(incl. Christmas list)
-Before I write here what I wrote about Thanksgiving in my journal, I should note this. In my journal for the last half a year or so, I've been using a little bit of a spelling reform, one of my own devising. I'm doing this because, while I know how certain senseless spellings got into English, I don't see why we're keeping them. A case in point is the gh combination. In Old English, it was a letter called yogh, and it made a sort of gargling sound, but now it's just two letters that have no point. Well, they make a vowel long, but e is perfectly serviceable for that. There are other little changes that you'll see as you go along. I think maybe I'll finally go public with this, and start blogging with the new spellings. (Also, a note on ampersands: I use the word "and" for regular ands, like "I woke up and got out of bed," but I use ampersands for things that are intricately connected, like married couples or mashed potatoes & gravy.)
-Anyhow:
* * *
Day One.
When we got to Oxford, only Dan & Tracy wer there; Dave & Kim and co. are coming to a second get-together tomorrow, and so is everyone who was there today. Cammy was there, so everything was instantly great. I poked her nose and she grinned, and then we did it again, and it was a theme of the nyte. Bip!
-Dan set up the Turkey Day 9-Ball Tourney and we all played that while Grandpa cooked the feast. I lost to Grandpa ryte off the bat, because the poste got in my way. Cheap! But Dan and I set up a peanut gallery in the lounge area, and made fun of Mom and Grandma when they played. The best was when Grandma dropped the granny stick and knocked at least two balls out of place, and made up a Grandma expletive—something like "Floffleschtoonkum!" Dan & Tracy are having a great time with Cammy, as far as I can tell. She's a really happy baby, and Tracy said, "I'm so glad she's not a challenge." Dan pointed out that I'm as good as an uncle to her, since there's actually a good deal more age difference between me and her than between him and me. I'm going to enjoy this baby.
-[Various stuff omitted about Grandma's iPod, which she ran thru the wash. She gave it to me so I could try to fix it, but I couldn't get it fixed while I was there, so I took it home.]
-Dinner! Dan & Tracy wer bothe, of course, thankful for Cammy. So was Grandpa, and also that Micah's finally somewhere where he can get straytened out. Mom & Dad wer bothe thankful for that; Mom was thankful for a baby, too. And Grandma was thankful for "all the faces at this table" and several other things. I'm thankful for a cousin I can be an uncle for, and for a great college education. Those are what I mentioned, but I can come up with more. Good food, great frends here and at college, a life that looks like it's just going to keep getting better, all the rest of my family, Crowduck every year, cute cats to play with, hope for Micah's future, and fingers. (Aren't fingers great?)
-The food was all the best ever… except the scalloped oysters, 'cause that's gross. There was so much; I just kept eating and eating. What a delicious day. Turkey, homemade rolls, mashed potatoes & gravy, cranberry sauce, Brussels sprouts, and the Jell-O salad I forgot to try. I'm thankful I know people who are willing to cook this well for me.
-We all sat around, fat and lazy, and eventually finished the pool tourney. I'd alredy lost in the losers' bracket to Dan because the 1–9 shot lined up for him on my first shot off the break (cheap!), so I watched him play Tracy, and Mom play Grandma, and Tracy play Grandpa. In the end, Grandpa won it all. (Superior skill and knowledge of the game over ignorance and superstition.) Then we sat around with no sense of obligation. Watched the charlie Brown Thanksgiving special. Dad, Grandma, and I played Scrabble; I cleaned their clocks, of course, starting out with a jackpot, DIALOGUE, on my first turn, on a triple word score.
-I tried to work the iPod a little more, but then we had to get going, Dad and I (Mom had left erlier to see Micah). I made fun of his conservative radio on the way home.
* * *
Day Two.
Everyone here languished around for a long time. Karl and Dad weren't finally ready to leave until about 4, after Dad finished installing Windows 7 on Mom's computer. But we got Karl to come. We got to Oxford about 5 and everyone was downstairs playing the Day After Thanksgiving Pool Tourney. Dan's old frend Jake was here, as wer Kim & Dave and the Sierras and Hayden, and Dan & Tracy and Cammy. What a great crowd. When we got downstairs Kim and Dan wer arguing about a statistic Dan didn't think could possibly be ryte—that 80% of marriages where the peeple have cohabited beforehand end in divorce within a year. Dan made fun of this 80% all nyte after I agreed that it sounded a bit hye, since apparently if I agreed, that made it true. And everyone else made fun of it too, as the tourney went on. I played Grandma, and she beat me when I barely missed the 9 ball, leaving her a perfect shot. She did this to either Dave or Jake too (I can't remember). The winner, who had hardly ever played pool before and served to demonstrate how much of a crapshoot 9-Ball is, was Kim. While that was going on, I entertained the kids in various ways. I played one round of hide & seek with the Sierras.
