TAMARA FOR DUMMIES CH XIII or A View of Beauty

The longer I live the more beautiful life becomes. If you foolishly ignore beauty, you will soon find yourself without it. Your life will be impoverished. But if you invest in beauty, it will remain with you all the days of your life.  Frank Lloyd Wright 

Don't you like this pic?  I love it.  To me, this albatross is investing his/her life in a lot of beauty.  Now that's what I call a "bird's eye view!" 

Mark Twain, in Ch 12 of "Innocents Abroad" finds himself traveling by train in of the most beautiful of all countries, France.  And as he speeds through the countryside, he muses about how the magnificently impeccable countryside might have come to be. 

What a bewitching land it is! What a garden! Surely the leagues of bright green lawns are swept and brushed and watered every day and their grasses trimmed by the barber. Surely the hedges are shaped and measured and their symmetry preserved by the most architectural of gardeners. Surely the long straight rows of stately poplars that divide the beautiful landscape like the squares of a checker-board are set with line and plummet, and their uniform height determined with a spirit level. Surely the straight, smooth, pure white turnpikes are jack-planed and sandpapered every day. How else are these marvels of symmetry, cleanliness, and order attained? It is wonderful. There are no unsightly stone walls and never a fence of any kind. There is no dirt, no decay, no rubbish anywhere--nothing that even hints at untidiness-- nothing that ever suggests neglect. All is orderly and beautiful--every thing is charming to the eye.

How much toil, time, planning and money must have gone into the creation of such a fair scene.  Twain & I both wonder.  It boggles the mind. 

[Tip:  I'd be doing well to make the tile floor in my 5' by 5' studio apartment pass a beauty inspection.]

[Technical Stuff, no I mean REALLY Technical Stuff:  According to Floriculture and Nursery Crops Yearbook September 2007 , "Total [U.S.] sales of greenhouse and nursery crops in 2006 increased by $52 million from 2005, a marginal gain over almost $17 billion in gross receipts. Of this amount, floriculture sales from 15 major (program) States were nearly $4 billion."... Now I'll say that's a lot of green being spent on greenery!]

Back in France, Twain makes an interesting transition away from France to reflecting upon a previous trip he had made across the Wild West in a stagecoach.

Once I crossed the plains and deserts and mountains of the West in a stagecoach, from the Missouri line to California, and since then all my pleasure trips must be measured to that rare holiday frolic. Two thousand miles of ceaseless rush and rattle and clatter, by night and by day, and never a weary moment, never a lapse of interest! The first seven hundred miles a level continent, its grassy carpet greener and softer and smoother than any sea and figured with designs fitted to its magnitude--the shadows of the clouds. Here were no scenes but summer scenes [...]; to scan the blue distances of a world that knew no lords but us; [...] Then thirteen hundred miles of desert solitudes; of limitless panoramas of bewildering perspective; of mimic cities, of pinnacled cathedrals, of massive fortresses, counterfeited in the eternal rocks and splendid with the crimson and gold of the setting sun; of dizzy altitudes among fog-wreathed peaks and never-melting snows, where thunders and lightnings and tempests warred magnificently at our feet and the storm clouds above swung their shredded banners in our very faces!

Awesome!  For other than the obvious thrill of the rollercoasterish stagecoach ride itself, a great deal of what inspired Twain was the pure untouched-by-the-hands-of-man beauty of God's inimitable creation.  Thousands of miles of beauty created in a fraction of a day.  Isn't it funny how many scurries and hurries and moils and toils for hours and days and weeks which man undertakes when attempting to beautify, while it takes God but a snap of a finger or two to accomplish as much or more.  Man's efforts are burdensome in comparison.

Man can also be so very inept while tending to the beauty that God has given him.

Titikum is an awesome Orca created by God.  At two-years old he was taken by man from Icelandic waters to a life-long captivity and since has been made to live under man's expectations of what a Killer Whale should be.  Tragedy and chaos have ensued from his captivity with not only the death of more than one handler, but also with seemingly endless and not easily-answerable debates over what should be done with this free-spirit.  On two different trips to my dad's home in WA I have had the breath-taking and never-to-be-forgotten privilege of seeing an Orca pod (family) swim not too far from the deck of his home on the Haro Strait.  Yet I don't pretend to know the answers to whether or not Sea World and other Marine Parks should keep these awesome creations captive for show and conservation.  I do know that God's ineffable creation does not easily fit into man's tiny little box.

And how easily man can crush the beauty that God has given us.

Just two days ago in my home county of San Diego CA, the body of a bright and beautiful young high school student , Chelsea King, was found buried in a shallow grave near Lake Hodges, a place where Bret & I have spent time fishing.  This beautiful young "Angel", as her dad calls her, was known to brighten the lives of those she knew.  Her vivacity, humor and giving spirit sparkled into the lives of those around her.

The man who has been arrested in suspicion of her murder is a convicted sex offender, had attempted to abduct another girl jogger last December in the same area where Chelsea disappeared and is a possible suspect in the disappearance of a yet another girl, 14-year old Amber Dubois.  Amber mysteriously vanished from neighboring Escondido last year while on her way to school.  Even with the understanding that this man has not had his day in court and may or may not be guilty of some or all of these horrific crimes, the fact remains that this type of situation is all to common in man's world. Even if this particular predator did not do it, someone this week did irrevocable take Chelsea from this earth.  In man's eyes, this was shockingly all too easy to do and it was much too soon for her to go from us.  She had so much yet to live for and to continue to give to others.

The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness of it, the world and they who dwell in it.  Psalm 24:1

Genesis 1:26-31:  Then God said, "Let us make human beings in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.

So God created human beings in his own image,

in the image of God he created them;

male and female he created them.

God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground."

Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food." And it was so.

God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day."

So,  there we have it.  God made this awesomely complex, resplendent world we call "Earth".  Not only did He do this in the blink of an eye (God-time) but He then gave it into our hands to take care of.  It is an overwhelming responsibility and one we cannot take lightly.  We do not on our own know how to tend to His creation.  So we just keep looking up. Not inwardly lest we become prideful.  Not at each other, lest we become stymied and lest we stay, well, fairly stupid.  So we look up.  Someday this might all make sense to us.  It doesn't to me now, but I am daily grateful for His beauty around me.  It is a gift beyond human words.

TAMARA FOR DUMMIES CH XII or Our 15 minutes of fame

   "Youth lives on hope, old age on remembrance."  French Proverb

Just so you'll know, in case any of you have been sleeping or ignoring or ignorant...

[Technical Stuff:  Hey!  Are "ignoring" and "ignorant" the same word?]

