Normal Chaos

Fruit hat massacre

2011-12-08T12:54:00.001-05:00

Galatians 5:22-23

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law

Are we sure about that? Are we sure there is no law against it? I ask because it seems to be almost our nature to avoid showing any fruit. Lets think about it for a minute..........

Okay, minutes up.. if you completely agree with me and you totally understand it.. good....... for the other 99.9% of you, keep reading and we shall discuss !!

There are a lot of human beings ( and I use the term loosely) out there that are just flat nasty, hateful, snotty, rude , classless, self centered , mouth breathing vagabonds with nothing better to do than make everyone around them miserable. You know these folks, you walk the other way way when you see them, you check the time on your wrist even though you're not wearing a watch just to avoid eye contact with them. Eye contact with them will turn you into a stone just like Medusa's head after all !! Yes these folks are allowed to roam loose in the world. They, however, are not the problem, we are !! Who are we then ?? We are the rest of the folks who are just too ( deep breath ) lazy-preoccupied-over burdened-culturally desensitized-distracted-busy-self focused-meandering aimlessly- LOST people. Yeppers, we're lost. We wonder thru each day in a fog of overstimulation!! We plug our way through the forest each and every day never seeing a single tree. Not one....... not a single tree. We don't see this as a problem until we trip over a root, or somebody else cracks our backside with a branch !! We simply don't see the problem until it is thrust upon us , then we just feel sorry for ourselves.

Let me test you.

Do you know the names of any of the employees at that gas station you stop at on the way home from work? I know you most likely know their face, but can you, do you, call them by name?

Do you know the names of anyone who works your favorite drive thru window?

The last time some guy tried to cut you off on the highway, did you think to yourself, " oh, this guy must be late for something important, maybe I should give him a little more room and let him get in front of me" ?

That lady sitting at the table next to you last Wednesday, did she have a good day? You would know if you asked, did you ask?

You go to the grocery once a week ( or twice, or almost daily like me ) do the folks in the checkout line know your name? Do you know their's, their husband/wife/kids names? Do you know if they having a good day or not?

When you address a person you do not know, do you smile , say please and thank you, and yes ma'am, no sir?

Unless you answered 100% YES , of course....... then you're qualified to be, " the rest of us" . Yep, you're in the club, you're the problem !!

Okay, now that I have attempted to point out the problem, fruitlessness, lets talk about it for a minute. Yes, I know you're still reading becuase you're just as guilty as me.

Why did you not answer yes to all of the above questions? I know why, same reason as me, you don't have time, don't have the energy to make the effort, don't really care all that much, and you judge the person as not being enough a part of your life to concern yourself with them. They are just there, there to do what they do and you are just passing by. Like it or not, that's why.

There is also another reason. It is easier not to be kind, not to be gentle. It's more difficult to excersize self control than it is to just go with what you feel. We would much rather pick a scab than to help a wound heal, its easier and a lot more fun, right !! It comes more naturally to sit around making fun of your coworkers toupee that looks like a Chia Pet gone horribly wrong, than it does to sit down and have coffee with a guy and listen to him tell you about his wife leaving him, his dog dying, and his kids alcohol and drug problems. I mean, given the choice, which would you pick? The first option is easy, and for a lot of us, a daily activity. The second choice is tough and more rare. We don't even need to focus on stuff that extreme, but it seems to be much easier to verbally destroy others, even when they are not around, even when we don't even know them, than it is to verbally build others up. We are quick to see the faults in others, the differences, the oddities ( although Walmart makes it all too easy). We are slow to praise others, it is more difficult. We feel odd making positive remarks about each other, it is almost as if our culture discourages the activity. Granted, people also discourage that activity, some folks are just hard to be kind to, but that's no excuse. Why do we have the habit of trying to build ourselves up by tearing others apart? Can we really better ourselves that way, does it really make us feel better, bigger, stronger, to demean others?

Is it in our nature to be destructive? Is it in our nature to be negative towards others? Is the negative the only thing we see in each other, have things gotten that bad? Or, maybe, just maybe, its not the only thing we see, just the first thing? Yes, I know very large women with messy nests they call hair should not wear really really tight bright green pants...... but , is that a reason to not be kind to them? Yes, I know some that kid in the drive thru window with a hole in his ear the size of a quarter and golf tee stuffed through the bridge of his nose is entertaining to talk about, but , is that a reason to not show him some forbearance, not to bear with him, not to show him some grace?

Quick side note: For those of you who at this moment are thinking, " well, it's not like I say anything in front of them, they can't know what I say to my friends" I have some bad news for you. Having grown up as ' that guy' , we know ! We know what you're thinking, we know what you're going to say later, we just hope you wait till later to say it. I am as guilty as the next guy, but let me tell you for certain, we know. It becomes awkward when you look at it that way. I judge people wrongly, but I unfortunately know they know I am doing it. When people judge me, I know it. Why is nothing ever said then? It's just too awkward to confront casually, that's the only reason. So the next time you look at the mom who has totally lost control of her kids in the grocery, the kids who are opening the cereal boxes in the aisle and using the Cheerios as confetti, and don't say anything until you get back with your good mom friends, remember this, she knows what you think of her, and what you're going to say...

So, now what ??

We fix it. We change it. We correct it. We apply ourselves. We work towards making the world better, one small act at a time. We grab some fruit and wear in on our heads !! ( what did he say ) Ever notice that when someone wears a hat, you always notice the hat? It is right there, right out there for everyone to see. What if we wore our fruit on our heads? That way people would not have to look to find it, they would see it right away. A lot of us who have fruit, don't always put it out in front in plain sight for everyone to see, we judge and only show the fruit to those we deem worthy. It's kinda like that guy selling knock off Rolex watches out of his trench coat. When only open our coat to expose our fruit to people whom we choose. We all need fruit hats instead.

Okay, so if you're on board with me, what do we do, how do we wear a fruit hat?

Well, step one is reverse our thinking. Typically we think about how we feel and pay attention to what others do.. Step one is to flip that scenario and think about how others feel and pay attention to we do.

Lets go back to the quarter sized hole in ear golf tee wearing drive thru guy. How is his day going? Ask him, no seriously, ask him ! " here is your change, receipt at next window'......... thank you sir, and hey, how's going? its a beautiful day today, I hope you get off work in time to enjoy a little bit of it." Odds are he is going to look at you funny because he wasn't expecting that, but trust me, if you do it , and then do it again next time you're there you will slowly transform in his mind from that really odd person into that cool person he looks forward to seeing every once in a while. Yes, its incredibly awkward at first, but it gets easier.

Use your manners. Please and thank you, have a nice day, how are you doing, etc. Address people as ma'am and sir is great, but if you can avoid the creepy getting in their business factor, find out their name. I can honestly say that when I walk in to BP to get gas I can ask Rona how she is feeling today. I know she is almost fully recovered from the stroke she had a year ago, and if I am alone she asks " where is that cute little girl of yours tonight" If Gracie happens to be with me however, Rona and I never speak to each other, she talks to Gracie !!

For crying out loud.......... SMILE....... people are not invisible. Make eye contact with them, talk to them, smile at them. Treat every person you see with respect. Let me say that again, slowly this time.. treat every person you see, every single one, with respect. Act like they are really people, because in reality, you know what, they ARE people; People with feelings, challenges, needs, etc.... they are real living people whom you have the opportunity to address in a kind, loving, gentle, self controlled manner..

The concept I am talking about here isn't all that difficult. The difficult part is understanding that we are not doing it. The challenge is to deliberately and diligently try to show all of the fruit, all the time, to everyone. The difficulty is in not judging and picking and choosing who we show our fruit to. The hard part is admitting we are jerks ( hi, my name is Chris, and I am a jerk) and then working at being a freak with a fruit hat.

How cool would it be if we could suddenly accomplish this task?

What if we actually treated everyone with respect, cared about each person we came across, learned to recognize them as people, as individuals, as human beings. What if we shared grace with each person we see? Let me put it this way, did God give you forgiveness and grace so that you could take all that forgiveness and all the ample grace and put it in your pocket to keep? Of did He give you forgiveness and grace so that you could share it with others, forgive them, and show them as much grace as they need?

Arlo Guthry , singer of Alice's Restaurant

You know, if
one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and
they won't take him seriously And if two people, two people do it, in harmony,
they may think they're both strange and they won't believe either one of them
And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people encouraging one another respecting each other, smiling and being kind. They may think it's an
organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day,I said
fifty people a day putting on a fruit had and loving one another And friends they may thinks it's a movement.

I am officially declaring this the Fruit of the Spirit Movement. Join with me and show each person you see kindness, gentleness, goodness, patience, love, peace, and joy. Join me and put the fruit on your head, wear your fruit hat for everyone to see..........

Fear !!

2011-11-29T08:56:00.001-05:00

" The only thing we have to fear................ is fear itself. " FDR.

Wow, what telling words these are. Take a moment and try and remove the words from the WWII context and you will see they have a deeper meaning than simply discussing war. To address the meaning, you might want to have a working definition of what fear is.

From Dictionary.com : Fear:

a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid. Synonyms: foreboding, apprehension, consternation, dismay, dread, terror, fright, panic, horror, trepidation, qualm.

Okay, read that again...... slowly......

a distressing emotion ( blah blah blah ) Danger ( blah blah blah ) EVIL ( blah blah blah ) .......

Hmmm, notice anything? A distressing emotion...... distress........ stress........ stress caused by..... caused by among other things, caused by evil..

Wow, Now rethink FDR's quote.. " the only thing we have to fear....... is fear itself " Now that we have a working definition of fear, lets reword his famous quote.

" the only thing that we have to cause us distress.......... is evil "

Makes perfect sense, but I bet you never thought of it that way. Why have we never looked at it that way? Simple reason, fear is almost as complex and nearly as misunderstood as the word Love. Love is complicated, it means many different things, fear is complicated as well, it also has many different meanings. Different meanings to different people based on their own perceptions. For example, also from Dictionary.com:

Fear: reverential awe, especially toward God: the fear of God. Synonyms: awe, respect, reverence, veneration.

That is a completely different definition of fear, in this context, fear is a positive.

Fear can also be a positive when it occurs as an instinct. From Wikipedia:

Fear is a distressing negative sensation induced by a perceived threat. It is a basic survival mechanism occurring in response to a specific stimulus, such as pain or the threat of danger. In short, fear is the ability to recognize danger leading to an urge to confront it or flee from it (also known as the fight-or-flight response

In this context, fear is neither positive, nor negative, it is simply a message!

Fear is a lot more complicated that you might have guessed...

So, what are we afraid of? Again, from Wikipedia:

According to surveys, some of the most common fears are of ghosts, the existence of evil powers, cockroaches, spiders, snakes, heights, water, enclosed spaces, tunnels, bridges, needles, social rejection, failure, examinations and public speaking. flying, heights, clowns, intimacy, death, rejection, people, snakes, success, and driving.

For the purpose of discussion from this point on, I am going to address fear in two forms. Negative fear and positive fear. From the above dialogue, I am going to assume you were paying attention and are now sufficiently able to tell the difference between the two. One thing that I find curious is the source of fear, so lets start there.

Positive fear, aka reverence, respect, awe. This is a Godly fear, or fear of God as it is usually stated. This has proved an interesting conundrum to me in the past. If , as we are told, God did not provide us the Spirit of Fear, then why should we, why do we, fear God? Well, that is why understanding the word is so important. We should not fear God with a negative fear, God is not stressing us. He will upon occasion stretch us, but that is a whole different thing all together. Stretching is growing, and while it might be uncomfortable at the time, it is not something to fear, He has given us Grace after all, and with His Grace and Mercy all we need has been provided, why should we fear? What do we have to be afraid of? If God is with us, who can stand against us? With faith, we stand with God, and it faith we should have no fear. I am going to submit to you that Positive Fear comes from within us, positive fear is the manifestation of our faith. The greater our fear of the Lord, the greater our faith.. Sounds funny to say it that way in our culture, so let me rephrase it. The greater our reverence, the greater our respect, the greater our awe of the Lord, the greater our faith becomes. Now, that sounds better. My original question was where does fear come from? My first answer is this , positive fear comes from within us and is directly connected to faith.

Before going deeper into the point of writing this post, let me briefly address instinctive fear. Instinctive fear is a messenger, it is a warning that someone or something is presenting a situation that can harm us. This fear is also from within us, placed there to act as a signal tower to alert us to potential harm. Each individual may react differently or at a different level to this stimulus, but it is an automatic and uncontrolled response. We, as humans, can condition ourselves to ignore the warning, perhaps taking it from a paralysing terror down to a more manageable level, but the instinct will always be there. Soldiers can ignore the fear of thrusting themselves into the battle, but some warning, ignored or not, was there for them.

Now , on to the crux of the matter. Negative fear = a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined. I am going to add to my question here and not only ask what is the source of this fear, but why, in our culture, do we do like to play with it? This is the most common definition of fear, when asked about fear, most of my respondents replies fell into this category of negative fear. (thank you facebook friends for your inputs ) When fear is discussed, usually negative fear is the subject. Fear, anxiety, trepidation, terror, horror, dread, all these words have extremely negative implications. None of us ( assumption on my part ) would want to witness the horror of seeing our child, or any child, being struck and killed by a car. None of us would want to suffer through the terror of being on a plane as it spirals into the ground knowing that upon impact we will die a horrible death. None of us would want to bear the anxiety of a hostage situation, knowing that sooner or later some of us will die. We can all agree that this kind of fear, negative fear, is something to be avoided. We don't ever want to experience this level of fear.

