Hare–Raising Adventures
12th Publication, April 29th, 2001
I know you will be wondering why I have sent out two newsletters right next to
each other — apparently, I wasn’t quite clear enough in my last letter —
that was written March 26, but due to computer troubles was only sent
several days ago. I even heard of a certain uncle who, when he read my letter,
was planning to go to the MAFiA
ending program (which was on the 29th
of March).
The MAFiA ending program went
as well as could be expected… I think the Drama elective could have been more
skilled (I actually didn’t see a lot of it because I was watching Rachel
MacDonald for Mrs. MacDonald, but I’m told that I didn’t miss much), but the oil
painting elective was fabulous! You should have seen the wonderful paintings and
sketches that were drawn. By pure coincidence, I happened to be in the oil
painting elective, so I should know, and I am, of course, a completely unbiased
critic of my work (in reality, I tend to be much more critical than anyone else
— they must be too lazy to bother finding stuff wrong with my art).
On the first of April Pete had his birthday. He received some more unusual
gifts than one would expect (than I, at least). He got the soundtrack to The
Phantom of the Opera (if you remember, one of his presents was to see TPotO on
Broadway, and if you recall Dan’s and my visit to the cd store in my last letter
as well, that was to get to purchase the soundtrack) and he got a gigantic chair
for his birthday, which is now in front of the desk where our defunct computer
was (it’s now on the floor in pieces). I’m beginning to sense a pattern — I
get a chair for my birthday, Pete gets a chair for his birthday (Dad doesn’t
count because he got one a year or so ago, for his birthday) . . . I can’t wait
until Ben’s birthday. Pete also got some more mundane things — socks, candy, a
book, and a DVD (we’re keeping up
with the times).
After Pete’s birthday, I don’t remember much happening until the fifteenth,
Easter. I was expecting to have a usual Easter, with various friends and
relatives coming to our house, eating Jell–O eggs, having an egg hunt in our
yard, and so on, but it was not to be. Instead, we were invited to go to the
Plowmans’ house and have Easter there. When I first heard of this alternative I
was skeptical that it would happen, since we traditionally remain at our house
and have people come to us for almost all the major holidays, but it appeared
that we had lost some popularity, and the one or two people who still might have
come to our house found better (or at least other) arrangements. We didn’t
abandon our past way completely, though — Mom still made Jell–O eggs, and we
had an egg hunt (having it someplace other than our house was nice, since we
have pretty much found out all the good hiding places in our yard).
The day after Easter Stephen and I had our tests for the school
requirements or something (every third, fifth, and eighth year we have to be
tested — I guess to make sure we aren’t just sitting around watching movies
during the school year), and those took all day, so I couldn’t do any real
school. I’m pretty sure that I did fairly well, but I have some reservations
about the math. They still haven’t given us back our tests yet — I told Mom
that I think it’s because they’re afraid they might be accused of indirect
homicide. One amusing aspect of the testing was that the acronym of the name was
SAT, so now I can impress everyone
by telling them I took the SAT (it
was actually the Stanford Achievement Test).
The day after testing was the home schooler’s international fair. I pleaded
with Mom, asking her not to force me to go with the early shift, since I had
stayed up late the previous Saturday, spent the previous Sunday (Easter) at the
Plowman’s house, and stayed there a while to set up their new punching bag, had
been taking tests all Monday, and had had French class that morning (I also went
to The Philadelphia Museum of Fine Art on Thursday, baby–sat on Friday, and
went to Stephen’s Awana Grand Prix and went to a spaghetti supper for Pete’s
school on Saturday — it was a fatiguing week, but I get ahead of myself).
Fortunately, Mom let me go with the later gang, (the MacDonalds, friends of
ours, took the earlier crew), and while that meant I didn’t see most of the
displays, I think that I got the better end of the deal, since the displays
seemed much more intended for people very more easily amused and with less
mental faculties than I generally consider myself possessing.
A humorous incident that happened at the international fair was that during
supper (it included supper), Paul MacDonald and I found ourselves without seats,
and had to resort to sitting with the Barshingers, who are also friends of ours
although we don’t see them much any more, and during the meal Anna Barshinger
asked me, completely out of the blue, “So Chris, are you planning to home
school your kids?” I, caught off guard, swiftly said something to the effect
that I had not thought of it before, and that was assuming that I got married
and had kids in the first place, which I hadn’t thought much about either. Later
during the meal, the conversation turned to food and the preferences thereof,
and Mrs. Barshinger commented about the saying that “the way to a man’s heart
is through his stomach,” and I confessed that I was something of a selective
consumer (I was revealed by only one food group being represents on my plate,
and it wasn’t the fats and oils group — it was the grains group); this lead to
Mrs. Barshinger, who wasn’t there when Anna mentioned home schooling, saying
that my wife must have a hard time cooking for me. At this point I started
cracking up, and managed to evict an incredulous “you all seem to think that I
have some wife hidden in a closet or something,” before I was dragged away to
prison for disruption of the peace (wouldn’t that be amusing — at least you
wouldn’t have to suffer through my newsletters).