-Dinner tonyte was Alaskan king crab. I'd never had crab before, but I decided I really should try. So after I finished all my other food, I bit the bullet and cracked open a leg. I think I liked it—sort of like chicken, but richer and chewier. I also tried pecan pie for the first time, courtesy of Tracy. It was good, but my heart still belongs with pumpkin. Eventually, we all just sat around and digested (except the kids, who obviously have unlimited energy). Karl seemed to enjoy himself, tho at some point he wandered downstairs and either napped or watched football.
-All too soon, everyone started taking off. So we did too. I said a heartfelt goodbye, tho it only needs to cover a month.
* * *
The Present Day.
I never did got that iPod to work. The click wheel wasn't working, and I suspected the connection myte need to be cleaned. So I opened it up, which turned out to be a preposterously tricky task. In so doing, I snapped the ribbon that connects the click wheel to the mainboard, dashing that hope. I called an iPod repair place, and the guy told me that, if it was any consolation, I probably wouldn't have been able to clean the connection off and make it work anyhow, since it was probably corroded by the laundry detergent and water. Then, in taking it apart further to try to put it back together better, I believe I snapped another ribbon, the one that connects the hold switch. In conclusion, Apple should make products that are easier to service. (But those would last longer, and then people wouldn't need to buy new ones as often. I still don't know how I feel about owning an iPod. It'd be nice to have a music player that's roomier than my current 2GB thing—compare my music collection, currently 8.30GB—but I don't think I lissen to music incessantly enuf to justify spending what amounts to about ten Bob's-hours, or almost two weeks' wages there, on the most cost-effective player I could fynd, the 16GB Sansa View. So I'll probably just cart around my laptop until a compelling reason to buy a pricier thing comes along, or until another free one somehow comes my way like Grandma's, one that I don't end up screwing up. Grandma's will end up either sold for parts or expensively refurbished, the former being more probable, because the iPod Nano 4th Gen. is so unfrendly to repairs that even Apple doesn't service it—they just send you a new one if you send yours in to get it serviced.)
Lastly, I have the beginnings of a Christmas list, or a short one—it depends on whether I ever think of lots more things I want.
—Headphones: the kind that go around your ear and block out other noise.
—A calligraphy pen, with a few nibs to go along with it.
I don't know how peeple who are buying Christmas presents usually make sure they aren't buying their recipient something that someone else has alredy baut them. And I think Nana & Papaw read this blog too. Hopefully I won't end up getting the same thing twice. Now I just have to figure out what to buy other peeple.
25 comments.
Ur intentional spelling mistaykes are aud. MOM
No no no, that's not how to spell any of those words. There's a system to this, which I can detail if anyone's interested. But I won't right now, because I don't know if anyone is.
Also, I thought of another thing to put on my Christmas list:
—A calendar, the kind with a page for each month with a nice picture. (I'm through with the 365 Stupidest Things Ever Said calendars. Either they used to be way funnier or my sense of humor used to be much easier to please.)
I'm glad you enjoyed our Thanksgiving here. i liked having two days of it, so that everyone didn't have to try to go to two places on the same day. I'm also glad Karl came. Hope he enjoyed it. Since you are excited about Christmas coming, I guess I'd better get over my Scrooge mood and start decorating the house for it.
Good for you to try to eliminate the ough in English. Only a person who went to the National Spelling Bee would have enough authority to get away with it. Oh, and do you want me to bake ginger cookies for Christmas, and if so do you want them gingerbread cut-out cookies with decorations on them, instead of gingersnaps? I think the little kids prefer the ones with frosting and colored sugar on them. Grandma
As for the 80% stat, I did a little research on that the next day. As it turns out I was right. I found some conclusions that I suspect she was trying to quote. Here they are: Couples who cohabit prior to marriage are 80% more likely to end in divorce. (no mention of it happening within the first year). this is significantly different than what she had stated, but still equally preposterous.
The most interesting thing about the conclusions drawn above is that they had no statistical evidence at all and did not reference any studies or statistics.
