Church of the Broken Pew Followup

We've been going to the Church of the Broken Pew since mid January and haven't had any other property damage issues, that is until Sunday.

But first, we are really loving this church.  Gasp.  There, I said it again.  We are over six weeks in and are all still learning, enjoying the singing, really like the pastor.  It's a miracle.  The only negative, bedsides the property damage, is that it is one of the BIGGEST churches I've ever been to and we don't know anyone.  Okay, we know people, for some strange reason every teacher at Hannah's middle school attends there and most of my workmates go there, but it is SO big that we do not see anyone or talk to anyone.  We beeline in.  We beeline out.  The beeline in is due to our perpetual tardiness and the fact that we are all in a hurry to get in and sing, the beeline out is that big church=big parking lot=big mess.  We have it down to a system and are usually waving at all the suckers stuck in line.

Back to Sunday.  Bubba (how did you know?) was sitting between David and Hannah.  Since it was the first Sunday of the month we had communion.  Let me stop right here and say that I've never done communion this way.  What way is different?  Well, when you are in the mega church they stack the communion cups.  When the tray (only one) is passed you grab a cup and it is actually two cups stacked together.  The bottom cup has the wafer, and the top cup the grape juice. I guess they do this conserve on time.  Anyway, we all grab a cup and start our reflection when I feel a hand on me.  David is reaching over both of our children to grab my arm.  I open my eyes and look up thinking, how rude, to see David pantomiming the "give me a towel, kleenex or napkin" sign.  I grab a pack of tissue out of my purse and hand them over, still oblivious to the sitch, thinking David had to blow his nose.

Finally I focus on Bubba and see that he is sitting cross legged on the pew with the grape juice in on hand and the wafer cup in the other.  Strung out between his two hands, joining them is a million fishing line type threads of his neon green gum.  He is basically sitting cross legged in a spider web of neon green gum.  It is everywhere.  Tissues are being dispensed, hand sanitizer sprayer on surfaces hoping to remove gum, all about as quietly as a heard of elephants during this time of reflection.  It is a good thing the music started up to cover our din.

And So On

Today the wife of one of my Mom's cousins (Sharon) contacted me out of the blue via e-mail to try and get contact information for my parents.  This doesn't sound too thrilling, I know.  When I responded to her to pass on the contact info I added in my bit about how I am a picture collecting junkie and I happened to have some pictures of our common ancestors that included her husband and his father...and so on.  To sweeten the pot, I sent her a taste of the ancestry pictures I had on my computer.

When Sharon responded she was thrilled!  She, too, is an ancestry fiend and LOVED the pictures I sent.  She had never seen them before.  So I sent more.  And I e-mailed her more info.  She responded.  She passed them on to more of my Mom's cousins, and so on, and so on.  

Then, she promised she would send ME ancestry pictures of my Grandfather and his parents so I could pass them on.  We chatted via e-mail and discussed family artifacts from when my great grandparents were missionaries in Alaska in the early 1900's.  Sharon seems to know where some more of those artifacts are, and she is willing to share them with me and my siblings if we are interested. Saaaweet.

I know this all sounds weird.  Trivial to some.  But I am honestly THRILLED and can't wait for this new information and new pictures to add to my collection.  Sure, I have genealogy and the info for generations, but the pictures and the artifacts are so exciting!

It is amazing to connect, or open a new connection for sharing ancestry.  Sharon e-mailed ME because I sent out e-mail invites to my Mom's cousins to invite them to a party we had for my parents last summer.  I can't remember the last time I saw this person!  I would say the earliest would have been 20 years ago, easy.  

Here is one of the pictures I sent today.  My grandfather is the skinny guy on the left :)  My Great Grandmother is the lovely woman surrounded by her handsome boys.  Isn't it wonderful?

Ehhhh

While David watched the Duke v. UNC game tonight I finished up my second Wade Rouse book.   Ehhhh.  Can't say that I enjoyed it.  The writing was just not as well done as his book It's All Relative.

I worked for a real jackass in my early twenties and maybe it was that I had a few flashbacks to that time in my life where I constantly questioned my quality of life based on my employer and how he treated me, when I was reading this book.

I do not recommend this book.  Sorry Wade.  Not your best work.

When Hearts Attack!

I am recovering from my heart attack nicely, thank you very little.  Not a real one mind you, but the "my Dad called me a freaked me out" kind.

