Intellectuelle   Fun

Not sure how I managed the fancy percentages, though...

Speaking of Jared and the Thinklings�

Here�s an idea inspired from a post by Shrode and a comment from Debra. 

List movie quotes that have become part of your family�s (or friends') vocabulary. Later posts in this hard hitting series will include book, song, and tv quotes.

There once was a gal who was moving
So her thinking it wasn't quite grooving.
So some help she did seek, till she writes more next week.
She hopes she finds none disapproving.

We are moving tomorrow, so my brain is packed away in a box somewhere. Because of this, I thought I'd have a little fun challenge for your brains, in case they might feeling sluggish in the heat or something.

As you can undoubtedly tell, I like to write limericks. I especially like to use this form, which is traditionally humorous, for exploring more serious issues in a short and funny format. What I would like to do today is have a Limerick Challenge and Raffle, with you writing the limericks and me providing a kind of incentive for your labor. I make handmade journals (these are some of the simpler ones) and I am planning to design an Intellectuelle Journal in a few weeks, after we get settled into our new house. I am going to have a raffle and include the name of everyone who submits a limerick in the comments section here, and give away Intellectuelle Journals to five lucky limericists. Please have as your limerick theme something of a more serious or thoughtful nature, but don't be afraid to make the verse funny.

Make sure you include an email address with your comment so if you win a journal, I can contact you. I will be offline for a week until our DSL gets set up in the new house, so please give me lots of great limericks to read when I return to Cyberspace.

If my son inherits my analytical tendencies, I can see what's in store for me. . .

Me: Are those crumbs on your nose?
Son: What?!
Me: The cookie jar appears empty. Did you eat the cookies while I was blogging?
Son: The evidence appears to lead in that direction, but it all depends on your epistemic perspective on the validity of sensory evidence—According to Gordon Clark. . .
Me: You were wrong to take those cookies when I told you to wait.
Son: But, mom, I’ve been culturally conditioned to expect instant gratification. I’m part of a generation that isn’t accustomed to waiting for anything. Established psychological studies show that behavioral patterns engrained in people from their youth are notoriously difficult to change, even with professional therapy.
Me: Well, that’s no excuse. You know that I want you to ask me before you eat something I’ve expended effort to bake.
Son: Yes, that may be valid from a modernist perspective, Mom, but as you surely realize, the modern world is long gone. As child of post-modernism, I respond better to principles embedded in narrative and music rather than categorical commands.
Me: All right, then. Let’s write our own drama together. You mime stealing cookies and then I’ll hit you over the head repeatedly with a blunt object. When you regain consciousness, I’ll compose a song about skipping dinner for the next three weeks.
Son: Come on, Mom! Why can’t we embrace tolerance in this household?
Me: I’m all about tolerance. I’ll tolerate you disobeying me as long as you tolerate being grounded from video games for the next millennium.
Son: It seems we’re working from fundamentally different meta-narratives. . .

�Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.� 1 Corinthians 15:57

October marks the first full month of autumn, known for cooler weather and brilliant colors. In Texas it means football. The Austin area�s largest display of fall color isn�t the trees seen along the winding Hill Country roads. It�s the rolling sea of burnt orange that crests downtown at the DKR-Texas Memorial stadium on game days, friends and strangers celebrating the Longhorn cause. It reminds me of a church service at MHC (my home church). 

The Christian blogosphere is filled with controversy. Some of it is civil; some is not. At times, controversy grows into full blown conflict. Often, with prayer and reasoned debate, conflicts can be resolved and friendships restored. Sadly, this is not always the case. There are times when stronger measures become unfortunately necessary.

Thus, it is with regret that I announce I have reached the point at which there seems to be no recourse but to take legal action against bloggers who have wronged me. Some of you might say this is unbiblical. Let me assure you, I have prayed about this. I even read the Bible.

True, Paul does say in 1 Corinthians 6 that believers ought not to sue each other but should submit their disputes to the Church. After careful study of that passage (including an exegesis of the original Greek and consultation of several scholarly commentaries), I can affirm that Paul says absolutely nothing about blogs or blogging. Nowhere does Paul prohibit suing one�s fellow bloggers.

As we know, the blogosphere is not a church. The blogosphere has no potlucks, no overhead projectors, and very few elderly ladies. Thus, it cannot be considered a church, and I conclude that I am within my Biblical rights when I take legal action.

