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Rats. Our power just went out for about fifteen seconds, so i totally lost the amazingly interesting post i'd written. Okay, not really, i was struggling to get even a few coherent thoughts together.
___more___
As Houston and Katrina get older, we are going to have to decide what kinds of things we allow them to expose themselves to. Television? Movies? Books and magazines? When i was growing up, we were allowed to watch a couple shows, Mr. Rogers, Sesamie Street and The Electric Company were three that came on consecutively and on a good day that meant we'd have a whole 1.5 hours of time in front of the tube! But then we moved to Peru, where we got to see movies in the Pucallpa cinema of strange smells and sticky floors. We saw Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, and E.T. at the Pucallpa Cinema. Each trip to see a movie was something of an event, and when we saw E.T. i remember my dad and another parent getting into a fairly heated discussion about how appalling the movie was. The other parent had taken some issue with the language or something... or maybe it was the beer-drinking... and quailed in horror that he'd let his children be exposed to such filth. Or something. My dad was like "uh, it was a good movie."
Well.... i've become more convinced that each story, each work of fiction, should be thought of as a seperate universe from the one we really live in. Harry Potter, for instance, has a life only in the universe inside J.K. Rowling's head. His universe inside Rowling's head has clearly different rules than the universe we experience. Everything is different, from basic laws of physics to the obvious: there is no such thing as wizards and witches as the Harry Potter books describe them. In sitcoms - television in general - there is casual, consequence free sex. Pregnancies are fun, babies are adorable and cease to exist unless they're vital to the plot. Movies are the same. Different laws of physics, morals, different (or no?) value placed on human life...
Right, so what should we do? Clearly until our kids get old enough to have some kind of discussion about reality, we'll keep them away from anything too scary. Or violent. Already Houston has shown his impressionability when exposed to violent images or situations: "we don't hit people with sticks in this family." When we can have conversations about what it really means for one character to shoot another charachter, or for someone to fly on a broomstick, we'll be closer to the point where we can discuss how each fictional universe has fictional rules and consequences.
I suppose this is why i can play games where we shoot each other very dead with a vast array of weapons (like, in this one game you can throw toilets at each other, and get a kill if the toilet hits your opponent's head) and yet i am a passionate pacifist. I would never fire a weapon at a living thing. Sure, i find guns fascinating, and would probably enjoy going hunting, but would never kill a deer or even squirrel. I guess i've got some empathy of some sort, even for pesty beasts whose lives are kind of worthless. I even try not to squish ants when i'm walking. And there sure are a ton of ants on the sidewalks i frequent, especially when i have two strollers worth of wheels to worry about as well as my feet. Huh. Our two strollers have fourteen wheels added together.
Of course, some games like Grand Theft Auto where you can use the "services" of a pr0st!tute and then kill her and take the money back are beyond what i'd ever allow my kids to play while in my house. I've played that game, found it undeniably entertaining, and i suppose i'd keep playing it, but responsibly, but i guess there's just a limit. Maybe i'm being inconsistent... but i knew a Wedgwood girl who showed no remorse for her part in the beating and murder of a bicyclist. And she and her friends played GTA.
I know my mother struggles with what is okay for her sons to watch and play. Instead of looking at the movie or game and deciding what is Really Wrong, like, in the Real Universe, perhaps we should examine the fictional universe presented as such, and say how the fictitional universe is different from the reality God has given us. Then we can say it's okay to make a giant Godzilla squich hundreds of people into strawberry jelly. Even though it's not really okay to really squish people into any kind of jelly at all.
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Oh man, i still haven't caught up on sleep.
Travis, one of our really good friends, called today. He is goofy.
And i think i was thinking of something to write today, but it totally escapes me. I'm getting a small head cold, so maybe that's why i can't think.
But check this out: San Jose State University puts on a yearly "Best Worst Writing" contest, and the winners are hilarious. This one left me chuckling inwardly.
