Making Daisy Chains

If you are reading this and you don't know that I am a Christian, welcome to my blog, you must be new here. Please stay and keep reading. I promise not to figure out the IP addresses of everyone who visits my site so I can track you down and ask if you know the Four Spiritual Laws. You are safe to lurk here. I have no idea what an IP address is or how to use one to track anyone. My lack of technological skills is pretty much your guarantee of anonymity.

The reason that I say this is that if you know me, either through personal contact or online (actually, especially online), you know that I am not one of those nice Christians. You know - the ones who say things like, "Well, being a Christian has been good for me, but I don't want to offend anyone by mentioning my beliefs in public. Whatever you believe is cool for you."

Nice Christians are tolerant people. They have found the narrow road: the one that leads to life. Eternal life. Abundant life. The most amazing life you can have one this side of Heaven. But they walk it quietly, or sit in the lovely meadow beside the path, making daisy chains so they don't disturb the people walking on the broad road. You know: the one that leads to death.

People who are on the road to death don't know and/or care that they are on the road to death. Most of them don't believe that there is a road that leads to death. If you tell them, they will be offended, and they probably won't like you anymore. They will say nasty things to you, using language that they hope will offend you so that you will shut up and go away.They might tell you that you are not acting like Jesus would act. Jesus was nice to people. He hung around with sinners, He was tolerant. In fact, the only people He said nasty things to were the religious people, like the Pharisees. He was really rude to them - like calling them a "brood of vipers". They took offense at that sort of thing. They shut Him up by nailing Him to a cross.

Some people think that the point of this story is that Jesus was tolerant of the sinners, but didn't think much of the religious people. That is so not the point of the story. That is like, half of the first line of the story.

Yes, Jesus loved the sinners, and they were the ones who hung around Him.The tax collectors, prostitutes, and other assorted sinners who followed Jesus believed that  He was the Messiah. They could tell by His words that He spoke as someone with authority. He spoke of the Kingdom of Heaven as if He was the king. When they asked Jesus what they must do to be part of His kingdom, He told them to repented of their sin and they would be forgiven. He set them free from the lifestyles that had enslaved them.

The "religious" people who were offended by His message did not believe that He was the Messiah. They did not repent of their sins. They would not admit, even to themselves that they were sinners or that they had any sin in their lives.

That is the difference between Christians and the other sinners. You see, we know that we are all sinners. The difference is not our good behaviour. Christ didn't give us a list of stuff we needed to do before we could be good enough to follow Him. We followed Him first, The changes in our behaviour came as the result of hanging around with Jesus. The more we let Him into our lives, the more He can work on cleaning up our lives.

Jesus said:

"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." ( Matthew 7:13-14,)

  The last words that Jesus said before He ascended before their eyes back into Heaven were:

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,  and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Mt 28:18 - 20)

 We call this the "Great Commission" and it is in obedience to Christ that we cannot be "nice Christians" and just ignore the rest of the world walking along on the road to destruction.

Picture this: a group of Christians has found the narrow path, plunked themselves down on the grass beside the path, and they are busy making daisy chains. A new Christian walks by. From his vantage point on the path, he sees the people on the wide, smoothly paved road as they blindly walk right off the end of that broad path and into the "pit". He turns to the Christians in horror, and asks, "What the hell are you doing? Don't you see those people, walking to their doom?"

The other Christians tell the newbie,"Oh they don't listen to us. They think we are delusional. Besides, maybe that road is fine. Maybe you are wrong about what happens to them at the end. Sit down, brother. Make a daisy chain."

"Why would I make a daisy chain? How is that gonna help those people?"

"We don't really know. Maybe they will see the pretty flowers in our hair and want to join us."

What do you think? If you were that new Christian, would you try to warn those people?

(All Scripture quoted from the New International Version,
 copyright 1973, 1978 by the International Bible Society.)

