What I get in my email

from parishioners....

This is how it all began!

In ancient Israel, it came to pass that a trader by the name of Abraham Com did take unto himself a young wife by the name of Dot. And Dot Com was a comely woman, broad of shoulder and long of leg. Indeed, she was often called Amazon Dot Com.

And she said unto Abraham, her husband, "Why dost thou travel so far from town to town with thy goods when thou canst trade without ever leaving thy tent?"

And Abraham did look at her as though she were several saddle bags short of a camel load, but simply said, "How, dear?"

And Dot replied, "I will place drums in all the towns and drums in between to send messages saying what you have for sale, and they will reply telling you who hath the best price. And the sale can be made on the drums and delivery made by Uriah's Pony Stable (UPS)."

Abraham thought long and decided he would let Dot have her way with the drums. And the drums rang out and were an immediate success. Abraham sold all the goods he had at the top price, without ever having to move from his tent. To prevent neighboring countries from overhearing what the drums were saying, Dot devised a system that only she and the drummers knew. It was known as Must Send Drum Over Sound (MSDOS), and she also developed a language to transmit ideas and pictures - Hebrew To The People (HTTP).

And the young men did take to Dot Com's trading as doth the greedy horsefly take to camel dung. They were called Nomadic Ecclesiastical Rich Dominican Sybarites, or NERDS.

And lo, the land was so feverish with joy at the new riches and the deafening sound of drums that no one noticed that the real riches were going to that enterprising drum dealer, Brother William of Gates, who bought off every drum maker in the land. And indeed did insist on drums to be made that would work only with Brother Gates' drumheads and drumsticks.

And Dot did say, "Oh, Abraham, what we have started is being taken over by others." And Abraham looked out over the Bay of Ezekiel , or eBay as it came to be known. He said, "We need a name that reflects what we are." And Dot replied, "Young Ambitious Hebrew Owner Operators." "YAHOO," said Abraham. And because it was Dot's idea, they named it YAHOO Dot Com.

Abraham's cousin, Joshua, being the young Gregarious Energetic Educated Kid (GEEK) that he was, soon started using Dot's drums to locate things around the countryside. It soon became known as God's Own Official Guide to Locating Everything (GOOGLE).

That is how it all began. And that's the truth.

Just in case you think Vermont is quiet

From Vermont Today:

LINCOLN — Vermont State Police say an armed man involved in a car crash tried to get away in a fire truck that responded to the accident, and his dog bit a trooper.
Police say 30-year-old Trevor Burton of Warren was a passenger in Wednesday’s car crash in Lincoln. They say he got into the fire truck with his pit bull terrier and threatened to drive off, but firefighters talked him out of it.

Police say Burton handed the magazine to his handgun to a trooper and left the truck, but his dog bit the trooper’s finger.

Burton was charged with driving under the influence, operation without owner’s consent, and driving with a suspended license.

The car driver, 41-year-old Michael Farnolo of Warren, was charged with leaving the scene of a collision.

The indignities

Wonderful comment over at the NYT about the indignities of flying (for all our grousing, there are many who could never afford to fly; they can't even get out of their local community):

I've never enjoyed flying to start with—not because of a fear of crashing, but just because of the protracted periods spent strapped inside a metal tube with screaming babies, and food that appears to have come out of an Easy-Bake oven.

Since 9-11, I can now get from Montreal to Toronto at least an hour sooner by train than by plane, what with the traffic to and from both airports, and the ludicrous "security" measures. The prospect of enjoying a public sexual assault only put the final nail in the coffin of my flying career. That, and the fact that airlines are now slapping extra charges on everything they can think of, so that the quoted price of a ticket presupposes that you will be flying naked with no luggage.

...

I'm dreading the day when my only relative in Europe gets married; I'm currently researching the viability of kayaking to France.

Church life

This is for real in response to our sexton writing a state wildlife technician.

'Thank you for allowing me to investigate the bats you have in the Episcopal Church.'

I could stop here and leave this line standing by itself because it lends itself to all manner of absurdities. But here's the rest of the letter.

I confirmed that the guano is from Big Brown Bats. Though this species is not listed as endangered, all of Vermont's hibernating bat species have suffered great losses from white-nose syndrome so anything we can do to help them makes a big difference.

After speaking with other biologists, I can also confirm that it is not unusual to find dead bats after a particularly hot spell during a time when the young are just starting to fly for the first time. This seems consistent with what you are finding. As for the location that you are seeing these dead bats, it may be the area that they actually enter and exit the building. This could be confirmed by watching the eaves by the two walls you showed me at dusk (between 8.40 and 9PM these days) to see if bats come out. Based on what I saw today, I suspect you have a scattering of resident males living at the church, rather than a large concentrated colony of breeding females.

Thank you for your concern. I am pasting some links to exclusion techniques and bat house installation guidelines below. How does the church feel about having a few bats there?

Let me know if you have any questions and thanks again.....

Have at it.

Is it or isn't it?

Even with the presidential seal smacked on the lid of the laptop, I don't think it's a Mac. Oh well.

So the President tweets. I still am not there.

For sale: One useless cat

A parishioner sent me this:

Palm Sunday afternoon sillies

Given that I had three back-to-back services this morning, there is not much brain power. How fitting, then, to receive an email with these sillies. Are you comfortable?

Grismal January

This silly flamingo has a brief sojourn outside but given the absolutely awful weather outside, I brought it back into the garage to winter over until the weather is more temperate.

