If you're a Boy Scout, you have good reason to be afraid.
God is out to get you.
I have proof:
Monday, July 25, 2005
Four adult Boy Scout leaders from Alaska were killed Monday afternoon in an electrical accident during the opening of the organization's 2005 Jamboree, the Boy Scouts of America said.
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
More than 300 Boy Scouts were sickened by the heat Wednesday while waiting for President Bush to arrive at a memorial service for four Scout leaders who were killed while pitching a tent beneath a power line.
Friday, July 29, 2005
Lightning struck a group of Boy Scouts taking shelter from a summer storm, killing the troop leader and a 13-year-old scout, according to a ranger and the boy's parents.
I don't know why.
Maybe it's those yellow bandanas.
Maybe God doesn't like grown men in knee socks and bermuda shorts.
All I know is that if you see a Boy Scout out on the street, you might want to stand back a few feet.
I know, I'm lame...doing SASB again but I'm SOOOO tired and I hate abandoning my blog for so long.
It's been a LONG extended weekend but hopefully after today, things will be back to normal for a while.
Sheila reminded me with this post that today is Papa Hemingway's birthday.
In honor of one of my favorite writers, I would like to point you to this post I wrote over a year ago.
Garden of Eden
and why it's my favorite Hemingway novel.
Yes, it's a posthumous publication and not as widely praised as his other works such as The Sun Also Rises and For Whom The Bell Tolls but it's, I feel, his greatest work.
Garden of Eden was a labor of love for Hemingway, a novel he worked on on-and-off over the last 15 years of his life between other books that were published such as The Old Man and the Sea. Some critics who have read the entire unfinished manuscript at the JFK office were unhappy with the way it was shortened to a third of its original size for the final published version. But I think the Scribners editor did a great job condensing to make it such a beautiful book. That 'one true sentence' Hemingway strove so hard to write has never been so apparent as in this simple prose. Easy to read is hard to write and I'm in awe of Hemingway.
Here is an example of simple but utterly brilliant writing from Garden of Eden:
They were always hungry but they ate very well. They were hungry for breakfast which they ate at the cafe, ordering brioche and cafe au lait and eggs, and the type of preserve that they chose and the manner in which the eggs were to be cooked was an excitement. They were always so hungry for breakfast that the girl often had a headache until the coffee came. But the coffee took the headache away. She took her coffee without sugar and the young man was learning to remember that. On this morning there was brioche and red raspberry preserve and the eggs were boiled and there was a pat of butter that melted as they stirred them and salted them lightly and ground pepper over them in the cups. They were big eggs and fresh and the girl's were not cooked quite as long as the young man's. He remembered that easily and he was happy with his which he diced up with the spoon and ate with only the flow of the butter to moisten them and the fresh early morning texture and the bite of the coarsely ground pepper grains and the hot coffee and the chickory-fragrant bowl of cafe au lait.
Posted by De at April 26, 2004 11:38 PM
Saturday, I was a good daughter and spent the day with my mother.
She decided in the middle of our day that she needed a pedicure. A friend had recently told me of a new place and it was nearby so, being the wonderful daughter I am, I suggested we visit this new place so Mom could get her tootsies done.
I whined that I couldn't get a pedicure on this day because I hadn't shaved my legs.
I was bummed. Having someone soak, moisturize, massage and otherwise pamper your feet and legs sounded really good but I try to be thoughtful to the ladies that perform this service and have nice smooth legs for them to work with.
So, because I was slightly stubbly on this day, I knew the luxury of a pedicure was not in the cards for me.
The second you walk through the doors of these corner nail shops, you are sucked in. They cajole you into getting the SUPREME package, the manicure AND pedicure, the bikini AND the leg wax. They know you want it; they just have to convince you to open your wallet and do it.
It was unthinkable to them that I sit there and wait while my mother gets a pedicure.
"You no get pedicure?" they asked, nodding and smiling emphatically.
"Come. Sit." they said, patting the large massage chair attached to the tiny foot tub.
I kept smiling saying, "no" and shaking my head.
Finally, my mom said "Oh for goodness sake. They don't care about your legs! Just sit down!"
So, I did. Hairy legs and all. I was a little lot self conscious about it.
Everything was great while she was working on my feet but when she slid her hands up my calves, I tensed thinking...."She thinks I'm a disgusting white American freak."
Then came the salt scrub, the mud mask and hot towels wrapped around my legs, then the cooling gel and the moisturizer.
I wanted to relax because c'mon...hot towels?? Who knew a hot towel could feel so heavenly?
But, I couldn't forget the unshaven stubble that adorned my legs.
After a few minutes I started to think, "She's a professional. There are people that never shave. There are people who have to wait 4 weeks or more between waxes...surely she's experienced leg stubble before! I mean, French people get pedicures!"
