caves, rivers, and obsidian

Less than 24 hours after a great weekend camping with friends at Lake Sonoma, we packed up the car and drove 500 miles north to Bend, Oregon, to visit dear friends we see only once in a while but who are definitely of the "friends for a lifetime" variety.

A word of warning to those attempting this trip:   You may be tempted to stop a the Taco Shop in Redding when you gas up.  But you'd be better off going across the street to Del Taco or around the corner to Taco Bell.  Remember the movie "Coming to America" with Eddie Murphy?  How his future father-in-law runs a restaurant called "MacDougall's" or something like that, and he literally stole the McDonald's handbook?  Yeah, this place was essentially that place, only a white guy stole the Taco Bell handbook.  It passed as sustenance.  That's about the highest praise I can offer.

We rolled into Bend in the early evening.  I love Bend.  I could move here and not look back.  The Deschutes River is beautiful, and you can see Mount Bachelor and the other peaks from most of the town.  The downtown is charming, with a ton of art and coffee shops without the self-righteous elitism of some outdoorsy liberal granola type places.  It feels welcoming, even if it lacks much diversity.  Neighborhoods near downtown or west of the river sport elegant charm in their layout and architecture, with pertly maintained yards and kids zipping around on bicycles.  Haven't been much on the Wal-Mart side of the highway, but I get the sense it turns more deserty and ranch housey and gun racky in the back of pickup trucky.  Ish.

So Wednesday I took the boys to the Lava River Cave just south of town about 30 minutes.  It's this very cool pipeline cave originally carved or formed by lava millions of years ago.  We took our flashlights and hiked the mile or so to the very end, where you have to crawl on hands and knees the last 60 yards or so.  No photos except this one at the entrance to the cave:

Into the abyss!

In the afternoon we visited the Bend farmers market and bought some of the most luscious blackberries I've ever had.  In a "welcome to Oregon" moment, there was a real hippy looking family there with a naked three year old boy, and they bought some fruit and sat right in the middle of the grass smack in the center of the market and had their picnic.  No one seemed to care much.

Thursday was a busy day.  We left early to go to Lake Paulina for a six mile hike around the lake.

The Dudleys and our hosts, including pup Angus, at the trailhead.

Besides the amazing scenery, the lake offered two special treats.  Below are a select few photos from the hike.  I couldn't put too many of them here because I was always the last hiker, which meant most of my photos of my companions were from the rear, which I have learned in 20 years of marriage does not make for a good suite of photos of your wife to post to a public forum.

The trail mostly followed the edge of the lake in single file.  We only encountered a couple of other small groups all day long.

At some points the lake reminded me of Tahoe; at others, it had more of a high desert look.  But it was beautiful everywhere.

One of the special treats along this hike is the obsidian flow.  The boys scrambled up it looking for the purest samples.

Some obsidian rocks Ethan liked.

After scrambling  back down the obsidian flow, we hiked on.  Our intrepid guide and hostess, Tiffany (yes, the same Tiffany we stayed with on our trip to England), led the way to "the beach."

Alpine lake marshy meadowish place, with squishy footing and a marshy smell.

Ethan in one of the hot springs dugouts, with Angus splashing in the lake behind.

The other big treat along the hike was an area of hot springs at the northern end of the lake.  It's not quite three miles from the campground to the hot springs.  The boys sat and had a hot soak before lunch, and Ethan especially enjoyed the warm water.  The "beach" comprised an impressive collection of pebbles without a single grain of sand, so some mile splashing was accompanied by a chorus of "ow! ow! ow!" when Sam tried to wade into the lake itself.

Angus and Ethan, again.

One other great thing about stopping for lunch here was seeing a bald eagle soar over.  Unfortunately, it flew past before I could really understand what I was seeing, and it lit in the top of a tree and never took off again until after we left.  If this isn't a bald eagle, I hope someone will tell me.  I'd never seen one before as far as I know, so this was a cool sight.

The eagle from far away, at the top of the dead tree.

Zoomed in crop of the same photo.

No, this isn't a bird's eye view from the eagle's perch.  From the beach, the trail pitched pretty much straight up a big hill, then along the side of the hill around the rest of the lake.  The views were astounding, and even after six miles of hiking this I was not at all tired of the scenery.

