Ladle Rat Rotten Hut

When my two sisters and I were kids, our father decided to quit pharmacy and go back to school. Law school. So we packed up our bags and moved to Beverly. Only Beverly was Salt Lake City. But it did have hills. They were called the Wasatch. One day my father came home from school with a sheet of paper with the below text typewritten on it. He had gotten distracted in the library. Ever do that? Uh-huh. I remember reading through the text, altogether as a family, sans our mother of course. Dry sense of humor. Four of us were knee-slapping, rolling on the floor kinds of laughers. Not our Jewish mother. The Sicilian parts were what put the zaney in our clan. Poor mom. Dad also brought home another one entitled: Golilogghese Enna Tre Berrese, but I can't find it anywhere when Googleing it. It's purpose was to use an Italian accent to tell the story. (Logophile could figure it out, no doubt.) Good luck with Ladle Rat Rotten Hut. Read it out loud. Some folks just can't get it. Not to worry. You have to recall the real text and hold it up against that in your head. It will come to you. Cindra's Word Game, eat your heart out!







Great animation..............







Ladle Rat Rotten Hut


Wants pawn term, dare worsted ladle gull hoe lift wetter murder inner ladle cordage, honor itch offer lodge dock florist. Disk ladle gull orphan worry ladle cluck wetter putty ladle rat hut, an fur disk raisin pimple colder Ladle Rat Rotten Hut.

Wan moaning, Rat Rotten Hut's murder colder inset, "Ladle Rat Rotten Hut, heresy ladle basking winsome burden barter an shirker cockles. Tick disk ladle basking tutor cordage offer groin-murder hoe lifts honor udder site offer florist. Shaker lake! Dun stopper laundry wrote! An yonder nor sorghum-stenches, dun stopper torque wet strainers!"

"Hoe-cake, murder," resplendent Ladle Rat Rotten Hut, an tickle ladle basking an stuttered oft. Honor wrote tutor cordage offer groin-murder, Ladle Rat Rotten Hut mitten anomalous woof. "Wail, wail, wail!" set disk wicket woof, "Evanescent Ladle Rat Rotten Hut! Wares are putty ladle gull goring wizard ladle basking?"

"Armor goring tumor groin-murder's," reprisal ladle gull. "Grammar's seeking bet. Armor ticking arson burden barter an shirker cockles."

"O hoe! Heifer blessing woke," setter wicket woof, butter taught tomb shelf, "Oil tickle shirt court tutor cordage offer groin-murder. Oil ketchup wetter letter, an den - O bore!"

Soda wicket woof tucker shirt court, an whinney retched a cordage offer groin-murder, picked inner widow, an sore debtor pore oil worming worse lion inner bet. Inner flesh, disk abdominal woof lipped honor bet an at a rope. Den knee poled honor groin-murder's nut cup an gnat-gun, any curdled dope inner bet.

Inner ladle wile, Ladle Rat Rotten Hut a raft attar cordage, an ranker dough belle. "Comb ink, sweat hard," setter wicket woof, disgracing is verse. Ladle Rat Rotten Hut entity bet rum an stud buyer groin-murder's bet.

"O Grammar!" crater ladle gull, "Wood bag icer gut! A nervous sausage bag ice!"

"Battered lucky chew whiff, doling," whiskered disk ratchet woof, wetter wicket small.

"O Grammar, water bag noise! A nervous sore suture anomolous prognosis!"

"Battered small your whiff," insert a woof, ants mouse worse waddling.

"O Grammar, water bag mousy gut! A nervous sore suture bag mouse!"

Daze worry on-forger-nut gulls lest warts. Oil offer sodden, thoroughing offer carvers an sprinkling otter bet, disk curl and bloat-thursday woof ceased pore Ladle Rat Rotten Hut an garbled erupt.

Mural: Yonder nor sorghum stenches shut ladle gulls stopper torque wet strainers.

What's Going On?

This story, believe it or not, is the very familiar fable of Little Red Riding Hood. This curious version was written in 1940 by a professor of French named H. L. Chace, who wanted to show his students that intonation - that is, the melody of a language - is an integral part of its meaning. The words here are all common English words, but not the ones you'd expect to tell the story of Little Red Riding Hood.

YAO COME BACK NAO, Y'HEAR?

Since, by U.S. standards, I am considered short, and wrestled in high school, I have always hated basketball. I'll never forget the time my dad took us to see the Harlem Globetrotters play a "real" team. Yes, I did get to see Meadowlark Lemon. That was back in the Salt Lake City days, so I don't remember where they played. Salt Palace? Dunno. Anyways (as they say here in I-dropped-out-in-the-ninth-grade-to-fish-or-log land), I got to meet one of the players. Out on the floor, they didn't look so big. But standing face to knee with the tallest person I had ever seen in my life was nothing....short....of amazing. When he reached down to shake my 12 year old hand, I grabbed all I could and made the best of it.

Last Wednesday I attended that Blazers/Rockets game. It's different when it's in person. I liked it a lot. I got to see a young man 7 foot 6 inches tall trying to run without tripping. He did a lot of both. Not even a week later and he has gone and broken one of his knees.

Merry Christmas, everyone!!!

(Oh, and by the way---that guy in the red who is standing near the back of the free throw circle IS one Mr. Yao Ming. Took the pic with my right eye camera implant. Unfortunately, as you will recall, my right eyeglass lens was missing and that threw it out of focus. Honest. No, really. I'm telling the truth. I swear on the Candacian Hammer Of Death! uh-oh........)