As soon as Sherriff Russell heard Bradshaw say, "This town ain't big enough for the both of us," he inadvertantly visualized a tiny chalk-line circle with a town sign that said 'population 1,' and the two of them both trying to stand inside of it rather ineffectively, leaning this way and that, trying to keep their balance without stepping outside of the line, and that was why he was smiling when Bradshaw shot him.
Keriann Noble
Murray, UT
Check out the rest of the
2005 results here. That's what i've been doing, when i really should be
sleeeping!!!!!
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Today i only took one picture, but it was of a resident sleeping in the hall with her head jammed into the wall, so i can't post that picture without breaking confidentiality. So enjoy this picture of a White-lined Sphinx Hummingbird Moth that my Uncle Jim took with his good-macro-lens-camera. Cool insect, huh?
Today was a good day. And i love summer nights. I only got to walk from work to my car and from my car to the house, but being in the warm, fragrant dark is a very nice thing. I have lots of really nice memories of nights like that.
So i've been meaning to write a whole big long post about reality, God, Plato, Bhuddism, evolution, the Apostle Paul, and Hollywood. Michelle, my famous coworker, and i had a great talk about that (you know, that cohesive group of concepts), and it's something i really enjoy thinking about. But i can't. I have to go to bed.
209
I went to an Off Road Shootout race today with a few kids from work. I love my job sometimes! I remember starting working at Wedgwood and finding out that a lot of what brand new part timers do is take kids off grounds. I've taken kids to the IMAX theater, hockey games, other movies, a couple plays... and innumerable other outings, all getting paid! Sometimes i feel ever so slightly guilty, but then i remember how many times i've been called horrible names, and i remember that i earn my money.
Uh... i'm reading Harry Potter... and waking up with the kids tomorrow, so i think i'll just quit writing. After i say how much cooler the Off Road Shootout was than the normal Demolition Derby.
___more___
When we lived in England, we went to a special track several times to see "banger races", which are conducted on a 1/4th mile paved oval, and cars of all description can race. The "bangers" are pretty much the same as what we saw tonight - cars not really roadworthy, but which run okay. In England, they also race modified cars, some which can still try to wreck each other and are reinforced and weighted down to expediate that end, and some which are modified to go faster, and aren't allowed intentional contact.
Anyway, about the race.
The track was short, with one large turn and three very tight turns, sort of in the form of the outline of a very squashed letter "C". There weren't any big jumps, but more hills that the fastest cars could get a little bit of air on. It was all wet dirt, which was mud at the beginning, but after a few races became more tractionable packed clay.
The cars were exclusively front wheel drive, and nearly exclusively GM products. There were two Dodges, a Ford Probe (based on a Mazda) and a Mazda 626. The rest were Cavaliers, Grand Ams, small Buicks, and one Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera like Chellie's old car. Every car was modified
like so (that basically says "no glass, small gas tank, simple roll bar"), but the most successful cars also had mud-tires on the front and very small space-saver type spare tires on the back.
I have been formulating the perfect off road shootout car in my head ever since seeing the race, and think i have a good idea of what i'd love to race, if my monetary and time budget ever allow:
A small, light car with a short wheelbase and a healthy engine would work great, allowing quick accelleration and fast turns. I'm thinking a Ford Escort or Dodge Neon.
An automatic transmission would probably be a good idea, since the very short track doesn't allow for much attention to be spared on "shifting".
I think welding the differential so that both front wheels are forced to turn at the same speed at all times would be essential. Pretty much every car would lose traction in the turns. The person who could get good traction would be able to nudge their competitors out of the way with ease!
Finally, very meaty tires on the front with dinky space savers in the back seems to be the best way to go.
The very cool thing about off road shootout racing is that i didn't see any cars which were totally unsalvageable at the end of the races. Even the dude who rolled his car could get it running again. So if i did prep a car, i could concievably have several days of fun with it! And videos too, since i'd HAVE to install a video camera or something.
Okay, i'm going to bed now. ...wait...... anyone wanna sponser me?