That night the ladies went into town for dinner and a free outdoor concert while the boys and I stayed back at the house.  The boys watched the movie Spaceballs, but I got online and worked--our big software installation of the year was Thursday night, and as with all such endeavors it was not without hiccups.  In the end, it succeeded which allowed me to enjoy our Friday activities with less sense of stress.

Friday I worked some more with a phone meeting an lunch with a local colleague, then in the afternoon I joined the families for some lazy tubing in Tumalo State Park.  Beautiful day, nice lazy river, not too crowded.  And the water wasn't as cold as you might expect.

Sam especially enjoyed the tubing.  So much so that he fell out of his tube at least twice.

On Saturday, we visited Chandy and had a nice relaxing day of it with a walk in her neighborhood and another along the river walk near the Old Mill shops around twilight.

View from a bridge looking downriver, too dark for my blackberry camera.

Today, Maria and Ethan will visit with Chandy and her family some more, but Sam and I will join Tiffany and her son Henry for a rock climbing adventure.  Sam has his climbing merit badge, and Tiffany and Henry have climbed multiple times in spots around the world.  I'm the novice in the group.  So maybe the next installment will include some photos of me hanging cheerily from ropes wrapped comically around various appendages.  Stay tuned.  Then unfortunately tomorrow we have to head home to real life once more.

Writing Contest Alert

Dear blogger friend Writtenwyrdd is holding a flash fiction contest this month.  She is generating the prompt from a raked-up mire of coagulated blog thought, and she wants your help.  Go to her blog here and read about the contest and then spend two minutes helping generate the prompt.

Then get your engines ready to flash before August 29th, WW's fourth blogiversary.

Pinnacles National Monument

Big Bro came West from our nation's capitol for our third annual camping trip last weekend.  We originally started planning this a year ago, which means we finally decided to seek an appropriate destination this June.  Everything within driving distance was booked except Pinnacles National Monument near Soledad, so Big Bro booked one of the many vacant campsites.

I know two things about Soledad.  First, it gets to about 183 degrees in the summer.  In the shade.  At night.  Second, there's a prison there.  The wikipedia page for Soledad has this helpful and cheery note:

Also located near Soledad is... a maximum security penal institution which includes a 64 bed inpatient psychiatric program primarily servicing high security inmates who have a major mental disorder....

So we gathered up the children, bought $150 worth of snacks and beer, and drove south.  It turns out that the campground is quite a distance from the Soledad side of the park, so we were somewhat disappointed that we could not spend our evenings enthusiastically and cleverly taunting the inmates from our sleeping bags.  Still, having not checked the weather report, we set off confident in a weekend of beer drinking for me and Big Bro and boy scout competence and responsibility from the 14 and 11 year old boys.

All we really knew about this place was that it sported a swimming pool, housed some caves that might be partially open, provided some hiking trails, and disallowed campfires because of very high fire danger.  Only after we got home did I see this welcoming nugget on their web site:

During the summer, extreme temperatures can make hiking uncomfortable at best, and possibly dangerous for those who are unprepared.

Good thing we had two boy scouts with us.

We also discovered, when looking at trail maps, that Pinnacles sits right atop the San Andreas Fault.

Seriously, it was hot but not unbearable, the pool was like a huge bowl of kid soup (chilled like gazpacho and not far off in hue), and the hiking was nothing short of breathtakingly spectacular.  Our campsite was cleverly located near--but not under--shade trees, with a colony of gopher holes dense enough to rival the most populous slums of Mumbai.  Or maybe they were snake holes.  Or holes for trap door spiders big enough to capture small mammals.  Regardless, we thought it best to huddle our tents on the other side of the parking space.

We arrived Friday afternoon, and since it was WAY too hot to hang out at our super-exposed campsite, we went off to hike the trail to the caves.  A short hike, only 0.7 miles each way from the parking lot to the reservoir.  Along the way are caves with narrow passages and low overheads that bang knees and heads indiscriminately.  These are not caverns under the ground but caves that look as if God simply dropped a handful of enormous boulders and allowed them to fall where they wanted.  The path weaves in and among the boulders and rock walls.  Really interesting and beautiful.  When you remember to forget that the park sits directly atop the San Andreas Fault.

