A Road Less Travelled

 So I’m sitting here, trying to find something in my life that’s blogworthy. I’m sure there must be something.

 If nothing else, I should surely be able to squeeze a blog post out of the fact that I bought two bags full of used books yesterday. But even though it was an enjoyable experience, and I found some good books, I didn’t find any really exciting books that I have to gloat over.

 If I don’t write something about Jeremy soon, I will probably be strangled by various interested parties (or maybe just by Adiel). The most interesting thing I can come up with at the moment is to inform you that we have no great theological differences on squirrels, which fact seems to be of great importance to James.

 In other random news, I am slightly distressed to find that it’s nearly the end of June and I have not yet begun work on Christmas presents. I’m sure I’m horribly behind schedule, but since I’m not even sure of what I’m making for some people, I don’t know how far behind schedule.

 Also, I have created a Squidoo lens on knitting topological shapes. In other words, it’s a collection of links to patterns for mobius scarves, klein bottle hats, and other such weird stuff. You can find it here. It’s very much a work in progress, so if you have any ideas how to improve it, let me know. By my calculations there may be as many as three people reading this blog who have an interest in knitting, so I expect an overwhelming flood of comments.

 So that’s about it. Life continues to be life. I continue to neglect posting haiku, but I’ll get better about that. And, of course, I continue to buy books I have no shelf space for–that’s not likely to change any time soon.

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We ate dinner at the Lansberry’s last night because we will be on our way to Erie on Thursday. (Did I mention we were going to Erie? No? Well, we’re going to Erie on Thursday and we’ll be back a week from Thursday. Do you think I can say Thursday again? Thursday, Thursday, Thursday!) Theresa had to wait to start dinner until James got home with some groceries so we ate kinda late. When we ate we talked about filtering rain water, some very serious stuff, whether plants are alive or not and it was suggested that if I stayed behind when Seth and Crystal went to Erie I could run barefoot at cars. It was much funnier in context. Noah walked around being two and we followed him around as we were able trying to avert great disasters. We ended up leaving at a time that felt early, but wasn’t. And a good time was had by all.

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 I once told Gabrielle that only thing worse than being female would be being male and having to put up with females. Now, I have to clarify this statement by saying that I really do enjoy being female. I’ve even been know to wear pink (with lace, no less). But I do not enjoy having random emotions surface in my mind without my prior consent.

 Last night, I knew I was on the brink of crying for no particular reason. As nights of crying for no particular reason go, it wasn’t that bad. I merely informed Theresa that I was probably going to cry for no particular reason, and she understood perfectly. James also overheard this conversation, so we all went about our business, ignoring the tears rolling down my face. Then we watched The Constant Gardener. Bleah! While The Constant Gardener is rather a good movie, and I did enjoy it to some extent, I cannot reccomend watching it while having the urge to cry for no particular reason.

  This morning, however, I am in quite pleasant mood. Not only did I catch up on sleep last night, but this morning I washed my hair. See, I’ve been experimenting with a method of hair care which does not use shampoo. (See here for details.) Overall, I’ve been quite pleased with not putting harsh shampoo chemicals on my hair. Still, my hair just hasn’t seemed quite right, even after allowing the requisite three weeks for my hair to adjust to the new regimen. So this morning I finally did something about it in the form of a baking soda rinse followed by a vinegar/lemon/lime rinse.

 It’s wonderful. My hair isn’t even dry yet, and already I can tell that it’s in much better shape than it has been. Even slipping and smashing my nose against the side of the tub wasn’t enought to dampen my mood.

 So here I sit with moist hair flopping down my back, and I am perfectly content. Just give it another ten minutes, though. I’m sure something will change. 

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Last Saturday we went to a friend’s house and spent a very enjoyable day eating good food, hanging out with nice people and playing a nifty game. These friends do not have children and so it was kinda funny to see how they had prepared for the horde we brought with us. We had a lovely time and left tired, but happy. On the drive home a thought leaped out of nowhere and struck me. One of the reasons it was so refreshing was that these friends fussed over us.

  I talk a lot about community and Dinner at Lansberry’s and how nice it is not to be people. I think about it a lot and I just assumed it was a better way. But we went to this friend’s house and they prepared for us. They got good food and fussed a bit to make sure it looked nice. She had actually bought little toys and coloring books for the kids to make sure they would have something to do. The last time we were there, about a year ago, they fixed us the best steak I have ever had and this year they went out of their way to make sure they had everything just right to fix this steak for us again. They had run out of the special steak rub they’d used on last year’s steaks and I think they had to special order it to make sure they had it for Saturday, but special order it they did and the steak was as good if not better than last time. These friends of ours spent an entire day fussing over us and fussing over the kids and I walked away feeling really special.

It’s made me ponder my rants about community a bit. I know I still appreciate being not-people and just bopping in without it being a big deal, but there is a time and place to fuss a bit. Sometimes it just makes someone feel special.  Knowing when you need to fuss and when you need to not is the important part. Fussing over someone who wants to feel like he is just one of the family is no good and including someone into the regular rabble who wants to come over to your house and feel special isn’t any good either. Here’s where that wisdom thing comes into play.

