Larger Than Life June 29, 2008
Posted by carpebanana in : Ramblings , 1 comment so farMy 4th of July celebration this year just is not going to satisfy me. And it’s all Wal*Mart’s fault for bringing out my covetous nature.
The current Wal*Mart flyer is brightly displayed on our refrigerator. Not because of their motto: Save money. Live better. which strikes me as rather ironic given the fact they are encouraging us to spend money, but because of the pictures.
The front cover shows a juicy cheeseburger complete with all the toppings (even swiss cheese and a nice slice of hopefully salmonella free tomato). But the best part? This burger itself measures seven and 5/8 inches across and is almost 2 inches thick. I could really sink my teeth into that. In fact, the whole family could eat pretty well from that.
Then inside they go on with all the perfect picnic sidedishes. Hot dogs, steak, ribs, fried chicken, potato salad, baked beans, grilled corn with those parallel grilling lines that are a mystery to me and all too much butter which amazingly just sits on top of the corn, wedges of juicy cantaloupe. The picture of grilling being done by an anonymous male, all we can see of him is his hand, just enough to know that he is young and a tidy griller, with three children joyfully playing in the sprinkler and no one pulling anyone’s hair or screaming for Mo-o-o-o-o-o-o-om. The ice cubes in the drinks sparkle. The napkins do not blow away. There are no insects to be seen.
And on the back cover, a sweet little girl with no spills on herself smiling demurely while holding her ice cream cone. No “how come I only get one scoop” or “can’t we have Klondikes instead?” or “why didn’t you make the cake with a flag on the top made of blueberries and strawberries?” And next to her, the picture of perfectly toasted S’mores. Yes. Golden marshmallows, graham crackers that broke right on the score lines, and Hershey bar looking gooey yet not melted and dripping all over the place. Not to mention, each S’more measures four and 3/4 inches on a side and two inches thick.
Ah, yes, bring on the picnic foods. I will be closing my eyes and pretending they look just like the ones in this ad. At least I can console myself that my food will be much tastier than the newsprint flyer inspiring me.
Musings on Light June 28, 2008
Posted by carpebanana in : Ramblings , 1 comment so farLight is amazing stuff.
A couple things especially stand out to me. They strike me. Good thing being hit by light doesn’t hurt (unless of course you’re in a situation like Saul on the road to Damascus. Then all bets are off.)
#1 The silence of light. You can flip on a light switch in another room and no one hears a thing. Dawn comes silently. And as the Christmas carol says,
How silently, how silently, the wondrous Gift is giv’n;
So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of His Heav’n.
#2 The non-fillingness of light (or the lightness of light 
). In the winter, I always feel I ought to leave the light on in a room when I will be gone a short while, just as the heat stays on, so that the room will be full of light when I return. I actually picture light filling the room from bottom to top, just like the room were a large aquarium and filling with luminous water and taking a little while to fill the room. I picture the light spilling a little out the windows and through doorways into other rooms, but not filling them, it just kind of glops out like a really think glaze on a cake. But light is not like that. It is just there so quickly it seems immediate to us.
I posted awhile back about my desire to invent a new color. I want to add to that idea a further embellishment. We are created in God’s image, “the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” Maybe as part of reflecting His glory, we shine in our own color. And maybe, just maybe, that is why I desire a new color ~ because there are so many and I am one.
My Zans June 25, 2008
Posted by carpebanana in : Bananalets , 1 comment so far
Actually I do not want to talk about opening cans (though both Mr Music and Miss Dog Lover possess admirable can-opening skills) but about my Mr Music’s ability to dress up in new and amazing ways. Everyone should have a boy like this.
If you have been following his Little League adventures, you know they came from behind Monday to win on a grand slam. There were other eye-popping plays, such as the way the 2nd baseman chased down a runner on his way back to first, caught up, and tagged him just a hair short of his being safe on first (it was just like how the cheetah outruns the wee critter just short of its den only no gore was involved). The cheetah in this case was sporting a new Mohawk and the haircut got credit for the speed, (quoth Coach Doug, “It’s the ‘do, Dude!”)
