Neurotic Much?

 Yeah, OK, every one of us has a bit of a neuro issue and we can't lie and say it isn't true. I'll start, and you can write to let me know what your particular phobia(s) may be. I don't like short doors, they scare me. You know what I'm talking about, you go into a house and all the doors are normal, basic and average in size and height, and for no damn good reason whatsoever, the builder adds a little tiny door in the hallway or under the stairs, and it just creeps me out for some reason. I start thinking of all the things that could possibly live in that space just behind the door - - monsters aren't even sure what to do with it; they avoid them too! I think of the Borrowers maybe, I don't know. I'm not even afraid of Hobbits. I like Hobbits. I just don't like seeing a creepy little short door in an otherwise perfectly good house.

       I've already told you about the tiny door thing, but I haven't told you about my experience with glass elevators. Most of us have the same thoughts and feelings about glass elevators so it makes you wonder about the real freaks who decided that even though more than 87.8% of the people in the world get anxious and nervous inside of these fragile glassy sharp potentially impaling contraptions, they made them and then fancy schmancy hotels buy into them as if they're a form of entertainment. "Let's see how many of our paying guests freak out before reaching their floor!" If it were up to me, and it never is, we'd all take the stairs. Cables break and buildings should be shorter; there, that's my rant for the day. 

        Another thing that really trips my trigger when it comes to freaking out for no good reason whatsoever, would be watching surgeries being performed on medical shows like New Amsterdam, Chicago Med, or something similar. I could take M*A*S*H, it wasn't that bad but these newer more realistic shows are far too detailed and accurate to be anything shy of cringe-worthy. I watch half of the show behind my hands peering every now and then; or even when the firefighters of Chicago Fire are about to pull an impaled guy off of a fence post - - NOPE, can't do it. I can write about it, I can get in there and describe the gritty gnarly details using every adjective I can imagine and look up in the Thesaurus, but I can't watch it. I can't see it, I can't view it.

     Imagination is an entirely different thing! It's sort of like when I'm actually in the room with a naked man, but I start to giggle almost immediately because I just really think that God may have made one silly tiny (OK, two, they come in pairs) error when designing men, I don't know, but I do laugh - - almost every time I'm with one (a naked man). It could be the reason I'm divorced; if you think about it, but it could be a contributory factor.  Naked Bearded Man has never been offended with my giggles; he understands me - - he even put a bow on them once to make me feel better. (I still laughed but so did he and I got over it.) With NBM I don't really focus on THAT part of him anyway; I'm always too busy trying to figure out what he's saying. He only speaks Scots Gaelic, so the issue doesn't come up as often - - so to speak. Believe me when I say I'm so out of touch on that one; wait, did I just say that? Yeah, I did.

        OK your turn. Think of something really not all that bad that you just can't find settling. You get the shivers when it happens; maybe you see it and just walk the other way.  I don't have a clue one as to why we have phobias about something when others find it perfectly normal and acceptable, but we do. It's just our make up, maybe it's environmental, maybe it stems from a negative experience we had, whatever it is, tell me in the comments what you find creepy - - I need a better word, I'm going to the Thesaurus right now.  OK, what do you find to be ghoulish, eerie, direful, edgy, gruesome or baneful? Oh my, baneful. I like that...that's not creepy at all -- that's really nice.  Baneful. I can write an entire book around that word; it could involve murder, mayhem, and even marshmallows. Baneful. Yes. Good choice.

J.Kepper

Figs are Like Big Fat Raisins.

 I'm like the biggest fig fan that I know, and that's really tantamount to saying I'm also the biggest black licorice fan that I know, because there just aren't many of us out there. I'll even throw in beets while I'm at it.  Yeah, I said it, I went there, I'm a beet-eating, black-licorice-loving, fig-freak! I am. I could sit at my computer desk most of the day guzzling lemon water and snacking on figs but we both know where that would land me, right?  I think I may need to add a bit of cheddar in that mix to keep the playing field level. (Geez, what our bodies go through on a daily basis, just trying to figure out how to waste what all we put into it!) 

        I'm over at the Winco grocery store, in their big, beautiful, bountiful, bulk section, minding my own business; because that's what I do, when I noticed a bin (vat really) full of the most glorious blackened shriveled up pruney looking giant raisins! At first, I let my mind wander a bit, thinking "MY GOD, those were some huge grapes!", but then I realized I was looking at real live, honest-to-goodness, figs, and they were right there in front of me, in Oklahoma, just waiting to be bought and devoured. I could almost (not quite, but almost) guarantee that no one besides myself was actually going to be buying up a big fat bag of these babies - - but there are people from the Middle East in Oklahoma, so maybe one of them, (God bless you whoever you are) asked if Winco could start carrying real figs. REAL FIGS, people, really, real, and so fat, so gloriously thick and dense - - if I were laying down on my back, on a blanket, in the sun, in the Lowlands of Scotland with a kilted man, I could be a bit happier, but that's the only way it could happen. 

