Doo-doo

I know the difference between due and do.
Just as I know the difference between its and it's.
Sabbath and Sabaoth.
Your and you're.

But I just sent out an all-hands email to our school district declaring "do to the inclement weather ..."

And so, though I wish I could blame evil spirits haunting my computer, I feel like a complete moron.

Like a Dallas Cowboys fan.

Like a hoary old Marxist-Leninist still kissing Mao's picture on the wall.

Like one of those dim bulbs who show up with, ahem, gifts and plans for underage girls in To Catch A Predator.

Like high school dropout rock musicians who attempt to articulate government policy.

Like ... well, you get the picture.

Dumb. Dumb as a sack of sand. Dumb as Patrick Star(fish). Indeed, dumb as Patrick Star on crystal meth after dropping out of high school to become a Mao-suit-wearing rock musician in order to impress an investigator posing as an underage girl in a stake-house (not steak-house) somewhere in Anytown USA.

In-doo-bitably.

odd dillema

So I have opened a Facebook account,which is stupid because I hardly have time for all the projects that I have going now.

It has quickly attracted a nucleus of family, friends and people I know.

I will keep it rigidly separate from this blog as I do appreciate what shreds of anonymity I have left here on Isis.

But maybe some of you bright bulbs can answer my did-I-do right question.

One of my new friends on Facebook, a member of my church, but not someone I see very often, announced today that he is coming out of the closet.

I hope that I have made it quite clear on this blog what my personal opinion is about that: such a step is his to make and not mine to criticize. The world needs more love, not less.

He will certainly lose some friends, though. And unfortunately, as far as Facebook is concerned, he has lost me -- but NOT for that reason, although he will certainly take it that way. And I'm not sure that I can do anything about it, which is sad because I would like to be at least one person who would not cut him off for THAT reason.

But there are certain words I do not use, certain very foul words, either in jest or in seriousness, especially not to a Lady. He does. And I don't want that showing up on my little corner of Facebook.

Strange trivia: Molasses on the Move

"It is not often that a fateful tragedy occurs that centers around a food, but unfortunately, in 1919, one such event did occur.

"The event is referred to as the Great Molasses Flood and occurred when a molasses storage tank holding over two million gallons of molasses broke, and its sticky content came pouring throughout the city streets of Boston, Massachussetts, traveling as fast as 35 miles per hour and creating a thirty foot tidal wave of sweetener.

"Unfortunately, this was not a sweet matter as twenty-one people died and significant amounts of property was destroyed."
-- from www.whfoods.com

I have learned from multiple sources this week that -- except in the form of urban tidal waves -- molasses is very good for you. It is rich in iron and other minerals, and also assists in the absorption of calcium. Unfortunately, it happens to be one of those foods that people either love or hate. Fortunately for me at least, it does not fall on the list of all the foods in the world that I don't like, which consists of the following:

1. Mayonnaise
2. Radishes

An old book I am reading recommends that one stir it into milk. Instant malted milk -- not bad at all. I tried it for the first time yesterday and intend to make a habit of it.

My figger has a cohd

I slammed my finger in the car door the other day. Hard. It does not look pretty. It does not feel pretty.

So I sat in the car bleeding into a yellow napkin from McDonals and strugglging to not scream while my poor Beloved beside me urged me to go get a tetanus shot and was sure that it was broken.

And now id is Monday and I am tryign to do my daily work,w hich involves typing and it happenes to be teh finger that types the e, a, s and d, and the going is rather difficult. I am not responbislbe for any typing errosr today.

This finger thinks that I hate it. It is the same one I gashed jsut a month ago when I was slicing an onion.

Yes, I would like somw cheeese twith my whine today. I like Muenwster, please.

When is a hog not a hog but in truth a canary?

Thought I'd hook you with that question.

The answer: When the little snuffler is a hedgehog, no relation in truth to piggies at all except that both are mammals. Hedgehogs, argues author Hugh Warwick, also are a warning species, a canary in the coal mine. Their rapid and mysterious decline in their European and Asian homelands, signifies that something is not right in the world.

This is my last post on Warwick's book, "The Hedgehog's Dilemma." But I had to buy that book and I read it cover to cover. I have loved these little beasts since I was a boy in England, when a delightful older couple stopped my family's car on a country road there to prevent us from hitting one. They invited us all in for tea and a friendship began.

Many years later, in a misty Hungarian evening, I rescued a hedgehog myself as it scurried into a roadway. Tell me, what other wild animal can simply be scooped up barehanded -- albeit carefully -- and relocated like that?

Hedgehogs are not creatures of the deep woods, fleeing the sight and sound of man; nor are they citified vermin living off his garbage, like rats or landfill gulls. The inoffensive little insectivores live happily on the edge of his gardens or fields, at home in his world and yet vulnerable to it, scurrying about by night on their little errands, and snoring in the hedgerow by day.

From Warwick:

"Hedgehogs can do more to foment changes in our attitudes towards the environment than almost any other animal. It is only a short walk from thinking of the hedgehog as a rather cute garden visitor to realizing that the roads you drive on to the supermarket or the holidays you take all have an impact on your new-found friend.

"The journey hedgehogs have led me on has taken me from a sentimental love of wildlife through a pragmatic desire to understand something and into something quite special.

"So much can be said without words, so [if you are lucky enough to be in the lands a hedgehog calls home] don't be shy, get down on your hands and knees,lean forward and see what happens as you get nose to nose with a hedgehog. Relish and wallow in the moment of making a connection with the most charismatic creature on the planet."

Curiosity kills more than cats

So I read today about a little boy who seriously cut himself when he curiously poked his finger into a hole in some sort of metal box in the restroom and encountered a jagged piece of metal within.

Curiosity, plain and simple.

Curiosity is linked to intelligence. Your average earthworm exhibits little to no interest in anything other than ingesting dirt. It nevers appears to wonder why, its annelid life-goal being but to squirm and die.

But the brainier a beast, the more it sniffles its surroundings and pokes its various digits, appendages, nose and tongue into every nook and cranny.

The old proverb warns against such behavior. And indeed, with good reason. Curiosity, in the animal world, seems to cause a lot of casualties. In The Hedgehog's Dillema, by Hugh Warwick, we are warned to be careful what manner of substances we slather around our yards in hedgehog country, as the spiny beast loves to sample any intriguing new scent it encounters.

Human parents struggle mightly to prevent their young offspring from ingesting pocket change, thumbtacks, household poisons and electric sockets, to name a few. Once a modicum of growth is developed, there is yet no rest for the weary: the young ones promptly try to shove beans and such into their nostrils or ears as well; and the schemes only get more convoluted as the children get older.

How is it that such a deadly trait as curiosity goes hand-in-hand with intelligence?