I mentioned that I had been planning numerous trips to visit various public
establishments in Philadelphia by hitchhiking a ride from Dad every Thursday,
but that a great multitude of previously unknown problems arose once Mom and Dad
realized that I was serious, and not merely idle dreams (I don’t know why they
would think that, but that is the only excuse I can come up with). I dealt
unmercifully with all the obstacles in my way to cultural enrichment, and have
finished my visits to the Philadelphia Museum of Fine Art. There were two
special exhibits: one was an Indian (as in Asia) exhibit with little paintings
from some guy’s collection, which he was lending to the museum, and that was
pretty nice. Instead of normal paintings, these were supposed to be put into a
book form, so they were about the size of a small page, and they were painted on
some kind of paper material. The second exhibit was about some person named
Alice Kneel, and I think she should have been locked up for some kind of
defacement of canvas offense. Most of the painting were just plain ugly (in my
opinion), and a fair number were ugly and offensive (once again, in my opinion).
So much for modern artists. I was soothed from that dreadful experience by going
through the American section of the museum, and then one of the European
sections, and I ended with the Modern Art section, and the only conclusion I
could make is that modern artists are desperate for new ideas and refuse to
paint what is tried and true, so they end up with stuff which looks like what I
drew on the computer in Paintbrush when I was five or six. Think — if I had
saved my art, I might have had a place in the museum right now. That’s a truly
frightening thought. So much for Modern Art.
On my second and third visits to the museum (the second was the one during
the hectic week), I saw a lot of European art, as well as a section on Asian
art. Because of the way I planned my visit and time I took or did not take
looking at the art, I had a lot of extra time on my third visit, so I went back
through the places I had already been, and wrote down the names of the paintings
and painters of the paintings that I liked. I don’t know why I did it, but it
was something to do to pass the time, and you never know when something might
come in handy. I reconfirmed my long–standing favoritism towards land and
seascapes… About 90 percent of
the ones I wrote down were one of those two. I had three or four still–lifes,
and two portraits. One interesting aspect of the museum was that every once and
awhile I would stumble across a room that was redecorated to look like something
from the time period; a wood paneled room from a hotel (my favorite), a Baroque
ballroom, a Japanese tea house, a colonial home, et cetera. One room was made to
look like a courtyard from a French monastery — apparently, they had gone to
some place in France, uprooted the courtyard, transferred it here, and set it up
again. It even had a fountain in the center, and when I first looked up, it
appeared to be open to the sky — because of the lighting, and because the sky
outside looked similar to what they had (kind of cloudy and overcast — I
wonder if they change the lighting when it’s sunny), it gave the impression of
being open to the elements.
I now plan to spend a week or two (most likely a week) at the Franklin
Institute, and then move on to the real treat — the Philadelphia Zoological
Institute. But that is scheduled as the last one, since it is hoped and assumed
that the weather will be more acceptant of outside activities later on in the
year, and I must fulfill my vow that I won’t move onto my next visit until I’m
completely done with the one I’m on — I have too many times been forced to
leave some place before I was done looking at all the things of interest. I
remember when we went to see the Smithsonian museum of something or other, and I
only was a third through the Geology section of the building when we had to
depart, and I’ve never gone back.
On the Saturday the 21st
Steve’s Awana group (a bible club where you memorize verses to earn Awana
dollars, and you employ the money to buy toys and other cheap products) had its
annual grand prix, so there was much debate as to what would be the best way to
make sure the wheels stay on this year (Awana grand prixes are just another way
to humiliate our family — one year a wheel would fall off my car each race it
ran). I made sure Steve chose a good design, and I spent a while sanding down
the sharp edges of his vehicle for him, but all for naught; we still kept our
the tradition of losing pitifully. Paul MacDonald. on the other hand, was a back
stabbing traitorous tradition breaker, and went to on get second place in the
teens category (I didn’t race this year, so at least he didn’t beat me). While
we have a tradition for losses in racing, not so for the baking contest. This
year Mom got first in the pie category (I think she sheepishly confessed that
there were only two contestants, and she used her secret ingredient —
alcohol), and third in the cake category.
