My House and a Zoo

Elena called from the beach asking if it was okay to bring a hermit crab home. I'm waiting for her return today, wondering if another little creature will be living in the house.

Of course, you know of all the antics of Eliot, Lucky and Darth Vader. The two goldfish that we caught at the swim team party died...I was not surprised. Tony decided he wanted a Beta..a Siamese Fighting Fish..to replace Wanda and Cosmo. His new fish is named Jar Jar.

Animals teach children a lot. They are also a comfort to them. I don't mind having them around as long as the animals behave themselves.

The kids are at Vacation Bible School this morning, the van is at the Ford dealer, and I am hoping that the weather will somehow change into a bearable summer.

I'm working on some writing about the Agnes hurricane.

Stay cool.

Superhero Competition

Well, it's been awhile. No excuses on this end, just a comment.
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Has anyone seen the latest reality type show on TV this season? Who Wants to be a Superhero? is a riot, although the first episode used some words I'd rather not have the kids hear. I think the editors could have edited that out. However, that being said, this show judges people by their values, not their sneakiness or ability to lie or even their athleticism.

The music is just right and Stan Lee's drawings add a great element to the show. I just told my sister and her boyfriend about the show this evening...(BTW Joe, how was that tomato sandwich?). It's on Thursday nights at 9 on the Sci-Fi Channel. Check it out on www.whowantstobeasuperhero.tv/ ....

I know most folks think reality shows are junk, but I find some redeeming merits in most of them. For example, on a recent Big Brother All Stars episode, I learned the lesson not to give up from a guy called Chicken George. He was up to be voted out of the house and thus out of the game, but had one chance to stay in the house through something called a veto competition. Anyway, during this competition, I thought at first that BBAS had crossed the line with the humiliation portion of their competitions. Chicken George showed me that you could do anything if you want to stay in the game badly enough. During the competition, he had all his hair shaved off his head, his skin dyed blue, obscenities written on his body, his normal food for 60 days taken away (he has to eat some foul food called slop), and give up his next veto competition.

I find lots of similarities in my life from these shows. Many of the people that participate in these endeavors remind me of many folks in my life. Maybe that's why I watch them.

I know that much of the behaviors I watch are examples of what NOT to do, and it brings up some great discussions with my eldest child. I'm using a broad brush here, so please don't get the idea I watch every reality show out there...I don't...

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Keep in mind that tomorrow is the 450th birthday of our parish's namesake...Saint Ignatius Loyola...if you can, send him a spiritual happy birthday.

Let It Go

There are so many times that we really need to release ourselves from the emotion we feel about a situation. I can say for sure that this is not an easy task. Sometimes I obsess over a situation until it drives me nuts....usually it's something I can't do anything about. The emotions involved in this arduous roller coaster ride are often strong, so the stress one puts on oneself is HUGE.

For example, if you are still quite angry over a serious situation that happened years ago, you should let it go. Grudges are the proverbial monkey on the back or the chip on the shoulder. It makes YOU miserable; most other people have forgotten about it or dealt with it.

If faced with a situation where you have done everything you can do to deal with your problem, and a fix has still not happened, let it go. If you make a mistake, own up to it, apologize, and let it go. If a situation at work puts you in a bad spot, do what you can, or talk to a person close to you for advice. If it's something you can't do anything about, let it go.

Sometimes you have to let people go out of your life...for a little while or a long while. It might be the healthiest action to take in many cases. This is most difficult and "tough love" kinda falls in this category. People you love who are addicts can fall in this category, too. Not easy.

I can see why people during Biblical Times would offer small unblemished doves at the Temple for sins. They could imagine the birds flying away, taking the problem/sin out of their lives. It's an image that everyone could understand.(Yeah, yeah, I know they slit their throats, but the image of them winging away is the one I prefer.)

