A brown eyed handsome man:

I joined orkut- third invitation is a charm. It came from Ali Reza, he is a young Iranian man I tutored in English while I was in Dubai. I also spent lots of time with his, then secret crush, now wife, Marriam.

They are both adorable, and each (separately, since they were both from consevative families who would never agree that they should spend time together before certain arrangements had been made) made my time in Dubai more enjoyable by far.

He called me tonight, I haven't talked to him in years. He and Marriam are living and going to school in Sydney now. He is working at a Persian carpet store, and he says they are both very busy at "Uni."

When I think of Ali, this is what I remember first. Occationally we would go into the city and look for things in the bigger markets. Ali was very protective and responsible for my well being and never let me get lost. We walked along a street in Dubai, he was close enough to me to sing the call to prayer in my ear and he laughed when I smiled and asked him what it meant.

He would have liked for me to be converted. I fear I would have made an even worse Muslim than I do a Christian.

I told him about my dog. When he asked his name I told him his name is Buzz, I was going to call him "Buzorg" which is Farsi for "big," but nobody would get the joke.

Ali got it. :0)

I like this:


First Fig
My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends ­
It gives a lovely light!

Edna St. Vincent Millay

I had a dream, two dreams actually that vaguely follow this scenario: Much like the fantasy novels I’ve been reading lately, there is a young man in my dreams who is quite extraordinary.
However, he has only recently discovered how special he is. He grew up knowing nothing of his true identity, but suddenly it is revealed that he is a leader, a king, a warrior, a savior a sorcerer. It is prophesized that he will save the world, and while he travels with an entourage of devout followers and warriors for his cause, many are out to stop him, kill him, end the prophesy and make the days of man dark and ugly.

In the second dream, which I remember more clearly, I am part of his entourage. I had always known him, and when he learns of his new role, I am the first to accept it. I embrace it before even he understands what has happened.

In the dream, I am very unselfish, none of the reality of the jealous “why aren’t I the special one?” or the pride “he is special, so by association, I am too.” In the dream, I understand true humility.

I carry with me a basket of sweet grass and wild flowers, and I spread them out before his feet on the path. And he asks me why I’ve done this. I don’t remember my answer. I don’t remember answering. I remember I loved him. I remember it was so easy to love him, without jealousy or pride or possession. I remember knowing that what is on the ground, beneath his feet is more blessed than that which has never known him.

Messianic, yes I know.

He was beautiful, and I miss knowing him as I knew him in my dream. It was only last night and I miss knowing him.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his little book, Life Together states, “The final breakthrough to fellowship does not occur, because, though they have fellowship with on another as believers and as devout people, they do not have fellowship as the undevout, as sinners.” (110)

This was the quote used to open a skit I used to do with a performance group in college. The skit was about a young man confessing a sexual sin to his Sunday school class, and the class reacting to him, not in Christian love and understanding of weaknesses, but in revulsion and rejection.

One of the lines my friend was supposed to say after the secret was made known was, “I could always feel him watching me.” One day in practice she said, “I could always watch him feeling me.” Which, of course, was fabulously funny to me, and I still tease her about all these years later. The result of her slip of the tongue was that during every performance there was a longer than usual pause before that line so that she could make sure she was going to say it correctly.

Now, I’ve had the book Life Together on my shelf for several years, and I recently decided to read it through. Here are a few points of interest for me:

“If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian fellowship in which we have been placed, even where there is no greater experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness, small faith and difficulty; if on the contrary, we only keep complaining to God that everything is so paltry and petty, so far from what we expected, then we hinder God from letting our fellowship grow according to the measure and riches which are there for us all in Jesus Christ.” P, 29

“Contrary to all my own opinions and convictions, Jesus Christ will tell me what love toward the brethren really is. Therefore, spiritual love is bound solely to the Word of Jesus Christ.” P.35

