Happy Mid-October

I seem to be cooking. More accurately, I seem to have cooked and am now waiting for it to cool enough to find out if the results are any good or not. The whole scenario may not seem odd to my more culinarily inclined friends. However...I am about as home in the kitchen as a rowboat in the garage. You can stick it there and it might fit okay, but it will look a little odd and not be good for much but conversation. So anyway, my motive this time was that I was not hungry.

I wasn't. But I was prowling the kitchen and it occurred to me that food was probably a good idea. It tends to make studying easier (which I have yet to begin, btw—this is obviously more important). Nothing sounded good, or looked like it might sound good upon further conjecture, so I arbitrarily went with soup. None of that looked remotely like something I'd enjoy in my present frame of mind, so I thought I might as well pick a kind that nobody in the family would really enjoy either and get it out of the way. Cream of Celery...sounded nicely unappetizing. So far so good.

Then I noticed the label on the back. A recipe for chicken and biscuits or something. I read it more out of boredom than anything, but it started sounding interesting. At least it was something to do that didn't involve studying. We had all the ingredients, so it was downhill from there. Well actually, we didn't have all the ingredients. But we had what seemed to me to be okay substitutes. [N.B. These things are so much easier when you haven't the faintest idea if they really work or not but you don't care that much to begin with.] In other words, it was really downhill.

Anyway, the next thing I knew I was steaming frozen vegetables, cooking canned chicken (do people do that?), and climbing to the ether regions (as opposed to the nether regions) of the kitchen to reach a casserole dish that is accustomed to hibernating undisturbed. Shortly thereafter, something was cooking in the oven and I had this vague suspicion I'd had something to do with that. Not too long after that I found myself sitting here writing this nonsense and eating something that bordered on not too bad.

Thus endeth my tail. *Meow!*

The Saga of Van Gogh and Dorothy: Episode Five

Van Gogh babbled maliciously and spooked his hot-air balloon in the dream marked "Well, I'll be...". As usual, it wasn't a toasted spooking job, but it would have to do. He thought back to his years in spooking school and babbled again, but more selfishly this time. That had truly been an experience. In retrospect, he was happy it had taken him twenty-three years to graduate. If he had managed to complete the course in the normal bedtime, he would never have met Dorothy or the Flying Spaghetti-Monster or Festus T. Scrubbins. In fact, he wouldn't have existed at all by this time. Festus T. Scrubbins might not have either, come to think of it. Van Gogh yelled in midstride and thought about this. Was he about to hot-air balloon into another stuck shopping list? He annoyingly hoped not. He had had enough of those to last through the dawn of time.

HEE-HAW!!! The sound of a juicy firecracker nonchalantly poking a songbird brought Van Gogh back to the present. Ah, yes. He was at the Point of No Return, and he was looking for...

"TAIL!!!"

Van Gogh burped and stepped aside as 9 3/4 flea-laden tails hurtled courageously towards the songbird. "What's in it?" he asked timidly. That firecracker really needed to learn to watch where it was going. He glared at it. "What did you mean by 'Tail'?"

The firecracker just lit a candle and continued poking the songbird.

Van Gogh babbled for the third time and continued swimming backwards from the songbird. What was the use of teaching firecrackers to talk if all they did was agree courageously with songbirds? It was nearly impossible to get out of the way every time. Good thing it only happened negative twelve times every fraction of a second.

Now, what was he doing here again...? The Point of No Return tugged vociferously at him, and he remembered. Tails. Clearly it was something to do with Tails. Somewhat precariously, he looked up just in time to see The Flying Spaghetti-Monster speed-walking towards him.

