When it comes to thinking about aphrodesiacs and ways to make things more interesting around the home front, Vick's Vap-O-Rub doesn't exactly make me squeal with joy. And it's properties for spicing up an evening aren't legendary in any circles. Sadly, the summer allergies turned to a cold which is now bronchitis and a nasty sore throat requiring the addition of the balm as a remedy not a relationship spark.
I could cheerfully sing the low bass parts to all of the Tabernacle Choir catalog of music. That is, I could sing it... when I have a voice. Most of the time, I'm mute. Which is probably a great relief to everyone who knows me. I tend to be a chatterbox most of the time and I am quite sure their ears are receiving a well deserved break.
But it does tend to interfere with some aspects of daily living. Like when the phone rings and neither Jared or Gypsy can be pressed into service to answer its dulcet tones. Rotten teenager and rotten dog!
Which compels me to answer the phone with my sub-basement voice. My friend called to ask a couple of questions and thought I was my husband. Funny. In that way that it really isn't. I didn't think we sounded that much alike when we talk in any pitch. I could be wrong.
Then there are the delightful telephone surveyers who call to speak to 'the lady of the house' and get a rich baritone for their trouble. Funny thing is, they don't want to talk about feminine products with someone who sounds like they could play power forward for the Lakers. Perhaps it has it's advantages...
But it also has its drawbacks. Prequel to losing my voice entirely is this low register. Now, we are on the downhill slide where I can eek out a word from time to time but the sound can be heard only when you are within a three foot circle of my mouth. Further away and mosquitos laugh at the contrast between their 'booming' noise and my pitiful squeaks and moans.
Added emphasis to my whispering and croaking only makes the scratchiness of my throat worse and infinitely more painful upon swallowing.
So I am reduced to writing notes in large, bold print as if darker letters express urgency to other people, namely my husband, who would much rather enjoy his quiet and play with the new tablet PC that his company provided for him in replacement for the old one. Sure, abandon me for technology!
If dear hubby had learned sign language when the opportunity was offered a few years ago, we could have this thriving and exciting conversation in ASL. But as it is, I am left to scream my hands off to a man who has no clue what I am spelling...which is probably for the best when I start to spell some of the swear words that creep into the vernacular from time to time.
When Rick goes to work, I am left to hope that the people on the phone will not take advantage of the infirmity currently thrust upon me. I can't help how I sound when I have some sound at all.
Their laughter lets me feel the love...
Although I realize that this is a temporary, if painful, time that will move on in a few days, I also realize just how dependent I am on verbal communication. I can email and chat and text till I'm blue in the fingers (nice pun!) but it doesn't replace speech.
Now, it's time to go to bed. I can feel the mentholatum working and I can also feel the cold medicine taking effect on my tired eyes.
I hope tomorrow I can quit applying the Vap-O-Rub like a fragrance from the perfume counter. Somehow, I can't bring myself to believe any major manufacturer would make a lot of money with this as the 'everlasting fragrance to drive Him wild'. And frankly, I don't think I WANT to know a man who is driven to distraction by the smell of ointment.
Enjoy it while you can. I have high hopes that my voice will return some day in the not too distant future. In the meantime, the silence is a gift to you. One less voice in the cacaphony.
June 18, 2009
June 15, 2009
Up On Blocks
It's summertime and that only means one thing - life is up on blocks.
Yes, happy campers, the van is in for repairs.
Just like clockwork, our lives are circumscribed by the faithful eruptions of van troubles and needed repairs just as surely as Old Faithful shoots forth with precision. No more than a couple of weeks after school gets out every year, we go through this charade of hopeful hoopla.
This time, the object of our agony is the long diseased carpeting, which is redolent with the unpleasant aroma of mold, mildew and grime. It will be ripped out and the van will be cleaned, re-carpeted and the sagging sideliners and headliner will be repaired.
That all sounds delightful, doesn't it.
