octember de threed

we all went to madera canyon on saturday and wiped everyone out. spencer was leaning on one arm in his car seat with a look that was beyond blank. it was if he was angry because he was so tired but he couldn’t do anything about it. we drove a loopy route on the way home [the reverse of the saturday morning shootout]. we played cards with erica and clay and we [the adults] were wiped out [i lost badly]. not even 6 hours later i heard spencer opening his dresser drawers at 5am. something didn’t sound right and i popped up to discover what looked to be melted chocolate ice cream spread across the hallway, 2 feet long and 6 inches wide. it smelled nothing like ice cream.

i found spencer in his room attempting to remove his diaper and i promptly took him into the bathroom to give him a bath. as i took off his diaper [filled with a half gallon of melted chocolate ice cream — hardly] some spilled on the floor and i knew i was in trouble. i hollered for sarah, got the bath going and then went into spencer’s room. i think he spun around in his room. if we were csi, we wouldn’t have enough of those numbered markers to place near every blotch. some where quite large, making up a full cone of ice cream.

sarah scrubbed it with tide later in the afternoon. 3 fans going in the room wasn’t putting a dent into the smell. by bedtime it was survivable. look for a post in a week or so about how we no longer have any carpet in our house.

octember de fourt

yesterday [and last night] i sought out people to chat about their idea of «cool». it was pretty easy to dispense with the «impressing» type of cool, such as having the most money/car/clothes/etc [though quite often talent is pretty impressive]. it is more than «cool» as we kind of came around to the person that is very attentive to others, that can listen and share and care, to be sensitive, to be more aware, to know when to speak and when to be quiet, to be wise. that doesn’t come easy — it takes some maturity. it reminded me of the thought i had years ago about how as people get older, they become less brash and loud. the mature become more «finished» or healthy, not having to pull themselves up or make themselves noticed.

i asked ami what she thought and she brought up self-actualized people connecting best with people at the same level. as well as the more self-actualized people become, the less they need others in an uhealthy way [attention, status, etc]. that ties in very closely with the «cool» idea [aka, who would you like to be around?] in that it isn’t needy, manipulative or self serving. you know who you are and what you need/do and how to get that without taking it from someone else. it could easily be called a portion of healthiness.

later that night the discussion continued into boundaries — the less self-actualized being a bit more needy and where are the lines drawn? good examples of where boundaries have been drawn to keep from getting burnt out/smothered came up. how do we live but not get used up, while still loving other people? this love isn’t the emotion but the commitment. «nice» and «fair» are not in the bible, but meeting others needs are [but is it right to die from these things? probably not].

karl sent me this today, which adds another twist to it all:

«One reason that the ignorant also tend to be the blissfully self-assured, the researchers believe, is that the skills required for competence often are the same skills necessary to recognize competence.»

«Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it,»

«This deficiency in “self-monitoring skills,” the researchers said, helps explain the tendency of the humor-impaired to persist in telling jokes that are not funny, of day traders to repeatedly jump into the market — and repeatedly lose out — and of the politically clueless to continue holding forth at dinner parties on the fine points of campaign strategy.»

one might say that this is obvious, but couple in all the above threads and it makes one big melted crayon that colors on more than just paper. this will take a lot more thought on my part

unlunky # slevin

i’ve long thought that too many churches have hired people in such a way that the normal joe no longer thought they could be a «good xian». the natural progression of growth was to mature and go on staff somewhere. there is far too much reliance on paid staff. karl goes off and writes to me this morning:

I think a big part of the problem is that we've set the church up as a profession. Pastors, missionaries, and other staff do the work while the rest of us just have to look to them for the answers and pay them.

it is such a good way to word it. «we» can’t do it as that is «their» job, not ours. we aren’t supposed to be remotely as capable as them. the end result is that nobody will do anything and wait for a staff person to do it. that isn’t right at all.

