A lot has been happening, which is why I have been away.
Today I have no time. There are, for instance, five loads of laundry backed up in my laundry room. So I should not be here, and I shall need to try to keep things concise.
Poor DJ came down with Bell's Palsy on Tuesday, May 25 (a week ago), after being sick for five months. Bell's Palsy causes half of your face to be paralyzed, so he can't play saxophone right now, and it could be as long as a year before he is able to again.
This is all quite distressing for a student majoring in saxophone with a scholarship linked to his major, not to mention the seven hours we spent at the emergency room last Tuesday evening. There we sat--did I mention seven hours?--in the waiting room with a homeless man who thought his name was Joe Broccoli. He had diarrhea really bad and no concept of, uh, using the rest room. He moved from chair to chair throughout the waiting area, staining each place he sat. By the time we got out of there, I was as traumatized by my lack of Christian love as I was by my son's condition ("I don't even care if that man is going to hell, I just don't want to be in a waiting room with him any more... so am I even a Christian?")
After we got home at midnight and stripped off our reeking clothes and showered and finally got something to eat, I sat across the table from David with our delicious wraps filled with warm scrambled eggs and ham and melted cheese, and then I was finally able to feel sorry for Joe Broccoli. I realized that a hot shower, clean towels, clean pajamas and warm, fresh, delicious homemade food are things Joe Broccoli probably never has, possibly never had, and my heart did break a little for him once I wasn't being assaulted by his frightening wolf-eyed visage and his fresh-diarrhea-over-stale-urine stench. Of course, my husband was on a business trip to CA all week last week, but that's the way it goes.
DJ may have a very long road to travel. His condition is not dangerous, and he has a mild case, so his face doesn't look odd or anything. The only problem is that he can't play his saxophone, but for him that is a very big problem. Only God knows what the future holds; we are in a waiting mode right now. The "normal" course of the illness is 3 weeks of paralysis followed by 3 months of rehabilitation. Since he is a saxophone performance major, and since his scholarship is linked to his major, it remains to be seen what will happen if he still can't play once school starts. I pray and pray and pray and try not to worry, which is easier if I guard myself from getting overtired.
I could also write a bunch about antiviral drugs and the differences between doctors who prescribe them and the prices at pharmacies that distribute them, but my time's up.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Deedle deedle dumpling...
... my son Jon.
So everybody in my family is sick now, except Shannon and me. David has still never recovered from the lung congestion he incurred as a result of having his wisdom teeth out in January. Jonathan is also sick and is taking a Z-pack now, although he definitely has walking pneumonia. Once Shannon was diagnosed with walking pneumonia after being in bed for two days straight, an extreme oddity for her, and I would have really liked to know what was walking about it. But I digress. Shawn is sick and even stayed home from work for a day last week, which, for him is an extreme oddity as well.
Laura got very run down taking AP tests. She is full blown sick now as well, but says she doesn't want to take an antibiotic, so we haven't been to the doctor yet. Her last AP test was Thursday, AP Economics. The teacher set his final exam for the next day, Friday, and required that the kids come to school or receive a zero, there would be no make-ups for any reason.
Laura was as sick as a dog on Friday. She slept in and I took her to school late with a note that read, "Laura is late for school today because she is sick." I was very tempted to write, "Laura is late for school because she is sick, and she is only coming to take her economics final because otherwise she has been told she will receive a zero with no chance to make it up. She should not be in school at all today." But Laura convinced me that the shorter form was better. (Aside: Lu said that when she went into the attendance office with her note to get a pass to class from the secretary, she had a coughing fit just as she was trying to explain why she was late. She had a hard time stopping and when she finally got herself under control and handed the woman her note, the woman took it, gave her the pass, and then said, "I think I'm going to go use some of my hand sanitizer." To which Lu replied, "That's probably a really good idea.")
The upshot of Lu being sick is that Jon had to take the bus. Usually she drives them. Even when she doesn't drive because I need the van, she manages his schedule. Well, on Friday morning she was not available to manage Jon's schedule. The bus comes at 6:59, and they usually leave the house by 6:56 at the latest when they need to ride it. I know this. So I was trying to get Jon up, pour his juice, and take care of Lu's regular morning role.
Jon apparently doesn't love me as much as he loves Lu. He was slow to arise, and crabby. As I tried to encourage him to get going, he growled and snarled at me. Finally, at 6:58, he sat sprawled at the kitchen table, dressed, drinking his juice. "Honey, you really need to keep moving. The bus will be here any minute, " I said. He gave me a look of death and snarled once more, "Mom, I'm fine."
I took that opportunity to go back upstairs to bed. I climbed in next to Shawn and, pulling the sheets up to my chin, remarked, "I'll just lie here until he comes back and tells us he missed the bus."
We heard the door slam.
We waited... five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes. I was amazed. He did not come back.
Laura received a text message from a random friend from a different neighborhood at 7:15. She woke up to read it, and it said, "Laura, did your brother miss the bus?" She wondered, but didn't mention it to me until after school. After school, Laura asked, "Mom, was there something up with Jon this morning? I got a text about him at 7:15, and when I got to school, Ariana Dean asked me about him, because she said that when Jen Gass stopped to pick her up this morning, Jon was in the backseat of her car."
At which point I went and found Jonathan and interrogated him. His answer was as follows, though not a direct quote:
He went out to the bus at 7:05, believing that he had plenty of time. Nobody was at the bus stop, so he figured he was early, and just stood there. Another bus went by, a bus that his friends from the other half of the neighborhood ride. Shortly after that bus went past, Jen Gass drove up to the corner, saw him, stopped and rolled down her window. "What are you doing, Jon?" Jen asked.
"Waiting for the bus."
"Well, my little brother left our house fifteen minutes ago, and clearly he is not here anymore, so I think you missed it," she pointed out.
Jon made a consternated face and said, "Oh crud."
"Oh well, get in my car, I'll give you a ride," she offered. (I am feeling very warm and friendly and kind towards her, even now.)
So Jon was safely delivered to school. HOWEVER, in the meantime, the bus with all his friends from the other half of the neighborhood was in crisis. I'm not sure how it went, but apparently the driver, who was a substitute, was concerned about Jon, after seeing him standing forlornly on the street corner. The kids told her who he was, maybe they even told her that she shouldn't abandon him there on the street corner, I don't know.
