Friday Five: "Home Improvement" Edition

How very timely that, even as Fellow Traveler and I look forward to a weekend of finally excavating ourselves from the various collected messes of two major holidays, emergent disruptions of household routine and two dogs, the RevGalBlogPals' Friday Five is all about home improvement:

1) If you could, what room in the place you are currently living would you redo first?
Definitely the master bedroom, which badly needs a paint job as well as the removal of a ghastly border print around the walls. We want to turn this into our "Michigan room" filled with Michigan art and mementos from our travels.

2) What is the most hideous feature/color/decor item you have ever seen in a home?
For the hideous color category I'd have to nominate the home of some friends I knew in Cadillac, who bought a house with one bedroom painted entirely, top to bottom, matte black and one bedroom painted an eye-stinging fluorescent pink. The previous owners had let their teenage children paint their own rooms. 'Nuff said. My father's threadbare, duct-taped La-Z-Boy is certainly in at least the top three of hideous decor items. In the feature category, I might nominate a house I pass by frequently on my travels through Cold Comfort County, whose large front yard is almost completely filled with lawn ornaments. Elves...whirligig flowers...an assortment of animals that includes a startling pair of fiberglass Holsteins...plywood bent-over ladies...mushrooms...kissing Dutch kids...it's like a putt-putt golf course designed by someone who dropped some really bad acid in the Sixties.

3) What feature do you most covet? Do you have it? If not, is it within reach?
It would be nice to have a sun room -- a four-seasons model with heating ducts and super-insulated windows. This is probably not in the cards for us; but really, with a perfectly decent patio and comfy front "sitting room," it's kind of a superfluous fantasy anyway.

4) Your kitchen - love it or hate it? Why?
I love the spaciousness of our kitchen compared to my tiny old galley kitchen. If there's anything I'd change it would probably be the faded goldenish countertops, which have that 70's-color-palette look to them. Something more natural and neutral would, I think, look better and take more kindly to the abuse of two cooks.

5) Here is $10,000 and you HAVE to spend it on the place you are living now. What do you do?
Rip up the carpeting in the living room and front room and install more pet-forgiving colors; paint the master bedroom; do something with the windows to better insulate them; re-tile the big bathroom and replace the mirror and vanity. (The sink, which I think was intended to match a light slate blue in the tile design, is instead a kind of strange swimming-pool-aqua faux marble.) I'm pretty sure this would eat up $10,000 fairly quickly; if not, it would be kind of cool to extend the kitchen window into one of those greenhouse windows with shelfing for some houseplants to add some additional color and life to that area.

BONUS: Why do you think there was such a surplus of ugly bathroom tile colors showcased in all homes built from the 1950's right through the early 80's?
I don't know...but it's true. I've never understood the desire for "baby" colors in an adult bathroom anyway. To me a great bathroom would have cream walls with green/ ferny/leafy/stony naturalistic accoutrements.

Another Myth Shattered

There's a myth out there -- I think a myth held and cherished by a lot of men -- that women have a kind of innate wisdom about birth and death; that they somehow Always Know What To Do, and that that's why women always seem to be attendant at these crossroads of human life.

I wish that this were true. And maybe it is for some women. But it's not for me.

I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' no babies. And, despite the death of both my parents, I don't know nothin' 'bout helpin' the dyin'. In both cases I am the emotional equivalent of my dad frantically chain-smoking in the waiting room.

The Pitfalls of Patient Empowerment

Today at work I got a call from the nursing home social worker.

"I need to talk to you about advance directives, because the staff have some concerns about your aunt," she said.

We review advance directives at nearly every care conference I have, every other month, in person or by phone. The deal has always been that if my aunt should become terminally ill, there will be no heroic measures to prolong the end, just comfort care so that she can pass as painlessly and with as much dignity as possible. To me, this seems like a fairly reasonable, and common, directive.

So I was confused by this phone call. And, because I am who I am, I heard in the social worker's preface a subtextual, "The staff thinks you've screwed up, and now your aunt is suffering."

