Attempts at Pilfering Monies in Romania

Okay, so the story goes like this:

Memorial Day Weekend. Big money spending weekend for me. I'm painting my apartment. Someone should have talked me out of it, though I am sure I wouldn't have listened. My paint bill alone was over $200. HOLY SHNIKE'S! Why do I have to LOVE color so much?? Why can't I just live in a bland place like the majority of the world?? Wouldn't it be grand if they invented a machine that sucked the last layer of paint off the walls and filtered it at the same time so you could use it again in the next place you lived...If "they" reads this, let me know if you ever get around to inventing such a wonderful machine.

Anyway, this is not about my expansive paint bill. This is about fraudulant activity. If you EVER get an email from your bank, paypal, ebay, or someother bank, claiming they need your account information because of some fraudlant activity, DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, CLICK ON THE LINK PROVIDED. Call the customer service of the said provider. I think I must have done it the first time I got the email from Ebay, because some jackass in Romania was trying to get money out of an ATM there. Thank goodness for Visa Check Card Security...they decided to not give that person my money, but on the flip side they had to close my account...hense the problem with some massive paint/ing supplies purchases. Not that I couldn't cover it with my credit cards, but I was just annoyed. Actually, it wasn't until I was at Starbucks trying to get my quad-venti-lite-ice(d)-latte that the 4 dollar trans didn't go through. I was thinking, "no, you don't realize how much money I have in my account. I could buy a lot more latte's than just this one...what the hell?"

Speaking of Starbucks and my favorite drink...do any barista's that I know that work there know how to get a good iced latte now that they have those blasted machines that take all of the art out of espresso making??? I try not to go to those machined slaves, but everyonce in a while...I need to give up coffee anyway. Is it hypocritical to not drink coffee and want to own a coffee shop? (Though you must know that it will be oh so much more than just another mere coffee shop).

Anyway...it's my birthday in 6 days, my sister's is today. She is 31! Happy Birthday Patty!! Holy Crap! Its her golden birthday! Mine was when I was 6. lame.

lacking social grace and assurance b : causing embarrassment: (an awkward moment)

Ok,

I must confess that I was not expecting, for some reason, to meet people randomly through my day that know me and have read my blog. It’s quite disconcerting actually. The whole thing is very risky. Let your thoughts your heart out there for people to see and get feedback from them? Doesn’t sound very comfortable to me…no sir!! I ran into someone today that asked me if I was the Lady of the Woods (they added the s). I said I was, and I hightailed it out of there as fast as I could. I felt so awkward. I wasn’t very nice to them either. I felt so dumb. It’s amazing what insecurities being known in a certain way come up unexpectedly.

It’s an unwelcome turn of events, but somehow I think I must GET the hell over it! Even knowing that my family can read this is extremely hard to bear. But I must say that I am willing to go through the awkwardness of it all to get to the other side of possibly not hiding as much as I do under my tough façade.

Either way, if you are reading this, and you know me, or you think you may run into me ever, make me uncomfortable and talk to me about it.

Thanks

The Golden Age of Radio, Brown Rice, and Kim Chee

I bought some old time radio cd’s from Price Chopper today. I bought Bob Hope, Dick Tracy, The Shadow, Bing Crosby, The Lone Ranger, and Jack Benny. I did it all for memories sake. Why? Because some of my happiest childhood memories were when on Sunday nights after evening church I would come home with my family and my dad would make brown rice to go with his Kim Chee. I would wait and wait, and it seemed like it toooooook forever for that rice to be done. My dad and I would go downstairs to my parents bedroom. He would read me the funnies and do all the right voices and I would ask for bites of the then very hot marinated cabbage delight and brown rice that was always perfect when my dad made it. And then right at the right time, he would lean over to the radio that was next to his side of the bed on the oak desk that I now have next to me as I type this, and he would dial in the radio station just in time for the theme music to be heard for the old time radio classics. I would sit as close as I could get to him, and let my imagination go with the flow of the cheesy mystery/drama’s and comedy’s of the “Golden Age of Radio”. I would wonder as a small child how they got the doors to creak like that, and the steps of people coming to sound like that, and why couldn’t the people in the story hear the footsteps either?? All these sounds and words fed my little imagination as well as the closeness of my dad. We rarely talked, we just sat and listened. After it was done he would always say, “okay, Putt-Putt, time for bed” and give me a swat on the butt as I scrambled off the bed to run upstairs. I had completely forgotten those evenings until now. Talk about a great set of memories! Even when I was in my teen years and angry with my parents, there would be Sunday night’s that my dad would knock on the ceiling, which was the floor of my room, and holler that Old Time Radio was on. I would tune it into my clock radio and fall asleep to the sound of a creepy narrator saying what would be on next time. I loved it though I don’t know if I ever let on how much I did. I’m so glad to have that as a part of my personal history. I am a richer person because of it.

Thanks Dad.

I hate the word Co-Dependency

I hate the word Co-Dependency. I hate that I fit into the very definition of that word, well, outside of the dictionary making it primarily about alcohol and heroin addiction…, and I hate it even more that my relationships tend to look like those that are described in the:
“You’re CO-Dependant! That sucks for you, pay me 13.95 and I’ll fix it for you, Subtitled: HA SUCKER! JUST KIDDING, I have no idea how to fix this” books.

