The Fenwick Island Sandtemple

Here's a pic of a sandcastle I made this summer at Fenwick Island, MD. If you have ever made a sandcastle you will know that the easiest form to make is a cone or pyramid; also the beach was practically covered in busted-up shells, and you know how the old saying goes: "When life hands you busted-up shells, make a not-terribly-accurate-but-kinda-cool-looking facsimile of the Mayan ruin of Kukulkan's Pyramid ("El Castillo" en Espanol--hee) in Chichen Itza!!!" Or something like that. I hadn't made a sand castle in a very long time so I really had fun playing in the sand until I realized that I hadn't put on a t-shirt over my swimsuit, and that the sun, if one is directly under it with no umbrella for like an hour or something, pretty much laughs at SPF 50 sunblock. "50 sunblock!!!" laughed the Sun. "Don't you know that anything over SPF 30 is a complete waste of money? I scoff at 50 sunblock!!! Scoff scoff scoff!!!" it scoffed. So the first moral of the story is, if you go outside in the sun at the beach without OPAQUE protection (like a suit of armor. Or a tent.) and you are as fish-belly white as I am, you might (and by might, I mean definitely will ) be a redneck. And a redback. And a redback-of-leg, etc. and all that. However, just so you don't think it all ended in tragedy, let me give you a post-it note re: above story--the day after I made the Temple of First Degree Burns, it rained all day long. All. Day. Long, my friends. So you can imagine my dismay at what I thought would be its utter destruction and I waited anxiously and with baited breath (I believe we'd had crab cakes for dinner that night) to see what would become of it. So, the day after that when out came my buddy the Sun (which, incidentally, dried up all the rain), we went back to the beach, and I went to inspect the fruit of my labor and assess the damage I assumed had been done by all the drizzle. "For shizzle ma nizzle!!!" I cried when I saw it (no I didn't but it totally rhymed with drizzle so leave me alone), and I realized that it was, through all kinds of weather, STILL STANDING. Oh happy Day!!! (did you get that? HAAAA) It was a little watered-down, natch, and some of the shell-plating had fallen off; however, it was still pretty much recognizable as my own dear sandcastle. But with a twist!!! Apparently, you see, a person of unidentified age and/or gender was walking along the beach either earlier that morning or possibly the day before and happened upon the Temple, and decided to add a little bit of his/her own flavor to it. On the very top of the pyramid there was an added bonus: a broken horseshoe (sp?) crab shell placed just-so, and in front of the pyramid the words "AZTEC REALM" had been written in finger in the sand. Okay, so I didn't actually mean for it to be an Aztec temple, but at least the Aztecs were pre-Mexican (I mean he/she could have gotten the impression that it was supposed to be an Incan, or, Heaven forbid, an Egyptian temple or something and that would have just hurt my feelings) so I knew that I had at least kinda conveyed what I meant to convey and that the intrepid (at least I guess he/she was intrepid; I mean he/she had apparently either walked through a bunch of rain or had gotten up a lot earlier than I would have on vacation) Unknown Scribbler had, more or less, "gotten" my art. So you see, not only did my temple, like the Chichen Itzan Temples of old (I just love saying Chichen Itza. Chichen Itza!!! Chichen Itza!!! Weeee!!!), stand the test of time, but it facilitated a connection between 2 strangers who may never have otherwise met. Not that we actually met, per se, but still. From there we come to the OTHER moral of the story which is: Art--of any kind, from lowly sandcastle to great big really neat looking painting by like Picasso or someone--is the great communicator, and through art we can peacefully commune with others through symbols of understanding and even if we don't speak the same language a picture is worth about a 1000 or so (that's just a rough guesstimate anyway) words and ALL WE ARE SAYING IS GIVE PEACE A CHANCE FLOWER POWER MAKE SANDCASTLES NOT WAR, MAN!!! Phew!!! So like, maybe instead of sending troops to the Middle East we can send lovely pictures of people holding hands and hugging and giving each other presents and stuff and instead of them reading Al-Jazeera subtitles to hear what we have to say (I can only imagine A-J's translations under pictures of Americans: "We are Americans!!! We are very decadent and hate everything Islam!!! We like nudity and immorality and badness!!! Also we do not like the Koran!!! And we worship money!!!) they can see pictures of us speaking to them in the international language: LOVE. Love, man. Everybody loves love!!! We can send lovely pictures of love to express our love. We could do a lot of good with our Diplomacy of Art and our Statecraft of Love, Love, Love, baby, Love!!! We could draw pictures of Uncle Sam hugging Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and sculpt busts of the Ayatollah Khomeini eating pancakes and baba ghanoush with George Washington. We could end the war on terror, not with guns, but with CRAYONS, people!!! That is, unless of course we draw a picture of us hugging Muhammed. In that case our embassies will be burned along with our flags and pictures of the Pope and thousands of angry protestors will boycott baseball and cheeseburgers and apple pie and probably blow some stuff up. Also somehow it will all be the fault of yet another evil Zionist conspiracy. (and just so we're clear, I'm not against Islam or Muslims or Arabs or anything of the sort. I'm absolutely not. I refuse to believe that 1.5 billion people are all following a religion that tells them to be terrorists. I don't know much about Islam but I do know that if that many people actually believed that stuff we'd all be wearing burkas and painting fish on our chests to identify each other. What I'm against are the "evil-Zionist-conspiracy-theorists who spread hate by the gun or the bomb for anyone who is not like them, or who exercises their right to free speech in their own country, and call it religion. In other words, terrorists!!!) But that is a subject for another post altogether. This one is about love love lovity-love!!! And it will end with a big ol' (((HUG))) across the internet, from me to you. For free, even. Oh, and if you've made it this far, I do thank you for reading this extra long post. I promise they won't all be this long. Okay I totally don't promise that because like sometimes I get on a roll and start out talking about building a sandcastle and end up talking about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (who, for all his faults and foibles, has a really cool-sounding name. So take that, America-hater!!! Love love love--in your face!!!). For your efforts, here's another picture of the Temple of Love from another angle:

