the refrigerator

The outside of a person and the inside of a person are often very different things. I’m not talking about muscles and blood and body organs either. Inside of each human, there is a depth that makes them tick, gives them purpose, and defines who they are.

Refrigerators are backwards.

On the inside of a refrigerator, you will find the foods which sustain us, but which also go into the make-up of our external bodies – the foods which nourish us and those which add character to our hips, our waists – our outward frames.

In many homes, the outside of a refrigerator is rife with preschool drawings and family pictures. Our home isn’t much different in its capacity to show the inner workings of the mind – the medium is just different.

There is a chore calendar – laminated in hopefulness to allow a white board marker the freedom to cross off accomplished chores. It bears no marks.

There is an enormous magnetic band-aid perched above the memo pads for recording needed groceries (blank) and telephone numbers for callback purposes (also blank).

There are various free magnets from assorted solicitors by mail.

There is a bumper sticker, held down with an earth magnet, bearing the words Fat people are harder to kidnap.

And there is a new addition.

On Thanksgiving, at my sister’s house, the entire family enjoyed playing with the magnetic words they had on their refrigerator. This enjoyment was obvious enough that my mother gifted us with our own set for Christmas.

While our ponderings varied from silly to profound upon my sister’s cooling vessel, they have yet to gain such loft on our own.

From the freckled boy on Thanksgiving came these haunting words:

Speak the word slowly as though a whisper can be judged.

He is a bit amazed at all of the fuss those words received claiming not to truly understand them himself. I, on the other hand, have contemplated the heritage of assembling text that somehow speaks the inner workings of the soul while remaining only the messenger that carries them to the outside world.

But alas, perhaps our own refrigerator’s surface just as accurately captures the little idiosyncrasies that make us who we are.

The Drama King (9):

Pedal when drunk
and
crush the light

driving could be eternity


The Freckled One (12):

pound, stare, and love a puppy


The N Boy (17):

I as wet of a storm
smell beauty spring and
sausage heave


Spongebob (6):

TV’s purple finger
why love time


The Brat (old):

drool sweet juice there in the dream
music of honey spray


Da Man (older):

Stop leaving a smear


And a bonus anonymous entry (which may be attributed to the Instigator (14)):

Dress in shaking peaches
blood is behind shining pictures


I’m sure the Pink One will be contributing soon, but she has yet to learn how to sound out words. Once she does, I am betting we are all in trouble.

oh how the mighty have fallen

Throughout my life, I have heard often of the great circle of life, food chains, and man being at the top of the chain. Often, when conservationists are attempting to bring awareness of an endangered species into the limelight, they will comment upon the fact that man has become such a dangerous predator to so many species while there are no natural predators of man. I beg to differ.

We (the dear husband, N, and I) were watching Dirty Jobs earlier this evening. If you have cable and you have never seen it, I highly recommend it. In the show, the host, Mike Rowe, travels to various places and takes part in dirty jobs – those occupations which make our world run as smoothly as it does but which are often thankless, menial, and just plain gross.

In this particular episode, Mike traveled to Louisiana one year after Katrina to take part in some of the ongoing dirty jobs (side vent on this one later). First he traveled and labored with a demolition crew responsible for cleaning out a house and getting it down to nothing but exterior and framing. Most of us have put a load of laundry in the wash and forgotten it for a day or so. We all know that lovely reek. Imagine that smell magnified a thousand times and you might get an idea of one small part of that job. Clothes left in a washer or dryer – sodden with not only the wash water but with what the demolition crew affectionately call “Katrina Soup,” a mix of floodwater, silt, sewage, mold, and more disease than you could be expected to name in an hour even when armed with a Physician’s Desk Reference.

The second job was tracking down, studying, and attempting to control the increased rodent population. The third job was mosquito control.

You might ask what any of these jobs have to do with my opening paragraph. In fact, you have probably asked that several times since beginning to read. Well, it seems to me that humans do have natural predators, they are just very small. Ironic, isn’t it, that the life form most dangerous to us is so small you cannot see it with the naked eye? Natural disasters bring about situations which rapidly accelerate the growth of bacteria and molds. At the same time, the rodent populations increase because of an increased availability of rotten, pungent, abandoned food. The mosquitoes increase as well, feasting upon the blood of the rats and that of the humans – equal opportunity suckers. They also aren’t so modern that they refuse to make house calls. They bring the disease right to our doors. No natural predators – bah humbug.

the side rant

I guess, sadly, the human response to disaster is often like the acquaintance’s response to someone else’s grief. The heart reaches out during the initial injustice. Helping hands are everywhere. A little time passes, though, and suddenly the griever is left in a solitary grief. Only those closest understand. Everyone else goes back to life as normal. Natural disaster as a motivator has a shelf life. Most of us grow weary of bearing other people’s grief long-term. We begin to resume life as normal, forgetting how impossible that is for some.

