Saturday, August 30, 2008

Warped Humor

OK. Here's a funny short story that some crazy guys at my high school wrote for the school literary publication. I didn't really know these guys--they were upperclassmen and we ran in different circles--but I wish I had because their sense of humor and mine are frighteningly similar. The day I read this story for the first time, I was sitting in Spanish class. I'm sure that Senora Mercer was teaching something important about conjugating verbs, but I was lost in the hilarity of this piece. I seriously laughed so hard that I was afraid I might either get kicked out of the classroom or wet my pants. Good thing I was the teacher's pet . . . and wearing dark jeans! ;) I realize that some of you won't appreciate the silliness of this little tale. Most of my high school friends didn't either. But my brother and I STILL laugh at it, and Rex and I quote portions of it all the time. It really is funny. Hope you enjoy it!

A long time ago (about a week), there was this giant killer cockroach that had one big eye; it looked kind of lie a basset hound’s eye. Now this roach always got into the Folger’s Instant Coffee grounds and laid eggs. There was no way in the world to tell the difference between the grounds and the eggs.

One morning, this really ugly girl with one eye bigger than the other and a mustache so bushy it turned orange, red, and brown in autumn, got up and fixed herself poached eggs and coffee. She noticed that some of the coffee grounds wouldn’t dissolve, no matter how hard she stirred.
She soon got tired of stirring, and her coffee got cold. She went to the cabinet to get some Kool-Aid and saw the killer cockroach sucking on a can of Raid with Kenny Rogers and Chuck Mangione. Now Chuck had these really cool looking side burns and a nose the color and shape of a kidney bean; the reason being, that Kenny had a super sucking vacuum cleaner hose hooked up to Chuck’s nose. Kenny cut the vacuum hose and opened it up. Inside he found meat, leather, granite, dye, a contemporary music collection, and, right from the sculptors at the Franklin Mint, the Civil War Chess Set. He noticed the etched strength in Lee’s face and a soldier’s bed roll. He also saw money. Lots of crisp, green money.

The roach seemed to be broke, so he ate everyone, including the ugly girl. He should never have eaten her, for she hadn’t trimmed her mustache in a week. The roach choked on that mustache.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Things I Really Enjoy

Well, today I ditched the Top Ten idea and am just going with a list of things I enjoy. I decided to counter the whole pet peeve thing with something positive (to prove I'm not totally neurotic--wait, does actually saying that make it backfire on me?) I couldn't come up with ONLY ten things I enjoy, and the list is not exhaustive, I'm sure (or in any particular order). So here they are. Things I really enjoy:

1. Playing with and loving on my baby boy
2. Belly laughing until it hurts
3. Sleeping in
4. Hammocks
5. Photographs (particularly of family and friends)
6. Chai latte (hot or iced)
7. Christmas (my favorite time of year)
8. Music
9. Cookies right from the oven (and slightly under-done!)
10. Sunsets and rises
11. Board games
12. Heart-to-heart talks with friends
13. Homemade bread
14. Mountains
15. Waterfalls
16. Homemade greeting cards
17. Vegging with my hubby
18. Candlelight dinners
19. Phone calls from my sweetie for no reason
20. Traveling
21. Cheesecake (and just about anything else with cream cheese in it)
22. Dance Dance Revolution
23. Reminiscing with friends and family
24. Outback Steakhouse
25. Reconnecting with old friends
26. Chocolate
27. Old cartoons
28. Snuggling
29. Hot chocolate with marshmallows
30. Roasting marshmallows and eating smores
31. Homemade ice cream
32. Finding amazing bargains (on things I need)
33. Finding the perfect gift for someone
34. Braum’s Egg Nog
35. Watching Nathan dance and play and grow and learn
36. Scrapbooks
37. Worship
38. Writing
39. Bumper boats
40. Jacuzzis and hot tubs

Monday, August 18, 2008

Top Ten Pet Peeves

Top Ten lists are always sort of fun. I don't really get into David Letterman's Top Ten lists, but then again I don't get into anything David Letterman. But other Top Ten lists can be entertaining, and you can learn a lot about someone by their Top Tens. I decided to start with my pet peeves and soon discovered I had more than ten (OK, so I'm easily annoyed). So I picked the top ten most irritating and then added another list of ten honorable mentions. I should point out that neither list is in any particular order, and certain things might jump from one list to another at any given moment. (Seriously, do I need therapy?)

Top Ten Pet Peeves
1. Bad hygiene--this encompasses a lot of things: when people don't wash their hands before eating and after using the bathroom or working outside; I have family members who feed chips and crackers to their dogs and let them lick their fingers and then they put their hands right back into the bag or box that everyone else is eating from--GROSS!; when people stink like B.O. because they don't bathe or don't do their laundry or don't use deodorant
2. Noisy eaters--when people smack and slurp their food
3. When people (sometimes even strangers) come up and want to touch my baby's hands
4. Bratty children and the parents who won't control them
5. Cat or dog hair everywhere, and especially if it gets all over me, and to add to this one--when people let their cats or dogs jump on me or climb all over me or even worse, lick me
6. Long lines at a store and not enough checkers
7. When people use foul language around me and my family, especially my child
8. When people smoke in public places and I can't avoid it--not only that, but we have neighbors that go out into their backyard to smoke and it wafts over into our yard. It's so bad that can't even enjoy our own backyard because I am highly allergic. We can't even leave our windows and doors open because the smoke comes inside the house.
9. Girls and women who don't wear enough clothes in public. This also encompasses several things such as: when they don't (but clearly should) wear a bra in public; when their thong or other underwear is showing (some people actually intentionally show theirs--what is that about??)
10. Telemarketers