The upshot is this: The driver decided that she would like to go back and pick Jon up, but being a substitute driver, she felt that she needed to get permission before doing so. So, she reached out to radio the busing garage for permission to pick him up. However, being a substitute, she was a little bit confused, so instead of hitting the "contact main bus garage" button, she hit the "emergency intercom to entire bus fleet" button. When she announced, "Jon Carpenter is standing on the corner in the Pinegate subdivision. Can I have permission to go back and pick him up?" the entire fleet of buses, serving a school of approximately 3000 students, heard her loud and clear.
That's my boy.
So everybody in my family is sick now, except Shannon and me. David has still never recovered from the lung congestion he incurred as a result of having his wisdom teeth out in January. Jonathan is also sick and is taking a Z-pack now, although he definitely has walking pneumonia. Once Shannon was diagnosed with walking pneumonia after being in bed for two days straight, an extreme oddity for her, and I would have really liked to know what was walking about it. But I digress. Shawn is sick and even stayed home from work for a day last week, which, for him is an extreme oddity as well.
Laura got very run down taking AP tests. She is full blown sick now as well, but says she doesn't want to take an antibiotic, so we haven't been to the doctor yet. Her last AP test was Thursday, AP Economics. The teacher set his final exam for the next day, Friday, and required that the kids come to school or receive a zero, there would be no make-ups for any reason.
Laura was as sick as a dog on Friday. She slept in and I took her to school late with a note that read, "Laura is late for school today because she is sick." I was very tempted to write, "Laura is late for school because she is sick, and she is only coming to take her economics final because otherwise she has been told she will receive a zero with no chance to make it up. She should not be in school at all today." But Laura convinced me that the shorter form was better. (Aside: Lu said that when she went into the attendance office with her note to get a pass to class from the secretary, she had a coughing fit just as she was trying to explain why she was late. She had a hard time stopping and when she finally got herself under control and handed the woman her note, the woman took it, gave her the pass, and then said, "I think I'm going to go use some of my hand sanitizer." To which Lu replied, "That's probably a really good idea.")
The upshot of Lu being sick is that Jon had to take the bus. Usually she drives them. Even when she doesn't drive because I need the van, she manages his schedule. Well, on Friday morning she was not available to manage Jon's schedule. The bus comes at 6:59, and they usually leave the house by 6:56 at the latest when they need to ride it. I know this. So I was trying to get Jon up, pour his juice, and take care of Lu's regular morning role.
Jon apparently doesn't love me as much as he loves Lu. He was slow to arise, and crabby. As I tried to encourage him to get going, he growled and snarled at me. Finally, at 6:58, he sat sprawled at the kitchen table, dressed, drinking his juice. "Honey, you really need to keep moving. The bus will be here any minute, " I said. He gave me a look of death and snarled once more, "Mom, I'm fine."
I took that opportunity to go back upstairs to bed. I climbed in next to Shawn and, pulling the sheets up to my chin, remarked, "I'll just lie here until he comes back and tells us he missed the bus."
We heard the door slam.
We waited... five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes. I was amazed. He did not come back.
Laura received a text message from a random friend from a different neighborhood at 7:15. She woke up to read it, and it said, "Laura, did your brother miss the bus?" She wondered, but didn't mention it to me until after school. After school, Laura asked, "Mom, was there something up with Jon this morning? I got a text about him at 7:15, and when I got to school, Ariana Dean asked me about him, because she said that when Jen Gass stopped to pick her up this morning, Jon was in the backseat of her car."
At which point I went and found Jonathan and interrogated him. His answer was as follows, though not a direct quote:
He went out to the bus at 7:05, believing that he had plenty of time. Nobody was at the bus stop, so he figured he was early, and just stood there. Another bus went by, a bus that his friends from the other half of the neighborhood ride. Shortly after that bus went past, Jen Gass drove up to the corner, saw him, stopped and rolled down her window. "What are you doing, Jon?" Jen asked.
"Waiting for the bus."
"Well, my little brother left our house fifteen minutes ago, and clearly he is not here anymore, so I think you missed it," she pointed out.
Jon made a consternated face and said, "Oh crud."
"Oh well, get in my car, I'll give you a ride," she offered. (I am feeling very warm and friendly and kind towards her, even now.)
So Jon was safely delivered to school. HOWEVER, in the meantime, the bus with all his friends from the other half of the neighborhood was in crisis. I'm not sure how it went, but apparently the driver, who was a substitute, was concerned about Jon, after seeing him standing forlornly on the street corner. The kids told her who he was, maybe they even told her that she shouldn't abandon him there on the street corner, I don't know.
The upshot is this: The driver decided that she would like to go back and pick Jon up, but being a substitute driver, she felt that she needed to get permission before doing so. So, she reached out to radio the busing garage for permission to pick him up. However, being a substitute, she was a little bit confused, so instead of hitting the "contact main bus garage" button, she hit the "emergency intercom to entire bus fleet" button. When she announced, "Jon Carpenter is standing on the corner in the Pinegate subdivision. Can I have permission to go back and pick him up?" the entire fleet of buses, serving a school of approximately 3000 students, heard her loud and clear.
That's my boy.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Free grammar lesson.
This is a free grammar lesson because I am going to lose my mind.
I do not know if this happens in other English speaking countries, but in America, there is a horrible epidemic of misuse of singular, first-person pronouns.
Somehow, people have gotten it into their heads that "me" is a terrible thing to say, and that one ought always to say "I" instead.
For instance, there is an utter pandemic of captioning photos as "John and I" or "Mary and I." It happens so frequently that it is actually becoming normal and accepted, which is just not right.
OK, think about it: Would one ever take a picture of oneself and caption it with, simply, "I" ? I hope not! Clearly, if one is standing there alone in the picture, one would write "me" for the caption. Unless, of course, one were a quasi-educated person who had a grasping need to try to sound smarter than one truly was and thus expose oneself as a grammatical ignoramus in the face of anybody who knows grammar, which is not much of a threat because, obviously, hardly anybody does. Please forgive me. I know that sounds mean spirited. There are obviously many, many people who misuse this construction simply because they were taught incorrectly. I bear them no ill will. The ones that irk me are: (1) English teachers who teach this incorrectly to their students, (2) elementary-aged children who think they are smarter than I am and attempt to set me straight on how to misuse singular first person pronouns, and (3) basically anybody who insists that incorrect usage is correct when the subject arises. Let me say this once more: I have no gripe with people who are just doing the best they can after being taught incorrectly; my only gripe is with people who smugly insist that they are right when they are wrong.