I asked for some clarification. The social worker told me that the advance directive in my aunt's file had requested full intervention in any sort of emergent situation. I said I didn't understand, and re-explained what I've always told the staff at our care conferences. She then asked me what sort of intervention I do want them to do.

At this point I got a little peeved. "You know," I responded, "I am not a medical professional. You folks are the medical professionals. I have just told you that I want my aunt to have whatever palliative medical care will keep her as comfortable as possible until the end. You are the folks who would know what those procedures and protocols are. I don't know. And I am feeling very angry and frustrated right now because you don't seem to be hearing me." (Thanks to an assertiveness training class, long ago, for helping me remember to own my feelings in affirmative, first-person sentences.)

The social worker seemed taken aback for a moment. "Well," she responded, somewhat defensively, "I understand that you're feeling frustrated" (we're both reading from the same playbook now, I thought)...but I'll need to go through this list item by item."

And so she did. Did I want my aunt to receive CPR if her heart stopped? I thought of both my parents going through this type of violence to their bodies in the last moments of their life. No, I said; no CPR.

"Feeding tube?"

"Will that aid in her comfort, if inability to eat is causing her physical pain?" I asked. "If it is going to make her more comfortable and more pain-free, then yes."

"Blood transfusion?"
"If it is going to make her more comfortable and more pain-free, then yes."

"IVs?"
"If they are going to make her more comfortable and more pain-free, then yes."

And on it went, my blood pressure rising with each question. What part of "more comfortable" and "pain-free" are they not understanding? I thought.

Fellow Traveler met me for lunch and talked me down. "It's all just CYA," she said. "They're concerned about 'regs' and audits and malpractice suits."

I understand that. Hell, I work in the public sector, so I live it. But it just adds to the stress of going through this experience. I'm reminded of my breast exam, when the doctor asked me what I thought was wrong with my breast. Huh? Did I go to medical school?

I know that in times past the godlike authority of doctors and relative powerlessness of patients didn't always serve the cause of medicine well. But it seems to me that there has to be some sort of happy medium between the old model and the new one, where it seems like patients and caregivers are on their own when it comes to medical guidance -- where they go to professionals seeking help and instead have information thrown at them with an attitude of, "You figure it out." I don't really think that this is "patient empowerment."

The Waiting is the Hardest Part

My aunt is still hanging on to life, although she seems to be growing weaker by the day.

The day before yesterday when I visited her after work, I found her lying there with her blanket over her head. For a second I thought, Oh, my God -- she's dead. They just haven't called me yet. My aunt's roommate, evidently seeing the striken look on my face, said, "She's awake -- she's just covering her eyes because she wants to rest." So I touched her hand, and said hello, and made some inane conversation. She responded with faint monosyllables. And I got the impression that I was disturbing the rest she craved, so I left.

Yesterday I wasn't feeling well -- I think in part due to stress -- so I called the nursing home. Aunt M was still much the same, they said, but complaining about pain, so they'd called in the doctor to readjust her medication. This made me feel worse.

Maybe it's because, these days, we tend not to go through the family deathbed experiences that people did in past generations when almost everyone died at home -- but I feel like a stranger and interloper in this whole process. I don't know what to do; everything I do seems wrong, and everything I don't do seems wrong. I keep thinking about the day before my mother died, when she was angry and belligerent, so unlike herself, and when I also felt that my presence at the hospital was making things worse, not better.

I'm also finding myself in the old territory of asking God Why? Not why my aunt has to die, but why she has to die in this way. Why can't she simply go to sleep and not wake up? I had the same question when she, in the years before her hospitalization, lost a grip on her sanity and became paranoid and delusional. Why?

And then I tell myself to stop being so melodramatic. Despite the family joke that I'm my aunt's favorite niece -- I'm her only niece -- it's not as if we had shared our lives in an intimate way. Other than spending a week at her house evey summer when I was little, I have always been a drop-in visitor to her home. And it's been the same thing since she's lived in her care facility; I'd stop in for maybe 15 or 20 minutes a week, or every other week -- and if she didn't feel like socializing she'd inform me, not unkindly but firmly, "You can go now." She truly has more of a familial, day-to-day relationship with the nursing home staff than with me. So it shouldn't be surprising that I feel like a bumbling, in-the-way visitor now.

