ending Christmas

when Christmas ends there are pieces to

pick up.


the tissue paper, the box.

the lone card someone didn't open because

there were so many

and oh, here it is!

how did we


forget.


the people leave.

they pack up what they got,

making sure that what they got isn't mixed up

with what someone else

got.

they make sure they didn't throw something out

with the

trash.

do we have the checks....yes.

do we have all the little pieces that go with

the

toys?



they leave, waving and thanking.

they say you shouldn't have but they knew

you would.

and you are glad

you

did.



then,

you close the door. maybe you go to the kitchen

to do

the

dishes.

maybe you sit down and

cry.



not because it was bad but because

it was

good.

not because it is ending but because

this.

is.

Christmas.




and it is just



beginning.

de-constructing Christmas dinner. and life.

i'm making homemade vegetable soup for Christams dinner.


my family is traditional. i grew up regular. in spite of that, we never had a traditional Christmas dinner. you never knew what to expect. except not to expect turkey. i don't think we ever had a turkey for Christmas. the argument always went like this: we just had turkey at thanksgiving, why do we want it again? i remember the time, and i was pretty little when i said this so this was very nervy of me, but i remember the time i said to my dad - you just had a beer, why do you want one again?

but, anyway. it was never turkey. maybe ham, but never turkey.

it was sometimes roast beef, sometimes a pork roast, one time it was rack of lamb (grossed everybody out), and one time it was some colonial southern menu that my mom found in better homes and gardens or something like that and it featured about 89 different courses of essentially unrecognizable stuff. i remember all of it being good but none of it familiar. the only thing familiar was the ham and beans and cornbread and i remember thinking, isn't that enough? why do we have all these other 88 things, too?

i also remember the year we had authentic swiss steak and the year we had authentic swiss fondue. not sure what side of the family the bias for the swiss comes from. it's not like we don't take sides or anything.

then there was the time we had crown roast of beef and that hideous yorkshire pudding. at least the reviews from the kids' table were that it was hideous. i have never tried yorkshire pudding since. nor, likely, will i.

my grandma curtis made pork chops one year and she stuffed them with, well, stuffing, but she also got creative (for that era) and added some garlic and fresh spinach to it. i'm not sure if that was the first time i had ever had stuffed pork chops but it's the time that stands out - in. spades. i was in love with those pork chops - and with my grandmother - and with the world. by the time i got up from the table that year, i had decided to learn how to cook.

last year, i made julia child's beef stew. it's a recipe that takes 3 days to make but it was worth every minute and painstaking effort. it's a wonder, when you think about it, how julia child ever got fat. because when did she have time to eat the stuff she made? all of her recipes take forever. makes the pony express look like the concorde.

which brings me (quickly - ha!) to this year.



i have come, increasingly and in all areas of my life, to understand that less really is more. (the only time less is not more is when it comes to love. and even then, i guess, sometimes it is.)

we don't need a ham tomorrow. we don't need folks in the kitchen for 6 hours. we don't need an elaborate centerpiece and we don't need so much china and crystal and all the rest that you gotta start setting the table the day before. what we need is.......soup.

the simplest kind of soup there is. some homemade bread. a few chunks of cheese. and peppermint ice cream and gingersnaps for dessert. done.


the baby Jesus from my nativity scene will be the non-elaborate centerpiece.

less is more.



He said so.

everyone, not no one, saying merry Christmas

i have been saying it all month. and people have all month been saying it to me. so far, if anyone is offended, no one has been punched in the face. maybe i live in heaven (that'd be cool.)


the folks i know and run into, which pretty much run the gamut from young, old, hipster, world war 2 era, ex-hippie, male, female, black, white, yellow and upside down have all said merry Christmas to me. and i have said it to them.

i said it this morning to the hispanic woman at the mcdonald's drive-thru who took my money which, ok, as a hispanic it was a fairly safe bet she she was a Christian but sidebar here, why do they charge me five dollars for a scrambled egg and one piece of bacon? because, seriously, that seems excessive. to me. i don't know what it costs if you get the big breakfast with eggs and bacon and hash browns and the ten other things that come with it but i don't think it's more than five dollars. i don't think anything at mcdonald's is more than five dollars. maybe something is. i don't pay that much attention. but, anyway, merry Christmas, lady.

