I’m trying to learn Swedish. My son-in-law, the family Swede, says that such a project is not terribly practical since only an impressive minority of people on the planet speak his native tongue.
Since when is the grandmother of the most precious one-year-old in the universe expected to be practical?? So, Duolingo gives me updates on how I’m doing. Currently, it says I’m around 34% fluent in Swedish.
Clearly, they define “fluency” differently than I do. For example, if I wanted to say something like, “your dinosaur has a funny nose”, I would be woefully lost for words.
Ask me how I know this! And since 99% of the time I play a 12-string, where most guitar-players have one indentation per fingertip, I get to have two!
So, right, forget the diamonds; for me, calluses are a girl’s best friend, at least they have been since I was about 15 years old, when I semi-attached myself to my dad’s 12-string guitar. And I can sure tell when I haven’t been giving enough attention to “toughening up the tips”. It takes pretty consistent Continue reading “I made a meme!”
I follow my actor-brother-in-law, Doug Jones, on Instagram and Facebook. We rarely get to see his face, but he has been nonetheless amazing as Pan in Pan’s Labyrinth, the fish/man Abe Sapion in Hellboy, the Silver Surfer in the Fantastic Four, and Chochise in Falling Skies, to name just a few. And we just found out that he is going to be (yet another) alien in the up and coming Star Trek spin-off Discovery.
Of course, I’m old school, with the original Kirk and Spock and Bones and Scottie and all that. But far be it from me to consider myself a snobbish connoisseur of fine sci-fi—I also enjoyed Galaxy Quest, and the “famous” quote from Captain Jason Nesmith, “never give up, never surrender!”
So, okay, I’ve not yet donned any cosplay nor stood in line for hours to talk to a personal hero of the silver screen. Heck, I hang out with Doug and Laurie on fam-jams anyway, and they ARE heroes in my book!
I also appreciate the actors in the Hebrews 11 “Heroes of the Faith” line up—it reads like something out of one of Doug’s movie credits. Allow me to review (from my human perspective):
Gideon, cowering in the barn trying to hide his grain, and who needed a fleece (twice) to convince him of God’s answer.
Moses, who’s recorded conversation with God (as if standing in front of the burning bush wasn’t enough) is replete with “but God!?!”
Sarah and Abraham, who both thought God needed a little help, (since that always turns out well…)
Amazingly, God chooses to interpret their history differently:
“Their weakness was turned to strength.”
Say what? How is it that God somehow overlooks, not only their failures, but also the consequences of those failures, and chooses instead to record in the New Testament rendition (for all eternity, no less) their successes?
Like it or not, “oops” is part of a Christian’s vernacular, and “I’m sorry” should roll off the tongue more and more easily as time goes on. One important thing that can be said for these heroes of the faith is that they never gave up. They may have given in a few times, but they never gave up.
In that, Captain Kirk has nothing on Captain Nesmith.
I’m trying to learn Swedish. My son-in-law, the family Swede, says that such a project is not terribly practical since only an impressive minority of people on the planet speak his native tongue. 
INSPIRATION with an ATTITUDE 