"no, i'm the stylist."

taking my dog for a walk this afternoon, i strolled by the winery in my neighborhood that has become such a popular venue for weddings. as pippi and i sniffed our way along, a car pulled up and out popped an attractive woman, all made up, with an orchid in her hair. i assumed she was the bride, and i said so.

"no, she said, "i'm the stylist. i'm here to make sure the bride - and everyone else - is gorgeous. it's a tough job, but somebody's gotta do it."

no. somebody doesn't gotta do it. 

and somebody shouldn't.


what, pray tell, does everybody looking gorgeous have to do with promising never to break the other guy's heart? i hope the bride pays as much attention to making her husband happy as she does to the contour of her eye shadow.

look.......i'm not trying to say that people should look ugly on their wedding day. that's just silly. but if we've evolved to the point where every wedding has to have a coordinator and a stylist, well, we haven't evolved at all. 

a wedding is supposed to be about getting married, not getting gorgeous. after all, he fell in love with you when you were putting your own mascara on -  with your own hands.

and your mouth that falls open to your chin as you put it on.

now, that's cute.

  

what i did for love

nothin' fancy, but it helps. i think. i hope.


as many of you know, i have been through a personal tragedy these past almost 3 years now. (and it's not over yet. in some ways, mostly legal ones, it's just getting started.) but this post is not about my tragedy.

it's about what i've done with it. and i tell you about what i've done with it not to self-aggrandize (how often ya get a chance to use that word?) but to teach. to instruct. to, really, "pay it forward." if i can be an example to you, then good has come of this pain.


what i have done with it:

• i have prayed. yes, for my relief but more importantly......for his.
• i have re-defined what it means to have "the good life." and the new, improved definition is, well, new. and improved.
• i have increased my charitable giving.
• i have gotten off my high horse.
• i have read about the lives of the saints. 
• i have tried, in almost every instance, to think of this from his perspective. and not from mine. or, at least, in addition to mine.
• i have lit votive candles at church.
• i have become a better therapist. (and i wasn't all that shabby to begin with!)  :)
• i have let more people cut in front of me. whether they're grateful or not.
• i have thought and prayed and thought and prayed and thought and prayed. and im not done. (and i don't plan to ever get done!)
• i have come to appreciate pain. to appreciate it. carly simon didn't have time for it. that's painful right there.
• i have discerned what matters.
• i have discovered strength i never knew i had. 
• i have become humble. it. is. not. a. bout. me. 
• i have come to know that i need to come to know God.  
• in short, i have been "re-born."
• but, shhhh.......don't tell that to my priest.  :)

 

got moves?

olivia likes to say, "watch my moves, gram," (and i always do). olivia has had "moves" since she was about 18 months old. and they're getting better all the time.

olivia's "moves" started out as disorganized and frantic. just jumpin' around fast, really. but now, they've got groove. they've got meaning.

she has moves on the dance floor, in her car seat, in the house, outside the house, in and outside of your house, and, most recently, on the gymnastics floor.

abby and eli enrolled her this fall in gymnastics. for a three-year old who taught herself to do a perfect cartwheel, it seemed like the logical thing to do.

and it was. is.

"floor ex" (as we call it in the business) is probably gonna be her forte, but she's already doing forward rolls on the balance beam. the balance beam, which is about 4" wide.......just about one inch for each year of how old she is. that's not shabby.

oh, parents and grandparents always think their kid is special. their kid is the one who's gonna go places, do things. win oscars. win emmys.

win medals.


i wonder where the olympics will be held in 2024.

.

before you kick the bucket, kick the bucket list

i don't have a bucket list. or, more accurately, i have one, but nothing's on it. or, more accurately, i have one and something's on it. the something that's on it is what i've already been doing.


most people who have bucket lists have things like this on it: jumping out of an airplane, swimming in the coral reef, going to alaska. or paris. the eiffel tower. seeing hawaii at sunset.

i have none of these things on my list. not because i think there's anything wrong with having these things on a list. just not on a bucket one.

a bucket list is supposed to be a list of things you want to do before you die. really? before you die, you feel the need to buy a boat? before i die, i don't want to swim with the dolphins. i want to teach my grandchildren to swim.

before i die, i want to make sure i have fixed as many things that are wrong about me as i can. (believe me, if i do that, there'll be no time to climb mt. everest.)

i want to repair my relationships. especially the ones i have broken.

i want to pay my debts, financial and otherwise.  mostly otherwise.

i want to get closer to God, not closer to the moon. i want to understand Him and what He wants me to do.

somehow......going on safari probably isn't what He has in mind.

for me.

or you.
 

what i should have gotten married to instead

peanut butter.

snow.

fall leaves.

chicken and noodles.

young and the restless.

rain and a good book. not a kindle.

cloudy days.

somebody appalachian.

naps.

ignoring the dust.

the smell of a house when good food is cooking.

quiet.

warm socks.

someone who stays home.


yeah.

someone who stays home.