“Life together under the Word will remain sound and healthy only where it does not form itself into a movement, and order, a society, a collegium pietatis, but rather where it understands itself as being a s part of the one holy, catholic Christian Church, where it shares actively and passively in the sufferings and struggles and promise of the whole Church.” P. 37

“We are silent before hearing the Word because our thoughts are already directed to the
Word . . . We are silent after hearing the Word because the Word is still speaking and dwelling within us. We are silent at the beginning of the day because God should have the first word, and we are silent before going to sleep because the last word also belongs to God.” P.79

“Must it not be wholesome and conducive to humility for me to learn to bear such petty evils silently and patently?” p. 95

“Moreover, what we have said applies solely to confession between two Christians. A confession of sin in the presence of all the members of the congregation is not required to restore one to fellowship with the whole congregation. I meet the whole congregation in the one brother to whom I confess my sins and who forgives my sins. In the fellowship I find with this one brother I have already found fellowship with the whole congregation.” P. 113

http://www.roadsideamerica.com/attract/PALINcarp.html
http://www.grayco.com/cleveland/mott/sample4.html

It is, it is mesmerizing! About a million huge carp crammed together greedy for the tourist day old wonder bread. Yes, I did this as a child, yes I had a T-shirt proclaim "Pymatuning, where ducks walk on fish!" For some reason this fishy memory is intertwined with my remembrances of my visits to the pumpkin farm in the autumn.

In the north east mid-autumn when the leaves are still flaming, and hanging in their dying moments to sleepy trees. When the squirrels are frantic and the wind is sharp but not yet bitter. This is when the world seems to be nothing but orange and red and yellow, and the sidewalks and lawns are deep with leaves that whisper and splinter as they are waded through. This is the time to visit the pumpkin farm, where the pumpkins are piled in mountains impossible to climb- where the pumpkins range in size from what fits in a toddlers hand to what a toddler can fit inside.

I don't have any pictures from the pumpkin farm, I don't have any special memories, aside from the pumpkins and the atmosphere, but I treasure the memory, what there is of it-- those visits contain the indescribable glory of autumn in the north east, in the Sylvania by the Great Lakes.

I miss autumn, but not the long, long winter. Today I looked at a map of the county I grew up in, (searching for a pumpkin farm) and I wondered at how few towns were there. It's more agrarian than I remembered.

Look at both dolphins jumping out of the water. The dolphins areidentical. A closely monitored, scientific study revealed that in spite
of the fact that the dolphins are identical, a person under stress will
find differences in the two dolphins. If there are many differences
found between the dolphins, it means that the person is experiencing
significant amount of stress.
Look at the photograph. If you find more than one or two differencesyou may want to take a vacation.

In a rather disturbing report from the kitchen: I just found half a bag of frozen peas and carrots in the cabinent where I keep my tools. I suspect it has been there since yesterday morning when I had it out to pack my lunch at 6:15 am.

mental note: Pack lunch the night before to avoid finding random vegetables in unlikely places as a result of not being a morning person.

Here it is Halloween time again, and I thought, well time again to retell the old story about how Dracula ate my Micky Mouse ring. It’s an old tale, sad but true. I was sure I had given a very detailed account of the event on my blog, but alas, when I looked I found only 1 small reference, well 2, but only one showed up when I searched “Micky Mouse” in my archives, the other one was under “Dracula.”

When I was a child I was painfully shy. (Seriously.) I was terribly afraid to talk to strangers, unless I was animated about a certain subject, and they asked the right question. My mother, of course, knew what the right questions were to get me started on these certain topics. She thought it was really funny for me to explain things to people, because while my explanations made perfect sense to me, adult type people were baffled with my small child reasoning and conviction on the above mentioned topics. Therefore, she would set me up by telling people to ask me questions about my latest obsesion.

One of the big topics was how I was born with a bandage on my head, another important one was how Dracula ate my Micky Mouse ring.

