The Emperor's Expectorant

Some people are visionaries. They are able to see things the way they hope and dream for them to become. They are the ones that are goal setters and star reachers. “To dream the impossible dream….”

Some people are idealists. They see things from an absolute perfection perspective. They are the ones that know all the rules and proper procedures and are usually pretty good instructors in such methods. “If you do it this exactly like this, then this will be the positive result….”

While both types are quite admirable, I am not either one. I may have attempted to be them a time or two, but I have a hard time seeing anything other than stark reality. “The Emperor is not wearing any clothes…”

Yes, I have hopes and dreams and a few ideals, but the reality I see far outshines anything else. Funny thing, though. With hindsight sometimes it becomes obvious that the realist in me had a clearer picture of the future that my future-minded friends. Often, if you take a good look at the way things really, truly are, it is not difficult to see where they are going.

In looking ahead and trying to face the future, there has been one word that always gets thrown at me. It’s happened all of my life. I’ve written about it before because, well, it just keeps coming up. (Here’s what I wrote about the last time I got the reminder.)

The word: EXPECTATION

The realist in me has eliminated the need for a lot of expectations. Again, I do have hopes and dreams. I just don’t tie my entire future to them and I can still find peace and satisfaction even if they never come to fruition. When and if they ever become a reality, then I’m all the more blessed and thankful. Mostly I’ve learned not to have great expectations for other people. Especially those close to me. It makes me love them all the more when they actually do something that I hoped they would do, but didn’t bank my happiness on it.

What I’m dealing with right now is, however, other people’s expectations; those other people being the visionaries and idealists living in my world. They have such great expectations of me.

I want to tell those people a few things….

First of all, thank you. Thank you for your vote of confidence. Thank you for thinking that I can be better than I am. Thank you for thinking that I am capable and talented enough to achieve all that you envision. Thank you for setting your standards high.

Secondly, I’m sorry. I have failed you. I am sorry that I have let you down. I have tried, but I have not been able to live up to your expectations. Your absolute need to see me accomplish what you’ve prioritized is only filling your life with strife and disappointment. The anger that you have over what you see as my failure is killing you, not me.

You set those priorities, not me.

Yes, I have failed. But my failure is in trying to please you and not my Creator.

Yes, I am at fault. I’ve stepped over the fault line several times and have accumulated a great big pile of rubble all on my own, even without your expectations. I have more guilt that I can carry.

But my faults are not your fault. They have nothing to do with you.

As much as I might want to be, I am not responsible for your expectations. Only you can control that.

I hope that you will keep reaching for the stars and showing others the proper procedures because you will be an inspiration to someone else along the way.

But please, release me. Let me go.

You will be the one that ends up with the true freedom.

Of course, I have no expectations about what you’ll do.

I’ll just wait to be surprised and blessed by even more than I could have hoped for.

Amazing Grace will always be my song of praise.
For it was grace, that brought me liberty,
I do not know, just why He came to love me so.
He looked beyond my faults and saw my need.

I shall forever lift mine eyes to Calvary,
To view the cross, where Jesus died for me
How marvelous, His grace that caught my falling soul
He Looked beyond my faults and saw my
need.
-Dottie Rambo

They even did more than we had hoped, for their first action was to give themselves to the Lord and to us, just as God wanted them to do. 2 Corinthians 8:5

The Neighborhood Watch

Again. I’ve written a thousand paragraphs that never get posted on this blog. There are a thousand reasons why they never get posted. Mostly I write things and then think, oh my goodness, I can’t let anybody else read that! I’m prone to embarrass myself when I open my mouth and then commit my words to paper, but usually it feels so good to get it out. Basically, this is just my version of inexpensive therapy.

However.

The past couple of days I’ve been thinking about one unpublished post that’s been saved on my flash drive for a while. Not sure why it has been on my mind. Actually, it’s not what I wrote that has been on my mind; it’s the event that inspired me to write it down in the first place.

Here’s the original post I wrote:

This past Sunday afternoon we had a special choir rehearsal at church. Once it was over, I had another hour and half before Scott would be done with his other rehearsals.

Ahhh, a little bit of ME time.

I went home, poured myself a glass of iced Coke Zero, grabbed my book, and made my way to the rocking chair on the front porch. The weather was sunny and breezy, but not hot. It was quiet and peaceful. If I hadn’t wanted to finish my book so much, I would have just closed my eyes and enjoyed a long overdue Sunday afternoon nap. It was just a perfect outdoor kind of day.

