WanderingAmylessly 2.0

What is Life? (Extract/variation from Hindu Scriptures) Life is Love. Enjoy it. Life is Beauty. Praise it. Life is Spirit. Realize it. Life is Song. Sing it. Life is a Mystery. Unfold it. Life is a Challenge. Meet it. Life is a Goal. Achieve it. Life is an Adventure. Dare it. Life is a Sorrow. Overcome it. Life is a Tragedy. Face it. Life is a Game. Play it. Life is a Duty. Perform it. Life is an Opportunity. Take it. Life is a Struggle. Fight it. Life is a Journey. Complete it. Life is a Puzzle. Solve it. Life is a Promise. Fulfill it.

Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light and where there is sadness, joy. O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; It is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Henry's signing up tomorrow for Tot Soccer, an introduction to the game for 4- and 5-year-olds that promises to teach the basic skills and allow them to play "fun, non-competitive games." We'll see. I envision fistfights. And I'm not talking between the children. "If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning." -- Catherine Aird

In an effort to lighten the mood around here, I've decided to offer an update on my prediction(s) about who will glide to victory and who will clomp around on two left feet on ABC's Dancing with the Stars. Basically, I rock. I should be a TV critic. I should be a sports (?) prognosticator. I should be in Vegas, baby. On Feb. 19, I predicted that the first quazi-celebrity to be ousted from season six of DWTS would be former tennis phenom and unfortunate stabbing victim Monica Seles. The clumsy Yugoslavian proved me right on Tuesday night's results show. In a new twist, TPTB at DWTS (I'm just doing it to annoy you) decided to double the fun and kick to the curb TWO people -- the worst female contestant AND the worst male contestant -- during the first results show. Enter Penn Gilette, who I described (before ever having seen him dance, I'll have you know) as "lumbering." Was I ever spot on. He's outta there, as of last night. One thing I didn't fore...

Henry has a problem focusing on the task at hand. One minute he's doing what he's told -- whether it's putting on his sock, shelving a book or soaping up his little bod in the bathtub. The next minute, he's trying to hang the sock off his ear, using the book as a makeshift sled to slide across the living room floor, or flinging a sopping wet washcloth across the bathroom. What are you doing?! Are you listening?! Is it time to de-wax your ears?! Do you need a time out?! Have you been drinking?! What do they feed you at daycare?! Is your behavior a result of my using the "happy pills" during pregnancy?! These are just a few of the questions that run through my mind on an almost hourly basis. Last night was a classic Henry moment. I was ushering him into the bathroom in an attempt to direct his focus to the current task at hand -- nightly tooth brushing. He was bouncing and flouncing around, arms and legs flailing, blabbering nonsense in a loud high-pitched voice...

Do any of you recall this post about the nutjob I refuse to name and his inbred, heartless followers who pickets funerals of war heroes and school bus crash victims? They're at it again, it seems. According to the local paper's Web site, they have announced that they plan to picket at the funerals of the four young children and their devoted mother who were allegedly beaten to death with baseball bats by their father/husband, who after trying unsuccessfully to asphyxiate himself in his garage and drown himself in the Iowa River, slammed his van into an interstate post with such force it incinerated the vehicle and his body to unidentifiable charred remains, sending him to a fiery hell on Earth. And perhaps beyond. Enough. We've all had enough. Just try to show up and spew your filth in our town, you cultish degenerates. This community is raw, numb, grieving, questioning and searching for humanity. The group claiming to know God's feelings on any number of issues is lit...

Last night, my husband shared with me what he touted as "the best anniversary gift ever" that he'd planned to give to me. He said it would've been the greatest. He even had my parents in on the planning. But it didn't work out. I begged and pleaded and twisted his arm, almost literally, and he finally gave in. What what what what was it?! I wondered. He said, "I was going to bake you a cake." And I laughed. Admit it, you laughed too, right? It's not that I thought he couldn't do it, but he was just so all-out pleased with himself over an idea that I considered, well, not exactly in the realm of all-time best presents, all things considered. Then he explained. "I was going to bake you our wedding cake." And then I wanted to cry. He and my mom had hatched up a plan to contact "Julie the cake lady" and torture the recipe out of her. Spice cake with maple frosting. Best cake I've ever had, especially when you consider the sour...

