It's been years since I first saw the following, I still think it's about the funniest thing ever sent to me in email... so I'm sharing it with you. Laws Concerning Food and Drink;
Household Principles;
Lamentations of the Father
by Ian Frazier
OF the beasts of the field, and of the fishes of the sea, and of all foods that are acceptable in my sight you may eat, but not in the living room.
Of the hoofed animals, broiled or ground into burgers, you may eat, but not in the living room.
Of the cloven-hoofed animal, plain or with cheese, you may eat, but not in the living room.
Of the cereal grains, of the corn and of the wheat and of the oats, and of all the cereals that are of bright color and unknown provenance you may eat, but not in the living room.
Of the quiescently frozen dessert and of all frozen after-meal treats you may eat, but absolutely not in the living room.
Of the juices and other beverages, yes, even of those in sippy-cups, you may drink, but not in the living room, neither may you carry such therein.
Indeed, when you reach the place where the living room carpet begins, of any food or beverage there you may not eat, neither may you drink.
But if you are sick, and are lying down and watching something, then may you eat in the living room.
Laws When at Table
And if you are seated in your high chair, or in a chair such as a greater person might use, keep your legs and feet below you as they were.
Neither raise up your knees, nor place your feet upon the table, for that is an abomination to me.
Yes, even when you have an interesting bandage to show, your feet upon the table are an abomination, and worthy of rebuke.
Drink your milk as it is given you, neither use on it any utensils, nor fork, nor knife, nor spoon, for that is not what they are for; if you will dip your blocks in the milk, and lick it off, you will be sent away.
When you have drunk, let the empty cup then remain upon the table, and do not bite it upon its edge and by your teeth hold it to your face in order to make noises in it sounding like a duck; for you will be sent away.
When you chew your food, keep your mouth closed until you have swallowed, and do not open it to show your brother or your sister what is within; I say to you, do not so, even if your brother or your sister has done the same to you.
Eat your food only; do not eat that which is not food; neither seize the table between your jaws, nor use the raiment of the table to wipe your lips.
I say again to you, do not touch it, but leave it as it is. And though your stick of carrot does indeed resemble a marker, draw not with it upon the table, even in pretend, for we do not do that, that is why.
And though the pieces of broccoli are very like small trees, do not stand them upright to make a forest, because we do not do that, that is why.
Sit just as I have told you, and do not lean to one side or the other, nor slide down until you are nearly slid away.
Heed me; for if you sit like that, your hair will go into the syrup.
And now behold, even as I have said, it has come to pass.
Laws Pertaining to Dessert
For we judge between the plate that is unclean and the plate that is clean, saying first, if the plate is clean, then you shall have dessert.
But of the unclean plate, the laws are these:
If you have eaten most of your meat, and two bites of your peas with each bite consisting of not less than three peas each, or in total six peas, eaten where I can see, and you have also eaten enough of your potatoes to fill two forks, both forkfuls eaten where I can see, then you shall have dessert. But if you eat a lesser number of peas, and yet you eat the potatoes, still you shall not have dessert; and if you eat the peas, yet leave the potatoes uneaten, you shall not have dessert, no, not even a small portion thereof. And if you try to deceive by moving the potatoes or peas around with a fork, that it may appear you have eaten what you have not, you will fall into iniquity. And I will know, and you shall have no dessert.
On Screaming
Do not scream; for it is as if you scream all the time.
If you are given a plate on which two foods you do not wish to touch each other are touching each other, your voice rises up even to the ceiling, while you point to the offense with the finger of your right hand; but I say to you, scream not, only remonstrate gently with the server, that the server may correct the fault.
Likewise if you receive a portion of fish from which every piece of herbal seasoning has not been scraped off, and the herbal seasoning is loathsome to you, and steeped in vileness, again I say, refrain from screaming.
Though the vileness overwhelm you, and cause you a faint unto death, make not that sound from within your throat, neither cover your face, nor press your fingers to your nose.
