Elephant Sat on a Fence (Turner Joy- Part One)

    On a dusty road, a mile or two from town stands a neat, whitewashed fence. This fence surrounded a garden, which encircled a yellow house. In this house lived a tidy, middle-aged woman, who was at this precise moment removing a speck of dust (Oh, sacrilege! To even think there was dust in that house,) from her matchbox.
    This white picket fence was overrun with ivy and jessamine, and its well-oiled gate swung gaily on its hinge.
    Every day our diligent spinster watered her plants and made her sage tea, reading the paper that ‘thumped’ daily against her door, announcing that morning had crept over the hillside at last.
Our dear lady (named Constance, if you must know, for her constancy) watered her Black-eyes Susans second to last, and when she was watering this very plant on a quiet sunny morning, she noticed that her smart picket fence sagged a little, in the very middle. She frowned. It had been good as new yesterday morning.
     She moved on to water her ivy, still frowning, and at the precise moment that she finished, her tea kettle whistled as usual and she went inside to her tea. 
The next day, she noticed that it drooped even lower. Our dear lady was puzzled. She read the paper that banged louder than usual against her door. Elephants had escaped from the city zoo. There was a city zoo? Oh, yes. She had read about the grand opening about three months ago.
     She read her favorite book again to shake the feeling of impending disaster.

Story Time

My kids are always asking for stories.  You know, the famous "tell a story about when you were a kid" kinda stories.  Well, now I will get my revenge.  I asked the older kids to write stories that I will publish. This is the "tease." Look here for more stories as the weeks progress and I train both myself and my kids in this area! 

Our first story is based on the following sentence I threw at them months ago:

The fat elephant sat on a fence

Josiah and Turner Joy both responded with creative stories based on this silly theme.  Before you read theirs, however, you must suffer through my own response:

Sven, the famous jello making pachyderm from Naples, escaped the drudgery of his whirlwind tour to America by visiting the curious town of Pico Rivera.  Chance brought him to our street and calamity delivered him to my front door.  I opened that door to find him attempting to rest himself on my fine fence.

I know that it may be shocking to you that an elephant is loose in the area (especially a jello making one), but be calm--this is not the end of the story.  Look here for more episodes of Sven and more importantly, of Josiah and Turner Joy's installments!

A Post About Yliana

It has been brought to my attention (by a young 10 year old girl) that I have not posted about Yliana, my fourth born. This is her story.

Well, ok. It's not a story. How about a picture:

This is my little princess reading about the True Princess to a small boy of only two. One wonders what valuable lessons this small boy is learning. No doubt he is feeling loved. Yliana is a good reader and knows how to keep the attention of a 2 year old for 4 or 5 minutes (pretty much a record).

Now a word from our sponsor (Yli):
The True Princess is a very good book. It tells little boys what little girls should be like when they get married. Before you know it they'll teach their little girls what they should be like. Honoring, respectful, and say "yes sir" and "yes ma'am." My favorite color is green, I love to read, I love to cook, and ride a bike. The most important thing to me is loving God!

Bear-ly Making It

Yosemite. 

The shear rock walls.  The prolific water falls.  The towering Sequoia's.  The hungry bears.

What?  The bears?  Yes, all part of the beauty of camping.  We spent 5 nights in Yosemite and had bears in camp 4 of those nights.  I think they got a day off because of the rain (some 5+ hours of it!). 

The bears mostly perform at night.  The show starts up just about anytime after dark.  One could be about some mundane chore and have a bear show up to help.  This kind of excitement only happened the first night with less than desirable results.  However, most of us experienced the performances with audio only. 

Imagine laying in a sleeping bag on a half inflated mattress inside a 3/100th's of an inch thick nylon tent listening to the night.  A murmur here, a chuckle there...then a "Hey", and a "Oh no!," "Did you see him?" "Where?"  Then riotous clamor and the percussion of 40 feet running as every youth playing games or talking around the campfire (still not in bed!) is taking off after (no...not away from) the innocent wild bear chasing it into its own woods, where any smart bear could begin to pick them off one by one.  No smart bears being available, all the young people make it back into camp safely, assaulting one another with stories of how close they were to the bear or how they were the one to ...[Warning: animal lovers may want to skip down a paragraph or two!]  ...how they were the one to hit the bear with a rock or scare the stuffing out of it [don't say I didn't warn you!].