        Figs! People who know me know that for many years I carried Fig Newtons with me every chance I had, and that means every day of my elementary, secondary, and college years. Every day I had those little cookies in a baggie, and no, I did not share them. I wasn't impressed when they came out with other flavors either, you don't add raspberry to figs...you crush up raspberries if you want raspberry cookies. You leave the figs alone, thank you very much. Now, that being said, there is a brand of breakfast bars that does make a fairly decent fruit bar using other fruits and figs, but give me figs, give me 100% real, and hard to find figs, sans the cookies, I don't need the cookie when I have the fruit. I can just chomp on a few of them and smile throughout the day - - until it's time to eat more a little later on in the day. 

        I don't know why or when I became such a fan of the fig, but it's a thang now. I won't go to Winco without picking up a bag and I won't go out to play, ride, walk, drive, or hang out with friends for more than an hour or so without the little baggie too, but no one ever asks to share now! No one. Not one time has anyone ever said to me, "Hey Jude, is that a fig? Can I have one?"  Nope, it's like what I said about black licorice and beets; no one asks to share your booty. You are the only one who imbibes when you choose to eat foods that no one else would really be interested in  -  Oh, like PARSNIPS! Best kept secret out there! (Figs aren't a secret, everyone knows about them, but no one cares. I care)

        Well, that's it folks, not much to see here, just a girl and her fig. Have a great one! I hope your "go" is as good as mine, and you have the best belly possible - - no dang wonder I smile all the time. I've got this! Thank you, God. You knew....you knew.

Positively Positive!

 Most of the time you can see me smiling, walking briskly to or from some place I needed to be. You can find me laughing, waving at someone I either know, or maybe I don't know, but hey, I'm from the South, and we do that. We wave. We wave a lot actually, and sometimes we use our whole hand to gesture our grateful greeting, and other times we resort to just using one finger - - also in a very prominent manner; positively making sure the other person sees it anyway.  We rarely shy away or hold back our emotions here in the South.  Being positively positive is just a way of life for so many of us; we do it without even realizing we're doing it. We show up in the North (and often times in Europe) and the people there know instantaneously that we're just not from around those parts. 

            I suppose I've always been a really upbeat and positive person; when you think about it, and I do think about it. I wonder often why others aren't bouncing out of bed the way I do when the alarm sounds off. My own children will hit the snooze button a few times, but not me; why wake up 10 minutes earlier than I need to just to fight the clock? Nope, the alarm sounds and I get to it. Of course, I'm not going to lie, I do have to pet the dog for a good minute or two before rolling completely out of the bed. She insists. I obey. It may be another Southern thang, but we do sleep with our dogs here, and they do rule the bed. I often beg Ginger for the covers but if she's insistent on not sharing, I do have to go to the linen closet to get another comforter; we do not (under any circumstances really) disturb a sleeping dog. We let them lie.

        Being positively positive doesn't take as much effort (in my humble opinion) as it would to be negative. I rather think that if I were to set the two emotions to a metric and then somehow measure and scale the two, I would be proven correct. I think it takes less energy to bounce than it does to lay flat or curled up in the fetal position. I think it takes less outpouring of strength to smile than it does to duck and dodge someone just because you don't like them, or you don't want to see them, communicate with them, be around them, whatever - - if you just smile and wave, you can always pretend you have something to do, and just walk onward! WALK AWAY with a big fat smile plastered right across your pretty face and then for fun you may want to add a little head nod; and a courtesy wave.  Do it, all of your friends who know you and know you can't stand that other person you just waved at will either laugh with you, or at you, it doesn't matter, either way you made your friends laugh. It's a WIN!  When you let your mind wander off into the negative fields you end up with ugly weeds in your brain, not flowers.

        If positive was a drink it could be named Jude. I could bottle it, sell it, get it out there and the world would sing silly songs all day while guzzling down strong coffee and heavy whipping cream - - maybe even a bit of cinnamon, I do like being a bit spicy you know. I tell people, "I'm not a hot mess, I'm a spicy disaster" at times. I make sure I screw up every now and then just so I have something to be humble about; it's really hard to be humble when you're a Sooner fan, and you're just so damn happy all the time - - you have to make at least one good mistake a day so your dog doesn't actually believe you are infallible; dogs are that way, aren't they?  Ginger.  She really had big big paws to fill when George went home to see Jesus  - talk about positive; Ginger makes me look like a slug at times.

        Today I had another opportunity to pour out a little positive on those around me who just insist on being boo-bears all the time. My neighbors (my cranky neighbors who will take their tea on the porch so they can watch me walk the complex) asked me if I had lost another pound yet. Apparently they read my posts on Facebook, who knew? I complain a little when I don't lose weight quite as quickly as I think I should.  I stopped in my tracks when one of the sisters called out to ask me the question - - I could tell she was being sarcastic.  She went on to say, "You should give it up, you're old. You're gonna hurt yourself walking that fast anyway."  I dropped my head to my chest trying not to show her my giggling. but I should have fired back something rude. Instead, I turned to her and said "Alice, God made me the day He made me, and He'll take me back the day He decides to take me back, but until that day I'm going to pretend I'm 17! Why admit otherwise? It doesn't do a body good, it doesn't do a mind any good, and if the geese and the squirrels get a kick out of watching me strut my butt, at least I have that!"  She waved me off with a huff - - and I made the geese smile for the next 30 minutes just to put another kink in Alice's chain - - gotta love it.  Be the positive that others need to be attracted to you - - be their pole.

