Surely, It Stinketh

Thing #111: Maintaining the refrigerator is an important, yet trying task.

My wife left me in charge of defrosting the freezer and cleaning out the old leftovers in our refrigerator. The trouble is, our freezer door is broken in such a way that it doesn't close properly and has been known to leap out at unsuspecting victims (a.k.a. my wife) who then ask me to get food out of it so as to avoid another attack. I'm good at catching it. The problem with having a door like this (other than a good scare from it flying at your face) is that frost quickly builds up on edge of the freezer until it starts to look like what I see out my window from around December to March or April, snow covered hills.

It was a valiant effort. I didn't realize you could sweat while working in a freezer, but apparently you can, or at least, I can. After blow drying, chipping, and pounding my way through this, I moved on to the simple task of emptying out leftovers (and by simple, I mean gross). We're actually pretty good about getting rid of left-overs in a timely fashion, but this is the time when the ones that got lost in the back turn up.

As I prepared to open the first container, I was reminded of a Bible story. Yes, you heard that right. If you remember, when Jesus is about to raise Lazarus from the dead, Martha protest. She points out that he's been dead four days and surely it stinketh (in the KJV). Some part of me was similarly saying, "It's been in there X number of days! Surely it stinketh!" I persevered, doing my best not to breathe through my nose. Now, I just have to make certain everything got back in the fridge. Maybe later I'll tell you about my new theory on balloons.

Kiwifruit

A Papal Mess

Thing #106: There are endless possibilities for misusing the word "papal."

I started thinking about this recently when the Pope visited the United States. During the intense (okay, so intense and papal visit don't quite go together) news coverage the term Papal mass kept coming up. Of course, as everyone knows, this comes from the terms, mass, meaning a Catholic service, and papal, a term which encompasses all thing pope. It a Catholic service done by the Pope.

This however was not my first thought. My first thought was that it sounds like something the doctor would find during a routine exam. "Well, once we remove the papal mass from your side you should be fine." Unfortunately it didn't stop there. Here's the short list.

Papal Mass (alt.) - A unit of measurement based on the physical density of the Pope (or papal density).
Papal Mess - What happens when the Pope forgets to put the top on the blender before starting it.
Papal Miss - What you get when the Catholic Church finally allows the Pope to get married.
Papal Moss - What happens when the Pope lies still in the forest too long and lichen begins to grow on him.
Papal Mist - The Pope's own brand of lemon-lime soda.
Papal Mast - Part of the Pope's boat.

This is what happens when I spend too long in a car by myself. So remember kids, don't ever get a job that requires you to drive a lot and if you are lost in the forest moss always grows on the north side of the Pope.

Kiwifruit

Living Up to the Name

There's a reason they call them "Exhaustive Concordances." Try lugging one around for a while. Oh, well, it gets the job done.

Flaming Kiwifruit.

A Song Quote

There are two great lies that i’ve heard/“The day you eat of the fruit of that tree, you will not surely die”/And that Jesus Christ was a white, middle-class republican/And if you wanna be saved you have to learn to be like Him. - Derek Webb, "A Kingdom and a King"

Okay, so I already knew that, but I hadn't heard it so eloqently put. Just some food for thought. And a good chance to quote a song line, which I already love to do.

Flaming Kiwifruit.

Christmas Will Never Be the Same

Somethings don't work at the last moment.

For instance: I went back to my parent's church today. We just got back from Florida and haven't been around much in the last 3 or4 months. So, imagine my surprise when I find out that my sister and I are supposed to be Mary and Joseph in thier Christmas thing tonight. Aside from the general weirdness of the whole situation and the fact that as hard as we tried we could not get out of it, this wasn't a normal Christmas thing.

You see the whole program involved people getting up and singing with the Christmas story being read inbetween. In fact, Rachel and I were to do the opening song, thus requirking us to get in costume after it. Well, naturally you might think, "Why do you even need Mary and Joseph in this sort of thing?" We're still wondering that.

So, after the song, we hurried away to wrap sheets around ourselves in a biblical type manner. Granted I had no clue how to do this. So I stood around the back room off to the side of the sanctuary, where I found an answering machine. Being the curious, but not so sensible person I am I hit the play button, while Rachel was getting her outfit ready.

It was loud . . . I had no way to turn it off . . .

So, I did what any sensible person would. I flipped it upside down so the speaker would be muffled by the floor. What followed was a freindly electronic voice repeating, "Message deleted" over and over again. At this point Rachel pointed out that I was probably deleting all the messages left for the church. So I unplugged the thing. As far as I know it is still unplugged.

Then our cue came. Unfortunately Rachel had mixed-up the rope for our waists and I am considerably bigger than her. So, I couldn't breathe. In addition I almost tripped coming out, while Rachel tried desperately to hold back her amusement with the whole situation. After this we proceeded to do exactly what we were instructed to do.

We sat.

That was it. I dutifully watched the rest of the program while on the verge of passing out from the restrictive belt and trying unsuccessfully to cover my khakis with the sheet. On the plus side, the program actually only lasted an hour and there was food afterwards.

Also, Marion Hodges brought a hammered dulcimer which sounded stupendous. I even got to play a little afterwards, picking out the melody to "Dust in the Wind" on it. It was an interesting night.

Flaming Kiwifruit