There Is No Light

at the end of the tunnel of flu.

There is, however, a little picture of the IV catheter swaddled in my hand. This painful sucker stays until tomorrow, when they either add fluids to my body (two bags today) or remove the beastly thing.

While at the clinic and semi-conscious, I heard the man in the room next door getting his chemo treatment. Whiny as I am, this is nothing.

Speaking of Rodents...

I've long been appreciative of those who run convenience stores on major holidays. I later learned the importance of those who work at nursing homes and hospitals on those very same days. This evening, optimistically seeing light at the end of the tunnel of flu, I'm really appreciative of even more people.

Napping most of the day, it didn't matter what was on the tube. Two Tylenols and a few crackers later, it did. The only thing of interest was Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe, and I'm grateful for Sunday marathons of quality television programming. Feeling a bit better, I googled up Mike and found mini-videos.

Some people are amazing. Their daily jobs require them to deal with rats and roaches...rats crawling on them and roaches dropping from the ceilings... Still feeling queasy, I won't go into much detail here. Watch the videos, though. Mike's amazing, but the people who do this and don't get noticed are truly wonderful

A Request to Be Blogged

I think some of the things done by intoxicated people can be done by completely sober yet sleep-deprived people, with the same level of amusement.

I'm not sure what time most everyone else left HA's last night, but after Stan creamed me at Egyptian Rats (continuing his tally from eons ago), HA, Stan, ARG and I just sat around. We pulled out our phones, texted and photographed each other. Really, it wasn't all that enthralling. We were just three people who liked the company and didn't want to go home, and one person who liked the company enough to not send the rest of us home.

It's kind of nice to have small-town joys. (Sorry about your four hours of sleep, HA!)

Oh, dear God...

*We didn't realize they could live this early...*

How many other doctors have made the same misjudgment... How many other babies... How many other arguments...

Praise God for the miracles of mistakes!

Be Careful, Little Fingers, Who You Text

Ever send an e-mail to the wrong person...or a text to the wrong recipient?

Oops.

And look who got it.

With REM Goin' through My Head

If you claim to be the Antichrist, then can you be the Antichrist? I imagined he'd be a bit sneakier.

Christian leaders have denounced De Jesus, saying he distorts the Bible.

The MAN!

70-year-old barehanded retiree kills armed mugger

[Cringe], [twitch], [shiver]

Chicken and tacos and rats--oh, my!

My favorite part is the rodent scurrying across the background while the [former] customer is being interviewed.

Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

OHIJUSTGOTTHESTRANGESTDEJAVUMOMENT!

I have an odd feeling that one of the monitors from my elementary school lunch days is someone I later met at a Bible study. Weird. I'm positive it's her. Ugh. Shivers again!

It was the early 80's, lunch-in-a-gym, and college students were hired to prevent foodfights...and other things, apparently. I'm not sure what the initial incident was, but I was harshly accused of making a face at one of the paranoid monitors. She sentenced me to finishing my meal alone, against a cold cinderblock wall in full view of my generally hostile peers. I still get tense when reliving that moment. (No wonder I'm not a great dinnertime socializer--residual fear of a firing squad lineup.)

Due to this intense trauma, I can relate to the poor elementary schoolers in Warwick, RI, who, as a whole, are not allowed to speak at lunch. Why not? People can't hear them choking.

It's a mad, mad, mad, mad world...

Having just blogged about joy and optimism, I'm rather self-conscious about this entry. However, there are some things that aren't particularly joyful. Here's one.

Driving to and from a retreat yesterday, I passed a lake I'd visited once. It'll be a bit odd to revisit it when it thaws. A truck crashed through a week or so ago. The passenger was rescued; the driver drowned.

I'm not big on death. On the reservation, I went out scouting turkeys with a friend. I didn't realize, until we were sitting there in the cold, that he'd brought a gun along. (I know, it was as tall as I am; how could I miss it?) He shushed me when I plied him with questions. Why hadn't I taken a book? And then I saw them--a little feathered herd strutting beyond the treeline. I nudged him and slowly pointed. Equally slowly, he lifted his gun and aimed.

