CarpeBanana

My blog at Reformedblogs has a cool little filter on it that lets you know how many spam it has caught for you. I think it’s too bad we don’t have lots of those in real life ~ wouldn’t it be awesome and motivating if in real life you were notified when you did something right and thereby avoided a big big problem? For example, you wash your hands and a message pops up on the mirror “Good news: you just averted a nasty stomach flu that would have ravaged your family for the next two weeks” or you stay home on a snowy evening and the news that night features a story “5 Person Fatality Avoided on the Interstate Because Carpe Banana had the Brains to Keep Her Car in the Garage”? That sort of thing.

But for the life of me I cannot imagine what sort of crisis this stable and praying penguin is averting, however, seeing he is wearing his little sailor cap, I hope he is not thwarted.

Some kids are the reverse of bottomless pits and give a lot back. Mr Music is one of these overflowing wells. Tonight, tucking him in I told him, “I love you more than the moon.” He shot back, “I love you more than the sun and the clouds.”

As Mary says on It’s A Wonderful Life when George offers to lasso the moon for her, “I’ll take it.”

He has always been good at sharing his vantage point on the world. Way back when he was two, one summer dusk, he reached his little hand as high as it would go, looked up, and solemnly said, “I will hold my hand up until a single star falls into it.” (It was the “single” that I loved.) And then a few months later, he caught sight of a huge, distant flock of blackbirds, and said, “Look, flying pepper.”

I think God wants us to give back what He has given us, to share it with Him like this. Thank you, God, for the sun and clouds. Thank you for stars and flying pepper. Thank you for children who overflow with love.

Sunday was a very nautical day. It started when I decided to wear my sailor dress and then at breakfast Mr Music said all I needed was a sailor cap and then I’d look like Stuart Little.  I know my sailor dress is a little over the top but I like it and didn’t really think I looked like a rodent. My little brothers had sailor suits when I was about 4. I was jealous of the one that had a wooden whistle with it, even though my brother was Strictly Prohibited from blowing it at church. I remember the Easter morning Mum had dressed him in his white sailor suit and he got into the black jelly beans. Mum was not happy about black jelly bean drool on her little sailor.

Anyhow, there I am already in a nautical mindset, when someone in Sunday school has to mention the word “thwarted” in conjunction with Jonah’s plan to run from God. And, being the word nut I am, I set off on two different tracks, neither one close to the intended lesson, one about how funny it was for him to use a word with a sea-related meaning while talking about Jonah, and the other about what an odd word “thwart” is, sounds like a speech impediment, and what could it possibly come from, anyhow.

So I get home and after dinner, clean-up, visiting in the nursing home, and watching Beyond the Gates of Splendor, finally got a chance to ask my friend at dictionary.com:

thwart   /θwɔrt/ [thwawrt]

–verb (used with object)

–noun

–adjective

–preposition, adverb

thwart·ed·ly, adverb

thwarter, noun

—Synonyms 1. hinder, obstruct. Thwart, frustrate, baffle imply preventing one, more or less completely, from accomplishing a purpose. Thwart and frustrate apply to purposes, actions, plans, etc., baffle, to the psychological state of the person thwarted. Thwart suggests stopping one by opposing, blocking, or in some way running counter to one’s efforts. Frustrate implies rendering all attempts or efforts useless or ineffectual, so that nothing ever comes of them. Baffle suggests causing defeat by confusing, puzzling, or perplexing, so that a situation seems too hard a problem to understand or solve.

Now, don’t you like that? I think the whole idea of “cross” is interesting. What did the cross thwart? Death, sin, Satan’s power. Thwarted.

The other day I read an essay by Peggy Noonan about changes she sees in America and how we perceive the major political candidates.

Well, I guess that article has been fermenting or something in the back of my mind. Because tonight when I fixed ice cream sundaes for Devastatingly Handsome and myself, I found myself thinking, “Peggy’s wrong. The real problem in America that no candidate is addressing is that Hershey syrup no longer comes like this:

but now comes like this:

I fear America’s greatest days are over.”

Now, what is that all about, anyhow? I guess the plastic must be cheaper. But surely the can is just as recycleable? and easier to store? and you could say harder to empty but then, has anyone really minded using a rubber scraper and licking the last bits that clung to the can walls? or is it because the can is too intolerant and inflexible?

Sigh. It just doesn’t taste as good out of a squeeze bottle.

Ever get these remarks that make you wonder if your cooking has just been insulted, or what?

Tonight at dinner (broccoli cheese soup, by the way, a big favorite here) Miss Dog Lover reached over, salted her soup, and then took a spoonful and announced, “The salt is really good tonight, Mom.”

Hmmm.

Of course this is a child who always has liked salt. When she was a pre-schooler and we went out to eat, we would either remember to remove the salt shaker to another table out of reach or we would find ourselves having to tell the waiter that he would probably want to have it cleaned as it had been licked. And we always considered one of those big salt blocks for wildlife as a gift when her birthday rolled around.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll take the day off cooking and just set out the shaker. If that satisfies, I could save myself a lot of trouble.

Well, it has taken till my youngest homeschoolee is in 4th grade, but I finally have to admit critics of homeschooling are right about the socialization thing. I thought we were doing so well but found out otherwise after Mr Music’s first Little League game.