This is why I find it so strange, so odd, so illogical, that we as a culture are somehow enthralled with playing with fear. We have manufactured an entire industry around the creation of artificial fear! Notice the definition one last time ( beating the horse , I know ) whether the threat is real or imagined. We all would just as soon avoid real fear, but yet we not only seek out imagined fear, we pay lots of money to achieve it!! Does this really make sense? We are saying fear is....... fun. Does that make sense? When looked at from logical terms, no, it makes no sense whatsoever, yet, we all do it. ( yes, I will confess now to being guilty as well ) I do this, I have done this, I am just pointing out how terribly odd this really is. ( quick disclaimer, I confess because I do not want you to view the following dialog as ridicule, indictment, or judgement )

The thing we list most often as fearing is ghosts and evil powers, yet we pay to go to haunted houses, we pay to watch horror movies, we even enjoy a holiday based around dressing up like evil spirits. There is even a hit television show called Fearfactor. The participants in the show experience real fear while we entertain ourselves by watching them, by watching their fear. We flock to amusement parks and get on rides that induce artificial fear in us because of the motion, the height, the rapidity of the movement. It is all based on our fear. Are we trying to overcome our fears? Some might say yes, others no, but if you ride a roller coaster once and experience fear, and the second time you no longer have the same anxiety, do you ride it a third time? Most would answer yes, even after 'conquering' the fear, you continue to ride in hopes of getting a little more of that emotion. Spiders were listed high on the list as well, yet the movie Arachnophobia was a blockbuster. Why would we do that? People tie rubber bands to themselves and jump off bridges, we jump out of airplanes for sport. Not all who engage in this had fear of heights, but the emotional state achieved while falling is an attempt at generating a 'safe' fear. An artificial fear. A good ride at an amusement park is one in which while you are standing in line, you can hear the riders screaming. Why are they screaming? Is it fear? If so, why are we in line to get on? Same holds true with a 'good' horror movie, the theater full of screamers is the best movie. Have we decided that fear is fun?

These are just things that make me wonder, what are we thinking.

Other part of the question, where does negative fear come from?

I cannot say for certain.

But, this does come to mind.

1 Peter 5:8

New International Version (NIV)

8 Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.

So, in conclusion, I submit this....... What is fear? What are we afraid of? Should we fear anything at all?

I end as I began.

" The only thing we have to fear....... is fear itself"

Wise words indeed........

Baptism of Grace

2011-11-25T08:30:00.001-05:00

Back in October Gracie was baptized. For those who might not understand what that is, it is the act of being immersed in water for the forgiveness of sins, to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, and the acceptance and confession of Jesus Christ as her personal Lord and Savior. The immersion represents death and rebirth as a new creation, a disciple and follower of Jesus.

Now, technical stuff aside. Gracie had wanted to be baptized for some time before this, but being willing, and understanding what she was doing were not exactly in the same place. Our pastor firmly believes that a person who wants to be baptized must be able to 'weigh the costs' as well as just wanting to do it. They must not just be willing to make the commitment, but understand what the commitment is. So, Gracie took a class ( four weeks long) with our pastor and learned all about what the costs are. Only hours after completion of the class, she started making plans to go and speak with the pastor about her desires. Pastor talked with her a while, made certain it was her desire, not her parents, and re-confirmed it was her understanding, not something else. Upon completion of this, a date was set .

Gracie requested that her mom and dad be the ones to do the baptism. ( woot woot !!) She wanted me to do the dunking, so mom got to take the confession of faith before hand, then I got to do it.

So, the first caveat of this story is , why did she want me to do the dunking ? There was more than just one reason, but one of the driving forces behind her decision to choose me was that she is/was afraid of the water. I take her to the pool in the summer, she has a blast, but she does not at all like to put her face under water. When she does, water goes up her nose ( why? I dunno ) and that freaks her out. Since I am always the one in the water with her, I was her choice to be the dunker.Whatever the reason for her choice, it was her choice, and I am/was simply thrilled I got the blessed pleasure of being able to do it.

Now that she has made the decision, and made her choices , its just a matter of waiting until Sunday and making sure all her friends and family are aware of it and have the opportunity to come see if they choose to. For those outside the faith, or with a different understanding of the concept, just understand, to us, this is a huge, humongous, eternally big deal. During the week, Gracie is so very excited. She is looking forward to it, she is hungry for it, she keeps talking about it, everything is so very positive. One of the sidebars to the story is that Gracie has not been able to take communion. It bothered her that other kids did, and she didn't. It bothered her other kids who had not been baptized did, and she wanted to follow the rules so she wouldn't, but they shouldn't be doing it either. ( her words ) So, she was looking forward to being able to take communion with the adults and the 'big kids' and 'teens'. She even wanted to make sure she got back into the service in time to take communion with everyone else, for her first time. ( another cool thing was mom got to hand Gracie the first part and I the second part of her first communion, that was pretty special as well)

So, I mentioned that Gracie was off the hook excited, and everything was positive. Well, as the week wore on, one small thing did change. When I was tucking Gracie in one night, she mentioned to me, " oh, by the way daddy, the water still scares me a little" ( uh oh ) That was all she said, and we did talk about it for it a while. She seemed to be okay, it was just a little scared, not terrified, not big scared, just a little scared.

I was worried, however, that this issue was going to grow. I was concerned that when she was standing there she was going to stiffen up on me and not want to lay back into the water. I didn't want to force her to lay back, so I wasn't sure what would happen. It just so happens ( insert Divine intervention here ) that I was signed up to do a prayer walk in the sanctuary that weekend. I went from station to station praying and praising, following the instructions. But, when I got to the front of the sanctuary, I deviated from the plan a little. I walked up to the baptismal, put my hands in the water, ( the ice cold water ) and prayed for Gracie. The gist of the prayer went something like this, " Lord, we know we are not worthy of the gift of your grace, and neither are we worthy of the gift you have given us in Grace. She is such a blessing to us and so many others. She brings joy to so many people, the light of your Love shines so brightly through her smile and her laughter. When we came home from China and laid her on the altar we promised to " raise her up in the way she should go" we promised to give her back to you in acknowledgement that she came from You. Gracie has chosen to do this, she wants to come closer to you, she wants to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. But, Lord, I am concerned that she is still afraid of the water. Lord, I come as your humble servant asking help, if it be Your will, let Your peace flow through the water and calm her spirit. Lord I ask that you drive any and all fear out of this place , drive the fear from her as we know the spirit of fear is not from You. Let Your comfort and peace flow into her and allow her to come to you without fear in her heart. In Jesus name "

Now, fast forward to Sunday.

Sunday morning, its friends day at church, Gracie has additional family and friends there to see her and because its friends day ( bring a friend to church day) the place is jammed packed. Me, mom and Gracie are in back getting our robes on and preparing to head to the water. ( insert appropriate water song here, let us gather by the river maybe ) Gracie looks up at me and says, " I'm still a little scared by the water" and before I can answer her, mom explains to her that Jesus is in the water waiting for her, and he won't let anything happen to her. ( mom doesn't know about my prayer so I think that was a pretty cool thing to say, you rock mom)

Now, lets do a play by play from here.

We are all robed up and waiting.

Pastor pops in, music is playing, when the music stops we head into the water.

Mom goes up the stairs first, then Gracie, then me, pastor is only minimally aware that there is a potential issue.

When we arrive at the precipice of the stairs we can all three look down into the water.

Mom is a little nervous because she has a lot of words to say and isn't comfortable with public speaking, she is also concerned that she will cry and not be able to speak.

I am concerned that my daughter will stiffen up and not let me lay her back into the water. ( oh me of little faith )

Gracie takes one look at the water and FLIPS OUT.......

Tears come streaming down her face, she is shaking, she is terrified. I offer to carry her into the water. She yells at me. "NO"

Her little body is trembling with fear.

" the water looks funny, it looks too deep, the water is green, I'm scared, I don't want to get in it, I don't want to get in...... we can do this later, "

Pastor comes up the stairs and lays hands on Gracie to comfort her, says something like, its okay Gracie.

Gracie flashes a look over her shoulder at him and tells him , "NO"

( have to know the people to get the humor in that part, Gracie is so respectful and shy, quiet around Pastor Brian, to yell at him is comically out of character)

Mom is reminding her that Jesus is in the water and He is waiting for her.

I remind her that not only is Grandpa and a bunch of her friends out there waiting on her, but being a disciple means being a good example for them, this was her choice, she needs to follow through.

Both of her parents words fell on deaf ears, still shaking, trembling, and crying very hard.
Pastor Brian has stepped down away from us and I can feel him praying instead of talking.

Music stops..............

Mom steps off stairs into the water.

Gracie steps off , as if on cue, and touches the water.

She has a death grip on my finger as she steps forward. Then, as she touches the water, her grip loosens. Every tear is dried away from her eyes. The shivering and trembling is gone. I immediately notice that something happened. Being the slow and sinful creature that I am, it took me a minute to recognize what just happened.

Gracie stands firmly and confidently facing her mom.

Mom talks for a moment to Gracie about how proud we are of her.

Mom asks Gracie to repeat a confession of faith.

Gracie speaks...... she speaks in a confident voice..... ( her best cheerleader voice )

It strikes me then, confident........ fearless........

Now its my turn.......

I speak briefly as well, then I hand Gracie the handkerchief. She places it over her mouth and nose. I place my hand over hers and place my other hand behind her back.

Here is the moment that I was concerned about...... what will she do........ ( oh me of little faith, have I learned nothing!!)

Not only did she not struggle or fight me, she dove........DOVE ...... back into my hand. If she had been on dry land she would have done one of her back handsprings.

When she came back up out of the water, there was nothing but peace........

and applause from a packed church......

We headed out of the water, changed and headed back to the sanctuary for communion and the service.

After service, much love and many hugs, we headed to lunch at Putters, with Grandpa, Debi, and several other friends..

Later that night Gracie said something to me that still sits on my spirit. I was talking to her about how cool it was that she was so confident in the water, once she got in.. She looked at me and said, " I was afraid, but when I got it the water and you told me to not be afraid , I wasn't " ( problem,, once in the water, I didn't say that.... hmm, wonder )

My belief..... (say what you will ) my belief is that God removed the fear from her, but only after she battled a spiritual attack and had the faith to trust Him and step forward. He took care of her, as He always does, but this time she had to bare the cost of her decision first, and when she did so, He blessed her, like He always will......

Where have all the good men gone?

2011-10-06T16:01:00.000-04:00

Before we begin, let me make a few points crystal clear. I am talking about men in this post even though I will spend a good deal of time discussing women. ( clear as mud, I know ) Also, before I go railing on the bad behavior of my gender in general, I want to point out that I am not now nor have I ever been immune to the behaviors/situations I am going to discuss. I am not 'tooting my own horn' at any time. Just because I am discussing the disgusting in third person, does not mean I am not guilty in the first person. As an added caveat, for my feminist friends, read slowly, I am not bashing or blaming women for anything ! Let us begin.

On the sixth day God created man, and we have been messing everything up ever since.

First I want to point towards a well known, well researched, and well publicized issue concerning women. I will call it the Barbie syndrome. There was a time , not so long ago, when Barbie was being attacked on a regular basis. She was being attacked by women's groups, government watchdogs and the like. What was the issue? If you somehow managed to miss this, Barbie can and does have negative effects on the self esteem and self body image of young girls. They play with Barbie, they try to emulate Barbie, but they can never BE Barbie. Barbie is an unattainable standard. Barbie has taken the heat off and on through the years as being a driving force behind bulimia and anorexia, as well as behind a growing obesity issue and some connections to young suicides. Barbie has been a bad bad girl over the years. While personally I find the issue just a bit overstated, I will acknowledge that for some reasonable percentage of young girls, this Barbie syndrome does begin to have a negative effect on their potential development. I think other factors are required for this to get out of hand , parenting, poor school environments, and other issues play their parts as well. The reason I wanted to point out this small piece of trivia about the self esteem and body image of women, is because it leaves boys/men out of the scenario all together. Or said another way, Barbie is a commercial, cultural icon that is causing potential damage to girls, but it is just one icon. How many icons are effecting the self esteem and body image of boys? Does Barbie not effect boys too? ( using the term Barbie here to mean cultural icon, not necessarily the actual doll )

The little snippet that brought this to the forefront of my mind the other day was an interview with an author who pointed out some interesting gender facts. Did you know that 62% of the people in college are FEMALE? That is correct, females now outnumber males in college attendance and have a higher rate (%) of graduation from college as well. Women have invaded the campuses in record numbers during this generation. An increase in the number of women attending college is in no way a negative thing. The doors of higher education have been swung wide open for women for a good long while now, but it is in this generation that women have fully embraced their potential. They are women, hear them roar ! The negative arrives when you look a little deeper. The population is roughly evenly divided along gender lines, meaning there are about the same number of men as women. So, in a totally even scenario, college campuses should be roughly evenly divided as well. In generations past, when women were not encouraged to attend college, the numbers would be understandable askew. In this generation of gender equality, one would expect the numbers to be approximately even, logically anyway. They are in no way even, 62% women and the trend is growing ! Again, the point of this is not to undermine women, or wish less women went to college, the underlying question is this... WHERE DID ALL THE MEN GO??

Viewpoint number one, we, the men of this generation, men in this culture of America, we are victims. Yes, I said it, we are victims !! We have been overlooked, overburdened, and entirely too much has been asked of us. We have been crushed under the pressure of the world. Too many unrealistic expectation have been thrust upon us. Women might have grown up under the unrealistic expectations of the Barbie syndrome, but what have we been subjected too? What figures have been placed before us boys to emulate, and expectations to be like? Who are the roll models for boys? We are handed $10 million dollar a year quarterbacks. ( with issues )

Michael Vick

We are handed billionaire moguls , street savvy politicians, ultimate warriors like GI -Joe and white knights who always come to save the day.

Talk about body image issues !! We men are given icons to chase after like the Old Spice Guy. Look away, now back again...... Diamonds !!

While we chase after the ideal of being the man your man could smell like, in reality, what we see ourselves as is this :

We men have crumbled under the expectations. Women have reacted to Barbie syndrome ( and other cultural stimuli ) by becoming more aggressive, aggressive to the point of self destruction in some cases. Women have gotten on the diet fads, women have joined the ranks of workaholics in massive number. Women have entered the world of cut throat ambition full steam ahead. Men on the other hand, we have reacted differently as a whole. We have looked at the expectations and thrown our collective hands in the air and walked away. We have said uncle, tapped out, given up. We have crawled inside our x-box fantasy worlds and are just waiting for the real world to pass us by. We have lost sight of what is important. We men have by and large succumbed to the pressure and simply entered a state of total denial.. Men are hesitant to take responsibility for anything anymore. All one need do to confirm my theory is to take a quick glance at our leaders. How many years, how long can politicians in Washington simply blame it on the other guy ! ( Read that, its Bush's fault, its the Tea Party's fault, its my oppositions fault ) When will they take responsibility for their own actions or lack there of ?? Never is the cultural norm, and because its the cultural norm, people believe it.