i said it to the asian woman at kroger who asked me if i knew the difference between a regular artichoke and a jerusalem artichoke. i said it before she said jerusalem which, ok, for a second there, i thought i might have offended her but she just looked at me like, come on, i don't have all day - do you know the difference or don't you? (of course i do.)

and when i told her, she smiled. and said, merry Christmas to you, too.

i also said it to the guy behind me in line at trader joe's. the guy behind me in line at trader joe's - no matter who it happens to be and no matter which shopping trip it happens to be - always looks the same. he looks cool and hip and young and his beard is always that sexy kind of scruffy and he looks like, frankly, someone who might be offended if you told him merry Christmas. and maybe i just got lucky (not that kind of lucky) today. but he smiled and said, you, too.

i have said it to so many people this year that i can't count. and no one has been offended. in spite of the fact that everything i read tells me that people are offended. all the time. if you say merry Christmas to them. so you shouldn't. say merry Christmas. but i did. and they weren't.


and you shouldn't be, either.

Christmas all wrong

if a serious Christian does Christmas all wrong, what hope is there? well, plenty. which is what the first Christmas, which was done right, is trying to tell us.


somewhere along the way, we got seriously screwed up about Christmas. we haven't gotten seriously screwed up about any. other. birthday. when you're invited to someone's birthday party, does the person having the birthday give you a gift? or do you give him one?

we don't say, well, it's joe's birthday, but rather than send him a card or or buy him a new tie, i'ma buy my brother one instead. better yet, since they're buy one get one free, i'll get one for my brother and one for myself, too. joe? what joe?


the first Christmas told us what joe. we just didn't like it.


what we liked was the gold, frankincense, and myrrh part. gold, frankincense, and myrrh on crack. that's what we like.


i was standing in line to check out at macy's yesterday and at the cash register were a bunch of little, last minute kinds of things to tempt buyers to drop a few more bucks. you know what i mean - every store has them. the department i happened to be in had socks, lip gloss, tiny ornaments, and even gift-wrapped bottled water. bottled water?

i said to the cashier, sheesh, this is ridiculous. she said, "what is?" i said, gift-wrapped bottled water. who needs that? "no one needs that," she said, "but it's Christmas. gotta be merry." gotta make more money for mr. macy, i think you mean. "true," she said, "but these things make people happy. you'd be surprised how much of it we sell. people want to be happy. it's what Christmas is all about."


it is not what Christmas is all about. it is an entirely, couldn't-be-more-wrong thing about what Christmas is all about. Christmas isn't about you or me or anybody else being happy. in many ways, it's the exact opposite of that. it's about how, in spite of not being happy, in spite of actually suffering, your life can be delirious with joy - if you follow Christ.
 

designer water for Christmas? mary drank from a well. and not a very clean one at that.


i'm not saying we need to drink dirty water to honor Christmas. i'm not saying we have to ditch our cars for donkeys and crowded malls for a peasant selling (good) bread. not saying we can't have a tree.



but maybe i am. a tree? egg nog? a new car in the driveway? with a big red bow?



your new car is in the driveway.



and He's waiting to take you away.

what's the saddest thing/my client

a single finger tracing rain down

the

window.




eyes,

connected to that finger,

crying that

rain.




a child, with the finger and eyes

of a child,

just wanting to go home

for

Christmas.



can you take me home,

he asks.

and i say,


no.



but you can borrow



my finger.

bananas about bacon

they make chicken and turkey bacon here at work sometimes for the kids and every time they do, it smells like heaven. which is cool, considering this is a catholic agency.


a colleague of mine hates the smell of bacon. or, at least, of this particular bacon. the first time she told me that i just sorta stood there and stared at her like she was from outer space. i mean, what other kind of reasonable response was there?

this colleague also hates coconut which, ok, i'll give her some slack there. although i happen to love coconut, i can see how she might not. coconut's a tricky thing - i get that. but, bacon???  

some of the other members of my team, myself included, hate bananas. the colleague who hates the smell of bacon (or at least of this bacon) just stands there and stares at us like we're from outer space when we talk about loving coconut but hating bananas.