I had not turned too many pages in the book I was reading when I began to hear someone talking. And then I heard a rake scraping across the ground in slow strokes. The continuous talking and raking was a little distracting, so I looked around to find the source.

It was coming from across the street and two houses down. That house on the corner lot has been empty a good bit of the last few years. Several years ago, its long time residents moved to an assisted living facility. Since then it has been occupied off and on by several different people who I believe must be renters. To my knowledge, no one is living in the house now that I am aware of.

A woman was outside raking up the oak leaves (the ones from the trees that shed their leaves in the spring when the new growth comes in. It’s awful. We rake year-round in our neighborhood!). She obviously had a blue tooth device in her ear because she was also chatting away with someone else that I could not see or hear. She kept the rhythm of her rake going as she talked. I couldn’t hear everything she was saying, just a few words every now and then. After a few minutes, I did hear her say she had another call coming in, one she had been expecting, and she needed to take it.

She ended that first conversation and picked up the second one. She stopped her raking and leaned on the rake as if it were some kind of staff. The volume of her voice went up several decibels and I could hear her clearly. She said, “I just want to pray for you right now.”

And she did. Out loud. Over the phone.

As she prayed her voice got louder. The hand that wasn’t holding the rake lifted high over her head.

I gathered from her prayers that the man she was praying with/for had a wife in the hospital and the prognosis did not look good.

She prayed for a miracle.

She prayed for God to make a way where there seemed to be no way.

She prayed for her brother to have the strength to let his wife go if it came to that.

She quoted several scriptures claiming the promises in them.

She prayed on and on. She prayed loud and hard and long. She was oblivious to anything else around her as she talked to God. Cars drove by. Kids on bicycles rode by. She had no idea I was sitting on my porch within earshot and eyesight of her taking in the whole thing.

After a while, I was raising my hand too. I couldn’t help myself. She was praising God so strongly that not only did the Spirit come down and cover her, it spread all the way over to my front porch and covered everything in between like hot lava.

After 20 minutes or so I could tell she was winding down and about to end the prayer and the call. I stepped inside my front door to put down my drink and book. By the time I turned around and went back outside, she was gone.

I wanted to go other there and speak to her and tell her thank you. Where we live we hear a lot of gunshots and sirens on a regular basis; not a lot of prayer in the streets. I wanted to tell her how unusual but refreshingly wonderful it was to hear someone acknowledging God boldly and without apprehension in my neighborhood, on the street where I live.

It was something that had nothing to do with me, but just because of my close proximity I got a residual blessing. I wasn’t expecting it. The original intention of the prayer was not for me, but the blessing was mine for sure.

Praise Him out loud. You never know where the blessings will fall.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So that was the original post. I’m not sure why I never clicked the publish button. I guess I kind of felt like it was unfinished. Like there was more to the story or something. I suppose it could be that I never got to speak to her and that I still wanted to meet her and tell her thank you.

I went back to my flash drive earlier today to retrieve that post and realized it was written on April 15. Today is June 17. It’s been 2 months. I have not seen her, nor anyone else, at that house since that day. No one.

Does anyone else think that’s a little odd?

Maybe that whole thing was intended for me after all. It is a rare occasion that I am home alone. If I am, I’m usually busy inside trying to get something done, like cook dinner or finish up the laundry, before my husband gets home. Not this day. God knew I would be home alone that afternoon, sitting on my front porch purposely taking a sidebar from a busy Sunday. He also knew I had an unrecognized need for a sighting of His Spirit in our world. In my world. On the street where I live.

He came. Just for me.

All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God. 2 Corinthians 4:15

Sunglasses and a Savior

I think I’m a little late with the spring fever. I’m always the last one to fall into the latest trends.

(I heard somewhere that oversized sunglasses are in? Is that true? I'm just not sure I can go there yet.)

I think it is spring fever because I seem to have lost my motivation for anything. ANYTHING.

So, I’m making a list. Maybe if I document at least the passing thoughts through my brain, then maybe I can then check some of it off and feel like I’ve accomplished something.

My list is of things that have been on my mind that are truly post-worthy, but I haven’t been able to finish one single post. I’ve started several hundred of them. “Started” is the key word. Apparently “finish” has dropped out of my vocabulary lately. Along with the words “diet” and “exercise”. Oh, and “work.”