...or ignorant of my other posts, I love Olympic Figure Skating.  With bittersweet heart today I watched the last event in this Olympic series and so am now on Olympic Figure Skating hiatus until 2014.   It was bitter because I will miss the excitement of watching this, the most prestigious of all Figure Skating events.  Sweet because I am on the verge of being over-satiated with the Olympics, feeling very fatigued as if I myself have performed twenty triple-triple combinations per day during the past two weeks.  And also sweet because the Figure Skating finale was the icing on a glorious account of art on ice. 

Just so you'll know, in case you have been sleeping, ignoring or ignorant of said 2010 Olympic Figure Skating, the weight of all of South Korea was placed upon, packed firmly down, shaken and stacked sky-high upon the shoulders of one sweet little young lady named Kim Yu-Na.  In all of time, no South Korean had ever won an Winter Olympic Medal in any sport other than speedskating.  According to the American press, if the favored-to-beat-the-pants-off-the-other-ladies Kim Yu-Na had NOT won the gold, she would have been tarred, feathered, indentured into a life of slavery and never allowed to set foot onto Korean soil again- north or south.  It was a good thing that this gracious young "girl" seemed to find humble joy in her situation and in the skating and did not let the pressure of putting South Korea on the map, so to speak, get the better of her.   Not only did she do well by her country, blowing her own world record scores out of the water by 18 points, she has ensured South Korea more than their fill of their 15 minutes or so of fame.

Onto a more somber subject...

Chapter XI of Mark Twain's "Innocents Abroad" has a rather dour ending. Being in Marseilles, Mr. Twain's and a group of his compatriots hire a boat and a guide in order to take a tour of the island prison Chateau D'If.  This particular castle is not a happy one, but a place where political offenders were held in abject circumstances and without much hope of escape, kind of like an Alcatraz on steroids. "Its use as a dumping ground for political and religious detainees soon made it one of the most feared and notorious jails in France."  (a quote from Good Ol' Wiki).  Twain piercingly depicts what it may have been like to be locked away and forgotten:

This ancient fortress has a melancholy history. It has been used as a prison for political offenders for two or three hundred years, and its dungeon walls are scarred with the rudely carved names of many and many a captive who fretted his life away here and left no record of himself but these sad epitaphs wrought with his own hands. How thick the names were! And their long-departed owners seemed to throng the gloomy cells and corridors with their phantom shapes. We loitered through dungeon after dungeon, away down into the living rock below the level of the sea, it seemed. Names everywhere!--some plebeian, some noble, some even princely. Plebeian, prince, and noble had one solicitude in common--they would not be forgotten! They could suffer solitude, inactivity, and the horrors of a silence that no sound ever disturbed, but they could not bear the thought of being utterly forgotten by the world. Hence the carved names.

Wow!  While reading this, my mind went to thinking about how quickly my own earthly life rushes by and the niggling fear that can creep in that soon it will be gone and in what terrible manner might it end and how long after my death until I am completely forgotten?  My own memory being a weak one makes my understanding of the concept of slipping away all the more acute. 

During my recent move from a house to an apartment, a move which yet transpires as I still have belongings which need to be sorted, dispatched into exile or moved over to my new home, I came across a precious treasure- a little blue and white porcelain bootee painted with delicate pink, blue & green flowers.  It was evidently sent to or via my now deceased mother-in-law at the birth of my eldest son.  Handwritten in tiny letters in red ink on the bottom sole of the bootee are these words: 

x/xx/83  8 # 2 oz 

Bret D(xxxxxx) Brown Jr. (BJ)

Parents:   Bret - Tamara

Gr. P- Keith - Barbara B -

Along the side of the sole was scrawled the name Lulu Smith and inside the bootee was tucked a faded bit of blue construction paper with the words:  "Congratulations.  Painted for you by Lulu Smith". 

Who is Lulu Smith?  The bootee had been stashed away and long forgotten.  I vaguely remember having conversation with my mother-in-law Barbara about it at the time of my son's birth, but what with it having been so many years and with my bad memory and all, I needed help in putting the facts together in my mind.  Quickly I called my Dad-in-Law Keith to ask him who Lulu was and to find out what he knows about this mystery lady.

By the excited yet soft tone that his voice took on at the mention of her name, Keith not being a sentimental cry-baby like his dear old daughter-in-law (me), I could tell that the name of Lulu Smith meant something to him.  My heart and ears pricked up as he told me that Lulu Smith and her husband "Pappy" were the Young Singles Sunday School Class Teachers when he and my mother-in-law Barbara were dating.  They were evidently one of those special couples who invested deeply in and touched the lives of the young adults they mentored, enough so that Keith and Barbara kept in contact with them past their season as singles and into their years as young marrieds.  Eventually Keith and Barbara moved to a different state from Pappy and Lulu and their contacts weren't frequent.

Keith said he could hardly imagine that this bootee had been sent to Barbara for my son's birth, that it must have been for my husband Bret's. 

[Tip:  Bret Jr. and Bret Sr., my son & hubby, have the same 1st name.  This causes occassional frequent confusion....]

This gift from her a generation past their times of closer association helped me understand even better what a sweet spirit "Little Lulu" must have had.  And by the fact that her husband's name was not written on the bootee, just hers, I surmise that Pappy had passed on by 1983 when Bret Jr was born.

What a treasure this little bootee is to me now!  And to think that it was almost put aside and its significance forever forgotten.  If I had come across the bootee even a few more years down the line, perhaps no one would have known who Lulu Smith was and what an impact her and her husband's lives had made on my husband's parents and the other young adults they mentored. 

My heart sinks at how many treasures in life are so soon forgotten.  My mom has dementia and my mother-in-law passed away many years ago now, and there are so many household treasures whose histories have now faded away with no one left to fill in the blanks.  It is poignant to think of how fragile life and the memories of those we have loved are!  Typically we know little about family who lived a generation or so before our grandparents and if notes aren't made and kept with the objects that they pass down to us, their true value, their value as  representations of love passed between people, dwindles away.

There is no remembrance of men of old, and even those who are yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow.

Ecclesiastes 1:10-12

It's a process for me, learning to age gracefully.  The going gray, getting wrinkles, aches, pains and sags are secondary. I am afraid of dying and being forgotten.  When I think of how many prisoners at the Chateau D 'If died while withering away in loneliness and obscurity, perhaps to rarely if ever be thought of again by others, it breaks my heart.  It is here, in these moments of fear of fading into insignificance, that I thankfully learn to latch onto true Grace.  In my middle-age I'm reactualizing the fact that there is One Who always remembers and Who always, miraculously, thinks I am significant.  Only in Him do I have abundantly more than my "fifteen minutes of fame."