The following is a brief list of case details.

Name: Marla Swoffer
Blog: This blogger changes her name frequently to avoid detection--Proverbial Wife, Marla Swoffer, and Always Thirsty are just three of the aliases I am aware of.
Crime: Inflicting emotional pain and suffering on other bloggers by frequently changing her blog name and layout.

Name: Adrian Warnok
Blog: Adrian Warnok's UK Evangelical Blog
Crime: Failure to add my excellent blog to the Christian Decablog List.
Details: I understand that my blog was not in existence when he formed the Decablog. But once he became aware of my blog, he clearly should have booted someone off to make room for me. I've given him nearly nine months to do so. He has failed to take action and must face charges.

Name: Sparrow
Blog: Intent
Crime: Posting graphic photos; implying that Jesus was a vegetarian.

Name: Annie Crawford
Blog: Chief Executive Mom
Crime: Multiple counts of thought plagiarism.
Details: As I have been reading her blog regularly for the past several months, I noticed that she would frequently blog just what I happened to be thinking. At first, I thought it was mere coincidence. But when she started fermenting vegetables, I got suspicious. I'm the only one that I know with a passion for fermenting vegetables. And when she developed her thoughts on the sovereignty of God, I know it was no accident. Annie is stealing my thoughts before I have time to blog them.

WARNING! If you find your name on the above list, know that legal action is about to be taken against YOU. If you desire to avoid serious fines or even jail time, please write a post on your blog praising me, apologizing profusely for the harm you have caused me, and linking to at least one of my posts. If you do, all charges will be dropped.

She messed with my blog. She's not that innocent!

In spite of my prior warnings, Annie Crawford at Chief Executive Mom has refused to listen or change her ways. Instead, she has taken her crimes one step further. She has not only plagiarized some of my thoughts but has now stolen and blogged my entire theology of God's sovereignty. It's rare that I read a post more than two words long which I fully agree with. This one is lengthy but describes exactly where I am. Just read God's Eternal Decrees and see what I mean!

If this continues, I might have to give up being a serious theology blogger and just focus on being really sarcastic.

Being a List of Questions compiled by the Work of divers Postmodern Divines and edited by Christopher Alexion.

Q1: What is the chief end of humankind?
A: Humankind's chief end is to promote world peace and enjoy it forever.

Q2: What rule do we have to direct us how we may accomplish this peace?
A: We have but one rule, and that is that we have none.

Q3: What is God?
A: God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in His design to Bless America.

Q4: Are there more gods than one?
A: There is but one only, though the term includes all religions.

Q5: How many persons are there in the Godhead?
A: As many as we want there to be.

Q6: What are the decrees of God?
A: The decrees of God are the contingent purpose according to the counsel of our will, whereby, for our benefit, He will make all our favorite sports teams win.

Q7: How doth God execute His decrees?
A: God executeth His decrees in the work of watching us exercise our free will.

I wrote the following heresy quiz to test your knowledge of early Church heresies. All of the following heresies relate to the relationship between God the Father and God the Son. I will reveal the answers after giving you an appropriate amount of time to consider your choices. Choosing the corrent answer may involves the ability to make suble distinctions between similar statements, so read carefully. Those of you who are brave may want to leave your answers in the comment box. Good luck!

Adoptionism:

(A) The philosophy that encourages adopting orphans
(B) The teaching that God �adopted� Jesus, who was a man, by the indwelling of logos, who is not a separate person from God the Father.
(C) The teaching that God adopts us as his children.

Dynamic Monarchianism:

(A) The teaching that a power from on high (i.e. �Christ� or �logos�) came upon the man Jesus and he became deity.
(B) The teaching that monarchs should be dynamic leaders.
(C) The teaching that Jesus was a butterfly.

Modalistic Monarchianism:

(A) The most frequently occurring value in the set of Monarchs
(B) The teaching that Monachs should be model leaders.
(C) The teaching that God the Father and God the Son are one without any distinction in person or essence; they are merely two different modes of the very same God.

Sabellianism:

(A) An new diet based on the cuisine of Sabellius, Italy.
(B) A musical style based on the works of Finnish composer Sibelius.
(C) The teachings of Sabellius that God metamorphosed himself as needed to be either the Father or the Son or the Holy Spirit.