       

                                                                 

Photo credit: https://morguefile.com/creative/kszchopstix/1/all

And the scientists said "Let there be life!..."

This is an article that I wrote and posted on Triond in 2011.

And the Scientists said:  “Let there be life...”

    
              ...And ten years, twenty scientists, and $40 million later, there was life! Not a whole lot of life, just one cell, and not exactly created from ‘scratch,’ but, still, a major scientific breakthrough. Enough of those and maybe someday science will catch up with theology...

     In May of 2010, Dr. Craig Venter and his team at the J. Craig Venter Institute, UCSD, announced that they had created the first synthetic self-replicating bacterial cell. It was a unique life form with 1.08 million chemical base pairs (human DNA has about 3 billion base pairs). But it was alive, and according to the report published it replicated over a billion times, producing copies that contained the new synthetic DNA.
  

     Evolutionists celebrated this announcement as proof positive of the primordial soup theory – that the first life forms developed out of inorganic chemicals present in the gases that formed the earth’s atmosphere after the Big Bang. These chemicals were attracted to each other in totally random sequences, until finally the perfect sequence came together to form a DNA molecule that was self-replicating. If 20 scientists working under ideal conditions only took about ten years to design a self-replicating cell, then surely it could happen in the wild, given enough time. No more need to rely on some intelligent designer or God.

     But Venter and team did not actually make their artificial life form from scratch. The “synthetic” chemicals they used came from...where? The Big Bang may have initiated the expansion of matter across the universe, but where did the matter come from?

     Plus simple single- celled organisms are not actually all that simple. A single molecule of DNA, removed from a cell and stretched out can be about six feet long (Lee Strobel, The Case for a Creator). Even a bacterial cell with “only” a million or so chemical base pairs is complex. Venter’s researchers came up with a unique DNA sequence, but only after spending more than ten years and $40 million dollars studying the ones that God made first.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fs5wGFbkb40&list=PLE1DB0B76B6618934&index=10&feature=plpp_video

     And Venter and his team still have not been able to replicate a functional cell membrane to contain their uniquely designed genome (that’s all of the stuff that is inside a cell). Cell membranes have turned out to be a lot more complex than scientists thought they were. The wall of a cell is not just a bit of tissue holding the innards together. It has to be selectively permeable, which means that it takes nourishment in and lets waste material out. So for now, the scientists had to scoop out the innards of some existing bacteria cells, and replace the genome with their synthesized DNA constructed from chemicals in the laboratory.

      If well-educated human scientists with the cumulative scientific knowledge of hundreds or thousands of years of studying the universe and the life it contains still cannot explain or replicate the membrane of the first single celled organism that they claim initiated the whole process of evolution that resulted in the unique DNA of every single life form that has ever existed on this planet – how could that happen by random chance? Too see actual numbers of the possibilities, see this site:

Primordial Soup Theory

http://leiwenwu.tripod.com/primordials.htm

     My intention in writing this rant is not to denigrate the scientists who have spent their lives studying DNA and the human genome and the wonders of the universe. I am just saying that the more we learn, the more we realize how much more there is to learn. 

     My intention is to point to the designer of these wonders. He not only created this ginormous universe to put us in, he gave us an innate curiosity about this creation, and he gave a few people in each generation a bit of extra gray matter to expand the collective knowledge about the universe.

     So while I applaud the accomplishment of Dr. Craig Venter and his team, and I acknowledge that this is a giant leap forward for science, in my opinion they have not created life.


My sources:

http://www.jcvi.org/cms/research/projects/first-self-replicating-synthetic-bacterial-cell/overview/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/may/20/craig-venter-synthetic-life-form/

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/05/scientists-create-first-self-replicating-synthetic-life/

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/01/from-artificial/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_(biology)

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/01/synthetic_genome

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10132762

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/5407180/us_scientists_create_artificial_life.html?cat=15

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fs5wGFbkb40&list=PLE1DB0B76B6618934&index=10&feature=plpp_video

New definition: Purse Vomit

            Purse Vomit: [noun]: 

                1. the contents of a purse that needs to be washed 

                         because your cat knocked over your water glass .

