Forbearance

Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself . . .
Leviticus 19:18.

I used to carry grudges;

they made me feel mature.

When others gave me bs

I returned to them manure.

But vengeance is a burden

no longer do I seek;

it makes my soul so ugly

I daren't take a peek.

I can't say I love all men,

I'm not that good as yet;

but I am working harder

past insults to forget.

Photo Essay: A Trip to Ikea with Sarah and the Kids.

So Sarah messaged me on Facebook this morning, asking if I wanted to go to Ikea in Salt Lake with her and the kids for a Swedish Meatball lunch. I had a large tuna pasta casserole already in the oven, so I told her I would love to go -- but not for Swedish Meatballs but just for their company (and a large piece of chocolate cake for my dessert.) The long lunch line is proof of how good and inexpensive their food is.

Brooke grew a little weary of the long wait for her mashed potatoes, french fries, and chicken tenders.

Why Lance decided on getting green beans with his lunch I'll never know; I think his mother put him up to it.

Ohen got green beans with his salmon fillet, as well -- he covered them in brown gravy.

Sarah was the only one to actually get the Swedish Meatballs -- the girl knows what she wants and never settles for anything less.

Looks like the brown gravy just didn't work out for Ohen . . . 

My slice of chocolate cake, on the other hand, was to die for . . . 

 Brooke needed a sugar siesta after we stopped at Trader Joe's for their Ice Cream Sandwiches. Sarah dropped me back home at 4:30 and then had to fight freeway traffic back up to Orem. It was good of her to invite me along today.

The Clouds

Who or what is hiding in the clouds? Like single cell slime mold, these things creep mindlessly yet with some slow purpose around the dome of heaven -- doing what, exactly? Oh sure, we're told they provide rain and give painters something to occupy their time -- but has anyone really gone into the matter? Or gone into the clouds, really. 
My old Norwegian grandmother told me when I was a boy that if you make a wish on a white cloud it will come true, and if you wish harm to an enemy on a black cloud that will also come true. She was gaga from the get-go, I'm thinking -- but it was a powerful lesson to me that there is something askew with the lurking clouds above. When those old sci-fi movies urged us to "Watch the Skies" I don't think they meant look out for space ships -- I think they were warning us to keep a weather eye (no pun intended) on the clouds.
Have you ever noticed that most bad things happen on cloudy days? Do you ever lose your car keys on a bright sunny day? Or go to the dentist when the sun is blazing away? Clouds get in the way of our happiness and satisfaction. Just think of the happiest day of your life and see if you can remember a single cloud in the sky. Not likely, is it? 
I know this may sound crazy, but please hear me out:  My theory is that clouds are not endemic to planet Earth. They are an invasive species from outer space. They colonized our planet some hundreds of millions of years ago -- and that was the reason for the mass extinction of the dinosaurs, not some crummy asteroid bouncing off a continent. Think about it: Those big lizards were all cold blooded and needed lots of sunshine to keep warm enough to move around. So the sun must have been shining all day without hindrance. Then one fine day a bunch of fluffy gray things appear in the sky, cutting off the sunshine, and in a matter of months T Rex and Company are in the boneyard. And our scientists, who can run a Hadron Collider without turning a hair, still have no basic understanding of just what clouds are, do they? But I know what they are: Clouds are alien parasites, meaning our planet no good.

Now I wouldn't want you to think I came up with this working hypothesis simply out of thin air. I've had an Experience -- one that cannot be easily explained away, not unless you're prepared to accept the fact that clouds are a malign factor in our biosphere.

But it comes to me, of a sudden, that perhaps I shouldn't be telling you any of this. You have the look of a cloudie -- one of those misty appeasers who want to lull us into a false sense of security. Perhaps you're the kind that likes to look up at the predatory billows and remark how majestic they are, or how this one looks like a dog and that one looks like the Tower of London. You're teaching your children to worship Altocumulus and Nimbostratus. Reporting back to the Head Mist any dissent or doubt that you hear. It's likely, now that I come to think of it, that you could very well be a Cloud Quisling -- egging me on with your moon-faced smile to give up all my secrets. Perhaps you plan to have me struck down by a five pound piece of hail, or sucked up into a whirlwind and never seen again.
Well, my fractus friend, we can't let that happen, now, can we? 
You've developed a nervous tic in your left eye, cloud hugger. You seem strangely upset, keen to leave my presence. I don't think you're too friendly anymore. Let's you and I step outside for a breath of fresh air, shall we? Maybe check for a mackerel sky, hmmm? Oh look, a precipice. I wonder how that got there. Oopsy-daisy . . . darn, I guess I'll never get to tell you about my Experience. 