That night Pete’s high school had a spaghetti supper which Mom had signed us
up for, and they put on a play in which the audience is supposed to guess the
culprit of the heinous crime. I feel that it is my duty to say that the meal was
good, but the play was slightly lacking (nay, quite lacking). It wasn’t on a
stage, the actors didn’t have microphones, and we were placed at the rear of the
room (we always seem to get the worst spot at these kinds of things), and each
character had an equal amount of evidence against them. I, being the refined
individual that I am, refrained from casting a vote, but I did stoop to telling
my fellow cohort in dignity, Paul MacDonald, that I supposed the felon to be the
detective — the only one who had a different degree of guilt, and, to throw
off the audience, he wasn’t an option on the list of possibilities. I was, of
course, wrong, but at least I had a reason for choosing the person I did. There
was nothing to point distinctively to one person or the other, so I feel
vindicated in my aloofness.
On the 22nd Mom and
Dad went down to a church in Philadelphia for a missions conference and Dad
spoke to one of the kids’ Sunday school classes. Mom had asked Jim Femister if
he could transport us to and from church, which was fine with him, but he was
leading a pro–life march in front of the Allentown hospital, so it would be a
while before we would return. Somehow Mrs. Plowman got wind of our predicament,
and invited us to their house, so Jim took us to church and the Plowmans took us
to their house (since they currently only have one vehicle, it took two trips,
unfortunately), where we had lunch and stayed until Mom came to pick us up.
Since the day was warmer than I expected, I hadn’t taken a cooler shirt to
change into, which was a great discomfort to the Plowmans, but not to me. They
attempted continually to get me to wear a short sleeved shirt they had produced
from somewhere, and I eventually caved in and put it on — over my turtleneck.
This caused great consternation among them, and their efforts were redoubled, so
I finally gave in, but only because it was causing them such pain and agony. Ben
and Joseph Plowman (age nine) were trying to convince the rest of us to go to a
nearby park, but once everyone finally agreed and we set off, Ben had a temper
tantrum three houses down the block, so we returned to their house, and it was a
while until Ben was willing to even acknowledge our presence. By this time the
temperature had cooled considerably, so I joked that I would die from
hypothermia now instead heatstroke. There was a stone wall and a stream at the
park, so logically enough, we decided to throw the Frisbees to each other across
the stream. Considering that none of us could throw at all and there were three
Frisbees, a lot went into the stream, so I ended up just standing in the stream
getting all the lost Frisbees. One neat thing was that Pete noticed a huge
snake, and then I saw it, and then Sarah saw it. Pete and Sarah had been
standing on the wall (we were getting all our stuff and going back) but I was on
the ground, so I saw it slither into the base of the wall the Pete and Sarah
were on. That completely terrified the girls, and we departed post–haste. That
was pretty much the end of the hectic week (my whole life is hectic, but that
week stood out amongst the chaos).
On the 23rd I had my
braces tightened, and they put two more of my teeth into their steel shackles.
For some reason they hadn’t put braces on two of my teeth before, and they
realized that they could get more money out of us this way, so they put them on
then, so I didn’t just have the normal soreness of the tightening (or whatever
they do), but I also had to deal with the two teeth’s shock and agony at being
suddenly chained and yanked into the humiliating submission of being
straightened. I guess when I’m old I’ll be grateful that I had my teeth fixed
— after all, it’s just a once and done thing (unless you happen to be Peter
Green).
Mom had been requested to substitute for the gymnasium teacher on the 27th,
so we all thought it amusing that Mom, an English major, was teaching Gym class.
I can just picture it: “Who wrote Pilgrim’s Progress? Wrong! Four laps round
the track. Ashley! Who wrote it?” She only had he girls’ gym class at least,
and instead of English questions, she did something she calls “power
walking.” I’m afraid to ask what that might be, but I hope that it is just
meandering around, looking at all the trees.
That night the Lehigh students were going bowling, so I decided to support
Dad’s ministry by going along and keeping them company. I had completely
forgotten that Mr. George had told me there was going to be a chess club meeting
way out in the boondocks, and that I had said I wanted to go (I had forgotten
for a number of reasons, only a few of which were my fault), but I was consoled
in my realization that I had missed the chess club by scoring higher than I have
ever before achieved while bowling. I was also unfortunately informed that I’ll
miss the next meeting because of a family reunion. I’ll go to the chess club
eventually, I suppose.