The Lark

Pacific Storm

There was nothing pacific about it. Last Thursday we got hit with gusts exceeding 100 mph on the headlands here on the rugged, rocky, rock 'n rollin' Oregon coast. Why, it blew so hard that, that, that, I lost a lens. I have been going around like this for days and either no one notices, or (more likely) they don't want to say anything. It's sort of like shaving half your moustache. Or maybe one eyebrow. No one says anything. Not even my eyes. The remaining lens lost its twin, a blended progressive bifocal, yet it carries out its mission without----batting an eye. I can see far away; I can read the small print. One lens. Again, what comes to mind but Gold Member's quizzical remark when he reflexively mused: "Hey. I schpeek Dutch. Iszint dat veerd?" Hey, we can both see.......

Cindra Is Making Fudge Today

I just hung up with the Tree Whisperer (go to her blog, Dudes) and she informed me that she was making fudge. Had to hang up cuz she was in some squirting phase. I have never made fudge. Well, not the kind she's making, anyway. So I can only relate to the squirting that takes place at least once a year, usually in the colder months. If ya know what I mean. Sooner or later, though, Cindra is going to have to explain her shipping method. And that's what the attached is all about.

I needed to laugh today. I couldn't breathe when my friend Liz first sent this to me:

Steak Your Clam

On Saturday there was a minus tide. A minus tide, if you didn't already know, is when the ocean becomes, shall we say....shy, recalcitrant, shrinking. I sometimes wonder how the indigenous dealt with such sudden extremes. Oh yeah, I remember. They freaked out and removed the still-beating heart of a virgin. Anyway, can you imagine? You're just going about your daily routine and the beach reveals itself another quarter mile? And this phenomenon becomes more exaggerated the farther (yes, thanks to Fr. Ignatius back in the Benedictine days: farther---farther by distance, further by degree if you ever get confused again) north you go. Along the rocky shore of Montara and Moss Beach (California), it was rare to see a minus tide approaching -2.0 ft. In Oregon, we occasionally get one at -3.0 ft, but it is normal to see -2.7 and -2.8 where I live. Way up there at Clam Gulch, Alaska, they get -5.0 ft tides! Yikers!!!

I will never forget seeing my first Oregon minus tide. It must have been a biggie. It was in Lincoln City. I was a freshman in college at Mt. Angel Seminary and we got a chance to use the Abbey's beach house. I couldn't believe my eyes. The first wave looked like it was a mile from where the uppermost breakers usually gave in to gravity and earned their name. And since, in Oregon, all ocean beaches are considered state highway, a minus tide renders the beach the widest road in the land.

Now a little about Siliqua patula (no, not Clark, Silly-qua![gawpo crack self up]) When introduced to razor clamming in 1981, I was told, "These are the only clams that can dig as fast as you can." That said, they are however no match for the length of the blade of the specially designed razor clam shovel. One scoop---butchabettuhbequick---and you gottem. Hesitation invites a lost clam or the insult of a wave smacking your ass. I have felt both simultaneously. Wakes you up. When you're soaking wet in 52 degree saltwater, you forget about that lost clam quicker than you can say, "I'm soaking wet in 52 degree saltwater and I have forgotten about that lost clam."



So on Sunday there was a minus tide. My friend Jack and I hit the beach at about 3:30 (1530 hours to the militants). The limit is 15 clams per person per day and all clams must be retained no matter how small. Jack wanted to get his limit. I like to go one shy. Good for Karma. But I ended up with 11 and Jack, with 13. It was awesome. Once at home, cleaned and fried in olive oil and a light dusting of flour (the clams, not me!), I felt blessed and alive. I had surely saved the life of a virgin.

So what's the life lesson here? Introspection indicates that I am myself in the midst of a minus tide in my own life. I am revealed beyond belief. It is very scary becoming so shown and so vulnerable ("vulna", it turns out, is Latin for "wound." It's the "able" part of the word that permits it to happen). But things that would otherwise have gone unseen, unharvested even, would not have been accessible were it not for this boundary expanding experience. Ex, it seems, would be the operative. It means "out" as in "out of" or "outward." Expanding. Experience. Extenuating. Extremity. Excruciating (lit: out from the cross).

In the last analysis, it all hurts so good. It is life. The still beating heart, when you stop to think about it, pauses half its life too; it too is enduring its own tides. Love takes your breath away. Then just as quickly, puts it back. So there's only one thing you can do: breathe.

Those are my clams there in that bucket there in my sink there. So, there. Further attachments are borrowed from the net, but no farther than from your monitor to your eyeball.

I am inviting any and all to pun the crap out of the clam. So have some fun, leave your pun. Can you...........dig.........it?

Fighting My Way Out Of The Dumps

Yo. Dudes. Gawpo's champion heart is fighting back. Lost love begs the question: Was it love at all? The answer, of course, is OF COURSE IT WAS LOVE! Feeling like crap after a breakup is normal. Getting your heart broken is a sure sign that all the wires are hooked up and running fine. If not, it wouldn't hurt. Right? Sure is nice to be thought about by such great folks, especially you who ask Where's Gawpo. Thanks. As St. Julian of Norwich put it: "All shall be well. And all shall be well. And all manner of thing shall be well." Also this: I called QWEST and found out that I can get DSL in my rural area now. Just waiting for a switch to come available and I can blog from home where currently I get a whopping 21.6Kbps!!!! More later. Now go and watch my fight video.