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I've Got an Itch

So these last few days were rough. Not because we did anything, because we actually did nothing. But those days are rough. None of us felt good: Aubri had an ear infection, I had a head ache and sore throat, and Johnathan has a sore throat and earache. So we laid around the house and watched TV. And I always feel gross about myself on these days, so to have three in a row really did me in. I had a hard time getting up this morning, and was not going to go kickboxing but decided at the last minute I was feeling up to it so I jumped in the car, running a little late.

Today is beautiful. I rolled my windows down and jammed the car into gear, and the trip to kickboxing got a little more violent (with that gear-shifting) than it has since high school when I thought it was cool to always be in front of people. The instructor didn't show up, but the ride back home and around town for some errands was just as fun, and I realized I needed to read a book. Not re-read a book, or read the beginning of a book and never finish it, but really read a book. A new book. So I am looking for suggestions! My plan is to sit on the porch and enjoy the weather while my kid shreds paper and hands me the pieces. 

People with Disabilities and that Little Blue Sticker

When I worked for DLP, the closest parking lot to our office had several handicapped parking spaces, which is quite normal. However, those handicapped spaces were taken up by obese HR employees who had a harder time walking than most but no other obvious physical disabilities. None of us is sure exactly how these HR employees obtained Handicapped parking permits, because a friend of mine temporarily confined to a wheelchair was denied one despite providing a doctor's note and clearly being unable to walk. To sum it up, my experience with the Handicapped spaces has been a running cynical commentary instead of any serious consideration for people with disabilities. 

Today, however, I was changed. At the Starbucks in Boonsboro, I put my (awesome little red Honda Fit) 5-speed in reverse and checked my mirrors before backing out. The lot was full, except for the Handicapped parking space immediately to my right. An elderly woman pulled into it, but we both noticed the elderly man with oxygen tubes in his nose that was following close on her tail. 

The woman called out to the man, "Excuse me, sir, I'll be just one minute!" (Meanwhile, he's in his car behind me and preventing me from leaving.) 

An argument ensues. She does not have a Handicapped Parking permit, nor does she have difficultly walking-- elderly or not. (A line of cars has formed behind the elderly man, and I still can't back out.) 

I can hear her explaining her reasoning to the elderly man who DOES have a permit, in addition to an oxygen tank. "This store, here," (a UPS store), "has failed to send a package to New York like they should have. It will take me just one minute, sir, to straighten the situation out, and then you can park in your space. It's not your space, any way, it's for people like me, too!" (More cars have lined up; I still can't back out, and this woman clearly has no right to the only Handicapped space in a very full parking lot.)

She heads back to her car, and for a second, I thought she was going to move. So did the man, but it turns out she was just getting her purse. In anger, the man drives off to find another space, and the woman begins to laugh.

My windows are down, and she clearly thinks she's in the right so she turns to me and asks, "Can you believe that he expected me to move?"

Rather chagrined myself, I reply, "Well, the space you are in requires a permit, which he has. Do you have one?"

I can see immediately I have offended her, so she tries to defend herself to me. "Well!" She sputtered. "I am only going to be one minute! He can wait if it's absolutely necessary."

"And you can move. There's a reason it's illegal to park there without a permit."

She glares at me a second before hustling into the store. I can see the elderly man shuffling across the parking lot (holding up traffic, because he is towing an oxygen tank and going very slowly.) He has a package in his hand, and I decide to see who comes out first. 

Sure enough, after 2 minutes, the elderly man is the first to leave the store and is having visible difficulty making the walk back to his car. I can see the woman in the store having it out with the store clerk (exaggerated gesturing and occasional hand-on-hips attitude) and shake my head. A new respect for parking permits has entered my soul, and I find I no longer resent those handicapped parking spaces. 

Things that Make me Squirm

Grammar and spelling errors get me literally biting my tongue and spelling and re-spelling the word/sentence in my head until I have got it out of my system.

I hate feeling like I have a booger in my nose while I am out in public.

I have to put lotion on after I have touched water because I am constantly rubbing my fingers together.

I grind my teeth when I see a cop.

I worry I will hit something whenever I go through a drive-thru.

My legs itch terribly when I run outside and I can never decide whether or not to scratch.

Determining how much my request to fix a Starbucks drink will annoy the barista who messed up. 

I don't like annoying people.

I'll admit it, sometimes letting Johnathan take the lead makes me squirm.

On the other hand, I never want to go first when we walk into a restaurant or church or into a movie theater. I let him open the door, then I follow him to the seat of his choosing.

My heart never fails to leap a little when Aubriana first sounds a cry.

The smell of puke is pretty gross. Sometimes the smell of the trashcan is worse. 

I am so not a backseat-baptist. Sitting in the back distracts me and I can never settle down.

What Do You Do With Your Time?