Inspired by a news article by @AlexHortonTX

Tell Me a Story

"Tell me a story" asked the little boy.
"Why?" I replied, reasonably. "You are not my little boy -- I haven't any. They are all grown up."
"Because . . . no one else will ever listen to your stories again?" he asked slyly.
He had me there. Still, telling a story is a serious thing; one should never go into it too lightheartedly -- the consequences can be sinister.
"I won't tell you a whole story" I finally said. "But I will give you a fragmentary account of something curious."
The little boy frowned, but he sat down on the rug and waited for me to begin.
"A snake was once found in a well, and this snake could sing a song; a song so powerful that whoever heard it went to box the gloves of the nearest person he could find" I began.
"Box the gloves -- don't you mean box the ears?" quizzed the little boy, who was neither cute nor respectful. He looked like he'd been dragged through a coal chute, face down. 
"No. Boxed the gloves -- you know, boxing gloves" I said gravely. Then I waited for the little boy to  acknowledge my peerless humor. But he just sat there, silently contemplating me like a bug hunter contemplating a praying mantis he is considering impaling and adding to his collection.
I am old and thrifty, so I no longer become impatient when my whimsy is slow to be recognized. I never waste words trying to explain it. I went into the kitchen to pour myself a glass of lemonade, and decided to have a stick of mozzarella string cheese as well. When I came back the little boy was gone. I never saw him again.

I knew his mother slightly. She rented out leaf blowers from a kiosk in the parking lot of the convenience store down the block from me. When I went to the convenience store from time to time to buy latex gloves, she would wave to me, and I would wave to her, and sometimes we told each other what a beautiful day it was even though the acid rain and radioactive lightning were destroying the mums that fall. Lying to a stranger doesn't feel like lying at all.
I needed a lot of latex gloves for strangling the skinks that kept invading my basement. You can't kill a skink by chopping off its head -- it just grows a new one. They have to be strangled and then run through a paper shredder, which often gets clogged with their green blood. Professional exterminators will not make house calls for skinks. Too endemic. (Besides, the skinks have a very powerful lobby in DC.)

The reason my boys had all grown up and didn't want any more stories from me is that I lived a double life while they were little. They thought I went to work in an office each day, but in reality I was a professional exterminator who specialized in earwigs. They eventually found out my briefcase contained pyrethrum and not pie charts. Their mother forgave me for the deception after a time, but it was harder for the boys to let it go. We finally went into counseling, the boys and I. Their mother wouldn't attend -- she thought it some sort of new age voodoo. In counseling I learned how much it hurt my boys to have a father who killed small inoffensive bugs instead of dictating to a secretary in a plush office. Feeling so let down by their father, they had all turned to a life of crime -- holding up banks and hijacking fire trucks. This life of crime, I learned in counseling, they hid from their wives and children, who thought they all worked together running a lumber company. With tears in my eyes, I begged them to come clean with their families and not make the same mistake I had made. But they refused to listen to me, and our counseling sessions came to an end when they hijacked all the furniture from the counselor's waiting room. When they were caught and jailed I posted bond for them, for the sake of their families. But they fled out of state and I lost the bail money. 
That's why I have to live on nothing but lemonade and string cheese. Their mother still thinks the skinks got 'em. 

Photo Essay: 永遠のシンボル

Repent therefore of this thy wickedness . . .

Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee.
Acts 8:22

To tame my heart I daily pray

for help so it won't go astray.

It spurns wise virtue for the spice

of tawdry, unrewarding vice.

I would be more contrite, O Lord,

and smash my proud heart like a gourd.

Thy forgiveness plays great part

in the healing of my heart!

Postcards to the President

The Lord is Longsuffering

The Lord is longsuffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression . . .
Numbers 14:18

Help me, Lord, to suffer long

before responding to a wrong.

Give me strength to mercy show

to those who try to bring me low.

When anger tries to be my boss,

remind me, Lord, about the Cross.

Grant me pardon, Holy One,

so with my sins I may be done!

