Bones

This morning I read in the news that there is a famine in Somalia. 

Famine is officially defined as when two adults or four children per 10,000 people die of hunger each day and a third of children are acutely malnourished. In some areas of Somalia, six people are dying a day and more than half the children are acutely malnourished.

Today I wondered what it feels like to be starving.  And how it must feel to not be able to feed your child.

Then I spent $7.97 on a dog bone at Walmart.

I wonder.

General Information

Why does my mind go off on weird tangents? 

While I was coding some reports today, the clinical information stated the patient had "general weakness".  Another common diagnosis is "general malaise". 

I spent the rest of the afternoon wondering what kind of army would be led by General Malaise and General Weakness.  French maybe? 

That's all.

Zip Drive

I wonder where all those memories are stored in our brains. 

My mother keeps coming up with stories that neither myself or my dad have heard before.  (and they just had their 65th anniversary).  Memories from her childhood.  Memories in a forgotten language.  It's as if there is no more room for new memories and the old ones have started to float to the surface.  She is forgetting more and more of today's life and remembering more of yesterday's. 

Yesterday she started singing a song in Russian.  She grew up next to a Russian Orthodox church and said as kids they used to sit on a wall and sing along with the service going on inside.  Her native tongue was Slovak.  Her and her sisters started school not knowing any English.   I can only imagine how frustrating it would have been to be the first grade teacher then.  Most of the children only knew their parents language.  Slovak, Italian, Polish, Russian.  She had to teach them English.  And everything else a first grade teacher is supposed to teach them. 

Somehow I think if I start remembering things from my childhood, it won't be any where close to as interesting as the stories my parents tell.  I hope I can remember all their stories and pass them on.  What an amazing time they have lived in. 

Do you have a favorite story of your parents childhood?

I wonder if anyone missed me.

So to my faithful readers...you know who you are...I wonder if I should make more of an effort to blog.

Hard to believe my last post was in February.  I wonder where all the time went?  

In case YOU are wondering...I did indeed still wonder about things on a daily basis.  Why no blog?  Well I discovered that maybe, perhaps, OK...so I didn't just discover this...that I have a bit of a obsessive tendency. 

So when I would have just liked to blog from the top of my head, I found myself thinking all day long about what I should wonder about and blog about and then it ended up I wasn't honestly wondering but rather purposely wondering so I could blog about it.  If that makes sense to you...maybe you should worry.  I just needed to take a break and move on to my next obsession.  But I still composed blogs in my head from time to time and always thought I would like to try again.  Then my kids started asking what happened to my blog and so here I am again.

I was going to go on a totally different direction with this, but between the last paragraph and this one, I took the dog outside for a walk and while I was in the front yard, I just witnessed a hawk get killed by a motorcycle.  Now there is a dead hawk on the road right in front of my driveway.  I wonder about random things like that.  Was there some reason I was outside at just that exact moment?  And if so, what reason?  Of course now I am obsessing about how I can go out and somehow bring it up to the house without anyone noticing.  It would be a shame for all those nice feathers to just be run over by cars and trucks when I would be happy to keep them safe.  Is it against the law to collect feathers?  I think I read that somewhere.  Now that's a law to wonder about.  If the bird already dropped the feather, then what's the harm in taking it home and keeping it?  

This really isn't such an interesting post...but it's all I can come up with for the moment.  I have to go check on that dead hawk.  My neighbor across the street better not steal it. 

I'll fly away.

I told you I wondered about birds a lot.  We have bird feeders right outside our back window, so that might have something to do with it.  I think we lived here three or four years before they finally started coming to our feeders.  Which I thought was pretty strange considering there is nothing behind our house but a big field and beyond the field, a GIANT hole....but I'll leave the hole for another day.  And beside our house on one side is woods and an abandoned farm.  So you would think there would have been a lot of birds hanging around.  I wonder what they were waiting for? 

Anyway, looking at birds or any wildlife for that matter gives me a chance to use one of my favorite words.  Anthropomorphize.  Which means to ascribe human characteristics to things not human.  Like birds.  My cousin taught that word to me many years ago.  I still remember because I thought it was cool to learn such a big word and even cooler to have a name for something I do all the time anyway. 