Below is a map of the two hikes we did.  We did the Friday hike on Friday afternoon and again on Sunday morning, and we did the Saturday hike on Saturday.

Here are pictures from Friday's hike:

Ethan, Big Bro, and Sam at the trail head

The first stone stairway we encountered.

Da boyz on the trail, looking at the foliage including some red poison oak.

Approaching a tunnel blasted from the stone.

The tunnel.  Not long, but very cool.

The final stairway up to the reservoir.

The reservoir, which is not as big as it looks.  It's also more brown than the dirt, and, we're told, is populated with leeches almost to the extent that you could walk from one side to the other on their backs and not get the soles of your shoes moist enough even to seal an envelope.  We did not swim.

Looking for "bouldering" spots--like rock climbing only without equipment.

Sam and Mark bushwhacking through the caves, off the trail, hoping to meet up with Ethan and me a bit down the trail.  After an arduous climb up the creek bank, they made it.

Here are pictures from the piece de resistance, Saturday's hike around the High Peaks trail.  If you ever go to Pinnacles, you must hike this trail.  Unless you have a doublewide body, in which case you will see that "steep and narrow" really means steep and narrow.

The first decent view on the High Peaks trail.  Not the best we would see.

The trail continues upward alongside cool rock formations and climbing cliffs 20+ million years old.

Ethan, me, and Sam at the first of the High Peaks area.  From here, the trail went flat across the ridge for a while then dramatically up again to Scout Peak.

Sam and Ethan after a short break.  It was about 10 a.m. at this point, a little over 90 minutes into our hike, and the temperature was in the mid 80s already.

Sam, the intrepid explorer, the 11 year old conqueror of nature.  He does look a little like Teddy Roosevelt here, doesn't he?  TR was the one to set aside Pinnacles as a national monument.  Bully!

Checking out the view from Scout Peak, where there is a restroom with an antenna.  Your guess is as good as ours.

From this point, we could either go down an easy trail and up a bunch of switchbacks on the "tunnels" trail, or we could take the "steep and narrow" trail of High Peaks.  Which do you think we took?

Right.  Steep.  And narrow.  The ranger told us that this trail was build in the 1930s, and shortly after that rules were enacted so that no trails like this could be built any more.  Because the building of them is too dangerous.  Much of the trail was blasted right out of the rock, with steep drop-offs and narrow passages.  Thank goodness for the steps and railings.

The first of the narrow bits.

The first of the steep bits.  I'm pretty sure this is the stair that Frodo, Sam, and Gollum climbed to get into Mordor.

Another narrow bit.  Keep in mind Ethan is five feet tall and approximately 80 pounds.  This trail is not recommended for the tall and wide.

Another of the narrow bits.  Children can walk two abreast.  Which means that Frodo and Sam probably enjoyed the walk.  And I kept a lookout for spiders the size of Chinook helicopters.  But we didn't see any.

A view from one of the narrow bits.  You can make out the shape of the flying turkey vulture.  We did not see any condors, which live in Pinnacles.  There are only about 300 California condors in the world, which is the result of a successful repopulation effort after the population dropped to 22 in the 1980s.  Turkey vultures have a 5 foot wingspan; condors have a 9 1/2 foot wingspan.  I wish we could have seen one soaring.  That would be quite a sight.

Sam spent much of the hike pausing and looking back to make sure the rest of us were still alive.  He was always in the front.

After the hike, we were happy this national campground had a swimming pool.  A dip in the brisk and refreshing water followed by a pleasant nap on the shady lawn completed our hike in a most agreeable manner.

On Sunday morning before heading home we went back up through the caves to some climbing sites we'd seen Friday.  Pinnacles is a serious destination for serious climbers, and all along you can see routes up the stubby cliff faces where climbers left hardware embedded in the rock or splashes of chalk where their hands gripped.  The routes are amazing to look at for a non-climber.  Sam is a natural--he steps up onto the first foothold and then resembles Spider Man as he vacuums his body to the rock face and scrambles around effortlessly.  On the trail, when he wasn't looking back to see if we were still alive, he was remarking how he wished we'd brought some rope and a couple of harnesses so he could do some real climbing.  Sometimes the boy frightens me.

All in all, it was a real success of a camping trip.  We're already beginning to plan for next year's trip.  We've agreed that we want to find somewhere that has vacancy.  We have also agreed that we will begin looking for sites next June.  It worked so well this year.

