hippos and puzzles

well, i just realized that i haven't posted a thing in a week. (that may or may not have something to do with the 24 Kbps dial-up connection out here at my parents' house. you decide.) but anyway, i am here, safe and sound, and having a lovely time, in case you were wondering. it's been very relaxing. i've done some crosswords, and some soduko (sp?), and played trivial pursuit, and worked on a nigh-impossible puzzle, and watched the cosby show. it's been wonderful to see my family, and i actually feel pretty comfortable in the new house. i'm still not sure what to expect when i open a drawer, but at least i know where all the doors lead now.
christmas was great, though we missed darren, my brother-in-law. his job required him to be away in texas over the holiday, and it just wasn't quite right without him. we did have a lovely time, as you could tell by the pictures if the dial-up would hurry up. (just in case i haven't told you, i got a digital camera for christmas, and now i can and will post pictures of my family at will. i need to go get another memory stick, and then i'll be able to post pictures of the wedding this weekend too. soon, i will be digital camera savvy. watch out.)
perhaps my favorite christmas vingette was when my sister stephanie gave my sister tracy a stuffed hippo. apparently, when the local radio station started playing christmas music back in november, tracy chose the christmas classic, "i want a hippopotamus for christmas," as her favorite song for the season. she's been singing it to her co-workers, friends, and family with such reckless abandon that stephanie decided to make tracy's christmas wish come true. the stuffed hippo came with a cd of the song that she had to put on before she unwrapped it, and as soon as she heard the first few notes, she began jumping up and down, and performed the entire song with whimsical charm and gusto that i think i shall remember it forever.
"i can see me now on christmas morning
creeping down the stairs
what joy and what suprise when i open up my eyes
and see a hippo hero standing there!
i want a hippopotamus for christmas
only a hippopotamus will do
no crocodiles or rhinoceroseses
i only like hippopotamuseses
and hippopotamuseses like me too!"
oh trixie, no.

i've also gotten to see lots-o-people that i love that i don't normally get to see. last night i hung out with the ciemini (that's plural for cieminis), who i haven't seen since the summer. and sam is here from toulouse, who i haven't seen since JANUARY! yay for long lost friends, including lots more who will continue to arrive over the next 24 hours for the lord wedding tomorrow. hooray!
(p.s. i've been trying to upload some photos with our faster-than-the-speed-of-molasess connection this entire time, to no avail. perhaps the pictures will have to wait. boo, dial-up. boo.)

i'll be home for christmas.

i'll be home for christmas
you can count on me
please have snow and mistletoe
and presents under the tree

i'm all packed and ready to go! i'm here to check-in and print my boarding pass, and then a few more errands before its off to the airport. yay! :D

ummmmm...

i want to post something great and interesting today. but, as i intend to spend the rest of my day doing laundry, finishing some christmas cards and thank you notes, and culminating the day at a middle school band concert, i find that to be unlikely.
hence, here are some pictures i like. the first one is of erin and anya and me a few weeks ago. i am looking forward to our grand reunion next week. the second one is frannie, the camel, and the third one is me and chris, a co-worker of mine who was dressed up as a wise man/astrologer/king of the orient for the outdoor nativity at eastminister. there is no rhyme or reason for the grouping of these pictures. just a filler for a substantial lack of content. enjoy.




p.s. j/the mole/windmill cookie, etc., thanks for the comments. so witty.

a lonely place

from Out of Solitude by henri nouwen:
"somewhere we know that without a lonely place our lives are in danger. somewhere we know that without silence, words lose their meaning;
that without listening, speaking no longer heals;
that without distance, closeness cannot cure.
somewhere we know that without a lonely place our actions quickly become empty gestures.
the careful balance between
silence and words,
withdrawal and involvement,
distance and closeness,
solitude and community
forms the basis of the Christian life and should therefore be the subject of our most personal attention.
when you are able to create a lonely place in the middle of your actions and concerns, your successes and your failures can lose some of their power over you. for then your love for this world can merge with a compassionate understanding of its illusions.
then your serious engagement can merge with an unmasking smile.
then your concern for others can be motivated more by their needs than your own.
in short, then you can care.
let us therefore live our lives to the fullest, but let us not forget to once in a while get up long before dawn to leave the house and go to a lonely place."

VICTORY! sort of.

fifteen minutes ago, i was in my office, working diligently on the newsletter that i promised allan i'd distribute on sunday, when i heard a little scratching behind me. for a few minutes, i had convinced myself that allan was messing around in his office, which is on the other side of my wall. finally, i began to worry that it was not allan after all. i slowly turned around in my oh-so-professional black leather swivel office chair (justin, i added all those details specifically for you), and looked to where i heard the sounds. to my chagrin, i saw a little movement under the bookcase. upon closer examination, the movement was found to be caused by... dum dum DUM: HAROLD, the church mouse*.
harold has been absent from my life for a few weeks, and no one had seen or heard anything from him. those were happy times. but today, lo and behold: harold. so, i calmly swiveled around again and dialed allan's extension. i informed him of our situation, and he promised to be there momentarily. meanwhile, harold snuck out from under the bookcase and headed for the other corner. i instinctually jumped up on my chair, as i've seen my mother do numerous times in my childhood, and watched harold try to run away. but alas! harold seems to have been injured in a fight with the sticky traps that we've set for him, and was dragging his tail, hind legs, and some debris with him, hindering his mobility! so allan came in, and was quickly able to drop a plastic bowl on top of him, quite effectively trapping him. (my favorite part of this situation was when allan shuddered and screamed like a school girl after catching him. ahh, sweet bliss!) anyhow, allan, who is a die-hard pet lover, instead of immediately "disposing" of harold, took pity on him! he spent the next fifteen minutes plotting how he might de-glue him and save his life. he has taken six or seven animals into his home, and plans to do the same with harold. i am supposed to come to his house tonight to watch his three and a half year old twins, and i have threatened to back out if harold too is under my charge. despite my protests, he is presently braving the blizzard on his way to the pet store to buy a cage and some mouse food. sick sick sick sick sick.
so, i have eventually won the war with harold the church mouse for control of my office, yet he seems determined to haunt me to the death.
we'll see, harold. we'll see.

*this is not actually harold, as you can see by the lack of tail-debris, but merely a likeness.

walt disney + c.s. lewis

hello again. i am just now remembering that i was going to tell you what i'm reading/listening to when i write these, and that for the most part, i haven't done it lately. so, today i am reading the screwtape letters by c.s. lewis and listening to sigur ros, who, consequently, will be playing at calvin in february. good job, calvin college.
(in related "good job, calvin college" news, i am sad to be missing the january series this year. i recently received the speaker schedule in the mail and was thrilled to see lauren f. winner and paul rusesabagina, among others, on it. i am less grieved to be missing these two as a will see lauren f. winner at jubilee in february, and recently saw paul rusesabagina speak at the university of pittsburgh. for those of you who are unfamiliar with these two people, do yourself a favor and get to know them. i have recently developed an author-crush on lauren winner after reading her mudhouse sabbath. she is also the author of the renowned girl meets god and real sex, which i have not yet read, but plan to in the very near future. paul rusesabagina is the man whose life is depicted in the film hotel rwanda. listening to him speak was surreal, since this man has witnessed more horror with his own eyes than i could imagine even in my wildest and most terrifying nightmare. if you have the chance to see him speak at the january series, go.)
okay then. so, the point of this post was to say that last night i saw the chronicles of narnia: the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe. it was pretty great, and i would recommend it. it made me wonder if non-christians would catch the allegory-like resemblance to the christian story. on my way home, i had the hymn "come thou fount" in my head. this has always been one of my favorite songs (until my father tried to ruin it for me over thanksgiving break... i'll never be able to sing the "here i raise my Ebenezer" part again! i specifically looked for a version without that line to post here!) but anyway, the lines i put in bold came to mind as i was thinking about what aslan did for edmund. i am curious to see how people respond to this film.

Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing
(John Wyeth)

Come, Thou fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace.
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above;
Praise the Mount, I'm fixed upon it,
Mount of God's redeeming love.

Hitherto, Thy love has blessed me,
Thou hast brought me to this place.
And I know Thy hand will lead me,
Safely home by Thy good grace.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He to rescue me from danger,
Bought me with His precious blood.

O to grace, how great a debtor,
Daily I'm constrained to be.
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here's my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

okay, enough for now. i have to go and finish my end of semester evaluation stuff for my meeting tomorrow. and also, i just really want to get out of this tundra they call my office.

kickin' it 2.0

currently reading: lauren winner's mudhouse sabbath
currently listening: feist's let it die
so, you may recall my post from a few days ago with the picture of the tiny soccer player. well, it's over now, and so i can fill you in. on thursday and friday, i went up to staff seminar, a cco training event. during our organizational life meeting, the recruiting team (of which i am a part) had to present an update about our recruitment progress for this year. enter: me.
you need a little background information before you'll fully appreciate this. a few months ago, i went on a recruiting trip back to my alma mater with one of our recruitment associates and a fellow campus minister. as people often do on road trips, we went the drive-thru at the golden arches. my co-worker kim ordered a happy meal. her toy prize was "kick-it girl," a two-and-a-half inch doll in a soccer uniform. she did not come with a soccer ball, and as toys go, she was pretty boring. so, we set her up on the dashboard of our rental car and proclaimed her to be the mascot of our trip. much kicking and joking ensued. upon our return to pennsylvania, i expected kick-it girl to go down to the depths of the garbage, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. somehow, she was resurrected. apparently, she has been residing on kim's desk in her office since october, and has inspired the recruiting team to encourage the staff to "kick it into gear" with regards to recruiting. they decided (and apparently this means that they have too much time on their hands in the office) to turn kick-it girl into a mascot for the recruiting team. she would present the appie award, a very prestigious honor, to the staff person who has been doing the best work in recruiting, at the organizational life meeting at staff seminar. but, since kick-it girl is so small in stature, she would need some help. i received an email asking another staff person and i to DRESS UP LIKE KICK-IT GIRL and prance around in front of the ENTIRE organization. so, on friday morning, morgan and i dressed up like happy meal toys and "kicked it for the kingdom." i don't know if i'll ever live it down. all weekend people were jabbing and kicking me, and i'm fairly certain andrew heffner will never let me forget it. it wasn't quite the mortifying disaster i was expecting, but hopefully, kick-it girl's job is done.
and now, here are some public service announcements:
1. in your haste to get in your cars during this icy cold season, be careful not to get the turn signal lever in your car stuck in your coat pocket. it will jam it, causing the left blinker on your car to blink incessantly for days on end, and leading other motorists to believe you have lost your mind. when you call the dealership, they won't be able to get you in for a few days, and when they do get you in, it will cost you $134.27 to replace it.
2. if you live in a city or neighborhood with sidewalks, it is your responsibility to shovel the portion of the sidewalk in front of your home. if there is a blizzard where you live, and you are unable to shovel the snow because you are gone, and even if you had been home you would not have shoveled the snow because you don't have a shovel, and your neighbors know this, they might bring a shovel to your house and prop it up against your front door. you should not assume that this gesture was either well-meaning or ill-tempered, since there is really no way to know. but you probably should shovel the snow as soon as you get home.
3. if you and some friends are playing outside in the snow, and you make a pact with one of them not to throw snow in each other's faces, you should not assume that that same friend will not conspire with another friend to tackle you and throw you flat on your back, causing your neck and back to hurt for two to three days afterwards.
4. if you have a friend who works at geneva college, and that friend has $48 tickets to go to opening night of the nutcracker in pittsburgh that are paid for by the college, you should be very nice to her for five and a half years before the show, and she will probably offer to take you with her. you should probably shower before you go, since the $48 tickets are pretty nice.
so, i have to go shovel some snow, and then get ready for the ballet. peace out.

weekend update

hello all. i suppose it's time to update again. i was waiting for these pictures from a friend of mine to post with this, but he hasn't sent them yet, and i'm getting tired of waiting. hence: i'll post picture-less, and perhaps add some later.
so, friday night i went bowling with chi alpha. i did, as i always do, quite poorly. bowling is a game of consistency, and the only thing consistent about my first game was a high gutter ball frequency. this was reminiscent of last year's chi alpha bowling event, during which i bowled so poorly that i was awarded a blue ribbon that says "great effort" and a suggestion that perhaps i should try a different sport. true to form, during this year's first game, i had ten gutter balls in as many frames. even the few times that i managed to keep the ball on the lane, i hit pitifully few pins, giving me a grand total score of 37 (which unfortunately, is not even my worst score). i began rejoicing when hitting as few as three pins per frame. instead of yelling, "i got a strike!" i yelled, "i got some!" and then quickly realized the social faux pas of yelling "i got some!" in a roomful of people, particulary of the chi alpha variety. luckily, they did laugh, and i don't think they judged me too much.
we deemed my horrid first game "warm-up," and i did suprisingly better during the next round. i still got six gutter balls, but i also managed four spares and two strikes, to achieve a score of 118, plus my pride. i did opt to sit out for the final game, in order to end on a good note.
on saturday i spent the majority of the day trying to get my newsletter out--watch your mailbox--until evening. i went into the city to attend a live nativity celebration at eastminster presbyterian church. it was way cooler than i was expecting. eastminster is in east liberty, a part of the city where i doubt there are often farm animals. there were a bunch of sheep that chased us around the yard, and a donkey, and a goat, plus two CAMELS! it was the coolest thing in the world! i got my picture taken with frannie, a three-year-old camel who was trying to eat one of the wise men's pizza. her head was taller than me, and she kept swooping in so close to me that i got scared and ran away. but khadija ran away from the sheep, so at least i was braver than her. what would you do if you turned your head and saw this?

anyhow, it was awesome. if chris ever sends me the picture, i'll post it.
sunday night i had twelve of my students from the university over for a spa party, and a good time was had by all. this is getting too long, so i'm done for now. the end.