After the pep talk, I started to relax a bit. My muscles unclenched and my brain started to focus on the exquisite luxury of having a mud mask on my legs and feet and small strong hands massaging the areas abused by narrow shoes and strappy heels.
This bliss didn't last long. I realized my pedicurist was talking to the pedicurist next to her.
She said something in Vietnamese to which the girl next to her laughed and said something back.
Then both started laughing and the foreign language was flying.
They were talking about me. I just know it.
You KNOW they talk about us. I've seen Seinfeld. I know what's going on here.
They smile and attempt clumsy conversations with us but they are totally discussing our weird toe or UNSHAVED LEGS or our large feet. They're laughing at us.
I'm not paranoid. I'm just extremely aware. I watch TV, you know!
I read this post by Sheila a few days ago but I laid in bed thinking about it for some reason last night.
Sheila links to another good post by Michele who answers the question that many people in the blog world have about the terror attacks in London. "Where is the outrage?"
I didn't blog about it because what is there to say? It was HORRIBLE. I wept at seeing the faces of the people being lead away from the wreckage and I wept for the people who weren't able to leave the wreckage.
But I didn't blog it because I would say what everyone else is saying: It was a very very bad thing that happened and the people that did it are very very bad people.
There are bloggers out there who could say it much more eloquently than I could.
Sheila was criticized a while back for not posting about something big that happened in the news and she answered with something similar to, "Hey! It's MY blog! I'll post whatever the hell I want!"
Back in the early days of this blog, I spewed out my opinion on politics and the war in Iraq like someone was begging to hear my invaluable conjecture.
I had an opinion, dammit, and I was going to broadcast it to the WORLD!
After reading blog after blog of people with similar opinions, I realized that no one was really going to beg for mine and frankly, I wasn't as interested in sharing it.
Much like assholes, everyone has an opinion and I'm not special just because I spout mine off on a blog.
What could I say about current events that no one else would? Nothing.
So, I rarely blog about things that are going on in the political world but that doesn't mean I don't read about them. That doesn't mean I don't have opinions about them. I just keep them to myself....unless someone asks, of course...
and sometimes even when they don't.
Leonardo DaVinci once said,
"The depth and strength of a human character are defined by its moral reserves. People reveal themselves completely only when they are thrown out of the customary conditions of their life, for only then do they have to fall back on their reserves."
I never really understood this until recently; within the last year or so.
I am a fan of depth of character. I think it's important to know that someone has many layers. Maybe I equate layers with intelligence. I don't know if that's right or wrong but I do know that it's important for me to know that there is someone below the surface; that there are deeper feelings, stronger impulses, more spirituality under that mask that a person wears for the world.
I felt sure that everyone had depth. I felt confident that if you look hard enough, everyone had layers.
But I've learned recently that some people don't seem to have layers.
I've noticed this in someone I've known for a long time. Someone in which I've been searching for that depth of character.
I held on just KNOWING that it was in there somewhere. I just had to draw it out by insisting somehow that it was there.
I glimpsed a little something underneath that was revealed when this person was taken out of their comfort zone. I didn't like it. It was fear.
Most of us have fear on some level but it's what we do with that fear that defines our character.
Do we run or do we face it?
If we always run, do we then become just a shell?
I'm in one of those moods.
TV doesn't interest me lately unless it's SoapNet, Food Network or HGtv. I want to read a book but they all seem stupid and boring.
I have three books sitting on my nightstand waiting to be read but when I pick one up, it just doesn't do it for me.
I read Dean Koontz's Intensity the other day. It was good and well...intense.
I had stopped reading Koontz years ago because the book Phantoms freaked me out too much and he was just too "out there". But I read Velocity recently and enjoy it and I liked Intensity.
Then I picked up Andriana Trigiani's Rococo because it really sounded cute and interesting. I like books full of quirky characters like In the Garden of Good and Evil.
Then, the other night, I picked it up to read and it seemed boring and frivolous.
So, I thought I'd get deep and read How Proust Can Change your Life by Alain de Botton and soon feel deep asleep.
I have a book list on my taskpad in Outlook but now, none of them spark any interest.
So, maybe YOU could recommend something good. I have no idea what I'm in the mood for so the more varied the better!
God. I had major insomnia last night.
I was SO tired but I got in bed and just tossed and turned. I felt like it was too hot so I turned the thermostat down and took off the pajama pants.
Then I felt like the fitted sheet was wrinkled up under me, so I got up and straightened that.
Then it felt like Zoe and Crash were purposefully trying to push me off the bed so I pushed them back grumbling the whole time about how *I* am the one paying the bills, *I* buy their food, *I* am the HUMAN here so *I* should get the run of the bed.
Finally, I gave up, groaned a very loud "Fuuuuuuuck!" and turned on the TV to watch a late night Roseanne double feature.
So, needless to say, I'm not my most chipper today. Therefore, I give you....
Short Attention Span Blogging