“Toy Packaging”

I just heard this song by Sara Groves, and I think all Mommies around the world will unite with me [and Sara] in denouncing the accursed TOY PACKAGING!  Yes, let us stand together in one accord and say, ” I will not be beaten… by TOY PACKAGING!  Though toddlers and mommies alike are brought to simultaneous holly jolly tears by the barrage of twisty ties, plastic wing nuts, grommets, and [!] screws standing between ripped wrapping paper and contented play, we will not succumb to TOY PACKAGING.  Yes, armed with a phillips head screwdriver, a Coke and the toll free number for Consumer Reports, we shall overcome… TOY PACKAGING!  You sing it, Sara.

“Nothing makes me lose my cool like 
Toy packaging 
Ask the kids to leave the room for 
Toy packaging 
I have no choice the money’s spent 
I’ve worked for hours to make a dent 
I guess it’s anger management 
Toy packaging 

Nothing makes me lose my cool like 
Toy packaging 
Ask the kids please leave the room it’s time for 
Toy packaging 
I’m drawing up a battle plan 
to extricate this robot man 
My self-esteem is in the can 
Toy packaging 

In the old days you could hold a box and shake it 
And hear the pieces rattling around 
My eyes tear up with these grommets, tape and twisty ties 
Remembering their beautiful sound 

Toy Packaging 
I love Toy Packaging 
(Mom! Honey!) 

Nothing makes me lose my cool like toy packaging 
Kids you really need to leave the room, mom’s opening toy packaging 
I’m sorry you have to see this sight 
You must be brave, no please don’t cry 
I promise it will be alright 
I hope to have it by tonight 
Nevermind this dynamite 
Toy packaging”

Ha! and double Ha!

By the way, you can download this song along with the stunning “Joseph’s Lullaby” by Mercy Me legally and for FREE at this site:  www.freeccm.com  It’s available for a limited time, I think, but it’s a great site to check each month.

My First in Fethering

Murder in the Museum
by Simon Brett
Finished reading: October 22, 2008

Good read.  This was my first book from this author who has written several mystery series.  This one is from the Fethering Series, named for the English region where its two sleuths reside.  I haven’t really gotten to know them yet, but am eager to get more acquainted.  Carole, a retiree from the “Home Office” (must be an English thing I haven’t figured out just yet), seems to be the organized and analytical one–overly sensitive to order and the way she envisions her relationships should be.  She is also a staunch defender and practitioner of the traditional English middle class ways.  Jude is her free-spirited neighbor who delves into alternative therapies and seems to delight in occassionally thwarting Carole’s middle class morays.  I would still like to understand their relationship a little better, but the arrival of an old friend of Jude was more the focus for this story.  Regardless, these two make a great pair.

The story for this one centered around Chadleigh House, the family home (now a museum) of a well-known English writer who’s dark family secret begins unraveling with the discovery of a 40-year-old skull on the grounds.  Another murder later, and I was rushing through to find out what would happen next.  The characters and dialogue were interesting, not predictable.  Although Mr. Brett did not include the vivid descriptions of the story’s locale and surroundings that I enjoy with other writers, his descriptions of the house’s “priest hole” where the Catholic priests would hide to evade authorities in the Church of England’s heyday were great–particularly the mechanics of how the rooms were concealed and opened.  Of course, any mystery is made better by a secret room!  The search for the mystery’s solution kept me rushing through.  I’m excited to get another installment and get to know this place and this duo a little better.

I’m always interested in the new words that pop up in an English mystery–at least words that are new to me.  In this one:

THRENODY — a song or hymn of mourning, composed as a memorial to the dead (according to Wikipedia).  It was part of the title of the English author’s most famous poem.

“Cat Who” Bomb

The Cat Who Dropped a Bombshell
Lilian Jackson Braun
Finished reading: October 17, 2008 

The “Cat Who” series is a favored treat for lovers of the mild-mannered, character-driven, amateur sleuthing mystery book sub-set.  That happens to be one of my favorite kind of mysteries–not much blood and guts, characters you can follow as the series develops (unless one becomes the unwitting murder victim,) good storytelling and an interesting plot.  Bombshell is #28 in this series, all showcasing two siamese cats with uncanny murder-solving sensibilities and the sleuthing, cat-loving millionaire and former newspaper man, James Qwilleran.  Set in a rural Northern town called “Pickax,” Mrs. Braun has created a great community of characters with just enough of the typical small town quirkiness to be realistic.  As with all good series, she not only creates characters and relationships, but a history with milestones, grand events, great rivalries and legends much like the real thing.  It’s why I like this series. 