Rules of the blog

The Management has instituted new blog policy.  In order to continue to receive premier service from this blog, you must obey the rules posted below.

Note.  FOR ANY PURPOSE.

My Clarity of Night contest entry

Hullo everyone, I've been busy.  I don't apologize for not blogging, but I do apologize for not reading and commenting on your blogs as I normally do.  It's been just too busy with work, work travel, family vacations, and all that.

Jason Evans has a new contest going over at his Clarity of Night blog.  The title is "Uncovered," and the photo prompt was inspired by the most excellent Stephen Parrish's most excellent debut novel, The Tavernier Stones.

Below are both the photo prompts and my entry into the contest.  I did not set out to write a poem; it's just what came out when I wrote my first attempt, realized it was crap, and then got the hell out of the way of my muse.  Also, I realize now that the dark gem is an emerald, not a sapphire, but what the hell.  It's only a prompt, right?  I don't have to stick exactly to every detail, right?

 

SMOLDERING

As slow as winter, fear seeped into our speech.

Its icy tendrils crept among our minds and
Insinuated themselves around our hearts.
Its fragments latched onto words and tumbled
Through our cabled veins on the blood
Of twenty-four seven news.

Politicians and pundits coiled and bit,
Rattling their tails and sabers.
Their forked tongues spit venomous words:
FascHISSt.  SocialHISSt.

TerrorHISSt.

We wrapped ourselves in unfurled flags
Against fear’s relentless freeze.
In the false heat of patriotism,
We danced around crackling pages
Consumed
Focused on the flames
Ignorant
Of ashes that rose and collapsed
To smother us under
a silent, colorless blanket.

Buried deep, our collective soul
Smoldered and survived
Until the blue, white, and red embers
Of our better selves rekindled
Melted away our fear
To shine and sparkle once more.

Hear the Author number... um... seven!

Hard to believe we've already done six of these "read something and post it to your blog" thingies.  Originally demanded by Robin, this time we are inspired by our wonderful friend, Paca (that's DOCTOR Paca to you... well, to us all, I guess).

UPDATE:  Sylvia has put together a list of all of us playing this round.

My reading, in the podbean below.  I apologize for the crappy sound quality.  I blame the equipment available (a Rock Band USB microphone connected to my Mac mini) and an utter lack of understanding of how to work with sound on a computer.

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And the full text of the story is below in case you want to read along.  This story did not win any awards in the contest, but I still like it.

Alone

Up here in the branches, the wind slithers under my coat and tightens around my arms. My breath freezes in my beard. This new rope scratches, but it warms my neck.

Wind whistles through the barn nearby, and ice breaks with thunderclaps on the river. Smoke escapes from the farmhouse chimney, disappearing into a gunmetal sky. As if from nowhere, one big crow flaps onto a close branch and stares me down with coal eyes and a black icicle beak.

Through cracking lips, I croak, “You never seen a man hang himself before?” My teeth chatter. I grasp the trunk to keep from slipping. “You come to stop me?”

“No.” The quiet voice visits my mind directly. The crow cocks its head to the side, its beak shut. The voice is Sarah’s. “I’ve come to witness.”

I glance to the ground, skin prickling. Sarah might be there, my shovel still buried in her naked chest, her blood staining the gray snow. Jefferson might stand next to her, headless. I whisper, “Begone, adultress witch,” and I shiver in every bone, right to my soul.

Sarah’s voice coos, “You will be warm enough, husband, when you join your brother in Hell. I bear no fault. He took me by force.”

“Begone!” I swat at the crow. My foot slips. I pitch forward and swing down in a slow arc, feel the rope cut my throat and freeze my breath. A gauzy haze drowns my vision, and the crow ascends through barren branches.

Ducklings Reprise

Remember yesterday?  No, neither do I, usually.  But yesterday we had ducklings.

Today, the mom and the seven wee ones came back.  They came quacking into our front yard.  We're not sure if they came looking for the one injured duckling, or if they were simply terrified out of a neighbor's yard by the gardener's leaf blower.  I prefer to think the latter.  I prefer to think they don't care about the little one that is now on its own at the hospital, never to be reunited with its mama.

Anyway, two new pictures.  I like the second especially.