For a more informed and statistically backed set of conclusions here you go:
The CDC study found a difference of (9%) in the rate of divorce in the first ten years for spouses who cohabited before marriage compared to those who didn't. However, many other studies find that most or all of this link is explained by the differences between the kinds of people who cohabit and those who don't. Since most couples who marry today are already living together, those who don't are a more religious, conservative group with different divorce patterns. As sociologist Judith Seltzer wrote in a 2000 article in the Journal of Marriage and the Family, "Claims that individuals who cohabit before marriage hurt their chances of a good marriage pay too little attention to this evidence."
- The study did not demonstrate that cohabitation causes people to have a higher divorce rate. The two factors are correlated, but that doesn't mean that one necessarily caused the other. As CNN.com reported, "One of the study's authors said the report did not draw the conclusion that living together before marriage was the cause of the relationship ending. 'It may not be the experience of cohabiting but the people who cohabit,' said William Mosher. 'What we're saying about that is that we think that couples who cohabit before marriage may have different values than couples who do not," he said.'"
- The researchers found much larger differences in divorce rates for other factors they considered. While there was a 9% difference in the ten-year divorce rate between couples who cohabited and those who didn't, the difference was 30% by family income (couples with an income of $50,000 or more are much less likely to get divorced), 24% by age at marriage (women who marry when they're 25 or older are less likely to divorce), 14% by religion (religious women are less likely to divorce), and 13% by education (women with education beyond high school are less likely to divorce).
See the report here: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_23/sr23_022.pdf
Everyone in my family knows that when someone tries to feed something to me that I find simply preposterous, I will always call “bullshit”.
Pwnd
Also, I'd love some gingerbread men and other various cut-outs. It's hard to improve on gingerbread/ginger snaps, but frosting might just be something that does it.
In regards to the divorce thing....
Not arguing your statistics at all, but I have a theory.
I believe that marriage is of no value, or to say it better, adds no value to a union of people, unless it has some religious meaning for the people involved.
Marriage is really rooted in Christianity in our culture in the USA. The stigma of co-habitating, or having kids out of wedlock in our mainstream culture has disappeared.
The upside is almost none, unless you are christian, or some other religion. The downside is divorce, lawyers, money fighting, custody battles, etc.
I think marriage should be taken out of law and sent back to where it began, in the church, it has no place in the secular world, never really did.
Separation of church and state.
My 2 cents
Dave
I predict someone will get torn a new one pretty soon here. As for my part, we actually discussed this sort of thing in my intro to sociology class last year. The upshot is that marriage has meaning, because it's a binding contract between the two peeple getting married. That is to say, it's a commitment, one that involves a long-term pledge for two peeple to be together, and often things more tangible, such as children and changing names. It's the best and, excepting I suppose civil unions, the only way we have in Western society to indefinitely connect two people. If marriage becomes something reserved for the religious, and the nonreligious have to get by with promises that have no legal backing and aren't kept on record or given any cultural weight, then there'll be a pretty ugly revolt on the part of the nonreligious, but we don't have to worry because that'll never happen. In a nutshell, there's a big difference between declaring, "Tracy and I are now married," and actually getting married officially, and those differences aren't to do with spirituality. You have some sort of point in that lawyers and divorcing are a problem, but you've severely understated the benefits by calling them "practically none". And if you plan to say that a lot of them are psychological, remember that we're a species with psyches.
Dan the Married Atheist, care to take it further?
This one’s mostly at Dave.
I was going to reserve the smackdown for later, but I ended up getting into this one a bit so here goes. Check your feelings before the next paragraph, because this might hurt, but I don’t intend for it to be mean, it’s just my emotion pushing through. Well, that and Jesus wasn’t able to stop me, hehe. You’re still my bro, yo.
Since when is love founded in religion? What about marriage?
Christians point to Adam and Eve as the origin of marriage. What a load. I mean seriously?! Only Christians try to claim marriage as theirs. In fact marriage dates back, at a minimum, 5000 years according to most historians. At that time, Christianity wasn’t even a twinkle in the eye of some dude named Adam, not to mention Lilith. The Chinese have been practicing marriage for nearly 2500 years. How would they come up with such a union without Christianity? Just ridiculous. Get your head out of the bible and back into reality. I don’t mean to be mean, but honestly, don’t spout off crap from your religion without doing some research first.
As for marriage being rooted by Christianity in the USA… Well duh. You and I came from areas of the world that had roots in Christianity. Ask any Native American, Aztec, Inca or Mayan what they believe, or what their belief on the origin of marriage is. Yeah, I won’t even bother exploring that thought further because it’s not necessary for obvious reasons.