TAMARA FOR DUMMIES CH XI or Hail both Columbias!

Hail Columbia!

Hail Columbia, happy land!

Hail, ye heroes, heav'n-born band,

Who fought and bled in freedom's cause,

Who fought and bled in freedom's cause,

And when the storm of war was gone

Enjoy'd the peace your valor won.

Let independence be our boast,

Ever mindful what it cost;

Ever grateful for the prize,

Let its altar reach the skies.

Chorus

Firm, united let us be,

Rallying round our liberty,

As a band of brothers joined,

Peace and safety we shall find.

In Twain's Chapter X of "The Innocents Abroad" the ship's captain had "Hail Columbia" played as part of their July 4th celebration.  As I read the chapter, I scratched my head, figuratively speaking, and was puzzled. What's with that?  What is this song "Hail Columbia" and why did they play it during their Independence Day festivities?  After a minor bit of research on the web, I found that I was even more ignorant in regards to American History than I had formerly known- for "Hail Columbia" was evidently our country's National Anthem before that wretched Star Spangled Banner was.

[Tip:  Can you tell that I lament the scurious traitors who chose to make "The Star Spangled Banner" our National Anthem?]

And today I eat more dirt, for once again, for the umpteenth time, my world and Twain's intertwined...

[Remember:  Please refer to my prediction in TAMARA FOR DUMMIES CH X that there was no way that Twain would be able to once again find a way to parallel my life with his.  After all,  I had peeked and his future held a celebration of Independence Day at sea and in my world it is still February.  My schedule for the week included seeing Avatar 3D and I doubted that Twain would soon be seeing any gigantic flying birds, unless he mayhap journeyed to the center of the earth instead of to France.]

...Today my world and Twain's did intertwine for I have found myself watching perhaps the most patriotic of all sporting events- The Olympics, which this year are being held in...okay drum roll and hold onto your hat...British COLUMBIA!  No, I could not make this stuff up even if I tried.

This morning, as I watched yesterday's Ice Dancing Finals on my DVR, I found myself inspired and shedding tears.  Not only did our American team, first time Olympic participants Meryl  Davis & Charlie White, take home the Silver medal, but their friendly rivals from the same training center in Michigan, Canadians Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, "took home" the Gold (although they were already home so to speak so maybe that phrase is a redundant in their case).   

I found it interesting to hear that as children of approx. 8 years of age, Charlie White and Scott Moir, in a foreshadowing of their futures, "battled it out" on the ice whilst playing that daintiest of  games -ice hockey.  Their teams evidently had the proper esprit de corps required by the sport.  They went fisticuffs against each other (shocking behavior for children-I know!), although Charlie evidently didn't actually take a swing at Scott.  He remained obediently on the bench as bidden by some sane adult, perhaps his coach.

[Technical Stuff:  Is it possible to be a sane hockey coach?]

[More Technical Stuff:  Note that Charlie epitomized that ideal for all American children of being freely obedient.]

So, here about fifteen years later, the two end up competing in the Olympic games against each other and by doing so make history as it is the first time that North Americans have won both gold and silver at an Olympic Ice Skating competition.

...friendly rivals, training together, sharing Russian coaches, competitive spirits propelling both teams to aspire to skate to their utmost amongst much well-wishing, hugging and joy all around....happy sigh!

[Technical Stuff:  The bronze medalists, Russian pair Domnina & Shabalin and fourth place American couple Belbin & Agosto also train together and share the same coaches.  It is rumored that their rivalry is friendly as well.]

What an ideal!  For countries to compete to be their best but to remain friendly rivals.  Instead of coming to fisticuffs, what if we all cheered each other on and yet all strived to be our best?  Could there perhaps be a lesson to be learned here?  Would this not make patriotism more golden?  I hope so!   Oscar Wilde said "Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious", but I don't think it has to be that way.  I prefer what one of the greatest of all orators, Luciano Pavarottie, said:  "The rivalry is with ourself. I try to be better than is possible. I fight against myself, not against the other."  

And so, in the spirit of beautiful rivalries, today I "hail both Columbias!"

“Do not those who plot evil go astray? But those who plan what is good find love and faithfulness.”- Proverbs 14:22

TAMARA FOR DUMMIES CH X or Love and Solitude

"To love another person is to see the face of God."  Victor Hugo

First let me (re?)iterate that Mark Twain is one scary old dude! 

[Remember:  OK, I perhaps hadn't previously used those exact words but if you have perused some of my earlier posts, you will know that he has this tendency to be looking over my shoulder as if he is personally knows what is going on in my life.]

The Scary Dude part is that in his Ch IX of "The Innocents Abroad" Twain gives reference to Valentines! 

Here [Tangier], marriage is contracted by the parents of the parties to it. There are no valentines, no stolen interviews, no riding out, no courting in dim parlors, no lovers' quarrels and reconciliations--no nothing that is proper to approaching matrimony. The young man takes the girl his father selects for him, marries her, and after that she is unveiled, and he sees her for the first time. If after due acquaintance she suits him, he retains her; but if he suspects her purity, he bundles her back to her father; if he finds her diseased, the same; or if, after just and reasonable time is allowed her, she neglects to bear children, back she goes to the home of her childhood.

And in "Tamara Universe" today is Feb 17, a mere three days after the most romantic of all holidays...

[Tip: Hah! Sometimes it pays off to cheat a bit. I just happened to notice that in his Ch X Mr. Twain is going to celebrate the Fourth of July! I am quite confident, barring some terrible tragedy like being run over by a bus and being laid up in the hospital for five months...knock wood...that I will not be having Independence Day occur in MY life anytime soon. Take that Mr. Twain!]

 Mr. Twain is still in Tangier, it only having been one day since he last entertained us with his experiences in what he calls "the second oldest town in the world" and he is already chomping at the bit to move on to his next destination, being bored and not at all appreciative of the fact that he has sufficient time and money to travel the globe and that there are poor children even now in China who do not have this opportunity.  And so he, whom I no doubt may have been "the second oldest" man in the town of Tangier during his stay and thus crotchety, does tend to go on and on about how torturous lonely and boring it must be to be stationed there as American Counsel General and that it is a post only worthy of the vilest criminal offenders to have to carry out. 

And so now, back in my Universe, instead of being happy with having frivolously celebrated 2010 Valentine's weekend with my husband by playing Wii and consuming Meat Ball Pizza, cheesy bread sticks, cookies and soda, I now am forced, in honor of St. Valentine and his followers, to be contemplative and usher up some awesome depth of insight on love....and solitude.