Here is the litmus test that is so simple that anyone can use it:
IF, WHEN ONE IS WRITING A SENTENCE, ONE REMOVES THE EXTRA PEOPLE FROM THE ISSUE, AND AT THAT POINT THE CORRECT WORD IS "ME," THEN IT REMAINS "ME" WHEN ONE ADDS THE OTHER PERSON OR PEOPLE BACK INTO THE SENTENCE.
EXAMPLES
Correct: "My mother gave a gift to me."
Also correct: "My mother gave a gift to my sister and me."
Incorrect: "My mother gave a gift to I."
Also incorrect: "My mother gave a gift to my sister and I." Believe it or not... This is INCORRECT!
The reason why photo captions should generally be "me" rather than "I" is this: it is, generally speaking, a shortened form of "This is me," or "This is a picture of me." One would never say, "This is I." Neither should one ever say, "This is Frankie and I." It's OK to say "me." One should say "me" when it is appropriate.
I actually saw someone use the (INCORRECT) construction: "The caterer provided an excellent cake for Ronald and I's wedding." Seriously. She didn't simply speak this, making a verbal mistake. This is what someone wrote. The problem is getting completely out of hand. There is a singular, first-person, possessive pronoun, and it is not "I's." "Ise" is a racial slur and sounds like dialogue lifted from the movie Gone with the Wind. One used to hear the correct form of the possessive personal pronoun used fairly often, before all this ignorant, pseudo-intellectual, hyper-corrective "I" business got into swing. It is (drum roll, please)... "my." The correct way to say, "The caterer provided an excellent cake for Ronald and I's wedding," is, very simply, "The caterer provided an excellent cake for Ronald's and my wedding." That's slightly awkward, although basically correct. Preferable ways of saying it would be: "The caterer provided an excellent cake for Ronald and me at our wedding," or (imagine this), "The caterer provided an excellent cake for our wedding."
Understanding grammar means knowing the difference between a noun that is an object and a noun that is a subject. This skill is enhanced when one studies a foreign language that uses noun cases, but it can be learned by even a single-language speaker who is willing to apply the above litmus test.
The subject form of the personal pronoun is "I." One uses this form when the person in question is doing the action of the sentence; for instance, "I went for a long walk today." This remains true when it is more than one person walking, and it is also considered polite, and therefore correct, to put oneself humbly after others, so the correct usage is, "My husband and I went for a long walk today."
Oddly, the people who are always taking about how Dereck stopped by to see "Jamal and I" (litmus: Did he stop by to see I? No! He stopped by to see me! Therefore, he also stopped by to see Jamal and me!)--the same people who make this mistake often use "me" when they should not: Me and Jamal want some ice cream. No, no, no! THAT is where one correctly uses "I." Only Cookie Monster says, "Me want cookie." Everyone else says, "I want a cookie." This is the proper place to use the subject form of the first person pronoun: I. Ergo, "Jamal and I would like some ice-cream."
One uses the object form ("me") when the noun being replaced is the object of the action being done:
Correct: He kicked me out of the apartment.
Also correct: He kicked Sally and me out of the apartment.
Incorrect: He kicked I out of the apartment.
Also incorrect: He kicked Sally and I out of the apartment.
The same is true whenever the pronoun is the object of a preposition.
Prepositions are words that can fill in the following blank: "The knight jumped ______ the horse." They do not have to make rational sense, but they must fit. Therefore, prepositions are words like: on, under, over, around, through, beside, for, against, to, from... etc.
Correct: to me
Also correct: to Shannon and me
Incorrect: to I
Also incorrect: to Shannon and I
Correct: For me
Also correct: For Laura and me
Incorrect: For I
Also incorrect: For Laura and I
It is not a sin to use a word that starts with the letter m. In fact, it is often perfectly correct. This is true more often than most people with college educations realize. The thing that really gripes me is when English teachers get it wrong.
I do not know if this happens in other English speaking countries, but in America, there is a horrible epidemic of misuse of singular, first-person pronouns.
Somehow, people have gotten it into their heads that "me" is a terrible thing to say, and that one ought always to say "I" instead.
For instance, there is an utter pandemic of captioning photos as "John and I" or "Mary and I." It happens so frequently that it is actually becoming normal and accepted, which is just not right.
OK, think about it: Would one ever take a picture of oneself and caption it with, simply, "I" ? I hope not! Clearly, if one is standing there alone in the picture, one would write "me" for the caption. Unless, of course, one were a quasi-educated person who had a grasping need to try to sound smarter than one truly was and thus expose oneself as a grammatical ignoramus in the face of anybody who knows grammar, which is not much of a threat because, obviously, hardly anybody does. Please forgive me. I know that sounds mean spirited. There are obviously many, many people who misuse this construction simply because they were taught incorrectly. I bear them no ill will. The ones that irk me are: (1) English teachers who teach this incorrectly to their students, (2) elementary-aged children who think they are smarter than I am and attempt to set me straight on how to misuse singular first person pronouns, and (3) basically anybody who insists that incorrect usage is correct when the subject arises. Let me say this once more: I have no gripe with people who are just doing the best they can after being taught incorrectly; my only gripe is with people who smugly insist that they are right when they are wrong.
Here is the litmus test that is so simple that anyone can use it:
IF, WHEN ONE IS WRITING A SENTENCE, ONE REMOVES THE EXTRA PEOPLE FROM THE ISSUE, AND AT THAT POINT THE CORRECT WORD IS "ME," THEN IT REMAINS "ME" WHEN ONE ADDS THE OTHER PERSON OR PEOPLE BACK INTO THE SENTENCE.
EXAMPLES
Correct: "My mother gave a gift to me."
Also correct: "My mother gave a gift to my sister and me."
Incorrect: "My mother gave a gift to I."
Also incorrect: "My mother gave a gift to my sister and I." Believe it or not... This is INCORRECT!
The reason why photo captions should generally be "me" rather than "I" is this: it is, generally speaking, a shortened form of "This is me," or "This is a picture of me." One would never say, "This is I." Neither should one ever say, "This is Frankie and I." It's OK to say "me." One should say "me" when it is appropriate.
