterical than Snobville.
I believe in holding my own opinion and not mandating it for others, so I've never quite gotten the whole 5K thing. You're paying to run or walk five kilometers. On any given day I can do that for free. But in this case the cause was laudable, and an old friend I hadn't seen in a long time was going to be there. Plus, when I woke up in the morning, it was a smashing gorgeous day, not a cloud, and not below zero.
This particular 5K had never been run before. It was an inaugural event. Expectations were that about 200 people would come. Eight hundred people came. And of course I got there late, because even if I have been to a place three or four times before, that doesn't mean I can find it again.
So, with all the crush of people, and a tardy arrival, I had a great deal of trouble locating my friend, even with a phone in hand. I lingered in the gymnasium until all the other runners had gone out to the starting line. Seeing that I had pinned a number to my jacket, one of the racing organizers said to me, "You need to go outside now. The race is about to start."
To which I replied, "Why do I need to go outside? Someone has to finish last."
But that someone wasn't me, after all. I found my friend and his wife, and we strolled the course through charming New Castle at a brisk but not taxing pace. Lo and behold, when I crossed the finish line 59 minutes and 58 seconds later (not kidding ... really), it was a personal best time for me!
I was glad to see such a fine turnout for this race, because AtTACK Addiction is a relatively new charity, founded by a family who lost a young and handsome son to heroin addiction. Once again offering my opinion here: Addiction is an illness, and a deadly one. As someone who has gone a year and a half without a drink, I can speak to how difficult it is to live with. My family members would tell you the same.
Long story short, I kind of liked the 5K thing. I had forgotten how cool it is to walk through streets that ordinarily would be full of traffic, chatting with friends and ogling the quaint colonial era architecture.
I think I'll add 5K races to my list of fun things to do. Nothing beats the Mummers Parade, but hey ... it's one way to keep in shape for New Year's Day.
The cause was fighting the stigma of addiction. (Look! I finally learned how to link!) The location was scenic New Castle, Delaware, a town even more hysterical than Snobville.
I believe in holding my own opinion and not mandating it for others, so I've never quite gotten the whole 5K thing. You're paying to run or walk five kilometers. On any given day I can do that for free. But in this case the cause was laudable, and an old friend I hadn't seen in a long time was going to be there. Plus, when I woke up in the morning, it was a smashing gorgeous day, not a cloud, and not below zero.
This particular 5K had never been run before. It was an inaugural event. Expectations were that about 200 people would come. Eight hundred people came. And of course I got there late, because even if I have been to a place three or four times before, that doesn't mean I can find it again.
So, with all the crush of people, and a tardy arrival, I had a great deal of trouble locating my friend, even with a phone in hand. I lingered in the gymnasium until all the other runners had gone out to the starting line. Seeing that I had pinned a number to my jacket, one of the racing organizers said to me, "You need to go outside now. The race is about to start."
To which I replied, "Why do I need to go outside? Someone has to finish last."
But that someone wasn't me, after all. I found my friend and his wife, and we strolled the course through charming New Castle at a brisk but not taxing pace. Lo and behold, when I crossed the finish line 59 minutes and 58 seconds later (not kidding ... really), it was a personal best time for me!
I was glad to see such a fine turnout for this race, because AtTACK Addiction is a relatively new charity, founded by a family who lost a young and handsome son to heroin addiction. Once again offering my opinion here: Addiction is an illness, and a deadly one. As someone who has gone a year and a half without a drink, I can speak to how difficult it is to live with. My family members would tell you the same.
Long story short, I kind of liked the 5K thing. I had forgotten how cool it is to walk through streets that ordinarily would be full of traffic, chatting with friends and ogling the quaint colonial era architecture.
I think I'll add 5K races to my list of fun things to do. Nothing beats the Mummers Parade, but hey ... it's one way to keep in shape for New Year's Day.
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Separate and Subvert
Groucho Marx once said that he would never want to belong to a club that would have
him for a member. I often think of that, because besides being a funny quote, it speaks
to the power of choice. We choose what we join and where we shop, who we hang out with
and how we entertain ourselves. And there is a huge wealth of stores, arenas, clubs,
pubs, and hubs where we can find like-minded individuals, shedding ducats freely.
Of course, I live near a great big city. If I wanted a cup of coffee, I could stroll right past the shop that says, "We Do Not Serve Pagans," to the Starbucks on the corner. But what if I lived in a small town with only one coffee shop, and it said, "We Do Not Serve Pagans?" Then, must admit, I become pissed. Knowing me, I go inside, order a triple mocha java latte grande frappachino with extra whipped cream, and when the steaming confection is placed before me, I say, "Drink it yourself. I'm a Pagan."
Then again, if it's a small town they probably already know I'm a Pagan, so they wouldn't serve me anyway.
What baffles me is why someone would build a business, knowing full well they were going to turn patrons away. The whole point of a business is to make money, preferably fat fistfuls of it. But if you, out of religious belief, refuse to serve certain customers, you not only lose that custom, but you also lose the custom of anyone who thinks you're a bigoted moron. Depending upon where you are, that could be a lot of people. You are betting that the customers who think like you do are going to throw a lot of business your way. What if they can't? Not everyone is made of money, even though they pray to become rich.
We long ago left "separate but equal" in the dust, recognizing a failed social construct when we saw it. What we haven't left behind is the staggering pride that allows some people to create a "sinful" Other, and then justify their unwillingness to serve this Other by using "freedom of religion" as an excuse. The state of Arizona dodged the bullet of widespread disdain, but not because of the will of its citizenry. What would have happened if the Super Bowl had not been slated to be played in Arizona next year? And what about all the nests of morons in other states who might feel that their god is demanding that they get some laws in place so they don't have to lodge gay people in their B&Bs? This pathetic and embarrassing search for legislation has just begun, I fear.
But all is not lost, even if you live in a state where such laws get passed. Extending this sermon just one anecdote more, I hereby give some free advice to people who might face discrimination. Mind you, I feel it essential that the law protects everyone. Everyone. In exactly the same way. Still, if you're up against discrimination, remember this little tale from blogger Annie:
I am old enough to remember the day when the municipal swimming pool in my home town was integrated. I've told this story before, so I'm not going to bore you with details again. (My mother let me go swimming; she said the pool would be less crowded, and it was.)
Fast forward almost exactly 15 years from that date. Another hot summer. I was a legislative assistant working for the local state representative. A young African American man came into the legislator's office and begged a favor. There was a swimming pool, sitting drained and nearly forgotten, in a neighborhood of town where most of the African American people lived. The citizen wondered if there was any way to get that pool up and running again. You see, kids in that neighborhood had to take the bus to the big municipal pool, and that pool was getting old and very crowded. It would be nice to have the little neighborhood pool open for the local tots.
The legislator got a grant from the state, and at the beginning of the next summer, the separate and unequal swimming pool was re-opened. Of course anyone can use it, but it is primarily used by the African American kids in the surrounding neighborhood. And they love it.
My friends, go where you are welcome. Spend your money where you are welcome. If you cannot possibly avoid the bigots, that's one thing. But if you can put them out of business, marginalize them, basically do without them, do it! Separate might not be equal, and it sure isn't optimal, but it can be effective.
I'll practice what I preach. Arizona is still on my bucket list, but guess what? It just fell below Eastern Europe. Before this week it was right up there with Nova Scotia. I'd rather not visit a place that doesn't want some of its best citizens as members.
Of course, I live near a great big city. If I wanted a cup of coffee, I could stroll right past the shop that says, "We Do Not Serve Pagans," to the Starbucks on the corner. But what if I lived in a small town with only one coffee shop, and it said, "We Do Not Serve Pagans?" Then, must admit, I become pissed. Knowing me, I go inside, order a triple mocha java latte grande frappachino with extra whipped cream, and when the steaming confection is placed before me, I say, "Drink it yourself. I'm a Pagan."
Then again, if it's a small town they probably already know I'm a Pagan, so they wouldn't serve me anyway.
What baffles me is why someone would build a business, knowing full well they were going to turn patrons away. The whole point of a business is to make money, preferably fat fistfuls of it. But if you, out of religious belief, refuse to serve certain customers, you not only lose that custom, but you also lose the custom of anyone who thinks you're a bigoted moron. Depending upon where you are, that could be a lot of people. You are betting that the customers who think like you do are going to throw a lot of business your way. What if they can't? Not everyone is made of money, even though they pray to become rich.
We long ago left "separate but equal" in the dust, recognizing a failed social construct when we saw it. What we haven't left behind is the staggering pride that allows some people to create a "sinful" Other, and then justify their unwillingness to serve this Other by using "freedom of religion" as an excuse. The state of Arizona dodged the bullet of widespread disdain, but not because of the will of its citizenry. What would have happened if the Super Bowl had not been slated to be played in Arizona next year? And what about all the nests of morons in other states who might feel that their god is demanding that they get some laws in place so they don't have to lodge gay people in their B&Bs? This pathetic and embarrassing search for legislation has just begun, I fear.
But all is not lost, even if you live in a state where such laws get passed. Extending this sermon just one anecdote more, I hereby give some free advice to people who might face discrimination. Mind you, I feel it essential that the law protects everyone. Everyone. In exactly the same way. Still, if you're up against discrimination, remember this little tale from blogger Annie:
I am old enough to remember the day when the municipal swimming pool in my home town was integrated. I've told this story before, so I'm not going to bore you with details again. (My mother let me go swimming; she said the pool would be less crowded, and it was.)
Fast forward almost exactly 15 years from that date. Another hot summer. I was a legislative assistant working for the local state representative. A young African American man came into the legislator's office and begged a favor. There was a swimming pool, sitting drained and nearly forgotten, in a neighborhood of town where most of the African American people lived. The citizen wondered if there was any way to get that pool up and running again. You see, kids in that neighborhood had to take the bus to the big municipal pool, and that pool was getting old and very crowded. It would be nice to have the little neighborhood pool open for the local tots.
The legislator got a grant from the state, and at the beginning of the next summer, the separate and unequal swimming pool was re-opened. Of course anyone can use it, but it is primarily used by the African American kids in the surrounding neighborhood. And they love it.
My friends, go where you are welcome. Spend your money where you are welcome. If you cannot possibly avoid the bigots, that's one thing. But if you can put them out of business, marginalize them, basically do without them, do it! Separate might not be equal, and it sure isn't optimal, but it can be effective.
I'll practice what I preach. Arizona is still on my bucket list, but guess what? It just fell below Eastern Europe. Before this week it was right up there with Nova Scotia. I'd rather not visit a place that doesn't want some of its best citizens as members.
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
My Very Brand New Cat
He can't come inside.
He still has pus in his wound.
But he looks at me with sad eyes, and I give him food.
He's using the hutch I built for him.
I think he has other ports in the storm.
Still, I now have a third cat. With Alpha across the Veil, I've got Beta, Gamma, and now ... Delta.
Cats are proof that the Goddess loves us and wants us to be happy.
He still has pus in his wound.
But he looks at me with sad eyes, and I give him food.
He's using the hutch I built for him.
I think he has other ports in the storm.
Still, I now have a third cat. With Alpha across the Veil, I've got Beta, Gamma, and now ... Delta.
Cats are proof that the Goddess loves us and wants us to be happy.
Monday, February 24, 2014
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
8 People Pagans Should Never Marry
A few years ago I subscribed to a Christian newsletter called Fire in My Bones, which is usually a pretty practical and no-nonsense read. Today it got dumped into my inbox with an article called 8 Women Christian Men Should Never Marry.
No big surprises here. Especially the number one woman a Christian man shouldn't marry: the non-believer.
Anyway, this concept got me thinking. Surely there are people that Pagans shouldn't marry!
I'm all about free advice, so here goes, Pagans:
8 People Pagans Should Never Marry
1. The zealot. Be very, very careful. It doesn't matter what religion the zealot follows ... if he or she thinks all other religions send you to Hell, that speaks to narrow-mindedness. Delete that listing.
2. The fracker. Someone who spends the day shooting chemicals into the bedrock probably won't see eye to eye with you on the need to protect the natural world. Stop looking for love at the electric company and go see those charmers at the wind farm.
3. The risk-adverse stay-at-homer. The stability of this person may appeal to you in deep mid-winter, but come festival season, his or her unwillingness to attend firewalks and sweat lodges will force you to make some uncomfortable decisions about how you spend your precious spare time. Plant that couch potato on someone else's lap, and get moving!
4. The faithful Christian. Sorry if this hits close to home, but if your significant other follows his or her holy book to the letter, you're going to be hearing lots of sermons about Jesus being the only way across the Great Divide. That's bound to get tedious, especially if paired with a crying newborn at 3:00 a.m.