oh eric...we're quite straight

last night after bible study (the one i just go to and don't have to lead... brilliant!) khadija wanted some dessert. so we (d, fuller, cristina-our new ecuadorian friend, and i) went to gullifty's in squirrel hill. (side note: if i lived in the city, i think i'd want to live in squirrel hill.) there weren't many people in the restaurant, as it was fairly late. our waiter eric was very attentive and maintainted eye contact for about three seconds longer than i would consider comfortable every time he stopped at our table. he did a fine job serving us, and i don't think he minded us too much. when we were finished, he brought the bill, and we asked if he could split it up for us. in order to convince me to go, as i'm currently not made of money, fuller had offered to pay for me. so, we asked him to put us both on one check. he left awkwardly, and we started to wonder if perhaps he thought he was waiting on two lesbian couples, which we (perhaps not-so-)clearly are not. our suspicions were confirmed when he brought the check back, which he had split quite effectively for me+fuller and d+cristina. his eye contact diminished significantly following this encounter, and four of us had a pretty good laugh about it. hahaha.
in other news, i was awakened by the doorbell a few days ago at 8:30 a.m. since very few people drop by without my prior knowledge, i was suprised. i went down the stairs to find two very attractive young men standing on my front porch. though i've never spoken to them, i know these men to be jehovah's witnesses, and i've seen them gallavanting about my neighborhood quite often for the past few months. to my knowledge, this was their first visit to my home. i peeked out the window, saw who it was, and immediately crouched down on the floor so they couldn't see me and waited for them to leave. is this a marketing trick? i don't care how cute they are... i'm not interested. especially not at 8:30.
well, that's it for now. adios.

dutch treat

guess what i just found in the main office at my church! a rare dutch delicacy: windmill cookies! i don't know who found them or where they found them or why they brought them to the office, but it sure feels like home! toni, one of the secretaries, tried one, and she thinks they're stale, but they're not. that's how they're supposed to taste. she's not impressed, but i'm thrilled. this is truly a tribute to my heritage.

kickin' it

oh my gosh, i've just agreed to do something inCREDibly embarrassing and unbelievably unprofessional. i can't tell you what it is yet, and most of you will never see it. but i can show you this picture. oh my gosh.
this is dedication.
this is sacrifice.
tom rapchak is lucky i love the CCO.

the giving of thanks

i'm back to work today from a lovely and relaxing weekend in grand rapids. as always, there is much to be thankful for, but this year, i was particularly grateful for my family. after being out here in pennsylvania and meeting so many people whose families are not Christians and whose lives are full of painful experiences, i am so thankful for God's grace to my family. i grew up in a Christian home, and my entire family knows the Lord. during my grandfather's prayer at our extended family thanksgiving, he thanked God for the heritage that has been passed down from generation to generation in our family, that we have been able to know His grace and love and peace. of course, things have been difficult for my family, and we have not been free from the pain of death, divorce, etc., but i am so grateful for the constant presence of God in my family. it really is such an amazing gift. how lucky am i that i enjoy being with my family? we had a great time at home, playing trivial pursuit: pop culture edition, rummikub, and euchre. i got to stay a few days longer than usual, and it was harder to leave than usual. but still, i am thankful. we got back kind of late, but early enough (kind of) to head into the city to see the girls, chris, and new friend phil. i really do it love here.
i am thankful for safe travel, big snowflakes, wedding invitations, catching up with good friends, wolfgangs reunions, free laundry, the new house, harry potter, crossword puzzles, and coming back to 62 degree weather in pittsburgh. i am thankful for the communities i have in grand rapids and in pittsburgh: on either end of that blasted ohio turnpike, i am welcomed with open arms, smiles, and laughter.
here's this poem that i like. it's by e.e. cummings.

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

please also enjoy these pictures of friends this weekend and a few weekends ago. i might be able to add pictures of my family also if a) someone would send me some, or 2) i had a digital camera. perhaps one of those will be remedied? :D

huh.

so, real quick before going home for the night, i was perusing my friends' blogs, and found this at my friend becky's blog. she wasn't thrilled with the accuracy. (bex, that's actually nearly the opposite for you, huh?) it did a little better for me (though i am aware that the system is crap), but since it gives you your results in code to post on your blog, i thought, what the heck, i might as well post it. critique at will.

Your Birthdate: July 15

You take life as it is, and you find happiness in a variety of things. You tend to be close to family and friends. But it's hard to get into your inner circle. Making the little things wonderful is important to you, and you probably have an inviting home. You seek harmony with others, but occasionally you have a very stubborn streak. Your strength: Your intense optimism Your weakness: You shy away from exploring your talents Your power color: Jade Your power symbol: Flower Your power month: June

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

happy thanksgiving from the burger king

i have nothing of value to post today. the steelers lost yesterday in overtime, promiseland was cancelled, as was pamoja (my senior high youth group), all my rmu students are gone this week, so there's no gospel choir or bible study. so, my normal schedule is off. i'm in the office working on my support-tracking system and my next newsletter. that is the relevance of the picture, by the way. it's one of my students at our halloween party. he's the king of burgers. fantastic.
i'll be in the office all afternoon. so, if you want to play email tag, today's a good day. i'm excited for a slower week... i'm leaving on wednesday morning, and will hopefully arrive in g-rap by early afternoon. don't expect much posting now until next week. the burger king will just have to tide you over.
happy thanksgiving!

to my faithful readers

greetings. i am sorry about the dry spell. today is my first day in the office this week. (my dilbert desk calendar is still on sunday.) i apologize for neglecting you, but i did not forget about you. i have been at home (where there is no internet), once again, lying on my futon and reading. as you may recall, i had walking pneumonia last month, and i never really got completely better. then last week, i started to feel terrible again, and it turns out that i have now contracted a sinus infection. but, my doctor has prescribed some new antibiotic, and some huge horse pills that taste terrible but are supposed to help. last night my ears popped and i was able to breathe through my nose for the first time in a week. hurray.

so, happy:
-ability to breathe nasal-y
-lots of naps and reading
-my sister sarah visited a few days ago. we played rummikub and had a lovely time. it was awesome.
-one of my friends from church brought me ginger ale, lots of soup, and a beautiful fall bouquet of flowers. i love roses and gerberra daisies.

crappy:
-the drugs make me sleepy, but also somehow keep me from sleeping for more than an hour without waking up. very frustrating.
-my support-raising is in a slump. i need to get working on this some more.
-it is very cold here. i heard it snowed the other day, but since i haven't left my apartment except to go to the doctor's office, i can't be sure.
-harold continues to elude me, though he did donate some of his fur on the sticky trap.

reading:
-in the past week, i read the entire chronicles of narnia series. it was incredible. i also did a lot of crossword puzzles.
-next, i plan to tackle the screwtape letters, also by my old pal clive. thanks, sarah, for bringing that.
-in my bible study (the one i'm not in charge of) we have been reading I kings. and i'm doing a lot in isaiah and james lately too. good stuff.

that's all, folks. thanks for sticking it out through the illness and the blog-silence. i'll try to do/be better from now on. peace out.

bombings in jordan

some of you know robin king, one of my best friends, is in jordan right now. a number of you have asked how he is doing, especially after the bombings in amman this week. (he's okay, by the way. thank God.) so, i thought i would link you to his site so you can see for yourself. he has written a very thoughtful and insightful response to the terrorism in jordan that i think you should read. click here.
also, my dear friend annie is working at a school in bethlehem in palestine. if you'd like to read more about her experience, click here.

midwest love

while perusing the blog world, i have noticed that some people begin each of their posts with a theme. i have chosen to follow this trend. we'll see if it lasts. every time i post, i shall give you my "happies and crappies" (phrase courtesy of one sarah e. fuller), and also (in honor of my lifelong pursuit of knowledge)what i am currently reading. so, to begin:
happy:
this morning i was talking to one of my students. her name is melissa, and she is from indiana. (the state of, not indiana, PA.) i verbally admired her scarf, and she casually mentioned that she had purchased it at meijer. MEIJER!! she knows about MEIJER! we went into a brief yet blissful midwest moment, in which we sang the praises of our beloved store, and also the wonder that is euchre. ahh, the midwest. i shall always love thee. (and p.s. daddy, when is my meijer coming?)

