Personal blog of christian
writer & fallible mom
Katy McKenna Raymond
in Kansas City, Missouri
Read more Katy at...
LateBoomer.net
Most Recent Posts
- Not For The Faint Of Heart
- New Math
- International House Of…..Watch Out!
- Have Yourself A Merry Little Colonoscopy!
- Spell Check
- You Are Not Alone
- Don’t Know Much About The Big Three
- Why, Oh Why Didn’t I Take Home Ec?
- Really, Really Fun While It Lasts!
- In Defense Of Good Old-Fashioned Books
- Things I’ve Said That I’m Happy Someone Else Didn’t Say First, One In An Ongoing Series Of Several
- Do Depression Meds Work For This?
- The T-Shirt Off Our Backs
- For The Fallible Record
- Long Time, No Blog
Syndicate
E me at katy @ ngenius.com
(No Title)
They will be watching for us, won't they? They won't need to wear purple hats or cheesy name tags for us to find them in the crowd. They won't need to call us on our cell phone to let us know they've arrived from Northern Ireland in a strange, new land, to stay the summer with strange, new people. They won't even need to wave their arms or shout aloud to attract our attention. We'll be right there, waiting, a little bit anxious, but thrilled to finally meet them. We'll be the conspicuous ones, holding the handmade signs reading, "Welcome, Sheryl and Chloe!" We won't be embarrassed to be so excited. The crowds both waiting and arriving won't faze us. We'll only have eyes for our girls. I wonder about Jesus in the crowd, sometimes. I know He's there forever waiting, waiting for me. Is He a little bit anxious, too? What's that He's holding up in his hands? It's the Book of Life, and He's pointing to my name, calling me with His eyes. And He must be thinking, "She will be watching for Me, won't she?"(No Title)
A COUPLE OF THINGS I WISH I'D SAID... First in a Series "Heck is where people go who don't believe in Gosh." "Chocolate: It's not just for breakfast anymore."(No Title)
Do you know what it's like to be blinded by the light? It must be like the morning I slept too long and too deeply, with my face bearing the strength of the sun, which by early day was streaming brazenly through the uncurtained window. I hazily dreamed of spinning, spinning, until I awakened to find the room spinning, indeed. It was as though my eyelids had offered my eyes no protection at all from the onslaught of the brightness-they might as well have been made of the finest tissue paper. For hours, while my vision was impaired, I reflected on the Road to Damascus, and poor St. Paul. Our lights went out yesterday, in a wild storm, effectively ending our various electricity-driven enterprises for the rest of the day. Just as dusk was overtaking us, and we were gathering the oil lamps, the light was suddenly back, cheerfully ablaze, as if on cue. The hair dryer was soon in full operation, meaning Carrie was leaving for the evening, almost certainly to arrive back home with the wee hours nipping at her heels. Later, much later, I prayed in silence, staring at the ceiling of our blackened room, alert. Our bedroom is so far removed from the road leading to our house that I did not hear the car edging closer. And then, finally, two fleeting streaks of light above me, the reflections of the headlights of her car. Thank you, Lord…my daughter's safely home. I know something of what it's like to be blinded by the light. And how it sometimes happens when I'm sound asleep. More often, though, I'm so desperate to see any shred of light at all that I lie on my back, in abject darkness, waiting for a shining sliver to flash across the bedroom sky. With eyes wide open.(No Title)
So there we were, seated around a table for seven, celebrating my son Scott's twenty-second birthday. Two of his guy friends joined us, and somehow we got talking about the runaway sleep deprivation the three of them live with. Nathan works at a men's formalwear store, and usually works alone in the suburban mall storefront. He described how he sometimes falls asleep there at the counter, in front of God and everybody. "I really hate it when I nod off in the front," he said, and I could easily imagine his chagrin. What if the store manager happened by just then, or the ever-vigilant tuxedo police busted him? "Failure to appear to be an aggressive self-starter," the citation might read. How humiliating. "So now," he went on, "when I realize I'm getting sleepy, I grab a huge pile of tuxedos and head for the back room…" "I see," I said, "to make it seem like you're doing something…" "No…to make a bed." And there it is.(No Title)
"Oh…is it tomorrow?" she asks. Somehow, her memory is slightly jogged by hearing my voice. "Yeah, lunch tomorrow…" I intone, wishing again, as I had a thousand times during our thirty year friendship, that she'd get a calendar. "Will that still work?" Why don't I just record this conversation and hit the play button the next time? "Oh, gee…" she hesitates, "they asked me to come into work, and my daughter has her ACTs, and I have to take her and pick her up, and then she has a dentist appointment, and it's way over on the other side of town, and I have to take her and wait for her, so…" "So tomorrow doesn't sound like it's going to work," I conclude. We only live thirty minutes from each other, but two years have passed since we've met. At one time, when we were young, we only lived three feet from each other, and two hours couldn't pass without another "heart to heart." "Katy," she'd whisper in the wee hours, as if there were anyone to disturb besides me, "are you awake?" And then she'd tell me her girlish secrets, about the "crush" who was destined to be her one and only true love, and what he had said that had melted her heart. We'd giggle and scheme and talk until morning, and then face the day sleepless, but wholly sustained by friendship. Something has changed now, though. I used to welcome the "interruption." Now, it seems, I am the interruption. "None of the tomorrows are going to work," I whisper to myself, as I hang up the phone. As if there were anyone here to disturb besides me.(No Title)