208
Today it was not stiflingly hot!!! So what did i do? I stayed at home getting distracted all day by every nanoparticle of anything that drifted across my attention. So i didn't really get anything accomplished. Right now i'm allowing myself to be distracted by the computer, writing this post, and emailing people from camp. I guess i did play with my kids for a good long time, i made tuna casserole... we ate sitting at the table... i'm doing a load of dished... so maybe the day wasn't a loss. But i didn't take a single picture.
Riiight. So i had better fire off a few more emails and start cleaning. Our dog peed on the carpet. That really annoys me. I have a sensitive nose, and think my least favorite smell in the world may be "dog pee on carpet".
207
We had a long, drawn out journey today, trying to find some place which would let us pick blueberries, but our long, arduous quest was not successfully completed. At least Karen and i got to spend time together (with waves of annoyingness surging from the back seat with tsunami like force). Aah, the joys of children.
And then i went to work. It was cool to see my coworkers again, but five of the kids are totally new to me. It's super weird to have almost half of our house (and we only have 11 clients at the moment, so when we get our 12th bed filled a full half) brand new. Change can be, and usually is, good. It's always fun to watch the group dynamics percolate, and watch clusters of kids polymerize. Check me out, i used "polymerize" in a sentence.
Well, i can't top that, so i'm out!
206
While we were leaving the demolition derby that we saw tonight, i heard Houston say "Look Daddy!!!" in his "i'm being so silly" voice. Sure enough, he'd popped his head out the back of the stroller. He was looking mostly normal, but i said "hang on, lemme take a picture" and he put on that cute show-off face.
Poor Houston hasn't taken more then five steps all day. He hurt his ankle or foot yesterday, and has complained about it every time he walks. It's not tender at all to the touch, and it isn't swollen or discolored, so i'm thinking it'll be better tomorrow. The little guy was exceptionally tired today - he took a three hour nap, and was not easily woken. Crazy.
So, my stylish and modern brother and sister in law, with their ridiculously good looking offspring invited us to the Ottawa County Fair to watch the demolition derby. It was great - demo derbies are a favorite thing of mine because i get to observe not only how and how well these cars work, but also how they break. I love it. But there were only three or four cars that had definately not been demo-derbied before (that i saw), inclucing
this '57 Chevy! It was straight and not obviously rusty when it started out, and i really wonder why in the world the dude drove it in a demolition derby. He was the last car knocked out in his heat, so he did okay, and when they asked him why, he said "I always wanted to race one of these in a demo derby, and my buddy said he saw one, and i had to have her!" Humph. Okay. It's just a 48 year old assemblage of steel and rubber. If you had a thousand monkeys throwing steel and rubber together for infinity, you'd get a '57 Chevy, so if monkeys make them, why not wreck them?
Plus, it was the 4 door post, the least desirable of all '57 Chevys.
Um, Houston got sick of the cars crashing into each other after the third race, so we went home. And Katrina was really impatient, which happens when she gets tired and hot.
And now i'm dripping sweat as i sit before my electron pulse furnace, so i'm gonna quit blogging and attempt to motivate myself into tidying up before Karen gets home from class. It's just so incredibly hot, all i want to do is sit under a fan.
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Right, so here's the big old post with over a million bytes of pictures in it. This may be the largest post i've ever attempted!!! Hold on tight to your... um... network cables... and go ahead and click that ___more___ link! And then go toast a bagel, put cream cheese on it, brew some fresh ground coffee, watch an episode of Cops, read a few chapters of the
Half Blood Prince, and then come back. The pictures should have loaded by then.
___more___
day one
Our ride up to the Camp should have taken about two hours. Due to torrential rain, (it looked like something you'd see in the Peruvian jungle) we had to drive super slow, and i was frightened to death of some random thing happening which would make us crash. I was driving one of those absurdly large 15 passenger vans (with the back seat taken out to let us drive them without having a chauffer's license), and those things are horribly unsafe in crashes. Hmm, i'll keep it shorter than this...