crappy:
harold has left me another literal piece of crap on my desk. THERE IS NOTHING HERE FOR YOU, HAROLD. GET OUT!!!
my computer is possessed. the cd burner is broken beyond repair, and there appears to be a virus of some sort that is causing the drive to open and close of its own volition. it also makes a strange whirring noise intermittently that i could do without. meanwhile, i can't burn the copies of the mixes i have made. boo.

currently reading:
the magician's nephew by c.s. lewis. it is number six in the chronicles of narnia series, but it is about how aslan created narnia. (thank you, sarah. c, not f.) i love the way my old pal clive writes. i started yesterday, and i'm half done. work keeps getting in the way of my leisure reading. i mean... uhhh... i love my job.

well, folks, that's all we have time for today. thanks for coming. hasta luego.

more than you ever wanted to know

alright, alright, time to update. (and j, i do not understand this reference to candy beans.)
okay. so anya was here last weekend, and we had a wonderful time. you might even say that it was the epitome of awesometatiousness. but then, if you were smart like me, you would remember that awesometatiousness is, in fact, NOT a word, and move on to some other word more webster-worthy.
so, the lê and i had a lovely time of watching friends with friends and cuddling together on the futon. we then went into the city to attend a fall-themed gala at the home of game and porterhouse. the party was reminiscent of the famed "happy chachmas" party that, though much hoped for, never actually materialized. (the league of extraordinary gentlemen, though fabulous in many ways, turned out to be less than extraordinary party planners.) we returned home to my apartment and stayed up until the not-so-wee hours of the morning talking and watching x-files with andrew. we arose on saturday at the crack of one in the afternoon, dawdled about the house for a bit, and headed back to the city to spend the (rest of the) day in oakland. we met up with fulltime, and the four of us went to the spice island tea house (otherwise known as the spicy isle of pleasure), and then to avalon, where (if you are my mother) you will be glad to know that i used the gift certificate to buy a new bag, a scarf, and two hats. upon leaving the store, we ran into the buccholtz-artzes walking down the sidewalk, and had a lovely calvin catch-up party. then we went over to the park by the cathedral of learning and met up with khadija, game, and porterhouse. then we went to kiva-han, one of my favorite coffee shops in the city, walked around some more, and went to see shopgirl at this little theatre in squirrel hill. then we went to bites and brews and missed the times when erin worked there. it was a really good day. i wish anya lived here. hopefully, she will send me some pictures soon, and i will share them with you.
in other news, harold (my mouse) is still at large. gross.
the end.

here she comes.... and HaPpY BiRtHdAy tRiXiE!

in just a couple of whiles now, anya will be here. may the merriment commence. update and pictures to follow!

in other news, my baby sister is turning 21 today. happy birthday, trixie. i heart you. and lay off the tequila, huh? :)

boo deskjet632C

my printer and i are in a fight. it is deranged. for ten minutes, it has been pulling the same four sheets of paper through without printing anything on any of them. shutting it off has proved ineffective. i think it hates me.
in other news, i received the job description for the ocean city beach project today. in-credible. i really couldn't be more excited.
also, i went thrift store shopping with one of my students today and bought a huge bag of brand new yarn for five dollars. there's no end to the amount of scarves i will be able to create. i heart st. vincent depaul.
i have to leave now and go home to prepare for the arrival of one anya e. lê, who will be gracing me with her presence in T minus 45 hours. the ballyhoo will commence on friday at 1:50 p.m. yay for me and shmiz!


p.s. worry not: i have conquered my printer. take that, deskjet632C. i am the winner.

that's it. i'm moving to new jersey.

newsflash: i got a summer job. i'm getting two months off from my duties at the church this summer, and so i've been looking for some other employment. and on friday, i found some: i'm going to live at the beach for the summer. that's right. me + summer + ocean city = goodness. i've always felt that i was meant to live by the ocean, and now i get to spend nine weeks living two blocks from the atlantic. oh, sweet bliss.
i'll be staffing the ocean city beach project, which is a discipleship house that the cco runs every summer. there will be about 25 students coming out to be trained in leadership, community development, bible study, relational evangelism, and social justice. we all live in one big house with a pretty porch and foos ball and it will be awesome. check it out at www.beachproject.org. yay for me!!

if you give a mouse a cookie

so. there is a mouse in my office at church. yesterday, i came in, and i had a phone call. i was leaning back in my oh-so-professional office chair, talking to someone from my congregation, when i saw a half-eaten piece of candy with the wrapper chewed open sitting next to my phone. the candy was from a bag that was sitting at least four feet away on my desk. ON MY DESK!!! there was a mouse crawling around ON MY DESK. i don't do mice. now, if they want to stay outside, or in the basements, or garages, or barns or something, that's fine. it's cold outside. i can be humane. but i won't stand for rodents on my desk. i just can't have it. we've set two traps, which have not as of yet caught any mice. therefore, i'm going to have to leave. luckily, my job is of the variety that i can do from somewhere other than my office. i'll return when we catch it. until then, i'll be working from home. gross.

i heart GetGo

i just bought gas for $1.89 a gallon. AMAZING. that hasn't happened in ages. you're probably wondering, "how is this possible?" well, i'll tell you. you're a chump. OR, maybe i've just got the hookup. around here, we have fuelperks from giant eagle, the grocery store khadija generally refers to as "the big bird." for every $50 you spend at giant eagle (including movie rentals and prescription fillings), you get $0.10 off per gallon at GetGo. i've been saving up my discounts for a while now, waiting until there was harmony of cheap gas and empty tank, and then i struck gold. $1.89. GetGo, i love you.

*note: one should not assume that just because i am appreciating the benefits offered by my local grocery store chain that i have forgotten about my first love: meijer. how could i forget you, meijer? with your million reasons, and your single store? never.

goodnight, sweet prince.

last night, i came home after a long and rainy day to find my fish friend kenny lying on the rocky bottom of his bowl. i am deeply saddened by the passing of my dear pet, and am at a loss to explain the cause of death. perhaps i should have seen it coming. you may recall his suicide attempt when i last cleaned his bowl. i suppose he just lost his will to live. rest in peace, kenny.

happy october 23, and the vertigo tour

i just remembered that it is the twenty-third of october. let us commemorate the occasion with a brief moment of silence in honor of one james robin king. (for those of you who don't know... on this fateful day in 2001, mr. king suffered a severe injury due to a tragic accident at meijer. his arm was never the same again.) here's to bobo.

in other news, last night andrew and i went to see the one and only U2 at the mellon arena in pittsburgh. it was fabulous. the opener was damian marley (a reggae band from jamaica) and they were fantastic. then the U2 set was amazing, and we were oh so close to the stage. so close, in fact that the combination of smushing, heat, dehydration, low blood sugar, and my compromised health may or may not have caused me to faint. yes, that's right, i fainted at the U2 show. oh my gosh. i suppose it's fitting: it was the vertigo tour after all. (VER-ti-go (n.): A sensation of irregular or whirling motion, either of oneself or of external objects.)
luckily, i was able to grab andrew in time, and he helped me through the crowd to safety. i remember the entire process, however vaguely, and came to within a minute or two. i'm awfully embarrassed to admit it, but i felt that i had to get the truth out there before andrew has much of a chance to circulate some rumors. i've already heard some of the blatant lies he intends to tell (most of them include a lot of beer), and so i am telling you the truth. please don't judge me.
(in his defense, however, andrew was a very good caretaker. he was very attentive, especially considering that U2 shows are arguably his favorite thing in the world.)
well, i'd love to gush about the show, but i have to get to that film discussion now. i will say this: it was a very political show, which was fabulous. they were plugging the ONE campaign (to make poverty history... go sign the petititon at www.ONE.org), among other things. if you'd like to read about it, here's a review: http://www.u2tours.com/displaymedia.src?ID=20051022&XID=8296&Return=. all right, perhaps i'll add more later. but for now, wish me luck tonight! adios!

