Holli Rausch

So Miles and I have been doing a kind of devotional time this summer. We looked for a couple things online, but finding nothing all that great, we decided to read the daily Mass readings and talk about what we read. Sometimes a big discussion gets started, sometimes it doesn’t. But it’s still cool.

As we were talking on the phone last night, I was looking ahead and saw that on Saturday the First Reading comes from the book of Wisdom. THE BOOK OF WISDOM?! I have never heard of such a book. I said something to Miles and he matter-of-factly said, “The book of Wisdom, yeah.” WHAT?! “I have never heard of the book of Wisdom. What Bible do you use?” “The New American Bible.” Sounds regular…like New International Version or King James Version. After a bickering of sorts, he made me get out my Bible and tell him the order in it. I knew that it wasn’t in there…what did I need to prove? “Song of Songs, Isaiah”. “Song Book of Songs, Wisdom, Sirach, Isaiah”. WHAT?! This was getting a bit extreme.

After some research, The New American Bible actually is a Bible used by Catholics. Not just a different version of the Bible like what I use. We went through the indexes of our Bibles and found that there are 7 extra books. They’re all in the Old Testament. Tobit, Judith, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach, and Baruch. I’ve always been taught that 1) there are 66 books in the Bible and 2) there are two books by women (Esther and Ruth). This teaching is probably due to the fact that I am not a Catholic.

Currently reading: Angels and Demons by Dan Brown; The Book of Galatians

In my Composition II class discussion with Dr. Blessinger, he brought up a good point. We often look at pictures and our minds fill in how the characters in the photos interact, or how the story went. We will see pictures of ourself as a child and will think, “I remember that”, when in all actuality you remember what you may have been told about it or what your mind has made up to fill in the blanks. This post is based on the events of what I think happened, prior to this picture.

On the date this picture was snapped, I was around the age of three or four. Marissa would not have been born yet. We had a dog, his name was Felix (in honor of Dad’s college nickname, which is still only used by two people, who we see maybe once a year.) Yet, Adam and I often wanted a dog. We seemed to not notice Felix, ever. I think it was because Felix wasn’t much of a family dog, the kids never played with him. And as a youngster, I was afraid of dogs. Go figure. Still, I whined to Mom about wanting to take a dog for a walk. Being as creative, and deceiving as she was, she gave me Willis.

Oh the fond memories I have of Willis and I taking long walks around the neighborhood, rolling in mud, playing fetch. Typical things kids do with dogs. I finally felt like I had achieved what I was looking for: a loyal pal to be with me to the very end.

The memories grow dim here. Somewhere along the lines, Willis and I were separated. We haven’t seen each other since this snapshot. I see a faint resemblance of ketchup and pickle relish, and the smell of charcoal has always made me feel deathly ill. I wonder where Willis is now…

No, I’m not talking about the Dominican, former Cubs’ right-fielder. Sammy Sosa, my friends, is a beagle, our family dog. We bought him from a veterinarian who breeds his beagles, when I was in 3rd grade. He was just a little puppy, probably not even 2 months old. He was adorable, and my parents chose him because he came up to my dad and untied his shoes. On the drive home, we thought of names, and since my family’s baseball team is the Cubs, it was decided on Sammy Sosa. We call him Sam.

Sam was a good puppy. He loved us, we loved him, he was scared of his reflection in the dishwasher, he climbed on my mom’s shoulder like a bird would. He was fun to take care of. Our first sign of trouble was probably within a year or two of having him. Sam was a hunting beagle (we don’t hunt) so he is very large for any beagles most of you have seen, and he has an instinct to kill. ( ! ) Adam let Sam out to do his business, and when I saw Adam next, he was the saddest I had ever seen him. Apparently when Sam was let out, he caught sight of some baby rabbits running away and took off after them. And committed homocide. That was about 8 years ago. Ever since that incident, we’ve always been careful when we let him outside so that something like that wouldn’t happen again. He’d chase the occasional bird, but nothing as horrific occurred. He eventually kept getting fatter and smellier. Sometimes so smelly that I can’t stand to be in the same room with him. I often tell him how smelly he is. And he sheds, so his hair is everywhere.

Jump ahead with me to Spring of 2005. I receive an email from my parents that said Sam had been hit by a car. Turns out, Sam was let outside to do his business and found something to chase. He followed it across the road and didn’t check both ways. Left, right, left. Walk. BAM! Cop car. Sam broke his leg, and didn’t get his prey. He had to walk with a cast on for what seemed like forever. I made fun of him in my head, because he smells. But it was a sad sight. He still has a problem with walking on that leg.