The consequence of this coercion is that my mind has struggled between the understanding of how much we as people need to love each other and the understanding that, this being true, we need our solitude.   Since during the past several years I have undergone an important season of healing in my own life because of and despite of self-imposed solitude and deep depression, my epiphany is that people need both. 

We need each other physically, soulicly and  spiritually.  Indeed, God Himself when He created us deemed it was not good for us to be alone.  Yet sometimes it takes solitude to really come to intimately know ourselves and how truly deep God's love for us as individuals is.  David took time alone to mediate during angst-riddled emotional and physical battles in his life.  John the Baptist and Christ had their times alone in the desert, forsaking all that had to do with society and comfort, to come to a deeper understanding of who they were in themselves and in God. 

And so I, now knowing that my journey in some very small way ran parallel to these great saints of the Bible, have come through painful times of aloneness to grow into one so very grateful that God stood with me resolutely and passionately during my exile from others. And the "Creator of me" also helped me understand that He gifted me with others in my life whose love held true even in the worst.  During times when I couln't tolerate myself at all, let alone image that someone else could, somehow they remained true.

I do not know if everyone goes through times of solitude and growth to the degree that David, John, Christ or even I did.  I do know that I am thankful for my time of solitude.   For my walk with Him is truer now and with less wavering on my part.  (He never falters.) And my steps with my loved ones are richer.  The contentment He has taught me to have in myself has only deepened my contentment in being with those I love.  For trite but true, until we love ourselves we cannot truly love others.   I guess this understanding could be called God's Valentine gift to me!

"During my solitude, conflicting thoughts increased; but much exercise of soul had the effect of causing the scriptures to gain complete ascendancy over me." John Nelson Darby

TAMARA FOR DUMMIES CH IX or What's my/your/our perspective?

A little perspective, like a little humor, goes a long way.   Allen Klein

During our last post together "we" discussed Focus...

[Tip:  hee hee...I was really the only one discussing.  Do you like how I tried to push some of the blame for my bombast off on you?]

...now, during the last couple of days, after spending a little time with Mr. Twain in "Innocents Abroad", my thoughts have shifted to a close cousin of focus...Perspective.

In Chapter VIII,  he finds himself in Tangier, a great melting pot of all that's not... "white men".  Since, as we know from not too distant history, most Anglos for these past thousand years or so have thought themselves to be the center of the Universe, he is refreshed and thrilled to find himself on exotic and foreign ground:

Here is not the slightest thing that ever we have seen save in pictures--and we always mistrusted the pictures before. We cannot anymore. The pictures used to seem exaggerations--they seemed too weird and fanciful for reality. But behold, they were not wild enough--they were not fanciful enough--they have not told half the story. Tangier is a foreign land if ever there was one, and the true spirit of it can never be found in any book save The Arabian Nights.

He seems to savor and revel in the sense that there are great depths of history and a life outside of his own recent perceptions of the world.  His perspective shifted.

Recently my Stepmother and Father sent me a link to a clip of the Hubble Telescope and what it "saw" in 1996 when pointed for a mere ten days toward what seemed to be  a spot of  apparently nothing, "no bigger than the size of a grain of sand when held at arm's length"- a picture of a mere "rich harvest of about 10,000 galaxies."   Astonishing! This "nothing" area is now referred to as the "Hubble Ultra Deep Field" and with it the people of Earth's universal perspective shifted.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAVjF_7ensg

 
 

 
We as mere humans have very fragile perspectives indeed.  The smallest things can throw them off or shift them.  Today I inadvertently stood in front of the USB wireless adapter which is hooked into the back of our computer tower.  My husband had been diligently working for quite a while on setting me up with a "Network Place" and suddenly our connection, wireless and relationally, all but ceased.
 
[Technical Stuff:  I really didn't know I didn't have a network place to start with...haven't I been on my blogs and Facebook all this time????]
 
As I shifted my willowy figure (dream perspective) about six inches to the left, my physical frame of reference shifted and I found myself suddenly back in the realm of "Net-World".
 
[Remember:  Yes, my relational connection w/ Mr. Brown remains intact as well.]
 
Speaking of my willowy figure, I think I have the most attractive friends in the world.  For instance, to take a risk on one whom I hope will forgive my frankness...(pray for me!)... there is Rachel.  I think she is one of the most beautiful ladies I know.  She is Shelly Long-ish.  And while she has a pretty face, she probably wouldn't win a Miss American contest, unless perhaps her biased husband Mark were one of the judges.  At 4?-years of age, I have matured in life and my viewpoints and understandings of relationships have grown, so I believe I understand why I value her beauty so much:
 

It's quite simple really. Being always transcends appearance-that which only seems to be. Once you begin to know the being behind the very pretty or very ugly face, as determined by your bias, the surface appearances fade away until they simple no longer matter. [...] God, who is the ground of all being, dwells in, around, and through all things-ultimately emerging as the real-and appearances that mask that reality will fall away.— William P. Young (The Shack)

 
It's all a matter of perspective. 
 
If we stopped to try and process all that is going on in life around us at any given moment and to attempt for the sake of all we love to maintain control over all the innumerable realms of reality, from microscopic to cosmotic...
 
[Technical Stuff:  Is cosmotic a word? if not, I like it anyway.]
 
... well, I think our brains would explode or something gross like that for the effort.  Now THAT would end the perspective problems would it not?
 
But, thankfully we don't need to control or understand it all.  Even if all of the great experts in the world, from "quarks-studiers" to astronomers to all-wise theologians, were to disappear, there would still be ONE who holds the ultimate perspective in His hands.  Without Him, we would all be, in Twain's words, like "a crowded city of snowy tombs!"

Psalm 139:

O LORD, you have searched me and you know me.

2 You know when I sit and when I rise;

you perceive my thoughts from afar.

3 You discern my going out and my lying down;

you are familiar with all my ways.

4 Before a word is on my tongue

you know it completely, O LORD.

5 You hem me in—behind and before;

you have laid your hand upon me.

6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,

too lofty for me to attain.

7 Where can I go from your Spirit?

Where can I flee from your presence?

8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;

if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

if I settle on the far side of the sea,

10 even there your hand will guide me,

your right hand will hold me fast.

11 If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me

and the light become night around me,"

12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;

the night will shine like the day,

for darkness is as light to you.

13 For you created my inmost being;

you knit me together in my mother's womb.

14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

your works are wonderful,

I know that full well.

15 My frame was not hidden from you

when I was made in the secret place.

When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

16 your eyes saw my unformed body.

All the days ordained for me eere written in your book

before one of them came to be.

17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!

How vast is the sum of them!

18a Were I to count them,

they would outnumber the grains of sand.

When we awake tomorrow, He'll still be here, there and everywhere, and that's a pretty good perspective! 

