Before she started writing fictional gossip columns, she wrote an autobiography while still a puppy. Before I wrote sports for newspapers, I helped. Spelling errors intact, unfortunately can't replicate the heavily-impressed pencil lead onto the paper. I was about nine or so when I wrote this.
"Hi, I'm Sunny. I've got an older brother named Sport. My friends say that I'm really hyper. Those silly humans call us the Dog Culb. (I wonder why they say that?) Anyways, here's my story.
"I was born in a place called Westville, I think. My guy's dad went shopping and that's when He saw me. And so he went back to the place he came from and took my guy's mom to the store. They went back to the place they came from and asked my guy's Grand ma if it was okay to get me (you see, I'm half begle, and my guy wanted a begle ever since he saw some movie called Inspecter Gaget. Wried.) They got me.
"They took me to the place they lived and I met my new friends I love Morris!
"There's my story! Hope you liked it!
"Sunny
"P.S. Sport's auto is coming soon!"
(I never actually got around to writing an autobiography for Sport. He always seemed to business-like to take time to dictate things that nobody wanted to read.)
Friday, July 12, 2013
Sunny
You know the previous post? The one right below this one you're reading now, about how awful a week, and so far the month of July, has been?
It hasn't gotten better. At all.
My dog Sunny died yesterday afternoon(Thursday).
So I stood on the back porch in the pouring rain thinking back over the memories of our lives and all the lessons she helped me find out, wondering "Now what?"
I mean, what do you do when you lose someone you've known since you were nine, talked you through hard times, deaths of family members, offered advice when needed, listened to whatever's going on... Without a dog to listen, what do you do in times like that? How do you cope? Who do you talk to?
This story begins somewhere in late May of 2002, we're all gathered at the town house in Westville to celebrate mine and my aunt's birthdays. Mom goes running to Harps for something or other, milk, maybe, and as soon as she gets back grabs Dad and shoots back out of the driveway. When they come back, they go find Mimi and hold a whispered conversation. After we open the presents, somebody says we need to come outside. So we go through the kitchen into the garage and - right there, in a little box with a newspaper carpet - was a puppy! A little, fuzzy, cute-looking, honey-colored beagle puppy!
Well, half beagle. The other half was Lhasa Apso. (I've NEVER been able to spell that.) That still remains one of the strangest pedigrees I've ever heard of.
I've always liked small-to-medium-sized dogs, probably because I'm kind of a smaller-sized person. And Wishbone was a Jack Russell, and who doesn't want a Wishbone of their own? (Or a Buddy, for that matter?) But, anyway, I loved beagles especially, after seeing Inspector Gadget after the first garage sale we had in Morris, I sort of fell in love with Penny's beagle Brain. And Sport, well, he was good, but he was big. And he was more of Mom's dog more than anyone else's.
So there were these puppies at Harps, about eight weeks old, that were half beagle and half Lhasa Apso. The only Lhasa Apsos I knew were Taz and Ty Rae next door, who were always yapping whenever I'd play ball in the backyard. Anyway, Mom and Dad picked out the most beagle-ish-looking one for me.
I decided to name her Sunshine, calling her Sunny most of the time. I was one of the happiest boys in the world, first a basketball goal for my eighth birthday, and then a puppy for my ninth.
She was a mischievous puppy. Always digging holes and escaping the yard, then trotting triumphantly around the neighborhood. If I could fit my sneaker into a hole in the chain-link fence, she could and did escape from there. A place where an armadillo punched a gap through gave me particular trouble. So I'm very good at plugging holes in fences now with whatever's handy; rocks, sticks, cement blocks, overturned wagons, etc. Other than that, she joined the neighborhood's Dog Club quickly and fit in seamlessly. She also developed her camouflaging abilities, hiding in plain sight in the dead grass. She was very good at that.
Her name didn't really match her personality; she was always a little gloomy, complaining or worrying about something. Like owner like pet, maybe? Very rarely was she "happy", but contented, more or less, and when things were well, her joyfullness was something to see, radiating a warm glow of happiness out to reach whoever was nearby.
The next year we got Shadow, a large ball of fun-loving energy, the half Lab/half Airedale was the only dog I've ever successfully taught how to play fetch. He became second-in-rank pretty quickly, just because of his size, and so Sunny settled resignedly into the role of the pack's omega dog.
Well, we moved across the county to Beggs about a year and a half later, and the next summer she had her first litter of puppies on the day of Ronald Reagan's funeral. There were nine of them, all given weather-related names: Avalanche, Cloudy, Eclipse, Hailey, Hurricane, Sunset, Thunderbolt, Windy and Pawprint. Courtney named Pawprint, because he had a large black paw-mark on the side of his white coat. He only lived about three days, before we could name the rest. Three puppies were stillborn, so they remain nameless.
I was freaking out, so was Sunny, it was STRESSFUL!
Cloudy, Eclipse and Pawprint were black-and-white, Cloudy fit his name well, he was sorta dull and drab. Eclipse was sweet, but otherwise pretty average, too. Thunderbolt and Hurricane were solid brown, the color of a slightly-melted Hershey's on a sunny day. Thunderbolt, named after the famous TV star in 101 Dalmatians, was very much a rough-and-tumble kind of guy, a leader, very bossy. Hurricane was one of the runts, he was kind of timid, and he got picked on often. The siblings he got along with best were Hailey and Windy. They were Shadow's; with his mostly-black-with-brown-trim coloring. Hailey was the smallest of any of them, even Hurricane was bigger, but she was spunky. She'd always be willing to play or fight with anybody, and got into lots of arguments with Sunset. She got her name from Hailey's Comet, which I think I was studying about then. Windy was one of the largest puppies, and by far the most lethargic. She just never did anything, and she smelled terrible. I think she had some kind of disability(yes, I think dogs can have special needs). Avalanche was certainly overshadowed by his twin, he was always second-best at most games. Sunset was the oldest, and so she had all those qualities that go with it. She was tops at everything or near it, skilled not only at her Playing Games classes and nosing her way to the front of the food line, but also other important subjects such as Listening to People, Cuddling and Looking Cute. She even did decently well in Intro to Fetch. And she and Avalanche had that classic beagle calico coat, splotches of light and dark brown on a white base coat.
My favorites of this litter were Sunset and Hailey, it was incredibly hard to see them leave. Of course Sunset was the first pup chosen, and then Hurricane and Avalanche. Hailey was close behind them to finding her Mys, and so we took the rest to Wal-Mart one day, in order to find homes for them. It was hot that day. The rest found homes, Windy getting chosen last. Except for Eclipse. She was one of the pups in the running to stay, her main rivals for this honor were Sunset, Avalanche and Hailey. And then when they were chosen by other people, she was picked to stay and grow up as the fourth member of the dog pack.
Several years went by, and it was time for Sunny to have another litter, this bunch was born near my birthday. This time their names were delayed by the fact that Dad and I were in Kansas City. We'd already used a weather theme; and flowers were reserved for cats; as was Pixar characters. So we went with candy. These puppies were Fastbreak, Hershey, Kit Kat, Snickers, M&M, Milky Way, Overload, Payday, Rolo, Snickers and Twix. They were tolerated grumpily by Sport, Shadow was sort of an uncle to the ones that weren't his. Klipsey, a young teenager by now, was the ditzy babysitter most of the time. "Mom, I'll watch the kids if you'll give me a raise on my food allowance!"
Fastbreak, Milky Way and Overload were all solid brown like Hurricane and Thunderbolt were, the calicoed pups were Kit Kat, Snickers, Payday and Twix, and Shadow's were Hershey, M&M and Rolo.
Most of them weren't as full-of-personality as the first litter, and it wasn't as easy to tell them all apart. Rolo was fat, like the candy, and stationary. Fastbreak was named after the then-new Reese's Fastbreak bar, Overload was a Reese's-like candy found only at QuikTrip with cookies set on top of the peanut butter cups.
Kit Kat and Snickers were the top dogs, I guess, taking the roles passed to them by Avalanche and Sunset. I had this dream once, just after they'd all been taken, that I'm coming around the house headed for the barn, and Snickers is leading this charge of puppies towards me. And then I could suddenly see out of my right eye. Always sort of wished that dream really happened.
And besides being a sort-of-grouchy mother, Sunny was a very good listener. Whether it was moving, or trying to cope with deaths or whatever, she was always there to help things get straightened out.
This grief....it's like when Mimi died. Grandmothers are wonderful people, and their love is only matched by dogs'. You can talk about just about anything with them. And the hurt in the empty space once they go, it never fully heals. And not just when Mimi died, either. Dado, too. And to a definitely lesser extent, Nina, Grandma Bates or Grandma Joy.
Not even just people, animals' deaths sting, too. When the puppies were gone, Shadow was shot, Klipsey run over, Sport died, Jenny arrested, Pepper's owner was found, the disappearances of Ann, Dan and Georgie.
The long list of wonderful cats, each special in their own way. Meowie, Princess, Daisy, Minnie, Creek, Cricket, Firefly, Buzz, Milo, Dodge, Cadillac, Tulip, Dot, Lady, Liesel, Brigitta, Duchess, Skittles, Benjy, Maggie, Meg, the others I can't quite remember.
Dixie the paint horse sold at the auction, the deaths of Rocky and Swiftdust the guinea pigs, Libby the goat hanging herself. Stormy, Lucy, Lizzie and Patty the goats moving.
Dealing with the remodeling, all that chaos; or talking about the frustrations of finding a place in the church, in the youth group, with the homeschool group, problems about girls, things going on in friends' lives needing prayer, she'd listen. Life is confusing, and a good dog can do wonders. It's also hard, and they help cheer us up, remind us that they still love us, even if things aren't going right.
When Trevor or Amy was on the way or being born, or we were considering adopting that Russian girl with spina bifida, or those times of deep loneliness, when friends were scarce and the younger kids were all doing something together, wondering what life would be like if the baby between Courtney and I had lived, always thought of it as a sister named Lindsay. She would've been about a year younger than me.
Helping with when I was working on a new story and some point wasn't resolving itself right, or the plot suddenly ran dead, or which characters could be introduced to make the story better. Pondering the amazing work of Pixar, or the people behind Sam Raimi's Spider-Man movies. Jan Karon's beautifully-done town of Mitford, the characters found in the Anne of Green Gables series, The Princess Bride, Charlotte's Web, The Book of Virtues, going through the Chronicles of Narnia for the zillionth time.
With the choir, and then drama, all the musicals and plays, that were really pointless by themselves, but incredibly important at the time and key in my growing up.
When I was drowning in red tape, trying to attempt to learn to drive, what life could be if that was possible, how much easier in some ways it would be. As one example, that's sort of why I haven't really been in a relationship but that once. I could get an actual job anyplace when things were slow at the paper, go hang out with friends any time. Things like that. All the mess of trying to figure out what I wanted to study in college, the forms that needed filling out ASAP, applying to a few colleges, the endless questioning of well-meaning people, figuring out which college to attend, the agony of life this past year in a spiritually vacant bubble.
All the weird injuries; my breaking a finger playing basketball or a toe running into a cardboard box, Dad falling off a ladder and hurting his ribs, or the roof and tearing up his shoulder, Caleb and Trevor splitting their heads open on furniture.
I was scared to death just before heading to camp, and nervous about Youth Tour, unsure about graduation, petrified of college. Sunny helped calm me down, told me I'd get through them.
She was lying there by my feet providing comfort and encouragement when typing or writing an article, hiding under my bed when there were storms or Mom was going to get her in trouble for something. She didn't completely understand my wanting to learn to play guitar, but was there to say something good all the times when I wanted to fire Abby Lee into the wall and give up.
She took up chronicling local events for her weekly gossip column in the Fenceville Weekly News, of course, I had to help her type, since dogs don't have thumbs, but she dictated. It was also good practice for me.
