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My Love of Wabbits and Writing

I have a fondness for rabbits. While I’m not a big collector themed items, if you were to stroll around my house you would find a few bunnies here and there:

I remember having a brown rabbit as a child. It was actually my sister’s rabbit. She always had a penchant for slightly untraditional pets. It spent most of its life in a raised pen in the back yard. I never liked that; felt like it should be able to roam about freely. But our cocker spaniel who also occupied the back yard made that freedom unlikely. Unlikely, but not impossible. One day the rabbit escaped its cage. Our dog did what most dogs would do, she chased the rabbit. We found him lying dead in the yard, untouched and unmarked by the dog. It literally died of fright.

It wasn’t long after the rabbit’s death that I read Watership Down by Richard Adams. I had no idea what the book was about other than the main characters were rabbits. It’s true what they say about not judging a book by its cover. I was incorrect in my assumption that Watership Down was a childrens book:

From Wikipedia:

Watership Down is a classic heroic fantasy novel, written by English author Richard Adams, about a small group of rabbits. Although the animals in the story live in their natural environment, they are anthropomorphised, possessing their own culture, language (Lapine), proverbs, poetry, and mythology. Evoking epic themes, the novel recounts the rabbits’ odyssey as they escape the destruction of their warren to seek a place in which to establish a new home, encountering perils and temptations along the way.

The novel takes its name from the rabbits’ destination, Watership Down, a hill in the north of Hampshire, England, near the area where Adams grew up. The story is based on a collection of tales that Adams told to his young children to pass the time on trips to the countryside.
Published in 1972, Watership Down was Richard Adams’ first novel, and is by far his most successful to date.

There are some very violent passages within the pages of that book. I was probably too young to read it when I did, but also within the pages of this remarkable book I was able to follow along and imagine that our little brown bunny had escaped the dangers of suburbia and found a life of freedom. It also taught me that being small  does not prevent you from doing big things and that brawn and bravery are not necessarily synonymous.

It also began my life long love of reading fiction. No matter how difficult my real life was (my parents divorced not long after the rabbit died), I could always find safety and adventure inside the pages of a well crafted story.

Which is why I suppose my love of wabbits and writing are forever linked. It’s also why it’s important that writers heed Stephen King’s advice: “Do not come lightly to the blank page.” Your words can create wonderful worlds where your readers can escape their lives, if only for a time.

Your words matter. Maybe more than you’ll ever know.

One of many rabbits whose warren is under the tool shed of our yard. Living freely within the confines of my unfenced yard.

“All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.”
― Richard Adams, Fiver’s Dream

Here's another bunny taking advantage of the absence of my neighbor's dogs and enjoying the sweet grass growing in their pen.

Isn’t it Ironic? (not particularly)

Irony –
1: a pretense of ignorance and of willingness to learn from another assumed in order to make the other’s false conceptions conspicuous by adroit questioning —called also Socratic irony
2 a: the use of words to express something other than and especially the opposite of the literal meaning b: a usually humorous or sardonic literary style or form characterized by irony c: an ironic expression or utterance
3 a (1): incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result (2): an event or result marked by such incongruity b: incongruity between a situation developed in a drama and the accompanying words or actions that is understood by the audience but not by the characters in the play —called also dramatic irony tragic irony.

   

Thursday night, as I sat in front of my computer reviewing the post I had written for the following morning, I decided it would be a good idea for Jeff (pastor) to review it and make sure I didn’t have any glaringly obvious flaws as they pertained to “Zeke” and what he represented for C3 . I attempted to cut and paste the content into an email, but the the pictures became html codes and it was incredibly distracting. (Jeff’s a tad ADD himself.) I then got this brilliant idea that I would allow him publishing rights to my blog so he could review the post, then revoke said rights afterwards. It’s not that I don’t want him to post here. He can tell you that I have asked him on numerous occasions to guest blog, it’s just that he’s kind of busy. Besides, when I added him as a contributor, my giant head disappeared from the sidebar, and I knew how much all of you would miss that. But I digress…

So, all that happened. He added the disclaimer about Jesus being the Living Cornerstone and associated scripture. Which was great, because some people will look for any reason to tell you how whack they think your theology is. Anyhoo, I made the final changes, scheduled it to post simultaneously with my my SCL premiere, then revoked Jeff’s publishing rights. Except that I accidentally revoked my OWN publishing rights instead. I immediately called Jeff and told him what I had done. Irony? I’m not so sure. I think that situation would fall under the category of grace – unmerited favor, because he could have REALLY made me suffer, and trust me — we wouldn’t even be close to even in that department. So, do I have a point to this story? Not really. It just reminded me of the song “Ironic” by Alanis Morrissette:

and the fact that the situations described in that song are unfortunate, but not ironic. As a public service, I have decided to add some words to the song, thereby making it ironic. (You’re welcome.)

