One more- dedicated to my boss who retired on Friday. 

Found this and just couldn't resist

Maybe I was just really tired and in need of a good laugh when I ran across this during the wee hours of the morning, but after a while it's amazing what you can find funny.

Hopefully I'm not really that hateful, but you have to admit they're funny.

Grad School and Heart Failure

Well, I went to visit my family for the first time since starting school.  I have to admit it is an extremely odd feeling to pull into the driveway you left and came back to for twenty-something years and realize you are only there 'visiting.'  It was wonderful to see them, though.  I attended a "Barbie Princess Party" with my niece and went to Lowe's with my nephew and brother-in-law, which may not sound like too much grand excitement but when you have a two-year old of the male persuasion with you it becomes quite the occasion.  I know the employees were relieved to see us leave, as he tried the door on every washer, dryer, freezer, cabinet, refrigerator and sink in the entire store.  He thought he'd hit the mother lode when he discovered the wall displaying the different types of toilet seats you can buy, flipping up every lid and watching it snap closed.  It was kinda like a weird version of that old game "Memory."  The kid needed to be bathed in hand-sanitizer by the time he was done.  On separate occasions both of my parents asked 'how I was eating.'  Translation: am I eating anything besides trail-mix and orange juice.  Before I left they went through the cabinets and fixed up a box of culinary necessaries for me to come back with.  I think I may be the only college student ever to be sent back to school with a mason jar of bacon grease to flavor food when I cook.  No kidding.  You can't make this sort of thing up......I love my parents.

Graduate School--two weeks down and....two years to go?

So, because I'm nearly as horrible at blogging as I am at keeping a journal I have not written for....a month?  Has it really been that long?  In my defense, I've been completely without internet for two weeks.  The other two, who knows where I was then.  Anyway, to catch up:  I now live two and a half hours away from my family (which will be discussed in depth at a later date), at the beach (which will also be discussed, the universe has a sick sense of humor), attending graduate school (I'm apparently certifiable). 

You know, it's funny what you learn about yourself in those first few moments after your parents have moved in the last of the furniture, washed dishes and lined the cabinets to hold your first groceries in your first apartment.  By yourself.  Its kinda freaky.  I was fine, really....until I got my first voicemail from my niece a week after I got here.  "Ummmmm, Aunt Kehye?  I miss you.  I want you to come home."  Right-o, then.  I'll be there in a few.  I always knew I depended on my family; that I had a hard time being apart from them, but I always thought it was in a 'chapstick dependent' sort of way.  I don't know if anyone else has an addiction, but for those of us who do, you understand how much you panic when you realize you don't have it with you.  (At this juncture, it is absolutely forbidden for anyone to make any allusions to Napoleon Dynamite.  On pain of death.  Seriously.)  However, I realized after two weeks, that it is not a 'chapstick' dependent, but more......I don't know.....iron lung? dependency.  Things are going well, really, and I haven't had any extremely emotionally traumatic moments (yet).  But I still miss them.  Even the cat that actually belongs more to the next-door neighbors than us.  The cat who's name I don't even actually know.  Even though we've had her for 14 years, give or take a few.  Hey, if Audrey Hepburn can get by just calling it 'Cat' that's good enough for the rest of us.  To address the beach 'issue.'  Here's the thing with that:  its not that I 'hate' the beach.  The beach just hates me.  Or actually, more specifically, the sun hates me.  I think I've already discussed in a previous post how I single handedly fund aloe plantations in South America and keep some pitiful impoverished set of migrant workers under the dictatorial thumb of some cruel, flaccid-faced plantation baron.  I should really live in a perpetually cloudy country.  Ireland sounds perfect.  But, all that aside, I now live near(er) the beach.  Just to show how cruel the cosmic humor is, the day after I moved in half a dozen people jogged by my apartment.....It was snowing.  I hate 'em all.   So, when I went to Wal-Mart I hit the cookie aisle and discovered that there is a knock-off brand that tastes exactly like Girl Scout Thin Mints.  Order was restored in the universe.  As for graduate school itself:  how exactly far ahead of time does something have to be contemplated before it is considered 'premeditated murder'?  Because I think they are 'premeditating.'  It's like the Army or something.  They're nice until you sign the papers and then they start making you scrub the bathroom floor with a toothbrush.  Actually, everything's going, as my niece always replies when I ask her how anything went, "pret'-good." 