The Saga of Van Gogh and Dorothy: Episode Four

Van Gogh was getting tired of being bubblegum. That was all well and good for some, but he suspected it wasn't really for him. Since February 30th was fast approaching, he decided he'd mention it to the Flying Spaghetti-Monster, who usually knew what to do about these kinds of things. And if he didn't know, he'd know somebody who did. He would also know exactly why Dorothy's snobbish battleship was so colorful, which was what had started this whole thing in the first place. Dorothy was still inside the vacuum-cleaner bag, but she seemed luxurious enough, so Van Gogh decided to gamble on just leaving her there until he got back. As long as her pink pogo sticks didn't attempt to do something sadly difficult, everything would be dour.

Two minutes later, Van Gogh was cycling towards the Point of No Return in his melancholically insane hot-air balloon, thinking fearful thoughts about dreams and shopping lists. Most pieces of bubblegum didn't think about these two things in conjunction with each other, especially not while busy cycling in hot-air balloons, but Van Gogh was rather atypical when it came to these kinds of things. This was one reason he was beginning to seriously question his identity. He glanced at his hourglass. "Seven and a half years left to go," he thought, yodeling deliriously. It was about time.

Precisely overnight, the Point of No Return hove hungrily into view. Van Gogh smiled shrewdly and diminished the hourglass. "Oh dear! Can't you get anything right?"

The hourglass just squinted at him. Van Gogh sighed kindly and entered the Point of No Return. Hopefully the Flying Spaghetti-Monster was home.

The Saga of Van Gogh and Dorothy: Episode Three

The Flying Spaghetti-Monster was a singing drinking fountain who liked to squint. Like Dorothy, he was rather unhelpful and prone to making propane tanks, but in general he did quite well as a drinking fountain.

What a nice nose you have, thought Van Gogh, singing happily to the goldfish. I wonder what kind of towel he's keeping at the Point of No Return these days?

For the past two million years, the Flying Spaghetti-Monster had taken up residence at the Point of No Return, where he sold sugar pills to small children. He said this made him fearful, but Van Gogh suspected the Flying Spaghetti-Monster was just bluffing. He was good at it, sure; but was it really the right occupation for a drinking fountain? Van Gogh had his doubts. But enough of that. He returned to the problem at hand.

Dorothy's pink pogo sticks were now counting absentmindedly in the poodle, while she yelped inside a vacuum-cleaner bag, armpit-caroling diabolically. "Is the turkey done?" Van Gogh asked sullenly. It was always good to check up on these things.

"I'll take the challenge," Dorothy sneezed synchronously. "My cube had zucchini today."

"Quick! To the Bat Cave!"

Dorothy propelled her snobbish battleship. "It's colorful," she said. "Just ask the Flying Spaghetti-Monster. He knows."

Van Gogh slaughtered his paycheck in his stupor. "Dorothy, don't be so dumbfoundedly sarcastic. It's not scintillating. I've been trying to be affected like you said, and it's very golden. What exactly is your point?"

Dorothy smothered her delirium. "Of course!"

"That's settled, then," Van Gogh said proudly. "I'll talk to him on February 30th."

The Saga of Van Gogh and Dorothy: Episode Two

"Argh!" Van Gogh winked and sniffed across the parrot. Somewhere over the chopping board it was foggy, but Dorothy was at it again. This time she had help. For the past six seconds, she had been poaching her open sores with excitedly pink pogo sticks. In spite of the fog, Van Gogh was afraid Dorothy would discover a new method of raining cats and dogs. It made no difference that she had never poached her open sores before February 10th; she was determined to do it anyway. He clapped as another pogo stick swallowed across the room. She was so content these days.

Van Gogh stared hurriedly at the pink pogo stick for fourteen minutes before making up his mind. Yes, Dorothy's intense open sore obsession had definitely got to stop. He gathered up his horrid cotton candy and sang in what he hoped was a dorky voice: "Dorothy, this has got to stop."

Dorothy didn't hear him. She was busy humming "Yesterday". She was, after all, a music box.

Van Gogh extinguished his pebbles and tried again. "Dorothy, do you have a refrigerator?"

She honked and set fire to his eyelash. Oh, Van Gogh, you're so ill-humored," she whispered. "Why don't you try being affected for a change?"

