The Fourth Man

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It’s weird week again, same song second verse.

Profoundly uncomfortable as I wait for what’s going to happen. I know what I’ve done, and I am sure that I have done the right thing.

That’s the most important part, you know? Doing what’s right. I just have to

SHHHHHHHHSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

just have to not talk about it.

SSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHH

So, I’m left thinking. and pondering. And trying not to let my stomach  hurt too much.

It helps my stomach to think about Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Their stories happened in a dark time. Hostile environment, sure. They were important guys in the Babylonian empire.

BABYLON

They were working hard and had gained some prestige. They were not Babylonian. They were Jewish, God’s chosen people. They were so good at their jobs that their Babylonian peers wanted to take them down. The Babylonian jack-offs went up to Nebuchanezzar and suggested this scheme.

“Build an enormous idol and have all your lead guys bow down to it!” it was supposed to be an affirmation of the authority and communication protocols. Not to mention a team-building activity.

Certainly, no Babylonian thought twice about it. Bow, yeah, whatever. This is the royal fad this week? *yawn*

But Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego had their principles. Those very principles which had led them to succeed and be so valuable to the King. They had their God, and idols were forbidden.

If Nebuchanezzar had thought about it, he would have realized the ridiculous scheme was exactly tailored to hurt his 3 Jewish guys. But he was busy, and all these new requirements for the kingdom were pressing and all these VPs and directors or whatever they called them then needed to remember that HE was in charge, and this was a great idea.

So the idol was built. And the punishment for disobedience was being thrown into a fiery furnace.

Day came, the band hired to pump up the heads of the kingdom for this team-building exercise was playing. And at the downbeat..BAM…they all bow.

‘cept our three guys.

How much you wanna bet that Nebuchanezzar right that second remembered that they had special diversity requirements for the Jewish men? He knew that they were good at their job, but it’s not always fun to have them remind you about this one little detail to take care of. Maybe he was sick of having to put up with their efficiency and their WEIRDNESS.

“DAMMIT! I”M KING, AND YOU HAVE TO BOW!”

small thing to ask. Nobody believed in this idol anyway.

But they wouldn’t bow.

HEAT UP THE FURNACE SEVEN TIMES HOTTER!

..now will you bow, you annoying men of character?…

The three men stood.

Well, now Nebuchanezzar had done it. He’d put his ego on the line and he had to throw them in. Didn’t they realize how hard it is to be a King? why where they making him HAVE to throw them to their deaths?

This was such a downer, he was going to feel bad about this for weeks and it would really affect productivity. But he would lose face if he didn’t do it.

THROW THEM IN!

Now back to me. My stomach has had a long time to clench during the last several days. A lot of days. While they say “Try to relax! Enjoy your time at home!”

I don’t think our three men were very relaxed at their team-building exercise.

Then I thought about it again. They were focussed on doing the right thing. They could live in the moment, concentrate on the moment because they could just think about doing the right thing.

I am doing the right thing, and I am going to keep doing the right thing wherever that takes me.

Meanwhile, back in Babylon…

they were thrown into the fiery furnace. The Fire roared, and the soldiermen who threw them in died. That’s hard core

Nebuchanezzar regretted it the instant he’d done it. As soon as he could get close enough, he looked to see what was happening to Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego.

Here’s the KJV quote (Dan 3:25):

He said, “Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.”

I have a lot of fear I could concentrate on in this hard time. But I don’t want to be afraid. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I want to be strong.

Thing is, our three men were not thinking about the flames and how much it was going to hurt. I don’t think they were anyway.

THEY WERE CONCENTRATING ON DOING THE RIGHT THING.

They didn’t bow. I will not bow to the pressure either. It was clear to them, and it’s clear to me, what the right thing is.

I will not bow. Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego were not afraid of losing their jobs. They didn’t even falter at losing their LIFE.

So I won’t bow. I will not give in to the pressure. And I will do my best not to think about the flames. If it gets really hot, I can talk to the fourth man.

My stomach thanks me for it.

My, how my readership has jumped!

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A few days ago I was complaining that only 3 people read this blog, but things have changed. Perhaps absence makes the heart grow fonder? It’s hard to say. The wonderblog is almost entirely a one-way communication. Very few readers leave comments.

But if my musings and little family updates are helpful, I’m glad. It helps me not to feel so alone.

weird week

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Well, readers…

All three of you

…it’s been a weird week. I was put on paid administrative leave last friday, so all week I’ve been waiting to find out what the HR department discovered in their investigation of the “complaint.”

It turns out I will not be terminated. I am slightly disappointed. At least it would be a clean end to the hell.

You know, I try to be an optimist. What would an optimist say in hell..?

“Hang in there, camper. Maybe this is just purgatory…couple of thousand years, it will all turn out…”

…which is pretty much how my thoughts went as I’ve been commuting to my golden stockades for the last several years…

I guess I am trying to be optimistic about my return to optimism. But I’m not back to optimistic YET…

2002/04/25 – 2010/2/2

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That’s kind of a lot of TWOs–two thousand ten two two.  Maybe we are saying twenty ten now.