 

 

 

TAMARA FOR DUMMIES CH VIII or "What/Whom is our Gibraltar?"

People do tend to keep their focus on the strangest things, don't they?  I know I do.   Here are a couple of hot items I have heard/read discussed/disgust on TV or the Internet in the past couple of days:

*  Whether or not it is okay for a politician to use a teleprompter and/or notes written on his/her hand to aid in the delivery of speeches.
*  What was the best Superbowl 44 commercial?  (It was the Doritos Dog Commercial! http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-super-bowl-commercials/09000d5d816443b1/Doritos-dog-commercial)
*  Whether or not Pro Lifers/Pro Choicers, Republicans/Democrats, Letterman/Leno should have open opportunity to openly share their views with each other in public forums.

[Technical Stuff:  Please add to above list as relates to your own experiences and post on own blog if applicable.]

Mr. Twain and his cohorts-in-travel, as they passed into that infamous narrow strait between Africa and Europe, found themselves caught up in their own strange foci:

* What IS the North African "Pillar of Hercules"? (or is that "Pillow of Herkewls"?)
*  Whether or not a legit poet could possibly write both "Ode to the Ocean in a Storm" and "Apostrophe to the Rooster in the Waist of the Ship' within a combined 1-hour time frame
*  Whether or not the more refined and genteel of folk do indeed put their gloves on one hand at a time.

[Tip: The later was evidently a trick question as it was put forth by a woman to a poor unsuspecting-the-game-plan-thus defenseless man.  This is why women are not allowed to play NFL football.  We're too cunning for the men to be able to keep ahead of us in the game....]

While I am myself a great proponent of thinking, and thinking a lot and for oneself, it isn't too hard to see that people do tend to:

a)  get caught up much too seriously into the sometimes not-so-serious things of life or
b)  get caught up way too much into the somewhat-more serious things of life

and all because of concern for what others may/may not think and inner realization that we ourselves cannot possibly figure every possible thing out for ourselves and forgetting that there really could not be more than One who knows everything there is that needs to be known:

In a few moments a lonely and enormous mass of rock, standing seemingly in the center of the wide strait and apparently washed on all sides by the sea, swung magnificently into view, and we needed no tedious traveled parrot to tell us it was Gibraltar. There could not be two rocks like that in one kingdom.

[Remember: At this point I am not too proud to take us back a posting or two and shamefacedly recall my own great consternation at another being, a one Mr. Twain, and his  attempts to sabotage my nascent writing career and thus recall my over-concern for what he may have been thinking of me!]

And as Twain is so good to remind us, short of God Himself, no other person is ever going to know everything about everything: 

The ancients considered the Pillars of Hercules the head of navigation and the end of the world. The information the ancients didn't have was very voluminous. Even the prophets wrote book after book and epistle after epistle, yet never once hinted at the existence of a great continent on our side of the water; yet they must have known it was there, I should think.

And indeed, it is quite often a burdensome thing to keep up on all there is out there in our world and to be able to process and accurately decipher all we need to know.  It is all too easy of a temptation to look to Mr. Joe Blow over there to our right or Ms. Johnna Doe yonder to our left and let them determine what is right or wrong for us.  It is no wonder at the relief we can feel if we procrastinate long enough on decision making until time is up, thus taking the decision right out of our hands.  Or, in Mr. Twain's own salty words, "I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it take me as much as a week sometimes to make it up."

If we do look to some other human to tell us what/how to think we would likely just end up with someone like Twain's "Oracle" who spouted on at great length about things he had twisted and garbled all together or "the Idiot" who....well, I have no need to describe him as his nickname says it all.

And, as Mr. Twain's wrap-up of his Ch VII succinctly lets us know, if we let someone else do the thinking for us, they do not take us in, we do that for ourselves!

TAMARA FOR DUMMIES CH VII update

Much trauma!  Now taken 1 1/2 showers today... 1/2 shower was trauma part...

Giving Gracie a bath as dirty from recent exhibition to "Kilimanjaro Pond" through slushy red mud and semi-snow...

Sitting in shower w/ dog...me on bench seat... dog standing rigor-mortisly stiff facing shower wall in corner...

Gracie wearing collar, I wearing nothing below hips....

Ouch!  Bad back!  Cannot do required contortions to accomplish dog-bathing...

Previously smart but now stupid dog won't move around as I need her to...

Lividity settling into Gracie's lower regions...

Trying not to get top 2/3 of myself wet (dressed part) but formerly best-in-the-world companion-dog suddenly doesn't care about me & not cooperating... 

Esteem for actual African trekkers sans showers risen by 19,341 ft....

TAMARA FOR DUMMIES Ch VII or this is the dreamtrip of a lifetime!

Dedicated to the best guide in the world....my dog Gracie. 

If any of you out there are rather slow under-educated, such as I, and perhaps thought that a certain high African peak, to which I am soon to refer, is the same peak as K2 in Asia, then I may without censure refer to a quote our Mr Twain made in his Chapter VI of "The Innocents Abroad":

"I think the Azores must be very little known in American.".

OK, OK, that's throwing Europe onto the heap, but bear with me here and lieu of the Azores, let's insert a different location into the truism.  Say a location in honor of my serendipitous discovery yesterday and today of...duh duh duh duh dah duh (sp?)....Kilimanjaro!

[Remember:  See- I'm not that dumb...Kilimanjaro starts with "K" and so does K2.  I had some very, very little basis in sound reasoning there...]

Now, despite the fact that in my young days...

[Technical Stuff:  I no longer say "younger" days as I now count myself to be quite old.]

...despite the fact that in my young days I would rather have had my mouth washed out with soap than watch one, I have in the last couple of years discovered that I really enjoy documentaries, especially those dealing with nature and science, such as ones elucidating on the power of the regal lion, the amazing and much-yet-to-be-learned workings of the human brain, the extreme outer reaches of the stratosphere (what IS that?), and the incredible scientific processes in the of making of perhaps the most amazing invention of mankind...Jelly-Bellys.

[Technical Stuff:  Except I hate documentaries on slithery scaly reptilians....as the great Dr. Henry Walton Jones Junior ("Indiana") would say, "I HATE SNAKES"!  They give me nightmares.  However, most of you ladies will now thank me as I post a picture of one very handsome Harrison Ford and not of a cobra.  By the way, my "Webster's New World Collegiate Dictionary" includes an illustration for every single snake entry it has starting with "anaconda" all the way through "viper".  I can't look up a definition for any word in the entire English language without seeing a snake while flipping pages AND I FLIPPIN'  HATE SNAKES!!!  They give me nightmares.]

