Class of ‘79

High school reunions. I’ve never been to mine.  (For various reasons: Military service at five years, no notice for the 10th, my wedding day was the 20th…) 

Our 30th is next month. I am going. (Yes, I am dragging my husband along on our 10th wedding anniversary!)

I have mixed emotions about this. (So does my husband!) I really didn’t enjoy school much. I wasn’t popular, wasn’t in any one particular crowd, and didn’t really care. Perhaps I should have cared more.

I have good friends from those years that I’ve kept in touch with off and on. If I’d have cared more I may have retained more old friends. This reunion I will see people with whom I attended first grade! And I will see people I do not even remember.

Still, we have so many things in common:

• We’re all the same age.
• Most of us have kids the same age.
• Most of us were there when the mountain blew up.
• We remember a lot of the same things — wonderful or quirky teachers, various events, songs, movies, a small town that will never be as it was then, our little era.

So if you were my classmate I may not remember you. You may not remember me. Or we may remember each other very well. But we can count on the fact that we’ve changed. We’ve grown. We’re better. We’re wiser. (We hope.)

One thing we’re all sure of:  We are not old enough to be attending our 30th high school reunion!

In Praise of the Cow

I’d really must say right here that the perfect amount of organic grass, chewed mercilessly by a free range cow, regurgitated by his (or her) five stomachs, shortly before being humanely offed and chopped up into New York strip, perfectly grilled by my husband and consumed by moi, gives me the most sensational “God is in His heaven and all is right with the world” feeling. It’s almost spiritual.

Thanks be to God for inventing the cow and then teaching people
what to do with it.

Omaine and amen.

That’s JUST Not Right…

So I write this piece over at SisterBlog about my sister’s swimsuit adventure. I include a shot of me in it. Later, my mouse just happened to roll over the photo and the WordPress SnapShots pop-up appears.

Excuse me, but who said they could include “Cellulite” in the metadata???  That is just SOOOO wrong…  Seriously now.

Book Whore

I am a book whore. I do several books at a go, picking them up and putting them down on whim.

Well, not so much a whim, more of convenience. There are books on my nightstand, books on the table beside my favorite chair, books on the kitchen table. I have books in about as many places as I have reading glasses.

And like my glasses, they migrate from room to room, many often ending up in the same place, waiting to be evenly redistributed again.

My husband thinks this odd. He reads one book at a time, cover to cover. Unless it’s immediately apparent it’s going to be a complete waste of his time. Then, of course, it’s immediate divorce.

I, on the other hand, rarely read a book straight through. I pick ‘em up and put ‘em down. A lot. Not usually because I’m bored: If I’m bored with a book, it goes in a box to take to the used book store. I don’t have patience for boring. I’ll pick up a book, read what I can in the time I have, stick the book marker in, and come back later. Sometimes I’ll put the marker in just because my brain can’t take in any more. I want to digest what I read, mull it over, think it through. Sometimes the marker gets used a lot because it’s slow going, new territory, brain-cell burning, old-dog-new-trick-teaching.

I read one book before I fall asleep (sometimes in mid-sentence, the book held in front of my face, light on, until my husband pulls it free, marks the page and turns out the light). I read another at the breakfast table, a third and fourth when I have time in the afternoon or evening. Still others are for study or relevant to the times. One leads to another and often they overlap. Don Miller recommends Rick McKinley. McKinley recommends Miller. (Once both had new releases right around the same time; So I started and finished them both at the same time.)

I have my hands all over some books: Dog ears and penciled margins. Those I read again. And again. Others have nary a mark. Those may go back on the shelf for sharing with others. (The dog eared books get shared with others, too, I just buy new copies and keep the old friends for myself.)

I’m a book whore, but I don’t think the books mind. I think they rather like it. I think they edge themselves to the corner of the table, begging to be picked up again. I’m not complaining — I can’t wait to pick them up.

Got a good one to recommend?

In Praise of the Grape

I’d really must say right here that the perfect amount of wine, sipped from a crystal goblet of perfectly aged (in oak, organic) old vine fruit, gives me the most sensational “God is in His heaven and all is right with the world” feeling. It’s almost spiritual.

Thanks be to God for inventing the grape and then teaching people what to do with it.

Omaine and amen.

 

Spiritual Assessment

I asked my sister and her friends to take an online spiritual assessment with me. I felt this was an important thing to do since these women are charged with the spiritual nourishment and growth of dozens of women attending our annual women’s retreat. I believe women like this should score very highly on these types of assessments.

The good news is, they all passed. The bad news is that they all scored way higher than me.

I have taken it three times now. Last night I was backslidden, but I didn’t answer the question about heaven. This morning I was still backslidden but I moved my kid to private school to get a better score. This afternoon I rethought my response about the shot glasses versus the sculpture and scored 75, which means I just barely qualify as slightly evangelical. 

I really put a lot of stock in these things and believe they accurately assess my spiritual state so I am going to go fast for a year now and also look up the benefits of flagellation. 

In Praise of the Coffee Bean

I’d really must say right here that the perfect amount of caffeine, sipped from an over-sized mug of perfect brewed (strong, organic) coffee, give me the most sensational “God is in His heaven and all is right with the world” feeling. It’s almost spiritual.

Thanks be to God for inventing the coffee bean and then teaching people what to do with it.

Omaine and amen.

Ahhhhh........