Mama and ducklings walking on our side path.

Mama and ducklings choosing the perfect
moment for to be photogenic.

Make way for ducklings! with photos!

My younger son called me on my way home from work today.  He's 11 and still has that munchkin voice, but he's losing his little-boy lisp.

"Dad.  When will you be home?  We can't get the ducklings out of the pool."

"Ducklings?"

"Yeah, a mom duck and eight ducklings.  They can't get out.  We saw on youtube someone made a ramp from a lawn chair.  We're waiting for you to get home."

Twenty minutes later, I arrived to find, indeed, eight ducklings and one mama duck swimming around in our pool.

First, we grabbed two lengths of old, useless baseboard and lay them into the pool as a narrow ramp.  I had visions of Ping boarding his boat from the Yangtze.

We herded the mama (with her lings in tow) toward the ramp, but the mama kept jumping out next to the ramp and quacking urgently to her brood.  They, of course, eschewed the ramp and tried for the more direct route--jumping out like mama did.  But it was no good.  Even the best of them could only manage a couple of inches out of the water, a good six inches below the lip of the concrete coping.

At the insistent pleas of my younger son, the one who had seen the youtube video, we removed the useless baseboard and slid one end of a lounge chair into the pool.  It made for a much wider ramp, but it's a plastic weave and the ducklings simply hopped through the holes instead of climbing out.  The mom seemed overwrought trying to quack her ducklings into jumping higher.

About this time, the neighbor boy arrived to help.  He noticed that one of the ducklings was no longer swimming with the rest.  He was just floating around, one leg hanging limp.  We don't now how it happened, but we think he maybe broke it getting into, and then out of, the skimmer (where the water gets sucked into the filter).  I used the baseboard (not so useless any more) to lift him up and out of the water and deposit him onto the patio.

Mama duck seemed far less agitated but still unable to extract the rest of her family from the pool.

Finally, I got sick of the failed ramps and went to get an old sheet of beadboard left over from a long-ago bathroom remodel.  I lay the beadboard in the pool upside down, and it made a fair beachhead.  (You can see the lounge chairs in the background.)

Within minutes, mama duck led her kidlets up and out.  The exit wasn't so kind to the little ones, with the top of the ramp three inches off the ground.  One by one they tumbled off the edge onto their heads, popped right back up, and waddled off through the gate behind mama.

Unfortunately, the injured baby could not walk and was left behind.  Maria scooped him up into a box and took him to the Lindsay Wildlife Museum, which has an extensive and top-notch wildlife rescue program.  They whisked the duckling into the back room (stat!) and asked for the whole story.  They will fix him up good.  I am imagining him on the gurney with a blood pressure monitor and an IV drip and a team of surgeons just like in Grey's Anatomy.  Here's the little guy on his way to the hospital, sitting on a dish towel.

When mama got her babies out, she hightailed it out of our yard and across the street.  The seven mobile kids seemed not one bit upset about leaving the wounded behind, and the little injured one seemed to take a philosophical approach to the whole affair.  We have no idea where the family skedaddled off to.  They went into another yard, under a fence.  They're probably stuck in another neighbor's pool as I write this.

Beer Labels!

I thought when I pitched a competition, I'd have a ball seeing all the entries.  But I guess the kickoff was weak so only two friends took a shot.  Still, the goal was achieved, and two strong entries finished in a tie, which means only one thing:  a shootout to determine the winner!  I'll line up the shots and then drink them, and I'll declare myself the winner and hoist the cup in the end.

Here are the two entries, both of which will grace the bottles of my new brew in time for the opening game broadcast of the World Cup.  First, only because I received it first, is Gene's entry.

It's based on the FIFA World Cup 2010 logo, cleverly updated for the topic at hand.  I've modified it further to include the only thing that's clearly missing:

Then there is Jen's entry.  You may recall that she originally suggested Dudley's Old Peculiar as the name of the batch, but that turned into Dudley's Old & Peculiar.  I'm not sure if I'm supposed to take that as an insult or not.  In any case, the label is definitely good enough to put on the bottles, and it probably describes both the beer and the brewer.

So there you have it.  Inbounds Ale and Old & Peculiar.

ahoy, matey, weigh anchor and cast off!

