Dream Vacation

Zimbabwe, facing a severe food shortage, is considering an unlikely program to bring rich foreign visitors to the country, according to a government announcement in November. The information minister proposed an "obesity tourism strategy," in which overweight visitors (especially Americans) would be encouraged to "vacation" in Zimbabwe and "provide labor for (government-confiscated) farms in the hope of shedding weight." Americans, the proposal noted, spend $6 billion a year on "useless" dieting aids and could be encouraged to work off pounds and then flaunt "their slim bodies on a sun-downer cruise on the Zambezi (River)."
[Sunday Times (London), 11-28-04]


Overheard in a Beverly Hills cafe:
"Vanessa! You look fabulous. Did you go to that new luxury spa in Napa Valley? I hear the decor is exquisite and the masseuses are hunky gods."

"No! You will never guess-- Josh and I went to Zimbabwe."

"Zimbabwe? Is that that island where they filmed Survivor last year?"

"No, it's in Africa."

"Ooo. Africa. Jonathan has never taken me to Africa. He's too worried about getting malaria. But I keep telling him tourists don't get malaria, that's only those poor natives. Bad diet. Mud houses. They just can't help themselves.

"Actually Josh did get malaria. He says it's ok, though. All that shivering really burns up the calories."

"So tell me everything. Did you go on a safari? Kill anything? I would kill for a lion skin rug."

"No, we didn't have time. We stayed on a farm."

"A farm. How very Martha Stewart of you! Chintz curtains? Baked goods?"

"You have no idea how very Martha Stewart it was. Very much like staying in a prison."

"Oh my god! That is Jonathan's dream. He is always talking about how he would love to be in prison. Just for a little while. Just to see if he could make it. So what did you do all day?"

"We did this farm work stuff. We carried water, we dug things, we chopped things. I want to tell you it was an all-body work out. Just look at my shoulders."

"They are gorgeous. And your suntan too. I just can't get over how much weight you lost. I slave away at the gym all day long and I never lose weight"

"It was just so hot all the time, it was kind of like working out in a sauna-- you know how they do that hot yoga? And the food was really nasty. That plus the dysentery. Worked like a charm. I'm under 100 pounds for the first time in my life."

"Wait til I tell Jonathan. Africa here we come!"

Fanny's Pick For Story of the Year!

Yes, the year has just started, but Fanny is sure that there won't be any story in 2005 better than this: a three pound Pekingese mix named Freddie was carried off by an eagle. No, that is NOT the good part.

Freddie somehow managed to escape the eagle, survived the sub-zero temperatures of Montana in winter, and a week later showed up back at his home. His owners immediately took the 13 year old dog to the vet. Freddie had cuts around his neck which the examining vet said was caused by the eagle. Freddie had also suffered an eye injury and was covered by ice and insect bites. But other than that he is in good health. Do I hear Disney knocking on the door?

Fanny didn't know that eagles prey on small dogs and she has been nervously watching the skies. But I have told her that no eagle on earth could lift 60 pounds. Just to be sure, she felt a few dozen wieners were in order. It pays to be a hefty dog.

Tom DeLay Reads The Bible

This morning at 9am, C-SPAN telecast the Congressional Prayer Service from a church on Capitol Hill. During the service there were prayers and speeches for the victims of the recent tsunami tragedy. And then House majority Leader, Tom DeLay, read from Matthew 7, verse 21:

Not every one who says to me, "Lord, Lord," will enter the kingdom of heaven; but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.

Many will say to me on that day, "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not drive out demons in your name? Did we not do mighty deeds in your name?"

Then I will declare to them solemnly, "I never knew you: depart from me, you evil doers."

Everyone who listens to these words of mine, and acts on them, will be like a wise man, who built his house on a rock:

The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew, and buffeted the house, but it did not collapse; it has been set solidly on rock.

And everyone who listens to these words of mine, but does not act on them, will be like a fool who built his house on sand:

The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew, and buffeted the house, and it collapsed and was completely ruined.

I am trying to put a positive spin on this and I'm failing completely. I hope he read this particular passage as a metaphorical wake-up call to all who are not secure in their relationship with God. By using this flood to scare Christians into re-examining their own lives, I can only accuse him of being callous.

If, on the other hand, he chose to use this passage as a condemnation of all those poor souls who were swept out to sea then I can only think him a monster. What true Christian would use a terrible tragedy of this scale to mock the faith of others? Who would use the wrath of God as the explanation for the innocent deaths of so many?

Well Jerry Falwell, for one. Let us never forget that television evangelists Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson said that liberal civil liberties groups, feminists, pagans, homosexuals, and abortion rights supporters bear partial responsibility for the terrorist attacks on the USA because their actions have turned God's anger against America.

This is the sort of behavior that every good Christian man and woman should condemn outright. Men like these, men blinded by their own power to use their perverted idea of God to condemn anyone unlike themselves, should be shunned. I can only imagine that Jesus in heaven is weeping at such unnecessary cruelty.

How different is the action of a group of Buddhist monks in Canada who are selling their temple and giving the proceeds to the Canadian Red Cross for tsunami relief.

The Abbot, Thich Ngyuen, said they're following the teaching of the Buddha – to do compassionate deeds and build a life featuring harmony between human beings and nature. In this case, the Buddhists seem more Christ-like than the Christians.

Reception At A Glance

Gift Most Likely To Be Consumed: A six pack of beer.

Gift Most Likely Not To Be Consumed: An ominously large bulb from our gardening neighbors. Could be a Voodoo Lily, could be a Crinum, could be a rare, carnivorous jungle plant from Mars.