If something is buggin' you today...let it go.
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Today is the last day of Little Tony's Boy Scout day camp week. He only went three of the days this week because of other commitments (one being a stomach sickness...I won't get into that). One of the days he broke a camp record for archery! Great job, Tony! He did pretty well on the BB guns, too. On Monday night he won the BIG SPLASH event for his age group at the Swim Team Party and brought home a water gun and two goldfish. What a fun week!
Elena is heading off for a mini vacation with a friend's family. Emma is recovering from a fall on a slippery diving board...I told her that she'd be healed before her Little Miss Italy contest, which satisfied her. I am looking forward to seeing Bob and Penny Lord from EWTN on Monday night at Holy Rosary Church. (If you haven't seen their show about saints, check it out.) I'm also looking forward to spending a little time with Marilyn and Stan, who are going to stop by on their way to Regina's in MD. Dad will be off to AC next month for three days. It seems as if everyone is on the move.
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If I were In Charge of Everything, everybody who works would get three or four months of vacation a year. Maybe we just need to work in Europe. See the smiley above.
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Good Results

I am happy to report that Creative Writing Camp at St. Ignatius School earned the library over $200 for new books. Thank you to all the students who participated and their parents who contributed to the library.

There is also a small display of unusual sea shells in the St. Ignatius Library. We loaned them from our collection. In turn, a wonderful woman named Nancy Taylor is the original owner of our collection. She spent many happy hours during her vacations, collecting, identifying, and buying some interesting shells. She died earlier this month, and it makes me feel great that she is still teaching visitors to the library about nature. Thanks, Nancy, and say hi to Mom for me.

North to the Southern Tier

This past weekend I discovered and hoped to take a Mark Twain trolley tour of Elmira, NY. Unfortunately, it rained...hard...and we made alternate plans. I have to thank Mother Nature for my choice to visit the Roberson on a rainy day.
It's a delightful museum with a planetarium in Binghamton, NY. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this fine institution is the fact that part of it is a beautiful mansion. Check it out at www.roberson.org ....If you are interested in Lithuanian Americans, look closely at the section regarding Joseph Mender, a self-trained artist.

We traveled up to the Southern Tier of New York "the back way"...which means we drove to Wilkes-Barre, caught the Cross Valley Expressway to the Back Mountain, drove through Tunkhannock and Meshoppen and continued on 26 up to Vestal. I've always enjoyed this ride quite a bit, not only because we get off I-81, but because of the bucolic roadside, especially the rural areas.

Some of the folks along our route did not weather the recent floods well. We saw many signs of damage: shoulders of roads caved in, trees down, a complete ballfield turned into a mud pit, piles of debris.

The area around our friends' home in Endwell suffered quite a bit of damage, too. We were sad to see that Christ the King Church had flood damage to its community area in the basement. Earlier in the year, I attended a wedding shower in that basement and thought it was a lovely place for friendly gatherings. We realized that this church is becoming our spiritual home when we visit our friends in Endwell. The people and pastor are welcoming and pleasant. They sing and smile a lot....our kind of place. Their website is listed on the Parish Bulletin as http://ctkendwell.catholicweb.com.

We also visited a place called The Broadway Diner in Endwell. If you ever get the chance, you gotta eat here...you won't be upset with the choice.

Well, it's back to Situation Normal here in Whitfield. Both Tonys are at Boy Scout Camp, I have another appointment at the eye doctor for a special test, and Emma is going to swim practice. Elena is on the phone, planning to go with a friend's family for a long weekend in Rehoboth. We'll be rooting for Wyomissing Hills at their away swim meet this evening at Wodenschiere Pool.

Go Hills! Please keep the people from the recent flooding in your prayers, especially the good folk at Christ the King.

Remote Feed

I'm typing this on Stan's laptop while visiting in Endwell. Very cool.

I am looking forward to borrowing my dad's book about the Agnes flood for some historical background for a story idea. He doesn't seem too happy about it, but I promised him I'd be careful...right after I dropped the book on the floor by accident.

My kids are having a great time ...especially with Jake and Bear...two great dogs.

Well, that's enough for today....I drove up here to visit, not type.

Ciao 'til Monday.

Perhaps a Dog

My son wants a dog in the worst possible way. I remember feeling that way.

