X is for Xenu

We all know who this guy is, at least we do since Tom Cruise showed us the cray-cray. Allegedly (per Wikipedia)," Xenu, with the assistance of psychiatrists, summoned billions of his citizens together under the pretense of income tax inspections, then paralyzed them and froze them in a mixture of alcohol and glycol to capture their souls. The kidnapped populace was loaded into spacecraft for transport to the site of extermination, the planet of Teegeeack (Earth). The appearance of these spacecraft would later be subconsciously expressed in the design of the Douglas DC-8, the only difference being: 'the DC8 had fans, propellers on it and the space plane didn't'. When they had reached Teegeeack/Earth, the paralyzed citizens were unloaded around the bases of volcanoes across the planet. Hydrogen bombs were then lowered into the volcanoes and detonated simultaneously." Wow. And that's just the beginning.

Winter

Winter is my favorite season.  At least I think it is.  It has been 12 years since I have been through a snot-freezing cold winter (that's when it's so cold that when you breath through your nose the inside of your nostrils stick together.  That only happened to me?  Moving on...).

Before the age of nine I only remember living in warm Mediteranean type climates (due to a military upbringing).  To me snow was exotic and magical.  I used to sit in front of a fan powered on high, wrapped in a blanket, pretending to be an Eskimo.  To us, 50 degrees meant it was time to pull out our heavy coats.

Then we moved to Michigan.  I remember being so excited about moving to Michigan.  Michigan was in the US!  It was in the North! It was January!  I imagined pure white blankets of snow piled here and there in drifts, coating tree branches and the roofs of houses straight out of some crappy Thomas Kinkade painting (no, it's not too soon).  Children would be making snow men and snow forts, and there would be sledding and ice skating.  This was me thinking of Michigan in winter:

We get off the plane and what do I see?  Jack-squat.  That's what.  There wasn't a lick of snow on the ground.  I WAS HEATED.

It did eventually snow, and my poor brother found out what happens if you lick cold metal.  We did go sledding (on flattened cardboard boxes), and built snowmen and had snowball fights.  We "skated" on frozed puddles in parking lots.  Oh, and after a couple of years the first day of 50 degree weather was "let's pull out the shorts" weather.  Ahh memories....

V-Day (no, not that one)

So, I'm running out of ideas here and all I can think is "Five more days.  Five more days."  I guess that could be "Roman Numeral V more days" (hardy-har-har).

At first I was going to write about vision, but was it going to be the physical act of seeing?  The kind that inspires people to do great things?  Or the kind you get after eating certain types of mushrooms?

There's a line about vestigial virgins in the novel Small Gods by Terry Pratchett that had me giggling for 20 minutes.

Then I thought "Vegetables.  That's easy!"  Except just like eating the recommended daily servings of veggies, a post about them never happened.

So I went online and Googled "Words that start with V" hoping for inspiration, but all I got was a list of worlds that start with V.  Thanks a lot Google.

Words like vegan (sorry, the animals are what make food taste good), and veterinarian (I wanted to be a vet when I was younger, but thinking back on it there is no way in hell I would have made it into vet school), valkyrie (are those the woemen in operas with the horned helmets and breastplates?  No?  OK), velocity (no comment here), and lots of words that start with vena, all having to do with circulatory system.

I'm done.  (Four more days.  Four more days.  IV more days.)

ps.  While searching for pictures of the letter V, I came up with the TV show V which I had totally forgotten about.  I never watched the new series, and the only thing I remember from the original 80's series is the lizard baby.

Ummm...



I don't have anything planned for U.  I can't think of anything to write about.

Up
Under
Unctuous
Urgent
Uncle
Ubermensch
Urkel
Udder
Ugly
Ulysses
Umber
Use
Utter

There.  U is done.

Tanka

Before we begin, I feel like I have to explain what a tanka is.  Long story short it's like the better known haiku, except instead of a 5-7-5 count the tanka uses a 5-7-7-5-5 syllable count.  Enjoy. 





Thunder rumbles and
rolls through the hills as rain pounds
on the roof, gurgling in
the gutters and splashing
on worn stone walkways