Pop Quiz

It's time to see if you have been paying attention. Pencils ready? Good, you may begin.

1.Laura Jane is a blog about:
a) a transgendered monk living in Peru.
b) a hungry, hungry hippo.
c) a mountain biker who hopes to be the first to bike to the top of Mount Everest.
d) a personal, sometimes whimsical, look at politics, religion, pop-culture and modern life.

2. Sloth and Gluttony are:
a) the names of my pets.
b) the names of my old boyfriends.
c) a line of clothing I once tried to market.
d) two sins that don't make news headlines as often as sex.

3. Besides Fanny the Bulldog and Mick the Cat, I have:
a) a gerbil who has lost the will to live.
b) a five-toed sloth named Slooooowly.
c) a bad Cocopuff habit.
d) a boyfriend named Dave.

4. My first entry was entitled "Fanny's Healing:
a) Oil" which she will sell you for $20.00 an ounce.
b) Snore" which will soothe you to sleep.
c) Aroma" which will clear up your sinuses.
d) Butt" with which I hope to heal the nation.

5. My Health Education teacher in Junior High was:
a) a monkey who handed out bananas.
b) the wood shop teacher who also taught physics and Introduction to the Poetry of John Dunne.
c) a hungry, hungry hippo.
d) a pasty-faced nerd who taught us everything we needed to know.

6. When I was a child my mother decorated our kitchen with:
a) macrame pot holders, rugs, curtains, dishes, and woks.
b) dancing car mechanics.
c) a strange "bathroom" motif.
d) Green 'N Gold Daisy contact paper.

7. I am very thankful that I will never have to eat:
a) a buffalo head.
b) four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie.
c) another piece of Godiva chocolate.
d) another bite of Tuna Noodle Casserole or Jello Surprise ever again.

8. Mick's so-called "Tuffets of Hair" is really:
a) his CIA operative name.
b) a very strange video game that he invented but that never caught on.
c) his special Mardi Gras wig.
d) his fat stomach.

9. Fanny the bulldog takes a proprietary interest in:
a) mold growing in my refrigerator in the shape of Bette Midler.
b) my ever growing collection of "special" Capt'n Crunch cereal boxes.
c) anthropologists camped out in our backyard.
d) 6 mischievous kittens that live in the house on the corner.

10. The first Christmas present I gave my parents was:
a) a bad cold.
b) a can of corn.
c) a signed affidavit swearing I would never, ever put them in the Old Folks Home.
d) a red candle in a white ceramic holder.

Ok Pencils down. How did you do?

100%: I live for every pearl of wisdom dropped from the keyboard of Laura Jane.
80%: I sometimes check in when I have nothing better to do.
60%: I'm not sure how I got here.
40%: This is sooo not funny.
20%: May I have a refund please.

Update: Manhunting Season

Just a quick follow-up to Bang! Bang!

On Monday, Novemeber 29, the deer season in Pennsylvania opened and two women are already victims of stray bullets. On Monday, Janet Wilhelm, of York County, Pa., was shot when a bullet pierced the door of her car while driving home from work on the first day of deer hunting season. On Tuesday, Casey Burns, seven months pregnant, was just about to pull out of her driveway Tuesday when she was shot in the head by a hunter's stray bullet in rural North Whitehall Township.

Time for some changes, wouldn't you agree?

Sex Rears Its Ugly Head Again

Dave and I went to the courthouse and got our marriage license today; as of December 31, we will no longer be living in sin. Or will we?

According to this man, a Baptist minister, by willfully remaining childless, we will be committing a moral error. "Sex means marriage and marriage means children" and the sexual act is not to be divided from procreation. An interesting stance for a Protestant religion to take in today's modern world. But then sex has long been a battleground; a way for religions to control their adherents. At one extreme you can preach Abstinence for All as the Shakers did, but with this unpopular stance you risk the religion dying out as the Shakers did. Another approach, taken by cult leaders such as David Koresh, has been Abstinence for All except the leader, but then people might start questioning the leader's true motives. So Sex for Some with Abstinence for Many is a good, middle ground approach and one that has served the Catholic Church for two thousand years.

But when you think about it, why has the church focused so much attention on one biological drive. Why not put limits on the urge to sleep? Why not make rules about the desire to stay warm? There are some limits on our biological urge to eat, but rarely is the amount proscribed. The Baptist Church doesn't say for example, "No eating until you are 30," and wouldn't condemn a U.S. Surgeon General who suggested we eat alone. Fulfilling our non-sexual needs can sometimes be almost as good as (for some people even better than) sex. Here's a few of my indulgences:

Taking a nap on a sunny day when I should be mowing the lawn.
Eating hot apple pie with ice cream.
Relaxing with a cold drink in a hot tub.
Pulling the covers up and sleeping in on a rainy day.
Getting a massage.
Jumping into the pool on a blistering hot day.
Lying in a hammock and day dreaming.
Having a Godiva chocolate when I'm on a diet.
Sitting in an air conditioned movie theater on an afternoon in July.