                2. the matter ejected from your purse onto your bed 

                           while you wash your purse.

  

 

Hope my purse dries before bedtime! 

(Yes, that is a cat in the background, and no, she wasn't in my purse.)

(The purple yarn thing is a sweater I am crocheting.)

Not A Mused!

I'm sorry. Your regularly scheduled joke cannot be funny tonight. My muse called in sick. She says she broke her funny bone. I laughed. Never laugh at a muse with a broken funny bone. Now she says she is taking permanent leave of my senses.

The Torrid Tale of my Ingrown Toenails

Oh, the horrors to Behold!

A gruesome tale; best left untold!

The savage Beast that Gnaws its Prey

Whilst still Alive - then casts away!

The Brute will hunt again, I fear -

It loves to Munch my Toesies dear!

My poor toesies! The Ingrown Toenail Monster has developed a taste for my tender tootsies. It gnaws away at them, then leaves them alone long enough to grow some nice skin and nail, but then like a burglar who breaks in and steals a bunch of old crap that you didn't like anyway; but them he comes back after your insurance has replaced your stolen old crap with brand new stuff and this time he steals your new stuff; the Ingrown Toenail Monster comes back to gnaw its way back into your tender new toe flesh to send you back to the doctor to rip it out again!

Am I being just a bit overdramatic here? I am, after all, a professional hypochondriac with some real health issues and legitimate complaints -- and then I go and spoil your sympathies for poor little ole me by whining about an ingrown toenail?

But it hurts! Fortunately, due to my technical inadequacies, I am unable to transfer pictures from my phone to my computer, so I will have to spare you the gory colour photos of my latest "permanent" solution to the problem of ingrown toenails: the -Vandenbos procedure. I am going to attempt to give you a link to a YouTube video of a whole gory close up of an actual surgery just like the one that I had done:




Lovely, isn't it!?! Now my toesies will be rosies -- as soon as the second infection goes away.

Truth in Advertising

A TV commercial for an Over 50's dating site has fine print at the bottom of the screen:

               "Must be over 18 to join." 

     -Ya think?  True!




And what about all of these new mascara products on the market? They advertise how thick and long your luscious lashes will be if you use their latest innovations in the highly competitive cosmetic industry, but have you ever noticed the small print under the picture of the gorgeous model:

               "Model is wearing eyelash extensions"

       -So ... unless you have an extra three or four hundred dollars a month to spend on lash extensions, there is no way that your lashes will look like hers, no matter how much mascara you put on. False!

Techno-Challenged Mom Rant

I am a little late sharing this think that I thunk about the iphone 7.  This most recent permutation of phones that are way smarter than most of their owners was launched September 16, 2016.

That was a whole week ago!

In a market that thrives on the principles of planned obsolescence, a week is like a lifetime.By the time I get the packaging off a new gadget or gizmo, the next generation is already on the market.

So ... the main innovation of the iphone 7 is water resistance. That is a good thing. My flip phone died a tragic death in a pocket of my jeans. It didn't survive the rinse cycle. But I would not have flopped my flip phone when it was still functioning just to get a phone that is water resistant. I had this old fashioned notion that a phone was for making phone calls, and if it does that successfully then why do I need a new one? I've just finally figured out how to use this one.

My mother taught me that you don't buy something new when the old one doesn't need to be replaced yet. I tried to pass this value on to my kids. When we did buy them new stuff, I would strongly encourage them to try to sell their old stuff on our next garage sale. Despite their frustration at selling the 'old' for far less than what they cost (if they could sell them at all), they never seemed to catch on to the idea that if something old still works, they don't need the new. It's like buying a new car and driving it off the lot - the new depreciates as soon as you pay for it.

