My Mighty Mind Is As A Finely Honed Weapon

There is an old expression (idiom) that goes something like, "he's sharp as a tack" (a short needle with a broad head for pinning paper or posters to a wall or bulletin board). Meaning that this person's mind is very intelligent, and quick.

Back when I was a secret agent behind the "Iron Curtain" during the Cold War (yes, I was a very young secret agent posing as an elementary school exchange student), I had to use my quick wits to keep from being discovered, as well as to stay alive. It was a dangerous business. I can't begin to count the times I prevented war from breaking out between the USSR and the US.

Unfortunately, none of those incidents, or even my name, for that matter, will ever be in a history book. Such is the life of a spy who risks his life for his country. And, of course, for world peace.

When I finally was captured, my government had to deny any knowledge of my existence, which was expected, on my part. I was, however, extremely lucky that before my execution could take place, I was able to escape, with the help of a beautiful Russian princess, who found my impetuous youth both charming, and irresistible. Ah, Sevlonka, where are you now? I never saw her again. Such is the way of romance. Sigh...

I Gotta' Really Big Headache

So, I'm trying to be good, and study my Mandarin. But in common terms, I'm getting my butt kicked. Big time. I just spent about an hour going over the same small part of what they call a "core lesson" on Rosetta Stone, the computer program for learning new languages. A core lesson is about a half hour of new material (Mandarin I haven't learned, yet). This particular lesson is about the names for house, window, living room, kitchen, bathroom, sink, toilet, as well as little words, like in and on. Of course, they don't just simply give you the words. They use them as you would in conversation, so you get them in sentences. No English, thank you. You have to figure it all out yourself.
Another problem for me, is word order. A sentence in Chinese is not structured the way it is in English. This sometimes makes the problem of understanding the meaning of a sentence into a puzzle. The end result is, I begin to feel mentally inferior. Or, to put it simply, I feel like a complete moron.
The other complication for me is this: There are many sections where you listen to the sentence (sometimes very long sentences), and then speak them yourself. The difficulty for me is I can't concentrate on both the pronunciation AND the meaning. So I have to keep going back and re-doing these lovely speaking sections until I can get a grasp of both.
The end result? I got a headache.
But, I most definitely must take my hat off (give credit and respect) to all those who have come to a new country, and devoted themselves to learning that most difficult of languages to learn. English. I imagine my headache is very minor (small) in comparison.

A Dark and Gloomy Spring...

Here in my neck of the woods (my locality), the world may not have ended, but it does appear to be a particularly depressing period for this time of year. As many of you may know, some weird, old guy (I think he's supposed to be 89 years old, although he looks like he could be about 120) predicted the world would end somewhere around 6 pm last Saturday. There was supposed to be a worldwide earthquake stronger than any previously known in history. After that, would come the return of Jesus Christ, and then the Rapture. The Rapture, for those of you who don't know, is when all the righteous (believers without sin) Christians are taken directly into heaven without the necessity of dying. Everyone left behind, all the sinners and heathens, would be required to live through hell on earth until time ended, which this gentleman said would be in November, I believe. 'Til then, there would be fire, flood, volcanoes erupting, people killing and eating each other, animals wearing clothes (I made that part up). Well, you name it. As someone in a movie once said about a different place, "the worst environment imaginable".
But, as it turns out, the supposedly psychic old dude (guy, man, whatever) was wrong. At least this time. And it turns out, this was the second time he was wrong. He predicted the same thing somewhere back in the 1990's.
Anyway (anyhow, anywho), it would seem we will have to continue to live through this dark, dank, murky, and very, very wet spring. At least for the time being.
But if you have a prayer in your heart, don't waste it on our weather. Give it to all those unfortunate people in Missouri and Minnesota who were in harms way. Both the living, whose lives, at least for the time being, have become hell. And the dead, for whom the world really did come to an end. And we who have not been touched, at least this time, can understand how insignificant our dreary weather really happens to be.

What's With the Jungle Out There?

I know we seem to have been having a lot of precipitation (rain) lately, but I didn't realize how much. When I awoke this morning, I went out for a jog. Lo and behold (stop and look; amazing sight), instead of the usual grass covered back yard, there was a great and tangled jungle. I knew it hadn't been there when I went to bed.
I tried to fight my way through it, in order to get to the street. It was very slow going. And there no longer was a street. Just more jungle. I heard a scream, and fought my way towards it, but I was too slow. I just managed to catch a glimpse of what must have been one of my neighbors being carried off by what looked like a dozen or so monkeys of some kind.
I heard someone else yelling, and headed in that direction through all the brush, vines and tree branches, as well as a lot of foliage of a type that I had never seen before. As I made my way in the direction I thought the yelling had come from, I heard all kinds of loud and strange sounds. Some I believe were birds, some type of monkeys, and only God knows what those other sounds were.
I didn't find the person who was yelling, but I did find an abandoned pizza delivery vehicle. It was completely surrounded by dense jungle. Impossibly, as if the jungle grew up all around the car. But luckily, it still had several pizzas in it. I grabbed what I could, and did my best to backtrack (follow the path I had left back to my door) myself home.
Unfortunately, I lost all but a couple of the pizzas when I heard what sounded like a big cat (tiger, lion, or maybe a leopard). In the subsequent (following) panicked crashing through this new sprung jungle, I was lucky to hang on to anything at all.
So, now I am holed up (hiding out) in my living room. Hopefully, some help will come along fairly soon. A lot of it.
I am considering moving to a large desert type area. As soon as I can safely get out of here.

Some Days Are Tougher Than Others

Some days you pay a higher price to get to the end. Today, for me, was one of those days. Oh, it wasn't a terrible day, just a bit of a hard one. A long, full day, yesterday, set me up for a really bad night's sleep. My auto-immune system disease works that way a lot of the time. When I really have an energetic day, and get a lot done, instead of helping me to sleep well that night, it does the opposite and makes it difficult to get much sleep at all. But it's not a tragedy. It's just a day when I'm not able to get much of anything done, no matter how much I would like to. And, it is difficult to feel good about anything, at the moment.
The sad aspect of the day, is that it was my brother Jeff's birthday. He died unexpectedly on January 16, 2005. I think about him most days. Probably every day. And I do have many happy memories of him. But I won't ever get over missing him. And especially today, on his birthday. On a day like today, being tired, feeling sad, and remembering the life, and the death, of my brother, I find it very difficult to find something to be happy about.
So, I will look forward to tomorrow, when I will look at the world with rested eyes, and a lighter heart.

Hallooo! Is Anybody Out There??

So when is it that you live with someone for a sufficient period of time to become familiar enough to be, well, less formal. Are there rules about that kind of thing?
Anyway, I came to the realization that after living with Edgar for more than 3 years now, it's just a bit too formal to keep calling him Edgar. So, I am trying to get both he and I used to me calling him Eddie. Of course, to you who don't know him, he will still be King Edgar. But to those of you who have made his acquaintance, as long as he likes you, you may call him King Eddie.
I, personally, believe that I have earned the priviledge to simply call him Eddie. After all, I do submit to all his demands for head-rubs, the changing of his food and water, as well as clean his cage, and allow him to ride on my shoulder, arm and hand all around the apartment. I think that should give me some right to familiarity.
But never fear, for those of you who meet him in person, whether it's for the first time or not, there is no need to bow before him. Just make sure to show the proper amount of respect. And if you think calling him King Edgar or King Eddie is just too much, you may call him Your Majesty. At least in his presence.