5. The young earth theorist. Ten minutes in this person's company will have you begging for rescue by Bill Nye the Science Guy. For the love of fruit flies! Your deities have jars of jam that are more than 6,000 years old! You're honestly better off looking for a lifetime partner at band camp.
6. The tea party member. Privately, this person may think the world of you and cherish your beliefs. But in the harsh light of judgment by his or her peers, you are going to be deemed a menace to society. Talk politics on the first date! There's no worse way to waste your money than to wine and dine a potential mate who will drag you to a Sean Hannity rally the minute you pop the question.
7. The axe man (or woman). News flash: Commercial logging is the most dangerous job in America! And what is it, exactly? Cutting trees down! Not only will this person be incompatible with you spiritually, he or she is also likely to die young in a terrible mishap involving a murdered tree. Doesn't sound like a recipe for happiness to me.
8.The atheist. Giving you some tough love here, Pagans. When it comes to holding firm beliefs, atheists are a lot like Christians. They're going to be subtle, or they're going to be confrontational, but either way they're going to try to make you doubt your deities. Give it a go only if you can sway your atheist to some sort of blissful contemplation of the Divine. Your atheist need not embrace your Path, but he or she shouldn't be heaving bricks onto it, either. In all seriousness, here ... proceed with caution if you become involved with an atheist. If that big, broad, flexible outlook is nowhere to be seen, make a new plan, Stan.
So, there's some fine pre-marital advice from me, Anne Johnson, Pagan and married for almost 30 years!
And oh, by the way. Never say never. Love will always find a way. Best free advice I can give you is to follow your heart ... wherever it leads.
No big surprises here. Especially the number one woman a Christian man shouldn't marry: the non-believer.
Anyway, this concept got me thinking. Surely there are people that Pagans shouldn't marry!
I'm all about free advice, so here goes, Pagans:
8 People Pagans Should Never Marry
1. The zealot. Be very, very careful. It doesn't matter what religion the zealot follows ... if he or she thinks all other religions send you to Hell, that speaks to narrow-mindedness. Delete that listing.
2. The fracker. Someone who spends the day shooting chemicals into the bedrock probably won't see eye to eye with you on the need to protect the natural world. Stop looking for love at the electric company and go see those charmers at the wind farm.
3. The risk-adverse stay-at-homer. The stability of this person may appeal to you in deep mid-winter, but come festival season, his or her unwillingness to attend firewalks and sweat lodges will force you to make some uncomfortable decisions about how you spend your precious spare time. Plant that couch potato on someone else's lap, and get moving!
4. The faithful Christian. Sorry if this hits close to home, but if your significant other follows his or her holy book to the letter, you're going to be hearing lots of sermons about Jesus being the only way across the Great Divide. That's bound to get tedious, especially if paired with a crying newborn at 3:00 a.m.
5. The young earth theorist. Ten minutes in this person's company will have you begging for rescue by Bill Nye the Science Guy. For the love of fruit flies! Your deities have jars of jam that are more than 6,000 years old! You're honestly better off looking for a lifetime partner at band camp.
6. The tea party member. Privately, this person may think the world of you and cherish your beliefs. But in the harsh light of judgment by his or her peers, you are going to be deemed a menace to society. Talk politics on the first date! There's no worse way to waste your money than to wine and dine a potential mate who will drag you to a Sean Hannity rally the minute you pop the question.
7. The axe man (or woman). News flash: Commercial logging is the most dangerous job in America! And what is it, exactly? Cutting trees down! Not only will this person be incompatible with you spiritually, he or she is also likely to die young in a terrible mishap involving a murdered tree. Doesn't sound like a recipe for happiness to me.
8.The atheist. Giving you some tough love here, Pagans. When it comes to holding firm beliefs, atheists are a lot like Christians. They're going to be subtle, or they're going to be confrontational, but either way they're going to try to make you doubt your deities. Give it a go only if you can sway your atheist to some sort of blissful contemplation of the Divine. Your atheist need not embrace your Path, but he or she shouldn't be heaving bricks onto it, either. In all seriousness, here ... proceed with caution if you become involved with an atheist. If that big, broad, flexible outlook is nowhere to be seen, make a new plan, Stan.
So, there's some fine pre-marital advice from me, Anne Johnson, Pagan and married for almost 30 years!
And oh, by the way. Never say never. Love will always find a way. Best free advice I can give you is to follow your heart ... wherever it leads.
Sunday, February 16, 2014
What Happened to the Snake?
I spent the whole morning reading the New York Times, but there wasn't one article as interesting as this little snippet from the new reigning source of news, the Internet.
Snake-Handling Pastor Dies of Snakebite
Well, you see, Appalachia is fairly dripping with venomous snakes, rattlers and copperheads being the most common. The pastor in this story had just finished filming a reality t.v. show called "Snake Salvation" when he was fatally bitten during a church service.
I couldn't make this up.
There's a long tradition of snake-handling in the mountains, but there's never been (to my knowledge) any statistics on how many of these snake handlers die in action. Considering that this is a traditional practice, probably going back a few hundred years, there must be a considerable amount of denizens of Heaven with fang marks in their wings.
Some religions teach us to go against our common sense, in order to prove that the deity transcends Nature as we know it. That's called faith. But when faith transcends reason entirely, you can get Earth-smacked big time.
Two years ago there was some sort of Armageddon prophecy, and the believers in this particular date paid to put it up on a huge billboard near the thrift store. When that day came and went without the Four Horsemen, the billboard returned to its usual messages for fast food. I had to wonder, myself, who paid for that "The End Is Nigh" billboard. And you hear all the time about people selling their houses and giving their stuff away because of one of these scheduled Armageddons. What happens the morning after, when their kids are crying over donated Legos?
Then there's snake handling. There's some Bible scripture (not going to quote it, this is a blog, don't have to attribute) that suggests faithful God-people can play with killer snakes and not get killed. Seriously, you have to ask what kind of deity would let something like that go into the canon. For one thing, it's a foolish gamble with human life, and for another thing, it's desperately disruptive to the reptile.
Did you ever wonder what happens to the snake that bites the snake handler? I doubt very seriously that they take the lil' guy out into the woods and gently let him go.
This is where your basic New Age religion enters the picture. And in the nick of time, if you ask me.
Your basic New Age religion endorses deities who have a realistic, practical view of the ultimate purpose of poisonous snakes. This purpose is to keep an area free of disease-carrying vermin and other small mammals that, left unchecked, will multiply rapidly and wind up starving. Therefore, in your basic New Age religion, if you see a snake that is not reared up and ready to bite you, you just acknowledge its importance to Gaia and leave it alone. You go home happy, the snake goes home happy, and about the only thing left unhappy in this mix is the unfortunate mouse that gets poisoned instead of you.
Does religion really have to be foolish? Can you have faith in Higher Powers without having to prove that They protect you by doing something that flies in the face of common sense and biodiversity?
I would like to see a sociological follow-up on the ramifications of a pastor's death from snakebite on his parishioners, especially the younger ones. But more than that, I want to know -- what happens to the snakes?
PS - When treated promptly, the bite of a copperhead or a rattlesnake is not fatal. Rattlesnake bites can cause tissue damage, though, even when caught quickly. The word from the bored gods on this matter is to keep your eyes open when you're hiking, and leave all snakes alone. If you see a rattlesnake that is damned for sure dead as a doornail (as I did once, it was flattened by a tire), the rattle makes a cool conversation piece. Snake rattles fall apart with age, so store in a cool, dry place. Again, and again, and again, don't mess with a snake that isn't as stone cold dead as a door nail. Your deities don't ask that of you.
Snake-Handling Pastor Dies of Snakebite
Well, you see, Appalachia is fairly dripping with venomous snakes, rattlers and copperheads being the most common. The pastor in this story had just finished filming a reality t.v. show called "Snake Salvation" when he was fatally bitten during a church service.
I couldn't make this up.
There's a long tradition of snake-handling in the mountains, but there's never been (to my knowledge) any statistics on how many of these snake handlers die in action. Considering that this is a traditional practice, probably going back a few hundred years, there must be a considerable amount of denizens of Heaven with fang marks in their wings.
Some religions teach us to go against our common sense, in order to prove that the deity transcends Nature as we know it. That's called faith. But when faith transcends reason entirely, you can get Earth-smacked big time.
Two years ago there was some sort of Armageddon prophecy, and the believers in this particular date paid to put it up on a huge billboard near the thrift store. When that day came and went without the Four Horsemen, the billboard returned to its usual messages for fast food. I had to wonder, myself, who paid for that "The End Is Nigh" billboard. And you hear all the time about people selling their houses and giving their stuff away because of one of these scheduled Armageddons. What happens the morning after, when their kids are crying over donated Legos?
Then there's snake handling. There's some Bible scripture (not going to quote it, this is a blog, don't have to attribute) that suggests faithful God-people can play with killer snakes and not get killed. Seriously, you have to ask what kind of deity would let something like that go into the canon. For one thing, it's a foolish gamble with human life, and for another thing, it's desperately disruptive to the reptile.
Did you ever wonder what happens to the snake that bites the snake handler? I doubt very seriously that they take the lil' guy out into the woods and gently let him go.
This is where your basic New Age religion enters the picture. And in the nick of time, if you ask me.
Your basic New Age religion endorses deities who have a realistic, practical view of the ultimate purpose of poisonous snakes. This purpose is to keep an area free of disease-carrying vermin and other small mammals that, left unchecked, will multiply rapidly and wind up starving. Therefore, in your basic New Age religion, if you see a snake that is not reared up and ready to bite you, you just acknowledge its importance to Gaia and leave it alone. You go home happy, the snake goes home happy, and about the only thing left unhappy in this mix is the unfortunate mouse that gets poisoned instead of you.
Does religion really have to be foolish? Can you have faith in Higher Powers without having to prove that They protect you by doing something that flies in the face of common sense and biodiversity?
I would like to see a sociological follow-up on the ramifications of a pastor's death from snakebite on his parishioners, especially the younger ones. But more than that, I want to know -- what happens to the snakes?
PS - When treated promptly, the bite of a copperhead or a rattlesnake is not fatal. Rattlesnake bites can cause tissue damage, though, even when caught quickly. The word from the bored gods on this matter is to keep your eyes open when you're hiking, and leave all snakes alone. If you see a rattlesnake that is damned for sure dead as a doornail (as I did once, it was flattened by a tire), the rattle makes a cool conversation piece. Snake rattles fall apart with age, so store in a cool, dry place. Again, and again, and again, don't mess with a snake that isn't as stone cold dead as a door nail. Your deities don't ask that of you.
Friday, February 14, 2014
Viking Valentine
This is a Viking Valentine.
It says, "Kiss me."
It took the finest minds among the college set to translate this series of runes, and you can only imagine how disappointed they were to find that the message was so mundane. Why, we Americans say this all the time!
I'm thinking about the Viking Valentine. I'm wondering if the person got his or her kiss.
1. Sometimes people say, "Kiss me," and they get a kiss.
2. Sometimes people want to say, "Kiss me," and they don't have the nerve.
3. Sometimes people want to hear "Kiss me," and they don't hear it.
4. Sometimes people are faced with a combination of 2 and 3. This can be frustrating, but it makes for great drama.
5. Worst case scenario: Sometimes someone says, "Kiss me," and in reply the other person says, "I'd rather kiss a rabid reindeer."
I sure hope the Viking didn't hear that after going to all the trouble to carve those runes!
For more information on the Viking Valentine:
http://benedante.blogspot.com/2014/02/kiss-me-ivar-or-deciphering-coded.html
It took the finest minds among the college set to translate this series of runes, and you can only imagine how disappointed they were to find that the message was so mundane. Why, we Americans say this all the time!
1. Sometimes people say, "Kiss me," and they get a kiss.
2. Sometimes people want to say, "Kiss me," and they don't have the nerve.
3. Sometimes people want to hear "Kiss me," and they don't hear it.
4. Sometimes people are faced with a combination of 2 and 3. This can be frustrating, but it makes for great drama.
5. Worst case scenario: Sometimes someone says, "Kiss me," and in reply the other person says, "I'd rather kiss a rabid reindeer."
I sure hope the Viking didn't hear that after going to all the trouble to carve those runes!
For more information on the Viking Valentine:
http://benedante.blogspot.com/2014/02/kiss-me-ivar-or-deciphering-coded.html
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
May She Have Found the Summerlands
Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," where we are literally shedding tears over the death of Shirley Temple! Shirley Temple was my mother's favorite movie star. Mom was not alone in that. During the depths of the Great Depression, Shirley was the number one box office draw. Number one.
