Which Reminds Me

There he goes again demanding that I should account for the continual yappings of Jennie. I was not invited to that special teaching session that she led exclusively for the local Italian girls so obviously I am not in possession of a full deck in regards to Jennie and her after-hours activities. I just have no idea. Why can't they just go away, get a life?

Which Reminds Me

During the last year that we lived in El Salvador, my senior year of high school, our maid was named Margarita. She mentioned that she had previously worked for the family of one of my classmates, the Burzios, but I don't remember now what she said about them. One imagines that a maid's viewpoint would be a little skewed to the bottom rung of the social ladder, and anyway some things are too personal to discuss with the maid Margarita, one would agree. So I tend to take these maid comments with a grain of salt, because that probably means something else that I wouldn't want to have to explain in so many words.

Which Reminds Me

One thing I can agree on, I would rather avoid a stupid argument in regards to the details of the mostly unknown story of Lori Lowgun or some other beauty queen. Why are these Southern people continuing to scream in my face? If I take the bait and continue to answer the prods the argument is prolonged to a ridiculous extent, bringing up some perhaps unexpected questions that I was not prepared to answer, and are none of my business anyway, and which would require a huge amount of money and time to answer, and for what, for just some worthless points that don't really matter that much, and that will be immediately countered at the next turn of the screw, which is why I would prefer to avoid them entirely, because basically they are screwing me. That's what it is. And I don't even understand why they are so interested in screaming in my face. I never did something to them. I wasn't thinking about them at all. I was just doing my job so I just want them to go away and stop bothering me. I don't even know who they are, not really.

And the "Turn of the Screw" was one of my sister's high school books, not mine.

I once read the "Screwtape Letters" but that was personal reading, not a school requirement.

Which Reminds Me

I suddenly remember that Denise, a nurse who at one time lived near here and attended our church, married a Finnish man and moved away to Finland which is in Scandinavia. One tends to assume that Denise is living happily ever after there in Scandinavia but I really haven't heard another word from her since that time, which is just as well because she was always such an annoying person, always whining and complaining if she is not the center of attention at all times. Wasn't Denise originally from South Dakota? South Dakota is a state that seems to generate alternate reality theorists on a regular basis. Even so, anyway, there is nothing of a personal nature that I would want to discuss with Denise and the South Dakota gangsters who came here to carry out a shaming campaign against me even though it wasn't that I was ever that fat compared to some other people that I could name, but that is a whole different story that I would prefer to avoid because really that is so missing the point, and anyway I am sure that I do not yet understand the half of that.

Which Reminds Me

Coincidentally, one of my great-grandmothers was born in Pennsylvania but I really didn't know that about her yet in high school. I only learned that later. We had never discussed who were my great-grandparents' distant cousins in Pennsylvania so obviously there is no family connection whatever between myself and Pennsylvania. I never thought of Pennsylvania as a place of interest for us, just a place of quaint Amish people whose customs and habits are mostly foreign to me. Maybe you should be asking Ronit for her special insights on Mr. Schaeffer because I really don't know anything else about that.

Which Reminds Me

Our biology teacher talked about how nervous he got when the Blue Angels overflew our high school, something about the bomb shelters of World War II Germany. And he also told us many details of has early life in Pennsylvania among the Amish people. So I am confused as to where he was from, Pennsylvania or Germany? I really don't understand what that was about exactly.

Which Reminds Me

I thought I saw Dolly's picture online appearing with her hair dyed black. But that doesn't fool anyone who knew her back when she was her natural self, a Nordic blonde known mostly for epic rudeness. Excuse me if I am not interested in hearing more about her Swedish witchcraft. Nobody really wants to be reminded of her strange proclamations. If I had been warned of what she was going to say I could have never gone there in the first place but, anyway, that wasn't the point, was it? No, the point was to catch me unawares listening to a pack of nonsense, obviously.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I do understand that the Bangerts may have a problem trying to pass off their Dolly skunk as "leadership." Ha! Well, at least not at SCC she was nothing of the sort. She was a huge problem, always so full of her own mental complications and not much else.

Which Reminds Me

It seems to me that CJ, who lived down the hall during my first year at SCC, might remember that Candy Higgins and Candy Bennett were roommates. I remember Candy Higgins fairly well but of this other Candy Bennett person, who did not return after one year, I remember almost nothing. If you want more information about Candy Bennett I would recommend that you get in touch with Candy Higgins, who is married and lives probably somewhere in the San Diego area. They were roommates for a year so they probably would remember something about each other one would imagine.