she thinks we're bananas.



right this very minute i am thinking how i might combine bacon, coconut, and bananas into one single recipe and make it work. without taking out the bananas. which i hate.




my colleague's right......i am bananas.

all the kinds of flying there are

charlie brown Christmas is on

tonight,

but so is mother

angelica.

even her name

wins out.


if i were a nun,

i would want to be named

angelica. it would be like flying to the altar

in

heaven.


i really did think about being a

nun once. twice. i thought about it

three times. and then......


another kind of flying took

over.

the kind you can't describe

in

words, but you don't

have to. because everybody

knows.


the kind that mimics

drugs. except drugs

wear off.

and you have to find

another.


this kind of flying is, actually, a lot like

a nun. who lifts her skirt when no one

is looking -

who kicks her heels like

maria. who says,

the hills are alive.



and so


am


i.

what year did you pray best?

my priest asked us that question yesterday. what year did you pray best?


he told us about a childhood friend of his who, when he was 7-years old, made a commitment to visit and pray to the Blessed Sacrament - on behalf of another friend -  1,000 times in a single week. 1,000 times!

he started off great. he entered the church, genuflected, and proceeded to say some Our Fathers. next day, same thing, but he quickly realized that he wasn't going to get to 1,000 unless he cut some corners. so, he switched to the (somewhat) shorter Hail Mary.

he did a bunch of those but saw that he still wasn't going to get 1,000 visits in within the week. so, he switched to the Glory Be.

then to Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

and then he switched to just making the sign of the cross. by Friday, he was only half-way there. he still had 500 visits/prayers to go. how in the world????

so, what his little 7-year old mind told him to do was, his little 7-year old mind told him to stand at the back of the sanctuary, prop open the door from the narthex to the sanctuary, straddle the entrance, pop his head in and make the sign of the cross, pop his head out, pop back in, sign of the cross, out, in, sign of the cross.

he made it to 1,000.



now.

plenty of us are probably saying that this kid missed the whole point. that he took a sober and thoughtful prayer time and turned it into a playful game.

but.........did he?



maybe what he did is, rather than being playful and silly, maybe he did the very best a little goofball 7-year old who had no idea of the enormity of the promise he had made to the Lord - and to his friend on whose behalf he was saying the prayers - could do. maybe what he did is pray as hard and as fast as his little mouth and hands could go - because he had made a commitment. 

a commitment. 


i bet God and Christ loved that little boy's earnest, albeit curtailed, prayers.

and i bet the Holy Spirit is still laughing.

and i think what that boy did is adorable.



and i want to learn to pray like that.







 

what love is/isn't. or, my parents.

it isn't just first corinthians is cute to read

at weddings.


it's not not telling the kids to

shut up.


it isn't anything goes,

do what you want

whenever you want

however you want

and i won't say anything

to you.


it isn't let me just finish this up

first.


it isn't i did it the last three times now it's

your turn.


it isn't i'll make you happy if you make me

happy, too.


it isn't saying slow down hurry up stop this

start that.


it's not like someone running out to get

you cake

if all we have is pie.



it's like, if you like pie then so

do i.


it's like, i'll stay with you forever because 

i said

i would.

it's like, i'll stay with you forever because



why,

on earth,



wouldn't i.

pick a church, any church

lots of Christians say it doesn't matter which church you go to. that what matters is that you believe in Jesus Christ as your savior, boom.

but i am not so easily convinced. that's like saying it doesn't matter which college you go to. that what matters is learning, boom. so pick a school, any school.



if we wouldn't PickASchoolAnySchool, why would we PickAChurchAnyChurch?



we don't pick a grocery store any grocery store. don't pick a pair of jeans any pair of jeans. certainly don't pick a swimsuit any swimsuit. (can i get an amen, girls? any amen will do.)

i saw a family yesterday trying to decide which Christmas tree to choose. they sure didn't seem to think that any tree on the lot was fine.

drive a car any car? most people don't think so.

from the time we wake up till the time we go to bed we make discernments. what to wear, what to eat, what to say, what not to say. and on and on and on. but pick a church, any church.



i'm not gonna do that. 

a spoonful of sugar

i have always marvelled at how they come up with recipes. what amount of effort, experimentation, and patience there must be before they figure out that it's a quarter of a teaspoon of baking soda, not a half.

which flavors go together and which don't. what can make the whole thing go wrong.

what can make the whole thing go right.



just like love.

rudy drives on thanksgiving

how many miles between

augusta, georgia and

columbus, ohio?


i could google it.

i could gps it.

i could ask my smart dad.

