Through a Glass, Darkly

Tomorrow I am going to Grandma’s house to learn how to make tomato juice. Now, I have noticed that when I say “tomato juice” I get a violently negative response. Let me just say that Grandma’s homemade tomato juice beats the crap (except Grandma wouldn’t say crap) out of any store-bought tomato juice there is. Grandma’s is not as thick, and it has more flavor. Even Mike now admits its greatness, and he was repulsed by the idea at first. I use it a lot when I am making soup, especially vegetable soup or beef stew. It’s also really good to drink when it’s cold. Last summer when I had mono and I was sick to my stomach a lot, my mom brought me several jars of tomato juice. She said that it always helps her feel better. I have to say . . . it was one of the few things I could keep down. Grandma’s tomato juice has magical healing powers. Since I love it so much, I need to learn to make my own and stop mooching off Grandma. It’s like I’m Harry Potter, learning spells from the master! I, too, will learn the ways of the magical tomato juice! (Except, Grandma probably wouldn’t approve of Harry Potter, either.)

So tomorrow, if you need me, I’ll be in Grandma’s kitchen. I’ll be the short one wearing a bandana. (It gets pretty humid in Grandma’s kitchen. I don’t want to have big hair.)

On the way to work, it started pouring. I was already late, thanks to extreme fatigue this morning (by the way, someone want to explain that to me? I was in bed by 9:45 last night), but there was no way I was venturing out of the car in that downpour. Sure, I had my trusty yellow umbrella, but it seemed better to wait.

Sitting in the car watching the raindrops roll down the windshield, I realized that it was the first time in a few days that I had actually paused and just been quiet. The car was off, I wasn’t near a computer, I didn’t have a book. I was just . . . sitting.

In the midst of all this counting down to Mike’s last day (which is tomorrow!) I seem to have failed to realize that, although he is finally going to get a break, I don’t get one. I realized this morning that it’s as if I have been doing that same buildup that people do before a vacation – getting busy so they can go out of town and relax. The only difference is that I’m not actually going to get a vacation. This morning as I sat in the car I realized that, as strange as it seems, this is my “normal” life from here on out. I am used to being the one with the school schedule and the part-time job while Mike is the one who works full-time, but that’s about to change. I think I’m tired because of the rain (big hair!) and because of the long wait for Mike’s job to be over and because of the stress of our budget . . . and because I didn’t get the summer off like I always have and I’m just not used to it.

I feel like such a bad grownup. I really like my job, but I miss those rainy stay-at-home days when I could just work on a paper and drink coffee all day. Tonight Mike has to work late, and I’m going to take the night off from being a grownup and just relax. No computer, no phones, just me and a book (and maybe even a bubble bath).

While I was writing this, the rain started pouring down again outside, so I made myself a cup of hot chocolate. I’m working on the website instead of a paper, and I’m wearing khakis instead of my pajamas, but this will have to do. I guess it’s not so bad after all.

Last week I was really grumpy. For pretty much no reason. No one likes being grumpy, but it sucks when it comes out of the blue and you just get mad and overreact to things. We are talking “freaking out and getting unnecessarily angry because my CD player stopped working one morning” overreaction. I hate that. (Mike fixed the CD player, for the record. All better.)

This week I have been feeling much better, although I am still feeling a bit overwhelmed. This is Mike’s last week of work. Starting on Saturday, I will be the sole provider for our household. That, my friends, is a scary thing. Mike will be starting school full-time in a few weeks, and he’s not going to get a part-time job until he has adjusted to his school schedule. We’ve been over the budget, and it’s do-able. There’s very little wiggle room in case of emergencies (or even Christmas) but it’s do-able. To me, though, it’s daunting to think that I am the one providing for us. It will only be for a short time, while Mike is in school. It’s not a long-term thing. We’ll cut back, but the end result will be that Mike’s not working 50 hours a week at a job over an hour away. We’ll have so much more time together. And next semester he’ll try to get a part-time job, and things will ease up a little bit.

I have to admit that I feel a little ashamed . . . I get caught up in my own fears and concerns about money, but look at Mike! He’s being incredibly brave and going back to school full-time. He’s giving himself a chance to pursue other career options, and he’s leaving the company that he has been with for a decade. He’s doing these amazing things, and I just keep worrying about the money.