Men are avoiding being fathers, and completely avoiding being dads !! Men are becoming lousy husbands in record numbers. The employed male head of household scenario is no longer the expectation in our culture. Again, I have no issue with women working, I get the women are equal thing . Fatherhood suffers from the same issues that has destroyed our body image and our financial head of household motivation. That enemy would be cultural roll models !! The media is to blame in some small part, but the media only survives on what the society wishes to view !! We must understand that, if we stop watching Sex in the City and Jersey Girls, that garbage will go away !

Okay men, I am done with the self flogging for now ! Now, I am issuing a call to action to all of us. As men do, I am going to form a plan of action. We will bypass the meeting, we will bypass the reading of the minutes , we will bypass all of the perfunctory who ha that is contained in our club. I am here by to forth temporarily suspending all 'man cards' until further notice. I am taking this action unilaterally. To regain your membership in manhood, please consider the following:

Men, it is time we put our culture aside and looked to a more relevant source for our roll models. It is time we took a good look at who we are and who we are meant to be. I propose, men, that we attempt to adhere to the original biblical model instead of the American cultural model of what it means to be men, husbands and fathers. Even those of you my friends who are not Christians will find the following sensible, logical, and you will find that it will work.

Here we go.....

Men...... these are the critical things.....

Work. Men, you must work. It wasn't long after God created us that he gave us a job, we were to 'tend' the garden. It wasn't till the fall that the tend changed to 'toil'. Either way, we were made to work and work we must. Work doesn't even always mean be employed but when its time to make the donuts, make the donuts. Employed is good, employed is productive, but some good men are not employed, all good men need to work! We can work around the house, we can work in the community, we can work as a volunteer. We can work on relationships, we can work on becoming better men, we can work on becoming better read and more well rounded individuals. The definition of work I am using here is : to put concerted and continued effort into something that is productive and beneficial. In other words, improving you bowling game, your beer bong skills, and your Angry Birds score do not count as work !
Love. Love is a many splenderd thing, or something like that. Love means a lot of different things depending on what we are talking about and who we are talking about. Let us first address our wives. From Ephesians 5..²⁵ "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her" Now, what exactly does that mean? It means what it says. Give yourself up for her, make sacrifices without whining like a spoiled little girl. Put her first and your own wants and yes even needs second to hers. Consider her feelings ( ugh, I know , I know ) before your own. Consider her happiness before your own. Work ( see above ) towards providing for her without regard for yourself. Love in itself is work, we must decide to do it, put forth effort into it, and the result is productive. What should that look like in terms of a modern American man? Well, lets start by cleaning up the kitchen once in a while, load the dishwasher and clean off the counters without being asked. Do this even though you would rather be on Facebook or watching the big game. Yes, yes I know she will fuss that you didn't do it right, they all do, but do it anyway because if you don't your not putting forth effort and showing love, if you do, your just incompetent, which is at least excusable. Then, clean the toilet. Again, do your best, you will not do it perfectly, but usually this job is one we men can do and not get told we did it wrong. Every so often, send her out, give her some cash , some freedom, and some girl time. You stay home and work on perfecting the toilet, laundry, and dishwasher skills while she hangs out with the girls. We men like to do this, it is good for our wives to spend some time with their girlfriends too. They are going to do this anyway, it works out much nicer for us if they are happy with us during this time, otherwise they will just spend their time sharing and comparing our imperfections. In terms of loving our children, sorry men, their needs and wants also come before ours. The most important thing I can stress here is we need to clearly and frequently tell our children we love them, and then show them that they are loved. I cannot be clear enough here. Our children should never question for a moment that we men will move heaven and earth for them. They need to know that whether they are 3 or 30, we will be there for them. The love of a child is unconditional. Love one another. This one is simple. Treat each person in your life with kindness and respect. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Be a Father. Men, this is one area among many were we are pitifully lacking. Fathers lead, guide, teach, discipline, and mentor their children. Fathers raise their children up in the way they ought to go, so they will not depart from it. A father is always aware of what their child is doing, what they are thinking, and what they are going thru. They always know, because they are involved. Fathers don't experience their children as an afterthought, but experience them as a purpose. Fatherhood is a job, something that we work at. Many a man has given up the father roll because they feel they cant do it. Here is a clue for those men, nobody is perfect, we all struggle, doing it wrong isn't the greatest sin, walking away is. Most adults can look back at our parents and identify tons of errors our parents made, but we will keep the errors if the exchange is for apathy and absence. Fathers, stay in your kids lives, no matter what. Make the effort, swim upstream , have courage, unrelenting effort should be the norm.. What is at stake is the next generation, and without good example, generations after that as well. Men, it is our responsibility to be take the person whom we helped to create and mold them into a human being better than ourselves. It is no small task, but it is a priceless endeavour worthy of all our passion and energy.
Be a dad. Notice that I am calling dad and father two different things gentlemen. Its a dad who spends time having imaginary tea with his daughter and playing hide and seek with his son. It's a dad who splatters water all over the bathroom making bath time so much fun. Its a dad who stays up late putting the bicycle together, staying up until the job is done. A dad takes his kid out for dinner, just the two of them together. Its a dad who runs and runs and runs trying to keep the kite afloat when there is no wind in the weather. A dad has no lecture of I told you so, he just puts his arm around his child and says, " yes, I know ". Dads are very different creatures than fathers are, even though they both inhabit the same body. It is important for a child to have both a father and a dad. Men, stand up, be fathers and be dads.
Invest. No, I don't mean in your 401K, nor do I mean in Apple Stock. That is not the kind of investment I am talking about. Men, invest in your spouse, your mate, your love, invest in her. Talk with her, trust her deeply, keep no secrets. Find so way of letting her know on a regular basis just how you feel about her. There is an old saying about having some skin in the game. The chicken has a stake in breakfast but the pig is invested, all in. I cant resist the humorous irony here, but men, we need to be pigs on this one. Go all in with your spouse !! Invest also in your children. On a personal note, I have noticed the lack of men who show up for cheer practice with their daughters. I have noticed a lack of testosterone at tumbling class as well. Sure there are a few of us guys around, and there are always legit reasons for one parent doing something without the need of the other, but all in all, its oh so obvious that there are a lack of guys at the girly stuff. Men, pay attention, your daughter will notice if you care enough to invest the time to watch her practice, to watch her work, to watch her achieve. There is something sad and hollow about reaching a milestone, or doing something perfectly for the first time, and your dad doesn't see it. Sure its great that mom did, if mom did, but why is mom the only one ever there? Men, your daughter is your child too, you cant be everywhere, you cant do everything, don't even try, but you can invest all you have. Like in finance, choose your investments wisely. Your daughters practice, even though its just practice, still trumps a night with the boys or a round of golf. Invest in your community as well. The people around you, family or not, will take note of what you invest your time in. If you invest in church, raising money for cancer research, or volunteering to work at a shelter, your choices do not go unnoticed.
Accept your roll as pastor. You are the pastor in your house. You are the one whose job it is to lead the family in spiritual matters. As pastor , you are king of your kingdom. Beware the difference between the good King and the bad king. You are not a totalitarian king like a Castro, you are to be a benevolent king like Jesus. Sacrifice for your subjects, lead by example, do right so that others know what right is. Pray with your family, pray for your family....... the family that prays together stays together.
Let your yes be yes and your no be no. Enough said !!
Respect your fellow man. Men, we sometimes find ourselves at the gas pump, filling up on not just gasoline, but also filling up on judgements and jealousies. Stop doing that. Respect your fellow man, do not envy them, do not judge or despise them. See that guy with duct tap window , standing there filling up his hoopty and wearing torn and dirty clothes, drinking a 40 out of a paper bag? You see that guy right !! You sir, are not one little bit any better than him. You would not have survived half what he has been through. If he looks at you, smile, say hello, be kind, do not judge. See that guy with the convertible Maserati over there? Yeah, the guy with 3 babes, one whispering in his ear, one pumping his gas and the third cleaning his windshield with her..... well, you see him right? That guy, is not as lucky as you, he's no better than you. Don't be jealous of him, life's to short to envy.

Now, I am going to take a page from the media on this one an end this segment on a visual note. If it works in advertising and media outlet, maybe pictorials will work for me too.

a man who gets his mancard back

out with the boys

investing

Hollywood love

real love

Hollywood work

man working

The line to retrieve your mancard will now form behind me...

Many blessings gentlemen.......

Amazing Grace

2011-09-09T08:22:00.000-04:00

I haven't posted in a while, so I thought I might just share a little update about Gracie. I have been thinking a lot lately about her journey through life. The impetus for this is that her birthday is coming at the end of the month. That is correct peeps, Gracie turns 8 this month.

First, I want to spend a minute talking about her tumbling/cheer classes. She is enrolled at TNT Tumble Dance and Cheer. (TNT). She goes to class between 2 and 4 times a week depending on her Little Miami Cheer schedule. Just talking about it doesn't make it seem like a big deal, but then, you can't see it through my eyes. My eyes have a blurred sense of memory, when I look at Gracie I can still see that frightened 15 month old baby. That 15 month old who could not walk, could not crawl, and could barely sit up on her own. I see that 15 month old peanut of a child who would scoot on her butt to try and get around the room. I see that 15 month old who was way behind the curve in her gross motor skills and her fine motor skills as well. I also see that 2-1/2 year old who would stagger and fall down when she tried to walk too fast. I see the little girl whose limbs would stiffin up to look like a mannequin when she tried to run. I see that 5 year old who tried and tried and tried to learn how to ride a bike, but balance was a concept that she just didn't have the muscles for. My eyes remember the little girl who doubts herself and always questions if she can. My eyes remember the little girl who is so personable one moment and painfully and awkwardly shy the next, so loving with someone and then so reserved and introverted the very next second. My eyes remember all of these things with great clarity. Every bit of this is only a distant memory when Gracie is on the tumble floor or in front of the crowd in her cheer uniform !! In this setting she is powerful, she is graceful, she is self confident and a warrior willing to challenge the world. I have watched her little flower bud and head into full bloom on the tumble floor. My little 15 month old frightened child is now doing round-off back hand springs alone on the floor. She still struggles on the floor, but the power and effort are there, its just refining her technique. She does them beautifully on the tramp, and if she does them into the pit ( soft squishy landing area ) she almost flies. I don't pretend to think she is perfect, I don't think she does the best round off back handspring in the world, yes, I admit other kids do them too and some might have better technique, BUT, every pass she takes across the floor is a perfect pass to me. It's perfect to me because I see what they do to her soul !! I see the confidence build up in her spirit, I see the pride in herself grow with each success, I have seen what was her frail little body gain strength and power that 6 years ago I couldn't have even imagined.

Not all that long ago Gracie was still working on the back hand spring going into the pit. During the time the kids would do their running tumbling, Gracie would line up to practice on the tramp into the pit. Finally, after many many many months of this, she graduated to practicing on the floor. She was just beaming with pride when she got moved. We have paid for a few private lessons as well, she gets to spend a half hour with her favorite coach ( the owners daughter) and gets individualized attention and lessons. She gets so excited about her private lessons you would think we bought her a puppy or something. I think she knows just how much progress she makes when she gets to do this. She goes full out the whole half hour. You wouldn't think a half hour of anything would wear out a 7 year old, but let me tell you, a half hour private lesson with the TNT staff will wear anybody out. I need a nap just watching her.

So, if you see me sitting up on the observation deck watching my girl tumble around the room, you might now have some idea why I am smiling so much. If you look too closely, you might see just a bit of moisture in my eyes once in a while. If you do, don't worry, all is well, I am just seeing two Gracie's with my blurry double vision memory. I see both the frightened frail 15 month old and the powerful, self confident blossoming 7 year old athlete at the same time in my eyes.

Morning

2011-06-23T08:15:00.005-04:00

Morning people..... this morning was one of those mornings. Let me give you a peek into my brain today. ( fear not, I will keep it PG-13 )

4:45 AM : alarm goes off. I have two alarms set, my cell phone and a radio alarm clock. This is the radio playing something brain damaging from the 80's. I awake , song is instantly stuck in my head. I think to myself, this is going to be a good day, I am wide awake without struggling so I will hit snooze, take a few good deep breaths to get the oxygen going and turn off the alarm. I can't see the clock so I reach for what I think is the right button and just keep pushing until the sound dies. There, now I will get up.

5:00 AM : Cell phone alarm goes off, and wakes me up. Oupps. I fell back asleep somehow. Well, that is why I use multiple alarms. Well, lets do this again, deep breaths to get oxygen going, in .... out........in.........out........in...........out.............................in....................................out....

5:10 AM : Cell phone alarm goes off, and wakes me up, AGAIN. Dang, I thought I got up last time. I squeeze the life out of the cell phone until that stupid ring tone stops. This time I sit up. Well, this is the time I actually need to get up so all is well. Gracie has crawled in bed during the night and is pressed against me. Echo, our dog, follows Gracie everywhere so she is next to me as well. The bed is so warm and snugly. But I am sitting up, so it is time to get up.

5:20 AM : Cell phone alarm goes off again, and wakes me up, again. Now wait just a minute here, I was sitting up, how did I get back under the covers? (deep sigh ) I was awake and jolly at 4:45 now I am crossed eyed, sleepy, and running behind. Uhgggg. I stand up, surely I can't sleep standing up.

I put on my work shirt and pull up my work pants, shove my cell phone in my pocket and grab a pair of socks. I stagger into the bathroom for the obligatory morning sink the sailor session. ( for those unfamiliar with that phrase, it means to engage in the morning pee while the toilet is in the middle of a flush. Its much more fun to pee into spinning water while humming ' yo ho ho its a pirates life for me')

Now while I was singing and peeing, I managed to drop my socks in the sink. Why the sink still had a little water in it I don't know, but just let me tell you, I hate putting on socks only to find out they are wet in spots. ICKY. Now, the next thing that needs accomplished, after the pee, is to zip and button the work pants. This is more of an adventure than it needed to be, allow me to elaborate.

Every once in a while you go to zip up your pants only to find that somehow the zipper had turned itself straight down and gotten wedged in the bottom of the opening. Best case scenario, you have to engage in that awkward fishing maneuver to attempt to wiggle out the top of the zipper so you can zip your pants, worse case......... pliers. I managed to get the zipper unstuck. All is well, right? No, now I must button my pants. Inhale, squeeze button through hole, exhale, duck. Why duck you ask? Duck because when I exhaled, my button flew off the pants, bounced around in the dark. The splash at the end told me of the final resting place of the button. (Yo ho ho, its a pirates life for me. )

Well 5:25 AM and I have to change pants. I am almost able to focus now, pants off, pants on. ( You should have heard that said in the voice of Miyagi ) Zipper works this time, button works as well. As I walk down the stairs I am able to smooth out my now wadded up boxers and flatten the legs as well as remove them from their curled up my crack position. I accomplish this as I am going down the steps ( master of multitasking am I. ( you should have heard that in the voice of Yoda )). I notice now that my socks are still wet. Why did I not change socks when I changed pants? How easy would socks off, socks on have been ? ( Miyagi again ) I don't know but its 5:27 AM now so wet socks will dry.