For even now I have made the fish as it should be; behold, I eat of it myself, yet do not die.
Concerning Face and Hands
Cast your countenance upward to the light, and lift your eyes to the hills, that I may more easily wash you off.
For the stains are upon you; even to the very back of your head, there is rice thereon.
And in the breast pocket of your garment, and upon the tie of your shoe, rice and other fragments are distributed in a manner wonderful to see.
Only hold yourself still; hold still, I say.
Give each finger in its turn for my examination thereof, and also each thumb.
Lo, how iniquitous they appear.
What I do is as it must be; and you shall not go hence until I have done.
Various Other Laws, Statutes, and Ordinances
Bite not, lest you be cast into quiet time. Neither drink of your own bath water, nor of bath water of any kind; nor rub your feet on bread, even if it be in the package; nor rub yourself against cars, nor against any building; nor eat sand.
Leave the cat alone, for what has the cat done, that you should so afflict it with tape? And hum not that humming in your nose as I read, nor stand between the light and the book. Indeed, you will drive me to madness. Nor forget what I said about the tape.
Complaints and Lamentations
O my children, you are disobedient.
For when I tell you what you must do, you argue and dispute hotly even to the littlest detail; and when I do not accede, you cry out, and hit and kick.
Yes, and even sometimes do you spit, and shout "stupid-head" and other blasphemies, and hit and kick the wall and the molding thereof when you are sent to the corner.
And though the law teaches that no one shall be sent to the corner for more minutes than he has years of age, yet I would leave you there all day, so mighty am I in anger.
But upon being sent to the corner you ask straightaway, "Can I come out?" and I reply, "No, you may not come out." And again you ask, and again I give the same reply.
But when you ask again a third time, then you may come out.
Knowing At All
I had an interesting experience the other day. I had the vague notion that I had written a blog on a particular topic, but I couldn't remember how long ago that might have been. So I started scrolling back through my Xanga posts in search. As it turns out, I didn't find the one I was looking for, but I found interesting patterns in my blogs that I hadn't been aware existed.
When I think of my Xanga blogs, my perception is that they are mostly about my kids and family with a few philosophical musings tossed in occasionally when I want to give my sister a headache. I discovered that I have written far less about my kids than I thought. (Not from their failure to provide material I assure you.)
So imagine my surprise when I realized that I've written dozens and dozens of blogs on the concept of knowing. What do you know? What do I know? Who do you know? How is it that we ever know anything? Can we ever know another person? Is what we think we know real?
Last night I watched A Beautiful Mind for the first time. I may have to watch it again, and again. That film asks a lot of the same questions I ask. How do we know anything? How do we know that what we know is real? Whether or not it's real does our knowledge have value? John Nash is a brilliant man, his Nash equillibrium is amazing for its simplicity and its analytical power. He deserved his Nobel prize for a truly original idea that has transformed our ability to understand the behavior of economic groups, political bodies, criminal behavior, models of evolutionary biology, and who gets the girl in the bar.
John Nash also suffers from schizophrenia. Ron Howard did a masterful job of pulling us into Nash's world. So when he revealed that some of the people who were most important to Nash's life were not real, we experienced disorientation, confusion, and loss. We can never understand another person, because in spite of the aphorism, we can never walk in his shoes. Our circumstances will never be identical to his circumstances. Our desires, passions, dreams and impulses will never be his. But, through this movie more than any other I've ever seen, we get a glimpse inside the beautiful and terrible reality of a splintered mind.
When the film ended, I was left again wondering, what is real? How can we know that anything is real? Nash talked about the need to judge by empirical data, but he found empirical data searching through popular magazines and newspapers to support his delusion of a Russian conspiracy. The pattern was real. Was the pattern significant? Does the existence of a pattern necessitate that the pattern has meaning?
Even if we know something, what does it mean? In a scene I particularly liked Dr. Nash writes an equation on the board and tells the class that some of them will work on it all year before they solve it, and that some of them will work for the rest of the term of their natural lives. Near the end of the story, Nash is still working on an equation that has ocupied him for decades.
