Blue Moon

I get asked, What is the Blue Moon good for?

The concept of the Blue Moon as being the second Full Moon in one month seems to date all the way back to the 80's. A defunct medeival definition had to do with getting rid of the 13th moon so as to keep the ecclesiastical calendar straight, so that moon-date determined holidays like Easter, etc., would stay at about the same solar time of the year. Songs and some legends seem to refer to rare occasions when things like volcano spew would make the Moon look blue to the eye.

So how to figure out what modern pagan observation should make of the modern definition, which happens about every 2 1/2 years? Look at some correspondences. Also, layering on more tradition is that this July's Blue Moon falls on Lammas or Lughnasdagh, the Irish/Celtic feast of Lugh, the grain harvest.

Blue: truth, throat chakra, blue faerie fire; Full Moon: maximum fulfillment potential; Blue Moon: rare, unusual, special occasion; Lughnasdagh: the sacrificial Corn God, usually associated with the harvest in temperate old world paganism, here in central TX the fact is it is the starting point for new fall crops and gardens. Lugh comes back in a Fall crop for us by mid-November, so maybe our cycle of fulfillment is quicker here!???

Traditional for Lugnasdagh is the baking of a Corn Man, which is passed around to take secrets to the underworld (confessions?) before he is sacrificed, usually not eaten eaten but buried.

How to weave this together? My suggestion is to use the Blue Moon power for special, even outrageouse requests, dreams and hopes of the biggest order, that we use our Throats, Voices to seng them into being, petitioning Lugh, god of light, the working man's god, craftsman, warrior. Perhaps a Cornbread Man of blue cornmeal could be infused with Blue Faery fire, and this blue fire could be used to animate our speaking of truth and dreams into being.

Many people feel very shy about using their voices, speaking their minds, much less asking for what they want. Those of us who are not shy about speaking have an obligation to help make safe place for them to practice.

Peak Oil Hits Mainstream Media

And of course it revolves around the testimony of Matthew Simmons, who is no patchouli-reeking dread-headed Chicken Little. I think this guy was born in a suit.

This material has been in New York Times and other big media, but this MSNBC stuff, I think, is read by people who don't read newspapers, e.g., me. (Embarrassed grin, looks at shoe.)

More About Fear

There is a rapist loose who has struck in my neighborhood, we are running out of oil, most of us are uninsured, and the leadership of this country has created a drunken bubble of cognitive dissonance that could really do anything evil in the name of God and the Apocalypse. Read a transcript of an old-style investigative journalist who puts the as-yet unrevealed horrific tortures at Al Ghirab that our country committed, in perspective with the neocon religious cultist stranglehold that the Bush administration has on this country.

http://www.pastpeak.com/archives/2004/07/post_1.htm

We really let ourselves slip into this situation when Rush Limbaugh went unanswered, I suppose. Which was enabled when Reagan lifted fair-time regulations on the media, if I remember my history accurately.

Now we find ourselves, less than two decades later, in a divided, polarized culture where people of different political perspectives do not even come into contact, except in the family. Where if I bring up a politically embarrassing fact to my right-wing cousin, he blasts out death threats to my "terroristic friends" and has jokingly referred to political pogroms to cleanse the country of left-leaning citizens.

When I point out to him that such a policy would result in me, a natural-born citizen and blood relative being deported or "disappeared" he will say it was just a joke. I think lots of "jokes" like this are being made in families nationwide. And of course the result is that we are given this mental picture, of being forced out of the country, or into some concentration camp, at gunpoint, while our relatives look on, saying, "We tried to warn you." If that image is not funny, and we do not laugh, we are accused of not having a sense of humor. I think a lot of mind control and self-censorship is being effected in this manner. We are afraid to speak out in public, afraid of ridicule from our relatives who have been coached in dismissive, disrespectful argument styles by Limbaugh for two decades. We don't know how to argue like that, and why would we want to, over Thanksgiving dinner? Turkey with a side of fear.

Ivieee's Fun Selector July-August

I am SO sorry I blew it. I didn't tell you about the Typsy Gypsy's Bellydance show at Natural Magic OR The Alice Rose accoustic show at Flipnotics on Sat. the 24th. I would have let you know, but I couldn't go myself. I know, "Its all about me." Both of them were a blast, from reports and forensic evidence that even I could interpret.

But now to make up for it, here is something that is all about YOU. You and fun.