Here’s the story, because I remember this happening:

My mother, brothers, grandmother and I had just gone to the downtown mall. A small, adjustable Micky Mouse ring had been purchaced. It was Micky standing sideways with this little hands behind his back. Adorable, and since I was only 3, even at the smallest adjutable size, it was too big.

After the mall we went to a haunted house. One of the first things to happen at the haunted house was a vampire jumped out at us. That scared me out of my skin, and I literally climbed up my mother’s leg. (which wasn’t easy because she wore a brace.) After that the haunted house was anti-climatic. (Maybe the monsters felt bad about scaring a little girl.) As soon as we got out of the haunted house, I realized that my brand new Micky Mouse ring was gone! And I knew, I knew in my heart that Dracula had eaten my ring! Nobody else would have done it, it had to be him because he was so mean and jumped out to scare me! (I’m not sure why I was convinced that he actually ate it, but that was the immediate conviction on the matter.)

I insisted that we go back and demand my Micky Mouse ring back! Oh I was livid about the affair and my mother said, “Are you going to tell Dracula to give it back?” and I said yes I would! So, we all trouped back to the haunted house and of course Dracula was the first to greet us again, an naturally I lost all my resolve and hid behind my mother. She asked about the ring, he said he never saw it, but I knew he was lying!

I knew he ate it! We looked around just incase, but it was gone, and I was so mad! So, ever after if my mother wanted to get me started, even into my adulthood, all she had to say was, “Ask Shannon about her Micky Mouse ring.” My response was always, “Dracula ate it!” And I would launch into this story about the haunted house and how scary Dracula was, and how mean he was to eat my ring and none of the other monsters were as mean or scary or bad as he was!

I still don’t like vampires, (well, who does? But I have an origional reason at least) and I still want my Micky Mouse ring back!

Everytime I try to do research on the computer, I feel like I have to wrestle with it to get any information. I keep getting the image of Jacob wrestling with God. If only I were more persistent like Jacob . . . "I'm not going to give up until you bless me." Man, if I had that kind of dedication, my fingers might never leave the keyboard . . . sigh . . . Of course Jacob gained a limp from that match . . . I'll probably get carpal tunnel, I think I already have carpal thumble from pipetting at work.

who's smarter? Me or the machine?

I fear it's the machine
(bastard!)

A few things my professor has said in class this semester:

"Get together with two other people in groups of four."
(I laughed out loud, and when he asked why I repeated what he said, and pointed out that would only be three.) To which he replied, "Well, genius isn't logical, or something."

"This exercise was kind of pointless, it's kind of like playing with yourself . . . "

"Imagine linguistic input is like rubber balls being thrown at you. In the class room it is manageable because the balls are limited, and you know what to look for. But in the real world, it's hard because a thousand rubber balls are coming at you and you are supposed to only catch the blue balls, but you don't know it and all the balls are hitting you, when all you wanted were the blue balls (giggles) blue balls, that's funny. Non native speakers, I'm laughing because the word "balls" in English is kind of funny."

"This theory was put forth in the mid 1980s, then everyone jumped on the gang banging- er no, I mean gang wangon, what is it? Band wagon!"

All the puppy training articles say that if your puppy "goes" on the floor where he's not supposed to it's not his fault, it's your fault for giving him the chance.

In my defense, I'd like to say:
1. He is the same color as the carpet, and it's kinda hard to see where he is and what he's doing all the time.
2. He's very small, (reference the hard to see part in point 1)
3. Owners are told to be alert to the "sniff and circle" routine before the elimination time, he is always sniffing and circling! I think his huge ears drag his head down!
4. His legs are only 2 inches long, it is nearly impossible to discern when he is squatting and when he's just standing there.

I got a puppy



Welcome Buzz!

Buzz likes: long walks, chew toys, hanging out with me, eliminating on the carpet, eating the carpet, sniffing everything and peanut butter.

Buzz does not like: his collar, having his ears cleaned, being left alone- at any time, ever.

Buzz is afraid of: cars, people, other dogs, cats, large bugs, being locked in the bathroom forever.