So there you have it. Anyone’s radar up yet? I know mine is. I hate the fact that I can pick out who I would have a bad relationship with based on how attracted to them I am upon first meeting, in order to later, recant every nice and thoughtful thing I said because I all of the sudden realize that I am in YET ANOTHER one of these dreadfully labeled things. What’s it called? Oh, yeah. A relationship with another human.

So I was talking to a fellow co-dependant (he’s just discovered the horrible truth about his style of relating) and obviously we are trying to dance around the possibility of us becoming such. We feel healthy right now, but oh Lordy! Watch out! A little too much time together and WHAMMO! It’s lights out for yet another possible yet not because well…”you’re not my ideal, and I can’t handle the fact that you are not perfect in the one way that I want you to be perfect, even though everything else fits like a glove” (I’m not bitter.) Anyway! I’ve come to the satisfying conclusion that the world, my world, did not fall around my ears when I found out I had this relational disease. And that in fact probably 99.99% of all other humans on the earth potentially struggle with it in some form or another. Therefore I must not worry my pretty head about the small day to day interactions with fellow fallen image bearers. Because in the wild scheme of things: humans are humans. And yes, I can hear Josiah Nelson already, we DO need to pursue whole healthy relating styles that are Christ centered at their core, as well as being true and authentic in their expression. I concur with that statement Josiah, I’m glad I said it first… ;-)

Because isn’t the problem in the fact that we are all trying to pursue a new version of Christ centered living that includes the all essential element of community (what ever the hell that means)? Isn’t the problem that in the increased awareness of community things that we begin to realize slowly but surely that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory, but we died, and our life is now hidden with Christ in God? When Christ who is our life appears, we shall also appear with him in glory. I know I am mixing verses, I just really like that verse... Fallen, but being redeemed. That’s the process, and not being afraid of it just being merely that has been my journey as of late. Sure I’m going to screw up in my co-dependant ways again, but I’ll get up again, and I’ll live and I’ll die again.

In my old age, I have discovered that the only thing I really know is that I don’t know anything, and that I don’t have to be afraid of that fact, because no one else really knows either. We are all just hanging out like amebas in a Petri dish going from here to there, bumping into each other. I obviously don’t think that we are alone in the process, but sometimes that’s how I feel, or actually what it looks like to me.

The big point, the massive struggle for me is, “LIVE!” Live fully, embrace the pain of hope and shun fear at every step, cause it’s just waiting there in the shadows to pull me back in to the bubble that was always too small for me, to put back on fetters that have rubbed scars into my wrists and ankles, and made me small.

I have more to say about this, it’s still forming in my growing brain/heart connection. It’ll have a vein soon.

Thanks for wading through this.

This is the the place of my birth. Increadible isn't it?  

This is a drawing by my friend Kristen Curry. She's an increadibly talented artist. This is me, this is the reason for the ache... 

Breathing

I grew up in a beautiful place. A space that smelled of green and dirt after the rain washed the streets clean and the smog in the air was shoved away to give way for real air, breathable air.

We had very breathable air; in fact, it’s the most breathable air in the Nation, based on some poll somewhere. I long for that air when it’s hot and humid outside and my lungs scream at me because they remember the air that was so clean and full of the green from the trees that surrounded my little universe. Being in the middle of the nation during the summer, though I am grateful for my friends, etc., has proven to be quite the challenge, maybe it just sucks. Maybe it’s not a challenge at all. Maybe the challenge is to spend the time and money to get away from short stubby bushes they call trees here, and molehills they call mountains, and creeks they call rivers, and ponds they call lakes.

My wandering heart is in need of green majesty as it is every summer I spend away from it. The older I get, the more I find that my body literally aches for the terra of my birth. I look for the smell of water in the clouds here when it’s about to dump buckets of rain on us, my favorite part about the Midwest. Sometimes I’ll smell dirt just to see if I can be satisfied with the treated stuff they call soil. I walk barefoot through parks to feel if there is the “sticky” grass of my youth anywhere in my possible path. It always comes up short.

The long and short of it is, somehow God finds a way to weave the very material of nature into us while he’s weaving everything else that becomes who we are in our mother’s womb. Or maybe it just happened to me. I don’t know.

Beautiful Green Forest in the Great Pacific Northwest, picture taken from www.writh.net. 

Mirrored Faces

I make faces at myself in the bathroom mirror at work. I ask my friend/coworker if he does the same, he say’s, “yea”. I am happy to know that.

Writing is easier than talking, because a disconnect from the filter of mouth happens, and my fingers are more familiar with the language of my heart. Therefore, my words, these words may be much more telling about me than any words that you may hear come from my well shaped lips.

And since I am discovering the breadth of my ragamuffin-ness there may be words that are painful to read because the majority of you who read this love me deeply. So hang on, and hold your breath at the right points so that when you exhale it will be all the more sweet.

Something I wrote yesterday:
Disfigured ME
Bet you can't SEE
Anything but secretly
Through dark glass
reflections of beauty.
But I'm hiding my face, back turned
full of disgrace
Long to be free ME.