A not-to-miss show on Friday July 30th. The Golden Apples bring it back home to the Carousel Lounge. This is their only show for the rest of the summer. What with having a baby and making a new record, what more can we ask of these legendary pop rockers. My most-often fielded question about this band: "Was that a ZZ Top cover, or did they just make that up?" (Some folks think that song is by T Rex.) Why don't you ask them yourself?

Yes it is rounding up to be a Surf Summer, with Three Balls of Fire offering three shows to land-lubber Austin audiences. Guys, I couldn't blame you if you moved to California where a good rhythm and blues surf band gets its due. Thursday the 29th they apply the wax at the Hole in the Wall, then a big show at Antones on Sat. the 31st, but what I can't wait for is...

Sun. Aug. 1st at Egos, where Three Balls has rounded up some of the best (though few) surf acts in town, starting at 9pm with the Nematoads. Go to their website and look at the pictures, there is LM's knee! I guess I would call them New Wave surf, meticulous, precise, and quirky. I've only met them once but I think I love them! Of course how could you leave when a really cute all-girl surf band, the Queen of Spades is up next, with 60's vintage surf classics and originals that do honor to the era. Then when you think you are ready for more, the Undertakers will deal the death blow with power-chord heavy surf. If anyone (not of or related to the Undertakers by blood or marriage) can tell me what WWJPD means, I'll pay your cover charge or buy you a Tsunami, your choice. When you wash up on shore, Three Balls of Fire will be there to warm your bones with down-home Austin style guitar surf. This is a rare opportunity to sample some very diverse local surf styles in Austin. For a landlocked town we do have some excellent salty treats.

Maybe you don't surf, but you hula? I will be demoing stunts and offering hoops for sale at a fundraiser at Natural Magic on Sat. Aug. 7th. Since the monthly Hula Hooping Meetups are on first Saturdays, this will be our default hoopers meetup, starting at 5pm. There will be plenty of free-for-play hoops for all. Free music, local vendors, bellydance and firespinning demos, raffle and beverages will be available by donation for the fundraiser, benefiting Pagan Pride Day. Fun for kids, too!

See y'all soon,
Ivieee

Keep It Up, Fool!
~o}0<

Too Close for Comfort

Add this to the free-floating fear entries of the past and the ones likely to come:

http://www.chompy.net/blogs/sarah/archives/002394.html

 

Bass Attitude and Beet Wisdom

I caught a fish! Actually I caught two fishes, and set one loose because it was too small to eat.

LM caught a fish, too, about the same size as mine. AND you should have seen the one that got away!

I had my doubts about fishing. The last two times we went to LM's little cabin on the lake in East TX, I didn't catch anything, and neither did he. I started to call myself his "bad luck fishing charm" and wondered if my vegetarian-queasiness about killing, then cutting up those beautiful fishes made me a fit fisherman.

But for some reason I nudged us up from a nap that had gone on too long and we got our butts out for another try. He went straight to a spot on the lake where I'd never fished before. I had a top lure and a spinner, and he had a spinner and a rubber worm. Sometimes you want Tex Mex, sometimes you want Thai....

I think my top lure got the first bite, and it was easy to reel in, so we were not surprised that it was too small to keep. LM dealt with the unhooking - I was not quite there yet. Then, I saw him cast a short cast off to the side - not his usual M.O., but something BIG hit it immediately, and my great big lunky man was reeling for all he was worth! He struggled it to the side of the boat, and I was expecting it to be a big scary garr but no, it was a huge bass, at least five pounds if not seven. (Maybe y'all have seen the bumpersticker: VISUALIZE 5 POUND BASS.) LM said he was pretty sure he had never caught a bass that big, and as he tried to pull it out of the water I thought... and it did... the line broke and the big one got away. Carrying a spinner lure as a lip piercing ornament, now!

LM had seen it off to his side, swimming at the top of the water showing it's fin, like a whale breaching, so that's why he made the little side cast. We kept seeing this guy do that, which I had never witnessed before, so I nicknamed him "Brown Fin" and of course he was the the object of our sport from then on. Some kind of Ahab fever kicked in, I felt it myself! We even went back to the same spot the next day, and saw Brown Fin breach several times, but he wouldn't take a lure.

The consolation prizes were considerable. That evening we each pulled in nice pan-sized bass. LM again showed me how to fillet the fish the way his dad had taught him. His dad had learned it from his dad. True men's mysteries, which I am being taught. The first time he showed me, he prepared me for disapointment. "You'd think you'd get more meat from an animal this sized, but that's how it is. We feed the turtles the rest."

