Sunday, September 8, 2019

Bank accidentally puts $120,000 in couple’s account. They were arrested after spending it, police say. (WaPo)

First they gave us a cute Labrador puppy. We named it Rowdy. It slept in our bed and smelled like sandalwood. Children in the neighborhood came to visit us just to fondle its silken ears. In its yellow eyes we saw fields of ramrod straight sunflowers.
A box on our porch one morning, with no return address, contained nuggets of pink quartz. Each nugget was wrapped in a fresh banana leaf. Each pink crystal vibrated a simple pensive tune when exposed to sunlight, sounding like glass harps. They were warm and comforting when held in the hand.
A dark green delivery van dropped off a rosewood box in which nestled a dozen exquisite golden crickets. Their eyes were shards of ruby. When pressed gently between the thumb and forefinger the golden crickets emitted a soft click. We gave them to the children who came to stroke Rowdy's ears.
Next came a bag filled with pure white manna, which never became empty no matter how much we ate from it. The manna tasted of honey wafers and truffles. We fed some of it to Rowdy, who then began talking in French.
"Where do you think all this stuff is coming from?" I asked my wife one day. "Is there a genie or a good fairy doing this, or what?"
"I don't know" she replied. "But some day someone will come asking for it all back -- just wait and see."
But the years went by and no one came to our door asking for any of the marvelous gifts back.
A hat came, woven of vicuna wool and lined with chamois. Whoever wore it had the power to turn plastic bags into colored sand.
We received a certificate giving us the official patent for the color red; money came pouring in from the makers of spaghetti sauce and firetruck manufacturers.
I'll never forget when the rake arrived. The handle felt like a Louisville Slugger and the tines were made of long thin pine cones. It not only raked up the leaves, but automatically bundled them with twine like sheaves of harvested grain. Each sheave was so beautifully stippled that we couldn't bear to send it to the landfill, so we kept them, stacked higher and higher, in the backyard against the garage.
On a cheerless March day Rowdy lay down and died, bidding us a soft 'adieu.' Several years later my wife also died. And then the gifts stopped coming. Or maybe I just didn't notice them anymore when they arrived. Until one evening, early in spring, a man came to the door and asked for everything back.
"It was all a mistake" he told me. "You were never meant to receive any of it."
I smiled at him. "I wish you could have met my wife" I told him, happy and sad at the same time. "She always said this day would come."
"What happened to her?" he asked in the gentlest and most loving voice I will ever hear.
"She went away to the Marmalade Fields" I told him. Before he could respond I had to ask "Could you take me to her?"
"Sure" he said. "I can do that. But what about all the stolen merchandise you two received? It has to be accounted for."
"It's all here, I guess" I told him. "Take it back, no problem. Except for the crickets -- we gave those to some kids. And the bag of manna -- we gave that to a homeless man."
"I know" said the man on my front porch. "I was those kids and I was that homeless man." We shook hands and walked off into the night.

PETE BUTTIGIEG HAS A NEW STRATEGY TO FIGHT CLIMATE CHANGE: MAKE IT ABOUT RELIGION (News Week)

Birds of a feather are flocking together and fouling up their nesting sites.

The Lord sees the litter, which makes him quite bitter, from way up in heavenly heights.

But when he hears phonies with their ceremonies proclaim that they speak in his name

He not only winces but probably rinses his hands when he sets them aflame.

they were angry because of the word, for it did destroy their craft;

They were angry because of the word, for it did destroy their craft.

Alma 35:3

Crafty politicians and all calculating clerics

hate the word of God because it gives them full hysterics.

They may mouth a platitude to show their Christian zeal;

but anyone with sense enough will know it isn't real.

The word of faithful prophets from the throne of God becomes

a torment to the hypocrite, like never ceasing drums.

Save me, Lord, from artifice -- mine own, and others too.

Keep me pure and simple so that thy work I may do!

Saturday, September 7, 2019

Thin Things

"Beware not to get caught up in the thick of thin things."

Neal A. Maxwell

I'm harried and I'm hurried and I don't know what to do.

There's so much going on right now my lips are turning blue.

Amazon has specials and my Facebook got a like;

I wanna make a pizza and then go out and take a hike.

The latest romance novel on my Kindle is a pip;

at last I got a bargain on a fancy cruise line ship!

If God intends to reach me he had better get in line;

I'm busy throwing lots of pearls before a lot of swine.

Friday, September 6, 2019

There was a collective gasp among Coke Zero and Diet Pepsi drinkers this week after media reports highlighted a new study that found prodigious consumers of artificially sweetened drinks were 26 percent more likely to die prematurely than those who rarely drank sugar-free beverages. (NYT)

Early this morning, while I was sipping a cup of Moxene, a tanker truck pulled up to the curb and a man in a light gray jumpsuit hopped out of the cab to ring my front doorbell.
"May I help you?" I asked him politely when I opened the door.
"Here to fill up your chemical tanks" he said brusquely. "Where's the tanks at, in the basement?"
"What, the soft water thing?" I asked, puzzled.
"Nah" he said, sounding like Mel Blanc. "The other tanks, for your food and oxygen and stuff."
He was so brash, and I was so bewildered, that I let him walk right in and go straight down into the basement. The next thing I knew large rubber hoses were run through the kitchen window and down the basement steps; then the man in the light gray jumpsuit started the pump on his truck and all sorts of strange smelling stuff began coursing through the hoses.
"What in the world are you doing?" I shouted at him, above the noise of the pump.
He took out a small green pad, flipped a few pages, then began to recite:
"You need ten gallons of aspertone. Your mangle oil is low by two quarts. I'm bringing in a fresh sack of artificial efflux. Your hydroxoline is okay, but I'd better top off the sodiopox pool now before the snow flies. And I'm recharging your cyclamate free of charge this month, courtesy of your local bottling plant."
To steady myself I took two monochromatic pills, with a glass of pilsnerized water. The smells from the basement became gigantic, and a green fog swirled around my feet.
"Don't worry about that fog stuff" said the man in the light gray jumpsuit reassuringly. "Always happens when the meep fluid starts to warm up."
"Why, why are you filling my home with all these strange and unnerving chemicals?" I asked despairingly.
"Just your standard synthetic delivery" he told me, looking surprised. "Without these compounds and decoctions your body can no longer survive the sulfurous heat and toxic atmosphere. Everybody and their dog knows that."
Then it hit me -- I hadn't taken my zithium capsule that morning -- so my brains had leaked out through my ears. That's why none of this was making any sense to me.
"Give me a new molecular lobe, while you're at it" I told the man
in the light gray jumpsuit. And then I was okay, as the chemicals aligned my pixels again.
I finished my Moxene and skipped out the front door, ready to start a new day -- as synthetic as they come!

Facebook wants to find you a soul mate. Will users trust the company with their secrets? (WaPo)

To find a true companion I let Facebook know details/that were so awful personal they make me bite my nails/But somehow I am hoping that true love will come to me/via social media and gullibility/So far results are zero, but I get a steady stream/of ads promoting weight loss and some hemorrhoidal cream.

Try again if they will serve thee

And now, O Lord, wilt thou turn away thine anger, and try again if they will serve thee? And if so, O Lord, thou canst bless them according to thy words which thou hast said.
Helaman 11:16

I testify the Lord will try again repentant souls,

to give again a chance to work at sweet and holy goals.

For I have fallen short a time or two in journeys past,

and felt the twinge of sorrow with the devil's piercing blast.

For surely all my blessings of today are predicated

on repenting so that my own vices are vacated.

Thursday, September 5, 2019