I have a difficult time answering the question, "What have you been up to, lately?" My days are filled; but I can never recall what they are filled with. Truthfully, I haven't watched an episode of NCIS since our DVR broke last week, so I must be busy. but with what? It makes me think a little bit. 

"Well, you know-- I've been working out, and visiting Johnathan at work, and I get coffee every day. And, of course, there's my daughter, but...what have I been doing with my time?" 

I figured it out today. My work is in relationships. See, for a long time I was terrible at keeping up with people. I didn't hang out, I didn't go out, I didn't want out. But despite an earlier post, I really have been working on connecting with people. I realized a few weeks ago how disappointing it was that a friend of mine never talked to me about the way God spoke to her. And when I heard (indirectly) the way that God was speaking to her every day, I felt gypped. I felt gypped because of the weight of glory; we talk about every day life but here she has something going on in her life that's eternal. I feel like she should be sharing that with me, because I want some! 

Yesterday was a busier than normal day for me, and I was exhausted by its end. But when Jess stopped by to drop off food for align I realized we needed to talk. So we talked. And we laughed. There were silly things and pointless things and deep things and God-things, and it was good. And I think God was pleased with some of it.

So what do you do with your time? I am happy to say I have been building relationships. You should join me!

Awake but Still in Bed

I had read Kate Chopin's The Awakening before, but I only remembered once I had finished re-reading it. I did not remember finishing it because I could not recall what happened, but having definitely finished it this time, I know why I couldn't remember the ending. She essentially commits suicide, which is too easy a way to wrap up a book which tangles emotions and beings and conflicts till only a high degree of inner tension is left.  Then again, no one wants to read about how that tension explodes, so maybe that's why I forgot the ending: it was a relief not to have to get into that pain. 

Edna Pontellier's inward struggle only confirms something I have noticed in my own daughter: the more she realizes she has thoughts and feelings and wants which are distinct from mine, the more unhappy she is. It makes me sad, because we really are a small part of a Great Big Wholeness but we feel that in order to be ourselves we must exert our own force of personality which proves our individuality. I am not sure this is the answer. 

He

Every once in a while, one of us sleeps in the guest room to get a night's rest of uninterrupted sleep. It is easier when I do it cause Johnathan takes more stuff to bed with him than a normal person takes on long trips (i.e. computer, 8 DVD's, phone, phone charger, Kool-Aid, trail mix, condoms [you know, just in case], Benadryl, Advil, and sometimes a bowl of ice cream), but Johnathan sleeps better in there because of . . . the cat. Apparently he (the cat) needs me. He (the cat) can't sleep without me. And when that guest room door is closed and he (the cat) can't find me, he (the cat) develops suspicions. 

Last night was my night. Johnathan was watching the 2-hour season finale of 24, and I just ached for bed because my darling angel of a kid got up at 5AM that morning. So at 8:30 I was snuggled all warm in the bed. At 10:30, he (the cat) was banging on the door. And even though he (the cat) is a cat, when I say "banging," I literally mean "banging." He (the cat) takes his paw and just swats at the door which of course shakes it in its door jam, and the resulting noise is most definitely a "bang." I open the door and swat back at him in hopes he (the cat) will leave me alone. Unfortunately, opening the door confirmed his suspicions and doomed me to a night's rest of oft-interrupted sleep. Still I persisted, through the door bang's of midnight, 3 AM, 4:30 AM, and 5AM. But once the 7AM one came, (and I realized I had probably stored up enough pee for a 30-second long stream) I got up. He (the cat) was absolutely ecstatic. He (the cat) followed me into the bathroom (for a 22-second pee) frantically weaving in and out of my legs. When I crawled into bed with my husband, he (the cat) jumped purring onto my chest and refused to budge until the baby started to cry. 

He (the cat) makes me feel very necessary to the world. 

Not in Pursuit

Sometimes I can be pretty stubborn. I know this might surprise some of you, but it's true! I am in one of those moments right now: I absolutely refuse to chase people. The last six months or so I had been doing a pretty good job (by my standards) of keeping up with people and relationships through invitations to hang out. But lately I have been doing less and less of that, and have found myself on a lower stress level as a result. You see, when you invite people to hang out with you who are willing to, but probably would not have thought to invite you if the situation were reversed, you leave yourself subject to being stood up, forgotten, cancelled on, etc. And this stuff stressed me out. 

There's seriously nothing worse than scrambling at the last minute to occupy your day.

So I have decided that for the next three months, I will extend no invitations to anything unless it is my turn to reciprocate. In other words, I am waiting to be invited to hang out before I do any inviting. And while this might leave my social calendar a little more open space, I think I will feel better about it. 

Bridegroom of Blood

Our church has been going through Exodus on Sunday mornings, and we are taking it really, really slow. The week we started I noticed a passage which is tucked into Exodus 4-- before Moses and Aaron meet up and approach Pharaoh, but after the LORD convinces Moses through a burning bush to go get his people. Moses has begun the journey with his wife and sons from Midian to Egypt.

