A Poem

When I was in 8th grade, we had a guest poet visit my English class and share with us some pointers on writing great poetry. I don't remember much about the man at all, but I do remember he gave us lists of words to help inspire us in our writing. They were organized in sets of four and intended to create pictures in our minds that we could translate into our writing.

I wrote the following poem and volunteered to read it first. My class had much of the same reaction as my 5th grade class when I whistled for them. Jaws dropped to the floor and no one else wanted to volunteer to go next.

Now that I'm about 17 years older, I just have laugh at the 8th grade version of me. As I recall, there were 4 stanzas, and it was published in a book of poetry from kids in our school district. I'll look for the poem in its entirety and post it here if I can find it.

Life is like a teardrop,
blowing in the wind.
With ups and downs pushing you all around
causing cuts and breaks within.

Childhood is forever
with toys here to and fro
as we play hide-and-seek
among the marigolds.

Visitation

My friend, Cheri, is in the hospital. She had a low blood pressure but high pulse episode and they took her in for observation. The bottom line (as of this post) is they think it is just stress related and haven't found a medical reason for it, yet. Better safe than sorry.

String Bean and I got the e-mail about her hospital stay this morning at 9 am. (She wrote it at 6:00 am after the cardiologist visited with her.) We had a playdate scheduled (with my co-blogger Amy's kids and some other friends), so following the playdate around noon we visited with Cheri. We were her first visitors! I hope she got a lot more this afternoon.

Let this be fair warning to all my friends: If I end up in the hospital for ANY reason, I need visitors!

Awkward Phone Calls

I mentioned earlier this week that I have been trying to find some former teammates of mine from a missions trip I took 17 years ago. Let me recap just one set of phone calls trying to find "Kristen".

Phone call #1:
Me: Hi, is Kristen available?
Him: You have the wrong number. Do you want Kristen ____?
Me: Yes.
Him: Ok. Her phone number is XXX-XXX-XXXX.
Me: Thanks!

Phone call #2 using the number that I got from phone call #1:

Me: Hi, is Kristen home?
Him: Not right now can I take a message?
Me: Um...first let me make sure I have the right number. Is Kristen's maiden name ____ and is she from Graham, WA?
Him: No.
Me: Oh. Ok. I have the wrong number then. Sorry!

After searching on the internet and finding yet another possible phone number, I call it and get an answering machine. Since I don't feel like leaving the awkward message. I hang up. Moments later, my phone rings:

Me: Hello?
Him: Yeah, you called me.
Me: Oh, I was looking for Kristen _____.
Him: Oh, this is the phone number for John ______ and __________ (some random guy's name).
Me: Oh, I guess I have the wrong number. I'm looking for a Kristen ____ married to a John ___ which is why I thought it was you.
Him: Oh, there are like 5 John _____s living in this area. Good luck.

I hope I don't have to make any more awkward phone calls tonight.

Homeowners Associations

Mr. Bean, String Bean, and I just got home from the annual homeowners association meeting for our condo association. The usual voting for new board members and approving the budget happened. I restrained from asking why us first floor condo owners had to pitch in for paying for new balconies for the second, third and fourth floor condos. But, I think I was the only owner who showed restraint at that meeting.

There were really only two moments of fireworks. Of course, I put my two sense worth in both times since, in my opinion they were both silly. First, a guy got up and spoke about how our building manager is overworked and how great she is. Then the same guy wanted to know why the minutes were not more detailed. He was told that the bylaws (or some official document like that) had it listed in them. Then he insisted that the building manager (who he just said was overworked) find that for him and point it out. I chimed in and said, "Don't we all have copies of the constitution and other association documents in our binders that are required to stay in our units when/if we move out? Why don't you just look it up yourself since our building manager is really busy." Everyone nodded in agreement, especially the building manager. Under his breath, he said, "I can't understand what that stuff says anyway." Interestingly, he used to be a board member.

The other heated moment occurred when I asked how the laundry receipts were going.

First, you should know that our laundry is done on the honor system here. We just pay cash in a locked box for all our laundry needs. We sign in with how many washers and dryers we used. Second, you should know that we have a lot of people who don't bother to either sign in or pay for their laundry. This has been a point of contention for years.

The response was, "Well, same as usual; not everyone is paying. In fact when our contract on the laundry machines is up in two years, we are more than likely going to go to a coin-operated laundry system." This lady immediately got up and started ranting and raving about how she was going to go out and purchase machines and make people pay for laundry when she owns them and how she works hard for her money and she's tired of being the only one to pay. Literally, she was talking over everyone else at the meeting and the poor board members couldn't get a word in edgewise. She demanded the name of the company that our laundry contract was with and all sorts of other nonsense. Every time we thought the discussion was over, she'd yell "You haven't answered my question, yet! Why can't I just go out and purchase laundry machines and run it myself?" I finally jumped in and said, "You can't do that because we are under contract with a company that will not end for two years. When it ends, go to the board and propose running the laundry yourself. Until then, nothing can be done!" After I said that and one of the board members mentioned there was a large penalty for cancelling the contract (and we just raised association fees by 10% so they were not willing to do that), she finally calmed down and the meeting was quickly adjourned.

