Which Tarot Card Are You?

I took one of those silly little quizzes on somebody's MySpace page. It wasn't the quiz itself that made me post it here, it was the results. Just thought it interesting considering the title of my blog. Serendipitous and synchronicitous.

You are The Hierophant

Divine Wisdom. Manifestation. Explanation. Teaching.

All things relating to education, patience, help from superiors.The Hierophant is often considered to be a Guardian Angel.

The Hierophant's purpose is to bring the spiritual down to Earth. Where the High Priestess between her two pillars deals with realms beyond this Earth, the Hierophant (or High Priest) deals with worldly problems. He is well suited to do this because he strives to create harmony and peace in the midst of a crisis. The Hierophant's only problem is that he can be stubborn and hidebound. At his best, he is wise and soothing, at his worst, he is an unbending traditionalist.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Noticing Little Things

I wasn't planning to blog today. I didn't wake up with any particular subject gnawing at me. I didn't really have anything to say. But then I went to lunch. At McDonald's.

I had to run out at lunch to get an important legal document in the mail and since I was using some of my lunch time to do it I figured I'd just grab something while I was out. There's a MickeyD's between where I work and the Post Office so MickeyD's it was. As an aside, McDonald's just introduced a "Country Style" Chicken Sandwich and they were giving them away free with a large drink. I don't know what's country about them but basically they are an attempt at a direct imitation of a Chick-Fil-A sandwich. It wasn't bad. They came close to the original Chick-Fil-A but didn't quite get there.

Anyway. I had some time and instead of getting it to go I thought I'd eat there rather than in my office and do a little people watching. So I was sitting in a booth eating when this young guy comes around the corner heading to sit with the rest of what looked like a work crew that he was with. As he's walking his full drink cup tips off his tray and spills across the floor. Hey, no harm, it can happen to anybody. His response was to look toward the rest of his crew, laugh and say "My Bad." He then proceeded to the table. My hope was that he would put down the tray and alert someone at the counter that there was a spill so that it could be cleaned up before someone slipped. My expectation was that he would sit down and eat his lunch without taking any responsibility or doing anything to to clean up his mess. He fully met my expectation.

I was just about finished eating and was planning to tell someone about the spill before I left when I noticed an interesting thing. One of the other guys in the crew, from appearances a little older than the first, went to the counter and told the employee working there what happened. They reacted immediately and sent someone over with a bucket and mop and cleaned it right up.

Completely inane story so far I know, but what made it noteworthy to me was this. Based purely on observation and assumption, the first guy - the one who spilled the drink - I guessed to be either American or highly Americanized due to his appearance and complete lack of accent when I heard him speak. The second guy, the guy who actually did something about the spill, was clearly Hispanic and based on hearing him speak, did not appear to be particularly fluent in English.

Now I realize there's a lot of information I don't know about these individuals. To be completely fair other than the few minutes of observation taken as a snapshot of their lives, I know absolutely nothing about them. I'm also not trying to make any statements about race, ethnicity, culture, prejudice or any of that. As I was watching, the whole thing for me was about one person's failure to accept responsibility and another's action to take (or in this case assume someone else's) responsibility.

I wasn't intending for this to be a statement about the immigration issue but because it appeared the second guy may have been an alien (no, not the extraterrestrial, newly Vatican approved kind) I can't help but think about it at least a little. Truth be told I'm not really sure where I stand on the issue. I mentioned yesterday that I'm a Pisces. The symbol for Pisces is two fish heading in opposite directions. We are often taken to be someone who can't make a decision. The truth is we hesitate in making decisions because the world is not black and white to us. We frequently can see, often very clearly, BOTH sides of the argument and find merit and deficiency in each. Immigration like so many other issues has no easy solution but the one thing that I AM ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN OF is that the United States of America has no business building fences or walls. Beyond that, I'm open for debate.

Enough rambling. I guess my point to this (if I ever had one) is that a hard working guy who steps up and takes responsibility for someone else's spilled drink might, just might, be the kind of guy who will step up and take responsibility for other more important things as well. There seems to be so few of those guys around these days. Honestly, I don't think it hurts to have more of that kind of guy. But what do I know? I was just there for the free chicken sandwich.

Pure Genius

Forgetting for a moment about that whole E=MC2* thing, I would just like to casually mention that I keep noticing commonalities between myself and a certain famous genius.

I've know for a long time that we are both Pisces and that we are both Left-Handed. Two things that, when taken together clearly create a predisposition for genius. Then, yesterday while pondering the Universe and thinking lofty thoughts that you couldn't possibly understand (or care about) I happened upon this article about an original letter written by Einstein in which he discusses his view of the Bible and religion. Einstein says, "the word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish."

You really can't argue with GENIUS.

The letter is being auctioned in London this week and is expected to bring in $12,000 to $16,000. I'd love to own it. Anybody have $16,000 you can loan me?

In a (somewhat) related article we learn that our favorite major world religion with funny hats has approved the lining of said hats with tin foil. That's right, the Vatican has announced that it is okay to believe in aliens. In an interview with an Italian newspaper titled "The Extraterrestrial is My Brother," (is it me or does that sound like a headline on the Weekly World News in the Supermarket Check-out lane?) the Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory (who knew?) discussed many issues related to the Church and Science and said among other things that The Bible "is not a science book," (REALLY?! Tell that to some folks in Alabama, Oklahoma and some other places I can think of) and that "the vastness of the universe means it is possible there could be other forms of life outside Earth, even intelligent ones." Kinda like those intelligent life forms that the Spanish encountered in the Americas. And like them I'm sure that these intelligent alien life forms are godless heathens and it's the Church's duty to bring to them the word of Jesus Christ. Or slaughter them out of existence. But hey, maybe we'll get a Vatican sponsored space program out of it.