This week in Sunday School, we had a discussion of the movie Pieces of April, which deals with the themes of being estranged from your family and dealing with family expectations in light of a crisis. As we talked about those things, I kept watching Mike. He didn’t say anything during the discussion, but I could see that some of the topics were really hitting home for him. You see, we haven’t spent any time with Mike’s parents in almost 5 years. He doesn’t have the same family support that I do, and no matter how supportive my family is, they can’t make up for that hole in his life.

When I think about that, about how Mike is doing these brave things for us even though he doesn’t have the same support that I have always had, it makes me want to be brave. It encourages me to think about ways to cut back. It makes me excited about staying at home this Christmas and drinking lots of hot chocolate and reading our Advent book and decorating the tree together in our new house and taking pictures of those things instead of getting each other presents.

I’m scared, there’s really no denying it. But I’m trying to focus on the big picture and not just the obstacles. And I’m trying to remember that courage is just fear that’s said its prayers. I’m trying to pray.

This is my first post from my new work computer. I love him already. His name is Fred. Yes, I gave him that name myself. I even made him a sign that says, “Hi, I’m Fred! Nice to meet you!”

No, I’m not surprised that my coworkers stop talking when I enter the room. No, those surreptitious glances don’t surprise me, either.

Last night we had dinner with some friends, and there was a fascinating discussion about Grimace. You know, the big purple guy at McDonald’s. One of the guy said, you know, obviously the Fry Guys are fries and Birdie the Early Bird for breakfast food and the Chicken McNuggets represent . . . well, Chicken McNuggets. And we’ve got Mayor McCheese and the Hamburglar. But what does Grimace represent? I immediately guessed cookies, because 1. The cookies are shaped like Grimace and 2. It’s fun to yell “COOKIES!” Everyone gave me a look like, “What are you, four?” One of the guys said he thought Grimace was supposed to represent a milkshake. At the end of the evening, I was insisting that Grimace=COOKIES! so they told me to research it. I am here to present the results of my five minutes of “research.”

The consensus seems to be that Grimace represents milkshakes. Apparently, before 1975, he used to have more arms (creepy!) and he’d steal everyone’s milkshakes.

His extra arms have mysteriously disappeared (Mayor McCheese? Maybe not as nice as he appears, but the crime rate is lower, so who can complain), so now the theory is that he just represents what a milkshake free of its cup would look like. Or perhaps Grimace is what you and I would look like if we drank too many shakes. Either way, it looks like I was wrong. Grimace is not equal to COOKIES. He’s a petty thief tortured into submission by an evil dictator.

Now those are some great role models for kids.

A few weeks ago I titled a post after a Dire Straits song, and the resulting comments have had me thinking about the songs of summer. You know, those songs that make you want to turn the radio up, roll the windows down, and just drive?

The summers of ’94 and ’95 were the summers that Leigh Stensvad and I hung out constantly, going to the beach, going to see practically every movie in the theater, and haunting used bookstores. We were constantly driving up to Greensboro or over to Chapel Hill, and we bought insane amounts of CDs. ’95 was the summer that we cranked up Dire Straits and Live’s “Lightning Crashes” and the summer that Seal’s “Kiss from a Rose” was played constantly on the radio. Hearing any of those songs will take me back to that carefree summer feeling. I don’t wish I could go back to that time, but sometimes I only remember the angsty part of high school and not the good stuff, so it’s good to be reminded of those times.

’96 was the summer of Alanis Morissette. I was at Governor’s School, and my best friend played Jagged Little Pill every single day. She wasn’t the only one, either – you could walk through the halls of our dorm and hear different songs from that album coming from every other room. I was in more of a Christian music phase at that point in my life, so I didn’t own that album. I do remember my friend saying that, except for a few swear words, the album was really clean. The rest of the summer was spent pointing out the numerous sexual references in Alanis’ “clean” songs. hehe. ’96 was also the summer of “One of Us” by Joan Osborne. What can I say – chick rock makes me think of those un-air-conditioned dorms and being completely free of responsibility.

