Abnormality

This is about The Day Before Yesterday. The Day Before Yesterday was a very abnormal day. I spent the midday with an old highschool friend. (abnormality #1) We went to Rep. Elton Gallegly's campaign office to volunteer.

Later that day I took Duke, the duck, out to let her play, but the pond had a big chunk of chlorine in the bottom. So I thought about it for a little while and then decided that I'd just let her splash around in the pond while I was watching and then put her back in her cage. Well all of the sudden, she dives down and goes right at that chlorine tablet. She comes up and so does a smaller piece of the chlorine, and she is rubbing her face. So I grab her out right away and put her in her cage where she starts trying to clean her face in her water bowl. I'm totally freaking out. And I started thinking about the possibilities. One big possibility is that she had eaten a piece of chlorine. (abnormality #2) So I frantically ran around the house trying to find the vet's phone number. I couldn't...wait, you say, isn't calling the vet abnormal? well, not in my house... find it (abnormality #3) and finally called information. Talking to the vet, they couldn't always hear me and so I got things like "a cat ate a chlorine tablet and the duck is in the pond?" They even hung up on me once. But finally it was settled, I would have to take her into the vet (abnormality #4, for the duck at least)just in case she had eaten some. So I stuck her in a tub thing and put her in my car. Half-way through the neighborhood she leaps out of the tub and into my back seat. In the process, my car got covered in...well, it was bad. So I stop right in the middle of the road and start trying to stick things over the top of the tub. All the while this group of kids is sitting on their front porch watching me. I get back in and go and discover that I just have to keep my hand on top of her the whole way, but that is no easy task with a stick shift. Then of course I hit traffic. Some car was pulled over to the side of the road and a police car was right behind it. I was in the left lane and all of this was in the right lane. So all the right lane cars were slowly trying to make it over to the left lane. Well as I am driving through, Duke suddenly lurches and so I have to push down harder and she slips, making a bunch of noise. Right at that same time, this girl pull out of her lane RIGHT INTO ME. (abnormality #5) And since Duke was making all that noise, I couldn't tell if she had actually hit me. (weird) So I put on my turn signal to pull over to the side so she can stop too and we can figure out if she hit me. Well she didn't stop and I wasn't able to get out of the car. So I sat there sorta crying trying to figure out what to do as I sit and stare at this duck in my passenger seat. So I start waving to the police officer that was with that car that caused this whole mess in the first place. He just ignores me and so after a couple minutes I gave up and drove away. I finally get to the vet and of course Duke was a hit. I mean, its probably not often (if ever) that they get a duck in there. They took her in the back and gave her some liquid charcole to stop the chlorine from absorbing into her system. I put her back into the car, this time with a pillow case over the top of the tub and that kept her calm. The smell she made in my car was unbearable. This was on Thursday. I have not driven my car since (abnormality #6) and the windows are still rolled down. So Duke is all better now.

I was one hour late for my golf class. (golf class=abnormality #7) I came in and told the teacher that I had just gotten there and he was like, whoa! you are pretty late. And I said, I know, but my duck ate a chlorine tablet and I had to take her to the vet. He laughed really hard and so did everyone who heard. They thought that was the most inventive excuse they had heard in their entire lives. (This was, also, not abnormal. I have had many "most inventive" excuses, and not one of them has been a lie.) He thought it was so funny that he announced it word for word to the whole class, who also had a good laugh about it. Some people actually didn't even think I was telling the truth. Now honestly, how on earth would I think up a lie like that?

Not Bad, Mr. President, Not Bad at All

This is FAR later in coming than I had hoped. Life picked me up and started running.

I wanted to share my experience going to see the casket at the Reagan Library. My mom and I left our house at 9:30pm to leave for Moorpark College where everyone was supposed to meet to take a bus to the library. What is normally a 12 minute trip took 1 1/2 hours and we even took the "back way". When we finally were going over the overpass at the college we were able to see the line of cars on the 118 freeway in both directions. There are few things outside the natural world that can inspire awe within me. This was one of those things. As we looked out both east and west, the line of headlights seemed to have no end. My mom remarked that it looked like the final scene in Field of Dreams. It was like that. The line waiting at the college had a similar affect. So many people. We did not arrive at the front until 4:30am and we had even joined up with some friends that were about 1 1/2 hours ahead of us in line. I would sometimes just pause to take in the mass of people that had shown up. Looking at the crowd I began to think about what I had written about glory in life and being remembered. I think that I witnessed such an event as I could not then even concieve of.