I am not ready to fillet my own fish. Again, the ex-vegetarian queasiness, mixed with, I'll fuck it up and waste the meat of this creature of God that I killed. So I let him do it for us, then asked if I could "mess around with" the fishes hacked up body. I was finding out what it felt like to cut through scales, and flesh, and try to avoid bones, and as a result, I added some sizeable extra chunks for us to fry! LM was very happy with my effort to get more from the fishes' sacrifice, and I may be up for trying to fillet next time, and sorry turtles, less for y'all this time.

This is no time for me to talk about vegetarian recipes, but the sides to this delicious, battered-and-fried fresh fish was dark green Laccinatto kale...and beets. Maybe you already know how to cooks greens, I will assume you do, but here is how I have converted about 85% of my friends who were beet-haters into beet lovers:

It must be Organically Grown beets of less than baseball size or don't even bother. I prefer them whole, but for the transitional beet lover, cube them into about centimeter chunks. Put them in a smallish pot and add water almost to the surface of the beets. Add about two or three tablespoons of apple cider vinegar per beet, and a few shakes of good olive oil. Simmer covered til the beets are tender. I love to add fresh Texas Tarragon, about 4 leaves per beet, about half way through the cooking.

This recipe also works for beets with the greens. Just add the chopped stems partway through the cooking and the chopped leaves near the end. I usually add extra vinegar (yes, it MUST be apple cider vinegar, and Braggs is the best) because, since beets are in the spinach family, the green parts contain oxalic acid, which is what kids hate about spinach. It is not so good for your digestion, and it binds up iron in your meal so that you can't absorb it. Vinegar neutralizes the oxalic acid, which is one reason it appears in so many spinach recipes.

Beets are very high in antioxidants. That color is an active ingredient! The whole root moves through your liver and gently cleanes it. The moist bulky roughage gives you the equivalent of a colonic cleansing, without poking anything up your butt. Warning: it will make your poop bright red! Don't let it scare you the next morning! It might even make your pee pinkish, but don't worry, I bet those anthocyanins are sweeping out the free radicals that collect in your kidneys, too.

And to top off that beet, they are dumb-easy to grow, and they grow well here for two seasons in Central Texas and its easy to save the seeds and they make beautiful plants. A total post-petroleum age survival food crop to know. Sorry, but you can't beet that!

A Spooky Story

Spooky being my sole remaining feline companion, offers this story:

At first I thought it was my imagination. A lump or just a roll of fat? Within a couple of days it was big, feeling like a small hard-on through a pair of jeans. Then it was round and about three inches around, and thick. Time to go to the vet.

"Can I shave him?" asked Dr. M, and I nodded. Need to get a visual on this. Immediately apparent were the two fang marks at the top of the lump, just healed up enough that I could scrape off the last scabbing. "So it's just a cyst or infection from the bite, right, Doc?" "Hmmm, well, it could be, but..."

BUT he wouldn't promise me until after a biopsy that my cat didn't have cancer, a huge tumor which would set me prematurely catless, and I sure am not ready to give up my great white cat!! Not-tumor!

Even so, when we got home, I treated it like it was a cancerous tumor. Lots of love, and an Edgar Cayce-style castor oil pack. Basically I bandaged a castor-oil soaked napkin against the lump. Cayce used this treatment for any lumpy ailment, I think, whether cancerous or not. It penetrates tissue easily and softens and dissolves lumps of whatever variety.

Spooky thinks that Edgar Cayce is a quack, and maybe you do too. He jumped out the window with a big harrrrumphhh. About five minutes he returned, to show me that he had removed the bandage. When I felt his lump, it was still greasy, so hopefully SOMETHING was getting in??? Then he looked like he really needed a snack, just to ease the trauma, so I gave him a few kibbles and went back to whatever I was doing. Probably blogging.

Just a minute later, I started hearing cat-urrck noises. But Spooky is not a puker, believe me. This would be a first, that I saw! He looked me straight in the eye and ... urrrcked up a clear viscous fluid. No cat kibbles. Okay, I felt the urrck, and it was greasy...the castor oil! Somehow puked up around the kibbles that he wanted to keep in the GI tract!

So the castor oil got licked up and then puked out. I don't know if it was this therapy, nature, or the vet prodding and squeezing, but the next day, the lump on Spooky's side was noticeably smaller! And within a couple of days it was a figment of my imagination. Gone.