Van Gogh pondered this. It was rather pretty, come to think of it, that in his exactly three-nineteenths of an hour as a park ranger he had never thought to be affected. "You're abstract, Dorothy," he yodeled, and gargled slowly with an underwater shirt. "Did you just fly in?" Just like the Flying Spaghetti-Monster used to do, he thought, then wondered why he had so madly remembered him.

Disclaimer: anything excessively strange is the result of running this through a random word generator...Yakkady, how do you like being called a random word generator?

The Saga of Van Gogh and Dorothy: Episode One

Once upon a time, there was a piece of bubblegum named Van Gogh. He went to the store to buy some cows. While he was there, he snorted a small elevator. Understandably, this set him back considerably in his efforts to giggle. But the elevator was nice, so he didn't mind too much. Besides, now he could finally sprout his yellow Dewey Decimal System! This made him ecstatic, so he kicked all the way to the garbage dump.

In the garbage dump, Van Gogh met seven whirligigs. They weren't hurriedly mournful, but he reflected on this for eternity and realized that he was less than hysterical himself. so he let it entertain him instead and embarked upon a new adventure.

It was about this time that Van Gogh realized he was no longer at the store. Sometimes he was a little slow to catch onto these things, but this time he managed it with the aid of a music box. It helped that this wasn't just any music box. It was a confused music box. Neurotically so. This particular music box had fought in the Battle of the Apes and had flown with random toothbrushes. Its name was Dorothy. Van Gogh admired Dorothy because the lollipops were yodeling all over the Tooth Fairy and she didn't seem to care. However, it is not known whether Dorothy mused on this crayon before a blink of an eye had passed.

While all this was taking place, Van Gogh found his missing submarine in the kaleidoscope. He hung it around his booger and traveled with his persnickety librarian. This did not get him very far in Underwater Hockey, but he was too busy disposing of snowmen to care. Dorothy would have cared more about this, but she was blissfully howling and didn't notice. She was, after all, a music box.

Two and a half minutes later, Van Gogh had licked all of Dorothy's alarm clocks into inept pencil sharpeners and returned decidedly to Dreamland. Someday, he swore to himself, things would be different. But for the next instant, he had half-baked cookie dough to manage.

Travelogue—Episode One: Glen Haven

On Monday I was driving up Big Thompson Canyon to Estes, and I decided to go through Glen Haven instead of taking the direct route. I was glad I did, as it was narrow and winding and full of trees (mostly aspen and white poplar) and glimpses of river (in any wetter state it would have been called a creek) and odd houses in various stages of dilapidation and/or eccentricity. I passed a sign informing me that it was Open Range and I could expect to encounter Livestock On Road. Disappointingly, I did not. However, I came around a particularly delicious curve and saw, set back and down from the road, a house that (based on appearance) had sometime within the past decade retired from a career as a barn. On the gate was a sign that said, "COWS NOT MINE."

A few curves later, I encountered a driveway leading in a winding sort of way up a treeless, rounded hill, upon which another sign read, "WELCOME HOME JESSICA". At the time it did not occur to me to wonder why I ought to welcome her home, but I wondered how those neighbors got along and whether or not they knew each other. What an interesting place to live, I thought. Rural mountain communities seem almost by necessity to congeal into their own little worlds. I could now waste a sentence or two wondering if 'congeal' is really the word I want right there, but I think I'll leave it hanging and ramble onwards.