But for the kids, a phone is not just a phone anymore. It's the internet connection, GPS unit, TV remote, and Pokemon finder, with apps for doing everything anyone could ever think of getting a phone to do. I have read some reports complaining that the new iphone 7 is lacking a headphone jack. Apparently word from Apple is that there wasn't space for the port.

I am thinking that one of these days, smart phones will have to leave off other familiar functions in order to prioritize space for new ones. Like maybe in a couple more generations your phone will be able to save your life with an onboard defibrillator. You just won't be able to call 911; there wasn't room for an app to make phone calls.

Meanwhile Over in Canada -- Our Freedoms are Killing Us!

       They say that you can't legislate morality. Passing laws against pornography or prostitution, or gambling will not prevent the behaviour. People will just find a way to get around the law.  You can't make people stop drinking, smoking, or doing drugs. There is no way that you can try to stop people from having sex outside of marriage, or from getting a divorce or an abortion. You especially can't even suggest that homosexuality might be even considered to be immoral. Any government that puts limits on any of these behaviours is repressive, backward, ignorant, tyrannical, and just plain bad. 

      A progressive society, then, is one in which moral issues are deregulated, and any laws that have been attempting to legislate morality are revoked. 

      We as a society in general are still okay with having laws to protect children, animals, and the environment. We hate pedophiles, rapists, and people who hurt animals or children. 

       Not that there is anything wrong with having laws to prohibit or limit behaviours that hurt people (especially children), or animals or the environment. For example, in Canada, you can smoke all you want, if you can afford all the hidden taxes; but recently our government passed laws to no longer allow smoking inside many restaurants and even bars in some jurisdictions. It is no longer legal to smoke inside a car if children are present, and stores are not allowed to sell cigarettes to minors. 

      Smokers are not complaining quite as much anymore about having to butt out in public places. My dad used to say that he paid taxes on the air so he should be able to smoke wherever he wanted. But after my mom died from lung cancer, he no longer smoked in the house, and he even quit for the first time since he was a teenager. When he started up again, he still went outside or in the garage to smoke. My dad was a stubborn man, so for him to stop such an embedded habit even for a couple of months, and to change his attitude about his right to smoke wherever he pleased is a sign that anyone could do the same. So it is possible for new laws to limit harmful behaviours such as smoking.

       There are other behaviours that are also harmful to children and families but are still legal.. It is incredibly difficult to change laws that people view as freedoms and/or entitlements. In Canada, it took several generations of teaching school children about the damaging effects of smoking and regular exposure to second-hand smoke, especially in the undeveloped lungs of children, before it became socially acceptable to ask people not to smoke in front of their children. Once it was socially acceptable to ask people to butt out or go outside, then it was possible to make laws against smoking in public buildings. 

      Pregnant women who want their babies have been butting out and requesting those around her to not smoke in her presence for decades now, but this cannot become a legal requirement in a country in which the preborn are not granted any human rights. There is no legal precedence to require a pregnant woman to quit smoking, drinking, doing drugs, or having risky sexual relations while she is pregnant. There have been many advertising campaigns to educate  the public about the risks of fetal alcohol syndrome, a birth defect that could significantly and permanently impact a child's health and brain functions, but in a society with no abortion laws at all, we cannot pass a law to require a pregnant woman to seek treatment for her addictions. Even if she has had previous children removed from her care by Child and Family Services, they have to wait until this baby is born before any intervention can be taken to protect him/her from the dangers of life in a uterus. A mother's freedom to choose death for a child ends the moment he/she emerges from the womb. One second it's an abortion, the next second it is murder. 

           

        Canada is one of the best countries in the world to live in. We have much freedom here. We have rights and privileges that I am extremely grateful for. Freedom of speech, for example. We have made progress in so many beneficial ways. But morality only flows in one direction, and that is a downward spiral. Once a freedom is granted, it is very difficult to repeal. But just because something is legal, that doesn't mean it is safe. Almost every liberty has two extremes: lawlessness, and legalism. If you have read this far and disagree with me, please leave a comment. You can leave a comment if you agree with me, too, but that goes without saying, literally. The people who agree with me don't need a special invitation to leave a comment. 

