Leftovers

A few random thoughts that weren't enough to get their own post but amused me nonetheless...

If participation is any indicator, I seem to have found good poll questions. I kept the obvious choices out to spark competition and made the best of the best poll for the titans to duke it out. It doesn't surprise me that "The Grinch" is holding its own against "It's a Wonderful Life", because I once made the argument in a senior level lit class that Dr. Seuss is a better poet than Shakespeare. I think that it is because only the literati enjoy Shakespeare as it was meant to be; but moms, dads, and little kids can all appreciate "Hop on Pop".

Dr. Seuss has a much broader audience, his messages are more universal, and he filled his works with every bit as much complexity and just as many literary devices. All while keeping rhyme, meter and word selection that could be followed by the average kindergartner. And before you claim that Dr. Seuss used words that he made up, you should know that Shakespeare did the same thing. Take that all you free-verse loving, Walt Whitman wannabe, "beat" "poets". Write one piece as influential on the whole of American culture as "Green Eggs and Ham" or "Star Bellied Sneetches" and I'll listen to your snobby complaints that poetry does not need rhyme and meter. Until then....you can reflect on the irony that the best Christmas book in the last hundred years was written by a Jewish man (now THAT is funny).

***Editor's note:
That might be the first thing I have written on literature since I graduated in June. I didn't even want to throw up this time. The numbing of my brain cells must be wearing off. Of course as much as I love James Joyce, a solid year of Ulysses and Finnegans Wake will cause even the most die hard lit Professor to read nothing but comic books for a month or two. But while I'm on the subject of lit, can you tell how I feel about most modern "poetry"? Frost said poetry without rhyme was "like playing tennis with the net down". Amen, says I. Then he wrote in free verse anyway. Hypocrite.

On a related poll note, I had wanted to be funny with the "Best Christmas Action Movie" category. I was going to ask the question and then have four answer boxes that all said Die Hard, but the stupid Techno-crap feature wouldn't let me use duplicate answers. So I went with just the one line but it wasn't as funny visually.

The most unexpected response in the history of the universe came when my MOTHER, of all people, asked me why I didn't have Die Hard 2 listed. Didn't see that one coming. I would have changed it for her but someone had already voted and once that happens, you can't edit the poll anymore.

One last poll note; I did indeed go "Brother Brigham" with the beard. I've had a mustache since the Eldest was born, so even with the chin beard, the lack of appropriate facial hair was disturbing. At church it turned more than one head. I explained that no, I hadn't lost a bet (My team WON this year); but I was putting earnest money down, so to speak, on a future career. And if by some miracle of miracles I wind up teaching seminary (don't hold your breath), it'll be true. But if not, I did it for the blog readers and with any luck at all we can turn this into a paying gig (which should happen right after I retire from seminary). The Boss has not commented other than to say that she's "getting used to it". I think she gave up on me being presentable years ago.

Here's a piece of worthless trivia that you never knew you were interested in until you find yourself researching it on Google:

Where in the world does one find gerbils in the wild?

I know, I have way the he!! too much spare time, but I did wonder not long ago where I might go to see the vast plains of plastic tubes and wire wheels that serve as homes to the last great herds of wild gerbils. Seriously, how trippy would it be to wake up in a tent somewhere and find your campsite has been devastated by throngs of gerbils intent on defending their territory?

Has anyone ever come across a gerbil (not a pot-gut, an actual gerbil) in the place Mother Nature planted them? I truly had no clue as to where I might find the home turf of gerbils and the lack of even an educated guess bugged me to no end. I know, I know...aren't there dishes to wash, kids to potty train, blogs to write, blah, blah, blah?

But now that I've brought it up, you want to know, don't you? Admit it, you're curious, huh? Alright I'll save you the trip to the search engine.

Gerbils are natives of the Gobi Desert on the borders of China and Mongolia. So I'll bet none of us have ever seen one in the wild. And according to Wikipedia they really are destructive little beasts. The Chinese government has been using eagles to combat the damage the critters have done to 11 MILLION acres of grass land. Their destructive capacity and rapid reproduction make them illegal to own in California (sorry Aunt T).

And y'all thought Global Warming was from man made greenhouse gasses? These horrendous beasts are turning rich grass land into more Gobi desert (just what the world needs), but we're busy self-righteously trying to stop people from lighting their fireplaces?

Electric cars? Really? Isn't it cheaper to just extinguish the gerbil? Until Al Gore calls for the immediate annihilation of the thundering Mongolian gerbil herds, I'm not listening. Here's my new motto: "Global Warming...it's all the fault of those damn gerbils."


Ahh, the satisfying scratch of useless knowledge. You feel better now, don't you? Bet you go to Wikipedia anyways. It's not my fault it's interesting.

Now, for the last bit of random uselessness.

I've been wondering what is easier to keep clean: a child who is mostly potty trained but still has occasional accidents; or the infant who has a constantly snotty nose and refuses to sit still?

Bub still has enough accidents that I have to be ever vigilant, but I don't have to clean him up very often anymore. Squizzle on the other hand has been fighting a nasty cold for about a week now and the kid is a fountain of boogers. Every time he sneezes he looks like Bill Murray in Ghostbusters.

And while Bub's messes are usually bigger, at least he is cooperative with me(there is a pun there for you Mandarin speakers. Instead of going 1 or 2, kids have to go "little" or "big". C'mon! That was funny! Multi-lingual punning? What is this, Finnegans Wake? I mean really! Where else you gonna get this kind of quality entertainment?).

Squizzles, on the other hand, is a disaster. It's easier to hold the tissue still and let him squirm his face over it instead. The kid hates having his nose wiped. Don't ask me why. You'd think he'd want that stuff off his face, but what do I know? He has reached that wonderful developmental plateau where all he wants to do is move wherever you don't want him to.

You should try to change his diaper. No cooperation, whatsoever. Special Forces POW's don't resist this hard. Not even "name, rank, or serial number". The boy squirms, rolls, twists, and flexes himself into angles that are impossible to clean and re-diaper. I wish to heck that my wrestlers fought this hard to stay off of their backs. The child refuses to lay flat.

Oh, yeah, he's also learned to go up stairs. Not down them though, because that might be useful to me. Instead, he goes up them and then cries till someone brings him back down so he can start the rapid ascent once again.

I weep for the days when my little buddy lay where I set him, would quietly sit on my lap to watch football, and didn't mind getting his diaper changed. He's never liked getting his nose wiped though, so I guess the good old days weren't always the good old days.

Well, the big kids have grown weary of the XBOX, so I guess it's time to go fix lunch.

Merry Christmas all!!