But unless you have been party to the hotbox of mildew on a hot day following a rainstorm, you can't imagine the smell nor appreciate our hopeful anticipation of something remarkably better. Truthfully, just about anything would smell better.
The scent is hard to describe. It's a cross between compost, mildewed leaves and rain forest in a scent Glade could never even market or sell to the animals of the jungle.
Apparently, denizens of the tropics have their standards.
Somehow over the years, the frequent rains seep into not quite closed side windows, windows that have seals that have given up the ghost, or the rains simply pour through completely open passenger and driver door windows that allow for full saturation of the carpeting while the sandman hovers overhead dumping truckloads of magic dust on us at night keeping us from hearing the raging thunderstorm that aims its fury directly into the windows of the van.
The result is that the next day, the carpeting is soaked and smells worse than anything Hollywood prop masters could invent should "Smell-O-Vision" become popular for moviegoers.
Then, just as you think you are safe from the tragedy, the temperature heats up and the thermometer rises and we are left with a hot day in a rolling, air-conditionless oven and a smell worse than death.
Since the van has no air conditioning, breathing will require all of the windows to be open all the way, the vent blowing directly into your face to give fresh air and an extremely strong constitution to endure it all.
But the good news is the van is paid for. Yes. I'm sure that IS the good news.
Yippee.
That's a lot like being announced the grand prize winner of an all-expenses paid trip to the water reclamation facility nearest you. (for those of you not in the know - that's the "poop factory" where they clean your flushed toilet water today so you can use it to brush your teeth tomorrow.)
While it may be some kind of honor, it's hard to smile through the smell.
I won't miss the old carpeting. Nope. Not one bit. Neither will anyone who has ever been forced to ride in my van. And I'm sorry you've had to ride with me. Really I am.
I most certainly won't miss the smell. Who could? Even those long dead would have at least roused enough to plug their noses.
I don't even miss the irony of this circumstance because we've spent enough on this vehicle to have put a sizable down payment on something else over the years. Sad, but true.
The only thing I am missing is my winning prize from Publisher's Clearinghouse that will make this annual summer pilgrimage to the auto shop unnecessary from henceforth and forever.
What line do it get in to sign up for that?
Yes, happy campers, the van is in for repairs.
Just like clockwork, our lives are circumscribed by the faithful eruptions of van troubles and needed repairs just as surely as Old Faithful shoots forth with precision. No more than a couple of weeks after school gets out every year, we go through this charade of hopeful hoopla.
This time, the object of our agony is the long diseased carpeting, which is redolent with the unpleasant aroma of mold, mildew and grime. It will be ripped out and the van will be cleaned, re-carpeted and the sagging sideliners and headliner will be repaired.
That all sounds delightful, doesn't it.
But unless you have been party to the hotbox of mildew on a hot day following a rainstorm, you can't imagine the smell nor appreciate our hopeful anticipation of something remarkably better. Truthfully, just about anything would smell better.
The scent is hard to describe. It's a cross between compost, mildewed leaves and rain forest in a scent Glade could never even market or sell to the animals of the jungle.
Apparently, denizens of the tropics have their standards.
Somehow over the years, the frequent rains seep into not quite closed side windows, windows that have seals that have given up the ghost, or the rains simply pour through completely open passenger and driver door windows that allow for full saturation of the carpeting while the sandman hovers overhead dumping truckloads of magic dust on us at night keeping us from hearing the raging thunderstorm that aims its fury directly into the windows of the van.
The result is that the next day, the carpeting is soaked and smells worse than anything Hollywood prop masters could invent should "Smell-O-Vision" become popular for moviegoers.
Then, just as you think you are safe from the tragedy, the temperature heats up and the thermometer rises and we are left with a hot day in a rolling, air-conditionless oven and a smell worse than death.
Since the van has no air conditioning, breathing will require all of the windows to be open all the way, the vent blowing directly into your face to give fresh air and an extremely strong constitution to endure it all.
But the good news is the van is paid for. Yes. I'm sure that IS the good news.
