Two of these things belong together
Two of these things are kind of the same
Can you guess which two really do belong here
Now it is time to play the game
Thank you to Sesame Street for not only the song, “Three of These Things” which inspired this latest blog post (and which I slightly altered), but for also providing the blog its title!! As you may have observed from recent posts, I have been utilizing family pictures as a way of helping to detail the sometimes mundane, often absurd, occasionally sentimental and always amusing (or so it seems to me) escapades in the life of a self-proclaimed nut. And so, if you are playing along, I will begin to identify the correct pairings of the above pictures.
Note: Please keep in mind that I am a self-taught WordPress blogger. Also I have a touch (LOL) of OCD and therefore can consume endless hours googling self-help (not as in psychological!!!!!!) in an effort to determine how to solve WordPress tech problems. Today, I finally decided to take a cue from our Congress (beware……the “p” topic has been broached!!!) and “kick the can down the road” (oops……now a political buzzword slipped in) regarding my fruitless attempts to resolve the blog’s ever-changing font size. Added to that frustration, when I attempted to number the photos in order to more easily identify the correct matching pairs, WordPress arbitrarily rearranged the order of my meticulously placed photo gallery………..aaaarrrrgggghhhh!
And so…………..without further ado…………
These two pictures “belong together”
They tell the story of the summer of the “Jumbotron” movie night. The picture with Mayce and Josh was taken on the field at OSU’s Bill Davis baseball stadium where a group of 25 of us watched the sports comedy coming-of-age baseball film, The Sandlot (“Smalls”, Squints, “Yeah, Yeah”, Benny, and of course,”the Beast”). The next picture was snapped on the field at the “The Shoe” where another large group of us gathered for an opportunity to walk on the hallowed Buckeye turf and to tour the OSU press box while waiting for the evening’s movie, The Avengers. Each of these events helped to support Pelotonia, a grassroots bike tour founded in Columbus in 2008 with One Goal: End Cancer. With more than 6,700 riders, Pelotonia has the most participants of any single event cycling fundraiser in the country and has raised just over $11 million in its fifth year, bringing its to-date grand total to $53.5 million!!
These two pictures “are kind of the same”
How you may ask are these two similar, other than the fact that Tommy is in both of them?? Well, one day a couple of weeks ago, I was watching Stephanie’s trio while she was at work and Tommy came up to me and asked if he could go outside. The day was fairly warm and sunny, so I told him that he could go out as long as he stayed in the yard. He agreed and walked out the door to the backyard (at this point, he was wearing a shirt!!). Several minutes later, I looked outside to check up on him and noted that he had carried a small table and chair out to the front lawn, taken off his shirt and was seated with a small stack of papers placed on the table, pen in hand. Curious as to what he was up to, I ventured out and asked what he was doing with the papers and pen. He explained that he was going to sell his autograph!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Welllllllllll…………..you all know how I just love to “crush” dreams, so I said to him, “What makes you think anyone would want to buy your autograph?” Without blinking an eye, he said to me, “You will want to buy one because, after all, I am a Yankee!!!!!!” He certainly had me on that one as his T-ball team this summer was named the Yankees, evidenced by the hat he was wearing at the table, as well as by his uniform in the picture on the right. Of course, I had to go into the house and open up my wallet to get some cash for that “Yankee” autograph! But it was worth it. Eat your heart out Joe Baird…….Crick’s and your devotion to the Reds is no match for my impassioned indoctrination of Yankee pride (A-Rod excluded!).
Did you guess these two really do belong here?
The first paragraph of the blog gave a little warning that I was working a little politics into this post……..now where is my soapbox??????? :). Quite obviously, these two pictures “really” do belong. Earlier in the year I took several of the grandkids to the bookstore and gradually everyone wandered off in search of their own genre of books, myself included. After a while, I caught a glimpse of Luke coming around the corner of the aisle in which I was standing as he pulls a book out from behind his back and asks, “Nana, how do you like this book?” Do you suppose Luke understood that presenting me with an Obama book was like showing a red rag to a bull????!!!!! Look at the smile on his face, of course he did!! And do you know what? I could not resist that charming smile, so I smiled back and then instructed Luke to return the book to the proper book shelf, but directed him to place it upside down and backwards!!!! LOL I think that on future outings I will need to keep a closer eye on these “charming” little troublemakers! Guess there is no real need for my soapbox (are you breathing a sigh of relief???) as the caption in the Calvin & Hobbes image says it all for me :).