niner

sarah and i now have what spencer & trevor had, and more people around us have it to. at least sarah and i aren’t throwing up. ugh. the last time my butt melted [trevor says «my bottom threw up» and spencer says «my bottom is broken»] was when i came out of the hospital on massive antibiotics. wiped everything i needed out of my body for 2 month. i don’t want to get old.

tinth [niner part 2]

what a miserable way to ride home last night on a few corn tamales that did not sit well in my gut at all. i may not be able to stand the smell of tamales for a while. i had nothing in my body to give me any energy and was wiped out when i got home [working all day didn’t help]. we got the kids down and crawled into bed at a very late 8.05pm. just as i slipped off to sleep i heard a thump and looked up to see and hear the ensuing «blech» as corcor threw up a huge circle of vomit, nearly filling the hallway. it was the start of a long night.

my sleep started out very rough as my stomach gurgled and churned and yelled out like thunder. imagine a basketball gym where the boards had gotten wet and warped and seperated. grab several upright pianos on their small wheels and run them from side to side. that is how our guts felt and sounded. internal fireworks once a minute, or maybe my internal organs were just changing places every few minutes or so [okay, everyone… SWITCH!]

add that overheated sleep where your brain races and it is hard to settle down and sleeping is a luxury. sarah and i both spent the night curled up in a ball until around 2 and my stomach stopped making noise. i could stretch my legs too. i felt great until lunch just a few moments ago, but i’m still not feeling all that bad, just woozy and sleepy. what would it be like if your system sped up to 5 times the speed and it was harder for your body to pull what it needed out of food? would you eat a lot of red vines and drink soda for the quick energy? dunno. sick is lousy.

eleventy-one

yesterday on the way to work i caught and passed a couple riding to work [she was already wearing leggings — it isn’t THAT cold yet]. on the way home i had just pulled out of work when i saw them a quarter mile ahead. i chased a littel but i hadn’t warmed up so it wasn’t until the bridge until i caught the lady. we all rode through the twisty part until the segregated bike path and i took off. i got stopped at the light and we chatted again.

if i leave at the same time, i usually see one big guy going the opposite way on both rides, sometimes a girl that has her helmet almost over her eyes, and i haven’t seen the old guy with the flannel coat in quite some time. it is rather nice to see the same people a few times a week. there is one guy i’ve only seen a few times on the way home and he doesn’t acknowledge other riders [me] and he just hammers like he is racing me. i’ve ignored him so far, but he is huffing and puffing when i catch up to him at the lights so next time i’m going to accelerate and dust him.

the other person i see every day is the crossing guard at my kids school. we always exchange greetings but if i am moving, there is no time for a conversation [a conversation with the doppler effect doesn’t work]. soon we’ll discuss the cold weather and then it’ll be the countdown until school gets out. these are my daily interactions.

nearly halloween

as i was looking for a software cd i didn’t believe we ever received i came across some personal cds with photos. these were in 2002 and i had made trevor a train costume out of boxes. it worked out pretty good though he would turn and knock people over. they all look so young. click on any for a larger image. spencer in the pooh suit is great, allie is immensley cute and spencer not in the costume? what large eyes you have…

sixteenth

our fun at work lately has consisted of this movie clip from «the break-up». ah, his expression after he sings the first line is priceless. i hope they have bloopers for this.

click the image above for the short video clip

i sent the clip off to some friends, mentioning that it reminded me of our mutual friend «stick-pusher». a few moments later i receive this:

Okay, No lie. I HAVE actually seen him doing almost this exact thing right to my face to a Michael W Smith song. No, he was not drunk. Yes, it has scarred me for life and I can't listen to that song any more without getting horrible chills down my spine.

he can't/won't deny because I'm sure he knows exactly what I'm referring to. It is definitely not a good thing.