It reminds me of another spooky story about a lump in my left tit....'nuther story, nuther time!

this goes at the top of my sidebar 

Am I Deserving

There is no way to excuse my sheer pleasure and enjoyment of life considering all the misery and starvation, war and despoliation globally, and national/regional economic and personal depression.

Perhaps I am in some sort of anomylous cyst that has somehow enclosed itself off from the toxicity of modern life. But if I was, how would I know about it?

Hopefully I am being given authority of this particular cyst, which is of my own invention, in order to preserve if not to perpetuate a lifestyle of wonder and sensual satisfaction, just to show the world that it exists, and could exist for many, if we were to limit our population to a sustainable level, and just avail ourselves of the simple enjoyments of the natural world while taking into reverence the limits of said world.

Would this all evaporate if the fossil-fuel-dependant vehicle of transportation that LM uses to transport us to Lake Travis ran dry of that black dinosaur-blood? Surely that blood will slow to a trickle before humans wean themselves from it.

In the meantime we say our prayers of gratitude, and make those deals with divinity in hopes that we have the ante. We go to Lake Travis, and LM sets sail on his windboard and I spin my hoops in ever more challenging cycles.

Sometimes we grill dinner out there. I have only recently come of age as a Texan with the grilling thing, but I think it could all be part of the sheer pleasure in life that we may all equilibrate to after the petroleum addiction is shaken. Is that so bad?

One day all these ingredients may no longer be available. This recipe for pleasure may go into my cyst, just for reference.

Free-swimming salmon. It really makes a difference, in taste as well as ecology and karma. Thaw it while you make this sauce:

Saute about 1/4 cup each chopped celery, red bell pepper, and onion in about 2 tbsp of butter. When the onions and celery are soft and near carmelized, add a few heaping tsp of capers. Add more butter if necessary, then 1/2 tsp of good Hungarian paprika, then the juice of 1/2 a lime and 1/2 an orange. Simmer til its all just a little thinner than pickle relish.

Grill or broil the salmon. Don't overcook it. After the first turn, spread the sauce all over it in a thick layer and cook just a minute  on the second side with the sauce on top.

We ate this on brown cardboard because we forgot to bring plates, with one spoon because we forgot to bring forks. Just as we were finishing, comparing the color of the beautiful salmon to the clouds of the sunset, we got the first notice from the parks employees to clear out. Park closed, time to go home.

I really hope I deserve this, because I hope I am not the sort of person who would take out high-interest loans from the Karma Bank.

Be Afraid!

I have already ranted a little bit about hoax emails of the hateful politically-motivated rightwing dittohead variety, but there is another kind that is more mysterious to me.
 
We get these things from our mothers, sisters, and coworkers. Like any other hoax, there is a message at the bottom that says "email this to everyone you know." This variety is ones that warn you about a new crime tactic, and if memory serves me, almost all of them that I have gotten involve women in cars. Snopes is just full of these. Even when the crime tactic is plausible, the truth is that it just has not ever happened. Women are being constantly warned about crimes that just have not happened.
 
Why doen't anybody ask, "What is the motivation behind these emails?" or "Who is responsible for generating them?" Our relatives just forward them, but somebody had to sit down and make this stuff up, and type it in, and set the hoax-virus into motion. Who? Why? Wouldn't that be a cool human-interest investigative journalism piece? Maybe those two journalistic genras don't overlap enough.
 
If I were to guess, I would have to hypothesize that the intended effect is to keep women in a low-level state of fear all the time. To guess about the underlying motivation would be to get into paranoid theories about the patriarchy wanting us to be afraid to travel at will, and make those kinds of mistakes that you do when you are afraid. Maybe it is my own low level of free-floating fear that makes me imagine such an oppressor!
 
Is it a lone gunman, i.e, some think-tank with funding and a directive to keep women in a state of minor hysteria, or is it a vast network of unrelated hoaxmakers who have all just happen to have hit upon the same successful M.O.?
 
In any case, what I do is: search Snopes, find out that it is a hoax, copy the URL that debunks the hoax, go back to the email, hit "reply to all" and paste in the URL, with a request to send this back to whoever sent it to you. Be nice! people get embarrassed when they find out they have a dictionary that had the word "gullible" removed. We don't want to humiliate Mom, we just want to chase down those fear viruses and stomp them before they replicate again.

So Sue Me, Okay

I have to stand up for trial lawyers.