I have seen every one of Shirley Temple's child star movies at least six times. Whenever they were on our old black-and-white t.v. growing up, all movement ceased in my household and we were allowed to watch Shirley Temple. Over and over again. Reader, you'll have to trust me on this ... I can sing her songs, to whit: Codfish Ball, Baby Take a Bow, Good Ship Lollipop, Animal Crackers in My Soup, The Simple Things in Life, and The Right Somebody To Love. I may be missing a few that I could sing if you hummed a few bars.
Shirley Temple was a good role model. She was cheerful and plucky, she was guided by her heart and her wits, she often fixed things for fucked-up grownups, and boy oh boy, she could dance.
Anyone can pick up a few tap-dancing steps. But it's very difficult to tap dance with authority. Granted, tap dancing was more popular in the 1930s than it is today. Nevertheless, Shirley Temple was extraordinary in her abilities.
It's very hard to find uncut versions of Shirley Temple's movies, because several of them featured Step 'N Fetchit, and the ones that starred Bill "Bojangles" Robinson always portrayed him as an affable Uncle Tom. During my rebellious "Rebel without a Cause" years I castigated Shirley for the racism in her films and refused to watch them. Then something happened. I read Bill Robinson's autobiography. I was expecting him to wax virulent about his co-starring roles with Shirley. Instead, this man, who by his own measure was an impossible taskmaster, gave the mop-headed youngster props for her dancing. He said he never worked with an adult who could pick things up as quickly as Shirley Temple.
Call me racist if you will, but the scene loaded below from "The Littlest Rebel" is one of my favorite clips of all time. There's no phoniness in the chemistry. Shirley Temple loved Bojangles, and he -- who loved few and hated many -- doted on her.
Shirley Temple made millions of dollars in the 1930s with her films, records, product tie-ins, magazines, dolls, and clothing. Her parents spent it all, living large. This led to laws that protect child stars from exploitation by the people closest to them.
When Shirley hit puberty, her appeal at the box office plummeted. But this was no vapid kid star. She was one of the smartest women of her generation. She entered politics and eventually became ambassador to Belgium and Ghana. In both cases she became fluent in the languages.
My mother once had front row seats at an Elvis Presley concert. My mother also shook hands with Shirley Temple. No contest. Meeting Shirley (my aunt was politically connected) was the high point of Mom's life.
Child stars didn't have their heads together any more in the 1930s than they do now. But Shirley Temple did. She worked her whole childhood through and emerged unscathed emotionally because she was so smart that the work was not onerous. She was a quick study with a steady personality. And she is cute in those films. She really is.
Shirley Temple. May she have found the Summerlands.
I have seen every one of Shirley Temple's child star movies at least six times. Whenever they were on our old black-and-white t.v. growing up, all movement ceased in my household and we were allowed to watch Shirley Temple. Over and over again. Reader, you'll have to trust me on this ... I can sing her songs, to whit: Codfish Ball, Baby Take a Bow, Good Ship Lollipop, Animal Crackers in My Soup, The Simple Things in Life, and The Right Somebody To Love. I may be missing a few that I could sing if you hummed a few bars.
Shirley Temple was a good role model. She was cheerful and plucky, she was guided by her heart and her wits, she often fixed things for fucked-up grownups, and boy oh boy, she could dance.
Anyone can pick up a few tap-dancing steps. But it's very difficult to tap dance with authority. Granted, tap dancing was more popular in the 1930s than it is today. Nevertheless, Shirley Temple was extraordinary in her abilities.
It's very hard to find uncut versions of Shirley Temple's movies, because several of them featured Step 'N Fetchit, and the ones that starred Bill "Bojangles" Robinson always portrayed him as an affable Uncle Tom. During my rebellious "Rebel without a Cause" years I castigated Shirley for the racism in her films and refused to watch them. Then something happened. I read Bill Robinson's autobiography. I was expecting him to wax virulent about his co-starring roles with Shirley. Instead, this man, who by his own measure was an impossible taskmaster, gave the mop-headed youngster props for her dancing. He said he never worked with an adult who could pick things up as quickly as Shirley Temple.
Call me racist if you will, but the scene loaded below from "The Littlest Rebel" is one of my favorite clips of all time. There's no phoniness in the chemistry. Shirley Temple loved Bojangles, and he -- who loved few and hated many -- doted on her.
Shirley Temple made millions of dollars in the 1930s with her films, records, product tie-ins, magazines, dolls, and clothing. Her parents spent it all, living large. This led to laws that protect child stars from exploitation by the people closest to them.
When Shirley hit puberty, her appeal at the box office plummeted. But this was no vapid kid star. She was one of the smartest women of her generation. She entered politics and eventually became ambassador to Belgium and Ghana. In both cases she became fluent in the languages.
My mother once had front row seats at an Elvis Presley concert. My mother also shook hands with Shirley Temple. No contest. Meeting Shirley (my aunt was politically connected) was the high point of Mom's life.
Child stars didn't have their heads together any more in the 1930s than they do now. But Shirley Temple did. She worked her whole childhood through and emerged unscathed emotionally because she was so smart that the work was not onerous. She was a quick study with a steady personality. And she is cute in those films. She really is.
Shirley Temple. May she have found the Summerlands.
Monday, February 10, 2014
Crunching the Numbers
Hello, and welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" You know what, striplings? There are a lot of things that will make you feel old, even when you actually don't feel as old as all that.
I am exceedingly blessed with a very short commute to work. It takes me about 9 minutes, sometimes less, to get from my driveway to the parking lot at the Vo Tech. As I drive to work I listen to news radio. Not talk radio, news radio. There's a huge difference.
If I'm on time, I'm forced to listen to this little daily spot the radio has called "Rewind." It's a cheery little spot, let me tell you. "Rewind" gives two or three events in entertainment that happened on the date, going back into the 1950s and up through the 1990s. Then the spot wishes happy birthday to any star or singer. And makes note of who died on that date. It's an uplifting way to start the day.
Actually, I shouldn't be sarcastic. Listening to the Philadelphia-area news would be far more depressing than hearing that "Bonanza" had its premier today, sixty years ago.
Anyway, we had a big anniversary in entertainment this week. The Beatles arrived in America, 50 years ago, to play some little gigs and be on "Ed Sullivan."
I can remember that. I watched it. My mother let me stay up later than my bedtime.
And that was 50 years ago. It boggles my mind.
Part of the reason I'm so constantly amazed by these numbers ("Rewind" wished Roberta Flack a happy 77th birthday today!) is that I feel younger now than I did five years ago. It's like Roberta's going forward and I'm going backward.
There's no magic to this. I had surgery on my hip. Before the surgery I could not walk across a Target store without leaning on someone. After surgery, walking up a flight of stairs felt like ascending into heaven. Then, out of the blue, I lost 30 pounds. Between those two factors, I'm spry as hell. Gods willing, and thanks be to Them.
But I gotta tell ya, reader. When I hear these numbers, like the Beatles on Sullivan and Roberta Flack inching toward 80, I feel the moving hand of time on my shoulder. It's kind of chilling. You'll see what I mean, youngster, when "Rewind" wishes Miley Cyrus a 65th birthday!
If I can get past the numbers for a minute, I'd like to navel gaze about the Beatles. My mother loved Ringo. She would buy anything and everything Beatles. I had all their vinyl, I had a Beatles lunch box, and my dad made Beatles models from kits. When the Beatles came on Sullivan, I rolled around on the floor, because that is what the older girls said they were going to do.
Beatles, Beatles, Beatles! I probably had the best trove of Beatles stuff at my school. (Most other moms disapproved of the Beatles.) Then John said something about being more popular than God. This didn't sit well with my mother, although she didn't make a big deal about it. But it did inflame the girls in my age cohort against the Fab Four. One of these young ladies organized a Beatle burning, and, bowing to peer pressure, I brought all my Beatles stuff to the event and watched it go under the torch.
With 20-20 hindsight I can see that this was the first time the Christian religion let me down. All that Beatles stuff I had, kept in good condition, might have paid a little bit of college tuition for The Heir or The Spare.
Wow. Fifty years ago! Just let me end this sermon with one little observation. I've read the Bible, and I've listened to John Lennon's music. And although I don't think John was ever really more famous than God, perhaps he should be.
I am exceedingly blessed with a very short commute to work. It takes me about 9 minutes, sometimes less, to get from my driveway to the parking lot at the Vo Tech. As I drive to work I listen to news radio. Not talk radio, news radio. There's a huge difference.
If I'm on time, I'm forced to listen to this little daily spot the radio has called "Rewind." It's a cheery little spot, let me tell you. "Rewind" gives two or three events in entertainment that happened on the date, going back into the 1950s and up through the 1990s. Then the spot wishes happy birthday to any star or singer. And makes note of who died on that date. It's an uplifting way to start the day.
Actually, I shouldn't be sarcastic. Listening to the Philadelphia-area news would be far more depressing than hearing that "Bonanza" had its premier today, sixty years ago.
Anyway, we had a big anniversary in entertainment this week. The Beatles arrived in America, 50 years ago, to play some little gigs and be on "Ed Sullivan."
I can remember that. I watched it. My mother let me stay up later than my bedtime.
And that was 50 years ago. It boggles my mind.
Part of the reason I'm so constantly amazed by these numbers ("Rewind" wished Roberta Flack a happy 77th birthday today!) is that I feel younger now than I did five years ago. It's like Roberta's going forward and I'm going backward.
There's no magic to this. I had surgery on my hip. Before the surgery I could not walk across a Target store without leaning on someone. After surgery, walking up a flight of stairs felt like ascending into heaven. Then, out of the blue, I lost 30 pounds. Between those two factors, I'm spry as hell. Gods willing, and thanks be to Them.
But I gotta tell ya, reader. When I hear these numbers, like the Beatles on Sullivan and Roberta Flack inching toward 80, I feel the moving hand of time on my shoulder. It's kind of chilling. You'll see what I mean, youngster, when "Rewind" wishes Miley Cyrus a 65th birthday!
If I can get past the numbers for a minute, I'd like to navel gaze about the Beatles. My mother loved Ringo. She would buy anything and everything Beatles. I had all their vinyl, I had a Beatles lunch box, and my dad made Beatles models from kits. When the Beatles came on Sullivan, I rolled around on the floor, because that is what the older girls said they were going to do.
Beatles, Beatles, Beatles! I probably had the best trove of Beatles stuff at my school. (Most other moms disapproved of the Beatles.) Then John said something about being more popular than God. This didn't sit well with my mother, although she didn't make a big deal about it. But it did inflame the girls in my age cohort against the Fab Four. One of these young ladies organized a Beatle burning, and, bowing to peer pressure, I brought all my Beatles stuff to the event and watched it go under the torch.
With 20-20 hindsight I can see that this was the first time the Christian religion let me down. All that Beatles stuff I had, kept in good condition, might have paid a little bit of college tuition for The Heir or The Spare.
Wow. Fifty years ago! Just let me end this sermon with one little observation. I've read the Bible, and I've listened to John Lennon's music. And although I don't think John was ever really more famous than God, perhaps he should be.
Saturday, February 08, 2014
In Praise of Winter
The north wind doth blow,
And we will have snow,
And what will poor robin do then, poor thing?
He'll fly to the barn
To keep himself warm
And hide his head under his wing ... poor thing!
This little ditty is one of my favorites. I think about it when I look out the window at all the robins who should have flown south, but didn't.
What do you think of winter? I stand in hearty favor of the season, myself. Given the choice between high summer and deep winter, I will choose deep winter every time. The recent polar vortex tested my resolve, but in the end it exited much quicker than a heat wave.
In the cold weather, you can bundle on layer upon layer. In the summertime, there's only so much clothing you can take off, and then you're just naked and hot. Being hot makes me irritable. Quickly. Being cold makes me cheerful, mostly. And it's ever so much more rewarding to have cold feet that slowly become warm than to have hot feet that slowly become cold.
We have a wood-burning fireplace here at Chateau Johnson. So far this season we have gone through almost a whole cord of firewood. I have toted every last log of it indoors (and I helped stack it last summer, too). Mr. J has back problems, and Heir works her butt off. I lug logs. Except for the fact that the path between the woodpile and the cellar door is solid ice, I don't mind the firewood chore. That's because I'm down with winter.
The part of the world where I live is prone to bad ice storms that cause widespread power outages. We had just such a storm last week, and even now some people don't have their power back. I see the potential for a power outage as the one down side of winter. If we get a prolonged power failure here at the Chateau, I can keep one room warm with the fireplace, but Decibel would have to bunk in the room with all the rest of us ... and still we would be very cold.
