The rabbits and the white room

A story by Kara Church, around age 9, transposed 40 years later, original spelling and grammar intact, by her husband.

The rabbits and the white room.

Once and still at this very moment there lives three rabbits. They are unlike most rabbits because they talk so the are very gifted indeed. They are not bad and they live in a little cottage. Now that I've told you a little bit about them I will start the story.

"Gretchen, said Frodo, do you want to go for a little walk with me." "Alright, said Gretchen. Were going out for little walk Maggie."

So they went out and were playing in the woods when Gretchen asked Frodo if he knew the way back. Then he said he wasn't paying any attention to where they were so they decided to go back to sleep. In the middle of the night the woke up to the sound of talking. They were very quiet wating to see what the were saying. "Jack, what will we do with the loot," said one of them. "Hide it a place where no man exept us can find it, said Jake." Gretchen and Frodo where scared half out of there wits. They ran off then got back to sleep. When Maggie noticed the time she started to worry. She said if they didn't come back by morning they would have to search for them. After they didn't come home Maggie and Fippler went off into the woods to find there brother and sister. I just so happens that they found them still sleeping so they decided to take more of a rest to. All of a sudden they woke up and it was totaly white and sparkly everywhere. Then after they finished staring the yelled happilly for seeing each other again. Now it was a big grass field with apples and corn and everything rabbits would ever wish to have. They were all scared but Tippler decided to enjoy himself. He ran all around eating apple cores and greeens. Then everyone joined in. The had so much fun! Then Maggie thought about how the would get back to the woods. They they all smiled because what appeard was there old home in that wonderful land of reen and guess who came out of the house. There mother and father then they figured out what happend. The robbers killed them and the were in the land of God.

The End!

Kara's been busy

Kara has been extremely busy, but if you want to follow her writing, you can do so at Editor's Corner.

It's Only Taken Five Years

So, after five years I've finally updated my web site.

Actually, it's more accurate to say that Ray has done most of the juggling, I just cropped photos and tried to find some painting of mine that might make a good background.

Eventually, even though it is not related, I'd like to put some of my old travel journal notes up here, starting from whatever silliness I wrote about in Hawaii (I think I was 14 years old, maybe 15) up to our last trip to Vancouver, B.C. Then you can flip flop between Ray's Flickr photos and my tired, rambling retelling of where we went each day.

Welcome to my Blog!

Hot Dog!

Well, today Buster's "almost-catch" was a cast-away hotdog in a bun. Ray prevented the grab, so Buster had to do without the juicy meat morsel. The day before our pup was a little luckier. Another half-eaten cupcake outside of the pre-school. Do those kids get cupcakes every day? I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I used to sneak into the snack closet while Mrs. Forbing was out of the room and the other kindergarteners where napping. She had Oreos in there. We never had Oreos at home, so I couldn't resist pilfering a few extra. Mmmmm.

Back to Buster and his hot dogs. Thinking about what we used to make with hotdogs in the deli just frightens me. Have you ever seen or eaten ham salad? Okay, those two words don't belong together AT ALL. The concept is just so completely wrong. But people like it. It looks like a pink, thick type of hummus if it is ground up as much as we did.

But what about hot dogs? Well, ham salad was sort of the sausage making of the deli world. You really don't want to know what's in there. Try full nitrate lunchmeat. And how about a little bit of out of code baloney? A red pepper, a yellow pepper, a green pepper. Oh yes, a few ham ends, and the topper: expired hot dogs. I guess I forgot to mention that they were ground up lovingly in the meat grinder...where we also made sausage.

Oooooh. I feel like I need to go on a cleansing fast now.

Headstones

Yesterday's San Diego Union Tribune (Sunday, January 8th, 2006) really outdid itself with a host of wretched articles. The one that got Ray was the one about how married couples that choose not to have kids, are going against god's will. I didn't know god had a will. I'll have to read it sometime and see what I inherited. Oh, that's right. The meek inherited the earth. Anyway, to think that the all-powerful really gives a damn about whether or not we breed seems quite absurd. (Some Christian friends, however, didn't see what I had a problem with.) And I guess they don't use birth control? Pretty amazing that they only have one or two or three kids. Oh well.

That wasn't even what I came here for. I came here to talk about the Currents section. It was about gravestones and how now is a "great time to die" because of all the options one has outside of a simple stone and a casket. There was the futuristic gravestone recording. For only a couple thousand bucks you could create a video that plays after you die, every time someone comes to throw some flowers at your grave (or in the case of my cousin's grandma, when they come to leave broomsticks and garbage). I guess if you wanted real entertainment you could visit the graveyard at night and pretend you were at a drive-in theater. You could go from stone to stone and have a free show!

Then there was the giant stone this family chose. One side was for the husband's info and a little mini shrine; the wife got her own on the other side. The best part was the life sized image of the two of them in each other's arms, laser-etched into a stone for eternity. Of course, the husband died young, and the widow was standing there in front of the monument (yes, life-size). I wonder what happens when this young lady remarries? Will they etch a stone of her new husband, reaching out for her hand from the other side of the monument? Argh!

The best (or worst), though, was the headstone of a little boy. Okay, his picture was etched, too. But that wasn't the eye-catcher. No, the most prominent thing on the stone was the colorized Sponge Bob. Oh my god. Please don't make Sponge Bob the eternal friend of your son. Was he really that bad of a kid? Why not just write "I was a bad boy and suffer eternity in the hellish company of a talking, pant-wearing SPONGE."

I think about death, and after reading this book (Stiff: The Curious Life of Cadavers, by Mary Roach) I am considering more carefully the specifics of my post-mortem experience. Really, it doesn't matter because I'll be dead. As I try to go past the organ donation and cremation, though, I realize I need to be a little more specific about my "cremains". To sprinkle, to store, to bake in a cake...just please no etched markers with Sound of Music lyrics, or even better, me reaching out to Julie Andrews as she plays the guitar. (And if it's that, I want the whole hill from the Austrian Alps under my larger-than-life monument.)

COD

So, my family has been bugging me (or "encouraging" me) to start doing more writing. Never mind that I do it 8+ hours a day at work, but I guess they wanted a little something extra that wasn't actually copyrighted and as boring as hell.

I've been toying with the idea of writing down some stories I have, and Ray (my husby) suggested that I start small with a blog. I thought it was a good idea, but I wondered where I should start.

And that's when I thought of doing COD (catch of the day).

I spend a lot of time walking my two dogs, Buster and Gracie. Gracie is almost 8 years old; Buster is almost 4. While I walk with them, I must admit I talk to them too. I often refer to Buster as my "Junkyard Dog", because he was a little wild thang when we got him at the Humane Society, used to finding his way through the world on his own. While most of his instincts for finding his way home or staying away from danger are fairly retarded, he is amazingly adept at finding food. I have seen him look at a black garbage bag on the curb, walk up to it, dart at it with his face, and pull back with a chicken bone in his mouth. The precision of the removal was amazing, and barely a hole was left in the bag.

Over the last few months, my sweet little dog has found many disgusting things to eat. It started to be a daily thing, thus I began listing in my head "Buster's Catch of the Day". The day after Christmas was a nice looking t-bone which made him giddy. The next day, he found a cupcake on the curb, already minus the icing. Unfortunately I didn't get that soon enough, and he ate it wrapper and all. The following evening the COD was a half-eaten taquito, which Gracie snatched away from him. Every day is an adventure for them.

And every day is an adventure for me. Most days are very busy, but with a bit of will power I might turn this into a habbit. If it entertains, hooray. If not, it will be the lost journals of a girl named Kara, who bored us with her own catch of the day.