Are you drinking this in?

I, for one, have no words.

I’ll bet that, in this recent season of thankfulness, you forgot to mention your gratitude that this outfit  is not in style. I can’t even wrap my mind around it to be honest. Cast your eye over it again. Did you forget to notice the dressy gloves paired tastefully with a sweatsuit? I’ll bet you did. No one expects gloves. And honestly, I’m still stalled out back at the SWEATSUIT!  With tastefully appliqued floral motifs upon the sweatshirt, no less.

Another thing you may have missed on first glance, taken aback as you so rightfully were by the sweatsuit, is that this poor girl is sporting a tam, perched precariously on the side of her perm. I think that’s why she has to hold her head that way -  bobby pins are only so sturdy after all, and the whole thing may slide down onto her shoulder in a minute.

Take a quick gander at the foot gear.  Yes – your eyes have not mislead you – dress shoes with socks.

Now that she’s decked out in this sumptuous ensemble, what does she do? She loiters coyly by a lacy tea table,  holding a lily. Possibly to indicate the variety of lifelike instances in which this outfit would be appropriate.

Where did I get this photo you ask? No – it’s not my senior picture . . . thank heavens. My senior picture is dated, yes, and truth be told I was wearing some serious shoulder pads of power in a black tuxedo jacket with black satin pants. But why bring up the log in my own past when I can so much more easily poke fun at this unfortunate speck? At least I wasn’t wearing dress shoes with socks.

But I don’t blame this poor girl . . . this is actually the cover of a sewing pattern. Yes, she was paid to put this on, so we can give her the benefit of the doubt. But someone out there, at some point in the 1980s, thought this fashion decision was a good idea. Enough of a good idea to manufacture sewing patterns, and no doubt sell them!

Fess up now . . . did any of you ever wear this in 1987? Have you ever paired gloves with a sweatshirt, tam, socks, and a perm? Did you wear it to a tea party? Or were you one of those people that wore incredibly high waisted acid washed pleated jeans with zippers in the ankles? How about hammer pants? Any of you have that dark deed lurking in your past? What about jumpsuits? I’m totally guilty on the jumpsuit I’m afraid. I had a yellow and white striped one that Mom sewed me and I loved excessively. I also borrowed her chambray one and wore it with the collar up and a silver stretchy  belt. Yep. I did that. And I pegged the legs too. In further bad news, I’m fairly sure that I still have a soft spot in my heart for jumpsuits . . .

I mind it, yes I really do, when Christians run around loving songs and singing along with them when they have never bothered to discover what those lyrics are actually saying. Are you with me here? I’m sure this must have happened to you before . . . it’s definitely happened to me a time or two, and I hate it. There’s some great song, you hear a snatch of it on the radio, it’s really catchy, you like the tune, and the next time it comes on you sing along with the chorus. And then you file it away under the mental category “songs I like.” But have you ever then discovered, after singing along with it about eighteen times without thinking, that it’s actually quite a despicable song when you read the lyrics? That’s really the worst.

No. I take that back. The worst is when Christians never actually DO reach the moment of discovering that it’s a despicable song . . . either because they just don’t bother, or because the cool hipness of the song has them around the neck and there’s nothing in the world that will convince them that it’s not the awesomest thing out there.

Actually, come to think of it, there’s one thing that’s even worse than that. The worst of all. That’s when the Christian knows perfectly well what the song says, but in some attempt at a James Jordan-ish (see important note in comments below!!) exegetical ninja move, they decide that the song has redemptive themes and a narratival structure of death and resurrection, which we all know is terribly Christian. That one can make me dance around in a perfect fury when I hear people do that. It’s my ultimate peeve. Because honestly, it’s not hard to discover redemptive themes and death and resurrection in basically everything. It’s like hitting the ground with your hat. We live in the world God made, and so death and resurrection are obvious themes in everything – it doesn’t mean the artist isn’t thumbing his nose at heaven, and it doesn’t somehow sanctify the rest of the trash. It’s like getting all excited because you’ve noticed that the debauched film you’re not supposed to be watching relies heavily on the use of gravity which, as we all know, was created by God. Clearly that makes no difference. I’ll bet that if I sat down and gave my mind to it, I could come up with a good argument for how there are redemptive themes involved in visiting temple prostitutes . . . but that doesn’t make it ok, obviously.