Unitarian Monarchianism:

(A) The teaching that Unitarian Church will one day rule the world.
(B) A secret religion founded by Thomas Jefferson and encoded in the Declaration of Independence.
(C) A Judaistic sect founded by Ebion that rejected the virgin birth and taught that Christ was a man born of Joseph and Mary who was destined to be the Messiah.

EXTRA CREDIT: Anyone who actually gets the subtle jokes embedded into this quiz automatically passes, even if all questions are answered incorrectly.

UPDATE: Yes, as some of you correctly guessed, the answers are (B), (A), (C), (C), (C). I was reviewing my church history notes from a class I took last year when this idea came to me. All of the heresies named above were real heresies that caused real controversy in the early church. The heresies named below, however, are different. Atlantic (who--to the best of my knowedge--doesn't have a blog) brought these to my attention in the comment section. Lest you miss them, I have exerpted her comment below.
I think what she wrote is even funnier than what I wrote! Thanks, Atlantic.'

"Meanist Monarchism
(A) The teaching that God is a mean monarch
(B) The view that ethical behaviour adheres to �the golden mean�
(C) The teaching that God is the arithmetic average of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit (as distinct from Radical Monarchism, the teaching that God is the geometric average of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit)

Medianist Monarchism
(A) The spiritualist practice of attempting to contact monarchs through mediums
(B) Television, radio and internet coverage of butterflies
(C) The teaching that God is one of a set of supernatural beings, of which precisely half are too large for our universe, half are too small � so only God is just right.

Note that these heresies have strict classification systems for sins � some are within one standard deviation, some within two standard deviations, etc. � although different sects use different distributions. The most liberal ones use the �normal distribution� technique, in which all sins are considered excusable because they are �normal human nature� anyway. However, the stricter sects (who can often be identified by the fish decal on their automobiles) use the poisson distribution. "

Well, it's time to confess: I've got a problem. Yes, I've finally put years of denial behind me and entered a 12-step program. (The last couple of posts here really put me over the edge...) Here's where I saw the light:

Are you a problem thinker? at Stand to Reason.

It started out innocently enough. I began to think at parties now and then to loosen up. Inevitably though, one thought led to another and soon I was more than just a social thinker...

1. You find papers by Alvin Plantinga funnier than the the funnies. (About half way through you'll see what I mean.)

2. You laugh out loud while reading the first paragraph of an article about trade conferences in the Economist. (One-armed dismal scientists, eh?)

3. You are the only student in a classroom of 70 who finds your professor's lectures hilarious. (The story of my life.)

4. Your favorite jokes invovle Windows Error Codes and Dr. Seuss Technical writing. (So, maybe I'm just a geek.)

Or, a few questions on daily living.

OK, not much is going on at this blog lately and I have nothing substantial to offer...so how �bout a meme?

There aren't enough of them, you know.

Feel free to answer in a comment or on your own blog to pass on. Or not at all:

1) If you could abolish one element of daily life, what would it be?

(my answer -- the clock)

2) If there were more hours in the day, what would you do with them?

(A) sleep (B) straighten up the house (C) try to get more involved with a service/mission project (D) play more games with my kids (E) practice my trumpet (F) read/study (G) keep in touch with more people (H) put more effort into my cooking. I�ll stop there.

3) If there were less hours in the day, what would you cut out?

Some blogging/reading, perhaps some of the kids� activities, some of the �stuff� I do at church (*gasp!*)

4) If you could add one thing to your daily life, what would it be?

Good, deep, solid discussion, of this type:

In him I found a dialectical sharpness such as I had hitherto known only in Kirk, but coupled with youth and whim and poetry....we had endless arguments on [Theism] and every other topic whenever we were out of the line.

� C. S. Lewis in Surprised by Joy, speaking of his friend and confederate Johnson.

Our pastor told this story during his sermon last week (my paraphrase):

There once was a little songbird who was late flying South. His wings got wet and then they froze. Shivering, he fell to the ground, right in the middle of a field. As he lay there, cold and miserable, he thought, �Oh, what can I do? What will become of me? I�ll never sing again.�

No sooner had he nearly given up hope than a cow came along and deposited a large pile of manure right on top of him. �Oh!� thought the bird, �What�s this? I feel warm, and I can move again! Oh, this is wonderful!� And he began tweet-tweet-tweeting with joy.