Dad called me this afternoon and asked me for help with the computer.  Dad was trying to buy virus software and kept entering in his credit card information and hitting enter, but it wouldn't work.  Let me interject and say that my heart sank when this happened.  I love computers, and I love my Dad, but helping either parent with their computer over the phone ranks right up there with standing in the only open checkout line at Walmart behind the crazy lady buying 30 cans of cat food with her pockets full of pennies.  It has to be done, but it gives me a headache.  Usually a big one.

So the computer issue turned out to be a "System Tool" virus, and my advice suddenly included the words, stop...don't push anymore buttons...call the credit card company and cancel your credit card.  

While my Mom called the credit card company on her cell phone my Dad stayed on the phone with me.  To make small talk I asked Dad about what they did last night.  He responded with, "It was okay, after your Mom had her stroke, we had to take the food home to eat it."  Uh...what???  After my small stroke, I started trying to pry information out of Dad.  What makes you think she had a stroke?  Was she unconscious?  Etc. Etc.  My Mom joins the conversation again and Dad whispers, "Don't tell Mom I told you, she'll kill me."  Mom tells us both that she and Dad need to call me back because they need to take care of the credit card.

Immediately I call my brother and sister.  Now all three of us are having heart attacks.  My sister and I are working on a plan of attack when Mom calls me back.  I cut my sister off and return to Mom so I can pry more information out of her.  45 minutes later, after I've solved another computer issue, I broach the subject of Mom and her Friday night.

Mom tells me that she had decided to take only one of her two heart pills for their last week in AZ, and she put herself into a a-fib situation last night.  She explained the whole thing and (I won't bore you) but she took another heart pill and it corrected itself.  She did NOT have a stroke or a heart attack (but I did) and she is going to call her cardiologist on Monday and see if he can help her over the phone since she is away from home for the next few months.

SEVEN phone calls later I am done with my long distance computer help, medical advice, informing my siblings of the incident AND the Nerd Herd has the computer and in one to two days (and $130) everything will be resolved.  I have only lost three hours and ten years of my life.

Should I Feel Bad?

My brother's favorite restaurant in Seattle (or the world) is Dick's Drive In.  I'm not sure if you have ever eaten there, but it your basic hamburgers only, better eat those fries in a hurry otherwise they'll congeal, drive in.

I remember the first time I went to the restaurant on 45th with Matt, he stood out in the parking lot and watched the activity at the counter.  I asked him why we didn't approach and order, and he told me to wait and watch.  Okay, Obi wan.   Matt, observing something I didn't see,  finally said okay and approached the counter and ordered.

After we placed our order and Matt and I were waiting for our food, he told me why we stood and waited.  Cashiers at the Dick's on 45th did NOT have cash registers.  It was part of their gimmick.  Matt stood and waited and watched to pick the dumbest looking cashier, then walked up and rattled off his standard order quickly.  The Dick's employee would calculate the cost of the meal in his or her head and give the total.  The total was different every time.

The reason for this story?  I, unintentionally, picked the dumbest cashier at the fabric store and scored the deals of the century.  Yesterday I walked into a major fabric store and picked out 6 or so things to purchase.   One of the items was a clearance fabric that had a large red sign over it stating that there was an additional 50% off the clearance price.  Score!

When I walked up to the counter to have my fabric measured and cut, I asked the person helping me out to confirm the price of the clearance fabric.  She, after explaining that she had just arrived and she hadn't seen the signs, she then asked a few people about the 50% off sign.  No one knew about the signs.

Anyway, to make a long story shorter, this person helping me at the counter decided that the only way I was going to get my 50% off that item was to ring me up herself.  She waited and saved the  clearance fabric for the last scan and entered in the 50% off.  Suddenly, my total went from $20 to $9 and change.

Shocked, I mentioned this to the clerk.  Three times.  I asked her if she had entered the information in correctly, and she blew me off (she was the one wearing the manager name tag, so I guess I shouldn't argue with her).  I remarked on how drastically the total had changed.   Finally, I paid the lady and walked out with my bag of goodies.  As I was driving home I took out the receipt and scanned it at a stop light.  It was crazy weird to decipher but it became pretty clear to me that she had entered the 50% off button and hit "all."

Am I feeling guilty? Obviously a little.  Did try and alert her to her mistake, yes, albeit unsuccessfully.  Should I feel bad?