We arrived at the library to a different mood than was found in the line. Everyone was much more sobered. At the entrance to the building is a statue of President Reagan in his usual cowboy clothes; a reminder of his life before you enter. The honor guard stood around the casket. There were times that I could not tell they were real men, they stood so still and tall. They were big tall men and they made the scene literally look larger than life. The casket stood in the middle. Immediately as I walked in I was hit by emotions I could not explain. I felt loss, admiration, respect, sorrow, and joy all in one sudden moment as I stepped into the room with the President. Once again, I began to cry but the heavy silence of the room held it back to a tear soaked face. I walked round the casket, watching the flag, looking tearfully to the soldiers with few thoughts in my mind, mostly just nameless emotions. As I passed by the camera man, I thought I heard him also begin to cry. I held my mom's hand. We left the room and smiled.

The Gipper

Today we remember former President Ronald Reagan. I personally had a very hard time of it today. Cried for a long time. Perhaps it was because I did not have many of my own memories of him, so I was not really able to look back at his life and remember specific things and thereby lift my spirits. My attachment to the president came in later years in my somewhat frequent visits to his presidential library. There I saw video of the great moments of his presidency, I saw the Jelly Bellies in the Oval Office replica, I learned about "Star Wars", I saw all the gifts he had been given by foreign dignitaries, and I gazed at the slab of the Berlin Wall that stands solemn on the back lawn while imagining all the free people tearing it down. I even have a small piece of the wall. I have met Nancy Reagan and I saw President Reagan in 1993(4?) at an event to honor the firemen that rescued his library from brush fires. So although I was too young to remember his actual presidency, I have grown up to admire it in hindsight and to admire him as a great man and a great leader. I will never forget him. May he rest in peace, he is with the Lord now.

Introducing

TheOneWardrobe.net (TOWn) is a website devoted C.S. Lewis and the upcoming Chronicles of Narnia movies. We had the first pictures of the lion that is going to be used as Aslan and are often one of the first to get the latest news on The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (LWW).

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Submitted by Heidi

Makeover

No, it still doesn't look the way I want but it is an improvement I think over that blue purple green thing. That at the top is the view out my window. I would prefer that to be the background for my title, but I could not get it to work without resorting to drastic measures.

A Great Day

I think I would like to tell everyone about my lovely day yesterday. I went with my mom, grandma, and sister to the Rose Story Farm. We took a tour and then had a very nice lunch. What a neat place. Afterward, we took Kelli to C Street where her and my dad were going to be having a little surfing trip for the next couple days. Mom and I stayed for a little while and we all walked out onto the pier. Dolphins were swimming over by the surfers and even jumping right out of the water. I love watching the dolphins. Then we saw a sea lion swimming below the pier. Some guy that was fishing threw it a fish. The sea lion, who was just lazily floating around, tasted it and then spit it back out. Never seen that before. And swam off when the guy threw another fish down. Then mom and I left the beach and went to my favorite used book store in Ventura. The Calico Cat Book Store. Mrs. Margenat is very nice and so knowledgable, I have learned quite a lot about collectible books from her. They had a first edition For Whom the Bell Tolls. I could hardly contain my excitement. After many longing looks at the bookshelf my mom broke down and decided to buy it for me. Needless to say, she received many hugs and many thanks from me. My dad called and she informed him that we had made "an investment" in a book. Then we came home and ordered Chinese food and rented Sense and Sensibility. A wonderful day it was indeed. Much needed too, since most of today was spent washing windows.

Death and Glory

A friend of mine (you know who you are) recently commented after watching Return of the King that life always feels less consequential after watching that movie. I agreed. Not that I am saying life in general is inconsequential, just that my life does not seem to be working toward such a pinacle of an end. Nothing I ever do will have such globally important and memorable consequences. The world is too vast a place, there are now too many "unsung heroes" to allow that any one person will step up to such great levels of importance.

I've had ideas about how such a problem could be remedied. Perhaps if we still rode horses and fought with swords. Not likely. And after thinking a long time over the history of horses and swords, there really are very few people that have gone down as incredibly important and to be remembered by all. And did those people really save your world? No. Most went down in history for other reasons. I often feel terribly when I am studying history and cannot remember the name of a great king. "What a dreadful thing," I say to myself, "that this king died thinking he had accomplished great things, and yet I can not for the life of me remember his name nor match his name with his deeds."

Then I began to think, how should it end? Could you honestly hope that at the conclusion of that great deed that you could be contented with your life? Or would it really be like Frodo's return? It would be like those times when you wish you could return to your childhood. So you attempt to have fun in the same ways, you attempt to return to that innocence that made the world so wonderful. But you find that it is lost to you forever except in memory. Would it be better to die with the conclusion? Perhaps this is why we always feel a little unsure about endings. Do we like that the hero died? Do we like that he didn't die and life went back to normal? Somehow both alternatives often leave us uncomfortable. Maybe this is part of the reason that the Greatest Generation is also a quiet generation.

But now to the brighter side of the matter. The side that should give us comfort and hope though we may never have a life that is lived to the tune of a moving soundtrack. In the end, Christ will come and we that are believers will have that glorious ending which will usher in, not a time of let down from greatness but bring an eternity of peace and contentment.