Because I hadn’t read about Pickax in a while, this book was like a trip home for the weekend–getting reacquainted with friends and family, taking a walk around town and sampling favorite cuisine.  The continued development of a great fictional history and richly diverse relationships is where The Cat Who Dropped a Bombshell succeeds.  The story is set during the Pickax sesquicentennial summer-long celebration, and included lots of the historical details and community events that give the series depth.  It’s the redeeming factor for this installment.

As for the murder, unfortunately I’d finished the book before I realized there was one.  There were three “mysterious” deaths–one hunting “accident,” and the passing of two elderly residents.  The hunting death was left unresolved and completely unexplored, almost as if it was an afterthought with absolutely no contribution to the story line.  The elderly deaths (predictably, inheritance motivated) were solved on practically the same page they were revealed.  For a mystery book-lover, it bombed.  There was no blow by blow of the police investigation, none of the sleuthing “Qwill” usually provides, and the few hardly recognizable twists and turns were forced and down-right predictable.

I’ve read quite a few of the “Cat Who” mysteries and have never been disappointed as the last page was turned–until now.  Installment #29 is out, and I’m hoping Cool Koko, the siamese crime solver, redeems himself!

Time Out

It’s always funny and refreshing to see the world through the eyes of a 3-year-old.  Tonight at bedtime we were reading in our Rhyme Bible about Daniel and the lion’s den.  It’s one of Little Drummer Boy’s personal favorites, and therefore, I’ve pretty much committed the cadence to memory.

In case you’re not familiar with the story…  

Daniel was a Hebrew taken into captivity by the Babylonians.  He proved his character in such a way that King Darius, ruler of the Persian Empire later appointed him to supervise the governors of all his territorial provinces.  Obviously, that didn’t go over well with the actual Persians in King Darius’ court who were bumped over.  They knew of Daniel’s faith in God and commitment to daily prayer.  So, they tricked King Darius into making a law that would outlaw the prayer, knowing Daniel would not abide by the law.

That’s the point in the story where our story book includes a picture of several of the court officials spying on Daniel outside his window.  Little Drummer Boy leaned up from his pillow and pointed to one of the men.

“He’s about to be in trouble.  He’s probably going to be in time out.”

I’ll say.  As a result of the law he was tricked into signing, King Darius had to send Daniel to the lion’s den for the night, which greatly grieved him.  Our story stops the next day after the king saw that God had protected Daniel and announced that the kingdom should honor the God of Israel.  However, I have a feeling King Darius subjected the court officials that targeted Daniel to a time out of a more permanent kind that usually seen on Nanny 911.

Nevertheless, Little Drummer Boy’s take on the situation gave me an inner giggle and an appreciation of his keen sense of what was kind and unkind.  Sometimes I envy the clarity of the 3-year-old perspective.  If only we had the same understanding of kind and unkind as adults.  I don’t know about you, but I encounter people and situations every day that could benefit from a time out.  A pause.  A little separation from a volatile situation.  Time to consider our actions and their consequences.  Time to learn how to make a different choice.

By the way, I highly recommend the Rhyme Bible by Linda Sattgast. It offers stories in rhyme from both the Old and New Testaments along with great (and sometimes humorous) pen, ink and watercolor illustrations. lt communicates many Bible stories and concepts effectively in a way that has appealed to my Little Drummer Boy since he was probably no more than 18 months.  We haven’t quite started it with Squiggle Man yet–mainly because we can’t get him to sit still long enough–but I am sure he will be just as enamored by it at bedtime.  Get this one.  It’s well worth it!

A Creativity Treat

Business tips.  IT solutions.  Weekly coupons.  Parenting ideas.  Ways to go green.  Child development.  All things Mac.  Various blog alerts.  New Hallmark goodies.

I get a lot of Ezines–you know those mini magazines and at-a-glance hints that filter through your in box every day or week or month with usually lots of advertising links and sometimes a few good ideas.  But, this one from Jupiter Images is my FAVORITE!  