(google and gps do not like

my

dad. they are the

only

ones.)


i wont' google it,

though.

i won't look it up in the

farmer's almanac. if i still had

the world book,

i wouldn't look it up there,

either.


i won't buy a map.


because i already know.


i know exactly how far it is from

augusta, georgia to columbus,

ohio:


far.


but when he gets here,


oh........



so

close.

thanksgiving math

old math:

thankful for eighty-

seven.

times 2.


newer math:

for 5. plus

2.


brand new math:

for 1 + 1 equals

two.

what happens when you fight in ferguson

fighting for someone else's rights means you run the risk of fighting for glory.

your own.



i have an activist friend who takes on racism, sexism, ageism, genderism, body sizeism, and foodism (there are only certain foods, you know, that are politically correct to eat - just ask michelle obama - or my friend). he even takes on car-ism, education-ism, and when he runs out of isms, he makes more up. after reading this, he will probably take on blog-ism.

his twitter and facebook feeds are full of outrage. 24/7. outrage, outrage, outrage. vitriol, vitriol, vitriol. calling you out, calling you out, calling you out. he thinks of himself as single-handedly running his very own underground railroad for every so-called oppressed person/group in the world. (at least, in this country. which, of course, he hates.)

he means well. he means very well. but he is the most self-centered, most vainglorious person i know. he is unbelievably misguided.

thee most activist person in the history of the world was Jesus Christ. he took on every cause my friend takes on - but with a striking difference. He leaves people - the ones who are paying attention, anyway - with nothing short of a fervent desire to be just like Him. and to obliterate everything He wanted to obliterate.

(as opposed to wanting to obliterate the obliterator.......which, forgive me, father, that's a sin.) 



and not taking one ounce of credit for any of it.

synesthesia: it's what's for dinner.

i cook because the collision of tastes

in my mouth is there 

all. the.

time.


i can be talking to you (and am) one minute and

figuring out how raisins and blue cheese

might work on

steak the

next.



you can ask me a simple thing like

do i like

(fill-in-the-blank) and i'm

gone. my head is not so much in

a cookbook as it

is

the cookbook.


when i say my prayers

(which tastes like baked apples)

i ask Jesus (rhubarb)

to forgive (gravy),

remember (angel food cake),

and love (no flavor).




love, if you do it right,

doesn't need a flavor.



it has its

own.

the sidewalk the day the president got shot

six days away from turning nine and the president got

shot.


the sidewalk got bumpy.

on the way home, i fell over it twice.
i had never fallen over it once

before.


i don't remember the sky.


the sidewalk, the sidewalk. when did they build extra

sidewalk? why did it take five minutes

this morning and however-high-i-could-count-minutes-

that-afternoon just to get

home?


i don't remember the sky. the sky is usually my favorite

part. but i guess i wasn't looking

up.


i was six days away from turning nine

and the president got shot.


when the sidewalk ended,

it was at my house - and i went

inside. i knew i shouldn't

have.


the aroma of cookies was not

there.

my mom was crying.



i turned nine, maybe 15,
six days early


that year.

why ice is cold

i was never very good in science. better in science than math but when you consider that i could add one plus one in several ways and get several answers, saying that i am better in science than math has no relevance whatsoever.



i had a science teacher once who all the kids thought of as "mean." when i came home from the first day of 9th grade and told my parents that sure enough, i got mrs. cook for science, they said that was great. "what's great about it," i said. "she's mean." they said that "mean" means she's a good teacher - that she would make me learn - that she wouldnt' let me get away with murder. and she didn't - let me get away with murder, that is. what she did let me get away with is burning myself half to smithereens and ruining one entire glorious teenaged summer when i could have been studying my own kind of science. if you get my drift.

what happened is, it was june. school had just let out. i had survived my 9th grade year with mean mrs. cook. i felt like celebrating. i had some friends over to spend the night.......