Along came a cat, heard the tweeting, and said, �Hey, what are you doing in that manure pile? Let me give you a hand.� And he pulled the bird out. And he ate him.

Moral of the story:
Someone who dumps manure on you may not be your enemy.
The person who digs you out of the manure may not be your friend.
If you�re in a pile of manure you may not want to sing about it.

The other morning my three kids were at the breakfast table. We keep a glass container there stocked with spoons. It’s a tradition begun by my mother-in-law (in fact, we use the same container) and is really quite handy. Anyway, an argument ensued over the spoons, which are of assorted styles and sizes. My daughter wanted a particular spoon and the spoons were out of reach. She asked for the “big one.” My son, who had the spoons in front of him, said, “It’s not a big one.” My daughter countered with, “Yes, it is!” My son: “No it isn’t!” Etc. I said to him, “Why don’t you give her what she asked for?” He said, “Because it’s not a big one. I’ll give her a big one.” I said, “But did she ask for a big one, or the one she’s asking for?”

So he gave her the one she was asking for. And said, yet again, “It’s not a big one.”

As usual, this typical, mundane little occurrence in the life of my family caused me to think. And here’s what I thunk:

How much time do we spend arguing over the size of spoons? (Not literally...you know.) How many hard feelings are generated arguing over the size of spoons? Does the size of spoons really matter, when it comes to eating cereal? (Yes, as far as generally matching size of spoon to size of person, i.e. baby spoons vs. table spoons, or other special considerations go. But arguing over spoon size for the sake of arguing over spoon size?)

Now if you’ll excuse me, my cereal’s getting soggy.

My son was doing a homeschool assignment using the Grolier website, and was supposed to use the search feature to locate information. Well, apparently it didn't go so well. In frustration, he entered the following in the search box:
bbbbbb b vfjbdfhkjdfhgkhfdkjghfjghghdhghghfuuffngjkhgjfjjhdfjghjhghfjhghufughrjihgjfhdfhjkghdfhgkjshgie utuiyhriertuoyrohgiouwytoytpwhyo

and here's what he got:

A little wildlife humor for the weekend:

Q: What do you call a deer with no eyes?

A: No-eye deer

Q: What do you call a deer with no eyes and no legs?

A: Still no-eye deer

Haven't got a bell? How 'bout a kazoo? Come on down (or up, or over) to Rochester, New York and help the Rochester Kazoo Band buzz in the new year. You might even make the Guinness Book of World Records (for largest kazoo ensemble.)

If you haven't got a kazoo, they can be purchased for $1. Proceeds benefit local charities.

(Need to brush up on your kazoo chops? Never fear, How To Kazoo.com is here.)

dzuu dzuuuuu dzu dzuu dzuu dzuuuuu dzu dzuu dzuu dzuuuuu dzu dzuu dzuu dzuuuuuu... (imagine Auld Lang Syne in kazoo)

Happy New Year!

Sometimes my inspiration/train of thought follows a most interesting path (to me, at least). Last weekend I took the kids to see Night at the Museum. Which I recommend, btw – never mind the chaotic mish-mash of action, as the critics rightly note – it’s slapstick! Good clean humor, too, imagine (except for the urinating monkey...and maybe a few “words” here and there). And really funny. I think my favorite is the Easter Island statue with bubble gum. It’s a good, funny, feel-good family movie (say that 10x fast). And imo, Dick Van Dyke is the glue that holds it together; the fuel that makes it run; the star of the show; however you want to say it.

If you go, don’t leave the theater until the credits are part-way through – you’ll see why. (I'll give you a hint).

Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yeah. Train of thought. Well, there’s an Earth Wind and Fire tune in the movie and right now I can’t remember which one. But it got me jammin’ so when I got home I got online and purchased their Greatest Hits CD. (I own several EWF LPs, but who uses LP’s anymore? Yes, I'm dating myself. Who cares.) Why do I like this stuff? The horn lines, of course. The funky grooves. (the cowbells)

I could play this stuff all day (the horn parts, I mean). I played (trumpet) for a show by the Temptations once – talk about being on your toes! It was awesome.

Anyway, if you care to, check this out.

(Haven’t tried the spinning thing -- trumpets are too expensive!)

