Weirdest places ever slept, part 4, God's house

As part of our day job related fund raising, we travel to all kinds of places and hotels. Sometimes when it is in our nonprofit world, we stay with friends or the locals offer to put us up. This is great as it saves money as we raise it. Several churches have had space to host us and we've always been grateful, but it's also some of the strangest sleeping quarters I've experienced.

I don't know if any of you have ever been in a huge building alone as a kid or an adult. As a kid I remember we'd play hide and seek in the basement of the church I grew up in while the adults ate finger food and drank punch upstairs somewhere. It always seemed like you'd get spooked and run like you'd never run in your life down a dark hallway. Also my dad used to rent "computer time"  in a big office building in downtown KC. I'd be the only person on the 10th floor poking in people's desks and such. Then I'd go even further down to the bathroom and get spooked and run like mad back to the computer room that was completely sealed and sound proof. My dad wouldn't have heard me yelling or running or anything the way it was set up. It was great fun.  I give you this as way as background to the places with dark hallways that might effect odd places I slept as an adult.

The first time we slept in a guest room inside a church it was in a smaller community, but the church could probably seat a couple hundred people. We had a compulsion to walk around and see everything just so we knew where we were at and how the land lay. My significant other sneaked into the sanctuary and tapped on the cymbals while I was in another part of the church getting a drink or something and tried to say it wasn't him. The church folks had thoughtfully put a lock on the door of the room.

One nice thing about a lock is that you are in a huge building alone and it's nice not to feel vulnerable. Two is that folks arrive at all kinds of early hours for church services and you'd like to not introduce yourself in your skivvies.

So another time, another religious institution, the guest room was actually a large lounge with six sofas that made into beds. So you just picked one and opened up. While it was a big space (besides being in a big building) it very distinctly wasn't a single bedroom. We dressed in the attached bathroom.

Well, putting it mildly I'm not an early riser. The early risers in this rural farm community were getting coffee going behind a folding curtain that attached to our room. My significant other got in the shower and gave me a moment to awake. I started worrying this big room was a Sunday School area and I should get moving. I traded the sofa room for the bathroom only to hear pounding on the door of our area. I was about to turn on the shower when my man opened the door and said that I needed to hurry they were going to have to turn off the water.  The snow storm had frozen and broken pipes which were filling the heating system with water. Uhm, okay, no pressure.

When I came out to join in the donuts and early morning church rituals, you could hear the water pounding in the heating vents like tribal drums. Really weird sound.

Okay, so another room another state. This time attached to the men's bathroom as this was the only bathroom that had a shower. My spouse taught me that it is inappropriate to balance one's makeup bag on the handle of a urinal, but honestly you just work with whatever space you have and there wasn't any. We stayed in this arrangement for eight weeks. It was in a urban spill from a very large city. The kitchen was in the basement which meant walking through the sanctuary (in the dark) and down some stairs and hallways to the kitchen for hot water or microwaves etc. So I had to psych myself up for the journey (see the paragraph of childhood basement running above!).

It was fine and we didn't mind. These are just the little challenges you don't think of unless you stay a place as unusual as the back of thousands of square feet of public use space. After a few days, someone from the pastoral family mentioned that we needed to double check the side door by the sanctuary (not the one we used in the back dark parking lot!) because it didn't always latch and sometimes homeless people came inside to get warm. No big deal but it was best to check. Yeah. Note to self check the doors and the dark hallways on the way to the far away kitchen.

So then my significant one had to leave for another meeting and I got to stay there completely alone for two weeks. It was fine. Really. So maybe yes, I ran a couple times thru dark hallways, but I was grateful for somewhere to stay. It probably helped the intensity of my prayers!

Weirdest Place Ever Slept ,Part 1, Animal Heads

We aren't always in control of where we stay when we are on a nonprofit fund raising mission which makes for fascinating travel. We drive to an address in a small town or a city and see what we find. We don't mind this at all and are quite grateful for a free bed.

So in one small town in a place far, far away from most places you've heard of and won't be named so as not to hurt feelings, we spent an evening sharing our "work" vision. The people hosting us said over pizza, "The local motel is horrible we wouldn't put our worst enemies there, so we put you in the local bed and breakfast."

At this point, my mind said, oh how wonderful. This will be so nice. It's been ages since we were at a b and b. Must be something quaint in a little town like this. Their next sentence stopped me in my tracks so to speak.

"It used to be the old folks home."

Uh, huh. So off we went three or four blocks in this tiny place to the old folks come cum bed and breakfast. We were giggling all the way. So do you check in but you can never leave?

Turns out bed and breakfast was more of a literal term than a descriptive one. It had become a hunting lodge of sorts as this part of the countryside draws hunters. So the public eating area and living room were covered in the heads of various taxidermy-ified animals.