Yippee.
That's a lot like being announced the grand prize winner of an all-expenses paid trip to the water reclamation facility nearest you. (for those of you not in the know - that's the "poop factory" where they clean your flushed toilet water today so you can use it to brush your teeth tomorrow.)
While it may be some kind of honor, it's hard to smile through the smell.
I won't miss the old carpeting. Nope. Not one bit. Neither will anyone who has ever been forced to ride in my van. And I'm sorry you've had to ride with me. Really I am.
I most certainly won't miss the smell. Who could? Even those long dead would have at least roused enough to plug their noses.
I don't even miss the irony of this circumstance because we've spent enough on this vehicle to have put a sizable down payment on something else over the years. Sad, but true.
The only thing I am missing is my winning prize from Publisher's Clearinghouse that will make this annual summer pilgrimage to the auto shop unnecessary from henceforth and forever.
What line do it get in to sign up for that?
June 9, 2009
Watching life pass by
While reading an online article about handicap accessible cruise ships that aren't truly handicap accessible, it set my mind wandering about the very nature of our lives.
The ability to do for one's self and to be self-determinant in activity is a privilege and blessing that we totally take for granted. Even a cane added to the life of an otherwise normal person means 'slow down' in unmistakable language.
Sometimes it isn't handicaps of a physical nature that limit our scope. There are times the circumstances of the ebb and flow of our lives takes care of our accessibility to life fairly well.
It's hard to see the movement of everyone and everything around you and know that for whatever reason, that flow doesn't apply to you.
Frustration is a permanent issue then.
I remember when Jared was just a little shaver and we would devote hours of time to going to baseball practices, baseball games and baseball tournaments that Thomas was participating in while we sat elsewhere. At first, Jared enjoyed being out and about but then the sense of deep and painful frustration set in.
He wanted to play, too.
That wasn't possible then and, even with the Challenger league, it truly isn't possible now. He can't do for himself what he sees other players doing. Jared can't grip the bat by himself or take a couple of whacks at his cleats with the fat end of the bat. Jared can't take a well seasoned glove onto his hand and know that satisfying smack of catching a ball that could have gotten away - but it didn't.
There is no running of the bases and hugging up close to the bag as the defensive player sweeps you with his glove long after you have been called safe before the dust could completely settle.
Sometimes, there just isn't a substitute for living life as a 'normal person'. And that just sucks.
In those times where I am personally overcome by my own shallow and petty concerns of what I might be missing, I try to diligently remember that someone much more pure, worthy and most certainly more humble and gentle than I suffers under a much greater burden than I carry or ever will.
Not only does Jared see most of life from the sidelines and just watch the parade as it passes by him, he does so cheerfully.
I don't think I can honestly say that about myself in anything. I am a whiner by nature. I want things my way and I want them now, if not sooner. It is something that sickens me in my character and which I am trying to correct.
But Jared doesn't spend hours agonizing over things he can't control. He doesn't try to analyze all of the ramifications of why something didn't go his way. He accepts. And, when things become too stressful for him to absorb and deal with, he just takes a nap until the bedlam in his mind is quiet once again.
By contrast, I stew, fret, worry and generally make everyone around me miserable because I am miserable. Satan couldn't do a much better (or is that worse?) job of making everyone "feel my pain", real or imagined.
The sad reality of it all is that Jared's only need for patience is in putting up with the rest of us who are so filled with our own sense of what is important that we forget WHO is important.
I just hope that someday, when the situation is reversed, as I am all too afraid that it will be, that Jared is kinder than I have been.
He deserves so much more than I have given him. And he most certainly deserves to be called up from the bench to join the game of life while I sit and take a few of the splinters he has endured for so very long.
Just a few thoughts as I try to sort things out tonight.
The ability to do for one's self and to be self-determinant in activity is a privilege and blessing that we totally take for granted. Even a cane added to the life of an otherwise normal person means 'slow down' in unmistakable language.
