CAN YOU LAST 18 SECONDS?
GOOD THING I'M NOT AN AIR FORCE PILOT

A friend sent this game that helps Air Force pilots practice their reactions:

http://members.iinet.net.au/~pontipak/redsquare.html

If you can stay "alive" for 18 seconds, you're doing well. I tried and tried, and made it for 9.7 seconds. Yikes! Here's hoping those in our military defense have a LOT better hand-eye coordination than I do!

DAILYSUSAN BACK FULL STRENGTH!!!

Sorry for the long hiatus. Let's pick up where we left off:

LISTEN TO THE SOUND
OF THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT

Our daughter's church youth group visited a retirement home to sing Christmas carols and have a little party with the residents the other night. I was among the six or seven moms who came along for the ride.

The girls filled the stage, and started singing. The little old lady sitting next to me leaned over and confided, "I'm nearly blind and deaf, but I'm still enjoying this very much."

I leaned over, and said loudly and slowly how much I loved hearing that, and wished her a Merry Christmas.

She replied, "Would you ever guess that I am 98 years old?"

Amazed, I leaned back over, put an arm around her, and said, loudly and slowly, "That is fantastic! You don't look a day over 60."

Just then, the little old man sitting on the other side of her whirled toward us, and snarled:

"FOR CHRIST'S SAKE, WOULD YOU SHUT UP?!?!?!?!?!"

Had to hunch over to hide my laughter, but the shaking shoulders gave me away.

How ironic: that comment got me TOTALLY into the Christmas spirit. So I guess it really WAS for Christ's sake!!!

HOW GOD HELPS YOU OUT
WHEN YOU'RE LUNCHING WITH AN ATHEIST

I have this dear old friend who is an avowed atheist. We hadn't seen each other for close to 10 years, but met for lunch to get started on a new project of mutual interest.

We sat by the window at Panera's in a mid-town location, far from where either of us lives.

He brought up the name of a mutual friend who neither of us had seen for close to 10 years, either. He gave me an update: she had moved away but was back and working here in some capacity. We agreed that one of us should look her up "someday."

BOOM! We saw her walking down the sidewalk . . . and then she came right into Panera's!!!

Both our jaws dropped to our chests. My atheist friend was able to speak:

"What is this? DIVINE INTERVENTION?!?!?"

He laughed at the irony. I smiled at him meaningfully, nodded, and gave him my Christian Goo-Goo Eyes . . . thanking God for one more piece of well-timed "coincidental" ammo of how real He is, to woo him out of atheism and into the light of the Savior's love.

And yes, our mutual friend is interested in learning more about our new project and would be a great asset. So it was a fun "coincidence" all the way around.

Panera's is a great place to encounter the Bread of Life!

MAYBE THE KID
DOESN'T NEED COACHING

Maddy, 9, was telling how a girl in her fourth-grade classroom has been snipping at her. The girl is a little bossy and it probably comes from low self-esteem. So we were trying to coach Maddy on how to respond with kindness and understanding, while still being assertive enough to stand up for herself.

We told her that the No. 1 no-no in that situation is to be mean BACK. Leadership requires restraint. When you are unfairly criticized, don't ever retaliate, we told her. That's dragging yourself down to the other person's level.

I showed her that old trick, that when you point the finger at someone, three more point back at you, indicating that you're guilty of the same things, triply as much.

Her face brightened immediately into a huge grin.

She pointed her finger at me and exulted:

"YOU'RE AWESOME!!!"

THE SIMPLE ANSWER
IS ALMOST ALWAYS BEST

The man of the house agreed to answer questions for a telephone poll. Subject: politics. He is a conservative, and a lot of things that have been going on lately in the political world have his ears steaming. He is not afraid to delve into controversy, and speak his mind. So here we go.

Maddy quietly finished her class valentines, and I eavesdropped while preparing to make 4,000 cupcakes for the various Valentine's celebrations coming up.

His answers were terse, rapid-fire, decisive:

"Yes."

"No."

"60%."

"Yes."

"No."

After a long stream of answers, he suddenly paused and said:

"I don't care to answer that."

Both sets of eavesdropping eyebrows shot up.

After he hung up, we asked what the question was that he didn't care to answer.

"They asked me what RACE I am," he said, fuming; the implication was that such a question should be irrelevant.

But Maddy intervened with another dose of that Kid Common Sense:

"Why didn't you just tell him the HUMAN race?!?"

LITTLE BOY SAYS
WHAT MOST OF US SOMETIMES THINK

A friend's 3-year-old son had been in the restroom for quite some time.

Suddenly, the parents heard a little voice declare:

"I CAN'T TAKE IT ANY MORE!!!"

He sounds like a Republican observing what's going on in D.C.!

THEY WALK AMONG US:
SO FOOTBALL'S NO BIGGIE IN SINGAPORE?

Saw this hilarious TV listing -- albeit from the past -- that appeared in the Sunday Times of Singapore:

10:30
BOWLING:
SUPERBOWL XXXV

If they WANTED the WORLD to KNOW it's about FOOTBALL, they shouldn't have named the championship after another sport. Right? Riiiiiight.

FROM THE
'OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES'
DEPARTMENT

A darling young girl told her dad that she was going to make a Valentine's Day card and send it to Osama bin Laden. She asked for his help in finding a mailing address.

