Darkness - First Installment

I've not blogged or written for my personal enjoyment for a long time. Today I started a short story - it is by no means complete, but it's there. I'd love to have some feedback. Schmetterling, if you could take your red pen to it, I'd be much obliged. - Schlange

~

Nathan walked to the fridge. He opened the door and moved down his mental list: eggs… yep, right on top - a giant clear container holding about 30; rice… rice… hm… last night's lasagna. "I could eat that I guess," he thought, "nah… I don't feel like taking the time to get it out and microwave it… Man. I'm lazy. Oh, there's the rice. Now the ham." He opened the meat drawer and found a small plastic wrapped square of a previously round cured ham. "Mom's been working on this - guess that's why she suggested I eat it." He took the ham out of the package. It was yellow and firm. "Pfft. Cheese."

As he ambled back to the fridge to renew his search, Nathan wondered, "If I'm too lazy to microwave lasagna why in the world am I making ham fried rice?" His first four reasons didn't feel very motivating: he didn't feel like eating Italian tomato sauce this early in the day; he was hungry and ham fried rice would feel good going down - not so acidic as tomato sauce; he shouldn't start the day with a granola bar; mom suggested it. He really just wanted to bag eating… didn't really want to do anything.

Sis'd come home at lunch. Mom had also suggested this for lunch. Maybe he ought to practice making it before serving it. He'd had enough stupid food mistakes over the last week that this seemed slightly more motivating despite the simplicity of the meal.

Nathan recognized through his late morning grogginess the kind of day he was having. He'd had it before. This was the kind of day where a familiar dark cloud would embrace him like a good companion should. He wouldn't feel like eating - particularly if he had to prepare the food. He wouldn't feel like cleaning up for the day. He wouldn't really feel like doing anything, actually. He'd have dark thoughts - not evil thoughts, just depressing ones.

Understanding what he was feeling Nathan worked to combat it. He'd had this kind of day frequently in the past - fortunately it was less common now. The struggle was the cloud. It constantly whispered despair to him, and obstructed the light shrouding all about him with gloom. In the past Nathan had tried to physically shake the doom mist from him. It clung effortlessly to him like a parasite on a dying host. He'd run from it. It was faster than he was. It was also faster than his car. He'd wrapped it around his fist and beat it against his father's fence. Unfortunately, this was more damaging to both the fence (which gained a fist sized hole) and the fist (which gained a fence sized array of slivers and cuts). The cloud actually gained ground at the fence rally - it dove into his newly opened blood stream like a genie entering a bottle. Then it laughed at him from his insides. It took Nathan a confrontation with his parents about the fence (and a wall) along with several weeks of secret crying to bleed it out of his system.

These lessons weren't lost on Nathan. He no longer fell into the physical foolishness. He did, however, fall into emotional foolishness. He'd been on long midnight walks to the middle of a park and tried to shout the black demon away. He'd subsequently fallen to the ground in moments of great agony as the incorporeal taskmaster shouted back. He'd retreated and escaped reality - usually through fantasy novels and video games, and also through an occasional film. He wasn't much of one for TV. His trips to fictional places were generally very long - usually never ending until the well into the early morning. He would sleep fitfully through much of the day. Often the shadow would be sitting by his side as he awoke cheerfully greeting him an oxymoronically good morning. Nathan missed a good deal of school. In part, this was due to the amount of sleep he was generally missing. The other part had a great deal to do with illness. Nathan had once been relatively healthy. The demon saw fit to change things. Whenever Nathan breathed in, it would breath out - spewing a subtle stressing poison into his lungs. It had the effect of tightening his chest and stomach. The poison fooled Nathan's heart which seemed to never quit ejecting adrenaline - keeping him awake at night (on nights when he wasn't in fantasy land) and making him miserably tired in the days. Nathan's stomach gained a talent for self destructiveness - eating it's self a little more with every problem that came his way.

Cruel Irony

If I had to sum up the English language in one word I think it would be a toss up between Cruel and Ironic. Maybe i'd petition the use of a second word and say Cruel Irony. It's not enough for English to be the epitomy of Hypocracy, making usage rules for the sake of breaking them - even breaking rules that govern the breaking of rules; and it's not content to torture us with unnatural spellings and pronunciations; no English doesn't have the universal decency to stop at anything less than mockery of the handicapped. I submit to the jurry three examples. Let us begin with the letter "R":

I met a man from Boston the other day. His surname is Dumarri - note the presence of two R's. This is a horrible problem for any Bostonian because they don't use R's. One day some discriminatory Boston official said,

"Cast out the R's! Make them a hiss and a byletter! From henceforth replace the sound made by any R that approaches with that of the letter 'W' or the word 'ah' (which ever sounds better with the surrounding vowels and consonants)." And the dpeople listened and obeyed. Infact they obeyed so well that their style of R-shunning entered the gene pool and became classified as a speech impediment. now this was no crime made by the unjustly isolated R; however, the way in which it retaliated was most cruelly ironic: it placed the banished noise within it's own appelation, punishing the newly impaired and their children and their children's children and so on until the present day.