The "living room" had quite a selection of recliners and just a couple side table lamps. Giving it a dimly lit shadowy atmosphere. A television flickered blue in the corner. Two elderly gentlemen  lurked in the recliners in the darkness, along with a lot of animal heads. They didn't look at us or acknowledge our entry.

I whispered, "Do you suppose they were 'grandfathered in'? The last residents?"
My significant other in classic form said, "I don't see anyone."

So a lady, not in uniform, gave us keys and sent us off. The living-eating room space remodel hadn't made it to the rest of the place. It still had railings on the walls so you could make it to your room and shiny squeeky clean linoleum floors. Thankfully no strange odors.

The hospital bed had been replaced by a double bed with quilts and flower sheets. Other than that it was the original room, but spotlessly clean. It had it's own private bath which was terrific and needed. Complete with loads of support bars and seats all over so you wouldn't fall. Not sure I've ever had such a safe shower.

Someone asked later,  Weren't you creeped out? Did you think of ghosts?

We really didn't but we laughed and thought up a lot of funny stories to go with our surroundings. It's one of those moments where you know it's going to be a good story even as you're experiencing it!

Message me and I'll see if I can find if it's still in business if you want to go have the experience!  Have you ever stayed anywhere unusual?

Odd sleeping arrangements will be a series in the blog for a bit. Enjoy.

Weirdest Places Ever Slept - Part 2

We've traveled for both personal and business reasons, profit and nonprofit. I'd say the majority more in the nonprofit lifestyle!

Haunted is easy, right? TV shows and spooks everywhere. We always joke about if Europe had those haunted Ghost shows they'd just walk down any random street with a camera and say ooo, I feel a cold spot since there've been people living, killing and dying in these towns for a long time.

In Hannibal, Missouri, the home of Mark Twain, we went for a Bed and Breakfast weekend. I think I got this free/discount as part of buying five boxes of Stash Tea. We get to this place and this little gruff man informs us he's watching it for the real owners. He's rough around the edges and maybe a little further.

He shows us around the victorian place, very cute, done nicely. Informs us we'll be staying in the seven bedroom mansion alone tonight since he doesn't live in, but he'll be back to make us pancakes in the morning. Turns out he's a former cop and is doing someone a favor.

On the way out, he says you're not afraid of ghosts, right? And he shows us a couple photos with fuzzy blobs in the stair well.  We look on in contemplation as we were supposed to do and he said a few folks had encountered it, but we'd be fine.

You gotta know, as a mystery writer, and a guy that likes to watch ghost shows on TV, we were absolutely thrilled. In a haunted Victorian Mansion of our own for the evening! And of course we acted like we were 12. We climbed all over the house looking at everything. In a dark corner where we couldn't find a light switch on the top floor was a door to the attic. Locked!!! Creepy, that's where they keep the ghost, I guess.

We settled down in the library (yes!) watched PBS mystery. Then my significant other much to my delight played Toccata and Fugue in D Minor on a small organ in the parlor(!) on a foot pump organ that of course had a delightfully rough sounds. My friend refers to this song as "Scary Frights" when she wants my man to play it. (Here's a posh version of it if you are curious.)

We slept well despite all the talk of ghosts, but my guy did say he heard things in the night -- maybe for my benefit since I slept like the dead and didn't notice. We explored Hannibal which besides having the haunts of Tom Sawyer-Huck Finn and the real life Twain is a delightful town with it's own oddities and delights to explore and find. You gotta go to the cave too if you go -- I don't remember the story exactly but it's got one of those someone got stuck in here spooky ones.

Pro or anti Daylight Savings Time?

Daylight savings sneaked up on me this last weekend here in Spain. Fortunately I had slept late, a prereq for a nice weekend morning, and my Sunday am appointment was not missed either. I noticed that despite having an extra hour, I was still running late in the end. Seems like you go into leisure mode when you think you have an extra hour!

Another shock came today when I went to the store after work and came out of the store to pitch black skies of night. How does that surprise you every single year?

The pro in this case was waking up to light. I really, really don't like to get up in the dark, so I do not mind at all the next few weeks that will give me a day lit morning.

I will miss the longer evenings though. For some reason, even though the temperature didn't change, going for a long walk in the dark doesn't have the same appeal as a sunset stroll. In the heat of summer, however, we had to wait until 10 pm for the streets to cool down enough for a walk. Us and the rest of our Spanish village! Now we are all scurrying to the park at 5 or 6 pm. Our internal meters all seek the same bit of light. Or it could be I'm getting to be more Spanish in my life style? They seem to do things in groups, rarely are people doing things solitaire.

 With Europe changing a week before the USA, I get messed up in my internal calculation of what time it is for my people back home. Then there's my grandpa in Arizona which doesn't participate in daylight savings so while his time doesn't change, I have to try to remember is this the season where he's 8 or 9 hours different from me?