 

late to the tim tebow game

i don't pay attention to sports but i thought all the hullabaloo about tim tebow kneeling in prayer on the field was yesterday's news. but maybe not - someone re-posted that thing on facebook which shows a bunch of muslims kneeling on the floor in prayer and beside them is tim tebow kneeling on the football field. with words something to the effect of "why is this o.k." written under the picture of the muslims and "but this isnt" written under tim tebow.

why, indeed.

not only why is it ok for muslims to pray but not christians but why is it ok for just about everything else these days that everybody says is ok?

 to wit:

• why is it ok to be "spiritual" but not religious?
• why is it ok to be an eastern religion but not a western one?
• why is it ok to make your mind up based on your mind rather than the mind of God?
• why is it ok to be "forward" but not to be traditional? and don't tell me it's ok to be traditional. unless you're planning to vote for romney. 
• why is everything you say ok and everything i say gets dismissed with the wave of your hand? like i'm stupid or somethin.
• like God's stupid or somethin.

why i love being stuck in the middle

the best show on t.v., very much contrary to popular opinion, is not "modern family." it's "the middle." you're welcome.

part of the reason "the middle" is so good is because the middle of everything is so good. every politician and every voter could take a lesson from that. you're welcome.

"the middle," if you haven't watched it (and if you haven't, consider yourself slapped in the middle of the forehead - you're welcome), has characterization so far superior to the characterization in "modern family" it isn't even funny. well, yes it is. it's funny as hell. why "modern family" keeps getting all the emmys is be. yond. me. that show is so predictable, my dvr records it before it even comes on.

"the middle's" story lines are vastly superior.

their sets are quadruply (quadruply?) better than "modern family's." ditto their costuming. probably even ditto their lighting (but i don't know too much about lighting).

every last solitary detail of "the middle" is better, better, better than every last solitary detail of "modern family," and yet, you people keep jumping up and down about "modern family." (and don't try telling me that the fact they have a gay couple on there has nothing to do with it. it has every. thing. to do with it.)

and the middle has everything to do with why "the middle" is so good. the middle of everything is good. the middle of an oreo, the middle of a chocolate-covered caramel.

the middle of "the middle," in the middle of the week? 

per.fec.tion. 

(the only thing that's not better in the middle)

 

"hot dresses for every age"

i admit it......i'm a yahoo/shine "news" junkie. i read all those stories. i know......i'm lame.


so this morning, there's a story with the fetching tag line, "hot dresses for every age," so whadda i do? i click on it. and up pops dress suggestions for women in their 20s, 30s, and 40s.

20s, 30s, and 40s.

whaaaat??? 50-year old women aren't part of the "every age" contingent? never mind 60, 70, 80, 90, and beyond.

although, i admit it......a hot 90 or beyond?

gross.

why i like things i don't like

because practically without fail, they're good for me. and by me, i mean you.


i have spent most of my life trying to avoid or minimize or deny or rationalize away (or some other form of lying to myself) stuff i don't like. not surprisingly, i have paid a heavy price for that stupidity. yes.......stupidity.

it is only recently that i have come to appreciate and in some ways even, to actually relish the things (and people) that get in my way. (it's an attitude that i highly recommend, folks.)

the things and people i don't like are there to teach me a lesson. and the lesson, almost without exception, is that i need to change. 

and so do you.

i need to stop wanting things on my terms. that's what's wrong with this damned country - everybody wants what they want. even if what they want is good for somebody else. and there's the rub: some of us get so caught up in advocating for somebody else that we fail to realize that we're really advocating for ourselves. for what makes sense to us. never mind if it makes sense to God.