’97 was my last summer at home before college. This was the summer of Caedmon’s Call and their self-titled album. I listened to it every single day that summer. Just hearing the opening notes of “Lead of Love” takes me back to that transitional time, of being both scared and excited to start college.

’98 was the summer I met Mike and worked at his store. It was the summer of Burlap to Cashmere’s five-song EP, of Chris Rice singing “Clumsy” on repeat, and the Exodus album giving us songs like “My Will” and “Needful Hands.” It was the summer of the Jesus Record, which I listened to for the first time driving home from work, crying the whole way. Those songs remind me of flirting and falling in love and moving out on my own. It was a really good summer.

’99 . . . I think the summer of ’99 should never have happened. It was a hard time for me and for Mike. The main song that makes me think of that summer is “If You Want Me To” by Ginny Owens. It makes me think of driving home from Mike’s late at night with this song on repeat. The first runner up for the song of summer ’99 is “Starry Host” by Silers Bald. I was living in a lot of fear, and that song never ceased to comfort me. To hear these two songs is to be taken back to a place of sorrow. These songs are a lot sadder than most of my other summer songs, but it was a sad summer.

The summer of 2000 was the summer we got married, and the songs that make me think of that are “Peace” by Rich Mullins and “Love’s as Strong as Death” from Canticle of the Plains. They remind me of busy-ness and wedding planning and the excitement of getting married. They still don’t fit the bill of regular happy summer songs, but I suppose it wasn’t an ordinary summer.

2001, 2002, and 2003 were just regular pop radio summers as far as I can remember. In 2001, I was working at my parents’ miniature golf course and I played a lot of CDs, including the mix from our reception. 2002 was the summer of One City, One Book, and I don’t remember listening to a lot of music. And last summer I had mono, which doesn’t really lend itself to a theme song (I did take a road trip to Memphis, so my song for last summer might be “Walking in Memphis,” which I love and played quite a lot). I have been transitioning to a period in my life where, for better or for worse, music’s not as important as it used to be. But this summer, Mike and I do have a song – although I have no plans to see Shrek 2, I always call Mike and turn the radio up when “Accidentally in Love” by the Counting Crows comes on. I am encouraged by the fact that it’s a happy song. It goes along with me feeling more hopeful and happy than I have in a long time. Even though I’m working, this has definitely been a summer that has felt like summer – cookouts and trips to the beach and road trips to see friends.

I love how music can take you back, how a song can help you to relive a moment. Now that I can see them right here in front of me, it looks like my songs of summer are not just good tunes to drive to, but also a good reminder of what was going on with me. It’s kind of neat to see that – I guess this post took a turn somewhere in the middle, but I still like where it ended up.

“Come on, come on if you feel a little lighter . . . come on, come on and the world’s a little brighter . . .”

Looking back, yesterday was one of those days where I was so tired that I grew increasingly upset about the liturgy debacle as the day went on. It kept eating at my mind all day. By the time Mike got home (a little after 7:00), I was a wreck. I spent about 30 minutes crying into his shirt before he convinced me that we really had to cook dinner or he would starve to death. He was grilling hamburgers, and I was in charge of fixing (heh, little southern-ism for you) the squash. “Do you want it roasted or fried?” I asked him. “Fried,” he said. “Fried food is more comforting.” Ladies and gentlemen, I present you with the Best. Husband. Ever.

He even let me watch Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Two episodes of it! Even though it always makes me cry! He has a high crying tolerance, apparently. To be completely accurate, I really watched one-and-a-half episodes, because I fell asleep on the floor sometime during the second episode. This morning I woke up in bed when my alarm went off at 6:30 and said, “How did I get here?” (Which, if you think about it, is never a good question to have to ask when you wake up in the morning.) Mike said that he tried to get me up, but that I was dead to the world, so he had to carry me. It sounds as if he had some difficulty maneuvering, though, because he said that while he was trying to get me through the door, my feet hit the light switch and left him standing in complete darkness. (Ladies and gentlemen, I present you with Mike and Kari: the sitcom!) He had to put me down, and he finally was able to get me to walk to bed. Or so he says. I don’t remember any of that.