My list is a reminder to me that if I ever do get back to my regular posting and don’t have anything to talk about, well, here’s a place to start.

But who am I kidding? By the time I get back around to anything I’ve started and not finished, the beginning of a hundred other things will have taken their place.

And so it goes.

My list of totally unrelated things to which I should have dedicated entire individual blog posts:

1. So, I have a new car. It was truly an ordeal. It took about a month to actually get it to my driveway. I haven’t quite found the balance between the joy of a brand new car and the sickness of car payments. Does anybody ever feel like they got a good deal on a car? Really? I mean, people who sell cars do it all day every day. I buy a car once every five or six years, if that. How can I win with those odds? Anyway, we simply HAD to buy a new car because I couldn’t keep buying new sunglasses every week. It seems on two separate occasions with two different pairs of sunglasses, I left them in cars we test drove. So, two lucky new car owners got a free pair with their new car purchase. Now that’s a deal.

2. One day when I’ve lost all my inhibitions I’m going to write a book about all things your minister will never tell you. There are lots of sub-topics under this one, but lately I’ve been thinking about weddings. ONE: never, ever schedule a church wedding in December. Yes, the holiday decorations make lovely pictures, but the sanctuary is already booked every Saturday in December for all the extra choir rehearsals and programs. If you want the minister to focus solely on your special day, do it during a season when nothing else is going on. June is good. TWO: You pay the band for making music at the reception, why not pay the guy who sings the sweet love song during the ceremony? Unless, of course, the guy singing the sweet love song is the groom, then paying him would be weird. THREE: Pick up after yourselves. Or at least ask your mom and dad do it for you after you’ve gone on your way to honeymoon paradise. For the rest of us, coming to church on Sunday after a Saturday night wedding and finding dress hangers, empty panty hose packages, pins, flower petals, and cans of hairspray sitting in your Sunday School class seat or in your choir chair is a little unnerving sometimes because it leads the mind to think of people changing clothes (and thus, in their underwear) right here in the very place I’m trying to, well, not think of people in their underwear.

3. What on earth have I have I got to complain about? I have a friend my age that’s been fighting cancer for several years and the battle is getting harder every day now. I have another friend my age that fought a seizure demon and had several years of victory, only to have it seize her again. I have a friend I went to college with whose wife has been on a respirator. These are people in their 40’s. I have younger cousin whose Air Force soldier husband was just sent to Iraq for six months. I can’t even keep track of how many times he’s already been over there. She’s home with her 2 girls.

Did anybody see the Life Today program a few weeks ago where Beth Moore was talking about being in a doctor’s office waiting room anticipating an appointment where she would get some test results? One of her daughters was with her and passed the time by reading all the medical brochures in the waiting room. You know, the ones that inform you of all the different kinds of cancer and diseases. Her words were, “He knows it’s scary to be us.”

Indeed, He does.

Stress over things like losing my sunglasses to making car payments.

Frustrations of being married to a minister.

People all around me who have a special need for comfort and care and healing.

God knows it’s scary to face all those things. And He doesn’t want us to face them alone.

All praise to the God and Father of our Master, Jesus the Messiah! Father of all mercy! God of all healing counsel! He comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, he brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us. We have plenty of hard times that come from following the Messiah, but no more so than the good times of his healing comfort—we get a full measure of that, too. 2 Corinthians 1:3-5 The Message

I'm not a total wreck thanks to Mom

Scott and I have recently been dealing with some vehicle issues. About 3 weeks ago, a weird set of circumstances one particular day had us all out of sorts and the culmination of the day was a car wreck. No one was hurt. The other car was fine. Our 15-year old paid-in-full and still nice car, however, was considered a total loss by the insurance company. So, we’ve had the car shopping demon hanging over our heads for several days now as we wait for a check from the insurance company.

I wasn’t in the car when it happened. Scott was by himself. I have been in my share of bump-ups, however.

Several years ago Scott and I were headed south on I-95 one New Year’s Day. Traffic was bumper to bumper with all the college bowl game traffic. It was stop and go traffic. Some stopped, we didn’t. No one was hurt, but the car had to be towed. It was an I-told-you-so opportunity about following too close, but I never said it. Scott felt guilty enough without it.