I actually saw someone use the (INCORRECT) construction: "The caterer provided an excellent cake for Ronald and I's wedding." Seriously. She didn't simply speak this, making a verbal mistake. This is what someone wrote. The problem is getting completely out of hand. There is a singular, first-person, possessive pronoun, and it is not "I's." "Ise" is a racial slur and sounds like dialogue lifted from the movie Gone with the Wind. One used to hear the correct form of the possessive personal pronoun used fairly often, before all this ignorant, pseudo-intellectual, hyper-corrective "I" business got into swing. It is (drum roll, please)... "my." The correct way to say, "The caterer provided an excellent cake for Ronald and I's wedding," is, very simply, "The caterer provided an excellent cake for Ronald's and my wedding." That's slightly awkward, although basically correct. Preferable ways of saying it would be: "The caterer provided an excellent cake for Ronald and me at our wedding," or (imagine this), "The caterer provided an excellent cake for our wedding."
Understanding grammar means knowing the difference between a noun that is an object and a noun that is a subject. This skill is enhanced when one studies a foreign language that uses noun cases, but it can be learned by even a single-language speaker who is willing to apply the above litmus test.
The subject form of the personal pronoun is "I." One uses this form when the person in question is doing the action of the sentence; for instance, "I went for a long walk today." This remains true when it is more than one person walking, and it is also considered polite, and therefore correct, to put oneself humbly after others, so the correct usage is, "My husband and I went for a long walk today."
Oddly, the people who are always taking about how Dereck stopped by to see "Jamal and I" (litmus: Did he stop by to see I? No! He stopped by to see me! Therefore, he also stopped by to see Jamal and me!)--the same people who make this mistake often use "me" when they should not: Me and Jamal want some ice cream. No, no, no! THAT is where one correctly uses "I." Only Cookie Monster says, "Me want cookie." Everyone else says, "I want a cookie." This is the proper place to use the subject form of the first person pronoun: I. Ergo, "Jamal and I would like some ice-cream."
One uses the object form ("me") when the noun being replaced is the object of the action being done:
Correct: He kicked me out of the apartment.
Also correct: He kicked Sally and me out of the apartment.
Incorrect: He kicked I out of the apartment.
Also incorrect: He kicked Sally and I out of the apartment.
The same is true whenever the pronoun is the object of a preposition.
Prepositions are words that can fill in the following blank: "The knight jumped ______ the horse." They do not have to make rational sense, but they must fit. Therefore, prepositions are words like: on, under, over, around, through, beside, for, against, to, from... etc.
Correct: to me
Also correct: to Shannon and me
Incorrect: to I
Also incorrect: to Shannon and I
Correct: For me
Also correct: For Laura and me
Incorrect: For I
Also incorrect: For Laura and I
It is not a sin to use a word that starts with the letter m. In fact, it is often perfectly correct. This is true more often than most people with college educations realize. The thing that really gripes me is when English teachers get it wrong.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
In-laws, and also May Day
Happy May Day! We planted two new hydrangeas and hung two really pretty hanging baskets outside our front door. I'm feeling very properly celebrated.
When I was little, my mom taught me that on May Day the thing to do was cut paper into perfect squares which we would then fold into little baskets. We filled these baskets with jelly beans and other small candies. Then I went around to the neighbors' front doors, set down a basket, rang the doorbell and ran away. That was how we celebrated May Day. Anonymous candy would not go over so well these days.
May Day also made me think of my grandma, Mae (Short) Rainbow. For obvious reasons, I hope. I am going to write about my grandpa instead though.
Grandpa Rainbow could do everything. He could build things, fix things, grow things and play things (like the harmonica). He was just one of those people who could figure out anything.
Grandpa had a boat, and one of his favorite things was to go out on the Rum River and catch fish. He loved fishing so much, he worked part-time in a bait shop for years and years after he had retired.
Grandpa was my father's father. My mother's father, Grandpa Herbold, died in 1971 when he was 91. He was riding his bicycle and a car hit him, and after a number of weeks in the hospital, Grandpa went to Heaven.
This meant that Grandma Herbold lived alone without a husband for many years. Eventually, Aunt Nunie retired from being a missionary in Africa and moved in with her, but even then they had no man in the house.
Grandma Herbold loved fresh fish, and Grandpa Rainbow loved to fish. So every now and again, when Grandpa was on his way home from fishing on the Rum River, he would stop over at Grandma Herbold's house and give her a string of sunfish. After all, two of his boys had married two of her girls. There was a lot of positive attitude back and forth between the two families.
That was my childhood experience of in-laws... that, and the way my mom called my Grandma Rainbow (not her own mother, but Grandma Rainbow) every night before she went to bed, just to check in. My mom called her own mother, "Mom," and she called my dad's mom, "Mother," and she was very devoted to them both.
When I was little, my mom taught me that on May Day the thing to do was cut paper into perfect squares which we would then fold into little baskets. We filled these baskets with jelly beans and other small candies. Then I went around to the neighbors' front doors, set down a basket, rang the doorbell and ran away. That was how we celebrated May Day. Anonymous candy would not go over so well these days.
May Day also made me think of my grandma, Mae (Short) Rainbow. For obvious reasons, I hope. I am going to write about my grandpa instead though.
Grandpa Rainbow could do everything. He could build things, fix things, grow things and play things (like the harmonica). He was just one of those people who could figure out anything.
Grandpa had a boat, and one of his favorite things was to go out on the Rum River and catch fish. He loved fishing so much, he worked part-time in a bait shop for years and years after he had retired.
Grandpa was my father's father. My mother's father, Grandpa Herbold, died in 1971 when he was 91. He was riding his bicycle and a car hit him, and after a number of weeks in the hospital, Grandpa went to Heaven.
This meant that Grandma Herbold lived alone without a husband for many years. Eventually, Aunt Nunie retired from being a missionary in Africa and moved in with her, but even then they had no man in the house.
Grandma Herbold loved fresh fish, and Grandpa Rainbow loved to fish. So every now and again, when Grandpa was on his way home from fishing on the Rum River, he would stop over at Grandma Herbold's house and give her a string of sunfish. After all, two of his boys had married two of her girls. There was a lot of positive attitude back and forth between the two families.
That was my childhood experience of in-laws... that, and the way my mom called my Grandma Rainbow (not her own mother, but Grandma Rainbow) every night before she went to bed, just to check in. My mom called her own mother, "Mom," and she called my dad's mom, "Mother," and she was very devoted to them both.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Progression
It's funny how different the color of the sky is from day to day, but this is Central New York.
Worship
Here I go again. Agonizing over worship.
I recently found a blog by a man named Bob Kauflin. He seems to be genuine and sincere, intelligent and Biblically based. I really respect a lot of the things he says and most of what he stands for. He demonstrates humility and a burning passion for the glory of God.