We are investigating many possibilities, and taking our time with the choices. Right now he is imagining a West Highland Terrier...not picky about the color. My husband is imagining bites out of our new furniture, recently saved from Eliot. I am imagining who is going to be taking the dog for a walk and reserving kennels. I am wondering if Emma is imagining dressing the dog in doll clothes. (I bet she is...my sister and I used to do that to our cat, Snooky.) Elena is imagining the dog bringing all kind of terror to the other animals of the household.

However, Tony has already picked out a name for the dog if it is a girl. He wants to call her..."Mrs. Doyle" after a minor character on the BBC sitcom "Father Ted." Can you hear us? "Mrs. Doyle needs a walk. We have to take Mrs. Doyle to the vet. Does Mrs. Doyle want a puppy treat?"

Stop it. I can hear you laughing from here. At least we won't be calling the dog "Father Ted." "Father Ted, roll over. Father Ted, don't chew on my shoe. Father Ted needs more dog food."

Woof.

In Defense of Star Jones

According to that bastion of celebrity reporting, The National Enquirer, Star Jones in under seige from her former employers at The View.

First, Star Jones' weight or lack of it should have NOTHING to do with her continued employment. Why should she have to admit to the world that she had gastric bypass surgery or anything else? The paper showed a great timeline of photos illustrating her weight loss over the last three years. I applaud her for her great success over the last three years. It seems as if she's working on attaining a healthy weight, whether she has had surgery or not. Gastric bypass surgery does not work for everyone. In fact, there is no magic bullet for weight control; those of us who have problems in this area are bombarded with all kinds of supposed solutions. The only REAL solution is to monitor the diet and exercise...all the time. This is difficult and unending. The public carrying on about Ms. Jones makes it all the more horrendous.

Second, I am no fan of The View because of their very public dissing of the wonderful Judi Dench. The spin on her un-invitation to their show was that she was too OLD...Shame on them. They should be so lucky that this highly talented woman would even WATCH their show.

Finally, even though women are too OLD or too FAT to be on the ridiculous show, apparently Rosie O'Donnell is okay. I don't get it. To ostracize some women and laud others is kind of ridiculous. I predict that most women who consider just these few cases will not spend one minute of their days watching this lame TV show.

That's why my TV has an off button...and I use it.

Good luck, Star. I hope that your career will recover from this carrying on. I think it will.

Wyomissing Hills Swim Team

Congratulations to the Wyomissing Hills Swim Team. Tony and Emma and their team competed against Fleetwood in an exciting and close match-up. Tony, who just turned ten, swam in two events with the thirteen and fourteen year olds so that the team would get more points. Great job, Tony! I was amazed and delighted that the older boys thanked Tony for going up against those experienced and older kids. He gained a lot of respect yesterday...and I am proud of him. He is dropping weight so much that I think his swimsuit is getting too big at this point. Emma swam two exhibitions and was part of the freestyle relay to also help her team get points...Emma is in the six to eight year old group, and is going to be a formidable competitor someday. Way to go Emma.

I am proud of their entire team. They work hard, and I can see improvement every meet. They are supportive and kind to each other and are lucky to have a great coach during this year of building up the team. We lost by nineteen points, which is very very close for a swim meet.

Go Hills!

Parents of Adult Children

My husband told me that a friend of ours has a father that does not speak to him...and hasn't spoken to him in years. This man is a pillar of the community and highly regarded for his graciousness and goodness. His father does not speak to him because...are you ready for this?...he got married. His dad did not object to the woman herself. He objected because he wanted his son to be a priest. Our friend is the father of three great kids and the husband of a generous and beautiful woman, as well as being a successful professional. Right now he is considering becoming a deacon in his church. I am proud of him and glad to be his friend.

Another friend of ours has a brother who went through a messy divorce. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, the couple had no children. In my opinion this was a big part of the problem. Anyhow, his parents and some of his siblings refuse to speak to him. (After all, they have the perfect lives, right?) The good news is that both parties in the divorce have remarried, and my friend's brother has one son and another due in the fall. His new wife is charming and hasn't had an easy time of it, either. The most important thing I want to note here is that I never really saw my friend's brother smile before. He smiles all the time now.

