Disability (repost)

I've decided to repost the following from an entry I contributed last year. It's appropriate today.

_______________________

I heard this in church a few months ago .....

Kevin was born with a disability that robbed him of oxygen to his brain.

Nevertheless, he had a pretty good life, a pretty normal life.

When grown, he towered at 6'2". But, at 35 years of age, he still had the mental capacity of a 5 year old. Kevin loved life, however.

He loved getting up in the morning. He did a fantastic job everyday at his work which he loved dearly and he never finished work until he was complete with a project. Kevin met each opportunity with the exuberance of a child. Not surprisingly because he was a child mentally.

Kevin loved macaroni and cheese - his favorite meal - which he ate every single evening.

Kevin prayed every night before he went to bed. He prayed with every fiber of his being.

And he also believed that God lived under his bed.

So ... what if God did live under his bed? Kevin was too much of a child to understand this really couldn't be the case.

But it was the fervor, the "gung-ho" attitude Kevin exhibited in his prayer to God that made me wonder.

You see: I worry about the state of affairs in our country. I worry about what I'm going to say during my meeting tomorrow. I worry about what's for dinner tonight. I worry about how I'm ever going to get through the week with so many things filling up my calendar. So many, many trivial things that just don't make a difference. I worry about future events when I don't have any real control over what the future holds.

So ... I wonder: Who really has the disability?

Is it Kevin?

Or is it me?

...................... Ruprecht ( STOP )

It's The Same Old Routine ... But It Never Gets Old

It’s the same old routine … every road trip.

But it never gets old.

“I don’t like any of these,” she says.

“Yes. You do,” I respond.

“Which one? I don’t recognize any. Are you sure?”

“Yes. I’m certain. Put on any of the World Party discs and you’ll see. You especially like the songs on 'Egyptology'.”

“I think you’re wrong,” she states emphatically.


In my mind I prepare to start counting as soon as the first tune begins to play. I have a personal goal to meet, you see, as I rarely get to count up to the number 15 before she let’s on she does know what's playing.

The CD is slipped into the player and I begin to count.

At the 11 second mark comes the revelation: “Okay. Maybe you're right. I know this one …” She can't but help break out into a grin.

I look over, smile back at her and tell her I love her.

We'll gladly repeat this routine again in a couple weeks on our next trip .....

................... Ruprecht ( STOP )

The Annual Trek To Jamba Juice

Jamba Juice and I ... we have an understanding.

And it is this: I go and pick something up from that establishment ... and at some point something goes wrong.

This is the way it's gone for as long as I can remember. You want proof? I present my case ...

For the last three years on or about the boss's birthday, "The Tradition" has been to trek over to a local Jamba Juice and pick up the drinks of choice for the entire office staff. Not a frequenter of the place, I've no idea what to get. Truth be told, the place is rather perplexing to me. Energy shots and protein powders and milk-fed wheat weeds and dollops of gordness knows what.

But ... I digress .....

Year One? The orders got all screwed up. Year Two? One hour wait ... and the drinks leaked all over the place on the way back to the office. Year Three .. this year?

Well, things were going rather swimmingly for a bit. The boss was pleased with his refreshment ... his assistant dug the new "5 Fruit Frenzy" she ordered ... and my Tourette's-infused computer operator was enjoying some pomegranate concoction containing "monkey juice" or somesuch.

As I was leaving the office for the day, I spilled my barely-sipped drink all over the building entrance, causing peach flavor to decorate the entry in a drab orange spray pattern that probably would have thrilled a crime scene splatter expert.

Of the few times I've been to a Jamba Juice of my own accord (and when I say this I mean with friends or family) some other mishap has inevitably occurred.

You see: Jamba Juice and I ... we have an understanding:

I go there and the establishment exacts some sort of inexplicable revenge upon me .....

..................... Ruprecht ( STOP )

Ladies & Gentlemen: Asshat Of The Week

"When you ask to be ridiculed, it usually happens.
And it will happen here, nationally.”

- University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato

"An unscientific poll on the website of the Virginian-Pilot finds that 96 percent of the more than 4,000 people who have taken the survey think Cuccinelli’s decision was a 'bad idea.'"

They didn’t even bother to ask which decision.
- comment by toonguy

..................... Ruprecht ( STOP )

Going Deep

click on image to enlarge .....

.................. Ruprecht ( STOP )

Am I Getting Old?

I might just be getting old.

I remember as a kid using the word "kype" all the time.

But today - when I put it in a posting - one of the editors wrote me the following: "Can you tell me what this should say? '... but a thief kypes his tools ...'"

So do you know what "kype" means? I'm curious .....

Dear Word Detective: As a child my father would warn us kids not to "kipe" ("kype") things, meaning "steal." Is this a real word or one made up? -- Pat Benson

Well, the two are not mutually exclusive. Aside from the fact that every word is a human creation, many of the words we use every day were invented by specific individuals. Norman Mailer, for instance, invented "factoid" in his book "Marilyn" published in 1973, and "gobbledygook" was coined by U.S. Rep. Maury Maverick during World War II to describe bureaucratic jargon and doubletalk. Rep. Maverick, incidentally, was the grandson of Samuel Maverick, the Texas cattleman who never branded his cows and whose name became a synonym for "wanderer" or "rebel."

You're absolute correct, however, to wonder about the legitimacy of "kipe," because it seems to be a word that now teeters on the brink of extinction. According to the Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE), "kipe" or "kype" is found mostly in the western U.S., especially the Pacific Northwest, with some scattered usage in the Plains, Midwest and mid-Atlantic states. To judge by a discussion of the term on the American Dialect Society mailing list a few years ago, the variant form "kife" seems more common in the eastern states. To "kipe" (also spelled "kype" and "kipp") means "to steal or pilfer," with the same general sense as "swipe" of casually snatching something of small value (as opposed to robbing a bank, for instance). A citation in DARE from the Saturday Evening Post in 1968 gives a good sense of "kipe": "This typical teen-age shoplifter will brag to her friends about what she has "bagged," "hocked," "kyped" or "snitched," using the particular word that is common to the vernacular of her region." An indication of the fading use of "kipe" is that the later citations in DARE largely come from sources talking about using the word in their childhoods, not today.

The derivation of "kipe" is, as so often the case with slang terms, uncertain, but it may well have arisen as a modification of the now-obsolete English verb "to kip," meaning to take hold of or to snatch." This "kip," which first appeared in English around 1250, was based on the Old Norse verb "kippa," meaning "to snatch, tug or pull."

*sigh* .......................... Ruprecht ( STOP )

Oh ... and the photo above? Wrong kype, Sir .....

I Like It

It was necessary to share this.

Click the creature above. Good stuff, Maynard.

...................... Ruprecht ( STOP )
Kudos to David .....