help me

i've got a problem. this sunday night, aviance (my co-worker) and i are showing the movie crash and hosting a film discussion about racial reconciliation. i've seen the movie twice, and i think it's amazing. artistically, it's very well done. the cinematography, the writing, the acting... all great. more importantly, i think the message of the movie, that racism is still a huge problem in the united states, both individually and systemically, is very important for students to hear. i want them to think about the ways that our prejudices affect us still, even when we think we've got them under control, and to think about what our responsibility is as Christians to work for racial reconciliation and justice. we're hoping to use this film discussion as an evangelistic tool to bring a bunch of students together, and let them know that the Christians care about these things. we've advertised around campus, and we're ready to go.
what then, you may ask, is the problem? well, on wednesday night, i brought postcard invitations up to the fellowship group on campus. i passed out about a hundred invitations. the group is run by another ministry out of a local church, and i've spent the past year working with this group, building a trusting, working relationship with the leaders. it's been great. however, as i finished passing out the last few cards, the leader picked one of them up and asked me what it was. i told him about it and invited him, and he asked me if i'd read the reviews of the movie. i told him i've seen it twice, and i think it's great. he said that he's heard that it has terrible language (which it does, and some sexual content), and since he spends so much of his time trying to get the students to guard their eyes and their ears, he doesn't want to back this event. he said he wished i had asked him before i passed them out, because since the students got the invitation at his fellowship, it looks like he supports it. i hadn't even THOUGHT of that. i definitely should have asked him before i passed them out, but it didn't even occur to me, and now it's too late. i am afraid that i have compromised the relationship that i spent a year building, and i feel terrible. however, i still think that this movie is worth watching. i want to teach the students how to discern between the good and the bad, and even though this movie drops the f-bomb a whole lot of times, i still think it has a lot of great things to say. i know it's going to spark a lot of discussion, and hopefully get the students thinking about the issue of racial reconciliation. but i don't want to compromise this relationship with the other group, because i think it's really important that we learn how to work together. in john 17:20-21, jesus' last prayer for us before he was crucified, he said, "i am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. i pray that they will all be one, just as you and i are one--as you are in me, father, and i am in you. and may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me." if his last prayer was that we be unified, i think it's important that we figure out how to work together past our differences. so, what do you think? what should i do?
also, i just found this poem on my friend becky's site, and i thought it was relevant. enjoy.

There is no power greater than a community discovering what it cares about.

Ask “What’s possible?” not “What’s wrong?”
Keep asking.

Notice what you care about.

Assume that many others share your dreams.

Be brave enough to start a conversation that matters.
Talk to people you know.
Talk to people you don’t know.
Talk to people you never talk to.

Be intrigued by the differences you hear.
Expect to be surprised.

Treasure curiosity more than certainty.

Invite in everybody who cares to work on what’s possible.
Acknowledge that everyone is an expert about something.
Know that creative solutions come from new connections.
Remember, you don’t fear people whose story you know.

Real listening always brings people together.
Trust that meaningful conversations can change your world.
Rely on human goodness.
Stay together.

Taken from:
Wheatley, Margaret J. 2002. Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future. Berrett-Koehler: San Francisco. p. 145.

creepy

hey hey. i just got this email about this "ghost car ad." it's a modern-day ghost story, if you will. check it out. you gotta look really closely after the car goes behind the trees, and make sure you turn up the volume, or you can't hear the cameraman at the end.
http://duelingpianosconsulting.com/html/ghost_by_car.html

uggggh 2.0

hello again. sorry about the utter lack of posting for the past week. i've been away from the internet. this is what i've been looking at for much of the past week. this picture was taken when i was moving in to my apt. last august, but it's pretty close to the view i've been taking in lately. but, i have been out and about a little bit. i attended as much of the national youth worker's convention as i could handle here in the city, and the rest of the the time, i've been (in the words of my grandmother) making sure my couch doesn't go anywhere. the walking pneumonia is vicious. i went to bed at 8:30 on friday. in the past week, i've watched the entire lord of the rings trilogy and five discs of the second season of the o.c. i've read tons and tons, sent out a newsletter, caught up with a bunch of friends and family on the phone, and knitted half a scarf. note the common denominator of all of these activities: they can all be done from my futon. i feel like i've been quite the trooper though. i went to a lot of the conference. i only skipped the late night stuff that happened after 8, which still means i spent too much time there, according to my doctor. i'm trying to catch up, and i'm wearing myself out. i've just been instructed to take a nap on the couch in my office by my secretary. i might take her up on it. after all, fifteen middle schoolers will be here in five hours to see me. sweet dreams.

wonderful

and we have a diagnosis: i have walking pneumonia. fantastic. i'm going home.

kenny NO!

yesterday, i picked up kenny from the betta-sitter's, and, due to a miscommunication about proper care and feeding of a betta fish, his water was so cloudy that i couldn't even see him. so, i took him home, and as i was cleaning his bowl, he made an ill-advised suicide attempt. apparently he doesn't know what happens to a fish out of water, and instead thought it would be wise to flop pathetically in the bathroom sink. but, momma katherine to the rescue! i plugged the drain (without pinching his fins, i might add), filled the sink with water, and swooshed him to safety using a metal teaspoon from my kitchen. disaster averted. me + kenny forever.

at least it's yellow.

hello, hello. i'm back in the greater pittsburgh area, after a very successful recruiting trip to chalvin chollege and gvsu. unfortunately, i was mute for the entire time. i am in fact NOT feeling better, though sam, i do appreciate the link to the flu vaccines. i do not have a fever, and at least the filth coming out my lungs is yellow, not green (TMI, TMI). but, i'm still coughing as if it's my job, and i lost my voice on monday. i'm still attempting to squeak out meaningful communication, and my "voice" has been described in a number of unflattering ways, ranging from darth vader to a barking seal. (thanks a lot, danny and nate.) but, we're going to power through.
i'm back at work for today, and tomorrow is my day off. my plans include addressing envelopes for my newsletter and watching the majority of the second season of the o.c. any takers? huh? misery does love company. that's it for now. peace out.

achoo, achoo, i'm even sicker.

i suppose i should update this thing. the problem is, i've been sick for a few days, and there's not really much to say. i've been camping out at my friends' house since thursday night, making sure their futon doesn't go anywhere and trying not to get anyone else sick. i can give you an overview of what i've been doing, but it's not going to be incredibly entertaining.