1+ocho [sitting]

what a crazy day. i drove down to the other shop we own in nogales [us, not mexico] and i enjoyed the signage in metric [which i just went in and edited the interstate 89 page in wikipedia claiming to be the only metric signed interstate — woohoo! i also put that i was constable]. i guess the markers at 99km and 101km have been changed to miles, but the rest of the drive is still metric. it is the opposite of that soundtrack i wanted to make of 70 minutes of the sound of cars passing you, aka «music to make you feel slow». i get to pass a mile marker 1.65 times as often! if it was just signed in metric i would be going over 120!

i worked a full day kicking out work as they were behind, all done on a very slow machine. i like my machine here in tucson, thenk-you-very-much. i didn’t drink a thing as i spent most of my time in the chair, though it wasn’t stressful as the machine slowed the pace down. yannin would sometimes jump into spanish and i would pretend she was ordering food. i was also somewhat sad that the gmail chat client was showing my words in english. if i was 2km from the border, shouldn’t my words be in spanish? it is rather cool that she crosses the line every day to work in the states. as i reentered tucson i kept checking the time so that i could watch the iss fly over. i pulled over with a minute to go and as i stood by my car a guy walked up and asked if i was wanting to sell something. i’m thinking that he was wanting me to ask him «do YOU want to sell something?». i passed and he was dumbfounded — why was i there? i pointed out the iss as it had just showed and he mumbled, «man, that’s tight» and a little later «thanks for showing me.» he walked back to the safety of the trees and moments later he and 3 other guys were panning their heads as they traced the route. this was the first time i was able to view the iss since the second large set of solar arrays was put up.

oh yes — we have a hummingbird feeder in front of our house and plenty of little guys zooming around. how can there be that many around here? i don’t care, but they are so much fun to watch. spencer has taken to drawing them on the sidewalk.

football memories

sarah and i caught the opening game at the university a few miles from our house. we were fortunate to park at a family friend’s house and get right onto campus. football games are a lot of fun even if you don’t like football or have a team that is not going to get a win frequently [or even somewhat often. how about rarely — rarely is good]. we entered campus where the most populous tail gate parties were being held. the mall was packed with RVs and vehicles of all kinds, surrounded by tens of thousands of people tossing empties on the ground while grilling some of the most wonderful smelling foods. the energy that was pouring off the crowd made our pulse run a little faster. how could it not do so on such a wonderful evening? the nostalgia of going to games prior always sweeps back, from the years spent standing the whole game in the student section to having to wear those things, those warm things — sweatshirts! going back further are the memories of attending every single high school game [i was in band] and some of those long bus trips for away games. sometimes freezing to death as we could only put a finite amount of cold weather gear under our uniforms while all wanting to get back on the bus where the heaters were. there were those memorable games where we would whup up on some of the top teams in the country as well as that 10 game[?] winning streak against our instate rival. and people — people everwhere. people we would meet up before the game and then hanging out afterwards, talking about the highs and lows of the games, the phenomenal hits that made one wonder how they continued to play. football season — it is very large and holds a lot of memories.

we watched the whole game while buying dinner in the stands, people watching a fair amount while the nail-biter of a game continued to drag on. we talked about our nephew’s games in nw arkansas, a wonderful small town that seems the heart of the classic high school football game. they have leaves that change color and fall, as well as grass that goes brown. i imagine a huge part of the town turning out and snuggled together as a common body, drinking hot cocoa with marshmellows and coffee. all the kids would be working on looking their best for the opposite sex, the ones in junior high trying to pass themselves off as high schoolers, failing more often than not.

i can’t think of a game where the food vendors are not overwhelmed, the students being rowdy as they are the ones that own the school while the rest of us try to play the «hey, we were where you were once, and we did it better», as well as the older[est?] people that were still trying to capture the look they had decades ago but their body is not playing along.

we cheered, stomped our feet, groaned, waited, cheered some more and in the last few seconds, pulled off a victory. 55 thousand cheering fans rewarded for the patience and support. we all happily returned to our cars wearing our red shirts of all kinds. the streets were packed with people, kids playing alongside their parents who were trying to protect them from the cars.

so now i am thinking of the whole football experience and how the next day i’ll go look at some scores and see that this school beat the other school 34 to 17, and on and on. this huge football experience reduced to a number with no recognition of what must have gone on over there — very nearly the same thing i just did. it was repeated at 100+ stadiums this past saturday, too.