Longer ago than that, Scott was driving me back to work after a midday appointment we had together. Another car ran a red light and smashed into the driver’s side of our car. Scott was bruised but OK. At the scene, I tried to be a nice person and offer the offending driver use of Scott’s cell phone. When the cops showed up, she denied running the red light. I wasn’t hurt, but I was angry. Our car was totaled.

With the money from my first job out of college I bought a red Ford Mustang. I was driving through a parking lot at a slow speed when a younger-than-I student backed out of a parking space with the gas pedal all the way to the floor. She smashed the passenger side of my cute little car. I wasn’t hurt, but it did make me sick.

My most memorable wreck happened when I was a preschooler. My Aunt Alma was driving. Technically she is a cousin, not an Aunt, but she was the grandmotherly type and for all practical purposes my nanny until I finished the 3rd grade. Calling her “Aunt” just felt more right because she seemed closer than a cousin.

I was riding in the front seat on the passenger side of her sedan. Aunt Alma’s adult daughter Rosalou was sitting in the back seat holding her own newborn infant in her arms. This was before the days of child safety seats and seat belt laws.

It was a sunny day in Florida, but it was cold. I was wearing my favorite red coat. I had my head turned, looking out the passenger window. I was barely tall enough to see out of it.

A drunk driver coming from the opposite direction swerved over into our lane and crashed into us head on. I remember hearing tires screech and some other loud noise. I can still feel my head bouncing back and forth several times off of the window I’d been peering out of. Then I remember a crowd of people and a lot of yelling.

The wreck happened near an intersection of a four land road. On one of the corners of that intersection was a gas station. It was long enough ago that it was still a full service gas station; one where they actually worked on cars. Somebody from that station handed me a greasy red rag filled with ice and told me to hold it on my right eye and not let go. The gasoline smell of the greasy red rag almost took my breath away. Still today, every time I smell gasoline I think of that greasy red ice filled rag.

I remember Aunt Alma standing around telling everyone she was OK, but that her glasses had flown off her face with the impact. Could somebody please help her find her glasses? Rosalou seemed to be OK too and her baby, who had had somehow ended up on the floorboard by her feet, seemed unphased.

I don’t remember how I got to the hospital. If I road in an ambulance, I don’t remember it. I do remember that once we got there, there was not a single familiar face anywhere to be seen. Alma had gone to tend to Rosalou and the baby, who was also brought to the hospital for evaluation. My mom and dad were at work; my sisters were both at school. I was surrounded by a bunch of nice but unknown scurrying strangers. They made me lie down on a cold table and then they put my head in a green foam form so that it would be immobile for the x-rays or scans or whatever it was they were going to do to me.

Once they determined I was OK except for the busted up eyebrow and a swollen, black eye, they put me up on a high table or counter out near the reception area. It seemed like the top shelf of a very high cabinet. It might not have actually been that high, but to my 4 year old legs dangling over the edge, the floor seemed like a long way down. Way too far to jump. I sat there for what seemed like a long time not saying anything to anyone; just waiting.

From my perch I could see automatic glass doors which must have been the public entrance to the ER. The bright sunshine was beaming from outside through those doors. They kept swishing open and I could feel the cold air sweeping in. People were going in and out of those doors but because the sun was so bright outside and the lighting was dim inside I saw only dark silhouettes. I couldn’t really see any faces or physical details.

Like the top shelf I was sitting on, I’m sure my 4 year old brain exaggerated the length of that lonely wait too. It felt like forty forevers that I sat there by myself, speechless, in my favorite red coat, with my legs dangling over, still smelling the gasoline scent, waiting on someone to help me down and tell me what to do next.

I eventually saw a familiar shape coming through the bright light of the swishing automatic doors. I didn’t have to see her face. I recognized my mother simply by the shadowed shape of her hair and hips as she ran towards me.

I don’t remember anything else about that day. Mom showed up, scooped me up off that high counter and that was all. It was over. Everything was OK. Nothing that had happened in the previous few hours mattered any more.

That happened 40 years ago. I remember those details more vividly than I remember what I ate for lunch yesterday.

I remember feeling pretty in my favorite red coat.
I remember seeing and squinting at the brightness of the sun.
I remember hearing Alma’s voice as she kept asking for her glasses.
I remember smelling the gasoline rag.

What’s interesting is what I don’t remember. I have absolutely no recollection of pain. None. I know I must have ended up with one heck of a headache, but the only physical feeling I remember is finally having my mother’s arms around me.