Sometimes it isn't handicaps of a physical nature that limit our scope. There are times the circumstances of the ebb and flow of our lives takes care of our accessibility to life fairly well.
It's hard to see the movement of everyone and everything around you and know that for whatever reason, that flow doesn't apply to you.
Frustration is a permanent issue then.
I remember when Jared was just a little shaver and we would devote hours of time to going to baseball practices, baseball games and baseball tournaments that Thomas was participating in while we sat elsewhere. At first, Jared enjoyed being out and about but then the sense of deep and painful frustration set in.
He wanted to play, too.
That wasn't possible then and, even with the Challenger league, it truly isn't possible now. He can't do for himself what he sees other players doing. Jared can't grip the bat by himself or take a couple of whacks at his cleats with the fat end of the bat. Jared can't take a well seasoned glove onto his hand and know that satisfying smack of catching a ball that could have gotten away - but it didn't.
There is no running of the bases and hugging up close to the bag as the defensive player sweeps you with his glove long after you have been called safe before the dust could completely settle.
Sometimes, there just isn't a substitute for living life as a 'normal person'. And that just sucks.
In those times where I am personally overcome by my own shallow and petty concerns of what I might be missing, I try to diligently remember that someone much more pure, worthy and most certainly more humble and gentle than I suffers under a much greater burden than I carry or ever will.
Not only does Jared see most of life from the sidelines and just watch the parade as it passes by him, he does so cheerfully.
I don't think I can honestly say that about myself in anything. I am a whiner by nature. I want things my way and I want them now, if not sooner. It is something that sickens me in my character and which I am trying to correct.
But Jared doesn't spend hours agonizing over things he can't control. He doesn't try to analyze all of the ramifications of why something didn't go his way. He accepts. And, when things become too stressful for him to absorb and deal with, he just takes a nap until the bedlam in his mind is quiet once again.
By contrast, I stew, fret, worry and generally make everyone around me miserable because I am miserable. Satan couldn't do a much better (or is that worse?) job of making everyone "feel my pain", real or imagined.
The sad reality of it all is that Jared's only need for patience is in putting up with the rest of us who are so filled with our own sense of what is important that we forget WHO is important.
I just hope that someday, when the situation is reversed, as I am all too afraid that it will be, that Jared is kinder than I have been.
He deserves so much more than I have given him. And he most certainly deserves to be called up from the bench to join the game of life while I sit and take a few of the splinters he has endured for so very long.
Just a few thoughts as I try to sort things out tonight.
June 8, 2009
Religious Bribery
I came across an ad in the newspaper the other day that gave me cause to pause and reflect.
The boxed advertisement indicated that a church function was being held and that everyone was invited to register to attend and also to register for fabulous prizes to be given away for those who attended.
Hmmm.
Not to put to fine a point on it, but I was a bit disturbed. The ad indicated that a wide variety of electronic "me time" devices were to be awarded and that the requisite for participation in the drawing was to sign up and attend whatever religious services or classes were being held.
Isn't that a lot like bait and switch? I sign up for loot and instead get a sermon from a long-winded but sincere teacher?
By default, not everyone will win one of the prizes and won't that sort of sour them on the whole idea of a religious experience when they see their friend shrieking in what could be misconstrued as speaking in tongues when they discover that they are the winner of a brand new iPod?
I don't think that is the medium of communication for our Father in Heaven.
I have no right to judge, I'm not trying to, I'm making an observation here. When we mix the sacred with the profane, we run the risk of making that which is sacred commonplace and therefore useless to us as individual children of God.
And if we have made something holy useless, we have profaned the purpose for that which is sacred in our lives.
There was a comment recently about NOT texting our friends during Church and instead actually listening to the speakers. No problem there for me. I can't spell worth a darn any time I have tried to do so on those miniscule cell phone keys that have multiple letters and numbers on them. And I don't want a phone that is also a computer. I already have a computer on my desk, thank you very much.