next morning, we threw on our bikinis first thing - the sun wasn't quite up but we were ready for the first ray. working on our tans was serious business.

while we waited for the sun to rise (in the east, by the way, which, ha ha, mrs. cook, i knew that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west way before i ever had you for a science teacher)..........while we waited for the sun to rise, we got hungry. someone said donuts. nobody was old enough to drive so we couldn't go to schuler's. my parents were health-and weight-conscious even back in that day, so there were no donuts in the house.

we decided to make some. from scratch.

and we did. we did. they turned out great. delicious. nobody ate more than one bite - because donuts are fattening - and the only thing more important than getting a suntan was getting a suntan on a thin body - but the donuts were great. looking back, i don't remember what we did with the leftovers. probably threw them away. but i hope not. my social studies teacher wouldn't have approved. and now that i'm grown and i recognize (notice i said "recognize," not "like")........now that i recognize that i am not the center of the universe and somebody, somewhere was starving and would have died, literally, for a single bite of a donut, well, i hope we didn't throw them away. i just hope we didn't.

but i digress. first time ever i have digressed.

so..........what happened next is where the not letting me get away with murder but ruining my summer comes in............

after we were done making the donuts, it was time to clean up. first thing we decided to do is take the boiling hot oil off the stove. good first thing.

second thing - not nearly as good - and before i tell you what it is, let me point out that mrs. cook never - never - never once said anything about what happens if you pour hot oil into a glass jar. never once.

so...........yeah. true story. i poured boiling hot oil into a big glass jar that i was holding in my left hand. and the whole thing exploded like your family at the table on thanksgiving, talkin' politics.

it burst into the air, my friends went running, and the grease went running, too. all over my hand, all over my chest, all over my stomach, and all over my legs. it didn't stop till it got to my ankles. and by then, i was in, literally, shock.



what happened next was worse than the burn itself. as i was lying in a semi-state of consciousness in the emergency room, i kept asking the nurses and the doctors and the thousands of other people who work in a hospital (and were probably eager to catch a glimpse of a teenager in a bikini) whether or not this meant that i wouldn't be leaving the next day, as planned, for mexico.

i was supposed to leave the next day, with my upcoming 10th grade spanish class (whose teacher was not mean), for mexico. we were going to be down there for 2 wonderful weeks, learning spanish. and learning about boys who speak spanish.

but, no, said the nurses and the doctors and the thousands of others........no. you are not going to mexico. you're not going anywhere. all summer. the closest you might get to going somewhere is getting off the couch to change the channel.



and so. the rest of that summer, i spent on my back. wrapped in gauze from my neck to my ankles. that hurt. when my girlfriends came back from mexico with the addresses of people named jose and pedro and raul, that really hurt.



but the point of this whole story is mrs. cook and how, even though she really didn't turn out to be mean (she actually ended up being one of my favorite teachers of all time), how she never bothered - not once -  to teach us not to make donuts.


she also never bothered to teach us why ice is cold.

i can't walk.

two people i love to pieces told me that today. they can't walk.



one of them can't walk due to old age and the other can't walk due to older age. i thought about my grandchildren and how they used to not be able to walk - due to young age.


they say that age is just a number and it doesn't matter. but it sure matters when you're 9-months old trying to crawl to 1 year.


they say it's just a number and it doesn't matter but when you're 86 and you walked and then you're 87 and you don't, it matters.


if you weren't in a wheelchair one day and then the next day you are, it matters.


i had a client tell me the other day that when she was a little girl, her father routinely kicked her to the floor and kept on kicking while she was down there. when she was in her 20s, her boyfriend tried to kick her the same way but she stood up and walked out.


it matters.




it's just something i'm thinking about as i run, thank you, Jesus, closer to 60.

let it frickin snow/not snow

politics and religion? come on. pieces of cake compared to discussing snow.


no surprise, but my facebook and twitter pages today are full of people having a full-on, vitriolic snowball fight. some of those snowballs sound as though they have rocks buried inside. rocks and maybe worse.

of all the things that separate us, i think weather is the salient one. it beats gender, beats income, beats education, beats do you have ham or turkey on Christmas.