Which Reminds Me

In high school biology class we learned the rules of hypothetical constructionism. For a theory to be established it will need several hypothetical legs on which to stand. That might sound very smart but God help if your hypothetical legs should break and crumble, your precious theory left teetering on the brink of disaster. You will be standing on street corners looking for spare parts and replacements. Hmmm, intelligent design or accidental progress? But who are we to argue with the scientific authorities that be? Anyway, I am not very fond of science as a subject of study generally speaking, at least for myself. I much prefer to study English, literature, history, languages.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, speaking of science, I do remember that Mr. Schaeffer in biology class made a public example of my stupid cookie analogy. Wrong wrong wrong. Even so, that doesn't mean that I ever cheated on any biology test. It was just a wrong answer on my part. Even a 99 percent out of 100 on a test would mean one wrong answer so I can't be too embarrassed about getting something wrong now and then. I probably only got mostly Bs in high school biology because, anyway, I was never fond of science as a subject in school generally speaking because science is so boring, a memorizing of long lists of scientific terminology, even though obviously science is fundamental to some careers that I probably would prefer to avoid as mostly boring and tedious. I much preferred English and literature and history and that sort of thing. So?

And when the Blue Angels airplane acrobatics team over flew our high school building everyone was looking out the window to see the airplanes doing loops in the air, and then later we noticed that Mr. Schaeffer had crawled under a table and was hiding there shaking. Not really a right or wrong thing to do, it was just that apparently these sudden events make him very nervous, as he was explaining to us.

Which Reminds Me

Anyway, life is short. I don't have time to be quibbling over semantic details in some never-ending argument with the pedantic snobs of New York. So what if some New York snob is prepped to call me a liar at every turn. I try to be honest the best I can but who knows where I might have tripped up somewhere, and maybe I am sorry about that, but even so I am not interested in hearing the opinions of the pedantic gamester snobs. I live my life mostly off-the-grid so basically I really don't care what you think about me. You are nothing, just a block of text that nobody can remember.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, it is hard for me to accomplish anything much with all these dreary Green witches screeching in my face.

Just because Mr. Green started his career worked at McClellan's Five and Ten Store in Oklahoma City, that does not mean that I have any thought of these dreary Green witches. The McClellan who was my mother's cousin might have lived in Tulsa, although I really don't remember. I never really met those people in person, just saw the Christmas cards. I can't be expected to keep track of all these distant cousins, much less their Green dime store clerks that nobody ever heard of.

So what are you saying, that I deserve to die? So?

Which Reminds Me

During the five years of our second term in El Salvador, which includes the time that I attended high school, we lived in a house on Calle Los Cedros, which means the Street of the Cedars, not to be confused with the Cederbloms who were living at that time in Panama. Of them not much is known, just that Panama must have been a boring place to live. Some of the most dreary people I ever met lived in Panama so obviously we were not missing anything important by never going there.

Which Reminds Me

Speaking of killing Castro, no one ever mentioned whether our high school classmate Lorena Castro is somehow related to the Cuban dictator. I really wouldn't have the foggiest idea about that.

Which Reminds Me

Raymond, in his high school report, talked as if he had some insider information about the 1960s plot to murder Fidel Castro, such as perhaps the name of the Italian mafia hitman who was hired by the CIA, although I cannot recall the name he might have mentioned. The plot faltered but I don't remember the details of that which he was explaining, just that apparently the plot fell apart at an early stage before that plan could be carried out.

Oh, so I wasn't invited to someone's wedding. Ho hum! I barely remember these people's faces so obviously I am not missing anything important. I never really cared about socializing with these mafia trash killers.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, those Italians Kathy and Raymond certain do exude an air of wicked criminality, as if they are hiding some mafia misdeeds from prying public eyes. However, granting me immunity to testify against them is simply an exercise in futility. I don't have any important details to tell you about Raymond's wicked criminal history of killings and assassinations that could facilitate your prosecution of those Italian mafia dogs. I only know that I don't want want anything to do with those psycho killers. Oh, they were CIA agents? Was that supposed to mean something?