I know a few people who are adamantly anti-time changing antics on the clock. Just leave it alone, they say. They don't care about long days in the summer.

I also have heard the other argument that they should just leave it switched so that the longer light is in the evenings, don't switch back and forth.

Extra light? No change? Which one are you?

Perceptions of time part 1

I have recognized that I and many of my fellow Norte Americanos are obsessed with the idea of wasting time. Particularly in the US, I think we think about this. Me personally, I have started noticing how many things I view as potentially wasting my time. One that feels huge to me is when you have to load software or some random extra computer things. This feels like a huge interruption to what I'm trying to get done. Sometimes what I'm trying to "get done" isn't particularly important, but ask me to upload something on the way to viewing your kid's funny video and you've lost me.

Other things I put aside and don't do instantly because it will "take too long." Now I don't have a magic number for what too long is and I'm often surprised those things can be done more quickly than I realize. A good example of this is when I set the microwave to warm something for 2 minutes. Often  I stand and stare absently out the window for this 2 minutes. While there is nothing wrong with a quiet moment or two of speculation or meditation, occasionally when I'm there with the two minutes ticking on the micro - I'll do a few things around the kitchen. Recently, I washed my two travel mugs by hand and put them away. They lived on the counter for days because I "didn't have time" to clean them. Or maybe I just didn't feel like it, but that's a different blog.

My own perfectionist nature and my own sense of time and it being "wasted" or "stolen" is a challenge I've only recently recognized in my life. I've toyed iwth the idea of timing things. I'm not sure whether to take one day and time every single thing I do (which seems like it would be a pain and waste a lot of time in that one day) or do I take a few weeks and time every kind of event that occurs in a day. This may be something I revisit on and off this year. I feel like if I did this I could prove to myself that a lot of things don't take that long and some of the procrastination isn't really helping.

I read a business organizational book a couple years ago and it recommended when trying to get a desk or email under control, do everything that will only take 2 minutes or less on the spot, right then. Other things that need more attention need to go on an action, call, or project list for an appropriate time. I've tried to do this, but I often start say, responding to an email, and then discover I need to dig into some old emails or find a contact list from a conference, and the envisioned 2 minutes turns into 10 or 15. Or at least that's how it feels. If I timed it, I wonder, would that be true? Or possible is it worse than I imagine? Did it take 30 minutes? So was I wasting my time? Was it important enough to get that much time? (That's probably another blog and another self help book.)

If you were going to time events in your life, which ones would you be most interested to know how much time they took? I think my ipod has a timer, so I thought about using this and documenting a day or  a series of days. Though I sort of imagine "wasting" a lot of time that day putzing around trying to get the timer thing to work. huh.

Foodies, gourmaunds, and wanna-bes

Have you known a foodie? Are you a foodie? Do you disdain the chains for local places? Have you ever driven out of your way because the "fill in the blank" is so good at a particular place? Do you make things you've seen on the food channel?

I think we all have our foodie moments where we like something more from somewhere else, but there are people that are much more serious about this. I don't think it is a flaw at all. In fact, I have a touch of regret that I'm not a more adamant gourmet follower.

I do like things I make sometimes better than something I might get out. That will NEVER stop me from eating out though. You want to stop at Sonic? Okay, sure! It means I  don't have to cook.

I know people that don't order pizza from the standards (Papa Murphys, Ceasars, Pizza Hut, Dominoes). They have that good pizza place where they get it, usually actual Italians are involved.

These are the people you want with you if you want to eat good stuff. Maybe not cheap but it will be good eating. I want to be these people. I do; it's just that ultimately convenience is a stronger pull than my inner gourmand.

Our gourmand friends do not buy prebattered chicken at the grocery store, or frozen entrees. They are ring shoppers. They circle mostly the outside ring of grocery store where things are fresh and have to be assembled to create the perfect meal.

I have often one of these ring shoppers (not lately) but rather than out of pure foodie motives, it's because I'm cheap. But all that making things from scratch takes a long time. It does taste good usually, I have to admit.It can be cheaper depending on the ingredients. I wonder if the foodies always enjoy cooking  or just the results? Is it the yummy food or do they enjoy the journey?

One of my more guilty cooking escapes the last couple years has been....prechopped onions. Excessive I know. Cost ineffective as well. It just jump starts that homemade meal and helps me get off square one. Well, that is, if I'm actually cooking something REAL. See? I have foodie genetics recessed somewhere deep within me that prepared foods (boxed soup? fake potatoes anyone?) don't qualify as REAL. The difference between me and a foodie is I'll eat 'em anyway.

False religiousity

It seems our culture can use everything for spiritual guidance but God as in Jesus.I read some articles lately that talk about pursuing happiness. I noticed a quote from Dante in an article - he wrote that your pleasure will guide you. We speak much of tolerance and equality in our current culture, and it seems we will tolerate everything but any sort of "one true" God definition - especially if it relates to Christianity.