And……these two pics belong together
If you have been to a Bob Evans restaurant over the course of the summer, you will perhaps understand the connection between these photos. It all began a number of weeks ago when my favorite server, niece Katie :), brought my morning cup of coffee to my table. She placed the utensils on the table and when I unwrapped them, I discovered, as Bobby did in the above picture, that the spoon was missing. A minute later, Katie returns with a spoon wrapped in a separate napkin (see above pic). OMGosh…………with no one’s hand over my mouth to stop me, I stared at her and began pummeling her with questions about why they would suddenly stop wrapping the spoons with the knives and forks. I was informed by Katie that it was a new directive from upper level management (I will refrain from ranting about the carte blanche issuance of frivolous policies by those who usually never have to actually implement them or suffer the consequences of such ill-conceived ideas). Anyway, poor, poor Katie she truly did suffer the consequences as she had to listen to my whining for several weeks until the masses of Bob Evan’s “regulars” rose in protest (ha,ha, ha) and the management team finally returned to their senses!! I actually see a political argument here which could be applied to the federal government regarding common sense, but I will “move on” (these “p” buzzwords just keep leaping on to the page!!) to the next pair of photos.
And.………...these two pics are kind of the same (to read the detail, click on the picture to enlarge)
In truth, the only similarity in these pictures is that each car owner felt the need to express themselves!! To further explain, earlier this summer as I was waiting at a traffic light not too far from my house, I snapped the picture on the left as confirmation of the daily annoyance that confronts me whenever I get behind the wheel of my car and drive through my Clintonville neighborhood. I have never ever in my life placed any sort of sticker on my car (remember I am OCD!!), but I gave in to the “peer pressure” as you can observe from the picture of my car on the right……but of course it is “on the right”!!! I can now be seen cruising the “Ville” expressing my very own personal convictions and bringing “diversity” of thought to my community! Oh, how I love being a nut…….people have such low expectations of your sanity LOL!!!
And…………two of these things really do belong here
And………speaking of “nuts”……….what, you may be wondering, do these two photographs have in common???? I will tell you in one word……………………………Crick!!!! All along I have felt that the old cliché, “It takes one to know one” was corroborated on the very day that Crick declared me to be “a Nut”!! I will now illustrate how I, too, lived with a “nut”. Beginning with the item in the picture on the left……to Crick, it was an antique toaster, to me, it was just one more piece of clutter. It found its way into our home after one of his infamous garage sale excursions. I had forgotten all about it until I was rummaging through some items in the basement. While writing this blog, I became curious about its age and so I used the Google search and actually came upon a website titled Toastermuseum.com which touts itself as the world’s largest Online Toaster Exhibition. Who knew?? I am quite sure that once I finally take on the task of clearing out the garage, I will find many more such interesting “finds” (anyone need a dorm size non-working refrigerator???). And now we come to the image on the right…..the piece de resistance of all nuttiness and a Clark family legend!!! A number of years ago, Crick was putting up a new fence behind the rock garden in our backyard and he excitedly called for me to come out to see what he quickly determined was a fossil from some prehistoric era. What I saw was one….. huge…….rock! He was quick to point out all of the differing formations in the layers of the rock; but I still saw just a gigantic, dirty rock and picturing with great dread where he might be planning to display it in our home!! Well, a few days later Crick and I were hosting a cook-out for my sister’s birthday, and most of my siblings and their spouses were present. Crick chose to present his prized possession in a rather uncharacteristic way. He had everyone come out to the backyard while he raised the garage door to reveal “the fossil” covered in a white sheet sitting on a dolly in the middle of the garage. What emerged from under the sheet was what you see in the above picture. Now, truth be told, I do believe that this was one of the very rare occasions when I witnessed Crick having had just one beer too many and he was in rare form that particular night. But this was not to be the end of the story……oh no…….the real proof of his nuttiness came a couple of weeks later when I answered the front door to find a gentleman from the geology department at Ohio State who said he had come to check out the finding of a possible rare fossil!!!!!!!!! It appears Crick had made several calls to Ohio State and was finally passed along to this person who had the distinct honor of informing Crick that he had actually unearthed a “huge rock” LOL!!!!!! Pictures certainly do provide a plethora of incriminating evidence!