So...I'm still not doing too well. And all too soon I have to go back to (shudders) college. Without Sunny as backup, or Skeet. Copper understands college a little better than they did, but they knew me so well. Things seem messy and complicated already, before all this, now - What on Earth am I supposed to do now, Lord? What could I possibly be learning? How can I go on to face whatever's coming? God seems kind of far away right now, His promises I'm having trouble clinging to. That sounds horrible to say, but...animals are usually easier to get along with than people. And grief is hard, when it's someone you love.
I know she was just a dog. But, at the same time, you have to realize: She was a dog, and everything that goes with that. She was my dog. There's only one or two dogs who ever are tasked with that crucial task of raising a boy. One of the quotes from The Little Rascals that's always stuck with me, besides the all the obvious lines, is when Stymie tells Alfalfa, "All I know is, you only make a once-in-a-lifetime buddy, once in a lifetime."
Amanda messaged me late last night, kind of a "bearing one another's burdens" sort of thing. That was good. Ravi, too, and Steven and Jamie and Shelly and several other people also expressed their condolences. It isn't much, but at the same time, it means everything. Kind of like after the fire, or with Mrs. Boyer's card, or a volleyball game being played when needed. One of those evidences of God's mercy and faithfulness when otherwise it's very dark.
Things will, very slowly, begin to get better at some point. Eventually the ache will be tucked away, the gushing wound mostly stitched shut. But that time isn't here just yet.
Love you, Sunny. Miss you so, so much.
It hasn't gotten better. At all.
My dog Sunny died yesterday afternoon(Thursday).
So I stood on the back porch in the pouring rain thinking back over the memories of our lives and all the lessons she helped me find out, wondering "Now what?"
I mean, what do you do when you lose someone you've known since you were nine, talked you through hard times, deaths of family members, offered advice when needed, listened to whatever's going on... Without a dog to listen, what do you do in times like that? How do you cope? Who do you talk to?
This story begins somewhere in late May of 2002, we're all gathered at the town house in Westville to celebrate mine and my aunt's birthdays. Mom goes running to Harps for something or other, milk, maybe, and as soon as she gets back grabs Dad and shoots back out of the driveway. When they come back, they go find Mimi and hold a whispered conversation. After we open the presents, somebody says we need to come outside. So we go through the kitchen into the garage and - right there, in a little box with a newspaper carpet - was a puppy! A little, fuzzy, cute-looking, honey-colored beagle puppy!
Well, half beagle. The other half was Lhasa Apso. (I've NEVER been able to spell that.) That still remains one of the strangest pedigrees I've ever heard of.
I've always liked small-to-medium-sized dogs, probably because I'm kind of a smaller-sized person. And Wishbone was a Jack Russell, and who doesn't want a Wishbone of their own? (Or a Buddy, for that matter?) But, anyway, I loved beagles especially, after seeing Inspector Gadget after the first garage sale we had in Morris, I sort of fell in love with Penny's beagle Brain. And Sport, well, he was good, but he was big. And he was more of Mom's dog more than anyone else's.
So there were these puppies at Harps, about eight weeks old, that were half beagle and half Lhasa Apso. The only Lhasa Apsos I knew were Taz and Ty Rae next door, who were always yapping whenever I'd play ball in the backyard. Anyway, Mom and Dad picked out the most beagle-ish-looking one for me.
I decided to name her Sunshine, calling her Sunny most of the time. I was one of the happiest boys in the world, first a basketball goal for my eighth birthday, and then a puppy for my ninth.
She was a mischievous puppy. Always digging holes and escaping the yard, then trotting triumphantly around the neighborhood. If I could fit my sneaker into a hole in the chain-link fence, she could and did escape from there. A place where an armadillo punched a gap through gave me particular trouble. So I'm very good at plugging holes in fences now with whatever's handy; rocks, sticks, cement blocks, overturned wagons, etc. Other than that, she joined the neighborhood's Dog Club quickly and fit in seamlessly. She also developed her camouflaging abilities, hiding in plain sight in the dead grass. She was very good at that.
Her name didn't really match her personality; she was always a little gloomy, complaining or worrying about something. Like owner like pet, maybe? Very rarely was she "happy", but contented, more or less, and when things were well, her joyfullness was something to see, radiating a warm glow of happiness out to reach whoever was nearby.
The next year we got Shadow, a large ball of fun-loving energy, the half Lab/half Airedale was the only dog I've ever successfully taught how to play fetch. He became second-in-rank pretty quickly, just because of his size, and so Sunny settled resignedly into the role of the pack's omega dog.
Well, we moved across the county to Beggs about a year and a half later, and the next summer she had her first litter of puppies on the day of Ronald Reagan's funeral. There were nine of them, all given weather-related names: Avalanche, Cloudy, Eclipse, Hailey, Hurricane, Sunset, Thunderbolt, Windy and Pawprint. Courtney named Pawprint, because he had a large black paw-mark on the side of his white coat. He only lived about three days, before we could name the rest. Three puppies were stillborn, so they remain nameless.
I was freaking out, so was Sunny, it was STRESSFUL!
Cloudy, Eclipse and Pawprint were black-and-white, Cloudy fit his name well, he was sorta dull and drab. Eclipse was sweet, but otherwise pretty average, too. Thunderbolt and Hurricane were solid brown, the color of a slightly-melted Hershey's on a sunny day. Thunderbolt, named after the famous TV star in 101 Dalmatians, was very much a rough-and-tumble kind of guy, a leader, very bossy. Hurricane was one of the runts, he was kind of timid, and he got picked on often. The siblings he got along with best were Hailey and Windy. They were Shadow's; with his mostly-black-with-brown-trim coloring. Hailey was the smallest of any of them, even Hurricane was bigger, but she was spunky. She'd always be willing to play or fight with anybody, and got into lots of arguments with Sunset. She got her name from Hailey's Comet, which I think I was studying about then. Windy was one of the largest puppies, and by far the most lethargic. She just never did anything, and she smelled terrible. I think she had some kind of disability(yes, I think dogs can have special needs). Avalanche was certainly overshadowed by his twin, he was always second-best at most games. Sunset was the oldest, and so she had all those qualities that go with it. She was tops at everything or near it, skilled not only at her Playing Games classes and nosing her way to the front of the food line, but also other important subjects such as Listening to People, Cuddling and Looking Cute. She even did decently well in Intro to Fetch. And she and Avalanche had that classic beagle calico coat, splotches of light and dark brown on a white base coat.
My favorites of this litter were Sunset and Hailey, it was incredibly hard to see them leave. Of course Sunset was the first pup chosen, and then Hurricane and Avalanche. Hailey was close behind them to finding her Mys, and so we took the rest to Wal-Mart one day, in order to find homes for them. It was hot that day. The rest found homes, Windy getting chosen last. Except for Eclipse. She was one of the pups in the running to stay, her main rivals for this honor were Sunset, Avalanche and Hailey. And then when they were chosen by other people, she was picked to stay and grow up as the fourth member of the dog pack.
Several years went by, and it was time for Sunny to have another litter, this bunch was born near my birthday. This time their names were delayed by the fact that Dad and I were in Kansas City. We'd already used a weather theme; and flowers were reserved for cats; as was Pixar characters. So we went with candy. These puppies were Fastbreak, Hershey, Kit Kat, Snickers, M&M, Milky Way, Overload, Payday, Rolo, Snickers and Twix. They were tolerated grumpily by Sport, Shadow was sort of an uncle to the ones that weren't his. Klipsey, a young teenager by now, was the ditzy babysitter most of the time. "Mom, I'll watch the kids if you'll give me a raise on my food allowance!"
Fastbreak, Milky Way and Overload were all solid brown like Hurricane and Thunderbolt were, the calicoed pups were Kit Kat, Snickers, Payday and Twix, and Shadow's were Hershey, M&M and Rolo.
Most of them weren't as full-of-personality as the first litter, and it wasn't as easy to tell them all apart. Rolo was fat, like the candy, and stationary. Fastbreak was named after the then-new Reese's Fastbreak bar, Overload was a Reese's-like candy found only at QuikTrip with cookies set on top of the peanut butter cups.
Kit Kat and Snickers were the top dogs, I guess, taking the roles passed to them by Avalanche and Sunset. I had this dream once, just after they'd all been taken, that I'm coming around the house headed for the barn, and Snickers is leading this charge of puppies towards me. And then I could suddenly see out of my right eye. Always sort of wished that dream really happened.
And besides being a sort-of-grouchy mother, Sunny was a very good listener. Whether it was moving, or trying to cope with deaths or whatever, she was always there to help things get straightened out.
This grief....it's like when Mimi died. Grandmothers are wonderful people, and their love is only matched by dogs'. You can talk about just about anything with them. And the hurt in the empty space once they go, it never fully heals. And not just when Mimi died, either. Dado, too. And to a definitely lesser extent, Nina, Grandma Bates or Grandma Joy.
Not even just people, animals' deaths sting, too. When the puppies were gone, Shadow was shot, Klipsey run over, Sport died, Jenny arrested, Pepper's owner was found, the disappearances of Ann, Dan and Georgie.
The long list of wonderful cats, each special in their own way. Meowie, Princess, Daisy, Minnie, Creek, Cricket, Firefly, Buzz, Milo, Dodge, Cadillac, Tulip, Dot, Lady, Liesel, Brigitta, Duchess, Skittles, Benjy, Maggie, Meg, the others I can't quite remember.
Dixie the paint horse sold at the auction, the deaths of Rocky and Swiftdust the guinea pigs, Libby the goat hanging herself. Stormy, Lucy, Lizzie and Patty the goats moving.
Dealing with the remodeling, all that chaos; or talking about the frustrations of finding a place in the church, in the youth group, with the homeschool group, problems about girls, things going on in friends' lives needing prayer, she'd listen. Life is confusing, and a good dog can do wonders. It's also hard, and they help cheer us up, remind us that they still love us, even if things aren't going right.
When Trevor or Amy was on the way or being born, or we were considering adopting that Russian girl with spina bifida, or those times of deep loneliness, when friends were scarce and the younger kids were all doing something together, wondering what life would be like if the baby between Courtney and I had lived, always thought of it as a sister named Lindsay. She would've been about a year younger than me.
Helping with when I was working on a new story and some point wasn't resolving itself right, or the plot suddenly ran dead, or which characters could be introduced to make the story better. Pondering the amazing work of Pixar, or the people behind Sam Raimi's Spider-Man movies. Jan Karon's beautifully-done town of Mitford, the characters found in the Anne of Green Gables series, The Princess Bride, Charlotte's Web, The Book of Virtues, going through the Chronicles of Narnia for the zillionth time.
With the choir, and then drama, all the musicals and plays, that were really pointless by themselves, but incredibly important at the time and key in my growing up.
When I was drowning in red tape, trying to attempt to learn to drive, what life could be if that was possible, how much easier in some ways it would be. As one example, that's sort of why I haven't really been in a relationship but that once. I could get an actual job anyplace when things were slow at the paper, go hang out with friends any time. Things like that. All the mess of trying to figure out what I wanted to study in college, the forms that needed filling out ASAP, applying to a few colleges, the endless questioning of well-meaning people, figuring out which college to attend, the agony of life this past year in a spiritually vacant bubble.
All the weird injuries; my breaking a finger playing basketball or a toe running into a cardboard box, Dad falling off a ladder and hurting his ribs, or the roof and tearing up his shoulder, Caleb and Trevor splitting their heads open on furniture.
I was scared to death just before heading to camp, and nervous about Youth Tour, unsure about graduation, petrified of college. Sunny helped calm me down, told me I'd get through them.
She was lying there by my feet providing comfort and encouragement when typing or writing an article, hiding under my bed when there were storms or Mom was going to get her in trouble for something. She didn't completely understand my wanting to learn to play guitar, but was there to say something good all the times when I wanted to fire Abby Lee into the wall and give up.
She took up chronicling local events for her weekly gossip column in the Fenceville Weekly News, of course, I had to help her type, since dogs don't have thumbs, but she dictated. It was also good practice for me.
