Evolution of a Meme May 14, 2008
Posted by carpebanana in : Ramblings , 1 comment so farI do not go for evolution. Not macro. It would even take a lot of salesmanship to sell me on micro. But apparently I am witnessing blogvolution before my very eyes.
In a sort of survival of the fittest, you can be part of this process in cyberspace.
Comfy Denim and her protoplasm got things evolving on the 6 Word Memoir Meme. First, she toyed with upping it to the next gene level, of 7 words. And she radically altered the being by changing the rate of reproduction through tagging from 5 to tagging only 2, apparently claiming that her higher intelligence (she assured us of her ability to count) justified this change. Then, she tried to slip a change into the meme pool without detection by other species, and dropped a chromomeme down to 5 words. When that change was detected, she simply changed the coding rules of the meme. And finally (at least thus far in the process) she comes over to my blogpool and asks what my memoir would be.
So, here are her evolving rules (more guidelines, actually):
Write your own six-word memoir. Okay. Done.
Post it on your blog (Oh, that’s the whole point, isn’t it?) and include a visual demonstration if you’d like. (Ooo - my memoir is going to be illustrated?)
Link to the person who tagged you. (done. Go see what they wrote - they’re really good.)
Tag 5 more people and link to them…then go and leave them comments asking them to play.
I’m terrible at the tagging part - because by the time I get to answering my tags, all my blogger buds have already (expertly) answered theirs. …
And, in further evidence of blogvolution, I added the rule that the first thing that comes to mind is the truest measure. Arbitrary but isn’t that how evolution is supposed to work? And so what if it results in a lousy memoir? It will just fail to survive and be deleted from the blogpool.
The first memoir to cross my mind: I don’t do six word memoirs.
And of course, I immediately recognized that it should really be “six-word” which makes that only a five-word six-word memoir, still following ComfyDenim’s meme. And I will continue on her de-evolving pattern of reducing the reproductive rate and further reduce it to zero tags.
I think that is best all around.
(I do reserve the right to issue a new memoir if something actually comes to mind. I have a suspicion at the moment it will end with “Glorifies and enjoys God forever.” And that one lies out of the realm of even blogvolution and strictly within Spiritvolution.)
Anyone else humming, “Are we not men? We are Devo. D - E - V - O” and picturing a flower pot on my head?
Heard at the Dinner Table May 12, 2008
Posted by carpebanana in : Ramblings , 2commentsYesterday’s dinner (and today’s leftovers) led to an interesting comment by Miss Dog Lover ~ “These seaweed walnuts taste funny.” It took the combined brains of Miss Language and myself a couple solid moments of decoding to arrive at water chestnuts, and agree, that yes, they are funny tasting things.And how could I have failed to report on the big excitement in Devastatingly Handsome’s life? Saturday he was Invited to Participate in a Composting Workshop and brought home his very own Earth Machine (yes, it kind of looks like R2-D2 gone over to the dark side). (How sad is your life when such an invitation is the social event of the month? How can it be that two upstanding Bananas such as ourselves did not merit an invitation to the Bush-Hager Nuptials?
So tonight he was instructing the Bananalets in the fine art of what does and does not go into the Earth Machine. Meat and meat products do not. Miss Dog Lover asked about rice and Devastatingly Handsome explained that it is from a plant. Miss Dog Lover did not think so. You do not even want to know where the discussion went from there. Trust me. Just know that the leftover rice is in there now, becoming rich, dark soil.
Mother’s Day May 11, 2008
Posted by carpebanana in : Ramblings , add a commentI am thankful for my Mum.
And for the Bananalets. Who honored me with stir-fried chicken, chocolate raspberry cake, Dark chocolate raspberry creams (note a theme there?), a potted impatiens, a butter bell, and a millefiore necklace. And numerous cards featuring both interesting quotes and creative spelling.
Psalm 113:9 ~ He gives the barren woman a home,
making her the joyous mother of children.
Praise the Lord!
Chatter May 10, 2008
Posted by carpebanana in : Ramblings , 3commentsBefore I get rolling, let me just insert (can you “insert” at the beginning?) that the lovely Miss Dance just came and wished me a “Happy Mother’s Day Eve”? So I will pass that along to all of you Moms, “Happy Mother’s Day Eve!”
Mr Music’s venture into Little League is all new territory for me. I only have the fuzziest notion of sports rules so I have to do the same thing I do at classical concerts and look to see if everyone else is clapping (or cheering) to know if we are between pieces or just movements or if anything really good is happening in the game or if it is in fact too much action for the Other Team. So, I do not actually know what “infield chatter” is, though I’ve heard the term, and dictionary.com does not know what it is, either.
But, ignorance will not stand in the way of my having Opinions. No, no. I am not easily deterred like that.
I am amazed at the way the coaches and parents and kids keep up a steady stream of things to say when to my mind nothing is going on except some kids occasionally managing to hit a ball with a stick and usually remembering where to run and less occasionally someone catching the ball and throwing it to where every once in a blue moon another kid catches the ball and the umpire does some things with his hands and Mr Music can get his hot dog or slim jims and cheesy pretzels and we can go home to clean up the grass stains. Yet, all this while, as I am watching (how horrible is it to say that I only care about one child on the field and could just as easily be home admiring how beautiful he is when he sleeps?) they are all talking about stuff and making it sound like they understand mysteries I can only guess at.
