More Anna Chatter. We were driving to church last Sunday and she was discussing the many inventions she’s working on. One was a domestic robot, I think. She described the many ambitious things it would do, and then asked if I thought she could make it. I told her maybe, but she’d have to learn about things like math, electronics, computers…
“Puh-leeze!” she said with a sour look, “I’ll hire people for that.”
Now that’s original, isn’t it?
Well, December brought an end to a whirlwind of projects at work. All were successfully finished up, and then came some welcome time off. Convalescence. Ahhh, wonderful.
We had a really nice Christmas enjoying family, friends and church. The rest brought recovery from illness; everyone but Kenny and I had come down with something in the days leading up to Christmas. We made many modest gains on projects around the house; cleaning, improving, and organizing.
We saw a few movies: *The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe* with the older kids, and today a BBC version of *The Silver Chair* (production quality was a bit of a let down for the kids after the aforementioned… we’re so spoiled). Helen and I saw *A Lady in the Water,* which was pretty good, but the idea that the penultimate authority rested in beings of pure evil took away something for us. We all saw *Elf*, which was pretty good, enjoyable, formulaic tripe. The snowball fight scene was fun. We also rented but have not yet watched *The Gospel of John* which was done a couple of years ago, starring the guy who plays Desmond on *Lost*.
Seems like a lot when I type it out, but it was spread out over a few days. We actually didn’t watch much TV. Well, we did watch *The Incredibles* about 47 times, too.
I’m almost done with Doris Kearns Goodwin’s *A Team of Rivals* (the book about Lincoln I’ve mentioned before). It’s fantastic. It’s wrecking my life because I can’t put it down. Lincoln was a stunning man.
Looking forward… well, I’ll resume my Greek classes; I teach the first month of our church’s adult Bible study, a 52-week class on fundamental theology; some organization; some financial improvements; I don’t know what else…
And I did, on Christmas Eve night, [light a “Strike-Anywhere” match with just my thumbnail.](http://www.kpmartin.com/2006/12/18/i-wont-rest/)
Anything special happening in 2007 for you? Any resolutions?
Kenny captured the spirit of the season a few years ago with this drawing. (Click it to see a larger view.)
Anna talks non-stop during the whole drive to her ballet class. This evening she was cheerfully chattering…
“…and I think that it should be a law that you have to read the *whole* Bible before you start a church. That way there wouldn’t be any Catholics or Lutherans. Only Baptists.”
“No, honey, they’ve read the whole Bible. Sometimes people just have some different ideas about what they see there.”
“Really?”
“Yes, dear.”
Long pause.
“***Ob***viously they have some misunderstandings.”
Sorry to leave my severe finger wagging at the East Side Review on top for so long. I’ve been buried. Sometimes work is work, and so work has been. And we had a head cold take a few of us down. And diagramming Greek is just *not* taking hold in my head. And I’m teaching this month. And… and… and…
So get out and vote. Republican. Or stay home. :)
By the way, [Obi Sium](http://www.siumforcongress.com/), who is running for Minnesota’s 4th, has finally appeared in the media. He’s running radio ads that **rock**. You gotta vote for him.
**Wonderful news!** His patience and dilligence has paid of in a very nice promotion and a greatly improved schedule. Huzzah!
I guess they didn’t do that background check. :)
She was the cat I got for my 21st birthday. She was 18 years old, and lived well. In the days of my irresponsible youth, she wandered the woods of Burnsville, mothering countless kittens. Later, having lived and loved hard, she was content to be indoors. Death is death, but it was about the best death a kitty could have. She just fell asleep. Only Elvis – the friendliest cat anyone has ever met – is left. 
He’s a bit confused and sad.
I’m not much of a take-pictures-of-your-cat guy, but here she is at about one year old; five feet up on my screen door, chasing moths.
She would climb up on my chest and sleep and purr if I was sick in bed. If I overslept, she would wake me up with the gentlest bite on the nose.
She wound down pretty quickly. Just a matter of weeks. The last week and a half we saw a swift decline. She was just too tired to get off the couch and go downstairs for the night. I had to carry her; three weeks before she would have wiggled and fussed, but by then she seemed to welcome the help. Then, finally, she just stayed in bed, sleepy. Hardly enough energy to reach over for a drink of water. Hours later she was gone.
The kids ask if she’ll be in heaven. Helen’s wonderful answer is that if we need her to be, she will.
It was last Saturday afternoon for me. This Rotten Little Girl decided she was going to use the street in front of my house for her own Jerry Springer set and beat up a smaller girl. I got in between them before it got anywhere and tried to send them on their separate ways. But the Rotten Little Girl decided to try to lunge around me and try and get the other girl again. Again, Helen and I broke it up and I walked Rotten away telling that next it will be the police. “I’m gonna tell my mom!” “Yes, *please* tell your mom! I want to talk to her!” She kept walking away, then bellowed out “Honky!” I cracked up.
Rotten seems to be new to the neighborhood. Perhaps a feral child. I came home today to see her laughing as she rode a small bike down the middle of the street (we have sidewalks). A little boy was trying to chase her from a few houses down, presumably a little brother. The poor kid ran over a block with no mercy or resolution in sight. I realized what was happening too late to do anything.
What do you do about a little beast like that? She plainly can’t be trusted to be around people. Not without supervision, which is seems plainly lacking in her life. No, her progenitors (yes, I’m withholding the word “parents”) are making the bed and fluffing the pillow in her future jail cell. Or middle-teen pregnancy. And the cycle will continue.
What do you do? I try to engage them when possible, but that’s rare and largely impotent. Raising *my* kids right seems to be my primary task. Of course, once I’ve raised them right, it’ll probably be their tax money supporting her. Sigh.
It’s so sad. She started soft and wiggly. Maybe not quite Locke’s tabula rasa, but still a little person fresh from God, full of potential, waiting to start to understand meaning and purpose, right and wrong. What the heck was her spirit “fed”? The tasteless bread of **self**ishness, perhaps; the empty carbs of the soul? It all puts me in kind of an Ecclesiastes mood.
Looks like the eldest lad has a [story](http://www.kennymartin.com/) on his mind. :)
[1]: http://www-user.tu-chemnitz.de/~korn/focus.jpg
[2]: http://kpmartin.www62.a2hosting.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/09/henry-in-tree.jpg
Four year old [Henry][2] is deeply, excitedly impressed with [the Coyote’s][1] various inventions. He wants to explain each one to me.
And each time the Coyote gets it, he winces and says “ouch!”