Yesterday I called the funeral home where my aunt has a prepaid plan, and reviewed what we'd arranged for her ten years ago. My pastor is on standby for whenever it's time to hold services. This "bidness" end of things seems to be the only place where I feel like I'm being the least bit useful.

And So the Magnificent Obsession Begins...

Almost as soon as I penned my Friday Five, mentioning the therapeutic value of endulging in some strange obsession during the "cabin fever" season, I came upon photos of moss terrariums like this one. (Search the term on Etsy .)

Is this not cool?

I enjoy terrariums, and once kept one going -- even got a violet to bloom in it once -- for several years. But I really like the minimalism of moss.

I might have to do something about this.

"Cabin Fever" Friday Five

The RevGalBlogPals Friday Five asks this important question, at least for those of us who live in the Snow Belt: What are five things to do to beat the cabin fever that tends to settle in 'round about his time of year?

Oh! Oh! Oh! [raising hand] Michigan girl here, a veteran of 48 winters, with some ideas:

1. Peruse seed catalogs. Or, as we like to call them at our house, garden porn. Nothing takes the edge off a subfreezing day like dreams of verdant herbs, prolific vegetables and bright flowers.

2. Play Scrabble. Who knew that this, and not our Wii, would become our winter entertainment of choice? Fellow Traveler and I usually have at least two games of our own going on Facebook, plus other games with assorted friends and family. If you're on Facebook, dear readers -- got game? "Friend" me...and we'll just see about that.

3. Conduct a Freezer Iron Chef competition. One household member selects a neglected bag/bundle from the freezer. Another household member is then offered the challenge of incorporating this ingredient into a creative and delicious home-cooked meal. We just did this; I wound up with a package of mahi-mahi, and turned it into citrus-marinated baked mahi-mahi filets, served with tamari-seasoned Israeli couscous and green beans. (You can read all about it on my food blog .) Related winter pastime: Competitive soup making. And in both cases, with any luck, everybody wins, all the time. Unless the freezer bundle is that forgotten rump roast from 2006.

4. Get fit with Dog Aerobics. As in: Let the dogs out. Let the dogs in. Let the dogs out. Let the dogs in. Let the dogs out. Let the dogs in. Let the dogs out...

5. Indulge in a temporary hobby fixation. I haven't done this in awhile, not since the knitting and counted cross-stitch eras of several years ago. When I was a kid I used to look at my aunt's January Better Homes and Gardens magazines, which always contained scads of crafting ideas -- Turn a discarded bottle into a vase with a masking-tape-and-lacquer mosaic! Weave a colorful belt with a drinking-straw loom! Sew old silk ties into a groovy midi skirt! -- and become entranced by some such project. It helps to have an understanding family during these times, especially if the hobby in question involves stuff lying around, or noise(Learn to play the ocarina!).

Trust Fund Babies

I was reading an online discussion the other day about converts; about how they tend to inspire a mixture annoyance and envy among "lifers." One of the discussion participants likened those of us who were baptized into our faith, who absorbed it via the osmosis of growing up in a faith community, as the religious equivalent of trust fund babies, or the boss' kid, or the legacy student. We take a lot for granted that converts do not; it's hard for us not to succumb to the complacency of cheap grace.

So what's a trust fund baby to do, do you think?

Coming to the End

I mentioned, maybe a month ago, that my aunt M, who's a long-term nursing home resident, was diagnosed with a twisted bowel; that she refused invasive treatment -- understandable given her age and health -- and that we were on standby for the inevitable result of that.

I got a call from the nursing home today, and M's nurse -- a very lovely, kind woman who's been with M for the long haul -- told me that M has begun to fail rapidly and that I should be prepared for the end.