February Second, twenty ten. That is almost eight years after I started this blog. I just realized that means I’ve only been working on my book, The Russian American School of Tomorrow for seven years. I was beginning to feel like it was more than a hundred already.

But let me begin again:

Friends! Readers! Spammenters! Lend me your eyes!

Welcome to February. What will this month portend? I’m looking forward to it. Last weekend, before february started, Chris cleaned the garage by putting up shelving around the edges. He threw out a lot of things, and things are accessible now.

In every relationship, it is always the other person’s things that take up all the space. He immediately pointed out to me all the stuff I had that should be discarded. Fine. There were several boxes of clothes.

CLOTHES! an archeological TELL of clothing.  A dress I sewed for myself as a teenager. I LOVED that blue dress. Needs a little hemming, but I can wear it again.

My high school graduation dress! that confection I designed at age 17 to fulfill all the stifled formals I had missed by not attending a regular school.

It still fits, but only because … I was a slender yet voluptious teenager. I was drop-dead gorgeous, yet convinced I was very ugly. Seventeen magazine told me that models (the standard of beauty for everyone, don’t you know?) were 5’9 and weighed 115 pounds. I didn’t eat for a week and got down to 150, a weight I shall never see again. Ah…Isn’t it a shame that youth is wasted on the young? Anyway, when my mother was sewing the bodice of this dress, she refused to fit it. She said it was immodest, and my shape was hidden under a baggy bodice.

I’ve gained 20+ pounds in the intervening 20 years, and some inches on my waist. But the bodice still zips up.

I will have to post a picture for you all.

new trends in spam

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So, I haven’t written in a while. Sorry folks. I had some thoughts  to share about my daughter’s just-past first birthday, so I came here ready to post.

First, I stopped in the comments folder. Mostly it is spam, but I live for the responses from real reader. In the spam file, the first comment I found was this one, from a Carol Miller:

Please don’t take this the wrong way. I think your overall ideas are fine but you might want to put a little more thought into your next posts. I say this becuase it seems like your writing style has gone downhill a bit as opposed to your previous posts. – C.

Really, Carol? I wonder what she means. This comment is in response to this post. You don’t need to follow the link. It’s a video of Veronica scooting.

On further examination, Carol’s comment included a website link.

So, the spammer are now using insults to capture our attention. Perhaps we are low-self-esteem, needy webbloggers and will respond more readily to criticism.

Here’s another spam-sult:

Really? Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying, I’m in agreement with you partially, but when you say something like this you actually have to be prepared to back it up.

Not all spammers are following this new trend. Here is an old-style compliment-spam from Walter T., purveyer of gardening tools:

Easily, the post is really the freshest on this laudable topic. I harmonize with your conclusions and will thirstily look forward to your incoming updates. Just saying thanks will not just be adequate, for the fantasti c lucidity in your writing. I will directly grab your rss feed to stay abreast of any updates. De lightful work and much success in your business efforts!

I am tempted to buy some of his tools, just because the man knows how to construct some flattery.

you try and you try–but there are somethings you can’t affect

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Haiti’s dilemma makes me so sad I can barely think about it. Just one little flicker of picturing the horror of being trapped under a building because of something that was entirely not your fault and knowing you are going to die…aaahhhhhhhhhhhg…think of something else quick.

Lots of peole are texting YELE for the Wyclef charity fund, and I think that’s great. I am telling myself I will donate after a little bit, when the rest of everybody has moved on but  Haiti is still in rubble.

Thing is, Haiti doesn’t have a lot of quakes. They have hurricanes. They build their houses  like the 3rd little pig, out of bricks, so that they would withstand the huff and the puff.

Here in california, we have quakes, so we build 2nd little pig style, out of sticks..Wood flexes and doesn’t fall down.  And let me remind all my readers, as others have been repeating, be ready for catastrophe. Get the spare water and get the food and medicine emergency kit. Okay? Cause you never know. Be prepared!

Except Haiti had been sort of trying to be prepared. THey were prepared for the likely even, a hurricane. THey were not prepared for the unlikely event.

And that makes me know that we are all very exposed to disaster. Some things you cannot see coming. THere is no such thing as being prepared enough.

I guess that is why it’s good to know how to pray. To keep your hand in, as it were, on the prayer hotline. Because when you can’t do anything, you can still pray.

Let’s pray for Haiti, and stay humble.

2010

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welcome to the next year…the next decade…the next whatever.

I haven’t written in a long time. i’m kind of tired. There is a lot to do.

I have a certain amount of trepidation for this upcoming year. I am stonger than I was last year, thanks to the character bootcamp that is motherhood.

I just i’ll just have to pull up my boots and march on. I have a lot I want to do.