There have been other kinds of wrecks in my life, not having anything to do with cars or roadways. A good many of those were my own fault. Even when it was my own fault, my mother never said so. Even if we were living miles apart, I somehow still knew her arms were around me.

Mom has had a rough time lately. The shatters and smashes she’s fallen into are merely the results of living on this earth 80 years. She is brave. She is strong. She is full of grace.

Mom, I don’t know if my hugs will ever mean to you what yours mean to me. I can’t be with you on Mother’s Day, but I want you to know my arms are stretched as far as they can be reaching for you.

I love you.

He will feed his flock like a shepherd. He will carry the lambs in his arms, holding them close to his heart. He will gently lead the mother sheep with their young. Isaiah 40:11

May I take your order?

There’s an old joke that often comes back to me when I find myself in this kind of situation...

This old guy goes to the fast food drive-thru for lunch. The young voice in the speaker asks to take his order. He replies, “I have a $5 bill. Just give me whatever the heck you want me to have.”

He hears back over the speaker, “I’m sorry sir, you will have to tell us what you want. We can’t make that decision for you.”

Again he says, “I have a $5 bill. Just give me whatever the heck you want me to have.”

The response he hears, “I’m sorry sir, we can’t do that.”

So he finally says, “Well, why not? You did yesterday!”

It’s funny because it’s true.

I spend a lot of time in drive-thru queues. Mostly for drinks, not so much for food. Between my Diet Coke habit and Scott’s coffee needs, it’s almost a daily thing.

Besides the fact that I always need to take a sip of my drink before I drive away (heaven forbid they give me regular Coke instead of diet; or sweet tea if I asked for unsweet!), there are some other things that drive me crazy in the drive-thru queue:

I’ve made list.

1. Long trucks with LOUD hemi engines. There was one behind me in the line today and both I and the speaker box voice had to literally scream at each other over the engine racket. Of course, when the big, loud truck got up to the speaker to place his order, he cut the engine off so he speak without yelling and hear everything the speaker box voice said. Well good for him. What about for the good of the rest of us? Never mind that I am now deaf and have a raspy throat from all the yelling. If you have to turn that thunderous engine off just so you can hear anyway, why not just park the thing and go inside? The rest of us would greatly appreciate it.
   
2. Vehicles pulling anything on a trailer hitch. There is barely room for all the oversized SUVs and the big hemi engine trucks anyway. When you add a hitched boat or lawn mower on a trailer, it invariably pushes a car in the back of the line out into the street and blocks traffic. I’ve been the one being honked at out in the street and it isn’t pretty. Again, just the park thing and go inside. You’ll need to take up three or four parking spaces to do that, and most likely a handicapped one at that, but so be it.
   
3. People who place their orders at the speaker box and are told the total amount of their bill, but yet refuse to even think about getting their wallet out until they actually get up to the window where someone is already holding their bag of yummies out of the window. If your drive-thrus are as busy as the ones I visit, then there’s always a car of two in front of you providing ample time to get your money in hand after you place your order and before you actually arrive at the pick-up window. And, hey, what a novel idea that if your money’s in hand and ready to hand over first, then both your hands are free to fill with food. I realize this takes coordination and a bit of organizational skill, but you can do it. I know you can!
   
4. Why do they call it a drive-THRU anyway? You don’t drive THROUGH anything. Maybe we should all start calling it a drive-AROUND. Maybe a drive-BY would be more accurate. Of course, drive-BY has all kinds of other violent connotations, but given the nature of this beast (and no, I’m not talking about myself), a drive-by might be in order.

It’s after two o’clock now which means happy hour at Sonic. Which means half price drinks. Gotta go. It’s drive-by time.

I thought you ought to know about it. Buy it back if you want it—you can make it official in the presence of those sitting here and before the town elders. You have first redeemer rights. If you don't want it, tell me so I'll know where I stand. You're first in line to do this and I'm next after you. Ruth 4:4

Life in Pollen-nesia

I finally drove my car to and through the car wash yesterday. Scott was in the passenger seat and he was yelling at everyone else on the road to watch out for me because I literally could not see through the pollen-covered windshield to navigate the roadway. Good thing the car wash wasn’t that far from my house and there wasn’t much traffic on a Monday afternoon.

