The Monkey Exhibit

There are hermit crabs and hermit people. What about hermit monkeys?

“Johnny, stay away from the crazy monkey that lives by himself in the cave outside of town! He’ll beat his chest and fling poo at you. He shows his teeth and sticks out his tongue. I swear, he has no social skills at all.”

Then again, I guess that just sounds like a regular monkey. Carry on.

I nominate Frary to be the change here in Maine.

Can I say, now that I’m here, how stupid I think “change” is for this presidential race? The current president cannot be president again next term. Therefore, we’ll have a different man as president next term. Since we won’t have the same man, we will have change regardless of who is there.

Too bad some people can’t be more creative.

See, on the other hand, our current congressman could potentially be back in his position next year. Therefore, I am suggesting something that might not otherwise happen.

Lothar drove another replacement post into the ground behind Hobgoblin Wall. This section of the wall was named after the creatures that caused the wall to be built. Fifty years prior, the greenskins had attacked the town from out of the surrounding forest. A short rock wall which used to demark the town’s outer edge was the only thing separating the town’s defenders from the vicious goblinoids. After the attack, Hobbly decided to raise a more permanent barrier around town. Yesterday, though, it was a Chaos band led by a large, black armored warrior that had weakened the section.

The post slid deep into the earth and Lothar started replacing the dirt around it. F’lore, a suicidal dwarf recruited for his immense strength, held the post straight while Lothar worked. “Ye should get out and see more of the world, lad. Ye don’t alwae need to hide here behind weak wooden walls. Ye should get out there an’ find yer doom, lad!” With “doom”, F’lore clapped Lothar on the shoulder, sending the laborer sprawling to the ground.

“Getting out into the world may be fun for you and your adoptees, but I’m just a hired hand. Other than the sweat of my brow, the entirety of my skills lies in consuming generous amounts of alcohol without getting drunk.” Lothar picked himself up and brushed himself off. Dust caught in the rivulets of sweat running down his back.

“Not a bad skill to be havin’, either, is for sure, lad. Not a bad skill at all…” the dwarf trailed off as he stared into the forest beyond the breeched wall. F’lore often lost himself in memories when not strenuously engaged. “Sometimes the mug is your best defense in this cruel world.”

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“This be a sword, lad. It is yer key to great exploits in this grim world.” The weapon was rather nondescript, bearing only a few battle scratches to show that it wasn’t just another dusty town relic. “That one don’t be anything special, but it’ll do ye well enough. Come with me and the twins, lad. We’ll find ye a heroic doom.”

Lothar wasn’t at all looking for a heroic doom, or any kind of doom at all, but he was looking to break the tedium of life. The constant menial labors might be useful to some in town, but he yearned for a change. It only took a few weeks of hints from the dwarven Slayer to motivate him to change.

Here I am with a wonderful day off. The sun is shining, neighborhood dogs are barking, there might even be some birds at my feeder.

Why do I have a Thursday off, you ask? Oh, just a little thing called…pneumonia. Stupid, dirty disease keeping me up all night and sending me to the urgent care clinic for two hours.

Now I’ll head outside, soak up the sun, and try to keep breathing. Wish me luck!

It’s difficult to remember that villains have feelings, too.

I know in the books you read a lot about the bad guy becoming the bad buy because of the fact that he has feelings and someone has hurt them. I’m thinking more…realistically, though, if I can presume so much. I thinking of Willoughby from Sense and Sensibility.

Willoughby does a couple of horrible things. Not horrible things like killing people, razing nunneries, or subverting nations, horrible things to the emotions of real, life-like characters. To toy with the emotions of young ladies is a horrible thing.

Sociology tells us that, as a rule, teenage girls give themselves wholeheartedly to a relationship. (If you ask for sources, I’ll punch you in the face.) Mr. Willoughby plays the carefree fool with not one, but two young ladies in the novel, along with the second one’s entire family. He loves them and leaves them. In the first case, he leaves the girl quite a bit more encumbered than when he found her.

