A History of one small Asatru sect. Can't we all just get along?

In 1927, an Australian physics professor set up a demonstration of pitch flowing through a glass funnel. Since then, seven drops of pitch have fallen. The The Pitch Drop Experimenteighth will fall any day now.

I know a lot of brides have princess fantasies, but this is a bit over the top, no?

Bad vacation. Bad, bad vacation. 11 people. 4 generations. 1 bedroom per nuclear family. (Grandmother, 93, gets one. Parents, 70something, get another. I, my husband, and our two kids get another. My brother, his wife, and their two kids, get another.

In a beach house. Where it rained. And rained. And my brother's kids aren't allowed to watch more than 1/2 hour of TV a day, which means mine couldn't either.

Hell is other people.

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Something I said on one of my mailing lists:

"Every so often I go through the bookstore and sneer, because I am like that. Judging purely by titles, the most overused tropes (is that the word I want?) right now are SEALs, sheikhs, millionaires, and pregnancies.

"Some of the recent gems I spotted:
Navy SEAL Dad
Sheiks of Summer: The Sheik's Virgin/Sheikh of Ice/Kismet (a threefer)
and the grand champion: Millionaire Cop And Mom-To-Be. I am not making this up.

Any moment I'm going to see Baby SEAL Sheikh."

Seeing this, a friend of mine dared me to write Baby SEAL Sheikh. So I did.

Courtneigh gazed pensively at her cherubic son Stud. Even though his manhood was currently covered in baby byproduct, it bid fair to become one of the great prominences of legend. He was so like Achmed.... or Lieutenant Rock, for that matter. It was so hard to tell with babies.

She reached languidly for a diaper pin (Courtneigh was an old-fashioned girl and didn't believe in modern conveniences like Pampers, contraception or employment; indeed, she sometimes wondered about antibiotics) and stabbed herself.

"Oh, gosh-darn!" she exclaimed. Then, dimpling. "That's another quarter for the cuss box!" She raised her long graceful white hand to her eyes. A single drop of blood trembled on the tip, reminding her of the crystal tear she had shed when Achmed mounted his black stallion and galloped away without a backward look.

"But I couldn't have possibly hurt myself that badly on a diaper pin!" She glanced at the rose-decoupaged ribbon-trimmed Longaberger basket that held diaper pins, zinc ointment, and Vaseline. Courtneigh believed that single motherhood was no excuse for letting your standards down.

She gasped. "How did that get there?" For there, among the gingham, the potpourri, the ruffles, and the silk roses, nestled a golden pin. A trident.

A deep masculine voice interrupted her reverie. "I can see you weren't expecting me to return."