Recipe Hide*And*Seek

Word of the Post
Today's word is: indagate
/in"da*gate/ verb
To seek or search out.
~~~~~~~~~~
It is funny what will trigger memory. Pictures, smells, words, and conversations each have a way of bringing up old information. Smell is thought to be the most powerful. My most readily available trigger is language. I have been searching my house, trying to find the recipe I know I have for Crock Pot Apple Butter. It is awesome, and I have it, somewhere.

Through my diggings, I came across another Apple thing, that brought up a funny memory. Yet here I sit crying. I guess past times make me happy and sad at the same time. Let me explain this one.

When I was in Junior High, we lived in a little house made of river rocks and mud. It was the oldest inhabited house in our city. It was the second oldest house still standing. It was surrounded by trees; mulberry (really, they don't smell like the candles!), fig, apricot, black walnut and quince. We used to collect the fruits, and make various dishes. We canned, froze and cooked them all.

One year, we were borrowing a large dehydrator. We dried everything from the grapes that grew at the house across the street, to the one or two figs we saw. I still have nightmares about and food aversion from apricots. But dad discovered the candy that mom could not argue: Dried Apples. We got huge amounts of apples that year, and dad dehydrated most of them. We also made apple leather (fruit roll ups), apple butter, apple pies and baked apples with pancake syrup all over them. YUM. Makes my mouth water just thinking about it. Ahem. Back to the story.

I packed my lunch to school, because I couldn't stand to have the milk forced upon me, as I am allergic to it. Every day, for most of a year, I had a sandwich, carrot or celery pieces, a Capri Sun drink or other such juice concoction, and a huge handful of dried apples.

One day at lunch, my science teacher, Mr. Gage, saw me eating while he was monitoring the lunchroom. I offered him one, and he made the funniest, grossed-out face. He said he thought of something, and dashed out so fast, he almost ripped his pants on the way out the door. I sat there, wondering what I had done so bad that I needed to have the principal called into the matter, and waited for his return. When he came back, he handed me a piece of paper. A photocopy. He had rushed off to the library. I looked, and laughed. I have never again had such a fun teacher who took an interest in my life because of a simple lunch.

I don't know the name of the book, because it wasn't on the copy. The chapter was entitled "Humor and Whimsey", and the page number was 455. The poem is attributed to "Unknown" (the single most prolific author of writing ever to walk the earth!). Here you will see why my search for a recipe makes me laugh, and the memory of this moment makes me cry (but still in a happy way):

DRIED APPLE PIES

I LOATHE, abhor, detest, despise,
Abominate dried-apple pies.
I like good bread, I like good meat,
Or anything that's fit to eat;
But of all poor grub beneath the skies,
The poorest is dried apple pies.
Give me the toothache, or sore eyes,
But don't give me dried apple pies.
The farmer takes his gnarliest fruit,
'Tis wormy, bitter, and hard, to boot;
He leaves the hulls to make us cough,
And don't take half the peeling off.
Then on a dirty cord 'tis strung
And in a garret window hung,
And there it serves as roost for flies,
Until it's made up into pies.
Tread on my corns, or tell me lies,
But don't pass me dried-apple pies.

~~~Unknown~~~

I am looking at a book that I made in college, a 3-ring binder, full of the best of the emails I had, jokes, recipes, and random ideas I had collected up to that time. I don't know when, but I put that copy in this folder. I found it anew today, looking for a recipe that I have lost.

And I am sitting here in my office, laughing, crying, wondering what happened to Mr. Gage after he moved to California. I am wondering how ancient he must look now, if he still lives, since he looked so old when I knew him, 18 to 20 years ago. I used to wonder what he would have done if he actually tore his pants pocket on the door that day? What if he had not come back to give me the poem? I wouldn't be thinking about him today, and THAT would be sad.