I know of a woman who is separated from her husband for at least five or six years now, with no divorce in sight. Two kids, too. She allows Mr. Husband to pull all the strings because she's afraid of him. He won't give her money, and even got his girlfriend's cousin to "babysit" his kids because he's reluctant to pay daycare. He has control of two empty houses, and lives in his girlfriend's house, and she lives in a really not so nice rental. Sigh. The point here is that this woman requested that her mother go to work with her when she had to work out of town. And....mom went. This same woman used to ask her mom to go to the bank with her, too. She's over forty years old. Her parents need to speak up and tell her to file for that divorce so she can become more self-sufficient and get some self-esteem back. I'm afraid they won't.

I'm watching carefully and wishing all of these folks the best. Considering that I have three children, I need to learn what NOT to do when they become adults. Children still need their parents, no matter how old those children are...It's just a difficult line to discern...when are you meddling, and when are you needed, and when are you being silly, and when are you not tough enough?

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Prayer lines: for all the people mentioned above and for some neighbors with health issues and a baby of our parish who had a heart attack this week.

JPII Funeral

Google news is shouting the latest...John Paul II's funeral cost $9 million.

This is news? Thanks for sharing. I believe that it was appropriate spending. Yes, we could have spent that money doing a lot of "good" in the world. This was good, too. It continued to spread JPII's message and spirituality after his death. The ceremony was one of those moments where I am proud to be Catholic.

This is the pope included in the Fatima messages. This is the pope who reached out to young people. This is the pope who stood fast against the evil tide of our culture that forgets much of what is good. This is the pope that an evil faction tried to murder...and couldn't. This is the pope from Poland! This is the pope who touched many hearts.

I say we got off cheap.

Now let's hear him declared a saint.

Camp Ends

Today was the last day of my creative writing camp. Whew....It's the first time that I did it five days in a row. I enjoy getting kids to write and read more. Many of them have quite some talent.

I'm thinking of using Harry Potter as a theme for next year's camp. Unfortunately, many adults don't think these books are appropriate. Sorry, folks...Harry Potter is cool and belongs in school. I want people to read books before they just jump on the bandwagon and bash them....especially children's books. Heck, I censor my choices, we all do when we pick one book over another.

I've heard of a woman calling all the local Catholic school libraries. (Sheesh, she didn't even bother to make a personal appearance to ask her questions.) Her inquiry simply was if Harry Potter books were in the library. She did not want them in our libraries. When asked if she read them, you know what her answer was...no. EGADS! I'm sure she had no objections to The Scarlet Letter, for example...or maybe some of the new "chick lit" for teens. Perhaps she even accepted the Star Wars novellas or Animal Farm. I just wonder if she even LIKES to read. Ah, yes...I feel the soapbox under my feet here....

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Darth Vader is still in his home. Elena has decorated the aquarium with signs that include a picture of Darth Vader. One says..."CAUTION Very smart hamster lives here." Another has a picture of the real Darth Vader and says "Darth Vader lives here. The Sith is strong in him!"

Cracks me up.

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Please include the following people in your prayers. All have health issues today: Aunt Agnes, who is getting chemo right now. My cousin Dawn's dad, who's not eating and suffering from some kind of dementia. Marilyn's dad, who had a bad fall & may have had a stroke. Adam's cousin in Poland, who is suffering from a bad case of Crohn's.
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Remember, it's a great day to read a book. What are you reading? Let me know by leaving a title in a comment.

Garden Drive In

I just got an e-mail from the Garden Drive-in that they are back open for business after the June flooding out.

We had loads of fun at the Garden growing up and into our teenage years. I planned on making a visit with my kids this summer. We also would visit the Moonlight drive in or I think it was called the West Side drive-in.

All three of us would put our jammies on and gather snacks for the show. Dad and Mom always insisted on parking in a certain spot close to the rest room and snack bar...just in case. We got a good speaker, propped it on the window and got as comfortable as you can get in the back seat of a Chevy with your siblings.

I think we might have been viewing one of the Herbie movies, or maybe some other movie with Dean Jones in it, when my sister stated that she needed to use the rest room...now. We exited the white Chevy with the red interior, and went to the snack bar on our left. After using the facilities and adjusting our jammies appropriately, we headed back to the car.

