Spend the Afternoon.You can't take it with you.
-Annie Dillard
writer
Wednesday
Monday
Rain
Rain falls in torrents past glassy eyed cube dwellers
Wind shreds the clouds to strips, blocking the ever present sun
Feeble rays desire to penetrate the misty shield
Stillness reigns
Sunday
Friday
10 Things You May Not Know About Me
Vanilla is my favorite lotion scent.
I've had a Superbowl ring on my finger.
I have hitchiker thumbs.
High pitched screeching sounds are of the devil and I cannot abide them.
I love roadtrips.
I yowl like an Indian brave at concerts and sporting events, loud too!
I'm scared of the dark.
I'm glad I got all my partying out early.
I'm scared to go headfirst off a diving board.
I know every word to Devil Went Down to Georgia.
Thursday
Church Bulletin Bloopers
Thank God for church ladies with typewriters. These sentences actually appeared in church bulletins or were announced in church services:
Weight Watchers will meet at 7 PM at the First Presbyterian Church. Please use large double door at the side entrance.
Bertha Belch, a missionary from Africa, will be speaking tonight at Calvary Methodist. Come hear Bertha Belch all the way from Africa.
The pastor would appreciate it if the ladies of the congregation would lend him their electric girdles for the pancake breakfast next Sunday.
A bean supper will be held on Tuesday evening in the church hall. Music will follow.
The Fasting & Prayer Conference includes meals.
The sermon this morning: "Jesus Walks on the Water."
The sermon tonight: "Searching for Jesus."
Ladies, don't forget the rummage sale. It's a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Don't forget your husbands.
The peacemaking meeting scheduled for today has been canceled due to a conflict.
Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our community. Smile at someone who is hard to love. Say "Hell" to someone who doesn't care much about you.
Don't let worry kill you off - let the Church help.
Miss Charlene Mason sang "I will not pass this way again," giving obvious pleasure to the congregation.
For those of you who have children and don't know it, we have a nursery downstairs.
Next Thursday there will be tryouts for the choir. They need all the help they can get.
Barbara remains in the hospital and needs blood donors for more transfusions. She is also having trouble sleeping and requests tapes of Pastor Jack's sermons.
The Rector will preach his farewell message after which the choir will sing: "Break Forth Into Joy."
Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on October 24 in the church. So ends a friendship that began in their school days.
At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be, "What Is Hell?" Come early and listen to our choir practice.
Eight new choir robes are currently needed due to the addition of several new members and to the deterioration of some older ones.
Scouts are saving aluminum cans, bottles and other items to be recycled. Proceeds will be used to cripple children.
Please place your donation in the envelope along with the deceased person you want remembered.
The church will host an evening of fine dining, super entertainment and gracious hostility.
Potluck supper Sunday at 5:00 PM - prayer and medication to follow.
The ladies of the Church have cast off clothing of every kind. They may be seen in the basement on Friday afternoon.
This evening at 7 PM there will be a hymn singing in the park across from the Church. Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin.
Ladies Bible Study will be held Thursday morning at 10 AM. All ladies are invited to lunch in the Fellowship Hall after the B.S. is done.
Low Self Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7 PM . Please use the back door.
The eighth-graders will be presenting Shakespeare's Hamlet in the Church basement Friday at 7 PM. The congregation is invited to attend this tragedy.
The Associate Minister unveiled the church's new tithing campaign slogan last Sunday: "I Upped My Pledge - Up Yours"
Weight Watchers will meet at 7 PM at the First Presbyterian Church. Please use large double door at the side entrance.
Bertha Belch, a missionary from Africa, will be speaking tonight at Calvary Methodist. Come hear Bertha Belch all the way from Africa.
The pastor would appreciate it if the ladies of the congregation would lend him their electric girdles for the pancake breakfast next Sunday.
A bean supper will be held on Tuesday evening in the church hall. Music will follow.
The Fasting & Prayer Conference includes meals.
The sermon this morning: "Jesus Walks on the Water."
The sermon tonight: "Searching for Jesus."
Ladies, don't forget the rummage sale. It's a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Don't forget your husbands.
The peacemaking meeting scheduled for today has been canceled due to a conflict.
Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our community. Smile at someone who is hard to love. Say "Hell" to someone who doesn't care much about you.
Don't let worry kill you off - let the Church help.
Miss Charlene Mason sang "I will not pass this way again," giving obvious pleasure to the congregation.
For those of you who have children and don't know it, we have a nursery downstairs.
Next Thursday there will be tryouts for the choir. They need all the help they can get.