Good picture, that! See how short that was?
You can see Ross, my coleader, about to wrap a chicken! During Young Life Club, we play goofy games, such as "freestyle wrapping" of a chicken. When the chickens get loose in the audience, that's when the whole thing becomes priceless.
The first day of camp, there's always a big obstacle course which leaves you soaking wet and filthy. There i am, soaking wet and filthy.
day two
Day two was when we rode the bikes. I got to ride a bike that had
this sweet licence plate on it, with a cool pink basket on front. I had to show off, and the summer staff girl who took the picture for me did a great job of pre-focusing and timing the shot. That's not a common skill, you know.
The song goes "Momma don't allow no ice cream round here (repeat), We don't care what Momma don't allow, we goin' eat ice cream anyhow" etc. I guess as long as we're ignoring the rules of what Momma doesn't allow, we can also smoosh each other's faces into our food. Chaos! Anarchy!
day three
Day three saw us having a little more free time than the first two days, allowing me to snap this picture. Don't we look free?
We spent lots of time down by the water, and the kids went nuts with the zip line. I believe i posted a picture or two of the zip last year... and this year i didn't go on it even once. Last year i didn't go on The Blob or The Rope Swing, which i did a lot
this year. And i hurt myself on both - overexerting my upper body on the rope swing, leaving me sore and achey for days... and i smashed my poor knee and ankle into myself on the blob on Wednesday (day five). I still limp.
That was the last picture i took that day.
day four
The aforementioned Rope Swing of Upper Body Strain is pictured here. My young charge prepared to leap to his doom... or getting wet... whatever.
He leaps! He soars! The crowd goes wild!
Every year at camp they have the main characters needing some kind of time machine or fast car, and they always use this
Plymouth Prowler. It's a sweet looking car. It's a
chick magnet. I always wondered why hot babes never flock to me when i cruise the boulevard in my '98 Ford Aspire.
I believe day four also is when we leaders get to do our skit night. This year i got to be an obnoxious little kid in a group of obnoxious little kids who ruin Uncle Al's television broadcast. The group of us fought and made noise while i said over and over "i needa go peepee onna potty!" Well, at the end of the skit, i got to stand up and burst a baggie of water in my pocket, acting like i'd just wet myself. It was awesome. Other hilarious skits included "Men Without Shirts" and "Games Two People Can't Play".
day five
This year at camp, there was a group of kids from Alaska. Alaska state, not Alaska Michigan, which is about half an hour from here. Having them at camp seemed to me to add a great deal to the... atmosphere. I overheard conversations where kids were talking with wonder about things they'd heard about Alaska. I had many conversations with them about everythings from how they call snowmobiles "snow machines" or "snow go's" to the economic situation up there. The country has a very poor population, but rich land (you know, real estate, oil, mining), so there's enormous federal aid which pours into the country. The kids who came to camp go to a Young Life in and around this
boarding school in Galena, Alaska. They fielded questions like "is it winter up there right now?" with grace and dignity. The boys are Francis, Dave, Josh, Jeremiah, and either Terry or Craig back there. Marvin isn't in the picture.
Right, so most of the boys are in that picture. They were in the same room as our group, which was really a great experience.
So anyway, this was the ropes course day. I love ropes. There's this thing called "perceived risk", you know, doing something that seems ultra dangerous like walking around on boards and cables fifty feet from the ground when in fact it's safer than crossing a street. Perceived risk helps people know themselves, push their boundries, gain self confidence, whatever. Well, i love it, and i know all too well how safe it is. So i have to try to convince myself that the harness is broken or improperly attached, i have to never put weight on the harness, and
then i can freak myself out a little. It's so so so fun. Anyway,
Sara (our Young Life head leader) joined us on the ground to take pictures like she does every year (go Sara!), and
Ross jumped like a flying squirrel to catch the trapeze bar. He hung on to it. So did one of the boys we took, and Sara said that's a first.