• hours i've been out of this house since thursday: 3.5
• discs of arrested development watched: two. (but there's still time.)
• times i've checked my email: about 27. i admit that i have a problem.
• times i've vomited in the trash can: 1
• times i've vomited on the floor: 0. good job katherine.
• people who had the unfortunate fate of being within earshot: 3
• naps i've taken: 12 or 13.
• times we've played iron and wine's trapeze swinger: at least 5. it's very good for lulling one to sleep.
• new people i met while lying curled up on the futon with an unbelievably higher fever and cold sweats: 4

and that about covers it. thanks again to khadija, my ever-faithful nurse. and nate, aaron, dean, and anya, as always, it was lovely to talk to you yesterday. all right. perhaps it's time for one more episode of arrested development before naptime. i gotta get better before tomorrow night... gr, here i come, pulmonary infection and all. peace out.

every piece of clothes that's my FAVORITE

Last night I was talking to my Anya about what we'll be like when we're old. She thought that maybe she'd like to be very elegant one day, and she said that the next day she'll "just wear every piece of clothes that's my FAVORITE." This makes me laugh and smile, and reminds me of this poem:

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people's gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickles for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beer mats and things in boxes.
But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

--Jenny Joseph

i'm so fancy.

justin, you'll be happy to know that today i reached a new level of professionalism. i donned my black suit this morning (before sunrise, i might add) and went to a donor breakfast at the duquesne club, which is one of the fanciest buildings i've ever been in. it's one of these joints where there are actual chandeliers, thick carpets, and long hall ways with lots of pretentiously named rooms. we actually had to sign in and then call from a phone in the hallway and state our purpose before they would unlock the door to permit us entrance. it was a breakfast for potential donors to my organization, kind of a "get to know us" type of thing. the breakfast itself wasn't too fancy, but as i stood there in my suit with my dress socks and heels, talking to vice presidents and CEOs, i must say i was extremely nervous. i still feel like a kid! since when do i get invited to some event held in a building that has bathrooms with REAL EMBROIDERED HAND TOWELS instead of paper ones? i guess i've entered the adult world. how many events do you have to go to before you stop feeling like a fraud? anyhow, it was exciting. in actuality, my part is not such a big deal; it was mostly the setting that made me a bit anxious. something about wearing a suit makes you do everything slower, probably for fear of spilling or tripping or otherwise embarrassing yourself. hopefully next time i won't be so starry-eyed and nervous. i'm going to go change.

she's back.

hello. i don't have much to say today... just checkin in i guess. i've been at staff seminar out in the stix for a few days with no interweb. i'm not feeling incredibly long-winded today, so i'll do some bullet-point announcements.

• i am feeling much better. thanks to khadija for the chicken noodle soup.
  
• i bought some new books. three, to be exact. i got the drama of scripture, which i'm very excited about. (read my "ms. pac-man and a breakthrough" post for explanation.) i also bought a tiny red leather-bound bible to carry around in my bag in place of my ginormous study bible. it's TNIV. fanTAStic. and, the long awaited memoir... through painted deserts by the one and only donald miller, author of blue like jazz and searching for God knows what. i'll let you know what i think. i have high hopes.
• teaching non-midwetesterners to play euchre at two in the morning is likely to be unsuccessful.
• my betta fish kenny is alive and well. he has taken to scurrying frantically around his bowl when i come into the room. maybe he does it all the time IRregardless of my presence, but i take it as a sign of his affection. or we might be in a fight because i had to leave him alone for a day and a half to go to staff training. next time, i'll get a betta-sitter.
  
• my parents sold our house. now, mom and dad, i know you read this. i want to stress that i am not angry with you. i understand that it is the best decision for the needs of our family at this stage in our lives. i even like the new house. it is beautiful, and i am looking forward to making new memories there. that said, i am still feeling what could be accurately described as devastation. has anyone else experienced this loss of home and center that can speak comfort to me in my time of need? is it really so awful as i am imagining? anya has suggested taking pictures of the house and everything in it, to preserve the memories. there are little things i remember about the places i have lived, things that i looked at every day that made them home. often these things are imperfections, but they hold memories of family and friends. for example, before we (and by "we" i mean my parents) remodeled the house i grew up in, there was a tiny strip of wallpaper that had been torn away along the edge of the wall by the stairs. my father was furious about it, and asked my sisters and me which of us had ripped the paper from the wall. i remember that stephanie told him that our dog murray had done it. when my father told her that murray could not possibly have done it, she suggested that perhaps it was fred, her pet goldfish. she always was a liar. (jk, baby.) or in my apartment on richard terrace, affectionately known as "the man trap," there are many flaws that evoke memories, such as the hole in the wall in the hallway with the wires sticking out, or the eye-sore of a light fixture in my bedroom, or the chipped paint on the coffee table in the living room. i suppose in the long run, it's not the house that makes it home. it's not the carpet stains in my old bedroom, or the height charts we drew in the storage room downstairs, or my sisters' initials carved in the cement on the driveway. it's not the fort in the backyard, or the tree out front where we took our prom pictures. and even though i'll always love that house and the sounds and smells and sights that it holds, it's my family, the people that helped make the memories, that will always be home.

so much for the bullet points. enough for now.

achoo, achoo. i am so sick.

i think i've been working too much. my body is protesting with a splitting headache and intermittent waves of nausea. i'm going home. if you don't have anything to do tonight, come by and bring me some soup. i'll be back when the storm blows over. bye now.

check this out.

http://andy.saturn9.ws/Photo%20Albums/sidewalk/

twincredible.

ms. pac-man and a breakthrough

i have finally arrived... in 1982. this weekend, i played ms. pac-man on the ancient atari for the very first time in my life. i had forgotten about the joystick phenomenon. we didn't have video games at my house as a child, and i never really got the hang of it. i will say, however, that the technology has come a very, very long way. (nice photo gallery, btw, hibbies.) so, me + video games never really worked out. but i can play barbies like nobody's business.
in other (slightly more important) news, i think my church had a breakthrough today. i've talked to some of you about this before, and so i decided to post about it. for the past few weeks i've been pretty frustrated with some pretty important stuff at my church. there are two main things that have been weighing on my heart: a) biblical illiteracy and b) lack of Kingdom focus. first, the bible. i'm coming from the crc tradition, which is comparitively much more academic and theological than some other denominations, including (it seems) the presbyterian church. however, i'm not expecting that everyone be biblical scholars, able to expound and comment on the works of josephus or the jewish festival schedule. even so, i am very frustrated by the lack of biblical knowledge here. a lot of people, including some of the elders, don't know things that i had considered to be basics: the order of books in the bible, the general storyline, main characters, etc. most of the studies we do in sunday school, small groups, and to some extent, even the sermons, are topical in nature, rather than exegetical. i've been feeling quite convicted lately that we need to actually open the bible and read what it says, rather than pulling a few verses from here and a few from there to make a point about forgiveness or grace or whathaveyou. i think we cripple it when we fail to read it as it is written: in letters and stories. we as a church need to grow in this area.
second, i have been very frustrated with the amount of self-focus, both at the individual and church levels. we are just finishing a major building project, and because of that, the church has been turned inward for this past year. i have only been here for a year, and i can't say what it was like before the building project started. however, it is finished now, and i think we need to start looking out at the community and its needs.
on the individual level, the church is endorsing a message of personal fulfillment and prosperity. "get jesus in your life. he will bless you and make you a blessing. your life will be so much better with jesus." now, before i go off on a tangent, i believe that these statements are true. however, i do not think that they are necessarily true in the way that we would like to think they are. yes, your life will be better once you surrender it to God. BUT, there is no guarantee that "better" equals more money, a bigger house, freedom from illness or death of loved ones, or that the consequences from previous mistakes will be waived. God may or may not choose to bless us with material wealth. God may or may not choose to heal us from sickness or protect us from pain. God only promises to be with us during our times of suffering, not to excuse us from it. the bible is full of examples of people who were being faithful who were tempted and tried, who suffered and sometimes even died BECAUSE they were faithful. a life with jesus is better than a life without him because we were meant to be in a relationship with God. and God has things for us to do. God is in the process of making all things new, and we have been invited to help. but we need to stop focusing on our lives and our own problems, and instead focus on the kingdom of God and our role in it.
i decided to talk to my pastor last week about these things. i was very nervous, because i was afraid that he would think i was telling him how to do his job. however, it actually went very well. and then this morning, his sermon was on precisely these two things. throughout the entire sermon, i sat in the pew with a smile on my face. this is only the beginning, but i think we're getting somewhere, and i'm glad.

