No, you don't get a title. You haven't EARNED a title.

I do a lot of internal monologuing, which is why the byline of my blog is what it is. But I don't share all of it. Because frankly, no one needs to hear me when I get really adolescent. Sometimes I cringe at hearing whatever I'm griping about now. My whine sessions usually end with hilarity, and all is well. And today the hilarity was such that I think I SHALL share it. I found myself consoling myself with this gem;

"Christianity is not a vending machine! It's not an- insert faith/good works, receive book deal/cute boyfriend/ travel tickets- deal!"

And then I laughed at myself and continued on. :D

I made butter toffee today with Fraulien! No you can't have any. *gloats* And Yesterday we had a fire across the street. It was t'mendous exciting. I don't know why I felt the need to write that in a lisp, but there you go... ANYHOW! (this is a good song)

When the chimney looked like this, Mommy called the Fire Department.

They all started arriving in state! So I started leaning out the window and taking pictures. Of Course.

We have a Voluntary Fire Department, so people were arriving still in their work clothes. I saw two pharmacists arrive, for instance.

The inside was all fire, so they did mysterious things with a pike and a chain to put it out. I didn't understand, but it looked cool!

Safety first. That's all I have to say...

And then the fire was out and life continued as per normal.

With many power lines.

On the one hand, I slept through my alarm and was late to work.

On the other hand, I found out I can go from horizontal, asleep in a tangle of blankets- to upright, clothed and in my right mind, wearing a nametag and at work, in under seven minutes.

I was just reminded of how AWESOME this is. In the original sense of the word.

Our Father

Who art in heaven

Hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come

Thy will be done

On earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread

And forgive us our trespasses

As we forgive those who trespass against us.

Lead us not into temptation

But deliver us from Evil.

For thine is the Kingdom

And the Power

And the Glory

Forever and Ever.

Amen.

If you think this is an easy prayer, perhaps you should think about it a little bit more. Alternatively, you are a saint, and I respect you greatly.

"Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth/ And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;"

When I was little we lived in Germany, for two years. I remember castles and excitement, (everything is more exciting when you're four) and pretzels and travel. Those were good pretzels. And when they're the size of your head, they're even BETTER.

Looking back, I find I remember details that I'm sure an older person wouldn't think significant. Things like running up the stairs, and finding a dead mouse in the flower beds, and poking fuzzy caterpillars that rippled alarmingly. It was all very exciting. We also, because my dad was serving in Fourth Service Battalion, went to war memorials. When you are four you think gun emplacements on cliffs are things to climb on, and you're more interested in pommes frites in Dieppe than the fact that thousands of your countrymen died on that beach made of interesting rocks. There was one memorial, however, which I remember being serious, even when I was there.

That was Vimy.

When you're four, the crosses in the cemeteries go on forever. And then you get in the car and drive over past the trees, and there are new crosses. And they go on forever again. I somehow managed to understand the idea that each cross was a person, and it baffled me. For that matter, it still baffles me. There are so many graves. I'm twenty one now, so quite a few of those graves belong to people who were younger than me. It's one of those things where my mind just can't take it in.

And then we went up on the memorial, which was huge and windy, and white. Lots of names. I've seen pictures, and I want to go back. At the time I just, sadly, remember running around and wondering what the statues were for. Grandeur is wasted on the very young. (Even if I did think I was an adult. :P)

But there was also a section of no man's land that was kept as is, not landscaped smooth. We went over there and poked around. Have you ever seen a shell hole? It's like someone has taken an ice cream scoop to the ground. This was almost ninety years later, and you still had to walk along ridges between these gaps in the ground. The proportions I remember are probably incorrect. I remember these half-circles in the ground being so large that you couldn't quite hear from the other side. And they were really hard to get out of. That was the place that I remember being most, serious. It takes an impressive place to make a four year old feel sober, but that was the most in-awe I remember being until I was about nine. You can read about what things meant, but seeing them in person is sometimes necessary to start to understand. I really, REALLY want to go back.

That's been a disjointed ramble with little or no point. :P War Cemeteries are awe-inspiring. You should go. Oh, and Rose put up some poems on her blog. That you should read.

November brings out the optimist in me.

I had yet to learn that all human relationships end in pain.
-Douglas H. Gresham

Over the past two years the number of relationships I've been in has grown a lot. Not that kind of relationships, you sillies! *scoffs at you* I mean my relations with other people. My friendships, the people who I know and follow, the numbers have gone up.