i wonder how many times i fail to recognize someone else’s reality because all i chose to grasp is that they are sick or broke or hurt or jobless or pregnant or married or divorced or struggling or triumphant. can i see where the other person is at, or do i just want a bullet point so that i can mildly keep track of what is going on?

twenny-fife

a day at jury duty is like a day spent in airports. shuffle sit wait shuffle wait sit sit shuffle que shuffle sit wait. i waited with a friend i haven’t seen in 19 years [he was a top runner in the state] and he bought me lunch, too. at 1.30 i finally got called up with 49 others and were told only 9 were needed but they would have a pool of 21 where each lawyer would get to exclude 6. i was in seat 25 and after a few dismissals i was in seat 20. blah blah blah, i stand and give the information they request from 8 questions on the board [years school: 5, then i got bored and started playing volleyball and quit] with the kicker at the end [i win!] «yeah, 12 years ago or so and we found him guilty on two counts of premeditated murder».

now i understand that the lawers would be getting rid of people they don’t want as well as those the other lawyer might want, so i thought i had good odds. a 15 minute recess turned into 45 minutes and no, i wasn’t picked. it was a bit of a let down. i am defective or unwanted. *sniff* consider my civic duty completed, which is also very similar to car problems, home problems, as well as sick family. never convenient but something very important to attend to.

twenly-seben

i have photos i want to post, but i am being self-promoting-greedy and will wait until next month. if i post them now, maybe nobody will go back and look once the month changes. i want people to scroll past them REPEATEDLY.

i’ve got no legs to do the full 109 mile tour this november [6 weekends will have passed with no riding - not good] and i have no chance to keep my status as a platinum rider. what to do — do i ride the whole route and do it so-so, or...? i found an out. i’ll ride with my 3 oldest on the 4 mile ride and then ride up to the 35 mile start and ride protection around the mayor and his family. a handful of us from the saguaro velo team will be doing it, which will be fun. i can tie it in with doing the artwork for the poster and jersey [and socks]. problem solved. that means 2007 will be my year of racing. i’ll put in the time and effort to make it a full year. i may never do well in the tour as it is so blasted cold in the morning. i take a while to warm up and the sprint start is not a strength, nor is having asthma that is not fond of cold. [interesting note: november 24th is the average first day of freezing in the morning. that’ll be 6 days after the tour this time.]

this will be a fun weekend. i’ll be taking the 3 oldest camping [spencer bowed out] and then i need to work on our yard. we are in the west nile virus hotzone and received a notice from the city giving us 7 days to get our yard into spec or we’ll get fined. all that sickness our whole family had? that may have been west nile — woohoo for us!

day before ’ween2

up early hula hoeing the stupid grass, then to church where i helped talk and then to subway for lunch. as soon as we got home it was 3+ hours of working on the yard. erica came over and helped and i crossed the street to whack pablo’s alley. he hadn’t been home and his alley was 2 feet tall. i sneezed and sneezed and sneezed. i walked in the house and sarah and i left to go clean my office, stopping by target on the way home to get some food and stuff to make spencer’s helicopter costume [we need to build it a few days in advance so that he’ll warm up to the idea].

i was dying by now, on the run since the sunday before and a long crappy week. i just wanted food. when we got home there was a note on the door to follow instructions and we could see allie in a bathing suit. oh those nutty kids — just let us eat. i declined a mud facial as well as putting on dress clothes [i was caked with dust and then ink] and then we got to the 4 course meal that birth-mom sara helped the kids make. i enjoyed the wine the most as i couldn’t taste anything. after the kids went down i laid on the couch to watch some football and relax, and i did just that. i may have seen two plays before i fell asleep. the next morning i made spencer’s costume and i’ll put stickers on it later. so much for a weekend, going into a tough week.