Hot cross buns Hot cross buns One a penny Two a penny Hot cross buns If you have no daughters Give them to your sons One a penny Two a penny Hot cross buns

Recipe for hot cross buns.

A friend told me about this:

I Meant To Do My Work Today

by Richard LeGallienne

I meant to do my work today,
But a brown bird sang in the apple tree,
And a butterfly flitted across the field,
And all the leaves were calling me.
And the wind went sighing over the land,
Tossing the grasses to and fro,
And a rainbow held out its shining hand,
So what could I do but laugh and go?

My husband recently attended an in-service day at the school where he works. He said that the presenter, Dr. Humor, was really not bad as far as in-service programs go.

Dr. Humor is Dr. Stuart Robertshaw, professor, attorney, and President/CEO of the National Association for the Humor Impaired, whose goals include the following (quote):

Overheard:

"I don't like entertainers. They're too funny, and I don't like funniness."

-- my 5-year-old daughter

We interrupt our regularly-scheduled programming to bring you this vignette of family life...

The much-anticipated strawberry season is greeted with enthusiasm every year at the L household; for me it brings back memories of pedaling my bicycle up the hill from the berry farm to my house, berries jostling in the front basket. My grave duty was to ensure every berry made it into the jam my mother would make, or the strawberry shortcake we'd savor for dessert.

Spring's early advent brought the strawberries to their plump, tender, sweet ripeness early this year here in western New York, and we wasted no time getting out to pick.

The fruit of our labors:

My husband brought this list home from work, for our kids to use as a little year-end review. It's compiled of select answers from the "essays, exams, and classroom discussions" of 5th and 6th-graders:

When people run around and around in circles we say they are crazy. When planets do it we say they are orbiting.

Rainbows are to look at, not to really understand.

While the earth seems to be knowingly keeping its distance from the sun, it is really only centrificating.

South America has cold summers and hot winters, but somehow they still manage.

Water freezes at 32 degrees and boils at 212 degrees. There are 180 degrees between freezing and boiling because there are 180 degrees between north and south.

A vibration is a motion that can't make up its mind which way it wants to go.

Lime is a green-tasting rock.

Genetics explain why you look like your father and if you don't why you should.

Vacuums are nothings. We only mention them to let them know we know they're there.

Some oxygen molecules help fires burn while others help make water, so sometimes it's brother against brother.

It is so hot in some places that the people there have to live in other places.

Some people can tell what time it is by looking at the sun. But I have never been able to make out the numbers.

To most people solutions mean finding the answers. But to chemists solutions are things that are still all mixed up.

In looking at a drop of water under a microscope, we find there are twice as many H's as O's.

Clouds are high-flying fogs.

I am not sure how clouds get formed. But the clouds know how to do it, and that is the important thing.

In some rocks you can find the fossil footprints of fishes.

Cyanide is so poisonous that one drop of it on a dog's tongue will kill the strongest man.

A monsoon is a French gentleman.

The wind is like the air, only pushier.

Thunder is a rich source of loudness.

(If you know of any more, you can submit them at the aforementioned website.

I've been tagged for the "8 random things" meme, three times, actually, isn't that random? And who knew that Mark used to play classical trumpet, John loves ghost towns, and Rusty had such a daring past?

My things:

Lifeguarding: My summer job as a teenager. I worked at one of the country’s largest outdoor pools.

Trumpet playing: It all started when, at age 7, I coiled up the plastic hose from my toy vacuum cleaner and “played” it while marching around my house. (A Jericho thing??)

Lepidoptery: An interest of my youth. I still have my Riker-mounted collection, in the attic somewhere. Also raised black swallowtails from caterpillar to butterfly.

Perfect pitch: I have it. (It’s properly called pitch memory, pitch recognition, or absolute pitch.)

Sewing: I used to do it. The last thing I made was a maternity concert outfit (to wear while performing).

A nice, crisp Riesling or rich, chewy Cabernet: Buy me one anytime.

Unicycle: I can ride one, even backwards. Though I haven’t tried in awhile.

Chevy LUV truck: my first car. It was a stick shift, and I still drive shift.

I would like to know eight things about:

Atlantic
Sherry
Melinda
Jan
Jeremy
Macht
Charlie
Martin

You're supposed to:

1. Let others know who tagged you.
2. Post 8 random facts about yourself.
3. Post these rules with your 8 facts.
4. Tag 8 other people and notify them they have been tagged.