I understand that it is not unreasonable to take solace or be encouraged by other ideas beyond Christianity. Our current day level of learning and information does have a lot to offer,  but those other ideas have become God. We have substitued serving Jesus with feel good speak especially in society at large. People who have not embraced Jesus have embraced a spirituality that has no roots in a tangible belief structure or maybe it is a melange of all belief structures but leaves out Jesus-as-God-who-wants-to-save-us-from-ourselves.  We are turning ourselves into our own resource. The danger is that it removes the everyday mundane from our spirituality. We don't have to apply that vague spirituality to the mundane aspects of life because it is centered around us, ourselves.

Two things recently had such deeply Jesus-God spiritual language that would have been normal and accepted in the culture in which it occurred. One was Martin Luther King Jrs' I have a dream speech. He quoted scripture and used hymns in his speech. No one cried out about separation of church and state and no one said what is he talking about? In True Grit there was a level of spiritual talk that was normal and everyone knew what they were talking about. That didn't mean they all obeyed God or served him but the idea was the divine God was there, they all knew it and no one was redefining who that "God" might be.

We don't culturally know who God is anymore. Do people recognize the spiritual references in everyday speech? No, you can have whatever kind of spirituality you want and that's okay.  We are inventing anything else to take the place of Jesus-God and calling it spirituality.

In the church we are trying to worry about that generic spirituality and appealing to that rather than sticking to the facts of Jesus. I can be guilty of this too. I have worried about relevance to culture when trying to think how to present Jesus, rather than pure honesty.

Here is an article for Christians (Link to article) that is very thought provoking on what living in Jesus really means for ourselves and the church. It isn't always very appealing in a personal benefits way - at least as our culture views it. Ultimately, Jesus saves us rescues us from ourselves and challenges us to live with him in mind first before ourselves. A high bar that is hard, not easy. The challenges are real but I'm glad I've chosen the Jesus-God version of spirituality.

Have Unions jumped the shark?

Just in the last few weeks I've wondered if the days of Unions helping employees have passed. I believe they had a season where they were necessary, but some things occurring lately make me wonder if something else needs to evolve.

We've been closely watching the economic conditions in Spain, anticipating our return. The government is close to or probably past going bankrupt like Greece. They have called for austerity measures and because of that the unions of every type representing mostly people paid by the government, which is most of the people, are staging protests.

Protests that THEIR pay cannot be cut; it's not possible. Of course, the fact of the matter is that the government cannot keep up. They've already raised taxes a few times and lowered the retirement age trying to force more jobs for the 20 percent unemployed. 

I hear of Michigan which was a mecca of union jobs, but it appears they raised the bar so many times on the employers that the employers fled. It's almost as if the unions disregard common sense or the circumstances of the day, and just keep the benefits or pay going higher regardless of whether the industry can sustain it.

In Hollywood, the movie industry has unionized to the point of one person who loads film, one who takes it to the processors, one who shows the daily developed film. You can get in trouble if you do something logical like adjust a light if you are a camera person. Two things are wrong. The jobs have all become contract because no one wants to pay anyone fulltime for this tiny single job that the union allows them to do. It makes people not be able to cover multiple roles at one time - to multitask if you will. The other thing that is wrong is that media is changing. It's smaller; it's more streamlined; it doesn't need actual film anymore. The jobs are not as singular as they were 40 years ago. The union is holding fast to the former days and may lose the race. A team of 7 or 8 nonunion hobbyists in the industry are making up the cutting edge of film in Vietnam and they are being backed financially by new media types. Times they are a-changing.

Is it possible that one can over protect a job so much as to protect yourself out of the business completely?

My reading in 2010

At the end here, I am posting the books I've read this year, so far. It's nine more books than last year and usually a magazine in between each book. I have been pondering why it is more. Is the availability? I think that definitely plays into it. I can run to the library or to the store and grab another book that interests me or something that someone recommended. Also people hand me books that they are done with so the books have been flowing. Quite frankly, it's been delightful. I don't feel as much like I have to save a particular book I'm looking forward for a specific moment or time.

The range of books is also very different for me this year. I think that is partly from people handing me books that they enjoyed. I might not pick them up of my own accord, but when recommended I do give them a try. In the past, I've tried to alternate one fiction book and then a nonfiction. I seem to stall out in nonfiction because it isn't as compelling and it doesn't take me out of my circumstances somehow. This year I didn't stick to that schedule at all. Maybe that's why I read more.

I wonder if I simply read more because my time frame in life is very different than it was in Spain. I don't really feel I had more time to read, but perhaps I gave it more time since I had more books? The fund raising process we are living in is more stressful than going to the office in Spain, and I do tend to seek out comfort and escape in fiction. So maybe it's just the mental health factor that has led me to read more this year. I am getting an electronic reader to take back to Spain with me, so we will see next year how that effects my reading habits. I will let you know.