So, I was fortunate enough to spend the Sunday before Christmas attending a Christmas cantata with my family, sitting with my niece and nephew.  It was an enlightening experience, sitting with small children in a crowded chapel on a packed church pew......like while we were sitting there, waiting for the bread and water, and my nephew got his hands (=my mother handed him) a frog hand puppet.  In the (near) dead silence of the most reverent part of the meeting he slips the puppet over his little fist, turned to me and said "RRRRRRiiiiiiibbbbiiitttt!" in a voice akin to that of a sports announcer announcing the third triple play in the first inning of the game.  Yeah, well.....Sounds remarkably similar to this past Halloween, which happened to fall on a Sunday, which also happened to be the day for my niece's children's program at church.  We all showed up, shuffled into the very front pew and waited for the entertainment to begin.  Again, during the quietest moment of the meeting, my nephew stands up on the bench, turns to face the congregation, all of whom are seated behind him, throws his blanket over his head and begins to imitate a particularly vocal ghost.  It went something like this "WWWWHHHHOOOOOO!!!!" (my sister)-"you need to sit down, please......"  "WWWWHHHHHOOOOOO!!!!!!"  My sister, struggling in vain to make contact between rear and upholstery......"NO! 'TOP!" (translated, "No! Stop!")   "WWWWWHHHHHOOOOO!!!!! NO! 'TOP!"  My sister, gathering him gently from the pew and beating a quick retreat.  My nephew, down the length of the aisle "NO! 'TOP!  MAMA! DADDY, DADDY, GRANDADDY!"  (Can you tell who his advocates are?)  Fast forward to this Sunday.....I've got the kid in a choke-hold by the collar of his sweater because it is the only way I can keep him from taking a literal face dive over the back of the pew.  He's got one foot thrown over the back and is resting precariously on the thin wooden trim decorating the top of the bench.  "No! Huhlehahleh! (Which somehow translates in some foreign tongue into my name.....)  Just out of curiosity, I wonder why they make white crayons; it doesn't show up on paper.  Want to know what it does show up on?  Church pews.

You know how they say "Watched water never boils"? I've often wondered if that means that neglected water actually boils faster or if it simply eventually boils, unlike 'watched' water which never boils? It's a valid question, right? Well, apparently, 'un-watched' holidays get here faster than 'watched' holidays.  I think Christmas got here faster than Friday does in the course of a typical week.  We've already had a little snow down here, which is remarkable to say the least and my niece has already found where I hid her stash of presents.  It is officially Christmas.  I've had to parry questions about gifts and divert begging about how much longer the wait will be.  And that was just my parents.
I was on the floor playing with my niece the other day and we were putting the furniture in this dollhouse I used to have when I was her age.  It is supposed to be a log cabin style house with a country store downstairs.  There is a small plastic pot-bellied stove which fits into a corner and I was explaining to her that people used to use that to stay warm.  I showed her where the wood was put into the stove through the tiny door at the front, and where the pipe fit which funneled the smoke through the chimney.  "How did Santa fit down something that little?" Oh. Crap.  "Ummm......" She waited expectantly.  "Ahhhh....."  I could see her doubt in my abilities begin to grow.  "That's a great question.  For your mother."  Hey, at least that meant she was paying attention to my explanation, I suppose.
I'm hoping sincerely she never meets this one little boy who came into the library a few months ago, even if he was as cute as the devil.  I would say he was about four, as it was during school hours and he didn't appear to be quite old enough yet, anyway.  He was dressed to the nines in a little button-up 'man shirt' and khaki pants.  Unlike most kids who just have clothes on, he was 'dressed.'  His mother left him standing at the desk for a moment while she went outside to get the library bag out of the car.  Striking up a conversation as I checked out the books, I asked if he was going to receive a visit from the Easter Bunny.  "Yeah, I guess."  Then he leaned into the desk and looked at me intently.  In a very conspiratorial whisper, and as if attempting to help ease the burden of my ignorance, he said, "But you know, its really just my parents."  I was still laughing when his mother returned and recited to her the information I had just received. I asked if he had put that one together on his own; she replied that as far as they could tell, he had.  "How long do you think....."  "S-A-N-T-A?"  "Yeah."  "This year will probably be the beginning of the end, we think."  Sad, I know.  But it was still funny.  And, truth be told, I liked that kid.  He was logical and level headed without being a know-it-all.  I just hope it is a few more years before my niece meets anyone that pragmatic.
But, as logical and pragmatic as I like for things to be, come this time of year, I'm just as much of a push-over as the next girl.  I get all weepy every time I hear 'Silent Night' or 'Joy to the World.'  Heaven forbid I hear some kid sing 'Away in a Manger,' no matter how off-key it might be.  I love Christmas music; in fact, if no one else is around, I'm 100% okay with playing it in June or July.  So, it is a bit odd to find a 'traditional' carol that I'm not too fond of.  However, for some reason, 'I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day' had never really been one I cared for too much.  I use 'had' because I changed my mind last year.  I caught a re-run of an Christmas program with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir with guest Edward Herrmann.  For some reason, I've just always liked him anyway.  He played a great grandad in the Gilmore Girls.  I've always loved Longfellow's poems, but to be honest, I never really paid much attention to the words of  'I Heard the Bells.'  Then, on this program, I learned the story behind the words, and suddenly the meant something more. 