Shoes on, accoutrement's collected, teeth brushed and in car by 5:31 AM.

I open garage door, look to make sure its open and all the way up, back out, watch door close. beep beep..... whats that? My cell phone just beeped to tell me something, but what !! Oh, I left my blue tooth in the house. Garage door open, garage door closed. ( Miyagi again )

Finally I am on the way.

I love to drive on wet roads when its no longer raining.

Why ?

Puddles. Rain makes puddles, I love the sound of tires splashing puddled water. Bonus points for soaking an early morning jogger.

Yo ho ho its a pirates life for me........

sing it with me......

Yo ho ho its a pirates life for me, yo ho ho even a pirate has to pee......

Utopia.

2011-01-25T12:52:00.003-05:00

Time to build Utopia.

I want to build the perfect world. A world were everything is fair, nobody has any issues, nobody has any cares, and nobody has any problems. A place were life is beautiful all the time. A place of calm rest and when someone talks someone else listens and doesn't interrupt them. A place of intellectual growth without the stress of competition. Some would call this magical and imaginary place Utopia, but I shall call in Myland since it is mine after all.

First, in order to build Myland, I shall appoint myself King and head of construction, rules, and governance.

Rule number one. The first thing that seems to keep people from being happy and beautiful is a perceived lack. Usually a perceived lack of money. To avoid this, I shall outlaw being poor. From this point forward in Myland, no one is permitted to be poor, as said by decree of the King of Myland. There, problem solved, we don't have the poor around anymore so we don't have to feel guilty. Feeling guilty makes us not feel beautiful so we can't have that. The poor often feel jealous, and feeling jealous makes them not feel beautiful, again , problem solved. The poor also often feel sad, depressed, overlooked, and forgotten. I have cured all these ailments and made them happy and beautiful again by outlawing poverty. Never again shall the poor want , for want is banished as is being poor.

Rule number two: Something else that seems to cause many people sadness is the disparity between weekdays and weekends. Weekends are so short and they end with something called Monday. By decree of the King, there will be no more Mondays. Logically this is a problem because then the sadness, grumpiness and ire for Monday will just be juxtaposed upon Tuesday and thus accomplish nothing but transiency. Therefore I , the King and benevolent ruler of Myland will banish all the days of the week. We will have no more weekdays, no more days, time will become fluid and not broken into time frames that my people , the Mylanders, do not enjoy fully. Since there is no separation between weekday and weekend, workdays will exist only at our convenience and can separated by as much or as little time as the worker sees fit.

Rule number three : This is the Mr. Obvious Rule. Since I am the sole King, I am also the sole governor and thus the only government. People don't like politicians, they are not beautiful people who make the rest of us enjoy our beautiful lives. They are unnecessary in Myland and thus by default, there are no more politicians. Without politicians, we have no election and therefore no annoying political adds. This condition alone increases the happiness quotient in Myland. There is no bickering about left or right, only joyful Utopian moderation.

Rule number four : One other great source of ugliness is fairness. It would appear that life does not treat all people the same and that is not fair. Everyone wants everything to be fair, and well, it would only be fair if life worked that way, right? So, I decree the Myland Fairness policy of this and all generations here to forth. By rule of me, I declare and ordain that all things are fair and unfairness is abolished, banned, and ruled out of order and illegal. My kingdom shall have no unfairness. To enforce this rule, anytime unfairness is spotted, it must be rendered and put asunder and replaced with fairness immediately. Fair is to be defined by all parties involved in the activity or action or circumstance that was called to question as unfair. Transferring from proclaimed unfairness to fairness must happen immediately if not sooner, post haste.

Rule number 5: In order to really be joyous, beautiful, and full of much joyness, all things must be accessible to all people. This will eliminate coveting, jealousy, greed, ambition, and lust. In order to do this, we must share all things equally. Everything except my sole power to rule over Myland of course, somebody has to be in charge, right. This will create some obvious logistical problems, but they can be solved by rule number 4. I realize that my socks might not fit your feet, but you're welcome to share them with me anyway, that would only be fair. This of course means we will have new definitions of relationships too. It is hard to be monogamous and share at the same time, but we all must share so therefore there will really be no more marriages. Since we will be sharing kids as well, the family unit will need to be redefined a bit too. Now, keep in mind rule number 4, it would not be fair for all of us to share our kids with the same person at the same time. That would not be fair to them to have so many kids all of the sudden.

Rule number 6 : As king I decree there shall be no gallivanting around. Why, because I said so, I just don't like gallivanting around. Its unbecoming. All that hem hawing , messin' and gaumin'. I don't want none of that.

Rule number 7: After putting more thought into this, it seems what causes the most ugliness in the world is the perceived differences between its people. I have set out to remove the ugly and only leave the beautiful. I have made it illegal to be poor, or rich. I have made it impossible to be jealous or greedy. I have made it so everything is fair. I don't think this solves all the problems in heading towards perfection. In order to be happy, I am afraid that people cannot be allowed to see any difference between themselves and other people. One simple way to abolish racism forever is to make everyone blind. So, I as King so do now ordain that everyone must close their eyes and keep them closed for at least two generations. After two generations have passed, perhaps we will be able to see one another without preconceived notions of worth.

Rule number 8 : Lastly, I declare that there will be the addition of a national holiday. The Myland let it B day. On this day we will celebrate all things that begin with the letter B. Boogers, will be hung on windows in glorious celebration. Body odor is an expected tradition on this special day. Beards will go unshaven for weeks prior. Beer will be drank with friends, in moderation of course. Beanies will be worn on our heads as traditional dress. The kids will celebrate an imaginary character named Bailiwig who sneaks in the Basement to deliver Baked goods left in Ball caps that are left on the Banister. Good kids get Bagels and Bavarian cream filled Bon Bons, bad kid get Baked Beans and Biscuits. Remember kids, Bailiwig is watching so you had better Behave............

Onomatopoeia

2011-01-25T08:57:00.003-05:00

This post has nothing to do with words that sound like what they are (crash). I just like saying the word onomatopoeia.

It has been some time since I updated you all on what is going on with Gracie.

Gracie is now in second grade. It is entertaining to watch her mature and become more outspoken and questioning of life in general. As she grows her life and relationships become more complicated and she struggles to understand the rules of life ( or lack there of ). She attends Hamilton Maineville Elementary this year and should have been there next year as well, but due to budget cuts and a levy failing 7 times in a row at this point, her school is being closed. In the near future the district may be dissolved entirely and pushed out into the surrounding areas.

She is enrolled in tumbling classes at TNT Nitro Tumble Dance and Cheer. She has learned to do a cartwheel, roundoff, and is so very close to a back handspring. She can do it with a spotter and the spotter hardly touches her, but she still lacks the confidence to do it if she doesnt feel that hand on her back as she goes over. It is a beautiful thing to watch. I can remember not all that long ago, watching her at 15 months try to learn to crawl. She was so far behind at that point. Now she can almost fly, it makes me want to cry. ( hey, I rhymed ) She has cheered for Little Miami's Youth league for 3 years and we now have her enrolled in TNT performance cheer. She loves to cheer, that much is clear. ( Hey, I rhymed again ) When she found out she got to cheer for TNT she wanted me to explain the difference between performance cheer and competition cheer because she wants to be a flyer in competition. She was happy just to find out that there will not be a game going on behind her, seems that is a distraction, people are watching the game and not the cheerleader, or more precisely, not watching her. Her self confidence still has its spells, she plays shy sometimes when it makes no sense, but by and large she is a ham. A wonderful, sweet, talkative, loving, and kind ham. Spoken as the proud parent that I am. ( stop rhyming, I mean it. Anybody want a peanut?)

Gracie has a new best friend. These two girls are so sweet and loving together, they hug, they giggle and they are priceless to watch. They used to be in class together but her friend switched schools because of the levy issues, now we just arrange for them to spend time together. The girls and the mommas are taking a trip to Chicago in April to go to the American Girl Doll Museum. It is interesting for me to watch them as they develop their relationship. They get frustrated with each other, they get grumpy with each other, but they never get mad at each other, they know it will all be okay and they will work through each issue.

Gracie is doing well in school. She reads well ahead of where she should, she does this because she loves to read and does it all the time just because she wants to. I now have a Borders club card and we go there or Barnes and Noble and pick out books to read. She has read all of the ," Diary of a Wimpy Kid " books ( a little too old for her ) and all the Junie B. Jones books, and now she is working on the Geronimo Stilton collection. I may need a library room for her. Geronimo Stilton is an odd little mouse dude that she is just loving at the moment. Gracie prints and spells very well, she prints neater than I do. Her vocabulary is scary. ( stop rhyming ) She loves big words and uses them surprisingly well. Her week point is math. We were working on counting money the other night. She can add change very well as long as she works at it. I made the mistake of asking her what a half a dollar was though. Half a dollar is 30. Not even 30 cents, just 30. This will come....

Gracie's momma, my lovely wife, really works hard on teaching manners and proper etiquette. This is good because if you know me, Gracie is going to get real world life, but not lady like demeanor from me. Gracie was upset with a little girl and her mother the other day at tumbling. The lady had moved Gracie's coat without asking Gracie and the little girl is 4 and wants to talk to Gracie but seems to want to do so while being 1/2" from her face. As we were leaving Gracie informed me that, " that little girl is rude and she gets it from her mother" Note that she didn't say her mom, her momma, or her mommy, which is what she says about my wife. She said, "mother". This is the equivalent of using a child's middle name I think.

One of the biggest issues in the Wilson house is the sin of interrupting someone. It is not polite to interrupt someone when they are talking. It is twice as bad to interrupt two adults talking when you are 7 years old. Momma is the teacher of manners and etiquette so she keeps on Gracie about this issue. Ironic issue, this is not mommas strong suit shall we say. Gracie is having issue learning this proper behavior. At this point, the standard mode of operation is Gracie will wait for that 1/2 second of dead air when the ongoing conversation might be over or at least at a pause and they say, " sorry to interrupt, but..........." It makes no difference that she is still interrupting, but she is interrupting politely, right !! Personally, I am happy with this, but we are still working on it. Gracie, particularly with me, has a strange ability to talk without pause or breath. She talks fast because she is afraid someone will tell her to stop and she still has words to use.

Speaking of sin, Gracie loves her new church. Well, its not all that new, we have been going for over a year now. She goes to Sunday school and children's church both and loves it. She has memorized all the books of both the testaments and several different scriptures.

We have had some issues. She has one little girl who is a player and is playing my naive little Gracie. This girl sits relatively close to her in class. She is nice to her, but she keeps manipulating her mind and trying to control her. This will stop, Gracie is working it herself right now, but we are aware and the teacher will be made aware just to keep it from getting out of control. The next issue was much larger and we are still dealing with the after effects months later.

If you have an adopted child, I would advise you play it safe and just skip the movie Tangled. There is nothing inherently bad about the movie, but it can have some bad effects that manifest themselves differently with each child that reacts to the movie. Bottom line is there is a character in the story who stole a baby and pretended to be the mother. This character did not love the child, only raised them and the kids are smart enough to pick up on this. The saccharin nature of the character and the eventual demise can be stressful for some younger kids and they cannot articulate well the reasons for the feelings they don't really grasp fully. With Gracie, this led to not wanted to sleep, not wanted to go to bed alone, and not wanted to be by herself upstairs to shower. We have largely overcome these problems, but they are not gone entirely. We worked with our pastor and did our best as parents to get past this irrational fear. With making some compromises, Gracie now goes to bed, sleeps though the night, and takes a shower without me sitting outside the bathroom door. The shower curtain , however, is rolled up out of the way only leaving the clear liner so she can see out into the hallway. Her dog echo sits in the hallway and just watches in fascination. Gracie sings , ( loudly and badly ) to entertain herself and keep the 'bad thoughts' away.

Well this has been a brief update , there are more things I could talk about, but I will stop for now. We are going to St. Louis to visit the "Hunan" sisters next weekend. I should have pictures and stories from our travels then.....

Anatomy of a cuss word......

2011-01-19T09:23:00.003-05:00

First, this post is in no way intended to be vulgar, profane, or inappropriate for younger readers. I will endeavor to not use any real cuss words in the following post, however, that is the subject of the following monologue. What is a cuss word?

The first thing I notice when bringing up the subject is that we, we being English speaking Americans, can not even agree on what to call cuss words. Some variants of the topic include, curse words, dirty words, foul words, offensive words, profanity or profane words, swear words...... and this is just the beginning of the list. As a point of interest ( or disinterest, I found it interesting ) Mark Twain was the first to coin the term 'cuss' word in 1872.

So, I ask you, what is a cuss word.

Standard definition:
1. a profane or obscene word, esp. as used in anger or for emphasis.
2. any term conceived of as offensive.

The first thing that you might notice is that it is ANY word that is CONCEIVED as OFFENSIVE. That means that the definition of a cuss word is dependant upon the opinion of the listener. I find that interesting. It is interesting because that means that I may say something that I don't feel is at all improper , but yet, the person I am speaking to will feel they are being cussed at. Wow, that is a communication revelation on my part.

Why is this important?

Well, first off, we have scripture in the Bible that tells us that it is not what we put into our mouths that defiles us, but what comes out of it. This , among others, reminds us that we should refrain from being foul to each other at the very least. We are also instructed to use our words to build each other up and encourage one another. Cussing at someone, even if you do not realize you're doing it, is something to be avoided.

Secondly, for my secular friends, cussing can also be an issue in 'polite company' as it is called. Not all walks of society view profanity as an acceptable form of communication, especially in the workplace.

These are only two simple reasons why we might not want to make the sailor blush, but they are by no means meant to be an all encompassing list.

What strikes me is our ability to cuss without even knowing that we are doing it and the listener ( if we are so blessed as to actually have a listener ) is being offended and making judgements about us without our knowledge. I mean, how hard can it be to not cuss ? If I start tossing F-bombs around, I think I know I am cussing right? Well, its just not that simple........

