holy week, days #5 and#6

today was maundy thursday. i thought everyone should know. i hope to reply to comments and continue this post later tonight...

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now it's early good friday, about 12:32am, but despite the return of my wayward internet connection, there will be no holy week post. i'm tired and cranky.

for the past hour sirens have been screaming through my neighborhood. this isn't particularly unusual--i live by aurora--except that the sirens have been a mixed chorus of emergency sirens and ordinary car alarms. then, about twenty minutes ago the sirens stopped and a helicopter or two appeared on the scene. they have been circling my block since at least 12:20am. the copter comes so close to my house that i can hear the blades beating the air. it sounds like a high-pitched hybrid of lawn-mower and jet plane. from my bedroom window, the helicopter looks like a bright-eyed christmas wraith. its shadowy paint job makes all but the red and green navigation lights fade ominously into the night sky. curious, i roll out of my toasty bed and out onto the chilly porch. the street looks dark...and normal. the helicopter makes another approach. at first i thought that it must be nothing, but now i'm a little worried. i retreat back to my bed and double-lock the door.

it's 12:57am. a few weeks worth of watching the hit tv series '24' has all kinds of crazy theories buzzing through my brain. i check out the local news stations -- just your standard fare: shootings over shoes, car accidents, rapists and a kidnappers loose on the streets. whoah. i briefly entertain the thought of calling beth and telling her to be on guard. then i think, 'it's nearly 1am, she'll be asleep,' and 'then she'll be needlessly paranoid for weeks,' and 'heck, i doubt she could be sleeping with this racket. she'll probably in her living room waiting out the excitement by groggily sipping english breakfast tea with her roommates. agg. the motion-sensing light outside my window just turned on...uh-oh.....


andrew david '?' puerto vallarta, mexico - first off, the middle picture is the original (i made a few minor adjustments, but that's what the photo subject really looked like) and the washed-out versions are photoshop creations. second, i'm not quite sure what to call this...depending upon the context i think several themes could offer appropriate titles: christ's crucifixion (or in this trio of pics, the crucifixion of christ AND the two thieves), a horrible ending to this evening's random helicopter fly-bys, or something more general like laughing, singing, screaming, yawning, anger...i'm not sure, i was actually planning to write an entire entry on this, but some knucklehead's heli-joyride got in the way.

okay, it's 1:06am. and just like that, the helicopter is gone. all is quiet. good night.

happy ash wednesday

i'm not posting anything of substance tonight. i have a few thoughts regarding ash wednesday, but i don't feel like writing anything insightful at the moment. blogging is like life; sometimes you just feel like being empty, doing nothing, vegging, or, in my case, reading someone else's writing for a change (instead of my own, over and over again, which is what i tend to do when i write). so here's a first and final word about ash wednesday: churches should not serve modern-day ding dongs during lent or holy week. however, if pressed to include hostess snacks in a service, the older (and better) model of the ding dong is the most appropriate choice. indeed, the cream-filled treats of my past had a physical appearance that was more suited to christian symbolism. rather than an entirely smooth chocolately exterior, the older ding dongs had peculiar circular dents in the top surface of the ding dong; to some it may seem sacrilegious or even morbid, but these indentations could serve as a reminder of the nail-pierced skin of our resurrected Christ. in fact, if one is in the transignification camp concerning the eucharist (vs the transubstantiation or consubstantiation camp), the older version of the ding dong could actually serve as a more meaningful communion item than the more traditional bread or wafer. and on ash wednesday, i bet a cross of chocolate would be far easier to see than this cross of ash that seems to disappear invisibly into my forehead...

(oh, and trust me about the two stages of ding dongdom, i know my ding dongs a lot better than my frozen pizzas.)


andrew david. 'looking up' puerto vallarta, day 1.
if i were to consider printing this picture, i would crop out a bit more of the sky and play with the colours some more. as is, i think it's boring.