There was a talent share for the kids to share their talents, so the group from.... uh... Minneapolis? did some of the Napolean's dance from the ultra-famous movie. It was hilarous, but my favorite had to be the "step" skit, which was
these four girls stomping, clapping, snapping their fingers and slapping each other's hands in an impossibly complex routine. It was rhythmic, precise, hypnotic and energetic. Impossible for me to resist. Or, this one girl read a poem she wrote called "Who Am I?" She was clearly nervous, but instead of stumbling or clamming up, she turned the nerves into energy and emotion, and read her poem in such a way that was overcome with emotion. It was incredible. I'm exposed to hundreds of poems a year, nearly every one rhyming "love" with "from above", so i've built up a healthy tolerance to teenage poetry. But this one blew me away.
The Alaskans did a skit too, where they showcased some of the sports they might do in the
Native Olympics, like seal hopping and high kicking.
day six
We had some tournaments on day six, which gave me plenty of
photo opportunities. Those last two are Cristi, one of the girls from Alaska. Turns out they know how to play beach volleyball in Alaska!
We also had lots of time to spend in the water. We skipped rocks, and experimented with
high speed photography. Sometimes more successfully than
others.
Day six was the time to get dressed up and go to a "banquet". It was also a great time to take pictures of friends you made at camp. So there's a couple of leaders from Omaha or Jackson or something; Susan and Tiffany. And me too, but, like, doi. Cristi from Alaska is hamming it up too, and i don't have the honor of knowing the names of those other two kids. Susan and Tiffany are the kinds of people i'd be friends with in real life. Tiffany's name means "image of God" and she works at the YMCA and Susan was somehow not spending every last second of free time reading the latest Harry Potter book. She said she had it next to her bed, but only got about 30 pages into it! The whole week of camp! I think my eyes popped out of my head when she told me that... maybe not... people look at me weird lots of times and i never figure out why.
There's one of my kids! And here's
Non Stop and Hip Hop. They are "backstage dancers" heh... i like that joke... "for Snoop and Fifty Cent, so if you see us on the street, you'd better represent"... they lead games and act totally goofy. Cesar is the short one, and he is really cute, funny and talented, and dances like a super-fly hip-hop dancing dude. Doug, the taller one, has locks down to the middle of his back, and is also funny and talented. I can't say that Doug's cute since i didn't meet any girls who had blazing crushes on him.
day seven
Since i was just talking about Cesar, there he is in his "normal" clothes. Cesar and i are holding Josh up. He's actually pretty light. And dang, check out my sweet goggles!
There's all the Alaskan people i photographed. The girls are Siena, Bess, Callie and Tiffany. Oh yeah, and i got my picture taken with
Karrie, one of the leaders from the Alaska group.
There's Arianna and Tina. Arianna's from Hawai'i, and Tina talks fast.
There's Heidi looking natural, and me trying to look natural, but looking hopelessly dorky. Heidi ate her first peanut butter and jelly sandwich at camp, recited a poem including the rhyme "Eggo" and "Lego", and starred with her friend Angela in my montage photo of the rainbow, which i'll go ahead and post again here since it's so cool:
And that about sums up camp. At least the parts of it which i rememberd to photograph.
I've got my reservations about how Young Life does things, but the Holy Spirit can and does use pretty much everything to reach people. I saw kids get reached this year at camp. It was amazing, and i'm glad i went, even though i totally abandoned my dear wife during the busiest week of her life. I still don't know if i'm gonna go next year, but at least i won't look forward to the decision with foreboding.
And today, we goofed off all day on a lake, where i totally whacked up the tops of my feet tubing behind the DeJongh and Keuning's speedboat at crazy speeds. My feet hurt, not only from my poor sprained ankle and tired knees, but now from the beating they got from the waves! Pity me!!! Go read about today at
Karen's post for today.