It's been raining almost non-stop for the last ten days or so. I don't follow the weather reports much, but when it rains torrentially, it's good to stay apprised of road conditions, cancellations and flight delays. This morning, the weather guy announced that we are under an "urban and small stream advisory." This usually happens several hours before the "flash flood advisory," and a couple days before everyone starts shipping out of their homes in row boats. We have no small streams to navigate regularly, and we heeded the "urban advisory" years ago and moved to the country. Actually, we stopped off in the suburbs for a few years, although I've yet to hear them issue a "suburban and small stream advisory." My mother is a staunch city girl, though, having lived in the same home for forty years, and refuses to budge just because of some lame urban advisory, especially if it means she'd have to relocate in a thunderstorm. I worry about her. Our grown son, Scott, talks about moving back from his small college town, into the urban core. He says tons of young people are re-populating the cities, choosing to consolidate their careers, social lives and living arrangements squarely inside the city limits. What is he thinking? Doesn't he watch the news?(No Title)
I've loved the word "synergy" since I first heard it used in context back in the mid-1980s. The speaker, who was expounding upon the benefits of a powerful multiple vitamin, explained how the individual components were made much more effective by being combined precisely with the remaining ingredients. "Each vitamin, mineral and herb is fine alone," he said, "but put them together, and they are EXTREME. The sum of the parts really IS greater than the math would imply, folks. That's what we call SYNERGY!" "What a concept!" I thought, and ever since that day I've strived to apply it in as many ways as possible to my own life. Today, for instance, I'm grouchy, tired, fat and hungry. Oh, yeah, and hormonal. And did I mention fat? Why is it, in my life, "synergy" ends up being just another way of combining "sin" with "energy"? Maybe I should start taking vitamins…(No Title)
It's at least ten degrees below normal temperature this morning, and I've got to say, that's my very favorite temperature. If God happens to throw in a brisk breeze and a fine, Scottish mist, so much the better. It's the kind of morning that makes me pour a second cup of coffee (actually, any morning makes me do that), unplug my laptop and head out to the front porch. At my house, there's no great distinction between the front porch and the back, since you can't see a neighbor's property from any vantage point, unless it's mid-winter and the trees are bereft. But it's more sociable to sit on the front porch, don't you think? To anticipate a car meandering up the long road to the house, to welcome a long-lost or long-awaited friend, to serve iced lemonade to a thirsty stranger. Of course, if someone were really coming up the road, I'd have enough time to run inside, clean the whole house, and whip up a five-course meal, all before the doorbell rings. Occasionally, though, it's completely satisfying just to picture myself accomplishing any number of gratifying social interchanges, without any of them actually happening. And all in the privacy of my very own bathrobe.(No Title)
I have been suffering a veritable dearth of creativity. Don't you just hate dearths?(No Title)
Doug was frantically putting together the graphic elements for a slide presentation for a corporate client. He'd had weeks to come up with something, but efficiently condensed that adequate amount of time into one all-nighter. "Ooooh, I like it," I drooled, hovering over the computer screen and attempting to assuage any lingering doubts of The Sleepless One. "Uh, well, I think I may have lifted a couple of design ideas from this other guy's website…" "That's why God gives other guys ideas." Did I say that?(No Title)
"You're not a baby-snatcher or a killer, are you?" The thirty-something blonde was hostess to an upscale garage sale, which was just getting underway. She wanted to retreat to her basement to retrieve some more dispensables. "Uh…no?" I answered, feeling somewhat guilty in spite of my utter innocence. She was the seller, after all, and I merely the prospective sellee. A complete stranger. Then she motioned to the newborn girl sleeping in the infant seat on the garage floor, and asked if I would keep an eye on her. Things are getting weirder.(No Title)