However frightening the actual events might be, lying down in a tent with 3/100ths of an inch between you and the living nightmare made each event much more epic.  Imagine what images the phrases screamed by a women: "Is he still there? Did he rip the tent?" might bring to your mind.  Can you picture the small children being snatched through the tent nylon mere yards away?  Can you see the creature standing two footed pawing at the would be rescuer?  Well, I couldn't either, but the few sound clues I had sure gave me enough material to manufacture any number of possibilities.

Apparently these bears were here first and expect a little leeway.  Park Rangers tell us not to "feed the bears" and to make general fools of our selves if we happen to see one.  This is their land and they are supposed eat berries and nuts while campers sup on burgers, spaghetti, chicken asada, taco salad, and cup of noodles.  Hmm.  This bear problem may be there for a while. 

Now, some 300 miles and 6 hours away, I find myself looking over my shoulder, wondering what would possibly keep a bear up there eating tree bark while my wife, the best cook in California, is residing here.

The Bathroom Zone

For those of you who suspect this post of being filled with crass bathroom humor, ease your fears now. Nothing stinks more than hackneyed prose. It is an unusual discovery that brings us to this Bathroom Zone entry. Herein lies the tale:

At this very moment, the clock in our bathroom reads 9:22 am. Do you see where I am going? Well, perhaps it would help to know that every other clock in this hemisphere reads 10:22 am. Now you see. Our bathroom has its own time zone.

This explains a lot.

You may be unaware of the five minute shower. It is the requirement at the Lynch home when various residents here wait for the morning to take their shower, thus endangering a timely departure for family morning activities. However, this "five minute shower" takes approximately 25 minutes when my 14 year old daughter enters the Bathroom Zone. This is no quirk. The same twisting of time occurs when my 15 year old son asks to invest a moment combing his hair. The Zone again exercises its influence and a simple glance in the mirror leads to 20 minutes of facial exploration.

I have searched for clues to these aberrations but no clear answer is forthcoming. The phenomenon of the bathroom clock being the only time piece in our home to remain 1 hour behind the others is the most significant. But there are other signs. Take the ring in the bathtub. One is reminded of mysterious crop circles in corn fields. And observe the toothpaste tubes. Ignore that fact that the caps are all missing (if you can). Each tube has been dented in at the middle! Once, and I know this might be frightening, I entered the bathroom to find every towel hung up on a rack.

There is more, but if I were to mention the mold in the shape of Elvis, the unexplainable empty toilet paper roll, the sudden entrance of small children without knocking you would pull your hair out.

And that would not be good, because the waste basket is full.

The Great Equalizer!

As a Dad, I have the edge on most games with my kids.  I can cream my 6 year old son (Mack) in checkers.  I can conquer my 10 year old daughter (Yliana) in chess.  I can even wallop my 15 year old son (Josiah) in Lord of the Rings Risk (but not every time!).  But rarely can I survive the chaos due in the next game of Chutes and Ladders!

You spin the wheel and you cross your fingers and hope against hope that the space you land on will not be the seven row, lead erasing, drop down that pesky Chute ("slide" for the uninitiated).  I watch Mack, a tough C & L competitor, agonize over visiting the same Chute 3 times in a row.  My eight year old cheerleader Sequoia ("You can do it , Daddy) climbs into second place only to slip down to third the next turn.  Oh, and most frustrating of all, my 4 year old (Havilah) floats into first place, second row from the top, narrowly missing instant death and has no idea.  She Has No Idea.  In fact, she wants to leave and go see what mommy is doing.  Two sets of eyes (OK, 3) will her to walk her little oblivious self out of the room and out of first place.  But No.  Its her turn again and she likes spinning.  And she trusts that we are going to tell her where to move.  She actually trusts us!  And there she goes, skipping by the last Chute that could possibly take her out of first.  And she wins.

Daggers are flying her way and she bounces out of the room to find Mommy.  I look over to my 6 year old Mack.  He says, "Let's see who comes in second."  Now, that's what I'm talking about!

The Backyard

You can't see it.

But I know it's there.

It occupies a dimension inaccessible to most who pass by. The dogs live there. The kids carry items of interest and leave them there (when they are no longer interested). The dogs find them. Transformation takes place. And all this without me ever entering the realm.

Yet, today I ventured. I found adventure. I partook of earth and sky. Some of that earth is still on my hands to prove it. And, perhaps, I will return someday. And, by the grace and blessing of the Creator, things will grow:)