So...I'm still not doing too well. And all too soon I have to go back to (shudders) college. Without Sunny as backup, or Skeet. Copper understands college a little better than they did, but they knew me so well. Things seem messy and complicated already, before all this, now - What on Earth am I supposed to do now, Lord? What could I possibly be learning? How can I go on to face whatever's coming? God seems kind of far away right now, His promises I'm having trouble clinging to. That sounds horrible to say, but...animals are usually easier to get along with than people. And grief is hard, when it's someone you love.
I know she was just a dog. But, at the same time, you have to realize: She was a dog, and everything that goes with that. She was my dog. There's only one or two dogs who ever are tasked with that crucial task of raising a boy. One of the quotes from The Little Rascals that's always stuck with me, besides the all the obvious lines, is when Stymie tells Alfalfa, "All I know is, you only make a once-in-a-lifetime buddy, once in a lifetime."
Amanda messaged me late last night, kind of a "bearing one another's burdens" sort of thing. That was good. Ravi, too, and Steven and Jamie and Shelly and several other people also expressed their condolences. It isn't much, but at the same time, it means everything. Kind of like after the fire, or with Mrs. Boyer's card, or a volleyball game being played when needed. One of those evidences of God's mercy and faithfulness when otherwise it's very dark.
Things will, very slowly, begin to get better at some point. Eventually the ache will be tucked away, the gushing wound mostly stitched shut. But that time isn't here just yet.
Love you, Sunny. Miss you so, so much.
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
A Rough Week
This hasn't been a very good week.
We're all kind of run-down and worn-out, for no good reason. There's been lots of doctor appointments and things like that recently, which are very tiring. It's very hot outside. A random hen died for no reason on a nest of eggs. There was the Fourth of July last Thursday. And I'm out of shampoo.
One of our two cats, Meg, went missing Wednesday or Thursday. We didn't think much of it, other than "That's strange. But, you know, she's a cat, and cats do those sort of things once in a while." She came back about Friday, limping. Probably bolted from the fireworks, trying to hide, and then got run over by a car on the highway. Then she willed herself back to the barn, where she died a slow and painful death.
I know it's part of life, and she was only a cat. And I didn't even know her that well. But still, she was a cat, and a good mouser, and everyone else loved her very, very much. It's hard.
The church picnic was Sunday night, it's held about once or twice a summer. Lots of sitting on blankets and lawn chairs and talking about nearly every subject imaginable. And eating good food. I kind of floated from group to group, listening here, watching a little kid there, that sort of thing. There was this soccer game that got going late in the evening, kids and teens and adults all mixed together, I was taking a turn at goalie. A corner kick came in from the left side, the ball was juggled around. It bounced wildly off one lady's foot, straight into my face. She didn't mean to hit me, obviously; and the ball didn't go through the net, but I think I'm gonna have a good-sized black eye in a couple days. A small scratch showed up just above my left eye.
Monday morning we're going about the morning chores when Mom rushed back into the house. "Skeet is dead!" We stare blankly. He was just lying there on the ground, just like he was asleep and didn't wake up. You don't expect a healthy three-year-old dog to just suddenly die out of the blue....
It hurts. A lot.
He wasn't the smartest dog ever or anything, specially not for being equal parts border collie and Australian Shepherd, but he was good. A little excitable maybe, but friendly. And very, very kind to Amy.
It's very hard.
And so now Sunny is all alone in the backyard, with a body growing frailer and more tick-ridden by the day. Her right eye is blind, her hearing starting to slip. Joints are stiffer than they used to be. But there are still memories intact, for both me and her. But she's lonesome. And we all ache, so much.
We're all kind of run-down and worn-out, for no good reason. There's been lots of doctor appointments and things like that recently, which are very tiring. It's very hot outside. A random hen died for no reason on a nest of eggs. There was the Fourth of July last Thursday. And I'm out of shampoo.
One of our two cats, Meg, went missing Wednesday or Thursday. We didn't think much of it, other than "That's strange. But, you know, she's a cat, and cats do those sort of things once in a while." She came back about Friday, limping. Probably bolted from the fireworks, trying to hide, and then got run over by a car on the highway. Then she willed herself back to the barn, where she died a slow and painful death.
I know it's part of life, and she was only a cat. And I didn't even know her that well. But still, she was a cat, and a good mouser, and everyone else loved her very, very much. It's hard.
The church picnic was Sunday night, it's held about once or twice a summer. Lots of sitting on blankets and lawn chairs and talking about nearly every subject imaginable. And eating good food. I kind of floated from group to group, listening here, watching a little kid there, that sort of thing. There was this soccer game that got going late in the evening, kids and teens and adults all mixed together, I was taking a turn at goalie. A corner kick came in from the left side, the ball was juggled around. It bounced wildly off one lady's foot, straight into my face. She didn't mean to hit me, obviously; and the ball didn't go through the net, but I think I'm gonna have a good-sized black eye in a couple days. A small scratch showed up just above my left eye.
Monday morning we're going about the morning chores when Mom rushed back into the house. "Skeet is dead!" We stare blankly. He was just lying there on the ground, just like he was asleep and didn't wake up. You don't expect a healthy three-year-old dog to just suddenly die out of the blue....
It hurts. A lot.
He wasn't the smartest dog ever or anything, specially not for being equal parts border collie and Australian Shepherd, but he was good. A little excitable maybe, but friendly. And very, very kind to Amy.
It's very hard.
And so now Sunny is all alone in the backyard, with a body growing frailer and more tick-ridden by the day. Her right eye is blind, her hearing starting to slip. Joints are stiffer than they used to be. But there are still memories intact, for both me and her. But she's lonesome. And we all ache, so much.
Sunday, July 7, 2013
Stupid Things I've Said
This is a list of when my grasp of spoken English sometimes hits incredibly inept levels...
(While talking to Amanda, September 2012) "I wonder what people would do if I started howlin' at the moon..."
(Needing a book from campus library to write a research paper, January 2013) "Umm...are you allowed to check out books in this library?"
(I was cleaning the house, searching for a dustpan, fall 2011?) "Where is that....you know....the, uh...that sweepercatcher thing?"
(Playing Settlers of Catan with Courtney and Caleb, trying to think of the word 'forest', March 2013) "Nope, no wood here. At least, not for trading - I need all the wood I have in my lumberfields to use for building plans."
(Talking of differences between American and English punctuation, June 2013) "...Like the way they use "s" where we'd put a "z", in say, "recognize". Or "insight". Wait....that's not...never mind."
(In the midst of a power struggle with a particularly stubborn container, in a motivational-type speech to myself, July 2013) "I am smarter than a box of cookies!"
(While talking to Amanda, September 2012) "I wonder what people would do if I started howlin' at the moon..."
(Needing a book from campus library to write a research paper, January 2013) "Umm...are you allowed to check out books in this library?"
(I was cleaning the house, searching for a dustpan, fall 2011?) "Where is that....you know....the, uh...that sweepercatcher thing?"
(Playing Settlers of Catan with Courtney and Caleb, trying to think of the word 'forest', March 2013) "Nope, no wood here. At least, not for trading - I need all the wood I have in my lumberfields to use for building plans."
(Talking of differences between American and English punctuation, June 2013) "...Like the way they use "s" where we'd put a "z", in say, "recognize". Or "insight". Wait....that's not...never mind."
(In the midst of a power struggle with a particularly stubborn container, in a motivational-type speech to myself, July 2013) "I am smarter than a box of cookies!"
Friday, July 5, 2013
You Are What You Like
So, a while back I heard of this site called www.youarewhatyoulike.com. It's one of those personality testers, except it attempts to compile your personality through what you've liked on Facebook. Not sure how accurate it is, but it's interesting. These are the answers I got.
"Conservative and traditional, rather than liberal and artistic" - This trait refers to the extent you prefer novelty versus convention. Based on what you like, you dislike needless complexity, and prefer the familiar to the unusual. You might say that you are conservative and value practical outcomes over flighty imagination."
"Calm and relaxed, as opposed to stressed" - This trait refers to the way you cope with, and respond to, the demands of life. Your likes suggest you are calm and emotionally stable. You come across to others as someone who is rarely bothered by things, and when they do the feeling does not persist for very long."
"Well organized, versus spontaneous and flexible" - This trait refers to the extent which you prefer an organized, or flexible, approach in life. From what you like, you are someone who avoids forseeable trouble through purposeful planning, and you achieve success through persistence. From your responses it appears that you are reliable and prepared for the challenges of life."
"Outgoing, friendly and active, rather than reserved and shy" - This trait refers to the extent that you enjoy company, and seek excitement and stimulation. From your likes, you are energetic and active. You enjoy and actively seek out social occasions, and you especially enjoy talking with a big group of people."
"Warm, trusting and cooperative, rather than assertive and competitive." - This trait refers to the way you express your opinions and manage relationships. People who like the same things as you do are easy to get along with. Your likes suggest that you generally think people are honest and decent, and others would say that you are considerate and friendly."
It also says that a few of the pages most indicative of my profile are Hoosiers, Justin Moore, Eskimo Joe's and SportsCenter.
The first section seems about right. I like things I know, and don't enjoy things with needless complications(algebra, anything mechanical...) Conservative yes, probably, I'm not sure on that last sentence.
The second section....HAHAHAHAHA!!!! I guess that's good if I come across to other people that way, though. This is a little hard to judge yourself on.
The third section seems just about right-on. I try to be reliable, and hopefully that means I'm prepared for whatever comes along.
The fourth section....Hmm. I don't know..
The fifth section seems all right, I guess. People who like common things are easier to get along with usually, but that isn't always true. And I'm not very assertive. Not really on the "believing people are typically honest and decent" part, but it's always good to hope that they are. I hope people would say I'm friendly.
Seems like on a lot of these personality test deals, I end up almost right in the middle between a lot of categories. Is it possible to be calm and stressed simultaneously? Organized but occasionally want to be spontaneous? Outgoing and shy? Equal parts competition and cooperation?
"Conservative and traditional, rather than liberal and artistic" - This trait refers to the extent you prefer novelty versus convention. Based on what you like, you dislike needless complexity, and prefer the familiar to the unusual. You might say that you are conservative and value practical outcomes over flighty imagination."
"Calm and relaxed, as opposed to stressed" - This trait refers to the way you cope with, and respond to, the demands of life. Your likes suggest you are calm and emotionally stable. You come across to others as someone who is rarely bothered by things, and when they do the feeling does not persist for very long."
"Well organized, versus spontaneous and flexible" - This trait refers to the extent which you prefer an organized, or flexible, approach in life. From what you like, you are someone who avoids forseeable trouble through purposeful planning, and you achieve success through persistence. From your responses it appears that you are reliable and prepared for the challenges of life."
"Outgoing, friendly and active, rather than reserved and shy" - This trait refers to the extent that you enjoy company, and seek excitement and stimulation. From your likes, you are energetic and active. You enjoy and actively seek out social occasions, and you especially enjoy talking with a big group of people."
"Warm, trusting and cooperative, rather than assertive and competitive." - This trait refers to the way you express your opinions and manage relationships. People who like the same things as you do are easy to get along with. Your likes suggest that you generally think people are honest and decent, and others would say that you are considerate and friendly."
It also says that a few of the pages most indicative of my profile are Hoosiers, Justin Moore, Eskimo Joe's and SportsCenter.
The first section seems about right. I like things I know, and don't enjoy things with needless complications(algebra, anything mechanical...) Conservative yes, probably, I'm not sure on that last sentence.
The second section....HAHAHAHAHA!!!! I guess that's good if I come across to other people that way, though. This is a little hard to judge yourself on.
The third section seems just about right-on. I try to be reliable, and hopefully that means I'm prepared for whatever comes along.
The fourth section....Hmm. I don't know..
The fifth section seems all right, I guess. People who like common things are easier to get along with usually, but that isn't always true. And I'm not very assertive. Not really on the "believing people are typically honest and decent" part, but it's always good to hope that they are. I hope people would say I'm friendly.