So at lunchtime I visited M. She is deathly pale, and birdlike, and didn't open her eyes when I entered her room. She answered my questions in monosyllables, and made it clear that she was simply tired and wanted to rest. I had an unnerving flashback to the day before my mother died, when she became almost belligerant, and it felt like part of her had already gone.

Unlike my recent health scare, this is not a shock; it's something I've been mentally preparing for, for awhile now. But it's still sad to experience; and it's sad to see M's aides, who've taken care of her for so long, sad. M's nurse told me some of the staff were asking her to "do something," and she had to explain to them that we were all trying as best as we could to honor M's wishes for her care.

Tomorrow I need to call the funeral home where, a decade ago, we arranged her funeral plan, and make sure it's still what we think she'd want today.

A New Thing

I'm sitting here watching the Obama concert on HBO, and smiling, and crying...singing along with U2.

I don't get too overtly political on this blog, but...my God have we been living in a nightmare for the past eight years.

I know we've raised the bar far too high for President Obama...I know he faces untold challenges in this mess he has inherited...but it feels so good to be turning a new page.

God help us get our Constitution back again. And our dignity. And our hope. And our competence as a nation. God bless everyone of good will as we work together to live through these times.

Clueless in Castoria

First things first: It's come to my attention that, even though I still live in Outer Podunk County, I no longer live, technically speaking, in the community of Outer Podunk. Which poses a dilemma: What clever pseudonym can I invent for the town I now call home, which lies about 10 miles south of Outer Podunk? "South Succotash" is too Reagan-y; Inner Podunk is too spacy. So, at least for now, consider me a new citizen of Castoria. (The closest zoological allusion I can make to this community, whose name is cause for much local locker-room smirkery.)

Anyway: Yesterday Stepson #2 and Semi-Daughter-in-Law called us in a state of happy shock; an old college pal of theirs with Senate connections had scored them two tickets to the Inauguration. They don't know how they're going to get there, or where they're going to stay when they do, but they're going. They're over the moon.

Well, so were we...I mean, how cool is this?

FT had gone down the street to pick up a late lunch for us at the local pizzaria. As she was waiting, she mentioned to the woman at the counter how excited she was that her son and his girlfriend were going to be in the middle of history being made at the Inauguration.

"Oh. Where's that?" asked the woman.

FT paused. "The Inauguration is in...Washington DC."

"When?"

"Tuesday."

"Oh. Do you want chips?"

The View Today

It's almost noon. The sun is shining down upon about eight inches of new, confectioner's-sugar snow. Goldfinches and chickadees are flitting from feeder to feeder in the back yard.

Friday afternoon, coming home from my doctor's appointment, we had said that we'd better be spending Sunday prostrate on the church floor in thanksgiving. What happened instead, after packing and closing up Cold Comfort Cottage for the last time yesterday, was that we collapsed both physically and emotionally last night, fell into bed...and slept in. FT is still so exhausted that, after joining me for brunch (Christmas sausage from Pleva's, a wonderful butcher shop up north, and crusty panfried Yukon Gold potatoes) and attempting a morning game of Scrabble, finally begged off and wandered back to bed.

It's been that kind of week.

It's also been a week of reevaluation -- what it is I'm supposed to be doing on this earth. I hate to sound all cosmic about it, but when the Universe dope-slaps you with a fright that makes you come face to face with your own mortality, and the sheer randomness of your life on this earth...you'd best sit up and take notice, I think.

Which means I'm giving notice. I'm quitting my job. It's killing me. And I don't want to die. I want to live -- a life, as Jesus put it, brimful and spilling over. And I don't want to further subject my partner to my residual frustration and resentment and what I suspect are psychosomatic physical consequences of spending eight hours a day in a place I've grown to hate.

A church friend of mine used to be a fellow public servant, a caseworker for severely mentally handicapped adults. I'd run into her once in awhile in town, multiple clients in tow. Then one day she quit. She got a Master Gardener certification and went to work for a landscaping company. In her words: "I love my job now. I can go to work in the morning and know I'm not going to be kicked or bitten by anyone."

And that is the truth of it. You can only be kicked and bitten so much.