Can't Even Imagine!

 Someone needs to hear this. I know I harp on this one issue more so than maybe I should, but it just rattles my cage when I see, hear, and know about an artist who has allowed someone to come in (maybe because that artist needed money, maybe because he or she was promised the moon) and they allow a would be producer to literally erase all that they have worked so hard to achieve and call their own.  

        You may not remember, or even know who I'm talking about when I say the name Avril Lavigne, but she is a Canadian vocal artist who eventually caved to the pressure of commercialism and big bucks when she  recorded her last work, but in the beginning she was raw and gutsy, a bit out there with weird hair and makeup, but it was her weird hair and make up. Her teeth weren't perfect, her nails weren't painted pretty flashy colors, they weren't long and plastic either, and her music was real, it was hers. She owned it. She wrote it. She performed it. She kept it. 

        There was even a reference to another artist, Britney Spears, in one of Lavigne's songs where Lavigne flatly says she's not "A Britney" she won't give in to the long cold fingers of soul-eating producers who come along (claiming) saying they love your style, but the first thing they do after signing you to their iron-clad unilateral contracts (one sided) is to change your style! They make you write songs with their writers, they ask you to sing their songs over your songs and if they do allow you to sing your songs they force you to change the way you did it before -- it just didn't fit in with their program. Does any of this strike a chord?  Would you ever allow it? I hope not.

        Well, shoot me twice please, if I ever write a blog claiming that someone, a producer, publisher, writing stylist, or someone else wanting to manage my work, has come along and changed my style. I'll allow an editor, sure, that's a given, I need an editor. I'm a writer, but I'm by no means perfect at the craft - - no one really writes from the heart without making flub-ups. It just happens. We think, we write, we screw up, we laugh, we move forward. If another person thought for half of a nanosecond that I would allow them to take my words and either rewrite them, ask me to redo them so they sounded more commercial, sounded more pleasing, sounded more robotic, stale, plastic, monotone, unchallenging, unraw (is that a word?) and, oh, I don't know -- BORING - - if I were to entertain allowing someone to come along and do that, please just take me out back and thrash me if I ever allow anyone to tell me to write anything I write any other way than MY WAY. (I won't be able to feel you doing it because I would have been in a coma long before I would allow anyone to change a damn word I write other than to correct a misspelling or punctuation mark.)

        Every last one of us is formed in the great image of our Heavenly Father. It doesn't matter if you don't believe that, it's still true. We humans are crafted in the image of God the Father and God the Son. We are not like the animals, we did not evolve from animals, we were crafted, we were planned, we were formed and magnificently so! There isn't a one of us born who was made by mistake. We may not like our hair, our eyes, our nose, those freckles, our ankles, whatever - - but can you imagine if God had chosen to just randomly put us together in a way that was more user-friendly maybe, or maybe in a way that would somehow be more marketable, pleasing to the eyes, ears and hearts of the majority?  

        Our unique gifts are our unique gifts, not someone else's and not for someone else to come along and own or steal from us - payment may have been given for that compromise, sure, but it is a theft to be sure! It robs you of your soulfulness, your edge, your - - you. You sold yourself and maybe you didn't mean to, but you sold yourself to pay a bill, to say you belong, to be able to prove to someone that you could be a part of something "bigger" or "better".  Is it? You sold yourself; it's not you anymore, you are now THEM, or a part of them. They tell you how to dress, what to say, what to write, what to perform, how to do videos, what to hold so you look just so -- their image of what just so should look like, sound like. “Clean”.  No it’s cardboard.  

        I don't know. Some people would say it's a good thing to sell your work and get paid to do what you do, but I think you keep it. If someone wants to pay you to perform, great, but you should perform the way you perform, jokes and all - - again, with soul, raw, open, honest, not boxed and placid - - putty in their hands; you should be the you that you were before they found you. They should love you for the you that you are, not the you they think you need to be. That's not you; that's just not you. 

        OK, well, that's my soap box and it needed to be said, it needed to be seen, it needed to be pushed - - maybe even poured down your throat because right now you're in a coma and need someone to be there to actually give a damn about what it is that you wanted to do in the first place --  you don't seem to be making a stand at this point; maybe I can. They can't get to me. I can't be bought.  I may not be rich but I've never thought money was the gauge for measuring my success anyway - - I'm sort of weird like that. I gauge my success by the smile on God's face when He sees that I did what He asked me to do. Let me tell you -- it feels really good to be able to fly freely and write what I want, when I want, how I want, and as I want, my pen is a thousand times stronger than their money - - if no one buys it, I'm not compromised. If I had to sell words to make money I'd find another profession, but what I have isn't work - - it's passion. I can't and won't try to imagine what it would be like to sell that. I would rather die.  