So I have to ask, is the promotional agenda a way to, as Whoopie Goldberg's character in "Sister Act" so profanely suggests "get some butts in the seats"? And if the sensational is the medium in which we try to get people into church at all, it begs the question - what happens when gifts and premiums are no longer being offered?
Is an iPod equated to conversion? Can you truly be dedicated to the Lord if you are simply there for the snack tray?
I know there are times we offer 'encentives' or BRIBES to help children in particular to become accustomed to the routine of attending church. We bring toys and coloring books in an attempt to have them be semi-quiet in the chapel. We offer fruit, Cheerios and sippy cups so they will at least be quiet during the sacrament.
But eventually, we hope they will graduate from this infantile expectance of temporal and temporary reward to a personal seeking of something everlasting and eternal.
And frankly, I don't think you can get there from here with an iPod, cell phone, GameCube or other worldly prize. Those items have their place in life, but I don't believe that they can offer conversion to anything holy or eternal.
I'm sure there will be people who disagree with me. And that's just fine. The road is broad enough for all interpretations to weather the storms of life and see who is right in the final judgement.
I'm just real grateful that I'm not the judge...I fear my own shallowness and imperfections might have me blind to what might be a good idea. Or that my self-interest might blind me to what should be avoided because I fear man more than God.
In any event, it's something to think upon today while I get up and about my chores.
The boxed advertisement indicated that a church function was being held and that everyone was invited to register to attend and also to register for fabulous prizes to be given away for those who attended.
Hmmm.
Not to put to fine a point on it, but I was a bit disturbed. The ad indicated that a wide variety of electronic "me time" devices were to be awarded and that the requisite for participation in the drawing was to sign up and attend whatever religious services or classes were being held.
Isn't that a lot like bait and switch? I sign up for loot and instead get a sermon from a long-winded but sincere teacher?
By default, not everyone will win one of the prizes and won't that sort of sour them on the whole idea of a religious experience when they see their friend shrieking in what could be misconstrued as speaking in tongues when they discover that they are the winner of a brand new iPod?
I don't think that is the medium of communication for our Father in Heaven.
I have no right to judge, I'm not trying to, I'm making an observation here. When we mix the sacred with the profane, we run the risk of making that which is sacred commonplace and therefore useless to us as individual children of God.
And if we have made something holy useless, we have profaned the purpose for that which is sacred in our lives.
There was a comment recently about NOT texting our friends during Church and instead actually listening to the speakers. No problem there for me. I can't spell worth a darn any time I have tried to do so on those miniscule cell phone keys that have multiple letters and numbers on them. And I don't want a phone that is also a computer. I already have a computer on my desk, thank you very much.
So I have to ask, is the promotional agenda a way to, as Whoopie Goldberg's character in "Sister Act" so profanely suggests "get some butts in the seats"? And if the sensational is the medium in which we try to get people into church at all, it begs the question - what happens when gifts and premiums are no longer being offered?
Is an iPod equated to conversion? Can you truly be dedicated to the Lord if you are simply there for the snack tray?
I know there are times we offer 'encentives' or BRIBES to help children in particular to become accustomed to the routine of attending church. We bring toys and coloring books in an attempt to have them be semi-quiet in the chapel. We offer fruit, Cheerios and sippy cups so they will at least be quiet during the sacrament.
But eventually, we hope they will graduate from this infantile expectance of temporal and temporary reward to a personal seeking of something everlasting and eternal.
And frankly, I don't think you can get there from here with an iPod, cell phone, GameCube or other worldly prize. Those items have their place in life, but I don't believe that they can offer conversion to anything holy or eternal.
I'm sure there will be people who disagree with me. And that's just fine. The road is broad enough for all interpretations to weather the storms of life and see who is right in the final judgement.
I'm just real grateful that I'm not the judge...I fear my own shallowness and imperfections might have me blind to what might be a good idea. Or that my self-interest might blind me to what should be avoided because I fear man more than God.
In any event, it's something to think upon today while I get up and about my chores.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)