Said flamingo is a gift from someone up north... now the giver is talking about finding company for the bird. Oh my.

Just some brevity and levity on a grismal day when the promised snow turned out to be sleet and freezing rain instead.

Jump!

Not quite Van Halen....

Young Guy takes on Orange Guy, ousting him from his perch while San Romero de las Américas looks on.

Plus ça change...

From an article on censure in today's NYT:

Violence was hardly routine in 19th-century Congressional disputes, but there was enough to make it interesting. In 1856*, as divisions over slavery intensified, Representatives Preston S. Brooks and Laurence M. Keitt, Democrats of South Carolina, strode to the Senate, and Mr. Brooks severely caned Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, an anti-slavery Republican.

When other senators tried to intervene, Mr. Keitt brandished a pistol and shouted: “Let them be.” Mr. Brooks survived an expulsion vote and resigned his seat. Mr. Keitt resigned to protest his censure. Both were re-elected — Mr. Brooks with a supply of new canes sent by constituents.

In 1858, Mr. Keitt started a donnybrook on the House floor. After an exchange of insults in a debate over the admission of Kansas as a slave state, he leaped up and tried to throttle Representative Galusha A. Grow, Republican of Pennsylvania. Supporters on both sides jumped into the fray, and a melee involving dozens of congressmen broke out.

The speaker shouted in vain for order. The sergeant-at-arms rushed in. Representative Cadwallader Washburn of Wisconsin tried to grab Representative William Barksdale of Mississippi by the hair, but came away with a toupee. Mr. Barksdale retrieved his wig, but put it on backward, and the fighting ended as both sides dissolved in laughter.

* the year of the consecration of the church building where I formerly served...

Do you ever feel this way?

Check this out for kittehs on a treadmill.

Friday cat blogging

returns albeit feebly. I just don't have free time any more...

Young Guy supervises the synching for the first time of my new iPad with my MacBook Pro... photo taken with my iPhone. Too many 'i's in this statement.

He is not partaking of my Flor de Caña rum, however. That is for humans only.

Visual aid

Here's what snork looks like.

Over a third

of Vermonters are on Facebook (243,660). That is your trivia for the night.

How true

This is all I can muster but I like it, snagged from somewhere on Facebook.

I am getting ready to head off to the next CREDO Kouraj pou Vwayaj la Ayati which begins this coming Monday in Santo Domingo. Lots to do and of course as I head off all sorts of things are flying onto my desk at church. (It's the usual: Oh my God, she's going away... let's get anxious.)

Cure for the heat

la canicule....

What is it?

Of all the things that I have posted on Facebook, this photo has generated the most comments.

It is of the stump that Compa helped me dig up (I started working on it on Wednesday) with shovels, trowel, lopers and pry bar. It looks like a multi-chambered heart.

I have no idea what type of vine came out of it other than one that had huge, huge leaves and would grow so fast that you could see it making gains in a couple of hours. Someone planted it long enough ago that the roots go under the footings of the patio. We'll be battling this hydra for ever. But it won't go up the trellis this summer nor will its tendrils reach over and take over the rose bush or hibiscus I planted last year. Evidently two summers ago when no one lived in the house, the vine climbed up and over the patio roof and managed to get to the second floor window (my study).

No more!!!

I was laughing too much to have the look of: Aha, got you, you sucker!

It now is in a very dark place, the dumpster over at the church. God help whatever landfill it ends up in. I dared not put it in my compost heap lest the thing come back to life and take over the back part of the yard.

Ever onwards.

Catch up time... again

Alright... some photos now that I have Photoshop again.


Apropos of nothing, but something that cracked me up when I was at my alma mater four weeks ago. All the street covers had been stencilled with these words.


Cats will find the darndest places to sleep but la Doyenne seems quite happy here.


Mr Officious reads the Lead with a highly critical eye.


The two dark grey tabbies found a common spot on the bed in the sun.


Monday night we had our favourite ensalada mixta (whatever you want to put in a salad) — but the photo features the bread cutter (un coupe-pain) I bought for my parents in 1976 — hunted all over Limoges, France to find one. My father returned it to me because he is afraid of chopping one of his digits rather than the bread.


All of a sudden the maple tree outside my office window has leafed out which totally changes the light in the office. The light becomes much more dappled and soft.


I still am not used to living in such a suburban-looking house... never mind, the daffies I planted last year are up and thriving.


And the lilacs in the backyard are blooming today. Paradise!


The sign says it all.

Joyeuse fête du muguet

And Happy May Day.

What northerners have to do...

... to hang out in a hammock...

when there is no tree close enough to another to put up a hammock.

So, as an early birthday present for my prime year, Compa got me a hammock stand. It arrived in a box so demolished that we had to take everything out to make sure it all had arrived intact. A bit banged up but it will do.

I bought the hammock in the photo in 1994 at the mercado central close to the Catedral Metropolitano in San Salvador and have never used it until today when I tried it out. It will do just fine.


While in El Salvador, I got a chance to rest some in a hammock at the bishop's house. There, the hammock is in an enclosed patio with all manner of happy plants, ferns with fronds so long that they touch the ground even though they hang four and a half feet up, and fruit trees. Somehow, setting up the hammock on the patio at the rectory where there is relatively little privacy is not quite the same.

Come summer, I will move the stand out into the yard under the shade of the large maple tree (until I get hit by bird or squirrel guano).

Still, I can see that hammock coming into use on a Sunday afternoon when I have polished off the New York Times.