Mr. Dumarri can neither say nor spell his name aloud and be understood. For example, he may call a restaurant in Utah to make a reservation. The conversation might go like this:

"We'd be glad to hold a place for you sir. May I have your name?"
"Yes, it's Dumahwi"
"I'm sorry, did you say DoomOnMe?"
"No, Dumahwi. Let me spell it to you: D-U-M-A-awe-awe-I. Dumahwi"
"I'm sorry sir. Did you say Dumah'i... D-U-M-A-A-A-I?"
"No no. It's only got one "A" and two ahhws."
"Pardon me, I think there's a problem with the connection. Two whats?"
*Mr. Dumarri sighs* "Aahhwws. AaWwahs! I'm fwom boston and we don't use them... awe as in 'wip' and 'widge.'"
"Excuse me, did you say 'W' as in 'whip' and 'wig?'"

We leave Mr. Dumarri now as he plants his face in the palm of his hand and examine an ugly word: "lisp." Again eglish mocks the verbailly impaired. The test to check for a lisp is to have the candidate say "lisp." If a person can't say it then he's got it, so send him to get some professional help with it. English rubs salt in his wounds as he goes home to tell his wife that he needs to start seeing a "Thpeech Therapitht."

Finally, we close our case with the fear of long words. A fellow with this problem can get along with english decently on any given day - depending on who he's talking to. However, should he ever hear the name of what he suffers it could take him the rest of his life to recover from the jolt he gets from his "hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia!"

Mattel made WHAT?

And now, for the first time ever, a Barbie that boys will like more than girls: complete with angry ravens comes the Barbie from "The Birds." Too bad Hitchcock isn't around to see this. I wonder if they are going to put out a new Alfred line... maybe we'll get a “Vertigo” play set complete with Monastery Bell Tower.

Just pray that they don’t decide to honor Edger Allen Poe…

High Adventure

I've had an extremely eventful few weeks. I crossed one of the top items off my list of things I want to do before I die by throwing my fragile body out of a perfectly good airplane (along with some cousins and close friends) at an altitude of 13000 feet. I helped to cater a post-wedding dinner for my older brother and met my new (and first) sister-in-law. For the last five days I've been camping and hiking and building sand castles next to a mountain lake with my extended family - a party of about 30 or 40 people. Today or tomorrow some of my cousins and my family are headed out to Starvation Reservoir to do some boating, tubing, and water skiing. If I ever have to point out a two week period of my life that's been filled with adventure, I don't doubt that this one will be high on my list of times to consider.

My conclusion after all of this excitement is that I have the most enjoyment and satisfaction when I'm doing things with my immediate and extended family. I get a bigger thrill out of being with them than I do from plummeting to the ground at a rate of 120 miles an hour. I gain more satisfaction from them than I do from breathtaking views and serene landscapes. They are the highlights of my life. Our traditions (of which we have many and yet are forming more) approach sacredness within my heart - particularly the ones that call us all together. I am the richest of men because I am often blessed with the company of many people who I love deeply and who return that love. I am even more blessed to know and understand that these relations are eternal, and that not even death can permanently erase them because of the power provided through the love and heroic sacrifices of our Lord, Jesus Christ. To Him and to His Father - and our Father - goes my deepest gratitude and love. They ever have been and ever shall be the willing way to joy and peace within this life and throughout the next. Because the Godhead has all power, and all knowledge, and fullest love I have no fear that in the end all will be well for all who follow their perfect Plan of Salvation. I marvel that this is true, but I know that it is.

-Schlange

Claymation Christmas

[Post 28]

Today is blogging day: right after my last post I added some entries to my food blog. One of them was Wassail Punch. This sparked memories regarding a favorite Christmas special we'd watch when we were kids called "A Claymation Christmas." It's got the California Raisins in it, for those of you who actually know about the California Raisins. (and no, I haven't embedded any California Raisin clips, but here's a link to one. I embedded 2 clips from you tube into the wassail post, and then watched a few more. The following clip introduces what was one of my favorite segments way back then and the clip after that is the segment (coincidently they fit right after the carol introduced by the first clip on my food blog).

