P-ta's 40th!

Last weekend, Rich and I headed to Houston to celebrate one of our dearest friend's (P-ta's) 40th birthday. In true P-ta fashion, we played board games -and I hesitate to call them that because "board games" sounds SO ordinary and the games that P-ta and his pals play are some that only true professional gamers know about- and drank Hornsby's cider. (Thanks Greg and Karen! You guys R.O.C.K.!)



The next morning poor P-ta had to work since it was Sunday and since he is the music/worship coordinator at his church. BUT after that was HUGE party with 40-50 folks who showed up just to talk about how cool P-ta is. AND he is!!!

Too bad I put my camera down, because I only got pics of the gaming and of the pre-party set up! (Hopefully Steve got some better ones?)

Anyway, Happy Birthday friend, P-ta!! We LOVE you and were so glad to be with you on your special day!!

'Shopping Cart Karma' by Christine

-a most relatable reflection told by the most excellent, enlightening, wit-tastic (Fou)guru on the planet. Enjoy!

'I don’t believe in reincarnation. At least not in the typical, literal, “I was Cleopatra in a past life and that’s why I’m afraid of snakes and think guys named Anthony are hot” kind of way. But sometimes things happen that seem to come from past life mistakes, bad karma that I feel pretty certain doesn’t come from something horrible I did in this lifetime.

'I have never been mean to a shopping cart. I am, in fact, quite kind to them, moving them out of the dangerous places other careless shoppers have left them, corralling them into safer areas or even shepherding them back into the store with me. But this week seems to be karmically linked to some past life’s offense, some previous June when I, in the guise of a burly 1950’s man angry about my wife not doing the week’s shopping, took my frustration at being unable to find the pasta sauce out on some poor, unsuspecting shopping cart. Or something like that.

'It happened in Home Depot. My subconscious must have seen it coming since, despite my long shopping list, I tried not to get a cart. When my hands became full of paintbrushes and sandpaper, I realized my mistake. But, with my hands full, I couldn’t walk back out to the carts on the other side of the cashiers, so I found one left in the lawn and garden department, not thinking about the myriad reasons why the cart might have been abandoned. For example, one of the wheels might actually be a square.

'I should have stopped after pushing it the first five feet and making such a racket that three different men turned around and looked at me with a combination of confusion and pity. Tha-THUNK-tha-THUNK-tha-THUNK. If I went slowly, the THUNK was so forceful that the vibration through the cart moved my whole body. But when I had to walk over to the lumber section, the flattened wheel really shined. At speed it was a THUNKing, jostling masterpiece. It’s impossible to find someone to help you at Home Depot, but I must have had seven different people in orange aprons ask me if I was okay. It was probably the noise that brought them out, but it might also have been the look on my face. I can only assume that it revealed how hard I was working to keep the cart heading straight down the aisle, because it was at higher speed that the cart also showed its tendency to turn right. Only right. Really hard to the right, like some kind of suicidal run at the various displays of nails and doors and chemicals of all sorts. I tried in vain to arrange my list in an order that would allow me to only turn right, but that is NOT easy. I had to keep my right arm rigidly straight, getting such a workout that I almost dropped my bag at the checkout when I tried to put it back into my cart.

'I’m not even going to talk about the trip out to the car, consisting of a 20 mph wind and a large piece of plywood. Let’s just say that I am sorry for whatever I did to shopping carts in a past life, because, though I’m not clear on my belief in reincarnation, I have to believe in the power of forgiveness. Please forgive me, oh shopping cart gods, for I need your good will! I will be kind and, now, having learned my lesson, will endeavor to find a doctor for your less fortunate brethren. All I ask is that you let me continue my shopping adventures free from the THUNKing, the pulling, and the frustration that can mar our otherwise wonderfully symbiotic relationship.

'Or something like that.'

The Best Medicine

Lisa and John were in town for one night only, but we packed in as much laughter as one can physically endure in one evening. Laughter with great friends is, after all, better than anything in any bottle or capsule.

*All pictures were taken by Lisa, John, or The Third Arm!!
* While sitting in the big red chair, especially, we missed you, Jen!!!

On Kissing and Catharsis

In case you didn't know, I LOVE books.

Even if you did know, I will probably mention this fact over and over and over again, just like that annoying kid in every fast food establishment who is jumping in concentric circles around his parent who is patiently trying to work out why the ice machine at the drink station isn't putting out. (ice - you perv) The kid yells, "Hey, look what I can do! Dad, look what I can do. Daaaad! Watch me! Look what I can do!!!" And then when Dad finally pays attention, the kid does something remarkably ordinary like kicking his leg just high enough to be able to clap his hands underneath it. --Yes. this did actually happen.

