Friday, November 28, 2003 AD Water From Another Time My Grampa would have been a hundred years old today. This is the song I sang at his funeral in 1999:
New mown hay on a July morn
Grandkids running through the knee-high corn
Sunburned nose and a scabbed-up knee
From a rope on the white oak tree
Just another summer's day at Grandpa's farm
With Grandma's bucket hanging off my arm
You know, the old pump's rusty but it works fine
Primed with water from another time
CHORUS:
It don't take much, but you gotta have some
The old ways help the new ways come
Just leave a little extra for the next in line
They're gonna need a little water from another time
Tattered quilt on the goose-down bed
"Every stitch tells a story," my Grandma said
Her mama's nightgown, her grandpa's pants
And the dress she wore to her high school dance
Now wrapped at night in its patchwork scenes
I waltz with Grandma in my dreams
My arms, my heart, my life entwined
With water from another time
(Chorus)
Newborn cry in the morning air
The past and the future are wedded there
This wellspring of my sons and daughters:
The bone and blood of living waters
And though Grandpa's hands have gone to dust,
Like Grandma's pump, reduced to rust,
Their stories quench my soul and mind
Like water from another time
Though not all the details fit, the spirit of the song sure did. Grampa was a farmer, but Nana wasn't a quilter. Hay mowing is something many of us remember -- if only going along for the ride as I did -- but I don't think Grampa ever grew corn. The scabbed knee I most vividly remember was from running down the dirt road toward the creek where I wanted to sit and eat my bologna sandwich. And until the '80s when they finally got indoor plumbing, Nana and Grampa got their water from a well or a spring, rather than a pump.
Grampa had three children and 15 grandchildren. Great-grandchildren seem to be out of production for the time being (I'm the youngest grandchild and I think the only one that might still have kids), but the great-great grands are going gangbusters. I think there were about five at the time of Grampa's death. I've lost count since. Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 11/28/2003 10:39:00 AM
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Monday, November 24, 2003 AD Have You Heard About The Dane? He's really sick. He posted a picture earlier today, but here's an updated one. The mumps, I think.... Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 11/24/2003 10:05:00 PM
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Links to This Post A Shocking Experience I visited the electromyographer today for a look-see at my wrist. He said I was being a very good patient as I didn't once say ouch to being shocked. Then he started poking me with a needle and I said, "Ouch."
"If you believe in acupuncture, this should help," quoth he.
"And if I don't believe in acupuncture?" queried I.
"Won't do you a bit of good."
The verdict is very mild carpal tunnel syndrome. It would probably be nastier if I hadn't switched to Wacom tablets several years ago. Now those I believe in. Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 11/24/2003 12:58:00 PM
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Links to This Post I Finally Saw D.J. on Saturday I braced myself to see his battered frame lying helpless in the bed. Instead he was sitting up and complaining that there were no dosctors around on the weekend to sign him out of there! He has tickets to his 25th high school reunion Wednesday night, and is threatening Dark Reprisals if he's not released to go.
Thanks for any prayers that were prayed for his recovery! Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 11/24/2003 12:48:00 PM
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Links to This Post The Heavens Are Telling the Glory of God Check out these images from the Hubble Telescope. If your monitor resolution is set at 800x600, it's worth the effort to resize it to view this. (Go to your desktop, right click, select Properties, click the Settings tab, move the Screen area slider to at least 1024 by 768.)
All this beauty that eye has not seen in all of human history until these recent years. One wonders if God, who created it all for His glory, hid it from us until this cynical age that we might yet have something to awestrike us. Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 11/24/2003 10:04:00 AM
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Friday, November 21, 2003 AD This Photo Tickled Me Pink
(If it's not visible, somebody let me know, and I'll put a copy on my own site.) Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 11/21/2003 01:58:00 PM
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Thursday, November 20, 2003 AD Moved to Rehab They moved D.J. to rehab yesterday. Sondra found the Ravens tickets. The crisis mode seems to have passed. Praise God! Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 11/20/2003 02:01:00 PM
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Wednesday, November 19, 2003 AD No Broken Neck...Yay! Broken sternum...boo! Why it took them 3-4 days to figure out he had a broken wrist, and 5-6 days to figure out he had a broken sternum is beyond me. And Sondra says his shoulder's really bad, but they've done no x-ray of that. We need some Star Trek-style scanners to just wave over folks who've been through such large-scale trauma to make sure nothing gets missed along the way.
