Under the Oak

My plan when I launched this site was to have lots (daily?) posts touching on all sorts of topics – serious or not-so-serious. So far, it has been little more than pointing you to a news story here or there. In general, I have more time to post stuff at the beginning of the week (for obvious reasons).

This past week in particular has been somewhat rough not because I’ve been especially busy, but rather because my mattress hates me and I’ve been in a semi-comatose state and incapable of any kind of critical thinking or creative writing exercise. On the other hand, I suppose my posts would be a lot more entertaining if I were to make all of them without having slept any. The mattress culprit is an old full sized mattress that was given to me by some of the members out in Clovis, NM where I was before I came here to Mobile. I’ve been a bit rough on it, I suppose, but that is no excuse for torturing me with bad springs in all the wrong places. I’m pretty sure the egg crate mattress pad is an accomplice. 

Another reason I haven’t posted in this past week is that I’ve gotten caught up in reading Herodotus. I know, I know…my nerd rating just shot through the roof, but I’ve always loved reading history and I’d bought The Histories a year or two ago when I was on my “buy as many classical works as possible” kick. I’d just finished reading the Ender Series by Orson Scott Card and books aren’t in the budget for this month, so I figured I’d pick something off the shelf to read. I expected Herodotus to be dry and very difficult to read (non-English classics tend to be translated by strange people from academia who have limited contact with contemporary English); I was wrong. I’ve been thoroughly entertained so far. Any book that starts off by carefully noting how the ancient equivalent of a World War was sparked by a dispute over who stole whose women first is my kinda book. I’m also intrigued by the various oracles that are given from Delphi and the struggles of kings and cities to understand what they mean. How convenient that few of the oracles are understood until after the event in question.

And how blessed we are that Yahweh didn’t speak to us in gibberish and nonsensical riddles.