Seems like on a lot of these personality test deals, I end up almost right in the middle between a lot of categories. Is it possible to be calm and stressed simultaneously? Organized but occasionally want to be spontaneous? Outgoing and shy? Equal parts competition and cooperation?
Thursday, July 4, 2013
A Rant Against Fireworks
It's the Fourth of July. That means picnics for some people. For others heading to the river. Entering a team in the softball tournament for others. A day off work for nearly everyone. And almost everybody is shooting off FIREWORKS.
Fireworks are VERY BAD THINGS. They make extremely loud noises out of nowhere. They exist for no useful purpose, their only aim in life is to shoot flames through the air. They're messy. They're dangerous. They scare animals. And they smoke.
It's probably because of my eyesight, but those gigantic rocket-type ones, that go "whoosh" and make a massive ball that arcs downward, they always look like they're going to attack me. Cause they shoot, like, straight down, almost, and it's just....it's scary.
And the smoke....UGH. That is horrible, the fastest way to turn me from an ordinary human being into a mass of stressed-out cells with high anxiety. And the loud noises, in Ross, EVERY NOISE was loud and unexpected. And I didn't ever really feel safe anywhere there on campus. And with my eyesight not being that great, I generally use my ears or nose to find whatever I'm searching for more than my eyes. When something loud happens unexpectedly nearby, that probably isn't good. And so your "Danger" sense kicks in.
Caleb and Trevor are doing the Army-man Tank Battle of the Driveway later today, they were the only ones who really wanted to get fireworks. The small ground stuff is almost worse than the big night rockets, because it smokes more, and makes actual flames. (!!!!)
So, like I said, fireworks are very bad things. And as a line from a play my friends Annette and JB wrote a while back goes, "Doing bad things leads to more bad things, and bad things are simply bad." So anyways, if anyone needs me today, I'm gonna be hiding under a blanket reading a book.
Fireworks are VERY BAD THINGS. They make extremely loud noises out of nowhere. They exist for no useful purpose, their only aim in life is to shoot flames through the air. They're messy. They're dangerous. They scare animals. And they smoke.
It's probably because of my eyesight, but those gigantic rocket-type ones, that go "whoosh" and make a massive ball that arcs downward, they always look like they're going to attack me. Cause they shoot, like, straight down, almost, and it's just....it's scary.
And the smoke....UGH. That is horrible, the fastest way to turn me from an ordinary human being into a mass of stressed-out cells with high anxiety. And the loud noises, in Ross, EVERY NOISE was loud and unexpected. And I didn't ever really feel safe anywhere there on campus. And with my eyesight not being that great, I generally use my ears or nose to find whatever I'm searching for more than my eyes. When something loud happens unexpectedly nearby, that probably isn't good. And so your "Danger" sense kicks in.
Caleb and Trevor are doing the Army-man Tank Battle of the Driveway later today, they were the only ones who really wanted to get fireworks. The small ground stuff is almost worse than the big night rockets, because it smokes more, and makes actual flames. (!!!!)
So, like I said, fireworks are very bad things. And as a line from a play my friends Annette and JB wrote a while back goes, "Doing bad things leads to more bad things, and bad things are simply bad." So anyways, if anyone needs me today, I'm gonna be hiding under a blanket reading a book.
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Summertime
Not much has been happening lately. Not anything that is newsworthy, anyway. Only everyday tasks like the never-ending war with the ever-multiplying horde of flies, dealing with the heat of summer, dishes and laundry to wash, those types of things.
Worked with Dad selling wireless internet over the weekend, it was all right. We talked to about ten or so people in two days, some of whom seemed to be seriously interested.
The NBA Finals were a little tough to watch. Basketball may be a collision sport, but there's no tackling allowed. However, if it's possible that's it fixed, which seems like it perhaps might be, then it's overlooked, so long as the offenders are from Miami. I really dislike LeBron James and Co., just sayin'.
The Stanley Cup Final has been terrific so far. Chicago's fast, fluid style, with its emphasis on clean passing, is great to watch, just as Boston's bashing of their opponents exemplifies the Eastern Conference's way of playing. Makes a good contrast. And a lot of overtimes.
There was a get-together kind of deal at the Fergusons' on Friday night, I think it was the first time I'd been to their house since the CVS Scotch-Tape Incident. Not sure on that, but maybe. Anyway, it went pretty well, about fifty people showed up, the younger kids wound up soaking each other in a gigantic water-fight. Talked with Dylan about sports, his dad Derek and Steven got to reminiscing about their college experiences. I'm thankful I know godly men like them, John Dugas or Mr. Gundersen. Good to talk with, all of them, able to give wise advice or a different perspective that I hadn't thought of.
Been tagging along as a "visitor", in a way, to the Wednesday night youth group Bible-study sessions, the Coxes seem to enjoy that, and Courtney keeps pestering me into it. And Josh and Dylan feel kind of out-of-place, with the core of the group being middle-school girls now. And it's good to soak up as much good teaching as I can before heading back to Tahlequah, right?
School starts in two months; I'll be taking fifteen hours, in Publication Editing, Intro to Psychology, Intro to Literature, Latin I and Basic Nutrition. Not sure how that will go, but we'll see.
Finally thought of a name for my mandolin: Summertime. (It only took more than a year...) Playing Abby Lee as well, and my still-nameless electric guitar.
Camp plans are being finalized, the last registration forms are coming in,, and details being wrapped up. I'll be a counselor this year; whatever adventures and lessons the Lord will use for me to learn or teach are yet to be discovered. It'll be different, but in some ways the same as last year, I think.
That's about it for now. Maybe something interesting will have happened by the next time I write.
Worked with Dad selling wireless internet over the weekend, it was all right. We talked to about ten or so people in two days, some of whom seemed to be seriously interested.
The NBA Finals were a little tough to watch. Basketball may be a collision sport, but there's no tackling allowed. However, if it's possible that's it fixed, which seems like it perhaps might be, then it's overlooked, so long as the offenders are from Miami. I really dislike LeBron James and Co., just sayin'.
The Stanley Cup Final has been terrific so far. Chicago's fast, fluid style, with its emphasis on clean passing, is great to watch, just as Boston's bashing of their opponents exemplifies the Eastern Conference's way of playing. Makes a good contrast. And a lot of overtimes.
There was a get-together kind of deal at the Fergusons' on Friday night, I think it was the first time I'd been to their house since the CVS Scotch-Tape Incident. Not sure on that, but maybe. Anyway, it went pretty well, about fifty people showed up, the younger kids wound up soaking each other in a gigantic water-fight. Talked with Dylan about sports, his dad Derek and Steven got to reminiscing about their college experiences. I'm thankful I know godly men like them, John Dugas or Mr. Gundersen. Good to talk with, all of them, able to give wise advice or a different perspective that I hadn't thought of.
Been tagging along as a "visitor", in a way, to the Wednesday night youth group Bible-study sessions, the Coxes seem to enjoy that, and Courtney keeps pestering me into it. And Josh and Dylan feel kind of out-of-place, with the core of the group being middle-school girls now. And it's good to soak up as much good teaching as I can before heading back to Tahlequah, right?
School starts in two months; I'll be taking fifteen hours, in Publication Editing, Intro to Psychology, Intro to Literature, Latin I and Basic Nutrition. Not sure how that will go, but we'll see.
Finally thought of a name for my mandolin: Summertime. (It only took more than a year...) Playing Abby Lee as well, and my still-nameless electric guitar.
Camp plans are being finalized, the last registration forms are coming in,, and details being wrapped up. I'll be a counselor this year; whatever adventures and lessons the Lord will use for me to learn or teach are yet to be discovered. It'll be different, but in some ways the same as last year, I think.
That's about it for now. Maybe something interesting will have happened by the next time I write.
Friday, June 7, 2013
Sniffing Around the Place
(This is a column written by Sunny Beagle and Copper Caynine, a weekly highlight of local news in the fictional Fenceville Weekly Times.)
"It's summertime again! (It's way too hot to do anything.)
"Courtney got back from her camp last week, she seemed to have a really good time. Shot a bunch of people with water guns, and climbed a tall power tree. (C says this should be "electric pole". I'm not sure.)
"Dad's been working a lot lately.
"Cherry Kitten moved across town a few weeks ago, he seems to be settling in well.
"A bunch of meat chickens will be slaughtered soon, I'm hoping I can help. The egg-laying chicken who got attacked last week is on the mend.
"Merriment Alpine and Sarsaparilla and Little Ann Nubian had their pen scooted over to include fresh weeds to munch on, the people are busy taking lots of pictures of them. Skeet doesn't like them very much.
"Dad and Caleb have been mowing often, the area around the backyard is very well-cut.
"Ticks are HORRIBLE this year. They are NO FUN. At all. And inside, there's an infestation of flies, everyone is complaining about them.
"Wesley's been trying to teach everybody else how to play baseball, Trevor has been hitting the ball well. Reminds me of when we were little and he'd play ball in the backyard with Katie while Mr. Rae would watch and us Dog Club would bark encouragement.
"Everybody's been very busy recently. It can get kinda lonely, guarding the house without anybody to talk to. They went to Westville Tuesday, I think they had a good visit.
"Wesley has about two months left before he has to go back to that College place. He doesn't like it much. Hope he can get good and rested before then.
"Buttercup Alpine is kinda lost without Inigo around, sort of feel sorry for her. The big goats pick on her too much.
"Frolic Alpine is as jumpy and friendly as ever, exploring every little inch of The Place. The people and cats say her milk is very good, and I(Copper) agree.
"Mom's garden is growing really well, and she's started an inside garden for such funny-sounding stuff as bacteria, kabucha and sourdough.
"It would be Eclipse's birthday next Wednesday, doesn't seem like that long ago that she was born. That Ronald Reagan man had just died, his funeral was all over TV, he seemed like a good person. Must have been pretty important, too. Anyway, it was scary; and Wesley was freaking out too, which didn't help much. She wasn't too smart, but she was sweet, and a good babysitter.
"I don't really understand basketball all that well, but Sunny says the NBA Finals are going on right now, she wants the Spurs(whoever they are) to beat the Heat(who are supposed to be something between dogcatchers and Monstars). The Spurs won last night, I think, Wesley was amazed by this spectacular play late in the game.
"The barn is supposed to be cleaned out today, I think I'll check how that's going, then take a nap. Have a good week, everybody!"
"It's summertime again! (It's way too hot to do anything.)
"Courtney got back from her camp last week, she seemed to have a really good time. Shot a bunch of people with water guns, and climbed a tall power tree. (C says this should be "electric pole". I'm not sure.)
"Dad's been working a lot lately.
"Cherry Kitten moved across town a few weeks ago, he seems to be settling in well.
"A bunch of meat chickens will be slaughtered soon, I'm hoping I can help. The egg-laying chicken who got attacked last week is on the mend.
"Merriment Alpine and Sarsaparilla and Little Ann Nubian had their pen scooted over to include fresh weeds to munch on, the people are busy taking lots of pictures of them. Skeet doesn't like them very much.
"Dad and Caleb have been mowing often, the area around the backyard is very well-cut.
"Ticks are HORRIBLE this year. They are NO FUN. At all. And inside, there's an infestation of flies, everyone is complaining about them.
"Wesley's been trying to teach everybody else how to play baseball, Trevor has been hitting the ball well. Reminds me of when we were little and he'd play ball in the backyard with Katie while Mr. Rae would watch and us Dog Club would bark encouragement.
"Everybody's been very busy recently. It can get kinda lonely, guarding the house without anybody to talk to. They went to Westville Tuesday, I think they had a good visit.
"Wesley has about two months left before he has to go back to that College place. He doesn't like it much. Hope he can get good and rested before then.
"Buttercup Alpine is kinda lost without Inigo around, sort of feel sorry for her. The big goats pick on her too much.
"Frolic Alpine is as jumpy and friendly as ever, exploring every little inch of The Place. The people and cats say her milk is very good, and I(Copper) agree.