octember de threed v2

madera canyon was grand. not only did we get a nice picnic in under the branches of the lower forest but there was also water running in the streams. we played in the one next to our food and then went for a hike [downhill] along the larger stream. we found a sizeable waterfall further down and were able to play in the chilly pool where it emptied itself. the photos don’t do the canyon justice with the leaves that were done for the year lazily dropping around us. as always, swimming for spencer is done sans clothing. i’m looking forward to the camping trip to mt. lemmon in a few weeks. maybe the leaves will be changing [on the few trees that drop their leaves up there.

click on each for a larger version.

octember de fivel

i grew up with a lot of used cars even though my parents had purchased a matching pair of a vw bus and beetle in 1963 — brand new at the time. yes, it was the same beetle that we took to zion from the post last month, and by the time i started driving it the right floorboard was a piece of plywood and after the rear seat caught fire it became a wooden platform with a bean bag on it. it was a great car as i could fit my bike in it and probably good that it was lacking in power for safety reasons. i remember times attempting to pass semis on the freeway not realizing i was gettings some side draft and getting snubbed as i neared the front of the truck. i would be forced to slow, speed up in the draft, repeat. i’ll get back to speed in a moment.

the bus would crap out often and there was one time the clutch cable broke and my mom hollered at my brother and i to jump out and push it out of a busy intersection. i think i might have been in 3rd or 4th grade. i don’t believe the center seat was ever in the bus as it stayed near the spooky thin shed in the backyard and gathered black widows. we had plenty of space to roam in the pre-mandatory seatbelt days. for long trips my dad had built a very simple frame that was the same height as the rear seat and covered it with a layer of foam padding and carpet. beneath it we could slide a whole lot of fruit boxes with our clothes, food, camping gear and more. we had plenty of room to play up top and it made a great platform for my mom and sis to sleep on. it died on a trip to prescott. we may have made in 15 miles from home, not yet out of tucson.

the beetle was similar in that it constantly had problems. in high school/college i was often calling my dad as it had broken down. when i was smaller my dad would return to the house in the morning fuming that the beetle wouldn’t start and we little kids would have to push start him so that he would get to work on time. he never stopped to say thanks, but with a shared disdaim for unreliable vehicles, i’m not sure i would have either. i can now push start a car in all manners. rolling backwards off curbs is one of the easiest. i went for 2 weeks without a 2nd gear in the bug, and then another week without a clutch. once you learn the sound of the engine, the clutch is for wusses. it also caught fire a few times, but we’ll skip that part.

my brother had a datsun b210, the teal kind where the paint died a rapid and horrible death and the rear window had the same shades as battlestar gallactica’s cylon raiders. i soon discovered driving home from college one night on the interstate that it had some zip. i was passing cars like crazy at 65mph. i learned later that the speedometer was most likely 20mph low at that speed. oops. no wonder the engine seemed maxxed out. when the beetle’s engine blew on the way to a volleyball tournament i ended the semester with 3 weeks of the city bus, then moved on to my brother’s b210 as he was getting married [i think]. one day while driving home with my friend todd a kid pulled out in front of us to turn left and we had nowhere to go — we braked hard and just barely hit the corner of his stopped car and bent the front bumper in like a V. years later i returned from practice to my parked car on a lot right next to the university to find a post it note on the side of my car. it was short, poorly written apology about hitting my car. i saw nothing until i walked around the car and it was a disaster. i walked to where the note said he lived and it was a chinese national and his new wife on a property so close to the U that it probably commanded a huge premium though my bedroom was larger than the entire studio. i felt bad for him as he had just gotten his permit and was driving laps in the parking lot [it was a small loop] when he clipped my rear passenger side and drove on through until he pulled my front bumper out a bit more. he sealed the entire right side shut. later someone backed into my rear driver side and put a huge ding in it, and before all this it had once sunk down in a series of large holes we had dug in our yard as kids [stupid «great escape» movie gave us great ideas].

i won’t go into other ugly car details, but i’ve grown up with constantly fixing our cars up. i still try to do that, not wanting to have a new car for 3 years and then get a new one. we have yet to buy a new car, sarah and i. this van we have had for a year is the closest to new that we have come and it has been very reliable.