I may never solve the equation. To be a fulfilled person, I don't think I have to solve it, I just have to consider it from as many angles as I'm capable and solve what variables I can. In another marvelous scene Alicia (the future Mrs. Nash) brings her work in and tells him that she's solved it. He looks it over and pronouces "elegant, but ultimately incorrect." Every now and then I run across some author or another who claims to have solved one or more of the problems that I call the "Big Questions" - where did we come from, how does the mind work, what is the substance of consciousness, to what extent does any given effect relate to a specific cause, what is the ultimate nature of the universe, what is the ultimate nature of man, is there any significance to history?
In almost every instance I recognize that there are variables that the author has failed to consider. The answer may be elegant, but it is ultimately incomplete. Dr. Nash tells Alicia, "I never said the variables were rational." One of the limitations of science is it's need to see the variables as rational. But throw in even one variable that can be demonstrated to perform irrationally and the whole ball of wax begins to melt in theory after theory after theory.
Does this mean that science is of no value? Absolutely not. We may not know all, and we may never know with certainty, but we can develop models that give us a handle on our world. Newtonian phsyics were overthrown by Einstein and relativity theory. But phsyicists still use newtonian equations because even knowing that the model is flawed, we still know that on many levels, it works.
Nash realized that his mind was flawed. If the story were fiction, it would be denounced from all quarters of psychiatry because Nash decides to "ignore" his delusions and grasp the reality he's been given, and it seems to work. He never, even with medication is able to make the hallucinations vanish, but in a way, his awareness that his perception of reality is flawed makes him less brittle, more brilliant. He shifts from a determination to know it all, to a hope that he may know at all.
The town has a dragon in its midst. Most of the citizens don't have eyes to see it sleeping there. Only those with mythic vision know and they can't resist being drawn toward it in fascination.
A yawning mouth - less a gate than a challenge. Waves of heat undulating, baking skin even as it pulls the mesmerized toward it. A glow so bright that all color is extinguished in flame - in which the elements of the earth cry and are reborn.
The dragon is groomed by humans. The men use medieval instruments - iron ladles I could barely lift, sooty prongs that look like the pitchforks of Hell's oft charicatured denizens.
This is a place of the ancients weaving alchemical secrets, their spells influenced by arcane variables such the innate strength of the vessels holding the potion and whether last night's rain storm included lightning. The end of the suffering births a product of beauty with the power to transform light into dreams and color into raw emotion.
The Kokomo Opalescent Glass factory is worth a visit. Can you tell I'm ensorceled by glass? I can't think of anything more magical, mysterious, or incomprehensible than that ordinary sand can be transformed by fire and breath into liquid light.
Dan was a wonderful host and tour guide, I can't think of when I've enjoyed myself more, and not just me - the whole family. The kids played in the McDonald's playland while Tim, Dan and I talked. It was wonderful - adult conversation at its finest. Politics, technology, the philosophy of value, art, and the SIMS. All the way home the kids kept talking about the "next time" we go to Kokomo. (They think that "next time" we should stay two nights.)
We went to the Sycamore Grill for lunch (McDonald's is okay for the playland - but please, don't make me eat there!) We were seated where we could look at the magnificient glass window that I posted in my log on Friday. Rhododendron is 9 feet tall and 5 feet wide. It was constucted in five layers so that it possesses remarkable color and depth. It must be seen to be believed. We were blessed that the restaurant wasn't especting many people so they only had one waitress and one cook on hand. We were able to gaze at the window for two hours without the staff resenting our malingering - we were actually thanked for our patience.
Number one bonehead thing I did - I carried my camera all day long and got NO PICTURES OF US. "Next time" I'll do better.
We're Gonna Go to Kokomo!