Anyways....here's the list. Why do you read? What do you read?

The last camel died at noon, Elizabeth Peters, mystery
I'll be off then, Hape Kerkling, travelogue, spiritual
Wish You Well, David Baldacci, drama
The Places In Between, Rory Stewart, travelogue Afghanistan
State of Fear, Michael Crichton, suspense
The Literary and Potato Peel Pie Literary Society, Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows, drama
Clubbed to Death, Elaine Viets, mystery
A Painted House, John Grisham, drama
Fatal Fixer Upper, Jennie Bentley, mystery
27 Tough Questions Pastors Ask, Dick Hardy, nonfiction
The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingslover, drama
In the Moon of the Red Ponies, James Lee Burke (cd, abridged)mystery
The Associate, John Grisham, mystery
Bitter Harvest, Ann Rule, nonfiction True Crime
Rapture in Death, JD Robb, mystery scifi
Nothing to Lose, Lee Child, suspense
Nothing to Fear but Ferrets, Linda O Johnston, mystery
From the Cross to Eternity, Randal Ross (devotional booklet)
Just Take My Heart, Mary HIggins Clark, mystery
The Border Legion, Zane Gray, western book on CD not abridged
Little Bee, Chris Cleave, drama
Dial H for Hitchcock, Susan Kandel, mystery
Unveiling Islam,  an insider's look at mulim life and beliefs, by Ergun Mehmet Caner, Emir Fethi Caner, nonfiction
The Spy wore Red, Aline Countess of Romanenes, nonfiction
City of Silver, Annamaria Alfieri, mystery
Spanish Reflections, Mary Lee Settle, travelogue
The Spy went Dancing, Aline Countess of Romanenes, nonfiction
Soul Survivor, how my faith survived the church, Phllip Yancey, nonfiction
Magdalene, by Angela Hunt, historical fiction
Shakedown, Joel Goldman (kc mystery)
Vineyard Enigma, Philip Craig, mystery
Rough Weather, Robert B Parker, mystery
Dipped, stripped, and dead, Elise Hyatt, mystery
Hide, Lisa Gardner (Boston suspense)
Santa Cruise, Mary Higgins Clark, Carol Higgins Clark, mystery
Resilience, Nathan and Beth Davis, nonfiction
The First One is Free, JB Purdy (guy we met in AZ), fiction
A Holiday Yarn, Sally Goldenbaum, mystery
Telling Yourself the Truth, (started not finished yet) Backus & Chapian, nonfiction

Battle ship vs cruise ship

I heard someone use the phrase this year about the church universal - do you treat it as a cruise ship or a battle ship? Are you a visitor who wants to be entertained and catered to? Or do you see us in a battle together and we all have a role to fulfill to survive?

After circulating in a variety of churches all over the country throughout 2010, we've made some interesting speculations. We had a sense and were told by many that the church had changed during our almost 5 year absence. That was definitely true. We also talk to pastors all over who are searching right now. It's like something is off keel but no one is quite sure what.

One observation we feel is confirmed by pastors is that the church in general has become even more of a spectator event than it was before we left. I'd always heard the statistic that it is 20 percent, or pick a number but a small one, of church goers that do the work (teach, clean, nursery etc). It seems there is much more of a sense of: what can you (the church) do for me?

In one sense, church does do something for us. Hopefully, we learn more and are fed more about God and grow closer to him. The church needs to be directing the traffic in our lives toward more of Christ and not less. But in the same measure while works do not save us or get us into heaven, I wonder if we are participants or merely spectators.

God does not require any sort of list of fulfillments to accept us or validate our Christianity. I'm thinking of this more from the angle of a community of Christ perspective. We are called to be the "body of Christ" that is what the church is. We all have different roles and abilities and we use them uniquely to help propel ourselves and others toward Christ and introduce Christ to those who don't know him. At least in theory.

So is our cultures' new slow leaning toward entertainment driven lives harming our perspective of the church? Or harming the way church functions?  If the staff members of the church, use all their energy just barely keeping the normal functionality going, when will they be able to dream to take the church deeper, or expand the church through outreach?

I don't have any answers, nor do I believe my opinions here are definitive. I know I've been guilty of being a spectator from time to time, but I want who I am and how my church is to be drawing people to Christ, not simply entertainment that releases some measure of guilt in my week.

Real vs Fake

Coming out of a restaurant recently, I encountered chocolate mints. Hard candy like peppermints. This is just a waste of calories in my opinion. If I want chocolate flavor, I want chocolate, not hard candy doing it's impression of chocolate.

I love strawberries. That's my favorite fruit. Fruit being the key word. I don't like strawberry candy. That's not the real flavor of strawberries. It's just a sugary impression of something red. I'd really rather just wait for the real fruit to show up again.