He is a church musician, a.k.a. "worship leader." And therein is my stumbling block. The a.k.a. part, I mean.
It is so hard, so very, very hard for me to live with the idea that "my worship" is how I respond to the music in my church. There is something about this idea that just sits very badly in my spirit. It causes me no end of angst. I don't believe that Jesus meant for it to be this way.
I read Mr. Kaufman's blog and was impressed. I wondered if the Lord were convicting me of a wrong heart towards contemporary Christian music. I prayed and resolved to approach things at my church with a fresh perspective. I listened to samples of Mr. Kaufman's music (he writes a lot himself). I actually kind of liked a few of his songs. Some of them I did not care for very much, but I could recognize that concern for the centrality of Jesus' sacrifice and attention to theological detail had gone into the crafting of the lyrics. "Is God calling me to learn to like contemporary Christian music?" I wondered. If that's what God wants me to do, I need to be willing to do it, otherwise I am in disobedience, whether or not worship is more than musical expression in a corporate gathering.
On Sunday, I went to church with a hopeful attitude. Surprisingly, most of the songs on the program that day were older ones (from the 1990s) that I actually knew; they were not all new, unfamiliar ones. Although I can't remember what they were, I relaxed into the music and began singing in a looser way than usual, less binding up in my heart and throat.
I relaxed and sang, closed my eyes and let my head fall back. I felt good. And then, suddenly, I realized what I was singing: "In all I do, I honor You... In all I do, I honor You... In all I do, I honor You..." My mind kicked back in, and I realized, "I do not honor God in all I do. I should honor God in all I do. I hope to get to a point where, at least, I honor God in most of what I do. But I most certainly do not honor God in all that I do. I am lying. Over and over. In church. I am standing in church, repeating a lie over and over to the Lord." And that was the end of me being able to engage in the music for that morning.
What is vexing is this: I cannot even remember what song it was to look up the rest of the words. This is a thing that I really used to like about hymnals. If you blanked out for a moment and failed to concentrate, you still had the whole song on the page in front of you, and you could scan with your eyes to see what you had been singing about and how the words all worked together, even beyond the ones you were singing in that exact moment. When we only get a few lines or phrases at a time on a video screen, we can lose the meaning of the song quite quickly as words disappear. At least, I can, but perhaps I am unique in my propensity to have a mind-glich now and then while singing. Probably everybody else is completely overwhelmed by the glory of God, and I am just standing there, distracted because the video screen has an apostrophe in the wrong place, and I am just that nasty type of person who would notice. I remember once I was in an assembly, and we were singing a song, and we got to the end where we began to repeat the last line over and over and over, as there is a tendency to do these days. The line was, "Here I am." Over and over. Those were the only words visible on the screen. All around me, people were holding up their hands, weeping. I had no idea what was going on. "Here I am." Well, yes, there I was, desiring to focus on my Lord--the One who created me and redeemed me. But apparently all I was supposed to do was to tell Him, "Here I am," which, as far as I could tell, was just a painfully obvious fact. Painful, because my toes were freezing and the constant emphasis on my own presence was making me repeatedly aware of them.
I feel really bad about myself. But then, on the other hand, I wonder about all the other people who were singing, "In all I do, I honor You." Did they really believe that they do truly honor God in all that they do? Maybe they are all that much more sanctified than I am. I guess I am not supposed to judge. But really, aren't we all in this sanctification thing together, with responsibility to help and encourage one another and hold one another accountable? Aren't we? Or aren't we? Maybe the other people are just as "middle of the journey" on the path of sanctification as I am, and maybe they even know this about themselves, but then why would they sing those words? Is it an issue of mental (dare I say intellectual) disengagement?
I often feel that the goal of the song leader is--subconsciously of course--to get the singers to engage with the music and disengage from "life" (a.k.a critical thinking, and by that I mean critical in the sense of "involving skillful judgment as to the truth," not critical in the sense of "inclined to find fault"). Whenever I am walking in the grocery store and hear the song that goes, "Give me the beat boys, and free my soul, I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away..." it reminds me of the way I feel in church during the music, the uncomfortable, on-guard feelings that rise up in me when I sense that someone is telling me, "Let go... stop thinking... engage with the music..."
Jesus said, "God is Spirit and His worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth," (John 4:24). I think we've got the worship in spirit part down, but I really cannot quite relax about the truth part.
I recently found a blog by a man named Bob Kauflin. He seems to be genuine and sincere, intelligent and Biblically based. I really respect a lot of the things he says and most of what he stands for. He demonstrates humility and a burning passion for the glory of God.
He is a church musician, a.k.a. "worship leader." And therein is my stumbling block. The a.k.a. part, I mean.
It is so hard, so very, very hard for me to live with the idea that "my worship" is how I respond to the music in my church. There is something about this idea that just sits very badly in my spirit. It causes me no end of angst. I don't believe that Jesus meant for it to be this way.
I read Mr. Kaufman's blog and was impressed. I wondered if the Lord were convicting me of a wrong heart towards contemporary Christian music. I prayed and resolved to approach things at my church with a fresh perspective. I listened to samples of Mr. Kaufman's music (he writes a lot himself). I actually kind of liked a few of his songs. Some of them I did not care for very much, but I could recognize that concern for the centrality of Jesus' sacrifice and attention to theological detail had gone into the crafting of the lyrics. "Is God calling me to learn to like contemporary Christian music?" I wondered. If that's what God wants me to do, I need to be willing to do it, otherwise I am in disobedience, whether or not worship is more than musical expression in a corporate gathering.
On Sunday, I went to church with a hopeful attitude. Surprisingly, most of the songs on the program that day were older ones (from the 1990s) that I actually knew; they were not all new, unfamiliar ones. Although I can't remember what they were, I relaxed into the music and began singing in a looser way than usual, less binding up in my heart and throat.
I relaxed and sang, closed my eyes and let my head fall back. I felt good. And then, suddenly, I realized what I was singing: "In all I do, I honor You... In all I do, I honor You... In all I do, I honor You..." My mind kicked back in, and I realized, "I do not honor God in all I do. I should honor God in all I do. I hope to get to a point where, at least, I honor God in most of what I do. But I most certainly do not honor God in all that I do. I am lying. Over and over. In church. I am standing in church, repeating a lie over and over to the Lord." And that was the end of me being able to engage in the music for that morning.
