Happiness is Next to Godlessness
TODAY: Buried in all the bad national news was a heartening item about Camp Quest in Ohio. It�s for kids whose parents are atheists, agnostics, don�t attend church, etc. Wow! I�m so there! Except it�s $650 for a week of camp so I guess it won�t do any good to pray that someone will fund Dusty�s future godless camp experience, huh?
YESTERDAY: It was Ringo Starr�s birthday and we celebrated appropriately. Dusty and I watched �The Point� � an animated movie from 1971 narrated by Ringo with mind-bogglingly excellent songs and music by Harry Nillson. This link leads you to an updated version of the movie. Don�t get that one; find the original. You�ll be glad you did. We found ours at the local library.
Dusty and I also listened to "Vertical Man" and "Yellow Submarine". Red enjoyed both and did her bouncy, knee-bending little baby dance. Dusty asked, �When�s Ringo coming to our house?� �Well, probably never.� �But I want him to.� �He doesn�t know us.� �Well, I still want him to. Tell him to come to our house.� Yeah, okay. I�ll do that. Anyone got Ringo�s number?
THE FOURTH: On Monday, Dusty and I attended the Beaverdam Parade held at the defunct train depot in the spot-on-the-map where we live. The parade consisted of every noisy county and municipal vehicle with full sirens blaring: ambulances, fire trucks, semis, emergency rescue trucks, etc. It was a tad much.
There were also a few floats and every contestant for the Miss Beaverdam, Little Miss Beaverdam, and Little Microscopic Beaverdam (in-utero) contests. Boy, can you say JonBenet?
Also in line were the Mini Cooper Car Club and the Miata Car Club and a few random antique muscle cars thrown in for effect.
The highlight, though, was candy. Every person on and in every car, truck and float threw candy out to the spectators. Dusty and I were unprepared. We hadn�t brought the empty plastic Wal-Mart bag, like the strange hillbillies around us, to collect the loot. Dusty held back at first and a kind old man sitting next to us kept giving her lollipops and Tootsie Rolls, until she finally freed herself of her inhibitions and ran out to the grassy edge of the road to claim her loot. After we�d collected a handful or two, she said, �I think that�s probably enough candy.� Talk about restraint! I love this kid. And she promptly proceeded to sample just about everything.
Dusty dubbed the 4th �American Day� � a more apt term, I say. After her nap, I came in and she�d decorated with a white shoelace tacked to the wall with blue and red thumbtacks: �It�s for American Day,� she said. Awww, Momma�s Little Patriot!
TODAY AGAIN: More about books. I recently finished �Life of Pi� by Yann Martel. I wasn�t really sure I was going to be able to stomach a book described as one that �will make you believe in God,� because I don�t have a lot patience for religious symbology but I think this blurb is misleading. The book is about an Indian boy named Piscine Patel who is raised nothing but becomes a Hindu, a Christian and then embraces Islam as well. Then, his family, who run a zoo, decide to move to Canada. The ship sinks and Pi finds himself on a lifeboat for 227 days....with a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan and a Bengal tiger. Soon, it�s just him and the tiger. Usually, books with this much tension are hard for me to read because I get so anxious I can�t stand it and keep flipping to the end to find out whether the main character makes it or not. But, this one sucked me in and I was sad when it ended. Go read it!
And, now I�m reading �Mad Mary Lamb,� about children�s writer and poet Mary Lamb (who lived in England during the end of the 18th century and well into the 19th), who killed her mother with a knife and spent quite a bit of time in mental asylums throughout her life; and her essayist/poet brother Charles Lamb. They were friends of Wordsworth and Coleridge as well. I�m always up for anything that can be shelved in the Women�s History section and this is no exception.
Okay, so I�m planning to join my sister at the Tomato Festival in town tomorrow. I�m looking forward to the opportunity to not only catch up on our lives but also to laugh at freaks. Hey, it�s what I do best in my special UnGodly way.