 "²⁴ At a lodging place on the way, the LORD met {Moses} ^[b] and was about to kill him. ²⁵ But Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off her son's foreskin and touched {Moses'} feet with it. ^[c] "Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me," she said. ²⁶ So the LORD let him alone. (At that time she said "bridegroom of blood," referring to circumcision.)"

After this, Aaron meets Moses in the mountains, they speak to the Israelite elders then go to Pharaoh for the first time. I keep re-reading this passage and it really has my mind all twisted. (It makes me ask questions that contain cusswords: such as the fondly exclaimed "WTF?") I don't know, but it seems to me that this is really out of nowhere in the story. I am sure God could have added the "circumcise your kids or I'll kill you" requirement when they were arguing next to the burning bush. Why did He wait? And why does the Bible just introduce the story with such a cavalier attitude? It really makes me suspect we are missing something great about God-- something that our Christianity fails to fear. 

First: This section really highlights the unpredictability of God. This is something we definitely pretend doesn't exist. We tend to focus on ideas like the immutability of God, which gives us the impression that He is some stable force in the universe. But is He? I mean, Moses probably thought he and God were doing pretty good when all of a sudden the LORD was going to kill him. Oh, and we treat natural disasters (which happen often) like anomalies, when really God kills hundreds of thousands of people through them annually. In a lot of ways (all of them earthly), He is dangerous to trust. What I mean is, our idea that God takes care of our needs if only we trust Him is true, as long as taking care of our needs is part of His plan. But we tend to assume that it's always His plan to take care of our needs, don't we? 

Second: The scariness of God. I was always told that when the Bible uses the phrase: "Fear God" that the word "fear" does not actually mean to be afraid of Him, just to respect Him. I don't know, though, even the New Testament requires us to "work out our salvation with fear and trembling," which leads me to expect that we aren't quite getting the word "fear" like we ought to. 

Maybe Moses was just getting too comfortable and needed a little kicking in the butt. After all, he had spent most of Chapter 3 arguing with God. 

Now I'm No Expert...

....but NPR makes me feel like one. As I listen to the news and hear how Obama rejected GM and Chrysler's restructure plans and stocks plummeted or the AIG bonuses were given back but now New York's budget deficit has grown because it depends on taxing bonuses from Wall Street, I feel so frustrated. Frustrated because there is no way to stop this problem, it seems. Every measure we take to save money drains money from someplace else that needs it. And this is happening on a much smaller scale everywhere: our electricity bill doubled recently because Appalachian Electric needed more money during the recession. Our sewer and water rates went up 4% because the city needed more money to make up their budget deficit. Thankfully, Johnathan and I can handle small budget increases for the moment (but only since the price of gas has gone down!!), but I know other people can't. And their inability to pay their bills  because of rate hikes contributes to the overall problem-- maybe a house foreclosure where a bank loses money and passes the buck on to its customers. 

And then there's the health care industry: millions of uninsured people who can't (or won't) pay their medical bills but will still receive treatment creates budget deficits for states who have to pay for the medical care but then raise taxes on individuals and businesses, who must then decide whether they cut their health benefits or lay off employees because they can't afford to keep them, and either way these employees become un(der)-insured and create a bigger deficit for the state. 

Couldn't somebody have seen this coming? 

It's obvious to me that the prosperity America was living on was created in a bubble, which was growing so big it had to pop! Didn't we get the message with the dotcom bubble? There were all these experts, all these big CEO's whose job it was to handle billions of dollars, and they couldn't plan for this? They couldn't put millions away on reserve for when the bubble finally did burst? Whenever Johnathan and I get a windfall it goes directly to savings, because we anticipate future problems that will take more money than our income provides for. Now, maybe the problem was so big for these companies that their reserves were used up. I can definitely see that happening with us if a huge financial issue comes our way. Does anybody know? 

Bad News

I make a habit of listening to Radio IQ in the morning (aka National Public Radio). Johnathan enjoys watching CNN in the late afternoon/early evening when we're home. And of course, I can read the headlines update on my phone every time I look at it. The overall result? Johnathan and I are NOT ignorant of the things going on both locally and globally.

But we wish we were. And although I know knowledge is power, sometimes it's the power to destroy rather than the power to overcome. For example, the stocks continue to plummet, which generates headlines about how much the stocks have plummeted, which cause the stocks to continue plummeting. 

And on the other hand, I wish I was ignorant because I hate the things that go on in the world. I trivialize it by referring to it as "drama", but I know that's not fair because real people and real lives are being devastated. 

So I wish I was ignorant because it is easier to pretend that the pain of other people doesn't exist. I am not sure what exactly my responsibilities are toward the world, but that's because I haven't taken the time to find out. And despite knowing the daily headlines and a small snippet of what goes on behind them, I have still managed to protect myself from engaging it. 

My goal is to figure out what God wants me to do with all this power.