When I hear about the potential for a major ice event, I kick into woodpile overdrive. The last thing you want to do in a winter power failure is go outside to bring in fuel. I've got about 1/8 cord in the basement right now, just in case.
Snow is pretty, cold temperatures are bracing, and there's immense comfort in a cup of hot cocoa, a crackling fire, and a fleecy throw. My indoor cats loll near the fire, Decibel pouts (quietly), and the outdoor tom seems to have settled into his lean-to, which is now waterproofed.
All hail the bored Goddess Sedna of winter! She's popping in later for spaghetti and pemmican. If you have any season-related petitions for her, fling them into the comments.
This too shall pass.
And we will have snow,
And what will poor robin do then, poor thing?
He'll fly to the barn
To keep himself warm
And hide his head under his wing ... poor thing!
This little ditty is one of my favorites. I think about it when I look out the window at all the robins who should have flown south, but didn't.
What do you think of winter? I stand in hearty favor of the season, myself. Given the choice between high summer and deep winter, I will choose deep winter every time. The recent polar vortex tested my resolve, but in the end it exited much quicker than a heat wave.
In the cold weather, you can bundle on layer upon layer. In the summertime, there's only so much clothing you can take off, and then you're just naked and hot. Being hot makes me irritable. Quickly. Being cold makes me cheerful, mostly. And it's ever so much more rewarding to have cold feet that slowly become warm than to have hot feet that slowly become cold.
We have a wood-burning fireplace here at Chateau Johnson. So far this season we have gone through almost a whole cord of firewood. I have toted every last log of it indoors (and I helped stack it last summer, too). Mr. J has back problems, and Heir works her butt off. I lug logs. Except for the fact that the path between the woodpile and the cellar door is solid ice, I don't mind the firewood chore. That's because I'm down with winter.
The part of the world where I live is prone to bad ice storms that cause widespread power outages. We had just such a storm last week, and even now some people don't have their power back. I see the potential for a power outage as the one down side of winter. If we get a prolonged power failure here at the Chateau, I can keep one room warm with the fireplace, but Decibel would have to bunk in the room with all the rest of us ... and still we would be very cold.
When I hear about the potential for a major ice event, I kick into woodpile overdrive. The last thing you want to do in a winter power failure is go outside to bring in fuel. I've got about 1/8 cord in the basement right now, just in case.
Snow is pretty, cold temperatures are bracing, and there's immense comfort in a cup of hot cocoa, a crackling fire, and a fleecy throw. My indoor cats loll near the fire, Decibel pouts (quietly), and the outdoor tom seems to have settled into his lean-to, which is now waterproofed.
All hail the bored Goddess Sedna of winter! She's popping in later for spaghetti and pemmican. If you have any season-related petitions for her, fling them into the comments.
This too shall pass.
Wednesday, February 05, 2014
Photo album
I'm fresh out of ideas for a post tonight, except to say that it's 4:45 and still daylight. That's what I call progress!
Decibel the parrot is here with me. She's spending the winter upstairs. Just now I looked, and she has some new flight feathers coming in where she was injured! I call that a win for everything but my ear drums.
A distant cousin of mine snapped this photo of the family farm, probably in the early 1980s. We don't have this much snow here in New Jersey, but it sure feels like it.
Between the weather and the stress of my job, I've been giving reign to flights of fancy about the Fairie Festival at Spoutwood Farm. This is one of my favorite photos from there.
Extra Chair snapped this winsome photo of our new trophy cat, Gamma. The full magnificence of his tail is not revealed here.
With storms and rumors of storms, I went out and stocked up on the really necessary items.
Beta said she was feeling left out, so here she is.
This deity will help you find
This stuff, but you'd better give Him what's due to Him out of your haul.
This was a real store. It got torn down to make room for a freeway. I wonder what happened to Godlove?
And just remember ... when life gets you down, there's always someone worse off than you.
Monday, February 03, 2014
State of the Bored Gods
When you're a teacher, snow days are kind of like going on a bender. You know you're going to regret it later, but at the time ... whoopie!
Time is not of the essence today. It's a snow day! I'm catching up on the chores I didn't do because it was Imbolc. Otherwise ... chair, book, tea and chat with Decibel.
It's a good day to address the State of the Bored Gods.
I started this blog way back in 2005 to serve as a meeting place for deities who had lost their praise and worship teams to the Big Guy, the Great He-Man Busy God. Over the years, quite a number of bored gods and goddesses have stopped by for interviews, some of them nursing grudges against the Great I Am, and all of them missing the worship they used to receive. They chafed at being classified as "myths" (nor do I blame them), and in tough economic times they had trouble finding jobs.
Therefore, I am pleased to report that many of these deities are no longer bored.
I'm not taking a bit of credit for this. I'm chalking it up to, in no particular order:
1. social media
2. backlash against fringe Christians
3. renewed interest in cultural heritage
4. deeply-held love for, and concern for, Mother Earth
5. the search for authentic, soul-based spiritual experience, and
6. Pagans connecting or being confirmed in their beliefs by wider interaction
Whatever the reason, things are really changing for the bored gods. Don't believe me? Try getting one on the phone! Oh yeah, they might text me back, but it's always something like 2 busy 2 day ttyl luv u.
Now, please don't think this means that this little playground here is closing down! Never! I intend to keep right on interviewing deities ... except now I have to make appointments around Their calendars. Hey, it's all good. They're happy, I'm happy, and it's snowing.
It's a good day to address the State of the Bored Gods.
I started this blog way back in 2005 to serve as a meeting place for deities who had lost their praise and worship teams to the Big Guy, the Great He-Man Busy God. Over the years, quite a number of bored gods and goddesses have stopped by for interviews, some of them nursing grudges against the Great I Am, and all of them missing the worship they used to receive. They chafed at being classified as "myths" (nor do I blame them), and in tough economic times they had trouble finding jobs.
Therefore, I am pleased to report that many of these deities are no longer bored.
I'm not taking a bit of credit for this. I'm chalking it up to, in no particular order:
1. social media
2. backlash against fringe Christians
3. renewed interest in cultural heritage
4. deeply-held love for, and concern for, Mother Earth
5. the search for authentic, soul-based spiritual experience, and
6. Pagans connecting or being confirmed in their beliefs by wider interaction
Whatever the reason, things are really changing for the bored gods. Don't believe me? Try getting one on the phone! Oh yeah, they might text me back, but it's always something like 2 busy 2 day ttyl luv u.
Now, please don't think this means that this little playground here is closing down! Never! I intend to keep right on interviewing deities ... except now I have to make appointments around Their calendars. Hey, it's all good. They're happy, I'm happy, and it's snowing.
Sunday, February 02, 2014
Imbolc 2014
Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," on this holy day of Imbolc, 2014!
I would like to thank those of you who come here to read and laugh with me, those of you who seek and praise the bored gods, those who respect the faeries of Sidhe, those who feel that life is best when breathed like a poem.
Debra, She Who Seeks suggests that this is a good day to flood the Internet with poetry. I totally agree! In honor of Queen Brighid the Bright, Goddess of home and hearth, She of the silver mantle, She of the creative flame, I post an offering from my favorite bard:
52
The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab
and my loitering.
I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.
The last scud of day holds back for me,
It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow'd wilds,
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.
I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.
Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.
I would like to thank those of you who come here to read and laugh with me, those of you who seek and praise the bored gods, those who respect the faeries of Sidhe, those who feel that life is best when breathed like a poem.
Debra, She Who Seeks suggests that this is a good day to flood the Internet with poetry. I totally agree! In honor of Queen Brighid the Bright, Goddess of home and hearth, She of the silver mantle, She of the creative flame, I post an offering from my favorite bard:
52
The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab
and my loitering.
I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.
The last scud of day holds back for me,
It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow'd wilds,
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.
I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.
Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
One Damn Sturdy Tomcat
Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," where we lasted six days between hair-washes and only shampooed this morning because the supervisor was scheduled to come in for a pre-observation conference. Did I feel like washing my hair when it was six degrees outside, with two inches of new snow? Hell no!
But this sermon isn't about hair. It's about a tomcat that I asked Freya to look out for. She has been right on it!
This tomcat has been hanging around my neighborhood for at least two years. He's just a generic tabby, with that chunky tomcat face. Except that somehow the skin got pulled clean off the right side of his face, so now he's decidedly less chunky in the mug. It's a wicked bad injury, and I got some antibiotics from the cat lady at the PETCO, but this frisky tom wouldn't eat the food laced with the medicine.
Right there's a tip-off that Freya's got Her hands on this cat. If he's really and truly homeless and unloved, he would eat cat food with red pepper flakes on it.
Sweet Goddess. The tom pulls her chariot, I'm sure!
Anyway, to make a long sermon longer, yesterday the tom was having atrash talk extravaganza chummy chat with my trophy feline through the barrier of the basement window. This drives the trophy cat crazy, because it's boring in the house.
We've had the coldest winter in recent memory here, and snow was again in the forecast. So I put out a can of food for the tom, without the medicine. He ate it, but not like a starving cat eats ... more like a pampered pet nibbles daintily. Then he went away.
Awhile back I put a little shelter together for this interloper, out on my front porch. Other than the fact that it smells like tomcat, I had no evidence he was crawling in there to keep warm. (The neighbor feline, Mestopheles, was spied napping in it during the day.) But this morning, when I went out in the pre-dawn, six-degree cold to go to work, I saw a set of footprints in the new snow. They began near the shelter and proceeded down the porch stairs, down the sidewalk, and off into the distance. It seems the tom is indeed camping in his lean-to. At least occasionally.
Through all of our bitter cold, this intrepid puss has rocked on, with half his face pulled off. I can't tell you how many nights I've gone to sleep listening to the roar of the wind and imagining the critter slipping into mortal hypothermia. Oh, me of little faith! I petitioned Freya for her help, and She is caring for this cat.
On Freya's day next, I will have a dual-purpose party. Extra Chair, not surprisingly, wants a bit of the old home culture for Chinese New Year. So we'll eat hot pot, but I'm going to decorate everything in red and then set off some sparklers. This will honor Freya on Her day and perhaps bring a little holiday cheer to poor Chair, who had two weeks off for a meaningless holiday last month and now must work through her country's biggest fun time.
Hail Freya, the great not-so-bored Goddess!
But this sermon isn't about hair. It's about a tomcat that I asked Freya to look out for. She has been right on it!
This tomcat has been hanging around my neighborhood for at least two years. He's just a generic tabby, with that chunky tomcat face. Except that somehow the skin got pulled clean off the right side of his face, so now he's decidedly less chunky in the mug. It's a wicked bad injury, and I got some antibiotics from the cat lady at the PETCO, but this frisky tom wouldn't eat the food laced with the medicine.
Right there's a tip-off that Freya's got Her hands on this cat. If he's really and truly homeless and unloved, he would eat cat food with red pepper flakes on it.
Sweet Goddess. The tom pulls her chariot, I'm sure!
Anyway, to make a long sermon longer, yesterday the tom was having a
We've had the coldest winter in recent memory here, and snow was again in the forecast. So I put out a can of food for the tom, without the medicine. He ate it, but not like a starving cat eats ... more like a pampered pet nibbles daintily. Then he went away.
Awhile back I put a little shelter together for this interloper, out on my front porch. Other than the fact that it smells like tomcat, I had no evidence he was crawling in there to keep warm. (The neighbor feline, Mestopheles, was spied napping in it during the day.) But this morning, when I went out in the pre-dawn, six-degree cold to go to work, I saw a set of footprints in the new snow. They began near the shelter and proceeded down the porch stairs, down the sidewalk, and off into the distance. It seems the tom is indeed camping in his lean-to. At least occasionally.
Through all of our bitter cold, this intrepid puss has rocked on, with half his face pulled off. I can't tell you how many nights I've gone to sleep listening to the roar of the wind and imagining the critter slipping into mortal hypothermia. Oh, me of little faith! I petitioned Freya for her help, and She is caring for this cat.
On Freya's day next, I will have a dual-purpose party. Extra Chair, not surprisingly, wants a bit of the old home culture for Chinese New Year. So we'll eat hot pot, but I'm going to decorate everything in red and then set off some sparklers. This will honor Freya on Her day and perhaps bring a little holiday cheer to poor Chair, who had two weeks off for a meaningless holiday last month and now must work through her country's biggest fun time.
Hail Freya, the great not-so-bored Goddess!
Sunday, January 26, 2014
Frank Talk about Clean Hair
Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," free content, always and forever, which is a great value for you! And now we're going to save you more money yet! Stick with "The Gods Are Bored." We make a dollar holler.
