Rule Them All

Mikey and his girlfriend Melissa dropped in for a visit the other day. I have known Mikey since he was about six when he became a good friend of Brendan and Maegan. Initially he was Brendan’s friend, I don’t know if they met in school first or in Cubs, but friends they have been for 25 or 26 years. I suppose that I became a friend more out of proximity than anything else, but whatever the reason, I call him friend.

I also try to call him Mike, but for some reason Mikey has stuck over the years and even though I resist it, he is a “Mikey”.  Mike has been teaching English in Korea for the past couple of years, which is where he met Melissa. When they finished teaching, they toured the Far East, going to counties that I have read about but never wanted to visit. They visited all of those countries I heard about on the news in the sixties and seventies, and then ended up their tour in (or is it on), New Zealand.

We had a nice visit and I don’t envy the life decisions that they need to make in the next days, weeks and months, but whatever happens, it will be the right thing for them. Mike is something of a computer whiz, so he should have not too much difficulty earning a good living. I call him a computer whiz, but then anyone who can set the time on my DVD player is something of a whiz in my mind. Melissa tried to get into the graduate school at UBC, but unfortunately all of the positions had been taken and now she needs to find another way to stay in Canada. Oh yeah, she is an American citizen, but she is still nice…ish. I think she should go back to Eugene Oregon and kill someone, then sneak back across the border and claim refugee status. I will admit that I haven’t given a lot of thought to the plan, but with some tweaking it could work.

Anyways, Mike and Melissa stopped by for a visit and they brought us gifts. Don’t you just love getting gifts that you haven’t earned? One of the gifts that I received was a piece of 30,000 to 50,000 year old wood; it has a certificate of authenticity. I looked it up on line and it seems that a whole forest was buried in the mud and waited for Mike and Melissa to come to New Zealand looking for a gift for me. I will carve something from it, but I will have to think long and hard on it and bring my carving skills up to peak form.

http://www.ancientwood.com/

The other gift was a stone from Mount Doom! 

I have been an aficionado of the Lord of the Rings since I was in high school and have read the books over twenty times. I even read the “Simarillion”, which was a long boring slog even for me. I have read “The Shaping of Middle Earth” which was the boring precursor of the “Simarillion”, and a biography by Paul Kocher called the Master of Middle Earth. I have calendars and other things middle earth, so you can see why I was thrilled to get a piece of Mount Doom. I suppose that technically it isn’t from the real Mount Doom, but Peter Jackson’s version is just fine by me. I don’t think I would like to live in Tolkien’s Middle Earth or get anywhere close to Mount Doom.

One ring to rule them all,

One ring to find them,

One ring to bring them all

And in the darkness bind them.

I kind of feel like Sheldon did when Penny gave him the napkin that Leonard Nimoy wiped his mouth with.

I just may be able to rule them all…