News story shared by a poster at The Cauldron:
A witch in Vermont decorated her lawn with a display of a scarecrow style witch breastfeeding a baby witch. There's even a gourd breast.
Apparently there's been one complaint so far. I think it's amusing, but my sense of humor isn't exactly mainstream.
One of the customers at work has a reputation for having a new joke to share each time. So, when prodded, here was Monday's offering:
A man walks into a bar, heads straight for the bartender and loudly proclaims, "Every lawyer is an asshole!"A man in the back stands up and says, "I resent that remark!"
The first man asks, "Are you a lawyer?"
To which the reply is, "No, I'm an asshole."
There was another blog I was doing. I ended it back in March or so. I posted a little bit about it back in April.
Now, my real blog gets 2-8 hits a day. That other blog, a fictional blog for a person who doesn't exist that hasn't updated in seven months... it gets 20-25 a day.
/Sigh
I guess it's time to get linked back and forth to it. I'd been planning for months now to get a page together with stuff about all the writing projects I've got going on or started. I'll list out all the stuff I've got some progress on, where I'm at with it, what it's about, and some comments about it. I'm also hoping that'll encourage me to make some progress on the one I want to finish first. It's also where I'll include the story behind that other blog.
So maybe in the next week or two? I've got a good chunk of the page pre-prepared, I just need some Amy help getting it out there...
So the background story behind the other blog will be coming soon. I'll link to it shortly, but doing so requires a little bit of explanation, I think, which I don't have time to do before I go to work today.
Another way I can tell the days are getting shorter:
This morning I took a moment to revel in the bright full moon before the sun came up.
On the way home, after the sun had set, I paused at a red light to admire the same full moon over the other horizon.
This morning at work the day started off gray and rainy. Everything was quiet--no customers. A couple of people expressed some disappointment about that. The rain stopped and a couple of customers came in. At one point we turned to see who was next. There, on the counter, stood a large praying mantis looking around calmly. Nobody had seen it come in. The man standing at the counter, just inside the door, not two feet from it, hadn't noticed it.
I pointed out that in several cultures they were considered good luck. We offered it some paper to step on and it obliged, and we set it out on the grass out front.
The day ended up being a busy one, with a beautiful sunny afternoon.
Winter is coming, but I have a feeling it's all going to turn out.
(Warning, long post ahead...)
My dad and Amy are having an email discussion about holidays and what they mean to us. Part of it stems from preparation for the winter holidays. We've pretty much stopped with gift giving except for birthdays.
To me, at least, gift giving turns an otherwise happy holiday into a consumeristic stress fest. Does anybody enjoy shopping for Christmas gifts anymore? We've managed to do it a few times, and we're for a couple of years been at the point where watching others open was more fun than the actual opening. There's been a family tradition on my side to make wish lists. Since it was hard to really know people well, having a list to choose from made it easier to shop and know it's something the person wanted. On the other side, it kinda kills the idea of "it's the thought that counts."
When we decided to not do gifts anymore it was a huge weight lifted. With that also comes explaining to others that they shouldn't be going through that whole rigamorole (there's a word I seldom get to use...) with buying for us. All too often (especially with Jareth now) people overdid it. My parents have that tendency in particular.
So, anyway, to the topic at hand... So Amy and Dad are having this email discussion of sorts. Amy copies me on her main response. I think it's time for met to get some ideas down and out. We'll have to explain it all before too long anyway.
So here's some of my perspective:
The year is like a wheel. It goes around and around, and each time the same point comes up it's at another spot down the road. So it turns, but it's never the same. We divide the year into four seasons. There are four major points in the day: Dawn, Noon, Dusk, Midnight. Our lifespans can be broken similarly into four stages: Birth, childhood, adulthood, death. There are even four main phases of the moon...
Each of these are cycles that repeat all around us. Those cycles are an integral part of our experience this time around. So, with that in mind, a little on seasons:
Spring/Dawn/Birth
These are the times of beginnings. At birth we welcome a person into the world. We welcome dawn as the beginning of a new day. We welcome Spring as a season of new growth. Spring is the time to start things anew.
Summer/Noon/Childhood
These are times of growth and joy. Summer is vacations and picnics, childhood is a time for play.