Barbara remains in the hospital and needs blood donors for more transfusions. She is also having trouble sleeping and requests tapes of Pastor Jack's sermons.
The Rector will preach his farewell message after which the choir will sing: "Break Forth Into Joy."
Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on October 24 in the church. So ends a friendship that began in their school days.
At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be, "What Is Hell?" Come early and listen to our choir practice.
Eight new choir robes are currently needed due to the addition of several new members and to the deterioration of some older ones.
Scouts are saving aluminum cans, bottles and other items to be recycled. Proceeds will be used to cripple children.
Please place your donation in the envelope along with the deceased person you want remembered.
The church will host an evening of fine dining, super entertainment and gracious hostility.
Potluck supper Sunday at 5:00 PM - prayer and medication to follow.
The ladies of the Church have cast off clothing of every kind. They may be seen in the basement on Friday afternoon.
This evening at 7 PM there will be a hymn singing in the park across from the Church. Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin.
Ladies Bible Study will be held Thursday morning at 10 AM. All ladies are invited to lunch in the Fellowship Hall after the B.S. is done.
Low Self Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7 PM . Please use the back door.
The eighth-graders will be presenting Shakespeare's Hamlet in the Church basement Friday at 7 PM. The congregation is invited to attend this tragedy.
The Associate Minister unveiled the church's new tithing campaign slogan last Sunday: "I Upped My Pledge - Up Yours"
Tuesday
Monday
Darwin Award Nominee
In our search for the DUMBEST (ILLEGAL?) ALIEN,
We have a WINNER! "Counterfeit I.D. of the week"....
Allegedly, this is an actual Drivers License from a traffic stop...
Friday
Friday
I wish Skittles were square, then they wouldn't roll away. I've already lost two under the cube wall.
28 more days till the Virgin Islands!!
I'm on such a sugar high right now, I'm borderline coma.
Paying your tithing really does mean receiving blessings. I promise!
I'm thinking about Invisiline, but that means more visits to the tooth man. Hmm>>>>
It's almost 5 o'clock on a Friday. None too shabby!
Habitat for Humanity tomorrow.
Date Night tonite!
Snoozzzzzzz....
28 more days till the Virgin Islands!!
I'm on such a sugar high right now, I'm borderline coma.
Paying your tithing really does mean receiving blessings. I promise!
I'm thinking about Invisiline, but that means more visits to the tooth man. Hmm>>>>
It's almost 5 o'clock on a Friday. None too shabby!
Habitat for Humanity tomorrow.
Date Night tonite!
Snoozzzzzzz....
Wednesday
End
Questioning looks mirror in stranger's faces. A sense of unease and confusion spread through the crowd like wildfire. Who will lead them now?
Inspiration
Inspiration comes from many avenues, in various shapes, sizes, colors and structure. A partial story read on another's blog, the taste of oatmeal in the morning, sunshine through the blinds. Silence breeds inspiration. When your mind is busy and loud, you don't hear those priceless whispers to your soul. 5 minutes of meditation with hip-hop thumping in the background can answer prayers through a word and two numbers, Job 3:10. A muse can pour words into a mind that recreate themselves into screenplays and novels. A once angry and bitter songstress will open eyes and melt hearts with lyrical gratitude of shuddering thoughts. Pictures, scents and sounds inspire poetry, hymns and release. Feelings of love and desperation kindle testimonies. Why do we shelter ourselves? What makes us bury our own opportunities to inspire? Who will walk into our lives next and set our world spinning? Maybe it is you.
Tuesday
Monday
Too much of a good thing
Things that are good in moderation:
- Sunshine
- Salt
- Water
- Sugar
- Electricity
- Dumb Jokes
- Heat
In and of themselves, the above items are all good and needful things. We need sunshine to survive and grow our food. We need salt to process amino acids and make Mac-n-Cheese edible. We need water to not die and to fill our pools. Sugar makes our cookies taste like cookies and gives Kool-Aid a reason to exist. Electricity turns on the lights and all battery operated toys. Dumb jokes make us laugh and entertain small children. We need heat to be warm and roast our marshmallows.
Too much sun and we burn our skin to the point of swelling and blistering. Too much salt and it makes water unusable and our mac-n-cheese yucky. Water can drown our campfires and take our breath away. Sugar overflows turn something yummy into an aching tummy. Electricity can shock the life out of you and create huge power bills. Too many dumb jokes and they pass the point of joke and make you wish the teller would just go away. Heat can burn books at 451 and take your house with it.