Footnote: This is obviously an oblique reference to Raymond's oral report in high school on the subject of CIA assassinations, and how the U.S. plot to kill Fidel Castro in the 1960s was disrupted by negative publicity at that time, a fact which Raymond finds deplorable. Raymond thinks that the U.S. public should not be embarrassed to condone political assassinations on a regular basis. Raymond thinks that the U.S. public were stupid to balk at the thought of killing Castro. So that was your opinion.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, it is always awkward in high school, myself being only a poor and powerless missionary kid, whilst some of these other people are insanely rich and powerful and can kill me any time they want to for no particular reason, just because they don't like me. So I just have to sit back and try not to ruffle any feathers and watch them say and do all these weird things and only later do I figure out they work for the CIA and it was all a plot of some sort to consolidate political power and money in their own hands. Not my money. I never had any money. It was just their own offshore accounts that no one can access. And if I oppose them, I would be opposing the very U.S. government that is the most powerful on the whole planet, which would be ridiculous. So bascially I don't see how you expect to do something about that. I am nobody.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I do recall that during high school there was some visible conflict going on between Thomas and Kathy. Thomas vocally criticized Kathy for making some odd questions in class. In a way I sort of concur with Tom on this point. Didn't she hear the teacher saying that exact thing just two minutes before? Why do we have to rehash that point once again? On the other hand, it didn't seem to me to be something worth making a public scene about. At least I didn't choose to do that because, for one thing what if I had a question? If I make a scene about someone else's questions, then I wouldn't be able to ask my question without worrying about reprisals. I only overheard Tom saying something about Kathy. Besides which I am studying to avoid Kathy's weird verbal outbursts, so I wouldn't want to accidentally provoke another thing.

Which Reminds Me

There is no Dorothy at this address so you will need to take your game elsewhere.

We have no special insights here to offer you on the L. Frank Bomb manuscripts.

Only recently do I learn of the existence of Larry and the Beltramos, our distant cousins who live in the Bay Area. Oh, ok, so we learn from the genealogical charts that we have a Dorothy who was Uncle Sam's daughter. Until I did my genealogy, recently, I just thought Uncle Sam was a cartoon figure denoting patriotic ideals. Larry who?

Why are all of these Bay Area people screaming at us as if they were angry about something? Why are these Bay Area people all worked up into such a froth about some irrelevant trivia, some events of 70 years ago? Most of us who are not from the Bay Area are not aware of the existence of Uncle Sam and don't know why we should care about that.

Ok, so you want to talk about making our great-grandfather an Apostle of China, not in a newfangled sense of the word, but in the sense of the real genuine Apostleship. Now there's a nice thought. However, we don't see at first glance a need to cannonize. We were Protestants of a sort, not really Roman Catholics, so it would be hard for us to get any number of heads together to agree on something.

So I am just saying....

Which Reminds Me

Looking at the documentary evidence, we see no reason why we should be required to legally defend what our grandparents did wrong. Even so, that said, you were not a party to the lawsuit they lost so you really have no legitimate claim to the spoils of victory, no matter how much you may wish to claim the winner's trophy. That was a different thing. I am just saying, that's comparing apples to oranges.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, don't I have something better to do than to sit here helplessly being insulted on a daily basis by your silly clueless bimbo Wendy? You are no McClellan, obviously. You only wish you could claim the famous title of "Lord" Kirkcudbright, but it is more complicated than that, it's not just a fancy title, it's actually a job, so you would have to move to Scotland to actually represent the people of that county, pass through some sort of election whether by people or monarchical appointment, and try to reclaim a shell of a castle, which would cost a fortune to actually rebuild, and then to pay taxes on it and more, and anyway everybody likes having a public park there it would seem, so why bother. Hopefully one of these days someone will come along able to plug Wendy's stupid chatterbox mouth because, really, nobody cares about that. Get a clue.

I suppose that it could be interesting to be the tourist and see what there is to see there in Scotland of the Old World, but anyway travel is expensive and not on my priority list at this time.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, it seems that one of my primary missions is to clean up the mess that my grandparents left behind in terms of oil well drilling, the details of which are not clear to me so obviously I would not be able to explain it to you given that I am not sure what happened, just that it is very embarrassing to have this mess of papers stashed away somewhere and not know how to fix this problem in a way that would be fair to me. This all happened before I was born, or before I was old enough to understand anything, and you stand there screaming at me as if I were guilty of something. Ridiculous.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I vaguely recall that during my first year at SCC, down the hall on the 7th floor lived one named Cynthia Jackson, often called "C.J.", who is mainly remembered as a motormouth chatterbox. How can you expect me to explain anything with this chatterbox from San Francisco churning on a continual basis scraps of this and that, not really a comprehensive picture of anything, just her own one-sided impressions of things that I mostly don't know anything about and really don't see any reason to care about. Weren't we all glad that C.J. graduated that year and was finally gone never to be heard of again?

Which Reminds Me

During my first year at Evangel College, we were in the dorm room of Jan Chance, at the opposite end of the floor from mine, and we (Jan, myself and Rhonda Hurd) were playing a board game, maybe "Sorry" although I am not sure, and we got into a huge discussion about the rules of the game and Jan was challenging me to prove that I am not cheating and finally we had to pull out the rules so I could show her on the printed sheet where it says that I can do that and then everything was fine for a while and the game continued and we were friends again. However, I later decided that I would prefer not to ever play games with Jan again in the future given her penchant for suddenly launching into these odd screaming fits for no apparent reason. I mean, who likes being called a cheater when actually I am the one who read the rules before the game started? Where is it written in the rules that I have to prove something to these challengers who just make a big hassle out of everything so as not to be helpful. It just wasn't that important.