    

Confessions of a Procrastinator:

Advice that has served me well through the years: The sooner you get behind, the more time you will have to catch up! 

Random Thought for the Day

 ...any place that flattery might get you is no place that you have any business being.

Have You Ever Wondered . . .

Have you ever wondered why you never see mouse flavoured cat food? Why is it that only the meats consumed by humans are used to make pet food?

And have your ever wondered why cat fur is not used to make fur coats? Would cat fur coats shed?

I remember reading a story about how to start a cat farm. The author suggested that cat fur would make soft lovely coats. Hey - Disney has made a fortune from a story about a cruel fashion icon who wanted to make coats out of puppy fur, Anyway: the author of the cat farm story surmised that to feed his cats, he would start a rat farm next door. Since rats reproduce faster than cats, there should be no problem keeping the cats well fed. But what would he feed the rats? Rats are carnivores, so they could eat the carcasses of the cats after they are skinned.So he would feed the rats to the cats, and the cats to the rats, and get the cat skins for nothing.

Have you ever wondered why people started saying, "There's more than one way to skin a cat,"? I have wondered that. I love my cats. They have very soft, silky hair. I don't know of any ways to skin cats.

No cats or rats were harmed in the writing of this blog post.

My Goal for Today:

Today, I plan to start setting some goals for my days. 

Whew! Glad I've got that much accomplished today! Now for a nap.

Thought for Today -- Forgive Someone Who Doesn't Deserve It!

Can you forgive someone who doesn't deserve to be forgiven? If you think about it, those are the only people that you do need to forgive.

If someone deserves to be forgiven, seems to me that you have decided he or she didn't cause you harm or offense after all. So if they haven't offended or harmed you, they didn't deserve your forgiveness. Maybe you misunderstood their intent, or perhaps there were mitigating circumstances that you were not aware of. When you discover these circumstances, and you see the whole picture, you forgive them.

But do they really deserve to be forgiven if they didn't actually harm you? No. If there was nothing to forgive, then you didn't actually forgive them.

So how about those people who don't deserve to be forgiven? The ones who knowingly hurt you, or out-rightly offended you? Does your refusal to forgive cause them harm? Will they suffer in the silence if you never speak to them again?

Probably not. If it was someone who deeply cared for you, they might be hurt by your absence from their life. If the offense and the division breaks up a family, or a marriage, it might serve them right. But will it serve you right?

Will you be better off  without that person in your life? Will a divorce, a broken relationship, or cutting someone out of your will make your life better? Perhaps.

But what will you get out of the deal? Smug satisfaction? Freedom? Will you be better off? Or just bitter?

You Know You Need a New Appliance When:

Unfortunately, these examples are all from person experience. How about you -- any stories about the signs of impending appliance demise? Leave a comment.  It gets lonely in my blogspot when the comment section is empty.

• You know you need a new washing machine when the noises it makes cause you to look outside to see which way the ambulance is coming from, and you realize that it  is just the spin cycle
• .
• You know you need a new dryer when your clothes get scorch marks and you burn your hand on a metal button!
• 
  
• You know you need a new fridge when the lettuce is frozen and the ice cream is melting.
• 
  
• You know you need a dishwasher when yours grow up and move away!

Ever Notice ...?

I've been noticing a general shift in ages. It used to be just old people who had 50th birthday parties -- but now lately my friends who are my age are having them ...

What's up with that?

And I hate to break it to some of my oldest and dearest friends, but those gremlins that have been going crazy stuff at my house -- the Closet Gremlin one who comes in and shrinks my clothes; along with her sister the Mirror Gremlin who invades my mirrors and replaces my reflection with this fat old lady with grey roots -- well don't look now, but I think they have been to your house, too!