So, natch, yesterday found Miss Language lining up a nice straight line of masking tape on Mr Music’s head so he could be shaved down to team-inspired Mohawkdom.
And equally natch, I forgot what sight awaited me first thing this morning. But not only was it Mr Music gone native, but he had dressed in his kilt, T shirt, and tricorn hat. And greeted me with a bow, showing his well-formed calf in the Colonial style. And then before I had fully recovered, he located the white tissue paper from the box of his cleats (discreetly printed in grey with RbK Authentic), scrunched and rolled it into wig form, and provided himself with a wig for under the tricorn hat. His hat also sports an ostrich feather, shockingly similar to the ones in my duster. I believe he is about ready for a fitting with Miss Mary at the Peruke Maker’s shop in Williamsburg. She greatly desired to shave ‘is ‘ed bald and fit ‘im in the latest style on our last visit.
I am afraid I’m raising the next Little Bear Wheeler or Dave Stotts. Or something.
The Sickness is Spreading June 24, 2008
Posted by carpebanana in : Bananalets , add a commentThe most wonderful time of the year - when both Mr Mailman and Mr UPS deliver brown packages full of perfect-looking materials for the coming school year - we can revel in their perfectness and not have to do any actual work other than laying out the year’s schedule.
But now today, I ask, do you think I need to be worried? I opened up the new MasterPak 2 of CalcuLadder drills and then took a look at AlphaBetter, only to hear Miss Dog Lover say, “Hey! That looks like fun!”
I am pretty sure I never considered alphabetizing words any sort of fun. Wait till I tell her it’s even better than she thought — she gets to try to beat the clock while she’s at it. But I am so mean. She’ll just have to wait till school starts back to give it a try.
What the Well-Dressed Alien is Wearing June 23, 2008
Posted by carpebanana in : Ramblings , 1 comment so farMiss Language and I had some shopping to do. We came across a purple tote bag with the motto, “Green is the new black.” Something about this being printed on a purple bag appealed to me so I filed the quote away. We got home and I queried Devastatingly Handsome as to what he thought it meant ~~ his reply as not the top fashion expert in the galaxy was ~~ “I dunno, something about aliens are green and they are a minority so now African Americans are not the minority anymore.”
Right-ho.
I just want to say, while on the subject, that this whole greenness thing is a bit ho-hum when you are as frugal as we Bananas. You can’t get much greener than buying clothes at the Goodwill, walking to the mall, using a reel lawn mower, not using disposable products. I think this is just a clever ploy to make frugality cool.
~~~
And in unrelated news, we are still hanging in the Sudden Death position as regards Little League, after a forfeit game on Saturday and then an amazing win tonight concluding with a game winning grand slam by a team-mate of Mr Music. Pretty exciting stuff.
Keeping Perspective June 21, 2008
Posted by carpebanana in : Bananalets , 1 comment so farMr Music and his Little League team are now into the playoffs. Today’s game is Sudden Death. I must be over-sensitive, but I just don’t like applying that name to something involving my baby.
This season has had some highlights. One surprising one has been my favorite ump, the Dad who is in charge of the whole operation. He does it just like a real ump, with the arm motions and even screams “STEEEEEEEE-RIIIIIKE” in such a way that I am sure the young batters are consoled that even though the struck, they are playing with professionals, not a bunch of little kids.
Mr Music’s team has the world’s most relaxed, positive coaches. By now I am convinced that even if I were out there, they would be able to find something good to say about every play I make, probably even more positive than, “Look at that! She swung the bat and no one got killed. Way to go!” “What a play! Look at the way she hardly ducked when the ball came to her glove!”
