Month: January 2008

Mark Twain’s war prayer

“O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle — be Thou near them! With them — in spirit — we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it — for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.”

A turtle that does tricks?

I saw the video on CNN.com.  It rolls over, plays dead and shakes a claw. A behavioural psychologist spent ten years training the reptile.
When I was a kid we had a tortoise named Torpid.  He did two memorable things.  He shat all over my Mary Poppins Pop-up Book,  and he ran away.  Yes, we put him outside to stretch his legs and he was a bit better at it than we thought.

Big big big shout out to Mike

He picked up the massage table for me…. Me happy!!!!!!  Kopper gets to get pummelled/try it out first, unless somebody sweet talks me into letting them cut ahead in line.

Life is sweet and gorgeous.  I was SINGING TONIGHT.  The teacher (Ms. Taylor, and a sweet little gal she is, too) ACTUALLY TAUGHT ME TO BREATHE better than anybody else who has ever instructed me.  Either that or I actually have something like an attention span and some motivation for a change.  Kopper says she has no rhythm but she was the only one in our section who could bring the last part of this Brazilian Samba Round in on time.  Life is indeed sweet and gorgeous.

What is with the WIND?  It is like blowing a berloody gale up here and the wind is so biting it’s alive.

Outing

I must admit it’s strange to be dating somebody who has zero tea, coffee or alcohol in his house.  If I want to drink something it’s pretty much water, with fizz and without.  As always a date with the Luddite is an adventure in a variety of ways.  This date included two delicious meals and a snack, a poetry recitation (the dog grr el of Les Barker, the Brit Shel Silverstein), one full length movie (Mae West’s delirious She Done Him Wrong); a number of Youtube videos to do with the tramways of Lodz, Poland, including one that’s extremely funny, and others that make Lodz look like the ugliest, oldest and most dirty snow-covered portions of 1970’s Toronto; much in the way of music, mostly contradance bands including Seattle’s KGB (highly recommended) and the US band Notorious, which is so supremely awesome, I’m going to have to buy two copies of it because one is going to go to Dr. Filk, and also an entire best of Grieg album; and me tricking the Luddite into watching the first 20 minutes of the most recent Pride and Prejudice because I promised him it had English country dancing in it; and we almost watched a Joe E Brown movie but it was getting late.

At 1:38 this morning (when I was snoring, quite likely) Katie texted me with the cryptic “I am sacred for myself.”  (read, scared) which of course I didn’t pick up until 11 this morning when I promptly panicked, burst into tears and called Paul.  After about 90 minutes of agony I got hold of her live and calmed down.

Yesterday I spent an arseload of money at Metrotown, as I am SICK OF MY SHOES.  Do you hear me?  SICK OF THEM.  I don’t usually care, but I wanted comfortable flats so I bought two pairs.  Also I didn’t think I had any shoes suitable for contradancing, and I’m going (may Goddess give me strength) on Friday.

Now I’ve rented the Can car and I’m back home and I’m off to put stuff back in my fridge to go bad for Katie to clear out about the time I move out.  Later….