He came to me this morning with a learning deficiency inexcuseable in a child of his age. ”Mom,” he said, “they have come out with a new kind of gum.” (hmmm…., I think, at this point not even realizing the depth of the problem, just thinking this is a ploy on his part to get me to allow him to chew gum more often and then he continued) “It is called ABC gum. I said no” (whew, I can breathe again) “because of my retainer. Do you know what ABC gum is?”

Yes. I do. I enlightened him and he found it hard to believe.

And, now, if you are a male of the species, and have been involved in sports, please do not tell me what other socialization experiences will be coming his way. I do not want to know.

~~~~~~

And in a related point of interest: if you are one of my readers who thinks your life would be improved with a set of Already Been Chewed Gingerbread men cookies, the link for where I ordered them is here. Enjoy. I had to have a set because my younger brother and I have a long-standing tradition of baking gingerbread men (Brians) and women (Mary Beths). When my brother makes them, terrible things happen to them (he saw one episode to many of The Mr Bill Show), so I knew he needed a set, and so did I.

Miss Dog Lover is such a delightful child. I don’t do coffee so my brain requires a morning warm up session, a lot like on the old cars when someone had to get out and wind that huge handle on the front, only in the case of my brain, this handle often takes the form of my loud and tuneless singing of whatever worthless ditty is floating around the fringes of my mind. My crew is mostly immune to this, but not completely, as demonstrated this morning by Miss Dog Lover.

I was warming up by singing the old “I’m a Pepper, He’s a Pepper, She’s a Pepper, We’re a Pepper, Wouldn’t you like to be a Pepper, too?” ad and, after a moment’s pause, I heard her say, “No, I wouldn’t, to answer your question.” Perfectly serious.

Then, later in the day, she was asking me why Miss Language was behaving in a way Miss Dog Lover found goofy. I said I didn’t know and Miss Dog Lover pointed out that she (Miss Language) is my daughter and I ought to know. I replied that she (Miss Dog Lover) is also my daughter, and I cannot explain everything she does, either. To which she responded, “You’re full of daughters.”

And now I see she has prepared a shopping list on a tablet (guess what manufacturer supplied it?)

1. Buy Suave products (that was printed on the pad)

2. Buy makeup/& lipstick

3. Buy fashion clothes

4. Buy a new purse. / wallet

5. Buy Hair things

6. Buy more magnet earrings

7. Buy jewlery

8. Buy more cream/spray

9. Ipod/music

10. pink flipflops with high-heels. / Digital camra pink

Somehow I don’t think this is her Mother’s Day shopping list. I suspect that because I also do not do high heels. They are not a good idea for someone whose brain is often only partially engaged.

The “Salads” part is just a rant, here, no charge. Today’s Sunday feast included a new “salad” recipe for Cherry Delight. I became suspicious when I looked at the ingredients list and there was none of this:

(which for some obscure reason I associate with true salads) and instead: sweet cherries, crushed pineapple, cream cheese, (a full bag ~ yikes ~ of) marshmallows, and Cool Whip. So, just to say, although we had salad in name, we had none in fact. I even had to check dictionary.com to see if I was too narrow-minded, and, for the record, they are with me:

Now on to cookies, and, um, yeah, sin. Unfortunately when I go to church and sometimes squeak through the sermon without a mighty pinch, I get it later. Today one of the ladies is trying to organize a cookie reception kind of thing. I like making cookies. I like eating cookies. I like the way cookies look. I like cookie receptions. I even have kids who make good cookies should I not feel like actually doing it. What I don’t like, is being told what to do and when to do it, and that was happening today to the other women approaching Miss Organizing the Event, so I went the other way. Lame, isn’t it? No, actually, downright sinful. Although I did not figure out how sinful it was till I was home thinking about what kind I would make and the first thing that came into my mind was the Already Been Chewed Gingerbread Boys so that I never get asked to bake cookies for a similar function again.

So, now, not only will I have to be told what to do and when to do it and maybe even what kind of cookies and how many I want to make, I also need to repent about this whole idea I still have about being boss of my own life. At least the part about being boss of my own cookie sheets. The problem with sanctification is the one-thing-at-a-time part. I just hope it does not come to my pie pans anytime soon. I hate baking pies.

How is it that Saturdays you have nothing much planned turn out to be at least as hectic as any other Saturday that is scheduled to the gills? Where is the justice in that? We have furniture in our living room, a couch and everything, but I never get to use it. I look at it every now and then and think it looks comfortable but sitting down to do nothing? Not likely.

At least all the girls here got winter clothes packed away and spring things out. Mr Music’s boxes are stacked in the living room, next to the couch. Maybe I can sit on the couch while I help him sort clothes.

The good news for the day is that the jobs got crossed off the list: groceries for the week; meal preps for a restful Sunday; major progress on summer clothes; laundry caught up; next school week ready; Little League practice attended; the house reasonably clean; fed the family.

Oh, it’s too bad Devastatingly Handsome does not allow identifying photos on my blog. Then you could see for yourself how cute Mr Music was today, admiring himself in our recently-hung dining room mirror. He was supposed to be, uh, doing Math. But he had on his tricorn hat and was making odd faces into the mirror. (Apparently trying to scare the problems right out of the book.)  I caught his eye and he said he is “ready to do ‘Drive Through Math’” (if you’ve seen Dave Stotts you’ll know what this means.) Then he revised his response to one more consistent with his opinion of math: “Actually, ’Stampede Through Math’ and tramp on it.”