From my 5-year-old daughter:

"The rain, is just so...wet, I can't believe it!"

I came across this link on another blog today, it is one of the funniest things I have read in a long time. My belly still aches from laughing so hard so it's probably best not to read this if you are pregnant :0)

HT: Libbie

Calvinist: *sigh* Another example of how the Arminian gets it all wrong (i.e., ignores Scripture, etc.)...

Arminian: Well, let me tell you how the Calvinist is just plain wrong (i.e., he misunderstands Scripture, etc.):

C: (misconstrues the Arminian's position)

A: (misconstrues the Calvinist's position)

C: If the Arminian were properly informed, he'd see the error of his ways.

A: If the Calvinist weren't so "well-informed," he'd see the error of his ways.

C: When we follow the Arminian's claims to their logical conclusion, we see he asserts that (X) is true, which obviously can't be true (because of Y, Y, Z, and Z).

A: Ditto, minus the "obviously".

When it comes to Jell-O, [Mary] Bauer breaks the mold.

Bauer, of Rochester, NY is one of the winners of the first-ever
Connections Claim to Fame contest.

Says Connections columnist Jim Memmott of the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle,

Like most Connections contests, this one wasn't bogged down with rules. But, in general, [co-judge] Karen and I looked for people who put the extra into ordinary.

"My Claim to Fame is making Jell-O," Bauer, 73, a retired elementary school teacher, wrote. "Plain Ordinary Jell-O. When I asked my Aunt Mary (Hannick) what she would like for her 98th birthday, she said. "'Your red Jell-O.'"

If it's good enough for Aunt Mary, it's good enough for us.

Told of her victory, Bauer modestly stressed that her six children would attest to the fact that she is not a gourmet cook.

She also revealed the secret to good Jell-O making: "Follow the directions."

No, not that kind, but almost...

As we all know, anything can happen in a family of active children. Actually, this one didn't even involve my children, except that they were the ones I first suspected and (wrongly) accused.

What happened was, I went to sit in my computer chair, at a nook in the kitchen. Nothing too exciting or out of the ordinary there. Except that it was covered with slugs. Ugh. Good grief. Four semi-squished slugs and their slime. Sheesh.

Sick joke, right? Or maybe my son needed a place to put his new "friends" and that was the most expedient. Yes? No. No one knew where they came from.

Yeah, right.

Then my husband says, "Wait a minute... I put the cooler there just a couple minutes ago. I brought it in from the wet grass."

Ah. Mystery solved.

Well. I returned those poor, unwitting transplants (or what was left of them) to the back yard, and sponged off the seat. (Ever try to get slug slime off a woven seat? You haven't? You should sometime.)

Not sure who got the worst of that deal, me or the slugs. Actually, probably my kids, poor things - imagine me blaming them for something like slugs on my computer chair!

(I do trust that my husband wiped the bottom of the cooler plus the surface of wherever he put it after it left the computer chair...)

We'd just come home from the grocery store, and there were bags all over the counter area. My 5-year-old daughter, trying to move a chair up to the counter to see something, said, "I can't! There's too much less room!"

Having read Trick or Tract and the virtual firestorm of comments it engendered, I can't resist injecting a little levity into the chorus. Maybe that's because I have a warped sense of humor. Maybe that's because October 31 isn't "Halloween" at our house. Instead, today is son number three's 12th birthday. Thus, "Halloween" has never been a big deal for our family - although "Broccoli and Bligh" put in regular appearances!

***

Think Captain Bligh had it rough? Try feeding four Guys. The usual drill goes something like this:

“Pears?!” five year-old Josiah erupts as we sit down to the dinner table, “I hate pears!”

“Whatever happened to a simple, `No thank you’?” I snap, out on a limb. Way out. This follows 12 year-old Nathan’s commentary on last night’s dinner accompaniment: “Peaches? Yuck!”

“You know I don’t like mashed potatoes,” 14 year-old Daniel laments. Pointing out that French fries are close cousins to mashed potatoes—sort of--gets me as far as a snail in a molasses factory.