Tiny Minnesota high school aims to put a washing machine in outer space. (Mpls StarTribune) @StribGuy

I went over to Crazy Henry's place because he asked me to help him set up a stellar lint trap on the roof. This sounded too crazy to pass up, so I dropped what I was doing (which really wasn't much of anything) and hightailed it over to his apartment -- where I found him ripping the innards out of his microwave. He at least had enough presence of mind to unplug it first. It was an old, boxy model, probably a dozen years old, so I didn't see any problem with him sacrificing it to the demands of astrophysics. He could get a better and newer one down at the thrift store for ten bucks. 
"Explain it to me, babushka, how the trapping of the lint is taking place" I said to him; we sometimes joke around with each other using accented voices.
"Tell ya what I'm gonna do, my little crumpet" he boomed back at me. "I have determined that by tweaking this mechanism I can attract and capture lint from outer space aliens when they are doing their laundry . . . ah yes, it should net me quite a bit of boodle . . . "
I dropped my accent -- Crazy Henry was actually having a halfway decent idea for once in his life. It made me begin to wonder if he were actually evolving into a higher life form.
"Dryer lint from the universe?" I asked, impressed in spite of myself.
"Why not? They talk about all this stellar dust falling on earth by the ton each day -- so why can't there be intergalactic dryer lint just floating out there waiting to be snatched up and examined by NASA." He grinned at me. "That's the kind of stuff they give out Nobel Prizes in Astrophysics for" he said happily. For once I didn't feel like arguing with him or even bringing him back to reality. I was in an open and happy frame of mind, because an old girlfriend had refriended me on Facebook that morning.
So we fiddled with his decrepit microwave, until Crazy Henry pronounced that it was ready for a test run. We took it up on the roof and pointed it skyward. Then Crazy Henry plugged it in. There was an immediate shower of blue sparks that flew up at great speed -- some of them landed on a pile of leaves next door, starting them on fire.  
But before we could call the fire department a huge grey fuzzy ball of lint hurtled out of the sky and landed at our feet. It must have been five feet in diameter. And out of it stepped a little gray man. He had no eyebrows and his ear lobes hung down to his waist -- but otherwise he looked like a regular sort of person who might emerge from a giant lint ball. Of course, he was only three feet tall.
"Greetings" he called out cheerfully. "I am a Gleep, from deep space -- and your device has interrupted my flight to bring me here, undoubtedly to shower me with treasures more glorious than any Gleep could imagine!" 
"Whoops" I whispered to Crazy Henry.
"You said a mouthful" he replied, sotto voce. But Crazy Henry is never at a loss for craziness -- so he ushered the Gleep down into his apartment and showered him with presents including a bar of soap on a string, a Slinky, two bowling balls, and a bottle of ketchup. 
"Truly, these are wonders beyond reckoning!" gasped the Gleep to us, and then bowed at our feet.
"None of that, Mr. Gleep" said Crazy Henry gruffly. "We don't believe in that sort of scrapping and brown-nosing." He reached down and gently lifted the prostate Gleep up. 
"And now, noble sirs -- I give you a small token of my deepest gratitude -- from my home world of Gleepsy" said the Gleep, and from beneath his green cape he produced a waxy white box, from which emanated a lovely smell. 
"Don't touch it" I cautioned Crazy Henry. "It may be a trap of some kind. Let me take it." So I took it and sniffed it closely.
"Smells real good" I told the Gleep, without opening it. The box was warm to the touch.
"It is our sacred Pork Vindaloo, with which we honor all those that honor us. Eat it in good health!" Saying which, the Gleep popped through the roof, leaving a gaping hole. We could see him reenter the big lint ball and take off. 
"Darn it!" I exclaimed, as I opened up the box of pork vindaloo and began spooning it out onto two plates, "I forget to get any samples from his lint ball!"
"Not to worry, boychik" said Crazy Henry with a grinning accent. He held up a dusty clump of interstellar lint. "Oy, I should maybe let him get away widdout a souvenir -- nu?"
"How perspicacious" I rasped back at him. "Now let us find something to plug yon hole in the roof before the landlord places us in durance vile . . . "

Incline Your Ear

Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live . . . 
Isaiah 55:3

My ears inclined, I would obey

all the Lord to me would say.

My soul to spark with living light,

I want to listen day and night.

But know I well that inclination

doesn't always mean fixation.

I have strayed and been distracted,

since life, I thought, would be protracted.

But now it's autumn; harvest's near --

may thy sweet voice alone I hear!