As for the upside to unreligious marriage being nonexistent. I wonder if Cammy feels that way right now? The smiles she shines on us is simply nirvana. Pessimism has formed your way of thought and that is unfortunate. You appear to fail to see the good in life, love and happiness in the absence of Jesus. Tracy, Cammy and I are living proof that these all exist without a life of devotion to hokus pokus.
Here’s another thought… there are many many species of animals that stay with one partner throughout their lives, and I suspect they know nothing of your Christianity. Apparently their union means something to them.
Btw, you are on your second marriage, so is Kim, and you didn’t live together prior to marriage, your likelihood of divorce statistically speaking is around 60%, Tracy and I lived together for over 3 years prior to our nuptials and our statistical chances of divorce are probably under 40%. But I’m pulling for ya!
I’m sorry, that was a bit harsh. I should feel ashamed… I guess I’ll have to wait for the pearly gates to find out if I was too harsh.
Nate, if the religious want to take “marriage” and tuck it away in the bible, it’s fine with me. It’s just a word. True unions, lasting ones, are built on love and trust, not the imagination of some monks thousands of years ago, not to mention Webster.
I hope in all your arguing you two sons of mine will recognize that your parents are in a formal religion-free marriage but we have limitless love for each other and for you and the other kids and the grandkids and all. A successful marriage comes from love and commitment, whether it be religious or from some other source. I know a lot of Christian marriages that have failed, and non-religious ones that haven't. But if religion is important to the couple involved, I'm all for it. At least, if they share the same one and not like my parents, one Christian and one non-Christian. Which brings the question, was their marriage a success even though they disagreed about all things religious? They loved each other more than any other two people I know.
By the way, I'm going to try to bake some of those gingerbread men. Grandma
Nathanael, we have a calendar from McCullough-Hyde Hospital. You can have it if you want. I'll save it for you if you do. Grandma
Mmm, gingerbread men.
What are the pictures of in the McC-H calendar? If they're of various patients, I don't know if I want to stare at them all year. If they're of things that surgeons have pulled out of people's bodies, I'm sure I don't.
There are twelve pictures of flowers up close, some with butterfly or ladybug on the flower. They are pretty. Not a disemboweled patient anywhere in sight. I'll save it for you and if you don't want it it can go to Rumpke. Grandma
No offense taken Dan.
I think you misunderstand me. This is a matter of semantics. Why don't you secular humanist/atheists keep the term marriage. I don't dispute that marriage as a contract has value. Marriage as a biblical concept has value to me as it is outlined in the bible. You don't believe in the bible, so really why take vows that most often come out of the bible. That makes most people hypocrits. If you don't believe in christianity, why take vows or follow a biblical marriage(or pretend to do so).
Whatever you call either, I think they should be separated. I also stand by my belief that for most, but not all people, it is a contract that should not be entered into. Most have no idea what they are getting into. If it is just a contract, they should get advice on the downsides, custody battles, money problems, etc.
For most people, they would be better off emotionally, financially, legally to NOT get married.
Dave
Actually, our vows never came from religion. As you may remember (and I know the ceremony was short so it was easy to forget) but there were NO references to the G or J words and the ceremony was performed by the Mayor of Oxford at a non-religious based location. What part of the bible did we followed in our CIVIL ceremony? We do not live our lives based on it nor was our marriage formed by it. So our marriage is not religious based and we are still very happy and life is good for us. We don't need people to pity us nor do we need people to pray for us. As for our emotional and financial state we are better together and never want to imagine life any other way. There is commitment to make it work, love for each other and trust in each other. It would be great if everyone could share have a life like we share and feel bad for those who cannot find such a relationship that gives them the ultimate in happiness (based on religion or NOT). Sorry but I had to put my 2 cents in on this one.
Tracy
Tracy, I wasn't implying that you guys were trying to follow a biblical marriage. However, I think most people do, or pretend to do so. I am advocating the separation of church and state, which, I would think you guys would advocate.
I think it would make christians and secular people happy to have two separate distinct concepts of marriage. Individual states could write whatever marriage laws they want and gays could be included. It would have nothing to do with religion, which would please most people.
Christians could follow the bible and marriage as it is laid out in scripture. We would follow our ways and the consequences of success or failure within biblical parameters. Gays would not be allowed a christian marriage, making christians happy.