This has little to do with John Edwards. It has more to do with all this whining about "lawsuit abuse," and the agenda underlying it.

"Frivolous lawsuit" "litigious society" "sue-happy" and "lawsuit abuse," terms like this get repeated by the dittohead talk radio hosts, and sent around in the right-wing email circles where all they send each other is forwards near as I can tell, until after enough repetitions everyone accepts it as true, even if you personally do not know anyone who has gotten rich off a million-dollar lawsuit settlement. Even if you do know people who have gotten burned by landlords, police, insurance companies, unscrupulous ex-employers, etc., and had to turn to the courts to get their money or stuff back.

One of these forwarded emails from a conservative Gulf Coast relative was the "Sally Somethingorother" prizes for assinine lawsuit settlements, and each instance some numskull hurts him or herself with their own stupidity and then sues and comes out rich. The award was named for the lady who spilled hot coffee on herself and successfully sued McDonalds. But I wondered, how often does this really happen. And some of thes cases seemed so ridiculous....hmm, time to ask snopes. And as it turned out, none of these cases actually happened! 100% hoax! So I hit the "Reply to All" button and set the record straight with Cuz'n and everyone he sent the forward to. (Heh, heh, after I did this for a few of these rightwing rah-rah hoax emails, and the ones that just promote fear to women, he quit sending me that stuff. Hopefully, he got in the habit of checking snopes himself.)

Frivolous lawsuits do happen. But not nearly as much as the dittoheads would like you to think. Most of this stuff gets thown out of court because the judge can see the scam. What these right-wing think tanks are trying to do, and have been working on for nearly two decades, is to set our opinions against lawsuit abuse so that when they get their corporate puppet congressmen to pass anti-lawsuit legislation, or a Constitutional amendment even, we will not complain about the loss of our right to reddress grievances in the courts. That is what the agenda is: to make it impossible for ordinary people to sue corporations when they screw us over.

I'd rather protect that Constitudional right, and if it means throwing an unjust settlement or two to bottomfeeders, well, that is not too big a price to pay for it.

My Very Small Pest

One of the nonhuman residents in my body is a herpes virus. In the lip, thank goddess. He likes to come and hang out after I get sunburned, even just a little. Like I told you, the sun zaps my immune system. So when I went to the beach a week and a half ago, I was well aware that if my sunblock/shade combo was not 100%, I'd probably be getting a visit from Herpie.

By the time we were heading back, on Tues. the 29th, he was sending me emails. If I get my remedies on at that times, he might decide to go back and hide in my spine. By that evening I had some remedy on, and I thought he was just going to leave a note on the door, but by the next day there he was lounging on my lip. So no kissy-kissy for part 2 of vacation, the 4th of July weekend! Wah!

My consistent treatments since then lessened the average 3-4 week average visit of a herpes outbreak to a little over a week. There was no free beer in the fridge, so Herpie decided to go back to where he lives, which is between two vertebrae in my neck, next to my spine.

Ivieee's herpes simplex protocol: I wear dark lipstick if I am going to be in the sun. Sunblock lipbalms and such wear off and have an SPF nowhere close to my Manic Panic Purple Haze lipstick. (LM hates lipstick, so I didn't wear it at the beach this time! Is that love, or stupidity?) If your lips get sun exposure, or if you do whatever it is that triggers a sore, lick your lip and apply a dusting of Goldenseal powder right on the spot. (One single capsule is enough for a whole round of therapy, and for some reason the tincture of Goldenseal does not seem to help me.) When it wears off, do it again. That always does it for me, if I get it on by the "tingle" stage. I didn't get to it in time this time, so I kept applying the Goldenseal powder, and alternated it with some of my Natural Magic Healing oil, because it has a little real Lemon Balm (Melissa) essential oil in it. This stuff is fabulously expensive, and very effective against Herpie. Finally, I had just made a tincture of Prickly Ash, and because of its topical anaesthetic properties, I put that on straight. It sure did kill the pain, and I wonder if its antimicrobial properties are effective on viruses too? Anyway, I never did get a big sore, it didn't hurt much, and it is almost gone now, and I'm sure looking forward to some good kissin!

The PreDawn Whacker

Bet this sit has never happened to you!

Last summer, I started to notice that someone was trimming the trees and shrubs along the front of my property (well, the property I rent, anyway). Hmm, obviously, someone is making a comment on my pruning preferences. I would not even mention it except that dang, it has been raining a lot and when I got back from the beach thing had grown quite a bit but the PreDawn Whacker had struck again.

