Now Serving Lunch; Don’t Eat Here

I’m sitting in a restaurant performing an act of bravery.  I’m eating the food they serve.  Sushi.  Raw fish.  Uncooked.  Not heated up and boiled to death.  Raw.  Cuz that’s what sushi is – raw fish.  Much of it anyway.

And yet at the front door of this restaurant, one I frequent (especially when my daughter is in residence), there is a sign warning me in huge word-processed letters (Cambria, probably, if you are wondering):

WARNING…EATING RAW FOOD CAN CONTRIBUTE TO FOOD-BORNE ILLNESS.

I know that.   And I count on sushi chefs to know it and handle their fish accordingly.  Yet it’s a bit unappetizing to be met with the sign at the door.

It reminds me of a Chinatown spot I saw recently, the “Eat First Restaurant.”  What could that name mean?  That it’s advisable to eat before you arrive?

 

Enticing, huh?

 

Just like it’s not advisable to eat the food at my favorite sushi place?

Life’s too sanitized.  Too litigious.  Too safe.

I’m going to sing along with Mary Chapin Carpenter, the patron saint – whether she meant to be or not —  of women stuck in the suburbs, “I take my chances.”  Woo hoo!

Intention vs. Passivity

What if we actually did what means the most to us instead of just letting things happen.  What if we actually spent time with the people we love the most instead of just letting things happen.  What if? What if?  What if?

Somebody I really loved died recently.  He was my plastic surgeon who put me back together after breast cancer.  I considered him a friend.  I considered him a God-send in the midst of the ordeal of cancer.  The appointments with him were a bright spot in a dark sky.  I occasionally ran into him at community functions or around town, but hardly ever.  I stopped by to visit him this summer but he wasn’t in the office.  Yet I considered him a favorite person. And he’s gone now, having died young and suddenly and unexpectedly.

I don’t know what to do with the fact that we have favorite people that we barely know and — sometimes — close friends that we don’t even like so much and we don’t do anything about it.  In terms of where we put our time and energy.  Or bothering to express to people that they are favorites.  Or working on the relationships that should be more but, frankly, aren’t.  We let it be.  And then it is.  And then it was.  And then it’s over.  A waste.

Or the issue of how we spend our time.  I’ve got wiggle room I don’t use.  ”The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places,” as Psalm 16 says.  Yet I live as if I have no choice.  Up against the wall.  Tired.  Resentful.  Burned out right now.

Makes me think of that Bible verse about those who trust in men vs. those who trust in God and how they “don’t see prosperity when it comes.”  Ouch.  Jeremiah had it right.  Drought-resistant tree by a stream or parched bush in the desert… those are the results depending on which source of nurture and nourishment we choose.

I think it relates to living life in reaction to outside forces vs. intentionally choosing (based on freedom and in-touch-ness with our hearts) where we’ll go, what we’ll do and with whom.

Before it’s too late.

Warning: Graphic Information (Health Information, That Is)

Today I watched Oprah.  And the news follows Oprah.  And during the 42 minutes that I watched her show, there were at least 6 ads for the upcoming news, and they included dire warnings that “actual breast self-exams would be shown on the news” so we should take cover, run and hide, be discerning, throw blankets over our children and husbands… basically, we were instructed to “prepare to freak out” or “dare to see if you can handle this.”  WHAT?  This will save lives. A breast self-exam is how I found my own cancer.  This matters.  This is life and health, not lurid information.

And yet anytime I look through the cable guide to see if one of my cooking shows is on, I am barraged with titles of shows that I didn’t ask for.  And that’s just the titles; I don’t now how many years it would take me to get the images out of my brain if I clicked on these shows.  Lest my blog become a go-to site for racy keywords, I’ll not go into the details… but suffice it to say that I am exposed (or so it feels) to shows about every manner of sex, not just extramarital but extrahuman.

Hmmm… prudish America.  Breast exams are threatening.  Sexual fantasy and explicit content come without warning and are marketed to kids.

Just Gotta Share Some Gospel Music

There’s a competition going on for the best gospel choir in America… and I recently went to the DC-area regional finals. There were seven very good choirs, and then there was WORSHIP like I expect in heaven.  Check this out, and don’t cut out before the end: http://www.howsweetthesound.com/media/video_player/2009/67/2009+washington.  This group won for our region.

