Mike, the headless chicken

Since school gets out on Wednesday, I started looking at interesting “holidays” Al can celebrate to give him something interesting to do during summer vacation. Thursday will be Brother’s Day, and I’m sure Al can think of something nice to do for his big brother.

Friday will be Cookie Monster’s birthday. Actually, it is the birthday of Frank Oz, who has performed Cookie Monster since 1969. Cookie Monster’s own birthday is apparently Nov. 2, but someone with such an appetite probably needs two birthdays a year. (And a friend at church told me the other day how much better it works to serve cookies than cake at a birthday party, at least for people old enough not to want a display of candles.) I think we will need to bake some monster cookies.

As for this weekend, Al is away at a Boy Scout campout, so I didn’t really need to find anything to celebrate. But I couldn’t help being curious about the strange celebration in Fruita, Colorado this weekend, honoring Mike, the Headless Chicken.

From what I have read at a few different websites, it appears to be a true story, however improbable. I’m not sure how much his owners really wanted to honor Mike’s “will to live” and how much they wanted the money they could make off him. But it certainly is an interesting and unusual story, well worth a weekend festival.

So the next time you feel like you are running around like a chicken with its head cut off, take heart. Life goes on. You just might find it hard to do much crowing.

Happy National Chocolate Chip Day!

In case you didn’t already know, today is National Chocolate Chip Day. (According to the National Confectioners Association, both May 15 and August 4 have that distinction. It’s a good enough cause to celebrate twice a year, right?)

In honor of this important holiday, I bought Eggo chocolate chip waffles for my family for breakfast, and chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream for dessert this evening. For myself, I have my usual afternoon snack of Ghirardelli 60% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate Chips and some nuts (today I have walnuts and pecans, because I ran out of almonds).

If you want something different from the usual chocolate chip recipes, there are lots of ways to vary things. There’s always M&M’s, various kinds of nuts, and peanut butter. Sometimes I buy mint chocolate chips or raspberry chocolate chips, but if I don’t have those on hand I can always add mint extract to the cookie batter, or mix in some frozen raspberries. I haven’t tried adding dried cherries, but it sounds like it would taste good.

Now, if you want something really different, check out this page. (Note: it takes a while to load.) Personally I don’t care for the chocolate/bacon combination (I haven’t made my own, but I’ve tasted such products from a gourmet bakery). I don’t think I’d mind the dried crickets, but I’m not going to go buy any. (Not that I have any idea where I’d go to buy them.) I’ve heard of adding chocolate to chili, or chili pepper to chocolate cake, but I haven’t tried them – either as cook or consumer.

If you have any great chocolate chip ideas, please share! I probably won’t try them today – but there’s always August 4.

Awake, my soul

There are many things I like about Easter, but one of the best has to be the glorious music. When I was little, the older children’s choir at our church always sang “In Joseph’s Lovely Garden,” and I always found both the music and words very moving. (Unfortunately, by the time I was old enough for that choir, the music program had changed and that choir no longer existed, so I never got to sing it.)

Once I was old enough to join the adult choir, I got to sing the Hallelujah Chorus for Easter. As the lone high schooler in the group, I struggled to learn the alto part while the adults easily sang through it from many years of practice. Once I had learned it, though, I was disappointed to discover, over the next several years, that most churches do not perform it every Easter, as did the church I grew up in. (Adults in most church choirs seem to consider it too difficult, and I have to admit that in some cases they may be right.)

Even so, there are several wonderful Easter hymns to sing. There are “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today” and “Jesus Christ Is Risen Today,” two hymns by Charles Wesley that are so similar that unless I have a hymnal in front of me I tend to intermix the words and music of both hymns. I never heard “Low in the Grave He Lay” until I was a teenager at a fundamentalist church, and I have to admit that it has never become one of my favorites, but it provides an effective contrast between the disciples’ grief, and the joy of the resurrection, that few other hymns do.

Today, at the early service (I am reluctant to call anything at 7 AM a sunrise service) at the Methodist church, we finished with “Crown Him with Many Crowns.” Like the Hallelujah Chorus, it speaks more to me of Christ’s Lordship over all than specifically of the Resurrection, but if one is fit for Easter then certainly the other is also. What struck me as we sang it this morning, though, was the first half of the third line: “Awake, my soul, and sing.”

What’s merry about Christmas?

I read an interesting essay yesterday by the late Christopher Hitchens, on why he objects to the “forced merriment” of the Christmas season. I agree with him in principle, though I have not experienced the degree of coercion he rails against.