There are some who argue that because there is pain and suffering in the world, because we endure deprivation, sorrow or loss, there must be no loving Father in Heaven.  It is claimed that those who believe otherwise live in a fool's paradise, using religion as a crutch to avoid reality.  There is nothing more real than pain, anyone can attest to that fact.  Yet, it is as C.S. Lewis once wrote, "...ponder for a moment that the great religions were first preached in a world without chloroform."  That Longfellow, or anyone else for that matter, could live through the experience of mortality and still find joy is a testament that there is hope.  It is not an avoidance of reality, but rather a recognition of  what reality truly is.  Mark Twain once said that a pessimist is just an optimist who never arrived.  That joy can be found in the sound of ringing bells, a joy at nothing more than the mere sound, or the fact that one can hear, that joy can be found in feeling the heartbeat of a small child as you rock him to sleep, that joy can be found in listening to Handel's Messiah or a four-year old sing "Give, Said the Little Stream,"  that joy can be found in dandelions as well as orchids is a proof that there must be a loving Heavenly Father.  I have a hard time believing that joy developed during an evolutionary process.  It does nothing to perpetuate a species or ensure survival.  What other purpose can it serve than to remind us that we are loved?  Those who populate the scriptures from which we teach hope did not teach of a Savior of all mankind from the comforts of well-furnished ancestral halls.  If pain were the only reality, joy would not exist.  That joy can exist in spite of pain, and sometimes because we have experienced pain and yet somehow survived, is neither naive nor idealistic.  It is, in some ways, a rather sobering fact.  Joy is not superficial, nor is it transient.  It is sometimes masked by loss or sorrow, but, unlike pleasure or even simple happiness, it is not lost unless it is relinquished.  That is what is so moving about Longfellow's poem, now.  Not necessarily the words, but the conviction which was found in the pain which became the source of those words.  "God is not dead, nor doth he sleep...."  Merry Christmas, everyone. 

This has nothing to do with anything, but I was just thinking the other day about how everything must be in its proper season.  Not just right time, right place, but right order, right waiting period.  This led to thinking about how this applies to something as small as words; the same words, used differently, in a different context or a different order, have incredibly different meanings.  I mean, saying that your shirts are laundered is a good thing, but saying your money is laundered lands you in prison.  Think about it.....seriously.  So, as hard as it is to be patient, I have to tell myself all the time: not just right time, right place, but right order, right amount of time spent waiting.  Nothing earth-shattering, just difficult to adhere to for the long haul, I suppose. 

I have to admit that even as a kid, I wasn't so caught up in Halloween as far as the candy was concerned.  My mom would make my sister and me these really great costumes, but other than that I could pretty much take it or leave it.  What I loved, and still love, about Halloween is the atmoshpere; not the overly hyped, commericial horror movie kind of atmoshpere, but the atmosphere that revolves around the history of legends and tales.  Ghost tales used to be original, now they're just....well, computer generated.  I mean, who else remembers the first time they read The Tell Tale Heart or The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Just as it was tradition to watch The Snowman every year at Christmas we had to watch the 1958, Bing Crosby narrated Legend of Sleepy Hollow every year at Halloween.  There was also this other cartoon, The Old Mill, produced in 1937 that also had a great eerie tone.  (Even with all of the new technology now, the old-school stuff is still the best.)  Its odd when you think about it, people are the only animals who enjoy being frightened.  Go figure.


As a kid, Night on Bald Mountain freaked me out to no end.  I adored Disney's Fantasia, but I would make my mom turn it off as soon as the first notes played.  It was the same freaked-outedness that came in later years when hearing the first few notes of the theme song to Unsolved Mysteries.  Sometimes you do wonder why some editor(s) thought this was a good idea for children......Obviously they didn't remember some of the disconcertingly vivid nightmares you can have as a child.  (I was going to put up a clip from that one, but, honestly, I still find it too disturbing.....And think, some people wanted to ban Winnie the Pooh because he doesn't wear pants.  Clearly they've never seen Night on Bald Mountain.)

(Nope, haven't read this, but it fit, so.......)

Went to the county fair this evening, just to experience the atmosphere.  Something about the mixed smells of fried food, spun sugar, hamburgers and farm animals, eh?