Why do I bring this up you ask? Because I’ve gotten all the way annoyed with people quoting little snatches of lyrics on their facebook pages that belong to songs that are as raunchy or as rebellious as the day is long. I don’t know if these people have never bothered to find out the context of their little quote, or if they like it anyway, or if they’re trying to act all deep about it and pretend that this is philosophically profound, but no matter what their reasons, it bothers me.

When I’ve suddenly realized that a song I like is actually a problem, it has always given me that sick feeling in my stomach. Not because the song is questionable – but because I had liked it. It’s like eating something that you thought was fantastic, only to discover that it was actually goat eyeballs or something. It’s that same kind of gross feeling. So all I can say is, read the lyrics. Seriously. Read them. It makes a difference when you look at the thing in hard print without the catchiness of the tune to make you feel like it’s ok. Obviously you can’t read the lyrics to every song you ever hear. But before you buy it on itunes, or add it to your playlist, or quote it on facebook, you should find out what it says. And like Dad always taught us . . . there are two questions that you should always ask. “What are they saying, and is it true?”

Anyway, that is neither here nor there. I frankly felt that I should share, for everyone’s edification, my career in journaling.

It all started when someone, I don’t remember who, gave me a birthday present. I imagine I was probably eight or nine, but I don’t know for sure. The gift was a tiny, green Garfield the Cat diary – probably two inches tall, with a little strap that snapped it shut. I never wrote anything in it – except perhaps my name. It sat in my room for months, untouched. It wasn’t that I wasn’t allowed to write in it – I just never did.

Then, one day, some people came over to visit. I don’t remember exactly why, but midway through the afternoon I got cranky at life and began to stew quietly to myself about how I was being unduly harassed by everyone and everything. You know how it is when you’re cranky – everyone in the world is to blame but yourself. Suddenly, in the midst of my mood, I had a flash of inspiration. This here was exactly what that diary had been waiting for all this time. I went and shut myself in my room, opened up my little Garfield the Cat book, and scribbled out a terse little entry that went something like this:

“We have had the Schwartenheimers here all afternoon and I’m completely fed up.”

I did actually say I was fed up. I remember it distinctly, because I was rather impressed with myself for whipping out that little phrase. I’d been reading a lot of Narnia. Clearly I was channeling Eustace.

Anyhow, I snapped that little thought up in the diary and set it back up on my shelf. It actually made me feel better in a horrible smug sort of a way.

Then, about fifteen minutes later, God popped my smugness balloon. Mrs. Schwartzenheimer strolled casually into to my room. She spotted the green Garfield the Cat book sitting up on my shelf, and said, I kid you not, “Oh look! How cute!” She unsnapped it, and opened it up. Of course, it opened straight to the page that had her name engraven upon it. And, of course, she read it. My mom walked in at just that moment, and she said, as she handed her the book, “Nancy – look at this.” Mrs. Schwarzenheimer was very cracked up – I’m fairly certain my mom wasn’t exactly overcome with mirth. However, she was very kind about it, and didn’t rebuke me in front of the lady. I was petrified into a short little statue of mortification, and Mom clearly knew that. But later that evening we had a little chat about why I had been feeling grumpy, and about why it was a terrible idea to chronicle that fact instead of just confessing it.

The thing is, writing it down is NOT the same thing as confessing it. But it can give a sort of counterfeit feeling of relief. It’s not the relief of having your sins washed away, erased, and removed as far as the east is from the west. It’s the relief of having vented and gotten something off your chest – and that’s not the same thing, although it could be mistaken for it.

Long story short, that’s when I learned the lesson to never write anything down you would mind everyone reading. The lesson that sin should be confessed and let go of, not inscribed in a Garfield the Cat diary. The lesson that your sin will always find you out . . . but probably sooner than later if you’ve taken the time to jot it down for safekeeping!

Ben and I were in Oxford last week. And when we arrived at Heathrow, (lots of memories wrapped up in that place!) it turned out that the line at immigration was hideously long. We were both bordering on deliriously tired, and we were clearly going to be standing in line with all of our luggage for an hour. Basically, you could sum up the situation as tedious in the extreme. I was standing there with a glazed look on my face, shuffling several steps forward every so often and thinking of nothing in particular except occasionally noticing what bad outfits people wear on planes.