among many other things, i have come to appreciate the following:

uncomfortable clothes - shoes that pinch. sweaters that itch. not like, mind you -  ap.pre.ci.ate. whenever my clothes feel tight, i ask myself how i might be being too "tight" to someone else. maybe i'm not giving them enough space, enough freedom, enough money. enough room to cut over into my lane. something.

bosses who are impatient -  maybe i am taking too long on this project. maybe i'm the impatient type, too. (maybe??)

church services in latin (which i mostly don't understand) -  how might i not be making myself clear to others? am i two-faced? do my words sound good (latin is a pretty language) but fail the "walk the walk" test? and the biggest one of all -why do i have to understand everything? just because i don't understand you doesn't mean you're wrong.

long lines at the drive-thru. not to mention getting the burger WITH the mayo when you spe. cif. ic. al. ly. asked for it WITHOUT the mayo. - am i listening? 

bad coffee - well.........how sweet am i?

dirty houses - the analogy with this one should be pretty clear. especially if the house is a glass one.


the thing is, what we don't like is there to teach.us.a.lesson. not there so we can bitch about it over coffee in the break room.

which, invariably, is dirty as hell. (you seen the inside of that microwave?)

who DOES that??

• 
  

my kind of day

i am meeting a friend for breakfast this morning - at bob evans - and i am going to get fried mush. if i were at northstar or first watch or even panera, i would not be able to get fried mush. because northstar and first watch and even panera are too good for that.

after breakfast at bob evans, i am going to urbana to meet my parents at the diner in the teensy tiny little airport they have in that town and i am going to get bean soup and cornbread.

when i come home, i will walk into my house and smell baked apples cooking in the crockpot. i'll wash my hands and start makin' beef stew.

around about 8 p.m., i'll pop me some popcorn. if i still have enough karo syrup left over from last year, i might even make a coupla popcorn balls.


the high today is supposed to be 65. 68, depending on who you listen to. (personally, i like jym ganahl. channel 4.  there's just something about a weatherman who owns his own snow-making machine that i love.) it's supposed to be partly sunny. tomorrow will be a tad cooler.


i love fall.

the honeymoon is over

(no, this is not a joke): where do the amish go for their honeymoons? (no, TLC viewers, not new york city. no, those of you who are hatin' on the amish,  not nowhere.)

they go home.

they go home. doesn't that make perfect sense?


before y'all start yellin' at me, no, i am not saying that going on a trip somewhere for your honeymoon is bad. misguided, maybe, but not bad.

shouldn't it be that the one place on earth that a newly married couple is most eager to be is their home? (course, shackin' up has pretty much taken the glow offa that, i suppose.)

your new home together and the first thing you wanna do is leave it? (yeah, yeah......i know all about the "stress of the wedding" and how, now that it's over, you. need. a. break. but stop right there - "stress of the wedding?" what's wrong with that picture? about a hundred things.)

we have everything so upside down and mixed up in this life that it's a wonder we haven't all gone mad.


speaking of which......when i feel like i am about to go mad (or tired or crabby or, yes, even loving), first place i want to go is home.

not paris.

utopia

even though anybody with half a brain knows it doesn't exist, we keep acting like it exists. or at least, should exist.

which is a good thing.  because it exists.


utopia is what Christ has promised. only nobody wants that kind of utopia. the kind of utopia that everybody wants is the kind where you raise taxes on the rich. nobody wants the kind of utopia where the laborers who showed up in the fields at the end of the day got paid the same amount as the ones who showed up in the fields at the crack of dawn. cuz that's not "fair." and everybody wants the kind of utopia that's "fair."


wow....... the unions would have a field day (pun intended) with utopia.

the rank and file

i didn't change the name of my blog to theRankinFile just because it was a good play on words. although it is.

i changed the name of my blog to theRankinFile because i love the rank and file. law. order. convention. tradition. the. way. things. ought. to. be.

i am not the "forward" type. i'm not. so, shoot me.

i would be the "forward" type if i thought the forward type was better. and sometimes (operative syllable -  "some") it is. like when we outlawed slavery in this country. that was good.

but when we outlawed God - bad. bad. and not just bad - 

backward. backward.

i do not like backward any more than i like forward. 

but, funny......a lot of people who like forward....... do. 

help!

help! i need somebody! help! not just anybody!


not just anybody.


there are a lot of songs about help and needing it. songs about being rescued. songs about being saved. and not a single one sings about the government doing the helping or the rescuing or the saving.