Geesh. What a way to spend the evening.

Another Year Down!

Congratulations to Amy on the 6 year anniversary of joining the league of motherhood! Her oldest, Walnut is 6 today. Walnut was born during the 4th quarter of the Superbowl (Bucs vs. Raiders where the Buccaneers won 48-21). He is in kindergarten this year.

Happy Birthday, Walnut!

Meet the Parents

Have you seen the Ben Stiller movie, Meet the Parents? The comical things that happen to this poor guy the first time he goes out to see his girlfriend's parents is just amazing. It doesn't help that his future father-in-law is a former CIA agent and definitely knows how to interrogate a guy.

Well, my sister-in-law brought her new boyfriend over to visit tonight. All day yesterday, I was trying to come up with ways to initiate this guy into our family craziness. I was going over all the uncomfortable questions and scenarios that I could come up with in my mind and just never really settled on anything...well, that and I'm not that mean-hearted that I'd actually go through with it anyway.

The bottom line is...we met him. He's normal and not crazy, and really very likable. My sister-in-law thinks very highly of him (as does my father-in-law) so that translates into the very high probability that he is a very good guy that we will learn to love as time goes by.

We'll see what happens! Exciting times!!

Reunited

17 years ago this summer, I was 13 years old and embarking on a new adventure with Teen Missions International for a summer mission trip to the Ukraine. I met my 30-some teammates in Merritt Island, Florida for training before we jetted off to a small church in need of some construction help. We ranged in age from 13 (I was the youngest) to 19 plus our 5 leaders who went along with us.

Just recently, I found one of my teammates. We created a group on Facebook so we could connect all our old teammates and share memories and photos. A few weeks later, another friend found me. Together for 4 hours last night, we jotted down names of everyone we could think of (with the aid of some photos) and started looking for them.

As of this post, we have found about a third of our team. We've already had several people scan and upload photos from the trip and memories are flooding back to us.

Isn't the Lord good to let us reunite with our brothers and sisters this side of heaven?

Pain in the Neck

I was sitting typing an e-mail today and got a horrible pain in my neck and within an hour it was stiff. You know the kind. It hurts to move to the left or the right and you have to move your whole upper torso in order to see things around you.

Well, I was thinking about that saying, "pain in the neck" and gaining new perspective on it as I sit here in pain.

When I say, "you are a pain in the neck!" in frustration, I am now realizing exactly what I am saying: "You are not only causing me physical pain, you are also making it difficult for me to do everyday tasks like pick up my child, glance up at the clock, roll over in bed, or finish a task quickly! Geesh!"

I certainly will think twice before I call someone a pain in the neck again! Now, where did I put the heating pad?

Guys and Dolls

I just got home from a Junior High rendition of "Guys and Dolls".

If you don't know the story here it is briefly: A set of gamblers are setting up a big game. Meanwhile, Sarah is trying to save souls at the local mission. Long story short, the gambler falls for the mission girl and vice versa. Guys do crazy things when there is a girl involved.

The musical in general is entertaining and funny and all the things a musical should be. However, the musical made me uneasy. There is a conflict between Sarah and one of the gamblers, Sky, about him being a "sinner" and her being pious. She eventually falls for him and throws her concerns (and morals?) out the window.

The whole musical somewhat makes a joke out of the Christian faith. There are several jokes at the expense of the evangelists in the play. They are really there for comic relief. The pinnacle of this is when all the gamblers show up at the prayer meeting because Sky "won" their souls in a dice game. They all give fictitious testimonies of their conversion to the Lord.

Now, I can laugh at myself just like anyone else. So, I'm walking away from this musical taking a look at myself and seeing myself in some of the characters. I guess it made me think about my own faith, which probably wasn't the original intent. But if any piece of art causes me to take a harder look at myself, it gets a thumbs up from me...even if I do feel a little uneasy about it!

On my Brief Karate Career

In honor of my cousin Ginger's "promotion" to her orange belt, I thought I would treat you to a story. It is a true story that took place in a land not very far away in a time not too long ago...

I was working with a girl who was working her way through college one course at a time. We got into a discussion about what credits would likely transfer from our local community college to a state university. We settled on PE credits and I agreed to encourage her by signing up to take with her a class of her choosing. I wanted to back down on that promise when I found out she wanted to do karate.