I don't think there's a better way for me to embrace multiculturalism than to hang some wallpaper. We rolled on lots of flat off-white paint when we built this house seven years ago, and, with time, it's become even flatter and offer. Where's the culture in that? And since we don't live in Johnson County, Kansas, where the rules state that everything, inside and out, must be in shades of beige, we're branching out. It all started when we purchased that one-and-a-half-seat recliner for our anniversary. Did I mention that it is upholstered with a tapestry depicting a French sidewalk café scene? Cool, huh? Such dimension, such depth, such…flat paint! Then my three great kids got me three stools for the breakfast bar-with rusted, curved, iron legs and wooden seats, and a decidedly European flair. Finally, I found myself attracted to and acquiring all these accoutrements with a grape motif-again, echoing this unmistakable leaning toward things French and Italian and booze-intensive-clearly a cultural leap. And then, it was as if I heard the audible voice of God-leading, directing... commanding? "Hang wallpaper!" Who am I to argue? We chose a paper that makes the walls look ancient, almost like stone, and quite continental. The effect makes me want to light some of those candles that drip colored wax down the outside of straw-covered wine bottles, and serve meatball sandwiches. The hangers are here today, a father and son team. As it turns out, the older man is from Scotland, very near the town where my Dad is from. Do you see where all this is going? Multiculturalism, thy name is wallpaper.(No Title)
Of course, I was tempted. Wouldn't you be? I'd been desperate to use the public facilities at the local Tires Plus store. After squatting, not sitting, on the commode, for as many seconds as it took to start feeling the burn in my thigh muscles, I grabbed for the loose roll of toilet paper. It promptly dropped and rolled across the grimy floor as if on fire. I was left to drip-dry, while contemplating how the heck I was going to get out of there communicable-disease-free. Ah, the lavatory, I thought. It will be equipped with water, soap and paper towels, all the comforts of home. Reaching instinctively for the faucet handle, I stopped cold. In front of me was the grossest, filthiest, most despicably grunge-intensive sink I have ever beheld. But I must, I thought, I need to wash my hands! I reached out again, tentatively at first, but with steely resolve. So determined was I to be cleansed that I practically threw myself into the waiting arms of the temptor. And then I saw the sign. A sign from God? "Please Do Not Lean On The Sink. Thank You. The Management." If I leaned, or perhaps even if I touched, the precariously attached sink was as likely to roll across the floor as the toilet paper had been. I backed away, slowly. Obediently. I had to wonder later, though, whether the guy responsible for cleaning the Tires Plus bathroom thought the sign said, "Please Do Not Clean On The Sink." Behold, the power of Please.(No Title)
I'd never been to a funeral for a former Catholic priest, and chances are, you haven't either. Much less a former Catholic priest who'd been married for 24 years and had two grown sons. It's a little strange being lifelong friends with a guy like that. First he's your church pastor, then he's your high school religion teacher and counselor, always he's your spiritual shepherd. When you're twenty-one and he's thirty-three and you need him to be much more grounded and stable than you are, he decides to leave the priesthood and seek happiness with a girl your age. Is he crazy, or what? As it turns out, what. Eight priests con-celebrated the funeral mass last night. I must say I was afraid that the Catholic Church might, through word or deed, lay hold to some "prior claim" to Bruce and his life. I was worried, for his wife's sake, that the old Catholic slogan, "Thou art a priest forever, according the the order of Melchisadech," might rear its head, throwing her and all of those assembled into a theological tailspin. I needn't have fretted. The priest who spoke, who had been friends with Bruce since they were both thirteen and attending the "high school for future priests," talked about Bruce's integrity and the intense soul-searching that accompanied all his major life decisions. "The best decision Bruce ever, ever made," said the good Father, "was to marry Mary." The congregation let out a collective sigh. It was what we knew to be the truth about Bruce, in our hearts. But we needed it to be said aloud, once more, by another priest. In honor of his death, and in honor of her life.(No Title)
Doug was secretly bidding on the freshwater pearls from Tivol's Jewelry, while I was secretly bidding on the golf day for four at a local country club. I think there were even husbands and wives sneaking around and unwittingly bidding against each other for the same item, which could be why "silent auctions" were invented in the first place. Doug found out about the golf day before the bidding was over, and he was so excited he upped the ante one more time himself, and won the bid. I didn't know about the pearls until the end of the evening, when we went to redeem our purchases. He opened the box, knelt down on one knee, and placed the strand around my neck right there in front of God and everybody. I'm not sure I heard applause, but I know I heard fireworks. The necklace was a bonafide bargain, but even if we'd paid retail, it couldn't have compared with my jewel of a husband-my very own "pearl of great price."
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