What is vexing is this: I cannot even remember what song it was to look up the rest of the words. This is a thing that I really used to like about hymnals. If you blanked out for a moment and failed to concentrate, you still had the whole song on the page in front of you, and you could scan with your eyes to see what you had been singing about and how the words all worked together, even beyond the ones you were singing in that exact moment. When we only get a few lines or phrases at a time on a video screen, we can lose the meaning of the song quite quickly as words disappear. At least, I can, but perhaps I am unique in my propensity to have a mind-glich now and then while singing. Probably everybody else is completely overwhelmed by the glory of God, and I am just standing there, distracted because the video screen has an apostrophe in the wrong place, and I am just that nasty type of person who would notice. I remember once I was in an assembly, and we were singing a song, and we got to the end where we began to repeat the last line over and over and over, as there is a tendency to do these days. The line was, "Here I am." Over and over. Those were the only words visible on the screen. All around me, people were holding up their hands, weeping. I had no idea what was going on. "Here I am." Well, yes, there I was, desiring to focus on my Lord--the One who created me and redeemed me. But apparently all I was supposed to do was to tell Him, "Here I am," which, as far as I could tell, was just a painfully obvious fact. Painful, because my toes were freezing and the constant emphasis on my own presence was making me repeatedly aware of them.
I feel really bad about myself. But then, on the other hand, I wonder about all the other people who were singing, "In all I do, I honor You." Did they really believe that they do truly honor God in all that they do? Maybe they are all that much more sanctified than I am. I guess I am not supposed to judge. But really, aren't we all in this sanctification thing together, with responsibility to help and encourage one another and hold one another accountable? Aren't we? Or aren't we? Maybe the other people are just as "middle of the journey" on the path of sanctification as I am, and maybe they even know this about themselves, but then why would they sing those words? Is it an issue of mental (dare I say intellectual) disengagement?
I often feel that the goal of the song leader is--subconsciously of course--to get the singers to engage with the music and disengage from "life" (a.k.a critical thinking, and by that I mean critical in the sense of "involving skillful judgment as to the truth," not critical in the sense of "inclined to find fault"). Whenever I am walking in the grocery store and hear the song that goes, "Give me the beat boys, and free my soul, I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away..." it reminds me of the way I feel in church during the music, the uncomfortable, on-guard feelings that rise up in me when I sense that someone is telling me, "Let go... stop thinking... engage with the music..."
Jesus said, "God is Spirit and His worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth," (John 4:24). I think we've got the worship in spirit part down, but I really cannot quite relax about the truth part.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
A memory I had tried to repress
The other night I actually went to bed kind of early, with a book.
My husband came into the room, kissed my mouth and said, "You smell really good, and you look smart." This, people, is romance in your mid-forties.
I smelled really good because I had doused myself with essential oils as I always do in my bedtime routine. I do this because my peri-menopausal skin responds only to my own homemade concoction: grapeseed oil with lavender, sweet orange, calendula, and a drop of clove. Anything else either gives me a rash or makes me break out. That particular night, I think I had also massaged all around my hairline with pure lavender essential oil, because I had a headache coming on and lavender sometimes stops it.
I looked smart because I was wearing my reading glasses, the ones with black rims that I bought at Kinney Drug. Also my hair was in something that vaguely resembled a bun because I had wrenched it back with a scrunchy in order to get it out of the way when I was washing my face. But I really think it was the glasses and not the hair that gave me the scholarly appearance.
The reading glasses were there to help me read The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James. My tenth grade English teacher, Oscar Johnson, had told me that I really needed to read that particular book. I have a very old copy of it; I'm not sure when or where I got it, but I think it was during college, and I do know that I got it because Mr. Johnson had told me to read it, and I was curious.
I've had the book for years and years, and never finished it. I guess it just isn't very good. It's by an American, after all. Now that I am old, I have read quite a bit of Dickens: David Copperfield, Great Expectations, Bleak House (Bleak House was not my favorite, but I did finish it). I am actually old enought to appreciate Dickens. The Portrait of a Lady on the other hand, is not all that good, and also I have a terrible sense of foreboding as I read it, that it will have a Great Gatsby-ish ending, and I am not in the mood for that, ever.
I was trying to read it that night, though. I had picked it up a while back and made a fair bit of progress in it, but that "while back" was when I had my colonoscopy. I know this, because the instructions for preparing for the procedure were still in the book, my bookmark, in fact. Ugh!
I never wrote about the colonoscopy because (1) it was a fate worse than death and (2) I was incredibly embarrassed to mention it, which is exactly why it took me so long to get to the subject just now. Romance in your mid-forties. Yeah right.
My sister, and I love her anyway but I will never again take anything she says seriously, my sister told me, "I had a colonoscopy and it was fun!" She loved drinking the solution, it wasn't bad at all, she said. She loved feeling all clean on the inside and out. She said the anesthesia was gentle and effective, and she was completely unaware of the procedure itself. "It was fun!" she repeated, with a glowing smile.
That recommendation alone would not have induced me to go through with it, but I have been wanting my husband to have a colonoscopy for quite some time. "Those types" of cancer run in his family, and he has always been plagued with a tricky bowel. So I thought, "If I have a colonoscopy and show him how easy and pleasant it is, then he will have one, and we will be able to rest at ease about his intestines." Also, our insurance deductible had been met, so I thought I might as well get as much free stuff as I could before the turn of the year.
So, at the beginning of last December, I found myself in the kitchen with a huge jug of solution (four liters, I believe) that I had to drink. The ladies at my church were having a Christmas fellowship that evening. I was not, although I certainly did think of them on more than one occasion. Probably with covetousness in my heart.
My first indication that my sister is either out-of-her-mind insane (is that redundant?) or a pathological liar was when I poured myself the first glass of solution. The nurse had told me, "What do you like to drink? Do you like iced tea? Mix it with iced tea, or something like that." I thought, "My sister says it is delicious, and no problem at all." That was what I thought. Naively trusting my sister, I did not buy any iced tea, or lemonade or anything else. I poured up my first glass, approximately 8 of the 135.26 ounces that I had to drink before bed that day. I lifted it to my mouth and went to chug it down. Imagine my surprise when my body simply refused to take it in. It was the slimiest, vilest stuff you can imagine, and my gag reflex went into overdrive.
I felt panicked. What was I going to do with all this solution? How was I going to get it down? I poured it into a larger glass and cut it half and half with cranberry juice cocktail which enabled me to get it down, but I realized that there was no way I could double the amount of liquid for the whole amount and do it all that way. I would explode (oh wait, I was going to be exploding anyway...).
