Friday Random Ten

I have decided to allow iTunes to decide what I listen to today. Here is what it gave me.

"Tunnel of Love" by Dire Straits on Money For Nothing
"Hard Times" by Wayne Watson on A Beautiful Place
"Goodbye, Goodnight" by Jars of Clay* on If I Left the Zoo
"Children of the World" by Amy Grant on WOW 1996
"Language of the Soul" by PFR* on Disappear
"To Have and To Hold" by Depeche Mode on Music For the Masses
"Wassail, Wassail" by Mannheim Steamroller on Christmas Live
"Aware of Wonder" by Geoff Moore & The Distance* on A Friend Like U
"Daytime" by Cat Stevens on Footsteps in the Dark
"White Christmas" by Louis Armstrong from a CD a friend made for me

I guess now I can complain about Christmas music even before Thanksgiving. Except I really like Christmas music, all through the year. That's why I have all that in my general library to be picked up periodically.

*Acts I've seen live.

A Word of Caution

To start with, I tend to view Texas A&M University as a bit of a microcosm of the country in general. Maybe it's because I see their tendency to be conservative coupled with their strive to be progressive, which looks rather like middle-America. Maybe it's because I really loved going to school there, and that's where I developed a lot of my world view. I don't know, but there it is. I tell you this to preface my little history lesson. Texas A&M was founded in 1876 as an all-male military school. In 1963, the first black and female students were accepted and began attending the university (1 and 2). Blacks were admitted at equal status (always with the "legally" on this one, unfortunately) with whites in 1964 (1). Women achieved equal admittance status with men in 1971 (2). In 1976, Fred McClure was elected the first black student body president at A&M (1). Brooke Rollins was elected the first female student body president in 1994 (3).

I share this not to say that women have it worse than blacks, but to throw out a word of caution to all Democrats out there. I do not believe that this country is ready for a female president. Much the same that A&M embraced blacks in the student body more readily than women, the US can handle a black man in the presidency right now more readily than a woman. And here's a bold prediction that I'll make a year ahead of time: if Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee, we will have another Republican in office for the next four years.

It's an issue that has plagued powerful women for centuries: How do you make it look like you're as capable as a man in "manly things" without diminishing what it is that makes you female? Can a woman be powerful and feminine at the same time? Look at Hillary -- everything about her is criticized in the press. If she dresses like a businesswoman, she looks "boxy"; if she wears something flattering, she's being a tease (4). If she's too serious, then she's cold and calculating, but if she tries to lighten things up, her laugh is ridiculed. She just can't win....and that's kinda my point.

Right now we can't even stomach the thought of a woman as our boss (5). If a female boss is met with resistance, can we really take a female political boss? There has been a lot of talk about whether a woman belongs in the military (6). Can a female Commander-in-Chief be respected? I don't think she can. And she will mobilize an opposition faster than you can say "Hillary".

Months ago, I opined (that's my new favorite word, "opined". Do you like it, too?) that the Republican party was smearing Barrack Obama because they wanted to see Hillary win the Democratic nomination. And it's working so far (7). And, I'd venture to say that a significant amount of her money is coming from the Republican party -- people that want to ensure that she has enough money to beat Obama and Edwards (either of which I believe could beat any Republican nominee that they put forward).

So, I reiterate what I've said before. Stop supporting Hillary. She can't win, and I don't want to see another Republican in the White House for a while. I'd love to see her drop out of the race for the good of the party, but that seems to be too much to ask. Let's switch our focus, though, to Obama vs. Edwards. And the decision isn't which one to pick for president, but whether we have an Obama/Edwards ticket or an Edwards/Obama ticket. I currently believe Edwards/Obama would be more winnable, and currently, that's all I want. A winnable ticket to be put forward by the Democratic party in 2008. Please vote in your Democratic primaries as they come up. And please don't vote for Mrs. Clinton.

Please? Pretty please? Is that really so much to ask?

References
1. Resource from the Cushing Library on the history of African Americans at Texas A&M University.

2. The history of Texas A&M, as recorded in the Texas State Handbook.

3. News release from A&M regarding a speaking engagement by Ms. Rollins.

4. An LA Times article about Hillary's clothing choices.

5. An Economist article about the perceptions of being disciplined by a male or female boss.

6. A history of women in our military.

7. ABC News coverage of polling in Iowa placing Hillary well in the lead.

Serious Talent Found Here

This weekend I noticed something strange on my leg: five parallel scabs that looked like they had to be caused by a bike gear and a yellow-purple bruise underneath them. The weird part was that I don't remember getting these injuries. Based on the age of the scabs, they correspond with Tuesday when I last rode my bike, but how can you cut your leg and just not notice?

Then, last night, I was frying fish, and splattered oil on my neck. Ew, oil burn. This morning I see I also got a splatter on my shoulder, but I didn't notice that one. Oops. Now I'll have a nice scar for that one. How do you not notice your flesh burning?

I'd like to think this has something to do with some astronomically high threshhold for pain. But, somehow I doubt it. It's more likely a study in distraction's effect on pain.

OSF: "Romeo and Juliet" Amazing Despite...

Last weekend we had tickets to see "Romeo and Juliet" at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland. As part of that, I took Monday off work, and therefore have been behind all week, and thus Saturday is the first chance I have to post about it.

First, let me say that Ashland is beautiful. I'd never been before, but it's just like a painted picture of small-town America. Cute houses, cute shops, friendly people. And with fall really coming in, the colors were starting to change, and there was snow on the mountains. Good stuff.

We went because we know someone in the company and he got us tickets. I'll just leave it at that to protect his privacy and to keep him from being overwhelmed with requests for free tickets. I'll call him Pete for the rest of this post. We went up and stayed in Pete's apartment while he stayed with his girlfriend for the weekend. It was nice to stay in a place with a kitchen and where you can feel comfortable. It helps that we've known him a long time.

But after seeing the play, I can't understand why we waited so long! We're obviously dunderheads, and that's the only explanation. And if you have a chance to go to a play in any of their three theatres, please do so. They've announced the 2008 season already, so pick out the time to go, the plays to see, and get on it already! We will be seeing everything we have time to see next year, because we've been bitten with some kind of bug now.

So, on to the play. We went Sunday night, and all day it was looking like it was going to rain. Two of the three stages are indoors, but the Elizabethan Stage (where R&J was to be) is outdoor. This is neat in a lot of ways, but when it's cold and rainy, it's just sucky for everyone involved. Pete had gotten us tickets in the balcony, so we were covered by the partial roof that is there to help with acoustics. He obviously knew something we wouldn't realize as first-timers -- we hadn't brought all our warmest clothes and raingear. But, as I said, with the roof, we were fine. And I'm not too worried about the folks on the floor -- they all seemed prepared and seemed fine. The actors, however, had to perform in abysmal conditions. The rain started out light, but we were barely into the second scene before they started slipping around on the stage.

They were troopers, but six of them got hurt falling down, and one guy's hearing aid shorted out. That's crazy to expect actors to perform in those sorts of conditions. And I don't want to be at a performance that's just going on because they don't feel they can quit. By the time we got to the morning after bedroom scene with Romeo and Juliet wearing next to nothing under a soaking wet down comforter and wet stringy hair, the play had changed from being about Shakespeare's witty language and action-filled plot. It was about being in awe of these actors and what they were having to deal with. And that's all fine and dandy, but I didn't go to see a test of the human will to persevere. I think that was a different play or something.

All in all, I got a different (better) understanding of parts of the story, and it was wonderful to see it done by experts. As an artistic license thing, they tried to augment the difference between the young and older generation by dressing the old folks in traditional costumes, and the kids in modern-day clothes. Mercutio in a leather jacket and blue jeans was the perfect costume for him, for example. The kids all in school uniforms reminded us that they were really kids, even though Romeo and Juliet were played by mid-20s to early-30s actors.

We will be back. You just won't see us crying over a cancelled play if the weather's bad. Not here. And you should go, too.

Friday Rigged Ten (or Twelve)

Right now, I am completely addicted to the Jars of Clay album Good Monsters. This is a problem that I've written about before. It doesn't strike often, but when it does, it strikes hard. I am a victim of my own obsession, and my iTunes is a helpless bystander. I have it repeating this album over and over and over. Poor thing. It had no chance to dig up some random stuff, so I'll just share what I have it playing these days.

"Work" This song is about how life is hard. Everything is hard work -- even just living. Sometimes it seems it would be easier to just give up and die. The key line for me is I have no fear of drowning/It's the breathing that's taking all this work. This causes general doubt to set in about the purpose of life in general.

"Dead Man (Carry Me)" Here we have the imagery of being dead while we walk around in life. The songwriters appear to be talking about people that continue to go through the motions of life, but not feeling anything about anyone or anything around them. It's a basically a plea to care. I do like the picture I get in my head when they come to the lines There's something in my veins/But I can't seem to make it work, it won't work. It makes me think of all the little red and white blood cells on the side of the highway with their shovels in hand, but just sitting there.

"All My Tears" What a sweet song about going home to heaven when we die. I especially love the chorus: It don't matter where you bury me/I'll be home and I'll be free/It don't matter where I lay/All my tears be washed away. It's that whole concept of death being the final resting place of this imperfect body and the transition into the perfect body that God gives us in heaven. It's also a plea to the people left behind on earth from the dead person: So weep not for me, my friends/When my time below does end/For my life belongs to Him/Who will raise the dead again. It also helps that it has one of those sweet melodies to sort of disguise the fact that it's a song about death. Or maybe that's just part of the overall point of the song -- death isn't the terrible end thing that it is always made out to be.