John Hembree's photo: 

Just Shoot Me!

So yeah, if I ever get to the point that I can't walk my happy ass over to the office next door to deliver a single piece of paper, but instead, I call in the receptionist who is busy mind you, to walk 100 feet to my office and then ask her to take the paper to the guy 10 feet away - - JUST SHOOT ME. Don't even be nice about it; I mean, yeah, aim correctly, but don't be sweet, just put me underground and send me off to Jesus. I do not want to be so freaking arrogant or wrapped up in my own self that I can't take a note that I wrote, over to the guy I wrote it to - - just 10 feet away. SIDE NOTE: I'm not saying if I am unable to do so, I am talking about arrogance.

    That was me yesterday (the receptionist) just smiling, laughing under my breath, and thinking to myself and to God, "THANK YOU for not bringing me into this world with both a silver spoon and a gold key in my mouth!" I, of course, graciously took the paper to the man next door to the boss, and even announced my entrance - - he loved it. He thanked me, and he said to me, "Yeah, Bob can't be bothered sometimes." Wow...no.

    I often take temporary assignments outside the house to make a little money I can squirrel away for whatever it is that I'm saving up to do; this time, it happens to be my move to Scotland. I took a small short term assignment that we all knew would be around two or three days tops; and I guess the "Boss" just thought he could train the new girl in just under that time frame to maintain his level of inept spoiling that either his parents endowed on him, or every other underling he's ever hired. I wanted to laugh in his face and say, "Yeah, no Bob, you need to get up, walk over to Richard's office, hand him the note, and maybe, Oh, I don't know, just ASK HIM if he wants to play golf on Saturday.  Maybe you could have at least added a little box or two to check yes or no!"  I didn't say that, I like being entertained by the very rich. I often think I'll honor them by writing them into my next novel - - as the victim.

    This week I accepted an assignment for a non-profit foundation, and if you know much about non-profits here in the U.S. (Clinton Foundation and the like) you know that most of them have a ton of money! They are absolutely for profit, they are holes to throw money into and lose for others, they are perhaps, in my opinion, the one thing that really should be audited by the IRS and every other agency known to man, but their saving grace there would be that most of the Board members of these foundations work for those agencies and they both turn their heads at misappropriation and at straight up theft or under reporting. Don't shoot me for saying that, it's true, but do shoot me if I ever join one that steals from the very people they claim to help. I have a thing about being honest and ethical, and to date, I have not found a single solitary foundation in the United States that was 100% above board. Many want to be. Many try to be, but somewhere along the line their controllers find ways to skim and/or cut corners and it's just a matter of time before "favors" are exchanged - - and there you go. Corrupted. I think there could be legitimate foundations, I do, I really do believe there could be, but I haven't found one in the United States. I hope I'm proven wrong.

    When the assignment ended today I was just about to walk out the door when the boss calls me on the intercom. Rather than picking it up and answering him I walked to his office to say good bye, and even to thank him for the opportunity to serve, right? Well, he looked at me as I stood in the door of his office holding my purse and little duffle that I carry, and he said, "Oh, it's not lunch time yet, what gives, where are you going?"  I told him that Human Resources had decided they didn't need me to finish the week, and I was going home. He asked me if I could ("Pretty Please") take a file down the hall to Julie so she could have something to work on during the rest of the day.  OK what? Damn, you know I did it. He said "Pretty Please".  I am just too freaking nice. I really am.  I smiled. I took the file, and I laid it on Julie's desk.  She laughed - - she said, "You know, I would have told him to shove it."  I guess that's why he likes me. I just think it - - for now. He's going to end up pushed off the balcony of the 48th floor of a building in downtown Chicago under a different name - - in my book. Sorry Bob, you gotta go!

Truffles Recipe

 EASY!  Takes about 3 hours from start to finish.

Ingredients:

1. Chocolate baking bar (4 oz)  (any flavor

2. Butter - 1 tablespoon

3. Heavy Whipping Cream - 1/3 Cup

4.  Vanilla extract - 1 cap full

YIELD:  12 - 14 small balls a little over an inch in diameter.

Instructions:

1. Open up chocolate bar, break it into pieces into a mixing bowl.

2. In a cup add 1/3 cup of heavy whipping cream, 1 TBS butter, 1 cap full of Vanilla

3. Heat the cream in the microwave for 1:00 minute

4. Pour the cream over the chocolate and LEAVE IT ALONE (so it can melt)

5.  Stir after two minutes, until smooth and creamy. If you need to put mix in the microwave for 20 seconds you can.

6.  Put the mix in the fridge for an hour

7. Stir the mix and put it back in the fridge for another hour

8. Take out and scoop with regular teaspoon into small scoop and either roll it in the palm of your hand, or drop it as it is into the powder sugar, sprinkles or whatever it is you're going to dip it in.