Thursday night some of the players were getting a bit upset as it looked as if they would lose (and they did 
). Coach Doug started saying, “Win or lose it’s OK. Tomorrow morning it won’t matter.” I wasn’t too sure this would go anywhere, till he added the master stroke, “and whether we win or lose, we still get our snack after the game.” The calming effect the thought of food (pizza! hot dogs! sugar!) had on these 9 to 11 year olds was amazing. Mental notes to self: remind math-test-takers that dinner is coming. Keep the good smells coming from the oven and the crock-pot on rough school days. And what would happen if I corrected tests with red ink declaring, “You did one amazing job on this test! Look at the play you made on that word problem! Saxon just pitched one division fact ahead of you is all. You went down writing and that’s what we want to see,” and then it seems you have to rub the top of the player’s head.
A Bit Too Much Like the Pirates of Penzance June 17, 2008
Posted by carpebanana in : Ramblings , 1 comment so farOur church uses the Trinity Hymnal and the Psalter. The Bananas here love singing. But, unfortunately (I think) we also love our occasional dose of The Pirates of Penzance. The problem for me comes when the two mix. That has happened due to a hymn we learned this year.
It’s Come, Ye Faithful, Raise the Strain written in the 8th century by John of Damascus. So far, so good. But then, who had to go write the tune we use for it? Sir Arthur Sullivan. Now, I just cannot hear any of his tunes without starting to picture bands of pirates and the Major General Stanley lurking about, ready to sing about how incredible classical education is, and sometimes I even branch out (my Mum taught me more Gilbert and Sullivan than I’ve passed on) to polishing up the handle so carefully or being called Sweet Buttercup. That is bad enough. But then to make this particular hymn even harder for me to get out of my head, the translation had to use Gilbert-like language. My favorite line (ALWAYS sung in my head by a chorus in sailor suits and dresses) is “led them with unmoistened foot through the Red Sea waters.”
Unmoistened foot. LOL.
Wow June 16, 2008
Posted by carpebanana in : No Comment Needed , 2commentsJust Wow. That’s all Miss Language and I could say after reading this label from Engrish.com
Maybe Larry would like some.
The Human Body June 15, 2008
Posted by carpebanana in : Ramblings , add a commentAlmost every year we cover some sort of health unit about the human body and learn about a wide variety of things spanning the limits of neat and gross, awe-inspiring and disgusting, unforgettable and things we hope to forget before the next meal.
And yet how on the surface all this is.
How can we ever slip into a dichotomy that our bodies are “merely” physical? There is nothing “mere” about them. The human body is such a huge bundle of mysteries it seems to me inconceivable that it can even exist. This entry will list some otherwise unrelated things about the human body not covered in any of our school texts.
~ It has long been a favorite rant of mine that Colossians 1: 17 ”And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together” just conceivably may mean that Christ is the stuff holding together the parts of atoms… all that empty space with forces in between. And then a friend sends me a link to this youtube on a related body subject — laminin. Cool. Not conclusive in any way, but cool.
~ and if you feel like a longish and somewhat philosophical read, you can look at this Tin Can Theory of Man which circulated way back… still worth reading.
~ and then there’s the wholly strange. This article from the off-beat Dr Mercola about “tribes of bacteria” living “in your inner elbow” is about enough to weird me out, and make me wonder: will our resurrection bodies have these sort of symbiotic relationships going, too?
Quote du Jour June 11, 2008
Posted by carpebanana in : Bananalets , 1 comment so farMost of us here at the Bananas get rolling slowly in the morning. Miss Dance is no exception, EXCEPT for her mouth. It engages non-stop first thing when she is awake. This morning Miss Language and I were trying to get her to think a bit before she spoke and apparently asking for logic blew her circuitboard. She said, “Where did you get all that IQ?”
Actually talking non-stop in the morning is an improvement from her infant days, when her mouth worked continuously every waking moment. She is the only baby I know who, night after night you put to bed, she would walk laps around the perimeter of her crib, babbling on the way, and then you would hear a PLOP and go in, yes, she had literally fallen asleep.
We have been watching old family videos and are enjoying the children being younger without the nuisance of things like diaper bags and temper tantrums to contend with. Yesterday we saw a cute one of Miss Dance getting her first lost tooth ready for the Tooth Fairy, and she was explaining to Devastatingly Handsome how she had to “get the bleedingness out” of her mouth while he was at work.