I had the opportunity this weekend to photograph the wedding of some friends of mine, which was fun in itself, but also allowed for the fun of 'getting there.'  I love road trips-the feeling of actually going somewhere.  I don't know how to adequately explain it, but there is something about having a destination, but getting to see new things along the way that is just......fun.  Add in the fact that I've always loved the fall, maybe even more than spring, even though it's a close competition, but in the end, like I said, I think fall wins out.  Which is why I completely understood, when I read C.S. Lewis' Surprised by Joy for the first time, I understood to what he was referring when he said that the first time he felt that pleasant pang of something resembling, but not entirely like, nostalgia was when reading Beatrix Potter's The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin, and being affected by the idea of Autumn.  Anyway, to get on with the story, my mom and I had to go down near the coast, so the landscape changes somewhat between here and there, but it was great.  We stopped at the Wilbur Tyndall Tractor Museum.  Seriously, that was the name, and according to the sign, volunteers were needed.  So, although no one was there (not enough volunteers, I guess) we got out and took some pictures.  Down the road a bit was a road-side stand selling pumpkins, chrysanthemums, peanuts, potatoes, tomatoes, jellies and jams, and various other items.  (You know you've been a history major too long when you stop to photograph pumpkins and start thinking about how they were part of the Columbian Exchange.....)  But, the best part was, I found a guy I wanted to bring home.  He was adorable.  He was friendly without being annoying.  He actually whimpered when I had to leave.  And did I mention he was the cutest thing I've ever seen?  I have photographic evidence that he actually exists, too......

You also know you've been a history major too long when you take pictures of gears and start to think about Descartes and his mechanical theory of the universe....and I wonder why I have no social life.....

Didn't I tell you he was adorable?

Is it September already?!  When did it become September?!  When did August happen?!  Did we have August this year?  I feel like the character Ned in one of my favorite movies, 'Holiday,' with Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn.  During the opening scenes of the movie, Ned wakes with a bad hangover and a butterfly bandage on his head.  After church services that morning someone casually asks, "Have a little accident there, Ned?"  "So they tell me; I don't seem to have been there when it happened."  I don't seem to have been there when August happened.  Does that ever happen to anyone else?  Please say it does, even if it doesn't, lie.  Anyway, here's how I know August happened:  August 25.  "What is the historical significance of August 25," I hear you asking from across the webbed universe?  Simply this: public school commenced.  And after the torrential floods, a rainbow appeared, promising the earth would never again be so cursed....at least until June 2011.  I like children, really, I do.  I like them like you like looking at a python at the zoo.  It's fine as long as he is on the opposite side of a plexiglass wall, but let him slither out among the throng and suddenly things shift dramatically....No, really, I do like them.  At the public library you have to like them because the end of school means your sudden assignment as foster parents to nearly half the city's population.  But, when all's said and done, it can be worth the medication.  (However, you do have to learn to live with a perpetually bleeding heart.)  Anyway, August 25-first day of school!  I think I even saw some scraps of manna still on the ground when I left the house that morning....It brought to mind a few things: first and foremost, this brilliant commericial from eons ago:
 
I hope the marketing department got a standing ovation for that creative achievement.  They deserved it.  All the librarians walked around humming that tune and smiling.  Later that afternoon the phone rang.  Me:  "Hello, --- Library,"  "Yes, I have a question."  Long pause.... "Yes ma'am?"   "Is this the library?"  Me, grinding teeth, "Yes ma'am...."  "Do you have after school programs?"  "In theory or in practice?"  "I'm sorry?"  "Nothing, never mind....No ma'am, we don't."  "You don't?"  "No ma'am."  Click.  Me, hanging up receiver:  "Who wants me to pick them up a milkshake on my way back from lunch?"  Other librarians, frantically scrambling for spare change.
At work, we all like children, but we can also find a rather morbid sense of sympathy for all of the wicked stepmothers, always painted as the villain, in children's stories.  We are the wicked stepmothers.  Reviewing the summer with the rosy tint of nostalgia photoshopping out the more depressing hues, this clip from Bill Cosby came to mind:
   
Which then made me think of another clip from that same stand-up.  (Keep in mind, I do like children,  really....)

All prospective parents should be required by some pre-parenting class to work one summer in the public library......We had a group of children frequently come in throughout the summer that we assumed after a few days were siblings.  Why did we make that assumption?  Because they bickered constantly.  I overheard the youngest, of I would say about five or six years, say to his older brother, "You do and I will slap you into outer space."  Personally, I kinda believed the kid.  He was short, but short people learn to be tough.....