alphabets

sarah fuller just told me that my spiritual gift is spelling.

spelling.

you're a meanie, sarah fuller.

no purpling.

when i went to camp ao-wa-kia as a child (yes, i went to camp. i used to camp a lot. i am not entirely high-maintenance. or at least i didn't used to be.), the counselors told us that there were pink areas (girls only) and blue areas (boys only), and there was to be no "purpling." by this they meant that we weren't supposed to go into areas that were exclusively for the other gender, and if we did, we had to wear some sort of toilet seat around our necks. hmmm.
you may be wondering why i am bringing this up. last night, a few of the males at my fellowship group decided that they want to crash my women's bible study on monday nights. i can't really articulate what is so offensive about having boys in an intentionally all-girls small group, but i think that we can all agree that there are some times that we just don't need to have the purpling. women's bible study may (and i would argue, IS) one of those times. however, the protesting went on for so long, and i became so tired of it, that i finally conceded that IF they could round up at least 20 young men who wanted to go to a bible study AND have them all come up to bible study next monday night, THEN i would graciously allow them to stay, so long as they sat quietly and did not interrupt me. if i can get 20 guys to bible study, i guess i'll take it. however, i am afraid that it might cause an uproar. i suppose we shall see.
well, i gotta go have dinner with matt (mhmm... qdoba...) but i will be back. i have to turn in an outline to the president of my organization by tomorrow, and i have not yet finished it. i've been asked to speak at a breakfast for potential donors, and so i have to do a really good job.
"goodbye, goodbye, goodbye old friend..." i heart patty griffin.

come on get in the boat, fish. come on and get in the boat, fish fish.

a few of my students bought me a betta fish yesterday. they wanted to give me something after my grandfater died, and they said that flowers die too fast. so now, i am the proud owner and caretaker of a beautiful indigo betta. he lives in a bowl with pink rocks in my bedroom, and he thinks that the mirror behind him is an attacker. i heard that bettas are fairly short-tempered, and i was afraid he'd worry himself to death, so i moved the mirror. i was suprised to see that i talked to him a fair amount this morning as i was getting ready... perhaps it's time for a roommate again. anyhow, my new friend needs a name. so far, i have received the following submissions:
1. kenny, in honor of my grandfather (whose name was kenneth, but went by ken).
2. augustus
3. johnny c, after chalvinchollege
4. brutus

any suggestions?

what the ?!?!?

i found this picture, and i'll be honest, i don't know where it came from. however, i have a pretty good guess, and I AM APPALLED. what do you think?
(click on the picture for a larger view)

bloody murder

i am back in pittsburgh now, and i'm trying to put all the pieces back together. luckily, it does not appear that anything fell irreparably apart while i was gone. i love my staff, and they took care of everything. i'm at church at the moment, where there is a beautiful wedding going on. meanwhile, a very small little girl who i had assumed was the flower girl, is screaming bloody murder in the bathroom across from my office. the pitch is high enough to curdle milk, if a sound could possibly do that, and it's reverberating all around the bathroom, bouncing off the walls and the doors that she so artfully covered in pencil scribbles not fifteen minutes ago. i've not been able to discern what her problem is, but the wedding is going on without her.
so i'm back at it. wish me luck.

thanks y'all

i just wanted to say thank you to all of you who called, emailed, and visited me this week. i really appreciate all your concern for me and my family during this time. i feel very lucky to have friends who love and care for me, so thanks.
i'll be leaving GR tomorrow morning before the sun even thinks about coming up, and i'll be back in the pittsburgh area around 11:15. i'm looking for a volunteer to come pick me up from the aeropuerto, so if you read this tonight and you want to come get me, call me on my cell phone. i'll see (some of) you tomorrow.
heart,
kath!

fare thee well

my grandfather died around 7:30 this morning. it was about as smooth and as peaceful as anyone could have hoped. he's been very sick for quite a while, and has been miserable since my grandma passed away almost two years ago. he never really recovered from losing her. in fact, on saturday morning, he was convinced that she was in the hospital too, and even though it was he who was slowly dying, he could think of nothing else than that she needed something. my parents called me on saturday morning to tell me that they didn't think he would make it much longer, so i decided to come home immediately. i got a bereavement flight on northwest for sunday morning, and when tracy and nate picked me up we went straight to see my grandpa. it turns out that i missed the last time he was conscious and talking by about a half an hour, but i think he knew i was there. i sat with him for a few hours in the afternoon, and then i went home to be with my family for awhile. my parents and i went back last night until about 2:30 in the morning. we didn't think it would be too long anymore after that, but he was comfortable, which i guess is all we could want for him anymore. i'm really glad that i came home when i did. i'm glad i got to say goodbye, and that i can be here with my family this week. we had a really good day today, especially considering the circumstances. but i actually love this part about death: everyone takes some time to just be together, to enjoy each other's company and to celebrate the life of our loved one, even while we mourn his death. i love the storytelling and the reminiscing that come along with death, and that through this odd twist, i find that i get to know my grandfather even better today than i did yesterday. my uncles and cousins have different memories and stories, and this collective sharing is good for my soul. thank you all for your prayers this week. i'm enjoying my time with my family more than i can say. if you are in the area and free this week, we would love to see you. the visitation will be on wednesday from 2-4 and 7-9, and the funeral is on thursday morning at eleven. if you'd like to come, call me and i'll give you directions. (also, anya knows.) i'm staying at my parents' house this week, and my cell phone doesn't get great reception. you can call me here, or leave a message on my voicemail, and i'll check it when i get out of the boondocks. okay. that's enough for today.

fire in paris

sam, are you okay?!?

can i give you my card?

it's official: justin bratt was right. i AM so professional. as of yesterday, i have business cards. i feel kind of like a fraud... or some shady businessperson. but, they are awesome. i designed them myself (with some help from microsoft publisher: i heart templates). i also printed and punched them out myself. but still, i think it counts. now i can hand out my card to students and staff. i think it gives me crediblity. maybe it doesn't, but it does make me feel less like a student and more like an adult. quick poll: do you any of you have business cards? sammy, i know you had some at your internship in DC last summer. and dugan, you have some too. i did have some at my gob'ment job my senior year in college. i will say though, these are much cooler.
in other news, gas hit an all-time high today. that is, until tomorrow, when i hear it's supposed to jump again. i just saw it for $2.99/gallon near my house, and $3.15/gallon closer to church. i feel sorry for all you suckers in michigan with your higher gas taxes. but even though i live in pennsylvania, i'm really not sure i can afford to go anywhere at this rate! no more driving all over creation for me. i'm about to be broke. (but i am taking donations... as always. :D log on to the cco website!) i need to check out the bus routes around here.
okie doke. time to get back to work. peace out.