9. Roll it around in the powder or sprinkles using your fingers to form a ball

10. Set the balls on a plate and put back into the fridge for another hour or so

DONE!

Stranger Than Fiction.

 This is going to be one of those out-in-left-field sort of blogs; one of those things people don't really talk about, but somehow it creeps up into the conversation and you just let it out in the open.  When it happened, when both events happened, we were very somber about it, very taken by it, and we didn't blog, post, really even talk about it with anyone other than really close friends because it just seemed to be so out there - - but it's been 19 years ago tomorrow. 

I was teaching at Oklahoma City Community College, and the girls were quite young. Some times when I think about it I am brought to tears. I was driving to my job, girls in tow because I had full custody and couldn't afford a babysitter in the evenings when I taught. They had to go with me, and they pretended to be in college; going to the library, hooking up their own computers or borrowing one from the media center, so they could watch movies. Perfect angels mostly, but not always. I'll talk about that in another blog.

Driving down Council Road south of I-40, Tuesday, May 6, 2003,  just after 4:30 p.m, my first class to teach started at 5:30 p.m. and I am never ever late, I glanced to the side of the bridge we were crossing and I saw something. I saw something that absolutely looked like a man's head rolled to the side, propped up against the curb. Could it be a mask maybe? Masks aren't completely round, they only cover the face; maybe it was one of those rubber masks that you slip over your entire head. I guess my mind was thinking it needed to be a mask -- it wasn't as mask. It was exactly what it looked like.  I was now trying to focus on the road, focus on my civil duty to report what I know I saw, and focus on not going back to look at it again to be 100% sure because again, I had the girls in the car, and I know Caity thought she saw it too. I wanted her to think it was a mask so I just said it was - - as I pulled into the Southside fire department to let them know what it was now I knew what I had just seen.

I left the girls in the car so I could openly speak with the Chief to let him know where the head was.  To my surprise, I was told that someone else had reported seeing what looked like a mask on the side of the road so they didn't really see a need to check it out; but now that I came by in person they would.  I thanked them and tried hard not to think about it the rest of the night, but that didn't happen. I could only think of it. Going home I decided to take another route -- just in case. It would have been too dark after 10:30 p.m. to see it if it was still there on the bridge, but I didn't want to take that chance or even hear Caity say something about it. I just let them think it was a mask, and it was gone. It would be gone next time we drove down that way.  It was not gone the next time we drove by. I wish it was. 

When we drove by the bridge just two days later, as I taught on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I was a bit apprehensive as we approached the bridge. All clear for now, as it appeared I would be crossing over completely without any sightings until I did see it - - but it was no longer propped up on the curb. It had been hit at least once and probably more; it had been run over in fact, and there was absolutely no doubt in my mind that it was not only human, but it was a man's head - - how could this happen? Why didn't the fire department crew see it on Tuesday? It was in the open! It was literally rolled up against the curb!  I pulled back into the station with my eyes popping and my hands shaking - - again, I left the girls in the car. They didn't see what I saw, thank God.

The Chief was out this time, but the Lieutenant assured me that they had gone out to look, but that there was nothing seen or found. They had not stopped and searched, just driven by, and now, because I had seen what I had seen, I wasn't allowed to go on to work. I was asked to stay until the police could come by and question me, get my full statement, and possibly question Caity as well. Thankfully, Laura had been playing in the backseat on Tuesday, she never saw anything.  I called my boss to explain myself, and why I would not be teaching, he was silent for quite a long time, but understood.  He said he would post a notice on the door and the students could expect an email from me tomorrow. That was probably the first time I ever sent out a masse e-mail about the week's assignments. It wasn't the last time, but in 2003, there weren't nearly as many online courses. 

The police came to the fire department, questioned me, questioned Caity, and gave both the girls a plastic silver badge for being brave and helping them in their investigation.  The firemen, not to be out-done by their local LEOs, took the girls into the fire station, gave them a full blown tour, let them sit in the truck, blare the sirens, and wear the gear! I couldn't thank them enough for taking the time to show my girls just how courageous they need to be in times of trouble.  I asked the police officers if I was able to find out what happened -- if I was even allowed to know.  They agreed to keep me posted.

About six weeks passed and I received a call from the Oklahoma City Police department. I was told that a few weeks back a lone trucker had decided to continue cruising at a good clip when he apparently not only hit a deer, but was pretty sure it had been thrown over the bridge and into the ditch. He never reported it, but he must have at least told someone because the police detectives assigned to the case were able to find the driver and thankfully even after all that time, he never completely washed the grill of his truck.  He hadn't hit a deer, he had hit a homeless man.  Though I wasn't allowed to know the man's name, age, or much more than just that he was in fact homeless, and wearing a buckskin colored coat, I was told that his body was eventually located and his next of kin informed.  