All three of us jumped into the back seat of the Chevy. Unfortunately, it wasn't our Chevy with the red interior. There was a young couple making out in the front seat. Oops...wrong car, wrong side of the snack bar. We bolted out of that Chevy faster than we exited our own! (So much for my sense of direction!) I don't even think we apologized....

Ah, yes...the follies of our youth (snicker...)

Aunt Joanie to the Rescue

I am happy to report that Darth Vader has been recaptured. Little Tony yelled "there he is" while I was in the kitchen. I captured him next to the pots and pans earlier this afternoon. The first thing I did was to call in our animal expert, Joan.

"Help! I have Darth Vader in my hands...and he's twice the size he used to be."

Joan immediately roared into action. She advised us to put him in a shoebox with holes in it and put something heavy on top. We did. Ten minutes later, D.V. began chewing that box. We put him and the box into a tall laundry hamper. Two minutes later, he worked himself out of the box.

Two minutes or so after that, Joan rode to the rescue. She brought an aquarium, an aquarium stand and screening. We set everything up and D.V. was still making escape attempts. I duct taped the screening, but that doesn't seem to be stopping our fair hero hamster. He is hanging on it and trying to bite through it.

Right now, Joan and Elena are at the pet store to get a more satisfactory lid, watering bottle and maybe a wheel. Sheesh.

Tony and Emma and I are keeping a strict watch. D.V. is SO big and strong that as I type this, he is moving around his house (the former Skechers sneaker box that was his emergency confinement) about in one corner of the aquarium. Clever boy.

"Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose."

Egads.

Describe the Nothing

When my students have difficulties dealing with writer's block, I ask them to freewrite. What do they write about? Sometimes they describe the back of the head of the person in front of them. Many times, a student will write "I don't know what to write" a few times until he/she has the light bulb go off over his/her head. I usually ask them to describe nothing. What is nothing?

Nothing can be the amount in your bank account. You're good as long as the amount is not minus nothing. Nothing can be the amount of gray matter in the brain of certain "heir-heads." Nothing can stop a mother from helping her child. Nothing is what was here before God created the universe...no apologies to the evolutionists necessary.

Nothing can be how you feel about a relative forgetting your child's birthday...or you could feel a lot of something. Nothing can be the effect of gamma rays...or they could be something. Nothing would the same without certain people in our lives. Nothing could be the amount of trouble you get into.

Nothing could be the answer to many questions. "What's buggin' you? What did you do in school today? What did he/she do to you? What did you do to him/her? What's that in your hand/mouth/ear/nose?" Or the saddest of all..."What do you believe in?"

Nothing is kind of useful, in a way...

"Nothin' from nothin' leaves nothin'..."

Creative Writing Camp

I am having a great time with the kids at my Creative Writing Camp. This year we are working with a Wizard of Oz theme, although the boys always find a way to work Star Wars characters in their writing! The girls like to write princesses and animals into their stories. Anyhow, today we selected a Wizard of Oz character to write about. We did a walk down the Yellow Brick Road as if we were our chosen character. (I noticed some Michael Jackson/Tin Man hybrids.) Does anybody see Gregory Maguire's influence here? We are having a blast....Tommorrow we will be working on setting or place.

Minnie On The Loose

Every time my Auntie Helen would see a dog scratching, she would always say, "Oh dear, Minnie's on the loose." Minnie was her name for a possible flea on a dog. As we got older, my brother liked to go to flea markets to wheel and deal. We immediately made the connection between the Minnie flea and the flea market. Soon, we'd say things like "he went to see Minnie" to indicate my brother's flea market visit.

On Saturday, we got a space at a flea market sponsored by a Lions Club. I can see now how some people really enjoy the atmosphere and the search for bargains. I just wanted to get rid of some stuff and thought it might be fun to offer it at the sale instead of just running to Goodwill...again.