I once had a cactus that I loved so much, I watered it everyday. It collapsed in on itself, rotten and stinky.
Moral of the story: Too much can ruin you, just as easily as not enough.
Thursday
Just the Beginning...
A sweet, warm breeze whispers through her hair, teased with scents of spring and hinting at the flavors of summer.
Wednesday
The Lengths One Will Go To...
So here's the plan... I already have to have a layover coming home from my cattle drive in Denver, and I already have a free ticket from San Diego to Charlotte (on the not-so-customer-friendly US Airways), so....I booked a flight from Denver to San Diego and will have a one day layover. During that time I will obtain 5-10 pounds of REAL carne asada from Colima's and REAL burrito grande tortillas, freeze the meat overnight and take with me as a carry-on back home the next day. Genius!!
All this due to the considerably sub-par food that is maliciously proffered as "Mexican" here in the South.
Now all I have to do is find a proper cooler and make sure the TSA will let me bring my goodies on the plane. The research begins...
All this due to the considerably sub-par food that is maliciously proffered as "Mexican" here in the South.
Now all I have to do is find a proper cooler and make sure the TSA will let me bring my goodies on the plane. The research begins...
Tuesday
Quote for the Day
Neither a lofty degree of intelligence, nor imagination, nor both together make genius.
Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.
- Amadeus Mozart
Sunday
How Indiana Jones Almost Killed Me
With the upcoming release of the new Indiana Jones movie, my memory swims with a day about 27 years ago, when Raiders of the Lost Ark was just out in theaters. When I say that my memory swims, I really mean that the two or three actual memories I have of this day have become interconnected with the many times told story so that I have a full color feature length film of the events in my mind and it flows along swimmingly.
At the same time that Indy was stealing golden idols in South America and fighting the Nazi's in Egypt, my father was building an enclosed porch on the side of our house in St. Anthony, Idaho. He had built the basic frame, including the floor joists and roof trusses. My brother and I were "helping" in the way that all kids want to help their dad's, which usually means that the work goes slower and the nails are far more crooked.
When Indiana Jones had taken the golden idol from it's weight sensitive pedestal and the huge round boulder chased him through the corridors, he came to a deep and deadly pit of despair. He had to use his whip to grab a branch and swing across to the other side. My older brother had tied a rope to one of the roof trusses and was swinging from board to board, ala Indiana Jones. Meanwhile, I was sitting on a board that would become the outer wall of the porch, looking in toward the house with my back to our yard.
Don pulled far back on his rope/whip and swung with all his might! He swung straight towards me and angled up directly over my head. I was in awe of his bravado and watched him with eyes and mouth gaping! I leaned back as he swung higher and felt the wind rush as he flew past. The wind rushing past was not created by my brother's swing, but instead, by my falling off the porch! I had leaned back much too far and was now toppling over straight toward the ground, about 3-4 feet away.
I must have started to put my hands behind me to catch my fall, but the hard ground caught me first. My left elbow was the first to hit the hard ground, pinned behind me with the back of my left hand in the small of my back. If you ever seen a UFC fight, this position is called a 'chicken wing' or kimura arm lock where the arm is bent at the elbow twisted behind one's back in the shape of a chicken wing and pressure applied until the sad recipient tap's out. I was the sad recipient and did not have the chance to tap out. Instead, by bones chose to tap out, or rather snap.
You have two bones in your forearm that run parallel to each other. In my arm, these two bones popped out and broke right in the middle. It was a 'green' break, which means that the bones did not break clean in half, they splintered the same way a green stick would splinter instead of snapping in two. Yum!
My next memory was sitting on our kitchen counter. I looked down at my left arm, which was across my lap. It didn't look like my arm at all. It was HUGE! It looked like Popeye's, with his bulging forearms. I can almost see it, with an anchor tattooed to my ever swelling appendage, a can of spinach in my right.
Mom belted me into the middle of the backseat, which is where I always had to sit anyway since I was the youngest. You would think that she would at least let me sit by the window, now that I was injured, but noooo! I had a large Ziploc bag full of ice wrapped around my arm and a towel on top of that. Off to the emergency room!
I have no memory of the emergency room, but I know I was awake when the doctor POPPED my bones back in place and quickly wrapped up my arm for casting. Mom says I screamed as she held me down. She was much braver than I was. On the way home, I was strapped into the middle of the backseat, again. I never get to sit by the window! We did go through the McDonald's drive-thru and I excitedly showed the cashier my new cast! She said 'WOW!" I got a Happy Meal and realized that my cast made me extra special now. It also gave me a built in weapon!