Before I get into the details of the class, let me tell you about my instructor. First off, he was a young, skinny guy that I imagine had a hard time impressing girls in high school because he was probably off in a corner practicing his kicks. He wasn't bad-looking, or even nerdy-looking, just wimpy-looking. He kinda reminded me of one of those socially awkward video game geeks. The obvious difference is the video game geeks are black belts in their virtual world, and this instructor is the kind of guy you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley but you realize that after the first (and likely fatal) punch is already thrown. So, we've established that he's kinda weird, but he's a black belt.

What I didn't expect from this guy was an ego that would rival that of Paris Hilton or Nicole Riche. I can understand wanting the respect of your class, but constantly reminding them that you are the instructor, you have a black belt, and you could kick their you-know-what before they even realized a punch was thrown is a bit much and does not exactly command respect. One day, he stood in front of our class and talked about sparring. For those of you who don't know, sparring is a form of fighting where you get points for hitting your opponent. Think the final showdown from the movie Karate Kid. However, we didn't actually hit one another hard, just making contact to earn the point. After explaining it to us lowly white belts (who were treated much like the untouchable caste of the class), he proceeded to tell the entire class (all levels together) that no one under a brown belt had EVER scored a point while sparring with him. Since he was so experienced and had such cat-like reflexes, he was able to block or dodge every kick or punch thrown at him. We were reminded of this great skill and the greatness of this man by his own testimony again and again.

I can't say I enjoyed karate. I purposely wimped out when our instructor asked us to do push ups on our knuckles. He said it was to flatten them out so when you did things like break wood they'd all be even or something, but I was just planning on getting through the semester, not break wood. Besides, I already had my college degree, so if he wanted to fail me in a lousy 1 credit hour community college course--more power to him!

The highlight of the class was the final one for obvious reasons-I didn't have to return. As I recall, my coworker skipped that class because she knew it involved our first experience of sparring. She was scared to death of trying that. Me? That's about the only part of the class I was ever looking forward to. Well, I was looking forward to it until I learned that the person we'd be sparring against was our egotistical instructor and the audience would be the entire class (white belts, yellow belts, orange belts, green belts, purple belts, and brown belts). After all, the other students could not possibly spar with inexperienced white belts. Their reflexes were not as fast and they were more likely to get hurt since we white belts could not control our punches well.

Of course, our instructor got up and gave us the cat-like reflexes speech and the "don't feel bad if you don't score a point because, after all, no one has ever scored a point on me" speech. After putting the fear of the black belt in us all, he asked for volunteers. One particularly eager kid who clearly had a passion for karate, yet started karate when he was in his 30s, got up and sparred with our instructor first. It wasn't horrible. It wasn't a train wreck. He got hit a couple of times (but not violently at all), and he eventually sat down. Nope. He didn't score a point because...well, you know why.

When our instructor called for another volunteer, I figured I'd volunteer to go second because: I wanted to get it over with, and if I made a complete fool of myself I had the hope that no one would remember because I'd gone early, and hopefully someone else would make a bigger flub.

Pause.

Please note sitting there in the back of the gym was my (at the time) fiance, Mr. Bean. He came to watch me do this karate thing that he'd heard so much about.

Un-pause.

So, I get up and sparring begins. I make a halfhearted effort with no real results. Our instructor stops the sparring and encourages me (like he did my classmate) to try a combination of kicks and punches. Then, he made some under his breath snarky comment about it not really doing any good anyway because no one had ever scored a point on him or something to that effect. You can imagine I'm sure.

You know how in the Care Bears cartoons the Care Bears would all get together and say "Care Bears, stare!" and their powers combine and then would transform the situation they were in to make a happy ending? I kinda felt like that. Or maybe like the light of heaven shone down through that gym ceiling and a revelation fell on me. Or maybe it was more of a "I'm gonna knock this guy down a rung if it is the last thing I do!" Whatever it was, it overtook me. I threw a combo. Nothing. I threw another combo. Nothing. Third try: a charm! I punched my instructor with my left hand upside the right temple. Point for the white belt.

Wait! What's that Mr. Instructor? No one under the rank of brown belt has ever scored a point on you when sparring? What was that? I can't hear you!

Oohs, aahs, and spontaneous applause erupted in the gym and the instructor just looked at me dumbfounded. Knowing my work there was done, I bowed out of respect and said, "Am I dismissed?" to which he nodded while picking his jaw up off the floor.

Our heroine exited from the gym with her adoring fan (aka fiance) at her side, head held high and never to adorn a karate outfit again except at the occasional Halloween party. And Mr. Bean? He knew he'd picked the right woman to be at his side should he ever meet a scary guy in a dark alley.

Hiiii-ya!