Oh crap, it posted at the top. TOTALLY ruined my dramatic effect!!! Dang technological glitches that I haven't yet learned to get around!!! Have a lovely day anyway, @#$%^&* it all!!! :)

Oh yeah, disclaimer: Okay, I don't actually know if Kukulkan's Pyramid was actually a "temple", exactly, but the word "temple" just really seemed to fit the story's vibe, so before anyone goes throwing their hands in the air and waving them like they actually do care and calling "ANACHRONISM!!!" on my post, I'm calling "POSSIBLE ANACHRONISM!!!" first, because, you see, I am not being graded on this so I can take all the dang poetic license I want (and I'm not even all that sure that "anachronism" is the correct word for use here but WHATEV), and why you wanna go nitpicking anyway? I mean, I could have done the research and looked it all up but seriously, it's just a silly old blog post, not a history lesson, right? Right? Am I overreacting here? Maybe a smidgy-widgen? GAAAAAH. Forget it. Good night.

Lucky the Blog Dog

Okay!!! I figured out the picture thingie!!! Here is a pic of Lucky the BlogDog. He's a 3 year old Toy Fox Terrier who weighs about 10 pounds and is super cuddly and has adventures. Okay he does not have adventures outside of sometimes having to drink tap water if we run out of bottled Sam's Club spring water but he is a very cool little dog. He does do impressions, like the one he does of of the Tasmanian Devil when he gets excited and runs to and fro through the house until he has exhausted himself and then does his impression of a bagel, until he hears/smells/extra-sensorily perceives a cat within 3 miles of his territory (the living room) and then does his impression of an insane animal who can't stop barking until someone who just can't take it anymore grabs him and puts him in the back room until he calms down or the cat goes away. All things considered he is a great dog. So he'll be making more appearances on the Dit.

The Mind Behind DitDotDit

Hello. Just to let you know a smidgy-widge about moi, here are a few details that you may or may not know. I am a "non-traditional" (lol) student at my local community college, meaning I'm 15-16 years older than most of my classmates. Most, I said--I've met some very cool people in school. I spend most of my time reading, studying, surfing the 'nets, studying, reading, working, reading, studying, and sometimes I sleep. I'll be posting links to some of my more favorite blogs so you can see what kind of crap I'm filling my head with, er, I mean so I can share the joy with you all, if you're interested enough to click the links and find out just exactly what CuteOverload or Dlisted is all about. Also I shall most likely be posting posts regarding Lucky the BlogDog, and as soon as I fugure out how to post his pic I shall do that too. Oh, I think this button will do it: okay, maybe not. Gimme a little time to figure this out, hey? See you next time.

This is my first post. . .

. . .and I'm only doing it to make sure this thing is on. *Ahem* IS THIS THING ON???

Only because I need a pic for my profile

So here's a pic of Lucky the Blog Dog doing his impression of the definition of the word "cute". I'm using his pic because I just have this nervous twitch about posting pics of myself on the internets. Like anyone cares enough to pirate pics off my blog or like I have any money for people to try to extort from me. I guess I just value my anonymity. I'd hate to have paparazzi all over me because I posted my actual, for real pic. Lucky's used to it and has the kind of chillaxalicious personality to handle that sort of thing. Me, I'd go out and learn how to do a roundhouse kick just so I could use it on the 'razzi. Yeah right. I'm about as mean as Lucky looks in this picture.