My reluctance to make a change has largely revolved around maintaining my health insurance. Which is I think understandable, especially for someone my age. But one of the "aha" moments in my past week was anticipating going through surgery and radiology whatever else lay in store for me...and still being enslaved to my job. And what if, God forbid, the news was the worst? What if in the last months of my life, a time when I should be in the business of making my peace and being fully present to the people I love and living fully into each moment that was left to me, I had to squander what tiny bit was left of my life at this job?

That was my no mas moment, I think; when my resolve solidified.

Of course, conventional wisdom says that I am being utterly foolhardy in making this decision. I understand that; believe me, that thought is what has kept me where I've been for the last four years at least. But then again, conventional wisdom has also said things like "You can never go wrong investing in real estate."

I -- before my departure from my employment was a done deal in my head -- enrolled in an online webmaster program offered through our nearby university's off-campus learning program that I am looking forward to, especially since Fellow Traveler and I keep running into organizations needing help with their websites and willing to pay or barter for it. My pastor is absolutely delighted that I may have some more time to devote to lay ministry. I would like to spend some quality time helping our food cooperative, a lively and positive place inhabited by other people who don't give much of a fig about conventional wisdom, who nonetheless lead healthy, fulfilled and intriguing lives. I want to spend more time at home -- our home -- being a real partner, not just a tired, sad lodger who slouches through the door at 5:00 p.m. and slinks out again at 7:40 a.m.

I have some money from the family legacy and my savings that should tide me over as far as COBRA payments for awhile. Fellow Traveler says we can, and should, do this. I agree.

One more week.

Thanks Be To God

My mammogram results are fine.

The doctor doesn't know what's causing my problem, but it appears to be a dermatological, not oncological, problem.

I am a puddle of relief right now. So I'm not going to talk much. But thank you all, so much, for your prayers and support.

This has been a real values-clarification experience for me. But more about that later, after I've recovered for all this.

Meet My New Facebook Friend!

No kidding. "Jesus Nazareth" has added me as a friend. (I should add that, my Lutheran theological underpinnings aside, after finding out about his Facebook presence from another blog I sought him out and asked him to "friend" me. Potato, po-tah-to; we know what's really going on.)

Seriously: When I first read about this mysterious entity (whose profile can be found here , I suspected it might be the snarky work of a "cultured despiser of religion"; or some "soul-winning" fundamentalist with a particularly acute hubris problem; or an author gathering material for a quirky future bestseller; or just a merry prankster not terribly concerned about the ramifications of the Second Commandment.

But...I like this JC. He posts, and collects from friends, lovely Jesusian artwork. He has a rather droll sense of humor. He's a fan of, among other people and things, dogs, cats, babies, Notre Dame, Greenland, Stan Musial, "Family Guy," Yemen, Avril Lavigne and the Detroit Tigers. And I detect at least a hint of deeper theological stuff going on when he shares moments like "Jesus is brushing his teeth"..."Jesus is eating toast"..."Jesus is hiding with a family in Gaza"..."Jesus is walking with soldiers in Israel."

I gave Jesus a shout-out this morning and asked him to think of me today. He said he would.

Another Reason to Love Fellow Traveler

And of course all this drama is happening the week I'm supposed to be out of Cold Comfort Cottage.

We have been making valiant attempts to get things packed or pitched over the past two weeks...but we simply get exhausted, or have other life responsibilities that have kept us from working on the project every night. And, especially when it came to the furniture, we couldn't imagine three of us -- FT, our friend and myself -- schlepping everything into the U-Haul in one day, especially if I have a biopsy today.

So in a stroke of brilliance FT thought of our lawn and snow guys. They have a lawncare business down the street. Despite all the snow we've gotten, and so early, the poor economy has taken a toll on their winter snowplowing clientele; work's been slow for them. So FT called them: This isn't really in your area of expertise, but...can you help us move?

So we now have two burly young lads to do all the heavy lifting for us. They're thrilled to get the work.

I've just been so distracted, I wouldn't have thought of these guys.