About two weeks ago I recorded and yesterday watched an Iris (documentary series) episode entitled...hold onto your hat..."Kilimanjaro"! 

[Tip: Don't give too much credit to me RE the "hold onto your hat" quip which was unintentional and was not at all referring to the sombrero of muy-rico-suave Mr. Indiana up there.]

Well, for enticement's sake,  BYU-TV's website can give a more exciting descriptor of "Kilimanjaro" than I: 

"Join a group of adventurers as they attempt to climb one of the largest freestanding mountains on earth—Mount Kilimanjaro: a landmark of beauty and mystery in the heart of Africa. The mountain has drawn hundreds to its base, but only half of those that begin the trip up Mount Kilimanjaro make it to the summit."

This viewing of the wonders, exhilaration, and self-fulfilment of a not-for-sissies 6-7 day African trek starting in tropical climes, through moorlands-on-steroids and escalating to 19,000 ft glacier-covered volcanic peaks, and knowing that as the Kilimanjaro glaciers deplete, thus deplete the snow drifts outside my door, I was inspired before I could have second thoughts to strap on my belt (don't want my jeans falling down into the slush) and to do my own trekking.  Time is of the essence and he who hesitates is lost!

And despite knowing that back in Mr. Twain's Chapter VI of "Innocents Abroad" he and his cohorts are even now struggling with a wild pack of savage donkeys and their handlers....

"We started. It was not a trot, a gallop, or a canter, but a stampede, and made up of all possible or conceivable gaits. No spurs were necessary. There was a muleteer to every donkey and a dozen volunteers beside, and they banged the donkeys with their goad sticks, and pricked them with their spikes, and shouted something that sounded like "Sekki-yah!" and kept up a din and a racket that was worse than Bedlam itself. These rascals were all on foot, but no matter, they were always up to time--they can outrun and outlast a donkey."

....and thus understanding what bringing an animal with me may cost me, I grabbed my trusty mutt-dog Gracie Ann (don't tell my mom that I use her middle name as my dog's middle name...but it's just so cute!) and trekked down the 1/5 mile semi-gravel semi-red clay road from my toasty warm abode through frozen tundra to the ice capped pond here at "The Farm".  And I count myself to be a braver soul than those who aspired for Kilimanjaro...
 
[Remember & Technical Stuff:  Oh dear, almosted typed in "semi-grave" instead of "semi-gravel".  After all that harassing of Mr. Twain and calling him morbid.
Also, am so tired from spelling that peak's name over and over...what a long moniker!  Why didn't they just call the it Mt. Fred or something?]
 
...I count myself to be braver than those who traversed to the peak of "Mt. Fred" as I went downhill, not uphill, to my crater and if fatigue had set-in I perhaps would never have made the 1 mile trek (path seems 5x longer on the return trip) back to the safety of my abode.
 
Journey and challenge conquered!.  Pride of accomplishment saturates our beings!  Gracie & I remained true, despite off-setting track-type signs of imminent danger from wild beasts such as deer, turkey and I think a "b'ar" ( = Ozarkian bear) or two.   And thus my call-out to you today is to follow your dreams and aspirations.  I may scoff at my own piddly little attempts at greatness....but hey, I'm not stuck riding full-bore on a crazed donkey, and that counts for something, doesn't it?
 
PS Mr. Twain: Your above passage did not pass Spell-Check!
 
Boy, so tired from sojourn today that I may doze off now and skip dinner...too tired-out to eat....zzzzzzz
 
 

TAMARA FOR DUMMIES CH VI or Tamara mellows towards Mr. Twain (somewhat)

Dedicated to my Jr. High English teacher who may have detected a nascent talent for smart-aleckiness in me when she gave me an A+ on an writing assignment on irony.  (It's terrible to flash and burn so young...)

As of 8:03 a.m. today (OK, OK, starting from 1:07 a.m. yesterday) I have felt a tad bit more mellow towards one Mr. Twain.  And this mellowing is probably just as well, as my previously sour attitude towards him and life in general has only spread disaster faster to two most beloved friends who are incidentally also my only two fans! 

[Remember: See urgent bulletin update to TAMARA FOR DUMMIES Ch V...but do not read that chapter itself!  You have been warned!...]

[Tip: Pic Attached @ top of blog is not of either of friends....]

For in Mr. Twain's Chapter V of "The Innocents Abroad", he does help me to, hopefully, grow in wisdom.  Like one awesome Helen Fielding and like me, Mr. Twain does love the melodramatic.  But when it comes down to it, he has his head on straight enough as to recognize and appreciate the sane and the beautiful in life.  During their first 10 days of his journey towards all of Europe and the Holy Land,  Mr. Twain lays down some rather histrionic and depictive musings RE horrible weather and related seasickness of fellow passengers (but no illness of his own...that showoff!) but then slyly inserts the following wiseguy comment:

"...but for the most part we had balmy summer weather and nights that were even finer than the days..."

How is that for making me feel quite loathsome for enjoying his previously sour rantings!  (Although by the end of the paragraph Mr. Twain refers to himself as a "Joshua' which I believe is his attempt to make  himself seem more saintly and godly...conceited fellow that he is!)

[OK, I Remember, I Remember: ...Be mellow towards Mr. Twain...be mellow towards Mr. Twain....]

And then Mr. Sly-Guy starts a written sketch of the nautilus, a strangely ugly sea creature, which he may have been describing in order to tell us more than what meets-the-surface.

[Technical Stuff:  For reasons of " pompous purity" in gathering my blogly thoughts together, I have intentionally avoided synopses and interpretations from scholarly or other sorts on said "Innocents Abroad" as I do not want to be swayed in what I think, ponder or interpret until after "TAMARA FOR DUMMIES" has been completed.  At that point I will have plenty of time (Lord Willing!) to feel stupid, yes dumb, for any/all of my musings which are off base.  In the meanwhile, ignorance is bliss...]

Back to Twain:

"The nautilus is nothing but a transparent web of jelly that spreads itself to catch the wind, and has fleshy-looking strings a foot or two long dangling from it to keep it steady in the water. It is an accomplished sailor and has good sailor judgment. It reefs its sail when a storm threatens or the wind blows pretty hard, and furls it entirely and goes down when a gale blows. Ordinarily it keeps its sail wet and in good sailing order by turning over and dipping it in the water for a moment..."

Wow!  This seemingly unintelligent stringy blob-of-jelly creature was given a gift from God for weathering storms!  Now, is knowing how to weather storms not a valuable thing?  If storms threaten or winds blow, reef your sail!  If gales blow, furl your sail entirely and go down beneath the surface!  Keep your sail wet and in good sailing order by turning over and dipping it in "The Water" for a moment (spiritual connotation intended)...