something to think about.

sketti

honey boo boo and her family eat "sketti." it's spaghetti with ketchup and butter. i reckon we better not knock it till we've tried it.

food at both ends of the food continuum - the high end and the low end - always sounds gross. maybe the 1% on both ends have a lot more in common than anyone cares to admit.

on the high end you've got your snails and on the  low end you've got your crawdads.

high end - duck liver/low end - pig's feet.


reason i like honey boo boo so much is cuz in a high class steak house you want to put ketchup on your meat but you know that's low class and in a low class steak house you don't have to put ketchup on your meat cuz the cooks already done did that fer ya back in the kitchen.

 

why kids need a cell phone in case of emergency

they don't.


ever since cell phones have come along, i can never reach anybody. 

either everybody's phone's not charged or they didn't hear it ringing (hard to hear your cell phone ring with ear buds in your ears), or they forgot to put it on vibrate (please! can't we come up with another word for it than that!), or they don't know where they put it. 

or they hit the wrong button and accidentally deleted your call.

and now they can't call you back because they're driving.

and although being busy driving didn't stop them from trying to answer their phone when you called in the first place and then they accidentally deleted your call, the fact that they will now invoke the "i was too busy driving to call you back" clause - however safe that might be - is infuriarting. emergency or not.

the bottom line is, cell phones don't work. and if they did, world history would have no occasions of  successful resolutions to an emergency. which we all know is patently false. emergencies have been resolved countless times in the history of mankind - without anyone ever having to shell out bucks to upgrade to unlimited text and data. it's just ridiculous that we think we need cell phones.

what we need is a little perspective here, folks. first of all, hardly anybody ever gets into an emergency in the first place. that's A. 

B. is, if a kid does get into an emergency, he likely won't recognize it as such ("i didn't think there were that many drugs at the party, mom!") or, on the rare occasion that a kid will recognize an emergency when it hits him smack in the face, he will justify remaining in the emergency to collect data for his science project ("ok, ok! so i knew there were that many drugs at the party. i was just tryin' to get a better understanding of group behavior and how the different drugs interact with each other.....not to mention maybe find the cure for cancer!")

tell ya what, son.......you find a cure for batteries that need charging and you find a cure for never knowing where the damned cell phone is in the first place and i'll tell your teacher to give you an A on your science project.

but i'm still not buyin' you a phone.

spam!

i hear some of you talking about how much spam you get in your e-mailboxes and i wonder what i'm doing wrong. er, right. because i hardly ever get spam. hardly ever! i barely need both hands to count how many times i have received spam. it just never happens.

at home, that is. work's another story.

wouldn't you think that work - where we have these fancy schmancy I.T. guys who supposedly know everything (and, i must admit, they do know a lot)......wouldn't you think that in that environment, they'd be able to control for spam better than stupid little old me - at home? 

but they don't seem to be able to. lately, i have really been getting hit hard. yesterday, i had more spam than i had legit e-mail. 'sup with thaaaat? and what's worse is, the spam e-mail always arrives in my mailbox under the title "spam filter." 

let's just put it this way - i'm glad my air filter and my water filter and my oil filter and whatever other filters i have don't work as well as my work spam filter.

on a separate but related note, though.......i love spam. the food, not the mail. love. it. can't understand how the rest of you can dis it so bad. it's salty and fatty and totally fake. all the things i like in a food.

but not in my mail.

stop just saying you're just putting it out there.

"just putting it out there" sounds either apologetic or hostile to me. it never sounds like you're "just putting it out there."

people say that they are "just putting it out there" when they are afraid (here it comes....) of offending somebody. in cases like that, the "just putting it out there" is tantamount to ducking.

people also say that they are "just putting it out there" with a hand on their hip and a roll of their eyes. in cases like that, the "just putting it out there" is tantamount to "here, let me help you not be so stupid."

you don't need to qualify anything you say by prefacing it or following it with "just putting it out there." what you just need to do is......just say it.

but it's ironic, when you think about it. because we are so divided in this country on just about everything that no wonder people are either apologetic or hostile all the time. there's no middle ground anymore.

but, there is "The Middle." fall premiere on sept. 26! BEST show on t.v.! and if you're not watching it, then, here........let me help you not be so stupid.

doing the wrong thing for the right reason

recently i have been grappling with a  heavy moral dilemma, thanks to John 15:13 - "greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."