They have determined that he will be going to rehab for a while.
I still haven't gone to look for those tickets...tonight! Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 11/19/2003 11:06:00 AM
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Tuesday, November 18, 2003 AD Somebody Please Shoot Me If I Ever Become Like This A review of Love for Sale, by Rachel Greenwald (link from HSC).
Being single and over 35, I well know the temptation to make an idol out of the hope of marriage. But I've never seen husband hunting turned so blatantly into a religion:
Escaping singledom will, Greenwald cautions, be costly in terms of both financial expenditure—she advises establishing a marketing budget of ten or twenty per cent of one’s annual income and setting it aside in a bank account labelled "Husband Search"—and time. One client took a year off from work to focus on finding a husband; another was nearly fired because of all the time she was devoting to the project. Humiliation will also be required, particularly when it comes to Step 10, Telemarketing.
Let's see...we've got tithing (or even more sacrificial giving), going ye therefore into all the earth to accomplish the mission, even self-abasement in pursuit of winning the favor of the god. I guess Greenwald's book is the bible.
Seeing this call to whoredom laid out so boldly makes me realize how I need to be on guard against engaging in subtler self-advertising and the worship of false gods. Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 11/18/2003 11:53:00 AM
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Links to This Post Needle in a Haystack My brother does a lot of dealing on eBay. I've started trying to contact folks who've made recent purchases from him. Most of the stuff he sells is antiques and collectibles...nothing anybody can't wait a few weeks to get. But he also sells other things...including tickets to this Sunday's Ravens game. I need to go over to his house and look for them. Sondra has hauled all of his junk to the basement, so who knows where they might be in all that chaos! He's also got a December 7 parking pass up for bid. I'll be looking for that, too, but the tickets are urgent. Yikes! Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 11/18/2003 01:12:00 AM
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Monday, November 17, 2003 AD More on My Brother's Accident At first they said the only serious damage was a dislocated hip, and of course a lot of bruisedness and bangedupness and pain. He's been on three different pain meds so far, one of which caused hallucinations. They decided his left arm was weaker than his right, and discovered a bad break in his wrist. He had a several-hour surgery to repair that. Since he hasn't been able to eat more than a little jello, his blood sugar has been fluxuating wildly -- as high as 340 and as low as 48. Now they're saying they can't rule out the possibility of a broken neck. They haven't been able to do an MRI because they're afraid to remove his neck brace.
We still don't know whether they're going to end up sending him home tomorrow or to rehab for several weeks. Because of the @%$^!# new privacy rules, even his wife has had trouble getting information out of the hospital. Since the rest of us (Mom, other brother, me) are getting second or third-hand info via Sondra, it's of course getting to us slowly. Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 11/17/2003 11:45:00 AM
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Links to This Post Expired Stuff Does anybody know if expired meds and vitamins just lose potency or if they could actually be harmful? Does it depend on the particular product? Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 11/17/2003 09:53:00 AM
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Links to This Post Today's HOD* Teen uses truck to stop car after fatal crash.
When I was 16 I was a passenger in a car driving down the highway when a nearby 18-wheeler's axle broke and the whole assemblage, including two tires, passed just a few feet in front of our car. That was scary.
Thursday, November 13, 2003 AD My Brother Nearly Got Hisself Kilt Yesterday He was following my SIL someplace down I-95 where she was going to drop off her car for service. When she'd waited an hour and he still hadn't arrived, she knew something was wrong. She called her mom to come fetch her, and then started calling hospitals -- no luck. Finally she called the Northeast Police District and asked if they'd heard anything. They had been notified that one of their officers had been taken to shock trauma. Bingo.
His blood sugar had dropped and he'd blacked out and crashed. Considering this was rush hour, it's pretty incredible that he only went off the road and hit a tree rather than crashing into another car and causing a chain-reaction pile up. It's also pretty incredible that the only thing that seems to be wrong with him is that his hip was dislocated. They were even talking about sending him home last night, but they still weren't sure about internal bleeding.
D.J.'s been on desk duty for a couple years now. (I didn't even know that 'til this morning -- shows how close our family is!) He was scheduled to back on the beat last night. That'll never happen. He's only a couple years from retirement -- 20 years' service, I think, qualifies officers for full retirement benefits. I hope he'll at least be able to return to desk work for that long.