My cast went from the middle of my upper arm all the way to my hand, holding my elbow at a 90 degree angle. It was bridged between my thumb and fingers, and my fingers were free to move. It was the old plaster casts and I could not get it wet. I had to take baths with my arm wrapped in a plastic bag, and sit it on the side of the tub. It itched like nobody's business and I scratched inside it with a chopstick. My now Orthopaedic Physician's Assistant Certified sister is appalled at the fact that I was allowed to scratch inside my cast and has told me of all the possible damage the could have been done. Nothing bad happened to me, but she has some other mighty scary stories of casts gone bad, if you ever want to hear. The one with the earwigs was the last one I would let her tell me. I just can't deal with crawly stuff like that.
So here I am, 4 years old with a hard plaster cast on my left arm. I quickly learn that no one wants to be hit with this massive beast and I set out to exact some revenge on my brother and sister for their continual reminders of me being the youngest, smallest and weakest. Now I felt much stronger, much larger and not nearly as defenseless.
I had to keep my cast on for an entire 6 weeks. I do remember when the doctors took it off. I recall this very clearly. Let me digress for a moment so you can truly understand why I recall this event so clearly. My father worked in the logging industry and used a chainsaw everyday. I was very familiar with the sounds, smells and effects of such a machine. I knew that in a matter of seconds, a chainsaw could cut through an entire tree, and skin every branch off it's trunk without any exertion or effort. To me, the sound of a chainsaw meant cutting all the way through and cutting off.
As I sat in the doctors office, he proceeded to turn on his cast saw. Though not nearly as large nor foreboding as my fathers chainsaw, a chainsaw is all I could see in his hands. I saw this man in white holding a chainsaw over me, ready to cut off my arm! This was far more terrifying than anything I had yet experienced in my life.
Was he really going to cut my arm off?! My mom is sitting next me, is she going to do anything!? He's getting closer! It's so loud!! AAAHHHH! My arm!! No! Don't cut my arm off!!
Oh. Hey. He didn't cut my arm off. Oh. Well. Almost lost my cool for a second there. Phew!
After removing the decrepit old cast and unwrapping everything, I glimpsed what used to be my arm. I say used-to-be because the last time I had seen my arm it looked like Popeye's arm and didn't look like my arm then either. I had not seen my real arm for over 6 weeks, and I did not see it now. All I saw was a sad, atrophied, gray, limp, skin and bones appendage that surely did not belong to me. The layers of dead skin were thick and smelled like old people.
I've been told that it took weeks more for my arm to start looking alive again. I've also been told that since I now longer had my weapon, my brother and sister went back to their old ways of torture.
So there it is. For the second time in my short life, my brother's decisions put me in mortal danger. I could have fallen farther backward and landed on my head and broken my neck. I do not blame by brother, for he was only trying to be a brave hero, just like Indiana Jones. And even though Indy's example was almost my downfall (pun intended) I still want to be just like him when I grow up.
Moral of the story: When swinging for your life over your own pit of despair, watch out for the ones below who are looking up to you!
At the same time that Indy was stealing golden idols in South America and fighting the Nazi's in Egypt, my father was building an enclosed porch on the side of our house in St. Anthony, Idaho. He had built the basic frame, including the floor joists and roof trusses. My brother and I were "helping" in the way that all kids want to help their dad's, which usually means that the work goes slower and the nails are far more crooked.
When Indiana Jones had taken the golden idol from it's weight sensitive pedestal and the huge round boulder chased him through the corridors, he came to a deep and deadly pit of despair. He had to use his whip to grab a branch and swing across to the other side. My older brother had tied a rope to one of the roof trusses and was swinging from board to board, ala Indiana Jones. Meanwhile, I was sitting on a board that would become the outer wall of the porch, looking in toward the house with my back to our yard.
Don pulled far back on his rope/whip and swung with all his might! He swung straight towards me and angled up directly over my head. I was in awe of his bravado and watched him with eyes and mouth gaping! I leaned back as he swung higher and felt the wind rush as he flew past. The wind rushing past was not created by my brother's swing, but instead, by my falling off the porch! I had leaned back much too far and was now toppling over straight toward the ground, about 3-4 feet away.
I must have started to put my hands behind me to catch my fall, but the hard ground caught me first. My left elbow was the first to hit the hard ground, pinned behind me with the back of my left hand in the small of my back. If you ever seen a UFC fight, this position is called a 'chicken wing' or kimura arm lock where the arm is bent at the elbow twisted behind one's back in the shape of a chicken wing and pressure applied until the sad recipient tap's out. I was the sad recipient and did not have the chance to tap out. Instead, by bones chose to tap out, or rather snap.