I suppose some of these might be covered under the sins of gluttony or sloth, but sloth and gluttony just don't make headlines like sex. This week alone there are several major news stories about Religion and sex.

Religious Leaders protested at the premier of the movie Kinsey. Leaders such as Robert Peters of Morality in Media who said that "...Kinsey's legacy (was) Aids, abortion, the high divorce rate, pornography." I always thought pornography had been with us since man learned to draw, and that it reached its height in the Victorian Era.

A study released by Rep. Henry Waxman found shocking errors in Abstinence Only sex ed curriculum taught by groups such as Youth For Christ and funded with federal tax dollars. Errors such as textbooks claiming half the homosexual teenagers in America have AIDs and that HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, can be spread via sweat and tears. Scaring our teenagers with lies and misinformation is one way to try and keep them innocent.

Meanwhile in Montgomery County, Maryland there is a movement to recall the school board because they are not advocating Abstinence Only sex ed. Among other criticisms, there is the fact that the board has approved a new curriculum which "normalizes homosexuality," which is "against Biblical teachings." In America, we prefer our homosexuals to stay in the closet.

A Lesbian minister was defrocked by the United Methodist Church. "I believe that I could probably have kept my minister's credentials if I had kept silent," Stroud said. "That would have compromised my growth as a Christian and my integrity." She never mentioned the possibility of not practicing homosexuality.

Lots of people and institutions out there who would like to tell Americans what kind of sex they can have, with whom, and when. Thankfully at this time I can still make that decision for myself.

Up, Up, and Away!

Every Month our Family gets together for safety drills so we know what to do in case of emergencies. In the past we have put a baby in one room and a Gutenberg bible in another and set the house on fire. Another time we all practiced what to do if a man with a hook tried to get in our car while we were necking. Last month we all pretended to be babysitters who heard on the news that an inmate escaped from the Hospital for the Criminally Insane just before the phone rang and a man said, "Have you checked on the children?"

This month we decided to practice boarding an airplane, just in case we ever wanted to fly from Raleigh to Los Angeles where my mother lives. We checked our carry on luggage for any firearms, machetes, nail files, or knitting needles we might have forgotten to unpack. Fanny and I remembered not to wear underwire bras. And we made sure not to hum any Cat Stevens songs. Unfortunately, we all flunked.

Mick could not explain the mystery bulge around his stomach-- what we refer to around here as his "Tuffets of Hair."
Fanny was not allowed to board with her sharp fangs.
Dave had a completely unpredictable reaction when his "package" got groped.
As for Me, let us just say that when told to drop my trousers, I had forgotten to put on my "good" underwear.

But all this practice may have been for naught because according to this woman, body cavity searches are now on the menu.

Wow! Just, Wow!

Like all good post- 9/11 American citizens we have been trained to put up with a lot. We get to the airport 3 hours early. We say good-bye to our loved ones at the door. We stand in line for hours with our IDs, tickets and boarding passes always readily available for inspection. We take off our shoes. We allow our carry on luggage to be searched and our tampons to be scrutinized. But it is time for some hard questions:

Has anyone ever been killed with cuticle scissors?
Do the terrorists know they don't have to go through security if they charter a flight out of a satellite airport?
Has anyone ever been caught smuggling explosives or box cutters in their body cavities?

You know, it only takes 4 days to drive from Raleigh to Los Angeles.

How would you like those preservatives served?

I was thinking of the blessed Julia Child the other day after watching 14 Children and Pregnant Again on the Learning Channel. (Watch for it to re-air Dec. 25, at 4:00 pm est.) It was about the Duggar Family of Arkansas who have had 15 children in 16 years and plan on continuing to welcome as many children as the good Lord will bless them with because they belong to the Full Quiver movement. How do they cope? With lots of cooperation from the kids and a great deal of streamlining. For example: dinner usually comes out of a can.

It was an eye-opener to watch the Duggars return home from grocery shopping and see them store their choices in the pantry, an Aladdin's cave of canned, bottled and packaged processed foods, enough to make a quickie-mart owner envious. Then the daughter in charge of cooking began preparing for a picnic.