“Look,” I explain for the umpteenth time, “ I am NOT cooking five separate dinners. You guys either eat what’s on the table, or you may be excused and can go hungry until breakfast.” They’re out the door and halfway to China before the dust settles.

Our bedroom is located a few feet off the kitchen, near the pantry: “All the easier to snag ‘em with,” I muse to my husband, the Big Guy. Long experience has taught us what’s sure to come. Refusing my latest culinary magnum opus, our guy quartet will soon attempt a “midnight raid” on the kitchen. “All in good time, my pretties, all in good time.”

So we’re ready. The Big Guy and I snicker like frisky teenagers as we draw bicycle chain through fridge doors and click the lock shut. “That’ll teach them to eat what’s on the table” the Big Guy observes, grinning like a Cheshire cat. I suspect he’s having way too much fun outsmarting the kids.

“Midnight and all’s well” I announce later from sentry duty at the fridge before returning to Better Homes and Gardens. The Big Guy nods smugly and returns to the toe-tapping tunes of Gregorian Chants: Greatest Hits. Which just shows you what we know. What four starving boys can accomplish with a hairpin and flashlights makes my head spin.

“So, what are your favorite foods?” I ask my Guys the next day, bracing myself. I know a mutiny when I’m up to my ears in one. I’ve got a four-alarm insurrection on my hands that makes Fletcher Christian look like a pansy.

I stared at the chocolate cake, not sure whether to exhale or cry. Four decades couldn’t have flown by so fast. It simply wasn’t possible. Didn’t I graduate from high school just last June? But there on my birthday cake flickered the undeniable evidence: 40 pink candles pooling into Ghiardelli puddles. Each candle shouted a unanimous chorus of: “Welcome to Middle Age!”

“Am I officially `over the hill’” now?” I later grumped to my husband, Chris. He celebrated my entre into “Middle Age” in dry-humored fashion with a bouquet of black roses. And truckloads of chocolate. My four boys combined their resources to buy enough mylar balloons to raise the Titanic. They meant well. It was the sight of 40+ “Over the Hill” balloons crammed into our living room that got me thinking: "Is it really all downhill from here?"

This could be the most entertaining 2:24 minutes of your day.

When it comes to food and cooking, are you a Martha or a Maxine?







Martha's Way
Stuff a miniature marshmallow in the bottom of a sugar cone to prevent ice cream drips.

Maxine's Way
Just suck the ice cream out of the bottom of the cone, for Pete's sake! You are probably lying on the couch with your feet up eating it, anyway!

Martha's Way
To keep potatoes from budding, place an apple in the bag with the potatoes.

Maxine's Way
Buy Hungry Jack mashed potato mix , keep it in the pantry for up to a year.

Martha's Way
When a cake recipe calls for flouring the baking pan, use a bit of the dry cake mix instead and there won't be any white mess on the outside of the cake.

Maxine's Way
Go to the bakery! They'll even decorate it for you.

Martha's Way
If you accidentally over salt a dish while it's still cooking, drop in a peeled potato and it will absorb the excess salt for an instant 'fix-me-up.'

Maxine's Way
If you over salt a dish while you are cooking, that's too bad. Please recite with me the real woman's motto: 'I made it and you will eat it and I don't care how bad it tastes!'

One morning a husband returns after several hours of fishing and decides to take a nap. Although not familiar with the lake, his wife decides to take the boat out onto the lake. She motors out a short distance, anchors, and reads her book.

Along comes a Game Warden in his boat. He pulls up alongside the woman and says, "Good morning, Ma'am. What are you doing?"

"Reading a book," she replies (thinking, 'Isn't that obvious?")

"You're in a Restricted Fishing Area," he informs her.

"I'm sorry, Officer, but I'm not fishing. I'm reading."

"Yes, but you have all the equipment. For all I know you could start at any moment. I'll have to take you in and write you up."

"For reading a book?" she replies.

"You're in a Restricted Fishing Area," he informs her again.

"I'm sorry, Officer, but I'm not fishing. I'm reading."

"Yes, but you have all the equipment. For all I know you could start at any moment. I'll have to take you in and write you up."

"If you do that, I'll have to charge you with sexual assault," says the woman.

"But I haven't even touched you," says the Game Warden.

"That's true, but you have all the equipment. For all I know you could start at any moment."

"Have a nice day ma'am," and he left.

(Forwarded to me by a friend)