Perhaps he exaggerates for effect. Perhaps his dislike of the religious nature of the holiday colors his perceptions. I don’t recall any “compulsory jollity in the hospitals and clinics and waiting rooms.” But I have heard objections, including from devout Christians, to the monthlong assault on our ears by the seasonal music played at shops, malls, and other public spaces.

I haven’t noticed it much myself. I spent time yesterday in a mall for the first time in months, and if there was music playing I was oblivious to it. Perhaps I tend to tune out piped-in music along with all the rest of the noise that I associate with crowded stores.

I do dislike it when I am expected to act happy when I don’t feel happy. I have never liked it when someone, seeing me walk by with a serious look on my face, says, “Smile!” Whether I was looking serious because I was unhappy or deep in thought, I don’t want to be told how to feel, or at least to pretend that I feel.

Books: A Log Cabin Christmas

I don’t normally read any book identified as a romance. I read some romances when I was a teenager and decided that they were not only a waste of time and money, but probably also an unhealthy form of escapism. I have made a few exceptions, such as the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon, and The Time Traveler’s Wife, and enjoyed them. There are probably some other good romances out there, but there’s too much junk to be worth sorting through.

I learned about A Log Cabin Christmas from the writer of one of the novellas in this collection. I’ve never met Michelle Ule in person, but we’ve communicated by email, as well as interacting in the Community area at WORLD Magazine. I decided that if I could get the book from the library, I’d at least read Michelle’s “Dogtrot Christmas” even if I skipped the rest.

As it happened, I got the book from the library at about the same time as I was trying to find a book to give to a co-worker. A couple dozen of us at work were doing Secret Santas, and I was buying for someone who likes to read “any kind of book.” That should make it easy, but instead I was stumped. If someone reads just about anything, what are the chances I pick out a book she already has? And I couldn’t feel comfortable buying a book I wouldn’t want to read myself.

Then I noticed A Log Cabin Christmas at Walmart. It was unlikely she had read it. It’s Christmas, so that made it a good Christmas gift. And while I don’t know her well, my guess was that a book with a Christian perspective would go over well. But I still wasn’t going to buy the book without having read at least most of it myself.

I had just finished reading The Sparrow (see my post about it from yesterday). The contrast between the two books is striking. They are very different books, with different goals, but I’m afraid most of these romances seemed pretty shallow in comparison. I enjoyed some of the historical detail, and there were a few interesting characters, but not much to make me think.

Fourth Sunday of Advent: Love

Why is it that I have more trouble thinking of something to say about the theme of Love at Christmastime, compared to the previous three Sundays of Advent? It was easy to think of something to say about Hope, Peace, and Joy. But Love? It seems almost trite to say that Christmas is about love.

I try to think of Scriptures related to Jesus’ birth that mention love, and realize that I can’t think of any. The angels talked about joy and about peace, and all the prophecies about the Messiah imply hope. But I can’t think of any that mention love.

Is that because love is so basic to the idea of God that it hardly seems necessary to mention? Is it because, at the time, the events surrounding Jesus’ birth induced feelings of fear and confusion more than love? Is it because the meaning of Jesus’ birth only made sense long afterward?

I’m guessing that Joseph loved Mary, but all Matthew 1 actually says is that he “did not want to expose her to public disgrace.” After the angel appeared to him in a dream, “he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife.” How many women would want to know that their husbands married them because they were commanded to do so? Yet acting out of obedience doesn’t mean one is not also acting out of love.

Giving thanks

My list of things I’m thankful for really doesn’t change much from year to year. At least the big things don’t change – friends, family, church, health, a job, a home to live in, good schools for our sons, and the love and grace of God shown in so many ways.

When I think of what I am thankful for, though, I think also of lots of little things. For instance, this fall as I have been trying to eat more healthy foods, I am thankful for some healthy foods that also taste very good. I have come to enjoy quinoa cooked with chicken broth and mixed with peas, black beans mixed with corn and tomatoes, and blackstrap molasses as an all-purpose sweetener.

I have tried to cut out most of the sugar I had been eating, which means no more hot chocolate mix in my coffee, buying breakfast cereals with a lower sugar content, and no more brown sugar in my oatmeal. I also cut out diet pop and other artificially sweetened beverages, because Dr. Ann (whose book Eat Right for Life I have been trying to follow) points out that artificial sweeteners distort our sense of what tastes sweet. I guess she must be right, because last time I tried blackstrap molasses I didn’t like it at all. Now it tastes good, and I use it on my oatmeal, on my buckwheat pancakes, and in my coffee.

