On Frivolity

I have noticed of late, and really, since my day of initial consciousness, a day marked by boiled, mashed bananas and a high chair with a silver tray, that the world we live in is saturated in some brand of frivolity that causes the wicked to reign supreme while the good are busy twiddling their thumbs in a cartoonish manner.

There must be laughter, yes. There absolutely must. But the laughter must wait until the corrupt and those motivated by greed and power are ultimately halted, restrained. Until the world's quests for an end to hunger, the ultimate consummation of world peace, and the end to poverty are finished, there shall be no laughter in the Birdonnell home. That was part of the speech I wrote for my proposal of marriage to one Ms. Lori Birdonnell, and may I drop dead of an ulcerated toenail if ever I betray this statement in word, thought, or deed.

I have read the great philosophers of my day and those that passed before my arrival on this whirling dervish we call earth, and these are my conclusions regarding frivolity and the nature of mandkind:
1.) The ethereal undercurrents that sublimate our each and every desire demand of us seriousness and grimaces of unlimited width and sustenance.
2.) These same ethereal undercurrents are born of the will to bore those who smile with the palpitations of a dying spirit.
3.) It is better to consume the iniquity of the child in the flames of plastic building blocks than to allow such iniquity to get the better of the parental spirit of grim realism.
4.) I can't believe you're still reading.

With that in mind, it is easy to understand why this is a site filled with the nuanced observations of and by a family by its member-parts, as we call them around the old Birdonnell family campfire. As always, I conclude with a quote from the great Whig himself, Thurlow Weed:
"Catherine, today I met a man named Felicity Hogg, and I'll never forget his blonde mustache or the unsettling manner in which he shakes your hand. I will discuss this later."

On Being Abducted

To continue from the family blog, an explanation as to the delay in my writing...
That morning, the situation we walked into turned out to be the beginning of what is now dubbed in Saipan as the Haole Separatist Revolution. Apparently, plans had been forming for weeks as small pods, or "cracker cells", met in a number of local establishments and private homes in order to plan what they saw as a grand, sweeping revolution. They met at Coffee Care, yes, but they also congregated at Hamilton's Restaurant and Joeten Hafa Dai, so as not to attract suspicion. There code words were specially designed to appear like normal conversation. Code phrases included, "Oh my God. They have cheese again!" and "Let's go play volleyball."

The men and women who took us captive were stern but not cruel. They were mostly lawyers, doctors, and a few teachers. Most of them wore visors and t-shirts that someone had printed for the event. "Haole Revolution '06".

There will be more to come.