Thursday Thoughts of a Twitterless Thinker 8-13-09

Greetings, denizens of the Quang! It’s time for the unleashing of all that foreign quang that wended its way through my mind on Thursday. Fasten your seat belts…

Yay! My Feedburner subscribers are up to 3! I will spend the day relishing it because I know that tomorrow the Feedburner gods will taketh away and I will be down to 2 again. Don’t believe me? On Friday scroll waaaaay down to the bottom of my page to see a big fat 2 listed. If it still says 3 on Friday, I’ll eat an onion. (That’s a huge wager.)

I accomplished two more summer goals. On Wednesday I had a magnificent migraine (truly, it rocked) so I turned on the air conditioning, cozied up in a recliner with my favorite white fuzzy blankie, and snoozed for about three hours. Goal #30 accomplished.

Also on Wednesday, Computer Geek and I drove up a lonely country road to…you know…we were by ourselves…Jere was at a sleepover at a friend’s house…so we took advantage of the alone time…to…you know…WATCH THE PERSEIDS!

It was the best meteor shower show I have ever seen. Usually I go outside during supposedly peak hours---yeah, 1:00-2:00 a.m.--- and see maybe three or four shooting stars in two hours. Every year I say, “Is this worth all the fuss?” Yet every year, I go back for more neck muscle punishment, with very little reward.

This year though, was different. We watched for about 45 minutes, between 11:30 p.m. and 12:15 a.m. and saw at least twenty-five highly visible streaks across the night sky. A cool breeze enhanced the sense of wonder. Goal number 3 accomplished.

School starts in a week for us, and may have started for some of you already. If your child needs a times tables refresher course, I highly recommend this website. It is full of a wide variety of multiplication games. My son willingly spent about an hour yesterday, playing the various games. Learning. On purpose.

I had occasion this past week to reflect on my gratitude for a certain unsung group of heroes---Search and Rescue Divers.

My brother in law went fishing last week in Wyoming. When he got to his favored spot, he was kindly asked to go fish elsewhere. He complied. It seems that the day before, a nine-foot wave rushed across the lake, capsizing a pontoon boat. Five people were rescued that day, but now divers were looking for the body of the sixth person.

This week we also had a local tragedy. A seventeen-year-old boy was swimming with friends at a small local lake. He had swum out to a floating dock, not too far from the shore, when his friends say he panicked. They tried to get him onto the dock or back to shore, with no success. They finally swam back to shore and called 911. By the time the Search and Rescue divers found his body under the floating dock, he had been submerged for about thirty minutes. Revival attempts failed.

Many years ago I worked with a woman who was a diver. As we lived on the Missouri River and had a few local watering holes, she was occasionally called out to search for drowning victims. I asked her once how she could do such a gruesome job. To the best of my recollection, here is her response.

“I love to dive. I decided once, when I heard a call for divers to help in a drowning, that I might as well use my talent to help others. I put myself in the place of the family. How would I feel if I knew my mother or brother or child was underwater somewhere? I would hope that someone would find the body, someone who knew how to dive. I’ve been doing it ever since.”

“What is it like when you find the body?” I asked her.

“I never discuss that with anyone. The family does not need to know those details, so true professional divers only discuss that between themselves, to further their knowledge, and to aid in future recoveries.”

I was amazed then, as I am now, that there are people who put their own lives in danger, not to rescue a living soul, but to go in after the fact and recover a body. They are rarely hailed as heroes because there are no happy endings.

In my book, they deserve recognition and a huge hero’s “Thank You!”

I just tasted what is quite possibly the best chocolate ice cream ever. For a tasty treat, check out Farr’s E.L. Fudge. They are not paying me to say that, but if someone from Farr’s checks out this site, a year’s supply would be appreciated.

Now for people I don’t appreciate. Mean people.

Do mean people know that they are mean? What prompts them to be mean? What if we found a place where all the mean people could go to live? Would they go voluntarily?

Yesterday, dear son came home from playing with his friends, in tears. It seems that a few of them were mocking his football throwing skills, saying things like, “You throw like a woman!” and “My two year old brother throws better than you!” Computer Geek said, “Why are kids so mean to each other?”

“Why are adults?” I responded.

This week we were somewhat involved in an incident involving mean adults. Our friend wrote an article for a group forum that our circle of friends read.

He began receiving inflammatory emails criticizing his opinion. Not only did the two authors of these emails send the criticisms to the writer, but to our entire email group of about a hundred people.

I’m ok with people having a difference of opinion and discussing it. I am not ok when people criticize by saying the opinion is “stupid” and a “waste of paper and ink.” Or when thoughts are sent out saying, “I’m embarrassed that this type of opinion is expressed when all of us should know better by now.”

The article writer was more than a little stung by the response. He felt shamed. So did the rest of us who were witnesses to the public humiliation. If they felt so strongly, why not send him a private email? Why embarrass him in front of a hundred?

That being said, I am so grateful that Foreign Quang has never had any mean visitors. I’ve been to many different blogs and some of the visitors and their comments are downright scary! Thanks to all of you who visit here with a spirit of love and brotherhood (and sistah-hood!) and humor. You are greatly appreciated. You are nice people.

Song I cannot get out of my head: Poker Face by Lady Gaga. Would someone please start singing The Song that Never Ends from Barney?

Last thought of the day, before heading to bed Thursday: Man, Barry Gibb used to have the coolest hair.