And one of last year’s winners makes me happy to watch.  Nerdy, delightful, powerful.  Check them out too: http://www.howsweetthesound.com/media/video_player/2008/48/2008+v-cast+peoples+choice.

Muzak it’s not.

Liquid, Fragile, Perishable or Hazardous

You approach the post office window, in a hurry to mail the too-tight jeans back to Lands’ End (or if you’re hipper than that, i.e. hip at all, maybe you’re sending something back to the Sundance Catalog or Wisteria).  You just want to send it parcel post, or priority mail.  It’s not complicated.

Yet under penalty of law, you must endure a barrage of questions about whether the “contents of your package are liquid, fragile, perishable or hazardous.”  They’re not.  And if there did happen to be a chocolate chip cookie or two in there, does it mean that you can’t send them?  Not sure.  And then you have to decline delivery confirmation, teddy bear sales, mailing supplies.  All in the name of full disclosure about what options there are at said post office.  And why does anyone want to own a teddy bear advertising mail delivery (or anything else for that matter)?

And it gets me wondering about adequate labeling or adequate representation about exactly what IS in the packages that bear us humans around this blue ball of earth on our appointed rounds.  What exquisite stuff our complicated, magnificent bodies are made of!

Yet I reflect on how much of my make-up really is liquid, fragile, perishable and/or hazardous on any given day.

• Liquid — uncertain, squishy, lacking solidity, form or definition
• Fragile — prone to falling apart, easily broken or shattered
• Perishable — of the stuff of earth, temporal-minded, not made to last
• Hazardous — gonna bite your head off (or, more likely, cower in silence or withdraw) if you catch me in an unguarded moment

I’ve got two modes — 1) natural me and 2) Holy Spirit-influenced.  Prayed up and emptied out and Spirit-filled, there is a major difference.  And any time I think I’ve lived long enough and outgrown the worst of me, I come up against the realization that I haven’t really …but instead have just had a decent run of being connected to God, leaning on Him enough that my better self (relatively solid, less fragile, imperishable, safe) prevails sometimes.

Left to my own devices, I’m a postal clerk’s worst nightmare.  Watch out.

Playfulness

This is a photo of one of my major treasures:

My treasure

Yes, it’s blurry.  Yes, it’s dirty.  Yes, it’s trash too actually.  But it’s a treasure.

This Tootsie Roll wrapper was given to me by a flight attendant on an Alaska Airlines flight from Seattle to DC.

She had worked the flight I’d initially taken from DC to Seattle, three days before, and she recognized me when I boarded in Seattle. And she ceremoniously said something like, “I remember you.  You smiled all the way to Seattle, and I’m glad to see you again.  I have a prize for you.”  Thinking I might get mini-pilot’s wings or something, I froze in my tracks.  But no, she gave me a Tootsie Roll and declared it “Happiest Passenger Award.”

She wasn’t weird.  She was delightful.  And playful.  And I think of her often when I open my drawer and see this twisted wrapper, left over from the candy that I — of course — ate instantly.

And I wonder why we all tend to act so cool when we could be playful.  Encouraging.  Engaging.  Involved.  Even a little socially awkward if necessary.  Which the flight attendant wasn’t, for the record.  But I might be if I handed out candy.

Why are we so dignified?  Dignity is overrated.

Play.  Seriously.

Dispatches from the Empty Nest

This is the place where we’re singing, halfheartedly, an endless chorus of “I’ve always looked forward to this time in my life,” or “Look, I hardly ever have to unload the dishwasher any more!”  And we keep insisting, “I miss ‘em but I’m so proud that they are ready to launch into the world as competent adults.”

But my brain protests too much.  Cause my heart’s not buying it.

Yesterday I burst into tears over the wide-openness of my days and weekends and life, the horrific freedom of it all.

Today I watched my husband begin to paint over the horrible Pepto-Bismol pink paint in my daughter’s former room, so that I can have it as an office for my new career-woman self.  Mind you, this is a pink that I wince over, a pink that should be illegal.  And as I took my last look at it, I sobbed, “A little girl picked this out.  My little girl. And she is MARRIED!”  And I had to photograph the timeline she marked off on the walls, to help her (lo these many years ago) through AP U.S. History… before it was gone forever, as it feels that she is (though she’s a 12-minute drive away).