Comfort – Life - Enjoyment

[Post 27]

I went for a walk yesterday and was thinking about why people work – what the purpose of work is. I've come to this conclusion: We work to provide for ourselves or for a group comfort, life, or enjoyment. Comfort includes not only physical conveniences but also comfortable emotional states: peace, contentment, etc. Life includes the wherewithal to eat and physical, emotional, and spiritual safety. Enjoyment includes thrills, satisfaction, etc. Work accomplishes this for the laborer generally through the receipt of money (which allows the purchase of the work of others) and hopefully for the satisfaction of a job well done. Work is done for the hirer who has something he's trying to accomplish towards those ends. The ditch digger, the architect, the paper pusher, the president, and everybody else who expends energy all have the same goals and functionality. Some are selfish and labor only for themselves – perhaps at the same time denying these things to others, while many are generous and labor for themselves and others. Focus varies – some struggle to keep living and focus only on that. Others are so preoccupied with enjoying the moment that they literally stop living. In the end I think it comes down to at least one, and most of the time all, of these things. What do you think? Am I right?

-Schlange

Old People are Cool

[Post 26]

Ok, so by "Old People are Cool" I mean my Grandparents are cool and that I can't wait to be old and just like them (making the assumption that I get married and have kids and grandkids - hey, it could happen.) Today I got a good reminder of just how cool they are.

So, My 14 year old brother and I go down to our grandparents' house today for various reasons and while we're there Grandma offers us a slice of her special chocolate cake fresh out of the oven. Now, I'm not usually a fan of chocolate cake, but I am a fan of Grandma's, so I'm pretty excited. We take a plate to grandpa first, then my brother runs over with his plate and I amble over with mine. By the time I get my dish back to the table my brother's large piece is a little more than half gone (the boy is like a piranha sometimes). Grandma notices and bellows, "Dear Boy! You ATE IT TOO FAST! NOW COOL-IT! "

(My grandmother is one of the only people that I know that can make me run out of ways to increase the emphasis in sentence; makes me wish that I could add a crescendo symbol from f to ff.)

Grandpa looks over at Bro.'s plate and says slowly in his deep rumbling voice, "Well… maybe he'll need another one." The boy looks up happily and says cheerfully. "Yes. Maybe I'll need another one."

"NO!" Grandma pronounces as she stomps one foot. "I have to take this cake to my relatives in Bluebell," she finishes much more softly but with an air of annoyance. We all look at her quizzically. She answers, "It's for a Christmas party."

"A Christmas party?" I ask (note that I'm writing this in June).

"Yes, a Christmas Party. My brother is having a June Christmas party."

"??" say the eyes and slightly tilted heads of my brother and I.

"It's so they can get in two," chuckles Grandpa holding up the peace sign.

"Is this a yearly thing?" I ask.

"I don't know, but I think so," says Grandpa.

"Do they put up a tree?"

"I don't know, but I'm going to find out," says Grandma, inflicting the consonant with the vigor of a first grade teacher (this isn't suprising because she was a first grade teacher.) "The oven was hot, and I just had to think of an excuse to go down and spy on their party, so I made this cake." We all chuckle as Grandma turns and leaves the room to finish getting ready for Christmas in June.

After a moment my brother gets up and steps slyly over to the cake, making small movements so as to emphasize his "sneakiness." "Better leave it alone," says I, "that's Grandma's ticket to the party."

Grandpa's eyes sparkle as he leans over and says in a conspiring tone, "Perhaps if we cut a long thin slice off the end it won't be noticed." As he finishes speaking he's already standing up and shuffling over to the cake pan. In the time it would take to say "slick" he's already trimmed off the most exact cake sliver you've ever seen, and divided it into two long pieces and one short one. "I'm going to need somewhere to put these," he mutters with a shifty wide-eyed look that says – "hurry, or I'm going to be in trouble."

Plop, plop, plop. Two long pieces on the grandkids' plates, and one short one on Grandpa's plate. Grandpa shuffles back to the table and everybody sits down and takes a bite. Enter Grandma, bright as the sunshine. "Well, I s'pose I'd better be off."

"We'd better be off too," I say. "We've got stuff to do at the house." I reach over and give my smiling angel Grandma a hug. "Thanks for the cake." In the same motion I look over her shoulder squarely at my grandpa (who happens to be grinning from ear to ear and silently laughing so that his belly is bouncing up and down). "Yes," I say, "thank you for the cake."