Scattered About

So, our boy is at camp--we brought him up last weekend, we'll pick him up this weekend.  Got an email from the camp folks, saying that, while the rest of the area has no water, the camp still does. Already feeling bad that our boy is at camp during record-breaking heat, though happy I chose for him to be in a cabin rather than tent--the cabins are air-conditioned!

Miss him terribly.  Hope he's having a wonderful time.  Hope they know how to keep him safe in this heat.

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Hubby picked our first cuke today--it's beautiful!

Tasted wonderful!

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Watched a horrifyingly bad movie last night--"Attila" with Gerard Butler as the mighty Hun, Powers Boothe as the Shifty yet strangely noble Roman who . . . well, I won't tell you.  Wouldn't want to give it away.  Such a masterpiece of historical inaccuracy, you're sure to pick it up unless I spoil it for you.  As Mr. Munchkin Troll 2 will rush to let you know in his snotty, humorless, dull-wit way, the world hates a "spoiler."

Yes, that's Alice Krige.  A very young Isla Fisher is featured, too.

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 The class reunion I won't be attending but somehow wound up a committee member?  Disaster, I'm thinking.  The folks doing the "real" work chose a venue so expensive that most of our classmates can't afford it.  Sure, the fancy steak house with the DJ is nice, but most folks need a cheaper option.  22 days out, and only SIX have bought tickets.  There will be a cheap "appetizers only/cash bar" get together the night before, and I'm thinking that's going to be the only draw.  Can't put all the blame on the mostly "haves" who set it all up--had our class officers stepped up and done what they're supposed to do, the rest of us wouldn't have had to blunder in and try to set something up months too late.  If folks'd had more than a few months warning, they might have been able to scrape together the cash.  

Sad days.

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So, our internet crashed for over 12 hours the other night/morning. Lucky us, we can do the whole "mobile hotspot" gig.  Not so lucky?  Our boy didn't realize that eats up data like a piranha eats errant livestock in an old Wild Kingdom installment.  Not understanding the data gig, he went to sleep without turning off the mobile hotspot.  Which catapulted us to 92% of our monthly plan allowance with two weeks still to go.  Hubby called them today,and they agreed to set us up to the next data level for this month, then set us back down at no charge.  Very nice.  Now, let's see if it actually WORKS that way.  

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I'm working on a Zimmerman/Trayvon entry.  Not tonight, though.  I have a dental-related face ache.  

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Caught a bit of the 700 Club the other day.  Listened to Pat Robertson blather on about how "you can't outgive GAWD," but that the solution to bankruptcy is to TITHE.

I kid you not.

Remember that--if you can't make your bills, if you're underwater, struggling, foreclosed upon, just SEND CASH TO PAT ROBERTSON!  Really, because GAWD'll give back "30,60, and 100 fold!"

I'm reminded of when I once worked for "the largest telemarketing firm in the world."  We used to take calls for some now-deceased player, went by the name "The Reverend Ike."  

Now, many years ago, the Reverend Ike was sending out "prayer cows."  Yes, that's what I said. Little fuzzy cardboard holsteins. The point was something like this:  make a call, get a cow (and an envelope full of utterly nutty religious crap), sleep with the cow under your pillow while you pray about your money problems.  Then send the cow back with YOUR MONEY and some ghostie in the sky will return your investment however many fold.

Or instead, you could write your name and prayer on the included "prayer seeds" and "plant" them by mailing them back with twenty bucks (or more) every week for a few weeks until your prayer came true.

Or you could just call and give your money that way, and screw the cash cow and prayer seeds.  

We'd sit on break and compare the calls.  The horror, the heartbreak.  And finally, one night, I broke.  An old woman called and went on and on about how she was putting her trust in the LAWD and REV'REND IKE, utilities be damned!  She was crying, THANKING ME for the opportunity to "do the LAWD'S will." She just KNEW that, by giving the only money she had, the money for her LIGHTS and HEAT, she'd be rewarded.

I was nearly in tears as I made that decision.  The decision to risk my job and stop this poor, deluded woman from freezing to death in the dark.  And yeah, had there been a monitor on the line or a supervisor nearby, I'd have been escorted from the building.

I talked her out of it.  I convinced her that "God" had already given her the money to pay her utilities, and that it would be wrong to NOT do that. 

I had my own "prayer cow."  Wish I knew where it was, I'd love to post a pic.

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And finally . . . Ever been totally haunted by something? Years ago, Hubby and I were out for breakfast with my family when I spotted a guy. A handsome young man, scruffy jaw, sun-browned, green/hazel eyes, hair a very light brown/dark blond, sun-streaked. He had a backpack, and he looked so incredibly familiar, I couldn't take my eyes off him. As he was leaving, he smiled and said hello to me, and I said, "I am so sorry, I know I've been staring--you are so familiar to me, have we met?" He said no, he didn't think so, he wasn't local. Just passing through.  He seemed a little uncomfortable once I said he looked familiar, though he was still very friendly and quick to flash that marvelous smile. I wished him safe, happy travels and obsessed for days. And then I remembered where I'd seen his face before. 

A missing child poster. 

