Too crazy for THIS lady!
Yes, that profile picture of me is false -- I'm really a lady.
I joke. But when my daughter Sarah said today's title line after ... something, I don't remember what, at six-thirty in the morning, and I couldn't resist using it myself! I forgot to mention that Sunday afternoon we also attended one of Minot Chamber Chorale's concerts (Sarah, Jeffrey, and I anyway; Martha's already in the Chorale as one of their lead sopranos) and we got to sit up in the balcony of the hall at Minot State University where it was held ... honey, I love you, but I have to tell you Sarah fell asleep toward the end! There were two lengthy songs, "When David Heard" and a Sunrise Mass accompanied by several string instruments. Thankfully, not only was an English translation provided of the Mass, but also someone used the concert as an opportunity to evangelize. Just as "When David Heard" seemed to be essentially a lament of David for his son Absalom killed in rebellion against him, so God cries out for those "who reject His salvation through Jesus".
I'm quoting the flyer here. Saturday after I got home from work at Marketplace and I stopped freaking everyone out (see yesterday's post "Polycarp Sailing The Wine-Dark Sea" for more about that) Martha, Sarah, Jeffrey, and I settled down to finish the last three chapters of Andrew Clements' Frindle (ISBN 9780689818769), the story Minot Public Schools is having all of kids and their families read and discuss this month. Nick Allen ... is not really a troublemaker, but he takes his fifth-grade English teacher Mrs. Granger's admonition about how new words are made (by creation and repeated usage by more and more people) and creates a, not overnight sensation, but rather an idea that does not die! Ten years after coining the word "frindle" for a pen, Nick now in college receives a package containing a new dictionary with the word he coined! And Mrs. Granger -- who's a lot better about this that she originally let on AND that my real-life third grade teacher by the same name was -- congratulates him on that, using it as an example of how words are made.
(By the way, the bookending definitions of Friml and fringe I borrowed from Dictionary.com. I borrowed the format for frindle, so it's not an EXACT quote, but you'll get the idea.)
Friml
Friml
[frim-uh l]
noun
1.
Rudolf, 1881–1972, U.S. composer and pianist, born in Austria-Hungary.
frin*dle
[frin' dl]
noun
1.
a device used to write or make marks with ink
[arbitrary coinage; originated by Nicholas Allen, American, 1987 - (see pen) ]
fringe
frin*dle
[frin' dl]
noun
1.
a device used to write or make marks with ink
[arbitrary coinage; originated by Nicholas Allen, American, 1987 - (see pen) ]
fringe
[frinj]
noun
1.
a decorative border of thread, cord, or the like, usually hanging loosely from a raveled edge or separate strip... [Then fringe has five more definitions as a noun and two more as a verb (with object, also known as a transitive verb), so look them up!]
And tonight we'll be having a family reading night at Lewis and Clark Elementary School here in Minot with Frindle, which I presume everybody's finished now so I'm not giving anything away. Right? Of course, it will probably be out by the time I get off work, but I can live with that. And Jeffrey himself made the choice between this event and a Cub Scout banquet held at the same time to go here -- to go to Family Reading Night -- instead. Martha told me when she asked our son this she then asked him whether this meant he wasn't interested in Cub Scouts any more? On that he said YES, he still wants to be in Cub Scouts ... I don't know about you, but it makes me proud of my kids when they make a decision and don't regret, or act like they regret, it. God, You know we could use a lot more of that single-mindedness as we grow up (really, I'm still in the process, at half the age of Polycarp when he went to meet his God).
Today I got to vote. The City of Minot's holding a special election today on whether or not to increase its borrowing authority to get the funds to expand the jail that it's building as an expansion to the city courthouse. I get the YES arguments (besides give us more money, a time-honored political demand) but I have problems with this issue getting snuck in -- I don't know about my other readers or other locals I know, but did we hear anything about this before last week? The City claims if this measure is approved that we will not need to raise our local sales tax again ... I'm sorry, I don't buy that. Our country as a whole is screwed up -- more accurately, at the mercy of anyone who calls in what we owe -- because we voted to "expand our borrowing authority" so most of what we raise through taxes now pays interest on the national debt, and our state has prided itself on a budget surplus that could go in a decade or so the way of the dodo if this passes.
I think the city would raise the sales tax no matter how the vote goes. If you're THAT concerned about having room for inmates who have been justly convicted of crimes, bring back the death penalty. What can I say, I'm an ethicist.
David
And tonight we'll be having a family reading night at Lewis and Clark Elementary School here in Minot with Frindle, which I presume everybody's finished now so I'm not giving anything away. Right? Of course, it will probably be out by the time I get off work, but I can live with that. And Jeffrey himself made the choice between this event and a Cub Scout banquet held at the same time to go here -- to go to Family Reading Night -- instead. Martha told me when she asked our son this she then asked him whether this meant he wasn't interested in Cub Scouts any more? On that he said YES, he still wants to be in Cub Scouts ... I don't know about you, but it makes me proud of my kids when they make a decision and don't regret, or act like they regret, it. God, You know we could use a lot more of that single-mindedness as we grow up (really, I'm still in the process, at half the age of Polycarp when he went to meet his God).
Today I got to vote. The City of Minot's holding a special election today on whether or not to increase its borrowing authority to get the funds to expand the jail that it's building as an expansion to the city courthouse. I get the YES arguments (besides give us more money, a time-honored political demand) but I have problems with this issue getting snuck in -- I don't know about my other readers or other locals I know, but did we hear anything about this before last week? The City claims if this measure is approved that we will not need to raise our local sales tax again ... I'm sorry, I don't buy that. Our country as a whole is screwed up -- more accurately, at the mercy of anyone who calls in what we owe -- because we voted to "expand our borrowing authority" so most of what we raise through taxes now pays interest on the national debt, and our state has prided itself on a budget surplus that could go in a decade or so the way of the dodo if this passes.
I think the city would raise the sales tax no matter how the vote goes. If you're THAT concerned about having room for inmates who have been justly convicted of crimes, bring back the death penalty. What can I say, I'm an ethicist.
David
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