If Grandpa Hits Up the Dating Scene In 20 Easy Steps

1. Accept the fact that men strive for companionship, especially in their later years.  Doctor Laura has said it, now I’m saying it.  It is part of their nature to have someone by their side, so when your grandmother passes away, do not be surprised when Grandpa has a new girlfriend.
2. Make sure you do a little background check on Grandpa’s girlfriend.  We live in the information age.  He’s getting close to 90 years old and he doesn’t have a clue about computers, so do the research for him.
3. Keep tabs on his bank account.  If he’s writing checks for a large amount of money once every two weeks, it means he is either a drug dealer, or he is splurging on his female friend.  Maybe they’re going on lots of dates, or he’s buying her things, but then maybe she has a drug habit.
4. Check his will.  Make sure she didn’t write her name in there.  She didn’t?  That’s good, but it doesn’t guarantee anything.
5. If you skipped step 2, now is the time to go back. 
6. Take note that Grandpa’s girlfriend has been arrested a couple times, and is known for preying on elderly men with farm land.  At this point, it’s too late to go back.
7. Notice that some of his prescribed painkillers are missing.  Your grandfather doesn’t take painkillers.  He has fallen off roofs and been trampled by cattle.  To him, painkillers are overrated.
8. Ask your grandfather where his pills have gone.  If he shrugs, he knows.  If he changes the subject, he knows.  If he gets angry, he knows.  Ask him if his girlfriend could have taken the pills.  When he storms out of the kitchen, you know.
9. Call the police.  When the police say that you cannot file a report for missing pills, call your uncle, because works at a law firm.  When your uncle has no advice, don’t give up.
10. Alert the bank that checks made out to Grandpa’s girlfriend should be voided.  Your grandfather will now go to the bank and get cash out for her, which cancels this step.
11. Consider hiring a hit man to take care of your grandfather’s girlfriend.
12. Come up with an idea that actually works.
13. Stake out the bowling alley where your grandfather and his girlfriend meet for lunch.  Watch her every move.  If you catch her in a criminal act, that could be your evidence in court.
14. Listen to your mother argue with your aunt over the phone.
15. Look for your grandfather’s gray Buick when you drive around town, and find it in a rundown trailer park.
16. Have some pity for your grandfather’s girlfriend, but do not let it stop you.  She has done more damage than you could have foreseen.  You hate her guts.
17. When your grandfather finally agrees to move in with your parents, let out a sigh of relief.  His girlfriend will find your parent's number and try to call the house but to no avail.  Your grandfather will enjoy the company of your brothers and your father, and he will be distracted for the time being.  This distraction will wear off.
18. Enroll him in a single senior’s yoga group.
19. Hope that he will find another, more suitable girlfriend.
20. If he finds a new girlfriend, repeat step 2.

©Carrie Gold

Untitled

It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety's sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.

Sunday morning came -- next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams -- visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation

*God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest! Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!*

Then came the "long" prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory --

An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher's side and stood there waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued with his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal, "Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!"

The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside -- which the startled minister did -- and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:

"I come from the Throne -- bearing a message from Almighty God!" The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. "He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import -- that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of -- except he pause and think.

"God's servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two -- one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this -- keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor's crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.

"You have heard your servant's prayer -- the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it -- that part which the pastor -- and also you in your hearts -- fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: 'Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!' That is sufficient. the *whole* of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory--*must* follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!

"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

(*After a pause.*) "Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!"

It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.

Mark Twain

We interrupt this advertisement to blow your mind.

I pulled an all-nighter.  My projected bed time was 3am, and wakeup time 7am - so I didn't really see the point of the four hours.  So I just took a couple Greek lessons.  I would type out some of the stuff that I learned, but it's too much time.  If you see me, tell me to say something.  I'll say "the women and the men run," only in Greek.

I'm in the lobby watching TV.  When one channel turns the infomericals on, I go to MTV.  They still play music videos, but only at odd hours of the morning.  Music videos make me laugh.

I feel like Music runs on it's own time.  The meaning put in a couple lines is kind of like Inception.  The deeper you go, the longer it lasts, so when song is converted to music video format, it's like the infiniteness of a song gets restricted to a movie - an introduction, a conflict, a rise, a fall, and a fade to black.  But in the end, you realize the man running in the movie isn't telling us about the song, the song is telling us a story about the man.

I am just a confusing music video.  There's dancing and a couple of guitars and a really vague plot about romance.  The music - the music is a little fuzzy.  One of the channels keeps cutting out.  The bass sucks.  Crap - some man with a key-tar just popped out!  No, he's gone now, but here comes a tall blonde woman wearing overalls made of fabric sheets.  What does it mean?  Two white rappers appear to be dancing around a pot of gold!

But the music!  If only we could hear what the singer was singing - maybe we could makes sense of this.

Gahhhh I need that stereo.

Whatever hatred saves the number.