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Okay... uh... it seems like i just spent about a million hours editing pictures to post here on my cute little weblog. But it's raining, Karen's watching a cool movie, we're going to early church tomorrow, and i'm not feeling all that good. Actually, that's not true - i feel
great now, but i didn't feel very good all day... and a shower and bed would just be the perfect thing to conclude my first full day back home in the blessed presence of my Karen and the kids. But as a taste of things to come (tomorrow, i promise), check out this coolest picture i may have ever taken. Well, the coolest picture i took since before camp, at least. Except maybe
this cool one of me that i accidentally took while i was putting Houston's car seat our Kia.
This picture is made up of about 20 little (if you count a 1,600 pixel wide image as "little") pictures that i sort of puzzled together using
The Gimp. I do believe that i could have gotten it a little cleaner if i wanted to spend a couple hours fading the edges and stuff, but it's still pretty cool. Here's the story:
There was a leader meeting, and we decided to alternate which meeting we attended, letting the other stay outside with the campers. To be a calming presence, as it were. Which pretty much means i spent the time talking to girls. I don't know if i helped anyone stay calm. I guess i hope so.
A meager rainbow crept up from the horizon, right over the big huge building that dominates the camp property. As i watched, it became a full rainbow, then as the intensity of the sunlight increased, it became a glorious double rainbow which soared through very nearly 180 degrees of an arc. The sun was almost on the horizon. Well, i gawked at the view, discussed it with passers by, and decided to try to capture this on film. Or CCD... whatever.
I was delighted to watch at least two, but perhaps four people whip out their cameras, find that the rainbow wouldn't fill their viewfinders, and walk backwards. It was so cute. It seems kind of obvious to me that a rainbow will appear the same size to you regardless of your position, so you could walk backwards for miles and only get bumped on the head by a tree branch or something - the rainbow would still fill
about 41 degrees of your angle of view. But i think i'm really weird to think of that kind of stuff. I praise God that He let me have the opportunity to see the glory of His creation. Rainbows symbolize promise. So cool.
My solution! - Get two cute girls, like Angela and Heidi, to stand as though they were holding up the rainbow!
- Take 24 pictures of the scene before me with the camera on repeat mode!
- Assemble the image in my computer wondering how in the world did i manage to make the buildings appear to be twice as big in some pictures as in others, the girls' hands and faces not match each other, and trying to deal with motion blur. And kick myself for not getting their feet in any of the frames. Oh wait... i got one of Angela's feet...
Here's a desktop worthy version of that picture.
Please join me tomorrow for all the pictures. There are thirty seven (37) of them, weighing in at a total of 1.67 megabytes, so be sure to give my weedy little server three or four minutes to upload all those pictures to you.
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I got back from Young Life Camp!!! I'm so excited and happy to see my family! I'll be posting a pretty long post down there, by the ___more___ link, so if you want to see all the pictures and hear about the days, click it like it's hot!
But until then, i'll just kind of ramble... So i skipped right over day 200. Oh well. That number isn't really all that important anyhow. I neam, it
is the smallest number which cannot be made prime by changing one of its numbers. Big frickin' deal. But i will stop rambling now, because Karen bought some extrordinary ice cream, and i want to eat a little bit with her.
*Please let me interject my not-rambling with a little more. I just clocked my computer back up to 2.8GHz, from where it was, at 1.3GHz, and the difference is, like, awesome. My system is popping with speed again, not slow as a squished lemon (huh?) but of course, i can feel the heat flowing from under my desk. Rats. Maybe i'll clock it back down for now, and clock it back up for tomorrow when i end up editing the pictures. And look at how orange i look in that picture! It's like, i'm as orange as Dave's shirt!!! I like to think that it looks more like a natural tan... which it is... maybe tan plus a little bit burn looks like orange T-shirt.*
Right, so how was camp?
Last year i left camp relieved to be out of there. I don't think i discussed it much in that post and the two following posts, but i sure managed to
show off, huh? I was frustrated by a great deal of disrespect i'd felt directed at all the leadership at camp, including me, and had felt like i was being forced into a staff role more and more often, until the end when i was exhausted. I feel like it was still a growing experience for me, and i hope that the kids who went remember it fondly.
