Goin' Down to Mama's

Sunday Morning Serenity

Put upon—that's the best way to describe how I've felt for the past couple of weeks. And before I even begin, let me preface my whine fest by saying that, compared to what many people—including some of my own friends and family—are dealing with, my troubles are minor annoyances at best. But they are all, strangely, annoyances of the "That's Not FAIR!" ilk, the kind of insults and indignities that make you feel like you're back on the schoolyard at recess and some bully cut in front of you in the jump rope line. It reminds me of this commercial that was on a few years back. I can't remember what they were advertising, but there was a little kid who was feeling rained on, and he finally exclaimed, "What am I—Job?!!!" I've had troubles with the Story Shack, which has water damage. Troubles with Apple, who told me my computer was under warranty, then told me my particular problem wasn't (and it wasn't covered because of something they spotted that COULD have caused the problem). Troubles with the little boutique where I spent too much money on a sweater (to take my mind off the computer). I had buyer's remorse and took it back the next day, only to hear "Oooooh! Didn't they tell you when you bought it? We only do store credits." So now I have a substantial store credit . . . in a store where I almost never buy anything. What am I—Job?!! Ever feel like the universe has decided to teach you a painful lesson and take you down a notch or two? Consider me lowered by many notches. And yet . . . now that we know what's wrong with the Shack, our friend Don is fixing it. An old friend emailed out of the blue with an interesting freelance opportunity. The editor of a cookbook I'm working on sent me some of my essays to lengthen, instantly reminding me of what sheer joy it is to write stories. Dave made homemade chili and took me garden shopping. We're both healthy. We can have a perfectly good time just sitting on our deck and looking out at the strange but (to us) beautiful backyard we created together. And so I am thinking about a Lanny Wolfe song our church choir used to sing. I think the song is called "In Everything Give Him Thanks," and the line I remember most is "In the good times, praise His name, in the bad times do the same; in everything give the King of Kings all the thanks." And it's true. If you can find the patience (with which I severely struggle) to wait long enough, you will see the reason to be thankful. My friend Kim keeps a sign in her office that says, "If God leads you to it, God will lead you through it." Amen, sister:) Here's another way to say that:

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

[from "It Is Well With My Soul," lyrics by Horatio G. Spafford, 1873]

 

Mama 'N'em Go Shopping

In case you'd like to be a fly on the wall for a recent shopping day at a local outlet mall (with my mother, two aunts, and a cousin) here are some random snippets of our conversation:

What time are we meeting back at the food court?

Should we just grab a bite now so we don't get hungry on the way to Ann Taylor?

Does this make me look fat?

Has anybody seen Grace and Patsy?

If I don't leave here with a comfortable pair of Sunday shoes, this whole trip is a bust.

Reckon where Grace and Patsy got off to?

Is it just me, or is anybody else thinking "cookie"?

Let's stop at the PER-fume store. Am I more Gucci or Chanel, do you think? Have they got Jovan Musk?

Where are the clothes for women like us? That cheap stretchy mess shows every little bump and bulge.

With all the coupons in my purse, I'm pretty sure I could beat these prices at the Macy's One-Day. 

Who's ready for a cup of coffee?

Reckon they've got any fudge in the food court?

Isn't burgundy supposed to be big this fall? I heard burgundy was supposed to be big.

Any of y'all seen Grace and Patsy?

Victoria's Secret Drop-off

On a recent phone call with Mama:

Me: I'm very proud of myself. I finally got around to cleaning out that chest of drawers with all my socks and pajamas and lingerie--everything I'm getting rid of is bagged up and ready to throw away.

Mama: What do you mean throw away? Don't you throw away perfectly good clothes somebody could use!

Me: But Mama, it's lingerie. I give away sweaters and jeans and jackets and stuff, but I wouldn't want somebody else's, you know, foundation garments.

Mama: You would if you couldn't afford to buy new ones.

Me: Good point, but still--

Mama: Well, I don't mean you give away EVERYTHING, but good nightgowns and pajamas and slips and things--somebody could use that. Give those to the mission out here. They collect all kinds of stuff.

Me: I'll think about it.

Mama: You want your daddy to drop it off at the mission for you?

Me: No, ma'am. I'm pretty sure the only thing weirder than giving my unmentionables away is having my daddy deliver them.