Dread quickly filled me as I pre-felt the impact the BOOM would have. The absence of life. There...and then gone...

I wanted to stand up, yell, and send the turkeys flapping. Maybe it was some odd sense of propriety that kept me from disrupting my host's turf. Instead, I whispered.

"Run, little turkeys, run!"

I closed my eyes. Silence... I looked at my friend. He had put the gun down.

"You're not shooting?"

"Nope."

Later, I learned he had told my parents he just couldn't shoot when I was pleading for their lives like that. Nice guy. He also never took me hunting (or scouting) again.

That was probably the day when I realized the profundity of life moving to death. I'm grateful to the people who are able to provide meat for my table. Along a very twisted line, I'm grateful to the people who, in the line of duty, are able to take out "the bad guys." But to be there in that moment of trauma would wound me deeply--and that's something I'd like to avoid for as long as possible.

So I think of this poor ice fisherman... And I think of the water where he died. My kayak and I have been there...have been there...at the place where life moved to death.

A Realistic Optimist? Optimistic Realist?

I was wondering, yesterday, what had happened to me. The pendulum has dropped from optimist to realist. When? Why? And if there's "joy in the Lord," then oughtn't I be more joyful? Doesn't that mean optimistic?

But what if I'm sick of saccharine-sweetness? Is "tell it like it is" an acceptable MO?

But then, if joy is in me, wouldn't "tell it like it is" include the joy aspect?

Is the real Joy-Giver the apple of my eye?

Jealous of the Irish

KISS ME,

I'M
NORWEGIAN

didn't really have a ring to it. This, however, is funny!

You know, when I was a kid, I despised dictionary assignments--because if I had to look up, say, something starting with M, something in the L's would catch my eye...so I'd read that...and then something in the early M's would strike my fancy... So really, I looked up three words within the assignment of one...so my assignments took three times as long... But look at the education I got!

Blogs are a lot like dictionaries for me. (You people are, however, much more interesting...although your entries are longer...) I stumble across one which leads me to another (either through an interesting title, or priority level on someone else's blog, or creativity of comments, or...), which leads me to another, which leads me to really random stuff like this picture. Thank you for contributing to my continuing education!

The Blessings of Exes

Axes? No, exes...
Axis? No, allies...

I was thinking about them rather much this past week. There are two who live nearby, and thank God for the friendships that have developed. They are only due to His grace and mercy.

During the past few weeks, our pastor did a sermon series on grace and truth--how you can't have one without the other. One of those Sundays, He talked about them in the context of restoring relationships. The irony hit me as I realized I was standing in the control booth next to "Stan."

Stan and I realized after we dated that we should never have moved from the friendship field to the romantic field. I learned a lot and I liked a lot, but a permanent togetherness wasn't part of God's plan for our lives. After a semi-awkward year of not speaking to each other, a switch was flipped and we resumed conversations. Despite my not having a text-messaging plan, he's someone I'll accept messages from (if they have a point!).

Some of the pastor's points from that Sunday:

• God forgave me a debt I couldn't pay.
• When I give grace, it proves I've received grace.
• It protects me from other sins.
• It gives both the offender and me freedom.
• It's the only way to get rid of blame and pain.
• It breaks the cycle of ungrace.
• It gives the offender the opportunity to change.
• It keeps me positioned to receive God's grace.
• The only thing harder is the alternative.

During one of those, I nudged Stan. *That's why we can talk now!* I whispered, or something to that effect. He nodded uncertainly...maybe I didn't whisper loudly enough...

It was so fantastic to have a series of "hammer notes" hit in points that confirmed things (opposed to painful jabs of truths I haven't yet dealt with). I leaned back against the wall, listened, and reflected. I smiled again.

A little after eight, "His Highness" had called. He croaked out that as he'd finished caring for his elderly mother who had the flu, he'd contracted it. After suffering the symptoms for a sufficient number of hours, he was finally feeling hungry. Unfortunately, health food freak that he is, he didn't have any sick people food at his place. Could I bring him some? He went through a list, and I told him he'd have to tell me again when I actually woke up.