Last year even the neighborhood newsletter was talking about it (they mention the danger that vegetation poses to pedestrians and bicyclers, well that would be me, then, eh?) I called a neighborfriend who also keeps a wildish yard, and she said that her yard had been similarly attacked, and she thought, based on her reading of the neighborhood listserv postings, where it (whacking or not-whacking) was an issue of quite some controversy, she knew who it was: a former neighborhood association president in fact! A stuffy gentrifying do-gooder who wakes up to power-walk at 4am before light dawns, and takes it upon himself to trim vegetation that he feels is in violation of some unwritten neighborhood ordinance. You know, how could I complain if it was Johnson grass or some other non-native indicator species of abandon and neglect?? But we are talking about beautiful flowering trees and shrubs, known to attract birds and butterflies.

I never thought I would see the PreDawn Whacker, because there are about no occasions that I wake up that early. Much of my adult life has been arranged around not having to wake up early, it is just a disposition/genetic thing I guess. BUT recently, I was having a problem with Fear. Woke up after an unremembered dream and was afraid. Afraid of rapists and stalkers, afraid of Aliens coming to abduct me. Afraid of the Faeries. I should really write about Fear Itself one of these days but for now all you need to know is: When I have Fear that won't let me sleep, I find that it is completely alleved by going Outside. For me, dark is scary indoors but not outdoors.

So I throw down some mats and a sheet and try to sleep on the porch. Which -sigh- -yawn- is about to be successful, when...

WHACK WHACK WHACK! What is that? I jump up off my pallet and there he is! The PreDawn Whacker! He and two female friends are power walking but they don't slow down for him. This is HIS cause, not theirs. As he whacks my Redbud tree, he is doing the jogging-in-place dance. Because, as you are trimming your neighbors trees without a contract, you wouldn't want to let your heartrate go down. I bet that when he first started, his heart rate would go up much faster than powerwalking could ever do! This is his "breaking the law" adrenaline high!! Enforcing the BushTrim initiative, heh heh!

Why did I not accost him? "Hey, what the HELL are you doing? That's my bush you're trimming, please use a 2 not a 1." Two big reasons: I was naked and I was sleepy. Maybe I was still even a little Afraid. And hell, my bushes grow pretty fast so let the little whacker have his way. It is kind of a chickenshit, cowardly approach. If he were a real neighbor, perhaps he would leave a note that said he just didn't like how my trees grow out to the street, and if I wanted, he would volunteer to keep my property trimmed. Maybe I'd take him up on it.

Crimes Against the Past

This could go in the category of really unusual customer requests. They often start with "You may think this is a strange question..." but the really strange ones don't need to say this.

He was looking for a book about the meaning or vibrations of cemetary stones. "Hmmm," I said and pointed to books on spirit communication and the magical uses of stones. As I thought, none would be to the point of his quest.

As it turns out, the young man was in possession of a rock, part of an ancient burial cairn, from one of the most ancient cemeteries known, in the Sinai Penninsula between Egypt and Israel. He showed me said rock, and asked if I could tell the energies of objects. I declined to hold his stolen grave stone.

How to help. I suggested that the most proper thing to do would be to return it to the archaeological site he had visited those 10 years ago. He agreed, but maybe you can imagine, there is no mailing address and UPS has no idea. Then I put my brain on the front burner and in order, these are the things that steamed out: bury it at a Hebrew or Muslim cemetary here in TX (which we both decided was not the thing since the artifact predated both faiths), go to the Harry Ransom Center at UT and seek the advice of a curator, and then, duh, duh, D-OH!:

One of my good friends, ZZ, is the son of a woman who is a foremost archaeologists of the Mideast. In fact, when the Museum of Bagdad was looted at the beginning of the attack on Iraq, she was one of the world experts called in to assess the losses. ZZ told me, that before she went, she told him that she had wept for a week after hearing the news. That museum holds some of the most ancient keys to western civilization, some of which came from her digs, and most of those predate the big three warring religions. Something Skull and Bones would be interested in? But I digress.

The customer, P, will check with the Ransom Center. And I'll check out with someone of just one degree of separation as to how to get the stone home. Before he left I said I did want to hold it, after all. It did feel odd, old, but very energetic for something so old. I had never touched an ancient cemetary stone before, now I know how that feels. Unless it was HIS hooblajoobla that was on it, not the deads'.

Too Many Words

I think my entries are too long. I will try to be more brief.