Last night I was browsing through Facebook, and I saw a post from a friend in West Virginia who has been without usable tap water since the chemical spill. She wrote about going to the grocery store and seeing all the local people with scarves over their hair, or caps hiding the locks they can't wash. It's been two weeks or more since that spill, and I don't blame anyone for not wanting to wash their hair with Charleston's water.
But it is saddening to think that people are embarrassed about their dirty hair.
Before I go one step further with this, I want to add that people in any region of the country would feel this way under similar circumstances, so this in no way impugns the character of West Virginians.
How often do you wash your hair? What products do you use? Do you buy conditioner? Moisturizing shampoo? Ever asked yourself if you really need all that stuff?
I reveal my geezerhood here when I tell you that, when I was a kid, no one I knew washed hair more than once a week. Women who could afford a visit to the beauty parlor got a wash and a set on Saturday, in time for looking good at church the next day. After that, women slept and showered in hair nets to protect the set of their hair until the week was out.
Something happened in the late 1960s. From a source unknown, people began to believe that they needed to wash their hair almost every day. The market became flooded with daily shampoos and conditioners. All of a sudden, you could find products for oily hair, dry hair, straight hair, curly hair, and colored hair. Where before you had basic regular or dandruff shampoo and cream rinse.
This coincided with changes in hair style. It became vogue to blow-dry your hair after that daily shampoo. The styles began to require blow-drying. Which meant more washing. And more conditioning. Which meant more buying of specialty shampoo. Conditioner. Mousse.
News flash: Somewhere, a handful of entrepreneurs have become billionaires selling us on the idea that we need to wash our hair frequently. It just isn't true. In the absence of cooties, no one needs a daily hair-washing, or even two times a week.
I have a specialty haircut that looks best when it's washed and gelled. But a combination of laziness and the sneaking suspicion that all that hair-washing is actually bad for my hair often leads me to go days and days without a hair wash. I'm writing this on a Sunday, and I last washed my hair on Thursday. I'll probably go at least two more days before I wash it again. That's almost a week.
As if this admission won't lose me two of my three readers, I confess even further. I don't shower every day. I don't use deodorant. Basically, the only part of me that gets daily cleaning is my pearly whites. The rest? Situational. I heed the need, not the norm.
So, Anne ... what's it like to go a week without washing your hair?
Admittedly, the roots start to tingle a little, and it does get a bit oily. But a headband is a terrific concealer. No one has ever sniffed disdainfully at my tresses. Ever noticed? Dirty hair doesn't smell bad. It just looks greasy (sometimes) or frumpy (Anne).
I find it terribly sad that people would cut their hair or be embarrassed about it if unsanitary water conditions did not allow them to wash it in a couple of weeks. This represents not a reasonable reaction to uncleanliness but a triumph for the hair care industry.
In solidarity with the citizens of Charleston, WV, I, Anne Johnson, will only wash my hair once a week for the next three weeks at least. When I get to Day One, I'll start posting photos.
If you wish to avoid me due to my dirty locks, I live in New Jersey.
Last night I was browsing through Facebook, and I saw a post from a friend in West Virginia who has been without usable tap water since the chemical spill. She wrote about going to the grocery store and seeing all the local people with scarves over their hair, or caps hiding the locks they can't wash. It's been two weeks or more since that spill, and I don't blame anyone for not wanting to wash their hair with Charleston's water.
But it is saddening to think that people are embarrassed about their dirty hair.
Before I go one step further with this, I want to add that people in any region of the country would feel this way under similar circumstances, so this in no way impugns the character of West Virginians.
How often do you wash your hair? What products do you use? Do you buy conditioner? Moisturizing shampoo? Ever asked yourself if you really need all that stuff?
I reveal my geezerhood here when I tell you that, when I was a kid, no one I knew washed hair more than once a week. Women who could afford a visit to the beauty parlor got a wash and a set on Saturday, in time for looking good at church the next day. After that, women slept and showered in hair nets to protect the set of their hair until the week was out.
Something happened in the late 1960s. From a source unknown, people began to believe that they needed to wash their hair almost every day. The market became flooded with daily shampoos and conditioners. All of a sudden, you could find products for oily hair, dry hair, straight hair, curly hair, and colored hair. Where before you had basic regular or dandruff shampoo and cream rinse.
This coincided with changes in hair style. It became vogue to blow-dry your hair after that daily shampoo. The styles began to require blow-drying. Which meant more washing. And more conditioning. Which meant more buying of specialty shampoo. Conditioner. Mousse.
News flash: Somewhere, a handful of entrepreneurs have become billionaires selling us on the idea that we need to wash our hair frequently. It just isn't true. In the absence of cooties, no one needs a daily hair-washing, or even two times a week.
I have a specialty haircut that looks best when it's washed and gelled. But a combination of laziness and the sneaking suspicion that all that hair-washing is actually bad for my hair often leads me to go days and days without a hair wash. I'm writing this on a Sunday, and I last washed my hair on Thursday. I'll probably go at least two more days before I wash it again. That's almost a week.
As if this admission won't lose me two of my three readers, I confess even further. I don't shower every day. I don't use deodorant. Basically, the only part of me that gets daily cleaning is my pearly whites. The rest? Situational. I heed the need, not the norm.
So, Anne ... what's it like to go a week without washing your hair?
Admittedly, the roots start to tingle a little, and it does get a bit oily. But a headband is a terrific concealer. No one has ever sniffed disdainfully at my tresses. Ever noticed? Dirty hair doesn't smell bad. It just looks greasy (sometimes) or frumpy (Anne).
I find it terribly sad that people would cut their hair or be embarrassed about it if unsanitary water conditions did not allow them to wash it in a couple of weeks. This represents not a reasonable reaction to uncleanliness but a triumph for the hair care industry.
In solidarity with the citizens of Charleston, WV, I, Anne Johnson, will only wash my hair once a week for the next three weeks at least. When I get to Day One, I'll start posting photos.
If you wish to avoid me due to my dirty locks, I live in New Jersey.
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Visit West Virginia: Harper's Ferry
Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," offering free advice, and I pay you to take it! Send me an invoice after you visit Harper's Ferry, West Virginia.
There's not a single image on Google that begins to capture the beauty and majesty of Harper's Ferry. I've been around a little bit (not much, I must admit), and I have never seen a place more magnificent. Three states and two mighty rivers converge there, amidst roiling white water and sheer cliffs, with a quaint hysterical little town on the West Virginia side and pretty much rugged hiking/climbing on the others. I chose this modest photo as a teaser.
EXHIBIT A: HARPER'S FERRY FROM THE WEST VIRGINIA SIDE
My sister, who never left home, taunts me regularly with photos from one or the other clifftops of Harper's Ferry, usually accompanied by commentary on the local, abundant vulture population. Her husband popped the question on one of those cliffs. He knew what he was doing: No one could take in that vista and say no to anything.
My first job was in Harper's Ferry. I worked for the Park Service, as a visitors' guide in the general store exhibit. And here is that very store, by golly! But you can't smell it, which was the best part. We kept seasonal produce there, and a barrel of biscuits, and sides of cured ham, and coffee beans.
My employment was part of a federal initiative called the Youth Conservation Corps, which was axed with great glee by Ronald Reagan a few years later.
Oh, happy summer so long ago, spent in blissful contemplation of the most stunning mountain scenery east of the Mississippi River! There is just. Literally. No describing this place. I'm not even going to try.
Harper's Ferry is about 50 miles west of Washington, DC. These days you park your car in a big lot outside the town and take a bus into the hysterical part. At first I was appalled to hear this, but when you visit and see how wonderful the town is without all the traffic congestion, it makes abundant sense. And of course, that's the easy, touristy way. You more rugged types can park at various places below the cliffs and hike your way around. Honestly, the climbs are steep as hell but not very time-consuming. When you get to the top, you are literally in the realm of the Sacred Thunderbird. You can look down upon them as they ride the thermals and bathe from the rocks in the rivers.
As for the rivers, they are, in no particular order, the Shenandoah and the Potomac.
I know my three readers, and you are all far away from Washington, DC. But if you ever do find yourself in that area, know this: Just 50 miles away is one of Gaia's utmost wonders. Go there. Remember the John Denver song, "Almost Heaven?" Ditch the "almost."
There's not a single image on Google that begins to capture the beauty and majesty of Harper's Ferry. I've been around a little bit (not much, I must admit), and I have never seen a place more magnificent. Three states and two mighty rivers converge there, amidst roiling white water and sheer cliffs, with a quaint hysterical little town on the West Virginia side and pretty much rugged hiking/climbing on the others. I chose this modest photo as a teaser.
EXHIBIT A: HARPER'S FERRY FROM THE WEST VIRGINIA SIDE
My sister, who never left home, taunts me regularly with photos from one or the other clifftops of Harper's Ferry, usually accompanied by commentary on the local, abundant vulture population. Her husband popped the question on one of those cliffs. He knew what he was doing: No one could take in that vista and say no to anything.
My first job was in Harper's Ferry. I worked for the Park Service, as a visitors' guide in the general store exhibit. And here is that very store, by golly! But you can't smell it, which was the best part. We kept seasonal produce there, and a barrel of biscuits, and sides of cured ham, and coffee beans.
My employment was part of a federal initiative called the Youth Conservation Corps, which was axed with great glee by Ronald Reagan a few years later.
Oh, happy summer so long ago, spent in blissful contemplation of the most stunning mountain scenery east of the Mississippi River! There is just. Literally. No describing this place. I'm not even going to try.
Harper's Ferry is about 50 miles west of Washington, DC. These days you park your car in a big lot outside the town and take a bus into the hysterical part. At first I was appalled to hear this, but when you visit and see how wonderful the town is without all the traffic congestion, it makes abundant sense. And of course, that's the easy, touristy way. You more rugged types can park at various places below the cliffs and hike your way around. Honestly, the climbs are steep as hell but not very time-consuming. When you get to the top, you are literally in the realm of the Sacred Thunderbird. You can look down upon them as they ride the thermals and bathe from the rocks in the rivers.
As for the rivers, they are, in no particular order, the Shenandoah and the Potomac.
I know my three readers, and you are all far away from Washington, DC. But if you ever do find yourself in that area, know this: Just 50 miles away is one of Gaia's utmost wonders. Go there. Remember the John Denver song, "Almost Heaven?" Ditch the "almost."
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
Play Misty for Christie
Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," coming to you from New Jersey, the Smokestack State! If you ever watched "Jersey Shore" and saw those morons on there, you will understand how this state got saddled with the sorry nasty head case known as Governor Chris Christie.
You would have to be living in a cave to have missed Governor Christie's recent scandal, in which his closest advisers went entirely behind his back and, without any knowledge on his part, altered the traffic patterns on our nation's busiest bridge, the George Washington Bridge from Jersey to Manhattan. Poor Governor Christie! Imagine being double-crossed by the people you trust the most!
Well, if you believe his story, then talk to me. I'll sell you the George Washington Bridge, and you can manage the traffic. Good luck with that, by the way.
You know what, though? I'm going to give Governor Christie the benefit of the doubt on this. Maybe he is just a really poor leader who pays virtually no attention to what his staff members are doing, even when it makes headlines. It could be as simple as that. But what I read in the Sunday New York Times about him did give me pause.
According to the Sunday Times, this recent scandal has forced Mr. Christie to change his schedule somewhat. He was supposed to take a tour of Europe to improve his grasp of foreign policy. And then he had planned to do major fundraising for the election of other Republican governors. Both of these duties baffle me. What could they possibly have to do with running the state where I live? How could a tour of Europe make the lives of my Camden students better? Are the Swiss going to set up chocolate shops on Haddon Avenue?
It sounds like, if this scandal hadn't happened, I would be paying a salary to a guy who would be spending more time off the job than on it.
It's no surprise that Mr. Christie wants to be president, even though he's been too coy to say so. But just now he's supposed to be running the government of New Jersey, and he is supposed to do so with competent staff, and he's supposed to be polite to constituents. He's not, and he's not, and he's not.
Yes, the left wing media is overdoing its skewering of Chris Christie. But take it from one of the citizens of his state: After a thorough evaluation using the Danielson Model, I find him ineffective as a public servant.
Stop Chris Christie right here at the gates of New Jersey! Don't let him bring his bully tactics and abrasive personality onto a wider platform. The man is not fit to govern. If he thinks the first duties of the governor should be a whirlwind tour of Europe, he's clearly out of touch with his voters.
Hey! I'm here, serving a life sentence in New Jersey. Send me some orange cones, and I'll be glad to block the lanes that would lead Chris Christie onto the highway to Washington, DC. I would consider this the first act of a patriot. The man is a menace.