It was very easy not to like Willoughby by the time he shuns Marianne’s advances at the party in London. The novel later reveals that his emotions, in truth, got wrapped up in his dalliance with Marianne as well, however it is shown that everything he did, he did out of selfishness. At no time was he thinking about anyone else’s feelings other than his own.

Through all this, I came to greatly dislike the character of Willoughby. I thought he justly deserved everything bad that happened to him, not that there was very much of it. If he was forced to live without Marianne for the rest of his life, well, he didn’t deserve her anyway. I hoped that his heart was broken, smashed, and mangled and that he would be melancholic the rest of his days.

How very horrible of me.

His character is a man. He is a human. Just because he has been selfish and hurt others doesn’t mean he is devoid of feeling. Yes, he needs to learn to be less self-centered. He needs to be less egotistical. He needs to think about others, over even himself, if possible. He does not deserve to be wished life-long despondency. He does not deserve to be ever tormented by his actions. As a very human character, a foil for some of the worst faults the rest of us has, he deserves forgiveness. He deserves the opportunity to better himself and prove to others his transformation.

Shame on me if I don’t allow him the grace to mature beyond this point is his life, and shame on me if I forever condemn any living person for their temporary follies.

Amen

We sat around the kitchen table painting little metal miniatures.

The screen door opened and closed, distracting me from work at hand. Host turned around and said “Hello.” He looked back to me to explain, “This is our friend, Mary,” as a little girl looking about 9 came in the door.

“Are you still in Girl Scouts,” asked Host.

“No; I’m getting ready for school coming up soon,” was the lisped reply. I didn’t know the two were mutually exclusive. Live and learn.

“What grade are you going into?”

“Sixth.” I was shocked. I had to up my approximation of her age to at least 11. When I was in sixth grade, the girls were…bigger.

“Wow! Sixth! So, what have you been up to lately?” Host kept going. He’s a great host, I had to give him that, whether the guests were invited or not.

“I was at camp, but I feel off the horse.” I hoped it was really a pony and low to the ground. The girl was thin and not very tall. “And, I split open my knee. Twice.”

“Same knee,” I asked, interested.

“Yes.” Of course. She used the singular, “knee,” not “knees.” She went back to the porch after the cats.

“Is she missing some teeth,” I wondered. I wasn’t sure sixth graders had missing teeth and wondered what caused the lisp.

“No, she always talks like that. I’m not sure why.” He turned to the porch. “Be careful of the cat. She doesn’t really like anyone in her face.”

“OK.” This was followed a couple minutes later by a hiss, and the little girl came back into the kitchen. She stood there watching for a little while before asking, “do you have a Band-Aid?” Host asked to see the wound. It was 3-4 inches long along her arm, red, and deep. She hadn’t said a word. From what I had heard so far, she was used to getting injured.

“And some antibiotic ointment,” I suggested, looking at the scratch. The last thing these kind people needed was this little girl getting an infection from their cat’s scratch. They came out of the bathroom a few minutes later with two big bandages on her arm. It looked like she was wearing a large, tan armguard. “That is stylish,” I offered. “Everyone at school will be wearing them soon.” I didn’t think she should think about taking them off. From what I could tell, she might want protection over her entire body.

Quickly forgetting the scratch, she wanted to tell us about her newest pets. “I have two mice. Want to see them?” Her enthusiasm couldn’t be dampened. She ran home to get the cage. Mrs. Host didn’t look excited for the prospective visit.

The little girl turned with two mice in a cage, eagerly sharing the names. She wanted to take them out so we could hold them, but the idea was emphatically shot down. We didn’t want mice loose with cats around was the reason given.

“Which one is Domino,” Host asked out of politeness. She opened the cage and reached in to point. Just saying the white and black one was Domino apparently wouldn’t have gotten the point across. Daring opening the cage was much more her style. She was quickly thanked and instructed to close the cage. I expected to see the mice loose before I left.

The phone rang. Host engaged in a brief conversation, and then came back into the room. “That was my sister. She’s coming over to see what painting miniatures is all about.” Wow. This was becoming a popular house. I didn’t know painting was a curious spectator sport.

