Job Chapter One

While he was still speaking, another messenger came and said,"The fire of God fell from the sky and burned up the sheep and the servants, ane I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!"

Awaiting the Chaldeans and attempting blockquotes again...

Fountain of Youth--Will Blogging Keep You Young?

Adolescence is the age for the writing of diaries.
Those who keep it up all their lives, so far from attaining the desired maturity, remain perpetually adolescent. Now, Jung has shown us that adolescence is...the age of the completest misunderstanding of oneself.

Just wondering if having a blog means that I am a perpetual adolescent. Paul Tournier certainly would seem to think so. He is trying to help me answer the question, "Who am I?" I am only half way through the book. (Maybe the answers are in the last chapters.) From what I have managed to understand from the first chapters, I have deduced that I shouldn't look inside myself for the answers. So if you have any idea who I am, just leave a comment.

Do you like me? Check YES or NO

Seems a little adolescent to me...

Homestar Runner

I am crossing things off my 'someday I'm going to try that' list. Today I sent in the registration for my first 5K race. Actually, the item on the list is to run a 5K, not just to register. So I am planning to run on September 8th. Alex and I are figuring out a way to make a homestar runner t-shirt for race day. I think just a red T with a big white star on the front will work. My support team should have matching shirts also. I will not wear a beanie with a propeller on top. I think I will look and feel silly enough without the beanie.

Tonight I crossed off two other things on my 'someday' list: 1. Eat at Primanti Bros. and 2. Go to Phipps Conservatory. 1. a Cheesesteak sandwich which was somewhat disappointing. 2. Chihuly Nights glass exhibit which was even better than I thought it would be.

Often the enjoyment of an event is indirectly proportional to the expectations I have for it.

On race day I expect I will cross the finish line. Hopefully I will still be on my feet. Otherwise I won't be able to cross it off the list.

Little Alex Sighted in NYC

Little Alex finally reaches the top of the steps at the Museum of Natural History in NYC.

Things Little Alex can do easily:

1. Hide in a diorama
2. Duck between people's legs
3. Get to first base on balls
4. Fit in the backseat when his sister goes back to college
5. Get carried to bed

The Incredible Shrinking Kid

Things Alex finds difficult to do when he is shrunken:


1. Deliver the Saturday newspapers.

2. See in the bathroom mirror to check if his face is clean.

3. Walk the dog.

4. Get in and out of the top bunk.

5. Climb steps.

Four Eminent Words I Don't Understand

Here are four words for my list. I will never be able to use these in any written form because I can not remember which means what and I have a hard time deciphering them even when they are in front of me. I will, however, use them often in the spoken form because they all sound relatively the same and have such divergent meanings that they will fit a lot of situations and if I use them fast enough, no one will notice. Their immanent value makes their emanantness imminent.

imminent--likely to occur at any moment

immanent--inherent, remaining within

emanant--issuing from or as if from a source

eminent--high in station, rank, or repute; renowned

I had an ulcer once.

The Panories Have Landed

Panory Fest 07 was a success.

The Bighead pinata was a hit (pun intended).

There were panory cupcakes aplenty.

A new camo panory was unveiled.

The only regret was that Gage was not here to celebrate.

Thanks to Dave and Abi for making this possible.

PanoryFest 07

The semi-first annual PanoryFest will be held here on Monday. It coincides with the first day of summer vacation. We are getting better at planning the panoryfest activities. This year we actually invited people with an interest in panories, and had them RSVP. We are also making the best Bighead pinata ever.
Alex's gifted teacher remarked at open house this year that these children will look back and be incredulous that they spent so many hours drawing 'these things'. I think, instead, that she will look back and be incredulous that she missed the magic of panories--their ability to spark the imagination of upper elementary age boys, the tremendous creativity involved in their creation, their power to unite a disparate band of 5th graders with little else in common except their need to belong somewhere and a nagging sense that they never will.
Long live the Panories!

What I Meant to Say

Closing remarks are difficult because they should reflect, build on , or sum up what preceded them. Thus, they can not be really formulated until the end. So here's what I should have said:

Who am I? In fact, who are any of us that the God who created the universe and rules the heavens and the earth would want to be in relationship with us?
I challenge each of us here to cultivate, nurture and enjoy the relationships we have. With our God. With our mothers and our children. With our girlfriends.
How blessed we are to have these relationships! Let's make the most of them. Let's make time for them.

Let's pray.

The Onset of Puberty ala Hemingway

"Do you want some pickles?"
"No."
"No? Who are you? And what have you done with Alex?"
"Maybe he has been transmogrified."
"Maybe I'm going through puberty, and my interests are changing."

"Oh, darling, darling."

Microphotographs and the Scoop on Poop

In the world of laboratory science there needs to be a distinction made between slides-thin glass rectangles which hold specimens under a microscope and slides-pictures of specimens which can be projected. Consequently, the latter are often referred to as kodachromes. (As in Mama, don't take my kodachromes away...)*

Here then is my first attempt at creating my own kodachromes. I have always wanted to have a collection of happy polys, and now I see this may indeed be possible. Sadly, my first kodachrome is not of white blood cells at all, but an iodine prep of an ova and parasite concentration. A negative one at that. Taken through the microscope with my digital camera. So this is really just a picture of poop.

But think of the possibilities...