I had to get up WAY too early....and haul all the stuff over to the market. People were there looking before I even had the van unloaded. I did notice that if something was over one dollar, there had to be a very good reason, or most folks wouldn't buy it. I did sell a Harry Potter brand new item for $5.00, but I guess I just got lucky. I sold lots of kids clothing for .50 each, which people thought was fair. Somebody thought $3.00 was too much for a kid's chair. I felt bad for this particular family, so I said...okay, I'd sell it for $2.00. THAT was still too expensive, but I guess the little boy really wanted it, so the mom sprang for $1.25...I caved. If it's for a kid or a teacher, forget it....I'm a sucker.

My friend was selling some beautiful beaded jewelry. She's quite good at it, and very organized. Her pieces were $5.00 and up...most seemed to be earrings for $8.00 or $9.00. She had lots of lookers because the pieces were pretty, but no takers. We came to the conclusion that she was at the wrong market for her beaded creations. If her stuff was at a rock bottom price, she would have plenty of takers; however, it wouldn't be worth it, considering the materials and her time. She'd make a killing on e-bay, I bet.

I took almost everything I didn't sell to the Goodwill anyhow. I can look at the space these items occupied and smile. Minnie was on the loose.

Thanks, Minnie.

Texas Callin'

A good friend lives in Fort Worth, TX...Edna Lou, a lovely good-hearted woman. She calls us frequently and doesn't visit enough. Right now, we are planning to see her either in the fall, or at Christmas.

Anyway, Edna Lou called me on my cell phone at the pool on Independence Day. I was hoping the storm would hold off until our games were played. The sky was looking threatening, and the winds were picking up. The optimistic side of me wanted to hang on because, after all there was no thunder. Well, that phone rang and Edna Lou was reporting that the Weather Channel was reporting that "Readin' was gonna git it." She ordered all of us to get inside immediately. We skeedaddeled because everybody in our family knows that you don't mess with a Texan.

Lucky we did. The thunder and lightening put on a great show for us. It was all over in a short time and we did get to see a great fireworks display in West Reading that evening.

I noticed two things about this Fourth of July....

There must have been a clearance special on purple and green fireworks...

Steve Tyler performed with the Boston Pops. It was quite amusing to watch the violins trying to keep up with "Walk This Way"...

Thanks to Edna Lou for her weather warning. Maybe I'll return the favor someday. "Thanks y'all!"

Let Freedom Ring

Happy Independence Day!

I'm off to the pool for fun and games, so this entry will be really short. Can't miss the diving contest or the candy scramble or the greased watermelon, ya know!

Darth Vader Update

We caught D.V. at 3 am and placed him in his fortified cage. He escaped the cage before I got up around 7:00 am. Sheesh. I better get that aquarium and toss out his very expensive and cool hamster cage. Anybody need a hamster cage?

Tomato Plant Update

The tomato plant is suffering from its attack, and appears to have some stunted growth. No yellow flowers yet, but I am convinced that we will get a tomato out of this plant. Little Tony's cucumber plant is growing well, too. The beans and peas he planted have created a cool tepee of leaves.

God Bless America.

Part of Everyone's Family Tree

In the July 2, 2006 Sunday edition of the Reading Eagle (p B7) an article by the Associated Press appeared entitled "Researchers close in on ancestor of every living person." The subtitle says "Scholars are amazed to discover that someone who lived as recently as 2,000 years ago is part of everyone's family tree."

Here's another quote from late in the article: "It means when Muslims, Jews or Christians claim to be children of Abraham, they are all bound to be right."

No kidding. I loved this article because it explains the math that proves this to a math simpleton like me, and also explains how these researchers figured it all out with science and math.

This is great news because it proves what we have believed all along. Remember Noah and that flood? Dan Brown in his duh novel, The DaVinci Code repeats the claim that Noah was an albino and that is how albinism is passed through the generations. That can kind of correlate to this information a tiny bit, although I still think of this information as a startling Old Testament urban legend.

How about all those great Biblical stories about Abraham? Could it be true that we are all descended from him? You're darn-tootin'. Genealogists can trace people back for many generations, but unrecorded history becomes a problem, unless your ancestor had some kind of pedigree, royal, criminal (sometimes royal AND criminal), landowner, inventor, conqueror and so on and so forth. This new research seems to take care of that little genealogical quirk.