I am still struggling with feeling mortified. I suppose I will either be completely over it or mortified for life after Wednesday, because that’s when we’re hanging out with some people from church. If I get a bad vibe from them about it, I may go into hiding. In Siberia. (Or, you know, under my bed. I’m always looking for the mature way to deal with my problems.)

I don’t know if most people have a favorite sound. If they do, it’s probably something like birds chirping or their favorite song or their mother’s voice. I like all of those things, but one of my most favorite sounds is when a church congregation says these lines from the Lord’s Prayer:

Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil . . .

Go ahead, say it out loud to get the full effect. I love the whistling sound that a congregation makes on all those “s” words. Is that weird? It makes me happy every time. I feel lucky to go to a church that says the Lord’s Prayer every week.

Today I was especially lucky, because I was the liturgist at church, so I led the Lord’s Prayer. I also had to write the prayers for the world and the offering and the prayer of praise and thanksgiving. And I led the call to worship. I have never been the liturgist before. When certain people asked me how it went, I downplayed my nervousness a bit (I admit it, I was trying to play it cool) but the truth is that I. Was. Terrified. My legs even got a bit shaky at one point. Now it is true that part of my shakiness was not sleeping well combined with too much caffeine combined with too little food, but I was definitely more nervous than the situation called for.

I don’t know why I got that way . . . I mean, I don’t love public speaking, but I was prepared. What on earth is wrong with me? It reminds me of this one time in high school when we had to present on an article and I got up in front of everyone and apparently sounded like I was going to cry. I did get an A on the assignment (probably a pity A, but an A nonetheless), but everyone kept coming up to me with big sad eyes going, “Are you okay?” I hadn’t been that nervous, really. It was just some dumb article about frogs. Today I didn’t sound nearly that bad, but it’s the same concept. I had to do a lot of presentations in college, and I like to think that I have gotten better as a public speaker. But then something like today happens and I see how wrong I am.

The thermometer in my car said 64 degrees this morning when I got in. Granted, that’s in the shade, but it was only up to 72 by the time I got to work. That’s just unheard of for this time of year. And fabulous - clear and sunny and breezy. I will definitely be eating lunch outside today.

Now, I like pickup trucks as much as the next girl, but I’ve got a question about pickup-driving fellows. Some recent driving encounters have indicated to me that many of these guys assume that, since I am alone in my car, I obviously want to be with them. Both yesterday and today I had to put up with some serious road flirting from pickup-driving men. Being alone in my car does not indicate being alone in my life, for the record. Even if it did . . . does anyone ever actually get together like that? By waving and flirting on the highway? Are highways the new bars?

When I was little, it seems that I spent a lot of time during the summer at Grandma’s house. I say Grandma instead of Grandma and Grandpa because, when I was little, Grandpa was still working for Gulf and he would leave very early in the morning and be gone most of the day. Some of my favorite childhood memories come from Grandma’s house. When I was nine, we moved ten minutes away from Grandma, and when I was ten or eleven, my mom went back to work and we’d go stay at Grandma’s house after school. We had lots of fun times then, too, but these memories are mostly from younger days, when going to Grandma’s was more rare.

In May, we’d go help pick strawberries. I don’t honestly remember being tempted to just eat the strawberries off the plant, because they were so dusty and muddy. But Mom and my Aunt Nancy and Grandma would clean them up and cut them into pieces and put a healthy spoonful of sugar on them for us to eat. We’d get to eat the fresh, sweet strawberries while the grownups worked on the jam and the canning and the freezing.

Later in the summer, my brother and I would stay at Grandma’s for a week in the summer so that we could go to Vacation Bible School at her church. My family always went to nondenominational churches that didn’t really have VBS. At VBS, I’d learn the pledge to the Christian flag and the pledge to the Bible, two things that continue to mystify Mike. We’d eat those cookies with the scalloped edges and the hole in the middle that you can also wear as rings (butter cookies?) and make ourselves sick letting big kids spin us on the merry-go-round on the church playground. After we’d get home from VBS, we’d have lunch and watch TV and eat Fritos. Grandma always had Fritos. I don’t even like Fritos that much, but I’d eat them there. Sometimes, depending on when it was in the summer, we’d help snap green beans and shell lima beans and shuck corn. I remember helping with the planting sometimes, too. And there were baby cows to feed – they needed a bottle, and Grandma would sometimes let us hold the bottle for them.