But this year simply rocked. Minor frustrations still existed, like having people talk loudly within seconds of carefully being told to walk silently, saying "I know they're not shushing me" in response to leaders saying "shhhh". It seems obvious that a strong sense of entitlement, combined with absolutely no impulse control are held up in American culture as positive traits. I believe those two things are called "getting mine" and "keeping it real." Nevermind that scripture tells us to put others needs before our own, and as far as it is possible, live at peace with everyone.
Anyway... i will say that the boys and girls we took did very very well, and i sincerely enjoyed getting to know them better, and met dozens of lustrous, fascinating people who were not from our group.
___more___
Okay, it turns out that it's getting late, so i'm gonna not finish this post in the way i had intended. I'm gonna go sit next to Karen (who may already be asleep) and eat ice cream. Or fall asleep myself if, you know,
The Lizzie McGuire Movie fails to hold me entranced. You know, since i've already seen it six times, the entrancement value has kind of worn off a little. But if i have time tomorrow, i'll post a ton of pictures, and details to accompany them.
197
I'm at Young Life camp until... uh... next Friday night. I might post a quick note then! See you all!
196
It's been a while since i posted a picture of myself, so there i am! I've been using that picture as my desktop background for ... since we took that picture, i suppose.
My coworkers did almost all my paperwork for me. That's awesome!
Then Jennifer, who has appeared on these pages before, wrote me a carrel paper... or just a paper with a question on the top of it. That's what carrel papers are. See when a girl earns "carrel time" for breaking certain rules, they have to sit at a desk filling out papers which will hopefully encourage them to think about what choices are best.
Right... so Jennifer's carrel paper for me was this: What do you think makes a good husband? Well, since i've been a husband and stuff for over a decade, and i strive earnestly to be a good one, it wasn't much problem to fill a page. And, it's been bothering me that i'm abandoning my family for a whole week to go to Young Life Camp this next week. So don't expect no posts from me for the next week. Sorry. I didn't even write up any temp posts like i did last year.
But i'll go ahead and post what i think is a good husband in the ___more___ part....
___more___
Ethereal concepts: 1) Commitment -
agape. 2) Companionship -
philia. 3) Passion -
eros.
Like, this idea of three types of love is a concept beaten to death from countless pulpits and in innumerable books, but... you know... they got a point. So here's what i wrote:
- Commitment:Real, Honest, Genuine.
Same person all the time
has had friends for a long time who you think are good people.
Can talk about past relationships and how he behaved to the girls.
Ready to support you, even if it means humbling himself totally.
Stands up for your honor, not tyring to break it down!
- Companionship:You like each other!
Smart but not pretentious.
Similar enough becground, or at least you can understand his history.
Personlity is "compatible" with him. Funny....
good conversationlaist... listens
- Passion:He turns you on!
Understands a woman's needs. Fast learner! or at least willing to learn.
You think he's hot. You know... with muscles and crap.
Puts your needs, desires or interests ahead of his own.
**Will Take It Slow**
When he looks at you, you feel like you're amazing, not just "hot' or "sexy".
So there you have it. Of course i thought of other things to write later. But at least i drew a little diagram: "The bar stool of true love", with the legs labled agape, philia and eros, and an explanation: take away one leg, and you fall on yer booty!
195
Again today, i have little to say about what happened. Besides to share this wisdom:
You can't make the house a mess if you're outside.
That's why i take the kids outside for hundreds of minutes every time i am home without Karen. Taking a four hour walk is easier than keeping the house clean.
But that's not what i did today. I slept in, we hung about, Katrina spilled cereal in the kitchen, Karen went to somebody's house for dinner, i went to work, read my book, i came home.
And now it's late, totally on accident because i was chatting with Antony, so i have to go to bed.