"Mom's garden is growing really well, and she's started an inside garden for such funny-sounding stuff as bacteria, kabucha and sourdough.
"It would be Eclipse's birthday next Wednesday, doesn't seem like that long ago that she was born. That Ronald Reagan man had just died, his funeral was all over TV, he seemed like a good person. Must have been pretty important, too. Anyway, it was scary; and Wesley was freaking out too, which didn't help much. She wasn't too smart, but she was sweet, and a good babysitter.
"I don't really understand basketball all that well, but Sunny says the NBA Finals are going on right now, she wants the Spurs(whoever they are) to beat the Heat(who are supposed to be something between dogcatchers and Monstars). The Spurs won last night, I think, Wesley was amazed by this spectacular play late in the game.
"The barn is supposed to be cleaned out today, I think I'll check how that's going, then take a nap. Have a good week, everybody!"
Monday, June 3, 2013
So This Is 20...
It's almost summertime. And just past my birthday. Since I'm done with my online class now, I've had some time to plot out how this post ought to be written, just haven't quite had time to start typing it yet.
I've just felt kind of restless lately, not sure why. The dictionary defines it as "unable to rest or sleep; or uneasy." That kinda fits. I've actually been able to sleep some, which is good, but it hasn't been all that restful. And I've just been dragging throughout the day... Besides that, just somehow unsettled. I don't really belong here at the house with everybody any longer...drop in for visits, yes, but living here, not so much. My job(as student) is in Tahlequah, and I don't really belong there, either; but it's where I'm set for the next couple years, looks like. And I don't really enjoy it at all, but...again, it's where God has placed me for the time being, so I figure I ought to attack it and do as best I can. (See Colossians 3:22-24.)
It's been great to have the animals nearby. Three little doeling(female baby goats) to bottle-feed and play with, Frolic to milk, the dogs, cats, even chickens can sometimes be entertaining. REAL FOOD, especially fresh goat milk. It takes a while to get used to, but it's really good. And extremely healthy. Kabucha is, too, though not as tasty. (That's basically fermented tea.)
The wonderful fellowship of being involved with GBC weekly again, it's fantastic. Lots of good teaching, as always; but especially-good sermons from Hebrews 10 and 11 in particular.
Been wanting to write stuff recently, but just can't, quite. I'm not sure why. So I've finally had time to just read for the first time in forever, to actually learn. Discovered three more books in Brock and Bodie Thoene's "Zion Covenant" series that I didn't know existed, so I spent the weekend deep in WWII-era Europe.
They are such skilled writers, it's terrifying in how important what they did is. Not just because they are intense books, with a world as real as the one we live in now; but because these things actually happened, and they most likely will again at some point in the near future. And when it does, will we have the courage to stand up for the right things? What will our actions say about us? And though the sword might be ruling the day, the most vitally important weapon will still be the pen. Because it brings images and ideas to life, and those can never be completely killed. The truth will need to be spoken. And it can only be taught to those needing to hear by telling accurately what the tale was like.
And besides, I just love history.
There are some things that you know are sort of true, but you just don't want to admit that they might not be as fictional as you'd like. For example, well-meaning relatives asking that second of most-annoying-questions-of-all-time(just behind "Where are you going to/What are you going to do after college?"): "So why don't you have/When are you going to find a girlfriend?" Well....I don't know. Getting harder to laugh it off, too... I guess I've sort of realized that dogs aren't quite everything. Think I've gotten the knowledge out of what was before, enough so to make a bunch of new mistakes. When it's time, it'll happen. So I've just kind of been praying that I will become the sort of man able to handle well whatever God decides to throw at me, whatever that might be.
Done with that summer class in Film Appreciation now, really enjoyed about half the movies I had to watch, wasn't expecting that. But it's been about a week, and it feels like time to get started on something new. So I've just been trying to industriously clean everything I can see that I know what to do with. That isn't much, though. But the floor always needs sweeping and trash needs to be hauled up the driveway, so those are some useful things. And Amy often needs to be babysat, that can certainly be an adventure.
Might attend the Youth Tour reunion in July, I need to check on the registration on that...found out Tauri will be coming to NSU this fall, that's cool. Courtney's hoping I'll be chosen as a counselor for camp this year. Hard to believe it's already June.
I've just felt kind of restless lately, not sure why. The dictionary defines it as "unable to rest or sleep; or uneasy." That kinda fits. I've actually been able to sleep some, which is good, but it hasn't been all that restful. And I've just been dragging throughout the day... Besides that, just somehow unsettled. I don't really belong here at the house with everybody any longer...drop in for visits, yes, but living here, not so much. My job(as student) is in Tahlequah, and I don't really belong there, either; but it's where I'm set for the next couple years, looks like. And I don't really enjoy it at all, but...again, it's where God has placed me for the time being, so I figure I ought to attack it and do as best I can. (See Colossians 3:22-24.)
It's been great to have the animals nearby. Three little doeling(female baby goats) to bottle-feed and play with, Frolic to milk, the dogs, cats, even chickens can sometimes be entertaining. REAL FOOD, especially fresh goat milk. It takes a while to get used to, but it's really good. And extremely healthy. Kabucha is, too, though not as tasty. (That's basically fermented tea.)
The wonderful fellowship of being involved with GBC weekly again, it's fantastic. Lots of good teaching, as always; but especially-good sermons from Hebrews 10 and 11 in particular.
Been wanting to write stuff recently, but just can't, quite. I'm not sure why. So I've finally had time to just read for the first time in forever, to actually learn. Discovered three more books in Brock and Bodie Thoene's "Zion Covenant" series that I didn't know existed, so I spent the weekend deep in WWII-era Europe.
They are such skilled writers, it's terrifying in how important what they did is. Not just because they are intense books, with a world as real as the one we live in now; but because these things actually happened, and they most likely will again at some point in the near future. And when it does, will we have the courage to stand up for the right things? What will our actions say about us? And though the sword might be ruling the day, the most vitally important weapon will still be the pen. Because it brings images and ideas to life, and those can never be completely killed. The truth will need to be spoken. And it can only be taught to those needing to hear by telling accurately what the tale was like.
And besides, I just love history.
There are some things that you know are sort of true, but you just don't want to admit that they might not be as fictional as you'd like. For example, well-meaning relatives asking that second of most-annoying-questions-of-all-time(just behind "Where are you going to/What are you going to do after college?"): "So why don't you have/When are you going to find a girlfriend?" Well....I don't know. Getting harder to laugh it off, too... I guess I've sort of realized that dogs aren't quite everything. Think I've gotten the knowledge out of what was before, enough so to make a bunch of new mistakes. When it's time, it'll happen. So I've just kind of been praying that I will become the sort of man able to handle well whatever God decides to throw at me, whatever that might be.
Done with that summer class in Film Appreciation now, really enjoyed about half the movies I had to watch, wasn't expecting that. But it's been about a week, and it feels like time to get started on something new. So I've just been trying to industriously clean everything I can see that I know what to do with. That isn't much, though. But the floor always needs sweeping and trash needs to be hauled up the driveway, so those are some useful things. And Amy often needs to be babysat, that can certainly be an adventure.
Might attend the Youth Tour reunion in July, I need to check on the registration on that...found out Tauri will be coming to NSU this fall, that's cool. Courtney's hoping I'll be chosen as a counselor for camp this year. Hard to believe it's already June.
Monday, May 20, 2013
It's Tough On a Dog
One of the saddest poems I've ever heard...heard this on the radio one night as we were coming up on Speedy's gas station, never knew who wrote it until I just looked it up on a dog website; the listed author there was a Jean W. Sawtell. Reminds me of "The Giving Tree", one of my favorite picture books in all history. Mimi would have enjoyed this, I think.
"It's tough on a dog,
When his boy grows up,
When he no longer romps and frolics like a pup;
"It's tough on a dog,
When his boy gets old,
When they no longer cuddle on his bed when it gets cold;
"It's tough on a dog,
When his boy gets tall,
When he's off with the boys playing soccer and baseball;
"They no longer paddle through the mud and the bog,
Hoping to find a stray turtle or frog;
They no longer run through the grass up to their knees,
Or roll in piles of fresh fallen leaves;
"It's tough on a dog,
When his boy gets tall,
When he's off to school, and looking at girls in the hall;
"It's tough on a dog,
When he has work to do,
And forgets to play as he used to do;
"It's tough on a dog when
Instead of the woods or the fields or the pond,
His boy becomes a man -
And the man is gone."
It's tough on the boy, too.
"It's tough on a dog,
When his boy grows up,
When he no longer romps and frolics like a pup;
"It's tough on a dog,
When his boy gets old,
When they no longer cuddle on his bed when it gets cold;
"It's tough on a dog,
When his boy gets tall,
When he's off with the boys playing soccer and baseball;
"They no longer paddle through the mud and the bog,
Hoping to find a stray turtle or frog;
They no longer run through the grass up to their knees,
Or roll in piles of fresh fallen leaves;
"It's tough on a dog,
When his boy gets tall,
When he's off to school, and looking at girls in the hall;
"It's tough on a dog,
When he has work to do,
And forgets to play as he used to do;
"It's tough on a dog when
Instead of the woods or the fields or the pond,
His boy becomes a man -
And the man is gone."
It's tough on the boy, too.
Freshman Year Playlist
Well, I made a playlist of songs that went with graduations last year, and there was a lot of songs that seemed to scream for being included in a "Welcome to college" playlist. (Ones that I specially thought of, or were often stuck in my head, or both.) There could have been many more on this list, but I was tired of researching them all.
Track Twelve - "Where the Blacktop Ends", Keith Urban - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhsO7LnwyBI
My "Crank it up, I lived through another week!" Friday afternoon solo jam session.
Track Thirteen - "Supernatural", DC Talk - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1BM07BKNQk
Yup. A fantastic song to play, by the way.
Track Fourteen - "She's in Love With the Boy", Trisha Yearwood - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUFObCZtGWQ
"There ain't a whole lot goin' on tonight/In this one-horse town" is a great description of campus on weekends...and so the rest of this song often glued itself into my mind way too often. Good song, but when it won't leave...
Track Fifteen - "Something Like That", Tim McGraw - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSThNgur0m4
That bridge....(!!!!!!!) It's wonderfully-written, and very true, but when it refuses to leave after dropping in unexpectedly...well, it's not pleasant.
Track Sixteen - "In The Light", DC Talk - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWq1XYxtlRs
What we should always be seeking to do...and this pretty well sums up our journeys on the way there.
Track Seventeen - "Life Ain't Always Beautiful", Gary Allan - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VDNMtn0t2A
It isn't. Sometimes it just sucks. But it's worth it, the hard times will eventually lead to greener pastures at some point.
Track Eighteen - "Anyway", Martina McBride - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uLtyzRgmyI
Even if things seem to be going all wrong, keep your faith as strong as you can. God won't give you any more than He knows you can deal with.
Track Nineteen - "If You're Going Through Hell", Rodney Atkins - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBKybUusyP8
Hang on, things will get better at some point.
Track Twenty - That incredibly sad song from "The Fox and the Hound" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3oZ0Il4QH
I watched this too many times to count...
Track Twenty-one - "Bring It On", Steven Curtis Chapman - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYJMG1bts0c
Track One - "Never Grow Up", Taylor Swift - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1YGmOit8G0
Sometimes you just wanna be a little kid again...
Track Two - "Don't Forget to Remember Me", Carrie Underwood - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmAi_qJoPbU
This second verse, especially, fits the transition to college well.
This second verse, especially, fits the transition to college well.
Track Three - "Speechless", Steven Curtis Chapman - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gH-1wj7_Q6k
God is So GOOD!!!
Track Four - "I'm in a Hurry", Alabama - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6slibTD9MF0
Students always are...it isn't much fun.
Track Five - Great is Thy Faithfulness - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0k1WhFtVp0o
Yes. Yes. Yesyesyesyes. And yes. And thank you, Lord.