(sigh)

Hopefully I'm not that kind of annoying, but I DO love my literature.

Some might say that this is another in a (very long) list of addictions, and some might call me CRAZY when they learn about my reading rotation method or when they see me openly hugging and sometimes kissing books in public places.

I know what you're thinking.

Flagrantly kissing a new book out in the open, where God and all of creation can see, might cast a negative shadow on my otherwise pristinely pure persona. But don't worry. I am extremely responsible and have very strict boundaries on a first reading, especially in public. I only permit a slow amble to first base, allowing (maybe) a little bit of church tongue in the kissing, but only if that book is REALLY something special.*

Anyway.

The point I'm trying to make is that the reason I love my books is because they provide experiences that I wouldn't normally (and sometimes could never) have, and/or I get to meet people (alike and different from me) that I wouldn't get to know otherwise. This is certainly not a new concept --See The Princess Bride (Inconceivable!) and The NeverEnding Story (why don't you do what you dream, Bastian?...Call my name!...Save us!) as film reminders that books absolutely can provide an extraordinary adventure for the reader.

But more than that, good books, like all art (in any medium), provide for the reader an indescribably profound experience that the ancient Greeks called catharsis. [New Latin, from Greek katharsis, from kathairein, to purge, from katharos, pure.]

The word catharsis, according to ye good auld American Heritage Dictionary, is 'a release of emotional tension, as after an overwhelming experience, that restores or refreshes the spirit'.

Here's an example:

Do you remember the scene in the movie Garden State where Zach Braff's character climbs in the pouring rain onto the crane that's perched on the edge of a deep, unfathomable abyss? He stands there in his trash bag 'raincoat' and then screams as loudly as he can into the canyon. Then his friends join him on the edge and without any sort of words or exchange, they all three scream into the void. Together.

Though rationally it seems like a silly thing to do, we get that it's the exact RIGHT thing to do in the moment. We recognize/understand (without forming words) what 'that need' to scream into the void is. And we emotionally join the three of them even though obviously, we're not really with them. We're on our comfortable couches and easy loungers in our homes in real places like Dallas, Texas.

But we get it. And we're with them. And afterwards, like them (if we're not still looking for the Kleenex box), we FEEL better.

At the end of the scene the characters laugh, and they kiss. And there is a newness in them, and also a newness in us.

That's catharsis.

And as delicate humans in this chaotically changing world, where we are constantly being bombarded with unfathomable sadness and anguish, we NEED to experience catharsis. We need to experience it often and sometimes with others, so that we can be renewed from the inner secrets of our wounded spirits all the way to the tips of our feverishly working finger tips.

Catharsis is what makes our perception of the world tolerable and more than that, beautiful!

And that's what I get from my beloved books.


*At night in bed is a completely different situation, but I at least TRY to avoid the trashy. After all, we should only have edifying experiences at our most vulnerable..

Easy Does It, Until It Doesn't

Yesterday I decided that it was time to get back on that proverbial horse and ride.

Actually, it was a bike, not a horse.

Before the pregnancy, I was riding 6-10 miles every other day (just about) and was filling in the off days with circuit resistance training. I was eating right (or better than my usual cold pizza leftovers with a side of nothing much and chocolate). I was steaming all sorts of things and was all about the Uncle Ben's 90 Second Wild Rice pouches.

I actually felt healthy and my body looked fit for the first time since college!

Then when I got pregnant and the complications began, I was put on couch arrest (which lasted a month or longer), and I decided that I was supposed to crave things. By things, I mean dessert. And not the fruit parfait kind, but the chocolate covered in chocolate, resting in a moat of chocolate, on a chocolate plate kind, with a side of ice cream.

The couch/dessert combo was pretty much a disaster for all of my hard work.

After I miscarried, obviously my body was in no shape to do much of anything and my emotions kept me bed-ridden and sluggy, not to mention the "procedure" that accompanied it all.

BUT yesterday, for the first time in over a month, I decided to try and ride again! I was smart about it, too. I promised myself to ride at the pace of my Nelly Furtado CD, so as to keep things steady (and not sprint like I used to do). I promised to take frequent water breaks and to ride the shortest of the trails. I was going to try and "ease" myself back into the world of health and fitness.