You would have to be living in a cave to have missed Governor Christie's recent scandal, in which his closest advisers went entirely behind his back and, without any knowledge on his part, altered the traffic patterns on our nation's busiest bridge, the George Washington Bridge from Jersey to Manhattan. Poor Governor Christie! Imagine being double-crossed by the people you trust the most!
Well, if you believe his story, then talk to me. I'll sell you the George Washington Bridge, and you can manage the traffic. Good luck with that, by the way.
You know what, though? I'm going to give Governor Christie the benefit of the doubt on this. Maybe he is just a really poor leader who pays virtually no attention to what his staff members are doing, even when it makes headlines. It could be as simple as that. But what I read in the Sunday New York Times about him did give me pause.
According to the Sunday Times, this recent scandal has forced Mr. Christie to change his schedule somewhat. He was supposed to take a tour of Europe to improve his grasp of foreign policy. And then he had planned to do major fundraising for the election of other Republican governors. Both of these duties baffle me. What could they possibly have to do with running the state where I live? How could a tour of Europe make the lives of my Camden students better? Are the Swiss going to set up chocolate shops on Haddon Avenue?
It sounds like, if this scandal hadn't happened, I would be paying a salary to a guy who would be spending more time off the job than on it.
It's no surprise that Mr. Christie wants to be president, even though he's been too coy to say so. But just now he's supposed to be running the government of New Jersey, and he is supposed to do so with competent staff, and he's supposed to be polite to constituents. He's not, and he's not, and he's not.
Yes, the left wing media is overdoing its skewering of Chris Christie. But take it from one of the citizens of his state: After a thorough evaluation using the Danielson Model, I find him ineffective as a public servant.
Stop Chris Christie right here at the gates of New Jersey! Don't let him bring his bully tactics and abrasive personality onto a wider platform. The man is not fit to govern. If he thinks the first duties of the governor should be a whirlwind tour of Europe, he's clearly out of touch with his voters.
Hey! I'm here, serving a life sentence in New Jersey. Send me some orange cones, and I'll be glad to block the lanes that would lead Chris Christie onto the highway to Washington, DC. I would consider this the first act of a patriot. The man is a menace.
Sunday, January 19, 2014
Saving West Virginia
Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" Do you have bumper stickers on your car? I have one on the rear bumper. It says "I (heart) Mountains." I bought it in West Virginia.
There's been a great deal written about West Virginia in the past week, some of it by Pagans who see the Mountain State as a microcosm for our rape of Gaia. Well, they are dead-on correct about that. And it's nice to see the collection plate going around to buy water and supplies for the thousands of people affected by the recent chemical spill. But sending packs of bottled water to residents of the Elk and Kanawha watersheds is akin to doling out broth to starving kids in Africa. Until the root reasons for environmental disaster are addressed and remedied, West Virginia is a region where calamities can happen and will happen.
Why would anyone want to live in West Virginia? It's a mess, isn't it?
I can answer both questions.
As an expatriate Appalachian, I can tell you exactly why people want to live in West Virginia. It is beautiful. If you can step out on your back porch and lose your breath in awe of the vista beyond your house, you live in West Virginia. Many of the people who live there have ancestry going back centuries. I could wax poetic, as some bloggers have, about the ecosystem, and the sense of place, and the grounding in tradition, and all of that. I'm not a poet. I tell it like it is. West Virginia is beautiful. If you live there, you don't want to leave ... especially for some big city in some flat tidewater state.
But West Virginia is a mess, isn't it?
West Virginia has been ruled by big monied interests since the first tunnel was dug into the first mountain in the pursuit of coal. The politicians are on the payroll of Big Coal, and they have been since that first tunnel was dug. The current crop of Democrats are only Democrats because Lincoln won the war ... they act like Republicans and are often the serious movers and shakers behind efforts to squelch the EPA. How do they get by with such antics? By persuading their constituents that the EPA will raise the jobless rate, and environmental activists are by and large replants from other areas of the country. (That is certainly not true in either case, I'm just giving you the politicians' talking points.)
Today's Sunday New York Times reports that only 4 percent of West Virginians are employed in the coal industry. Seem low to you? Be advised that you need far fewer workers to rip the tops off mountains with bulldozers than you do to go deep into the underground and blast the coal out. Nor is there a great need for a vast workforce to sink natural gas wells. The extraction of coal for our nation's energy needs is more and more done efficiently with machinery and a few people who know how to work it.
Fracking is also coming to West Virginia, big time. Once again, people who love the mountains will be convinced that they will have good jobs that will keep them in the mountains if they extract natural gas, and never mind how safe or unsafe it is, who cares?
So, Anne. Do you have any free advice on how to save West Virginia?
I sure do. Go there.
The whole state doesn't look like the picture above. Most of it is gorgeous. Do you love Gaia? Do you love the outdoors, the majesty of the land, the joy of exerting yourself on a hike, on a bike ride, on a raft? Would you love to spend an afternoon having a spa treatment at a mineral spring? Do you live in that great megalopolis on the East Coast, or in the Rust Belt? Take your tourist dollars and spend them in West Virginia. Heck, if the one-percenters can do it at The Greenbriar (to which I could not successfully link you *conspiracy*), you can do it at Spruce Knob.
Most of the Appalachian mountain states have vibrant tourism industries, but West Virginia lags behind, possibly due to the ridiculous and insulting notion that the entire state is an environmental wasteland peopled by violent, inbred, three-eyed hillbillies. What utter nonsense! By the same line of reasoning, New Jersey is nothing but gun-toting mafia dons plotting murder over plates of linguine.
Visit West Virginia, reader. Make your vacation plans. You'll find that, if you avoid the above-mentioned one percenter hideaway, you'll make a dollar holler. My personal favorite part of West Virginia is Berkeley Springs, pictured at the top of this post, and the adjacent Cacapon Mountains. If you're more of the rugged type, try hiking in the Alleghenies.
Pagans, if you want to help the Earth, West Virginia should be a pilgrimage destination. Every dollar you tip a waitress, every campground you reserve for a Ritual, every piece of original artwork or crafting you bring home, will help the state far more than a package of plastic water bottles, shipped and forgotten when the next disaster hits elsewhere.
But Anne ... I live thousands of miles from West Virginia. What can I do?
Turn down your heat, turn off the lights when you leave the room, power off your electronics when you aren't using them, live close to your workplace, take mass transit, use the laundromat, eat local and seasonal produce, have a small family. Notice I don't say write to your Congressman. That is whistling in the wind. I visited a coal-burning power plant this past summer, and I heard it right from the foreman's mouth. The plant burns less coal when there's less use of consumer electricity. Vote with your thermostat.
I moved away from the mountains when I was 18. I have lived in big cities or their suburbs ever since. But the lion's share of my tourist money has gone back to Appalachia. I will move home some day, either as a live person or in an urn. Either way, the mountains are my final destination. Fourteen generations of my ancestors are waiting for me there.
Thursday, January 16, 2014
Hitting the Wall with Floppy
Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" A few minutes ago, I hit the wall. That means, I reached a point past exhaustion where nothing much makes sense, and therefore everything is funny. At this point it's either laugh or cry ... tears roll in either case.
It's a good time to visit with my friend Floppy, who came here to live one day when I was low-down and blue. Floppy is an Egyptian vulture. Quite a snappy friend, don't you think? Anyway, I think Floppy has some news for me, so let's find out:
Anne: Floppy! You look excited!
Floppy: Oh, you betcha, Anne! You're going to love this too! I've been named to the Committee for Ranking Appalling Putridity!
Anne: Seriously? You made CRAP? Congratulations! But please re-acquaint me with the aims of this worthy association.
Floppy: Well, we smell things and rank them according to their foulness. The aim is to get everything stinky into one long line of stinkiness, leading up to the worst stench on the planet.
Anne: I can't imagine many creatures who would know more about rancid odors than a vulture. Still, you must have beaten out a lot of vultures for this honor, Floppy.
Floppy: Can't really answer that, Anne. The balloting is highly secretive.
Anne: I'll bet they're all about secretions on that committee ... *hitting the wall laughter* So, Floppy. Tell me a little bit more about CRAP. And I mean a little bit, because I don't have a strong stomach.
Floppy: Well, you've got your basic stink bugs, your skunks, your hagfish, that tomcat in your back yard ... gee, I wonder if he helped me get the nod!
Anne: No doubt. So your committee sits around and sniffs stuff and then votes on what smells the worst.
Floppy: Correct.
Anne: I hope these aren't home-based meetings.
Floppy: No, CRAP is scheduled to meet next week in Trenton. Right up the road!
Anne: Just so I know for sure ... it is literal and actual stink you're measuring, not metaphorical or figurative stink, right?
Floppy: I think it's literal stink. Otherwise, why would they appoint a vulture?
Anne: Well, Floppy, it's like this. In the world of metaphorical stink, vultures get appointed all the time. Trenton is lousy with metaphorical vultures. If I were you, I would take a quantity of stink bugs as security. And fly there. Don't commute.
Floppy: Oh, I intend to fly. These roads in New Jersey ... you just can't trust them to get you places on time.
It's a good time to visit with my friend Floppy, who came here to live one day when I was low-down and blue. Floppy is an Egyptian vulture. Quite a snappy friend, don't you think? Anyway, I think Floppy has some news for me, so let's find out:
Anne: Floppy! You look excited!
Floppy: Oh, you betcha, Anne! You're going to love this too! I've been named to the Committee for Ranking Appalling Putridity!
Anne: Seriously? You made CRAP? Congratulations! But please re-acquaint me with the aims of this worthy association.
Floppy: Well, we smell things and rank them according to their foulness. The aim is to get everything stinky into one long line of stinkiness, leading up to the worst stench on the planet.
Anne: I can't imagine many creatures who would know more about rancid odors than a vulture. Still, you must have beaten out a lot of vultures for this honor, Floppy.
Floppy: Can't really answer that, Anne. The balloting is highly secretive.
Anne: I'll bet they're all about secretions on that committee ... *hitting the wall laughter* So, Floppy. Tell me a little bit more about CRAP. And I mean a little bit, because I don't have a strong stomach.
Floppy: Well, you've got your basic stink bugs, your skunks, your hagfish, that tomcat in your back yard ... gee, I wonder if he helped me get the nod!
Anne: No doubt. So your committee sits around and sniffs stuff and then votes on what smells the worst.
Floppy: Correct.
Anne: I hope these aren't home-based meetings.
Floppy: No, CRAP is scheduled to meet next week in Trenton. Right up the road!
Anne: Just so I know for sure ... it is literal and actual stink you're measuring, not metaphorical or figurative stink, right?
Floppy: I think it's literal stink. Otherwise, why would they appoint a vulture?
Anne: Well, Floppy, it's like this. In the world of metaphorical stink, vultures get appointed all the time. Trenton is lousy with metaphorical vultures. If I were you, I would take a quantity of stink bugs as security. And fly there. Don't commute.
Floppy: Oh, I intend to fly. These roads in New Jersey ... you just can't trust them to get you places on time.
Monday, January 13, 2014
Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," winning a wide readership one meme at a time! My name is Anne Johnson. Really. I couldn't make that up. I'd have left off the "e" or added a "t." Something stupid like that.
This lovely honor was passed on to me from Yellow Dog Granny, who loads her page with so many laughs that your floor better be nicely padded. You're going to do some serious rolling, don't want to snap any bones.
I'm supposed to choose other blogs to bestow the honor upon. I'm thinking about that. I'm sure I'll have a long list in a day or two. But in the meantime, if you're just showing up here for the party ... well ...
We at "The Gods Are Bored" feel that laughter is not only the best medicine, it's sometimes the best religion. Let's face it. The time of life is short. It seems longer if you're serious all the time. So blaze a bright path through the unknown universe, with a tra la la!
Many a good religion is built around the philosophy that it is holy to be miserable. Now, see, I'm a conspiracy theorist. I think these sorts of religions are created by The Man to keep poor people satisfied with their lot. Rage against the misery! The bored gods don't want you to be the richest person in town, but They do want you to be the happiest person in town. But be careful out there. If your happiness causes suffering to others, the bored gods will take due note and deal with you harshly. Be good and kind. Laugh abundantly. If you don't have anything to laugh about, read the comments under any Yahoo! news story. You'll be laughing in no time.
"The Gods Are Bored" has been around since 2005 and has dumped more than 2,000 posts into the World Wide Web. The vast, vast majority of these posts are both nonsensical and prose-based. I like to write because in 1973 my mother made me take a typing class in summer school. Once my fingers learned to skate across the keyboard, there was no stopping me. (Sometimes I wish Mom had forced me to take auto repair in summer school. Think of all the oil changes I could have done since then! I would probably still be driving my grandfather's Oldsmobile!)