(and no - lest all of you start to freak out -  i am not talking about literally laying down my physical, breathing, alive life. although......i do think that's what john was talking about.)

anyway......

i have not spoken to too many people about my dilemma but to those to whom i have spoken, all of them at least lean towards, no, don't lay down your life. most of them say, hell no, don't lay down your life!

they lean or say hell no for the following reasons: one, i've suffered enough. two, the person whose life i would lay down mine for caused all this crap in the first place. third, you have a right to protect yourself, nancy, and fourth, (closely related to third), don't be stupid, nancy.

and i agree. i agree with all of those arguments. but they do not satisfy this gnawing feeling inside of me that none of those arguments, in the end, can go toe-to-toe with what john was trying to say. they may be good arguments but still......they're bad arguments.

i am not called, am i, (nor are you) to lay down my life for my friend unless there is a good reason not to? (and let's be honest.....who here couldn't come up with a lot of "good" reasons not to?)  

if i am called only to lay down my life for my friend unless there is a "good" reason not to, i wish john had said so.


but he didn't.

seriously....donuts don't really have ANYTHING to do with Fall.

so, i go to kroger to get cider.

as i approach the store, i see hundreds of mums and just about as many pumpkins and quite a few scarecrows sitting outside, welcoming (and tempting) shoppers.

as soon as the doors open, i see a display of seasonal beers and bags of potato and tortilla chips with the ohio state logo on them. all sitting there amidst colorful fall leaves and a corn stalk or two.

i mosey to the produce aisle and see apples, apples, apples. 

directly behind the apples are donuts, donuts, donuts.

directly behind the donuts, donuts, donuts are donuts, donuts, donuts.

directly behind them are more apples - this time, caramel-covered ones.

off to the left-hand side of the caramel covered apples is a table wth - donuts - and a lady is offering free samples. a man asks if she has any chocolate ones and she motions to a table over there and a lady over there who can give him some chocolate ones. he dodges pumpkins on the floor and cornstalks propped against everything that doesn't move to get to his coveted chocolate donuts.

i look for the cider.

i see donuts. no cider.

i look over here for cider. no cider. plenty of apples, but no cider.

plenty of donuts. no cider.

i ask the guy who is unloading more apples where the cider is.

"we don't have any yet"

don't have any yet? why don't you have any yet?

"too early," he says.


i keep meaning to boycott this store.

harsh

whatever you do, watch what you say. you don't want anyone accusing you of being "harsh."


as one of my friends recently pointed out, "harsh" is the new "intolerant." it is the worse intolerant. it's taking intolerant and saying, you know what? you don't even have to be full-on intolerant to be bad - you just have to be "harsh." if you're "harsh," (read: hurt my feelings), then death to you! (talk about your harsh.)

harsh schmarsh. Jesus Christ was pretty damned "harsh" on pretty damned many different occasions. what if someone turned over tables to-day? i shudder to think of the hue and cry.

the thing about harsh is, it's only harsh if you don't agree with it. if you do agree with it, it's "well put."


i can't wait till this damned election is over.

facebook food fight!

i remember plenty of thanksgiving dinners when, over pie and coffee, the relatives would get into politics. it wasn't always calm. my dad's side of the family was pretty much republican and my mom's side, democrat. you do the math.

it may not have been calm, per se, but it wasn't ugly. (well, sometimes maybe it was). but i don't remember anybody ever storming out of the house or "getting in your face" or anything like that. emotions could - and did - run high, as only politics seem to be able to cause emotions to do - but nobody cussed (hell and dammit don't count) and nobody threw food and certainly nobody ever hit anybody. and everybody hung around after dinner to play gin rummy.

in other words, it was respectful. but it was something even more important than that......

it was allowed. it was expected. it was appreciated. appreciated! nobody ever once said, look here, this is my house and i don't want anybody walking in here, trying to cram a viewpoint other than my own down my throat. nobody ever said that. never. because nobody thought it. and even if they did, they had the quick good sense to realize that that is foolish. it is foolish to expect that just because people are in your house, they aren't gonna happen to have an opinion on something different than yours. 