Sometimes my mom’s cousins’s children (points to those of you who know what they’d be to me) would come over, and we’d play baseball in the backyard. When Grandpa came home, he’d do some work with the tractor, and if he was in an extra-special good mood, he’d let us ride with him. When my cousin David was there, we’d play hide-and-seek and blow bubbles for hours. One of the boys hid in Grandma’s clothes hamper and we figured it out and trapped him in there and knocked it over. Grandma’s house wasn’t about safety first. It was about dirty knees and sticky hands and that exhausted feeling you get from playing hard all day long.

After VBS, my mom would pick us up and take us home, but that wasn’t it for the summer! We’d still get day trips to Grandma’s so mom could help with whatever freezing or canning that Grandma was working on at that point. Sometimes the entire family would get together – all of mom’s siblings and their spouses and children would fill the house and the yard.

Grandma’s house was packed with amazing things that my house didn’t have. You could scrape the frost off the size of the old freezer and eat it – it was just like eating snow! Grandma found out how much my brother, my cousin David, and I fought over the banana Popsicles, so she’d buy boxes of just the banana ones! She kept a glass jug of cold water in her refrigerator – it was always about half full, though I never saw her fill it up. I have never had water as cold and refreshing as the water that came from that jug. We could eat grapes straight from the vine, but they were the grapes you had to squeeze to get the fruit. My mom didn’t buy grapes like that. There were fresh things I liked, like tomatoes, and fresh things I didn’t like, like cantaloupe.

After mom went back to work, Grandma’s house was about pizza rolls every day after school and Grandpa teaching me rummy every day when he got home. It was about solitaire and riding bikes as far as we dared without getting caught and eating dinner with Dan Rather. It was about Jell-O cheesecake that Grandma made just because she knew I liked it.

And those rare occasions that I still got to spend the night at Grandma’s? Well, those evenings were filled with Andy Griffith and Wheel of Fortune. And sometimes Grandpa would watch Cheers, which Grandma said was a good show except for all the beer that the characters drank.

This summer, Grandma has promised me that when she makes tomato juice she’ll let me know so I can help and learn how. You’d think I would know more about that kind of thing since I was present for it every year, but I don’t. And now I’m starting to worry that I won’t ever get the chance to learn. So much of that stuff is already gone – Grandma doesn’t have cows anymore, or plant much of a garden. It’s so different than it was.

I have to admit, though . . . it still makes me feel like a little kid to go to Grandma’s house and see the sheets and towels on the clothesline, flapping in the wind. Let me give you a tip: If you’re really still and there’s not much breeze, those sheets can be a good place to hide so even the cleverest of cousins can’t find you.

The subject of compartmentalized friendships has come up in conversation a few times in the past few weeks. Everyone has different groups of friends, and it’s always weird when those groups intersect. For example, at my birthday party last week, I had friends from my old church, friends from my new church, my family, an internet friend, and some college friends. I will admit to being a little nervous to see how my old church friends saw my new church friends . . . “These are the people you left us for?!” That kind of thing. I think that’s pretty normal, though, for it to be a little weird when different parts of your life come together. A few weeks ago, Trey talked about how he has different roles in different groups. I feel that way, too, which (I think) is the root of the different-groups-of-friends-coming-together problem: How do I act when everyone is around?

My closest friend-group is probably a group of three other girls that I went to college with. I was talking with one of them, and she mentioned how, when we all hang out, if there are other people there, it’s totally fine. She has another friend-group where, if she’s hanging out with them and other people are there, it’s really awkward. I noticed that it wasn’t too awkward at my party, which was encouraging. I was thinking about it, too, in the sense that there are a couple of people who I didn’t invite to the party at all, for whatever reason. People that I get along with and hang out with, but who wouldn’t or couldn’t fit into the overall party vibe. Why is that? Do you have friends like that, who just can’t fit into any of your groups? Or friends where it’s awkward if other people are around? How do you deal with that (besides embracing awkwardness, of course)?