How to clean up clutter:

Follow these simple steps:

1. Pick up something that is out of place.
2. Decide where it goes.
3. Put it there.
4. Pick up another thing that is out of place.
5. Repeat steps 2 - 4 until room is clean. Resist urge to get distracted.

Don't You Just Hate It When . . .

. . .  when you mistake Orajel for lip balm? I just hate it when I do stuff like that! My lips were totally numb for a couple of hours!

        

Ever Wonder If . . .?

Did You Ever Wonder If:

    ... the song "Scarborough Fair" is a recipe for roast chicken? I find myself humming that song while I am in the kitchen preparing chicken. I don't use Rosemary. I think it looks like pine needles, so I have never bought it. I do use Parsley, Sage, and Thyme.

     I usually add some chicken bouillon powder too, but that just doesn't work in the song - too many syllables; plus it is anachronistic. I suppose I could replace the word 'Rosemary' with "Small Bay Leaf". It fits the lyric; it was a spice that could have been used in nineteenth century England when the modern version of "Scarborough Fair" became popular; and it is something that I use for chicken.

   So my roast chicken recipe version of this ballad would be:

            Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
            Parsley, Sage, Small Bay Leaf, and Thyme?

   I think it could work.What do you think? It's okay -- you can put Rosemary on your chicken if you prefer the traditional version.

Mixed Marriage: Book Wise and Street Smarts

My husband would be the first to agree that I have a higher IQ than he does. But what does a high IQ matter in the real world - especially when reality dictates that we live in the real world? A high IQ means one thing: that one is skilled in the art of taking IQ tests. In school, I got higher grades. Probably could have been higher if I had put a bit more effort and a whole lot more time into studying, but that ship left the dock quite awhile ago.The captain of the Titanic probably had a high IQ. If Hubby had been driving, that ship would still be in the business of ferrying people across The Pond and skillfully navigating around the icebergs.

I would be the first to admit that I would be lost without Hubby. Literally. I would still be driving around in circles, trying to figure out how to get from Crescent Road to Radisson Avenue.What does it matter that I scored in the 99th percentile of the Canadian Tests of Basic Skills every year in elementary school if I get lost crossing the street?

Before we were married, he told me how lucky he felt that I agreed to marry him. A would-be teacher and a truck driver -- woulda thunk it? My room mate from university married a  pastor with a PhD from Cambridge. He has been a professor at several universities, written a dozen text books and is on the international team that studies the Dead Sea Scrolls.  She has moved with him across the Pond and back several times. Good thing she didn't have to count on him to navigate the plane. They would still be circling New Zealand, and he wouldn't have noticed until they saw penguins that they weren't over the Atlantic anymore. My Hubby hasn't even read the book that I wrote, but at least he never steers me wrong. He has Street Smarts. I still haven't figured out how to get to Sesame Street.

What Have I Accomplished Today?

Note that I did not ask "What Have I Done Today?" For me, those two lists often have no correlation. Although technically, my occupation as a Professional Hypochondriac does not hold me accountable to actually accomplish anything in a day, I do seem to find a lot of things to occupy my time. At the end of each day, I am exhausted; but when I think of what I have done all day, I realized that I have accomplished relatively little.

If anyone is reading this, and you are unfamiliar with my description of my occupation as a Professional Hypochondriac, your unfamiliarity is probably due to the fact that I have not published that book yet. And I won't be able to publish it until I finish writing it. Aye, there's the rub.

Speaking of Shakespeare, or to be more accurate, writing of him -- quoting him actually: I don't know what the "rub" is, or why that phrase is a saying that has meaning to you, my dear reader, if you are in fact reading this. (If you are not reading this, that means I am only talking to myself, in which case you may be doubting my sanity. I have no doubts about my sanity -- I lost it years ago.)