I had also forgotten the last book discussion meeting at the library was the
next day, so I had to stay up late reading the book for the 28th.
Luckily, the book was short and wasn’t very complex (sentence structure,
vocabulary, et cetera), so it didn’t take too long to finish. If you remember
(if you were on the list then) my other discussion meetings, I commented that
one girl never finished the book, and sometimes the others didn’t either. I was
disappointed this time because they all read the book, but I wasn’t completely
let down — the one who never finishes did skip a page or two, so the
meeting wasn’t a complete loss (I’ve decided that it is my duty to go and be
amazed that some of the kids can’t even finish a 150
page book).
Mr. and Mrs. Kricks, whose Korean English/bible study I baby–sit for on
Fridays, were planning on going to Lehigh’s international fair on Saturday, and
they asked if I wanted to go with them. I went home and asked Mom, but she
pointed out that there seemed to be a time conflict between the book meeting and
the fair, so I called Mrs. Kricks up and told her I couldn’t go, but thanks for
offering, only to find out as soon as I hung up that there wasn’t a time
conflict at all — the Kricks just needed to pick me up at the Library, not at
home. Mom forced me to call Mrs. Kricks back, even though it was her mistake (I
don’t recall how, but I remember that it was — I think she told me the wrong
time, or something; of course, one could blame me for asking Mom, but that’s
another topic), so I reluctantly (because I had just phoned) called back and
arranged for them to pick me up at the library. The fair was nice, and I saw a
number of my little Korean charges there. After getting some Korean food for
lunch, we went down to Third Street and went into a number of the shops there; a
harp store, a store that had all sorts of recycled things (a bicycle sculpture,
a heating grate table, and so on), to name two. We then went back up to the main
area and watched the dancing for a while before departing.
Spring has come, and it has received mixed feelings from me. Everyone talks
and writes about “the sweet smell of Spring.” While I agree that it requires
a phrase similar to that, I suggest it be changed to “the sickly stench of
Spring,” it has the same rhythm and ring, but is much truer. The only plants
that seem to produce a smell are trees that a large number of people have
planted right by pedestrian walkways, to torment those who shun motorized
transport. These trees give off such a foul odor that I found myself gasping for
breathable air when I was upwind of one of them (maybe they want to attract
flies — I’ve heard of other plants that give off unappealing smells to appeal
to baser creatures). Another misfortune that comes with spring is that numerous
neighborhood kids constantly ring the doorbell asking for Steve, especially
during supper. We might have to resort to putting up our sign saying that we are
eating, and do not ring the bell (this means that you can just walk in, if we
have the sign up…). I am also torn by the nice weather — while it is good
that we can air out the house and I can let the guinea pigs and Bunny eat grass
outside, it quite frequently is getting hot enough to be uncomfortable, and the
stickiness is not welcome. I think that there are only two main seasons —
winter and summer, with spring and fall being annoying transition periods. I do
admit that spring does have its advantages (however small they maybe), as you
should be able to infer from the following paragraphs.
For a while I was trying to find some way to allow the guinea pigs to run
free in the basement, but still excreting in their cages. When alone, Sage was
pretty good, but when I released Nutmeg from solitary confinement, Sage
regressed and Nutmeg never learned. After many hours of rearranging the
furniture and putting down plastic (to encourage them to go in the desired
places) and still having trouble, Mom forced me to lock them up in a cage again,
which I did, albeit with great regret. One amusing side note was that one of my
rearrangements was several large bags of books, and I found one that looked
newer than the rest, and, lo and behold, it was written by Professor Peter D.
Feaver, my favorite uncle (as he prefers to be called). You never know what you
might find when rooting around the less traversed parts of our house. Now, back
to my story — going from a whole room to roam in to a relatively small cage
took its toll, and tensions were high amongst the four legged members of the
household, and it eventually broke out in Sage nipping Nutmeg once or twice, so
I had to separate them into different cages (Nutmeg is fine now). With spring
here, I can at least let them run around in the yard, though, which generally
consists of them timorously eating grass and making wild break–neck dashes for
cover whenever a human walks nearby.