now, fast forward to the facebook era. on facebook, there is what i consider to be a distinctly disturbing trend of not tolerating a counter viewpoint, especially where politics are concerned. if someone posts, say, a pro-obama sentiment and someone else responds with a pro-romney one, you can pretty much bet your bottom dollar that somewhere along the thread, someone is gonna get ticked off that another someone had the audacity to "hijack" the first someone's posting. it's the modern day absurd equivalent of expecting everyone who drops by your house to either agree with you or keep quiet. i think it's wrong.

i have had plenty of folks get mad at me because i countered what they said with an opposite viewpoint. some of them have given me a very public and embarrassing scolding. (i am not a child. and you are not my parent.) a coupla of 'em have unfriended me. the day my grandparents died, all the rest of the still living ones on the opposite side of the family were there. crying.

i'm sorry if you think that just because you post something i have to either agree with it or not respond. i'm not gonna do that. cuz that's stupid.

now. pass me the turkey, please.

(i said "pass," not "throw.")

here's when school should start

if you wanna know what's wrong with the world, i'll tell ya. what's wrong with the world is, not enough schools start the day after labor day. period.

nowadays, schools start in august, which might be thee most mind-boggling thing ever in the history of mankind . i take that back. thee most mind-boggling thing ever in the history of mankind is to start school in august -  on a fri.day. which my friend's daughter's school did. (i'd yank my kid outta a school like that.)

schools should start the day after labor day and end the friday before memorial day. period. what havoc that would wreak on your "winter break" and your spring break, i don't give a damn. fig. ure. it. out.

not only should schools start the day after labor day and end the friday before memorial day but my place of work should, too.

like september trees who say watch me, i'm just about ready to change

i wrote a poem a long time ago that ended with that line - "like september trees who say watch me, i'm just about ready to change." 

i've written a lot of poems in my time but only a few stick in my mind. that's one of 'em.

i also remember the one i wrote when my dear friend from childhood had her first baby. it was a "welcome to the world" kind of poem and it ended with, "like ten thousand hands, waving hello."

the one i wrote for my parents on their 50th wedding anniversary....."the kind who stay. when leaving would be easy."

when abby was married.... and i remarked with love on her new husband's hair which "gets all curly and weird in the back when it needs to be cut."

the one about a special little girl i had as a client. i said that she had "small eyes. small eyes in the corner of her face that slide in and out like the moon." 

i wrote one as my final exam in my senior history class at wittenberg university. it was about the "puritan dilemma," which we had been studying all term. in a nutshell, the puritans' dilemma was findng that precise line, which is not always as clear as you might think, between the good and the sinful. the puritans worried that if they followed God's commandments and then ended up feeling good about it, that would negate the goodness of it. poor guys. 

"that there is a line is certain. and i walk this tightrope non-stop."


anyway, those are some of the lines from some of the silly attempts at poetry that i have made through the years. i get my inspiration for them from - what else - life. and it's a good thing that life is always in motion and never stays static. 

like september trees who say watch me,

i'm just about ready to change.


 

parable time!

you know the parable of the workers in the vineyard and how the ones who worked all day got ticked off that the ones who only worked an hour got paid the same amount as the ones who worked all day? well, i hereby resolve to stop being one of the workers who worked all day. or, more accurately, i hereby resolve to stop  having the attitude of the workers who worked all day.

one of my friends just posted on f/b that she and her family are at the beach today. they are at the beach today because they just moved to oxford, pennsylvania and oxford, pennsylvania is close to the beach. and my first reaction when i read her post?

jealousy.

(or, more accurately, envy.)

my very first reaction when i read that leslie is at the beach because she now lives near the beach was a reaction that had nothing to do with leslie and everything to do with me. it was, in a nutshell, selfish.

it was, in a nutshell, a worker who worked all day.


what right do i think i have to tell God how to distribute His blessings? if God thinks leslie sleesman and her family ought to have the blessing of a beach, then i darned well better think so, too. not only should i not think that i have the right to tell God how to distribute His blessings, i should dance for joy that He has the wisdom i don't have to distribute them in a way that my pitiful human mind could never conceive of.


and so, i have resolved to stop myself, mid-sentence (if not sooner), whenever i catch myself saying, "i am sooooooooooooo jealous."


and now........i am off to walmart. 

gratefully so.