two-tinths

in the season finale [season 2] of grey’s anatomy during the 5 non-confessions alex won’t cave and tells the chief:

Let’s say you were drafted to a team that wasn’t your first pick. You know, you don't like the players. You hate the way they play the game. You even think the quarterback is full of crap. The quarterback's a pain in the ass you don't owe a damned thing to. But, it's your team. You don't quit. You don't talk to the press. You don't bitch to the coach. You just, you just go out there every Sunday and you make the blocks and you take the hits and you, you play to win. You show up and you suit up and you play, because it's your freaking team.

this continues to make me think about love as a commitment/obedience and not a gushy/romantic feeling. i’m thinking mostly of the church [and marriage] right now, about how people miss the «warm» feeling that makes it easy to stick with and care with someone. maybe that is why babies are born cute and people get married before they start to expand and sag — they need that attraction before the commitment kicks in. nobody ever said it would be easy. last saturday sarah was at a home show for her lending stuff so i had the kids and was trying to fix the kitchen faucett with spencer. on the return from our first trip to the hardware store we stopped by golf-n-stuff to look at the fountains. i thought he would be fine with just the front but he took off running through people’s games and yelling at the water. i was not in the mood for it, but i have a love, a commitement for spencer that i could be patient and let him enjoy the multiple fountains. i’m not good at that kind of stuff. i wish it could have been easier, like spencer wanting to lay down on the bed and sleep — i could very easily do that — but that wasn’t what was going on.

i’d say most people ditch their church and their spouse as soon as it isn’t easy to love them [commit to them]. i suppose it is easier to start over if you haven’t invested much into someone or something, right? hopefully the other person/church will already be perfect and there will be no work involved [at least for now until one or both of you change]. through all this, too, is that nobody or no place will ever be perfect.

this doesn’t mean that you can’t speak up — there needs to be a lot of communication, a lot of sharing, a lot of listening. when one party isn’t up to that, it doesn’t make it easy. sure, it should be 100%/0% and come out great [not 50%/50%] but nobody can do it 100% [makes me wonder how the self-actualized person and the unhealthy neediness fits in to all this].

carnival time!

st. cyril’s is having their annual carnival! woohoo! once again we will be wise and buy all-you-can-ride wristbands for thursday night and try not to throw up. it is very exciting having it in our backyard [okay, not really our backyard, but you have our alley, then a house, and then it is kitty-corner to that — pretty much our backyard.] the waiting is the hardest part as the trucks come in monday and they slowly assemble all the rides. we’ll find the kids on the play structure looking over the back fence.

as i rode in thursday night i found all 4 on the play structure with wide eyes, excited knowing that i was home and that they could finally go. after a quick bite to eat we were off to the carnival, the kids wanting to ride the spinning ones while sarah and i weren’t so sure. i really wanted to ride «pharoah’s fury» but the kids were afraid. we rode cliffhanger [lay down in a faux hang glider and as it spins it tilts up — you feel like you are diving then soaring back up. lots of fun] and then one where they blast loud music and you spin and spin. it is horrible. loud music and spinning. why don’t they make a carsick ride. spencer got a kick out of the fun houses [sarah wasn’t looking when he ran into a mirror] and some race cars that whipped the riders around on the two ends. we had fun in the ferris wheel, but too bad sarah and i had to sit on opposite sides. spencer got sleepy [and may have thrown up a bit] before 7.30 we think. sarah took him home and i had the kids [a friend of allie’s was with us, too]. i was getting tired of the kids being fearful of the pharoah’s fury and i was determined to ride it even if i was an old guy riding alone. i made the kids stand near it while i rode it and then brought up how those that sat in the middle didn’t go as high. a little later i griped with another mom about how no one would ride with me and her daughter happily exclaimed that she would. i think that got trevor to commit, then courtney and the other two. we HAD to sit in the middle.

just as the bars were about to lock us in, allie burst into tears and she and her friend got off. as the ride started, courtney looked across at me with a smile and boldly proclaimed, «i hate you!»