Scott’s been my chauffer the last few days so my car has been sitting in the driveway collecting layer after layer of the yellow dust. There seem to be a lot more blooms out all at the same time this year. There was also no cold snap in the middle of it to stunt some of blossoming, which has helped cut some of the pollen production in that past couple of years.

Scott nicknamed our neighborhood Pollen-nesia because everything is coated in the tropical yellow color. I am just now getting over two weeks of feeling puny because my bronchial airways were coated in it as well (Maybe we should call it Pollen-sneezia).

All this yellow dust has been at its thickest right here on the tail end of Holy Week. Holy Week is one of the busiest weeks of the year for us. At least at Christmas we spread out all the activities over a 3 or 4 week period. Holy Week, we try to do it all in the same 3 days Jesus used to save the entire world and we try to do it while we’re coughing and sneezing and wheezing through the pollen. I don’t think we’ll ever measure up, but we certainly do give it our best effort.

We have a Maundy Thursday service at church.

Then we have a Good Friday Service at church.

Then there’s Easter Sunday morning when everybody shows up and expects to see and been seen by God in a big way. Many come to get a year's worth of God all in one worship service. Expectations are high.

Scott also agreed to sing at the local Episcopal church for their Paschal Vigil service on Saturday night. He sang two songs and also chanted, like a monk, some kind of proclamation about Adam and the Israelites and the Passover and Jesus coming again. Basically, the entire Bible.

That’s four days in a row of church services. In Pollen-nesia.

I say it every year, “Jesus didn’t go to church this much.”

And did he suffer with all these allergens?

With all that church and the preparation that goes into all those services, the church staff do not get an official Easter holiday until the Monday after. That’s just the ministry life. I work for local government so I don’t officially get any days off for Easter and/or spring break. I accrue 3 hours of time off for every week that I work, which means I have to work 13 full weeks to get one week off. I am in no way complaining. I do get most national holidays, two days for Thanksgiving, and two days for Christmas off. Because of the city and state that I live in, I even get Confederate Memorial Day off. I think that’s odd and I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it, but if they’re going to give me a day off with pay, I’m going to take it.

So. The Monday after Easter was scheduled to be a holiday for Scott. When I left the office on Good Friday, I told my boss I would see him on Tuesday; I was taking a vacation day on Monday so Scott and I could have a day off together.

We were looking forward to 12:00 Sunday afternoon when we would be “done.” Free. We wanted to get out of Pollen-nesia for a night. Get some rest. Breathe some different air. Maybe I could get to see my parents. Maybe we would get to eat at Sonny’s BBQ. Maybe I’d get to shop at Macy’s.

Alas, the ministry life called again and a funeral was scheduled for the middle of the afternoon Monday, which nixed our travel plans. Scott was set to sing at the funeral, and of course, he knew that’s exactly where he needed and wanted to be at that time.

Make that five days in a row of church services. Still in Pollen-nesia.

Let me say it again. Jesus didn’t go to church that much. And the only time I can think of anyone sneezing in the Bible was the boy that Elisha gave mouth to mouth resuscitation to. I don’t think that had anything to do with blooming flowers.

This was the second time in a month that I’ve made preparations to take a day off from work and then something happened that kept me from doing whatever it was I had planned to do on that day off. Actually, both times we were planning an out of town trip. So, what do I do when I tell the boss I’m taking a day off but then end up otherwise unoccupied? Do I go on in to work anyway and say “Surprise! I love it so much I couldn’t stay away!”

Well, no, of course not. If I find myself with some unexpected time on my hands, I have this vision in my head of a day at home doing nothing but what I want to do, like finish that book I’ve been nursing for a couple of weeks now or update the playlist on my ipod. Sitting on the porch in the rocking chair sounds nice. An afternoon nap sounds good too.

However. I cannot seem to stay at home and have a vacation day all at the same time. Especially in Pollen-nesia.

I find it very difficult to relax when there are a million other things that need to be done and every other day I never seem to have the time to do them because I’m at work all day. From the minute I get out of bed I begin to see things that need to be done around the house. Since the boss is not expecting me at work, I can no longer use “I don’t have time to do that right now” as an excuse. I have to get busy.