The boys and I are going on a cruise this weekend.  An overnight cruise on a ship that will not leave the dock.  This will be my sixth time spending the night on this ship.  It's Ethan's fifth time and Sam's third.  I think.  I've lost track.

It's time for our annual scout overnight on the USS Hornet aircraft carrier, Ethan's second favorite place on the entire Earth.  (His first favorite is Disneyland.)  Here's a photo from one of our early overnights on the Hornet, when Ethan was just a Bear cub.  This must have been our second trip.  Didn't we both look young back then?

Ethan was so enamored of the Hornet that when the pine car derby came around, we decided we had to make an aircraft carrier car.  This is the absolute pinnacle of my craftsmanship with woodworking.  Ethan did most of the painting himself.

Years later, when Sam became a Tiger cub, we all went together.  Here's a photo of the boys on the flight deck with one of Sam's best friends.  That was four years ago; now all three of them are in the same Boy Scout troop.  (The kid hanging off the missile is not with us.)

Although we sleep in bunks in the berthing areas with lots of other people snoring and whatever, and although the food is cafeteria quality, and although it gets cold and drafty at night, I actually am really looking forward to this trip.  The Hornet puts on a great overnight event, and it's fabulous to see such a piece of history come alive through the stories the docents tell and through the eyes of the kids.

Hopefully I won't forget my camera.  Come back next week to see photos from this year.

BEER LABEL UPDATE

On Sunday I'll be bottling the beer I brewed two weeks ago.  I still have only two label submissions.  As it stands now, I'll be using both and sharing them on the blog next week.  If I get any more at dudleypj@gmail.com, I'll include them in the batch.

WRITING UPDATE

I am happy to say that on my recent business trip I managed to write for several hours on airplanes and came up with about 4,200 new words on the new new novel.  The new old novel is under submission, and the old new novel was semi-abandoned a couple months ago in favor of this new new novel.

Beer! Brewing! Need a name and label!

In keeping with my new years resolutions for 2010, I brewed a new batch of beer yesterday.  It's an Irish Red Ale, which they say is a lot like a Scotch ale but not quite so Scottish.

I had to start by buying a new stopper and air lock because I broke the old one with the last batch.  Turns out if that rubber stoppers get hard and dry as they get old, and if you push too hard, they actually slip down into the carboy.  We managed to work it out, but we broke the airlock during bottling.  So anyway, with the new equipment in place and a fresh ingredient kit from Beer, Beer, & More Beer, we brewed.

The beer looks great.  It now ferments and settles for two weeks, then I'll bottle it.  Two weeks later, just days before the opening game of the World Cup, it will be ready to drink.

The only problem is, I need a name and a label for it.  Normally I'd do this myself, but I'm turning to you, all my friends, to do it for me.  This is probably as close to a blog contest as I'll ever come, so you better jump on this opportunity before it expires.

The task:  Name the beer and create a label that can be printed on Avery 5264 labels, which are a great size for both the 22 ounce and the 12 ounce bottles.  These are 3-1/3" by 4" with rounded corners, and you need to be aware that I am not very good at printing bleeds unless you also provide me a six-up version that can be printed on my Mac Mini.

The context:  This beer will be consumed mostly in a hot tub with the World Cup on the big screen.  Some will be given away to friends, probably.  Children may be present, so no X rated labels.  (Actually, feel free to send X-rated labels.  I just won't pick them as winners.)

Submissions:  Email the name and artwork to me at dudleypj@gmail.com, no later than May 23, 2010.

The prize:  I dunno.  Maybe, like, I'll say thank you.  And you'll get the thrill of having your work displayed on beer bottles in my home.

Let us pray, or, like, whatever.

Dudes, it is the National Day of Prayer here in the good old U S of A, despite what some fuddy-duddy judge dude says.  Our founding fathers had the good sense to set up a system of government that separates church from state, and which leaves enough wiggle room for the state to cozy up to the church when it wants.  Cozying up is good.  I like cozying up, given the right cozy-up partner (that cozy photo there's me and Carrie Underwood).  And wiggle room is good, especially with that same cozy-up partner.  And really you can cozy up almost anywhere, especially if... sorry, lost my train of thought there.  What day is it?

