done

I guess I'm getting a new car! But it won't be a prize. Or a rental.

I'm going to have to buy it. The price is not more than I can afford.

I'd love to take you for a ride in it. As long as you don't mind traveling mapless.

My old, trusted auto no longer drives like it used to, and all the tinkering in the world won't help.

The only thing it is good for now is scrap metal.

I like scrap metal.

Now I just need a blow torch.

i'd like to add sword fighting...

there's a tax on everything these days!

Even Liberty......

I think it's called The Patriot Act.

Freedom ain't free, ya know!

(Sorry for the poor photo quality; click on it for a better view. I whipped out my cell phone while waiting to make a left hand turn, and snapped this one. I've been trying to capture it for weeks, ever since the Liberty Tax Service store started its annual charade on Uintah.)

gratis grains

there's art now!
and chemical symbols!
and multiplication facts!
and italian!

but my favorite is still vocabulary.

go and play

let me know how many grains of rice you donated today

flea lice

Myanmar. China. Two good reasons to play this game. As if there weren't enough already.

I usually make it to about level 40-42, but I never play longer than about 600 grains of rice or so at a time. I like the fact that if you miss one, it will eventually come back to it so you get the chance to get it right. Tonight I learned that a proem is a preface. I like that it's the word "poem" but with an "r" in it. I'd like to write a proem for a poem.

Re: The title of this post-
Everytime I think about "Free Rice", I hear it with a Chinese accent, so it always comes into my head (no pun intended) as

"Flea Lice"

So play. Let me know what level you made it to. Tell us how many grains of rice you donated. And try not to think too much about whether or not it will all get to where it needs to go.

One last thing: it really is much more fun if you play it WITH someone!

i love oregon, part I

It was like fast forwarding time, and not just the hour. Weeks of winter simply disappeared into daffodils and apricot blossoms. Spent several hours lost inside Powell's before emerging into the rain and a lonely city bar crawl with an old friend I hadn't seen in 12 years. Bicycles everywhere. People talk to strangers here-now I know where I learned that trait.

i love oregon, part II

When I lived in Salem, this house belonged to "The Lost Boys". I was in love with one of them. Now it is the home of Janet and John Roy and sometimes Jesse. It's still a place where lost souls can come and always find a place at the table. Or in the garden. They won't serve you a drink, and that's just fine.

don't we all......

I was driving Grant and Bennett over to their friends' house early Friday morning, since there was no school and I was catching a plane to Oregon in just a few hours. Grant has always had a way of quoting things he's heard or read that's rather eerie. (Not like a child with Aspergers or Autism, mind you, but still eerie).

Me, I don't remember squat; not even really good jokes. I listened to the whole joke show on A Prairie Home Companion last weekend. Couldn't tell you a single one. Ok, maybe one. This one:

I was depressed last night so I called Lifeline and got a call center in Pakistan. I told them I was suicidal. They got all excited and asked if I could drive a truck.

(See, the ones I remember aren't really even the funny ones, just the sick ones!)

Back to the backseat of the car now, where Grant starts quoting Pirates of the Caribbean. "But this one's my favorite...." he says, and he gets all mystic and reverential before he recites, "It's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs, but what a ship is... what the Black Pearl really is... is freedom." Then a long dramatic pause. And a sigh. And then....

"I want to live like that."

I came out of my self-absorbed driving mode, slowed down, turned around, looked him in the eye and said, "Don't we all, buddy, don't we all."

mar adentro

The Sea Inside. Where was I in 2005?  How the hell did I miss this?



Just put it at the top of your queue.  Trust me. And don't forget the tissues.

Ramon Sampedro: "Only time and the evolution of conscience will decide one day if my request was reasonable or not."

Let us hope, someday soon, that the courts of law and the hearts of men decide that it was.

My mother also had some words to say about death with dignity.