In praise of pencils

I declare today National Pencil Appreciation Day.

Do you realize how long humanity has struggled to find the perfect writing implement?

For permanent scribbling, chisels and stone, wax tablet and stylus, feather quills and parchment were all we had since the dawn of time. Writers endured the flaws of all these tools until the typewriter, then the computer keyboard, finally liberated them.

But we have long had, and perhaps always shall have, the humble pencil. An elegant sandwich of wood and graphite-clay, it offers its little round head without complaint to scrub out errors.

I love a good, sharp pencil with no mutilation of the eraser. Always have. I never use the eraser -- I buy one of those little rectangular ones and leave the pencil top alone. It's nerdy. So be it.

I don't chew my pencils, either. I cringe when others attack the poor defenseless thing like some kind of overgrown beavers ... but there was that time, back in eighth grade, when beautiful Brandi borrowed my pencil and it spent the rest of history class alternating between Her fingers and Her lovely lips and sharp, pretty teeth, and that once, I didn't mind at all.

Somebody, I have read, sells cleverly fashioned "pre-chewed" pencils these days, to discourage nibblers.

Celebrating the Avocado

Life should be about celebration, of all that is good. The Creator gave us eyes,ears, fingers, noses and brains for a reason.

I declare today, July 7, Avocado Appreciation Day.

This weird but tasty fruit is another gift from the New World, like tomatoes and chocolate. Doesn't taste anything like a fruit. Not tart. Not sweet. Not juicy.

You either love it or you hate it. And guacamole, its most typical performance, is, like chili, something you enjoy with the tastebuds, not the eyes. Think too hard about what the green goop looks like, or ask a ten year old boy for ideas, and you probably won't finish your serving.

Don't look up the etymology of the word "avocado," either, if you are of a Puritan mindset.

You looked it up, didn't you? Serves you right.

Avocadoes are a reminder that God has a sense of humor or perhaps that He/She got a little bored with making fruits that were all basically variations on one theme.