Sophomoric Significance Studied

Word of the Post
Today's word is: tmesis
/TMEE*sis/ noun
In grammar and rhetoric, the separation of the parts of a compound word, now generally done for humorous effect; for example "abso-bloody-lutely" OR "what place soever" instead of "whatsoever place".
In two words, im possible. ~~ Samuel Goldwyn
~~~~~~~~~~
This has been an interesting week, and yet, nothing of significance has happened. Well, I guess even that is not a totally true statement. Significance is in they eye of the beholder, so to speak. What seems significant to you may not appear so to me, and vice versa.

Since last we saw our heroine, she has observed 5th graders taking the C.R.T.'s (national testing for the No Child Left Behind Act), met new people from the radio station chat, toured the radio station with the chat group, gone to two minor league hockey games, gone to three birthday dinners, found out that two more of her friends are pregnant (and for sure that she is not), and painted two miniatures for her growing interest in Dungeons & Dragons. The miniatures, at least.

Coming attractions are to attend a baby swap with the in-laws on Friday night, a wedding on Saturday, Family Day at church on Sunday (with the return baby swap), several birthdays and anniversaries to (forget) make phone calls for, and even attending a wedding on my own birthday..."and Guilder to frame for it. I'm swamped!"

I ask you, if you pray, please pray for my friend Ani. She is the sweetest kid you could ever meet. I have been her "Auntie Chelf" since she was born, and her mom is one of my dearest college buddies. Ani is 4, and she is having back surgery early in May. She is getting rods put by her spine, to force it to grow straight. This is a rare and new slant on a tried and true procedure. Today, she was at the doctor's office getting x-rayed and pricked and poked and measured, for pre-operational information to use in May. I have asked for this help before, and I ask it again in this time of stress for her family.

I have been carrying on three different Bible studies online.
The first is with several girlfriends, contemplating Marriage/Divorce/Remarriage from a Biblical perspective. I am finding that Christians around us can be hateful about the past. While we agree that marriage was designed to be mating for life, the waters get muddy when we try to determine what happens next when reality hits. The divorce rate in the church is almost identical to the rate outside the church; about 50% of marriages fail. Period. We are trying to determine what to do about new marriages, and questions about what constitutes a "Biblical" divorce and a "Biblical" remarriage.

The second is a study with a young man from my church. He is doing more study now than he ever did growing up, and he is answering questions posed to him by his coworkers. I have been helping temper his passion with contemplation and scripture. He knows what is right and wrong, and gets frustrated when people don't listen. He asked me just tonight to come to a chat he is in, to help calm him down. I am honored that he feels that I know more, because I bet I don't. I love the challenge, though. It keeps me IN the Word.

The third is to help my friend, Ferret, to keep a Verse of the Day going on our chat. She wanted to up her post count. She is using this to think about God every day, and to encourage us all to do the same. We post a scripture, and then type a small thought about it. It amazes me how much this has helped me. She asks in the chat where in the Bible the idea is, and I find the actual scripture for her, and she posts it, and opines away. I have filled in a few, when she has been distracted or away.

A little note about Wisdom here, and then I shall be finished for the evening. Proverbs 8:1 "Does not wisdom call, And understanding lift up her voice?" Proverbs 8:17 "I love those who love me; And those who diligently seek me will find me." Proverbs 8:32-36 "Now, therefore, O sons, listen to me. For blessed are they who keep my ways. Heed instruction and be wise, And do not neglect it. Blessed is the man who listens to me, Watching daily at my gates, Waiting at my doorposts. For he who finds me finds life, And obtains favor from the Lord. But he who sins against me injures himself; All those who hate me love death."

Solomon prayed for Wisdom. He was granted that, and many other riches as well, in reward for his humility. It is very wise to seek Wisdom, and wise to fear Fear. If one scoffs at learning, one has sinned against Wisdom. God holds all Wisdom, possesses it and uses it. When we seek the Lord, we seek also His Wisdom. It is wise to believe in God.

John 3:12 "If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how shall you believe if I tell you heavenly things?" God knows that Wisdom comes in stages for us. As we seek, He will reveal what we can process, and then add more. Like a child learning to eat solid food, we start with milk and then move to meat. Wisdom builds on itself. As we continue to seek more, God provides Wisdom.

Thought for tonight: God doesn't believe in atheists, therefore, atheists don't exist!

Imus-shamed

Word of the Post
Today's word is: your
pronoun, possessive
The second personal pronoun, in the singular number, denoting the person addressed; thyself. Your person, you. The term denoting ownership of a thing by the second person, as in "This is your ball".
This term is often misused by people in print form, intending to say the contraction "you're", meaning you are.
~~~~~~~~~~
With the Freedom of Speech comes Responsibility. In these great United States of America, we are granted the right to say whatever we think. We can do this in voice, in print, in action. We are not warned oft enough that the implications of our speech may be far-reaching, and the consequences painful.

In recent weeks, a radio show host named Don Imus has been fired, for exercising his rights. I don't really care too much for sports, that is DH's thing. I don't even listen to sports or opinion shows unless they are on my local talk radio. This issue has been the newest issue in a long line of junk mail from the television to me. The man called a women's basketball team by a nasty turn of phrase. The words were not vulgar in nature, nor were they intended to be hateful. They were critical of the appearance of the players, and intended as a joke.

The part that most people are missing, I think, is that racism is usually spread through jokes and stereotypes. The sad part, to me, is that if Don King had been the one to say it instead, nobody would have noticed, beyond the players themselves. The reaction to the words, not the words themselves, was racially hateful. The fact that a white man said the words makes it bad, when the black "artists" of rap say the same thing, using worse terms, every day, and nobody seems to get mad at them.

The hatred that comes out of a person starts in the heart of their opinions. If a person is hateful, we expect hateful things from them. Imus was not hateful, but trying to be provocative. He was doing exactly what he has been doing for the past 30 years, much longer than the college players have been alive. Nobody called him out before, for far more offensive comments. Nobody calls out the rappers who invented the word "ho" as a shortened version of "whore". The women who were called by this name have every right to be angry, because it was a slur on their character. They have the right to demand an apology, which they did, and received. The matter should have been over at that meeting. Like Anna Nicole, it will just not die. The press is making a spectacle of Imus, and his staged persona.

I think that the network was wrong to fire him. They have been paying him millions of dollars to be provocative, and when he finally achieves it, they punish him. Not fair. Life is hard, and is rarely fair.