Some are, some aren't

I was at church one day watching the praise band practice and admiring the coolness of the bass player. "Alex is cool," I turned and said to Pastor Steve. "I know," Steve replied. "I remember cool. I can still recognize it. I'm starting to realize, though, I am past achieving it."

Oh, the truth hurts.

I thought Steve's comment had something to do with age, but then a day or so ago, I was putting some back-to-school clothes in my internet cart for Colin when I came across a pair of pants with this description. "He'll be hurtin if he's not sportin." No G's. No apostrophes. "What does this mean?!" I cried out. Brent, who is 10 years older than I, looked over and said, "Oh, he'll be socially ostracized if he doesn't wear those pants."

Perhaps one is just born with a coolness that time and space cannot erode. I'm pretty sure whatever coolness I had has eroded.

Minnie Blog

Some of my friends and loved ones know I have a little "Disney Problem." I really enjoy a trip to WDW. Am I a crazy Disney person who wears a fanny pack at WDW, will sleep only on Dumbo sheets and named my dog Pluto? No. BUT, I really do think it's a nice family vacation and . . . it may be that I do secretly have an outline for my next trip two years from now planned in my head. (And it may be that I am sneaking in my second trip of the year yet this fall. I am not really committing at this time.)

Huh. Maybe I am a crazy Disney person. I wonder if they have a group at Celebrate Recovery.

Well, the point of this is that this nice blogger http://dailymishmash.com/2008/disney-giveaway/#comment-2532 is giving away a Disney gift card which I may need if I am going again this fall. (I'm not really committing at this time.)

I didn't have a feed cap.

This summer I planted a couple of vegetable plants a la Green Acres on my front step. Sunday, I am sure more than one Catholic going to church across the street had a good chuckle watching me use the Dustbuster to clean out the worms from my cabbage. Yesterday it was time to harvest my bean. I didn't have the proper head covering for harvest in Minnesota, but I did the best I could. My greenbean is ready for harvest. This is the actual harvest moment.
I'm living off the land.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

You know that part in "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas" where the singer sings, "And Mom and Dad can hardly wait for school to start again." (I think I already wrote a blog on this.) I'm ready for school to start again. I ADORE my children. I love to be with them. Summer is just a little too unstructured for our ilk. We don't know what to do with ourselves. We are starting to be a little sick of one another.

Right now Colin is watching programming aimed at the 3-5 year old set and Baby D is emptying Colin's golf bag of the balls which are now rolling all over the kitchen. The golf bag is in the kitchen because Colin and I had a show down over piano practice. Apparently guys who are going into 4th grade don't practice. Guess again. It is 4:45 and I am trying to think of something to serve for dinner besides chicken . . . again.

We need the lovely rhythm and order of a school day. We know what to do. We know what is expected of us. Of course, once school starts, it's only a matter of time until winter . . .

What I did last weekend.

LPL Minneapolis from Rich Kalonick on Vimeo.

Let the truth set you free

Apparently some dude named Michael Savage, of whom I had blissfully ignorant of until today, said on his radio talk show on Friday that 99 percent of autistic kids are brats who don't have fathers to tell them to stop it. Anyone who knows me at all will know I am a staunch supporter of the First Amendment. Thank goodness we live in a country where we are allowed the freedom to say what we wish. It's a sword that cuts two ways, though. If I am allowed to say my autistic child is a loving, smart, talented child who has a difficult time expressing his emotions, then someone is certainly allowed to say they think autism is over diagnosed. I might go so far as to agree. But some ignorant jerk with a big mouth apparently called him a "moron," Brent a dead-beat dad and me a "lax" parent. Really? Huh. See, now that's just going too far. You go ahead and say that in your safe, dark little radio studio in Los Angeles, but you come to my home and say that to our faces, you who had to change your name to something more aggressive sounding than Michael Wiener.

Power! Everbody's . . . talkin' . . .

All I can think about is VBS. It's like my own Jacob Marley. I look into door knockers and there's a cheery little scientist singing, "GET UP! GET UP! SOME PEOPLE HAVEN'T HEARD!" I like doing it and I hope I am a blessing to someone somewhere. I just can't stop thinking about it and saying, "AHA!"