Here's a quick cast of characters whoserve as fodder regularly feature in the action on "The Gods Are Bored":
*The Heir and The Spare (my daughters, thus nicknamed because that's what the press has called Prince William and Prince Harry)
*Beta and Gamma, my cats (Alpha has gone with the faeries.)
*Decibel the parrot, the only bird in America with his own personal poppet
*Puck and Princess, faeries
*Sacred Thunderbird, aka Vulture, my totem
*Morons ... They rotate.
*Bored deities who drop by for tea and chat
The setting for most of this mayhem is my current abode in Snobville, New Jersey. Except, of course, if there are mushrooms about ... and then the setting is Alternate Universe. I'll let you know.
Some days around here, it's blog or go nuts. So I blog. Welcome to the show.
I'm supposed to choose other blogs to bestow the honor upon. I'm thinking about that. I'm sure I'll have a long list in a day or two. But in the meantime, if you're just showing up here for the party ... well ...
We at "The Gods Are Bored" feel that laughter is not only the best medicine, it's sometimes the best religion. Let's face it. The time of life is short. It seems longer if you're serious all the time. So blaze a bright path through the unknown universe, with a tra la la!
Many a good religion is built around the philosophy that it is holy to be miserable. Now, see, I'm a conspiracy theorist. I think these sorts of religions are created by The Man to keep poor people satisfied with their lot. Rage against the misery! The bored gods don't want you to be the richest person in town, but They do want you to be the happiest person in town. But be careful out there. If your happiness causes suffering to others, the bored gods will take due note and deal with you harshly. Be good and kind. Laugh abundantly. If you don't have anything to laugh about, read the comments under any Yahoo! news story. You'll be laughing in no time.
"The Gods Are Bored" has been around since 2005 and has dumped more than 2,000 posts into the World Wide Web. The vast, vast majority of these posts are both nonsensical and prose-based. I like to write because in 1973 my mother made me take a typing class in summer school. Once my fingers learned to skate across the keyboard, there was no stopping me. (Sometimes I wish Mom had forced me to take auto repair in summer school. Think of all the oil changes I could have done since then! I would probably still be driving my grandfather's Oldsmobile!)
Here's a quick cast of characters who
*The Heir and The Spare (my daughters, thus nicknamed because that's what the press has called Prince William and Prince Harry)
*Beta and Gamma, my cats (Alpha has gone with the faeries.)
*Decibel the parrot, the only bird in America with his own personal poppet
*Puck and Princess, faeries
*Sacred Thunderbird, aka Vulture, my totem
*Morons ... They rotate.
*Bored deities who drop by for tea and chat
The setting for most of this mayhem is my current abode in Snobville, New Jersey. Except, of course, if there are mushrooms about ... and then the setting is Alternate Universe. I'll let you know.
Some days around here, it's blog or go nuts. So I blog. Welcome to the show.
Friday, January 10, 2014
Conversation Overheard in the Back Yard
Did you know that many bored deities can speak Cat? One very venerable ancient Goddess from what is now the forested regions of Transylvania left me this little dramatic conversation She overheard the other night. She even knew the names of the cats in question: Gus, the wounded tom cat; Mestopheles, the jet-black snob who lives down the street; Beta (my itty bitty tabby); and Gamma, my indoor "trophy feline."
Here's the report:
Scene: Anne's tiny back yard in Snobville and the surrounding, equally tiny yards.
Time: 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, January 8. Temperature: 25 degrees Fahrenheit. Winds out of the north.
Mestopheles: Gus! How they hanging?
Gus: They're here, that's all that matters. But this wound on my neck hurts like a sonofabitch.
Mestopheles: Listen. Steer clear of the free food out front of the house. It's a trap. I went for it and got caught in a box. It took three humans to get me out! And Beta was laughing at me the whole time.
Gus: Ha ha ha ha ha ha! You idiot, that's a Have-a-Heart trap! If I walk into that thing, it's bye-bye balls. I would never get fooled by that.
(Great sounds of commotion in the back yard. Human calls "Kitty kitty kitty! Here, Gamma!"
Mestopheles: Snap, Gus! Look! That pampered, indoor pretty boy has escaped! Look at him run!
Gus: Life of Riley, that one. Warm roof over his head, all the vittles he can eat...
Mestopheles: Yeah, but look. He's inside all the time. And neutered. And right now, he's outside. At our mercy. Let's corner him and kick his butt.
Gus: Not sure I'm up to much butt-kicking. But it's too good of an opportunity to pass up.
Gus and Mestopheles melt into the darkness to watch two hysterical humans trying to catch Gamma, who is running scared, but still running. Finally the humans give up and go in the house. As they go inside, they let Beta out.
Beta: Hey, you guys seen the orange slacker?
Gus: He's hiding behind the discarded windowpanes beside your neighbor's shed.
Beta: Scare the shit out of him, willya? This back yard is mine. I don't want him jackin' my style.
Mestopheles: When we're finished with him, he'll hide in the dark corner of your basement for a week! C'mon, Gus, let's go put some Chris Christie on that pretty boy!
Gus and Mestopheles surround Gamma, pinning him behind the panes of glass. Beta watches, satisfied, from the back porch. Ten minutes pass. Beta asks to be let back inside. Her wish is granted. Another ten minutes pass, and out the back door comes a human, in a warm winter coat, with a flashlight from a smart phone. The human begins calling for Gamma (who doesn't really know his name).
Mestopheles: rrrrrrrrRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrr.......
Gus: rrrrrrrrRRRRRRRRrrrrreeeeeowwwwwrRRRRRRrrrr
Gamma: rrrrrrrrr...... rrrrr ...rrrrr..r......rrrrr
Human: Gamma? Gamma? Where are you? Here, Gamma!
Mestopheles: rrrrrRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrRRRRRRRrrrr...
Gus: rrrrrrrRRRRRRRRRrrrrrreeeeowwwwwwRRRRRRRRRRRRR! Oh, damn, Mestopheles, the human is finding the pretty boy by listening to us!
Mestopheles: Yeah. Oh shit. Here she is.
Human (to Mestopheles): Thanks for helping me find him, but get outta here!
Mestopheles: Call it off, Gus. The human has located her boy toy!
Gus: Don't bad mouth that human too much, Mes. She made me up a swell lean-to.
Mestopheles: Which is more than you deserve, marking every square inch of her yard.
Gus: I'm a tom. It's how we roll.
Mestopheles and Gus peel off, watching in amusement as the human tries to pry her house cat out from behind jagged panes of glass, finally chasing him back into his own yard, then enticing him with the one thing he has learned ... the sound of a spoon clicking on a cat can, and the sound of the can being opened. He inches just into the human's reach, and she grabs him by the scruff of the neck and hauls him back indoors.
Mestopheles and Gus roar with laughter.
Mestopheles: Well now, that's about the most pathetic thing I've seen in a month of Sundays.
Gus: Yep. For all this wound ... and it's a doozy, might be the end of me ... I wouldn't give up my freedom to come and go where I please, when I please, horny all the time.
Mestopheles: I've got the best of all worlds. I have a warm home and owners who let me run wild.
Gus: Yeah, but for all that, don't brag on yourself too much. You're the one who got nabbed in the trap.
Mestopheles: Oh, go spray the wood pile!
Beta (from the back porch): Thanks for your help, homies! Pretty boy's hiding in the basement with his plume-like orange tail between his legs!
Gus: Tell that human to leave out some food without the trap, will ya!
Beta: Right on it, handsome!
Here's the report:
Scene: Anne's tiny back yard in Snobville and the surrounding, equally tiny yards.
Time: 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, January 8. Temperature: 25 degrees Fahrenheit. Winds out of the north.
Mestopheles: Gus! How they hanging?
Gus: They're here, that's all that matters. But this wound on my neck hurts like a sonofabitch.
Mestopheles: Listen. Steer clear of the free food out front of the house. It's a trap. I went for it and got caught in a box. It took three humans to get me out! And Beta was laughing at me the whole time.
Gus: Ha ha ha ha ha ha! You idiot, that's a Have-a-Heart trap! If I walk into that thing, it's bye-bye balls. I would never get fooled by that.
(Great sounds of commotion in the back yard. Human calls "Kitty kitty kitty! Here, Gamma!"
Mestopheles: Snap, Gus! Look! That pampered, indoor pretty boy has escaped! Look at him run!
Gus: Life of Riley, that one. Warm roof over his head, all the vittles he can eat...
Mestopheles: Yeah, but look. He's inside all the time. And neutered. And right now, he's outside. At our mercy. Let's corner him and kick his butt.
Gus: Not sure I'm up to much butt-kicking. But it's too good of an opportunity to pass up.
Gus and Mestopheles melt into the darkness to watch two hysterical humans trying to catch Gamma, who is running scared, but still running. Finally the humans give up and go in the house. As they go inside, they let Beta out.
Beta: Hey, you guys seen the orange slacker?
Gus: He's hiding behind the discarded windowpanes beside your neighbor's shed.
Beta: Scare the shit out of him, willya? This back yard is mine. I don't want him jackin' my style.
Mestopheles: When we're finished with him, he'll hide in the dark corner of your basement for a week! C'mon, Gus, let's go put some Chris Christie on that pretty boy!
Gus and Mestopheles surround Gamma, pinning him behind the panes of glass. Beta watches, satisfied, from the back porch. Ten minutes pass. Beta asks to be let back inside. Her wish is granted. Another ten minutes pass, and out the back door comes a human, in a warm winter coat, with a flashlight from a smart phone. The human begins calling for Gamma (who doesn't really know his name).
Mestopheles: rrrrrrrrRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrr.......
Gus: rrrrrrrrRRRRRRRRrrrrreeeeeowwwwwrRRRRRRrrrr
Gamma: rrrrrrrrr...... rrrrr ...rrrrr..r......rrrrr
Human: Gamma? Gamma? Where are you? Here, Gamma!
Mestopheles: rrrrrRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrRRRRRRRrrrr...
Gus: rrrrrrrRRRRRRRRRrrrrrreeeeowwwwwwRRRRRRRRRRRRR! Oh, damn, Mestopheles, the human is finding the pretty boy by listening to us!
Mestopheles: Yeah. Oh shit. Here she is.
Human (to Mestopheles): Thanks for helping me find him, but get outta here!
Mestopheles: Call it off, Gus. The human has located her boy toy!
Gus: Don't bad mouth that human too much, Mes. She made me up a swell lean-to.
Mestopheles: Which is more than you deserve, marking every square inch of her yard.
Gus: I'm a tom. It's how we roll.
Mestopheles and Gus peel off, watching in amusement as the human tries to pry her house cat out from behind jagged panes of glass, finally chasing him back into his own yard, then enticing him with the one thing he has learned ... the sound of a spoon clicking on a cat can, and the sound of the can being opened. He inches just into the human's reach, and she grabs him by the scruff of the neck and hauls him back indoors.
Mestopheles and Gus roar with laughter.
Mestopheles: Well now, that's about the most pathetic thing I've seen in a month of Sundays.
Gus: Yep. For all this wound ... and it's a doozy, might be the end of me ... I wouldn't give up my freedom to come and go where I please, when I please, horny all the time.
Mestopheles: I've got the best of all worlds. I have a warm home and owners who let me run wild.
Gus: Yeah, but for all that, don't brag on yourself too much. You're the one who got nabbed in the trap.
Mestopheles: Oh, go spray the wood pile!
Beta (from the back porch): Thanks for your help, homies! Pretty boy's hiding in the basement with his plume-like orange tail between his legs!
Gus: Tell that human to leave out some food without the trap, will ya!
Beta: Right on it, handsome!
Monday, January 06, 2014
Hello? Hello?
Dear Goddess Freya,
I hope you can help me with a problem here in my neighborhood. It's getting very cold out there, and so time is of the essence.
I'm sure You know our local tomcat, who I have affectionately named "Gussie." Gus announces his presence with a spray of scent and a "hello" that sounds almost human. He makes his rounds in an orderly manner, and most times I just greet him and go about my day.
But on the night it snowed, I could have sworn I heard him say "hello" most pathetically at 4:30 a.m. I got up and looked outside ... no footprints. But it got me thinking, "What does Gus do on these cold nights?"
Well, Goddess, You know that better than I do. You also must know the identity of whoever is feeding Gus to plumpness. Because he just isn't your typical feral tomcat by any means. He's fat and friendly.