Apple and Me: Bellying Up to the Genius Bar

If you happened to drop by Goin' Down to Mama's right after I bought my iPhone, you know that Siri and I are having communication issues. Call it cultural differences. Bless her heart, the girl doesn't have a drawl--and she struggles to interpret one accurately. Still, I respect her desire to help me text, and so we are in counseling and working through our difficulties. And now on to my laptop. I used to think it just a tad pretentious that Apple refers to its customer service desk as the "Genius Bar."  However, when your Macbook Pro--your right arm, your primary creative outlet and source of much-needed income--when this machine that has become a virtual appendage breaks down, you do not think to yourself, "I should probably get that fixed." No, what you think to yourself is more like this: "Code Mac! Code Mac! Call 911! Get a chopper in here! We've gotta airlift her to the mall!!" Clutching my ailing computer and waiting for my turn at the Genius Bar felt very much like those nervous few minutes I once spent in Admissions at St. Vincent's, waiting to set up my knee surgery. (I would not have been at all surprised if the nice young man behind the Genius Bar had asked me, "Does your Mac have any allergies that you know of? Is there any chance your Mac could be pregnant? Does it have a living will?") When they called my name, I glanced around to see if there were any loved ones in the waiting area to accompany me, but no, I had to take that long walk to the Genius Bar alone. "We're going to take just a minute here and run some diagnostics," said the young man--who did, indeed, look like a Mac genius. As he examined my Mac, other technicians kept coming up to him, asking for consults, so I suspect he was chief of surgery at the Apple store. In the end, he recommended a rather invasive procedure and admitted my laptop for treatment. "What's that gonna cost?" I asked, with a quiver in my voice. "Not a thing," he said. "You're under warranty." That's what he said. But like Siri, when I speak to her, I heard something different. What I heard was: "Don't worry, ma'am, you've got Major Medical."

Mama N'em & the SEC

Every Saturday that rolls around, we can expect a phone call from Mama: "Hey, ask Dave what channel the Auburn game is on." Both households have Direct TV, and Mama's philosophy is, why bother scrolling through that whole channel menu when you've got a football fanatic for a son-in-law? When it comes to SEC football, Dave is my mother's TV Guide. (He's a lifelong NFL fan who didn't even watch the SEC much till he moved down here, but I guess he figured if you can't beat 'em . . .) As for me, I recently realized that, while others love football, I love movies ABOUT football. Sure, I'll watch my Tigers, and I can hang in there with a few other teams. But eventually, I start looking for something to read. (I know. There's something very wrong with me.) Give me The Blind Side, Invincible, or Remember the Titans, though, and I'm right there until the end. I do love football SEASON in the South—all the excitement around The Big Game. Yesterday, I spotted this display at our neighbors' house a few blocks over. They moved here from Mississippi. And they've managed to salute Auburn, Alabama, and Ole Miss all at the same time. I'd have to call that one championship mailbox badge.

Sunday Morning Serenity

Several times this week, I've been reminded of how little we can do all alone. Even writing—which looks, on the surface, like a solitary experience—is a form of communion. You're basically trying to share something you think or feel with other people and see if it resonates with them. I'm an only child. (And you can ask my older cousins what they had to deal with when we were kids:) As we're growing up, only children spend more time alone, so we tend to need more time alone when we're older. I have some great friends who also have no brothers and sisters, and we were laughing recently about how the three of us "don't share space all that well." But people aren't meant to be islands. I'm reading my way through the Bible right now, and so much of the early Old Testament, when God was teaching and training the children of Israel, has to do with treating each other well—caring for those who have less than you, being kind, being merciful to each other. We're all on this journey together, and we all need help finding our way down the road. I think about that when our choir sings this great old quartet song:

As I travel thru this pilgrim land,

There is a Friend who walks with me,

Leads me safely thro' the sinking sand,

It is the Christ of Calvary;

This would be my pray'r, dear Lord, each day

To help me do the best I can,

For I need Thy light to guide me day and night,

Blessed Jesus, hold my hand.

[from "Jesus Hold My Hand" by Albert E. Brumley, 1944]

I Don't Feel 50—Do I Look 50?