194
Okay, check out
this link. Unbelievable. Sometimes i delude myself into thinking i'm pretty smart. Then i see stuff like this, and i am humbled. It's not that i don't like math. I love number theory. I think it's beautiful. But holy cow these people who understand what things like what a Kaprekar number is and how rooted trees have vertices and stuff. Simply amazing.
One time i read a book called "The Hollow Man" by ... Dan something, the same dude who wrote Hyperion, and the main characters were mathemeticians. They talked about math being like music, so orderly and beautiful, patterns within patterns, themes... and when i think about squares and primes, and how numbers can describe our universe, i catch a little glimpse of that music. But it must be like deaf people enjoying the bodily thump that goes along with loud bass, compared to a hearing person enjoying the melody and nuances of the same music.
I wish i could hear what mathemeticians hear. But then... my social skills would probably suffer.
I looked it up. Dan Simmons. It was a good book.
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Isn't that a great picture of Karen? Houston took it. He totally is a good photographer... at least... he's not intimidated by his subject matter.
I had a very nice day. Home was relaxing and fun. We went to eat at the Red Geranium. I went to work where four girls are gone due to them running away, and five of them were gone until 1.5 hours before my shift ended, due to them being at an amusement park. Leaving three girls for us to handle. The most stressful moment what when i had to decide whether or not to have a second scoopful of mandarin orange creamy cottage cheese dessert. In case you're stressing out too, you can relax. I took a small scoop.
So that was a nice short post, huh? I was going to tell this one story about this one kid who was really upset... but instead i'll just post a really cute picture of Katrina and Houston. It seems that my nice, happy, small, high performance camera being stolen allowed me to rediscover my nice, happy, small, beat up, quirky camera. All the pictures it takes are kind of soft focus. But the color balance is really nice. Click that ___more___ link for Katrina and Houston and flower goodness!
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Today we went on our customary Monday Long Walk, and it turned into a whole Vacation Bible School thing. It was propitious... is that what i mean??? Yeah, i guess that's about right... it was a favorable circumstance that i walked past Central Reformed Church (dunno if it's RCA reformed or CRC reformed, and really don't VanDen-Care) pretty much exactly at five o'clock, just when their VBS was scheduled to start, and there was baskets and a big tent on the lawn that Houston wanted desperately to investigate.
Uh, this post turned out to be long. So read the rest if you want.
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We found the non-stairs way to get up to where the baskets are, (which is probably responsible for dozens of rock hard wheelchair users' triceps) and somebody told us that we should go "downstairs" to eat lasagna. The generosity of strangers is something i cannot turn away, so i used my keenly tuned sense of smell to follow the aroma of
GFS lasagna to the church basement, where we registered Houston to be a certified attender of the Walk Through Jerusalem VBS. I don't know if Karen can take him tomorrow... we'll see. I didn't make any promises.
It was cool to see him in a class like setting. We wonder how he does in Sunday School. The adults always say he was "great", but that's meaningless. But he does do very well. He sat directly in front of the leader every time he could, sat quietly, nodded at all questions, and participated in everything he could. So he really does do great. When they were playing a game which is basically ring around the rosy, where you fall down at the end of the rhyme. Houston thought it was incredibly fun, and kept grabbing people's hands after they were done, trying to coax one more game out of the group. Then he held the hand of the teenaged girl who had humored him for a few microseconds as we walked to the next area. She looked a little nonplussed, but held his hand anyway. Who can resist Houston?
Katrina kept me busy. She scared some people by tottering off down a grassy hill toward the road, but jeez, i totally could have gotten her. She wasn't even off the curb yet. Some people are so uptight.
Then we went to Deanna's house, where we rang her doorbell. It rings her cell phone which is set to silent mode, so we sat on the steps of her apartment building dejected until i recognized her car on the street and yelled up at her window until she came outside to talk. Heh, i'm a dork. We talked for a few minutes, but then it was almost nine, so we trotted home as fast as i could.
A fun day. And this was gonna be a short post. Sorry. Hope it was entertaining.