She was a member of my health club. I didn't put the name with the face in the old photo I saw on TV yesterday until I went to the gym this morning and talked to my classmates. Her children were 10, 7, 5 and 3 -- THREE. Younger than my baby boy. And the rumors of the way they died -- how their husband and father took their lives -- are even more horrible than what we thought yesterday. Too horrific for me to mention here. I heard someone mutter this morning, as I was leaving spin class, "It's a damn sad day in Iowa City." Yes, it is. Senseless. Deplorable. Unspeakable. Sad.

I received three rather disturbing phone calls this morning. The first came at 8 a.m., just after Henry and Tim left for preschool and work. The moment I heard the computerized, automated voice I knew it couldn't be anything good. It was a "HAWK Alert" call, from the University, warning that an "active shooter" was in the immediate area, gave the description of the white male in his 40s and his Toyota minivan and license plate info, and told us to call "nine-hundred-eleven" (computers still aren't very smart, are they) from a safe distance if we saw him. So I'm thinking, Oh my god, my husband and kid are out on the road, going right into what sounds like the thick of the action. I was picturing a lunatic with an Uzi, leaning out his van, mowing people down on street corners. I flipped the TV channels and radio stations. And NO ONE had any news whatsoever. I called Tim. Who hadn't heard anything either. Less than an hour later, though, my mo...

We think our kid is marginally brilliant. Ok, who doesn't feel that way about the tiny recipient of their DNA. We've questioned, recently, whether Henry can actually read but is keeping it from us, pretending to be completely unaware of specific words so that we will continue to read book after book to him in the evening. He does love the books, but he loves not going to bed even more. We've caught him "reading" numerous times. He can tell you the brand of nearly every kind of car on every road and in every parking lot within a 20-mile radius of our house. (Although we acknowledge this is probably more of a memorization and identification of logos than an actual word-recognition accomplishment.) This morning, while I was still lying in bed, he was puttering around in the living room and decided to play Boggle Jr. This game involves looking at a card with a picture and three- or four-letter corresponding word written on it, then spelling out the word using large di...

Technically, today at 5:48 a.m. was the exact moment the Sun was positioned directly over the Earth's equator. Unofficially, it was the point at which the Gods and Goddesses of light, heat, beauty, love, peace, harmony, capri pants and flip flops all rose up in a blaze of glory and sang Alleluia, AMEN! Happy Spring, people. May your snowblowers remain idle and your bulb plants burst forth with a rainbow of blooms. And to the folks at The Weather Channel who seem to think it will snow at least three times in the next seven days, I offer an *obscene finger gesture*.

We're at threat-level orange, at significant risk of attacks. By GERMS. I've Lysol'ed. I've Purell'ed. I've quarantined my husband to bed in a room on the other side of the house from where I'm sleeping. And Henry and I are holding our breaths, or at least breathing cautiously, hoping that whatever flulike creature is attacking Tim does not find either of us the least bit attractive. I see that nearly the entire country has been hit by what public health folks have deemed "widespread outbreaks" of this virus, which manifests itself with sudden onset of chills, aches and high fever. From what I've heard, even if you got a flu vaccine, it may not be effective for this particular strain. Hence, avoiding my beloved like the ever-loving plague. Which of course brings me back to yesterday's post and more word fun. What colorful names were given to a whole host of illnesses back in the day. I've had to look most of them up. Flux = Dysentery or...

We say things. Use words. Casually, in conversation. In jest. As expletives. But have you ever stopped to think: 1) What the devil does that mean, anyway? and 2) Where on Earth did it come from? I generally think about the origin of words only when watching the annual Scripps National Spelling Bee, when every kid approaches the microphone fully intending to inquire as to the specified word's language of origin, definition, and usage in a sentence, in large part, as a stall tactic. However, I have been reading a book based in Europe during the mid 1700s, chronicling the exploits -- military, familial, and otherwise -- of a British Major and Lord, a member of highly respected aristocracy and secretly, as they tend to put it, a sodomite. I know from where that term arises. (A good bit of eye-rolling inserted here.) But several other words have leapt from the page at me, and I have examined them in a new light. One example: How many of you out there have ever called your favorite young...