"Even Angels Cry" This song captured me from the first time I heard it. It took me a long time to understand what it's about, but it's so beautiful I was my favorite early on. I'm not completely sure I get it still, but I'll take a stab at an interpretation. Bad things happen, and sometimes bad things happen to good people. Those times are even mourned in heaven, and we're not alone while we suffer through them. I can't capture the beauty of the song here, but if you ever hang out with me, I'll be happy to play it for you.

"There Is A River" We are human and we make mistakes. All the time. This is constant struggle that I find myself fighting with. I find myself doing things that I know (even while I'm doing them) that I shouldn't be doing. But sometimes I find I just can't help it. This is one of those songs that strives to make me feel better by reminding me that God still loves me and washes away those mess-ups right away. I'm especially drawn to the line Give it up, let go/These are things you were never meant to shoulder. Remember that more often, Heather.

"Good Monsters" I found myself with an original assumption as to what this song was about, and then that changed with multiple listenings. So, I think I get it now, but a nuanced song like this begs you to find another interpretation or insight with each listen. Currently, I'm in the interpretation that it's a song about the good people that do nothing. People all over the planet just let bad things happen. We don't stop the bad monsters, and that makes us good monsters. Our hearts are good, but our actions don't reflect that, so how good can our hearts be? The song declares this is caused by selfishness, and we just have to get over ourselves. The most poignant verse is this one: If good won't show its ugly face/Evil, won't you take your place?/Nothing ever changes, nothing ever changes/By itself. Okay, I get it: get out there and do something good!

"Oh My God" The haunting melody underlies the theme of this song. Every person has different events that cause them to call on God, but ultimately God hears those requests, regardless of who makes them. I love the middle section where they list off the types of people that pray -- everyone from thieves to angels to orphans to warriors to whores to preachers and plenty more. The juxtapositions of some of the various groups that end up turning to God in times of crisis is very powerful.

"Surprise" A song about dreaming. Who knew that would happen. This song is about those crazy things that show up in your dreams and surprise you. I've almost got the timing on the "surprise" encore to the song that comes up after you're sure it's over.

"Take Me Higher" I think this is a request to God to give the singer some peace, even if just for a short time. However, I am happy to hear alternate interpretations if anyone that reads this has listened to this song, or otherwise knows something I don't know.

"Mirrors & Smoke" This is a weird little song. It seems to be a bitter take on a person's struggle with marriage and love. It's done as a duet with Leigh Nash, from Sixpence None the Richer, and I think it's the only song that I don't really like on the album. Maybe it's because I don't get it and it really isn't a bitter anti-love song. I'll just leave you the last chorus, and you can make your own decision: Love's a constant mission/Truer word were never spoke/My love, it keeps you wishing/My heart, it keeps me broke. I completely agree with the first part, and if they're just trying to say that human love isn't as good as Godly love, I really think they could have done that without making marriage seem like a lost cause.

"Light Gives Heat" As the counterpart to "Good Monsters", here we have the admonition that we don't have all the answers to "save" the whole world. Accompaned by the African Children's Choir, this song hammers home who we are harming with our aid policies. As an example, take the first verse: Catch the rain empty hands/Save the children from their lands/Wash the darkness from their skin/Heroes from the west/We don't know you, we know best/But this is not a test. Clearly, we have to help in appropriate ways, and shoving Western culture and values down everyone's throat isn't the way to do that.

"Water Under the Bridge" Here's a more redeeming love song than "Mirrors & Smoke". Not a love song in the classic sense, but that's the best I can classify it. Here we have a person in a relationship that recognizes that arguments contain hurtful things that dredge up more arguments and more pain. Most of us don't deal with these things well, and it can feel like you're at war with your spouse at times. But these people are committed, and they know they can outlast the hurt they've done to each other, and we can stay/'Till the last drop of water flows under the bridge.

So, there you have it. The album that has hijacked my iTunes. Now that I've listened to it about 40 times in the last two weeks, I might be able to move on to other songs, but we'll just have to see. One must feed her addiction!

Saturday Strangeness From Around the World

Here's the strangeness that I found this week.

India Outsources Outsourcing In a bizarre shift, a few Indian technology companies are finding they have more software jobs than they can fill. So they're outsourcing them to places like Mexico, Chile, Uruguay, China, Brazil, The Philippines, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Romania, The Czech Republic, Thailand, Canada, and yes, The United States. They are focusing on "states that are less developed" like Georgia, Arizona, Idaho, and Virginia. One quote from the article says, "Such is the new outsourcing. A company in the United States pays an Indian vendor 7,000 miles, or 11,200 kilometers, away to supply it with Mexican workers situated 150 miles south of the U.S. border." What a pile of irony.

The World's Most Expensive Dessert A resort in Singapore has a dessert on the menu that they charge $14,500 for. What? According to the report, "the dessert is a gold leaf Italian cassata flavored with Irish cream, served with a mango and pomegranate compote and a champagne sabayon enlighten. The dessert is decorated with a chocolate carving of a fisherman clinging to a stilt, an age old local fishing practice, and an 80 carat aquamarine stone." Can I just have it without the gemstone and the needlessly intricate chocolate art? The rest doesn't sound too bad, as long as we're now down in the $7-10 range.

Green Eggs and Ham Ruling A federal judge in New Hampshire was prompted to issue a Dr. Seuss-like ruling this week. He received a hard-boiled egg in the mail from an Orthodox Jewish inmate who was complaining about the non-Kosher food he is served in prison. The judge's response?

I do not like eggs in the file.
I do not like them in any style.
I will not take them fried or boiled.
I will not take them poached or broiled.
I will not take them soft or scrambled
Despite an argument well-rambled.

Then the judge issued a decree regarding the egg he received.

No fan I am
Of the egg at hand.
Destroy that egg! Today! Today!
Today I say! Without delay!

I do like a poetic judge.

Man Takes Office Theft to a New Level In this story out of Berlin, an assembly line worker sneaked up to 7000 screws a day over a two year period and took them home to sell on eBay. His employer never noticed, but police were alerted when they saw he was selling large amounts of screws below market price, and they started investigating. The employer never noticed that 1.1 million screws went missing. Sounds like a new Office Space-type ploy.

House Update

Just so you don't think I'm ignoring you on this front, I thought I'd just post to say we have no news. Yes, we made an offer two and a half weeks ago, and yes, that's a really long time to not get an acceptance or counter-offer, and yes, legally there's no offer on the table any more (effectively declined). However, we are still in offer limbo, as the seller keeps asking for more time to figure things out on her side. In exchange for our patience, there are no open houses or showings until we hear back from them.

It's fine with us. We're still living in the house in the meantime, and with no showings or open houses, it's like the house isn't on the market anymore. And it's way cheaper to rent the house than it is to own it, so we'll take a few more weeks/months of the lower payment. It does mean we can't start to get to work on some of the changes we want to do, but that's okay. Instead we'll just keep socking away money so that when we do buy a house we have more that we can do. Plus, interest rates keep going down and we keep getting farther and farther away from the crazy mortgage panic that means we might be able to get a decently priced mortgage.

It's all fine. My husband is getting itchy, but I can be as patient (read that as "stubborn") as they need me to be. I figure the more time they ask for to consider the offer, the harder it will be for them to counter (since we'll just say no the longer we wait), and we may just get it for what we've asked. I'm pretty okay with that. So, as I'm in the optimistic no-news-is-good-news camp, I just thought I'd let you know that's where we are.

Saturday Strangeness from Around the World

I have decided to add a new feature to my blog. Theoretically, I think I'm strange (okay, not really, but it's the title of my blog, so I feel a certain need to prove that there is strangeness here), but the world around us is strange, indeed. So, I'm going to look through the week to find strange stories in the news and highlight them here. Here is what I found this week.

Man Reports His Missing Cocaine You can read the AP account from Wednesday, but the gist is that the stupid dude has been smuggling drugs across the Canadian border for a while, but they haven't had enough to arrest him. However, his latest exchange didn't go so well. He lost two blue backpacks containing 68 pounds of cocaine, and called the Feds and "asked if ICE could put out a news release saying that federal agents had seized the drugs. That way,...the organization he was working for would believe his statements that he hadn't stolen them." Instead, the authorities found the backpacks and arrested the guy. Try to plead "Not Guilty" now, crazy dude. I do love a good stupid criminal story.

Omnivores: The Next Protected Class? I found this one over at the International Herald Tribune, describing portions of Mumbai, India, where vegetarianism is almost its own cult. One vegetarian is quoted as saying "I'd have issues living next to a non-vegetarian person. The smell would be a problem, but it's more than that. A non-vegetarian person eats hot blood and it makes him hot blooded; he might not keep control of his emotions." The concern seems to be that as India partakes more and more in Western culture, that more people in India will eat meat, and the children of vegetarians could be corrupted. The story also talks about a lady that lives in one of these parts of the city, and the lengths she goes to to keep up the lie that she eats meat and egs. Some part of this feeling seems to be to try to keep Muslims out of Hindu residential areas. I understand religious zealotry, but this goes beyond that. This (and other stories I've seen from India) also seems to suggest that any shift toward Western ideals is going to be fought very hard there. So, to my Indian friends that eat meat -- keep using those canine teeth and don't let the vegetarians get you down!