Which Reminds Me

During my year at Evangel College, I one time went with a group of four or five girls over to the Triplett house where we all squeezed into Mark's little Red Corvette and he gave us a ride around the neighborhood. So that was an interesting experience. You wouldn't guess from these pretentious castle airs that actually they were just regular American rednecks, not really a source of royalties worthy of our consideration.

Which Reminds Me

I am seeing a lot of misinformation, or perhaps it is disinformation, in regards to Uncle Winfred's rock crushing operations. It was my late grandmother who wrote a letter to Uncle Winfred appealing for a piece of that and yet conceding that their mother had given control of it to him, but still basing her appeal on the idea that their mother would have wanted all of the children to have some of that, but anyway all of the children already did each get a share of the mineral rights assuming there is anything there worth pumping out of the ground which is probably why Uncle Winfred did not do anything about the rocks which apparently don't fall under the category of minerals so legally speaking he is under no obligation to distribute rocks to everyone. Anyway, even so, there is still that letter from my grandmother floating around the stratosphere. We talked about that once years ago but we weren't planning to do anything else about that, at least I was not, because, anyway, that wasn't my idea, and also I already have a fairly interesting rock collection, pretty rocks that I picked up here and there when as a child which reminded me of various places I have been, so I really am not interested in learning more about some other rock pile that has no personal meaning for me. Just because someone, maybe some distant cousins, are circulating spurious information trying to stir up some controversy on the subject of crushing rocks, that does not mean that I am going to fall for that. I would prefer to avoid an unnecessary argument about rocks, so just because they want to pick a fight with me for some mysterious reasons of their own, that does not mean that I would need to do something about that. Some mysterious persons are circulating information that appears to be about Uncle Winfred, and yet all in all that doesn't really look like him. It looks more like a snake that wants to eat me for dinner. And what makes them think that I am so stupid that I am just going to roll over and die without even noticing that I am being murdered, all so that they can concentrate the wealth in fewer hands and not have to share anything with me, even though it was never mine to start with so there were no guarantees one way or another? So, yes, I get it, but I don't see the need to react in the predictable ways that you imagine. I am just going to ignore the not-so-funny rock-crushing jokes until somebody upstairs can be found to help me turn that off, because it's all just over my head.

Which Reminds Me

Sometimes the way you talk, making me feel so guilty, you almost make me believe in the theory of reincarnation, as if in a past life I had been a magazine witch and said all these weird things that no one ever thought of except you. But then I realize that actually, no, just staying current with "Good Housekeeping" and "Reader's Digest" and "Time" doesn't really qualify one for a high degree of magazine mechanicals. So it's just all about you. Obviously.

Which Reminds Me

Several years ago my mother mentioned that Beverly was living in Temecula in a house cluttered with stacks of magazines. Apparently over there they wallpaper the walls of their houses with old pages ripped from magazines, a clever recycling of resources one imagines. However, there is nothing else that I would know about that.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, why all this chatter about Maginn, as if he were descended from the Magis? I thought the name Maginn sounded like the Irish, whereas everyone generally assumes that the Magis were maybe Persian, so this Christmas picture does not compute, at least not with Bill looming so largely in the picture.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, if I were to need an advocate I would choose to hire a professional who actually knows what they are talking about, which means that I will have no need of the services of Linda and her family. You can be sure there is nothing going on there worthy of notice.

Which Reminds Me

I won my share of Rook and Sorry and Monopoly and Clue, and also lost some games. I really don't recall the exact count of wins vs. losses. But winning is really not so fun when you are obviously not playing by the rules. When I know in a personal way that you and Judy are rewriting the rules to suit yourselves, then obviously we all know that your wins are meaningless. Even if you win that way, you only cheated. I am just saying. Some day your cheats will catch up with you. I am not sure how that will happen but it seems logical to say that there is no great honor accorded to cheaters who only cheated.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, it is sad that so much money is invested in these useless, worthless high school cliqueys. If I show you a Sumerian script, you would probably think that it was chicken scratchings. If I ask you to translate from the Urdu, you will imagine that I am saying, "You're due." No, actually you will not be doing the heavy lifting. So I am just saying, you are a pathetic bore.

Which Reminds Me

Although I prefer not to be confused with the dull and boring members of the Five Clique, that does not mean that I had any sympathies for David, a marginally peripheral and rarely seen figure whose IQ score was so high it must have rolled back around to the opposite side of the dial and landed somewhere in the lower range. Sad how so much money is invested in these useless, worthless people. Why should you be wasting so much time and energy in promoting immature high school cliqueys who have no ability whatever to decipher ancient Sumerian tablets? You strategy is ridiculous.