If it's happy, then you know I'm faking, but...

Someone, and by someone, I mean the entity that is Wikipedia, once told me that Aristotle said, “Friendship is one soul in two bodies.”  I’m sure that when he said it, it came out Greek, but the English quote gives the basic idea he was conveying.

I don’t think people went to college in ancient Greece, but if they had, Aristotle probably would have been a college student with long blonde hair and sideburns, closely resembling my friend Nathanael.  If they had pipes in ancient Greece, I’m sure Aristotle smoked one too.  But I’m getting off topic.

When I moved away from home, I realized how dumb high school was, and when I realized how dumb high school was, I realized how dumb home was.  I have friends and family there and I love them, but I hated the town.  When I moved to Boone, it was like something out of an Aristotle quote.  It was like I found another bunch of bodies with pieces of my soul in them and it just worked.  I don’t mean dead bodies; I mean a bunch of different people that I clicked with.  It was like a puzzle that had been solved.

And then I kept twisting it around in my gray matter.  Maybe that’s what life is.  Maybe it is just this big journey where you find all those little scattered pieces of your soul, and you love them.

Okay, life is more than just that, but I think that Aristotle described a nice chunk of life in such a little sentence.

Dangers of Daydreaming

When you're a kid, or at least when I was a kid, everything I heard and everything I watched had a theme.  And those themes weren't the kind that you had to write a five page paper about before 4:30.  Barney taught us how to share and hug people, and it was that simple.

There was also this big thing about imagination, and how the world can be awesome if you believe it is or if you use your imagination.  It was everywhere.  Pretend it's a cake.  Pretend you're married to him.  Imagine that this box is really robot pirate island.

I guess for most people there's nothing wrong with it.  It's normal, and when you grow up and have real pirate friends and real cake, you don't need your imagination anymore.  But we still see movies, right?  We still dive into something totally fictional, something that is a complete product of the imagination.  And it's good for two hours and then it's back to the real world.

Sometimes I think that I have a dysfunctional brain, and yes a lot of people think they have something shorting in their head, and you can tell me I'm a hypochondriac, and I'll ask you if you know what a jerk is.

I had this theatre teacher once tell me that if you have your imagination, you'll never be bored, because when you are bored, you can just play a little movie in your head and sit back and enjoy.  If I had a dollar for every time I did that in church, I guess I'd have twenty bucks.  We all do it.  I just feel like I do it too much.  It was a great coping strategy when I was 4, but I'm older now, and I need to stop.  It's also good for acting and writing and all that stuff, but again, it doesn't work in college.

Broke

Everything starts out vague.  Birth.  Your vision is blurry.  It’s cold.  And after all that stress of getting pushed out of your mother’s love canal, your memory forgets the whole 6 hours of labor (which in hindsight is probably the a good amnesia to have.)

So there was once a girl that liked technology.  She liked it ever since she remembered - ever since her vision was clear and she had memories.

She thought it started in the fourth grade.  That’s when her parents caved and bought a computer – and when she heard the shrill of the dial-up modem, a chill went down her spine.  It was like it was talking to her.

Then she got her first boom box.

Her parents didn’t like the modern radio stations.  Radio stations sung about sex and drugs, and they didn’t want that to invade her mind, so they told her she couldn’t listen to the radio, she could only listen to the approved list of tapes and compact discs – the ones that came from the Christian bookstore down the street that sold the lame records.  You know those boy bands that substituted the words “baby” and “sexy” with “Lord” and “Jesus” and “You.”

But every day after school, she would go into her bedroom, lock the door, and do homework in the corner farthest from her door.  There she would turn her little stereo to her favorite FM station, and she would listen to the quiet buzz of the DJ and the bubble gum pop, and she would pray that her mother wouldn’t hear that stereo playing.  She would even set up simulations.  She would turn her radio on, leave her room and close the door just to make sure the music wasn’t audible to outsiders.

She would concentrate so intently on that music that she wouldn’t do her homework.  Her grades started to fail.  Her relationships with her peers began to suffer.  Her parents sent her to a different school the next year. 

Things would change, people would move away, but that stereo was always sitting on her bookshelf.

In the fifth grade, she wrote poetry about her secret love affair with the radio.  The teacher approved.  Her mother thought she was crazy.

And then, one day, it stopped singing for her.  It was no longer functioning.  It broke.  She didn’t know what to do.  The bottom of her little, low decibel world had fallen out.  The obsessed was clueless concerning her obsession.  She cried.  She never cried, but on this particular, she cried for her stereo.  She thought that maybe if she cried, her sadness would go away – she would have some kind of catharsis, but that never happened.

It was almost like someone quitting cigarettes.  She had to learn to eat and dance and enjoy things again.  The music didn’t even do it for her anymore.  She had to recondition.  She had to fake it till she made it.  She couldn’t love anymore – she had to teach herself how to feel again – to feel like she did about that radio.

To this day, she’s still trying to recover.