Dan has posted a delightful puzzle that uses words related to Quiltnmomi and Daffodilious. I can't think of anything more delightful than to be the subject of Dan's artistic attentions. If you haven't checked out his site before, you are missing a real treat.
Dan does things with and to words that leave me in awe. So imagine how I'm rehearsing over and over the words I might speak to him tomorrow - because I get to actually meet him. Is that cool or what! I've talked to people that I've met through Xanga via email, instant message, and on the phone. I've communicated with some of you through snail mail. I wear with pride the label "Daffodilious' First Xanga Stalker" which I earned through resourceful use of a potholder. Now I get to meet a real live Xangan in . . . real life.
As soon as Tim gets home, we are headed to Kokomo to tour the Kokomo Opalescent Glass Factory. This has been on my list of things I want to do ever since we moved to Indiana and I read the touristy pamphlets about things we can do here. For once in my life, laziness and procrastination have rewarded me well. 
It's Friday, and as you start your weekend, I offer this prayer that over the next 48 hours you will experience peace, laughter, and the beauty that we all need to re-create our soul for the coming days.
Did you ever play Moonopoly with little kids? A 5 year old and an 8 year old. Did you ever try to explain the concept of value to a child who wants to give his brother Pennsylvania Avenue (giving his brother a Monopoly on the greens) in exchange for St. Charles Place (no Monoploy in sight there) because he likes that color better.
Did you ever come back from the bathroom to find that they had decided that they should be allowed to have big red "barns" on their property because they are country kids, and everyone knows that country kids put up barns on their property?
Did you ever REALLY wish that your husband would come home from that business trip because you told the kids that if you had to play one more round of Candyland you were going to scream things that would make them need therapy NOW so they picked Monopoly instead?
Well, did you?
(PS - I never liked Monopoly to begin with. Why oh why couldn't my kids be interested in playing Risk! Risk is fun. In Risk, I marshal all my forces and approach my neighbors with truth and light. When they respond to my ideas and political plans - they convert to my color. No death - no destruction. Just happy little people. Lots and lots of happy little people.)
Living Free
Tim is out of town. His company sent him to Baltimore on Monday, and he doesn't get home until tomorrow. The kids and I live in a strange sort of zone out of time when he's gone. We don't watch tv apart from the occasional lapse into PBS kids' programming. Kids' programming repeats shows during hte day, and we are fortunate to live where we receive both Kentucky and Indiana PBS stations, so even the tv guide fails us as a standard for measuring time. Without dad's homecoming to signal dinnertime, we eat when we are hungry (or when Michael has found a new recipe to try.)
For this week we are living free. We don't have to contend with biological instincts for survival - we are already living comfortably. We don't have to contend with societal pressures to conform to any one else's idea of right, wrong, good, or evil - we aren't meeting society to be judged by it. If there is such a thing as freedom, we are in a prime position to exercise it.
There are some limits to the freedom I allow the kids - they don't have complete freedom of the house, I reserve private corners for myself. They don't have complete freedom over their time - I insist that they do "school" each day. But, I've tried a bit of an experiment this week in our school. I've made a list on the white board fo the tasks each child has to complete for the day - and I've given them freedom to determine the roder in which the tasks will be undertaken. Michael usually goes straight to math, Tucker starts with art.
When we are hungry, I set a meal out, but I don't tell them in what order or even that they must eat the food. (There is no other food they can choose, but for this week anyway, I'm allowing them to choose not to eat rather than insisting that they eat so many bites of this or that in an attempt to ensure proper nutrition.) Michael generally starts with potatoes, rice or pasta. Tucker looks for a carbohydrate - he loves carrots, applesauce, sugar peas. But, I've noticed that once they eat their favorite food - their hunger directs them to eat their second favorite and on down the line. So in spite of my lax parenting, it doesn't look like either child is in danger of scurvy.
