CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS
SIX CAMELS FOR YOUR WIFE, SIR…
“Is that your wife?” the Omen* citizen asked the West Virginian I’ll call Tom.
“Yes, she is my wife.”
“I’ll give you six camels for her.”
Tom declined the offer.

The country OMEN
Tom and Joan were on a cruise to the Mideast. Their bus passed a desert area where the women were totally covered except for the slit of their eyes and their fingertips. There was a line of camels off the roadside. The driver stopped and told the tourists they could get off the bus to have their pictures taken with the camels.
Tom further explained that a few days earlier his wife had visited an Asian beauty salon where the beautician didn’t speak English and Joan didn’t speak the Asian language. The net result was that she entered a brunette and exited a blonde, a hair color which she retained well after the cruise ended.
While Joan posed with a camel, the Omen man approached her and gently ran his fingers over her golden curls, after which he offered Tom his barter.
Later, Tom wondered if he should have bartered—perhaps the Omen man believed his wife, whom I’ll call Joan, was really worth ten to twelve camels.
He also wondered what the logistics would be had he accepted the offer. How many camels would he be allowed to keep in his cabin? Where would the other camels be kept? What would he feed them? Would he be allowed to keep them on his property in Southwestern Pennsylvania?
This story entertained me while I volunteered at a Ligonier Valley (PA) Historical Society fundraising event, the Festival of Trees. There were only a few persons visiting the event at the time. While I was talking with some of them, Tom asked me if I wanted to hear a story. Since camels are reported to have been present at Jesus’ birth, and are an item in every Nativity set, it seemed appropo to hear a story about camels.
Bizarrely, though, the afternoon included four more camel stories.

Bactriancamel
Camels seemed to like Tom’s wife. On another cruise, this time in Australia, Joan and another female traveler accepted a camel ride.
“Camel rides aren’t smooth, like horse rides,” Tom noted, elaborating that when the women dismounted the camels at the end of their ride they were vibrating. Even so, each woman claimed a camel cheek and stood there stroking it. The women invited Tom over to join them.
“I noticed the camel’s mouth was juxta-positioning to spit,” Tom said. “Since the camel was giving me the eye, I knew it was preparing to send a burning spitball at me. I backed off.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Watch out for camels or they’ll spit on you when you aren’t looking!”
There are two misrepresentations in the statement above. First, camels do (more…)
Surprise 50th Birthday Party Aborted
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CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS
SURPRISE 50TH BIRTHDAY PARTY ABORTED
She expressed a desire to have a surprise birthday party based on five-year-old activities—creatively reversing the number 50 to 05. I’d asked her if she liked the local Chinese buffet, which she did.
I called a couple of people I believed were willing to come, and arranged a time to meet at the Chinese restaurant. Then I called Paulette and told her I would drive across the county, pick her up, take her to church, and then take her out to lunch afterwards.
Paulette was excited about the invitation. However, there was a caveat: a relative might invite her to visit.
“OK,” I said. “I understand that. Just let me know if you are leaving town.”
A few days later she told me she didn’t want to go to church on her birthday. She would go, as usual, on Saturday evening. Then she stated that a day of church and lunch was boring.
“What would you like to do?”
“I want to (more…)