“It’s not usually this busy here,” Mrs. Host assured. It must be me. Or the full moon.

A while later, the sister shows up. She comes in the door, “why is there a little girl running around your back yard?” All I could think was, there…it happened…the mice escaped. I looked at Host to see any indication that we should go help scour his backyard for fuzzy, spotted vermin.

The first time I painted, it was a short session, relatively unproductive. Then I couldn’t get a good close up of the miniature.

While I can now boast that the painting is complete, my picture is little to no better than before. Here’s the blurry image for you to make out what you may. Sufficed to say, the photo does not do the effort justice.

*sigh*

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These puppies are pure sugar. I wonder if they are hurting my pancreas and my ability to process glucose. Wouldn’t it suck to become diabetic just because I can’t keep my hands out of the orange slice bag? Either they are addictive, or I really, truly have too much of an addictive personality when it comes to snacks. I should probably look this stuff up.

This year I will be a professional information guru at the American Folk Festival! Want to know where the lame all-banjo band is playing today? I call tell you. I have a festival schedule! Yes, they are on hand in about a billion different locations, including that guy who was handing them out when you got off the bus, but don’t worry about that nonsense. Trek halfway across the festival space in 90 degree heat and repulsive bodies to come ask me at the Info Booth! I’ll laugh good-naturedly at your questions, pretending to hear them over the nearby band and the roar of the crowd. Watch in wonder as I quickly access information readily at hand to every festival-goer. I do it just for you! …And the 400 other people standing in line beside the Port-A-Potties to ask me where the bathrooms are!

See you there!

disease our minds as well as our bodies. Sedentary lives lead to obesity and all the health woes included therein. The mind wastes as it spends fruitless hours engorged with entertainment, whether on the TV or the internet, at the bar or at the bowling alley. We are increasingly unable to physically provide for ourselves. Things my ancestors considered mundane, relaxing tasks are things that I’m too busy for and would huff and puff through to try to do them.

Maybe it’s just me. Hopefully it is. I have little faith, though.

We don’t use near as many forks as we do spoons. I wonder if other families are like that. What if we’re different? What if we’re strange? What if we’re not like everyone else?

I had something else for today, but this is much better. It is stolen from Kari. The story is that apparently the National Endowment for the Arts estimates that the average adult has only read six of these books. Here are the markup guidelines:

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Mark in red the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your blog

1) Some I’m not sure if I’ve read or not. I guess I’ll just bold them all, read and maybe read.
2) Got it.
3) I don’t know how to do red in my current theme. I’ll have to skip this one.
4) Done.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare - I’ll read a lot, and have read a lot, but I won’t read all
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis - As Kari says: “Why is this on here if the Chronicles are also on here?”
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy - Not sure if I’ve read some or just excerpts
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas - Eric’s talked it up enough.
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac - As Kari said: “Started it, hated it.” I started it in an English class.
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad - Not sure if I’ve read or just read parts.
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

That gives me 23, I think. Better than the average, I guess, but not a good as I could be. I’ll update this as I read, so the number will not always equal 23. That’s just my starting point.

Link problems should all be resolved. Carry on.

The bird feeder is squirrel-proof. It’s spring-loaded and drops down to cover the opening when something heavier than a bird is on the perch. I caught a squirrel on it the other day. It was bending the metal that covers the openings. His buddy was on the ground watching, maybe waiting for the thief to throw down some scoops of feed. The beastly creature actually bent the metal to almost a 45 degree angle! I chased the squirrels off and bent the metal back into place.

This morning, the squirrel was on the ground foraging all the seeds that the birds drop. I sat under the tree the other day and watched the birds at the feeder. They pick up a seed and throw it on the ground, as if it doesn’t meet their quality standards. I didn’t know my feed was going to be inspected by #42. What I really think happens is that the seed slips out of the bird’s beak, but I could be wrong. Anyway, the squirrels have decided to eat of the crumbs that fall from the songbirds’ table.

There’s a lesson to be learned there, if you missed it the first time…when it was in the Bible!