Track Six - In Christ Alone - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnWw24s5gG8
Very good reminder.
Track Seven - Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwFHsX6omvI
One of my favorite hymns of all time.
Track Eight - "Temporary Home", Carrie Underwood - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LraOiHUltak
Completely fits college; completely fits this whole life we live.
Track Nine - "King of the Jungle", Steven Curtis Chapman - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZFwLYvPi4c
I very often feel this way, and have to slow down and remind myself who is the King of the Jungle.
Track Ten - "It's a Good Day", FFH - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4S-KdxH848I
And in his goodness, God puts rare surprises of blessings in rough times to keep us going. Those are good days.
Track Eleven - The Lord Is - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qkMs06XKaA
Another great, sound theological, song.
Track Twelve - "Where the Blacktop Ends", Keith Urban - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhsO7LnwyBI
My "Crank it up, I lived through another week!" Friday afternoon solo jam session.
Track Thirteen - "Supernatural", DC Talk - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1BM07BKNQk
Yup. A fantastic song to play, by the way.
Track Fourteen - "She's in Love With the Boy", Trisha Yearwood - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUFObCZtGWQ
"There ain't a whole lot goin' on tonight/In this one-horse town" is a great description of campus on weekends...and so the rest of this song often glued itself into my mind way too often. Good song, but when it won't leave...
Track Fifteen - "Something Like That", Tim McGraw - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSThNgur0m4
That bridge....(!!!!!!!) It's wonderfully-written, and very true, but when it refuses to leave after dropping in unexpectedly...well, it's not pleasant.
Track Sixteen - "In The Light", DC Talk - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWq1XYxtlRs
What we should always be seeking to do...and this pretty well sums up our journeys on the way there.
Track Seventeen - "Life Ain't Always Beautiful", Gary Allan - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VDNMtn0t2A
It isn't. Sometimes it just sucks. But it's worth it, the hard times will eventually lead to greener pastures at some point.
Track Eighteen - "Anyway", Martina McBride - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uLtyzRgmyI
Even if things seem to be going all wrong, keep your faith as strong as you can. God won't give you any more than He knows you can deal with.
Track Nineteen - "If You're Going Through Hell", Rodney Atkins - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBKybUusyP8
Hang on, things will get better at some point.
Track Twenty - That incredibly sad song from "The Fox and the Hound" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3oZ0Il4QH
I watched this too many times to count...
Track Twenty-one - "Bring It On", Steven Curtis Chapman - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYJMG1bts0c
For finals week. Or whatever else is thrown in our paths.
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Freshman Year Down
Well, somehow or another I got through it. The semester ended last Thursday, and this online course I'm taking began Monday, so I won't really get a break until June. I kind of stumbled through finals, but did just well enough to squeak by with all A's again, so that's kind of nice. And crazy. (I got an A in math?)
Had a lot of sleepless nights and stressful days, but God guided me through it all, and he provided the aid I needed just when it was needed most, over and over again. Phone call here, email there, letter or card occasionally...
Far too many hymns to list were often remembered and their truth savored; and country music again proved why it's the greatest genre of all, since it's about life, and everything that happens in it.
Besides people, the other things that got me through the school year were a bakery; Chick-Fil-A; a blog run by a Mormon lawyer; reruns of "MacGyver", "Full House", and "Boy Meets World"; a YouTube channel run by a trio of homeschool graduates; my guitar Abby Lee and mandolin; and long walks through rain-coated streets. Many long walks.
Thankful for the prayers and encouragement of my GBC family, especially Dylan and Steven. Samara was helpful as well with getting through those first couple months. The large camp network was invaluable; prayers of Brother Larry and Miss Kathy; the advice and laughter, muddling through this mess of life alongside Daniel, Jessica, Amanda, Jon, Ash and Matt, just to name a few. And most of the YT gang was going through some of the same experiences I was, so we could compare notes and complaints. Staying in touch with Aubrey, Adam, Tauri, Ryan W., Chance, Lorene and Lisbeth, mainly.
And my family, of course. Nice to have relatives you can spend the weekends with; or drop in once in a while for dominoes, music and ping pong.
It was really cool getting to know Ryan and Shelly and their family, felt a lot like home.
"Home"...that's a hard concept to exactly understand. Where exactly is it? What defines somewhere as a "home" base? Why can multiple places feel that way at the same time? And what on earth is it that I've been searching for over the last few months? Something to do with this concept...
Tried going to the CCF meetings, it was the group that Mom, Dad and Ryan had all been a part of when they were in school, but that didn't work out so well. A big question I've been dealing with lately-ish is "When is no teaching more beneficial than poor teaching?" So it was an off-and-on type of thing, went occasionally out of guilt, but nearly always felt much more depressed leaving than when I came, and that was at a pretty good level already.
Found a pretty-good church within walking distance to attend when possible, Grace Baptist is about a fifteen-to-twenty minute walk from my dorm, depending on the weather, how much a hurry I'm in, and other things that come up.
Ran into my old neighbor Katie and her husband Trevor, who was on my basketball team a long time ago, one day during lunch, it was good to catch up with them. They tried to get me to come to the BCM meetings weekly, and I knew a couple other people who were part of that group, so I thought for a while about checking it out one night. (My classmate Mallory, Trevor's cousin Bree, my neighbor Stephen two doors down, and this dude named Andrew, a Media Studies major fixing to graduate.) So one night in early February, I think, I poked my nose tentatively in the BCM building, unsure of what to expect. It was good, and people were friendly. Good teaching would probably be nearby with some more in-depth sniffing, still need to check on that. But anyway, these people actually seemed like they were seeking to grow in Christ and encourage others in their spiritual walks, which was very appealing. Slowly getting to know some of those people, Stephen, Mallory, Daniel P., and the Samanthas(known to everyone as Blonde and Redhead).
Actually going to classes was an adjustment, for the most part I didn't learn much from fall semester. Enjoyed my psychology course, our teacher was this entertaining, common-sense-filled old man, and the community feel was interesting. A tight-knit group, with a lot of characters. The same could be said for Intro to Media Studies, lots of crazy things happened in that classroom. Comp I was a disaster, but we had one interesting day where we talked about Star Wars the entire time. Being homeschooled was slightly a disadvantage, as I had to quickly learn a crash-course in "How to Write an Essay". Thankfully, Jess was happy to explain how MLA format worked. My history class was fantastic, since my teacher loved the subject and wanted us to find out as many new things as we could.
This spring I wasn't exactly sure what to expect, but Basic Writing was challenging and good; not completely relying solely on instinct in journalism any longer, have most of the rules down now. Comp II was a trial at times, but really stretched my writing and research capabilities, which was good. And like Dr. Fuller or Mr. Carlisle or Cassie, Jason wanted us to really learn our subject. Mr. Shamblin was a lot like Brother Larry, which made for an interesting experience, seeing him every day in two classes. Computers was required, but I learned some useful stuff, and I was able to understand most of the stuff we went over in math. There wasn't really anyone to compare myself to in any of these classes, so that was disappointing and frustrating, always having to race myself, instead of a friendlyish rival to compete with.
Also kept in touch with Alton, it's been kind of fun to listen to his take on life as a married person. Occasionally heard from Maddie as well. Mark Twain said once that "I can live for a week on a good compliment; sometimes even a month, if it's a specially-good one." At one point, she told me this: "To be honest, you're a lot stronger than you think." That echoed through my mind often over the months, helped a lot, in some odd way.
One of the biggest things I learned this year was how weak I am, how much I need God to guide me and keep me on the right path. And also that no matter how much we wish we could change others' lives, we can only control our own, and not too well at that.
Over the last year, I have graduated from high school; attended two weddings; hiked six miles through a dry river; observed with horror the apathy of college sports crowds; written about peanut butter, fairy tales, thunderstorms, goat milk and a beauty pageant; lost a couple of friends; choked down terrible food; X-rayed a cat; practiced songwriting; been invited to join a band and generally survived with most of my personality quirks intact.
The blog I mentioned is http://www.itjustgetsstranger.com, you must check out the Snuggie Texts first, and then proceed to whatever else of Eli's highly-entertaining posts you wish to peruse. You're welcome.
And the YouTube channel is the group called Blimey Cow, their videos can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/user/blimeycow Highly hilarious, with heavy doses of snarky commentary on the oddities of life and culture.
Had a lot of sleepless nights and stressful days, but God guided me through it all, and he provided the aid I needed just when it was needed most, over and over again. Phone call here, email there, letter or card occasionally...
Far too many hymns to list were often remembered and their truth savored; and country music again proved why it's the greatest genre of all, since it's about life, and everything that happens in it.
Besides people, the other things that got me through the school year were a bakery; Chick-Fil-A; a blog run by a Mormon lawyer; reruns of "MacGyver", "Full House", and "Boy Meets World"; a YouTube channel run by a trio of homeschool graduates; my guitar Abby Lee and mandolin; and long walks through rain-coated streets. Many long walks.
Thankful for the prayers and encouragement of my GBC family, especially Dylan and Steven. Samara was helpful as well with getting through those first couple months. The large camp network was invaluable; prayers of Brother Larry and Miss Kathy; the advice and laughter, muddling through this mess of life alongside Daniel, Jessica, Amanda, Jon, Ash and Matt, just to name a few. And most of the YT gang was going through some of the same experiences I was, so we could compare notes and complaints. Staying in touch with Aubrey, Adam, Tauri, Ryan W., Chance, Lorene and Lisbeth, mainly.
And my family, of course. Nice to have relatives you can spend the weekends with; or drop in once in a while for dominoes, music and ping pong.
It was really cool getting to know Ryan and Shelly and their family, felt a lot like home.
"Home"...that's a hard concept to exactly understand. Where exactly is it? What defines somewhere as a "home" base? Why can multiple places feel that way at the same time? And what on earth is it that I've been searching for over the last few months? Something to do with this concept...
Tried going to the CCF meetings, it was the group that Mom, Dad and Ryan had all been a part of when they were in school, but that didn't work out so well. A big question I've been dealing with lately-ish is "When is no teaching more beneficial than poor teaching?" So it was an off-and-on type of thing, went occasionally out of guilt, but nearly always felt much more depressed leaving than when I came, and that was at a pretty good level already.
Found a pretty-good church within walking distance to attend when possible, Grace Baptist is about a fifteen-to-twenty minute walk from my dorm, depending on the weather, how much a hurry I'm in, and other things that come up.
Ran into my old neighbor Katie and her husband Trevor, who was on my basketball team a long time ago, one day during lunch, it was good to catch up with them. They tried to get me to come to the BCM meetings weekly, and I knew a couple other people who were part of that group, so I thought for a while about checking it out one night. (My classmate Mallory, Trevor's cousin Bree, my neighbor Stephen two doors down, and this dude named Andrew, a Media Studies major fixing to graduate.) So one night in early February, I think, I poked my nose tentatively in the BCM building, unsure of what to expect. It was good, and people were friendly. Good teaching would probably be nearby with some more in-depth sniffing, still need to check on that. But anyway, these people actually seemed like they were seeking to grow in Christ and encourage others in their spiritual walks, which was very appealing. Slowly getting to know some of those people, Stephen, Mallory, Daniel P., and the Samanthas(known to everyone as Blonde and Redhead).
Actually going to classes was an adjustment, for the most part I didn't learn much from fall semester. Enjoyed my psychology course, our teacher was this entertaining, common-sense-filled old man, and the community feel was interesting. A tight-knit group, with a lot of characters. The same could be said for Intro to Media Studies, lots of crazy things happened in that classroom. Comp I was a disaster, but we had one interesting day where we talked about Star Wars the entire time. Being homeschooled was slightly a disadvantage, as I had to quickly learn a crash-course in "How to Write an Essay". Thankfully, Jess was happy to explain how MLA format worked. My history class was fantastic, since my teacher loved the subject and wanted us to find out as many new things as we could.