Yesterday we participated in that most-important of Baptist rituals: the pot-luck dinner right after church.

What, you thought I was going to say baptism or communion? Foolishness! Those things pale in comparison to green bean casserole and fried chicken. This pot-luck was in honor of the pastor’s 10th anniversary. There was the obligatory cheesy skit that is so good-hearted that you almost forget how cheesy it is. You know the one I mean.

As I was sitting there yesterday, I felt happy to be part of such a motley crew. There are a lot of things that American evangelical Christianity does that are frustrating or disconcerting, but the pot-luck is the epitome of all that is right and good. Food, genuine affection, a little teasing, and some good conversation . . . it all sets the tone for quality community, and it’s why going to a smaller church works a little better for me. For various reasons, I might not feel like I have a lot in common with some of the other members. A pot-luck is a good reminder to me that all our gifts are important and needed, and that our bonds in Christ are stronger than differences in background or education or politics.

Fried chicken is just an extra-special bonus.

For as long as I’ve known Mike, he has worked three Saturdays a month. In the past year, he has also had to work two Sundays out of every month. Sometimes we didn’t even get the same days off during the week, and we would miss each other completely. It got to be pretty difficult to coordinate our schedules after I started working, and it was hard on both of us. Mike and I are quality time kind of people.

This, however, is his last month. The 30th is his last day, and he will be starting school full-time in the fall. Our lives are about to move to a completely new chapter. This weekend was one of our rare weekends off together, and as we sat on the front porch in our rocking chairs yesterday afternoon reading, watching a thunderstorm, and listening to our windchimes, I got excited about our next steps. We are undoubtedly going to have less money, but after the serious lack of time together we have experienced lately, that honestly doesn’t sound as difficult as one might think. When I am still wearing the same old ratty clothes to work . . . well, I’ll just try to remember afternoons like we had yesterday.

I have moved on somewhat from my unnamed obsession to a new shiny one. I am now learning everything I can about the first few seasons of The Amazing Race. I watched last season, and some of the Flo/Zach season, but I missed the first two, so I have been reading the recaps at TwoP. I knew I was obsessive (a bit), but doing this has caused me to realize that I like getting caught up in things. I think it’s fun when the country gets caught up in a show and everyone’s talking about it. For these “reality shows,” the best season is (unfortunately) often the first one. I wish I had been watching that first season of Survivor, so I could hate Richard Hatch and love Rudy along with the rest of the country. I didn’t watch the first Amazing Race, so I didn’t know about Loud Pushy Frank or the massive hatred for Team Guido. Reading the recaps makes me long for The Amazing Race to come out on DVD so I can see what all the fuss was about.

Maybe that’s why I allowed myself to be sucked into The Apprentice. Besides being a darn good show, it made me feel included when I could despise Omarosa along with the rest of the country. I am sure that this says something about my need for acceptance. Go ahead and analyze me.

On Sunday, church was just awful. We hadn’t been in a while, since we have been out of town a lot lately, so we didn’t know that all the pastors would be out of town for the holiday weekend. It wasn’t like we had the second string, either. It was more like the eighth or ninth string. The music was okay, but the sermon (hereafter referred to as The Worst Sermon Ever) was long and boring. It started off okay, but it crashed and burned soon after.

I have to admit that I got bored. I entertained myself by folding paper airplanes out of just about anything made of paper that was available in the pew. I got frustrated. I flipped through the hymnal. The Worst Sermon Ever was also the Longest Sermon Ever. And then, I noticed something. Our regular pastor’s family was there, even though he wasn’t. And Mrs. Pastor sings in the choir, so the family in front of us was sitting with the kids. Our pastor’s youngest son had pulled his shirt up over his head and was rocking back and forth, back and forth. I started laughing.

Laughing during The Worst Sermon Ever is not the best way to make friends with the guest pastor. It being a holiday weekend, there wasn’t a lot of buffer, even though we were sitting about halfway back. I am told that my face was as red as my shirt, and that, while I was looking down, trying to get myself under control, the guest pastor was looking angrily in my general direction. (My response? Don’t be so boring, then!) Instead of shaking his hand when we left, we snuck out the back. Yes, we are that immature.

