I recently read an important research finding that explains how belly button lint comes to be accumulated in the… well, the belly button.

You can read about it here: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,504067,00.html .

But as the story says, “So now that we know how it forms, the next question is — why?”

Why, indeed.

I am a great fan of brainstorming and group thinking. In brainstorming, people present every possible idea they can think of. There are no “bad ideas” at the brainstorming stage.

Are you ready to brainstorm? I hope so.

Just comment below with your theory: “Why did God create belly button lint?”

For every creative idea, I’ll donate another $1 to the Raimi Adoption Fund. (P.S. If we keep this up, I’m going to have to find a sponsor for these little events. If you’re a potential sponsor, e-mail me at [email protected])

This lady is getting under my skin. Again. Again. Again.

She’s trying to poison me. On purpose.

Under the euphenism of “allergy testing,” she has spent all day disrupting the happy enclosure of my epidermis with a syringe. Her goal is to make little red circles that grow… I think. After my whole upper arm is marked by these shapes, I’m feeling an intense desire to go hunt buffalo, or mount a Harley.

At the moment, I’m getting high marks in “weed mix 1″ and “ragweed.” This helps my self-esteem, because earlier in the day I was identified as “boring” due to my lack of response to their serums.

Several of us — allergy mates, as it were — are confined together this day in a single room. For obvious reasons, they don’t allow pets in here, but the room would fit in perfectly at a vet’s office. The floors *and walls* are tile squares, and the place you sit while they administer the toxic material is cold metal. Even the ceiling is shiny, comprised of metal sheets. All the room lacks to be vet-worthy is the clitter-clatter of little claws on the hard surfaces.

Sitting against the walls of starkness, we are called one by one to mount the metal pedestal and endurejoy the injections. She Who Administers The Shots has eyes that light up when your raised sleeve indicates a reaction. I think it validates her existence.

I go back next Friday for more. Maybe more after that, who knows? Stay tuned. I may be allergic to you.

(Well, maybe it’s not that bad. Actually, she’s nice. They’re all nice. ALL RIGHT ALREADY. THEY’RE ALL NICE. EVEN THE OTHER PATIENTS ARE NICE, *OK?*)

Still, I may be allergic to you. I’ll let you know.

Sometime I think I know. I’m absolutely sure I think I know. But I’m wrong.

Yesterday somebody asked me how many ounces were in a gallon. He suggested an answer, and I absolutely agreed with him. I was wrong.

Sometimes I’m just dumb (see preceding paragraph). But other times, I’m focusing on the wrong things.

Watch this, then stay tuned for the explanation of what all you missed.

Awesome Card Magic

1. If you removed the belly-button lint from everybody in the world on a single day, it would fill every room in the Empire State Building — twice.

2. Take the age of each U.S. President at the time he was inaugurated. Add those ages together. Multiply times the number of years since the Civil War. Divide by the number of words in the Declaration of Independence. The calculated number is 9.11

3. There is a species of bird in South America that has no legs or feet. Once it leaves the nest, it spends its entire life in the air.

4. If you took all the nickels produced by the United States Mint in 2008, their combined weight would be roughly the same as 300 city buses.

5. Every day, approximately 3,700 trees must be replaced due to the amount of Kleenex (and similar tissues) people use. During cold season, the number of replacement trees per day grows to 5,200.

And finally, the most important fact…

6. I made up “facts” 1-5.

How often do we receive “amazing” things via e-mail, and accept them as absolutely true? We get them from a friend, who got them from a friend, etc. And nobody has a clue regarding their original source. But… we believe them! We share them!

At the same time, we have a Bible whose history is meticulously documented, whose prophecies are proven across millenia. It provides the only real explanation for the way people think and act. It cites its source, and explains the origin of everything.

Yet… people don’t believe it. They don’t even believe in it.

If they got it in an e-mail with it, they wouldn’t pass it on.

Consider 2 Timothy 4:3-4. Yes, the Bible got it right. Again.

We’re old, but not as old as the dances we danced tonight. Here in San Antonio, at the historic Menger Hotel, we joined other reenactors of the War Between The States in dances of the times. The year my great-grandfather was born, these were the popular dances.

Our entourage of six couples came down Friday, and will return on Sunday. Plenty of fun. A lovely way to spend Valentine’s Day.

Love. It’s the best step in the dance.

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.
Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.
In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.
And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.
Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.
So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
- 1 John 4:7-16

We interrupt whatever I was doing at this moment to make an announcement: Rebecca is officially engaged to Mr. Joel Christopherson.

I am not kidding. It is official. You can tell, because they are at the computer right now, taking care of the *very most important thing* that star-struck engaged couples take care of.

They are updating their status on Facebook.

One of Joel’s brothers, Luke, documented the proposal with a digital camera. Interestingly, one picture shows another brother, David, proposing to Mrs. Christopherson… something about posing so they would know the best camera angle when the actual proposal took place.

Joel blindfolded Rebecca at our house, and made her sit shut-eyed until they arrived at a specially-prepared gazebo at Veterans Park in Arlington. As she reported the situation, “He drug me to a park in Arlington.” The father in me couldn’t help asking, “He drugged you at a park in Arlington?”

Well, in a sense. She’s certainly high on Joel. We look forward to a wedding, the deep promises they will make before God, and a lifetime of becoming one with each other and their Creator.