I was standing at the ironing board pressing the white shirt Scott was going to wear to the funeral later that day. I was also going to iron all the other non-essential things (like a tablecloth) that had been piling upon the ironing board waiting for me and my spare time. From my vantage point at the ironing board, I can see out of the bedroom window. I’m not usually at home when the mid-morning sun comes through the bedroom window and highlights all the dust on the blinds. This day, however, I was there and saw all that dust and suddenly began to feel like I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t get that Swiffer swiffering fast enough on those blinds.

Then there was the front porch. I moved all my plants from their winter shelter to the summer positions on the edge of the porch. Some still need repotting, but that will have to wait until my next non-vacation day off. I wiped down the outside furniture and swept the porch to clear it of the thick layer of yellow pollen dust. I finished that up and went back inside. A little while later I went back outside and was compelled to go get the broom and sweep again becasue the yellow dust was back again. It just won’t go away.

Dust on my blinds. Dust on my car. Dust on my porch. I can Swiffer it and wipe it and wash it away, but it always seems to come back. It just about gets the best of me when I begin to think about how all this dust has ruined my unexpected "free" day.

In my second attempt at sweeping the front porch and eventually abandoing the futile efforts, I realize that the dust was there first. The pollen was falling long before we ever made a driveway and parked a car in it. Even before that, my ancestors actually were dust. Dust of the earth is what God scooped up and breathed life into to become the very first human being. It was in a garden too, so I'm pretty sure there must have been some pollen mixed in that handfull of dust.

No need to fight any longer to rid my home and life of it. It is my heritage. Next time I get an unexpected day off at home, my cousin Dusty and I will be sitting on the front porch reading a good book. The broom and Swiffer will be collecting dust in the closet.

The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. Genesis 2:7

A lot details about a day in the life of....some sweet tea

Saturday, a week ago I got up earlier than I usually do for a Saturday. I had several things I wanted to accomplish before I hit the road. I did a few things around the house and then had a couple of stops to make before I was finally headed south on I-95 a little after 9 AM.

I was on the way to see my parents. They live three hours south of here in Georgia. This was the third trip I made down there this month. I must say based on my observations of traffic on those combined 18 hours of traveling I-95 that I think they must have closed Canada. The number of license plates from Quebec was far and above any other single state other than the one I was traveling in. Weird, eh?

Almost three weeks ago, my mom fell in the parking lot of Huddle House, a favorite dining place of my mom and dad. The ambulance took her to the hospital from there. She suffered a couple of fractures, lots of bruises, and a great amount of confusion because her head, face, and nose took the brunt of her fall. After a little over two weeks in the hospital, it became clear that she needed more daily help than any of us could give her. Just two days before this recent Saturday trip there, my mother was moved into her new assisted living home. My planned overnight stay at my parents’ house was to delay, just one more day, my dad having to stay at home by himself at night.

About two hours down the road I began to get the sickly feeling that surely I must have forgotten something. I called Scott at home back in South Carolina and asked him if he had put my suitcase in the car for me.

Um. No. Oops. I was going to have to make a WalMart run later.

When I arrived suitcaseless at my dad’s house, he and my sister were sitting at the kitchen table eating a sandwich. I sat down with them and poured myself a glass of iced tea. One thing we can always count on at my parents’ house is two pitchers of tea in the fridge. That’s so when one pitcher is empty, there is still a cold one ready while more tea is made to refill the empty one. We are one ceaseless iced tea drinking family.

After we visited my mom in her new home and the WalMart excursion with my sister, my dad and I went to the Huddle House to eat dinner. It was the first time he’d been back there since Mom fell. He showed me where she fell and told me all about it. The waitress asked about Mom. Several other HH customers asked about Mom too. Dad was very brave. And he must have finally been hungry because he ate shrimp, fried squash, and hash browns. We both drank a lot of iced tea. It was the most I’d seen him eat in a long time.

Back at Dad’s house, I gathered up the new toothbrush and travel size toiletries purchased at WalMart and got myself ready for bed. My dad keeps the heat in his house on HIGH. All the time. Even a cold-natured person like me gets WARM in his house. I did what we all do when we spend the night there. I closed the door the bedroom I was sleeping in. I closed the air vent in the ceiling. I opened up both windows. I tried to sleep. All night long I kept feeling like my throat and nasal passages were drying up and were scratchy and irritated. At first I thought it was just all the dry, hot air. Later I realized it was all the pollen outside coming in through the open windows.

