It was a really good July. Congratulations, little buddy. I could not be more happy for you.

So, as used to be my somewhat regular wont, let’s have a quiz. Quizzes are fun. This one will be song lyrics! Name the tune and the composer (and/or performer) and fabulous* prizes can be yours! Post your answers in the comments (with the new Wordpress system the old word verification is gone, replaced by limited moderation. The first time you comment I have to approve you as non-spam, and from then on (in theory) the blog will remember your name/e-mail combination as approved) and I’ll add them to the main quiz as they come in. Gosh, but this’ll be dandy! And away we go…

1. Even if you’re never seen on the silver screen, I’ll still be dreaming about every single time you told me that you were mine. Identified! Central Standard Time, performed by supergroup Purrs of Rage and recorded by The Kendalls.

2. Half of what I say is meaningless. Identified! Julia, by the Beatles (composed by Lennon). This line was the inspiration for my old blog title.

3. I see you sitting quietly, staring into space. Identified! Last Song For You, as recorded but almost never performed by a very nascent indeed Central Standard Time once upon a May Term.

4. I don’t know just where I’m going, but I know this ain’t where it’s at. Identified!. Tremblin’ Tracks, by Storyhill. I could play this song, once upon a time, but after a few months of practicing it my right arm hurt all the time, not just while I was playing. So I let that skill drift away.

5. “I adore you,” wrote the lady cat, who was fluffy, white, and nice and fat. Identified! The Ballad of Don Gato, by I’ve no idea who. Classics from elementary music, Texas-style.

6. Sergeant Devine, stationed on the front line, took a bullet while drawing his gun. Identified! (She gave the title in the lyric she quoted; blog management rules it Close Enough) Blessed Disease, by Peter Mayer.

7. I don’t know where we get the dough, it just seems to appear. Identified! The Country of Beeg Muscles (The Germanappawappawegianese National Anthem), lyrics by John Ham.

8. Ne’er thy name shall cease to be a most happy memory. Identified! The Wartburg College Loyalty Song, identified by loyal Macalestrian Joel. Hmm.

9. Have you been half asleep and have you heard voices? Identified! The Rainbow Connection by Paul (and not, as I thought for quite some time, John) Williams)

10. I have here some newspaper thirteen months old. Identified! I Love Trash, by… I guess I’m not sure, either. I, too, would have guessed Raposo. Performed by Oscar the Grouch, at any rate.

* Fabulousness of prizes may vary. Prizes not guaranteed to be monetarily valuable or to actually exist.

Within the month the start-up church I play guitar for will probably go to Saturday and Sunday services, which will mean I’ll have work commitments seven days a week. A weird shift from the almost-completely-open schedule of recent months, but I like it. If I ever get a clearer sense of what I’m actually doing at work (and if I haven’t faded back into blolivion) I’ll post more about it. But now I’ve got to get some sleep. Work tomorrow and all.

I live almost as far from the flooding in Iowa City as one can live and still be within the Iowa City/Coralville megalopolis. My house is in the northwest corner of Coralville, miles from the river and on some of the highest ground in town. Which means that it’s disturbingly easy for me to forget the flood happened at all. Outside my house and for many blocks in any direction this week it’s been a gorgeous late spring week – sunshiny and green. And yet just north of us in Cedar Rapids people are starting to be allowed back into their homes and seeing the complete devastation, and here in Iowa City many people are still forced to wonder.

It’s been awesome to see the community turnout. I agree with Matt’s and Jess’s (the first two links up above) appreciation and admiration of the community spirit that gripped the area when we knew the waters were coming. I spent some time sandbagging and it was weird how much fun it was; how much people were enjoying the community the rising waters created. But now we’re coming to the part that we often don’t do so well with as people. Now comes the real work – cleaning up debris, repairing damage, and for many people rebuilding lives. It won’t offer any cool areal pics that we can rally around and the work will be more complicated than just filling sandbags.

Not that I don’t think we can do it. But as the waters recede the worst is yet to come.

*translation may be inexact.

Whew. That wasn’t so bad.

Memes R Us!

1. What is your favorite work of horror fiction?

Hard to say. I’ve read quite a bit of Stephen King and enjoyed ‘Salem’s Lot quite a bit, but I’d have to give the nod to Poe’s “The Raven” as performed by the Simpsons:

2. Who is your favorite monster?

Smaug. I’m a sucker for dragons.

3. What horror movie gives you the most chills?

I haven’t seen many at all – I don’t particularly care for the being-frightened experience and I have a runaway imagination – so this answer comes from a small pool. That said, I saw The Blair Witch Project in the theater and barely slept the next two nights.

4. Freddy versus Jason?

Never seen a movie with either of them (see above), so I’ll say Jason because I have a buddy named Jason but no buddies named Fred.

5. Ghosts or goblins?

Ghosts. Goblins are wussy little one hit-die monsters while ghosts can only be harmed by magical weapons and age you 1d4×10 years just by you looking at them. Obvious answer, this one.