There is a steady stream, as I say, of “Good eye!” “Be a hitter!” “Step back” “Where’s the Play?” “Choke up!” “Nice swing” “Come up throwing!” “Swing, batter, batter, batter, swing” “More just like that” “Grab the grass” “Get your glove dirty” “Cover first!”… I am choosing to interpret this stuff as “baseball chatter” and am wondering if the encouragement to the players is like what we get in a different sphere from the angels mentioned in Hebrews 12:1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. Are they in the stands cheering for us? And do we get a chance to “Chatter with the Angels”?
Chatter with the angels soon in the morning,
Chatter with the angels in that land.
Chatter with the angels soon in the morning,
Chatter with the angels join that band.
I hope to join that band,
And chatter with the angels all day long.
I hope to join that band,
And chatter with the angels all day long.
My Humble Opinion May 8, 2008
Posted by carpebanana in : Ramblings , 1 comment so farMy humble opinion is that I am sick of experts.
So, in their honor, some quotations:
An expert is a person who avoids small error as he sweeps on to the grand fallacy. ~ Benjamin Stolberg
Where facts are few, experts are many. ~ Donald R Gannon
An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field. ~ Niels Bohr
Don’t be buffaloed by experts and elites. Experts often possess more data than judgment. Elites can become so inbred that they produce haemophiliacs who bleed to death as soon as they are nicked by the real world. ~ Colin Powell
There are as many opinions as there are experts. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt
Always listen to experts. They’ll tell you what can’t be done and why. Then do it. ~ Robert Heinlein
Dove Wrappers May 7, 2008
Posted by carpebanana in : Ramblings , add a commentMany days here end with a square of Dove Chocolate. The wrappers in them have words of little wisdom, but I read them, anyhow.
Last night’s was Life without chocolate is too terrible to contemplate. Rather like the old ad A day without orange juice is like a day without sunshine. Or Socrates’ The unexamined life is not worth living.
My thoughts: life could still be good without chocolate, though probably not as sweet for the stockholders in Dove Chocolates. Life is completely fine without orange juice and the accompanying sugar rush, and we can get by with marginal sunshine, being part bookworm and part hobbit. But, the unexamined life? Ack! Where would that leave bloggers?
Things I hate to go a day without:
* saving knowledge of Christ
* prayer
* water
* my family
* books
* some quiet time
* chocolate
* something that makes me feel competent
* something funny
* something to think about
La La La La La La May 5, 2008
Posted by carpebanana in : Bananalets , add a commentLike most homeschoolers, we are always on the lookout for ways to “broaden our kids’ horizons” (that is, make them do stuff they are pretty sure they will not like and have no desire to do). So, Saturday night we dragged them off to a gospel quartet concert.
They group was experiencing the classic “technical difficulties.” Miss Language was quick to point out to Mr Music that the Bananalets could form their own quartet, and so, to the mortification of Miss Dance, they began rehearsing… starting with Go Fish Guys’ Christmas and You followed by (on a roll here now with the Christmas theme) they worked on Babe’s Jingle Bells (la la la la la la).
Whether for better or worse, the quartet got the microphone working at that point and so the Bananalet rehearsal came to an end. It turned out Miss Dog Lover did not like the way the floor vibrated when the bass singer hit his really low notes. At all.
Dragging them off to this reminded me of this dragging kids to church story I read on someone’s wonderful blog. Only I can’t remember whose, so I found it here on a search. Sorry if it was yours. I retraced as many footsteps as I could remember. I think it was a green background… I hope that is the only kind of drug problem my kids ever have.
He “May Have” May 2, 2008
Posted by carpebanana in : Bananalets , 2commentsEvery now and then I realize Mr Music gets it. He really does. He understands when he’s done something he shouldn’t have.
He tends to get a pesky bit of spring allergies. But tonight it was much worse than the norm, eyes watering and red, etc, and I commented that I had picked up some medicine for him at the store and would give it to him in the morning.
At which point he shared with me, “Well, my nose still smells like pepper from smelling that pepper stuff.”
“What pepper stuff?” I ask, thinking he must have been sniffing the hot sauce or the green pepper in the fridge or did he sniff black pepper to try to make himself sneeze or is he so uneducated about flowers he thinks the lilac or bleeding hearts I cut and set on the table are some sort of pepper.
“You know,” he says, failing to make eye contact. “The kind in the closet by the door for spraying on bad guys.”
Oh. That pepper stuff. “Did you spray it?” I ask, beginning to understand the watering eyes and whatnot.
“I may have.”
“Did you press the button?”
“I may have.”
Oh my. He may have learned something.
Warning May 2, 2008
Posted by carpebanana in : Bananalets , add a commentI hereby give warning to any mothers considering starting classical education with their young children: if you do not want to have (very) weird children on your hand RUN the other direction.
This afternoon I was getting dinner supplies out of the fridge and dropped the pancake syrup. I asked Miss Language (who happened to be nearby) if she wanted any syrup. And in response, she starts paraphrasing Kierkegaard… “I stick my feet into the syrup: it sticks of stickiness…” (I stick my finger into existence and it smells of nothing…)
Run, I say. Before it is too late.