And then suddenly, into this gray, drab, dull, flourescently lit tedium, there came something that can only be described as a blessing. A little human drama began to unfold directly behind us in line, and it raised my spirits immeasurably.

It began when I felt someone breathing on my elbow. That was a bit disconcerting. I whipped around, and there was an exceptionally short Indian woman standing behind me. Right behind me. As in, very much involved with my personal space. She was probably 65, and her height was such that when she breathed, it hit me on the elbow. She had a wicked scowl on her face, and also a mustache. She was leading a little girl by the hand, and towing a suitcase. I turned back around and tried to ignore the breathing on my elbow. I was beginning to settle back into my stupor when she kicked things up a notch in the whole personal-space-invasion by prodding me in the buns. Indeed. She did.

At this point I began to really sit up and take note of this woman. She had a very settled scowl, and apparently thought that if you were just standing there in line then you weren’t really trying. She began to hustle us in all sorts of ways. I think she was attempting a sort of border collie move, and trying to crowd us up into the people ahead. But honestly now. You’ve got to give people room to breathe. No sense in having more togetherness than we actually need. And, as we all know, standing with your nose pressed up against the next person in line won’t make the line move any faster. So we stayed right where we were, and that didn’t seem to be ok with her. Not her style. She wanted action. She breathed on us, prodded, us, and bumped into the back of us repeatedly.

And then, in a completely unprecedented move, she stuck her head through in between Ben and me and had a little look round. Her head popped through the gap right around our midriffs, and looked side to side to scout things out and see how things were coming along. Ben and I stared at each other in surprise over the top of her head, not entirely sure how to respond to this very unusual situation, and trying not to actually laugh out loud. After all, she had an ear glued to each of our stomachs, and she would definitely have noticed if we laughed. Then she withdrew her head and returned to her usual place, wallpapered to the back of me.

A few yards later, she did the head move again. I was just totally amused at this point and I’m pretty sure I snickered. Inwardly of course, I was howling with laughter, but outwardly I managed to keep it reeled in and just let out a smallish snort of amusement. But then, just when I thought this woman couldn’t get any more outrageous, she did. It turned out that this time her head was just the thin end of the wedge; the camel’s nose under the edge of the tent. After a moment of reconnoitering – spying out the territory ahead, she squirted right through the gap and then drug her suitcase and small girl through behind her! As soon as she got through, she spread out very wide – presumably to keep us from being able to fight back.

At this point I couldn’t hold it together anymore and was weeping I was laughing so hard. And for the rest of the time in line we had a front row seat and got to watch her breathing on the back of the poor Korean couple ahead of us. They had seen her move on us, and they were very determined to not let her get the best of them. It was phenomenal. She prodded them, hustled them, and generally gave her best imitation of ivy on a wall. She did actually try to snake them on the corners a couple of times . . . but they were seriously skilled and never let her past. The man would throw out an elbow, the wife would reach across and grab the rope thingy, and she never took them. I’m pretty sure that they earned her respect in that queue. We, however, were definitely objects of her scorn. She was seriously looking down on us in spirit, if not in reality. Silly Americans who have no idea how to stand in a line.

It was great. Made my whole day worthwhile. Good clean family fun, free of all this modern suggestiveness.

Not to keep you in suspense any longer, let me begin by saying that ever since the great tree incident, our plumbing hasn’t been quite right. When the toilet flushed there was a mysterious “bang” coming from somewhere. Somewhere not in the bathroom. I told everyone that needed to know . . . the engineer who is in charge of the repairs, as well as miscellaneous extra people. Many people patronized me about the bang. Not badly, but you could tell they were mentally patting me on the head and saying, “There, there.”

Then we left town. And the snow came. The snow came in a big way. When we arrived back in town on Friday night, our house had new fresh cracks in the walls, and then on Saturday the furnace went out. It got fixed though, and that isn’t the point. The point is that (also on Saturday) the plumbing was very distinctly wrong. The bang was no longer ambiguous. Weird noises were coming out of all the drains, and when I turned on the washing machine, the toilet came to a rolling boil, which is something you never really want to see.