And when I was in the very process of applying under-eye concealer (a necessity on my good days), I realized that my husband’s random-shuffle iPod offering was the very song that we sang at my other daughter’s baptism, while we walked around the sanctuary with the minister 20 years ago, showing her off and lifting up our future attempts at raising her well into God’s hands.  And the concealer washed on down to the corners of my mouth in a stream of tears.

I am feeling so much over something I knew was coming, more or less welcomed, and compartmentalized in my brain as a good and appropriate thing.

Grief comes in waves they say; that’s what this is, isn’t it?

Greeting Card Revelations

Perusing the selection of greeting cards in a store this morning gave me a depressing snapshot into something… but I’m not sure what.  Maybe it’s only the greeting cards in a car wash gift shop that are limited in nuance.  Remind my loved ones not to buy my birthday present there.

There are two options for sentiments I might want to express: 1) You, birthday person, are disgusting, 2) You, birthday person, should look at something cute and sweet and try to forget about aging.

There is a market for anyone wanting to create alternatives.  There is enough work to do to cure unemployment. Creative types, get on it.

For today the options were:

• cards that poked fun (is this fun?) at body hair, nose hair, gastrointestinal problems and fat (or any combination thereof)
• cards that contrasted old women with bikini-clad chicks (or the male version of geezers vs. studs)
• an inordinate focus on golf and beer for men; shopping, pink drinks and shoes for women
• aging is seen as an hysterical joke (and cards about it presented as if they were highly original gut-busters)
• kittens and puppies

I am truly fascinated by the fact that reality seems to be missing.  There don’t seem to be cards for a normal human being who has suffered some, had some joys and successes, is aging (and a bit nostalgic and wistful but mostly taking it all in stride), grateful to be beyond junior high school angst, delighted not to be climbing the ladder to an unknown destination… in other words, delighted to be alive, all things considered, and not obsessively focused on bodily orifices or skin tone.

But seriously, if we can’t skewer the intended recipient of the card with reminders of their mortality (hair, paunch, challenges), we can at least cheer them up with… kittens?!!?

A kitten on a card does not cheer me up.  It screams, “I don’t know you but I thought you would be hap-hap-happy with a baby critter so you don’t have to remember that you are aging.”  Or it screams, “I don’t know what to say to you myself on your birthday because such things are very challenging and I don’t want to put my foot in my mouth and remind you that you are (gasp) older.” Or “I am lazy, and kittens say it all.”

Feast or famine, horror or kittens.  You choose.  Or just text me and save the stamp.

NASA Needs Me

I’m not naming names but I helped train an astronaut.  Yes, I did.  Back in the seventies, I was driving around with a future astronaut when we had a flat tire in my beloved Mustang.  Male chivalry being what it was back then (existent), he wanted to take care of the problem for this delicate flower of Southern womanhood.  But didn’t know how.  So I showed him what I knew about jacks and spares, leading the way for the one-and-only time in my life on a mechanical (semi-mechanical?) venture.

And as I followed the progress of this space-walking acquaintance (we haven’t stayed in touch and I detest and eschew those “We haven’t been in touch, but do you remember me now that you’re an astronaut?” conversations), I couldn’t help but swell with pride over the fact that he was probably using numerous skills up there that I had taught him.

That astronaut business is nothing if not mechanical, you know!

Vi[car(y)]ous

I am a bona fide indoors-dwelling girl, and yet I pore over every issue of Outside magazine, reading gear reviews, clinching my teeth over rescue stories, and thinking about what it would be like to be ultra-fit and oh-so-cool-looking in neoprene and to not mind sweating.

I am extremely challenged by moving gracefully, yet I am drawn to tap-dancing (well, really any dancing) movies, musicals, performances or scenes.  I wish the Nicholas Brothers were my own siblings.

I’m inhibited and can’t think of anything I’d less prefer than acting, yet I get positively weepy over stories of someone getting their big break on Broadway.

Anything that my children do is — by extension — one of my activities.  Not that I try to do the thing (there’s nothing worse than a mother tagging along or usurping territory)… but I feel vicarious interest and identification with that world, whether it’s the Orthodox Church or Civil War reenacting or painting.

Call me Vi[car(y)]ous!