An old man turned ninety-eight
He won the lottery and died the next day (because he accidentally poked himself in the jugular vein with the pencil he used to fill out the winning ticket)
It’s a black fly in your Chardonnay (that happened to be an albino fly, so it was white)
It’s a death row pardon two minutes too late (because the electric surge caused by the execution resulted in the phone lines going out two minutes earlier)
Isn’t it ironic … don’t you think (no, not really)
Chorus

It’s like rain on your wedding day (in the Sahara desert)
It’s a free ride when you’ve already paid (for the bus)
It’s the good advice that you just didn’t take (from Governor Blagojevitch)
Who would’ve thought … it figures

Mr. Play It Safe was afraid to fly
He packed his suitcase and kissed his kids good-bye
He waited his whole damn life to take that flight
And as the plane crashed down he thought
‘Well isn’t this nice…’ (Okay, that actually is kind of ironic)
And isn’t it ironic … don’t you think
Repeat Chorus

Well life has a funny way of sneaking up on you
When you think everything’s okay and everything’s going right
And life has a funny way of helping you out when
You think everything’s gone wrong and everything blows up
In your face (and that is very unfortunate, but not ironic)

It’s a traffic jam when you’re already late (for your job as the head of public transportation)
It’s a no-smoking sign on your cigarette break (at the Marlboro plant)
It’s like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife (to cut open the boxes of spoons)
It’s meeting the man of my dreams
And then meeting his beautiful wife (who works as a pharmaceuticals rep for Ambien sleep aid)
And isn’t it ironic… don’t you think
A little too ironic… and yeah I really do think… (no, not really)
Repeat Chorus

Life has a funny way of sneaking up on you
Life has a funny, funny way of helping you out
Helping you out (which is nice, but not ironic)

Here’s some irony for you: Angry, white Canadian girl becomes international singing sensation with a smash hit called “Ironic”, which isn’t.

Okay, maybe I can connect all these rabbit trails. On a day when I had planned to sit at my computer all day and bask in the glory of my new found pseudo-celebrity status, I realize that I have to go the grocery store, the “oil changed required” light comes on in my car, and I get a call from the school nurse informing me that my daughter is running a fever and I need to come pick her up.

Do I consider this ironic? Nah. I consider that God saying to me, “Get over yourself You’re not that big a deal.”

Note to Self: Write a blog post


I’ve been taking a self-imposed hiatus from blogging. I didn’t make a conscience decision not to blog. But as the summer started coming to an end, I realized that I needed to spend some time doing several things around the house I have been putting off. Case in point: Two weeks before my kids went back to school, I happened to notice that their backpacks were still hanging on their hooks in the mud room stuffed with the papers they brought home on the last day of school of the PREVIOUS school year.

Clearly I am a bit of a procrastinator when it comes to things I deem unpleasant such as organization and filing of paperwork. Not that I’m opposed to the idea. Quite the opposite. The IDEA of being organized and having a place for everything and everything in its place is incredibly appealing to me. I just have a hard time making the jump from wanting it to doing it.

As tempting as it seems at times, I cannot blame all of my shortcomings on the fact that I have ADD. The whole organization thing is definitely associated with it, but I can’t throw my hands in the air and say “It’s not my fault, I’m ADD!” Well, actually I could, but if I did, my house would be a total pigsty and I would never have anyone over. Plus, I don’t want my kids to think it’s okay not to take care of their things.

So, in the past few weeks, I’ve reorganized my kitchen cabinets and drawers, sorted through and given away all my kids’ clothes that don’t fit anymore, and completely organized my daughter’s belongings. If any of you out there have a 7-10 year old girly girl, who is in to American Girl dolls, Barbies, Bratz, stuffed animals, becoming a future rock star, arts and crafts, jewelry, clothes and all things “fancy”, then perhaps you may relate to what a monumental task it is to organize the totality of their possessions. Let me just say, “Pegboard is NOT just for the garage anymore!” I’ll probably do a write up on my other blog about all the places I have used pegboard in my house. It is awesome. (But, once again, I digress.)

You might be saying, “Why did that take several weeks? That really doesn’t sound like so much to do.” I would agree with that statement if I was a normal person. If you’ve read this blog more than once or twice, you are aware that I am not what you might consider a “normal” person. I have a tendency to get sidetracked by my dreams of the perfect scenario for the given situation. For example: Instead of simply removing the papers from my kids’ backpacks, throwing all but a few away and then rehanging the backpacks on the hooks, I decided to that I needed to make these really cool backpack clipboard hooks that I saw in a magazine. And before I did that, I had to finish painting the faux tile border on the wall that these super cool backpack clipboard hooks would go on. (This particular border has been taped and ready to be painted for approximately 6 months.)

I won’t bore you with ALL the rabbit trails this particular home project took me down, but maybe this gives a clearer picture of the craziness of how my brain works. The best visual description of my thought process came from my friend Jeff (who is a tad ADD himself). Picture each one of your thoughts as random and seemingly unrelated notes jotted down on several haphazardly placed post-it notes. Some stuck on top of one another, others simply losing their stickiness and falling away, completely forgotten. Welcome to my brain.