Which Reminds Me

I only remember something that Michelle said about Linda having gone to Springfield where she was somehow insulted by the Tripletts. Michelle was sad to learn that Tim was engaged to Charisse Corbin. And then late I heard that the Tripletts had confused me with that simple-minded Michelle. Unlike Michelle, I was never interested in Tim Triplett. I always thought that the Tripletts were sort of rude and abrasive. At church Tim would come up to me and say hello and then almost immediately, "What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?" Uhh. My mind tends to go blank at these odd moments. If the Tripletts were expecting some scintillating verbal repartee to emanate from me, umm, they will just have to be seriously disappointed. Sorry about that. I can't oblige you in that regard. If you want to exchange dialogue with the dreary, dull and boring Five Clique, fine, go right ahead and play with them. Just leave me out of that. I will always loathe and disdain your dreary Five Clique, especially after that.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, now I remember, it's coming back to me, how was it I heard that Linda went all the way to Springfield only to learn that Tim Triplett was going to marry Charisse Corbin (MK-French), who speaks French, so Tim was no longer going to be available to formalize his roommate relationship to Linda. Well, I can't really explain that either because I wasn't there at the time. I only heard something in the way of gossip.

Which Reminds Me

Oh, yes, now I do vaguely recall hearing that the Tripletts were saying some derogatory things about Linda from Michigan, who may have visited Springfield in the company of a pack of guys, but they all married someone else. I don't know very much about that, only that the Tripletts are such big-wig hifalutin bores now that their three sons are long gone from the general meat market. So? I wasn't there so I can't really explain about what happened there.

Which Reminds Me

So if you are so fond of performing white soul music, does that make me a black soul? No, I don't think so. If you were born in Normal, does that make me abnormal? What makes you think that I could not perform some degree of soul music if you have no blacks in your eyes? And if I would prefer to perform white music, does not mean that I have no soul? Do only blacks have souls? These are troublesome churchy questions that have no easy answers.

Which Reminds Me

Actually there really is nothing of a personal nature that I would want to discuss with the vocal yokels of Louisiana. I never even heard of her until people started singing her songs, and then I noticed that she really is a very good singer if you are into that type of white soul music. Oh, you tell me that she is really from South Dakota. Ok, fine. What is South Dakota but just another square on the map. Nobody here knows one thing about South Dakota. We were never there and not planning to go there any time soon.

Which Reminds Me

Whence comes all this chatter about the eunuchs of the Forbidden City? You are not the king of China, obviously. And anyway, we never heard of the Holy Grail being a Chinese thing. That was one of those European unsolved mysteries that nobody really understands. Probably the more said about that, along with the multiplication of words are created more opportunities for some egregious error unbeknownst to us, so probably that's why few people ever talk about that.

Which Reminds Me

May it be done unto you as you have done unto me. Which means that you will be eaten by vultures, suffering death in a very slow and agonizing way. No sudden destruction for you. You are too fat to be eaten all at once. The birds of the air will pick you to pieces slowly, just as they have already eaten the Baker.

Which Reminds Me

Why all these horrible jokes about asking yourself to get registered as a sex offender? Maybe I thought you were asking me to subscribe to the local 'Register' newspaper. I saw something about registering but that wasn't the true meaning of it, you psycho co-worker. So why are you forcing me to look at all these gutter-brained effusions? We don't have to go there. If Garbage In-Garbage Out is the principle, I would prefer to leave your garbage on the outside.

Which Reminds Me

Someone was talking about their idealistic vision of a future war based of Christians vs. Moslems, as if that were the meaning of the end-time prophecies. Ok, that may be one possible interpretation of the end-time prophecies. I don't know who can say for certain except God Himself how things will end. And then someone else, I don't know who, was saying, how can they initiate a war against the Moors when Catholics and Protestants are not united. The U.K. already is having to absorb millions of these Moslems into its society, even before the Syrian flood, so they cannot afford to antagonize them too much. And when will the Catholics and Protestants ever be able to prove themselves holy enough to initiate a justifiable war against the Moslems, many of whom are actually quite scrupulous in their legalistic view of lifestyle matters. Who can say which side deserves to win such a holy war? Christians will not be able to repeat the slaughters of past centuries. Centuries ago the Moslems were pushed out of Europe but this time around there doesn't seem to be an easy solution. This time around they will not be able to ship the Moores away to some new undiscovered continental. Christians will be forced to adjust to cultural pressures in ways perhaps not previously imagined. Yes, I imagine so. However, I don't know why you are talking to me about this. It probably won't affect me very much. My great-grandmother was a Moore but that was ancient history. Nowadays, basically, there is nothing of a personal nature that I would want to discuss with the Moores, all things considered. My personal life is none of their business. Someone please tell the Moores that we won't need their money for anything. We will just be gone.