Belgium Put on eBay This one cracks me up! A teacher posted the country on eBay, "offering free delivery, but pointing out that the country was coming secondhand and that potential buyers would have to take on over $300 billion in national debt." The funniest part, though, is that eBay "decided to pull the ad Tuesday after receiving a bid of $14 million." Ha! I suppose the teacher got what he was looking for -- some notice for his country and the crazy political turmoil they are currently in.

Legislating the 7-Year Itch From Berlin, we find this story of Gabriele Pauli, a politician from Bavaria, who suggests "that marriages [should] expire after seven years." If you really like your spouse, don't worry -- "After that time, couples should either agree to extend their marriage or it should be automatically dissolved." I have mixed feelings on this. It might reduce the divorce rate (though how many really make it to the 7-year point), but then I might have taken that way out. Seven was a bad year for us, but I'm glad now that I stuck it out. It's an odd suggestion, and I doubt it's the last time we'll hear of it.

I'll be looking for more stories for next week. I hope you enjoy hearing about zany stuff I find. I do enjoy looking for oddness in the news. It's more fun than reading only the regular depressing stuff.

Friday Random Ten

I've been on sabbatical. Or something. Like the random ten is hard on my brain. It's hard on iTunes, I tell you! Here's what I got this week.

"Just Never Say It Enough" by Wayne Watson on Home Free
"Joe" by The Cranberries on To The Faithful Departed
"Underneath The Bunker" by R.E.M. on Life's Rich Pageant
"I Can't Stop" by When In Rome on When In Rome
"In Your Care" by 4HIM on The Season Of Love
"Cry for Love" by Michael W. Smith* on WOW 1996
"House of Faith" by Geoff Moore & The Distance* on A Friend Like U
"Common Creed" by Wes King on WOW 1996
"Heaven Knows" by When In Rome on When In Rome
"La Linda" by Hewlett Crist on The Rio Grande Songs II

It's weird to have two cases of two songs from the same album in the same Ten. And this was such a sleepy set that I now just want to go take a nap. Is that bad on a Friday afternoon when there are dishes to do?

* Indicates acts I've seen live.

What Else do I Have to Learn?

Monica and James both made comments that must have been ripe for the considering. While thinking about what may be in store for us that might lead to having kids not being the best decision ever, I started to think about all this in a slightly different sort of way.

Life is a journey. Every experience you have gives you new perspective on the world around you, and helps you develop new skills that might come in handy with future experiences. There are certainly things I've done that I know I couldn't have done as well without X having happened before Y to teach me something in particular. There is definitely a desirable order to some experiences, and it's nice if things go in that direction.

So, what is the X that is supposed to happen before my Y of having kids? (Ha -- get it? Xs and Ys? Maybe it's only funny to me.) What sorts of experiences am I supposed to have (or is my husband supposed to have) in order to better prepare us for the crazy world of parenthood? Since I have no way of seeing into his brain, I'll just focus on myself. Here are the main skillsets I can see that I could use some work on pre-kids.

Patience. Couldn't we all get better at this one? My relationship with my husband has taught be quite a bit of this over the years and my sister living with us taught me how to push the limits of what I can tolerate. I am currently lightyears ahead of where I was ten years ago, but that's not really saying much. I do think I am slower to get angry than I used to be, but I'm also just slower than I used to be. I could use a little reminder to count to 10 before getting angry every once in a while.

House Maintenance. I've never been a great, or even middling, housekeeper. Dishes stack up for days. Laundry isn't always done until there are no clothes to wear. Toilets start to grow moldy, fungusy things. The refrigerator does, too. Go figure, since one of my dad's favorite sayings while I was growing up was "Cleanliness is next to Godliness." Pthbbt. Whatever. It's just never been a really high priority for me. I do clean when I know someone's coming over, and I am capable of doing the work, it's just not the first thing I do when I finish my workday, and sometimes it piles up. Living in this house that has to be kept clean for showings does help, and I'm starting to like having the house clean for us, and not just for company. Hopefully, I can keep that going if the house isn't on the market and will have learned something new. If not, I figure a messy house leads to stronger immune systems. Or I can find any other justification I need.

Sleep-Deprived Functioning. This is probably the biggest one for me right now. The thought of the first few months of nearly total sleep deprivation is a little scary. I'm a girl that really likes her 8-9 hours of sleep each night. I also like a weekend nap if I can get it in. I know in my head that when I'm exercising I can get by on less sleep, so maybe that will come into play, and I fully intend to sleep whenever I can with a little one to avoid issues if at all possible. Sleep deprivation is one of those things that depletes patience faster than anything. Not sure how else to try to teach myself these skills. A deathbed watch doesn't sound like a lot of fun. I'm not going back to school to have to pull all-nighters (those didn't work out well in college, either). Maybe I just have to exercise more so I'm in better shape and ready to take on whatever is thrown at me.

Those of you that are parents, maybe you can relate some things that you see now that you had to learn before you became a parent. I'd be interested to look for other opportunities to learn the skills that would come in handy for the fun that could lie ahead.

Strange Sound

I got up to start working this morning, and heard a strange sound outside. Wouldn't you know it -- it was raining! It didn't last long, but it did get the ground wet, which was nice to see. This is a big deal to me, because it's the first rain we've gotten out here. It rained once before, but not even enough to wet the sidewalk. This time wasn't much either -- just barely above the official "trace", but it was real rain. Rain you could hear and feel and see. It was nice.

Happy Birthday, Husband!

Today is my husband's birthday. Please don't tell him I told you, because he apparently hates his birthday. I'm a big fan of birthdays, and have decided to celebrate his, whether he wants to or not. In order to do this in a way that doesn't make him mad at me, I'm celebrating here with a list of why my husband would make a good father. (Wink, wink! There's an ulterior motive here -- see if I can convince you that he would make a good parent, maybe I'll be able to convince him one day.)

1. He's a constant learner and questionner. I believe that children learn some things about life from watching how their parents interact with the world. He loves to debate topics and experiment and research ideas and talk through something and pick up a brand new hobby and learn about it. This love of learning is infectious, and I know he'll pass that one to our kids. He'll probably also cause many visits to the ER, but that just adds to the spice of life. What kind of a childhood can it really be with no ER visits? Well, mine, but that's precisely my point -- mine was mostly boring. He would make sure that our kids' growing up wasn't boring.

2. He is tender and loving. While he is convinced that a kid would turn up on his discarded hobby-of-the-month pile at some point, I'm convinced that's not the case. I've seen him with other people's kids, and he's great. He has a Godson he writes letters to, because one day that kid will want to read them. He is quiet and kind and not afraid to cry or say he's sorry. Besides, loving a child of your own is one of those things that you can't imagine until you're a parent and then you can't imagine not being a parent again (at least that's what my parent-friends tell me). He's just too sweet a soul to become apathetic or mean to a child.

3. He is committed to his family. This overdeveloped sense of family of his is very endearing and a little maddening at the same time. His sister is not a very nice person, and takes out most of her anger on their mother. Who is the good son that talks his mother off the ledges after the shouting matches? My husband. Who still calls the sister on her birthday even though she hasn't talked to us in months? My husband. Who is constantly remarking how brilliant his 10-year-old stepsister is and talking with her mother about ideas to nurture her creativity? My husband. Who takes every call from his uncle who just wants to talk non-stop about cameras and no one ever wants to listen to him? My husband. Who is convinced my baby sister can do anything she wants if she's just encouraged enough? Well, besides me? My husband. Who offered to have my crazy sister come live with us when she hit rock bottom? My husband. I'm constantly amazed by how hard he tries to give all the family members around him what they need, even when that's not reciprocated.

4. He's encouraging. Anytime we talk about other people, his thoughts always turn to what they're great at. These observations generally have nothing to do with what he's good at. He's genuinely interested in recognizing their strengths, even if they don't notice them themselves. This is vital in parenting, as you can't just try to raise mini-mes that the parent lives vicariously through. As such, I know he would help our children explore themselves and discover the innate talents that they have and then practice them in order to better succeed as people.

5. He loves my cupcakes. I'm not certain that this will make him a good dad, but it might. Meanwhile, I better go finish them before he gets home. What's a birthday without cake?

Post-Run Post

My run this afternoon was really pleasant. Surprisingly so. Quite a bit faster than the run earlier this week. However, the best part was coming home and walking into a wonderful smelling place where someone was making dinner. Oh wait -- that was the stuff I put in the crockpot this morning! No matter, it smelled good, and was precisely the right thing for the day.

The Hill Country Had No Hills

Well, even for one day I couldn't keep up the post-a-day pace. No one really expected that to work out, did they?

Regardless, I've been trying to get back into the whole running thing, and that's been very hard and unreasonably depressing. The problem comes from the fact that when you have a city that goes from ocean to the Santa Ynez mountains in just about 10 miles, the running isn't very flat. I know I moved here from the "hill country", but Austin is only just on the edge of that topography, and you have to go to the outskirts of town to find hills like the one just out my front door here. As a result, the first few times I went running, I lasted a mile or less before I was sure I was going to die. A few days ago, I actually ran 3 whole miles again. It feels like ages since I last did that, and I was happy to finally run the whole planned distance. Well, "run" is a bit of an overstatement, but I didn't walk. Now to work on distance and speed, while continuing this not-dying feeling. I'm really looking forward to my run this afternoon.

Next year, I'm embracing the crazy topography that we have here, and will be doing the Santa Barbara Half-Marathon. Anyone want to work hills with me to prepare for it?

Purge...Didn't...Work

I thought that by typing out the thoughts I have over and over and over again that I would be able to move on to other topics. Well, by the lack of posts lately you should all be assuming that didn't so much happen.