Two complete different marriages, under two distinct separate authorities. It would slove all of the gay marriage issues, and I think it would make all people pay closer attention and take marriage more seriously.
Just my 2 cents!
Dave
What about gays who are Christian? There are lots of those.
And, we saw how well "separate but equal" worked from Plessy Vs. Ferguson until Brown vs. Board of Education.
Your solution to the marriage debate is tidy, but like so many other tidy solutions, it has hidden loose ends. These ones are fairly dire.
Christian gays would have a legal civil union sanctioned by the state. They would not be allowed a christian marriage.
I realize that this arguement is all in generality, but I did premise the whole thing as a theory.
My final theory, or more to the point, prediction is that in 50 years people who are married whether civil or sanctioned by some religion will be looked down on as being "quaint" and naive as to the ways of the modern world.
The bean counters will have a provable formula that shows that without marriage and the associated costs, you are far better off financially to not get married. The breakdown will probably be 30% do better to stay married, probably a realistic marriage rate in 50 years, and 60% will lose large amounts of money. The remaining 10% will be a wash.
Once you have one or two generations of people who can show that their starter marriage, which they opted to cohabitate instead of, would have been a disaster to go through with. It will become ingrained in suceeding generations.
There will still be a vocal minority like you guys who make it work with old fashioned values, and the christians who will show some success, but the majority will be happily unmarried, unstigmatized, and guilt free.
Dave
Not gonna happen. Marriage has been around since prehistoric times, and exists in all societies in the world that I know of. It's been defined in many different ways, but it's been a constant. Marriage is here to stay.
Your whole point in the idea of separating marriage into religious and nonreligious varieties was to avoid disenfranchising Christians who want it defined in a certain way. But no matter what, you're disenfranchising someone—be it the gay Christians or the conservative, family-values Christians. There are peeple ryte now who are disenfranchised, such as polygamists. The problem won't be fixed by a redefinition, because it doesn't have any single solution. Peeple just have to lern to deal with that fact.
Nate, I agree, not gonna happen, but I do believe that marriage will be stigmatized as old fashioned and will steadily lose it's grip on western civilization.
I now deem this a dead thread...
Dave
Dead my ass! I'm working up a whiz-bang that'll send you screaming like a school girl that just saw her grandpa's pecker.
Dan, that image is truly gross! Nathanael, I'm going to work on cookies pretty soon. Can you suggest something you'd like your mother and me to do Christmas decoration-wise in your house? If it's something you want, she'll probably get interested in doing it for you. She needs help getting motivated this year. Grandma
Okay, here's my .02. First: I believe God blesses marriage, whether it's performed in a church or civil court. Say 2 atheists are married in a civil court and then they convert to Christianity. Do they then have to re-marry in a church? I don't think so. In the eyes of God they are married, whether they believe in God or not.
Second: If we follow Biblical examples of marriage, let's make sure we follow the correct ones. If we follow the examples of David and Solomon, we allow mass polygamy. If we follow the instructions in Paul's letters, we'd do much better. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church. If we want to get really specific about the Biblical example of marriage, we'd have to learn the ancient Jewish practices-brideprice, etc.- I'm sure we don't want to practice all the customs the Jewish people used to do. In a lot of those marriages the girl didn't have a choice in who she was marrying. The Biblical parameters we DO want to follow are the ones about love, mutual respect, selflesness, commitment, beauty, a union of 2 people in the eyes of God. Now that we have the choice to choose our own partners, fall in actual love, love another person more than self, without any aspects of it being a business deal or property arrangement- isn't that beautiful? God set us free from the matchmakers and allowed us to find our own partners. Solomon said happy is the man with one wife, though he himself had hundreds of wives...I think he saw the advantage in having that union of 2. Polygamy causes so much trouble...but some people still practice it, including some Christians. Anyway, my point is, let's respect a marriage, no matter where it is performed, because it is still something God sanctioned. My .02.
Mom
Go, Ann! You are so well informed about the Bible in all its aspects. Makes us all think a little bit. Hope you are getting decorating ideas for the house. I still want to come down and help you put some up. Mom PS Do you have a nativity scene or would you like to go buy one on me?
I do not believe it matters as long as two people love each other. G.Pa.
Christian, Jew, Gay, Muslim, Hindu, etc. Why would you care?. Minutia all minutia
Read the Song of Solomon- it is a beautiful poem of 2 people falling in love. Or read Proverbs 31 about an ideal wife.
Ann
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