Which Reminds Me

Speaking of places, I am reminded of what Miss Marken often said when taking the roll during honors English class, something about us being in our places with "bright shining places." Well, definitely there was no Fred or Linda present at the time. Tom might have been there but Gwen was definitely absent.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, it is always awkward to see this Linda Genuine-Piece-of-Garbage trying to attach herself to our family when actually we are not related. Linda was not my mistake. It is so fake the way Linda pretends to know something about me when actually we never had any serious conversation that I can recall. The paper trail may provide hints about the dangerously psychopathic traits of Linda but it wasn't my job to call the authorities to have her arrested and placed under observation for possible commitment to a mental hospital. Who would I call? It wasn't my job to tell the Genuine-Idiot Clan to go away and stop bothering me because I really wasn't interested in learning about the details of Linda's serious mental illness, perhaps induced by those dangerously psycho-tropic drugs that were actually imported here from Michigan. I just have no idea about Linda's garbage.

Which Reminds Me

Why do I feel like I have to prove something to you? It is clear to all that you would not hesitate to kill the most perfect and sinless person who ever lived, so obviously I, with my many defects and mistakes, will be an easy prey for your murderous intentions in that I am entirely defenseless. There is no hope that I could ever win this contest to be the best that ever was. I already lost that game at a very young age so it would just be ridiculous to claim otherwise, which I never did. So I just don't even know what your problem is.

Which Reminds Me

You obviously are in league with dreary Linda. That's just how it is with them, one disaster after another, one screaming fit after another, we heard it from third parties. Anyway, I don't want to hear about their horrible in-law problems. I really don't care. I would prefer never to get acquainted with them. The sputterings that emanate from that part of the country are ominous enough. Scary to think that such people could be distantly related to me, but we have worked to increase our degrees of separation.

Which Reminds Me

That is so fakey the way you accuse me of trying to take someone down, as if that were ever my intention. If I could rewrite history I certainly would not do that again, all things considered. But even so, your extreme overreaction is ridiculous! More and more your head resembles an empty ping pong ball just looking to get whacked. You are looking to provoke an attack from me, looking for an excuse to hit me back, that's all there is to that. I am so generous and magnanimous a Christian that I am able to graciously ignore your snarky little attitude problem, even if it kills me, but I still think that this is all just so much overkill.

Which Reminds Me

So tell your silly F-bomb idiot Tom Turd to buy himself a new English dictionary, because the letter F is only going to get him so far. Yes, we get the idea, it's not just a word, it's a philosophy, a philosophy of crashing through the gates. Even so, God can see through your alliterative fanfares in the key of F. He sees to your heart. I am just saying. I shouldn't be the one to have to say this. But God is not going to force you to do the right thing. He wants you to be persuaded to do the right thing of your own free will. So just resisting me proves nothing. I am really not the problem. It's just all about you and your attitude problem. I am just saying.

Which Reminds Me

So obviously if I can slam your pathetically weak serves at ping pong with my special spin ball, there is no guarantee that I am going to be impressed later and wanting to learn more about your lousy game. You are just a sore loser. I am just saying. That was all there was to say about that.

Which Reminds Me

I am utterly insulted by this plan concocted by some snarky witch to checkmate me with Tom from high school. Not to be mean but Tom was never any great friend of mine that I should care to be reminded of how during high school he continually emphasized about how he seems to think that every word in the English dictionary starts with F. How can I have a reasonable conversation with this clueless whiner tripping me up every time I turn around?

It has come to my ears that some plantation witch living near here, bearing the name of Candy, a misspelling in my view, lives in some alternative reality in which she can go around screaming and yelling about me of whom she obviously knows absolutely nothing. The mannings may have their good points but they are obviously not angelings as yet, needless to say.

I recently noticed on the Internet a duet, "Candy," by Iggy Pop and Kate Pierson. "Candy, Candy, Candy, I can't let you go," and so on. So that's nice. You have your pop music royalties already, but I am not so naive as to think that song ever had something to do with me. There are many persons on this planet who go by the name of Candy or Candi. The first year at SCC, there were three of us on the same dorm floor. So that proves nothing.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, it is easy for Romania to brag about their Olympic athletes, what with such gold medal stars as Nadia Comaneci to their credit. A perfect 10 score is a high honor for such a small country.