Time for a list of examples:

Some words are cuss words totally dependant upon their use. For example, one word can be used to describe a four legged mammal also known as a donkey or burro. This same word is used to describe a body part on which you sit, or a neighbor with questionable behavior. Now, by my personal standards, only the last example would be cussing, but I am in the minority on that. Most folks view using that word to describe a body part as cussing as well. The next thing that adds to the confusion is the words we therefore use as substitutes for the potential cuss word. If I chose to use butt, instead of the potential offender, I still have cussed in the eyes of some. This becomes more apparent when you add in an age factor. Most adults will use and hear the word butt and not be offended, yet it their child , lets just say a 7 year old, says butt, now they have an issue. The child should say bottom, can, derriere, tookus, or some such instead of the word butt..... Now it starts to become clear as to why it is sometimes confusing........

Now the magical B word. When the announcer at the Kennel Club dog show refers to a fine female dog by that term, it is an accepted form of communication, however, when the same word is used to describe the high maintenance and temperamental wife of your neighbor, it is now an offensive word. We must exercises caution when using any questionable vocabulary.

Now lets talk anatomy. This gets very convoluted very quickly. If a gentlemen has the name of Richard, he is typically not called by that full name. Some examples fail this test, perhaps the most famous is Richard Nixon. Richard Nixon is almost always called Richard, although he did earn the nickname in popular culture of his day of Tricky Dick. If someone has the name of Richard it is perfectly normal to call him by this shortened version. However, using the exact same word to refer to the male privates is offensive to a lot of folks and therefore is a cuss word. In fact, there are almost no acceptable terms to use at all that name the male privates. Even when we use correct medical terms, if we are not speaking to our spouse or an MD, we are most likely offending and therefore cussing. Men make this even more convoluted than it needs to be because we have adapted so many different names to refer to this region. If we speak of the twins, we may simply be talking about our cousins who were born at the same time 3 years ago, but we may be cussing. When we speak of chubby, we had better be talking about the extra pounds we added over the holidays or we are guilty of cussing again.

Now on to body functions. I did not know that the most commonly used word to describe the release of built up intestinal gas ( yes the F - word ) was a cuss word. I had no idea that some people find the word offensive. Finding the odor offensive, or even the sound offensive perhaps, but the word ? Yes, if you are like me and unaware, every time you say the F-word, you are risking cussing in front of someone. The standard rule of thumb I am finding is that if a word has a large host of options and derivatives, that may be because the word being replaced is frequently found to be impolite. Just as in reference to the large host of names available for the male privates, there is a long list of replacement words for the F-word. Passing gas is at least a little better I am told, as is breaking wind. I am told that butt whistling is not an appropriate substitute.

Another natural body function that comes into question is the act of relieving oneself. This one works the opposite from others I have listed in that it is more appropriate for young children to use the word than it is us adults. Yep, you guessed it, the word is pee. Adults expect adults to use the word urinate, but if your youngin' says they have to pee, its generally not viewed as kids cussing. In contrast, if I as a 42 year old man mention I have to pee, it is considered rather chide and classless, why, because it brings offense and thus I have cussed. Anytime the other P word is used, you know the one that sounds like a snake hiss, you have committed a faux paux. The natural progression of this is from number 1 to number 2 of course. It is pretty well accepted that any use of the SH word is cussing. Whether it be a noun, verb, or adjective, this is always a cuss word. Its derivatives are not quit as clear though as age comes into play again. If your child says they need to crap, they are most likely going to make their mother choke on her linguine. If you say you have to crap, you may or may not be cussing, that is up to the listener to decide. If an adult says they need to poop, odds are they have just cussed were as if their child makes the same statement they are likely to get away without causing offense. If you try to use more creative language like , ' leaving a mud snake in the lavatory' you're likely going to fail and be guilty of cussing regardless of age.

I was unaware as well that the location of both numbers 1 and number 2 could also be cuss words. If you think about it though, this does follow my above mentioned rule about having multiple names for no other apparent reason. Why would the name restroom have been invented otherwise, no one ever gets any rest in there. It goes by the names lavatory, bathroom, john, can, head, crapper, sh.......er, restroom, library, and many others. To my surprise any of these can be found offensive to some. My simply saying I need to stop by the bathroom can be viewed as offensive to some who feel that I am sharing too much information, and since their level of offense determines whether or not I just cussed, I may well have just been vulgar without knowing it.

Other odd things that fall into this discussion. The normal jovial holiday greeting of a certain bearded fat man may be found offensive to those who have great sympathy for women who practice the oldest profession. Yes, I said it, you can be offensive by saying ho ho ho.

I could ramble for days and days about this. This idea just fascinates me at the moment. My advice to you is simple, it is better to just smile and nod than risk speaking sometimes.

Direct TV........

2010-12-30T07:51:00.002-05:00

After 10 years with Direct TV, last night we have moved on....... Goodbye DTV, you will be missed.

Approximately 10 years ago we had Time Warner Cable as our supplier for our television viewing pleasure, but we left them because it seemed every few months they would raise the rates or change the programing selections, and thus remove something that we enjoyed watching. As the price climbed and climbed and the service fit our desires less and less we made the tough choice to leave Time Warner and try out the relatively new concept of Direct TV. We were happy with them, their prices and their service until last night. Last night, the unthinkable happened....... We hit a television viewing crisis and DTV was unable to respond to assist us. We had finally found the fatal flaw, the Achilles heal of DTV. What is it you ask ?

DTV has no brick and mortar stores that you can work with to resolve you equipment problems. If a part goes bad, they Fed Ex you a new one, in 2 to 5 working days. You can't upgrade the shipping, due to 'contractual obligations'

So, here is the story.

Last night as I walk past the television it is happily showing my lovely wife's favorite channel ( DIY ) and then the screen goes black and prints a little message at the bottom saying the receiver needs reset. This is not a huge surprise because we get this little glitch about once a week. You press the little red reset button and the sun, moon, stars and satellites all check their locations in the universe, calculations are performed and the universe comes back into balance. This takes about 4 minutes, then you have you program back on and life sludges along as normal once again.

Upon re-entry into the room I discover that the precious receiver is no longer receiving power. The little blue light of joy is not shining any longer. I immediately drop to the floor and begin to attempt to necessitate it. I work tirelessly to bring life giving electricity back to the precious receiver. Upon exhausting all possibilities of immediate assistance I call the DTV version of 911 ( Tech Support ) and I speak with a fine young fellow named Tyler.

Tyler : thank you for calling Direct TV, how may I be of service to you ?

Me : Tyler, my receiver is dead, DEAD I say, it will not receive power, the blue light ( the blue light of joy ) is not on.

Tyler : have you tried plugging it into a different receptacle?

Me : yes, yes I have ( duh )

Tyler : let me check diagnostics on my end, ( canned computer like noises now whirr and grind away as I am on hold ) sir, you are correct, your receiver is indeed dead. Lets look at getting you a new one.

Me : yes, yes lets look at that... how do we do that ?

Tyler : I am showing two receivers, one is leased one is yours, this is the leased one, I can wave the new part cost and Fed Ex you out a new one that will arrive in 2 to 5 business days. There will ONLY be a shipping fee of $19.95 to cover the shipping cost...

Me : uh, Tyler... that's not going to be a workable solution. I know you're tech support and you're doing your job, but what I just heard was that your equipment failed and you're going to charge me to replace it, and I have to wait 2-5 business days at that. I am willing to pay for shipping only if its an upgrade to next day AM, otherwise no, and why would you charge to replace faulty equipment that is yours anyway.... I know you probably can't do anything so can you bump me to someone who can?

Tyler : well sir, it is just the shipping you need to pay, not for the part........

Me : I heard you, pay was the word I don't want to hear...

Tyler : I understand, I will transfer you to billing now..... have a great day and thanks for being such a long time customer........

Me : thank you Tyler, and I hope I get to stay that way.....

Hello, this is Becky, how may I help you ?

I repeat the situation to Becky, express my gratitude about Tyler doing his best and that his best was simply unacceptable. I then ask if she can do better. Long and short of it is that Becky discovers that I am listed as having two receivers, I only have one television and one receiver and she fixes this problem but can't help with anything else.

Me : so you cant wave the shipping charge and you can't upgrade the shipping at no charge or otherwise?

Becky : No sir, we have a contract with Fed Ex, everything ships the same and we can't change it. There is no place for you to go pick up a receiver unless you want to go to Best Buy and buy one instead of leasing.

Me : my wife is behind me dialing Time Warner Cable at this moment and if you can't do any better than that .....

Becky : Sir ( interrupts me with a new found sense of urgency in her voice ) let me transfer you to the retention department.... they have more access to things they may be able to do to help you..

Me : transfer away.....

Hello , my name is Danielle...... I see you have some faulty equipment issues , how can I help

(" Hello, my name is Inego Montoya, you killed my father, now prepare to die" " stop saying that " )

I run through the issues one more time. Daniell adjusted my bill, gave me a discount, removed the shipping charge but still could not upgrade the shipping or get me the equipment any faster.

Angie, my lovely wife, then gets hold of Time Warner, announces that she is an upset DTV customer, and asks what can they do for her.......

Time Warner then proceeds to offer us more channels for less money and upgrades our Internet service for free for a year as an incentive......

Angie then calls DTV and cancels the service as well as the new receiver... Someone comes on the line to attempt to talk her out of it. This gentleman offers her a $200 credit to our account as well as keeping the current arrangement of no charge shipping and a reduced bill, but he still cant get the receiver to us any quicker either.

FAIL......

Why is time such an issue....... well........ its bowl week for one thing and UK is playing Louisville on Saturday. With New Years being a day or two away and January one being on a Saturday we could expect that receiver sometime between the 3rd and the 6th of January.....

While I was writing this Direct TV just called to ask why they just received an order to cancel and offered to not cancel. I explained to them, again, the reason why. This time they offered to send an installer to the house today to put in a new receiver........

I told her that might have been of interest last night but we were told repetitively that the only way was to wait for the Fed Ex truck to arrive........ At this point, Time Warner is coming between 4 and 6 today to install and upgrade our Internet at the same time.....

possible pit falls........... still to come.........

Time Warner has a habit of wanting to charge for odd things........ if they try to charge for installing and becoming a new customer we will have to have a chat about that.....

Direct TV says they will send a final bill in seven days, that bill should only be about $20, if it is much greater then they are trying to charge a fee to disconnect my service or some such, then we will have to have a chat about that as well......

oh what fun.....

Of what use are the trees?

2010-12-14T07:41:00.002-05:00

Girls and boys are different. Duh, I know. Women and men are different too. Whoa, not exactly a revelation either.

I have made an observation however that might not be quite as obvious.

There is not nearly as much of a difference between a girl and a woman as there is between a boy and a man. This is just my opinion as observed from my perspective.

Girls seem to become women rather abruptly, it just kind of happens one day. It is a common understanding that girls mature faster than boys, but I submit to you that the reason is because they never really have to change as much as boys do.

Before you go getting all Grumpy Guss with me, this is complimentary towards the finer gender.

Girls ( metaphor warning ) are like flowers. When they are young, they are beautiful little buds. As they mature they become blossoms, and then as they age they open up into mature beautiful flowers. Some flowers are strong and hardy and stand up well to wind, rain, drought, and frost, while others wilt easily. Some flowers thrive in harsh conditions while others only grow with constant nurturing and fertile soil. All are beautiful flowers none the less.

The boy to man transition is not nearly so attractive. Boys are ( another metaphor warning ) like nuts laying on the ground. They look almost nothing like what they might grow up to be, a tree. Boys first must learn to not get eaten by squirrels or they will never take root. Most do take root, but then we spend years and years growing o' so slowly as a sapling. During the sapling stage our outer protective skin is thin and scars easily, but this is wear the bark comes in. If we scar too much as a sapling we grow think and nearly impenetrable bark in our maturity. As young trees we are still green and relatively flexible, but as we age we become stiffer and harder and we don't conform as well as we used to. The transition from nut to tree is extremely different than from bud to flower. It is a whole lot slower for one thing, and it is a bigger transition from start to finish for another. ( again, this is my male opinion )

Another difference is that flowers have purpose, but trees have uses.

What kind of flower a girl becomes does not seem to affect the fact that she is a flower. ( not in my eyes anyway, but some might argue ) In contrast, however, what kind of tree a man becomes affects how the world views him.

Of what use are the trees, do we bear fruit? Are we cut for lumber ? Do we just drop our nuts randomly around the forest ? Do we stand strong against storms but still have enough sap in us to bend a little with the wind? Is our bark so thick and ugly that we go unnoticed? Is our canopy full of dead branches that fall and litter the ground? Are we to be burnt up to keep others warm ?

Of what use are the trees ?

2010-10-25T12:34:00.002-04:00

The popular culture is so all consuming at times. It surrounds us with what we come to believe and understand as normal. Certain things envelope us every now and then and as the envelope encompasses our very being we don't always seem to understand the strangulation that this envelopment is causing. We find it difficult to resist the encroachment, particularly when we don't see anything amiss. We see what seems to be our entire world engaging the normal as if it were normal yet we don't feel right about something, somehow. We see our brothers and sisters whom we respect and seek guidance from following suit with the culture, yet we seem drawn away for some reason.

I know it is not against my brother that I should be fighting, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness that my fight lay against. The ignorance that is possessed blinds me from the truth that I seek, but as I endeavor to alleviate the ignorance of myself I find that my hand has been firmly planted on a bowl and that bowl covers a lit candle. As more of my ignorance leaves me during my walk to seek the truth the bowl becomes hotter and hotter until I must lift it and discover the light that is wanting to emanate out but I was keeping it in. The flame burns hot, but once I remove the bowl the radiance of the candle is warm and comforting. I feel pain if I keep the bowl too close to the flame now, so I wish to set the bowl aside and be done with it. When I do, I see things more clearly I think because the light floods the room. As the light floods the room I also see the things that I should avoid coming into contact with. I see the bricks sticking up out of the uneven floor just laying there waiting for me to stumble over them. Even knowing they are there, I must watch my step or I will trip and fall.