This spring I wasn't exactly sure what to expect, but Basic Writing was challenging and good; not completely relying solely on instinct in journalism any longer, have most of the rules down now. Comp II was a trial at times, but really stretched my writing and research capabilities, which was good. And like Dr. Fuller or Mr. Carlisle or Cassie, Jason wanted us to really learn our subject. Mr. Shamblin was a lot like Brother Larry, which made for an interesting experience, seeing him every day in two classes. Computers was required, but I learned some useful stuff, and I was able to understand most of the stuff we went over in math. There wasn't really anyone to compare myself to in any of these classes, so that was disappointing and frustrating, always having to race myself, instead of a friendlyish rival to compete with.
Also kept in touch with Alton, it's been kind of fun to listen to his take on life as a married person. Occasionally heard from Maddie as well. Mark Twain said once that "I can live for a week on a good compliment; sometimes even a month, if it's a specially-good one." At one point, she told me this: "To be honest, you're a lot stronger than you think." That echoed through my mind often over the months, helped a lot, in some odd way.
One of the biggest things I learned this year was how weak I am, how much I need God to guide me and keep me on the right path. And also that no matter how much we wish we could change others' lives, we can only control our own, and not too well at that.
Over the last year, I have graduated from high school; attended two weddings; hiked six miles through a dry river; observed with horror the apathy of college sports crowds; written about peanut butter, fairy tales, thunderstorms, goat milk and a beauty pageant; lost a couple of friends; choked down terrible food; X-rayed a cat; practiced songwriting; been invited to join a band and generally survived with most of my personality quirks intact.
The blog I mentioned is http://www.itjustgetsstranger.com, you must check out the Snuggie Texts first, and then proceed to whatever else of Eli's highly-entertaining posts you wish to peruse. You're welcome.
And the YouTube channel is the group called Blimey Cow, their videos can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/user/blimeycow Highly hilarious, with heavy doses of snarky commentary on the oddities of life and culture.
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
Mom's Favorite Poem
This is my mom's all-time favorite poem, no idea where she found it or who the author was. But it just seemed to fit life this week, comes in handy pretty often as a motivational tool.
"Somebody once said that it couldn't be done,
But he with a chuckle replied,
That maybe it couldn't;
But he would be one
Who wouldn't say so till he tried.
"So he buckled right in
With the trace of a grin
On his face.
(If he worried, he hid it.)
"He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn't be done
AND HE DID IT!"
But he with a chuckle replied,
That maybe it couldn't;
But he would be one
Who wouldn't say so till he tried.
"So he buckled right in
With the trace of a grin
On his face.
(If he worried, he hid it.)
"He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn't be done
AND HE DID IT!"
Monday, May 6, 2013
Bloodlines
Been thinking on our mortality a lot recently...
Strange topic, I know. And slightly depressing and scary.
Went to visit Nano yesterday, which was nice. There's just something good about talking with her, because you know in the back of your mind, most people don't have their great-grandmas as long as I've had mine. And old people just have such a completely different mindset on life than we do now...
Meg the cat had kittens a few weeks ago, and they're just now old enough to be adopted. One of Mom's cousins wanted one, so she drove east to Tahlequah to drop off the kitten before going to Westville to see Nano. Since the track is about a ten-minute walk from my dorm, I walked down there and rode with her.
It was a good visit, we went grocery shopping and organized the medicine and looked through old picture albums. And also got a lamp from her neighbor's house and set it in the back room to await repairs.
Nano just seemed so frail. It's incredibly sad to see elderly relatives you enjoy being around getting older. Her spirit is well, but beginning to wear down and out. Her eyesight is failing, and she can't move aroud quite as well as she once could. Still very healthy for a 92-year-old, but on the other hand...
Seems like a lot of relatives' health are all crashing downhill at the same time...it's sort of scary, it'll be such a huge change, life will, when they're no longer here.
Anyway, like I was saying, we were looking through old pictures, extremely old photographs, most of them. From the '20s and '30s, slowly increasing to nine years ago. A lot of characters from the early old stories are there: Charlie the train engineer, Nano's dad; her brothers Marvin and Leo, her sisters Lois and Ina, this unusual neighbor named Aint Sairy... Then later, pictures of everyone and their various beaux, which go with stories of dates to church and not marrying a man because of his rough hands... And then pictures of Nano and Dado, and Mimi, my grandma, as a little girl, in all the various places that they lived. Seeing what these locations of the tales Mimi would tell actually looked like, brings a whole new demension to the stories.
Got me to thinking about the sort of people I came from.
I've never been able to keep most anybody very straight, unfortunately; the really great historians are all very distantly related, so I don't know much. Through my mom's side, the Morrises, Cagles and Lankfords, were mostly farmers and such, a blend of English, Scotch and Cherokee that originally started out somewhere in eastern Tennessee and Kentucky, gradually moving west into Oklahoma. One of Mom's cousins is a congressman. The Lankfords were mostly the same; from Virginia into Tennessee, then to Oklahoma at some later point. Most of them were farmers or ranchers, and when electricity came in; they all jumped on that. Switching back to Mom's mom's side, Dado single-handedly wired the entire town of Westville for electricity in 1946. Back to Mom's dad's side, Papa Lankford was a preacher and carpenter, and fourteen generations back in our family forest you can find Thomas Jefferson.
I don't know much at all about Dad's side of the family; nobody else does, either. Irish blood is in there for sure somewhere, legend has it from a band of pirates. Cherokee and Creek blood came in there, too; the earliest I know of, those ancestors came from eastern Colorado, western Kansas and somewhere east, like North Carolina or Georgia. My dad's uncle is a senator, my great-grandpa (who I was named after) was a successful businessman in the optical field, and Dad's mom was a DJ.
But mostly, there's just ordinary people, who had to work extremely hard for whatever they got in life. The storytelling gene has been passed down through the years, I seemed to have picked up an extra-strength dose of that one. Humor has been passed along as well, which is a fantastic legacy, although one that doesn't mesh as well with the intense drive to succeed.
Whatever collection of personality quirks and histories go into making a person, well, here I am. It's impossible to tell exactly how much heredity and natural disposition vs. environment and circumstances go into making a person who they are, and even harder to assess your own personality and understand it, to accept both the strengths and weaknesses in their actual porportions in order to go through this life.
I like looking through old pictures.
Strange topic, I know. And slightly depressing and scary.
Went to visit Nano yesterday, which was nice. There's just something good about talking with her, because you know in the back of your mind, most people don't have their great-grandmas as long as I've had mine. And old people just have such a completely different mindset on life than we do now...
Meg the cat had kittens a few weeks ago, and they're just now old enough to be adopted. One of Mom's cousins wanted one, so she drove east to Tahlequah to drop off the kitten before going to Westville to see Nano. Since the track is about a ten-minute walk from my dorm, I walked down there and rode with her.
It was a good visit, we went grocery shopping and organized the medicine and looked through old picture albums. And also got a lamp from her neighbor's house and set it in the back room to await repairs.
Nano just seemed so frail. It's incredibly sad to see elderly relatives you enjoy being around getting older. Her spirit is well, but beginning to wear down and out. Her eyesight is failing, and she can't move aroud quite as well as she once could. Still very healthy for a 92-year-old, but on the other hand...
Seems like a lot of relatives' health are all crashing downhill at the same time...it's sort of scary, it'll be such a huge change, life will, when they're no longer here.
Anyway, like I was saying, we were looking through old pictures, extremely old photographs, most of them. From the '20s and '30s, slowly increasing to nine years ago. A lot of characters from the early old stories are there: Charlie the train engineer, Nano's dad; her brothers Marvin and Leo, her sisters Lois and Ina, this unusual neighbor named Aint Sairy... Then later, pictures of everyone and their various beaux, which go with stories of dates to church and not marrying a man because of his rough hands... And then pictures of Nano and Dado, and Mimi, my grandma, as a little girl, in all the various places that they lived. Seeing what these locations of the tales Mimi would tell actually looked like, brings a whole new demension to the stories.
Got me to thinking about the sort of people I came from.
I've never been able to keep most anybody very straight, unfortunately; the really great historians are all very distantly related, so I don't know much. Through my mom's side, the Morrises, Cagles and Lankfords, were mostly farmers and such, a blend of English, Scotch and Cherokee that originally started out somewhere in eastern Tennessee and Kentucky, gradually moving west into Oklahoma. One of Mom's cousins is a congressman. The Lankfords were mostly the same; from Virginia into Tennessee, then to Oklahoma at some later point. Most of them were farmers or ranchers, and when electricity came in; they all jumped on that. Switching back to Mom's mom's side, Dado single-handedly wired the entire town of Westville for electricity in 1946. Back to Mom's dad's side, Papa Lankford was a preacher and carpenter, and fourteen generations back in our family forest you can find Thomas Jefferson.
I don't know much at all about Dad's side of the family; nobody else does, either. Irish blood is in there for sure somewhere, legend has it from a band of pirates. Cherokee and Creek blood came in there, too; the earliest I know of, those ancestors came from eastern Colorado, western Kansas and somewhere east, like North Carolina or Georgia. My dad's uncle is a senator, my great-grandpa (who I was named after) was a successful businessman in the optical field, and Dad's mom was a DJ.
But mostly, there's just ordinary people, who had to work extremely hard for whatever they got in life. The storytelling gene has been passed down through the years, I seemed to have picked up an extra-strength dose of that one. Humor has been passed along as well, which is a fantastic legacy, although one that doesn't mesh as well with the intense drive to succeed.
Whatever collection of personality quirks and histories go into making a person, well, here I am. It's impossible to tell exactly how much heredity and natural disposition vs. environment and circumstances go into making a person who they are, and even harder to assess your own personality and understand it, to accept both the strengths and weaknesses in their actual porportions in order to go through this life.
I like looking through old pictures.
Thursday, May 2, 2013
Dead Week
They call this time of the semester "Dead Week", because everyone either dies or becomes a zombie. (That'd make a good plot for a pre-summer-blockbuster movie...) There are a few reasons for this. One, students are exhausted and completely out of all fuel. They ran out of energy three months ago, they ran out of will six-ish weeks ago, and they ran out of caffiene last weekend. Teachers are sick of grading papers. There are numerous presentations that have to be delivered and listened to attentively, and then there are those finals the next week.
Besides the zombies staggering around, there are those cramming the info they should have been studying the last four months into one week. And the frantic panicking they're all in, and only too ready to talk to everyone they meet about it.
Well, that pretty much explains that. How has my week gone? Let me think...
Monday morning we had a style quiz in Basic Writing, and that was it. We got our final stories of the year back, I scored a 95, which was all right, considering we couldn't go back and fix our errors afterwards. Then I had to give a PowerPoint presentation. It was on peanut butter sandwiches. (I was hungry and it was the first interesting topic that came to mind when we picked them on choosing day.) Most of the people laughed, pretty sure I included all the required elements, and Mr. Shamblin said it was good. Went for a run afterwards, then went to the last BCM meeting of the school year. That was good, it was held outside by the fountain since the weather was nice. Talked to Amanda, and that was pretty much all the day's news. Fell asleep about one in the morning.
Tuesday was a very long day. Of course, just about any day when you get three hours of sleep is going to be a long one. So I woke up at 4:30 a.m. with a horrible headache, pretty sure I had a fever, and I felt like I was going to throw up. And I had a math test later that morning. Another cause of the zombie thing is that being so tired and stressed, even more so than usual, your body just can't handle it and it just forces you to collapse, thereby through the enforced resting, it starts to repair itself. And that's great, but it doesn't really help when you can barely sit up and have important things to do. And it's cloudy and looks like it's going to rain, which also doesn't help. But, anyway, I drag myself downstairs and across campus to the science building to take the test, on geometry-like things, dealing with right triangles. I stumbled through it, relatively positive I completely bombed, but...I tried to finish it as best I could. Then it was time to go to the library, because I hadn't printed off my essay on social media that was due in less than two hours.