Power! Everybody's talking 'bout the power!

Today's theme at VBS was Jesus gives us the power to be thankful (Aha!). Believe me, no one was more thankful than I was when the science experiment WORKED!

Shoot! I took physics!

Tomorrow I resume my role as leader of what an old school gal like me likes to call Vacation Bible School "opening and closing exercises." That's not what it's called, of course. It's called "Sonic Sing and Play" and "Faith Fusion Finale" to go along with the science lab theme of the week.

Am I nervous? -- Does a bear poop in the woods? Is the Pope Catholic? Do stupid humans get out of their cars and run up to wild animals in Yellowstone National Park. Yes, yes, yes and YES!

Here's why: I have no trouble leading the estimated 300 children in a time of excited and amped up worship while wearing a lab coat and my Chuck Taylors, but at the end of the day, I have to do a science experiment. It involves dry ice and Dawn dish washing liquid and NO practice ahead of time. I like to practice. I like to know what I'm doing. I like control. Tomorrow's theme is thankfulness and if the experiment works, I will be shouting out my thanks.

Pool Update

Baby D refuses to stay in the pool. He wants to play with the garden hose -- the plain, ol' dirty garden hose that has always been there, not the beautiful new pool with attached shade canopy.

Will it matter?

My buddy Jon died today in a motorcycle accident. I don't know the details. There was a deer involved. Jon worked as a bartender some times, and he was my companion more than one night while I sat alone listening to my husband and his dinner music band. Jon was a good listener, always sincere. He had a charming smile.

Jon and his partner were one of the first couples to get married in Massachusetts a few years ago. They caused quite a stir out East. I think they had their picture on the front of the New York Times or something. Jon said some controversial things before the wedding. He caught the attention of Focus on the Family which used his comments to build their case for heterosexual marriage.

Look -- as a student of the Bible I know the verses selected to point a special sin finger at Jon, but as a student of Christ I am obliged to also note the verses that point the finger at me as Romans 3:23 states so aptly.

I have been on the internet this afternoon and discovered that Jon was considered both a hero of the movement and its downfall. Feted by some and used as a tool by the other side. Did I know any of this before today? No. He was the guy from the restaurant. He was a supporter of my community. He was a friendly face on the bike path. He made a mean Shirley Temple for the pregnant girl. Jon was my neighbor. He was my friend.

Everybody in the pool

It was hottish today, so I thought I'd get out the pool for Baby D. I went through many, many pools with Colin. We have an uneven back yard and I was always looking for one that would -- what? Make the yard even? I don't know. Our pools always have a deep end and depending on where you put them, they can have a really deep end. So, anyway, I went to the pool graveyard and I only had two choices. One has sides that are held up by the water and therefore collapse. (Difficult to get in and out of when you are two feet high.) The other was, apparently, something I thought would be big enough for a floaty or something for myself. It was huge. As I recall it took an entire day to inflate and fill and Colin and I went in it once. Nope. Off to my local Pamida I went.

Now usually I travel to the next, larger town to go to Target. I am a Minnesotan. We go to Target. It had better be pretty cheap to make us go to the Southerners' store -- Wal Mart. I did not have energy to go to the next town, so I went to our little Pamidaa which, I swear, is straight out of a Twilight Zone episode. I am always a little afraid to go in. Perhaps I will not come out. I went in there one time and I saw no one. No one. Not a shopper. Not a clerk. Not a pasty looking stock boy. No one. Fortunately they did not have what I was looking for and so I just left.

Since all I needed was one baby pool, I thought it would be all right. Baby D and I drove up and looked at there inventory. All they had was big pools and one with a little canopy thing. After a painful checkout, we took the pool home and I started to blow the thing up. While I was working on it Baby D went inside with Colin and pulled five keys off my keyboard. I got it put together, found a flattish spot in the lawn, filled it up with water, put the boys in swimsuits, got toys from the bathroom and . . . it started to rain. We came inside and played camping instead. So much for the pool.