Each of us have implacable limits set upon our freedom. We cannot choose to go back and take another path through yesterday. We can choose not to eat, but if we do so our body will not perform well, and if we continue to refuse food, eventually we will die. I notice that when I read the work of persons who deny freewill (philosophical determinists, or theological predestinationists), they point to these limits as though any limitation on freewill is tantamount to proof that there is no such thing as free will. On the other hand there are those who write in defense of freewill who suggest that we are free at any time to trangress any barrier, and I find this silly as well.
Real freedom is indissolubly linked to real responsibility. I may try to duck responsibiity and in the case of socially dictated limitation I may succeed in avoiding the penalty. (I'm free to ignore the speed limit, and I have a high probability of "getting away" with this behavior more often then I'm penalized for it.)
Metaphysical responsibility may not be avoided - ever. Once I have chosen to spend my time in pursuit A, I may not later choose to spend that time in pursuit B. Does that make my choice of A rather than B less "real?" Or from the theological side of the argument I'll pull an image from the Bible. We are depicted as G-d's sheep (no great compliment to sheep). The Shepherd cares for us and brings us to good pasture. I know people who spend a lot of time worrying whether they are in the center of G-d's will. Frankly, I think they miss the point. G-d's will is that I eat from His good pasture, I don't think He cares which blade of grass I eat, or which mouthful of water I drink.
Within any pasture there are good, better and best choices. There may even be some bad choices. I might unwisely choose to eat too much grass, to drown in the stream, or to spend my day tormenting the other sheep. While I've been enjoying my liberty to pondering about freedom this week, Tim has been working within an entirely different pasture. He tells me that not far from where he is working, the FBI raided an apartment and found material evidence that some people were planning a terror attack. They have the freedom to make this choice. But they are failing to account for two variables in this pasture. 1) the other sheep don't appreciate being tormented and are likely to resist, 2) they have no inalienable right to impede the pursuit of happiness of other sheep.
Red is for Blood
Of Patriots who Died
to Free us
White is for Justice
and Government of Law
Blue is for Honor
and Faith in all we do
This is our Flag
This is Old Glory
And it represents
the Spirit of America
Unbowed and Unbroken
When I was a teen, patriotism struck me as odd and perhaps even embarrassing. At that time the American flag made me think of Vietnam, Watergate, broken promises, and global interference with the governments and policies of other people. I wasn't impressed, and I felt a great need to apologize to the world - we aren't all like this!
Now I look back on my adult years, and I'm not sure when the change took place. It could be when I started reading history. Or maybe it was when I started seeing things less in black and white and more in shades of gray. Now when I look at the flag it symbolizes for me the ideals that we set for ourselves. The fact that we don't reach the ideal doesn't make it a less worthy goal.
Past
Freedom is bought with blood
I will remember the river shed.
Future
Justice under Law is the goal
I will work to make it so.
Present
Honor and Faith are my currency
I will pay my debts with pride.
What do you think when you see the flag?
Like many other Americans I'm remembering where I was a year ago when I first heard about the events taking place in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. I'm thinking about the lives lost, and the lives changed as a result of that day. My children were so young that they still don't understand what happened. They've been asking me questions. After 365 days, I still have no answers.
Whooo Hoooo! You guys are fun! I'm not sure who the dead on the head 10,000th visitor was. But, as I reconstruct yesterday, it seems that SisterCTR and MyKidzMomZAPotHead (did I spell that right) were here within 2 hits of the magic number. So if you'll email me your address, I will send each of you a potholder (it may take a few days to get them in the mail, I'm going to have to make more than I had planned. LOL)
In addition, I know there were other people who dropped in more than once yesterday to join the ride.
Phew dawgs! Boy, this has been fun. We’re a bunch of friends piled into the back of an old pickup truck, flying down the dirt road, leaning in trying to get a good look at the odometer as she turns over. SisterCTR |
I think it's only reasonable that there should be some kind of acknowledgment for you guys, after all if there hadn't been 9,999 there wouldn't be 10,000. So I'm looking now for a suitable graphic. I'll be back later to actually write something for today. Or maybe I'll just take a quiz. 
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