some may like it hot and some may like it cold but nobody wants the other one to have what they like. weather beats every Christian principle there is, every time.



i did something after work that i hope will help bridge the divide. i stopped at the store and bought some potato salad from the deli. then i picked up some ground beef, some hamburger buns, and a quart of ice cream. schlepped the whole thing over to my neighbor who loves ohio in july and who i knew would be in a bag - and he was (is) - over today's snowfall. i handed him the food and said, here, have a summer picnic indoors. 


the look on his face when i handed him the stuff restored my belief in humanity's ability to get along.

meet the fockers

rudy met my co-workers yesterday. i think he passed the test.


the 5 of us discussed snow, driving in snow, getting stranded in snow, why anyone in her/their right mind would like snow, ice, basketball, graduating from a class of 60 (kate), graduating from a class of 700 (ashley), graduating from a class of was it 450 or 540 (nancy vs. rudy), minneapolis weather (devorah), not being very good at diagnosing mental disorders even though that's our job (ashley and nancy), and how kate set the fashion standard at her high school.

we talked a lot about high school. rarely a pleasant experience when you're going through it but generally a safe, common denominator kind of thing to talk about 41 years later. or, in the case of kate, ashley, and devorah, since yesterday.


when rudy and i left, we talked about them. i don't know if they talked about us. him. but, they probably did. not a lot has changed since high school.



not a lot except getting the best do-over of your life.

wrong side of the bed

probably five times in my adult life i've woken up on the quote unquote wrong side of the bed and today made six. i know why.


i woke up on the wrong side of the bed for what might be the right reason. provided there is a right reason to wake up on the wrong side of the bed which, i'm not sure there is. is there? and even if there is, no sooner did i wake up on the wrong side for the right reason than i screwed the right reason up and made it wrong. (i'm high maintenance.)

the possibly right reason that i woke up on the wrong side of the bed today is that i had one of the most difficult sessions of my career yesterday. it was volatile, it was tense, it was intense, it was full of rage, and it called for every skill i had - and for some skills i didn't even know i had but somehow managed to pull out of somewhere. 

the session ultimately ended well - very well, actually - so that wasn't the problem. the problem was, after a session like that, you're done. at least, i am . all you need to do after a session like that is go home, get into bed, and maybe never get out again - regardless of which side.

but this morning, i got out. i didn't know it was the wrong side at the time i got out but pretty much the minute my feet hit the floor i did. i was like, oh no, this isn't good.

what had happened was, i had soaked up all the negative energy of yesterday's session. i hadn't soaked it up on purpose but i didn't have to. negative energy just crawls in. like traffic inching its way towards wherever you have to be five minutes ago. it's there. there's nothing you can do about it.

except..........there is.



initially what i did was, i complained. that didn't help.

next, i complained some more. as if zero plus zero is gonna have a different sum the next time around.

i was never any good in math so i complained 3, maybe 4, probably more like 5 more times. zero times five (or would it be zero times 7 by now? i'm not good in math)......zero times whatever (and it could have been a billion - and i guess you'd have to ask the people who had the misfortune of having their circle intersect this morning with mine to know if that number is exaggerated or not - but probably not).....zero times whatever and it could have been a billion is still zero.



so what i did was, i did what i told my clients yesterday to do:

stop it.



it took them about 2 1/2 hours to stop it. it took me about 5. 



tomorrow when i wake up, i hope it's on the side of the bed where good social workers wake up.

you can call me al

what's wrong with the world is, people call people "al" before they're invited to. (never end a sentence with a preposition.)


my uncle's name is allan and everyone calls him allan. because that's his name. rocket science.

no one calls him al. or, more correctly, no one should call him al. unless he says it's ok.

but good manners and respect and consideration for the other person are in short supply these days. that's why you see people starting to eat before the people with them get their food. that's rude. whether your name is al or joe or billy bob thornton, that's rude.

(by the way......i love the affection which the people from appalachia have for using two first names - like billy bob. or jimmy earl. i wonder if anybody has the name joey al. i bet somebody does. and i bet the somebody who does doesn't want folks calling him "al.")



but, back to what i was saying........