 

 

"you look like something wonderful has happened to you."

on friday, i saw the mom of a former client who i haven't seen in about 4 years. she remarked, in what i could tell was a very sincere way, that i looked good. she remarked on it several times during our conversation and then finally, she said, "nancy, i just can't get over how good you look. it's like.....it's like......it's like something wonderful has happened to you."

like. something. wonderful. has. happened. to. me. 

i couldn't believe how wrong she was. and i told her so. i said, "something wonderful? hardly. something life-alteringly devastating is more like it."

and she said, "well. if something life-alteringly devastating happened to you, then it was a blessing in disguise."

a. blessing. in. disguise.

i couldn't believe how right she was.

it's not that i haven't thought of my tragedy before as a blessing because i have. many times. but i sure never realized that the blessing showed. to others. and now that i do realize it, the blessing has suddenly multiplied in value.

if i can somehow be a visible example of what wonders God can work in a person, then bingo, multiplied blessing! i want more of where that came from!
and i hope the blessing that God gave me (albeit in a disguise that only He could ever come up with)......i hope that the blessing He gave me shows on more - much more - than just my face. because my face doesn't count.

what counts is what i do with my tragedy/blessing and, i hope, i have done good things. i know i have tried. one of the good things i have tried to do is to tell my story - in various ways, through various approaches (this blog being chief among them). the reason you hear me preaching at you so much is because you can't see my face. (and even if you did, you'd ascribe all the glory to maybelline.)

there is a God, people. and He does work in mysterious ways. and you can try to ignore that fact and to live your life in your own independent, smug little shell.

but it won't look good on you.

the honey in honey boo boo

the new TLC show, "here comes honey boo boo" has taken a lot of knocks by a lot of people and hey, i'm hardly here to defend it as erudite t.v. but i am here to point out a few things about this show that i think some of the rest of you have missed -  a few very wonderful things.

first of all, here's a man - mike - who wants to marry (and not just live with) his girlfriend of 8 years - june. june doesn't want to get married, but mike keeps trying. where's the support for him for that? hollywood might be home to some of the most beautiful people who don't offend your sense of taste and class, but really? you put them on a higher level than mike? good ol' tobacco-spittin' mike who is at least staying at home and trying to raise his kids? and isn't getting divorced after 72 hours of marriage? face it - the kardashians and all the rest of 'em out there, while maybe not farting in public, have a whole lot less real class than honey boo boo and her family. they might have a whole lot more fake class - if that's what floats your boat.

this family, despite not being a married one, stays together. not that i am saying that staying together for 8 years is any kind of reason to pop the champagne cork - i mean, chug the moonshine - but still. in this do-whatever-the-hell-you-want world we live in? 8 years is about as old as the universe. and it's not just the number of years - it's the family. everything they do is together. they're not out running up the corporate ladder and letting everybody who gets home first fend for themselves. they're not eating hamburgers out of a greasy bag and calling it "dinner." they're frying up chicken - together - in the kitchen and.......don't faint now......they're sitting down - together - and eating it. i know - right?

june is often quoted as saying things like this: "we're family. you might not like us, but we're family. we enjoy each other. we have fun. everywhere (ok, so she says, "everwhere") we go, we're together." and they are. they do. you won't catch one of them staying away from the rest of 'em for 3 months while they're in paris filming their most recent movie. i mean......look at 'em......where are they? in front of a camera, maybe, but every last one of 'em is right. there. - to.geth.er.

yeah - that's pretty classless.

mike bought june a stupid lookin' sculpture of a deer for their 8-year anniversary. he meant well. she didn't like it. when they got home from their anniversary dinner out on the town (a cafeteria in the local strip mall), the kids were eagerly awaiting them - they wanted to hear all about their parents' first real "date" in 8 years. mike told them about the deer. and how their mama didn't like it. and those girls gave their mama grief. they told her to stop being unappreciative. to stop being ungrateful. to go in there and apologize right now to daddy and put that deer on the mantle.

june did. she put the deer on the mantle, apologized to mike, and said, "i was wrong."

yeah. classless.

these people have wicked good senses of humor. if you can sit through one of their shows without laughing - not at their farting and not at their frequent references to their bathroom habits - but at their incredibly dry, frank, whatchu- gonna-do-about-it style, then there's something wrong with you. 

and the high horse you rode in on.

"never end a sentence with a preposition," june told honey boo boo one day. 

"why not?" said honey boo boo.

"it's bad manners," said june.


i rest my case.