"The family was going on a military post to watch the Fourth of July fireworks, and because they were civilians they had to have their car checked. There were many others that had to be checked and the guards were not very thorough in their inspection. As they were leaving the check post, Stephen said with a middle eastern accent, "Praise Allah they did not look in the trunk!" He was joking of course and everyone found it very amusing. They were also quite glad that the guards didn't hear him."

I have decided to merge one of my other blogs with this one so at intervals I'm going to re-post the stories from there onto here.....

"When they were little, Grace and Renee found men with long hair quite novel, and would often inquire as to which gender these unusual specimens belonged. On one such occasion, Renee and her mother were checking out at the grocery store and the man in line behind them had particularly long locks. "Is that a man or a woman?" Renee asked loudly. The surprised and slightly embarrassed fellow asked her if he looked like a woman and she promptly responded to the affirmative."

Abigail is what I suppose you would call my pen name. My name isn't Abigail nor is my middle name, but I feel that it suits me so whenever I don't want to use my real name or just feel like using a different one I use Abigail. Oddly enough some time after I had chosen it some friends and I were sitting around waiting for something and we started trying to guess each others middle names. The boy trying to guess mine guessed Abigail because he said I seemed like an Abigail, so evidently I chose right. :)
I've found myself wondering recently whatever happened to Abigail from the Bible after she married David. She stopped him from killing her husband, her husband died, David married her, and so far as I can remember we never hear anything about her again. Did she have kids? Did David ever love her? Was she happy? What was her life like? I tried Wikipedia which indicated she might have given David a son, but that it was unclear. Beyond that she she seems to have been swallowed up by the past with her marriage. I suppose I'll never know the answer to those questions, because, of course, if Wikipedia doesn't know no one does.
Abigail means "Source of joy", "My father is joy", or "Father's joy". Different places say different things. I have decided that if I have a daughter I would want to name her Abigail. It would fit well with Margaret and Amy which mean "Pearl" and "Beloved" respectively. My Joy, My Treasure, and My Love. Now I want three girls with my three to five boys.....

The church I attend has communion every Sunday and with the bread they have both juice and wine. This morning I accidentally took the wine instead of the juice. I had heard that wine was bitter tasting but I was by no means prepared for the sensation that was coming. For a few moments I thought I was going to throw up. It was the vilest tasting liquid I have ever put in my mouth! When I think of the women who post about really wanting a "nice glass of wine" I cringe inside. The taste rather put me in mind of juice that had been sitting outside putrefying in a dog's water bowl for several weeks, perhaps with several pieces of doggie food soaking in it and maybe even one or five of the dog's chew toys. On top of the nauseating flavor there was a very warm tingling feeling that slid down the throat and sat in the chest and from there trickled down to my stomach. I shall never drink wine again. Ever.

There is a park across the street from my building that I like to walk in sometimes. One day as I was doing so I noticed that there were little piles of cat food lying along one of the paths and there were several stray cats feasting on them. Upon walking a little further I spotted the author of these little meals, a person I have since entitled The Cat Man. The Cat Man is an elderly gentleman, about 65 I should say, who comes to the park everyday to feed the cats. Now no cat would dream of hurrying towards anything, and not all the cats entirely trust him, but when they see him they gather just as quickly as they can without appearing particularly interested. Some even allow him pet them while they're eating which he generally does. He looks as though he were a member of some nice country club so I don't think he's lonely, but perhaps he doesn't have any children, or he does but they grew up, left, and don't keep in touch. Then again, he may just like cats a lot but his wife wont let him keep them. Maybe someday I'll get a chance to ask him why he does it. 

Inspired by The Lizzie Bennet Diaries I have decided to look at what the heroes of Jane Austen's novels would look like if they lived in the present day.


Pride and Prejudice

Mr. Darcy was a serious businessman in the book. His dad would have owned some mega-corporation which Darcy would have inherited. Being a rich kid he would most likely have been a frat boy in college, though never one of the wild party boys

Mr. Bingley would have been Darcy's frat brother, also not one of the wild party-ers, but still rather the social butterfly, always having friends over. He would also be from a wealthy family and if he had a job it would probably just be some job that his dad gave him.

In the book Mr. Wickham couldn't keep a job, so he would have lots of little jobs of no consequence, like bar-tending, always being in debt but living like he wasn't, and flirting with every girl he met.

Emma

Mr. Knightley would run his family's business as his father had done before him and his grandfather and great-grandfather and so on.