My car rambled on as well, and gradually upwards. I went with it, since I didn't have much else to do. I came around a curve (there was a lot of that going on) and saw several very pondersome things all at once. My first glimpse was of a house—but not just any house. It was small and low and smothered in trees and other greenery, and was very unmistakably purple. The yard was pleasantly cluttered with all sorts of fluffy new-age-y objects and trinkets, and wooden butterflies of various colors had fastened themselves all over the house at intervals. I had only the briefest impression of this before the curve bent my gaze from west to north and a rather pedantic sign told me in no uncertain terms that I was Now Entering Glen Haven, and would I Please Observe the Speed Limit. Underneath someone had tacked a small sign saying, "NOT DRAKE". Drake is, of course, the town farther down the mountain at which the road for Glen Haven departs from Highway 34. I wondered if the Not Drake person had ever met the Cows Not Mine person, or if they were one and the same. Perhaps mountain living breeds crotchetiness . . . but then there was the purple house. That was anything but crotchety. I glanced back at it, and saw that the inside was no less cluttered than the outside. It looked rather like one of those trinket shops that fill themselves up with all manner of interesting froufrou that you can spend hours looking at and trying not to break every time you turn around. Maybe it in fact was one, but I saw no sign. Just more butterflies.

About that point I decided I should probably look at the road, so I stopped looking at the house and faced back west (the road, as per its habit, had curved again) and found I was looking down the entire length of Glen Haven proper, which I believe could be set in its entirety inside any decent football stadium. A general store on the right, a fascinating-looking inn on the left, an inn on the right, a coffee shop (or something?) and riding stables on the left, a few houses . . . and then a sign for the benefit of traffic in the other direction, which I craned my neck to read, informing them that now they, too, were entering Glen Haven . . . by which I inferred that I must be exiting it. They had the same injunction not to speed, but not a word did I see about whether or not it might really have been Drake. Maybe they assume it's only flatlanders who are confused about such things. Being a flatlander myself, I have no way of knowing.

Shortly thereafter, I encountered two wonderfully steep pairs of switchbacks, which I was rather overpleased to find my car capable of negotiating. I allowed the euphoria to pass, however, in light of the next pressing problem: whether or not I should wave to the driver of the Hostess delivery van now bearing down upon me. I decided not to, and then got lost in a reverie on what it would be like to deliver papers, which eventually begged the question: what paper do mountain-dwellers read? That was answered shortly thereafter by a handy newspaper box: The Denver Post.

I could go on . . . well, I did go on . . . but that was the most interesting part.

Morning Musings

Mother managed many munchkins. Most muddled Mother's mind. Myra mashed melons most mornings. Myrtle murdered mandolin melodies. Mark mainly made messy muffins. Measeled Mildred moaned. Milton meandered muddy meadows.

Myra's mashed melons mingled messily. Myrtle's mandolin misinterpreted Mother's mood. Muddy Milton marauded Mark's muffins. Mark made Milton mutter, "Mercy!" Meanwhile, Mildred's moans made Mother migrainous.

"Mostly," mumbled Mother, "my mood makes me miserable. Must my munchkins mainly mismanage?"

Master moved Mother's mind mercifully. Mother's mended mood moved many munchkins mightily. Mark mended Myra's mashed-melon mess. Myra managed Mark's mangled muffins. Milton's meadowlark maintained Myrtle's melodies. Myrtle's mandolin misappropriated Mildred's measles. Measleless Mildred maximized Mother's mood. "My Master's merciful," Mother maintained.

Wandering...

In another world, life is cold and grey and frozen water hangs in the air like crystals, obscuring the view through the trees. The trees are tall and straight, and impossibly close together. The occasional rodent skitters through mingled ice flakes and needles littering the forest floor. The trees breathe silently, and the heat of their breath melts the air just enough that icicles drip gracefully from every branch. Occasionally out of the gloom one of them creaks and sighs, but mostly they are content to sleep and to wait.

Long ago the Demons from the North passed through this forest on their way to invade the stronghold of Hedgemony. They were driven back (details are vague, but so they were, and there was heroism involved), and for an age the wood echoed their shrieks and cries. Now they are still again, and the battle all but forgotten.

This forest is now home to the rare and beautiful Cactus Moth, an icy blue, timid creature the size of a small wombat. They perch on the larger icicles to cool their feet, which are perpetually hot enough to be on fire. Occasionally one is too long away from a perch, and then its feet start to smoke. Sometimes it does not remedy the problem in time, and then it spontaneously combusts with a quiet little *piff!* in a cloud of blue smoke.