Another few weeks went by and you think you're going to get over it, but every time I drove over the bridge I prayed for the man and for his family. Though I knew and know that since the man was dead that no amount of prayer would help his soul - - it may help his family. I was called into the office at Oklahoma City Community College by my department head. He wanted to personally thank me for being a dutiful citizen, for reporting the event in the first place, and of course for following through.  As it turns out the homeless man had family in the community; one called my school to ask them to personally thank me.  The man had been a military veteran, having served in the United States Marines for five years during the Viet Nam conflict -- he was and had been homeless for over a year without any contact with his family due to mental incompetence, which led to him becoming violent at family gatherings. They wanted to help him, but he would not allow it.

I think about that. I think about the heart needing a second chance, and the things we say to homeless people; this was probably the beginning of my decision to try and be more compassionate -- to keep my eyes open, my heart soft for those who just don't have what society says they need to have in order to be accepted.  Thank God for places like the Jesus House in Oklahoma City, and Bethany Christian Trust in Scotland. Everyone needs to be counted and given love; everyone. No one is an island. 

Oklahoma City Fire.

It's Just a Heart Attack! I've Had Worse!

 Can you see the Black Knight from Monty Python's Holy Grail about now? After reading the title of this blog you're probably thinking..."Oh my gosh, are you serious? Did you really have a heart attack, but you say you've had worse?"  Yeah, I mean, I had a heart attack at work, but I've had worse! I had to fail a kid (student) once for plagiarism. I'm still not over that one. I mean, it's the worst thing ever; no one recovers from that. Plagiarism is the deepest, heaviest, ugliest black hole in the universe. Once you fall into that pit you're gone - - just, gone.  I sent that kid into oblivion. 

    OK, but back to the day I had the heart attack while teaching; because that was memorable to say the least.  I had just started the afternoon course of Introduction to Ethics, and it was the day of our Mid Finals; so somewhere in the beginning of November.  It wasn't cold yet, and it wasn't warm. I remember I had on a brown sweater; my favorite brown sweater, and that played a role in the whole could-have-been-an-out-of-mind-experience later in the middle of the attack.  I was standing up at the front of the class having just passed out the tests (little packets of about 8 pages each).  I had instructed the students not to turn the tests over yet, not until I put up a few tips and/or cheats on the whiteboard. I was always known for allowing the students a 10-minute cheating exercise just before a test so that they could get all their cheating out of their systems!  I wrote on the board, they took notes on their tests, they exchanged notes with anyone and everyone about anything for 10 minutes, and we ring the bell, sit down, turn the tests over and begin. Simple, right? Not this time.

    I think we were about six minutes into the ten minute cheating period when from out of no where my left hand decides to slack off and declare war on the rest of my body; it took that side of my chest with it when it made it's painful proclamation. Having already passed out the tests I could not retract them without causing the students (I keep saying kids in my mind, but these guys were over the age of 18) to have to reschedule their tests; and nullifying a test was something you only did in emergencies. I didn't think my personal health (or lack of health) condition warranted me doing that.  I decided to sacrafice one student to save the whole class.  Immediately, I made eye contact with a kid named Ian, who I absolutely loved as a student, had some real respect for, and I decided that since he had me for two separate classes he could take this Ethics test during his next Philosophy class; and BAM, all would be just fine.

        I'm over at the board winking, wiggling my nose, thumping my dead arm against the whiteboard trying to get Ian's attention; and he's sitting chill-laxed at my desk with his feet up talking to a pretty co-ed friend of his about something way other than Ethics, I can assure you!  I finally was able to get Ian's attention and he gave me the nod that basically let me know he saw me, but he was thinking I was thinking he needed to be thinking about the test  - NOPE, think again!  I made my eyes really big and sort of snorted at him for a couple of seconds and motioned for him to come to my assistance!  Ian finally caught on, and was at my side in a flash!  I sort of whispered into his ear that I may be having a heart attack and asked him to walk me slowly and without much notice, to the hall, and then I asked him to proctor the test -- assuring him that he could take the test later that week if he wanted to. He was all about that; no problem there, and he even offered to call the ambulance. NO! I told him, if there are sirens and such the test will be interrupted. I could stick it out, and if not I would just die and go see Jesus.  Ian nodded, helped me lay down on the ground in the hall, went back into the room, and promptly called the ambulance -- damn kid. (HOWEVER, he did tell the 9-1-1 dispatcher that I would prefer no sirens. They didn't care. They sent the ambo with the blaring sirens.)

        To my credit, I was willing to die for the cause!  God saw things in another light, and He decided that the school would not nullify the tests, I would not die, and all would end well that sort of started out scary as Hell.  Ian proctored perfectly, and I think he even got a pass on taking the test all together since his grades were up high enough to warrant skipping the Mid Final.  Woot!  Can I pick them or what? When the ambulance came I was laying on the floor with my arms straight up in the air. I was holding my cell phone and texting my son to let him know I may be dying. I was asking him to take care of Laura, and to be sure Brandon finished enrolling for the Spring classes at my college. I remember looking at my brown sweater and thinking how pretty it was; that this shade of mocha was just the right color for this wonderful Autumn afternoon, and that after I got home I needed to hang up my sweater since I really hadn't worn it long enough to wash it just yet. Yep, those are the things you think about when you're dying on the floor of the college you teach at and you're 100% sure that if you do go ahead and die you'll go to Heaven anyway and this is just another day - - wow, how our minds work.