I find it odd that just one day spent at a friends house can make me reconsider what I think. I’ve been rambling and ranting about this comunity thing for so long I just assumed it was locked in stone. But if friends can’t make you think again than I guess they are much good, now are they?

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“You’ve only got three rear ends…”

“After you get tied you have to come get your pants off the table.”

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So I have this announcement to make and I can’t figure out if I want to be serious about it or sort of kinda humorous. What am I talking about? If I have a choice between serious and not serious my choice seems to be rather obvious. Okay, here goes.

Attention all readers. I have an announcement to announce. By all rights Raquel should be doing this, but she opted out and so the joy of embarrassing her falls to me. Sometime last week, I’m hazy on the details, Jeremy, a new-comer to our little group that I have been talking about recently, and Raquel, you know her, started courting. For everyone who doesn’t know this word courting think dating and take a left. So, like, there’s a guy in Raquel’s life.

I for one am very excited about this because the opportunities to tease her mercilessly abound. And not just her either. I am good enough friends with Jeremy to tease him without mercy so it is like Teasing Christmas in summer.

And now I will supply a little, and I mean little, background information. His name is Jeremy, he lived for two years with my parents and I so I know him pretty well and he moved here from Pennsylvania mostly for the purpose of pursuing Raquel. He actually chased her across the country. Isn’t that great? For any and all concerned he is a very nice guy and I do believe he will be careful with our Raquel. If he isn’t I’ll kill him. Though I might have to get in line.  

So, there is a guy in Raquel’s life and we are all very happy for them. If you would like to be happy for them too please leave a comment in the container near the exit of the room. Thank you. Good bye.

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Am I the only one who ends up lying on the kitchen floor, with my face being used as a support for a ramp for Hot Wheels cars, thinking there’s something else I should rather be doing, but unable to actually figure out what that would be?

I am? Oh. Well, never mind then.

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Today’s haiku–

 

March sunlight
golden
on last year’s cornstalks 

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So I hear people say things like “Be careful what you ask for” and it is implied that you might get exactly what you ask for and you probably won’t like it. Well, I asked God to make me useful and to give me opportunities to shine and, well, that’s exactly what we’ve been getting this past week.

Last Saturday I think it was some children who had just moved in across the alley came over to our backyard and asked if they could play with our kids. We said yes and it was all lovely. It was kind of a surprise because there aren’t many children in our neighborhood and none who come over and ask to play. So these children kept coming over to play and especially the two older girls kept coming back and wanting to stay longer. And they kept asking if they could come in. Crystal walked over and met their parents and so Tuesday they started coming in the house and playing with the kids. And then they came back. And again. And then their parents started sending them over to ask for things. And then they started coming over right around lunchtime everyday.

So life’s been kinda stressful lately. Crystal and I have what feels like heaps of work to do to get ready to move and we are so emotionally strung out by these girls being around us and the children we are too tired to do anything. And when we weren’t looking their parents assigned us as daycare and just keep dumping their kids on us. The culture shock is enough to exhaust me, but our kids get really agitated around the girls and have been getting more mouthy and snippy. So we might have to call it quits and just start saying No, I’m sorry, you can’t come over to play today.

We’ve been joking that it’s all my fault because I was the one who asked God for opportunities, but when I’m serious I do believe that God sent us this glimpse of the world. It’s like He’s asking us if we’re still serious about moving to the city and being salt and light. I’m going to say Yes, I’m still serious, but it was a bit of a struggle to come back to that answer. It will be hard, stressful and heart-wrenching, but if it’s where we’re supposed to be God will keep dropping people in on us and making us useful and giving us opportunities to shine. We were just reading what Jesus said about being salt and about being light. We aren’t any good if we lock all the doors and close all the curtains and just shine for ourselves. And I would really like to be good for something. Even when it’s hard. 

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Last night we gathered at the Lansberry household and sat down to eat together. I have recently been becoming aware of how very strange it is to most people nowadays to sit down together for no other reason than that you want to be together and you want to eat together. Hospitality is rapidly becoming a lost art and while we are in no way guests at the Lansberry house when we come over we and they are practicing what we believe about community and friends. I figure if I can actually point to an instance wherein we practice what we keep blathering about that’s no bad thing.

  While the children were still sitting at the table we talked about various summer reading programs available in Peoria. Theresa was going down the list of all the programs she knew about and listing the good and bad aspects of each one. After the children left the table James brought up a topic and from the time he brought it up and the time we actually addressed it we talked about gaming conventions, dog shows, a really funny sounding breed of dog I had never heard of before, birds, and speeding. Noah had steadfastly refused to take a nap yesterday afternoon so he started melting down a little earlier than usual. Seth hustled the kids into the van and loaded all of our paraphernalia in before he came back and dragged Crystal and I away from an interesting conversation. We left and as usual I felt it had been a very satisfying evening spent with friends.
 

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