Yesterday, I "crossed over to the other side," as my friend Annie puts it. No, I didn't cross Jordan, obviously, but I turned 50. FIFTY. EGAD! As much as I joke about aging, the truth is that it never really bothered me before. Sure, I did a little hand-wringing at 29 and 39, but every decade has made me happier than the one before, so I haven't minded getting older. Till now. Yesterday, when I told my friend Martha that I was lying low and trying to let the big bday just slide on by, she laughed and said, "Oh for heaven's sake! You're gonna get older, so you might as well dive in and celebrate!" To ease the pain of the big day, Dave took me to one of my all-time favorite stores, Levy's. It's one of those great, old-school downtown jewelers, where the staff knows the price and exact location of every bauble and bit of bling. They were busy when we got there, and one obviously wealthy customer was keeping a couple of sales people occupied: "I'll take that, and that, and oh isn't that lovely, now let's see what else . . ."  Clearly, this woman was not on a budget of any kind. (Can't imagine what that would be like, but more power to her for shopping with such enthusiasm.) Dave and I, however, WERE on a budget, and the longer we waited, the more I got the blues, wondering if Levy's might not have any time for us. I shouldn't have worried. As I said, these folks are old-school. We had been waiting about ten or fifteen minutes when an elegant woman named Rhoda walked up and asked if we had been helped. We explained our need for something truly special—and our budgetary situation. (I found out later that Rhoda is actually the daughter of Joe Denaburg, who founded the store in 1922.) She proceeded to treat me like Queen Elizabeth on the hunt for a new tiara. She took her time, leading us to vintage watches and diamond bracelets, showing us the best of the best . . . in our price range. Occasionally, she would say, "Now this is beautiful, but it'll push you a little." When, at last, Rhoda found us The Very Thing, I was so excited with my sparklage that I insisted on wearing it out of the store. As we checked out, she handed me a velvet box. "In case you want to look at it on the nightstand after you go to bed," she said, "it'll show up pretty in this." So thank you, Dave, Mama and Daddy, aunts, uncles, cousins, dear friends, and Rhoda. You got me over the hump. And I am reminded of one of Daddy's wise sayings: "People who say things won't make you happy probably aren't buyin' the right stuff." :) I think I'll be just fine here on "the other side."

Hank's Book of Cat Philosophy: #10

As one grows older, one grows wiser . . .

. . . and in my case, "one" gets even better looking.

(As for the rest of you cats? Just do your best. And try some of that Estee Lauder stuff. Maybe that would help.)

The Number 11

On November 11 each year, the British Commonwealth observes Remembrance Day, honoring members of the armed forces killed in the line of duty. And "at the 11th hour of the 11th day," they share a moment of silence—in London, where I happened to be working on Remembrance Day quite a few years ago—it lasts for two minutes. I was in a conference room with just one other person, meeting about magazine production, when something (can't remember exactly what) signaled this moment of national remembrance. Everything came to a halt. My British colleague explained what was going on and, for a moment, tried to continue with our meeting since we were the only ones in the room. But then he stopped and said, "We really should observe the silence." So there we were—a couple of strangers from different countries, sitting silently in a conference room for two minutes, honoring fallen service men and women. Britain has been doing that since the end of World War I. And I couldn't help comparing it to our own remembrances. We honor our American veterans each November 11, but how often have we stopped, as an entire country, and silently remembered together, even for two minutes?

I think it's our nature to look forward. Americans tend to believe that tomorrow can and will be better. And that's a good thing. But the downside of optimism is a short memory. We want to put bad times behind us and look to the future.

What sparked the memory of that two-minute silence in London was another 11 in our shared past—September 11, 2001. While we can't constantly dwell on that awful day, we shouldn't forget it either. We should always honor the fallen—the innocent people in the towers who thought they were just going to work that day; the firemen and other first responders who sacrificed their own lives trying to save others; the military families who continue to sacrifice for us today.They deserve to be remembered—by all of us.

[Image by Beverly Omalley @ Freerangestock.com]

Sunday Morning Serenity

Last night, between football games, Dave indulged me in a gazillionth viewing of Apollo 13, one of my all-time favorite movies. We've seen it almost as many times as My Big, Fat Greek Wedding, which we can both quote, line for line, at this point. There's a great scene in Apollo 13, when the national news, which had largely ignored the flight till disaster struck, replays an old interview with astronaut Jim Lovell, played by Tom Hanks. He's remembering an incident from his past, when he was in combat, flying over the ocean at night, and all of his instrumentation failed. He didn't know how he was going to navigate. But then yet another technical failure on his plane darkened the cabin, making it possible for him to see phosphorescence in the ocean below. It was coming from algae, churned up by an aircraft carrier. He found his way, following that natural light from the sea. And his message was that you never know what circumstances might come together to guide you back home. That's so true—but hard to remember when you're in the throes of flying blind. In moments of extreme personal turbulence, I have been known to do some "how-can-this-possibly-work-out" hand wringing and cast about for a way to bail. But then when I look backward—when I look at all the things I thought were insurmountable at the time and see how they came together in the end—it gives me a little courage to keep pushing through the clouds and to believe there's some advanced navigation going on, far beyond my limited field of vision.

When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;

What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?

For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.

Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet:

All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field;

The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.

 O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!
Psalm 8: 3-9 

[Image from Freerangestock.com]