Colin Farrell. What's the Gaelic for "he's partially responsible for melting the polar ice caps"?

I think there's a wee bit o' the Irish blood runnin' through me veins. Or it might be Scottish. Or it could be both. I'm a proud mutt and will take anyone who'll claim me. The fun thing about St. Patrick's Day (or "Shamrocks Day" as they call it at my kid's oh-so-politically-correct preschool, where they don't celebrate holidays for fear of offending) is that everybody gets to be Irish for a day. The fun Irish -- bagpipes and kilts and limericks and Guinness and U2 and (swoon) Colin Farrell. Not the Potato Famine or mad bombers from the IRA or the seriously unfortunate University of Notre Dame. And if you really want to have some fun today, don't wear green. *Winkwink* To get you in the spirit of the occasion, I stole some verse from the Web and will share it with you. "May your blessings outnumber the shamrocks that grow, and may trouble avoid you wherever you go!" There once was an old man of Esser, Whose knowledge grew lesser a...

Is it any coincidence that, after blogging two days in a row about scandalous sex and high-priced hookers, I had the highest visit count I've recorded in months?! You. You people out there. You know who you are. You're a bunch of perverts. (And my husband would like me to take this opportunity to remind you that I highly exaggerate. Everything. And that he is not one of you people. Despite what I might have led you to believe. He is completely innocent. His halo is quite blinding, I assure you.)

Or, as my husband wondered...how long before she's posing in Playboy? Our latest bit of pernicious pillow talk involved the recent identity-reveal of Eliot "I can't keep it in my pants" Spitzer's girl-for-hire. Ashley Alexandra Dupre, a 22-year-old aspiring musician according to her MySpace page and a scoop in the NY Times. It seems that we are somehow expected to feel sorry for Ms. Dupre, who lamented that she had "slept little since the scandal erupted and was worried about paying the rent on her ninth-floor Manhattan apartment after her boyfriend recently left her." She said she didn't want everyone to think of her as a "monster." Is this the point at which I'm supposed to brush away the tears? I have a bit of unsolicited advice. Put your panties back on, Ash. Find some roommates to help you pay the rent. Get a waitressing job like every other struggling artist out there. And why don't you, while you're at it, try to think ab...

You know you're hard up for romantic pillow talk topics when you're lying in bed at night, chatting up your significant other about, of all things, prostitution. We had a legitimate lead-in: the now-former-New York Governor Eliot Spitzer melodrama, complete with dutiful wife standing by his side as he vaguely admitted doing something shameful that had hurt his family (and did one doozy of a number on his political career...that sound...the whooshwhoosh of a presidential bid flushing right down the can). We went through the basic details, mouths agape with each recited fact (and at several key moments, erupting in an admittedly childish fit of giggles): Eliot patronized a $1,000-an-hour call girl named Ashley (only we had heard her name was "Kristin" and continued to refer to her as "Kristin" by placing our hands in the air and etching quotations in the dark at each mention of her name). Same can be said for our use of his alias, Client 9, as he was known by...

If Iran is next on Bushie's to-attack list, I might not be so quick to judge -- based on what I read of a BBC report today. I learned, through the article, that an Iranian man fighting against deportation from the Netherlands expects to be executed if he is returned to his homeland. Why? He's gay. The man, 19-year-old Mehdi Kazemi, was outed by a former boyfriend who was subsequently executed. It seems that homosexual acts are illegal in the Islamic country. The serious kind of illegal. Deadly illegal. And, for whatever reason, the Dutch government denied Kazemi's application for asylum. He's already been rejected by the UK. It's not looking promising. The article reported that Kazemi believes his life will be in danger not only because of his homosexuality but also because of the extensive media coverage of the case. Based on the number of hits I get a day, I'd say I guess I'm responsible for extending that coverage by at least 40 or so more readers. For th...