Closer to home I suppose that acknowledging the existence of aliens opens up the possibility of Priests and Bishops being abducted. And PROBED. You gotta love the Universe.

*I was attempting to type E=MC squared but this genius couldn't figure out how to make it work with Blogger. I not only have a lot in common with Einstein, Genius but I also have a lot in common with another famous mind.

Wiley Coyote, SUPER Genius.

A Quick Check-In

I haven't been around in (quite) a while and I wanted to touch base.

Right after I posted my last entry the whole family headed for the airport and high-tailed it to Florida. My oldest daughter finished up with her Sophomore year in college and is now officially a Junior. The original plan way back when was for me to fly down, help her move out of her dorm, then both of us fly home. When my wife was looking into flights for me she discovered a Southwest special to Orlando for $47 one way. That's less that it takes to fill my car up with gas these days. When we lived in Florida we were a huge theme park family and usually had season passes to either the Disney parks or the Universal parks at any given time. So we decided to take the whole family for a last (for a while anyway) hurrah in Mouseville.

Between Thursday night and Wednesday we drove from Orlando to Jacksonville to Daytona Beach and back to Orlando, slept in at least three different beds, visited numerous relatives, went to two Disney parks and even found time to go to the beach and catch a movie. It was fun, we loved it and it was one of those vacations that you have to come home and rest from.

Some photographic evidence:

Cinderella's Castle in Magic Kingdom

They had extended hours that night and we stayed until 2AM. It's a lot more fun when you can get off a ride then get right back on...several times.

HEEEEERE'S MICKEY

M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E

Anyway, it was a good thing that I came back to a two day work week and a three day weekend. Of course my youngest had a Show Choir competition on Saturday and I had to have her to the school by 6AM to catch the bus. Rather than going back home and going back to bed I went and got myself some coffee and breakfast, did a little writing, enjoyed the extremely wet sunrise, then went to the shooting range and shot in a rifle match. Who knew there were all those extra hours in a day if you get up before ten? I'm definitely not a morning person and I do love my sleep but there is something enjoyable about getting up early when you don't have to rush off to work and can actually enjoy it. I still had time to do all the yard work that I usually do after I got home. That had to be done since we had been gone the previous weekend and we've been getting a hellacious amount of rain and the grass was about knee-high to a well digger's ass in Montana. We'd started picking the dogs up and tossing them into the grass because they wouldn't walk into it.

Speaking of rain. Sunday was Mother's Day of course and my wife was thrilled to have all three of her little girls home. They did a superb job of giving mom the special treatment. We still do the breakfast in bed thing only now they're old enough to handle it all themselves. I still get up out of habit but I've been shifted into more of a supervisory role. We had a lovely day. An extremely wet, soggy, deluge of a day, but lovely none-the-less. Of course the tradition in our house on special days is that the honoree gets to select the menu for dinner. My wife had decided a few days earlier that she wanted grilled steaks and grilled vegetables for Mother's day and had even procured all the necessary ingredients. The conversation before dinner went something like this:

Me: (looking out the back window thinking, "Christ, is it too late to start building an ark?") Honey, do you still want those steaks?

Leslie: Yeah honey, I kinda do.

Me: And you want them, like, grilled, like outside...on the grill? Not cooked in the oven?

Leslie: They're not as good in the oven. You just can't beat a good steak grilled...outside...on the grill.

Me: 'Cause, you know, if you really want them cooked on the grill I'll go out and try to get the coals lit.

Leslie: Yeah, I really kinda do.

Me: You know, 'cause, I love you, and if you REALLY want them...

Leslie: Yep, I really do.

Me: Okay.

More on this at Leslie's blog today.

Everybody Put Your Hands Together

Okay, now take them apart because you're going to need one of them. It's...

National Masturbation Month!!!

That's right everyone, back in 1995 the good folks at Good Vibrations (a great Internet merchant with excellent customer service and yes I know from personal experience) declared the lusty month of May then and forever hence to be National Masturbation Month. No, I'm not pulling your...er...leg or yanking your chain. That's for you to do this month.

Here's a Men's Health Magazine blog post that provides links to articles describing all sorts of health benefits and other good things that can happen to you if you regularly choke the chicken, spank the monkey or otherwise manually abuse members of the animal kingdom in a figurative sense. Of course folks like George Michael and Pee Wee Herman know that some bad things can happen too but hey in masturbation, just as in Real Estate, the three most important things to remember are location, location, location.

I'm not just talking to the men here ladies, fear not. This is not a guys only celebration, you deserve some recognition too. Go on. Give yourselves a hand. and if that hand happens to have a little vibratory assistance so much the better.

I wonder if I can talk the people running our wellness program into sponsoring some special activities at work. It would be a lot more productive that most of the meeting I attend and there would probably be less yanking.

In any case I truly hope that this special month is widely observed. This country and indeed, the whole world needs to lighten up. Stimulate the economy by spending some of that tax rebate check on lube and tissues. Fly solo or even better, grab a friend (with their permission of course) and let's see everyone cheerful and grinning like idiots on June 1st!

This seemed somehow appropriate. I don't particularly care for this version of Camelot but it's all I could find. Tra La!