Sixty Days To Easter, Let's Get Ready To REINDEEEEEEEEER!

A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined.

Today's title – at least the second half of it – is inspired by one of the books Jeffrey got at a book walk held as part of the carnival held at Longfellow last night for several elementary schools. Both the kids got some books and also Sarah got her face painted with whiskers and a bright red nose (to give her that hamster look, matching the title character in the area schools' book of the month, Betty Birney's The World According to Humphrey) while Jeffrey, so I'm told, spent most of his time playing basketball as they were with Martha there.

Jeffrey and I read two of his books together this morning, a book with small print on the left for the parents and large print on the right for the kids – the series name eludes me right now – about bats, the flying kind, and Samantha Berger's Santa's REINDEER Games (ISBN 9780545368667) where the winning prize in this ESPN-like broadcast is to get to pull Santa's sleigh on Christmas Eve. (Which made me wonder why the ninth winning reindeer Laverne decided she didn't want to pull the sleigh for she wanted to spend time with her family – she'd be back Christmas morning!)

Reindeer in order of appearance: Dasher, Donner, Blitzen, Melvin, Dunder (they both lose the Ornament on a Spoon Race), Dancer, Prancer, Trumpy, Fifi (they both lose Pin the Tail on the Polar Bear), Comet, Cupid, Laverne, Skidders (Comet wins the Stocking Hop) and Vixen. Though I'd be darned if I saw Vixen anywhere else, and Jeffrey pointed that out too … and with Sarah I read her small print/large print book about a monster as your best friend and she read her Tuesday reading before school. That, and they reviewed their spelling lists again, which is quite the accomplishment for me!

Similar accomplishments I consider to be finding well-written stories and reporting on them. And apparently that is a sentence; going through my weekend reading list – that is, what I actually read and finished versus what I am going to read, what I am in the process of reading, what I SAY I am going to read … it's just hard to keep straight! The graphic novel/autobiography of Richard the Lionheart (ISBN 1404202412) by David West & Jackie Gaff and illustrated by John Cooper shed some light on him for me, but not too much. Spent most of it out of England where he's king, but remembered fondly there.

What does it say that so many Superman back issues are available in the used and specialty comic store where I shop? Maybe I'm just finding them, but there are always great stories there! “The Feral Man of Steel” (Superman Annual #6, cover dated 1994) was just awesome. One of DC Comics' Elseworlds stories, it mixes Superman, Tarzan, and Mowgli from The Jungle Book and has Kal-El (Superman's birth name) crash in the Indian jungle, late 19^th century and be raised to become K'L'L, Lord of the Wolves, Son of M'R'R. Then comes Sir Richard Burton, Lois Lane, and Lex Luthor ...

(Interesting thing: two of DC Comics' Big Three of superheroes were raised by or mothered by a woman named Martha. Martha Kent. Martha Wayne. And Wonder Woman was sculpted out of clay by her mom and given life by the Olympian gods.) Then I had a stand-alone Elseworlds story, Superman: Speeding Bullets where the last son of Krypton became the favorite son of Gotham City, raised by Thomas and Martha Wayne as Bruce Wayne and his archenemy Lex Luthor becomes his Joker. Sometimes to appreciate what you have, you have to look at a world that's a mite different.

And THAT'S my seven-paragraph truth, David