Right. So the first part of the ride ROCKED. I was steady and paced, conscious of my breathing. My muscles seemed to recall how to do everything (um. like remembering how to ride a bike). I smiled and sweetly called out things like, "on your left" and generously passed along "hi, how are ya?" nods to others on the trail. Plus the weather was perfect. The temperature was in the mid 80's, and though a little humid, I still could feel tiny jet streams of cooler air occasionally and was thankful for the sunshine.

I got half way through the ride when I decided to stop and take a water break as per "the plan". I was, after all, a little bit winded, and I do understand the value of hydration. I stopped, sat on a lovely park bench among butterflies and GREEN vegetation, and allowed myself what I would soon consider very arrogant and ironic thoughts such as, "Good. This is pleasant. I needed this. Maybe tomorrow I can ride the longer trail. What should I steam for dinner?"

Needless to say, the ride back was not the same as the one before the water break. In fact about 3 minutes after I got back onto my bike, my muscles decided that THEY. WERE. DONE.

Shit.

I was not even close to home and my muscles were protesting every single push of the pedal! If you could look underneath my skin, I think you would've seen my muscles staging a sit in, holding signs that read, "Hell no! We won't go," the lead muscle on the phone with her union rep. I then wondered which of my muscles was the lead muscle (I'm guessing the quad?), which kind of made me chuckle despite the anguish, which in turn made me instantly aware of the intense humidity that was crushing my poor laughing lungs with all of its weight and density.

There was no more pacing; screw Nelly Furtado. The breathing was forced. Plus, was the ride home more up hill than usual? Where did my jet stream go? Forget the passers by pleasantries. Damn butterflies!

All I could think of with every forced movement was, "stupid (push) girl (push) stupid (push) girl (push)..."

I cannot tell you how I made it home, other than I was just too prideful to wave that white flag of surrender and accept defeat.

When I got home, I took a long shower and tried to revive the broken spirit that accompanies my perfectionist tendencey to beat myself up for not being able to do something perfectly the first time.

I did recover minute by minute and decided to draft a rather lengthy peace-keeping treaty (written, of course, in perfectly confusing legalese, using the most of my limited Latin skills) that would act as a compromise/diplomatic buffer between my lungs and leg muscles, and my brain. Fortunately for me, all have graciously agreed to sign said document, and we are going to try the mission again later today.

All seems to be more congenial for now, though my buttocks are still pretty sore, especially since they, too, endured the battle and were sadly left out of all consideration.

from The God of Small Things

'He was exasperated because he didn't know what that look meant. He put it somewhere between indifference and despair. He didn't know that in some places, like the country [she] came from, various kinds of despair competed from primacy. And that personal despair could never be desperate enough. That something happened when personal turmoil dropped by the wayside shrine of the vast, violent, circling, driving, ridiculous, insane, unfeasible, public turmoil of a nation. That Big God howled like a hot wind, and demanded obeisance. Then Small God (cozy and contained, private and limited) came away cauterized, laughing numbly at his own temerity. Inured by the confirmation of his own inconsequence, he became resilient and truly indifferent. Nothing mattered much. Nothing much mattered. And the less it mattered, the less it mattered. It was never important enough. Because Worse Things had happened. In the country that she came from, poised forever between the terror of war and the horror of peace, Worse Things kept happening.

'So Small God laughed a hollow laugh, and skipped away cheerfully. Like a rich boy in shorts. He whistled, kicked stones. The source of his brittle elation was the relative smallness of his misfortune. He climbed into people's eyes and became an exasperating expression."
...
'We're prisoners of war...Our dreams have been doctored. We belong nowhere. We sail unanchored on troubled seas. We may never be allowed ashore. Our sorrows will never be sad enough. Our joys never happy enough. Our dreams never big enough. Our lives never important enough. To matter.'

Still I Rise

by Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells

Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops.

Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don't you take it awful hard

'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines

Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I've got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame

I rise

Up from a past that's rooted in pain

I rise

I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise.

(artwork is And Still I Rise, created by Anthony Armstrong)

Face to Faith

Brother Mark left this comment on the Axe Murderer post:

"Anyway, while I'm on the subject, (of margins not decapitations) am interested to know what y'all think of this, especially Chelle, Deidra and the other big Jesus fans out there..
Face to Faith
All and any comments much appreciated!"

I'm curious to know your thoughts too, only I want to make it clear that the invitation is extended to all of you, whether you're a Jesus fan or not.