That is why we have partners in this life: Like the song says, sometimes one partner pulls the wagon, and sometimes that partner is the one who needs to climb in and be pulled. I wish people who would deny us the rights afforded married couples could somehow understand, in the fog of their moral indignity, that we already share the responsibilities of people committed to one another for the long haul.

C-Day

As in surgical consult day. 2:30 pm, EST.

I took the entire day off...I was going to do some proofreading/editing work on a website consulting job that Fellow Traveler has been working on, on the barter system, for a local business...but I just couldn't concentrate this morning, so I sent her off to that office for an hour or two while I stay home. I'm somewhere between angst and residual shock from last Friday...all I want to do is crawl under a comforter until I have to get dressed for my appointment.

Actually, I can't do that because at this moment Cassie and Gertie are both jammed next to me, their chins pressed into my thigh, looking up at me with such sweet doggie faces. Why are you home, Auh-wuh? Why are you still in your nightgown? I can't tell if they're picking up on my stress or if they're just cold.

I don't want to think about this afternoon at all -- none of the possible scenarios, even the good ones. I don't want to incorrectly anticipate the worst news or incorrectly hang on to the best news.

I don't want to be sick. I don't want to be operated on. I don't want to be in pain. I don't want to be burdensome. I don't want our imminent plans for my cutting back on work, and studying, and freelancing, and doing more with my lay ministry, to be interrupted. Why is this all happening now?

I know; existential question; why ask why; read Job.

At work I've had a few people be very kind and supportive to me; others kind of brush off the whole story because their own cancer scares turned out to be nothing (it's easy to be sanguine when it comes to someone else's body); other people who won't even look me in the eye or talk to me in other than a task-oriented way. On the other hand, my fellow church members, my friends in the greater Church in the world, and other friends and folks of good will, have been incredibly supportive.

And, in the meantime, a friend of Fellow Traveler's and mine just e-mailed us to share that her mom -- whom she'd just visited, whose birthday she'd just celebrated, just got similarly troubling news about a mass on her ovary, and is also scheduled for tests today.

Friday Five: Take Me, Baby, Or Leave Me

The RevGalBlogPals, in the spirit of Rent's "Take Me, Baby, Or Leave Me," challenge readers today to list five "take me or leave me" facts about themselves.

Alrighty then! Here goes:

1. I'm a big-boned gal, short and stocky; a workhorse, not a show horse. Take me, baby, or leave me.

2. I am not as smart as people think I am or even as I sometimes think I am. Take me, baby, or leave me.

3. I am constitutionally unable to organize -- not people; not stuff; not even my own thoughts half the time. Take me, baby, or leave me.

4. I am actually a lot funnier -- humorous funny, I mean -- than people assume I am when they first meet me. Take me, baby, or leave me.

5. I am actually a lot more emotional, for better or worse, than people assume I am when they first meet me. Take me, baby or leave me.

Bonus point: I snore. Loudly. Everyone all together now: Take me, baby, or leave me.

Moving

We spent not quite two hours at Cold Comfort Cottage tonight continuing to pack and pitch. The new owners have already been busy ripping out carpeting and getting ready to paint. They also, despite our explaining our available timetable to them, took it upon themselves to pack up some of my stuff -- basically to put it in trash bags and load it up in the middle of the dining room.

We were pretty annoyed. It felt like being evicted, even though I was told we'd have all the time we need to get my belongings out. And, interestingly -- we found out that the buyers are actually going to use the house as a rental instead of using it themselves, as they'd told me they were going to do. There goes the neighborhood; good thing we're leaving.

Our friend Mel is going to help us finish up the job this weekend. We're also working our network to maybe find a burly teen or two to help load the furniture.

I'm having unpleasant flashbacks to all my college-era moves. I hate this. And if I have a biopsy Friday, and am rendered worthless in lifting, I'm going to hate it more.

The Boob Place

I spent some quality time yesterday at our regional women's health clinic, which I'll call The Boob Place.

The world should be more like The Boob Place -- clean, quiet, aesthetically calming, ambient music in the background. It's a pity that the other women in the waiting room, and myself, were there for mostly troubling reasons.