The men working demolition for the company highlighted in this show were not always laborers. The company owner has been in that line. The other men came from such varied backgrounds as bouncing, teaching English, Investment banking. You see, if these men want to stay in their home town, they need to work. But, until this work is done, their old jobs – many people’s old jobs – simply do not exist. Some may never come back. Those which do will only thrive again through the sweat and blood of men and women like these. The pain doesn’t go away just because the cameras stop pointing it out.

the thin purple line (updated)

Every trait has a flip side, kind of like a coin. Sometimes I am convinced that our first thirty years are spent trying to discipline the negative side of those traits so that the positive may shine more brightly.

For instance, I like to look at both sides of every issue. I try to see where a person is coming from even when their views disagree with mine. I like to weigh the pros and cons of everything, but often end up with equal piles because of my ability to keep the insight going. Therefore, the flip side of my coin would be indecisiveness.

Insomnia hit again last night. I tried to go to sleep, really I did, but I ended up sitting in front of late night TV and watching Dr. Phil. It is a show I have only seen a few times (since it is on after 2 AM). A mother was on who basically wanted help in backing off from her son while he is trying to do homework. She acknowledged she had a problem with pressuring him and nagging, and getting into his face with her anger. Dr. Phil, though, felt that she wasn’t admitting she had a problem because there were a few quotes her family supplied, and she was having a hard time believing she used certain words. She felt like he was portraying her wrongly. He used that to intimate that she was not admitting she had a problem. Cue camera shots of an audience looking on with shock and pity. Ah, the poor momma just won’t admit what a monster she is.

Dr. Phil continued to assert that she was not admitting to the problem, and every minute of show between the commercials was basically a rephrased version of the first five minutes - the flip side of the coin. You see, the power of persuasion which makes him so good at what he does has a flip side too. The negative side of persuasion is manipulation. Sometimes the line between the two is very thin. I believe he crossed that line in this show. The mother felt it too, and was trying to express it to him. She did eventually stop arguing with him about it, and let her comments peter out to the simple, “I completely agree,” for the sake of moving on and getting help for her and her son.

I have a very active imagination. For the most part, it has served me well, but there is a downside even to this. I am able to imagine all sorts of possible outcomes. Worrying about and concentrating on those possibilities can take my eyes off of the God who is offering me the support needed to go through the one real outcome in any given situation.

Today is Friday and I have two friends visiting doctors for completely different reasons. One of those appointments is a standard first OB appointment, and will likely yield no new information. Still, considering my history of several very early miscarriages (a history she shares) and one stillbirth, all things OB have the power to make me very nervous. The other appointment is with a neurosurgeon to check on Gladys (or the map, as I like to call her), the happy little resident deep inside of my friend.

So for today, I would like to ask permission to turn my imagination off. Thank you.

As expected, the OB appointment was the standard, waste of time first appointment. The brain doc appointment wasn't so bad either. Thanks for your thoughts and prayers for my friends.

blessed rain

It's chilly. Here it is the first day of September, and the temperature is not even supposed to hit 70 today. This is unusual. For now, I am enjoying the snuggly comfort of slippers and sweatshirt as I watch slight patches of green slip back into my yard. It is raining. That is something which hasn't happened enough here this summer. A gentle steady rain is caressing the world around me. Later today, torrents might be pounding the earth, and the beneficial water might turn into a curse, but for now, it is a blessed relief.

Parenting is like that. In difficult spots, when the trials have been searing down like the hot August sun, when all the mother's soul is parched from the scorching heat of battle, a sudden smile or act of love sends sweet drops of moisture to re-invigorate the troubled landscape.

God is good.

cowering from evil lint balls

There are times in which I am perfectly aware that my reaction to a series of circumstances is completely out of proportion to the situation at hand. My mind, you see, is very analytical. Unfortunately, the violent passions are just as strong with me, though I often hide them behind facts, figures, busyness or jocularity. Why am I so willing to listen to the self-defeating voice? Why do I allow myself to get caught in the trap of logically knowing something is affecting me more than it should, but since it is bothering me anyway, thinking I must really be screwed up?

I ask this on a day when I am not feeling strongly in that direction. If my feelings were that raw today, I wouldn't dare ask the question. My goodness, when I get like that, the mere fact that someone neglected to say, "Hi," might set me off on a five hour self-search to identify what horrible thing I did to offend them. I can entertain so many possibilities.

I will analyze everything I say and do - understand that many of the things I say in an effort to relate end up turning a conversation back to myself - end up making me sound selfish. Is that what I have done? That's not what I mean. I know that many times when you present something, I will talk it through from several other points of view. It's who I am. But, in so doing, am I making you feel that I think you are wrong? That's not what I mean. Many times I respond with sarcasm that is oozing with affection. Am I conveying the affection? Is it coming out meaner than I ever intended? That's not what I mean. Am I shooting barbs at you with my words when I simply want to touch souls? That's not what I mean. Did I unintentionally strike out toward you because I was frustrated or busy or hurt? That's not what I mean.

But why am I always so ready to believe that something must be wrong with me? And why was yesterday one of those days?

and why am I so good at hiding it?