Well, really. What do YOU think about on a Tuesday afternoon?

Thoughts on Food

Sooo.

Dad always buys the Root Beer that comes in bottles. This is a good thing because the only time Sar will give me a coolness factor of more than zero is when I’m drinking out of one of those. The rest of the time I’m pretty sure I’m in at least the low negatives.

I was having one this evening and, being temporarily done, I attempted to replace the cap. *foomp!* It jumped back off. It does that sometimes. I tried again. *foomp!* Huh. Again. *foomp!* Well. I put it on extra-tight. *Foomp!!!* Fortunately I found it amusing. But I wanted to get on with my life, and I wanted my root beer to still be fizzy when I returned eons hence, so I tried once more--with EXTRA force.

...It stayed. I found this somehow disappointing.

But not for long. After various and sundry travels and travails of sunderedly varied kinds, I ended up in the kitchen, eating one of those miniature oranges. It was goood. This is a good thing as well, because we’ve had bad experiences with oranges recently. The orange fairy messed up or something and forgot to add the flavor to three shipments in a row, and they were mushy to boot. These were still a little on the mushy side, but they had FLAVOR. That led me to forgive everything, and as I was coaxing two more to come with me for later, Dad came in. “Those are good,” he said.
I agreed.
Dad: “The ones in King Soopers looked awful.”
Me: “Yeah; I was scared of the last ones.”

Now it seems, I have no need for anxiety. Forthwith, I shall fear the oranges no longer.

(I really hope no one’s ever said that before. If they had, I’d have to question their sanity.)

Drama Queen

Why do I have to be so dramatic about everything? I mean, seriously. So what if my socks are missing? Just because they're my favorite pair in the whole world and my feet are cold without them is no reason to go spinning off into the Pit of Despair. Hah. So there must be some other reason for the spinning. I can see being in the Pit of Despair over missing socks, even ones that weren't my favorites, but did I really have to spin to get there? That's alwaays so discombobulating. I'll be the spinning part had more to do with my elephant. She's mad at me for locking her out of the closet. She liked it in there, but she was too big; she had to go. I knew she was mad when she sent me a yo-yo for Christmas.

Did you used to play with yo-yos? I did. It was fun, but I couldn't do anything cool with it. Up and down was hard enough. Technically it was just the 'up' part that was hard. Down was easy because Gravity was working with me. That reminds me: I tested it the other day, and Gravity still works fine. I lived through it anyway.

The Old Man

The old man wandered down the hall. Every mirror was cracked, and each piece reflected a different shade of grey, even though his cloak was all one color. They all avoided showing his face. His hood was in tatters, and he walked with a limp. In his right hand, he clutched a staff tightly. His eyes burned deep and grim out of their craggy sockets. Bushy eyebrows hinted that the wispy white atop his head was once a thick mane of hair. His beard floated in front of him, brushing his knees on occasion--perhaps just to make certain they were still holding him up.

So...Is this going anywhere? I haven't the faintest idea. Thoughts welcome.

Oooh! Light bulb just went on! But tell me your thoughts anyway.

The Wishing Well

November 18, 2005

A smile whispers in the wind
And spreads its wings to fly;
It glides away on phantom dreams
And melts into a sigh.

The wishing well is grey with age—
With creeping moss adorned;
The tide of time has bent its base—
The stones are cracked and worn.

A spark of laughter snickers past
And twinkles as it goes;
But go it does, and where it lands
Only its echo knows.

The water seems at first so calm—
So fathomless and deep;
But countless cares lie hidden there—
Dark dreams that never sleep.

The mist behind obscures the path
That leads the way back home;
The pad of feet on journeys gone
Still echoes on the stone.

The weather here is never clear—
The wind is cold as ice;
The shadows in the wishing well
Exact a painful price.