[Technical Stuff:  OK, if you know not what reefing your sail, furling your sail, etc. mean...look them up!  I had to...If I have to wade through nautical terms, so do you!]

Nextly, it does cross my mind, RE his Ch IV discouragements against my blogging that Mr. Twain was may-hap (may-hap is a cool word, is it not?...but what does it mean?) was may-hap being a slight bit kind in prodding me to fortify myself against giving in to potential discouragements...(such as in only having two fans).  If he hadn't, perhaps I would even now have quit my blogging, and wouldn't you be sad?  (Helloooo...are you out there?)

Next nextly, I somewhat mellow toward Mr. Twain, as I aspire to learn more on how to use the pen to poignantly describe the beauty of God's world around me...a gift I do not have but perhaps could learn by eavesdropping on "Kings of the Pen" such as Twain...(OK, Mr. Twain, please don't let THAT go to your head....)  He is not among the best depictors of scenery like, say, John Wagner author of Maxine is, but he does have much more adeptness and experience than I...

"The island in sight was Flores. It seemed only a mountain of mud standing up out of the dull mists of the sea. But as we bore down upon it the sun came out and made it a beautiful picture--a mass of green farms and meadows that swelled up to a height of fifteen hundred feet and mingled its upper outlines with the clouds. It was ribbed with sharp, steep ridges and cloven with narrow canyons, and here and there on the heights, rocky upheavals shaped themselves into mimic battlements and castles; and out of rifted clouds came broad shafts of sunlight, that painted summit, and slope and glen, with bands of fire, and left belts of somber shade between. It was the aurora borealis of the frozen pole exiled to a summer land!"

But, before I am in danger of being in the way of far to kind to Mr. Twain, let me [Remember:] you by pointing out Mr. Twain's fascination w/ the macabre...

"We skirted around two-thirds of the island, four miles from shore, and all the opera glasses in the ship were called into requisition to settle disputes as to whether mossy spots on the uplands were groves of trees or groves of weeds, or whether the white villages down by the sea were really villages or only the clustering tombstones of cemeteries. "

And by making mention of the fact, that by way or being coddled by his mama when but a boy, or by way of too much testosterone, I do not know, but Mr. Twain, like all of the adult boys of the male species whom I know, likes his toys...

"We landed under the walls of a little fort, armed with batteries of twelve-and-thirty-two-pounders, which Horta considered a most formidable institution, but if we were ever to get after it with one of our turreted monitors, they would have to move it out in the country if they wanted it where they could go and find it again when they needed it. "

Yuk!  Boys and their Toys usually involve weapons or killing or explosions....

Well, I digress.  Let me wrap up my musings on Twain's Ch V by tipping my hat (oops..wrong blog) to God and His nautilus.  If a sculptor, such as my dear Poppy, were to create an abstract sculpture of me after the end of my 110 years on earth (Poppy will be 141 by that time), I dream that an apt depiction would look something like the nautilus' post-life sculpture.  It is amazingly beautiful and I think it is in mind of how the layered years of a persons life should hopefully spiral and shape in him into growing in breadth of understanding, of love and of wisdom...

TAMARA FOR DUMMIES Ch V an urgent news bulletin!!!!!

****FOR ALL AND SUNDRY (yes, again...) "TAMARA FOR DUMMIES" blog readers WHO DO NOT WISH TO BE SUMMONED FOR JURY DUTY:****

Urgent update!  Every one my readers (both of them) who read previous blog Ch V have been since summoned for Jury Duty.  If you are among those slackers who do not wish to do their Civil Duty, please refrain from reading Ch V! 

(I can't believe I'm discouraging readership!)

ps: proud of self...no spelling errors detected by Google Tool Bar ABC "check"...

TAMARA FOR DUMMIES Ch V or "This Guy is Getting More Annoying and Creepier All the Time."

Dedicated to other misunderstood literary aspirants such as myself....

[Remember:  Yes, I do tend to wallow in the occasional pity-party.]

Sometimes I wonder if I'm living in a strange parallel get-me-outta here Universe with this Mr. Mark Twain guy...or if I'm in some terrible nightmare with his alter-ego, a one Sir Edgar Allan Poe.  In any case, this Twain guy's getting creepier and more annoying all the time! 

I couldn't sleep much last night in anticipation of a day today of Jury Duty.  Yes, I was called upon to contribute my non extensive understanding of all things legal, moral, ethical and/or ought-to-be and help decide the fate of some poor soul who has been either:

1) wishing and wishing that he hadn't done sum'n that he shouldn'a done and now is having to pay the piper with to-be-decided upon time periods of his life locked up with people whose sole purpose in life is to make his more miserable....

2)  or (deep breath so I might continue)... some poor soul who is just trying to get back some fraction of some $ from someone who wronged him but in the process is having to single handedly support an attorney, the attorney's one wife, two dogs, three fish and four generations of said attorney's offspring.

Anyway, I digress.  I was trying to let you know that I was SO excited about this Jury Duty prospect that I could barely sleep all night long for the joy of being called upon to serve as a much-wanted and useful citizen. Thus while wide awake I determined to find out what was up with Mr. Twain and the poor 5 captains unfortunate enough to be in authority over him for 3 long months traveling over all parts of Europe and the Holy Land.

And do you know in turn what this Mr. Twain had the nerve to taunt me with?!  My blogging!  Yes, back 500 years ago when he was pompously and without sea sickness (grrrr) sailing by the Graces of God towards the beauty of Europe, he took the time to make me feel really unsure about my blogging skills and goals! 

"At certain periods it becomes the dearest ambition of a man to keep a faithful record of his performances in a book; and he dashes at this work with an enthusiasm that imposes on him the notion that keeping a journal is the veriest pastime in the world, and the pleasantest. But if he only lives twenty-one days, he will find out that only those rare natures that are made up of pluck, endurance, devotion to duty for duty's sake, and invincible determination may hope to venture upon so tremendous an enterprise as the keeping of a journal and not sustain a shameful defeat."

AND not much later on....

"If you wish to inflict a heartless and malignant punishment upon a young person" (that could be me...I'm not that old.) "pledge him to keep a journal a year." 

How does he do that?  How does he know exactly what's going on in my and his contemporaries' minds and know how to so quickly dash our fondest hopes and expectations while keeping himself so free of the flinging mud?!  And look at this!  If you think I am exaggerating about the Edgar Allan Poe allusion, well, read this next macabre bit from his Ch IV narrative!