On Sunday morning, the drains gave up altogether. No water would leave our house. It was as if the water had all unanimously decided that it was cozier inside than out. Nothing would go down the toilet, the sinks, or the tub.

Fast forward to when the plumbers excavated the sewer line on Monday. What do you think they pulled out of the sewer line under the house? No, not a Lego spaceship. It was a long board. And when I say long, I mean a good twenty-eight inches. And I would like to take this moment to go on the record and state that we did not flush that. Had it been the Lego spaceship, I wouldn’t have been so sure, but the board I can be confident about.

Now let’s refer back to that photo of the tree on our house.

Do you see that white pipe that’s all akimbo there in the upper foliage? That’s the toilet vent. Apparently, the tree ripped a board off the house, and in a tricky exhibition of dexterity, it fired the board straight down that pipe. For the next ten days the board worked its way down the pipe, through the wall, and down under the house before it finally stuck fast and clogged everything up.

I’m feeling very smug now. I said there was a “bang” and everyone looked at me as if I had said that a cow was barking. “Pipes don’t bang,” you could see them saying to themselves, “they gurgle.” However, I think we can all confidently agree now that I was right. A large board, working its way through the walls with every flush definitely makes a “Bang.”

Thank you. That’s all I need to say.

Quite honestly, I read the comments all in a lump so I hope I’m not being too pointed about any one particular person. I don’t actually have any one person in mind. But the vibe I was getting was that actually this is a crowd comprised of a lot of people who perhaps need to loosen up a smidgeon. Yes, as I said before, I know for a fact that there are people out there who need to tighten it up. But then again . . . as my father is so fond of saying . . . there’s a ditch on both sides of the road. And at the risk of now appearing to be obnoxiously contrarian, I am now about to turn and say a word to the other ditch.

There’s a very real danger of getting downright pharisaical about this. The impulse to fence the law is as old as dirt – and Christ was always rather pointed in His rebukes of this practice. God gave us the law, and that was good enough. We don’t need to embellish it, add to it, fancy it up, or make it too complicated. Thinking up numerous ways in which we could obliquely take the Lord’s name in vain (and thus be guilty of great transgression) falls straight into that category. God said not to take His name in vain. So don’t. Don’t use His name flippantly. But also don’t start fencing the law and drawing a wide, wide circle around what could possibly be construed as His name. “Heavens” is not His name. “By golly” is not His name. “Word” is not His name. “Man” is not His name. “Goodness” is not His name. Don’t get all wound up about those.

In the beginning was the Word. The Word was God. But, at the risk of getting complicated, “word” is also a word that we use in other ways. We don’t need to put a moratorium on the word “word” unless we’re prepared to ban it from regular speech altogether in case of accidental misuse. And this of course quickly spirals out of control. We are also told that Jesus is the Way. And I truly hope that no one would argue that we can’t say “no way!” Jesus is that Truth . . . but we can all say “that’s the truth” without having to repent of commandment-breaking.

Basically all I’m saying is that once you start down that road it quickly gets ridiculous. And that is actually totally detrimental to protecting God’s name . . . turning the commandment into a ludicrous, legalistic rule is what will make everyone roll their eyes at you and laugh at the whole subject.

Yes, I am. I know that I don’t usually launch into scriptural exhortations . . . but I just have a little something to say.

For a good number of years now I’ve been periodically hearing very sweet Christian women take the Lord’s name in vain. It surprises me every time – and I always stand there doing a mental double-take . . . replaying it again and wondering to myself if she just said what I thought she said or if I misheard. But no – I’ve heard it enough times now that I’m certain I’m not making this up. Quite honestly, I’m at a bit of a loss. I’m not really sure what the rationale is. (And, by way of making the situation weirder . . . I’ve never once heard a Christian guy do it. Not to say it doesn’t happen, but I’ve never been around when it did.)

Is it because it never occurred to them that it’s a problem to take the Lord’s name in vain? I doubt it . . . these are very established Christian ladies, and it’s not like they’ve never heard of this concept. Is it a total accidental slip up which is incredibly embarrassing when they realize what they just said? I don’t think so, because I’ve heard it often enough that it seems a bit more of an issue than that. Is it because the 10 commandments are in the Old Testament and no longer apply? No – at least some of these ladies were definitely not dispensational and so they can’t use that little “Get out of Jail Free” card. So how does this happen then?