Fall/Evening/Adulthood
These are times for winding down and reflecting. Fall is harvest time. Evening tends to be family time after work. Adulthood is reaping the benefits of a career, achieving the dreams of youth.
Winter/Midnight/Death
These are times of endings and changes. Much of nature rests during winter before waking up again in the spring. We sleep through the night, resting for the next day. And eventually we die and take some time to reflect before another trip around the wheel of life. In old times winter was a time to school children, a time to gather as a community and feast.
So the equinoxes and solstices are obvious things to celebrate. There are other cultural and seasonal holidays spread around the wheel, just as the four main compass directions can all be divided to make four more directions. There are a couple aside from the four seasonal ones. Thanksgiving, Halloween--two easy examples.
So while the Jews have their festival of light, and the Christians can celebrate Jesus, we honor the winter end of the cycle at Winter Solstice. It's the shortest day of the year and the longest night. It's a time to gather with family and share. It's a time to come together as a community, to bury grudges, and to purge physically and mentally to be able to start the new year fresh.
We plan on donating clothes and some other stuff we won't be using. When Jareth is bigger we're hoping to donate time by helping at places like local soup kitchens.
There will probably be more than just four holidays a year for us. We're still defining what they should be. But this is enough for tonight. Amy's home. :-)
Did you ever notice how many people find Jesus in prison?
I wonder what he did to get locked in there...
Haven't been blogging much lately. Free time has been mostly just going away. I've been spending too much of it playing Command and Conquer: Generals. It exactly the kind of strategy game I would have loved to have in college. The gang and I would have loved it. Of course, the competition among us would have been brutal, but very fun.
It's a war strategy game that takes about an hour and a half at a time, except for the occasion very hard battles that take two hours or a little more. Or the too hard ones, that take about ten minutes to lose. :-)
I think I need to stop playing it for a while. Tonight was one of those nights I could have gotten some brownie points for geting some stuff done around the house while Amy was at class. I spent about half the time playing with Jareth--and feeding him apples :-) --and half of it playing. I got about nothing done...
But she's due home in 15 minutes or so, and its time to tuck Jareth in. If she's running late I'll have some time to roast coffee.
[9:41--She came in while I was still cleaning after Jareth. Now she's checking her email. Coffee another time...]
This weekend was my Boy Scout troop's 50th anniversary. They did a reunion kind of thing. There were activities spanning pretty much the whole weekend.
We went Friday night. There was a bonfire and snacks gathering, and also a star party where a bunch of local astronomers brought their telescopes to let people check out the sky. They were very enthusiastic about it, which was fun.
One friend from the troop showed up, along with his girlfriend and his parents. I hadn't seen him since my wedding, and I hadn't seen his parents since some time in high school. He looks like he's doing okay, although I think there's still something missing in his life. I'm not sure if he knows what that is or not.
He mentioned having read my blog. Hi!
Otherwise, I was disappointed in the turnout. There was another friend who couldn't make it, but is going to be in town for a few days this week, and maybe I'll see him for an evening.
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Yesterday we did a family picnic in the back yard. As I was cleaning up and setting up in back, thunder grew more and more ominous. Dad had mentioned the day before that there wasn't supposed to be rain.
Now, we have a nice, covered patio out back, but dinner plans involved the grill. I didn't want to have to worry about grilling in the rain. So I walked out back and looked up at the heavy clouds. "Hey," I asked, "if you're gonna rain, could you please do it quick and get it over with? I'm having people over."
It was about fifteen minutes later that the downpour started. It lasted maybe half an hour and was done a little bit before everyone showed up. There was some light rain about halfway through dinner or so, but we were done cooking by then so no one minded.
Lindsay brought her new boyfriend, Scott, and we finally got to meet him. He's cool, so I didn't have to do the scary-older-brother thing.
But just before everyone showed up the plumbing stopped up. The main drain pipe in the front yard has a chunk of broken pipe, so roots clog it up. We had it rodded out mid-August, and they warned us we'd have problems again until we get it fixed. They're coming out this morning to get it opened up again and to schedule the actual repair. Sigh.
You win some, you lose some, right? Eh, it's all good.