That puts no garlic in the sauce.

Evidently this was an ancient Egyptian equivalent of "that doesn't help us, does it". Set in the Fourth Dynasty when the Pharaoh Khufu reigned in the early 26th century BC, De Wolfe Morgan's 1937 story Great Pyramid Mystery (Scholastic Book Services' T 33; no ISBNs before the AD 1970s, remember?), the story begins with Setna accompanying his father Dekere on an inspection tour of what we know as the Great Pyramid of Giza as it nears completion. Setna's father is seized with some untraceable poison and dies, and Setna rushes from the priests there to deliver a message to Khufu that someone is out to stop the completion of his pyramid, and thereby stop the representative of the gods from having his will done. Khufu appoints Setna one of his personal messengers, and in that position he sees a great deal more to Egypt than the Nile and constant tributes to the gods in his and his friend's attempts to uncover the plot to overthrow the Pharaoh and stop the pyramid.


The church-state separation we rail on so much about today didn't exist in ancient Egypt.


But it was still there; despite being considered a child of the gods if not a god himself, Pharaoh's claim on the throne remained pretty precarious, especially in a bad harvest, in a near-perpetual struggle between the nobles and priests. Granted, no praetorian guard whispered in Pharaoh's ears, "Behold, thou art mortal", but he had to know it. And seeing a mystery unfold in a setting that's so different from where we're used to existing makes you realize that people are fundamentally no different in any age. The same desires, the same wills, the same loves and hates. It's just the time and place are different. Men are always like waffles, and women are always like spaghetti. But that's the subject of another book I read, and Bill & Pam Farrel's food analogy in their 2001 book Men Are Like Waffles -- Women Are Like Spaghetti (ISBN 0736904867) refers to the way men and women in marriage differently process information.


Yes, that sounded right.


Men have the tendency to compartmentalize different areas of their life, setting up boxes much like waffles have, while women tend to interconnect everything to the point there's no difference between spaghetti and sauce. Anyway, the Farrels who cofounded and codirect Masterful Living for couples use the analogy to make readers realize through their own experiences how each person in a couple can help each other relieve stress, coordinate parenting, and bring out the best their spouse has to offer in every area. This is one of those things I really need Martha -- who came home after two hours on the job today because she's still recovering from a bad cough and coughing up -- to work with me on next year. School doesn't start here again until Tuesday (and evidently the snow will NOT be so bad over this coming weekend as it concerned some) and already the kids are chafing at the bit. I brought them to my in-laws' before I went to work and Jeffrey's got his iPad while Sarah's got

Avery who lit up with a big smile on seeing me!


I'm really getting better with kids this year ... it's been a variety of ups and downs, but it's hard to encapsulate the whole year as I used to do with letters. But that's ok, I think; the older I get the more I'm finding a lot less mattering as much as it once did. I mean, so what if I don't teach Sunday school any more I've still got a lot to do and so what if I'm not (yet) the wealth-producer that I want to be for the sake of my family. A lot more of it is not due to lethargy as I thought -- it's just not that important any more. It has been a real fight, even when I can't find the words to admit it is one, to feel that yes I have been creative, yes I have made a difference, just not always in the way I want to. And I'm really working on not repeating myself again and again and again or finding offense quite so easily in my own household. The families I interact with outside of my own aren't necessarily worse or better than mine when they don't advertise it. I'm just concerned about doing better myself.


And for this 2016 drawing to a close, that's about all I can ask -- to better myself.


And for some garlic,




David