Having discovered the source of the discomfort in my hand, I also discovered the comfort and warmth of the light. I am eager to share this with my brother who is still shivering in the cold. I grab up the flame and take it to him but its radiance seems to burn his eyes and he recoils away from me. I feel sad because I have caused my brother pain, but I also feel confused. Why did the flame not burn my eyes, but rather burnt my hand until I let go of the bowl. I didn't mean to injure my brother, but he is wanting nothing to do with the light that is giving me warmth. He doesn't like the cold, but he doesn't know what the warmth feels like because he has not come close enough to it to feel warm. I am not discouraged, I take my discovery to another of my brothers to show him and share with him instead. I again grab the flame up and go running to him and exclaim," come , come see what I have found, this light, it helps you to see, it helps you to stay warm. " Again, this brother too covers his eyes and curses at me, he tells me I am a fool and I know not what I do. He asks me why I play with such foolish things, it wastes time and hurts people, surely no good can come from this.

I am left to wonder why as I approach my brothers , they will not hear me out. I wonder if my brother is not right and all I am doing is hurting others. I cant help but to wonder why they feel so differently than me. I think about picking the bowl back up and covering the light, but even as I reach toward the bowl it is now glowing red hot and I simply cannot pick it back up now. I do notice one other thing, as I was taking the candle to my brother, as I lifted it up, the higher I lifted it, the brighter it burned and the warmer the room felt.

I look around at all my family, my brothers and sisters. Many of them are cold and are stumbling around in the dark. Some of them seem to be able to find their way without falling, and seem to happy with their lives. Still others have no difficulty in life at all, never stumbling, never struggling, not seeming hungry, thirsty or cold like me. I notice these family members last because they seem to have not a worry. I respect them and look to them for guidance. I decide to take one more try to share my discovery and take the candle to a sister whom I respect. She does not shun me or flee as I approach with the light. I offer to let her hold it and feel its warmth and see the beautiful radiance that it puts off. She looks at it carefully and tells me she has no need for such a light. She has all she needs and while she isn't burned by the light like my brothers, she isn't warmed by it either. She tells me that she is fine fitting into this world, she has a flashlight to light her way and lots of clothing to keep her warm. She tells me that she is just like everyone else and it is okay if I want to be different, but she doesn't want to be different and carry around a candle. I pick up the flame a little higher and notice that it is very dark around her, but the things that are in the dark places don't worry about her. They just keep behind her as not to get in the way of her flashlight.

I wonder to myself, to me my sister looked cold and yet she has no use for the warmth I might bring to her. My brothers seem to struggle but I injure them by trying to show them a path. I cannot hide the flame that I have found because it hurts me to try and hide it again. What do I do with this candle now? After spending some time enjoying the warmth of the flame and sitting staring at its beauty, I again feel a chill in the air. I know that the flame burns brighter and hotter when I lift it up, so I find a loft in the room and climb up to the top, taking the candle with me. Once I reach the loft I sit the candle down in front of me, and it is burning brighter and warmer than ever before. After some time I notice a brother and a sister climbing up the ladder to meet me in the loft. They have seen my candle from off in the distance and wanted to come see what was making that light. They commented that the light felt warm and comforting to them and they wanted me to tell them where I found it. I shared with them my whole story, and they listened. Then my brother seemed to be uncomfortable all of the sudden. He and I both looked down at his hand, in his hand he had a bowl. I told him, pick your hand up and see what is under there.

My brother lifted his hand and under it was a candle with a flame. I explained to him the newest thing I had learned. Lift the candle up and allow people to see it and come to you, if you chase after those who are not ready they might flee. Share your candle with all who wish to see it, but you will only injure those who you chase after. Let them see your life by keeping the light held up high and let the light chase away the darkness and bring your brothers to you. Don't try and point out their faults while the heat is still chasing the chill from your own bones.

It is hard to be in the world and function in the world without becoming like the world. Many of my brothers and sisters carry a light that shines into dark spaces, but most of us do not carry the light high enough to shed light across large places.

I still have much ignorance left to shed and my candle has made it to the loft but not yet to the roof and certainly not yet to the mountains peak.

A day at the hospital

2010-10-05T21:41:00.002-04:00

Spending the day at the hospital is never going to be a fun experience, but today did have its moments.

Here is the background. Angie was in for another 'procedure' today. We arrived at 9:30 for a 10:00 o'clock appointment and she was scheduled for surgery at 12:00. The surgery was supposed to last about 1 -1/2 hours so she was to be in recovery before 2:00. As is normal with the normal chaos that is our lives, at 6:30 they begin the process of moving her to a room so she can spend the night. Instead of being home before dinner, we are hoping to be home before lunch tomorrow.

So, since I have so many hours to kill, what am I going to do? Well, I can't leave until she gets into her room so I have until almost 7 o' clock to kill before taking Gracie her overnight bag and then beating a path back to the room to watch Angie sleep for a while. I don't have many options for entertainment so I settle on updating facebook regularly and watching the other folks who are populating the waiting room. Ah people watching, my favorite sport....

After Angie goes back I slide down to the cafeteria for a quick change of scenery and 1/2 cup of the worst scrambled eggs I have ever come across in life. I mean seriously people, how do you make scrambled eggs so tasteless , what is the trick with that ? While questioning from what foul these eggs were commandeered from, a young lady comes walking into the atrium. Now, let me paint the picture for you, I am alone in a room with about 15 tables. This room is off to the side and away from the main dinning area. I am perched up against a wall with my laptop out and my faux eggs minding my own business when a young blond lady walks into the room. She reminds me of Red Fox , or to be more accurate, she reminds me of Fred Sanford. She comes in holding her shoulder and neck and staggering around a bit. She walks to one edge of the room and grabs her shoulder and moans, well yells a moaning type sound. She then walks back across in front of me to the other edge of the room and has another yelling moaning episode. She then walks over to the table one away from mine, right in front of me and from a standing position lays her forehead on the table and lets out more yelling, sobbing moans. Over dramatic does not even touch this one as a description. I am sitting there debating what to do, I am thinking I should ask her if she requires any help but am not sure what to say. I start running over options in my head to try out what they sound like.

" what is wrong with you " ( nope, no way to make that sound good )
" do you need some help of some kind ?" ( nope, that's even worse than the first one )
" Miss, is there something I can help you with ?" ( closer, but still crass sounding )
" Is your name Sally ? and if so, were is Harry and have you two met yet " ( uh, no )
" Ma'am, can I be of some help to you ?" ( still a bit awkward, but passable )

Just as I had worked out what to say she turns to me before I have had a chance to speak and she starts talking. I think she was tired of waiting for me to process everything, but I wanted to be cautious not to seem a flirt, or seem a curmudgeon so I wanted to process things first, I guess she didnt have the patients for that, anyway, she starts.

" Oh, I am sorry, I am sorry, I don't usually cry in front of people ( cry, cry !! your yelping like a wounded water buffalo during peak mating season ) I didn't know what they were gonna do to take that x-ray. It just hurts, it really really hurts. Can I ask you something, I have asked like 30 people already and they all said no and I know you will say no too but they just wouldn't listen, would you listen to me please, my son is trying to raise money for a school fundraiser and they have all this neat stuff in here, if you would just look through it I would appreciated it, do you mind if I go get a cup of coffee, I'll be right back., oh it hurts , it really really hurts, I don't mean to talk so much I just talk when I am in pain and OHHHHH, I 'm sorry sorry sorry, I'm gonna get a cup of coffee and , I , they told me no caffeine with the pain meds, but, I'll be right back, do you mind if I get a cup of coffee? "

Now, she is gone for a few minutes, while she is gone I would like to point out that the entire above spoken paragraph was said in about one breath, maybe two but that would only be due to the brief pause to add more theatrics. To shorten this up, my friend is 29, has two children, thinks her neck is broken, and is hocking stuff in the hospital dinning room. While she is gone I here an intercom message come across about a clean up in front of the coffee shop. Yep, you guessed it, she spilled the first cup of coffee, too much pain to carry hot coffee with shaking and spilling it. We talked a little , we talked about church and she was going to take Angie's name to her prayer group tonight, I bought a bookmark and donated it to one of her prayer group friends, and she moved on to another table in the other dining room. Well, its 10:15 AM right now, this is going to be an interesting day at this pace.

Back to the waiting room I go. Nothing left to do but people watch.

Have you ever noticed that sometimes you just really can't tell who is who and how old people are. For example, two ladies and a toddler, oh, 3 years old max would be my guess. You look at the two women and think, okay, the younger, relatively attractive one, the one who looks like she showered this morning must be mom, and the older one who showers every spring whether she needs to or not over there looking haggard and grumpy, thats grandma. But when it comes time for the patient to go back and both mom and grandma start addressing the toddler in third person, you are reminded not to judge, and please dont guess, because this isnt one you want to get wrong out loud. " grandma will be right back, just stay here with momma ?" Yikes,,,,

You look around and put people with people sometimes because you have nothing else to do. The next group is what I call ," the herd ". If you have spent any time at all in hospital waiting facilities, you have seen some variant of , " the herd " . Today's herd would be what I would call the redneck herd, or perhaps the , " larry the cable guy " herd. The herd is what happens when just a few too many people decide its a good idea to hang out all day at the hospital. One is lonely, two is company, three is getting to be a crowd, 18 is a herd. This group had about 4 women who I would call, tired looking, if you know what I mean. Then there were about 8 men there and oh I am guessing about 6 or so kids running loose barefoot around the place. The men all look the same in a way. They are the kind of men who sit around and belittle each others deer stands and poke fun at each others Bass Boats. These are the kind of men that if you say " Dale Earnhardt " within their earshot, they all take off their hats and place them over their hearts. Yes, they all had hats, that is how I could tell them apart, Mr. Budweiser frog hat was proud of his Ranger Bass boat and Mr. John Deere hat was proud of his deer stand. Mr. Bass Pro Shoppe was proud of the fact that he could stand today after all he drank last night. Mr. Built Ford Tough hat was proud of his truck , and Mr. Chevy Nascar hat was just as proud as he could be of his new teeth. He didn't say, but after seeing his little missus, I think I know what happened to his old teeth. As the group got up to depart I heard Mrs. John Deere hat say, " grab you youngen and com'mon, we need to get up to you maw's room now. Ah, what good boys they are....

While driving back and forth between the hospital and taking care of Gracie's supplies I passed through Turtlecreek Township. I noticed that there was no creek, I didn't even see a town, and I didn't run across even one single turtle. I also passed a street called Circle Drive. It was a dead end street. Well, that is how I spent most of my day today....

It is now after 11 and I think I may try to sleep a little...

good night....

A billboard advertisement

2010-05-17T13:51:00.002-04:00

Or more to the point , ( the point of my opinion of course ) A billboard advertisement gone wrong.

I am going to attempt to carefully touch on a somewhat sensitive subject, so please bare with me and understand I mean no disrespect to any party. I will attempt to keep my opinion firmly focused on the monetary ( IE tax dollar ) side of this issue. I in no way have any issue one way or the other with the act or process that I am going to be compiling the following verbiage concerning.

So, I ask you, what is the point of advertising ? I believe the point is relatively simple in its goal. The goal of any advertisement is to convince you to buy a product or adopt a certain point of view. It is intended, sometimes, to educate you on the availability of a product, service, or the existence of a viewpoint in some cases. I think this is a pretty simple and liberal definition of the concept of advertising.

People advertise so you know their products name, and in most cases , why their product is superior and should be purchased by you. People advertise their services for the same reason. Some advertisements are to sway your opinion on a subject, like a campaign advertisement for example.

Now, using the above as a reference, we now have some idea why people advertise and who might be doing the advertising. Now, let me pose this question, who is paying for the advertisement?

In most cases, the cost of the advertisement, in this case a billboard, is born by the person doing the advertising. If Coke wants you to buy Coke and not Pepsi, then Coke pays for the billboard to attempt to convince you Coke is better, or maybe inform you of a new product that Coke has and Pepsi doesn't, etc. Its that simple. Now, if a arm of your state government puts up a billboard, what is it they are trying to do, and who is paying for that?

Well, the answer to this question is simple, the tax payer is paying for the billboard. What might they be attempting to accomplish? Why, the greater good of course. This has shown itself in the past with billboards reminding us to buckle up, don't drink and drive etc. I can see the point here, maybe we do need reminded that we should have our belts on, or face a ticket if nothing else. Maybe we do need reminded that drinking and driving is not real smart. Okay, I will buy that theory, even if its a bit of a stretch, I can see the greater good, or at least the greater good intentions there. If the billboards cost were to save so much as one life, or even minimize one persons injuries, its worth spending a few tax dollars on.

Now, to the reason for this random post. There is a billboard just down the street from were I work that bugs me every time I see it, and I have run out of patients with it today. The billboard is paid for by W.I.C. ( Women Infants and Children ) An honorable and worthy cause I am sure. I point out who paid for it only because it means it came not only from our tax dollars, but came out of their budget as well. Budget monies that I am sure could have been used for some other purpose. My question to you, and my problem, is this, is this billboard worth the money it cost to put up? Should that money have been used someplace else more productively? What are they trying to accomplish ?

Before trying to answer this question, let me tell you whats printed on the billboard.

No kidding:

BREASTFEEDING

WE DID IT, SO CAN YOU !

Okay , is it just me? Refer to above reasons to advertise, what are they hoping to do? And more to the point, why? If I was trying to decide whether or not to breast feed my child ( not that I have that option mind you ) would this at all suggest to me that it was a good idea? No, I think I would be offended by the phrase. I can find no legitimate reason to spend budgeted tax dollars in this manner.

Again, I am not making any statement about whether or not a women should or should not breast feed, that is entirely a decision that should be made as a family unit with some minor input from the husband, but ultimately the sole decision of the mother. I just think that when a Government funded agency wastes money people should ask why........

What are you looking forward to ?

2010-04-24T10:39:00.002-04:00

Feeling a little melancholy and reminiscent today. Had dinner last night with a friend from high school. It was good to get to know each other all over again. It did, however, kick start my brain into thinking about things. So, I pose this question, what are you looking forward to in life..... I will list a few of mine in no particular order.....