I will eat fake things like watermelon or cinnamon Jolly Ranchers, but they don't taste to me like the real thing. They are just candies that I like the flavor.

I bought a cinnamon syrup to flavor steamers. I was thinking cinnamon like the spice I have in my cabinet. This is actually red-hot candy flavored "Cinnamon." It's not that it's bad, it's just not the real flavor. I have cinnamon tea that actually tastes like tea, not like candy cinnamon. So the real flavor does happen from time to time.

Can you think of other fake flavors that aren't, well, real?

Crafts -- good or bad?

I stayed some place recently that had an entire set of animals made out of seashells. Little seashell sculptures if you will. My impression was that these had been around a while. I started thinking about my own fits of craftiness over time. I realized the styles of crafts change, sometimes dramatically. Sometimes I go to a relative's house and see a craft I made, say, 20 years ago. Yes, I was an adult then but it was a different time and those things shouldn't still exist. They should have gone to goodwill heaven long ago.

When I got married, there was a sort of country thing going on in crafts. Lots of duck and bunny based projects. I did t-shirt and sweatshirt painting too. Yes, I did. But it was okay then. So as I look back at things that are now sad or ugly years later, I wonder if there is such a thing as timeless crafts.

I think of knitting and crocheting, hand art that has gone on for centuries. While some things can carry on through time, a lace tablecloth perhaps, some things are scars on the surface of craft-dom. I'm thinking of the knit lady-doll-toilet-paper-covers of the 70s. Now, in the 70s I was delighted by a purse knitted into the base of cut off plastic soap bottle. But I was 7.

Even today when I decide I want to make something and I go look at crochet patterns, I am sometimes horrified. No, I don't want to make a yarn owl, nor a vest that fits no one. It makes me scared that I participate in the art.

I used to be much more crafty-inclined. For some reason, that tendency has been fading the last 6 years or so. Maybe it is a temporary lull. A friend did recently show me how to make felt acorns and I had a spasm and created a whole bowl full. Now I'm making essentially the same thing, only it's holly berries. A small voice in my head is concerned I'm creating something that a few years from now will make me cringe. But in spite of the voice I carry on with the roving wool making the felted berries. Felting is in right now. So it's safe... for now. But everyone who receives one, needs to think about a date to discard it, please.

It seems like many things have had a hey-day. Ducks, cows, bunnies...have had their day. Can you think of any old or new scary crafts?

Shopping legends

I heard an advertisement for a shopping area in KC that opens at midnight Thanksgiving night for shopping. Now that is a weird sale time I could get into. I can do midnight, but 5 am you've lost me there.

The idea of getting up at 3 am to stand in line just doesn't do it for me. I'm not a hard core shopper I guess. I also don't like the idea of fighting for the particular items in question.

I once went to Tuesday Morning (the shop) on their opening day. I had seen a flyer and I wanted a tiffany-style lamp they had advertised and it was on the way to work. I had no idea people lined up to get stuff that first day, and I had no idea they were after the same lamps. People pushed and shoved and ran! At Tuesday Morning in MIssion Kansas on a weekday morning!! I calmly walked down a separate isle found a lamp that was $10 more but the same style and vowed never again. I'm just not a shoving, fighting type shopper. I know it's suppose to be all in the hunt, can't do it.

The odd thing is I do like to go to crowded group events, like the Plaza lighting ceremony in KC with half a million of my closest friends. But at those type of events, I'm just there. I'm not trying to fight anyone in the crowd for a sweater.

Several of us went to London at Christmas back in the mid 90s. I can't remember but I think we arrived the day after Christmas. We decided to go shopping on Oxford street, a major shopping street with big department stores. It was really crowded. Insanely crowded. Not 5 am or anything, just the middle of the afternoon the day after Christmas. They had barricaded the sidewalks so that we couldn't spill over into Oxford Street. We reached a point where no one could walk on the sidewalk. You couldn't get from one store to the next to look around. Finally the police came and moved barricades or something. The next day we say a headline in the newspaper, "Oxford street experiences human gridlock."

So maybe you want to mock me. I don't get up at 5am to fight for deals, but I'll go into a crowd of 100,000 for the heck of it. And just maybe, I'd go to a midnight sale - to watch the crowd!

Traditional Foods says who?

What's on your table for the holidays? Same thing for Christmas and Thanksgiving? Do you cringe if your "traditional" foods aren't there? I overheard someone recently say they just get a turkey breast and do that for Thanksgiving and I thought, "how sad." Then I realized my own food filter ideas were at work.

Traditional Thanksgiving for me is as follows. Turkey, a big whole golden bird. I'm flexible on where the stuffing is at (in or out of the bird) what with health concerns and all. Some people are not flexible on this. But DO note there IS stuffing.  Gotta be mashed potatoes and gravy. I really prefer REAL gravy, it can be supplemented by some broth of course, but not the mix stuff (oh Lord, I sound like my grandpa!).

