CarpeBanana

Just Wow. That’s all Miss Language and I could say after reading this label from Engrish.com

Maybe Larry would like some.

Almost 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?

Most 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.

How do you balance this:

I Corinthians 2:2 ~ For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

with this:

II Corinthians 10: 5 ~ We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ

especially when you are walking around singing this:

Don’t know much about history
Don’t know much biology
Don’t know much about a science book
Don’t know much about the French I took
But I do know that I love you
And I know that if you love me, too
What a wonderful world this would beDon’t know much about geography
Don’t know much trigonometry
Don’t know much about algebra
don’t know what this slide rule is for
But I do know one and one is two
And if this one could be with youWhat a wonderful world this would be What a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, worldNow I don’t claim to be an “A” student
But I’m trying to be
‘Cause maybe by being an “A” student, baby, baby
I could win your love for me

At least, ours is.

I have the explorer browser going. Every now and then I hit the wrong key and bing! it pops open a new tab, labelled in large letters: YOU’VE OPENED A NEW TAB! I always read this as if it said it aloud in the same tone Fezzik uses when he says, “You just wiggled your finger! That’s wonderful!” I like to think I have bigger accomplishments during the day.

And then Thursday the old printer bit the dust. Devastatingly set to work immediately on replacing it with some fancy contraption with 36 buttons (as compared to 2 on the old one) and the whole thing is intimidating looking. I think he told me the instruction manual (which, in a clever move to sell more printer ink, you have to print out yourself) runs to 286 pages. No chance in this life of me bothering with those instructions. I will just take what my brother calls The Intuitive Approach.

So, DH was trying to Conquer the Learning Curve on this new toy of his by scanning things ranging from dollar bills to postage stamps to a photo of Miss Language she gave him back when she was 4 and looking at them under mega-pixel magnification. But he walked away and left something up. I Xd off (does everyone use that word or just the Bananas? anyhow, I closed) the window that was up for the Big Printer and it indignantly popped up one of these boxes computers do when they feel you do not recognize the seriousness of the work they are trying to do: YOU TRIED TO CLOSE THE PROGRAM. EVENTS HAVE OCCURRED. DO YOU WISH TO VIEW THEM?

Events have occurred, my foot. You’re a printer. Just close when I tell you to.

That phrase “diligent vigilance” once tripped up our pastor badly. We felt we had the makings of a whole new tongue twister if somehow we could work ill villagers into the whole.

A news item about watchfulness for birds carrying the dread H5N1 virus in North America set me pondering watchfulness. We are careful to guard against birds with viruses (plural seems wrong there). We are on the alert for rogue cancerous cells in our bodies and seek them out with different tests. We inspect water and food supplies. And yet in all those cases we are watching for something we hope to never find - searching a haystack for a deadly needle.

What are things we should watch just as closely hoping to find?

What are the signs of godliness we would like to see show on any sort of scan we could run? 

I am starting my scan with this passage in Proverbs 4:20 

Danger seems to be my theme of the day. Here is Churchill’s inspiration:

“we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”

(apply this to fractions/decimals/percentages, the current war raging here)

“Never give in, never give in, never; never; never; never…”

(this is more about planning the coming school year)

“Danger - if you meet it promptly and without flinching - you will reduct the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!”

and here we find that the folks at Engrish.com had a timely reminder:

I know that one of the temptations I deal with is wanting to be too safe, and in particular, wanting my children to be too safe. I am reminded of Daniel’s faithfulness and Stonewall Jackson’s

Captain, my religious belief teaches me to feel as safe in battle as in bed. God has fixed the time for my death. I do not concern myself about that, but to be always ready, no matter when it may overtake me.” He added, after a pause, looking me full in the face: “That is the way all men should live, and then all would be equally brave“

Ending with this from Sinclair Ferguson:

The fear of the Lord tends to take away all other fears. …This is the secret of Christian courage and boldness.

Every evening comes with that hour when things not important during the day become critical ~ in other words ~ the kids’ bedtime.

Mr Music is prone to having sudden onset of philosophical questions which urgently must be answered before any reasonable parent could possibly expect him to succumb to peaceful slumber.

Tonight his attempt started with, “Mom, you know that big green guy who is always smashing cars?” (I do a quick search of my memory banks, rule out the Jolly Green Giant, and move on to The Incredible Hulk, as I recall the preview we saw for some Hulk-type movie before Prince Caspian. We don’t do TV and Mr Music has limited exposure to movies, so that must be what he means.)

“The Incredible Hulk,” I say, (while remembering how cute I always thought Bill Bixby was ) (though moreso in The Courtship of Eddie’s Father) (and how I never could understand why, as the Hulk, his pants always split the way they did, instead of the way pants more usually split), then Mr Music hit me with his Really Big Question: “Who do you think would win if he fought King Kong?”

“The Hulk,” I blithely responded at which point Mr Music of course said, “Why?” and I regretted my answer as I realized I did not know enough about either of them to answer, having only the fuzziest notion of having seen Kong one time and that the effects seemed a bit, well, home-made, and really only assuming The Hulk was a Good Guy because, after all, he had been Eddie’s Father. So, being a Good Mom, I said, “Why don’t you ask your Dad in the morning?” and then, hoping to also be a Good Wife and Mom in one fell swoop, I said, “No, on second thought, I will put a poll on my blog. My readers will know.” Mr Music volunteered that The Hulk has trouble controlling his temper, which I seem to recall is true, but then I’m not sure how Kong compares.

So, please help us out. VOTE in the poll (top right, bright blue) and if you are kindly inclined, leave a comment to explain your reasoning. I appreciate it. 

Today Miss Language officially finishes the high school portion of her race and takes the torch on to other courses.

It has been a privilege running with you, dear daughter. Run well with Jesus.

Homeschoolers try to create an environment of learning and never miss an opportunity. So, Grandma Millie provided us an interesting opportunity by sending home a giant container of cheese balls like this (only MUCH larger):

As we are eating them with supper, Mr Music asks, “What does ‘utz’ mean, anyhow?” And, as I say, not to miss a learning opportunity, we passed out slips of paper and pencils and everyone wrote down a secret guess about what ‘utz’ means.
You could do one, too, before you read on. 

We came up with these answers:

* a company (this slip was smeared with a lot of orange dust: think PigPen eating cheese balls and you’ve got the picture)

* utz is from the company’s founder’s initials… probably Uriah Thomas Zimmerman who is/was an Amish/Mennonite type around Lancaster, PA

*utz is what you say whe you burp. because: you eat to many cheese balls.

* Unusually Tasty Zimmies

* no comment

* ‘UTZ’ is the nickname/abbreviated name for the family business “Stolutzefenmillerschmidt” is the full name of the Amish family that started the pretzel business (which branched out to potato chips, cheese curls & cheese balls)

and

* Actually a last name, but can be used as an acronym for universally tasty znacks  for more information see en.wikipedia.org/utz

The last answer was the closest. According to utzsnacks.com, we learned that it is a last name: It all started with Bill and Salie Utz’s quest for a fresher potato chip. After almost a century, and quite a few automatic potato chip cookers later, UTZ snacks deliver freshness you can taste in every satisfying crunch.

But I still like the answer about burping. And the “Zimmies” name just may stick around the Bananas.