So, while the frustration hasn't abated, I've decided to come back and bore you about our current disconnect. My husband is concerned that we have to be a certain amount of stable in order to expand our family beyond the two of this. I agree, to some extent. We are both very responsible, we have great credit, we live below our means (at least until we buy a house -- HA!), we're healthy, we're done with school, we're both employed at jobs we like that compensate us appropriately, our only debt is a 2005 Mini that'll be paid off in the next year without trying (at least until we buy a house -- HA!). We're in a good spot. Expecting to be in a more stable place seems akin to trying to buy the moon. Right now, he harps on the fact that we're renting a house that is on the market, and so we could have to move at any time. I say "So?" in my head, but I know it's a concern of his, so I try to treat it with respect. Now we've made an offer and things are moving slowly on that front, which is good, because I think we may have to back out of it.

Here's the background on my husband that you have to understand for this to make sense. He loves the idea of home. You could say he's obsessed with it. Every time he sees a "Home for Sale" sign he goes ballistic. See "home" is where you go to feel safe and loved and you're almost invincible there. People sell houses. You couldn't buy a home with all the money in the world. I have worked tirelessly to create something that he could call home. It'll never be as perfect and safe as he has in his mind (have I ever mentioned that he's such a girl sometimes?), but I think I'm getting the hang of what he's looking for: a place with discussion and debate, but not fighting; a place where projects can be done, but don't have to be; a place where good food is eaten and available for all-hours snacking; a place where people work hard and see the results; a place where one knows the surroundings, and feels reasonably sure they will stay there. I don't always manage to create all of this, but the closer I come to making our house meet these sorts of criteria the happier he is, and the more I get the things I want. I don't mean to say that I do things to try and get a measured response from him, I mean that we have a positively reinforced cycle -- one that I generally get as much out of as I put in, even if not the same sorts of things. I don't want you all to get the impression that I'm a 1950s housewife, either. He cleans and does laundry and does various projects with the best of them. I'm just home more to do more of the mundane house stuff. But he so appreciates it since he's not so depressed anymore. All this would point to buying a house and being able to be more settled -- being able to do projects around the house without a landlord's approval, etc.

But...and there is always a "but" with these things...he get's buyer's remorse more than anyone I've ever heard of. This is seriously difficult because he buys way more stuff than I do. This year, his major purchases have included some zany-looking speakers, an original-style camera, an iPhone, and more computer equipment than I care to think about. And each time, he remembers how much money this all costs, and he's sad or mad for days. The more money something costs the longer the sadness/madness lasts. When we bought his car, it lasted about a month. A house costs more than a car. I'll let you do the math. Oh, and the house has termites. And dry rot. And possibly structural issues.

So, here we are. Buy a house and help him feel more "stable" (not honestly sure that anything will make him feel more stable) and likely have buyer's remorse for a very long time OR don't buy a house and try to convince him that we're stable as we are. Neither sounds like Heather will be a parent for the next several years. Oh, and either way there's no moving -- just the same house we're living in now which we both really like. And, while it's a really big move for us, his employer is helping out a lot, so it's actually a manageable house purchase for us.

And different posts are coming. I promise to force myself to post about other topics for a while. Here are some topics that I will be posting about soon:

privacy vs. openness
our recent bike tour of the area
attempts at running in this town
updates on the house we're trying to buy

I might even try a week of posting every day, but let's not get too crazy here in our expectations.

Reasons Why Not

So, if I want kids so badly, why don't I have them? Well, as they say, it takes two to tango.

When my husband and I got married, we were very young. So young that people have told me (quite ouside of anything that's any of their business) that we were too young. We were told all the reasons our marriage couldn't work. I was 21 while he was 23. I'm outgoing while he's shy and reclusive. He's a C programmer, I liked Fortran. He used emacs, I used vi. But I digress. However, we're both stubborn, and though we've had some really rough patches along the way (years five through eight were nearly unbearable), we've managed to stay together. We'd been dating two weeks when we first talked about kids, and found we were much on the same page. We both wanted kids and felt like 3 was a good number (we are both the oldest of 3 kids), but that we didn't want to rush into these things. We would wait until he finished grad school, so he'd have time to devote to them, too, and that all seemed reasonable to me. And then grad school took two years longer than expected. And then he wasn't sure whether he wanted to stay at UT after graduation. Then it was maybe we should look for a different house because ours clearly wasn't big enough. Based on his increasing spiral into depression, I pushed him to take this job out here in California. And then he didn't like his job and thought he'd quit and we could just move somewhere we (read "he") wanted to live. But then he realized he hasn't been feeling depressed at all since we moved out here, due to the sunshine and the exercise he gets every day biking to and from work. So, then he wanted to stay, but we couldn't have kids while we're living somewhere where we're on a month-to-month lease. But we just can't buy a house out here. Okay, we can, but we're not sure we want to.

All this avoidance says that clearly he's afraid of becoming a parent. He's voiced this once or twice, but that was a long time ago. I'm sure this fear is rooted in something from his childhood, but he won't talk about it with anyone, me included. I was excited when he started seeing a therapist earlier this year, because I thought he might open up to someone neutral who wouldn't judge him or share his secrets with anyone else or run into him in social settings. But it didn't work. Instead, he used it as an opportunity to see if he was smart enough to trick the therapist into believing whatever he could. It was a joke to him. I've never been able to get him to go to any kind of couple's therapy to try and work this one out, either, and that's mostly because he has decided that psychiatry/psychology are invalid fields of medicine. It's part of why he made a joke out of his one-on-one time this past spring.

So, it's back to just us trying to work this one out. And since he won't talk about about the root of the fear, we talk around other things. We've talked about so much of the theory of childrearing that I think we've got it all mapped out (notice I didn't say figured out) through the college years. We've talked about the houses we've been looking at and whether they are conducive to raising a family in them (the one we're in now is perfect, we both agree). We've talked about overscheduling and vacations and living in other countries and public school vs. private school and religious education (he quit going to church 3 years ago as his depression -- my diagnosis -- started to really get the best of him) and a gazillion other things that I'm not thinking of right now. He still says he wants children, but when it comes right down to it, he's just not ready. And I respect him too much to get pregnant accidentally on purpose. That's just a given. I think that's something girls did in highschool or college to keep some guy around (hint, hint, that never works out the way you want it to), but not now. We have to do this together. I'm just anxious that waiting for him to be ready means my decade will evaporate away.

But I'm ready. And whenever he's ready then we'll be ready.

Wants that Hurt

I've been having trouble posting lately because what I want to write about I'm not sure I want to write about. All through my time in this little blog adventure, I've written about whatever I'm thinking about. Lately, all I think about is the fact that I desperately want to be a parent. That feeling has around a hundred reasons to be there, but it's a bit unfortunate that it's become an obsession of my mind. It means I have trouble coming up with other topics to type about, so many times I just don't. And why don't I want to go down this path? It's easy. I'm afraid of being too open and inviting ridicule into my little world. I like the approval of other people, and I feel like this is such a raw self-misunderstood set of emotions for me that I will likely say things wrong and cause precisely the kinds of comments that I don't want to get.

But I have to figure this out. And with my best friends in the wrong timezones for long discussions of this sort (excepting my husband, but I suppose he tolerates as much of this blabbering as he can handle), I guess that means I have to do it here. Most of the people that read this are childless -- some by choice, some not, and some are just too young (baby sister, that means you!). Regardless, I am not childless by choice, and I have to do some soul-searching to figure out some of what goes with that. So this risk of being attacked is finally low enough compared to the risk of self-implosion that is going to happen without some place to vent. And then I'm guaranteed to never have kids.

To start this introspective journey for all to see, I have to start with my own fears and the reasons for the current desperation. I did recently have a birthday which reminded me that I have less than a decade left of acceptable fertility. Now, my mother got pregnant at 41 without trying (hi, again, baby sister!) and her mom accidentally got pregnant at 44. So, I could probably get pregnant into my forties, but since that is generally considered irresponsible, I've just capped that at 40 in my head. Yes, I know it starts getting harder after about 35, but let's not discuss that I might have even less time than I think, because I believe that would just push me over the edge. I have always imagined myself with lots of kids. Not quite the Duggars, but maybe 3 or 4 of my own and as many of their friends as want to hang out at our place. I am slowly coming to grips that this is probably a pipe dream, but I can't seem to let it go, and that leaves me in a bit of a tumultuous place.

It doesn't help that everyone around me seems to be having babies. Coworkers, friends, etc. I think there have been 6 or 7 in the last 6 months. When this first started, years ago, I was happy for them. Then I was jealous. Now, I'm afraid, I've become a bit unfeeling towards these happy little (or big) families. If you're one of my blog-reading friends with kids, please don't take this the wrong way. I still love you and your gorgeous children. But the pain is becoming almost too much to bear, and out of my most common defense mechanism to employ, I have had to wall off a little piece of my heart so I don't spend every day crying my eyes out. Sometimes, I know that makes me seem callous. Don't think I don't worry whether this little wall is permanent. As often as I can stomach it, I let it down and cry for hours.