So I think about birds like people.  They come in all different shapes and sizes, like people.  They have their own special habits unique to their type of bird, kind of like different people groups have different cultures.  They live in different types of homes, like people do.  They come in different colors and so do we.

One of my favorite observations concerning birds came from watching some wild turkeys.  The male was strutting around looking all fancy with his tail all splayed out and thinking he was so special.  The female just kept pecking and walking across the field and totally ignored him.  But he kept strutting his stuff.  Now tell me you haven't seen similar behavior among humans. 

Bird courtship behaviors can include...singing, elaborate displays of feathers, building a nest, dancing, preening, and offering food.   Need I say more?  

Reality check

Sometimes I wonder what I want to be when I grow up. 

Then I remember that I am grown up. 

What a bummer. 

Today was one of those days.   It's not that I absolutely hate my job or anything.  I am thankful to have a job.  But there are so many things I think I might be interested in.  I'd like to be one of those picker guys who go around digging in peoples old barns and outbuildings looking for cool stuff to sell.  I'd like to be one of those experts on the Antiques Roadshow who know all about old stuff.  I'd like to be the person who sets up the displays in museums.  I'd like to be on the Jeopardy Clue Crew.  I'd like to be a professional organizer.  I'd like to be a librarian.  I'd like to be a professional volunteer...which I know is not a real job, but I think it would be cool to just be able to have the time to volunteer instead of work. 

So, who knows?  I guess I just don't want to stop wondering what I will be when I grow up. 

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Two for the price of one.

To you my loyal readers. (both of you)  No I did not forget to blog nor did I have a day without wondering.  I simply fell asleep on the couch last night which rendered me incapable of clearing my head enough to write.  That's what happens when I try to stay up past 10:00. 

Yesterday we went to the movies to see The King's Speech.  I think this may have been the first drama we ever went to see.  An entire movie without any shooting or explosions.  Imagine.  I think Marty felt like he owed this to me.  Not that I don't want to see the movies with the shooting and explosions, but on occasion I would like to see something a little more cerebral. 

What struck me most about this movie was simply that it made me look at royalty from a different angle.  I'm not one to be moonstruck by actors or other famous people.  I don't make it a habit to know what is going on in their lives.  Actually I think I just have dismissed royalty altogether as spoiled rich people who think themselves better than everyone else.  I never really thought about their position from their point of view.  The movie made me wonder what it would really be like to live like they do.  Sure, all the fancy homes and food and clothes and travel would be nice.  But what about not having any real friends or being raised by nannies and governesses?  What about not being able to just go out for a walk or to the store?  How would it be to be raised to think you really were above the "common man"?  How would it be to feel like you really couldn't trust anyone because they are only nice to you so they could get something from you?  I just wouldn't want that kind of life. 

Romans 13:1 says there is no authority except from God and the authorities that exist are appointed by God.  Kings and royalty should have our respect for that reason alone.  And maybe they could use a little empathy on our part as well.  On the other hand, sometimes a king can be a despicable tyrant who needs to be removed.  OK, so I am rambling now...back to the movie.  I liked it.  And for the record, it was the story of George VI (the current Queen Elizabeth's) father and his problem with stuttering and how he overcame it as well as became king in place of his brother Edward (who famously abdicated to marry Wallis Simpson).  Just to clarify...so you don't think the movie was as boring as my blog today.

As for today...this morning in Sunday School someone brought up how the priests used to have bells on their robes and a rope tied to their leg when they went into the Holy of Holies.  That way if the bells stopped, they would know the priest was dead and could pull him out.  So I wondered if this was the origin of the phrase "with bells on".  Possibly, but apparently it's not sure where the phrase came from.  At least according to my Google search.  There are several possibilities including it referring to sailor's bell bottoms, bells on the collars of harnesses of horses.  The latter seems to be the main contender since it would fit the meaning of the phrase best.  To be there with bells on implies eagerness.  So my guess about the priests robes seems a little off.  Oh well, can't learn if you don't wonder. 

So all in all, a pretty boring two for the price of one blog about my inane wonderings.  Sometimes you get what you paid for.