over the next 45 minutes the night consisted of the ride stopping, running around to the entrance and getting back on [thursdays are not busy] and slowly working our way back until i was sitting with our eager neighborhood girl in the very back and experiencing some great weightlessness and trevor and corcor sitting one row ahead of us. i was done after the 8th or 9th ride — non-stop, of course.

i bowed out and went to find allie. we waited for them to fix the merry-go-round [or is it carousel — i think the name is from which way it rotates] and ride it, then something else and then back in line for the cars. i had to pee so i ran out the side gate to our house to discover that the parents were coming in to find allie’s friend and i ran back just in time to find them and then talk to another mom for a bit. it must have been 30 to 40 minutes since i had gotten off the fury when i looked over at it. in the back was a little kid with orange hair blowing back in forth in the wind. trevor was addicted. i found out courtney had gotten off just a trip or two earlier. afraid of pharoah’s fury? hardly.

we stayed until closing and i rode the fury a few more times with them but we were done. we got our money’s worth and then some. now we wait out the next 3 days until they pack up in the middle of the night and leave us until next year.

grade 7

grade 7, mrs. birenbaum’s science class, probably a week after i had gotten out of the hospital from being sick, taking a test and i had to fart as if i was a weather balloon expanded to 300 times my normal volumne. i tightened and let it be birthed, coming out as a high pitched «weeeOOOOwwuuuUUUPPP!»

it was the perfect ventriloquist fart — it sounded as if it came from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. it didn’t even sound like a fart, either. i had to blog this as i was telling marco the story. my other poorly timed exuberance was on a church trip and 150+ of us were in the huge basement of a student union in oklahoma or texas. we were at the end of our trip, tired and emotional and whupped. after what seemed like 2 hours down there talking and sharing [c’mon, it was high school evangelical crap!] they decided to cap it off and pray. as we got quite i rolled to one side and surprised myself. we tried to stay solemn but todd wilson was behind me on a couch fanny for his protection with a bible. that was it. we laughed until we ached [and we already were aching]. i was able to pass it off biblical with the «make a joyful noise yadda yadda yadda».

twenny-sekon

i am thinking that so many of the questions that are raised by people in church stems from not doing what they say. who really wants to know the difference between doing it this way or that way if it isn‘t in action. i wonder if people should be allowed to ask questions if they haven’t attempted it. it is funny that i would be thinking of this the past few days and then find blog points A and B during lunch. closer to the point is C with the ending of:

Seek the companionship of others who will befriend you and listen as you live the questions of your life.

i am not the greatest at comprehension [and i could be way off] but living the questions of your life — is that the same as living it out and trying and watching and then trying it again? let’s not debate the spiritual equivalent of if we should have a caffiene stimulant before a race or just water IF YOU AREN’T RACING. NOBODY CARES. it will matter so much more if you are trying both out, seeing how it works, seeing which one functions and which ones don’t and how it makes you feel and how it makes other feel and what God responds back to you with. i want to swap running stories with runners, not with salesman that don’t use their own product.

maybe it would be similar to talking about all the ingredients that might go into cooking but never cook or taste it. how dare you argue about ingredients when you won’t make it or eat it. it is wasted words.

twenny-fourf

as i was driving to jury duty and continuing to think of the above thought [yes, people were bent that i wasn’t citing bible verses to back up what i was saying — sorry, but that stuff has BECOME me — i don’t need to quote what i believe. i’m still dumbtarded, though, i don’t hold it to be concrete] and a nice phrase crossed my mind:

xians are obsessed with right and wrong.

yup, that is pretty much it. not love, grace, compassion, etc, but all about what is right and wrong. mind you, they may not do anything with it but there is a kind of poor spirituality when what seems to be more spiritual is the ability to regurgitate information — information you may not believe in or do anything with.

how sad.

i don’t want to compete in that arena. i don’t want to be known as a solitary person or someone within a group that is all about finding the wrong and defending the right. that isn’t attractive.

another thought along this vein was the idea of giving unmarried couples the ability to get insurance as if they were married. that sounds really good to me, though it will cost me more. doesn’t that sound right, even just? so many of the arguments it are about keeping the idea of marriage to a higher standard, but c’mon, is that what marriage is: the ability to get less expensive health care as well as a tax write off or something? that is silly. it is so much more, but it seems that legistlating morality is far more fun.

oops

marco is leaving me [got a different design job at a big company where raises are yearly and the pace is glacial] yet we still walked over to markly’s new triathlon warehouse where he assembles bikes and the coversation with two guys on the loading dock went as follows:

«me» you guys work here?