Why do I want to have kids? This is such a hard question for me to answer, because there are just so many answers. It has nothing to do with passing on genes or being pregnant or liking babies, and everything to do with being undeniably maternal. I've always been this way, ever since I can remember. My earliest memory is from when I was five and my two-year-old sister was scared about moving to the Philippines and cried herself to sleep most nights. I would crawl over into her bed and just lay there rubbing her back and talking to her about all the wonderful adventures we were going to have and how she wouldn't be alone because we'd be doing this all together. It continued with the birth of my baby sister, who could have been my daughter if I'd been an earlier bloomer. I remember so clearly a weekend when she was six months old and mom was gone for the weekend. She'd gotten some round of shots and was feverish and miserable, and all I could do was rock her and sing to her all night long and I just wanted to take that pain away from her. Course, I felt like an idiot the next morning when dad pointed out that I should have just given her more Tylenol, but I was thirteen and not at all qualified to be her mother and to think of these things. It's not a little kid thing either. When my sister had a bad dose of life and was close to rock bottom, she came to live with me. Those were the most miserable 7 months of my life, but I'd do it again in a heartbeat. It was teen angst and pain and discipline and the uncomfortable growing into responsibility. And regardless of whether she'll ever thank me for the lessons we forced her to learn in those months, I know she's a better adult today because of them. And I know it's not a blood thing. In eighth grade, I joined a program where I was assigned a student from the special education class. My "buddy" was a girl named Cathy who absolutely melted my heart. She functioned on about a 5-year-old level, but I so relished those times we spent working on writing her name and I posted the treasured pictures she colored for me in my locker. I cried when the school was set on fire the next year and destroyed a stuffed dog she'd given me at the end of the previous year. I think I still have that dog in a box in the basement. Maybe it was because I had so little social capital in those years, but I yelled at some kid who made fun of her in the hall and don't even know what they called me, because I just didn't care. I worked day cares and summer camps and babysat excessively and always grew so attached to one or two kids in each class. I remember a little boy named Ian who had colic. He cried all the time, and the day care workers I worked with gave up on him, saying he was just always crying when I started that summer. He became my project. What will soothe him? I tried so many things and finally succeeded with a sort of a hammock I created with his blanket and I swung him in it rather hard, and after about 20 minutes of that, he would settle down and go to sleep. And with sleep, he was much happier in the awake times, and eventually the colic worked itself out and he was a very happy baby. When I came back the next summer, Ian didn't remember me, but he was the favorite of his new teacher.

I just want to love and nurture a child. I want to experience life through their eyes as they learn new things. I want to do some things right and royally screw up some other things and learn more and more to be humble and loving. I want to struggle with being too protective and too distant. I want the pain and joy that can only come from loving another person so completely that you rejoice with their triumphs and ache with their disappointments. I want to expose a child to things that will mold their futures in ways I may never know and I want to enable them to be the best adult member of this world they can be when they get there.

And that's where I'll leave this for now -- the raw reasons I want desperately to be on to the next phase of my life, one that involves children in my house. Oh, and I'm going to stop crying for the evening.

Friday Random Ten

Here is what I was given today by the little iTunes program:

"The Cowboy Rides Away" by George Strait on Greatest Hits Volume II
"Colors of the Wind" from the Pocahontas soundtrack
"Sweet Little Jesus Boy" by Wayne Watson on One Christmas Eve
"What If I Stumble" by dc Talk on Jesus Freak
"Forever Yellow Skies" by The Cranberries on To The Faithful Departed
"Take It To The Limit" by The Eagles on Their Greatest Hits
"You've Really Got A Hold on Me" by Smokey Robinson & The Miracles on Smokey Robinson & The Miracles
"Like a Child" by Jars of Clay* as a recording for iTunes
"I'm Losing You" by John Lennon on The John Lennon Collection
"Sleepytime Cartoon" by Trout Fishing in America* on Truth is Stranger Than Fishin'

And I've got nothing to say to try and wrap it together. It's just a weird list. Maybe you can come up with a clever tie to put it all in a neat package.

* Acts I've seen live.

Trying to Concentrate

I'm having a hard time concentrating on working today. See, there's this wildfire at the top of the mountain I live at the base of, and it's distracting me. You haven't heard about the Santa Barbara County Fire (aka the Zaca Fire)? Well, please allow me to provide you with a few tidbits, courtesy of the local fire deparment.

Mostly it's burning in the Los Padres National Forest. Forests have lots of trees and underbrush suitable for wildfires to thrive on.

The fire is currently 67% contained. That means 33% of it is still completely out of control.

The fire is 127,244 acres large. That's big.

It has cost (so far) $73.4 million to fight. That's even more money than it costs to buy a house in Santa Barbara (which is another post of its own).

It has been burning since the beginning of July, but it's been really close to the top of the mountain since the end of July. Variously we have beautiful clear blue skies that look like there is no trouble brewing over the ridge, and then we have days like today. Today there is this smokey overtone that looks like someone took a sepia-colored paintbrush to the entire visible world. The houses look paler, the trees are grayer, and the sky is brown. You can smell the smoke in the air. It's heavy and gross and potentially really dangerous.

The big concern is regarding the possibility of a sun-downer. These are great windstorms that could blow the fire up over the mountain and right down to the ocean. Apparently, this is what happened with the last big fire to hit this area in the 90s. There was a fire burning on the mountain, and within a day it had burned its way down the mountain destroying all the houses in its path and burned itself out at the ocean. Let's hope history isn't planning to repeat itself quite so soon.

I wouldn't say I'm afraid, but I am trying to get prepared, in case something bad does happen -- even if the "bad" is just that we have no power or water pressure drops to practically zilch. I've seen several disaster preparation checklists, and it just doesn't look like much fun, but these things seldom are. The big thing, right now, is to make sure we have gas in the car and our phones charged up and ready to go. Tonight we'll be doing some assessing of what we'd need to have with us if we needed to evacuate quickly. For now, there is no alert or evacuation order for our area, but you never know until the winds change (quite literally).

With way too many things running through my mind, I'm having trouble actually getting work done. I'm distracted easily and can't concentrate on anything difficult. I've been trying to investigate the same thing for the last two hours, and it should only be a 30-minute thing. You should see how long it's taken me to type this up.

Meanwhile, I had to call the customer that I've been trying to do the investigating for this morning, and they are in Houston with no power because of Tropical Storm Erin. Ah the irony. I love the irony.

Heather is a Heathen?

I've been a Lutheran all my life. My dad's a Lutheran pastor, and he graduated from the seminary when I was 5. His first call was to be a missionary in the Philippines, and so my earliest memories are of church on our front porch and Sunday School songs in the garden. I still know some of them, though there aren't a lot of occasions to start singing songs like this one:

Basit saka, basit emah, basit na ping-ping, nasamit na esem.
Matah, lapayag, ken toy pusok, ku kwah ahmen nee Jesus.
Dai dai ahwen dai ti Dios, dai dai ahwen dai ti Dios!
Basit saka, basit emah, basit na ping-ping, nasamit na esem.

which is a little song about all of the parts of the body being there to praise God. Being able to pray in Ilocano isn't very useful either, but I still periodically have this one jump into my head:

Niambag ti Dios, niandaklan ti Dios
Agyaman tai-ee kaduhgatee kahnen tayoh.

which is the common "God is great, God is good, let us thank him for our food." (Please pardon my spelling if you actually know Ilocano -- I never learned to write it, so my spelling is a bit rudimentary and is completely phonetic). I can count, too, but that's out of the scope of this entry.

Suffice it to say, that when we got back to the US, church life continued to be important to me. I've played piano for VBS, led Youth Bible studies, sang with choirs, played with brass groups and handbell groups, sat on parochial school boards, and, most recently, directed a praise band. There were times in high school that if I hadn't had church activities to be involved with, I would have had a lot more time to contemplate the myriad reasons I had no friends and the subsequent invitations to do things with them. Besides the social aspect to it (which cannot be discounted in this day and age where no one seems to live near family or the friends they grew up with), I found wonderfully encouraging people and groups that constantly blessed me and encouraged me to study more deeply and grow more in my relationship with my Lord and Savior.

And then we moved to Santa Barbara, and I tried to find a new church home out here.

One Sunday I went to a Catholic church where they waved incense around and chanted everything and prayed for nearly 20 minutes for the Pope. And that's after half the sermon was about how great he is. Now, I'm Lutheran, so Catholics all over the world hate me anyway, but I hope I don't make them madder: I don't really like Pope Benedict. When he issued a statement reminding us how the Catholic church is sure they're the only group getting to heaven, and while I know not all Catholics feel that way, I really dislike a church leader that's more interested in dividing the believers up and discarding them rather than seeking out non-believers. I only tolerated him before, so this was an easy straw to break my back. I think I would just need a less Catholic Catholic church.

Another Sunday I tried a Lutheran church where the pastor was mad at his congregation. They had, apparently, decided to spend $500K on redoing their parking lot, much to his dismay. Now I don't know what parking lot resurfacings normally cost, but their's was in significant need of a revitalization of some sort. I wasn't actually sure I was still going to have all the pieces of the underside of my vehicle after I'd driven through it. Their sound system was having trouble, too, so that just added to the atmosphere of the fire-and-brimstone sermon the pastor was preaching about how many poor people half a million dollars could have fed and what business did they have pouring (ha!) that into asphalt? Now, I don't know how decisions are made at that church, but in most of the decisions I've ever seen made at a church, there is usually a vote, and the pastor is invited to said voting meeting. Couldn't he have said his piece there, rather than on a Sunday morning with visitors and kids and stuff?