I think the only explanation is that they’ve never really stopped and thought about what they’re saying. Sort of a form of verbal scribbling. And considering that we’re going to give an account for every idle word . . . one of the words I would recommend to NOT be used idly is the Lord’s name. And, just to be clear, I would say that includes the words, “Lord,” “God,” . . . and my personal pet peeve, “Lordy.” (Are we on a nickname basis now for cryin’ out loud?)

Now, if I was a person who was flippantly taking the Lord’s name in vain and I wanted to continue to do so and not feel convicted about it, here’s the argument I would make. (Devil’s advocate time now.) I would say that that is NOT what the commandment is talking about. The commandment refers to “bearing” the Lord’s name in vain – essentially violating your baptism by living rebelliously. And to be honest, I completely agree with that. No problems with that explanation whatsoever. But that said, one of the things that would seem to obviously be included would be using God’s name as a lighthearted cuss word. Sure the commandment isn’t just limited to that – but it seems to me that it certainly includes that.

Just a little something to think about. Next time you start off your sentence with “Oh my . . . ” just pay a little attention to how you might be going to finish that thought.

We’re in Boise at the moment, the shining capital city of our great state, visiting Granny. And the hands-down best pizza in town is to be found at the Flying Pie Pizzeria. It’s crazy good pizza, and no trip to Boise is complete without at least one stop there. Flying Pie is a bit of a Boise legend, and is basically unchanged since my husband used to hang out there in highschool (lo, these many moons ago.)

While they make great pizza at the Flying Pie, it’s also an undisputed fact that the place is gungy and weird. It’s got a very “independantly-owned-bowling-alley-from the eighties” feel about it . . . the kind of bowling alley where the owner lived in a trailer out back. Strange decorations abound in the dimly lit interior – decorations like a giant wad of tinfoil the size of a dishwasher. There’s also a homely little mannequin in a motorcycle helmet who presides over the counter where you place your order. All the employees are sportily tattoed, and I’m fairly certain that you must be able to prove a certain amount of ink in order to even get an interview.

So. There we were. Sitting out back on the deck in broken plastic chairs, waiting for our pizza. There were ants on the table, along with a number of mysterious sticky bits. But that’s ok. We’re big kids. We can take a few smooths with the rough. The part that was starting to get us down was how long the pizza was taking. It was a crazy weekend though, and the place was packed, so we waited an extra long time before Ben went up to check on the progress of our pizza. We were told it was coming in two minutes . . . and we began to idly speculate on how long the two minutes would take. Knox set the timer on his watch so we could see who was right.

Strangely, the waiter arrived with the pizza nearly immediately. Knox wasn’t even done setting the timer. Our two gorgeous pizzas were plunked down, and our waiter and his tattoes retired back into the restaurant. We began to dish up the slices, when we realized that the pepperoni pizza didn’t seem to have any pepperoni on it. It looked like plain cheese. I sort of peeled the cheese up to find out if there was any pepperoni lurking there underneath, but there wasn’t. The combination pizza looked good however, so I dished up a lot of those slices while Ben went back inside to find out about the missing pepperoni. Judah picked an olive off my piece and ate it. After a few minutes we decided that no matter what happened with the pepperoni pizza, I might as well dish up the rest of the cheese slices . . . it’s not like the kitchen would take it back after it had been left on our table and fiddled with.

But just then a cheerfully tattooed waitress came dashing out the door, with Ben in her wake, yelling at us to not take a bite! These weren’t our pizzas. They belonged to another table – and she had the correct ones with her. She said, rather breathlessly, “You haven’t taken a bite yet have you?!”

Well . . . not exactly. But we had dished them all up and picked at the cheese and Judah had eaten an olive. “Oh that’s ok then” she said, “just put them all back on the pan. They’ll never know.”

I was totally incredulous. I tried to tell her that we had very definitely touched these pizza slices. She absolutely didn’t care. We took all the slices back off our plates, put them back in the pan, leaving various sausage bits and peppers behind . . . but for the most part they were all reassembled. The cheese slice that I had investigated was looking a little saggy and unfortunate, and they were rather disheveled pizzas, but she really didn’t mind at all. She deposited the new correct pizzas on our table, and toodled off with our old ones to deliver them to the poor unlucky and unsuspecting recipients.