Rolls, I would say are a traditional Thanksgiving table item. I'm not major on them because at my age I gotta save calories for the important stuff. I'm in charge of bringing rolls this year. Much to my mom's disappointment (though to her credit she didn't say it outloud exactly) I'm not making them from scratch. I don't think it's the time as much as the mental energy right now.

Cranberry sauce, traditional gotta be on the table. I'm not a fan and don't eat it but it's gotta be there. At the Hartman house, it is made from scratch and actually looks appetizing compared ot the can shape stuff which is sort of fascinating. Maybe I'll try some this year.

Vegetable? I don't have a vegetable in my turkey tradition slot in my brain. I know for many this space is filled with the infamous green bean casserole. I suspect I may the only North American who doesn't care for this that much. Love green beans, but the creamy action in there isn't my favorite. I'll eat it, but saute my green beans in a little bacon fat and I'm happy. But I would even be at peace with another vegetable on the table. No tradition for me here.

Salad. Totally optional. Not tradition for me. Black olives are a side item that I expect often but I think that is left over from my childhood more than their actual presence.

Pumpkin pie is a no brainer of course for dessert. I love pecan pie but didn't always have it growing up with Thanksgiving, but I would say those are the two that need to be on the dessert table.

I have a friend who always has homemade noodles with the Turkey traditional dinner. It's not thanksgiving for her without noodles. What are your gotta haves? What is traditional for you?

Evolution of Thanksgiving

I haven't seen what Thanksgiving looks like in the USA for 6 years. So it has been interesting to watch the approach of this magnificent holiday after such a long absence. Keep in mind these are simply personal observations, nothing scientific at all.

One thing I noticed is that Halloween is bigger than it has ever been. I'm not anti-halloween, but I did notice the decorating aspects of it seem to have gotten darker, ghoulier if you will. While that seems unrelated, it is in comparison that I bring it up.

I saw and felt the approach of Halloween in stores, in yards, in the media. Immediately thereafter, I heard Christmas music, saw bell ringers, etc. It was an immediate switch to Christmas themed things, Christmas anticipation. The atmosphere, unspoken, is that we are on to the "holidays" which in theory could include Thanksgiving, but doesn't appear to do so.

I realize Thanksgiving isn't necessarily a major holiday, but it still deserves it's own acknowledgment and space. It is a holiday unique to our country in that we celebrate our existence and survival and have in the past acknowledged that God was involved in that survival. A moment to pause and give thanks for our country's existence, but hopefully also for the year we've managed to survive once again.

I've almost felt a certain cultural pressure to move on to Christmas, decorations, music etc. I've held out with my two pumpkin decorations however, (the rest migrated to Spain with me), and will try my best to cut Thanksgiving some space in the holiday-space time continuum.

Two for the road

Well, many of you have been hanging with me during this odd disconnected journey of blogging in 2010. The update is that I'm behind. Shocking that, I'm sure.

Actually it's not for lack of ideas or things I want to write, it's about internet access and travel. If my math, is right, I can still make it. I'll have to do 2 posts a week rather than one. The trick will be access and probably a bit of perseverance.  I think now I have 3 or 4 ideas that are either started or waiting their turn plus a short story I'd still like to share with you.

I've enjoyed the interaction and feedback on the many random subjects. Writing can be so solitary, it's been fun to have more connections and you are all so kind and interesting in your comments. That keeps me going too. Hang in there as I have to put in 2 a week because of the road time this year. Anyone taking bets on whether I'll make it?

Any topic requests for the mad dash to the end of the year?

When? American Culture shock

I've never been a morning person. That is my first confession. I have a good time if I get up and join along a party going somewhere early on a Saturday (a trip to the lake), but there is usually a soul searching moment before I agree wondering if I really want to or if it is worth it. In Spain, we meet at 8:30am for a trip to the mountains. Still feels early.

In Spain, things usually start later. Our church started at 11:30 (out at 2pm). The church we went to in language school only had evening church at 6pm. No one ever wants to meet for breakfast because they don't do that and there's no where to go eat breakfast. Events in general don't start exactly on time.

On the other hand, they think nothing of meeting at 9 or 10pm for dinner and then going out after that. I did go to hear my brother play in a band recently leaving the house at 9pm and that didn't cross my mind at all as unusual at all.

I was recently at an American event that started at 8:30am. Someone made the comment about starting on time and getting "up and running" in the morning and how satisfying those two things are.

I recognized that my own personality of late rising and the combo of being in Spain where things aren't started on time generally makes me less and less comfortable with strong punctuality and early meetings. It was a very North American moment. On the other hand, I'm a grown up and know when I'm home I need to get with the US system. It's just funny to find yourself outside your cultural norm.

