I am in a state of shock...how did I get so high? I'm guessing it was because I stuck through to the end, and that our house has over 3 computers, because I was certainly guessing on a good deal of the questions. Still, I do wish I was computer savvy enough to warrant the term "computer geek", so the score is quite accurate.
Please excuse me
For this blog post
I wanted to write something serious
Speculative and introspective
Something intelligent, so to say
But then our neighbor
Described our family
As quiet
And now you must excuse me
As I roll around the floor
Laughing my head off
(Please excuse the half poetic tone as well)
The Sacred Rules of Quoting Movies:
I. Thou shalt not quote from a movie thou hast not seen.
II. Thou shalt not quote the same quote that thy brother or sister has just used.
III. Thou shalt not quote to the extent that thy other brothers and sisters feel nauseated.
We're back, safely returned from our first camping trip without Clankeeper. For this trip we went back to a site we had visited before, a place so wooded that you could wander around through brush for hours without seeing a campsite, yet the campsites themselves were close enough that we could all cook and eat and worship together. Unlike most people, our family camps, not to see sites, nor to hike, nor to tour, but to—well, camp. As city folks who love nature, we find it vacation enough to be away from the airport noise, and as we almost always go with our church family to some place where the boys can run through the woods playing army, who needs site-seeing to enjoy camping? Though I enjoyed myself, I was glad of course to be back home, but not entirely. Being away from the hustle and bustle of life, even the mostly home-bound life we live, was a large part of the joy of camping. It seems a shame still to me that we cannot always live like that, filling our days with simple pleasures instead of running around frantically.
Wednesday morning we will be leaving so that we might take part in that great family tradition of camping, sleeping under the stars—well, no, we'll have tents. Communing with nature, then—as long as we are dolloped with bug repellant and sunscreen, and have propane cookstoves so that we might eat the same diet as at home. Living simply—with our air mattresses, iPods, special coffee, portable showers, and nail-clippers. Enjoying a break from everyday life—by eating, sleeping, running in the woods with wooden guns (the boys), talking with other homeschooling families, singing, Sunday worship, and doing pretty much everything we do at home.
Hmm.
But then, there will be no blogging, no email, and no internet. What a heavy trial indeed! No wonder we only do this for a few days a year...
Farewell, oh mine, oh aged computer, farewell. No more thy dim screen shall I behold. I gladly take my leave of thy inconsiderate consistent crashes after the viewing of 50 pages on the web, and thy warped screen which squeezes thin the top and bottom, and makes the left side appear sagging and bowed in. Forever may I have to forget thy nonexistent CD drive, and thy speeds that scarce rival the tortoise, though mayhap I shall look back with more fondness when safely in the past all these terrors lie. Aye, the time is full ripe for us to part, for a new Apple© laptop has arrived by mail today, and my heart wilt forget all our years together and advance without regret into a new and (hopefully, for mine eyes' sake) brighter age.
Something Rotten, by Jasper Fforde, has a lovely subplot in which Hamlet (yes, Prince of Denmark) is taken from his play into the real world. Anyone familiar with the character and with the experience of being in a coffee shop should appreciate this, even if it is set in an alternate universe:
“What will you have Hamlet?”
“What is there?”
“Espresso, mocha, latte, white mocha, hot chocolate, decaf, recaf, nocaf, somecaf, extracaf, Goliachino™...what’s the matter?”
Hamlet had started to tremble, a look of pain and helplessness on his face as he stared wide-eyed at the huge choice laid out in front of him.
“To espresso or to latte, that is the question,” he muttered, his free will evaporating rapidly. I had asked Hamlet for something he couldn’t easily supply: a decision. “Whether ‘tis tastier on the palate to choose white mocha over plain,” he continued in rapid gargle, “or to take a cup to go. Or a mug to stay, or extra cream, or have nothing, and by opposing the endless choice, end one’s heartache—”
“Hamlet!” I said sharply. “Cut it out!”
“To froth, to sprinkle, perchance to drink, and in that—”
“He’ll have a mocha with extra cream, please.”
Hamlet stopped abruptly once the burden of decision was taken from him.
“Sorry,” he said, rubbing his temples. “I don’t know what came over me. All of a sudden I had this overwhelming desire to talk for a very long time without actually doing anything. Is that normal?”