Seriously. She did. I felt very guilty and like I owed someone an apology. So here it is – whoever you are out there . . . “I’m really sorry that we touched your pizza and picked some of the toppings off before you ate it! My husband isn’t, but I am! I’m fairly certain that we didn’t sneeze on it, but I can’t be sure! Hopefully you didn’t suffer any unfortunate repercussions (or rashes) from that little misunderstanding! When you bring your lawsuit, please don’t include us!”

What we have here is an enameled cast iron dutch oven that my grandparents bought in Holland in the fifties. It’s huge. It weighs a ton and three quarters. And for all of my early life, this was the only large pot my mom possessed besides her canner. Pert’ near everything was cooked in this pot. When Mom made spaghetti she would boil up the water in this pot and drop the noodles in . . . sideways. (I don’t think she bought a stock pot until I was in high school!) This was also the one-stop-pot for homemade mac and cheese. Noodles were boiled in it and then drained, the roux was whizzed up in the now-empty pot, everything was reassembled therein and then chucked into the oven. Very versatile pot, this. And due to it’s long years of tireless service, it is now straight black inside.

I thought for a long time that it just needed a real deep scrubbing of some sort. Many’s the time I’ve washed it and felt a twang of conscience for not really laying into the black bits with some sandpaper or something. It’s only lately that I really clued in to what’s going on here. All the enamel has worn off the inside, and we’re down to the bare iron. Which means, of course, that we’ve either eaten all the enamel over the years, mixed tastily into the mac and cheese, or it’s been over-zealously scrubbed one too many times. (And if that’s the case then we can rest assured that it is Mom and not I who’s responsible for the situation.)

Mom has a gorgeous array of pots these days – Le Creuset in beautiful colors. But this lowly dutch oven still puts in its fair share of stove top time, and I always love seeing it humming away with steam billowing out the sides.

I’ve discovered that I could get more of these on ebay . . . some of which are in pristine condition and their interiors are still a spotless white enamel. And if I didn’t mind paying obscene amounts of money for shipping I would totally start collecting them. But I have to say I’d miss that black interior. In my humble opinion the black adds to the charm.

APRIL FOOLS!! HA HA!! GOTCHA, SUCKERS!!

(They’re not spaghetti and meatballs at all. They’re Jemima’s birthday cupcakes.)

You all are getting a little foretaste of the “joke” that Jemima is going to play on her class today at lunch. Are you making sure to notice the grated “parmesan” that’s actually white chocolate? Huh? Huh? Are ya? I have to say, these are turning out a great deal more spaghetti-like than I first imagined they would. The meatballs are those hazelnut chocolate what-nots, rolled in low-sugar strawberry preserves. (The low sugar preserves give the best color apparently.) The frosting is very wildly squirted out of a ziploc bag with the tip snipped off. Not bad, I have to say.

Jemima has always really reveled in the fact that her birthday is on April Fools, and she’s always dying to try to trick somebody. The absolute rudest one on record so far was entirely my husband’s fault. This was before we moved to England, so Jemima must have been turning 6. That meant that Knox was 7. Are you with me? There were five children, and the oldest was 7 and the youngest was 1. Ben got Jemima to call both of her grandmas in turn, and he had prepped her with this little message: “Hi this is Jemima. Um . . . Mom and Dad left to go get a mocha and they said they would be right back, but that was a really, really long time ago and they’re not home yet and the toilet is clogged and now it’s overflowing and everyone is crying.”

Now, come on. Is that rude, or is that rude? Granny, Ben’s mom, was in town visiting . . . and she was over at Ben’s sister’s house when she received that pitiful little call. She was at our front door in about 45 seconds flat – at which point she was very rightfully peeved at her badly behaved son. When Nana got the call she instantly flew into action with lots of “Stay right where you are, don’t move, I’ll be right there . . . don’t get off the phone, hang on, just a minute while I call Papa on the other line . . . . ” Somewhere in there Ben finally had Jemima say, “April Fools!” and then Nana was very rightfully peeved at her badly behaved son-in-law. I, meanwhile, was very rightfully peeved that anyone actually believed that I would have left my 5 utterly incompetent children unattended while I went off to get a mocha!