Sad to say, this wasn’t the worst-behaved I’ve ever been in church. At our old church one packed out Sunday morning, I was taking sermon notes when I realized that Mike was just copying my notes instead of taking his own. I wrote, “And then the aliens sucked out their brains.” He copied it, and it wasn’t until he was done that he realized what he had written. We started laughing. And couldn’t stop. Did I mention that the church was packed out? Let me also mention that, in an unusual move, we were sitting about four rows back instead of our usual ten or twelve. And a very large man was sitting next to me. By “next to me” I mean “halfway in my seat.” I had little to no buffer from the pastor, and I was disturbing everyone around me. This of course only made things funnier. I remember snorting at one point. I have never left church as ashamed as I did that day.

Most of my “behaving badly in a formal setting” stories (including this one) have to do with laughing inappropriately. This week, in a valiant but fruitless effort to stop laughing, I thought of sad things like Jimmy Shea’s grandpa dying right before the Olympics and September 11 and “Avalanches, earthquakes, famine…and I’m out.” How do you stop laughing in these kinds of situations? What’s the worst/most embarassing thing you’ve ever done in church?

Go congratulate my friend Shelby on her happy news.

(And encourage her to blog about Bruce Lucas - if she doesn’t do it soon, I will!)

I have said before that I’m not a swoony girl, and I stand by that statement. Lately, though, I have realized that I can be taken in by a certain kind of story. I’m not interested in manly men on horses who sweep women off their feet. I fail to see the charm that handsome strangers hold for so many. I enjoy a good “meet cute” as much as the next person, but it doesn’t give me butterflies. No, the kind of story that I love is the one where the hero and heroine have been friends for years, and then one day they look at each other and realize that there’s something there, something different. I especially get into these stories if one of them has been secretly pining for the other, with no hope of reciprocation. Those are the stories that I tend to read over and over. I will watch and rewatch the scenes that show how our hero longs to be with our clueless heroine. This love of unrequited love must say something about me, but I have no clue what it might mean. You’d think I would want people to be happy, but I like to watch “moments” between people who are supposed to be just friends.

Mike and I were talking about this, and he asked if I like these kinds of stories because there was a guy in my past that I wonder about. I honestly can’t think of one. I went out with a few guys who were my friends. Some of them stayed friends with me and some didn’t. And there was that one guy where we took that chance and it all worked out. Those friendships where it didn’t work out and we’re not still friends . . . well, I can’t say that I mind it that much. Sure, I wish I knew what was going on with them every now and then, but people change. I’m glad I took the risk and went out with them. I would probably regret it more if I hadn’t tried.

This fall, it appears that some of my favorite angsty literary and television characters going to quit pining and start dating. I wish Deborah and Dwight as well as Luke and Lorelai the best. I’ll be cheering them on, hoping that all the pining and the moments and the romantic tension pay off. It’s all make-believe, after all, so we might as well get that happy ending.

Except for all the extra flies (some people were apparently raised in barns), our house has pretty much recovered from Sunday’s party. The furniture is mostly back in its original places, and the floor has been mopped. Mike vacuumed and treated the ketchup stains with Oxy Clean. In other words, you can barely tell we had a party.

The backyard, however, is a completely different story. My dad brought this water balloon launcher thing he has, so the backyard is littered with the remains of a thousand (or so) water balloons. We’re going to have to do something about that before we mow. Which, of course, gives us an excuse to postpone mowing!

The birthday weekend really started on Friday, when some of our friends (the ones who got married a few weeks ago) came to stay. The boys played Halo on Friday night while the girls caught up. Saturday I had to work, so everyone else went to Wal-Mart for food and decorations. Mike made potato mush instead of potato salad, while my friend Kelly made devilled eggs and her husband Scott made 54 hamburger patties. I honestly don’t think Mike could have gotten everything done without their help. We didn’t just make them work, though - we fed and watered (or “wined”) them quite well and played Scattegories and watched Two Weeks’ Notice (what baby?!). It has been great to watch our friendship with them grow over the past year, and I am thankful for them.