I have created a Google Blog (Blogger) account. I wanted a place where I could post via email some of the thoughts that come into my head throughout the day. Now when I’m at work and something hits me, I can just send an email and have a quick post.

The Thought Exhibit

Why spreading myself thinner doesn’t help me lose weight, I’ll never understand.

But my dog died on Wednesday night.

She was 12 years old. After a few month of not really eating and losing her pep, her organs shut down and she died at home in the evening.

And I am a poor, weak excuse of a man because I received a phone call about an hour before she died telling me she was on her way out and I had one last chance to see her and say goodbye. I skipped the chance, thinking I couldn’t handle the sadness.

You know how we put human emotions upon animals, which they may or may not have? I can’t help but feel she would have loved it if I had come over, sat with her, and let her head rest on my lap as she went to that final sleep. Luckily, she was surrounded by those who loved her in my stead.

Other burgers are a mere step in the evolution of delicious. This burger is gustatory nirvana.

Taste with me, as we close our eyes and imagine a bite of the utopian staple, the bacon, egg, and cheeseburger. Feel the congealing cheese slip under your tongue, tickling your salivary glands. Savor the warm grease sloshing through your mouth compliments of the burger and the bacon. Finally, relish the unexpected aftertaste of a fried egg. All in the same bite.

Now stuff. Stuff them into your mouth. Override your gag reflex. Seriously, who dies from eating hamburgers? Surely you can fit another one in. Maybe even two!

Watch that belly grow. Feel the discomfort of it distending beyond normal bounds. What’s that sharp pain? Perhaps did your stomach actually split? Could your deadly acids be eating away at your viscera as we speak? Doubtful, if within the realm of possibility.

Master the pain as your skin rends to contain your ever-growing stomach. Stretch marks are in these days. Join the fad!

Feel the pain of peristalsis as the food plows through your digestive track like a bolus of rampant destruction!

When that stuff starts coming out, you’re on your own. I’m outta here.

I am no longer funny.

I know. I know. I’m sorry. Gasp in disbelief. Scream in horror. Tear out your hair, rend your clothes, gnash your teeth. Make an appointment with your shrink. I just don’t have it any more.

Overreacting, you say? Just looking for attention, you think? No. I apologize. It’s true. I have proof.

My mom told me so.

You know…my mom. The one who is supposed to stand beside me when the whole world turns against me. The one who is supposed to love me when I am unlovable. The one who thinks I’m cute when she’s the one who birthed my butt-ugly face. That mom.

When your mom turns against you, it’s undeniable truth.

(*Dedicated to my mom.)

If your car’s AC isn’t working properly, you have two choices on how to drive down the interstate on a hot day. We’ve now tried them both.

Option 1: Ride with the windows up and the vents blasting. Riding with the windows up will increase your gas mileage, though it will also make the car a rolling greenhouse. The blasting vents will, theoretically, blow over the sweat forming over every inch of your body thereby cooling you. We did not find this to be the case. Instead we ended up hot, sweaty, sick, and probably irritable.

Option 2: Ignore the better gas mileage and drive with the windows down. The air is much cooler blowing by you at 70 mph. The only other negative effect is that your ear will ring a little from all the wind.

Don’t be that person who has to find out for himself. Take my word that option 2 is much better.

Here’s the problem: My car’s AC is not working properly. I can’t explain it, but something is wrong. Well, maybe I could explain it, but I’m not going to take the time to unless someone asks me. Therefore, we drove 4 hours to the park in a sweltering hot car. The temperature had to be in the high 80s or in the 90s. In the car.

Then we get to Canobie. We’re already sweating and it’s about 90 degrees outside. The sun is beating down mercilessly. The heat and the rides negatively affect our stomachs.

Also, there were three bus loads of children at the park. The lines were a bit much for a Wednesday, not that I have an accurate frame of reference since I had never been there before.

We didn’t stay long. Luckily we were able to check in to the motel after 1:00. And we don’t have to check out until Noon tomorrow. And drive home in the car with messed up AC. :sigh: