This is my tale

 It is good that titles do not need any punctuation, because I do not know whether to title this particular musing as a statement... ended with a single period. Ha ha ha what kind of period?  One of peace, i would hope.

just quickly, I want to sneak this thought in about this particular translation, as is food for thought for any translation, as I listen to a translated audio version of the same tale I am trying to read, and I can tell, accent aside, by nuance, attitude, and word choice where the translation originated. It sort of reminds me of Henry Higgins in "My Fair Lady" telling a person's upbringing through their voice/accent. A word in particular is very apt in the way I think, I think it even situationally describes the word "Atonement" for me. In the story one guy goes to their "Lord" in hopes of makin peace between the two, or as it has been cleverly defined to me, this dude hopes to put the two at one once again, through explaining a different view point of the action that separated the two.

ok, and now, we are back to my tale. quickly reviewed in my mind several vignettes or anecdotal happenings that ought to be recorded. I suppose every person alive has such stories. My stories include my sister's affair with my foot, the time we pushed a car down he road so to use the restroom at a local gas station without waking anyone. I seriously have billions of such stories, and I suspect it is intentional. Often, at the time, I would say, "Ah! it is foolish, but think of the story we will have to tell!" And a few people have asked me if I would or they could write my stories.

This leads to my next thought (The real one that is an issue). I enjoy listening to these tales, and many many others do, too. but should they be used as biographical information? for instance, ought we deduce that all Greek men climbed into large fake horses to attack their enemies? stories last but do not necessarily represent the norm.

My sister is an extremely professional and very talented person, not at all the delusional sort nor a lover of footwear, particularly, there was a whole lot more to her than simply loving a face painted on a shoe. We all love stuffed animals or play with Barbie dolls. another sister, used perspective manipulation to make her barbie appear as her size and labeled her a BFF (Best Friend Forever). neither sister has delusional tendencies, though, at least I do not think so...Lindsay does talk to her car, but I am fairly certain she knows that it cannot respond or hear her...wait! My mom has talked at the TV before. but, see these things are not indicative of day to day life. 

I am impressed in the Icelandic sagas how intimate and familiar these farmers are with Nobility. I do not think everyone was best buddies with the king, or else where would all the men who are killed come from? or what would the king's kingdom be?

My mother is great with words. She truly ought to write a few stories down like the ones that my dad told us. to this day, I do not know if they are true or not. He claims to have heard music and saw lights fall on my mother the first time he saw her, so he jumped back behind the davenport to hide his manure covered pants (from doing his daily chores).

blah, blah, blah, I said my piece...Adieu

Volcanoes and dinosaurs don't mix

  I was listening to a very intelligent synopsis of creatures in Iceland, and one bit piqued my interest! A very wise man said that dragons were the logical conclusion of a Medieval farmer who stumbled on a beastly fossil. Ah Hah! I always loved paleontology and underwater archeology in the way they could tell a story about the past that had not entirely passed. So, I naturally looked up what sort of dinosaurs would have roamed Iceland ( thus earning a place in the sagas as well), but, to my surprise no dinosaur fossil has been found on Iceland. I was not satisfied with that answer so I sought another opinion (cause that is all the internet can give me). I found a video on YouTube of the recovery of a massive whale fossil. OFCOURSE! Iceland probably did not even exist when dinosaurs are believed to have been roaring the earth. That answer satisfied me because volcanoes and dinosaurs don't mix, and Iceland is the product of several active volcanoes.

Forgot to close this tab

 Pretty convenient that I left this tab open, cause I always have something to say. This morning, I was thinking about William McClelan from the early days of the church, and how much his stories effect my perspectives. How so? Well, I was referring to the time he had questions that he never wrote down, but asked for a revelation from Joseph Smith and every question was answered perfectly to his curious mind. It was said that most early saints were skeptically curious, and in his very own words William said that in every reasonable way, he knew that joseph truly was a prophet of God. And this morning, it reminded me of a similar time I asked a thing seriously doubting the security of popularly accepted "secure channels". I decided that if things were actually as I had been taught, no unclean thing or nefarious purpose could exist in the temple, which was a point of differentiation from the rest of the world. but, I had been warned by a well-meaning person once that I ought not trust someone just because they have a temple recommend, my own father had explained to me that it is not the stake presidency's job to determine a person's acceptability to the Lord, but be more of a mirror to the person to let them see if they find themselves worthy I used to believe they had some supernatural power to discern things, and maybe they do (I am not convinced that they do not), but a person may claim to be worthy but not be... let it be said that the reason temples are sacred (not secret) is because there are things that need to be ready for like taking a class spoken in a language that you know nothing of, a prerequisite is given of having a recommend to enter the temple. If someone entered unprepared, it would profit them nothing, and may even be a thing that condemns them, so, like dad said, the individual must determine if they are ready.

Ok, huge side-track. The point I intended to make was that I decided if I truly wanted a secure channel to Heavenly Father, then I ought to go to the temple, then I could know that my answer was true. It was answered in a way perfect for me to understand, and yet seem commonplace to everyone else. But, anyhow, this morning, I really started to think bout who I trusted and who I didn't and in particular how secure prayers are. I had not thought of that previously.

Further, William McClellan ended up leaving the church even though he KNEW with all his thinking, satisfactorily, that Joseph Smith was a prophet. It seems then he knew that the church he established was true, etc. etc.  I realized that simply knowing mentally is not enough. I have come at this conclusion many ways. It is extremely important. Knowing by intelligence is good, Knowing by emotions and feelings is good, too, but both are absolutely required.

An institute instructor shared a story about something a seminary teacher told him when my teacher walked in on his classroom preparation...The preparing seminary teacher was planning his lesson on the three types of testimony. And I understand the least what the third actually is, but I likely understand it without realizing it yet. It was referred to as a testimony of the hand. It is a way to know something is true by doing it (like the law of tithing).

Jörmungandr

 Ok, today was pretty dang fun! We went to the Lagoon amusement park in Farmington, UT. I had read on the website that they had a collection of "Little arms" and so, I joked about it with my children: I did not know where the heads or even the feet, but I tried to spread the excitement about possibly seeing a collection of arms, Mary being the smarty pants asked when I was excited about early firearms. I had to explain my joke a bit more as we entered "Pioneer Village" where we had so much fun on "Rattlesnake Rapids". It was one of those circular raft type rides that pretty much is certain to drench you...we were not let down, in fact, as we were exiting I overheard two passerby guys comment, "Did you see how drenched that lady was?" I didn't even get positioned under the waterfall! we rode several other rides to dry off. One, I told my son was the Jörmungandr , it is officially named "Colossus the Fire Dragon". 

The previous night, I had been telling my son fun little stories and he asked if I knew the one about the Jörmungandr, and I actually didn't so I looked it up, and it was fresh on my mind when I saw this crazy snaking loop to loop ride. I kept thinking about how much more sense a movie I had watched several times called "Ragnarok" made so I watched it, I tried to work on making a tablecloth, but because I do not understand much Norwegian I need to watch subtitles, or at least I did, now, I enjoy just listening. I figure I will learn more that way anyhow, which is a desire...While I was in that Norse thought loop, I thought again about my strange DNA results compared to my cousins, and sister. Mostly about the things I did not know, or knew only what paper trails told me. Anna Maria Anderson was born in Göteborg, Sweden. This was simply a fact, and I do not even recall how I determined that she was born while her parents lived in Sweden, but that they were both born in Norway, but I had figured that, end of story.... but, such a huge little thing actually has major ramifications. One website interpreted my DNA results to be largely Scandinavian, but my sister wasn't and then another one said my sister was actually Scandinavian, but I was not.. huh? ok, that's wierd, but I just got to thinking of explanations and figured it was due to a bias on the one site due to my family tree. The next hiccup was that my cousins  who were equally descended from this woman were 0% Scandinavian. This seemed very odd to me, because, as far as I knew neither had a large family tree so it could not be biased. I thought, hmm... well, I guess what we inherit is so miniscule maybe it does not actually show up. Then, another site which did not interpret what it meant, but nearly listed SNPS of matching DNA, and My cousins matched the right amount to make them first cousins, even with the strange results, so I wondered if the Scandinavian matches (a lot of them are Icelandic) are on my mother's side. So, putting the tree aside, I looked up shared ethnicities  and as I triangulated, I had far more Scandinavian matches on my father's side, but when I compared just the DNA, my closeness did not match the relationships suggested by my family tree. 

My father's mother had been adopted and so I figured the black horse was somewhere on that bloodline, and I did find a few oddities that I constantly reminded myself did not truly matter, but now, I am thinking that perhaps the real mystery is in the woman who's name and papers tell one story, but might not be true. I wouldn't know, no one could. We simply are left to believe what we read, or are we?

I have often heard people mention the significance of having multiple witnesses even a friend of mine with the last name of Anderson, told me that her husband's father's family simply adopted the name when seeking to hide. Well, could there be other cases of purposefully altered identities? Further with years passing such things are less likely to be knowable or have multiple matching witnesses, ultimately, I return to  "Colossus the Fire Dragon" or as I called it: Jörmungandr . Regardless, what a thing is called (communicated to be) it is still what it is.

it's gone

 This is one of the saddest things. The reason I write most of my blog posts is because of an amazing thought that I do not trust myself alone with so I jot it down here, and I just had probably the most brilliant of them all, but it was unrelated to anything I as doing and while I waited for this site to load, I forgot and cannot seem to "jar" the memory at all. It is like when you forget to save a perfectly written draft of a term paper and then accidentally it is erased or lost, all you have left is the memory of something great.

This is a sort of Eulogy for the missing thought. but, as much as I am saddened by the loss of the thought, I know that it happened, and is recorded in my mind somehow. as I was hoping or rather counting on working out the occurrences here as I usually do, another thought takes it's place:

That was for you.

It is true I generally publish my insights. It stems from a belief in the fact that we write to know that we are not alone, and since childhood (when I started generating thoughts worth having) I used to feel isolated, though I also sort of figured that it was for my good, I felt isolated from some great group of thinkers and creators, and these tiny little tidbits are written precisely to be recognized, and something tells me this idea is not to be shared, and so I am not being allowed to have it because I could not keep it to myself.