The chocolates, the roses, and the ring were a nice touch, too.

Yes, I will donate $1 for each qualifying comment to this post. But first, let me lay some groundwork.

Recently the doctor did some digging in the seamy boondocks of my armpit (see my post of Feb. 3, My Big Fat Greek Surgery).

Ahem. Please give me some small credit for discretion here. Notice I am not posting a picture.

The doctor’s excavation left me with a somewhat gaping, oozing, grotesque, abominable, horrific wound the size of the Grand Canyon. Perhaps I exaggerate slightly. But under your arm, every 1/2″ counts, you know.

The point is, my wife performs certain nursely acts on it each day, which involves the use of [MAJOR POINT HERE] “gauze.”

Last night, I found myself at a loss. [MAJOR POINT HERE] I desperately needed a pun using the word gauze. Of course, having slept on it, I now have a few in my inventory. But I was astounded how removal of limited body tissue had suddenly rendered me unable to perform this simple human task of punning on demand.

It struck me this morning [MAJOR POINT HERE]: What if I asked other people to help me think up a pun using the word gauze? And [MAJOR POINT HERE] what if I incented them (you) to do so?

Thus was born this post, which I am subtitling:

* MIKE’S PUNDRAISE FOR ADOPTION

Our church has a fund dedicated to assisting in adoptions. Three of our children are adopted, so this cause has some meaning for us. So [MAJOR POINT HERE] every $1 raised in this pundraiser will go to Redeemer Church’s Raimi Adoption Fund.

Rules and Regulations

1. Comment to this post, incorporating a pun using one of these words:
    Gauze
    Tape
    Suture
    Deodorant
    Hidradenitis

2. Do not use any bad words. You know what I mean.

3. Employees, relatives, friends, acquaintances, and even people entirely unknown to myself are all allowed to participate.

4. You may make others aware of this pundraiser by any means you like.

4. Should the amount of money obligated by this pundraiser begin to jeopardize the timely sending of my house payment, or otherwise bring me into a position whereby another family would need to adopt me out of bankruptcy, I reserve the right to cap the amount at what my medical insurance company refers to as “fair and reasonable.”

Happy commenting. Remember, it’s for a good gauze.

I sold shoes in college. So why can’t I sell these right now?

They’re amazing — sharkskin dress shoes, nearly brand-new. Incredibly durable. I just can’t wear that style anymore.

I could throw them away. Or use them to insult somebody, I suppose, by just throwing them.

Yes, throw them. If that thought inspires you, as well, you might like this video.

As for my SHOES FOR SALE, read about them here (listing good until 2-17-09). I can’t believe they haven’t sold. $35 bucks. I’m begging here. Pleading for their lives. Buy them. Really. If you’re not 11B, you know somebody who is.

UPDATE: SOLD! … and a bonus riddle.

A. Because they were
always tied!

Wednesday I am having armpit surgery. OK, stop guffawing. Science fiction is on the other channel. It could happen to you, too, you know.

There is a lump there, a recurrence from another incident in December. The doctor says it’s something called Hidradenitis.

My compassionate wife just came in to tell me it reminded her of a conversation in My Big Fat Greek Wedding:

Aunt Voula: [to Ian's parents] “Now, you are family. Okay. All my life, I had a lump at the back of my neck, right here. Always, a lump. Then I started menopause and the lump got bigger from the ‘hormonees.’ It started to grow. So I go to the doctor, and he did the bio… the b… the… the bios… the… b… the ‘bobopsy.’ Inside the lump he found teeth and a spinal cord. Yes. Inside the lump was my twin.”

My lump, my twin.

I think my mother warned me about this armpit thing years ago, when I refused to bathe. Mothers are always right. I guess I did smell like a goat. Little did I know the form that lingering bacteria might take in my 50s.

I know what some of you are thinking: Mike has always been rather odd, and perhaps this explains it. I don’t deny the oddness thing, but I don’t think the surgery will have much effect on it. But you never know.

If only my mother had sprayed Windex on it when I was young.

2 Corinthians 1:3-4

100 Last Year

My grandmother learned to play on her. So did my great aunt. So did my brother, sister, I, and my four children. Bless her heart.

She was born in 1908 in Chicago — at least that’s what the serial number indicates. My parents had it restored for me in 1981, right down to the elegant Bush & Gertz signature logo. The musician/technician disassembled her entirely, replaced internal parts as necessary, and stripped/refinished every piece.

Her first scratch came from one of my cats. That was the same day my indoor cats became outdoor cats. Don’t feel too sorry for them. They lived a bunch more years, and were happier outside than in.

She’s well-preserved for her age, what with the restoration and all. Still, she’s birthed four more piano students since ’81, no small feat. Her countenance is still polished, her posture erect, her ivories still white and lined up like a perfect set of teeth.

Today she sits with pride in the living room, where anyone driving by our house can enjoy her beauty.

And I missed her birthday. I know she still loves me, but I can’t help but grieve. She reminds me how often I overlook other important things and events in the lives of real people. How often somebody tells me about a deep heart matter on Tuesday, and I see them on Thursday without asking a thing about it.

I pray my piano will forgive me. I pray you will, too — with all my Heart and Soul (I bet you recognize the audio).

Still a Lady