The worst of it was, you were supposed to drink a glass every ten minutes until it was gone.
I sent David to the store with my credit card to get a can of lemonade mix.
I will try to spare you the monotony of what ensued, but I found that stirring lemonade mix into the solution just before taking it, and then drinking it with a straw aimed at the back of my mouth, I could fulfill the instructions.
In the ten minute interludes, I read The Portrait of a Lady. It was a very long afternoon and evening. Nobody tells you how cold you get when you drink over a gallon of that solution. And on top of everything else, it didn't make me go to the bathroom. I just got fuller and fuller and fuller and colder and colder and colder. The family enjoyed a spaghetti dinner while I shivered next to the fireplace and vainly tried to warm myself with a down blanket (and, of course, kept downing the stuff).
I never had an urge to push when I was giving birth, and this solution apparently didn't work in my body, either. Well, it finally started to work a little bit, but not very well. I had heard horror stories about people being up all night with it. I was not up all night. I slept pretty well. Amazingly well. Far better than I would have slept had I any idea what else was in store.
The next morning I continued to empty at a very pokey rate. I hoped it was going to be OK. We went to the hospital, or whatever it was, the building next to the hospital where the butchery was to be performed.
When they took me into the surgical prep area, I was supposed to be clean and empty, but I was still needing to go to the bathroom on and off. So there I was, caught between chapters of Portrait of a Lady and trips to the lav. I had to wait a long time for my procedure, which was not reassuring.
The prep area was the same as the recovery room, a long hallway with many beds in a row, with thin cotton curtains pulled between them. As I sat in my bed, in my hospital gown, reading Portrait of a Lady, I heard strange noises, noises that sounded for all the world like compressing whoopie cushions. This gave me a very unsettled feeling.
At one point, I needed to get up and use the bathroom, but the one across from my bed was occupied, so the nurse told me to walk down to the one at the opposite end of the hall. Feeling odd, but knowing that necessity rules, I walked the length, and as I did, on my right, I passed bed after bed, each filled with an unconscious person slumped beneath a sheet, loudly passing gas.
Fear welled up in my heart. "This is not a good place," I thought. "I do not want to be here. I do not want to see these people and listen to their blasted puttering." It was then that I realized, "I am soon to be one of these people." Talk about abject terror. I finished my business and returned to my bed, averting my eyes, trying not to hear the repugnant sounds that assailed me. I picked up The Portrait of a Lady and tried very hard to concentrate on it. It was then that I overheard the nurse talking playfully with some man who had walked onto the floor, "Yes," she was saying, "This unit is doing very well financially. We got the contract with the prison to do all the prisoners' colonoscopies here, right here. It brings in a nice amount of work."
So it was me and the prisoners? Was this a bad dream? Unfortunately, there was no waking up from this one. I wondered if you could just get up and leave at such a point. I prayed to the Lord, I prayed something like, "Please, please help me. Please get me out of here if they are going to kill me."
At this point, I was still trusting that the actual procedure would be a breeze. I started to feel uncertain even about that when they finally wheeled me in, and there was only a doctor and a nurse. "Where is the anesthesiologist?" I asked. "Oh, we do it ourselves," they told me. I didn't panic, but I should have.
Basically, I experienced extreme pain and unbelievable cramping, but I was unable to speak, because, you know, I was anesthesized. When they eventually noticed that I was moaning and writhing, the doctor shouted something at the nurse that my scrambled brain could not decode, and everything finally went black.
In the end, they must have given me a lot, because when they dressed me to leave, I almost keeled over and they quickly caught me and put me back to bed.
Poor Shawn had a very long day in the waiting room that day.
When we got home, I was not right at all. I had intense pains in my side and my arm and shoulder that evening, really intense. I got on the computer and tried to figure out what was happening. I could hardly breathe. I shuddered at going to bed that night, fearing a most undignified death.
I could not eat for days. My digestive system was broken. It had been fine, and it ended up broken.
Now, the pain and discomfort have passed. But I am never going through that again. Never. And neither is Shawn. My entire plan backfired. If he didn't want a colonoscopy before, he will never, never have one now. And you know what? I don't blame him. I was an idiot.
Also, I still never finished The Portrait of a Lady. The other night when I started to try, it brought back not a few bad memories. The foreboding I used to feel when considering the book has been greatly magnified beyond a mere suspicion that it will hold an unhappy ending for a social ladder climber.
But I'm glad my husband likes the way I smell in my essential oils at night, even if I am not as smart as I might look.
My husband came into the room, kissed my mouth and said, "You smell really good, and you look smart." This, people, is romance in your mid-forties.
I smelled really good because I had doused myself with essential oils as I always do in my bedtime routine. I do this because my peri-menopausal skin responds only to my own homemade concoction: grapeseed oil with lavender, sweet orange, calendula, and a drop of clove. Anything else either gives me a rash or makes me break out. That particular night, I think I had also massaged all around my hairline with pure lavender essential oil, because I had a headache coming on and lavender sometimes stops it.
I looked smart because I was wearing my reading glasses, the ones with black rims that I bought at Kinney Drug. Also my hair was in something that vaguely resembled a bun because I had wrenched it back with a scrunchy in order to get it out of the way when I was washing my face. But I really think it was the glasses and not the hair that gave me the scholarly appearance.
The reading glasses were there to help me read The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James. My tenth grade English teacher, Oscar Johnson, had told me that I really needed to read that particular book. I have a very old copy of it; I'm not sure when or where I got it, but I think it was during college, and I do know that I got it because Mr. Johnson had told me to read it, and I was curious.
I've had the book for years and years, and never finished it. I guess it just isn't very good. It's by an American, after all. Now that I am old, I have read quite a bit of Dickens: David Copperfield, Great Expectations, Bleak House (Bleak House was not my favorite, but I did finish it). I am actually old enought to appreciate Dickens. The Portrait of a Lady on the other hand, is not all that good, and also I have a terrible sense of foreboding as I read it, that it will have a Great Gatsby-ish ending, and I am not in the mood for that, ever.
I was trying to read it that night, though. I had picked it up a while back and made a fair bit of progress in it, but that "while back" was when I had my colonoscopy. I know this, because the instructions for preparing for the procedure were still in the book, my bookmark, in fact. Ugh!
I never wrote about the colonoscopy because (1) it was a fate worse than death and (2) I was incredibly embarrassed to mention it, which is exactly why it took me so long to get to the subject just now. Romance in your mid-forties. Yeah right.