Biggest Fan, Big Chicken

I am a big fan of Jen Lancaster.  I'm not sure if you've ever read any of her books, but each one I have read I usually end up in some sort of asthmatic laughing attack.  My family stares.  They ask what is so funny, but I cannot respond.  I need oxygen.  Jen is bitter.  She is snarky.  She is picky.  She NEVER writes about sex, but she is V*E*R*Y foul mouthed and not for the faint of heart.  I love reading her non-fiction, self indulgent, rantings.  I quote her at least once a week, and am excited that she is about to publish some fiction.  If you don't want to indulge in her books, you can always read her (non-foul mouthed) occasional blog about her dogs and life named Jennsylvania here.

A few weeks ago Jen (we are on a first name basis) wrote on her blog about what she was reading.  She mentioned that SHE had a snorting, laugh out loud fit about this book...

I figured heck, if she is laughing out loud at this Wade Rouse guy, I had better get my hands on this book.  So I did.  I got a used copy at my favoritist place on earth, Amazon, and started reading it the moment I received it in the mail.

And people, Jen did not steer me wrong.  I have to admit that this is the first book that I have EVER read where I was laughing so hard I had to stop and take a potty break (what can I say, I'm getting old) before I peed myself a little, but then during the next chapter I was sobbing so hard that I could not continue reading because I could not see through the tears, and  was so emotionally affected I had to stop.  Even now when I think about those chapters I start to tear up.  This book was amazing.  But...and you knew there had to be a but, Wade Rouse is gay, AND a democrat.  Not that there is anything wrong with his choices, (don't tell my family I'm a Democrat) but this book that I loved so much, I could not share with my sister, my husband (too broke-backy for his taste) or anyone without knowing them EXTREMELY well.  So I sent it to Jennifer.

In a nut shell, Jennifer was my BFMN (best friend when we lived in MN) and prevented me from killing both of my kids, or my husband, too many times to note.  I figured that Jennifer would love it (excellent taste in books, an ex-librarian, and political guru) and everyone loves getting crap in the mail.  And she did.  Laughed.  Cried.  Ex-cetera.  Ex-cetera.  Jennifer LOVED it.  No shock there.

I vehemently opposed to abridging books or banning books, but I almost want to cut out my favorite chapters and share them with my other favorite people because they affected me so deeply and I loved them so much.  Wade Rouse's backstory is so interesting and memoir is so amazing I want to share.  But will people be able to get past those interesting differences and read the story for what it is?

More Gratuitous Pet Stuff

My girl decided to keep her sweater on all day, here she is showing a bit of cleavage.

EVERY night this is Chloe's M.O.  Tonight, I was standing at the stove cooking green beans and Chloe sidles up to me and stands on her hind legs.  She can stand that way forever.  When you tell her to knock it off she sits on her butt with her front legs still midair.  

David HATES this.  I ignore this.  Chloe is doing her best to trip me or impress me so she can get some food.  The moment David sees this, he sends her to her bed.

Pranky

I know we are not yet celebrating April Fool's Day, but I love a good prank.  Pranks are on my mind, we are brainstorming at work right now because our boss is about to go on vacation next week and it is our job, our right, to prank the person who will "be in charge."    You know, just to keep things interesting.

Any suggestions?  Thoughts?  The prank concentration has been on wardrobe so far.  We have a dress code at work, and everyone is racking their brains on how to wardrobe prank appropriately.  

We had a friend here in Ohio that was the world's greatest prank-er.  Once, he saved cardboard boxes and created a cubical-sized gingerbread house, complete with window boxes and shingles, for another friend of ours.

Some of my work?  Light weight stuff like rubber-banding the sink sprayer in the kitchen, and switching the sugar and the salt in all the kitchen containers (my Dad was none too happy about that one, but then again I was 12).

Group pranks?  One of my favorites?  We used to have a small group in NC.  Our small group would meet once a week and eat and pray.  After years of meeting we whittled down to a core group of 6 including David and me.  We met every Thursday, and knew each other VERY well.  Jim and Sara, Robin and Keith, and David and me.  Robin and Keith (who were our age) got married.  At their wedding reception they had a photographer that took a picture of each family group in front of a backdrop.  Jim, Sara, David and I decided to mix things up and prank Robin and Keith. When the photographer approached our table Jim and I took Sam and went and stood in front of the backdrop and hammed it up for the camera, posing like we were married.  Next David and Sara took Hannah (Jim and Sara's kids are adults and live out of state) and did the same.  They glamor-shot posed it up for the camera...arms around each other, the whole shooting match.

A few weeks later Robin and Keith came to our house for small group and showed off their wedding album.  They thought it was hilarious that we had wife swapped!

Any thoughts for next week, or April 1st?  I need new material.