Last summer Steve and I had gone on a campaign to blockade the yard against
prison breaks from our animals. In short, it didn’t work. We strung wire, laid
boards, and employed staple guns and hammers, and while it kept the pigs in
(they pretty much stay in one place as it is, but better safe than sorry),
Cinder managed to thwart our every attempt at confining her. That was how things
stood in the fall and during winter, but once the weather got nice, Steve and I
went out with renewed determination to either pen bunny or die trying. Every day
we let her out, and we put boards behind the wire we had strung last year (she
has a nasty habit of pulling up the wire and then digging down, creating a gap
large enough to let her through), and every time she escaped, we plugged up her
exit, and it has paid off. She now spends her days sulking under the picnic
table, and has to be content with escaping from her hutch into the yard at night
(the removable top is all rotten, so she just shoves it away and hops out).
Dad makes the communion bread for our church, so every Sunday I wake up to
the smell of fresh bread wafting down to the basement, but not being able to eat
any of it, so for a long time I’ve been trying to get Mom or Dad to make bread
during the week, but it was to no avail. For some reason they never wanted to do
it, so last week I took it upon myself to make some bread. I went with a
standard white loaf, put in all the ingredients in the order they suggested, and
then I put it into the bread machine. I then set the timer for 7:40
the next morning, and started it. I found out from Mom that I had used the wrong
recipe, and that I was meant to have used the recipe that took 1 ¼ cups less of
flour, so we had a huge loaf, but other than that, my first stab at bakery went
without a hitch. Later on in the week I went for my real goal — chocolate
bread. Mom was convinced that it would taste horrible, but I paid no mind to the
doubter and kept my thoughts on that one mission. I did everything that I had
done previously (with the suitable alterations that came up because it was a
different recipe), but I ended up with a mutant — one half of the bread
appeared as a normal loaf, and the other had the look and constitution of a
giant chocolate chip cookie. What apparently happened was that one of the
stirrers wasn’t in fully, so that side didn’t get stirred, so all the chocolate
chips were spun into that side by the other stirrer. Mom, when she found out
what happened, said something to the effect of “of course you have to check
the paddles,” but I never read anything of the sort in the instructions. I
guess you are supposed to intuitively know these sorts of things, along with the
major baseball teams, obscure proverbs (for example, “Never grease your pig
before sundown.” I’ve never heard of that one, but it proves my point), and
characters from Alice in Wonderland. I also suppose that I’m not cut out to be a
baker, and I can’t really say that I’m depressed by that.
We also went out as a family (I use the term roughly — Dan was in Maryland,
Pete stayed home, and Mom and Ben left half an hour into it) to see Spy Kids
last week. I was anticipating a pathetic “kids rule” theme (much like
“girls rule”), and while it inevitably did have some of that, it was less
than I expected. I think I empathized most with the wacky inventor/kids tv
program host (Mr. Floop), although he did get kind of sappy at the end. The one
thing that would have made the whole visit worthwhile even if the movie stank
was, surprisingly enough, a preview.
The preview was for The Lord of the Rings, a movie being made of the
book by the same title, in New Zealand. While I am usually skeptical of movies
that are based on books and plays and other things (the worst are true stories
— I always end up wondering what was true and what was fake), and although TLotR
is my favorite book amongst all those that I have read, and I have high
standards that must be met, I am told by many sources that the director is
trying to keep to the text and not make too many revisions of his own, and that
the movie is supposed to be pretty good. From what I saw of the preview
(unfortunately, we were discussing the seating situation during the beginning of
the preview), it holds up to what my sources have told me. You can visit the
official website here: http://www.lordoftherings.net
I have been trying to plant various vegetables for the guinea pigs, since Mom
doesn’t like it when I raid from the refrigerator, so she bought this little
“miniature greenhouse” thing, and I planted some parsley and basil. I
thought they were doing pretty well, but I was told they were getting spindly,
so we took them to the Kricks for rehabilitation. They revived them, but I think
they are going to die with all this heat, because they aren’t planted, because
Dad hasn’t turned over the soil yet. I think I just have a brown thumb. I was
telling Mom that when it’s all said and done, it would have been cheaper and
easier just to buy the food and be done with it. I guess this is just one of the
character building things.
In the future, near and far: our derelict garage will be renovated (the wood
is rotten and falling apart), Dan might be staying in Baltimore for the summer
(which would be depressing — we wouldn’t have his computer at all), we have
our family reunion at the end of May, I’ll be continuing my educational trips to
Philadelphia, eventually school will end, and I might actually counsel at French
Creek Bible Conference, which would be really frightening — I just have to
remember that it would be like baby–sitting, except for five days, instead of
two hours. You have now read the last sentence — go and get some rest.
–~Snowshoe Hare~–
–~Christopher Green~–
–~Snowshoe_hare@cdgreen.org~–
*Here Endeth the Newsletter*