Then I tried an Episcopal church. The first time I went they had a guest pastor. She wasn't a very good speaker, but it was, apparently, her first-ever sermon. It sounded like the kind of sermon *I* could have given -- with no ministerial training whatsoever. I also sat in a pew where two ladies came in half-way through the service and climbed over me to sit in the pew and then proceeded to climb out and back in 3 times over the next 20 minutes. Oh, and one of them sat on me when we came back from communion. I know I'm skinny, but that's a bit much to be quite that ignored. I was willing to chalk it up to just being a bad service, so I went back when the regular guy was preaching. He preached an entire sermon without a single Biblical reference, and I just don't understand how you do that. He was preaching on the social responsibility we have to the environment. I've heard several of these in my life, and they've always been tied to the creation story in that God created our world perfect and humans messed it up or to Jesus' parable of the talents and how God has entrusted us with this planet and it's our job to take care of it in a God-pleasing way. It's not hard, people. I don't think I can go to a church where the Bible doesn't even have a seat and has to stand in a corner in the back.

Then I tried another Lutheran church. This one had one of those pastors that puts 4 or 5 syllables in the name "Jesus". I felt like I was back in a rural Southern Baptist church, and I giggled a lot throughout the service. He also felt the need to emphasize the word-of-the-day. It was Ascension Sunday, which I remember because everytime he said "ascension" he accented it and stretched it out. He also told the congregation to do so when that word, or a variant, showed up in the text we were speaking aloud. I remember nothing else about the service because the accenting was so annoying. Not very faith-challenging if you can't even notice the rest of the service for the distractions. I decided that one wasn't going to work, either.

About this time, I started to get discouraged. I just didn't go to church the next Sunday. I don't have many Sundays in my life where I just didn't go. I've missed for illness or travel or visting relatives or friends that do not go to church. Very seldom, however, do I just not go. The next week I was vacationing with my parents in Wisconsin, and my dad has a habit of not going to church when he's on vacation. That meant I didn't go for either Sunday on the two sides of that week. Then I got back and identified a new church to try out, but I must've gotten the address or time wrong, because when I got there they were just finishing the service. I found myself depressed. Some of you coming from the backgrounds you do may think that was guilt, but that would be less than 10% of the overall feeling. Mostly I was just feeling depleted from not having been fed spiritually for several months. No Christian friends out here to talk to, people constantly bringing me down about being a Christian -- it starts to be really draining. And, as the experiences I'd found were significantly less than stellar, I was starting to wonder how hard it really was going to be to be a Christian in California.

But, I'm nothing, if not persistent. So, I went back to the one that I'd tried -- and failed -- to go to before, except this time I got the address right. The music was great, the sermon was great, and it was one of those churches that feels more like 50 or 75 people are in the service instead of 150 -- so friendly and relaxed and completely unpretentious. I was so impressed with the sermon (it was basically a challenge to spend time in God's word every day as the top priority), but I wasn't ready to make any decisions, since there were two pastors, and I'd only heard one. So, I went back the next week to hear the other pastor. Wait -- his sermon was good, too (on why it's important and God-pleasing to be persistent in your prayer life). I hardly knew what to do with myself. But, I think what sealed it for me was an illustration he used from when he lived in the Philippines. It turns out he and his family lived there from '65 to '77. It's a bit before we were there, but that was enough to help make me feel like I'd picked the right place. Visit number 3 was another success, and I'm headed back this morning. Maybe I'll actually be able to settle in and have a Christian community again. Good thing, too, because I don't think I'm cut out to be a heathen.

Saturday Morning Random Ten

My Friday sort of got away from me yesterday. But I got up early this morning to do the random ten! Okay, I get up early every morning, but let me pretend it was just for this.

"Unforgetful You" by Jars of Clay* on If I Left The Zoo
"I Will Not Go Quietly" by Don Henley on The End Of The Innocence
"Sometimes By Step" by Rich Mullins* on The World As Best As I Remember It, Vol. 2
"After You've Gone" by Trout Fishing In America* on Closer To The Truth
"Another Time, Another Place" by Sandi Patty and Wayne Watson on Another Time, Another Place
"Miss Otis Regrets" by Bette Midler on Experience The Divine
"It's All Too Much" by Joe Jackson on Laughter & Lust
"Trouble Among the Yearlings" on Country Cooking
"Four Rows of Jacks" by Mannheim Steamroller on Fresh Aire IV
"The Way That I Miss You" by Wayne Watson on A Beautiful Place

In looking at this list, I am reminded of the day I won the A Beautiful Place album from the radio station I listened to at the time. I was in high school, and I had no money to buy much of anything. They were running a contest where you had to identify a sound and what Bible story that sound went with. I called in, got through, and got the right answer (it was the sound of the curtain to the Holy of Holies in the temple ripping from top to bottom when Jesus died), and they mailed me the tape. I only ever won two tapes off radio contests, and they were both Wayne Watson tapes. I've since purchased this one on CD to have it be in iTunes, but I've never replaced the other one, which is weird, because it's one of my favorite albums with a song on it that always makes me cry. I think it's because I loved that tape. It was my first, and was during the phase where my dad hated my music choices and didn't even want to be reminded what I listened to, much less to allow me to purchase my own music. It was a good thing I won this one. At some point I had a tape player that tried to eat this tape, and to get it out of the player I ended up breaking the tape, and most of it spooled out of the case. I spent hours winding one side of the tape back into the case and more hours with a toothpick with some tape on the end trying to fish the other end back out of the depths of the case. Once I had it all unkinked and threaded correctly, I taped the tear together on the back side, and hoped against all hope that it would still play. Success! It does still play, even though there's a little irregularity in the middle of the song on either side when it has to play over that repair. And now I wonder if I'll consider those two songs "damaged" if I were to get a crisp new CD that played them perfectly.

Well, I think I've talked myself into a purchase. Gotta go do that now!

* Acts I've seen live

Comparing Santa Barbara to Austin, From a Cyclist's Perspective

Okay. I've gotten lazy again. It's hard when your days are spent at home, and then working at home, and then at home pretty much every day. I sort of seems like I don't have much to write about. I know that's never stopped me before, but there it is. Anyway, I promised you all just a few posts, and I should get back to them.

While the Mini was out of commission for a week, we had no car at all. My husband has been riding to work most every day anyway, but while we had no car, all errands had to be run on the bicycle. During that week, I had to go to the bank, we went out to eat, and I had to go to the grocery store several times. Nothing earth-shattering, but all required taking to the bike.

Santa Barbara is a heavily biked town. Certainly there is the professional cyclist crowd, but the vast majority of the folks on bikes are using those two wheels as their primary mode of transportation. I thought there were lots of cyclists in Austin, but I was wrong.

I've seen cars stop and treat a bicycle as an actual vehicle, waiting for them to pass an intersection before making a turn. In Austin, the car would speed up and cut the bike off trying to make the turn before the bike and losing those 5 precious seconds while the cyclist crosses the street.

Every business in town that I've been to has a post out front specifically for cyclists to lock their bikes up to. In Austin, you were always looking for some fence or signpost or something to rig up a place to lock up your bike.

There are bike lanes everywhere here -- on major thouroughfares in town, and even on the highway. It's amazing. In Austin, I was petrified to ride on Lamar (a similar-sized street to State Street, the main drag here), since you really have to ride in the car lane, and people get annoyed with you. Here, I can just plug along in the bike lane on State with no issues.

Because of the sheer numbers of cyclists, though, I have also seen more accidents than I ever saw in Austin. True, that's 1 in SB and 0 in Austin, but that's still an infinite number more than I saw before.

All of this hasn't resulted in me biking everywhere, however. Partly, I just have days where I'm lazy or have too much to do. But also, grocery shopping is really hard when you have to fit everything you're buying into a backpack. The gallon of milk and the paper towels will pretty much take up the whole space, and then you can't really eat that for dinner, you know. Also, more delicate things like bread and eggs and strawberries require special packing in order not to get smushed in the ride home. While we were carless, though, it took me 3 hours to get $100 worth of groceries with the multiple trips, and that just seems like a massive waste of time to do regularly. It is interesting to see how you really only get what you *need* when the weight and space constraint is there.

Biking, however, seems to make my husband want to bike more. He's currently trying to figure out how to manage a trip to Oregon on a bicycle. Hmmmm. We'll just have to wait and see if this is one of his wild hairs or something he really tries to make happen. If it does, though, I'll be sure to chronicle it from my easy-riding spot behind the wheel of the SAG wagon. For our purposes, that would likely look a heckuva lot like a blue Mini.

Friday Random Ten

This week, here's what I was given:

"The Fly" by U2 on Achtung Baby
"Something Going On" by When In Rome on When In Rome
"Heartbreak Hotel" by Stan Freberg on Dr. Demento's 25th Anniversary Collection
"Whatever Get You Thru The Night" by John Lennon on The John Lennon Collection
"Friends in Low Places" by Garth Brooks on The Hits
"Rock Around with Ollie Vee" by Buddy Holly & The Crickets on From The Original Master Tapes
"Keeping My Eyes On Him" by Geoff Moore & The Distance* on Pure and Simple
"Private Investigations" by Dire Straits on Money for Nothing
"Open Up the Sky" by FFH on Have I Ever Told You
"Over My Head" by Fleetwood Mac on Greatest Hits

Wow. A whole pile of lackluster songs. The only good one in the batch is the little FFH number. It's especially apropos today, while it rains ash from the nearby wildfire that was supposed to be contained and then wasn't. You'd think it was snow, but it's 22 degrees (Celsius -- that's about 71 Fahrenheit, folks) outside, so I'm pretty sure that's not it. Maybe I'll take a picture of one of the grayed-out grape leaves and post it so you can see how much is really falling. It's icky, and I don't think I'll be going for a run this afternoon.