Our faith is just that, faith. It's nice when science and math bolster our views of our faith. Here's another part of the article:

"It also means that all of us have ancestors of every color and creed. Every Palestinian suicide bomber has Jews in his past. Every Sunni Muslim in Iraq is descended from at least one Shiite. And every Klansman's family has African roots.
How can this be?
It's simple math. Every person has two parents, four grandparents and eight great-grandparents. Keep doubling back through the generations -- 16, 32, 64, 128--and within a few hundred years you have thousands of ancestors.
It's nothing more than exponential growth combined with the facts of life. By the 15th century you've got a million ancestors. By the 13th you've got a billion. Sometime around the 9th century--just 40 generations ago--the number tops a trillion.
But how could anybody--much less everybody--alive today have had a trillion ancestors living during the ninth century?
The answer is, they didn't.
Imagine there was a man living 1,200 years ago whose daughter was your mother's 36th great grandmother, and whose son was your father's 36th great grandfather. That would put him on two branches on your family tree, one on your mother's side and one on your father's."

If you want to read the complete article, check out the Reading Eagle archives or contact me and I'll forward it to you.)

Interesting material....Now you can mathematically prove that a Bible story is real. Now you can honestly say that all men are brothers (okay, sorry about the sexist language, but I'm thinking of a hymn...). Wow.

That Time Thing

Didja ever notice that time thing?

After the 9/11 terrorist attack, it seemed that I looked at the clock, unconsciously, every morning and evening at exactly...you guessed it...9:11. It wasn't like I was sitting there, watching the clock waiting for it to appear....I just looked and that was the time. Weird, huh?

I am normally a fairly light sleeper. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night. Could be a child rooting around in the kitchen, or Tony coming home from work, or even an animal prowling for peanut butter. For a while, though, I would wake up exactly at 4:13 am. Every night. It wasn't a noise or a scheduled train going by...it was just...weird.

In high school, we were dismissed at 2:40 pm. I ALWAYS looked at the clock at 2:30, anticipating getting out of the hellhole or going to practice. That isn't weird, though.

7:11 is another time that I notice more than disregard. Maybe I just have a weird sense of humor.

In case you were wondering, I was born just in time for dinner.

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Darth Vader is still on the loose. Sigh.


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Celebrity News....source: Little Tony's actor friend, J.J., who is also 10.

J.J. landed a "background" (?) part in the Spiderman III movie. He says that the guy who plays Spiderman is "not very nice" because he rolls his eyes at people a lot. The J.J. report also says that Rose (?) an actress in the film is also "not very nice." She makes ugly faces at lesser-known actors, too. Alright, J.J.! Keep those celebrity tips coming! I wish J.J. a long and successful career.

The Dark Side

"Curse you Anakin Skywalker! I loved you..." written on a chalkboard on the first floor of Lytle Hall, Kutztown University during the Spring 2006 semester....

Darth Vader has been on the loose again. We thought we captured him with a bucket trap, but he escaped the trap because he was more awake than Elena at 4 am. Joanie has a have a heart mouse trap that I think we will have to borrow to capture the wily rodent. After capture, we probably will have to borrow an aquarium from her as Darth's new residence. I am considering an alarm system as well.

Emma has come to the conclusion that she does not want any more hamsters in the house. She worries that Eliot is going to get to Darth before we do. I told her that he probably has a hamster sized light saber ( of course it is RED....) that can protect him from Jedi cats.

Our little artist was delighted by this, and immediately began drawing a pictorial of The Adventures of Darth Vader Hamster. One of the best pictures looked like Darth Vader being rescued by a helicopter from the top of a very pointy building. There is also another where Eliot appears to have a sun surrounding him as he chases Darth Vader....

If you have any of your own adventures for Darth Vader, please record on the blog, and Emma will have fun drawing them. Please remember that Darth Vader must SURVIVE all his adventures!

Meanwhile, Lucky is being a very good boy, wondering why the washroom seems to be always torn apart.

"Hamtaro, little hamsters, big adventures..."