On Sunday, we finished with the preparations in plenty of time for people to start arriving. I hadn’t known that my dad was bringing the aforementioned water balloon setup, so that was a fun surprise for me. Everyone seemed to have a good time with that, and the grilling was quite tasty. I had a good time, but my overall feelings about the party are kind of a blur, since there were so many people and so much was going on. I had a really awesome time, and I hope all the party attendees did, too. Mike is an overboard kind of person, so of course there was way too much food, and we sent Kelly and Scott away yesterday with a cooler full of stuff.

I got some fun presents, but a couple really stick out. My parents gave me their old rocking chair. They got it just before I was born, so it was kind of beat-up, but they refinished it and put some cushions on it. It was a fabulous present, and I was thrilled. Mike got me a camera bag and tickets to see Patty Griffin, Gillian Welch, and Emmylou Harris next month!

After most everyone else had left, Scott, Kelly, Brian, Sarah, Mike, and I played with sparklers and bottle rockets in the backyard. The sparklers were pretty smoky. We were soon enveloped in a cloud of smoke that made it look as if our entire cul-de-sac was on fire.

Now I have to go finish icing cupcakes to take to work. At the library, when it’s your birthday, you bring the dessert. My friends all think this is horrible, but I say that at least I get what I want on my birthday. Chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese icing (and red, white, and blue sprinkles).

Really, it’s been a stellar weekend. What more could a girl ask for?

“A son is the promise that time makes to a man, the guarantee every father receives that whatever he holds dear will someday be considered foolish, and that the person he loves best in the world will misunderstand him.”

From that sentence in the first chapter of The Rule of Four, I knew I was going to enjoy the book. And it did not disappoint. It’s set at Princeton in 1999, and follows the story of four seniors as one of them is trying to finish his thesis, which centers around a confusing Renaissance text. (If you want to read actual reviews of the book instead of just my random thoughts, go here.)

It’s being compared to The Da Vinci Code, which is an apt comparison. Except, this book is much better written than Dan Brown’s novel, which I think needed another round or two of editing. I laughed, though, when I saw reviews on Amazon and Barnes and Noble saying things like, “These guys are no Dan Brown,” or “This book is no Da Vinci Code.” Thank goodness! Oh, wait, that’s not what they meant. So, if you loved The Da Vinci Code, you might not love this book. But if you enjoyed the style of Da Vinci with its intellectual puzzles but thought it went on a bit too long with a few too many silly “reveals,” you might like this one better. Most of the problem-solving was over my head, but it was still interesting, even though I had never heard of the Hypnerotomachia. I enjoyed the characters and the setting - it was filled with information about life at Princeton, which was fun to compare to my own undergraduate experience.

Overall, a fun read. The ending was a bit clichéd, but it left me satisfied. I agree with Book Page’s review: A thinking person’s thriller of the highest order.

Yesterday I was driving to High Point when I saw a magnificent sign.

“Honk for Big Bubba! He’s 80!”

As getting to the age of 80 is no small feat, I honked obligingly.

Today I salute you, Big Bubba. You (and Mrs. Bubba) may be inside your house, growing increasingly annoyed at the incessant honking caused by the obviously homemade sign in your front yard, but who cares? You’re 80, and everyone who drives by your house should know it.

I have my alarm set on a pop/soft rock station, because it’s just about the only thing that comes in clearly. In Greensboro, I used to have it set on NPR, but I can’t get any of those stations out in the sticks where we are (at least, I can’t get them on my clock radio).

Normally this isn’t a big problem, because I wake up to an innocuous pop song and turn it off. This morning, however, was different. Somehow last night I managed to set my alarm for an hour early, so this morning it went off at 6 instead of 7. To add to that horror, the radio station was playing Paula Abdul’s “Straight Up.” I cannot conceive why, in the year 2004, they would be playing that song. At 6am. I mean, if people have to get up that early, why torture them with Paula Abdul? At least give them music that makes them not hate their lives and their jobs that make them get up that early.

Of course the stupid song is in my head now. At least I was able to get back to sleep for another hour. But it’s not exactly the best way to start a Friday morning. hehe.