"Several times the photographer of the expedition brought out his transparent pictures and gave us a handsome magic-lantern exhibition. His views were nearly all of foreign scenes, but there were one or two home pictures among them. He advertised that he would "open his performance in the after cabin at 'two bells' (nine P.M.) and show the passengers where they shall eventually arrive"--which was all very well, but by a funny accident the first picture that flamed out upon the canvas was a view of Greenwood Cemetery!"

OK, OK, now this is the part which convinces me that he knew very well that I was among those whom he taunted!  For not may paragraphs shy of wrapping up his Ch IV, he throws this in: 

"We also had a mock trial. No ship ever went to sea that hadn't a mock trial on board. The purser was accused of stealing an overcoat from stateroom No. 10. A judge was appointed; also clerks, a crier of the court, constables, sheriffs; counsel for the State and for the defendant; witnesses were subpoenaed, and a jury empaneled after much challenging. The witnesses were stupid and unreliable and contradictory, as witnesses always are. The counsel were eloquent, argumentative, and vindictively abusive of each other, as was characteristic and proper. The case was at last submitted and duly finished by the judge with an absurd decision and a ridiculous sentence."

[Technical Stuff:  I lament that I have even given Mr. Twain the satisfaction of quoting him so much as in my entry today.  But I fear you would not grasp the full significance of what I say if I wasn't backing it up with very cold hard evidence!]

At least he left me the dignity, for the time being, of his referring to a Trial by Judge, and not a Trial by Jury.  So, after very little sleep I arose this morning, downed  a gallon of good strong coffee and hurried over to the Court House where I knew I would be appreciated! 

And I left disconsolate...

For, after handing out 50 numbered, gavel-shaped cardboard fans to "unappreciates" other potential jurors continuing on with the selection process, men and women who inmediately cursed and lamented the fact that they were not yet being recused, I and about 5 other shame-faced rejects headed home... a mere 30 minutes into the morning....

I can say no more.  It is just too hard.  But don't fret yet.  Mr. Twain may be throwing every possible object in my path by which to thwart my literary goals, but I am a little too plucky, determined, enduring, semi-invincible and stubbornly devoted to give in....you and he are not rid of me that easily.....

TAMARA FOR DUMMIES Ch IV update for those who have lost sleep since aforementioned Ch IV was 1st published

We all live but I attest not to the stability of our hithertofore friendships and the longetiviy of one black and white furred "Bad Kitty", a contrary creature which must surely be on its 9th already, but I have no guarantee of this....

Alas, one aforementioned friend at the last moment was not able to come to our "fete", leaving us at 4 guests, which ironically may have saved us from much-feared doom.  Some in the group desire to claim "Bad Kitty" as the 5th, but isn't this just asking for trouble from "the gods" and I do not think that this would be a fair substitution in light of the fact that....

1) The aforementioned friend is much too dear of one to ever be replaced by a feline and....

2)  Cats are on an entirely different "lives-scales" than we mere humans are and the cat, who has potentially much less to lose, is in the way of just bringing us down that much faster!

TAMARA FOR DUMMIES Ch IV (or "Oh, no, this can't be good...")

Dedicated to: Rachel, Sharon, Debbie, Becky and REALLY wishing you were amongst the list....Shirley)

I am in much trepidation. For after visiting with Mr. Twain in his Chapter III of "Innocents Abroad" I have much fear and foreboding as to whether....

[Technical Stuff: Oh, that's how you spell the word "whether"...I just couldn't get it right earlier today while trying to quickly send a low-tech, no, don't want spell-check, just want to get this note posted message to someone on Face Book.]

....as to whether or not I will live out the evening without either:

1) Getting group food poisoning

2) Having a major rift develop between me and some much-loved friends and potentially living out my years as an unwilling hermitess and/or

3) Getting arrested for unknowingly (and completely in innocence, Mr. FBI-Man!) violating some or all of those scary copyright infringement laws which are always ominously plastered before, during and after any movie recording purchased or rented for entertainment purposes only!

In other words my most-eagerly anticipated "Irony Chef America Party" for tonight is doomed! You see, under my annoying instigation, some lady friends and I are are gathering tonight to watch a home recording (no, I'm NOT collecting $ for this!) of "Iron Chef" and "Iron Chef America" whilst we eat low-brow food of the cheeze whiz and crackers, unwashed garden vegetables and fudgecicles variety. (This the "irony" part of our event's "title", for those of you who are likely too intelligent to be able to stoop low enough to get my low-brow humor.)

And my impeding party-disaster really is all Mr. Twain's fault.

[Remember: During my last blog I was quite happy with this gentleman, even to the point of presuming upon him a first name acquaintance!]
For the last three of his five Chapter III subtitles are as follows:

3. "Tribulation Among the Patriarchs" referring to the fact that all and sundry (again) of the older passengers on board ship develop sea sickness and cannot keep their breakfasts down!

[Technical Stuff: Did I happen to mention that I and the other ladies attending the party, as per my interpretation, are what Mr. Twain describes as "elderly" - we being of the 40ish-50ish year-old age range and at least one of whom is very close to that terrible doorway of 60 years of age (oops...I think I just started that aforementioned rift)!]
4. "Seeking Amusement Under Difficulties" under which Mr. Twain finds himself bored on-board and gets himself into all sorts of trouble with the...

5. "5 Captains in the Ship" in which Mr. Twain finds that, just like too many cooks in the kitchen, that 5 captains on ship are about 4 too many and that any transgressions he may commit are bound to be noticed by so many authority figures all hovering around at one time.

OK, so up to about 10 minutes ago any party forebodings I may have "entertained" based on Mr. Twain's Chap III were quickly brushed aside because the # of ladies who were planning to attend my aforementioned "Irony Chef America" party were to be 6, not 5. Thus the too many captains/cooks linking our festivities to Mr. Twain's terrible day aboard ship seemed tenuous at best.

But alas, I just received a Face Book message from my hostess for tonight (thanks a lot Sharon!) letting me know that the sixth lady, possibly the most senior of us, the most level-headed, the kindest and the most even-keeled (oh, cool, another shipping word tossed into the mix...wait, is "mix" mixing shipping and cooking/noncooking...???? Much confusion)...well, what I was trying to tell you is that the 6th lady is now no longer coming to our little "fete"!

That makes 5 of us attending, as in "5 captains in the ship" and we are doomed!!!!!

OK, with all of that said, I'll maybe get back to you later, if I'm able after such a traumatic event as which hovers over my horizon (wow! shipping word!) and let you know how it all "cooks up" (whew! I amuse myself to no end with these pungent little cooking/shipping phrases lading my post....No, I did NOT think of Emily Post when I put that last word in...)

Well, anyway, I only hae 3 more hours to ready for my doom, but, hopefully I'll "see" you later...