My intake nurse was an older woman who exuded calm and competency. When I began stressing a little, she patted my hand and reassured me that there were all sorts of scenarios possible.

That made me feel better...until, sitting in the waiting room before my mammogram, I heard her tell one of my fellow patients, "Know that I will be thinking about you this week," and realizing that The Boob Place is a pretty serious place to be.

An Explanation of God

One of my fellow lay ministry graduates sent this today. It's supposedly by a little kid named Danny in Chula Vista, CA. I thought it was cute.


EXPLANATION OF GOD:

'One of God's main jobs is making people. He makes them to replace the ones that die, so there will be enough people to take care of things onearth. He doesn't make grownups, just babies. I think because they are smaller and easier to make. That way H e doesn't have to take up His valuable time teaching them to talk and walk. He can just leave that to
Mothers and Fathers.'

'God's second most important job is listening to prayers. An awful lot of this goes on, since some people, like Preachers and things, pray at times beside bedtime. God doesn't have time to listen to the radio or TV because of this. Because He hears everything, there must be a terrible lot of noise in His ears, unless He has thought of a way to turn it off.'

'God sees everything and hears everything and is everywhere which keeps Him pretty busy. So you shouldn't go wasting His time by going over your Mom and Dad's head asking for something they said you couldn't have.'

'Atheists are people who don't believe in God. I don't think there are any in Chula Vista. At least there aren't any who come to our church.'

'Jesus is God's Son. He used to do all the hard work, like walking onnwater and performing miracles and trying to teach the people who didn't want to learn about God. They finally got tired of Him preaching to them and they crucified Him But He was good and kind, like His Father, and He told His Father that they didn't know what they were doing and to forgive them and God said O.K.'


'His dad (God) appreciated everything that He had done and all His hard work on earth so He told him He didn't have to go out on the road anymore. He could stay in Heaven. So He did. And now He helps his Dad out by listening to prayers and seeing things which are important for God to take care of and which ones He can take care of Himself without having to bother God. Like a secretary, only more important.'

'You can pray anytime you want and They are sure to help you because They got it worked out so one of Them is on duty all the time.'

'You should always go to church on Sunday because it makes God happy, and if there's anybody you want to make happy, it's God!

Don't skip church to do something you think will be more fun like going to the beach. This is wrong. And besides the sun doesn't come out at the beach until noon anyway.'

'If you don't believe in God, besides being an atheist, you will be very lonely, because your parents can't go everywhere with you, like to camp, but God can. It is good to know He's around you when you're scared, in the dark or when you can't swim and you get thrown into real deep water by big kids.'

'But...you shouldn't just always think of what God can do for you. I figure God put me here and He can take me back anytime He pleases.

And...that's why I believe in God.'

Living in the Moment

My Buddhist friends have good advice for me about living in the moment: "Breathe in; breathe out."

That's pretty much what I've been doing today: playing Scrabble; listening to Sirius Coffeehouse; shooting nefarious Bulbins and Keese on the Wii. I've been cooking, off on and on; we had something called Christmas sausage in the freezer, from a trip to Pleva's Meats in Cedar this fall, and we wanted to see what this was, so we had it for breakfast with home fries. (For any interested persons: Christmas sausage came in thin little toothpicked coils. It is very lean, mild and flecked with unidentifiable herbs, although we could perhaps pick out some faint anise or fennel flavor.) For dinner I chopped up a motley assortment of root vegetables from our excursion to Ann Arbor alternative grocery stores, browned some lamb shanks, threw everything in a casserole with wine and herbs and am braising it now.

I have been enjoying the smallest, homiest things: The way little Gertie sidles up and touches me with her paw, all day long -- "Hey." The way FT curls her toes when she's executing Scrabble strategy. The colors of the vegetables -- who knew, for instance, that you could grow a red turnip with radiating pink insides? REM harmonizing on "Fall on Me"; there's a point at which they all kind of hit their mark vocally, and it flows like honey, and you think, Yeah.