I am 52% Evil Genius. Evil courses through my blood. Lies and deceit motivate my evil deeds. Crushing the weaklings and idiots that do nothing but interfere in my doings. Take the Evil Genius Test @ FualiDotCom

I realize this would take at least an act of Congress. An alteration to the documents our forefathers created hundreds of years ago. A fight that would make Roe v. Wade seem like a genteel tea party. But I have a solution to the current dilemma facing democrats as we try to choose between two candidates who seem to be equally popular, in a race that seems to be deteriorating into namecalling, fistfighting and - in one case in February - a rather distasteful stabbing incident. Clinton doesn't want to take a backseat to Obama. And Obama isn't keen on being anyone's second-fiddle. So how about we have CO-presidents? I realize the ramifications. Who would be in charge? Who would have the final say? Where would the buck stop? But ask yourself, how would it be any different than it is right now? With Dubya turning to Uncle Dick for advice, counsel, someone to explain the big words to him? At least with Hillary and Barack, we'd be getting a bit more brains for the buck. Plus, ...

I have an unidentified object in my yard. It's brownish, with bits of tan. I haven't gone out to touch it, but it appears to be somewhat damp. Although I'm not sure what it is, if I had to guess, I'd say it's... BARE GROUND!!!!!!!! It's been so long since I have seen dirt or grass or anything remotely resembling it, I did a double take yesterday when I pulled into the drive and saw the patches of it between piles of icy gray matter in our front yard. It has to be a good sign. I just hope our sump pump keeps doing its thing in our basement, or we'll be swimming up and down the staircase soon. Tomorrow's high: 53 Break out the flip flops and sunscreen. And perhaps the swimsuits.

The bleak economic situation grabbing headlines these days has hit home. Or, rather, the house next door. A story in the campus newspaper yesterday, about how the state is receiving a large grant to prevent cash-strapped people from losing their homes, featured a lovely black-and-white photograph of the house immediately to our west. With a caption about how the sidewalk of the residence remains covered in snow and ice because the house is vacant, because the property has been, yep, exactly. Foreclosed. Tim and I had been wondering for weeks what was up with our neighbors, who moved out in the midst of a rather acrimonious divorce. (Ask us sometime about the pile of broken dishes and smashed computer parts on the back porch.) They tried for several months to sell, but they were asking too much -- in our unsolicited, and highly unqualified, opinion -- and eventually the realty signs came down. The mowing stopped. Then, as snow fell, the pavement remained unshoveled. And now, a red note...

This from the files of "seriously...it can't be true...but is" Falsely accused of kidnapping a 17-year-old girl in Oshkosh, Wis., in November: a previously convicted sex offender, Mr. Pheuk Kue . [ Sheboygan Press , 11-17-07]

She described the amazing events of this year as being "like a Disney movie." As far as I'm concerned, she's definitely an Oscar-caliber star. One day after her Iowa Hawkeyes women's basketball team became co-champs of the Big Ten Conference, Lisa Bluder was named the conference's Coach of the Year. Adding to the warm-and-fuzzy Cinderella story is the fact that it's the first Big Ten title the team has clinched in 10 years. Another milestone, Bluder marked her 500th career victory in February. The feel-good comeback edge to the tale -- last season was Bluder's worst with the Hawkeyes, the only time during her tenure that the team didn't play in the postseason. And here's the nail-biter that makes this all the more sweet -- there was chatter among restless Hawkeye fans (or as much chatter as is generated by women's basketball, which, sadly to say, isn't much) that Bluder's job was on the line. She hadn't netted her team any NCAA ...

As if I haven't said it enough already, I am so COMPLETELY done with winter. Yesterday, we had temps in the 50s, bright sun for much of the day, and a breeze that had that touch of warmth as if to say "I'm spring, and I'm right 'round the bend." And then we had THUNDERSTORMS last night, with glorious lightning flashes that had me giggling like a schoolgirl with her first crush. I lovelovelove the thought of spring showers, warm winds, green grass, budding trees and flowers. Oh glorious day! And then all that rain froze and the snow came. I didn't dare back my car out of the drive for fear it would slide down the hill and become lunch for a hungry plow. Not to mention the fact that someone apparently hit my back fender at some point during the weekend. I got a nasty scrape on the bumper and it was wedged slightly out of place like someone's arm with a shoulder dislocated, but I hip-checked it back into place. I'd like to avoid the auto body shop if ...

Tim and I call it "our" bed. Somehow, "our" seems very populated. Cute. But crowded. Tim has another similar view to share on his blog .