Freya, Gus has sustained a very bad injury. He has a laceration on his neck, two inches square. The PETCO cat lady says she'll keep him in her basement and give him antibiotics if I can trap him. But he's too plump to be enticed into the trap by Fancy Feast and catnip. He even let me pick him up and hold him, but he balked big time when I tried to put him in the cat carrier.
Dear Freya, someone is caring for this cat, but not caring enough. Please send Gus back to my house, so I can get him into a warm shelter and get him the antibiotic he needs for his cheek. It's cold as the upper reaches of Norway out there tonight. Gus could fend for himself, if not for that injury. But it's a bad, bad scrape.
Yes, Freya, I know that I'm bigger than a cat and that I should be able to shove one into a carrier. But these big males, they can do some mighty fancy squirming. So please help me out on this. Give Spare and me another chance to collar this kitty and get him the help he needs.
Affectionately Your servant,
Anne Johnson
I hope you can help me with a problem here in my neighborhood. It's getting very cold out there, and so time is of the essence.
I'm sure You know our local tomcat, who I have affectionately named "Gussie." Gus announces his presence with a spray of scent and a "hello" that sounds almost human. He makes his rounds in an orderly manner, and most times I just greet him and go about my day.
But on the night it snowed, I could have sworn I heard him say "hello" most pathetically at 4:30 a.m. I got up and looked outside ... no footprints. But it got me thinking, "What does Gus do on these cold nights?"
Well, Goddess, You know that better than I do. You also must know the identity of whoever is feeding Gus to plumpness. Because he just isn't your typical feral tomcat by any means. He's fat and friendly.
Freya, Gus has sustained a very bad injury. He has a laceration on his neck, two inches square. The PETCO cat lady says she'll keep him in her basement and give him antibiotics if I can trap him. But he's too plump to be enticed into the trap by Fancy Feast and catnip. He even let me pick him up and hold him, but he balked big time when I tried to put him in the cat carrier.
Dear Freya, someone is caring for this cat, but not caring enough. Please send Gus back to my house, so I can get him into a warm shelter and get him the antibiotic he needs for his cheek. It's cold as the upper reaches of Norway out there tonight. Gus could fend for himself, if not for that injury. But it's a bad, bad scrape.
Yes, Freya, I know that I'm bigger than a cat and that I should be able to shove one into a carrier. But these big males, they can do some mighty fancy squirming. So please help me out on this. Give Spare and me another chance to collar this kitty and get him the help he needs.
Affectionately Your servant,
Anne Johnson
Sunday, January 05, 2014
If It's All Poison, Why Can't We Choose?
Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," day three of a snow day weekend! Oh, by all the bored gods, it's so nice to be sort of, a little bit, okay somewhat, caught up on some things!
Here's a nice photo, taken by a man named Bruce Lin, of some of the wenches in the Two Street Stompers. This is just about the best photo I have ever seen of the "rank and file" members of our club. It's hard to describe men in dresses to people who've never seen the Mummers Parade. This helps bundles, so thanks, Mr. Wonderful Photographer!
Today's sermon sort of begins with the Mummers, but it diverges quickly, so settle in.
The Mummers Parade is sponsored by one of Philadelphia's big casinos. There are now casinos in Philly, Atlantic City, Allentown, and Valley Forge. The Philly casinos are expanding. A new one will soon be built just two blocks from Independence Hall. These casinos advertize on radio and television. Needless to say, if you want them to, they will email you early and often.
I grew up in genteel poverty. My father, who was not particularly religious, thought gambling was a sin. He said it ruined lives. And you might say, "Well, yes, it ruins people financially ... puts perfectly good families out on the street, breaks up relationships, and is addictive to at least some of its users." Let me tell you, congregation: I know someone who died of gambling. Died of it. She was so addicted to casino gambling that she ignored every sign of sickness in order to keep playing poker. On her premature deathbed, she begged her family to take her to Atlantic City.
Do I need to go into the many and varied woes associated with alcohol? I think not. Some people can drink all they want and never have a bad day. Other people aren't so fortunate. Blah blah blah ... this is a tired re-hash. I'm moving on.
Both gambling and booze are bad for some people, but our society accepts them.But now the plot thickens.
The state of Colorado has legalized the recreational use of marijuana. The state expects a financial windfall from taxation of the product, and there's no way to project how this legalization will affect tourism. And from many quarters there is loud lamentation and hand-wringing about how dangerous weed is, how it will fall into the hands of teenagers and contribute to fatal automobile accidents and cause a whole generation of Colorado youngsters to become brain-damaged, listless stoners with no future.
I'm not going to hop on a jet and go out to Denver for a Rocky Mountain high anytime soon, but I honestly applaud Colorado for this move. It has never been difficult for teenagers to obtain marijuana. There is no difference between stoned driving and drunk driving. As for young, developing brains, well ... they've already been under siege from booze and pharmaceuticals, both of which can usually be found in Pop Pop's kitchen cabinets.
Smoking reefer is exactly as perilous as gambling and drinking. I do not see one iota of difference. Most people will be able to light up the occasional doobie and enjoy themselves immensely without harm to themselves or others. Some people will have problems with it. To be completely candid, however, I will say that I've seen people really, really drunk, and I've seen people really, really stoned. The stoners get my vote. They're not likely to pick a bloody fight over the relative merits of the Philadelphia Eagles and the Dallas Cowboys.
Brothers and sisters, many things that are legal and pleasurable are bad for us. No one has proven that weed is worse than the legal poisons of booze and gambling. Therefore, why are these cash-strapped states depriving themselves of a taxable product that would be regulated for its purity?
I say, give us freedom of choice with this all-natural pleasure-enhancer! And I am not saying this because I use weed. I'm saying it because it's no worse than the highly-taxed alcohol and casino industries.
When it comes to picking your poison, I say we should have extreme latitude. How would legalization of pot in my state affect me? Oh my soul. Have you ever rolled up to a turnpike toll booth without enough money to pay your way ... because they just raised the rates again?
Rocky. Mountain. High.
Here's a nice photo, taken by a man named Bruce Lin, of some of the wenches in the Two Street Stompers. This is just about the best photo I have ever seen of the "rank and file" members of our club. It's hard to describe men in dresses to people who've never seen the Mummers Parade. This helps bundles, so thanks, Mr. Wonderful Photographer!
Today's sermon sort of begins with the Mummers, but it diverges quickly, so settle in.
The Mummers Parade is sponsored by one of Philadelphia's big casinos. There are now casinos in Philly, Atlantic City, Allentown, and Valley Forge. The Philly casinos are expanding. A new one will soon be built just two blocks from Independence Hall. These casinos advertize on radio and television. Needless to say, if you want them to, they will email you early and often.
I grew up in genteel poverty. My father, who was not particularly religious, thought gambling was a sin. He said it ruined lives. And you might say, "Well, yes, it ruins people financially ... puts perfectly good families out on the street, breaks up relationships, and is addictive to at least some of its users." Let me tell you, congregation: I know someone who died of gambling. Died of it. She was so addicted to casino gambling that she ignored every sign of sickness in order to keep playing poker. On her premature deathbed, she begged her family to take her to Atlantic City.
Do I need to go into the many and varied woes associated with alcohol? I think not. Some people can drink all they want and never have a bad day. Other people aren't so fortunate. Blah blah blah ... this is a tired re-hash. I'm moving on.
Both gambling and booze are bad for some people, but our society accepts them.But now the plot thickens.
The state of Colorado has legalized the recreational use of marijuana. The state expects a financial windfall from taxation of the product, and there's no way to project how this legalization will affect tourism. And from many quarters there is loud lamentation and hand-wringing about how dangerous weed is, how it will fall into the hands of teenagers and contribute to fatal automobile accidents and cause a whole generation of Colorado youngsters to become brain-damaged, listless stoners with no future.
I'm not going to hop on a jet and go out to Denver for a Rocky Mountain high anytime soon, but I honestly applaud Colorado for this move. It has never been difficult for teenagers to obtain marijuana. There is no difference between stoned driving and drunk driving. As for young, developing brains, well ... they've already been under siege from booze and pharmaceuticals, both of which can usually be found in Pop Pop's kitchen cabinets.
Smoking reefer is exactly as perilous as gambling and drinking. I do not see one iota of difference. Most people will be able to light up the occasional doobie and enjoy themselves immensely without harm to themselves or others. Some people will have problems with it. To be completely candid, however, I will say that I've seen people really, really drunk, and I've seen people really, really stoned. The stoners get my vote. They're not likely to pick a bloody fight over the relative merits of the Philadelphia Eagles and the Dallas Cowboys.
Brothers and sisters, many things that are legal and pleasurable are bad for us. No one has proven that weed is worse than the legal poisons of booze and gambling. Therefore, why are these cash-strapped states depriving themselves of a taxable product that would be regulated for its purity?
I say, give us freedom of choice with this all-natural pleasure-enhancer! And I am not saying this because I use weed. I'm saying it because it's no worse than the highly-taxed alcohol and casino industries.
When it comes to picking your poison, I say we should have extreme latitude. How would legalization of pot in my state affect me? Oh my soul. Have you ever rolled up to a turnpike toll booth without enough money to pay your way ... because they just raised the rates again?
Rocky. Mountain. High.
Thursday, January 02, 2014
Navel Gazing on the Mummers Parade 2014
Maybe it was the arthritic hip. Maybe it was my daughters growing up. All I knew was that I had spent too many years sitting on my perfectly-upholstered barcalounger, watching the Philadelphia Mummers Parade. So I had surgery on my hip and joined a comic club.
Here I am with fellow Two Street Stompers at this year's parade. Our theme was "Salute to the Troops." I'm the one without the nurse cap.
I will have a few more pictures to upload over the next few days, as fellow Stompers put images up on Facebook. There's no link yet to the performance. It was magnificent. We were patriotic and funny at the same time ... something that was lost on the judges, who awarded us 8th place.
It might not sound like fun to get up before dawn on New Year's Day and go outside in the cold for twelve hours or more, dressed in satin and dancing with a parasol. But trust me, it's fun. It's really fun. If you've ever had a period of your life when you could hardly walk, and then suddenly you could walk, and dance, through a city in a parade, it is fabulous fun.
Here's a photo someone snapped of us as we came north on Broad Street toward City Hall. The nurse in this picture isn't me, but we all basically looked the same.
The television announcer said that the Philadelphia Mummers Parade is the longest-running folk parade in American history. It began in 1901. There's a competency level for everyone in this 12-hour extravaganza, from people who just want to walk down the street with an umbrella to professional dancers, costumers, and musicians.
Anyway, I felt considerably lively today, thanks to the post-parade happy high. I want to thank the Two Street Stompers for having me. I want to remember the upscale dad and baby daughter in the crowd that I chatted with while we waited for our turn in the judging area. I want to honor the Red Cross nurses who cheered for us gals as we went by in our white satin.
And as for the window cat on Two Street who watched, fascinated, as we floated by with our sequins shining and our ruffles floating ... Happy New Year, cat! Bet you don't see the likes of us every day.
Two Street Stompers 2014 ... starting the year with a smile and a strut.
Here I am with fellow Two Street Stompers at this year's parade. Our theme was "Salute to the Troops." I'm the one without the nurse cap.I will have a few more pictures to upload over the next few days, as fellow Stompers put images up on Facebook. There's no link yet to the performance. It was magnificent. We were patriotic and funny at the same time ... something that was lost on the judges, who awarded us 8th place.
It might not sound like fun to get up before dawn on New Year's Day and go outside in the cold for twelve hours or more, dressed in satin and dancing with a parasol. But trust me, it's fun. It's really fun. If you've ever had a period of your life when you could hardly walk, and then suddenly you could walk, and dance, through a city in a parade, it is fabulous fun.
Here's a photo someone snapped of us as we came north on Broad Street toward City Hall. The nurse in this picture isn't me, but we all basically looked the same.
The television announcer said that the Philadelphia Mummers Parade is the longest-running folk parade in American history. It began in 1901. There's a competency level for everyone in this 12-hour extravaganza, from people who just want to walk down the street with an umbrella to professional dancers, costumers, and musicians.
Anyway, I felt considerably lively today, thanks to the post-parade happy high. I want to thank the Two Street Stompers for having me. I want to remember the upscale dad and baby daughter in the crowd that I chatted with while we waited for our turn in the judging area. I want to honor the Red Cross nurses who cheered for us gals as we went by in our white satin.
And as for the window cat on Two Street who watched, fascinated, as we floated by with our sequins shining and our ruffles floating ... Happy New Year, cat! Bet you don't see the likes of us every day.
Two Street Stompers 2014 ... starting the year with a smile and a strut.
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