Happy happy

Happy New Year to

       D.C., CJ, Kat, Cuz, Suzie, Nicki, Aynn, Malmesbury, Wade, Mark and Mark, Kim, the other Kim, Donald, Adam, Garnetta, Robert, Dom, Michelle, and the two women who directly share my life, Juli and Sam. This year the love you all have blessed me with is appreciated more than you will ever know. May God shine His grace on you in 2013.

 

 

A Diamond By Any Other Name ...

     It never ceases to amaze me how quickly a seemingly innocent joke can blossom into certified bull goose Looney exchanges of the totally ridiculous.

     Case in point:

     My fiancé, Juli, and I have decided to have a less than complicated engagement and wedding. We both have been married before, and the trappings and traditions simply hold no great appeal to either one of us.

    One such tradition is the customary diamond engagement ring. Being an artist and working with her hands in clay and paint, I didn’t want her to have a ring that would constantly be removed. (Add to this the fact that our wedding bands will be a combination of Celtic and Southwestern American Indian design. Where do you find an engagement ring to match that?)

     So. Friends would not let that explanation alone, insisting that I buy my future bride a “big” diamond.

     So I did.

     Soon we spawned imitators. Apparently I struck a nerve somewhere, although I choose to not speculate on the cause, other than to observe the fact that we were playing the game of “my diamond is better than your diamond.” (What!? Are you kidding me!? I have friends in Canada and England who already think Americans are a bit on the odd side. MUST we prove them correct ALL the time?)

     Further, there was the question of the setting for the diamond. Nobody was happy with it simply nesting on the top of her fingers. “It needs to be seen in a better setting,” I was told. So – okay – we took a picture of it in another setting, and STILL received nothing but grief.

     As it turned out, I was not alone with coals of verbal abuse being lathered under foot. Last night Juli posted this picture of her stone beside the supper plate. “That’s not real,”  someone rudely commented. “Of course it is,” she immediately responded, “I made it myself!” (The fact that my future mate was referring to the potato salad did little to cool the heat of her response.)

     And – I will be the first to admit – I was also pulled into the debate when it was pointed out that the diamond was larger than the boiled and pickled egg on the plate. With indignation I was compelled to point out that looks are deceiving, that what the observer was judging was in fact a hummingbird egg, and that boiled and pickled hummingbird eggs have been my favorite for generations ...

      Ya know what? I think I need a drink. Or a vacation. Maybe both.    

A friend.

You know me. I like sophisticated comedy, crisp repartee, very subtle sarcasm as observations of life. In general, my friends are obviously quiet, smart, intuitive, and inwardly creative – writers, artists, and technicians.


So why do I like this guy? Don Roberts – an actor! We’ve been friends for years, and he absolutely doesn’t fit in anything you’d even remotely catalogue as a “friends’” box. (Or at least I wouldn’t.)

So what is it about the guy? He’s smart, certainly. On stage he’s outrageous, off stage quite shy – a living paradox.

And he makes me smile. Maybe that’s it. Take – for example – this picture of Don taken one morning while he was still in his pajamas ...

JB

And how was your day?

Flint

I've shared this story with other friends.

Every once in awhile I hunt for arrowheads. A buddy who is very good at it will call me, and off we go to spend an afternoon stomping around in an empty field somewhere in northern Ohio.

Now my friend is very good at this arrowhead business. He would tell me about the glaciers that once covered North America. I can almost picture them. I've seen the dramatic gouges in the ground that created Lake Erie. (They are stll there, in case you are wondering just how old I am.)

My friend would tell me that 2,500 years ago most of Ohio consisted of forests and ponds. Arrowheads, he would tell me, are almost always found near the top of any given hill. At the time, these places would have been beaches. Being a romantic by nature, it's easy to see the former waterline in the ring of hills south of where I live. It's easy, once you know what you're looking for. Further, if you are a fan of the garden of Eden, it's no great stretch to picture it in ancient Ohio.

Okay, so maybe could be this is what the natives looked like. I've been told that they would gather in mid northern Ohio and make arrowheads by the thousands, and trade them for furs with other Indians coming down from Canada.

Sounds reasonable.

Who knows? I am one quarter Ohio Indian. This could have been my great-great-great-great .... Well, you get the idea. On the other hand I am three quarters German. This draw in my heritage insists on a warm bed, walls, a roof, and indoor plumbing (and has the urge to invade Poland on occasion, but that's another story.) What I'm trying to tell you is that an outdoor adventure for me is usually no farther than from here to the porch swing and back again.

And ...

In the maybe eleven or twelve years I've been doing this, I have yet to find an arrowhead. Not one. My friend finds 'em. Of course. I never find any. I've found horseshoes and an old medicine bottle once, but no arrowheads. (My friend even offered to give me one of his. I didn't take it. The rule is that ya gotta find 'em yourself.)

But I've found lots and lots of flint. It may not be an arrowhead, but it works for me. It's been chipped while chipping something else - a spearhead, an axe, maybe even an arrowhead. I pick it up off the ground, and rub the dirt off of it with my thumb. I realize the last person to hold my find passed this very spot 2500 years ago.

I get chills.

From somewhere, an ancestor smiles.

JB

Ho-hum. A dull day. Nothing special - not even worth your bother.

Sh-h-h-h ....

We're having a conspiracy, you and I. Don't tell anyone.




You see, it's not a dull day at all. It's a wonderful day. A special friend of mine is having a birthday in a little over a week. It would be a great good thing if you would drop her a line and wish her a happy birthday. Her name is Q, and her blog is http://underoverout.blogspot.com/







Q lives in Canada and writes in actual English. (That's a little unsettling.) She loves Dorothy Parker and Edith Piaf. She is a gifted short story writer and a dark poet.






So drop her a line if you get a minute, and wish her a happy birthday. I know she'd appreciate it - and so would I. But don't tell her I told you. Our secret. (That's why my subject line is misleading. She lists it on her blog.)

Heh heh heh. Maybe she will have no clue what's happening ...

Yeah. Right.

JB

And how was your day?