those darn scallywags

what is it with pirates lately (and i'm not talking about the ones found in pittsburgh) arrgh! a 330 meter tanker, thats 1080 feet!, has been hijacked in the high seas. and no one is quite sure where it is! what! that's a big ship and it is carrying 2 million barrels of oil! that's a lot of oil. i suppose the ocean is much bigger than we think it is. in september some 30 crew members of a french luxury yacht had been taken hostage off the coast of somalia. then i read that an additional 30 ships were seized by pirates last year with the guided missile destroyer USS Porter opening fire in order to destroy pirate skiffs tied to a Japanese tanker! how can this be. pirates? it's 2008! what's the matter with this world. and how do you off load 2 million barrels of oil without everyone knowing about it? this is not good. especially since our dear "silver sailors" are about to set upon the mighty seas themselves! let's hope no one is forced to walk the plank and that captain jack sparrow stays in hollywood! scallywag: a villainous or mischievous person thank goodness i only know of a few of these types personally!

if anyone see's this missing hijacked tanker, please dump all pirates overboard and return to the saudi government.

happy birthday gram

when i was young my mother would often gather us around her overstuffed rocking chair and read to us. the words of stickland gillilan are brought to mind:

“you may have tangible wealth untold,
caskets of jewels and coffers of gold,
richer than i you can never be.
i had a mother who read to me.”

one day, my sister cori, came rushing home from the library with a new book she had discovered and was anxious to have mom read it to us. it was an old russian folktale, set in the ukraine many, many years ago. my mother’s voice was melodic and soothing - a wonderful conclusion to a busy day filled with play.

the book, My Mother is the Most Beautiful Woman in the World, tells the story of a small russian girl who becomes separated and lost from her hardworking, round faced mother while harvesting in the wheat fields. the moral of the story follows the russian proverb: “we do not love people because they are beautiful, but they seem beautiful to us because we love them.”

“some people see with their eyes alone. others see with their hearts, too.” my mother taught her children, this important concept of love and I thank her for it.

colorful politics

it has been one of those frustrating days. a lot going on, no apparent success in anything, late nights and early mornings, moths in the pantry, laundry, laundry, laundry and lots of dishes and general grumpiness on my part. and....i am really sick of politics. i believe in passion and am grateful for my right to vote but goodness this is getting ridiculous. but my day was made much better at about 9:50 pm. i turned on the tv for a moment and tuned in just in time to see characters "denny crane" and "alan shore" in the middle of a heated political debate on the pros and cons of mccain vs obama. during the height of the argument "denny" pulled out a paint gun and shot "alan" in the knee with green paint. "alan" then pulled out his gun and shot his friend with pink paint. soon they were both covered in paint. i laughed and laughed and laughed. i wanted to join in the mayhem. don't you feel like hitting somebody or something every once in awhile? is that something i should admit?

(one of my favorite scene out of the movie steel magnolias is when the character played by sally fields screams at the end of her daughter's funeral that she "just wants to hit somebody". the character olympia dukakis offers up shirley maclaine and says "here, hit weezer!" ... i laugh every time.)

in review this just isn't as funny as i perceived it to be. maybe you had to be there. but i am grateful for the relief and a good laugh. i just hope that once this political race is over we don't end up with an extreme left or right government and that family and friends will still talk to each other. on the other hand maybe it would be a good idea to arm ourselves with paint balls or at least arm the congress.