        So you know, Ian went on to graduate. I think of him from time to time as I wonder what must have been going through his mind when he was proctoring the test and trying to keep a straight face about where the professor was.  This was an Ethics class after all; makes me wonder if Ian thought he needed to call the ambulance for me or obey my wishes - - I think he made the right call.  The trip to the hospital was not to be, the doctors on campus ran over to see what was going on, and decided that they could run tests on me right there.  After a few tests and questions I was released to my son, who had left work to be by my side - - and my diagnosis was simple: I needed to both lose weight and manage my stress. I had to work with these doctors and they thought I was FAT - Oh yeah, let's work on that, because that's going to happen, right?  I'm working on the weight thing now, so many years later, and yeah, I'm also working on the stress thing - - I'm giving up my life and everything I know about it. I'm moving to a foreign country where I am the one who will be speaking funny, and I'll have time to learn how to both play guitar and properly cook Haggis.  (I won't actually cook Haggis, I just said that. There will be no Haggis for me. )

Kick Him Out! He's 16 Already!

 When Baby Boy (Reuben) was just over shy of being 16.5 years old, I had the brilliant (can you see me laughing) idea to go ahead and kick him out of the house because he was (A) eating everything I bought faster than I could unload it from the car and stash into a cabinet, (B) he was beginning to show a bit too much manliness around a house full of girls, two of which were only 13 and 12 years old, and (C) he found himself being late for school and football practice when he missed the bus and I couldn't take him to school.  We had a bus driver at that time, who wasn't sure she wanted to actually drive kids to and from school; she would show up when she felt like it, sometimes on time, sometimes late, sometimes not at all. Of course, she was terminated, but that didn't help my son's football coach's opinion as to why he wasn't at early morning practice, or even 1st hour, which was required.

The easiest and probably best solution would have been to simply take Reuben to school on my way to work, but the real issue was, he needed to be at school by 7:00 a.m. for practice, and my girls were unable to be trusted to wake themselves, dress, eat, gather homework, bags, make themselves lunch, and head off down the road to school, even if the school was only three short blocks away. It would never have happened. I decided to rent an apartment for Reuben that was literally across the street from the school, maybe down a block, but just there, and he could wake up, roll out of bed, shower and run across the street (hopefully he too would dress first) and make it to school on time. I never EVER worried about whether or not Reuben would have enough to eat. That thought has never and will never enter my brain. The boy has been self-sufficient in that practice for literally his entire life. There have been times I've taken him to a pizza party of a friend and found him asking people at tables near by if they're going to eat the rest of their pizza.  He's been a food whore since Day 1, and no one was safe from his abilities to make them look off to the side long enough for him to grab whatever it was on their plate that he felt was fair game. (Of course, at his age now, I'm hoping he doesn't do that to anyone other than myself or his wife, but at 16 the world was quite literally his plate to grab from.)

The little one bedroom apartment was upstairs, about 700 square feet if I remember, it was fully furnished with appliances and had free water and cable hook up.  He would be responsible to pay his utilities, buy his own food, and get himself to and from school.  How would he do that without a job you ask? Oh, there was a pizza joint just to the other side of the school and I can honestly say with bubbling pride in my soul, that my son, my Baby Boy began working at that pizza joint the day after he turned 16 and he remained on the job until he was over 17 years old, and felt it was necessary to change jobs. Reuben claimed that moving from Little Caesar's Pizza to Hooters was strictly for the increase in money - - why shouldn't I believe him? He's my son!  I can also, honestly say with pride in my soul, that my son was never late for work when he worked at Hooters, and he was always willing to stay later than his shift. I'm just saying, what a dedicated worker, that boy! (Laughs)

I paid the rent for the apartment and he paid the bills. It was a win-win for everyone, and until the day he showed up at my door about eight months into it, claiming that he had had just about enough of his friends partying, leaving trash everywhere, and refusing to leave so he could sleep, it was going just fine until then.  Reuben was asking to come back to live with us, swore he'd buy his own food if I would just help him get a car so he could make it to school and work on time. Wait, what? He was tired of the partying? Yes, that's what I said. I knew there would be parties, but I also knew my son, and knew he wouldn't allow anything that could get him kicked off the football team or fired from his job. He's normal, average, and basic, like any other over grown teen, but he was also smart enough to draw the lines and hold himself to it. He'd ended up calling the Warr Acres police a few too many times to have them force his friends and their friends out of his apartment at 2:00 a.m. so he could at least get a few hours sleep!