An hour later, I dropped bags of groceries on his mat and ran. Half an hour after that, I was reflecting on Stan and on my past with His Highness. They are as opposite as possible within a conservative Christian environment. Stan's ear piercings and braidable beard contrast with His Highness's Adrian Monk-like nature. The eighteen years between them bring up generational variances. (Yes, yes, I dated both of them; I have a wide range of interests!) And there I was, on a morning when our pastor preached about restoring relationships--God had blessed me with positive interactions with both!

The Friday before Valentine's Day, a group of us got together at a friend's house. Stan became affixed to the TV, sitting through an hour-long concert in hopes of hearing his favorite song by that artist. The rest of us, His Highness included, played Boxers or Briefs (really, much cleaner than you may imagine). Finding Stan behind me and facing the opposite direction, I leaned back. He stayed; I stayed. That in itself was a small-scale model of truth and grace. "There was a time I thought you were a pig, but God has forgiven me of much more--how could I hold anything against you?" (We both could have said that.) No, we don't have an interest in dating each other, but we're comfortable enough with each other to be comfortable with each other. That's a blessing.

Blessings continued, via the game.

Have you ever played Boxers to Briefs? Each person has seven cards with five or so sentences printed on them. One person rolls a die. If the die turns up, say, red, then the other players look at the red sentence on each card they hold. They select one according to what the die-roller will think is funniest or truest about him/herself. The die-roller then reads off the sentences, much to the laughter of him/herself and the others.

When it was my turn, I apparently rolled the color my lovely and talented friend HA had been saving for me. She grinned as I read aloud from one card, "I date crazy people." With Stan at my back and His Highness to my left, I had to agree. HA got a briefs chip (for submitting the most true option). Blessing: my friends know that my exes and I have reestablished friendships. It's clear; it's confirmed.

A few turns later, His Highness's wish was granted. Since he's on the upper end of the "Stan and His Highness Time Continuum," he was quite amused to play the "I like younger men" card for me. Sharing his quirky sense of humor, and with young Stan still at my back, I honored His Highness with a boxers (funny) chip. Blessing: my exes know there's humor to be found when history links to the present.

I drove home that night, and my heart felt full. Yes, yes, a dateless Valentine's was looming, but it was so tiny in perspective to the blessings I realized He had been pouring down.

Post Script: it wasn't a dateless Valentine's Day--for me or for anyone else. Take heart, dear friends! We shall assign it a date: February 14. There! Dateless no longer!

Regardless of Choices

And keeping in mind circumstance: this is nuts. It's -5, with a windchill of -18--and some people are burning clothes for heat.

This is my old reservation. If I were still teaching there...how would I help?

And how do I help from here?

Update 2/19/07

Joy of Singleness #1

A pesticide-free Valentine's Day!

My heart goes out to women world-wide who are the recipients of these beautifully-packaged toxins. I doubt the men in their lives are purposely trying to do them in. They, too, are innocent victims. This may be a terrorist plot...

Besides, ever since someone stopped letting roses smell like raspberries, the fun's gone all out of them... (Very sad.) I also know to stop sniffing them (also sad).

Oh for Pete's Sake!

Again, the idiots have struck. Thankfully, they acknowledge it's a bit farcical...but still... This makes me mutter a lot...

Aim

It's 2 p.m. on a Saturday, with an outside temperature of -7. Inside is nice--my seat's in the sun, and the woodburning stove is seven feet away.

I find myself watching some dog show competition with my parents. My father's favorite part is the water diving. Each dog crouches a few feet away from the edge of a rectangular pond, then sprints and leaps. The winner is the one whose nose lands farthest from the starting edge.

To give his/her dog a focal point, the owner/trainer tosses a chew toy (ball, plastic fish, rubber chromosome shape) into the water ahead of the dog. The dog isn't aiming for, say, the 27' mark; it's aiming for the object. Unfortunately, the owner's/trainer's ploy usually works. If the object lands at 23', that's all the dog goes for. One dog even swiveled its head back when it realized it had overshot the toy.

What am I aiming for in life? A number that will make people cheer for me, or a plastic fish that will bring me joy?