«them» yeah

«me» is mark around?

«them» mark?

«me» yeah, [holding hand waist high] you know, little mark

they both jumped up excited to go find little mark. mark will probably kill me. as he walked over, marco and i stood there in our white button up shirts and khaki pants and i promptly say:

«we are mormons. we need new bikes. fast ones.»

day before ’ween

let me tell you about my weekend that wouldn’t stop [and work is busy, so this may be my last entry for a while].

i ditched out at 4.45 on friday and got home, changed, and double checked the van with what sarah had packed for camping. i was taking the three oldest on our big men’s outing, but now spencer re-wanted to go. i made sure all their jackets were next to them as it was supposed to be 35°F or so that night. we drove drove drove, trying to get there with little twilight but no, it was black by they time we made it up [about an hour — we live close]. i had opted for mcdonalds as it was «bring your own food and fire» but we got to do the dinty moore can set in the fire with buttered bread. i got the tent up with some help of some friends and soon got to cooking [i feared that spencer would want to sleep before food was done]. the three oldest ate a ton, and spencer wandered around stealing flashlights. as i was about to eat, the kids wanted s’more and i balked — «you NEED to wait until i finishing eating». we did s’mores and trev took one bite and was full, yet he wanted to continue burning marshmellows. aye yi yi. spencer wandered to bed and cried for mom moments later. i had gotten all 4 of their summer bags in one tent, all snuggled up tight. i laid down with him and he still fussed, then 20 minutes later he came out with sweatshirt over his sleeper and i sent him back to the tent. trevor finally was done and he and spencer played in the tent with the flashlight, then allie came in and 15 minutes of prodding, they were asleep. courtney followed at 9.45 and i was wiped out. i went back and forth over where to sleep, outside by the tent or by the fire and chose the tent so that any peeps from spencer could be quickly quelled. it was a little chilly with the wind and i didn’t sleep all that bad though i woke up often. i think everyone else is afraid of animals, but i think the animals are more afraid of us. i got up with pre-dawn and coaxed the coals back into a fire as spencer came trotting out in his sleeper. it seemed warmer in the morning than last night. we had a hearty breakfast of frosted brown sugar cinnamon pop-tarts and cheese danish, then set to tromping around the campsite. spencer greeted everyone with a «good morning guys!» and sang many people awake. after i packed everything up [and we were wearing just t-shirts] we hiked up to the towers and climbed the lookout station, up to the locked door. the kids were doing fine and the littlest guys debarked a 50 foot felled tree. i knew we had to go and i brought up the idea of riding the ski lift but no one seemed interested. we drove up, found that it would open in 20 minutes so we drove to the top [9,100+ feet] and back down through the trees dressed in their fading gold costumes. we rode the lift and on the way down saw 3 other guys pull up, but we still had to go and stopped at window point to see some guys rappelling meekly while having the attention of everyone at the overlook. i must get some gear for my family.

we got home in time for me to get a hollering from sarah as she couldn’t reach me [i never leave the phone on, but there isn’t coverage where we were camping, either]. after weathering that [i got an apology later from «she who bottles things up»] we went up to her parents and played dominoes with her birth mom as my eyes watered from sleep deprivation. we got home and i parked my car on the street and left it running so that i could weed-whack all the grass along the curb [i felt good and redneckish]. stupid west nile virus. i’m sure we all had it. the media likes to hype it up. we ate, and i was in bed as i was dying. day two continues on the left.