Coincidentally, Romania is the place where Angie Thomson, an MK-Venezuela, went to found an orphanage. I don't know anything about that. I never discussed that with Angie but I heard that she made a fortune in Silicon Valley before going to Romania to found an orphanage so that probably keeps her busy. That is almost the sum total of everything I know about that, just that Angie went to Romania and founded an orphanage there.

So?

Which Reminds Me

I was happy that Lori Lowgun moved away from here never to return because, basically, Lori was a simpering bore. Oh, does Lori have a cousin named Wendy? No one ever mentioned Wendy to us, but I would imagine her to be just another bore. Ho hum. I actually don't need her empty head for anything.

Which Reminds Me

That was an odd bit, all those hints about Lord Stanley who traveled deep into the jungles of Africa to pronounce those immortal words, "Mr. Livingston, I presume?" Oh, is Charles Stanley, the Baptist preacher, his distant cousin? Oh, I hadn't thought of that. We might have glimpsed Dr. Stanley's face on television from time to time but never paused to think about what royal connections he might have in terms of genealogy. That was Lori Lowgun who returned to Atlanta where she attends one of the Stanley churches, last we heard of her, several years ago. But we were not so well connected to the Baptist's Reece's Peanut Butter Cups that we would want to trouble ourselves with questions of royal connections. We have to get jobs and go to work. We don't need that. Yes, I do remember seeing something on television about "Ferdinand the Bull." But, anyway, this is America in the 21st century, where we are all expected to work for our suppers from now on going forward into the future. If you want to govern the world you have to get elected. It is not enough to have a kingly ancestor. You have to assume the yoke of government, which I would imagine is no easy thing. Trampling underfoot an innocent bystander such as myself is not sufficient qualification for elective eligibility. You might get some points in terms of appeasing the King of Spain, given my deeply English roots, but ultimately we don't understand what you want. Are you asking that we split America between Spain and Britain halves? Give Texas back to Spain? All I know is that someone really should pay for this great big hassle. I am so backlogged on my reading and I can only read one thing at a time.

Which Reminds Me

Anyway, when you look at the snowflakes in such a microscopic way they look actually transparent. No one has yet explained what color is your DNA. It's just the coding of you, whatever color you may be.

Which Reminds Me

My blood type is AB+ which makes me a Universal Recipient.

What this means is that I can accept blood donations from any blood type. However, only persons with my exact blood type can accept donations from me, which means that my blood type is in least demand by bloodmobiles.

What this does NOT mean is that I am a Universal Receptionist. There is no guarantee that I will remember to forward your message to parts unknown. Maybe I should pray for you. But just because you stopped by to shoot the breeze, that does mean that I will remember later what your name was or who you think I will reports this to. If you are such an adherent of Japanese blood type personality theories, you should remember that I feel no sense of responsibility for your life and your problematics. I just don't work that way. I am very forgetful and irresponsible in terms of these non-existent Universal Receptionist duties.

Which Reminds Me

Sorry but I can't write a high school book about all of these cliquey blank people. There is just nothing of interest to say about high school and its blankety blank people.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I suppose that the Whitaker twins would have a problem with the snowflake film. They are identical twins so perhaps they might find it problematic to have an exact replica of themselves in another state. That was never my problem. I have no identical twin of myself anywhere on the planet so there is nothing that I would need to say about that. Your DNA is nothing like mine.

Anyway, nothing else is known about the Whitaker twins, just that they were there in our high school at least in ninth grade. We never talked so there is really nothing else that I can tell you about them. I would only be guessing to construe from that that they probably attended the Union church along with those other people but I can't fill in the blanks for you. Sorry.

Which Reminds Me

I will confess that when I was a child my parents forced me to wear an angel costume with wings, appearing in the Christmas pageant at the Evangelistic Center church. Now, I never claimed to be an angel. It was only a costume. Four white girls were chosen to be the angels. Well, at least Cheryl and Susie were blonde, which seemed to be the casting criteria. Maybe you think the other two redhead angels were miscast, but it was only a church play, not a permanent thing. Anyway, I don't think that it was criminal of my parents to want me to be successful in life. Some people complained because every year around New Year's they would show that same film about snow flakes, and how no two snowflakes are alike, and how cruel it is for us to show that snowflake film to all these dirty brown people who have no hope of ever having white skin in this lifetime unless by artificial scrubbing methods and makeup. You countered that by casting me as the white rat in the interactive version of "Flowers for Algernon," one of our high school readings. Even so, I think that you are overreacting. I just can't feel guilty about that. I just think you are being ridiculous, whoever you are.

Which Reminds Me

Someone was ridiculing and taunting me, saying that I am entirely ignorant of the Mistral wind that blows in the southern parts of France during the winter months. I probably don't even know one thing about Frédéric Mistral, the Nobel Prize-winning French poet who died in 1914. Probably the only Mistral that I can see is Gabriela Mistral, a Nobel Prize-winning Chilean woman poet and author, although that was only her pseudonym.