Gracie's graduation from college,, or seminary. I cant wait to be sitting in the audience and hear, " Marilyn Grace Wilson....... Magna Cum Laude........ " and watch her walk across the stage. That is one thing I am looking forward to.
I am also looking forward to holding my wife's hand and wiping away her tears at Gracie's high school graduation.
I am looking forward to growing old in a small beach side condo on the edge of the Caribbean Sea with my wife living with me and my daughter collecting a lot of frequent flyer miles.
Living long enough to hear the words, " I love you Grandpa " That's one thing I am looking forward to.
Sitting with my wife at a big table and then getting called up to go dance with my daughter at the father daughter dance at Gracie's wedding. I hope I can still walk, but if I cant walk then I will just have to learn to fly because I will be dancing with my daughter on that day.
Standing with my wife OUTSIDE the delivery room as WE wait on the birth of our first grandchild. This is one day at the hospital that I am looking forward to. I know both Angie and I will tell Gracie, " I hope you get a child, JUST LIKE YOU "
Growing old with my true love, that is one thing I am looking forward to. We can share cholesterol medicine, we can share that seat thing in the shower, as long as we don't have to share dentures, I am looking forward to growing old together.
One day a nice boy will sit me down and tell me how much he loves my daughter. He will be a good boy with a job and a strong moral compass. We will talk about my daughter and what he needs to do to remain among the living. I will tell him about Jimmy Hoffa and how they still haven't found his body. This is something I am looking forward to.
One day I will be sitting in the sun and thinking back on my life, and I will be happy. The sun will feel warm on my face and the beauty all around me will permeate deeply into my spirit. I will fall asleep right here and be awoken a short time later by the words, " well done My good and faithful servant" This is something that I am looking forward to.

Just thoughts......

2010-04-05T10:58:00.003-04:00

I didn't really have anything earth shattering to say or any one topic to bludgeon but I have not blogged in a while so I just felt the need to spout off about nothing in particular..

Health care reform has passed. The means of passing it were more than a little ugly, and people seem to be genuinely surprised that the people have reacted bitterly and in more than a few cases violently. Please don't insult us by faining surprise. Politicians will pay with their offices come the next opportunity, and that will be true regardless of how they voted on health care. The system suffered a high profile systemic failure. Everybody (almost) wanted some kind of health care reform because most people realize the system sucked and was broken. This is not a fix, however, its a control issue. What passed ( and really, who knows what passed, nobody really even knows yet ) doesn't even claim to have a mechanism to reduce the cost of insurance or the cost of health care or the cost of prescriptions. It does have a system to 'force' everyone to have insurance. Don't misjudge that statement either, the government is going to give you insurance, subsidise part of your insurance or just verify that you have insurance if you can afford it. Guess who decides if you can afford it, the government. If you cant afford it, guess who decides how much of a subsidy you get, the government. Guess who decides who gets a free ride, again, the government, in their infinite wisdom of course. Some people would argue that employers are going the be the ones paying, so why do I care. Even if your employer did pay before, they are going to have to pass the cost on somehow to someone, and if they didn't but are pickled into doing it now, its going to cost you. Yes, there are some nice things allegedly in the bill, pre-existing conditions being eliminated is one of them. That is nice, and yes it is a good thing, but it is also an unfunded mandate so what makes anybody think its going to make the cost go down? The prevailing theory seems to be that since the pool of participants will go up the cost of insurance should go down. In a free and competitive market this would be true, and we can debate how free the market is (its not) but there is no real competition at all to even attempt to drive the cost down. The second theory is that people will stop using emergency room services that they end up not paying for because now they can just go to the doctor instead and still not pay for it. This Ponzi scheme does shift the funds around (slight of hand though it is) so that the hospitals can avoid getting stuck with the tab and the doctor actually gets paid, but I ask again, what is the impetuous for either the hospital or the insurance company to lower the price. Yes they will have more paying clients and less waist, which might might might mean they make more money and higher profit margins so they could afford to spread the wealth back down and lower the cost, but without competition to drive that your asking the scorpion not to sting the frog on the way across the river. Its not gonna happen. This bill does come with some interesting funding as well. It taxes tanning bed users a 10% surcharge. While on the surface I have no issue with placing a specific tax on a specific item to generate funds for a specific and applicable reason, this one is a stretch in that it is based on loose science and statistics. Most people will buy the thought that tanning beds increase the risk of skin cancer, proven fact or not. The problem lies in following the pattern the rest of the way, are these folks then a drag on the medical system in large enough numbers that they should need to defray the cost? With smokers, this makes sense, but with tanning bed users the equation seems to fall apart, except in the reality that somebody was grasping at straws trying to find funding for their personal legal triumphs. As a side note, I don't endorse random violence, but please dear government and media please understand something, your dancing with flame in a gasoline suit right now, people feel betrayed by you in large enough numbers that something has to give. If there is not a mass exodus of personnel out of Washington with the next vote, look for more violence and destruction to follow as the frustrated subjects rise up against the broken system.

Gracie has made great progress this year in school. She is reading now very well. She has a standing homework assignment where she is supposed to read for at least 20 minutes each day. She has mostly been reading her Junie B. Jones books. ( Mrs. looked up at the ceiling, I looked up there too but I didn't see anything) but she also made a request of her parents the other night. She made us and offer we couldn't refuse so to speak. Gracie knew that two of her friends had gotten new bibles, and she knew that dad was going to church early now so he could take a men's bible study class before service started. She asked that if she went to the kids class and read her bible could she have her own big girl bible. Color me suckered 'cause she has a new bible. It is admittedly not a King James version, but it is far from a story book bible either. Its a real live chapter and verse bible. Gracie has made it thru Genesis 3 at this moment. The deal is she reads for 20 minutes and then dad reads to her what she just read in case there are questions or things that require more effort. I am so proud of her I could bust, even if I did get suckered into spending 40 bucks.

Gracie has also signed up for a one day, and one NIGHT youth camp through our church. This should be interesting. Gracie has only slept away from us twice and both times it was just several houses down the street. This is going to be miles away. A camp like this is going to be really good for her, she will have to build more on those independent functioning skills and rely and trust more in herself and learn the ability to seek help from her peers when required, all those growing up things. Its a safe place with lots of youth workers, volunteer staffs, councilors, and youth pastors, so I am fine with the idea, but having my Boogs so far away for a day and a night is going to be tough on mom and dad, probably worse on us than her truth be know, but don't tell anybody OKAY !!

Big Lots has some nice and reasonably priced patio furniture. This random fact brought to you only because it caused a temporary cease fire in the nagging process. By temporary I mean momentary, or actually perhaps it was imaginary. Yep, that's it, an imaginary cease fire in the nagging process. Focus switched instantly to the accoutrement that goes with a patio set, including but not limited to a fire pit. Oh, the ' replace the carpet that has been dog ruined, but paint the whole upstairs first, I am not nagging but are you done yet" also started this weekend. Wasn't nagging cause for stoning in biblical times? Could we look into bringing that back please? I think the Supreme Court is still male dominated enough that they would uphold such a thing, don't you?

I borrowed an electric chainsaw to cut down some bushes in my yard this weekend. ( yes it is part of the project mentioned above ) There is something oxymoronish about an electric chainsaw. There is something inherently unmanly about it. No gas fumes, no mixing oil and gas and releasing puffs of blueish greenish smoke into the air because of the mixture being off. No smell of the chain lube cooking off as it burns against the motor body. No dead spot in the grass where you spill the poorly mixed oil and gas mixture. None of the manly man stuff that goes with a chainsaw. I felt like I should be in heels, hose and a skirt while I was chopping down these shrubs. Actually maybe the term should be electrically sawing the shrubs down. Chopping implies a much more manly endeavor than what I did. Anywho, the mass o' dead shrubs ( dead because me kilt 'em ar ar arrrr) has been dragged to the street. ( should that have been drug, drugged, dragged, or dragathed to the street?) I just hope that the waist collection people feel it in their hearts to haul them off this week. I have been told that they will do so, only if I tie them up first. Tie what, its a whole bush, 7 whole bushes to be exact. Each one is too big to tie to another bush and tying up just one bush doesn't maketh sense to me, its not going to get any easier or smaller, just because I engage in a bondage scene with mother nature. (ewww, I know, too far) If I do end up having to bind them up, I think I will go purchase some yellow ribbon and tie it in a bow, maybe the neighbors will at least get a chuckle that way.

If you have to cross your legs to avoid flashing your who who at the pastor, your skirt is way to short. Just sayin'.

I purchased 6 solar lights shaped like itty bitty pagodas to go around the patio. ( again, an imaginary nag stopper ) Is there something just wrong with the phrase , " solar lights " or is it just me. It seems redundant or something. I realize there are lunar lights, artificial lights, florescent lights etc etc. but solar lights are not lights of the sun as the name implies. Lunar lights are light from the moon, artificial lights are light caused in an artificial manner, one would think that solar lights would be sun light, but no. They are really artificial light that is powered by a battery that it just so happens was charged by the sun. I think we should call them wireless lights and get it over with.

The madness of March is almost over. I have survived yet another year. Its not that I don't like basketball really, its an okay sport. It's mildly entertaining for the most part. The thing that gets my boxers in a bunch is just the shear volume of it all. You have all the tournaments that precede THE tournament. All those po-dunk ( pun intended) conferences that you don't care about any other time. Those conferences with George Mason, IUPUI, Southwestern Idaho Agricultural and Knitting University and the like. These are immediately followed by a selection show in which the field is narrowed down to only, ( yes only) 64 teams. ( actually its 66 teams since the added a play in game) Then the talking heads of sports spend the next little bit of forever arguing about the 3 teams who didn't make it. This continues for weeks or until some Cinderella makes the case that they can actually play, then everybody shuts up. At the same time, in interest of gender equality, the same thing is happening in a women's league. AND at the same time, the NIT, or Not In Tournament tournament is getting underway. AND the division 2AA II NIAI or whatever division it is also is playing on ESPN 18, subtitles in Spanish. Just in case this is not enough ( its enough already ) they have a 3 point competition and slam dunk contest just to kill a few minutes between games. Next year, rumor has it, that the tourney is going to expand one whole tier, that's 128 teams, or 130 if they keep the play in game. Next years play in game will be the Ag-ed nuns from St. Agathas vs. the winner of the prison league play off in Idaho. Go Ag-ed nuns go......... Good thing is, its almost over, bad thing is the only thing on television will now be baseball. Oh dont get me started on that primadona train full of losers.......... ( sorry Patti )

Well, this has been random, but this blog is called Normal Chaos so you should be used to me by now.

" Its the economy stupid"

2010-03-13T09:17:00.004-05:00

I love that quote !!

I just wanted to take a quick minute to share with you some of my ideas for saving your hard earned money. In these tough economic times, every penny counts and we all could use a little more disposable income. Do you remember that term, disposable income? That was the money that was left after bills and needs that you could ' dispose' . Now that money is called, ' economic stimulus'. Also notice that neither stimulating the economy or disposing of income translates well into saving for retirement, rainy days, or emergencies.

So, here are a few tips from the mind of me:

Toilet paper is expensive when you get right down to it. We use a lot of it, and for what ( don't answer that ) it gets used one time and thrown away. Seems a waste to me, does it not. We even get upset if throwing it away doesn't work like its supposed to the first time, clogged drain and all that. Well people, we don't have much choice in this matter, not every home comes with a bode (SP?) , leaves and grass are not going to do the trick on a daily basis, so what are we to do? We can buy in bulk, size matters when it comes to pinching pennies. We can shop sales, use coupons, stock up when these stars align just so. In my infinite wisdom, I have a better suggestion, however. Don't poop at home. I mean think about it, in our culture of wealth redistribution it makes sense to have somebody else pay for the toilet paper. Do you have a job? If you do, wait till you get to work. It might take a little while to reschedule your body clock to feel the need during the beginning and the end of your work day, but once this has been done you can minimize this wasteful expense, at least in terms of spending your own dollar. Ever take road trips? You just cant drive hundreds of miles without finding that McDonald's has the cleanest and most convenient bathrooms around, and guess what, I bet there is one of those golden arches just up the street from you. Let them pay for your toilet paper.
Speaking of McDonald's and other such fast food restaurants. Go take a look in your refrigerator at the condiment shelf, now go look in your pantry for such items as sugar, artificial sweeteners, coffee creamers, etc. Why are we buying these things when we can get them for free from these restaurants? We can accumulate a wide variety of ketchup, mustard, barbecue sauces and coffee creamers, not to mention sweet - n - low and equal, just by asking for or acquiring a few extra each time we are in one of these establishments. Heck, if you use the local Mickey-D's as your daily potty stop, you can have a plethora of condiments in no time. You might need to look around a while to find things like pickle relish, but Long John Silvers is a good source for free vinegar and tartar sauce. Is this stealing? No, its wealth redistribution, now that the corporate world is awash in bailout money supplied by our tax dollars, its really our stuff to begin with, right?
Next we have another paper product waste. Why do we spend money on napkins and paper towels? These items are not required like toilet paper is, there are an abundance of suitable substitutes that cost little or nothing by comparison. Do we just need to have that handsome Brawny man in our cupboard to look at once in a while? What exactly is the deal with that anyway. Unless you frequently dine while naked, you have a sleeve or a shirt tail to wipe your mouth on, and pants to clean the grease off your hands. For you ladies who really don't want grease on your skirts, or you metro guys who are wearing white linen pants or silk cargo shorts, you can still use a dish cloth instead of paper. It works just fine, better for messy meals even, and you can toss it in the washer with the next load of towels.
Speaking of washing machines, dryers and towels, there is another waste that can save you money. First off, when you get out of the shower, your body is clean, wet, but clean. Once you dry off, you usually toss the towel aside in a pile or hamper where it waits until it gets washed. Dear wives, I have a secret to tell you, the towel you used for your shower this morning, you husband re-used when he got home from work. Why? Well, its clean, and by now its dry, so why not. Washing it uses water and detergent, drying it uses electricity, both of which cost money, its a waste. You could do this too, one towel could last the two of you all week if you just keep hanging it up to dry. Imagine the savings of only washing one load of towels a month, instead of two a week. And as for dryer sheets, never never ever take them out of the dryer. Just keep re-using them. If you have 4 used dryer sheets in there, they will work better than one new one. You don't have to take them out of the dryer, they sneak out on their own and find their way into our socks and underwear, let them escape on their own.
If your like me, you need to get up and go to the bathroom most every night in the middle of the night. A little money saving tip here, pee in the dark. Hey, it may only be two cents a year, but that's two cents you saved, you can buy two thoughts with that money.
Grilling out is another one. Do you have a gas grill? If you do, I just bet that neighbor down the street from you does as well. You know the guy I am talking about, the one with the Lexus in the driveway and the Harley in the garage, he has a gas grill too. Keep your eye on his grill and when he gets a new tank, take your half empty tank down at night and switch it out. He will think the tanks just don't hold as much as they used to, and you can save yourself 20 bucks a pop every time you do this. Isn't that theft you say? NO no no, its just letting your neighbor stimulate the economy a little more by redistributing his wealth instead of your own. Don't get caught however, if he owns a Harley he just might whoop your behind if he sees you.
My daughter Gracie informed me the other day that she needed some new bowls for her to eat cereal out of in the morning. I took her shopping and bought her the one she wanted. Why? Because she is spoiled rotten that's why. When I was a kid I had to wait till the butter was gone to get a new bowl. Heck, by the time a year had passed I had a twelve place matched set of bowls. I took them with me to college even. When I got married my wife tossed out my bowls. I have eaten soup and cereal in them for almost 20 years, and never had to buy a bowl, ever. You can do this as well, the small Land O Lakes bowls even make good relish trays, just fill one of those up with olives and your good to go.
For reasons I don't understand, some people like to use paper plates. They especially like to use paper plates for casual dinning at home with items like pizza. The guy who delivered you pizza very thoughtfully brought it to you in a box. Why cant you just use the box lid like normal people huh? Just rip it right off there and wa-la free paper plate. Have three guests? Cut the box lid in four pieces, it works just fine. Well, some people use a knife to cut their pizza and this is difficult to do on 1/4 of a box lid. Stop being a commie and eat pizza like a red blooded American, you don't cut pizza, just grab a hunk and have at it. Stop wasting your money on paper products, save a tree, use the box lid.
Believe it or not, water costs money. If you can learn to shave, shower, brush your teeth and pee at the same time, you can save real dollars every month. The trick to this one is that the shower cant take any longer than it did when you just showered and nothing else. Hot water not only costs water dollars, it costs gas dollars to heat it up as well.
The last tip is simple, boycott Hallmark and American Greetings and any other card maker. Stop sending cards, those little pieces of folded paper with 12 rhythmic words you don't really mean printed on them can cost anyplace from 99 cents to 6 bucks each. Then you have to part with nearly two quarters to mail the stupid thing. The person who gets it just reads it once, says, "aw, how thoughtful" and then tosses into the garbage. Instead of the card, give them a call to say what you really mean, spend some time talking with them. They will get even more out of it, and you will save a bundle of jack in the process. Don't forget to call on nights or weekends when you have unlimited minutes, unless of course they are already in your network and then it doesn't matter.