Just under and to the side of his place was a real live Army soldier woman named Ashley.  She was 19, pretty, absolutely in great shape, and had a bit of authoritarian in her. Sometimes Reuben never had to call the police, he'd just go downstairs and ask Ashley to come up and kick people out! She was usually willing to do that; and he was usually willing to ask her to stay for a night cap when she did. I'm not sure if Ashley had much of an influence of the decision Reuben made to join the Army, but join he did. He and Ashley had an agreement, that if she turned 30 before she married they would marry each other. That actually nearly happened, but in the end Reuben found himself in Iraq when Ashley found her true love; they are still married, Reuben is married to Josie, and all is well on that front. 

Looking back on it, I can see the absolute folly of my ways, and I know I would never recommend kicking your boy out of the house and paying for him to have his own place at the tender and ridiculous age of just over 16 years old, but without a father in the house to help with the wrangling, having three to situate was  hard to handle in the mornings.  Kicking one out of the nest was the only real solution, and that one baby bird happened to be the bigger of the three. It wasn't the smartest, brightest, even the most common sense thing to do, but he survived, the Warr Acres police knew him by name so that years into their "relationship" they often gave him a pass for speeding through their fair city, since he was so diligent about not partying with minors at his own place. They were quite impressed, to be honest. They even let me pay the $1500 he owed them on the day he was swearing into the U.S. Army, rather than issuing a warrant for his arrest. Sweet people! (again, laughing)

One down, and two to go. I had my oldest on his own for a while. He learned so much about doing his own laundry, preparing food, cleaning dishes, making beds, throwing out trash, getting to work and school on time with time to spare to steal his breakfast from unwitting freshmen who hadn't yet realized that Reuben's smile and bright green eyes are weapons of destruction - - he's not flirting ladies, he's taking your egg sandwich; and ... he's gone!   He survived. They survived. We all survived.

Reuben Stringfellow and Ashley Delisle 2017

New Page, New Chapter, New Book, New Library.

 In time, perhaps in the next few months even, I will be going through a great deal of changes not only in my personal life, but in my spiritual life as well.  I am at a point, a dividing point, some would call it a fork in the road, but I don't see it as a place to make decisions other than to follow the direction God is leading me.  I asked Him to show me the way, and then I asked Him to open (literally) every door that positions itself in front of me.  I am openly, decidedly, voluntarily, and purposely, following God's will in my life, and in doing so, I will have the glorious benefit of reaping every blessing He decides to shower on me, which will (according to Psalms 37:4) include the desires of my heart.  EVERY LAST ONE of them.

I've written the first Jude's Almost Daily Blog Book, and it's in the print and publishing process now.  I'm writing the 2nd book, as well as rewriting 2 books I wrote in the past, so that I can submit them through the same publisher as I am with now.  Soon, perhaps in six months or so, I should have four books with this particular publisher, and I'll be writing children's books; a series really, and a sleazy greasy old-time detective novel as well. By sleazy I don't mean highly sexed, it will be lower grade writing than what I'm accustomed to writing, so that I can give my brain an exercise in stretching its own muscles. I'll intentionally misspell words, use poor grammar (God help me) and possibly even allow the character to plagiarize.  You have no idea what affect that will have on my soul -- I may not survive it. I personally will not be plagiarizing, but I will allow the character to do so, probably just before he goes to confession or dies!

There will be changes, challenges, maybe even a little mayhem with all the differences I'm about to encounter, but my God is huge. He will see me through it, and He will provide every thing and everything I need to both survive and thrive.  I haven't attended a church in years, choosing to be a part of the online services of The Superior Word in Sarasota, Florida with Pastor Charlie Garrett, and Calvary Chapel Kaneohe with J.D. Farag in Hawaii.  I will become a member of a local Baptist church probably in or near Stirling, Scotland, so that I can be an active volunteer for Bethany Christian Trust at least once a week, maybe more often. BCT requests that a person who is volunteering with them be an active member of a local church; so I guess I'll become a member of a local church so I can check off that box and be in compliance with their requirements.

I'm leaving my family here in the States. I'm leaving my friends as well, and for a while, I'll even leave my dog, but I can bring her after she's been properly vetted.  Maybe I can have my best friends vetted and bring them over as well -- it's a thought.  I don't feel badly or even apprehensive about leaving my family because I know how to reach them, we talk all the time online, and they're only a call or Facetime away -- the internet has at least done that for all of us.  It has and does allow me to change the colors of my palette. I am about to change the words, the meaning, the connotations and the very core of my existence; a new page in life, but also a new chapter. In fact, I will be rewriting the entire book and placing it in an entirely new library; a Scottish one. I'm not worried about it, or even nervous, I'm just counting the days and making the plans so that it all goes the way it should - - but then again, I'm also just watching as God opens those doors and allows me, even invites me, to walk through them.

Changes are not bad. Challenges are not dreaded. Service is everything. It didn't really take this long to figure it all out, but it did take this long for the plan to be unveiled. The pretty package is about to be unwrapped and put to good use.  Thank you, Jesus.