Honorable Mentions:
1. Spam email, particularly the ones that have porn in them or want you to enlarge some part of your body (usually a part I don't even have)
2. When someone spoils a movie I want to see by telling me about the ending or key scenes
3. When people don't flush the toilet in public restrooms, or they pee on the seat and don't wipe it off--or even worse, they leave their used sanitary products lying around
4. Littering
5. When guys leave the toilet seat up
6. When people walk down the middle of a road or aisle at the store and won't move out of the way--this is particularly annoying when there are large groups of people who are walking together and they stretch out across the entire aisle so there is NO way you can go around them
7. When people drive under the speed limit for no good reason, and when they drive slowly in the fast lane
8. When people put their little kids on the phone to talk to me for long periods of time
9. When people who are sleeping in the same room as I am set an alarm clock to wake up much earlier than I plan to, but then let the alarm go off for a long time before turning it off, or keep pushing the snooze button over and over again
10. When people put their gunky dishes that still have food on them into my sinkful of clean, soapy water

Monday, August 11, 2008

Faith Is Living with the Questions

Today I watched Steven Curtis Chapman and his family give a really powerful interview on Good Morning America's website, talking very honestly about the loss of their 5-year-old little girl a few months ago. She was tragically killed when her older brother accidentally struck her with an SUV in their driveway. It was all over the news, and I think this was the first time that the family had come out to publicly speak about it. It was very emotional, and very inspiring. They are truly a testimony of God's grace and faithfulness.

Something that SCC said that really hit home for me was about how just because you are a person with strong faith doesn't mean that you don't have questions--sometimes lots of them. In fact, he believes that faith is living with the questions.

That statement struck such a chord with me that I grabbed a pencil and wrote it down. I feel like that's exactly the point to which I have come. Living with the questions. Being OK with the fact that most of those questions will likely never have answers. But having faith just the same, in spite of all those questions and the absence of answers. I have journeyed a long way to get to this point, and without a doubt haven't "arrived" at any gigantic epiphony just yet, but at least I have been able to find peace in the midst of it all. And that's huge for me.

A song that I have loved from the moment I first heard it is Joy Williams' "You Know Better Than I." For a long time, it was kind of the ballad of where I wanted to be. I think now though, it describes more of where I am. It goes like this:

I thought I did what's right.
I thought I had the answers.
I thought I chose the surest road,
But that road brought me here.
So I put up a fight and told You how to help me.
And just when I had given up,
The truth is coming clear.

For You know better than I.
You know the way.
And I've let go the need to know why,
'Cause You know better than I.

If this has been a test,
I cannot see the reason.
But maybe knowing I don't know
Is part of getting through.
I try to do what's best,
And faith has made it easy
To see the best thing I can do
Is put my faith in You.

For You know better than I.
You know the way.
And I've let go the need to know why,
'Cause You know better than I.

I saw one cloud and thought it was the sky.
I saw a bird and thought that I could follow.
But it was You that taught them how to fly.
If I let You reach me, will You teach me?

For You know better than I.
You know the way.
I've let go the need to know why.
I'll take what answers You supply.
'Cause You know better than I.

Friday, August 1, 2008

Accident Waiting to Happen

Yes, that's me. Accident prone to the nth degree. I don't know why, but stuff just seems to seek me out and trip me up. Literally. One of my friends just sent me a piece of flair on Facebook that says "I trip over flat surfaces." That definitely describes yours truly. My dad was asking me the other day where I got all the bruises on my legs. I don't even know. There were a couple I didn't even know I had that were really dark and ugly, and then a bunch of other smaller ones. I think that getting them is so commonplace for me that I don't even notice anymore. I have a permanent knot and discoloration on one of my shins from running into the dishwasher door so many times when it's open.

Just this last week I have attempted (though not intentionally) to knock myself out three different times. Currently, I am nursing a rip-roaring headache from my most recent attempt. I still have a very tender, bruised eyebrow from the first run-in (no pun intended) with the closet doorjamb. I'm not sure how I misjudged things, but I didn't quite make it out of the closet before ramming my head into the jamb. Yesterday . . . or maybe the day before (see, I think I've even given myself amnesia), I was cleaning out some drawers in Nathan's bedroom. I bent to put some things in his bottom drawer, and came down square between the eyes on the upper drawer which I had left pulled out, like an idiot. Today, I got a dryer sheet out of the cabinet above the washing machine. Why I didn't simply close the cabinet door is beyond me. I leaned in to grab the rest of the laundry out of the washer and nearly impaled my head on the corner of the cabinet door. I think that one hurt worse than either of the previous two incidents.

As if bashing my head into things weren't enough, I've also had other self-inflicted injuries this last week. I bent my thumbnail back trying to open a new container of margarine, and it broke off and bled. That thing's been sore for several days now, and I whacked it again on something just yesterday which hurt like the dickens. I slammed two fingers in the filing cabinet drawer and bruised my fingernails. I knocked one ankle on the gate that goes into the kitchen, and the other one on my parents' ice cream freezer which is sitting on the floor in the kitchen. I stepped on one of Nathan's little shaped pegs and bruised my heel, and pinched my thumb putting some stuff away in the kitchen. And then I burned my tongue on dinner last night which I KNEW good and well was too hot to put in my mouth. Moron.

I have to say, none of my little accidents required an emergency room visit or stitches or traction or anything like that, so I have to be thankful for that! A guy at our church cut his finger with a chainsaw last week--at least my injuries didn't involve anything like that! However, I am thinking about just getting in bed and staying there for several days so I can heal up without doing any further damage to myself. Of course, I have fallen out of bed before and really hurt myself, so there's no guarantees that bed is going to be a safe place for me either. Maybe I need therapy! I'm just hoping I can make it through the weekend in one piece. ;)