*Groups I've seen live

Friday Random (a Few More Than) Ten

I stole this from Monica, and thought it might bring a fun little change to the Random Ten format. For this week only:

MUSIC SHUFFLE SURVEY:
Put your music player on shuffle.
Press forward for each question.
Use the song title as the answer to the question.

Will I get far in life? "Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)" by the Eurythmics on Greatest Hits
I guess I'll get far by dreaming. And I always thought you had to act on your dreams to turn them into success.

How do my friends see me? "Fight" by PFR on Them
Oh, my, this is depressing. My friends think I'm just struggling to make it through life, unloved and overwhelmed? Maybe at one time, but not now. Keep up, people!

What is the story of my life? "The Scotsman" by Brian Bowers
I think this means I'm a drunk. Hmmm. I may have to work on that one. Nevermind. I'm heading to happy hour. I do promise, however, not to get so drunk that I fall asleep on the side of the road so two girls tie a ribbon around my male member. If you've never heard this song before, you should look for it.

What was high school like? "Morning Has Broken" by Cat Stevens on Greatest Hits
This appears to be the answer to why I'm a morning person!

How can I get ahead in life? "Anatevka" from Fiddler On The Roof
Apparently I need to move. Didn't I just do that?

What is the best thing about me? "The Keeper" by Geoff Moore and the Distance on Pure and Simple
I hope my relationship with God can be like the grandma in this song prays for her grandson's to be, who then grows up to pray the same request for his son.

How is today going to be? "Jesus & the California Kid" by Audio Adrenaline on Don't Censor Me
Well, I do live in CA, and Jesus did die for me, but I'm not sure how that describes my day today.

What is in store for this weekend? "Another Time, Another Place" by Sandi Patty and Wayne Watson on Another Time, Another Place
Maybe I'm going to heaven this weekend? Or singing a duet in pretty harmonies? Not sure, here.

What song describes my parents? "When You're Not Around" by Joe Jackson on Laughter & Lust
It would be sweet if my parents actually felt this way about each other. Sometimes, I think they just might.

How is my life going? "El Shaddai" by Amy Grant on The Collection
Not bad -- the first one that truly makes no sense at all with the question.

What song will they play at my funeral?: "This Land" from The Lion King
I doubt it, somehow.

How does the world see me? "There Is A Greater Love" by Wayne Watson on How Time Flies
I hope that I can show that purest of loves for people hurting.

Will I have a happy life? "Believe" by Elizabeth Donihoo on Believe
If I'm optimistic then I will. Or maybe, since she recently got engaged, I'm supposed to go with that general assumed good feeling?

What do my friends really think of me? "Gambler's Blues" by B.B. King on B.B. King Anthology
So, earlier I'm a drunk, and now I'm a gambler? Make up your minds people! Or, maybe my friends think I am that soulful bass player in the band. That's so nice of you!

Do people secretly lust after me? "52:10" by Rich Mullins on A Liturgy, A Legacy & A Ragamuffin Band
Isaiah 52:10 is "The Lord will lay bare his holy arm in the sight of all the nations,
and all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God." I think that means no.

What should I do with my life: "Lady Of The Valley" by White Lion on Pride
What branch of medicine do I study if I'm supposed to figure out how to bring slain soldiers back to life? No doubt it would be valuable, but I'm not sure where to start.

What is some good advice? "I Can Be Friends With You" by MxPx on Never Say Dinosaur
It's good to be friends with God.

What is my signature dancing song? "The Other Me" by Joe Jackson on Laughter & Lust
Go look at my evil twin for dancing.

What do I think my current theme song is? "Wounds of Love" by Rich Mullins on Brother's Keeper
Not a bad selection for me, iTunes. And I wouldn't give back a single one of those wounds.

What does everyone else think my current theme song is? "One Brand of Truth" by Geoff Moore & the Distance on Pure and Simple
Prolly true.

What type of men/women do you like? "Here In America" by Rich Mullins on A Liturgy, A Legacy & A Ragamuffin Band
I'm not real picky, you know. Personally I wouldn't say I'd limit the list to Americans.

Is Heather a Mini Murderer or Just a Maimer?

"Heather, you are charged with the murder of a blue Mini Cooper, named Fred. How do you plead?"

"Not guilty, Your Honor."

"The prosecution may call its first witness."

"Sir, we would like to call the plaintiff, Heather, to the stand. Heather, how old is the vehicle in question?"

"Two and a half years old, sir."

"And how many miles does it have on it?"

"Just 25,0000."

"Whose car is it?"

"It's my husband's. I mean, we both pay for it..."

"Thank you! If you can answer only the question asked of you, that will do. Please refrain from any sort of extracurricular rigamarole. Do you admit to writing this account of a power steering problem that occurred in April?"

"Yes."

"Who was driving the car when this problem occurred?"

"I was."

"Where was your husband?"

"He was out of town on a vacation."

"So, while your husband was gone, you decided to take the opportunity to attack Fred and try to kill him?"

"No -- I didn't do anything -- it just happened! The shop says this sort of thing happens to these cars a lot!"

"After this attack in April, have you ever been driving Fred when other sorts of things happened to him?"

"It wasn't an attack in April."

"The witness is instructed to answer the question."

"Last week, I went to pick up my husband after he returned from Hawaii. I drove 10 miles to pick him up, and on the way back, the car started making funny noises. Within a block, there was white smoke pouring out of under the hood. I stopped the car and rolled it downhill to park it against the curb."

"While your husband was with you, he wasn't driving?"

"It was late, and he'd been traveling all day. He was tired, and it was easier for me just to stay in the driver's seat for the short trip home."

"Did you offer to let him drive his own car, his friend, Fred?"

"No. Didn't seem to make sense to do so."

"And how is Fred doing now?"

"Well, the serpentine belt went out. That was the noise that led to the billowing smoke. It was towed to the dealer, 80 miles away, and has been repaired. We're supposed to pick it up today."

(Gasps from the gallery.)

The judge speaks up, "It appears the charges brought here were faulty -- the car is fixed and working now?"

"It appears so. We won't really know until we get to the shop and drive it around a bit, but it should be fine. It was still under warranty, so the repairs don't even cost anything."

"So there isn't any lasting damage?"

"Well, you know how a repaired car is, sir. It probably will rattle or squeak or otherwise not still be in mint condition, but it should work just fine."

"That's good to hear."

The prosecution is still concerned, and says, "But what about the future of Fred? This murderer will continue her attacks on this poor car any time her husband goes away. She is obviously a danger to Fred, and he should be brought into protective custody for his own safety."

The judge, however, had had enough. "Go try a real case with a real live victim, son. Case dismissed!"

Friday Random Ten

The Friday Ten is back with a vengeance. Here is what iTunes served up for me today.

"Rescue Me" by Geoff Moore and The Distance*, Pure And Simple
"Hat Tamale Baby" by Clifton Chenier, Zydeco Essentials
"J'ai Deux Amours" by Madeleine Peyroux, Careless Love
"To Life" from the Fiddler on the Roof* soundtrack
"Didn't He" by PFR*, Pray for Rain
"You Are the Best Part of Me" by Neil Diamond, The Essential Neil Diamond
"A Whole New World" from the Aladdin soundtrack
"Prom Night in Pig Town" by Trout Fishing in America*, Truth Is Stranger Than Fishin'
"Daffodil Lament" by The Cranberries, No Need To Argue
"Tears In Heaven" by Eric Clapton, from the Rush soundtrack

It has been a tough week in Heatherville, so this was a great combination of songs, especially "Rescue Me", "To Life", and "Didn't He", to jerk me up by my bootstraps and keep going. It's funny how the iTunes library does things in cycles, and I ended up with three songs from movies this week. More exciting, though, is the debut of Trout Fishing in America on The Ten. I was introduced to these guys by an old boyfriend in college who took me to a concert, and I was immediately hooked. I love hearing a band for the first time in concert. It just gives you a whole different appreciation for the music that you don't get from just hearing the songs. They are so funny to watch perfom. The band is just two guys -- Keith and Ezra -- but they sound like they have a whole band playing with them. Keith is a short guy (5'5"ish) who plays the upright bass, while Ezra is a tall guy (6'8"ish) who plays electric guitar. The contrast of these two guys standing next to each other with their ill-fitting instruments made me laugh the first time I saw them. And then you listen to their music and you can't stop laughing. They seemed to load that concert with their kids songs, and those are all funny. Great mental images created, so much so, that I'd bet they'd make nice illustrated chidren's books. The adult songs are generally still funny, but in a drier and more subtle way, while some are downright poignant and depressing. The particular song that made The Ten this week is a recreation of a prom night as most of us are familiar with from high school. But here, the pigs aren't graduating from high school -- they are getting ready to be butchered. Not sure if these guys are vegetarians, but it does seem they are trying to tell us something here.

* Acts I've seen live. I counted Fiddler on the Roof because I saw a live performance of it as a kid. Not really an act, but live, nonetheless.

Coincidental Stranger Remeetings

I like James' suggestion that this could make for a good band or album name. Once I get to where I can play and am ready to do the band thing, I'll pull this little gem out of the recesses of my mind. Unless I forget, which seems to happen quite a bit these days.

I was traveling a bit recently, and ended up on a red-eye from LAX. I could start a rant now about how much I hate LAX -- how that was considered during our decision process on moving to Santa Barbara, because we'd have to use it as our primary jumping off point. We still moved here, but LAX was definitely on the "Con" list. But I won't do that. Suffice it to say it's one of my least favorite airports, and the lines are nearly unbearable. I was in the security line at 9:30 for a 12:30 flight, and it's a good thing, too. Took me 2 hours to get through that line.