6. What is your scariest encounter with the paranormal?

One of my years at Wartburg I lived in the “haunted” dorm. There was a student at Wartburg in the… 70’s, I think… who was brutally murdered and she’d lived in the dorm (indeed, in the room) I lived in. There were lots of stories that year about weird things happening in the dorm. They even brought in the campus weirdo to do a seance. My roommates and I laughed it off, though. Until one evening I was sitting in our room with Matt and Mark and our door suddenly swung open. “Hey now, Lisa,” said Matt (Lisa was the ghost’s name), “that’s not cool. You can’t just listen to our conversations.”

And the door slammed shut again. We laughed about it, but we also found a reason to leave the room pretty quickly after that.

7. Do you believe in ghosts?

Dunno, I guess. Mostly no, but I do believe in the afterlife and ghosts seem like a pretty easy jump to make from there.

8. Favorite Halloween costume?

When I was a tot in Texas my dad directed The Pirates of Penzance at the local college as the fall play. That Halloween I got to be a pirate and walked around singing Gilbert and Sullivan songs and being given candy by strangers. The American dream.

9. If you had an unlimited budget, what would your fantasy costume be for this Halloween?

Interesting. A giant chinchilla, I think. And I’d stuff the suit with millions of dollars in cash.

10. When was the last time you went trick or treating?

Halloween 1996. I used to have a picture on this blog, but I think it was lost in the Great Server Transfer of ‘07.

11. What’s your favorite Halloween candy?

I couldn’t possibly choose a favorite. Anything that’s neither mint nor coconut.

12. Tell us about a scary nightmare you had.

Scary spooky? I had a recurring dream when I was a little kid of being chased by a bear. Got to the point where I didn’t want to go to sleep; I think I spent almost a year fairly regularly having the dream. Ironically, every time I’ve been in actual bear country on backpacking trips I’ve slept just fine.

Scary really disturbing and horrifying? A couple of times in college I had super real-seeming dreams where I was lying in a hospital bed, dying, and my parents came into the room to cheer me up by singing songs.

13. What is your supernatural fear?

I don’t have any, really, but sometimes when I’ve been hiking by myself on the trails at EWALU at night my mind has wandered a bit.

14. What is your creepy-crawlie fear?

Claustrophobic situations. Just the thought of not being able to move my arms and legs gives me the willies.

15. Would you ever stay in a real haunted house overnight?

Maybe… there’d have to be some pretty significant remuneration involved.

16. Are you a traditionalist (just a face) Jack O’Lantern carver, or do you get really creative with your pumpkins?

Neither. I am a man completely without artistic skill, so I try to avoid subjecting pumpkins of the world to my non-talent.

17. How much do you decorate your home for Halloween?

Well, my roommate has a black cat who likes to sit in the window…

18. Do you think Halloween is too commercial these days?

No. I think Christmas is too commercial. I’m not nearly as attached to the meaning Halloween’s supposed to have.

Surfing through websites earlier tonight, I found a link to this story about Josh Hancock’s father suing basically everyone involved with his son’s death. Josh Hancock, for those of you who didn’t follow the story, was a pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals who was killed when he drove his SUV into a parked tow truck on a St. Louis freeway a few weeks ago. It was a horrible, tragic thing, but he was driving drunk (twice the legal limit for Missouri), talking on his cell phone, and some reports say he was high. Now his father is suing the restaurant that served him drinks and (this part boggled my mind when I read it) the tow-truck driver and the guy who was pulled over being assisted by the tow truck. The guys Josh drove into while drunk. The guys who are lucky to be alive.

Seemed like crap to me. Obviously I don’t think Josh acted maliciously, but from my position as an armchair lawyer a state away it seems pretty obvious that he was at fault and that he was lucky to not have his bad choices end anyone else’s life. But then I was reading through my blogroll and came across another story that puts me in a more empathetic frame of mind. Maybe Josh’s dad is just being a dad and trying to do everything he can other than accept that his son is gone.

Jaq and his wife lost another child today. Only a year and a half after their son Quinn passed away at age one their daughter Fiona died on the day she was born. I have no words; I’d be surprised if anyone does. I don’t have children and I still can’t get my head around what it must be like to have to go on after one’s gone.

Tomorrow I leave for camp and I’ve no doubt it will be wonderful and energizing and uplifting and healing like summers at camp have always been for me. Right now I feel almost guilty about looking forward to it, though.

Peace, Jaq (and Mrs. Jaq.). Peace, Mr. Hancock.

So I closed the door and spent the next 20 minutes searching for her. Looking in all her favorite napping places, checking under furniture, looking outside through windows for her, and in the back of my mind dreading the possibility that I’d have to call my roommate and tell him I couldn’t find her. Or that something horrible had happened out on the busy street in front of our house. By the halfway point of searching fun, I even started calling her, which is of course a pointless way to try to affect a cat’s location.

Then, on circuit 14 or so through the main floor, there she was sitting on the kitchen table, which I’ve never seen her do before. Looking at me with (pardon me if I anthropomorphize too much here, but I know what I saw) a ha-ha smirk on her face, as if to say, “Have a nice walk around the place, moron? Now feed me.”

It seems absurd to think she saw the open door, contemplated a stroll around in the great outdoors, but decided it would be more fun to mess with me instead, and yet there she was. Apparently cats love their triumphant moments.