What was I writing about when I so rudely interrupted myself? Oh yes, the rub. I won't be able to publish my book until I have finished writing it. Why is it so difficult for me to finish doing anything? Laziness, lack of focus, lack of accountability, the lack of water in my glass. . .

I could go on and on, and I generally do; but every once in a while I really should finish something and post it. The End.

A Writer by Any Other Name . . .?

. . . would be someone else. But who knew that there were so many other writers who share my name?

Have you ever made fun of someone's last name, and then later said 'yes' when he asked you to marry him? Don't you just hate it when that happens? 

Well, I had that exact thing happen to me! Yes, I confess to everyone reading this (all 2 of you) that I made fun of Derek's name when I first met him. About a year later, he asked me out on a date.  I said 'no' the first few times he asked. 

I remember talking it over with my room mate. She helped me list the pros and cons of dating this guy. (Hi Kim, if you are reading this! Kim reads my stuff. I'm not sure who the other person is who reads what I write. I know it isn't Derek.) Anyway, one of the items on the 'cons' list was his last name. What if I agreed to go out with him, and we hit it off, and what if he would ask me to marry him? Yes, I was that shallow. In my defense, though, I was going to university to get my bachelor of education, not any other bachelor. I was planning to be a teacher, and I didn't think I could be a teacher with the name Mrs. Gross. 

Well, short story made long, I did eventually say 'yes' to both going out with him, and later, to marrying him. And I was a teacher with the name 'Mrs. Gross.' The students were very gracious to me (or maybe terrified of me) and never made fun of my name, at least, not while I was in the room. One mother, when introducing me to her 10 year old son before the first day of school said something like, "This is your new teacher, Mrs.Gross. That's a funny name isn't it? But we are not going to make fun of it, are we?"

The random part of this think so far is that I have just written the back story of my topic for today's rant. I tend not to stick too closely to my topics. Keeps people on their toes, so to speak.

What I was intending to write about today is an explanation of why I am now using my full name, Karen Lucille Gross. It is because, now that I am a published author, with dozens of people Googling my name and all, I need to distinguish myself from all of the other famous women named "Karen Gross." I am surprised at how many there are. I would not want to take the credit for their accomplishments and I am sure that the feeling is mutual. 

There is a Karen Gross who is a cabaret singer from Philadelphia. Her hit single is called "Sex and the Single Singer." That's not me.

Then there is Karen Gross the educational consultant and former president of Southern Vermont College. That isn't me either.

Karen E. Gross is an attorney at law who specializes in  24-hour jail releases and legal emergencies. That is so not me!

One bio of a Karen Gross that I wouldn't mind getting confused with is an Associate Professor of English at Lewis & Clark with a specialty in Medieval England and Italy. Apparently she is currently  working on a project involving illustrated Apocalypse manuscripts. That sounds like a better educated and ambitious Karen Gross than I am. Her profile picture is very pretty. But alas, that one is not me either.

Other Karen Gross's that are not me include a Conference Interpreter at the European Parliament, a State Farm Insurance agent in California, and a Century 21 real estate agent in Kentucky.

Half way down Google's page 2 is the Triond profile of a writer named Karen Gross. That is me! I wrote and posted more than 600 articles at Triond, but the site is not well maintained, and most of the links don't work anymore.

There are a couple of my blog entries listed, but no links at all about my one published book, a novel called "Sacrificed to Vanity." Even an Amazon search would confuse the average person looking for me, as there are two other authors listed there named Karen Gross! One wrote a book called "Failure and Forgiveness" which sounds a bit like something I would write, until you see that the subtitle is "Rebalancing the Bankruptcy System" (Yale  Contemporary Law series). Yeah, no. I didn't write that. The other is a Karen M. Gross who writes horror and vampire books. 

So, as is my wont, I have given you an 800 word essay to answer the question that no one is asking. But for the 2 of you who read my blog entries, you can find me on Google and Amazon or wherever  you buy books online if you search for Karen Lucille Gross.

Who knew my name was so popular?