Dr. Ann also advises against eating white potatoes, along with white flour, white sugar, and white rice. But she says sweet potatoes are great, which is good, because I like them just as well as white potatoes. She also recommends that people trying to lose weight avoid dried fruit – with the exception of dried apricots, because they are so very healthy. And I have always loved dried apricots, so I’m glad of a reason to eat more of them.

I’m thankful for my bifocals, and for the low price at Walmart and the employee discount that made my new pair of bifocals affordable (about a fourth of what it would have cost at the clinic where I got my exam and prescription). I had put off getting a new pair, because I remembered how much the old pair had cost (at the clinic), even though that pair was nearly useless. I used a cheap set of reading glasses for the computer and other reading, though even with those I found myself squinting more often in recent months. And as for seeing things in the distance – things were blurrier with the glasses on than without them.

So I wasn’t surprised to find out that I am now slightly farsighted instead of nearsighted. Or that the prescription I needed for reading had changed a lot. What I was surprised was to find out that even bifocals cost less than $100 at Walmart now. I still can’t quite see the eye of a needle (but as someone explained to me how to use one of those wire needle threaders, it’s not a big problem), but I can read the clues to the crossword in the Friday Wall Street Journal without a magnifying glass. And things are nice and clear in the distance.

I’m thankful for the internet, which gives me the opportunity to have this blog, play Scrabble with a friend in Maryland, read the news from a number of sources, keep in touch with my sister by email, and look up all sorts of information. This week, for example, I found a recipe for a (relatively) healthy pumpkin pie, with no fat except in the eggs, the chopped nuts in the crumb crust, and the canola oil that I used in the crust in place of butter or margarine. I also cut down on the brown sugar (and used blackstrap molasses!), so it isn’t as sweet but still tastes quite good.

I am thankful for silence, when I can have it. One of the Plinky prompts this week asked, “Does silence make you uncomfortable?” I was going to answer, “Not at all! I love silence.” But my husband was listening to something on his computer (I don’t remember whether it was Rush Limbaugh, a TV show, or just some of his favorite music. And I find it hard to blog when I don’t have quiet to let my thoughts flow. I can faintly hear the washing machine downstairs, and the sound of the keyboard as I type, and the faint whir of the ceiling fan. But it’s pretty quiet right now.

Those are the kinds of things it’s easy to be thankful for. This column reminds us to be thankful for difficulties as well, because of what they teach us, and because they make us stronger. I do try to take that attitude toward difficulties when I am facing them. But when I sit down to list what I am thankful for, somehow those don’t seem to come to mind so quickly.

And because I am likely to miss some important things when I do try to list what I am thankful for, it is good to be able to borrow words others have written. For our prayer before dinner today, I printed out this thanksgiving litany from the Book of Common Prayer (another handy use of the internet, since I don’t own a copy of that book). And that’s one more thing I’m thankful for – books in general, whether for entertainment or education, but especially those that pass on wisdom that has stood the test of time.

Al the Ent

Treebeard might not have recognized this tree-like figure as a fellow Ent, but CGI only works in movies, not Halloween costumes. Most people complimented Al on the excellent tree costume – somewhat to his dismay, as no one seemed to recognize that he was a tree-person, not a tree.

I looked at pictures I found online of Ent costumes other people had made, and among the relatively few I found, there was a wide variety in how people went about it. I even looked on sites that sell costumes of characters from Lord of the Rings, and there weren’t any Ent costumes (not that I could have afforded to buy one – I was just looking for ideas).

Fortunately it’s not too hard to make a costume that most people will recognize as a tree, even if I couldn’t find a way to make it look more Ent-ish. I suppose a couple of young Hobbits perched on the Ent’s shoulders might have helped, but making a recognizable Hobbit figure would probably have been at least as difficult as making a recognizable Ent.

 

What the camera can’t capture

Yesterday I got to do something I hadn’t been able to do for a few years – sit and watch the July 4th parade. When my son was a Cub Scout, I always had to walk with him and his pack, helping hand out ice pops to the Scouts to hand out to the children along the parade route. Now that he is a Boy Scout in a troop that does not walk in the parade (only one troop in town was in yesterday’s parade, and that was the one sponsored by the Salvation Army, which always has a significant presence in the parade), we got to sit (in the shade!) and watch the parade go by.