When I think "picnic" I think of fried chicken, hero sandwiches, deviled eggs, stuffed celery, cheese and crackers, fruit tarts, and homemade cookies. When the Duggars think "picnic" they think of canned corn. Yes, gallons of canned corn. Also their famous "Tater Tot Casserole" made with ground turkey, cream of mushroom soup and...you guessed it-- tater tots.

We might all be eating like this if Julia Child hadn't introduced Americans to The Joy of Cooking. Back in the sixties, my mother cooked like this but not because she was lazy or pressed for time. It was just The Modern Way, a part of the "better living through chemicals" mindset. Also the grocery stores were not as well stocked and the produce departments were pitiful compared to today. Not just corn, but nearly every other vegetable we ate came in cans: green beans, beets, peas, carrots, tomatoes, and asparagus. If they could have figured out how to can iceberg lettuce, that would have been popular, too. As for any sort of ethnic food, Mexican was considered exotic and if you wanted Chinese food, you had to go out. Middle Eastern cooking was undreamt of.

So as a child I ate my share of tater tots, Hamburger Helper, and Shake 'N Bake. Our dinners usually included some form of canned Spam, canned tuna, hot dogs or ground beef. Along the way I drank a river of cream of mushroom soup.

My day started with Tang, the breakfast of astronauts, which I preferred mixed to industrial strength. It had to be strong enough to hold up to the grey sludge at the bottom of my bowl of cereal, sludge obtained by dumping 14 tablespoons of sugar over my Cheerios (mom only allowed us "sugarless" cereal.) For lunch when we weren't having peanut butter and jelly (on Wonderbread, naturally) we were eating jelly and peanut butter. Always grape jelly-- not my favorite but the only flavor my brother would eat. If we were lucky, there was a Ho Ho for dessert. And if I was asked what I wanted for dinner, it would be a struggle to choose between Spaghetti-Os and Kraft Macaroni and Cheese.

Then fresh fruits and vegetables became more readily available. Grocery stores added ethnic food sections. And I picked up my first cookbook by Julia Child. I learned how to debone a turkey, whip up Bechemel sauce, and make my own pastry. Gourmet cooking was easy and the results were impressive. I never looked back.

I am thankful that Julia Child came along. I am thankful that I will never have to eat another bite of Tuna Noodle casserole or Jello surprise. Above all, I am thankful that I don't have 15 kids.

Wild in the Streets

Fanny the bulldog was a bit concerned to hear of the invasion of coyotes in our county. According to a newspaper story we read this morning, no accurate count is available but the "roadkill" dept. of public transportation says that the number of coyote remains in this neck of the woods has increased from 1 or 2 a year to 1 or 2 a month in the last few years. Fanny is not disturbed for herself. She is, after all, a 60 pound bulldog bred to be impervious to pain and when she is not lounging about on the couch resting her head on a velvet pillow licking her bacon-scented lips, or passed out in a heat-induced stupor in front of the furnace, she can appear quite ferocious.

But she is concerned for our local cats. She takes a proprietary interest in them, much as a Victorian Landowner might stroll the grounds taking note of the grouse population and keeping the weasels under control. Every day on our walk, she strains at the leash as soon as we get to the corner house with the 6 mischievous kittens. I believe she wants to get a closer look to make sure they are all in good health, but perhaps she wants to see if they come in different flavors.

And then there is Mick, of course.

Mick the cat is more of a lover than a fighter-- well he would be more of a lover if he still had his testicles. Sure, he has hunted the wild, untamed grasshopper, wrestled the savage moth, and even bagged the fiendish cicada, but as far as dogs go, his only trick is to close his eyes and hope it is over quickly. Also, he is not too bright. Every night the same scenario is played out: I get into bed with my book. Fanny follows and lies down on the floor as near to me as possible. Mick sits in the doorway and waits. When he feels the moment is judicious, he sloooooowly starts the long trek across the room. At the precisely correct moment known only to Mick, his inner kamikaze takes over and he makes a suicidal leap for the bed. But Fanny nearly always smacks him down. She yawns as she pins him to the floor with one paw as though he is a wind-up toy that she is becoming bored with. He doesn't fight back, just waits patiently to be rescued. It's something like watching the same horror movie every night. The one where the girl stands at the top of the stairs and looks down into the dark, evil basement. And you yell at the screen, "No! No! Don't go there." If Mick were ever confronted by a coyote he would be as defenseless as a promiscuous, half-naked co-ed in a Friday the Thirteenth movie.

So you can see why the news of a coyote invasion is unwelcome for us all. Fanny is concerned about her kittens; no darned coyote is going to come between Fanny and her fantasy lunch. And as for Mick, he doesn't have the balls to make it as sheriff of Coyotetown.