 

it's not ok to chop off a person's name - regardless of how friendly or good your intention may be - unless the person gives you the green light. i had a good friend who violated that once.

my friend, who was a teenager, upon meeting my uncle allan for the very first time said, "pleased to meet you, al." my uncle allan was very gracious about it and let it go. i was ticked about it but i also let it go because to make a scene about somebody chopping off somebody else's name is worse than chopping it off. but i was ticked that my friend thought he could be so familiar, so soon.


a few weeks ago, rudy talked to my parents, for the very first time, on the phone - briefly and unexpectedly. i was on my cell with them and on impulse (me? on impulse? please.).........and me, on impulse, threw the phone to rudy and said, here, say hi to my parents. (my parents, on their end, were likewise abruptly shoved into a conversation with a complete stranger whom they had never met. albeit a complete stranger whom they had never met whom their daughter was quite fond of. never end a sentence with a prepostion.)

so, i throw the phone to rudy and rudy (who happened to be driving at the time so yeah......balancing act)......rudy, who is almost 60-years old, said, "hello, mr. and mrs. rankin......"


i loved rudy for that. it was classy. it was respectful. and when i spoke to my parents about it later, they said the same thing - "we had a very good impression of him, nancy - just in the few quick minutes we spoke with him. he seemed so nice. and so polite."


so, yeah, rudy.


you can call 'em al.

how rudy met nancy and what happened next

some people are logical and think 123ABC.



some people read the foreword and then,

the book.

they make up their minds and go. like moving around a

board game,

square by square.

they sow/grow.

they eat dinner first and dessert

next. they plan how to

plan.



they say morning prayers in the morning and

evening prayers in the evening. if the cold wind

blows

they put on a second log after the first,

never the other way around, 

and they pour their wine, then drink it.



then they meet someone who runs

backwards. someone who

learned to tie her shoes before she could

walk.

someone who tastes sounds and hears music no one else

hears.

someone who fries an egg upside

down. who cooks salmon in

the dishwasher.


someone who can't think straight for the

life of her, but in the circles of

her heart,


comes back every time



to him.

how to get re-born

we leave our mother's womb and spend the rest of our lives trying to

get back in.


which makes sense. since it isn't our mother's womb at all.

it's God.


we try everything.

drugs.

food.

achievement.

fast cars, fast times.

sex. (sex almost works.)


we try selfies, thinking if we're cute enough,

finding our way back to God

won't matter.


we get an education. if it's from harvard we put that in

BIG LETTERS.


speaking of education, we don't

use it. if we did,


we would have gotten back to Him.



by now.

love makes you

feel like you're on drugs.


give up stuff you thought

was

essential to living. stuff you couldn't live

without but now you don't want to die

with.


it makes you count stars.

in the skies.

in your eyes. in anybody's eyes that look like

his.


it makes you runwiththewind. and sometimes,

like the wind. because it

scares you.


it makes you pick the first petals of a flower one by

one.

like you do when you're reading

the

Bible,

and one true verse just follows

the next.


he loves me,

he loves me not,

he loves me.


He loves me.


He loves us.

dog gone

i put my dog to sleep today.



i went to the store because i had no other choice. 2 eggs, 3 dried out pieces of cheese, and one wilted head of lettuce wasn't gonna cut it.

my birthday's this month so i went to the license agency to renew my license and my tags. everybody must be born in november, that's all i'm sayin. i have never seen it so crowded.

i needed chapstick so i went to walgreen's.

dropped by the library - as much to see if they still make books as to actually borrow one.

cleaned the kitchen real good. i stopped short of scrubbing the floor on my knees but other than that, i cleaned that sucker good.

dropped by the clubhouse to pick up the mail. there was a "friendly" letter from the IRS. i'll deal with that on monday.

made a pot of chili for dinner tonight. it smells like what the section in heaven for people who like cold weather smells like.

took a little walk/jog around the neighborhood. the skies were gray and there were little lights on in every home. with atmosphere like that, i don't know why i'm not out there still running.

dusted the furniture and vacuumed. i hate to vacuum. but i love the little raised up places it makes in the nap of the carpet.

went outside with pippi's leash because i thought she might have to go.

my neighbor was out there. he said, doggone, it's cold out here.



yessir.......



dog gone.