Yes, I will not attempt to deny that I am American and that I am entirely ignorant of the Mistral winds of Southern France. In fact, the only Gabriela Mistral that I can think of is a street near the house where we lived in San Salvador. I am fairly certain that the busy street was named after the Chilean poet, but the street is the only thing that comes to mind. I don't think we ever studied the Chilean poet.

Where did that come from? I wonder who said that and why.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, why is Karen Robinson asking me all these weird questions, as if she were fishing for information? She probably makes pretty good money as a librarian so what is she doing here anyway? She doesn't really need a career change. She already has a library career and plenty of money in the bank, so why is she so curious about poor little me? I really don't have anything very juicy in terms of scandal to offer. I am just a very boring person. I really don't want to stir the pot that much and unnecessarily attract to myself all this unwanted negative attention. I can't afford to do that. I don't remember myself signing any contract with Karen that I should be bothered later to recall some worthless trivia that only makes me look like an idiot. I can't afford that. But I am too polite to tell Karen where to go. I will just leave her to figure that out for herself.

Which Reminds Me

So did she forget what she was saying and marry her rapist? It wouldn't be the first time.

Scary to think that these people can dump all their garbage on me and there is nothing that I can do about that. Here I am so many years later and can only remember one thing that was said about that, not really enough information to make an intelligent commentary on their situation. Makes me want to forget that I was ever at the library that day, because anyway I cannot control the flow of information and they only want to use me for their own purposes even when I cannot even remember what their names were. They really don't care about me and my personal life. It's just all about them.

Which Reminds Me

That girl from Tallahassee, she was complaining about how they treat women so poorly, and also apparently her creepy ex-boyfriend had gone up there gotten in and spread some unfavorable reports about her which were coming back around to haunt her. What was her name? I don't know very much about that. I only remember some things that she was saying at the time.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I think that Jesus has a right to exist. When you recognize the right of Jesus to exist, then maybe we can discuss the rest of that. Otherwise, the bully clubs tend to fall flat.

Which Reminds Me

While I was in Virginia, I remember I was in the library and that girl from Tallahassee happened to be there and was telling me a long story about how women have no opportunities there, about how women are just shoved aside, and she also told me her sad story of being date-raped, but that was before when she was living in Tallahassee, and how he seemed so handsome and came from a very wealthy family and yet he was in reality completely cold and heartless and cruel. Sometimes you think that people are going to care when actually they just don't care. Sometimes people just don't care and the sooner you get over him the better for you because, anyway, you have to take care of yourself.

Which Reminds Me

I seem to remember, vaguely, hearing some people talking online about how disgusted they are with the Cederblom family, who while pretending to be AG missionaries in Panama, were actually attending the Union Church there, which is an ecumenical church serving diplomatic and business people temporarily visiting the country. I remember hearing that some people are disgusted with the Cederbloms for pretending to be military and diplomatic heroes when actually far from it, they were only missionaries, not really entitled to such exalted government protection.  I can't really judge them, although I can't really defend them either. I really don't understand what was going on in Panama.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, it is hard for me to imagine ever having any reasonable conversation with the Whitaker twins. I noticed on Facebook that Pat was living in Atlanta, which is also the residence place of Winnie and her airplane pilot husband whose name I forgot, at least that was where they were the last I heard or saw something about them, while Michelle was living somewhere in the Midwest.

Someone, maybe it was them, was trying to make points by saying that only they can be considered U.S. citizens and Christians, because they attended the Union Church, an ecumenical church which they view as the official U.S. church and social community there in San Salvador and its various youth programs, whereas we were attending a native church of our own denomination in Spanish language actually because after all our parents were missionaries of a certain denomination and it would look sort of weird in terms of church politics for us to be running off to some other church denomination even if it might have perhaps afforded more social life in terms of interaction with a greater variety of other U.S. citizens rather than natives. Not that we didn't visit another church on a few occasions, but we didn't assimilate with the ecumenically Union Church at that time, or the Baptists for that matter, not that we don't know who some of them were from high school. So does being a non-Union Church Christian make me a native non-Christian? It just would have been too weird for us to be legally forced to congregate at the Union Church when obviously freedom of religion is a key element of our reason for being there in the country in the first place. You can go wherever you want. I am just saying. But of course these simple-minded twins are actually Canadians who think that everything has to be the Church of England. But this is the U.S. where we don't have an official state church, although overseas I don't know how things work in some other countries. There was no law requiring us to attend a particular church, at least not at that time. It was just that we were AG and that was our whole reason for being there.