Gift That Will Be Hotly Debated, Discussed and Obsessed Over: $50.00 gift certificate to Amazon.com.

Most Weirdly Clairvoyant Gift: Candlesticks. Just the week before, Dave and I had been eating dinner by candlelight and wondering why, after 5 years of such dinners, we were still using cracked plant pots, overturned bowls and tin cans in place of real candlesticks.

Number of Frilly Toothpicks: Zero.

Number of Cats Who Slept Through The Whole Reception One.

Amount of Leftover Unbelievably Tasty Blue Cheese-and-Walnut-Stuffed-Mushrooms in Pastry: None.

Amount of Leftover Cubes of Meat and Cheese: About 5 pounds worth.

Probability We Will Be Eating Ham, Turkey, Swiss, Provolone, and Cheddar Cheese in Some Form or Another Every Day For a Month: Very high.

Award For the Best Behaved Bulldog Named Fanny: Fanny wins by a nose. She stayed outside for most of the party, just waiting patiently by the back door and completely ignoring her bribe bones. When the party hit a lull, we let her in and she made two complete circles of the room greeting each guest. Then she thoughtfully brought in the three bones and ate them in the middle of the room so that we could all enjoy them vicariously.

Award For the Loveliest Daughter of the Bride: Gwen wins this easily. And without any bribe bones!

Award For the State With the Best Weather During a Wedding Reception in January: North Carolina. You just can't beat 70 degrees with clear blue skies.

Wedding Picture

Gwen drew this as a memento of our big day:
Dave paid her a $1.00 to include the drunk tank guy in the picture.

A Wedding Story

Like all the best weddings, it had drama, it had romance, and it had comic relief. The man of the hour turned out to be a woman. And the parking lot attendant (played by Samuel L. Jackson) gave us his paternal blessing.

It began when Dave and I drove into downtown Raleigh with our family members following in the car behind us. Miraculously on New Year's Eve, (a big deal in Raleigh called "First Night") we found a space in the parking lot right next to the Safety Court; City Hall was closed for the holiday so we were going to be married in the same place where they process the criminals. The parking lot attendant glanced into our car and asked, "Getting Married today?" I believe it was Dave's tie that gave us away-- not too many revelers bother to wear ties while watching the Great Acorn drop.

Once inside the Safety Court, we sat in a room awaiting our turn in front of magistrate in chairs ominously festooned with chains. The door that leads into the next chamber warns that hats must be removed and only one person may enter at a time. We wondered if we might be taking our vows separately.

When it was our turn, the magistrate called out "Next!" For a moment I wasn't sure whether I was there to order a pound of Salami or marry the man that I love. All six of us crowded into the court room, a fishbowl with glass walls on three sides, including an interesting view into the holding tank. The magistrate checked our paperwork and got everyone's ID. Then we got to cool our heels while a touching scene played out next door: a young man in a baseball cap was seen pulling off his hat, acting penitent for a brief moment, and then gesticulating wildly with said cap. I believe from reading his body language that the cap had led him astray, and therefore he personally was entirely blameless for the drunken debauchery that landed him in the hoosegow. One gesture in particular led me to believe that the offensive baseball cap would banished forever to be replaced by a gimme hat.

The magistrate got back to us and apologized. He felt (quite rightly) that we would just as soon not have our little ceremony be observed by anonymous jailbirds, and so had dispatched the cap-wearer to his future. The magistrate, Mr. Sweeney, now became our guardian angel and arranged for our witnesses to block the view of those waiting their turn outside. Dave and I stood in front of the one solid wall in the room, painted bureaucratic bile green and "decorated" with the Great Seal of North Carolina. And this is the part where we should have had our no-frills, sign-on-the-dotted-line, legal action resulting in the right to call ourselves Husband and Wife. Instead, miraculously, we had the most romantic, most emotional, most touching wedding that one could ever hope for. In retrospect it shocked, amazed, and delighted us that we could reach even greater heights of love with the simple exchange of words and wedding bands. Tears, smiles, and many, many hugs ensued.

Back at the parking lot, Dave, his father, and Gwen got into Dave's car. Their assignment was to drive into Durham and pick-up the wedding cake and--hopefully-- some frilly toothpicks. Before they set off on their journey, the parking lot attendant blessed Dave's union and wished him the best, hoping for Dave the same 35 years of wedded bliss as he, the attendant, had enjoyed. It seemed not to faze him in the least that Dave arrived in the car with a woman and left in the car with an 11 year old girl.

In the other car, the two moms and I drove back home where the prime rib was sitting on the counter waiting to be roasted for our wedding supper. It was just as Jewel drove into the driveway I realized with horror that while I had my ID, my bouquet, and my tissues, I did not have my house keys. No matter, we are very indifferent householders who seldom remember to lock all three doors into the house. Wrong. Today of all days, the house was locked with every lock it possessed. But there was the dog door....

Standing about in our finery, our heels, and pantyhose, we cursed for the first time the complete and total lack of children on our street. We also wondered why we had never taken the time to train Fanny how to unlock the sidedoor. Or why we had never hidden a key, for that matter. But there is a very amiable and obliging teenager who lives on our street who is on good terms with Fanny. So Jewel walked over to her house. But no joy-- Dominique had thoughtlessly decided to go to a party rather than hang about to see if she could crawl through bridal dog doors. Just when we were wondering how best to quickly burn off those extra inches about our hips, Dominique's mother came over. She said, "What the heck, I'm smaller than Dominique." And this tremendous woman, whom I had never met, crawled on her hands and knees and squeezed through Fanny's door. What a heroine! Hereafter, her deeds shall be celebrated in song and dance every anniversary of our wedded bliss.