The family happened to be Jewish. The dad was awestruck over his child's thoughtfulness and grace, since bin Laden is a world-famous Islamic terrorist who favors killing all Jews on the planet. A Jewish child sending bin Laden wishes about love would be truly a transcendant act.

"Honey, I am proud of you for thinking of this," said the dad. "If more kids were like you, we could turn around the hearts of all the terrorists in the world and bring peace at last."

"Well," replied the girl, "I was just hoping it would bring him out into the open, and then the U.S. Marines could shoot the ****er."

REFRESHING HONESTY
FROM A . . . POLITICIAN?!?

Here's what Brazilian Finance Minister Rubens Ricupero said during a break in a TV interview, unaware that the satellite feed was still running:

"I have no scruples. What is good, we take advantage of. What is bad, we hide."

Yes, he resigned two days later. With guys like that in public office, we don't even NEED a good journalism corps to root out the baddies. :>)

THIS KID'S SO CUTE,
I THINK HE HUNG THE MOON

A friend's son looked up at the night sky when there was a crescent moon, and called it "a silver smile."

AH, THE SWEET SENTIMENTS
OF SUNDAY SCHOOL AT CHRISTMASTIME

Maddy, 9, walked out of Sunday School with a great, big smile on her face. At this time of year, I figured her class had just spent the hour singing Christmas carols or making ornaments or something. I thought she was filled with the Christmas spirit.

But nooooo. Here's what she said:

"I CAN'T WAIT TO BURN ANTS AGAIN NEXT SUMMER!!!"

Our church is not into weird doctrine. Believe me, we are NOT for burning ants. All that happened was that she noticed it was no longer summer, and she couldn't wait for summer to come back, and one reason was so that she could get out her magnifying glass and see what mayhem she could create in the garden.

What made her think of it? She didn't know.

Not very Christmasy! But there you go. These kids have ants in their pants, mentally, don't they?

T-SHIRTS WE LIKE

I'm Not Quitting;
I'm Just Going Away and Never Coming Back.

BUMPER SNICKERS
WE LIKE

It was actually on a file cabinet, not on a car bumper, but has a gentle humor:

Have You Prayed For a Liberal Today?

QUOTES WE LIKE:
BUT WHAT'S FOUR?

In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm and three or more is a congress.

-- John Adams (1735-1826),

Second President of the United States

and Revolutionary War leader

THE CARDIOLOGIST'S DIET:
NO KIDDING

Thanksgiving is a-comin'. Is it your favorite holiday, too? My tastebuds start firing up in mid-July, just thinking about all those favorite foods at the beloved annual feast.

But . . . I'm not as slim and trim as I should be, to be taking in all those extra calories. I should diet, this next week.

Now, we've had the Atkins Diet. And Weight Watchers. And South Beach. And so many more.

None of them worked for me in the long run. Guess it's time to follow the Cardiologist's Diet:

IF IT TASTES GOOD, SPIT IT OUT.

FROM THE 'WHAT A WOILD' DEPARTMENT:
BE CAREFUL WITH THOSE DEGREES!

Have you winced when you see all these tactless ads for a certain medical condition in men which is abbreviated as "E.D."? Think of the poor educators who've worked so hard to get a doctoral degree in education. Maybe they should put the small "d" in Ed.D. in a different color so that people will be sure to notice what it DOESN'T signify.

What's worse, our college-age daughter was standing behind me at my desk and started to snicker. I looked where she was looking: it was my Strong's concordance, a very useful Bible reference book that's well over 1,300 pages. She was laughing at the designation behind the very scholarly author's name:

James Strong, S.T.D.

It stands for "Sacrae Theologiae Doctor," a very high-falutin' academic degree.

Somehow, I think the "S" that he was trying to transmit has more to do with SPIRITUALITY than that other "S" word.

WHOOPS! CORRECTION

Some readers got a bigger kick out of the mistake than the anecdote: in the last posting, that was Nancy SINATRA, not Nancy Fonda. Sorry about mixing celebrity metaphors but hope the flashback to white-lipstick days made you smile. These Boots Are Made For Walkin'. . . .

GIRLISH 'SPIN' ON FOOTBALL:
TAKE TWO

Not to be outdone by their little sister's description of football tackling as "mean hugging," our three older daughters developed these football concepts in their early (and often!) indoctrination in all things Husker:

1. Football players are "go-go's." This must date to the days when we would cheer on our team on TV, shouting, "Go! Go!" to a particular player making a long run, and our girls thought that was the name of the team. With visions of Nancy Fonda in tall, white boots, we always call them "go-go's" now and think it's a much more apt description than "football players."

2. Football players wear uniforms that snug under their knees, but one of our daughters misunderstood and thought they were stylin'. "Ooh!" she exclaimed. "They wear CAPRIS!"

AND LET'S HOPE THEY DO
A LOT OF IT THIS SATURDAY

Our daughter Maddy has gone to a number of University of Nebraska football games this fall. She puts a 9-year-old girl's perspective on the game with her new definition of tackling:

MEAN HUGGING

A DEEP-THINKNG FRIEND
WITH A DRY SENSE OF HUMOR

John is a childhood friend. Yes, he was always funny, in a deep way. He is in to diving now -- the kind you do in the ocean. So no wonder he came up with this . . . excuse the expression . . . pearl:

Just think how much deeper the ocean would be if it weren't for the sponges that live there.