Are you all still playing the game???
Ah………..incriminating evidence……………I guess that pretty much sums up these two pictures which are kind of the same. A number of family have already heard the “tragic” story of these two photos. To more fully appreciate what took place, you may want to click on the image on the left. This story began on a recent July morning, the week of our parish festival. As I was driving up the alley behind the school to attend morning Mass, I could see several workers putting up a large tent on the grounds of the parking lot to the left of the alley. I drove up to the end of the school building, turned right into the lot in between the school and the church, when I heard a clunk followed by the sound of something dragging along the newly paved parking lot!! I stopped the car and as I stepped out, a young woman was headed my way to see what had happened. Apparently when I turned into the parking lot, I was unable to see that some of the workers from the previous night had left some metal poles lying on the ground that were to be used later to set up for the food tent. This very kind young woman was one of the festival co-chairs and she actually got down on the ground and crawled under the front of the car to see why we were unable to pull the pole out from under 
the car. This is the point in the story where my brother-in-law, Jay enters the saga. It seems that the canopy connector fitting had gotten lodged in the engine splash shield underneath the car and not knowing what else to do (as Crick refuses to send me his heavenly phone number!!) I did the next best thing……..I called Jay!! For the past two years he has become my “Car Angel” and once summoned, came quickly to my rescue. After he had assessed the situation, Jay took one long look at me and immediately asked the question that would have flown right out of Crick’s mouth, “Now………….when you knew that you had run over something………..what made you decide to keep going??????!!!!” The answer was simple enough…….because I thought the car would just do what it is designed to do……..keep on going!! Jay simply bowed his head down, picked up his phone and placed a call to a towing company his auto repair shop (NASCAR Garage) uses so that the car could then be lifted up and the connector and pole removed. As if this all wasn’t depressing enough, while I was waiting for the tow truck, the very kind woman brought a folding chair over to me………….I guess I am looking way older than I think!!!!!!!!!!! LOL
I had more pictures planned for this little game, but I see that I am now well over my self-imposed, but rarely adhered to, word limit. If I were Stephanie, Jo or Christine, I would be breathing a huge sigh of relief!!! :)
I will, therefore, wrap up this post with a devotional message that I read a couple of nights ago. As usual, the spiritual directive contained in its words, motivates me to strive more earnestly to seek the will of God and to trust Him in all the moments of my day.
I am a God who heals. I heal broken bodies, broken minds, broken hearts, broken lives, and broken relationships. My very Presence has immense healing powers. You cannot live close to Me without experiencing some degree of healing, however, it is also true that you have not because you ask not. You receive the healing that flows naturally from my Presence whether you seek it or not. But there is more…….much more……..available to those who ask.
The first step in receiving healing is to live ever so close to Me. The benefits of this practice are too numerous to list. As you grow more and more intimate with Me, I reveal My will to you more directly. When the time is right, I prompt you to ask for healing of some brokenness in you or in another person. The healing may be instantaneous, or it may be a process. That is up to Me. Your part is to trust Me fully and to thank Me for the restoration that has begun.
I rarely heal all the brokenness in a person’s life. Even My servant Paul was told, “My grace is sufficient for you,” when he sought healing for the thorn in his flesh. Nonetheless, much healing is available to those whose lives are intimately interwoven with Mine. Ask and you will receive. From Jesus Calling
A thorn in the flesh was given to me……….to keep me from being too elated. Three times I begged the Lord about this, that it might leave me, but He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” 2 Corinthians 12: -9
TNT
TGW
P.S. Is there a WordPress “Tech” Angel out there………….anywhere????
P.P.S. That. Is. All. :)
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