Let's do this salon style (more of an idea sharing and less of a debate) to keep communitas in this space.

(I left my response under Mark's original comment)

Moody Muggings

People are strange. There has never been any doubt about that fact. The comforting part about this is that we're all strange in our own ways, and we ALL do and say "crazy" things. Just look around. The world is a virtual amusement park!

Maybe you'll notice the guy practicing his business (or romantic) proposal in a Macy's store window; or maybe you'll cock your head at the woman whose dog is sporting the same exact hair do as her own (or worse! Maybe it's the same as David Hasselhoff's). Perhaps your focus will trip at the sight of a kid visibly calculating his next mischievous action (involving a salt shaker, a dead June bug, and a bobby pin) aimed at his sweet, unsuspecting little sister.

Whatever the circumstance, I take comfort in knowing that I am equally (and sometimes MORE) strange than those around me. It's a nice feeling to be bonded to all of humanity in this way, and realizing that we have room for all of the beautifully odd ones around us makes life increasingly meaningful!

For my part, I realized this morning that I have a morning mug routine that mirrors/projects my mood for the day, another in a myriad of quirky habits I embrace.

One "normal" guy may determine the way in which his day will go by starting it off with mirror edification; "I'm good enough, smart enough and doggone it...". Or maybe he'll spend time in mindful meditation or prayer, breathing in the peaceful morning, the playful noontime, and the restful, lavender evening.

Maybe he'll start off with a shot of whisky and a Marlboro, kick ass cowboy style.

Or maybe he'll blink his way through a hot shower, allowing the droning daily news show to seep into his tired pores as he prays to stay awake through his mundane morning commute. (Here's where loud music is helpful. )

I've personally tried all of these morning routines in an effort to get ready for the day or to help jump start me into the "right" attitude. But lately the most effective day determining factor comes from my dependence on my morning mugs.

I am, straight up, a coffee addict, which is hilarious because the only reason I started drinking coffee in the first place was because it made me FEEL more like an intellectual, simply because I thought it made me look like one. After all, the smartest people on the planet are never without a mug of coffee. Even their breath smells smart.. or something like that.

Even though coffee is vital to my system, it's the mugs that are my morning crutch. Coffee, then, is the birth parent of my strange morning mug habit.

Here's how it works: If I am feeling giddy or playful about the day, I pour my medium/dark roast Folgers into my very favorite Kermit mug, an unusually random souvenir from a blissful vacation. If you see the Kermit mug in hand, the day is already a thumbs-up!


If I know I need an extra dose of ballsiness for the day, I sip out of my Judge Wilson mug, a parting favor from my time spent on a jury last year. (Did you know you get jury duty parting gifts? How very Bob Barker meets The People's Court!) No one messes with me on a Judge Wilson day. Judge Wilson mug + black lace underwear= get the hell out of my way!If I'm feeling a little bit mousy and need an extra dose of warmth, it's the snowman mug to the rescue. This one was a gift from one of my seventh graders and was given to me among the dollar store ceramic Jesus statues and "rose" smelling bubble bath bottles. The little girl who gave it to me was full of warmth and was completely crazy (a girl after my own heart). This mug is slightly bigger than the others and for some reason it feels warmer to hold. The snowman mug is decidedly NOT a seasonal mug. (I have others that are.) Then there are the days that I need an extra boost of something. Those days require The Tanker. This one is a travel mug that I can take with me to school. I get made fun of for carrying The Tanker around, but I feel most confident that it's the RIGHT THING to do on those particular days. Maybe I think it can be used as a weapon? Or maybe it's cuddle ready? Perhaps I get my daily cardio work-out by hefting it around, since I usually can't finish the contents of the mug before the coffee gets cold. Whatever that "something" is that I need that day, even if I don't know what it is, I am certain that for some reason I can get it from this, the most magic of my mugs.I'm not sure where relying on morning muggery puts me on the oddness scale, but I don't really mind being toward the top of said scale, as long as I have the right mug to accompany me on my journey.

So what about you?

What rituals/habits make you as crazy as me and the rest of the world?

So I Married an Axe Murderer

I LOVED So I Married An Axe Murderer in high school! Mike Myers is a genius.
I'm a little disappointed, however, with the You Tube clip selection for this film. I couldn't even find the "Harriet. Har -ri- et, Hard hearted harbinger of haggis" poem! That's the heart of the movie! Sadly, no one has posted it, so you're all stuck with Head! Move it! Now!