When Dust Becomes An Elephant

The Bear is taking biology this year and one of the things that we have reviewed is the way scientific laws are made and how they can be proven wrong. The prime example used is Aristotle's hypothesis that non-life could produce life, something which is known as spontaneous generation. Aristotle proposed his theory around 350 B.C. and the data obtained for centuries seemed to support it so well that it was firmly believed until Louis Pasteur conclusively refuted it in AD 1859.

What is spontaneous generation? It was the belief that rancid meat turned into maggots, pond water turned into frogs, and boxes of grain turned into mice. My question is why anyone would want to create organisms that God used as plagues to punish the Pharoah of Egypt prior to the Jewish Exodus? Shouldn't we be avoiding making maggots, frogs, and mice? But "make" them they did just to prove that they could.

Then Louis Pasteur came along with his experiments and he proved there were other things at work in each of those situations. Living things, that is. I happen to be a big fan of Pasteur and I thank God for him every time I reach for a glass of pasteurized milk. Three cheers for Louis!

But I think I have to disagree with him on one point. I think dust can turn into an elephant.

It all started Monday when I lost something behind a heavy piece of furniture. It was one of those pieces that doesn't get moved often merely because of its weight. But since I'm in my fall cleaning mode (I didn't get to do the spring cleaning) - and I really wanted the item I dropped - I decided to tackle that puppy. So with dustcloth in hand I bent over to clean the baseboard as soon as I had moved the furniture. Specks of dust flew up in my face like a flock of sleeping ducks that had been disturbed on a pond! I gasped in surprise, which caused the involuntary response of inhaling deeply.

Uh oh. I'm in for it now.

Sure enough, by Tuesday evening at least one of those specks of dust had grown into an elephant and he was sitting squarely on my chest. I could feel him with each breath I took.

So dear M Pasteur if you were correct - and you most assuredly were - when you proved that non-life cannot spontaneously generate into life, might I suggest a hypothesis of my own? If it passes scrutiny we could name it Karabeth's Law:

Cleaning is bad for your health.

He's A Bouncy Baby Boy

Our little Fen is one of those little guys who always wants to be held. Getting anything done - like putting lunch on the table - requires putting him on the table for a few minutes as well. He loves his bouncy seat. I think it is because he knows how to turn it on and off with his feet! That's what's going on here.


Uncle Bear is so funny! He's always willing to make a guy grin.

I think he was trying to reach out and grab the camera from my hand. "That's enough pictures, Gram!"

It's difficult to get a "still shot" of our Fen. He's always on the move.

Tigger On Canoeing

Remember Tigger? She's our almost-five-year-old granddaughter who is the closest thing to Yogi Bera that this family has. She says thing in the most serious voice that absolutely make you want to burst out laughing but you don't because you know it will hurt her feelings.

She's the one who wants to have a pet manatee in a home aquarium when she grows up. Oh, that Tigger, you say.

Yes, that Tigger. She was in our canoe during the first half of the trip yesterday.

Before they bussed us up the river to the drop-off point, the owners gave us an informative talk about the conditions on the river, the things to avoid, and the bridges we would pass under that we could use as landmarks. Evidently, all Tigger heard was that we would exit the river immediately after we passed under a big bridge because as soon as we floated under the first one we encountered she let out a joyous shout of "We're almost finished!!!"

We'd been in the water about 5 minutes.

When we told her we had several hours left until we completed our course she breathed a worried "Oh, dear!"

I'm not sure if this exchange had anything to do with the hasty exit her mommy and she made up the riverbank toward the bathroom at the end of the trip. She went before the trip began. I KNOW she did. But you know how running water seems to effect women. The rest of us were just a bit less obvious.

Floating Down the River

The subtitle for this post should be Speed Limit 2 because when an 8 mile canoe trip takes about 4 hours it means that one is barely moving. Of course, there was a stop for lunch along the way, but devouring the small amounts of edibles packed in waterproof containers doesn't take long. Plus there is the fact that there are no rest rooms so it might not be such a good idea to consume large quantities of food and drink.

The youth group and several youth wannabees go canoeing each summer. Pastor Dad and I have never gone before but we thought it might be fun. After all, we made our leg muscles angry a couple of weeks ago (read about it here at Speed Limit 20) and decided our arm muscles deserved equal treatment. Fair is fair.

When one is spending 4 hours in a canoe, one doesn't have a whole lot of options so I sat there people watching, which is just a polite way of saying being nosy. And because of this special skill of mine - coupled with a lot of time on my hands - I was able to compose this blog post. Oh, yeah. One more thing. I paddled, too, but I assumed you knew that merely by the fact that I was located in a canoe.

Canoeing was not a one-person endeavor. Two - and sometimes three - people were trying to steer their craft down the river while avoiding obstacles in the water like rocks, branches, sandbars, and discarded weed-whackers. I kid you not.

I thought about how much like life this day was. It is very important to pick the right person to be in your canoe. There were a couple of boys that Karen christened The Odd Couple (remember Felix Unger and Oscar Madison?) because they spent most of their time bickering over procedure. The fact that they spent time going around in circles made it a long day for them.

It is also important who you follow. At one point there were 2 canoes directly in front of us. One held a couple who seemed to have a clue. The other held the Bear, his friend, and his friend's female cousin. Since the Bear and friends are the only people I know who can turn an 8 mile trip into a 16 mile one by zigzagging from shore to shore, we wisely opted to follow the more sane mature couple. Choose your role models wisely.

Education can happen anywhere. As I was walking along the bank with Polly and Tigger while trying to reach the place where Bear and friends had overturned so that we could help hunt for the girl's glasses (never found them) we happened upon pristine animal tracks on the river bank. It rained a little yesterday so the tracks in the mud were fresh. I took the time to identify them for the girls. There's always something to be learned.

And what about us? Pastor Dad and I got off to a rocky start. Neither of us has been in a canoe in a long time. I know this because we've never been canoeing in all the years we've been married. It took us a bit to get in a proper rhythm where we were working together instead of counterproductively. (Kind of reminds me of the first time we hung wallpaper together.) We beached a few times, collided with other canoes, and basically fought the current instead of allowing the current to work for us. But once we finally got the hang of it the ride was so much more enjoyable. It was still a lot of work, but it was fun.

Yes, there's a metaphor in here. But you're all smart people so I'll let you figure it out for yourselves.