Poor Hello Kitty

My lovely mouthless but still apple-pie-loving friend has hit the news. Devastatingly Handsome woke me up with the news that it has been reported that Hello Kitty is not a cat at all. 

Talk about shocking news. A real crisis to test your worldview. I turned to the computer to see if it could be true and found that like most news, there are several sides to the story. The latest information according to Sanrio says that she is actually "a personification of a cat." Not sure what that means, it sounds a bit like she is a dream, as if she appears in the thought bubble above a cat's head. Or maybe a little girl's. I think I can live with that. 

~ ~ ~

By the way, the smartest Hello Kitty in the world lives in our schoolroom: 

Kosher Gone Krazy

Sometimes at our local Ollie's store I find a product so mind-bogglingly strange I have to have it.

Who on earth decided matzos!?! could become decadent by being dipped in dark chocolate? What was wrong with just dark chocolate covered chocolate? 

Missing User's Guide Needed

So. Devastatingly Handsome knows I am saving my pennies for some sort of new electronic toy: maybe an iTouch or a Samsung Galaxy Player or some sort of tablet. 

Somewhere around 3 or 4 AM, he presented me with a red Galaxy, the phone, though, not the player. The first thing I noticed was the extreme thickness of it ~ about 5/8 of an inch. Then I noticed it was a 64 gb. That seemed to account for the thickness. Then I started looking at the features, like a page of text, top to bottom, left to right.

See, I have often thought cell phones are similar to Swiss Army Knives. You carry just one item around and it handles lots of varied functions. Well, this red Galaxy proves me right. The first three features I came to were ~ and understand, these are not apps but true physical features built into the phone ~ a toothpick in a small sleeve, a tiny hummingbird feeder, and a wee bottle of hand sanitizer. 

At this point I realized it was not the same Galaxy I had looked at on Amazon and Best Buy's sites. I asked Devastatingly if he could pass me the user's guide.

"Um...," he said, "they did not actually put anything like that in the box."

I thought that odd and asked to see the packing materials. He took me to the mudroom and showed me a beat up wooden crate, about 2 feet by 2 feet by 7 feet long that had some big chunks of styrofoam in it and also contained a little wooden box the size two pounds of Velveeta comes in, that held polished stone butterflies about the size of eggs, made of agates and jaspers. But no instruction manual, no charging cords or accessories, no information on returns or customer service. The only paperwork was a receipt, for $86.50. 

Thank you, Devastatingly, for the gift. You get extra points for making sure it was red and for the amazing features. Since I can't make it work, though, I sure hope you can get your money back. And I also wish I had seen the rest of the features before I woke up.

Sword of Damocles

If you don't know it, the story is:

Dionysius (II) was a fourth century B.C. tyrant of Syracuse, a city in Magna Graecia, the Greek area of southern Italy. To all appearances Dionysius was very rich and comfortable, with all the luxuries money could buy, tasteful clothing and jewelry, and delectable food. He even had court flatterers (adsentatores) to inflate his ego. One of these ingratiators was the court sycophant, Damocles. Damocles used to make comments to the king about his wealth and luxurious life. One day when Damocles complimented the tyrant on his abundance and power, Dionysius turned to Damocles and said, "If you think I'm so lucky, how would you like to try out my life?"

Damocles readily agreed, and so Dionysius ordered everything to be prepared for Damocles to experience what life as Dionysius was like. Damocles was enjoying himself immensely... until he noticed a sharp sword hovering over his head, that was suspended from the ceiling by a horse hair. This, the tyrant explained to Damocles, was what life as ruler was really like.

Damocles, alarmed, quickly revised his idea of what made up a good life, and asked to be excused. He then eagerly returned to his poorer, but safer life.

                         ~ synopsis from ancient history at about.com 

And I don't know why, but this story keeps playing through my head. Do you think there is an unseen sword hanging over every head? 

Poetry Hour

This morning in worship I started to notice tiny bits of white falling past me. Most odd. One came by every maybe 20 seconds or so, and then occasionally a group of three or four at a time.

Tiny. 

Random.

And white.

I ran possibilities through my mind. Not snow. We were inside and the day warm and the building tight. Not dandruff, they were falling straight down from above. Was the guy behind me launching some sort of fine cracker crumbs aloft? Or was the sky falling, I wondered, feeling a bit like Chicken Little?

I picked up a tiny crumb and put it on a sheet of note paper and wrote a note to Devastatingly Handsome and passed it down, "Some tiny crumbs keep falling down on me." He read it, motioned at the crumb, and gave me the "you are insane" look.

And still they continued to fall. 

Mr Music told me there was a ladybug crawling on the ceiling. Apparently the painter used the same paint right across the acoustic ceiling tile and the metal support and the paint does not really adhere to the metal. So, if something as rough and tumble as a ladybug crawls across it, it flakes down on the congregants in tiny bits. 

Mystery solved.

Good thing I am not a Scottish poet or I would be writing an ode: To A Ladybug. Because I am easily distracted like that in church (actually, at all times). (apologies for the formatting. Blogger and I are not getting along today. And it is not worth, it, anyhow, just a ramble...)

O Jenny do not toss your head,                   O congregants, do not fear above
And set your beauties all abroad!                 Nor gather plaster in your eyes!You little know what cursed speed                 You little know what crumbs of paint
 The bugger's making!                                  The ladybugs drop down!                  
Those winks and finger-ends, I dread,          Those crumbs and tidbits, I dread,  
Are notice taking!                                        And try not to notice!

O would some Power the good Lord give us  Oh would some Power the good Lord give us
To see ourselves as others see us!                   To pay attention as the sky falls!
It would from many a blunder free us,          It would from many a dropping spare us,
And foolish notion:                                       And foolish notion:
What airs in dress and gait would leave us,   What airs in spots and six small legs,
And even devotion!                                       Spoil my attention!