The 5k

Ode to the ones who passed me by, oh so many of you. Thank you four office ladies for keeping the pace in front of me and giving me such interesting conversation to hear. And yes, the answer is we were sore the next day. I think it was the hills.

Lady with the ancient dachsund, how were you able to pass me and disappear into the distance with that geriatric hound?

Oh you runners of the 10k, did you know you do funny things? I suppose all runners do as I am not among your class. There's the girl in the red sport bra top with the one hand that is floppy and keeps a different rhythm from the rest of her steady jog. There was the lady who appeared double my age, yes in a sports bra and matching jogging shorts. Yes, she passed me by and seemed just fine when I saw her at the finish line. An inspiration for sure but I'm still not taking up running.

Lady with the stroller and two walkable age children, was it necessary to keep stopping and passing and stopping and passing?

People I know, where were you in the crowd? I know I'm short, but I should have been able to find you.

Ode to you the ones that pick up the paper cups no longer filled with water that all the runners and walkers fling to the ground at the half way point, and the cute teen volunteers holding signs indicating how far we've gone - thank you for stolid encouragement.

I would do it again, yes indeed. In fact it was bliss to be involved in fund raising that didn't involve yours truly.

Misfits?

On occasion I find myself in a group of strangers for my work with the odd sensation that it is a group of unusual people. They are outside my experience by default as new people, but for some reason there are these groupings where everyone is in eccentric or misfit category. This doesn't bother me and I find these people are more endearing for their eccentricities. And really it's all relative, isn't it? Who gets to judge eccentric or misfit? But you know what I'm saying when you meet these people. I know I've also had the feeling in other circles of being the misfit in the room.

But I had the sudden thought that we are all misfits. None of us can attain a level of perfection or acclimation that will make us acceptable to everyone else on the planet. Much less can we manage ourselves into a state of acceptability to God. In the eternal economy we are all misfits, none of us gets to go across that line of acceptance or goodness based on our own work on our personalities.

What a joy I took in bowing, figuratively, to God  on the same side of the line as the misfits or challenging people (in my limited view). I can't propel myself across the line. It's a freeing idea really. Hopefully it helps me to feel more generous to the people I find different from me recognizing that we all need God's hand to reach across the line and erase the selfishness of myself.

Hotels and motels

What adventures the itineration life has to offer. We travel a lot for our fund raising work and usually the churches we visit arrange for us to have somewhere to pay. We are so grateful not to have to pay for accomodations each weekend. This helps our cash build up more quickly for our work.

Most of the time we are at a standard motel. A brand name place along the highway - nearly always these are clean and unremarkable. We did get put up in a higher end chain that had nice sheets and a jaccuzi tub. Memorable.

In small towns there are often not chains just local mom and pop motels. Often they compete for the little churches' patronage and the church will ask if it's okay. This is awkward since you don't really know what the competition is and you don't want to be ungrateful for a free room.

A whole series of towns have motels that cater to hunters to stay in business. So we've stayed in several that had hunting motifs and one mobile home converted to hunters quarters. Some places even have notes about, Please don't use the towels for cleaning off mud, or Don't clean animals in the room.It's a world I would never have known.

Recently we stayed at a hunting lodge/b and b, that had started it's life as a nursing home. This was the best place in town according to our hosts and I believed them. It was still looking like a nursing home in the halls, but the room was clean, comfy and practical. It made for good of joking around between Kerry and I and it was an experience I wouldn't trade. Elk heads, deer antlers, biscuits and gravy, shower and hall railings, and all.

We stayed in a place we referred to as the "Killer" motel. It wasn't that anything was bad necessarily. It was a small town motel and run down a little on the outside, a little dark. Some of the cars lurking in the parking lot seemed somehow sinister. The inside was okay, a little well used, but not gross. Maybe it looked like something we'd seen in a creepy movie. Or maybe it was creepy guy at the check-in.

I chose for myself a Super 8 in Florida near family. The new coat of paint on closer inspection covered very little of the age of the place. They weren't friendly and the long hairs in the sheets might have been from the maid, but I tried the other bed anyway. What do I expect - I chose the cheapest place.

On our own vacation, we stayed at a 100+year old hotel in an former mining town. We were downstairs in a shop/lobby when the local Ghost tour went through and up the stairs to where the rooms were. Some woman 90 years ago threw acid on another woman and thus the ghostly story came to be.  The building had settled unevenly and our doors had quite an angle on them as did the floor, but no ghosts showed. The ghost hunters were looking for among other things "cold spots" which they think indicate the presence of ghosts. Our air conditioner wasn't working and I told Kerry, if I found a cold spot I was going to roll around on it so I could cool down. He thought maybe if it was a ghost, the ghost would be grossed out by the sweaty girl rolling around and leave.