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Twelve years ago ...


Psalm 33:12-22                                                                                                                    May 11
Matthew's trust in God's provision @ CASU-Fresno; Martha @ Memorial + NP             10505.11


Let thy mercy, O LORD, be upon us, according as we hope in thee. 22


John 1:29-51; 2 Kings 10-12


Show respect for the other person's opinions. Never say, "You're wrong."


At tonight's LYO gathering, the graduating 6th graders got together with our regulars and played Twister, Trashcan, and Taffy. In Trashcan, I was able to make my opponents declare a tie. Brooke, Jake, Joann, and others I'm blanking on sound like they had a good time.


[Today's Yahoo! Crossword Puzzle is pasted in here; I finished it in 8 minutes 42 seconds.]


Dunn, Mark. Ella Minnow Pea. New York: Anchor Books, 2002.


ISBN 0385722435
The first novel by a playwright is a lexicographer's dream! It's a great, subtly funny story told by letters between the title character (sound it out) and the friends, family, and high council of Nollop, an independent republic obsessed with language. A statue commemorating the creator of "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog," the shortest English sentence with every letter of the alphabet, starts to lose its letter tiles. With each loss, a letter drops out of the novel and Nollopian public discourse, and the goal to create a shorter sentence with every letter becomes harder. It works because it's so unique.


So much time and so little to do ...


No, strike that, reverse. (Ten points for anyone who recognizes where that line comes from!) Before getting to work this morning I stopped at church and Pastor Gerald's wife Luann shared a story I laughed out loud at so I'll repeat it here. She saw a video of a girl within shooting range of two who was given a magazine to read -- of course at that age I'd expect she would look at the pictures more -- and she started running her finger along the cover, expecting to scroll like she would on a tablet!


Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs.


Now the ten-dollar word for a sentence like "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" is a pangram, a sentence that contains all the letters in a particular language. And the sentence you see above was the characters' solution to providing a shorter pangram (shorter by three letters, 32 to "The quick brown fox" 's 35) that contained all the letters of the alphabet. And according to some reading I'm doing on a slow day, that's not even the shortest in English that makes sense!


Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz. (31 letters; I did know this one, but not how many letters!)
The five boxing wizards jump quickly. (31 letters; D&D fans take note!)
How vexingly quick daft zebras jump! (30 letters; it's getting pretty dafty in here!)
Bright vixens jump; dozy fowl quack. (29 letters; vixens being female foxes!)
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow. (29 letters; again with that sphinx!)


Of course you know, this means I'll have to work on a shorter one. I got home last night and with our organist Kari sick choir practice was cancelled so I had everyone home with me for some filling Hamburger Helper cheeseburger macaroni and a can of Pringles for each of us. I say "can" despite the listed serving size because for me one can gets to be one serving! One food I get carried away on, I admit it. And even under the best of circumstances I have to be careful chewing them.


Picture where I've got teeth missing and you get the idea.


Though some of the liquor in the jugs might help ... anyway, I got the kids to Ramstad this morning for Sarah's last Thursday morning rehearsal with elementary school bands there for Monday night's concert and then got Jeffrey to Longfellow. It doesn't take them as long to get ready as it does/did me, but I'll get used to it. If Martha's gotten used to being up at six in the morning to be at work by seven, I can definitely get into the earlier for school routine and so can the kids!


I just need a nap first at forty-five,


David