Sunday morning Dad and I listened to his church service on the radio, which is always a treat because one, I don’t get that kind of preaching and singing at home, and two, I get to sit in the recliner instead of an uncomfortable pew. Afterwards, Dad and I went to the Sunday brunch buffet at the Holiday Inn. Just the two of us again.

Dad put a piece of fried chicken, a serving of club steak, and a slice of roast beef on his plate along with everything else. Yes, his appetite is back after all the chemo, radiation, and shingles troubles. The waitress put a pitcher of tea on the table for the two of us. I think Dad had 2 glasses. I drank the rest of the pitcher myself. I ate navy beans and cornbread. Yum, yum, and yum. I’ve never seen navy beans on a public buffet before. It’s just one of those things you usually get at home. Nobody goes “out” to eat navy beans. We had a lot of navy beans at home growing up. Actually, a lot of things about this meal reminded me of when I was younger.

I was one of those people who moved back home after I graduated from college. I lived there 4 years, just my mom and dad and me (6 years if you count my last 2 years in high school). And no, I wasn’t the freeloader kind, not totally anyway. I had a job and made a car payment. I paid for my car insurance, all my health a beauty needs, and a few groceries every now and then. I just needed a place to put my stuff and someplace to refill my iced tea glass. Anyway, during those years, my dad and I did a lot of stuff together that involved food and/or meals. Mostly it was going to get stuff he would cook. Sometimes we would go and get some kind of take out. Anyway, just sitting across from him at the Holiday Inn made me think about all that and smile.

When Dad and I finished up at the Holiday Inn buffet, we came back to the house and I packed up my stuff in a WalMart plastic bag. We went to visit Mom again at her assisted living home, then I got back on the road to home.

I was again surrounded by Quebecians on the 3 hour ride up I-95. My mucus membranes began to compensate for the scratchy throat and nasal passages and soon they were coated with that icky, slimy substance. Congestion, ugh. I finally arrived at home.

Monday morning I went to work but only lasted until about noon, then went home and slept the afternoon away on the couch in between all the sniffling, blowing, and coughing. All day long I craved an iced tea with crushed iced. It was all I wanted. It was the only thing that could bring me comfort, not only for my raw throat, but also for my sentimental soul that had been recently been taken back to the time when my cold, sweet, iced tea dependency was formed in Mom & Dad’s refrigerator.

When Scott got home and was looking for dinner, I convinced him to go to Zaxby’s with me because they have crushed ice and good sweet tea. I ordered the chicken fingers with the hot, hot, buffalo sauce because I thought at least that would be something I might be able to actually taste through my congestion-dulled taste buds. I also got a really big sweet tea with crushed ice. I refilled it once or twice while we were there and then refilled it again before we walked out the door. Ahhhhh.

Oh, I just wanted to get back home, put on my pajamas, sip my sweet tea, suck on the crushed ice, and nurse my congestion. We arrived at home, I gathered up my purse and jumbo cup of tea from the car and headed for the front door. There are two steps up to the porch. Somehow, I missed both of them. Both of my feet went out from under me and I fell flat on the porch. I lost both my shoes and ripped one of my socks so that all five toes where protruding out. Then, almost as if in slow motion, I saw my jumbo cup of crushed ice and sweet tea leave my hand and bounce on the concrete, busting out the bottom of the cup and spilling all that precious comfort all over the porch.

I just sat there and cried. I had a little bit of a skinned knee, but that was all. I wasn’t hurt. Nothing broken. Nothing bleeding. But my tea, my sweet, sweet tea. My sweet tea and crushed ice spilled all over the porch. My comfort was seeping through the cracks in the concrete and over the edge of the porch, leaving nothing but a sticky mess behind.

No, I couldn’t go back to the few minutes before I fell and do it over, differently. I couldn’t scoop up the spilled tea and put back in another cup. I can’t go back to the time when one of the two pitchers of tea in Mom & Dad’s fridge was a gallon jug because all 3 of us were living in the house and drinking it heavily. I can’t go back to the days my dad and I went out to get BBQ or fried chicken for the three of us for dinner. I can’t go back to the day before my mom fell in the parking lot of Huddle House and changed all of our lives forever.

Truth is, my comfort is not back there. My comfort is in what lies ahead. I’m looking forward to the day we’ll never thirst again.

All of us must die eventually. Our lives are like water spilled out on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again. But God does not just sweep life away; instead, he devises ways to bring us back when we have been separated from him. 2 Samuel 14:14 The Message