Over to Seminary Hall, I pass the time waiting for class by finishing G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy and reviewing my AP Stylebook. Jason had our second essays back, so I was a little worried about that. But the fairy-tale paper(See previous post) turned out pretty well. The rough draft scored a 90, and the final a 96. I missed one in--text citation in the first paragraph. In the comments, he wrote: "Great job! Your writing is direct and stylish." Which I guess is a good thing. Anyway, his comments are much more helpful than Mr. Deiter's were. Because he actually wants to make us better writers, to more clearly present our arguments, in order to improve our powers of persuasion. Since he wants to improve our writing, he's ruthless in searching for errors, as all good editors ought to be. This is why I've enjoyed his class. And he's funny. Strange at times, but a good teacher.
Thought about going to CCF, but it was canceled, so I walked back to the dorm, read Agatha Christie's biography, and then went to bed pretty early, hoping I would feel better tomorrow.
Woke up pretty early Wednesday morning, the new janitors(who are neither as good or as friendly as Darrell, the previous janitor) came through about 6:30, making enough noise as they clomped through the hall to wake me up. The sun was shining brightly, and I thought about going for a run before getting ready for class. Didn't think that would be such a good idea, though, since I wasn't feeling completely 100 percent yet, so I did math homework, raising my total score on that, which will count as a test-grade, by one point. And then I got into one of those classic comment chain conversations with Jon and Amanda on Nintendo games we played growing up. And there was a new Stranger post to read, which was an especially good one.
Two more style quizzes in Basic Writing, and we found out that this week's news blogs were optional for extra credit, because Cassie had a ton of assignments from her photography class to grade and needed time for those. More presentations to listen to in Computers, there was a very good one on gun control by a guy I'd never seen before, a large sweeping look covering nearly all aspects of the topic before coming around to blasting its' deficiencies in his conclusion. (Most people in this class I have no idea who they are. Same with my math class.)
Practiced volleyball for a while, then thought I might watch a movie. Finally remembered Mom's Netflix password, so I watched "Captain America" for the second time. It's a very good movie, full of good quotes and with a great story and characters.
Then I went over to Louise and Harry's, which was great, as nearly all times spent with Lankfords are. We watched TV for a while, a show on specialty hamburgers, and then played hymns on the mandolins. It was a good day. Kind of a strange happiness, of the rare intentional forced "I'm going to do things that sound relaxing and interesting" variety, as opposed to the "Random events that turn out in a nicely surprising way" type. But it was a nice day. It was really hot, though, not used to 84-degree temperatures for a while.
This morning had a kind of odd-but-fitting symmerty to the first day of math class. In January I woke up at 10:34 and galloped my ten-minute commute through a cold windy rain to get to class by the starting time of 11, and on the final day in May I woke up at 10:37, galloped my ten-minute communte through a windy, cold morning that was threatening to rain. We went over Tuesday's test, which turned out to not be as bad as I'd feared. Mr. Shamblin, as exhausted of teaching as his students are of being taught, messed up the grading for the tests, realized it on the second-to-last one, and was too tired to regrade them all over again. So though I earned a 78, it goes down as an 89 in the gradebook, and I pretty much just need to score higher than 72(if our final is above our lowest test, that lowest is replaced by our final score, which will then count double) to get an A, I think. My math could be off there, but I think I have an ouside chance of sneaking by somehow with all A's again. Don't think it's likely, but there is a chance. Just need to try to do the best I can on the finals, and then see what happens.
Stopped by Morgan's, it was pretty crowded this afternoon. This guy in his early forties with his three young daughters asked me for advice on what to get. After his daughters ordered, he asked Emily the clerk, "Are you guys out of cherry turnovers?" She nods dejectedly. "We just sold the last one like fifteen minutes ago." He frowns. "Can I beat that guy up?" Everyone within hearing distance cracks up.
I had to give a presentation on my last essay in Comp II, which I survived, more or less. Still not feeling great, but at least I didn't throw up. We found out several interesting things about our class: We are very much pro-spanking, very much pro-hunting, and very much anti-child beauty pageants. There was a lot of writing on my rough draft of the social media essay...and then I get to the last page, where I find a score of 98, and a note saying this would be acceptable as-is for the final if I wished. There are a few words that I'll rearrange for my own liking, the only thing Jason could find fault with was the title. "I was trying to find something to improve in here...the only thing I could think of was to make the title more interesting," he told me after class let out. He described it as a "perfect academic-style paper, the kind that these fifty-year-old guys wish they could write."
The Internet was out for most of the afternoon, which pretty much killed the idea of getting one last news blog in. And I couldn't get started writing this post until a lot later than I would have liked. But I did get to read Agatha Christie, so that was good. As I've been typing this, I've been watching the Los Angeles-St. Louis hockey game, and there have been snowflakes landing on my window. In May. SNOWFLAKES????? REALLY???? The Blues have just won, like I was hoping, and that's basically all the news that's happened this week.
Up next is finals, which I'm strangely unconcerned about. They're important tests, but the world won't end if I do badly. I'll just do the best I can, and see what happens. Not really that worried about two of them, the other two I'll need to do a little more studying for. And then I'll get to move out(Yay!) and have most of the summer off to rest and learn before thethird round of this war, er, I mean, this third semester of this college chapter in my life, begins.
Besides the zombies staggering around, there are those cramming the info they should have been studying the last four months into one week. And the frantic panicking they're all in, and only too ready to talk to everyone they meet about it.
Well, that pretty much explains that. How has my week gone? Let me think...
Monday morning we had a style quiz in Basic Writing, and that was it. We got our final stories of the year back, I scored a 95, which was all right, considering we couldn't go back and fix our errors afterwards. Then I had to give a PowerPoint presentation. It was on peanut butter sandwiches. (I was hungry and it was the first interesting topic that came to mind when we picked them on choosing day.) Most of the people laughed, pretty sure I included all the required elements, and Mr. Shamblin said it was good. Went for a run afterwards, then went to the last BCM meeting of the school year. That was good, it was held outside by the fountain since the weather was nice. Talked to Amanda, and that was pretty much all the day's news. Fell asleep about one in the morning.
Tuesday was a very long day. Of course, just about any day when you get three hours of sleep is going to be a long one. So I woke up at 4:30 a.m. with a horrible headache, pretty sure I had a fever, and I felt like I was going to throw up. And I had a math test later that morning. Another cause of the zombie thing is that being so tired and stressed, even more so than usual, your body just can't handle it and it just forces you to collapse, thereby through the enforced resting, it starts to repair itself. And that's great, but it doesn't really help when you can barely sit up and have important things to do. And it's cloudy and looks like it's going to rain, which also doesn't help. But, anyway, I drag myself downstairs and across campus to the science building to take the test, on geometry-like things, dealing with right triangles. I stumbled through it, relatively positive I completely bombed, but...I tried to finish it as best I could. Then it was time to go to the library, because I hadn't printed off my essay on social media that was due in less than two hours.
Over to Seminary Hall, I pass the time waiting for class by finishing G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy and reviewing my AP Stylebook. Jason had our second essays back, so I was a little worried about that. But the fairy-tale paper(See previous post) turned out pretty well. The rough draft scored a 90, and the final a 96. I missed one in--text citation in the first paragraph. In the comments, he wrote: "Great job! Your writing is direct and stylish." Which I guess is a good thing. Anyway, his comments are much more helpful than Mr. Deiter's were. Because he actually wants to make us better writers, to more clearly present our arguments, in order to improve our powers of persuasion. Since he wants to improve our writing, he's ruthless in searching for errors, as all good editors ought to be. This is why I've enjoyed his class. And he's funny. Strange at times, but a good teacher.
Thought about going to CCF, but it was canceled, so I walked back to the dorm, read Agatha Christie's biography, and then went to bed pretty early, hoping I would feel better tomorrow.
Woke up pretty early Wednesday morning, the new janitors(who are neither as good or as friendly as Darrell, the previous janitor) came through about 6:30, making enough noise as they clomped through the hall to wake me up. The sun was shining brightly, and I thought about going for a run before getting ready for class. Didn't think that would be such a good idea, though, since I wasn't feeling completely 100 percent yet, so I did math homework, raising my total score on that, which will count as a test-grade, by one point. And then I got into one of those classic comment chain conversations with Jon and Amanda on Nintendo games we played growing up. And there was a new Stranger post to read, which was an especially good one.
Two more style quizzes in Basic Writing, and we found out that this week's news blogs were optional for extra credit, because Cassie had a ton of assignments from her photography class to grade and needed time for those. More presentations to listen to in Computers, there was a very good one on gun control by a guy I'd never seen before, a large sweeping look covering nearly all aspects of the topic before coming around to blasting its' deficiencies in his conclusion. (Most people in this class I have no idea who they are. Same with my math class.)
Practiced volleyball for a while, then thought I might watch a movie. Finally remembered Mom's Netflix password, so I watched "Captain America" for the second time. It's a very good movie, full of good quotes and with a great story and characters.
Then I went over to Louise and Harry's, which was great, as nearly all times spent with Lankfords are. We watched TV for a while, a show on specialty hamburgers, and then played hymns on the mandolins. It was a good day. Kind of a strange happiness, of the rare intentional forced "I'm going to do things that sound relaxing and interesting" variety, as opposed to the "Random events that turn out in a nicely surprising way" type. But it was a nice day. It was really hot, though, not used to 84-degree temperatures for a while.
This morning had a kind of odd-but-fitting symmerty to the first day of math class. In January I woke up at 10:34 and galloped my ten-minute commute through a cold windy rain to get to class by the starting time of 11, and on the final day in May I woke up at 10:37, galloped my ten-minute communte through a windy, cold morning that was threatening to rain. We went over Tuesday's test, which turned out to not be as bad as I'd feared. Mr. Shamblin, as exhausted of teaching as his students are of being taught, messed up the grading for the tests, realized it on the second-to-last one, and was too tired to regrade them all over again. So though I earned a 78, it goes down as an 89 in the gradebook, and I pretty much just need to score higher than 72(if our final is above our lowest test, that lowest is replaced by our final score, which will then count double) to get an A, I think. My math could be off there, but I think I have an ouside chance of sneaking by somehow with all A's again. Don't think it's likely, but there is a chance. Just need to try to do the best I can on the finals, and then see what happens.
Stopped by Morgan's, it was pretty crowded this afternoon. This guy in his early forties with his three young daughters asked me for advice on what to get. After his daughters ordered, he asked Emily the clerk, "Are you guys out of cherry turnovers?" She nods dejectedly. "We just sold the last one like fifteen minutes ago." He frowns. "Can I beat that guy up?" Everyone within hearing distance cracks up.
I had to give a presentation on my last essay in Comp II, which I survived, more or less. Still not feeling great, but at least I didn't throw up. We found out several interesting things about our class: We are very much pro-spanking, very much pro-hunting, and very much anti-child beauty pageants. There was a lot of writing on my rough draft of the social media essay...and then I get to the last page, where I find a score of 98, and a note saying this would be acceptable as-is for the final if I wished. There are a few words that I'll rearrange for my own liking, the only thing Jason could find fault with was the title. "I was trying to find something to improve in here...the only thing I could think of was to make the title more interesting," he told me after class let out. He described it as a "perfect academic-style paper, the kind that these fifty-year-old guys wish they could write."
The Internet was out for most of the afternoon, which pretty much killed the idea of getting one last news blog in. And I couldn't get started writing this post until a lot later than I would have liked. But I did get to read Agatha Christie, so that was good. As I've been typing this, I've been watching the Los Angeles-St. Louis hockey game, and there have been snowflakes landing on my window. In May. SNOWFLAKES????? REALLY???? The Blues have just won, like I was hoping, and that's basically all the news that's happened this week.
Up next is finals, which I'm strangely unconcerned about. They're important tests, but the world won't end if I do badly. I'll just do the best I can, and see what happens. Not really that worried about two of them, the other two I'll need to do a little more studying for. And then I'll get to move out(Yay!) and have most of the summer off to rest and learn before the
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