Frank Churchill might be an actor, or something of that kind. He doesn't really seem like a person who would have a career.

Mr. Elton would be a slimy, flattering salesman

Mansfield Park

I see Edmond Bertram as a professor or writer of theoretical articles

I am at a loss with Henry Crawford. It has been a long time since I have read the book or seen the movie, and I don't remember anything about him that would give me a clue as to what he might do with himself if he lived in the modern day. 

Sense and Sensibility

Edward Ferrars, of course, would not do anything super important or showy. Perhaps he would be a high school teacher or a business manager.

Mr. Willoughby was charming and dishonest, so he would likely be a young politician

Colonel Brandon might be an honest, good sort of lawyer. It is the only profession which seems to fit him

Northanger Abbey

Henry Tilney would most certainly be a hipster, very likely a journalist or a news reporter.

Persuasion

I'm quite stumped on Mr. Elliot as well. He's something of a social climber. I was thinking maybe he would be a musician that was rather successful to begin with but as time goes on begins to realize that he needs to make friends in high places to stay popular.

I think Captain Wentworth as in the book would be in the military or police force.Probably idealistic, and certainly patriotic.

Finally back to our European adventures.....

Day 5 - Part 1- As you may recall, we had spent the preceding night in a surprisingly nice hotel over a bar in Romes outer ring. Breakfast was included at the Hotel/Bar Viti so after we had packed the car we went down to the bar where it was served. They had a large selection of pastries and juice mixes and we were allowed to pick one of each. I chose a raisin pastry that looked very good, but when I bit into it there was a lemony-tangy taste that was rather unpleasant. I suspect it was some kind of European preservative because it was in several of the packaged foods we bought throughout the trip. The drinks were shaken up and served in shot glasses, which fact, combined with the color of the juice did not leave me altogether certain of the alcoholic content of what we consumed. We girls had a little conversation with one or two of the men there while we were waiting for Dad to bring the car up out of the garage. I don't remember what we talked about, but I think they asked us where we were from and maybe something else.

     Soon, we once again found ourselves diving in circles in Rome, only this time it was in a much smaller area as we now had a better idea of where we were trying to get to. This time were were looking for a metro station on the outer circle of Rome which our friend from the hotel had recommended we take. Mum and I had used the metro when we were in D.C. a few weeks prior and since Dad hadn't been on one for a very long time I was the navigator. Fortunately, it was quite simple. We had been particularly warned about pickpockets in Rome so we had a system where everything we weren't holding in out hands was in a blue backpack that Katie brought or Dad's moneybelt. The two or three people who weren't wearing the belt and/or the backpack would walk behind the person(s) who was/were. All our "valuables" were hidden in the trunk before we parked. Leaving the metro brought us out immediately in front of the Colosseum. I knew it was close but I walked out of the station expecting to see it some distance away when I realized that the massive structure not fifty yards in front of me was in fact that legendary house of slaughter!  The lines were not very long at all and we got our tickets and went inside. One of the things I loved about Rome was how much was open to the public. We got to wander over much of the Colosseum and take lots of pictures.

     One thing that had always confused me was that in pictures of gladiator fights the floor of the Colosseum is flat and sandy, but in modern pictures the floor appears to be a maze of  stone walls. When we got there I learned that the stone walls we were looking at were in fact the basement and that the floor where the fights occurred had collapsed at some point. They had rebuilt the floor as it had been over part of the arena but we didn't have time to go down there. It was rather funny, though, to see some of the cats that ran wild on the premises walk into the ring because I couldn't help compare them to their much larger cousins that had fought in the same place.

     From there we went to the Arch of Constantine which was right next to the Colosseum. Being that it was a stone arch that we couldn't touch and seemingly never served any purpose, we girls had very little interest in it and would have been happy enough to have walked right past it, but Dad insisted upon taking several pictures of us in front of it from various angles. Such would be the case with all the other arches we encountered/went well out of our way to see. I quite fail to see the point of them. What kind of kicks did those guys get out of building, or having others build rather, those enormous, seemingly purposeless, and utterly useless structures? Maybe back in those days it had some kind of subduing effect on people?

     Anyway from there we walked a few hundred yards to the entrance of Palatine Hill which was one of my favorite places in Rome. The ancient ruins in amongst the plants and trees was very pretty and peaceful. I was surprised at how little of the ruins were blocked off. We wandered around for a while and found several places that were quite picturesque, along with a couple of places where we could pose as if we were part of the decoration. :)

This is a view of the Forum from P. Hill

Water fountain!