Yes, it has it’s share of advertisements, but in it’s consistently concise top three “treats,” it never fails to somehow turn over my giggle box or get my creative juices going.  It’s mainly targeted at designers, but who doesn’t need a little creativity boost or shot of fun?

It has introduced me to this crazy way to pass the spare time — making Presidential Candidate Finger Puppets from the website folduscandidate.com, complete with downloadable candidate templates, a countdown to election day, instructional videos and a rockin’ beat (”body movin’ body movin’ a sound so soothin’)!  The things designers do to pass the time!

I also found this cool tool at Add-Art that replaces all the annoying internet advertising boxes on FireFox with great artwork from around the world–in this case Renoir in various states of cropping.  It beats AT&T and IcelandAir any day.

Then, I got to see this exhibit of posters by top graphic designers shown at Florida’s Wolfsonian called “Thoughts on Democracy” and highlighting some modern takes on Norman Rockwell’s Four Freedoms.  I’m still pondering “Democracy is the Helvetica of Politics.”  Hmmm.  There’s another post in there somewhere.

And, most recently, let me test my typography and pop culture acumen with this quiz from the Chicago Tribune challenging us to identify the magazine logos these letters came from.  It’s multiple choice.

Yep!  Subscribe to this one.  It’s a creativity treat!

Human Writes.

115 pages. That was the sum of Elie Wiesel’s Night, an account of the Nobel Laureate’s imprisonment in Nazi concentration camps.  I believe it was toward the end of page 7 that I got up from my chair, walked to my bedroom, and put the book behind several others in a basket under my bedside table.  I actually consciously thought, “I’ll just pretend I don’t have the book.”  I even thought of hiding it under the bed.

Page 7 was Mr. Wiesel’s account of how Moishe the Beadle (his Kabbalist tutor) miraculously survived his stay at an early Polish Gestapo work camp.  He returned to the village warning whoever would listen of the experiences in store for the Jews in hopes they could “ready” themselves while there was still time.  No one wanted to listen.  The poignant regret of that fact made me want to close the book, for it was inevitable foreshadowing of the rest of the story.

I know.  It was a strange reaction, but the memoir from the first sentence was so powerful, almost devastating, to me that I wanted to throw it away without reading any more.  But, I didn’t have the nerve.  Somehow I felt that I owed it to Mr. Wiesel to read his words.  If he had survived the horror described in that book and been bold enough to record it, how could I possibly NOT show him at least the courtesy of reading it, acknowledging it?

It was the first time I had read a personal account of a Holocaust survivor.  I think that is the reason why this book came to mind when I was contemplating an article on Human Rights.  I came across an initiative from Bloggers Unite encouraging writers to blog about Human Rights on May 15 as a way of bringing more awareness to the issues.

As I thought about my own perspective on human rights, it seemed that Human Writes was a more appropriate term.  You see, a major barrier to our engagement in these issues is that the statistics on the grossest forms of human rights violations are simply numbing.  Large numbers become impersonal and lose their meaning.  But, when one human writes of his own experiences, how can we dare to look away without asking questions? How do we summon that kind of boldness?

In Elie Wiesel’s speech accepting the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize (38 years to the day, ironically, after the United Nations adopted its Declaration of Human Rights), he said, “…I have tried to keep memory alive, I have tried to fight those who would forget.  Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices.”

As I open the burden of Night again, I see that Mr. Wiesel does not share OUR luxury of forgetting.  For he writes of his first night at Birkenau:

Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed.

Never shall I forget that smoke.

Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky.

Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever.

Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live.

Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes.

Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself.

Never.

The issue of human rights brings a new dimension to “paying attention,” the pursuit of this website.  It requires a harsh confrontation with the raw, cruel capabilities of human beings; the realization that the events of Elie Wiesel’s Night did not happen in the 12th century, but less than 70 years ago – one lifespan.  Yet, similar cruelties are occuring all over the world even as I write.  And if I am honest, I admit that the seeds of those mind-boggling statistics occur even in my own little hometown every day. Each time someone (even I) with words or looks or actions seeks to diminish the infinite worth of another human being created in God’s image, we have contributed to the cruelty, as if acknowledging the worth of another somehow diminishes my own.

Elie Wiesel once asked Moeshe the Beadle,  “why do you pray?”  The answer – “I pray to the God within me for the strength to ask Him the real questions.”

I pray for that same strength – to ask God the hard questions, to ask myself the hard questions, and to have the courage to face the answers.