Jump ahead with me to January of 2006. I had just returned from a nice vacation with friends in Florida. I planned to sleep in until 10:00. I hear Mom’s voice at 7:12. She’s outside my window yelling, “Sam! SAAAMM!” Knock it off. “SAAAMMMM! Get over here, right now!” Stop it, please. “SAM!” Eventually I hear the jingle of his collar and he’s inside the house. I also hear muffled voices that sound similar to, “Bad dog! You’re a bad dog.” Smells too. I couldn’t sleep past 8:30. Now, the same day mind you, I’m in bed near 11:00 PM. I can’t sleep because I had a lot on my mind and couldn’t shut it off. Near midnight, I must have been starting to doze off because I wake up to the sound of Adam’s voice outside my window. “GET OVER HERE!” Not again. “SAM! *clap clap*” Is he applauding Sam? Can’t be. “Sam! Get over here, right NOW! …*clap*” I just want to fall asleep. “*jingle jingle jingle* Here I am, Adam. I thought we were playing hide and go seek and you were just trying to make me give up! Sorry about the confusion.” Finally, sleep. I’m not talking to Sam this morning, he gets the cold shoulder from me.

On the up side, I will be gone from Sam until Saturday. I leave this afternoon to visit Miles in Madison. It will be great to see him again, and I’m sure we’ll have a fun time. We will visit Holly and Bob sometime tonight. I will be at Miles’ until tomorrow morning, where I will head to Brookings for an interview with the Daktronics’ Sports Marketing department. Then from there, I will be going to Spirit Lake for a camp staff reunion. It should be a great weekend. I’m sure I’ll have some things to blog about when I return.

OK, bye bye!

Saturday
We left the house at 5:45 AM to make our way to a river off the Gulf of Mexico and swim with sea manatees. When we arrived, it seemed we might not be able to do it because we didn’t have a reservation made in advance, but two groups cancelled and so that freed up space on a boat for the six of us. We had 5 minutes to get our gear and put on our wet suits. That was an adventure in itself! The girls decided not to squeeze in the bathroom and put them on, but just quickly do it in the main entrance. We all were given mediums. Well…our bottoms and our tops aren’t necessarily the same size. We were squeezed in pretty good. I think they just wanted to see us struggling to pull the things on ourselves. Anyway, we make it on the boat along with boy scouts from Tennessee and head to a little bay area off Crystal River.

We lower ourselves into the water with our scuba masks and flippers and start swimming to the area where manatees lounge. It took a while for us to see our first manatee. I have to admit, I was a little nervous to see my first one right next to me…but not as nervous as I thought I would be. We petted them and looked at them. They aren’t the most gorgeous creatures in the world. But our captain described them as dogs wrapped in a giant baked potato. They were much friendlier than most dogs I’ve run across. We saw close to 20 different sea cows, along with some other varieties of animals. I wish we would have run across some colorful fish, but we weren’t in the colorful fish area, I guess. We were in the hour for an hour and a half and then headed back to the boat. It was a great experience and we took pictures with an underwater disposable camera. I considered opting out, but thanks to Miles’ convincing, I did it. I thought they’d be bringing us to deep waters in the ocean. Shows how stupid I am.

We relaxed all afternoon and evening. We had a Cinderellabration, just like in Disney World. Ours was better. Heather, Jackie, and Bryan slept almost up until the ball dropped in New York. I worked on pictures we had taken to make them look prettier and such. I called Miles when it hit midnight in Orlando and he called me when it hit midnight in the Midwest. I was already sleeping at that point. Then we got some sleep for our last day in Orlando.

Sunday
We headed to Universal Studios’ Islands of Adventure for some fun in the sun. We got there before the park opened, so we beat the crowd. Apparently New Year’s Day morning is the least busy time, so we rode 7 rides before noon rolled around. Rides ridden today include: Dueling Dragons roller coaster(twice), Hulk roller coaster, Spiderman, Flyin’ Unicorns (by accident), Jurassic Park River, Dr. Doom’s Fearfall, and watched the stunt show The 8th Voyage of Sinbad. Dueling Dragons and Hulk were favorites, while Jurassic Park scared the crap out of us, and Dr. Doom was a huge disappointment. A good day, all in all. We shopped for a little bit and ate a snack at the “#1 Theme Park Restaurant in the World.” Then the boys decided it would be a good idea to watch King Kong in the cinema at Universal Studios. The girls weren’t all that interested in seeing the movie in theaters mainly because it was 3 hours long, but decided to humor them and tag along. I was asleep by the end of the previews and for the first hour of the movie. I must be getting sick because I never get so tired so fast, nor do I sleep during movies. I woke up at the first appearance of King Kong and apparently didn’t miss out on any of the plot line. The last two hours of the movie were pretty decent. But I could have been just fine if it were cut down to being not so long. Some things were a bit ridiculous, but also humorous at times as well with Kong’s jealousy and what have you. Turns out, all three boys had seen the movie already; this irritated me, but am still glad to have seen it. We returned to the house and are cooking, packing, and putting Heather’s pictures on my computer. We’ll probably consume the last episode of The Office as well. We fly out tomorrow morning and brace ourselves for the weather. See you all soon!

OK, bye bye!