My sister, and I love her anyway but I will never again take anything she says seriously, my sister told me, "I had a colonoscopy and it was fun!" She loved drinking the solution, it wasn't bad at all, she said. She loved feeling all clean on the inside and out. She said the anesthesia was gentle and effective, and she was completely unaware of the procedure itself. "It was fun!" she repeated, with a glowing smile.
That recommendation alone would not have induced me to go through with it, but I have been wanting my husband to have a colonoscopy for quite some time. "Those types" of cancer run in his family, and he has always been plagued with a tricky bowel. So I thought, "If I have a colonoscopy and show him how easy and pleasant it is, then he will have one, and we will be able to rest at ease about his intestines." Also, our insurance deductible had been met, so I thought I might as well get as much free stuff as I could before the turn of the year.
So, at the beginning of last December, I found myself in the kitchen with a huge jug of solution (four liters, I believe) that I had to drink. The ladies at my church were having a Christmas fellowship that evening. I was not, although I certainly did think of them on more than one occasion. Probably with covetousness in my heart.
My first indication that my sister is either out-of-her-mind insane (is that redundant?) or a pathological liar was when I poured myself the first glass of solution. The nurse had told me, "What do you like to drink? Do you like iced tea? Mix it with iced tea, or something like that." I thought, "My sister says it is delicious, and no problem at all." That was what I thought. Naively trusting my sister, I did not buy any iced tea, or lemonade or anything else. I poured up my first glass, approximately 8 of the 135.26 ounces that I had to drink before bed that day. I lifted it to my mouth and went to chug it down. Imagine my surprise when my body simply refused to take it in. It was the slimiest, vilest stuff you can imagine, and my gag reflex went into overdrive.
I felt panicked. What was I going to do with all this solution? How was I going to get it down? I poured it into a larger glass and cut it half and half with cranberry juice cocktail which enabled me to get it down, but I realized that there was no way I could double the amount of liquid for the whole amount and do it all that way. I would explode (oh wait, I was going to be exploding anyway...).
The worst of it was, you were supposed to drink a glass every ten minutes until it was gone.
I sent David to the store with my credit card to get a can of lemonade mix.
I will try to spare you the monotony of what ensued, but I found that stirring lemonade mix into the solution just before taking it, and then drinking it with a straw aimed at the back of my mouth, I could fulfill the instructions.
In the ten minute interludes, I read The Portrait of a Lady. It was a very long afternoon and evening. Nobody tells you how cold you get when you drink over a gallon of that solution. And on top of everything else, it didn't make me go to the bathroom. I just got fuller and fuller and fuller and colder and colder and colder. The family enjoyed a spaghetti dinner while I shivered next to the fireplace and vainly tried to warm myself with a down blanket (and, of course, kept downing the stuff).
I never had an urge to push when I was giving birth, and this solution apparently didn't work in my body, either. Well, it finally started to work a little bit, but not very well. I had heard horror stories about people being up all night with it. I was not up all night. I slept pretty well. Amazingly well. Far better than I would have slept had I any idea what else was in store.
The next morning I continued to empty at a very pokey rate. I hoped it was going to be OK. We went to the hospital, or whatever it was, the building next to the hospital where the butchery was to be performed.
When they took me into the surgical prep area, I was supposed to be clean and empty, but I was still needing to go to the bathroom on and off. So there I was, caught between chapters of Portrait of a Lady and trips to the lav. I had to wait a long time for my procedure, which was not reassuring.
The prep area was the same as the recovery room, a long hallway with many beds in a row, with thin cotton curtains pulled between them. As I sat in my bed, in my hospital gown, reading Portrait of a Lady, I heard strange noises, noises that sounded for all the world like compressing whoopie cushions. This gave me a very unsettled feeling.
At one point, I needed to get up and use the bathroom, but the one across from my bed was occupied, so the nurse told me to walk down to the one at the opposite end of the hall. Feeling odd, but knowing that necessity rules, I walked the length, and as I did, on my right, I passed bed after bed, each filled with an unconscious person slumped beneath a sheet, loudly passing gas.
Fear welled up in my heart. "This is not a good place," I thought. "I do not want to be here. I do not want to see these people and listen to their blasted puttering." It was then that I realized, "I am soon to be one of these people." Talk about abject terror. I finished my business and returned to my bed, averting my eyes, trying not to hear the repugnant sounds that assailed me. I picked up The Portrait of a Lady and tried very hard to concentrate on it. It was then that I overheard the nurse talking playfully with some man who had walked onto the floor, "Yes," she was saying, "This unit is doing very well financially. We got the contract with the prison to do all the prisoners' colonoscopies here, right here. It brings in a nice amount of work."
So it was me and the prisoners? Was this a bad dream? Unfortunately, there was no waking up from this one. I wondered if you could just get up and leave at such a point. I prayed to the Lord, I prayed something like, "Please, please help me. Please get me out of here if they are going to kill me."
At this point, I was still trusting that the actual procedure would be a breeze. I started to feel uncertain even about that when they finally wheeled me in, and there was only a doctor and a nurse. "Where is the anesthesiologist?" I asked. "Oh, we do it ourselves," they told me. I didn't panic, but I should have.
Basically, I experienced extreme pain and unbelievable cramping, but I was unable to speak, because, you know, I was anesthesized. When they eventually noticed that I was moaning and writhing, the doctor shouted something at the nurse that my scrambled brain could not decode, and everything finally went black.
In the end, they must have given me a lot, because when they dressed me to leave, I almost keeled over and they quickly caught me and put me back to bed.
Poor Shawn had a very long day in the waiting room that day.
When we got home, I was not right at all. I had intense pains in my side and my arm and shoulder that evening, really intense. I got on the computer and tried to figure out what was happening. I could hardly breathe. I shuddered at going to bed that night, fearing a most undignified death.
I could not eat for days. My digestive system was broken. It had been fine, and it ended up broken.
Now, the pain and discomfort have passed. But I am never going through that again. Never. And neither is Shawn. My entire plan backfired. If he didn't want a colonoscopy before, he will never, never have one now. And you know what? I don't blame him. I was an idiot.
Also, I still never finished The Portrait of a Lady. The other night when I started to try, it brought back not a few bad memories. The foreboding I used to feel when considering the book has been greatly magnified beyond a mere suspicion that it will hold an unhappy ending for a social ladder climber.
But I'm glad my husband likes the way I smell in my essential oils at night, even if I am not as smart as I might look.
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