Delightfully Amiss: March 2016

Friday

What in the world is a green baby?

Sometimes weird questions stop us in our tracks. I saw a large paperback edition, titled “Green Baby” in a bookstore recently and had to wonder.

What is a green baby? And why would someone write a book about it?

Before shelling out a pile of greenbacks to pick up the book about green babies, I had to peek inside the volume. Was it about creepy alien offspring, children with exceptional gardening expertise, little ones displaying acute sibling rivalry, vegan parenting, or something else altogether?

Was there some sort of strange Green Baby Syndrome about which I was uninformed?

At last, my curiosity was satisfied, and my querulous quandary was set to rest. The book was apparently all about eco-friendly parenting – how to raise children in an environmentally responsible way. Perhaps not surprisingly, I found several books with similar titles and emphases. Here are a few examples:

OK, that may be helpful stuff, but why did I suddenly feel a hankering to peruse the latest releases in the science fiction department for works on Green Babies?

Images:

Adapted from public domain artwork

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Thursday

Crazy-funny friends reset our sanity clocks.

The gift of glee is priceless. Seriously, sometimes it takes a ridiculously riotous bout of laughter to stop stress in its tracks and put us back on the road to reason.

Take my friend, for example. No, you can’t have her.

This sweet lady has the ability to laugh at almost anything. And, within seconds, she has everyone else chortling right along with her.

We’re not talking polite giggles here, either.

This is the tears-streaming-down-your-face, whooping-to-alarm-the-neighbors, snort-and-spew-water-from-our-noses, feel-like-we’re-gonna-puke, everyone-else-thinks-we’ve-lost-our-minds, stop-before-we-wet-our-pants, out-of-control hilarity.

Most of the time, we laugh so hard and so long that we almost cannot remember what set us off. But it makes everything seem better, at least for now. Let the world think we've slipped off our rockers. We're actually healthier for the trip.

Did I mention that this sweet friend slugs it out daily, living with a chronic medical condition that leaves her in nearly constant pain? Sometimes we don't see her for weeks, and we miss her. But despite her discomfort, she refuses to give in to discouragement. Instead, she tosses her head back and giggles or guffaws at every opportunity.

Hey, now. Laughter is medicine. (That’s even biblical, if you look it up.)

Even though my friend feels pretty terrible most of the time, she makes it her mission to make everyone else feel better. She’s funny. She’s fun. And she’s fabulous.

Gotta love her. We all do.