Eight Random Things about Me

Sandi and Elaina tagged me, so here goes:

This is actually hard to come up with, because I think I’ve weaved in random things about me in previous posts and don’t want to bore you. Let’s see:

1. I worked as a church janitor one summer. Hated the job. Vacuuming rooms in August when the AC has been turned off for the week (in Texas, no less) is no fun. And why do the men’s bathrooms always have sticky floors no matter how many times one mops?
2. I spent a summer in Czech Republic teaching at English camps for half of it and learning about different churches in Prague for the other half (and trying to encourage the missionaries while I was at it).
3. I got married in Mexico with my toes in the sand (the most important part). Everyone was barefoot except for my dad (who married us)—he wore flip-flops that left the message: Bob-Was Here. A Mexican military strolled across the beach mid-ceremony. And someone staying at the resort became a Christian after asking one of the guys at our wedding what some of the things in our ceremony meant.
4. I’m addicted to the ocean.
5. I have a deviated septum so extreme that it prevents me from scuba diving.
6. I can’t ride a bike. I did seldom when I was a kid, was forced to in college in San Francisco after giving it up for Lent 10 yrs earlier (my thighs hated me for a week after all the hills), and then again on our honeymoon (where my new husband laughed at my stress at an oncoming truck on a very narrow road. I ran into trees, and he took pictures).
7. If anyone I know goes to Philly, I force them to bring me a hoagie (I’m from Jersey across the Hudson from Philly and grew up on the yummy delicacies).
8. I happen to be married to the sexiest man in the world, so I feel sorry for all the other women who can’t be me.

Oh, and the rules, of course:
1. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
3. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
4. Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged, and to read your blog.

I'm not tagging anyone, mainly because I'm too lazy to see who's already been tagged, but I'd love to see some fun answers!

Review - The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly

I confess. I bought this book purely for its looks. Who wouldn’t love this cover? First time I’ve done that, and it paid off. I enjoyed this book. It was Narnia-esque, but darker. Much darker. John Connolly took familiar fairy tales and twisted them until they bled. Think original Grimm’s on a Brom Stoker steroid. A little boy, David, enters into a magical land when life back home with a dead mother, a stepmother who tries to be kind but can never replace the real thing, a younger half brother who claims the parental attention that should be his, and a war (WWII – set in England). Nightmares intrude in this land—the nightmares of the king, and it is ruled by a devilish figure, the Crooked Man, who makes deals with the king putting the king in power in exchange for the king’s younger sibling, whose heart the Crooked Man needs to survive. He draws David into this world in hopes of making the same deal. David fights wolves and Loups—half man, half wolf, a slimy, oversize beast, and an enchantress in his travels. The book kept my attention and kept me entertained.
So in keeping with the thought that all good stories have something in common with The Great Story, I found numerous parallels here and there. The Loups, formed by a human female and wolf, reminded me of the Nephtali in Genesis. Of course, the Crooked Man embodied the devil and his ways of controlling the world by tempting people in their own evil (yes, it seems the idea of original sin exists in the story). I’m sure there were others—in fact I know there were, but I cannot remember them now because, heck, it’s been a long week (see below for those of you just joining us).
I read this book in the hospital and it did a good job of letting me escape while my dad slept between being stuck by some needle or other (the poor guy looks like he’s been in a car accident with the bruising up and down his arms).

Dy-no-mite!

My dad comes home from the hospital today. He and my mom will stay at our house for a bit, anywhere from a few days to a week. So some semblence of normal may possibly be restored. Then again, it may not. You never know with this crew!
So I've been disinfecting the house between flute and piano lessons today - no small task for our house. Not that we have a large house, but I'm not exactly the queen of clean. And I'm maneuvering around two dogs that hate each other. Well, one dog that wants to play and the other that hates.
I don't know why I called this post dy-no-mite except that I'm at the end of all things sane.

Hospital Update

Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers. I'm at the hospital now, and the wireless comes and goes. My dad is doing much better and should be out in a day or two. He and my mom will then stay at our house for a few days before traveling 3 1/2 hrs to the middle of nowhere to go home. It looks like this crisis has passed, although the underlying Crohns issue is still, um, an issue (creativity wanes these days). My mom is now sick from nights at the hospital, so she can't be around my dad until she gets better because he has basically no immune system. Oy vey. Anyway, thanks again.

The Sound of Silence

Let me splain why I went Paul Simon on you guys this week. Tuesday night, we rushed my dad to the hospital. He's had Crohns disease for 35 years, and it's being crawling up from its underground hole the past year and a half again. Tuesday night, bacteria from his intestines (TMI, I know) leaked into his blood stream from one of his many fistulas, and he went into sceptic shock. He's been in the ICU. Today, they're moving him into a regular room. Progress! I haven't had computer access and dare not open my blog reader today before heading back to the hospital. I'm sure it's scary full at the least. I'll be back to normalcy hopefully around Tuesday.

On the Waterfront

She could've been a contenda. In fact, she was. Fellow Misfit Writer, Angie, was runner-up for the Relief Sacrament Story Contest. Normally, runner-uppers aren't published alongside the winners, but when the uppers are Angie, then who can deny? Her story, The Mating Habits of a Lizard, is incredible. I love her voice. It would behoove you to hop on over to Relief and order Issue #3 so that you can experience the greatness that is Ang.

The stork laid down his burden

He rested. And then he laughed and laughed and laughed.
A few months ago, I learned that I had four uncles I didn’t know I had. Yeah, that was an interesting conversation.
Mom calls. “I talked to your uncle today.”
“Um, mom, he’s been dead for a few years.” I google asylums. “Did you have a séance?”
“No. A new uncle.”
Of course. Silly me.
“You have four new uncles.”
Except my grandparents are dead, so I know they didn’t have some sort of second honeymoon and pull and Abraham and Sarah.
“Children of my dad and his second wife.”
So background: my mom’s dad left when she was five (I believe). The last they heard of him was a birthday card he sent for her eleventh birthday. My mom is the youngest of four. Her dad left, remarried, moved to Florida (which they new from the postmark), and apparently had four boys (which they didn’t know until a few months ago). My mom’s biological father is now dead. When he died, the oldest of the four boys, Brent, in addition to raising the youngest, decided to figure out this mysterious background that his parents refused to talk about. Were they in the witness protection plan? Was the mafia after them?
He found us. A long, complicated hide-n-seek game.
My mom and dad instantly loved the new family. Two peas in a proverbial pod. My aunt decided to fly down this past weekend to Louisiana (Brent’s house) to meet them. My mom, hubby, and I surprised her and drove down. One of the brothers, Brian, drove up from New Orleans.
And we laughed and laughed and laughed. Mostly at me, but I’m okay with that. Hey, that’s how things normally go, and being the drama queen that I am, any attention is good attention.
Brent is a bi-vocational pastor. He and his wife, Dee, own a nursery. If you need any planting advice or just want to learn, hop on over to his blog. When it’s late, he breaks out into Beaudroux and Tibidoux (nice spelling) jokes—Cajun jokes told with a Mexican accent (they lived in Mexico for a while). And his nursery is beautiful.
Brian is a driver for NAPA (not the wine country, unfortunately). My favorite thing about Brian: everything reminds him of a song. Sounds like someone we know, doesn’t it?
Bobby and Steven are the two I haven’t met, yet.
It’s fun having family closer than Virginia and New Jersey now.