(I'm also doing Nano for the second time, so my grammar is shot to pieces. YAY INCOHERENCY.)

This past week I've been realizing that a side effect of having more relationships is seeing those relationships come to an end. And really, there is no way for a human relationship to end painlessly. Either the friendship 1.) grows to an end and shatters- (watch out for emotional shrapnel!) it 2.) withers and just dies (I've yet to see the grave of a relationship without some sort of regret around it) or it 3.) survives until the death of one or more members of the relationship.

Option three sounds like the best one, doesn't it? Maximum happiness. Yes, until the whole death thing. Our culture doesn't talk about death, we like to pretend it doesn't happen. "If I can't see it, it's not there, right? Death is for old people! I'm young!" Since I've been a legal adult, I've had my hiding privileges slowly revoked. There have been a lot of reasons for that, including cancer in the family, and working in a job which means I mainly deal with the over-sixty-five crowd.

"How've ya been?"

"Oh fine, fine. Had a heart attack last week."

"Ah. Wonderful weather we're having, eh?"

But anyways, I had a point to this, didn't I? Ah yes.

Human relationships invariably end in pain. *shrugs* Enjoy'm while they're fresh folks, they don't last.

BUT.

Yes, there is a "but." I may be tired but I'm not THAT depressed. As Christians, we're not simply human. We have a hope for life after death, and our relationship with God does not end.

Ever.

Which to me- caught in a rash of being afraid to go on the internet and see who else is dying/breaking up/having a death in the family/oh, dying/did I mention the specatular prepondernace of DEATH lately- is an encouraging thought.

Yay, I'm only demi-human! Or maybe it's like the ASCAAP/BMI royalty schemes, and there's two hundred-percent pies? Fully Mortal body and fully Immortal soul? This is probably heretical, now. I should stop writing.

Sock sorting explained!

I was going to talk about sock sorting!

*looks around vaguely*

Wasn't I? Yes, I was.

I even put in the title of my last blog post. And then instead I apologized to everyone in the world. Which, you know, is definitely the best use of my time and life, etc. Who wants to hear about socks when you can GROVEL?

Oh, you say you do?

*Chuckle*

Fancy that. Well, I shall attempt to talk about- socks.

BTW, if if you don't want a look inside my head at the moment, you should START READING HERE. It'll be better for your sanity.

Now, *cough* there are several people in my family. In fact, we usually have to use three of those "family packs" that you get a regular grocery stores. And I'm not even going to go over "family vacations" for five people. I laugh in their general direction. My family laughs with me. Ha ha ha. Ha hah. *cough*

As a result, when we do laundry, it's a rather- intensive- undertaking. Our laundry machine was out of commission for a few weeks in the summer, and we'd have to go to the Laundromat. When we did so, we would regularly take over the entire Laundromat for hours at a time. ~Oh, it's that family again- I'll come back tomorrow.~ You could just see that thought go through people's heads when they walked into the building.

My dad does the laundry now, because it is -frankly- a task that requires military precision. But as you may have had occasion to notice at some point, if you've ever done laundry, socks all look alike. And it's not considered socially wise to go about staring at people's socks, to figure out who those striped socks with the red and the green belong too. (Putting aside the issue of white socks, which are HARD.) So we have an epic family sock-sorting every week or so, after breakfast.

Yes, I just used "epic" and "sock" in the same sentence. My family is just that awesome, okay? If we start into something, it just gets more special.

Hmmm, I was going to describe the sorting, but it's the kind of thing that only really can be communicated in person. Come and visit, and we'll sort. ^_^

Only we can make sorting socks so epic.

So, I have nasal congestion and wisdom teeth coming in. This charming combination has managed to remind me how very unpleasant I am when I am in any sort of pain. Basically I get bitter, angry and vengeful, particularly when I can't get my way, e.g. get to sleep right NOW.

So, if I yelled at you, shared privileged information, accused you of being the problem with the Western World, blamed the absence of someone else on the internet on you, and/or growled darkly at your fabulous wordcount, I'm sorry.

It's my teeth's fault.

^_^

However, my lack of ability to sleep did result in me getting to watch the Amazing Race, which proved that anything a man can do, sometimes a woman can't do- (*gulps*) and proved how hard it is to count bells. So yay! And today my teeth are just fine, so I can whine, moan and whinge about my nose instead. This sounds like a wonderful plan, yes?

On to work and then to figure out what novel I'm writing for Nano! Go me!

I really am sorry. *contrite*