Okay, last thing, start charging for your services. This will help increase your income. So, if you put any or all of these suggestions into practice and save money this year, I would like you to send me 10% of your savings. I mean it was my idea after all. Oh, if you get beat up by the guy down the street, don't come to me with your medical bills, I told you to not get caught.

The time line assignment

2010-03-12T10:59:00.004-05:00

Well Gracie has another project to work on. She has an assignment concerning a timeline. I don't know the details yet since I have not seen the actual assignment yet, but I have learned this.

She is supposed to gather some pictures of herself, starting with birth, and then place them in order and then the class can look at how they have grown, and hopefully ( I am guessing here) begin to get a better understanding of how time works. They are also supposed to write down their birth weight and length as well, then current weight and height I think.

Anybody else see a problem here? There is one, hopefully a small one.

There may or may not be anyone who knows Gracie's birth weight, and length. Her birthday for that matter is just and educated guess.

This little eccentricity went unnoticed for just a brief moment, but now it is being handled appropriately and with great care and dignity. I hope it works out without causing any emotional backlash, but this is a topic that may be helpful and educational to all the kids in her class, or it could be a painful and damaging sequence of events, we shall see.

Gracie says , by the way, she wants to be a ' runway model-er '

I dont think daddy can handle that !!

Gracie's Restorodt

2010-02-17T20:13:00.003-05:00

So today I get home and before I can even change clothes, Gracie drags me over to her play room door. In front of the door is a sign that reads....

Grace's Restorodt

She says to me,,,,

" come ,,, sit down and enjoy, order like in real life.... I really want your business "

Well, what dad could turn that down huh?

So I enter her Restorodt and sit down at her oh so tiny tea table, you know the kind that fit them just right but put your knees up near your ears, yeah, that kind.

The table is set, table cloth ( blue bandanna ) fork and knife, ( one pink plastic, the other blue ) she then hands me a menu. She must have spent half the day concocting this menu.

She says to me........

" What would you like...."

I then peruse the menu for a while, it takes me a minute to translate because she did this all on her own, her own imagination, as well as her own spelling. After taking a bit too long she says to me.......

" Why don't you order a drink first while you decide, the drinks are here at the bottom"

( okay, I am now certain that we eat out too much)

I order sweet tea....

She then goes, gets a yellow plastic tea cup and a pink princess tea pot and pours me some tea at the table. She then asks.......

" would you like a lemon?"

" no thank you " I reply

( Really, we need to eat at home more, this is ridiculous )

I then order spaghetti with a cup of vegetable soup.

She searches and searches and cant find a suitable cup for a cup of soup. She then asks me if a mug would be okay. Well of course it is.

She then presents me with a kool-aid mug with a plastic leaf, a plastic potato, and a plastic carrot stuffed down in it. Ya know, she really made vegetable soup, plastic though it was, she hit on the ingredients pretty darn well. While I was chewing on my lettuce leaf she hunted me up a pink plastic plate and went over to her stove to cook up the spaghetti. When she noticed the lettuce leaf in my mouth she abruptly expounded upon the fault in her service.

" Oh no daddy, I forgot to give you a spoon, you need a spoon for soup"

She quickly brought me a yellow plastic spork to enjoy my Kool-aid mug full of plastic vegetable soup. Then back to slave away in her kitchen.

A minute or two later she plopped the plastic spaghetti, sauce included, on the pink plate and served it from the right.

I continued to enjoy my meal until I had satisfactorily consumed all the delicious delicacies supplied by my little Hunan entrepreneur. Once finished I arose fulfilled and satisfied with my fine dinning experience. However, now this is priceless. She now informed me that this was a restaurant, just like real life, and I needed to tend to my bill. She had manufactured a check out station from a pink two step stool with a compartment in the high step. She opened her " register" to present me with a bill for twenty dollars and 30 cents. She settled for 4 quarters and 3 dimes, but I was impressed by the fact that she actually had written me up a tab. Something tells me that daddy is gonna get suckered into this every once in a while.

Once it was done, I requested that I be able to take the menu with me. She asked why, and I answered that if I took the menu home with me I could be prepared for later and maybe drop in for carry out. She then informed me that if I call ahead, she can deliver. The truth is that I wanted the menu so I could share it with you all. She obviously put a lot of time and effort into it.

Grace's Restorodt ( what the sign actually read outside her playroom )

Sasue and chips
makenrone chees
fish stiks
vecndbre soop ( vegetable soup, I needed a minute on this one)
sofla (souffle, I didnt know she knew that word )
spagetee
sweet tea
woater
dokd peper ( doctor pepper, one of daddy's favorites)
coke
Grace's thick milk ( whole milk )
Milk
Choklet milk
smootheez
bnanu smoothee (banana smoothie )

Maybe its just me, but this list was priceless.

Maybe its just me, but I think we need to eat at home more.

Maybe its just me, but I am proud of her effort and imagination. Yes the spelling is terrible, but she was playing, not applying herself under a school situation or with any supervision what so ever.

It amazes me that not so long ago she could not even say a lot of these words, now she forms them into large complex ideas and attempts to write them down to imitate " real life "

Slow down my dear Gracie, your growing quit fast enough, please don't rush it..... daddy likes having a little cuddle bug named boogs around. I don't think I am ready for a teenager with a job just yet.

Oh yeah, the end of the meal came with her saying,

" Please come again "

Chinese New Year 2010

2010-02-16T13:12:00.004-05:00

It's that time of year again. That beautiful fortress at the rivers bend, the fortress guarded by a humongous arch has been calling and taunting us again. It is once again time to lay siege on the city of St. Louis. The Hunan hoard has begun to advance on the city. The Wilson Clan containing one division will approach from the east. The Collins Clan will approach from the south east with 4 divisions. The Hess Clan will approach from the south west with one division. The Ryan Clan will approach from the south with 2 divisions. The Martin Clan will approach from the west with a strong experienced 5 divisions. The advance scout party, the Thompson's, are waiting for us to join forces with their 1 division, and the Commodore (Grandma Kay, its her place ) The moat made by the mighty Mississippi could not stop us, the rush hour cavalry could not impede our progress. The many miles of barren wasteland could not keep us from this journey. . ( that would be Indiana mostly ) All the above Clans converged on the city. We met at Kay's condo and proceeded to lay waste to the St. Louis. We sacked, pillaged and plundered the area. Once this was accomplished we had a celebratory family meal together, confessed our allegiance to one another, reaffirmed our bonds to each other and then returned to our own kingdoms leaving the Thompson family to reign once more in the fortress city of the Arch.

Okay, maybe this isn't exactly how it happened, its just what it seems like in my twisted little mind. What exactly am I talking about? Well, since I have acquired a few new readers since last Chinese new year, please allow me to step back and fill in a little history for some of the folks.

My daughter, Gracie, was adopted from the Hunan province of China. When you adopt from China you usually have what is called a travel group. When we arrived in Beijing, we did so with something near 100 people. Our travel group was scattered around the hotel a bit but we did break off into groups when we went sight seeing. This was the beginning of our groups bonding. Then we traveled as a group to the city of Changsha, capital of the Hunan province. All 10 families of our group are now stationed on the same floor of the Dalton hotel. We spend several days getting to know one another. The life altering event of Gotcha day takes place in Changsha. Gotcha day is when the adopted child is handed over to their forever family. This group of young ladies were mostly, but not entirely, from the same orphanage. I think 8 of them were from YiYang and 2 of them were from Changsha number 1 ( I think). The most powerful single moment of gotcha day to me was when my wife proclaimed, "thank you JESUS" after Yi Meng Chang ( Marilyn Grace ) was put in her arms. From gotcha day on, a life bond was born between these young girls. One of the couples lives in St. Louis, hometown of our adoption agency, Children's Hope International. They very graciously invite all the couples to come to St. Louis to celebrate Chinese New Year every year. Mr. Thompson's mom, Kay has a nice condo that will hold the inflow of families. We spend some time together Friday, just letting the kids play, we have an activity Saturday followed by the traditional Chinese New Year family meal at Hunan Empress and a re-shoot of the red couch picture. Sunday is a little more time together, difficult goodbyes and then back to life. These girls call each other sister even though they share no blood. It is a beautiful thing to just sit back and watch. Oh, the red couch deserves a little explanation as well, the red couch is the traditional photo taken in Guangzhou where all the newly adopted kids are perched on a red couch for a photo. All the girls so look forward to these event every year, and another other opportunity to be with there "sisters". It just transcends cool in every way.

Well, enough history. Lets tell this years tale.

First issue, the dress. Angie bought a traditional Chinese gown for Gracie to wear. Most all of the girls and some of the adults are in traditional attire for the family dinner. Angie purchased the dress on January 6th. A few days before we were to leave town Angie contacted our friend Ann in China to see where the package was, it had not arrived yet. Ann was unable to help, so in a last ditch effort I had her order one overnight from China Sprout, it came the day before departure, it was too small. OOh no, Gracie is devastated, she doesn't want to not be dressed up for this important event. Super plumber Ninja dad and Super duper mom must know undertake the impossible. Find a traditional Chinese gown in Gracie's size in just a few hours, days before New Years, in a mid west suburb. Time for the Internet, and mommas memory. Angie remembers a little shop in a mall across town called Into Asia. I called and spoke with the Chinese store keeper. It was refreshingly comical to speak with her in her broken English. She told me, " you bring to me, her, we see, we fit, might have, bring her here?" Yes ma'am, we are on the way. Gracie got her dress, its the pink one. She looks beautiful, and mom and dad are hero's again, all is well.

Next the trip.

We travel to St. Louis. It takes us about 7 hours give or take to make this trip. 7 hours worth of Gracie wanting to talk because she is so so very excited, and seven hours of momma wanting Gracie to hush. I understand both of them, but at this point can barley tolerate either of them. I love my girls, but when they are at odds with each other in a confined space I feel like I am a terrorist being put in a chair under a light bulb, unable to escape. Angie decided she needs coffee, not just any coffee, but special coffee. Luckily for her, she has an app. for that. Out comes the IPhone. It gives her directions to some little coffee house buried in the back of a strip mall in Mt. Vernon. Gracie and I are just hoping this helps calm her nerves. Once arriving in St. Louis we used to same app. to find every snooty coffee house in Chesterfield. Anyways. Finally we arrive in the city, check into the hotel, and make our way to the condo.

From here on, words just don't work anymore. Even my excessively colorful verbiage falls well short of being able to describe the chaos, love, bond, chaos, playing, excitement, and chaos of the next few hours. This year there are only 6 of the usual 7 Hunans there. The 7th is in South Korea this year. They visited by computer link (Skype) for a while on Saturday. The girls missed Lia Joy this year, but they played together well all the same. It is so amazing to just watch them grow from year to year. There are only about 4 months difference in their ages so they hit milestones pretty close together. This year Gracie is one of the smaller girls. The others seem to have hit growth spurts a little ahead of her, but by and large, they are the same size. One of the subjects of discussion this time was the mystery of why are we all so determined to keep in contact with each other. I think we have no choice in the matter. Why? Well, God and 7 of His special princesses said so, that's why.

The trip home was reasonably uneventful. We looked forward to the comforts of home, our bed, etc. We had the usually series of potty stops and gas stops. By the way, don't stop when the sign says food and gas ahead, Sulfur Indiana. It is a trick. The gas station is a little too reminiscent of the movie Deliverance. Gator runs the gas station, I am sure of it. As for food, I'm thinking Possum was on the menu. I did not fill up here. We just locked the doors and u-turned in the middle of road. We made it with no casualties, which was in doubt a few times.

I also learned that if you walk into a Starbucks and request a VENTI CHAMELEON SHENANDOAH BIRKENSTOCK RALPHY RALPHY DOUBLE FONZIE, they will actually make something and charge you 5 bucks for it. Who knew?

Just because.......

2010-02-09T20:17:00.005-05:00

Here is the phrase..

Just because you can, doesn't mean you should...

Say it with me...

Just because you can, doesn't mean you should...

It goes like this.

Just because you can ( long pause while raising one eyebrow like Mr. Spock) doesn't mean you should.....

Try it out loud one time ( remember the eyebrow thing !! )

So, what am I babbling about.

Chicken Sausage : ( yes its out there, but why)