Standing in line for 2 hours gives you a lot of time to people watch. Late at night, most of the people you have available to you to watch are the folks in line around you, especially when you are traveling alone and have no companions to talk to nor your iPod to listen to.

There was the girl who had decided she wanted to visit all the places she wanted to go by the time she was 30. She was probably 25, from New York. She was headed to China this trip and had gotten back from New Zealand on her last trip, or vice versa, but she had 10 more places she wanted to go before that self-imposed deadline. After that, she figured she'd make a new list of places she wanted to go or go back to the places she especially liked. Nice goal, I figure. The world could use a few more people that are knowledgeable about other cultures, and what better way to learn about them then to go there and experience them?

There was the 40-ish lady with her daughter and the daughter's friend. The kids were probably 8 or 9, and they were playing the one-up game. Each was trying to show how they, or someone they knew, were better. Everything from boys they thought liked them to how many DVDs they had to how expensive their cell phones were to what their dads did. I never did figure out where they were traveling to, but I did wonder how long a combative friendship like that can last.

There was the family with two small kids, probably 1 and 3. The parents spoke Spanish or Portuguese -- couldn't really tell since they talked so fast. Well, that, and the fact that I don't speak either language. The older boy had obviously been asleep for a while, but the crying of his younger sibling woke him up and then he was cranky. The younger kid was hungry, so the mom was breastfeeding him there in line. As they got closer to the screening station, she tried to stop, but the baby became hysterical almost instantly. So the father and the older boy put the stroller and luggage through the machine, while the mother kept feeding and stepped out of line for a while. What shocked me most was that while they were obviously stressed they weren't fighting. If it were my parents with my sister and I at that age, they'd have been out of control.

Right in front of me were two couples that didn't really talk about their destination, but did talk about small towns and how backward they can be. For close to two hours. Except when they were laughing and pointing at the poor family struggling with their little kids. I would have thought they were terrible people, and ignored them for the rest of the line time, but one of the guys looked so much like someone I knew that I remained interested. I knew it wasn't the person in question, but I really admire the guy this stranger reminded me of. The guy I know is a customer of ours, with 5 kids where the oldest is 6. There is a set of twins there, but he is so jealous that his wife gets to stay home with the younger ones. His oldest goes to 1st grade across the street from his office, and he eats lunch with her at least 4 times a week ("Sometimes I like to go out with the folks in the office, but not too often."). Just a great guy with his priorities straight. He's very short with glasses and a shaved head. So, to find a guy in line that looked like this had me thinking about the other guy. Don't bother me with the irony that a make-fun-of-the-family guy reminded me of a real family guy. Whatever -- purely a physical likeness.

Regardless, because I noticed this guy while in line, I noticed him again when I got to my gate. Apparently he's on my flight to Minneapolis. And because I noticed him there, I noticed him again after we boarded, as he was sitting on my row. It made me wonder how often we re-meet strangers but never know it because we didn't notice them the first time or even the second or subsequent times. It was a very it's-a-small-world moment for me. I'm sure this happens more when we're involved in other stuff at the time, but it has to happen quite a bit when we never notice it. Especially, it would seem, in airports.

When I got back from my trip, we had a new movie in the mailbox (I love Netflix). It was called 11:14, and it tied into this whole thought process so nicely. This is a story about 5 different story lines that all come together at precisely 11:14pm. Sort of a similar vein as Babel, except this movie was less about the far-reaching impact of one's actions, and more about pure coincidence. You've got the drunk driver, the protective dad, the desperate boyfriend, the joyriding teens, the harried policeman, and they all keep running into each other, but not knowing that their paths will ultimately cross in a way only we movie watchers may really ever know. It is a brilliantly done movie, with spectacular attention to detial, and I'd defintely suggest it. Nice thought-provoking cinema on a story line I'd just started to really think about.

Trader Joe's Isn't All It's Cracked Up To Be

As we started telling people we were moving to California, the unsolicited commentary seemed to be that we were embarking on the coolest of grocery-ing phenomena: Trader Joe's. After a few brief months in this state, I can safely say I don't get it.

I will admit that they have one of the most extensive and tastiest selections of dried fruits and nuts. I think I'm already addicted to the black pepper cashews and the granny smith dried apples. But beyond that, I don't see much reason to shop there.

The produce is of poor quality and overpriced. Similarly, the meat (unless you need kosher meat -- I guess they have a decent selection then), is of poor grade and too expensive. The selection of general grocery needs is minimal. I walked over there one day because I really wanted to bake cookies, but I needed baking powder. After staring at the baking shelf (they had flour, sugar, etc.), and giving up, I asked someone, and they told me they don't carry baking powder. Really? So, I walked back by a drugstore, and bought my baking powder there and baked my cookies anyway.

Then, I'm a scotch snob. I'll readily admit it. And more than that, I'm a fan of Macallan, as you'd be able to tell by the 4 bottles of various years of the stuff in my liquor cabinet. Trader Joe's seems to be in some sort of bottling agreement with my favorite of whiskies, and they bottle 12 year old Macallan in Trader Joe's bottles. I can't bring myself to buy one to see if it's the same stuff on the inside of the bottle as they seem to claim on the outside of the bottle, because it costs exactly as much as the real thing! Honestly, why would anyone buy a "Rolex" from a street vendor in NY for the same price as a real one? Obviously, someone (or a lot of someones) are doing this, since they seem to keep having this stuff on their shelves.

Anyway, just seems like a lot of hype for something that, like a lot of other hyped things, isn't all that.

Why I Shouldn't Have to Ever Attend Another Family Reunion

Last weekend I attended a reunion of the Johnson side of my family. That would be my great-grandparents on my mother's maternal side and all their kids and their kids and their kids. This is the only family on either of our sides that still holds family reunions, and they do them approximately every 3 years. The last one I attended was in 1990, and seventeen years later seemed an appropriate amount of time to be skipping them. Also, Grandma is my last living grandparent, and her health seems to be getting worse all the time. I thought it was a good chance to see her for her birthday, stick around for the reunion, and then not be expected to be seen at one of these for a while.

Of course, the great-grandparents are dead. Great-grandfather came over on the boat from Sweden in the early 1900s, and great-grandmother had 11 kids in 12 years -- go figure she died young. Of the eleven kids in my Grandma's generation, only 5 are left. In my mom's generation, there were 75 cousins. Who knows how many they are in my generation. Here's a picture of those of us (just in my generation) that were at the reunion this year:
Even if you know me, good luck finding me in that pile of people. The vast majority of the families still live in Minnesota, with a few that have branched out to North Dakota, Wisconsin, or (gasp!) Iowa.

I give you this background, not because I think you will want to know it for some reason, but to give you an idea that this is a large family. And there are a lot of them I just don't know, since we haven't lived in the midwest in years and years and years. Of the tiny fraction of the family that came to the reunion (150 people), I knew a grand total of 14 of them, including my mom, dad, and little sister. And that's if I really stretch my memory back a long ways. All that family does is drink and play games, so that's what we did all weekend long. Yowsers. Well, I drank. If anyone offers me one more Windsor and water ("your grandma likes 'em, so you must, too"), I'll smack 'em. Oh, and quit acting like you're telling me some big secret when you point out my grandparents anniversary date and my mother's birthdate. Really? You think I didn't figure that out when I was ten? We played a trivia game, and my mother had submitted trivia about me, and I couldn't even figure out which statement was supposed to apply to me -- lotta help I was to my team.

Anyway, it's a special family, and they have some plusses somewhere (give me a second while I dig for them -- oh right, that's where I got my ability to hold my liquor). I just figure that if I wait another 17 years before I go to another one, all the members in my grandmother's generation will be dead, and they won't actually still be holding these things anymore. And that would be fine by me.

Explaining the Unexplained Absence

I kinda fell off the face of the blogosphere for a bit. I apologize, wholeheartedly. I know that now that I moved halfway across the country, this is one of the only ways most of my friends know what's up with me. I've spent all day trying to explain why I've gone missing of late. Here are some of the stories I came up with.

-- I threw myself into bass playing, joined a band and started touring. I'm thinking about quitting my job and doing this full-time.
-- My job has gotten so busy that I'm working 18 hours of every day, and I don't have time to do anything except sleep and work.
-- I died. Wait -- who'd be writing this post, then?
-- I got pregnant, and the morning sickness has me hiding in my bed in a fetal position all day long.

But of course, all of these are completely bogus. Not even a shred of truth to any of them. The truth is that I got sucked into an online game, and haven't hardly surfaced in a long time. Pathetic, isn't it? Aren't those for 15-year-old boys or older guys with no ability to interact with the real world? Why yes, yes they are. You'll have to decide which of these I've become. I haven't completely crawled into a hole to die, though. These are some of the posts that I will be writing up and posting over the next few days as I extricate myself from this crazy game.

Is Heather a Mini Murderer or Just a Maimer?
Why I Shouldn't Have to Ever Attend Another Family Reunion
Comparing Santa Barbara to Austin, From a Cyclist's Perspective
Trader Joe's Isn't All It's Cracked Up To Be
Heather is a Heathen
Coincidental Stranger Remeetings

Please let me know which of these you'd like to see me write up first. I will do my best to comply. Thank you in advance for your forgiveness for my lackadaisical attitude. I do hope not to repeat it. At least for a while. Or if we go to war in my game.