This was his third diabetes-related blackout. The first one happened when he was waiting in line at McDonald's. He knew his sugar was low, so he was trying to get something to eat, but the service was too slow. He broke a finger that time. Not even my mom knew there had been a second time 'til Sondra mentioned it yesterday, so I've no idea what those circumstances were.
Thanks be to God for mercy upon mercy that D.J. was spared from death or worse injury.
...
Just called Sondra. She was home desperately cleaning because she knew folks would be coming over. Evidently there was some bleeding in D.J.'s head, but that seems to have stopped. They weren't sure about one of his ankles so they were taking him to be X-rayed for possible fractures. He's in a lot of pain.
Their Impala is probably totalled. "It would have to be the Impala rather than the Saturn," she said, presumably referring to the relative worth of the two vehicles. "But then again the Saturn didn't have airbags so he'd probably be dead."
Sondra's Beetle had been rear-ended last weekend, and her sister's van had been wrecked the week before, so things aren't going well, carwise, for that family! Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 11/13/2003 12:45:00 PM
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Write Your blessed name, O Lord, upon my heart
There to remain so indelibly engraved
That no prosperity
That no adversity
shall ever move me from your love.
Be to me a strong tower of defense
A comforter in tribulation, a deliv'rer in distress
And a faithful Guide to the courts of heav'n
to the courts of heav'n
Through the many temptations
and dangers
of this life.
O Jesu, my only Savior!
Write Your blessed name, O Lord, upon my heart
There to remain so indelibly engraved
That no prosperity
That no adversity
shall ever, ever, ever move me from your love.
-- text by Thomas á Kempis, arr. Dale Grotenhuis Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 11/11/2003 02:31:00 PM
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Wednesday, November 05, 2003 AD How Not to Conduct a Bible Study I remember laughing uproariously twenty years ago when a friend did his "how not to conduct a Bible study" schtick. It went something like this:
Teacher: Today we're going to study John 3:16. Now, in this passage, who so loved the world?
(Awkward silence.)
Timid response: Um, God?
Teacher: Right! And whom did God so love?
(Awkward silence.)
Timid response: Um, the world?
And he would proceed excruciatingly through the verse with these basic reading comprehension questions.
Of course it's important to make sure that there is basic comprehension, but for pity's sake find a way to do it that doesn't treat intelligent people like idiots. You will always get long, awkward silences with this sort of approach, as no one likes to be asked the obvious. This causes the whole process to become less of a Bible study and more of a waste of time. Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 11/05/2003 02:16:00 PM
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Tuesday, November 04, 2003 AD Heh. Someone for some reason was reading my site in German through Google translator. I love what it does to the names on my blog roll. I think I'll start calling some folks by the literal translation of their names into German: Widerhaken, Rechnung, Dämmerung, Lorbeer, Fruchtsirup and Kennzeichnen Sie. Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 11/04/2003 11:18:00 AM
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Monday, November 03, 2003 AD Sorry, No Pictures Well, I can't say I had a blast at Friday's Hallowe'en party, but I had a decent time. And my costume turned out fantabuliciously, if I do say so myself! Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 11/03/2003 12:01:00 PM
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Links to This Post There's No Such Thing As Divine Intervention At our prayer meeting last night someone read an article from some California radio station crediting divine intervention with keeping the fires from reaching a certain town. It happened to be the town where parents of a church member live, and he had forwarded the article via e-mail to some folks.
As I thought about it, something didn't set right with me. Of course I believe that it was God's sovereign will that the fire did not reach that particular town. But I don't think "divine intervention" is a very accurate term. It's not as if God reached from the outside into the situation and changed the course of events. No, He ordained it all from the get-go. It wasn't somebody else's show that He stepped in to redirect. It was and is and evermore shall be His show.
Which gets us to the stickier issue: He also ordained the fires that did reach various towns and did destroy many houses and kill several people. Of course we are right to give God credit for sparing the town, and give Him thanks for His mercy. But shouldn't we also respond with reverent and adoring fear when the Almighty God, who is a consuming fire, ordains consuming fires? Severe providences are providences none the less. Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 11/03/2003 11:59:00 AM
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