*(Oddly enough this song begins with the words: When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school...)

Ms. Understanding

4. Why the dog feels threatened by the windshield wipers.

5. How I can gain 2.5 pounds in one weekend, but it takes 2.5 months to lose one pound.

6. Who really invented the world wide web.

Rat Runs

Dixie, our rat terrier, has this peculiar habit of running frantically back and forth. From the living room to the kitchen and back again. And again. And again.

She also collects sneakers in the living room. Most often one of a set, but given enough time, she will move every sneaker in the house into the living room.

Additionally, she hunts down dirty socks and eats them. Tonight she is exhibiting all three of these behaviors.

Most of the time she is happy to sleep in a crate and lie in the sun.

I don't understand her.

I love her.

Maybe I will start a new list of things I don't understand.

1. Rat runs

2. Electricity

3. Buying ringtones

Cross the Last One Off

Remember when I needed a day off, a dermatologist, and a dishwasher? Here is the update: The dermatologist: check. (This is a thing I should have blogged about, but I was in a blogging funk, and so lets just say 'check' for now, and leave it at that.) The day off: I was off today and I am off Friday and Saturday. Yeah and double check. And now, the moment I have been waiting for: the new dishwasher came today and it is installed and it works and it is quiet and it makes me happy. Check it out.

*happy little dance*

Okay, I am unable to post a pic of my new dishwasher :( This makes me a little sad, only because it will be more dificult for you to share my joy. Maybe seeing my great new dishwasher would make you jealous, and that is why I can't post it here. Maybe you can come and see it in person, and I will even let you run it.

When I finally get my new kitchen floor installed, there will be no living with me.

Promotion-The Easy Way

Today at work a co-worker turned in her resignation. Thus, with no effort on my own part, I climbed one step higher on the seniority list. Kind of like a promotion. When I explained it to Alex, he said it was like an episode of Star Trek, where assassination is an effective means of rank advancement. This opened some new ways of thinking. Alex naturally reminded Amanda that there is no benefit in assassinating someone with a lower rank than yourself. That, and the fact that this happened in a parallel universe, makes Alex feel pretty safe. Stasi and Abi, on the other hand, might have reason for concern.
There was no increase in compensation with my 'promotion'.

Additional Adverb Slated For Use Today

im·pede /ɪmˈpid/ [im-peed]
–verb (used with object), -ped·ed, -ped·ing.

to retard in movement or progress by means of obstacles or hindrances; obstruct; hinder.

[Origin: 1595–1605;
Related forms
im·ped·er, noun
im·ped·i·bil·i·ty /ɪmˌpidəˈbɪlɪti, -ˌpɛdə-/ [im-pee-duh-bil-i-tee, -ped-uh-] noun
im·ped·i·ble, adjective
im·ped·ing·ly, adverb

The actually use of this adverb in a sentence is progressing impedingly in my head.

Typing in the Dark

I am home from work and I am awake and I am at the computer and the dog is sleeping just inches from here and I do not want to wake her so I am typing in the dark and I am not very good at it. And there is something not quite right about it -- sitting at the computer typing at 1:00am in the dark trying not to wake anyone. Seems like I am visiting nasty websites, but all I am doing is checking on my girls who don't update very much. If I was knitting anything I would tell you about it, but I'm not. Tomorrow I will straighten up the house and buy ice cream and get ready to host our small group and lead the study. Nooma. Sunday. I wil have to think about this. I will have to be prepared. I will have to be awake, so I will have to go to bed now.
This is the most boring entry on my blog. I am going to post it anyway, to remind myself not to blog in the middle of the night.

Because, Just Because

A tale of two policemen...
Just because I am a nice person I agreed to go into work at 4:00am instead of 7:00am. Just because the bridge is out over the turnpike, I had to go the long way through North Park. Just because it was the middle of a very cold night and I was the only person on the road, and because my car can't really drive 15mph, I was going over the posted speed limit. And so one policeman came speeding. Because we were speeding, he put on his lights, and I pulled over, and he told me I was speeding. Just because it is difficult to clock someone speeding when you are also speeding, he just told me to stop speeding. I took his advice and drove on, very slowly.

Ah, yes, wasn't this a story of two policemen?
Chapter 2
Just because I am a nice person, I flashed my lights at the next car that was speeding towards me through North Park. Just because he was also a policeman (!), and evidently this is not a legal thing to do, he did a U-turn. Just because I was no longer speeding and it was too cold to pull me over to harrass me, he just followed me the rest of the way through the park.
Because I went to work at 4:00am, I got to leave early. I drove home a different way. Just because.

Ka-choo!

Oh, I Get It!

Turns out the spell checker window opens UNDER the page I am working on. So now I know that my head cold is not debilitating.

Head Cold Outside

Its like a before and after on Wheel of Fortune. I am suffering from a head cold which is extremely annoying, but not quite dibillatating . (Also, I can not seem to make the spell checker work on this page.) And it is absolutely frigid outside. On a brighter note the sun is shining and the snow world is really spectacular. After Joseph's brothers sold him into slavery and he worked his way up to second in command at Potiphar's place, God left him in an Egyptian prison for two years for something he not only didn't do, but he tried to avoid. Two years. I've had my head cold for two days and I am wondering what happened to God. Two years. Wow.