I tried to take lots of pictures, but there’s a lot that the camera can’t capture. It can’t capture the sense of being part of something important as everyone gets out of their lawn chairs and camp chairs when the color guard approaches with the American flag. (Besides, taking a picture at that moment didn’t seem like a good way to show my son how to honor the flag.) It can’t capture – at least not effectively – the exuberance of the Liberian immigrants who as much danced as walked in the parade, showing how glad they are to be living in the United States.

In a narrow one-way street (though I found it amusing to see in my photos a ONE WAY sign clearly pointing in the opposite direction from the parade’s movement), I couldn’t back up far enough to get good wide-angle shots without having trees and spectators block my view. And there was just no way to get a shot that showed all of the Kraken’s enormous body, pulled on a trailer by the Search & Rescue team. (If you missed my earlier post about the Monster of Muscatine, we have a large pink visitor in town, recently seen in the library’s upper story and then on top of the drugstore.)

There were a lot of floats, most of them depicting Abraham Lincoln and cannons (and stacks of cannonballs, presumably round black balloons). I had assumed that the theme for this year’s parade must have something to do with the Sesquicentennial, but then along came a float decorated as a gigantic pool table (representing, naturally, a local pool hall). The balls appear to be soccer balls (volleyballs?) painted to look like billiard balls. I did my best to get some shots of the guys who walked alongside taking shots with their cue sticks, but I would have had to be at a second story window with a really good zoom lens to get the most effective (camera) shot.

There were people who must have been getting very hot, especially the one in the Dalmatian costume (advertising Happy Joe’s Pizza), and another dressed as a turtle. Then there were those who probably stayed a lot cooler – and very wet. They were part of a float for a local construction company, demonstrating that their roofing materials could handle a lot of water. I decided that my camera would not like to get close enough to them to get a good picture.

Sometimes, when the gap between groups extended over a block, I sat and watched the other people watching the parade. The children all seemed to be having a great time – except when candy was thrown nearby and they didn’t get any. I tried to remember back to parades during my childhood, and what I thought about as the parade went by. Did I have any idea what it meant to celebrate the freedom we enjoy in the United States? I remember having a small flag to wave – did I have any idea what it meant? Do these children? (Do their parents?)

The climax of any town’s July 4th celebration is the fireworks, and dusk (the officially designated starting time) found us, as usual, sitting at the riverfront, waiting. I had taken the trouble to look up the definition of dusk and the time it would come, but as usual the fireworks didn’t start for at least another twenty minutes. I don’t get down to the riverfront all that often, but I don’t think there’s any time I’ve been there that it’s quite as crowded as July 4th, and as full of children running carefree (some of them having a great time getting wet in the fountain). You read about how parents are so overprotective of children these days, but I didn’t see much of that - perhaps the overprotective ones stay home.

My son, as usual, pronounced these the best fireworks he’s ever seen. He wasn’t sure whether beautiful was the right word for them, or just pretty, but they certainly were fun to watch. Even more fun, I discovered, to realize that I could take pictures of them by setting my camera to video mode, then later extract the frames I liked best. These fall far short of the impressive display we saw in person, but I did find satisfaction in getting the colored reflection on the river.  

Tie-dyed eggs

Yesterday morning in Sunday School, someone asked the origin of the word Easter. I have read that it is the Teutonic goddess of dawn, Eostare, or the Norse/Saxon goddess of spring, Ostara. Or maybe it was the Babylonian goddess Ishtar,  the Phoenician goddess Astarte, or the Canaanite goddess Ashtoreth.

The only name I could remember at the moment was Astarte, but I did point out that it was a pagan goddess. Also that I just read a couple of days ago that English is one of the very few languages that calls the holiday by a name derived from a fertility goddess. Most European languages use a name derived from the Hebrew or Latin word for Passover.

And that led to a brief discussion of whether it is appropriate for Christians to include Easter eggs — or bunnies — in their holiday celebrations. (Or, similarly, to have Christmas trees at Christmas.) We didn’t try to resolve the issue, just to share experiences and impressions, before going on to the lesson for the day, on the resurrection of Jesus.

I’ve always heard that Easter eggs have pagan origins, but I went online to see if I could find out more. To my surprise, while most websites mentioned the pagan origins, some pointed out that there is actually no clear evidence that this is the case. I have read what I find fairly convincing evidence that the origins of modern Halloween activities do not have the kind of pagan origins often attributed to them by some Christians. Could the same be true of Easter eggs?