Reading material...

I’ve decided that my cell phone number (which I will not reproduce here, for fear of random internet stalkers…) is much too easy to misdial. Or rather, lots of OTHER numbers are easily misdialed as MY number. I seem to receive a rather large number of calls from people who meant to dial another number. Like a few months ago, I kept getting phone calls from a woman who would leave a message, saying she was so-and-so from the YMCA and she was looking for someone named Latisha. Even though I obviously say on my voicemail, “this is Lisa.” (Does Lisa sound like Latisha?) There was one day a while ago when I kept getting calls, one right after another, from a bunch of phone numbers I didn’t recognize – so I went to Google and looked them up. They were all people who were members of some sort of Angus cow association. And apparently they thought I was, too… uh, nope. Sorry. Don’t know that much about cows. They moo. And we get milk from them. And their filet mignon parts are pretty tasty. That’s about it.

And this morning I woke up to a “missed call” on my phone. I checked the caller ID, and it was a local number I didn’t recognize. So once again I went to trusty old Google, and looked it up. Turns out it was from a Taco Bell down on Ben White Boulevard. Taco Bell? Now I’m getting phone calls from Taco Bell? I don’t even LIKE Taco Bell… in fact, I’m not sure why anyone except broke college students would like Taco Bell. I mean, if I really want roadkill in a tortilla, I can just make it myself… (Of course, I AM the pickiest eater on the face of the planet… :))

So mom and dad returned last night, and they brought me a few books from my grandfather’s house – a couple of nice hard-cover copies of Jane Eyre (one of my all-time favorite books) and Wuthering Heights (a book I keep meaning to read but haven’t yet) that were published in 1943, and a 1913 copy of Little Men. I actually already have a copy of Little Women that my Aunt Carol gave me a long time ago – it belonged to my grandmother first, and she signed her name on the inside cover. So then Aunt Carol signed her name underneath, and when she gave it to me, I signed mine, too. (It is now officially a book that must always be kept in the family… it can never be sold at a garage sale… that would be too sad…)

They also brought me an old (but nicely taken care of) German New Testament Bible that was published in Berlin in 1903. It’s written in an “old style” German type, where the lowercase s’s within words look like f’s (if the S is at the end of a word, it still looks like an S... we wouldn't want it to be too confusing, would we?), and the uppercase S’s look like G’s. So, while the first verse says, “Dies ist das Buch von der Geburt Jesu Christi, der da ist ein Sohn Davids, des Sohns Abrahams,” it LOOKS more like, “Dies ift das Buch von der Geburt Jefu Chrifti, der da ift ein Gohn Davids, des Gohns Ubrahams.” (Yeah, I just noticed the capital A’s sort of look like U’s…) You know, it’s a little weird when a Bible keeps talking about “Jefus.” It’s a strange type… takes some getting used to…

Along with the Bible, mom and dad found something called a “Christliches Vergissmeinnicht” – which, literally translated, would mean, “Christian forget-me-not.” It’s like a little devotional book with a different Bible verse printed for every day of the year. Someone wrote inside the front cover, “presented by the superintendent of Smithfield Sunday School, Rev. Fr. Ruoff, 1903.” It’s also printed in the old German type – I guess they really liked that back in 1903… Actually, it’s funny how even handwriting was more intricate and precise years and years ago. I can barely read my OWN writing half the time, but when I look at this inscription in the cover of the little German book, it looks like every letter is perfectly formed – it would’ve taken me a half hour to write something that neatly.

Well, thank goodness all this blog stuff is done with a keyboard…