You have two bones in your forearm that run parallel to each other. In my arm, these two bones popped out and broke right in the middle. It was a 'green' break, which means that the bones did not break clean in half, they splintered the same way a green stick would splinter instead of snapping in two. Yum!
My next memory was sitting on our kitchen counter. I looked down at my left arm, which was across my lap. It didn't look like my arm at all. It was HUGE! It looked like Popeye's, with his bulging forearms. I can almost see it, with an anchor tattooed to my ever swelling appendage, a can of spinach in my right.
Mom belted me into the middle of the backseat, which is where I always had to sit anyway since I was the youngest. You would think that she would at least let me sit by the window, now that I was injured, but noooo! I had a large Ziploc bag full of ice wrapped around my arm and a towel on top of that. Off to the emergency room!
I have no memory of the emergency room, but I know I was awake when the doctor POPPED my bones back in place and quickly wrapped up my arm for casting. Mom says I screamed as she held me down. She was much braver than I was. On the way home, I was strapped into the middle of the backseat, again. I never get to sit by the window! We did go through the McDonald's drive-thru and I excitedly showed the cashier my new cast! She said 'WOW!" I got a Happy Meal and realized that my cast made me extra special now. It also gave me a built in weapon!
My cast went from the middle of my upper arm all the way to my hand, holding my elbow at a 90 degree angle. It was bridged between my thumb and fingers, and my fingers were free to move. It was the old plaster casts and I could not get it wet. I had to take baths with my arm wrapped in a plastic bag, and sit it on the side of the tub. It itched like nobody's business and I scratched inside it with a chopstick. My now Orthopaedic Physician's Assistant Certified sister is appalled at the fact that I was allowed to scratch inside my cast and has told me of all the possible damage the could have been done. Nothing bad happened to me, but she has some other mighty scary stories of casts gone bad, if you ever want to hear. The one with the earwigs was the last one I would let her tell me. I just can't deal with crawly stuff like that.
So here I am, 4 years old with a hard plaster cast on my left arm. I quickly learn that no one wants to be hit with this massive beast and I set out to exact some revenge on my brother and sister for their continual reminders of me being the youngest, smallest and weakest. Now I felt much stronger, much larger and not nearly as defenseless.
I had to keep my cast on for an entire 6 weeks. I do remember when the doctors took it off. I recall this very clearly. Let me digress for a moment so you can truly understand why I recall this event so clearly. My father worked in the logging industry and used a chainsaw everyday. I was very familiar with the sounds, smells and effects of such a machine. I knew that in a matter of seconds, a chainsaw could cut through an entire tree, and skin every branch off it's trunk without any exertion or effort. To me, the sound of a chainsaw meant cutting all the way through and cutting off.
As I sat in the doctors office, he proceeded to turn on his cast saw. Though not nearly as large nor foreboding as my fathers chainsaw, a chainsaw is all I could see in his hands. I saw this man in white holding a chainsaw over me, ready to cut off my arm! This was far more terrifying than anything I had yet experienced in my life.
Was he really going to cut my arm off?! My mom is sitting next me, is she going to do anything!? He's getting closer! It's so loud!! AAAHHHH! My arm!! No! Don't cut my arm off!!
Oh. Hey. He didn't cut my arm off. Oh. Well. Almost lost my cool for a second there. Phew!
After removing the decrepit old cast and unwrapping everything, I glimpsed what used to be my arm. I say used-to-be because the last time I had seen my arm it looked like Popeye's arm and didn't look like my arm then either. I had not seen my real arm for over 6 weeks, and I did not see it now. All I saw was a sad, atrophied, gray, limp, skin and bones appendage that surely did not belong to me. The layers of dead skin were thick and smelled like old people.
I've been told that it took weeks more for my arm to start looking alive again. I've also been told that since I now longer had my weapon, my brother and sister went back to their old ways of torture.
So there it is. For the second time in my short life, my brother's decisions put me in mortal danger. I could have fallen farther backward and landed on my head and broken my neck. I do not blame by brother, for he was only trying to be a brave hero, just like Indiana Jones. And even though Indy's example was almost my downfall (pun intended) I still want to be just like him when I grow up.
Moral of the story: When swinging for your life over your own pit of despair, watch out for the ones below who are looking up to you!
Thursday
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