I went nuts searching online until I found his picture. Was it him? I don't know--the age would have been about right, and he looked just like this boy. I didn't notice anything off about his jaw, but he had a scruffy sort of stubble going on. I called about him, reported the possible sighting, but I still don't know if it was him. I wish I'd remembered at the time why he rang bells for me, I'd have known to ask more questions, pay closer attention.

Patrick Shawn Betz

And age-progressed:

REM ain't got NUTHIN' on the Mayans!

So, it's almost the end of the world, huh?  Being the skeptic I am, I can't actually remember what date that's supposed to be because--well, because it's bull, and I don't tend to put a lot of effort into committing bull to memory.  But December, right?  Maybe the 21st, right around the solstice?  Or maybe some other date?  The 12th?  Hell, I don't remember.

What I do remember?  Is being in high school when one of these dippy "end o' the world" things hit.  Pat Robertson blathering about having a heart-to-heart with his deity, who let him know about a war in the Middle East that would begin by the close of 1982, eventually leading to world-wide economic collapse and political upheaval giving rise to "God's Kingdom."  When his dippy prediction failed to materialize, he changed it to 2007.  Again, no joy.  That people still send that charlatan money astounds me. 

Anyway, so there it was, the end of 1982.  New Years Eve.  Last day for the Amazing Mr. Robertson to be right.  Being teenagers, we were thrilling to the idea of an apocalypse.  You know, the same way kids bungee jump and drag race--it's exciting to be scared.  Bio-chemically rewarding.  One of my closest friends (at the time--that ship sank a long, long time ago) and I decided to smoke weed (NOT advocating such things--twas a long time ago and smart wasn't my thing back then) and stay up all night playing five card draw--what better way to go out than playing cards and laughing entirely too much?  Playing poker with Lou (so nicknamed because of a Lynyrd Skynyrd song) was always an adventure in rule bending, misdirection, and plain ol' cheating.  You could always tell a game with Lou--half the danged deck was "wild."  One-eyed Jacks, suicide Kings, twos, nines--she'd call as many "wilds" as she could, and when she still didn't have anything in her hand, she'd pretend she'd also called tens, or fours, or Queens.  Even with her creative methods, I won.  Twelve straight hours of poker, and I won.  The prize?

Her firstborn child. 

No worries, we knew we were kidding.  Or at least I knew we were kidding.  Lou?  Might just have tried to collect if she saw some money in it.

The practical upshot of this trip down memory lane?  GROW UP!  If the world "ends" any time soon, it'll be because of food shortages, overpopulation, and temperature increases, not some God whispering in some con artist's ear.  Heck, even at 17 years old, I knew this sort of thing was a sham--why else play poker for a prize not yet born? 

If you really believe that the world is coming to an end next month, please, I beg you--max your credit cards with cash advances and send the money to ME.  Hey, it doesn't matter, right?  We'll all be dead next month anyway, so why not?  If you believe there's a giant, invisible, rogue planet catapulting our way, just take out a second mortgage, send that my way, too!  And won't you have the last laugh when you're right and I have no use for all that cash?

Yeah.

If you laughed at the Hale-Bopp crowd in 1997, if you pointed and giggled at the Richard Noone doomsday prediction of 2000, if the 2008 debacle of God's Church/Ronald Weinland didn't sway you, then what on earth is wrong with you now?  Some ancient civilization that believed in killing animals and letting blood to appease ghosts in the sky doesn't make a calendar that's FOREVER, and you think that means we're all going to die?  These people used to sacrifice humans when the crops went south, and you want to lend this much weight to a calendar they made?  You think a 1,300-year-old fear of some invisible planet is enough to base a life-plan on?  Why stop there?  Why not embrace all the dippy crap humans believed centuries ago?  You know, like ill humors, comets and eclipses being signs of some deity's displeasure, women's bodies determining the sex of offspring, moles and physical ailments being indicative of witchcraft, little baby girls being born sinful, and holes being drilled into folks' heads to release evil spirits.

Seriously, why not?

Well, because that would be stupid.

Right?

So relax.  The world's not going anywhere next month, we're all going to be paying off those Christmas bills, and that "Fiscal Cliff" is still going to be looming around the corner.  And if that doesn't warm your heart and make you glow with optimism, I don't know what will.

Some Mayan-ish thing I discovered on the craziest anti-Jew/Lizard People/Chemtrail/conspiracy website I've ever seen.

Just a Pat Robertson Quickie

Well, that's it.  We're busted.  The evil atheists really ARE trying to murder Christmas!  How were we exposed?  Just LOOK at the image below!  PROOF!

Not the neighbor of the beast, but the NUMBER of the beast!

I suppose I should apologize for the subject line in this entry.  Nobody really wants to contemplate a Pat Robertson quickie. 

That's all--just a lucky catch on my Facebook feed.  Just in case you're really wondering?  No, we aren't trying to murder Christmas.  We put up a tree, decorate with lights, bake absolutely wonderful and completely SAFE, non-Christmas-murdering cookies for our neighbors.  We exchange gifts, watch "A Christmas Story," and all around enjoy each other. 

We don't summon hell-fire until at least June.  Any earlier would be tres gauche.  ;-)

Just in case you were wondering.