Oh, right.  National Day of Prayer, which causes much angst and gnashing of teeth.  Did you know there's a group called Freedom from Religion Foundation?  I like the concept because, really, isn't freedom what this country's all about?  The pilgrims left Europe because the church didn't like the way they worshipped the old white-haired dude in the sky with the big beard and the magic finger.  Which is weird because all of them worshipped that same dude, from the same book.

But the Freedom from Religion Foundation has a really funky acronym.  FfRF.  Sounds like something a dog says when its got a tennis ball in its mouth, or the sound that comes out when you get latte foam up your nose by accident.  I think it's because of this funky sounding acronym that they are so wound up and tense over religion.  They think people are making fun of them, saying "FfRF" and giggling, so they feel like they have to prove themselves or something by being as militantly devoted to their cause as Franklin Graham is to his.

Here's what I think:  We don't need a National Day of Prayer.  Congress, back in the ancient days of the 50s or whenever, solved a problem that didn't exist and didn't need solving.  People who pray have like fifty-two days of prayer already.  Some people pray every day.  They really need another one where the government tells everyone who doesn't pray that we should all be praying?  On a Thursday in May?  This is necessary?

No, it's not necessary.  It doesn't help the spirituality of those who are already spiritual.  It doesn't create spirituality in those who aren't.  It's not like National Day of Prayer raises awareness of God.  National Day of Eating Fewer Trans-Fats, now that I could get behind.  It's practical, and there's a public health aspect to it.  But there's only one purpose a National Day of Prayer can serve, and that purpose involves solidifying the political power of the religious over the non-religious.

But instead of joining in that battle, I think I'll quote from two very wise men.

“Life is short and complicated and nobody knows what to do about it. So don’t do anything about it. Just take it easy, man. Stop worrying so much whether you’ll make it into the finals. Kick back with some friends and some oat soda and whether you roll strikes or gutters, do your best to be true to yourself and others – that is to say, abide.”
--The Dude

“Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right.”
--Abraham Lincoln

And, with one final thought from Mr. Lincoln, I say, "Happy National Day of Prayer."  Take it easy.

looking for happiness in the bottom of a D cup

Here in California, we have a lot of fake boobs.  We also have a lot of things that create fake happiness.  Napa offers wine, Marin offers marijuana, and Genentech offers Valium.  These mind altering substances offer a brief illusion of happiness but do not actually make people happy.  Fake boobs may or may not make certain people happy, for real.

A week or so ago a woman in Orange County went so far as to fake some credit in order to pay for her new fake boobs.  She was looking forward to hitting the bars to show off her new chest, but it looks like she'll be spending time (six months) behind bars instead.

Back in 2005, ABC aired a story about a new trend:  parents giving their children boob jobs for high school graduation.  Presumably, the gift was limited to daughters.  But again, this is California, so anything's possible.  The best line from this story:

The gift of breast implants costs about $7,000. "But I don't think you can put really a price on your child's happiness," [Jennifer's mom] said.

That's right.  No price is too high for our child's happiness because, you know, money can buy happiness.  If the Jaguar doesn't do it for you, maybe a nice rack will.  If that doesn't work, maybe Xanax is for you.

Here in our very own elementary school, my younger son acted and sang in the school play.  He was a cardsman in Alice in Wonderland, and although it wasn't a starring role, he had several lines and loved every minute of it.  By all accounts, the play was a smashing production, and I agree.  Really well done, with some terrific performances.  Around the last week of rehearsals, though, I heard an ugly rumor that some of the little girls (these are 10 and 11 year olds) had begun taking anti anxiety medication because of the pressure of this play.  This wasn't about boobs, of course.

But this was:  A retailer in the UK was recently forced to pull a product from its shelves.  The product?  Bikinis for girls younger than 10 years old.  Bikinis with padded bras, for girls younger than 10 years old.  The article notes an anonymous source with a possibly reasonable explanation for this, but really.  Come on.  Really?

Padded bras for little girls?  Women stealing money to get boob jobs?  Children taking anti anxiety medication to make it through the school play?  Parents buying their daughters new boobs to create self esteem?

What the cuss has happened to us?

At least this lady knows how to teach her son proper values.  If he's gonna steal the Xanax she hid in her bra, she's gonna turn him in to the cops.  Talk about looking for happiness in the bottom of a D cup.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Poor Louisiana.