honey, i'm home, and overwhelmed.

all right, all right. i know it's been a few days, but i've been very busy. i'm actually not able to write much of anything right now either. it's the first week of school at rmu, and i've been with my students a whole bunch. also, my middle schoolers will be here within the hour for our kick-off event. my parents will be here by eight to visit (yay!), and i have to finish my ministry plan for the year and turn it in by eleven tomorrow morning. i have much to say about this past weekend in GR, and plenty has happened already since i've been back. for now, please pray for:

• my friend khadija's family, who live in new orleans and are quite sure that their home has been completely destroyed by hurricane katrina.
• my grandfather, who has been hospitalized yet again with congestive heart failure.
• shawn, one of my eighth-graders, who broke his foot.
• chris and jessika white (my cco co-workers), whose newborn baby girl, emily ruth, died 20 minutes after birth on friday.
• my friend anne who has (hopefully safely) arrived in bethlehem in palestine, where she will be working for the next year.

there are a few more things to deal with, and i'll write more about them later. okay. that's it for now.

home sweet home

i am just about to leave the office for the weekend... full-tron and i are leaving this evening, which will bring us to g-rap in the wee hours of the morning. i can't wait to see my family and all my friends. it has been quite long enough since i've been back. i'm sure i'll come back to PA exhausted and a bit unprepared to begin another year of campus ministry. i was on campus today, personing the campus ministry association table at the first-year student orientation. it reminded me of my days on orientation board ("i am calvin college"), and i very much enjoyed myself. i'm glad to have the students back on campus, and i'm getting very excited about my second year here. hopefully this fall i'll look like i know what i'm doing, and i won't be mistaken for a first-year student. i'm a college graduate! i am not seventeen years old! i will say that i wish i was taking classes. i may be a nerd, perhaps, but i do love me some school. the cooler weather and the buzzing excitement of move-in day makes me want to go buy school supplies, strap on my backpack, and skip off to class. unfortunately, this does not appear to be in the cards for me at this moment in time.
i did get to take some classes this summer, which was fantabulous. walking around campus with a bag full of books makes me quite nostalgic for the good ol' days. however, grad school does afford me the luxury of taking only classes i am quite interested in, and avoiding the killer 8:35 a.m. lecture on as*tronomy or communication theory. those always made me want to throw up in my mouth a little bit.
anyhow, enough of this for now. it is time to go get penny's oil changed so she won't growl at me all the way across ohio. oh penny, how i love thee. please be good.
adios, and see (some of) you tomorrow!

nicknames

hey hey...
i need some help. i don't know if anyone is going to read this today, but i am planning part of youth group for tonight, and i need to remember some old nicknames that people have called me in the past. if you can remember any (appropriate) nicknames you've called me, can you leave them here? NOTE: these are to share with my middle schoolers, so i don't need any of the simpsons nicknames, or any BT references, or any of the "sukky" series. thanks guys! do it right now please... i only have a few hours!

newsflash

in order to bid adieu to one james king, the full monty and i will spend this friday through sunday in grand rapids. we anticipate much merry-making and ballyhoo. plan your weekends accordingly.

numa numa

i am at jess and erin's house in shadyside right now, and i'm supposed to be hanging out with all my friends. BUT, we have just been enjoying the following website, and i wanted to share it with you: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/206373 .
go to the site, and click the "watch this movie" link. i suggest you watch it with subtitles. fanTAStic. adios.

super heroes never sleep

it has been a long night. we had the middle school lock-in at church last night, starting at nine p.m. and ending this morning at nine. the last of the students just went home, and i am exhausted. it was a super hero theme, and the kids were required to come in costume. some of the them were quite ingenious; my favorite was captain useless. she had no super powers, but she came complete with a belt full of things that no one would ever want, such as an gum wrapper, broken glasses, and an old toothbrush. i gave her a prize. at four a.m. i told them it was lights out, and they were quite quiet, suprisingly. however, a number of them never went to sleep at all. it just so happens that these ones were camped out in the center aisle of the sanctuary, two and a half feet from me. i don't know how much sleep i was planning to get stretched out in my sleeping bag on a pew, but i am not what you might call well-rested. however, i would say everything went very well. there was a lot of sardines, hide and seek tag, invisible ball, pizza, mountain dew, mafia, and the incredibles. i sometimes forget how fun those games can be. plus, no one died, or even got hurt. (after a year in youth ministry, this is how i now measure the success of an evening.) a good time was had by all. and now, to bed. i plan to sleep all day, and perhaps rise in time to go out tonight. sweet dreams.
before i go... a quick poll: what was your favorite childhood/adolescent game?

mischa barton is in beaver falls!

i've just received word that mischa barton, better known as marissa cooper on our beloved "the o.c.," is in beaver falls, a mere 40 minutes from me, and just a few blocks from one sarah e. fuller. according to our friend and co-worker marshall, who has physically seen her, she is here filming a bank robbery scene for some new movie. she is apparently quite pale and wearing a very short skirt. (suprise, suprise.) anyhow, i can't really believe they're filming anything in beaver falls, except maybe someday some michael moore film about what happens when you outsource a community's industry overseas. (beaver falls is a dilapidated old steel town, in some ways resembling the ghost towns out west left by the gold miners back in the day.) so anyway, that's the news, hot off the press from western pennsylvania.
o.c. season 3 countdown: 23 days
oh sweet bliss.

face down in the mud

oh justin, how i miss you. see you at the five year.

that's all, folks.

weekend update, or "this one goes out to the tailgaters"

and she's back! keep your pants on.... this might be a long one.
here goes the weekend recap:
on thursday night, i got to enjoy two of my favorite things: coldplay and jonathan ryskamp. coldplay was in town playing at the post-gazette pavilion. they are one of my favorite bands, and one i'd never seen before. we headed down early to stake out good seats on the lawn and had a tailgate picnic in the parking lot. we ran into some fellow calvin people who were in town for various reasons and played a bit of the dutch bingo (one of my favorite games). then we went in and spread out our blankets on the muddy lawn. not to worry... our luck improved. the concert was fantastic for a few reasons: a) though we paid for lawn seats, someone came around passing out extra tickets for under the pavilion. therefore, i enjoyed the band from my very own non-mud-puddle seat in the shade, at no extra cost. 2) as aforementioned, one jonathan ryskamp was in town for the day, picking up young heffner to go to maine. i was very excited to see him, and he is one of my favorite people to go to concerts with. d) they played all my favorites, with the exception of "trouble." it was a great show, and a very entertaining performance. 4) chris martin, lead singer, guitarist, and piano player, rocks back and forth on his stool while playing the piano. i loved it. and he dedicated "everything's not lost" to the tailgaters... and ben roethlisberger.
after the show there was an ill-advised trip to eat'n park that lasted into the not-so-wee hours of the morning. since the ryskake was leaving the next day, i had to go. it was fun, but that jerk sprayed water all over my shirt. (you're lucky i love you, jacksma.) plus we think the waiter may have been high. i crawled into my bed at 3:15, a mere three hours before i had to get up. unfortunately, due to the two cups of coffee i drank at the eat'n park, i couldn't sleep. so after tossing and turning for three hours, i got up again and went to work.
why did i get up so early, you might ask? i know, it goes against my very nature. but alas, there was work to be done. i took my middle schoolers across the bridge to sewickley on friday morning to volunteer at worldvision for the day. i can't begin to count how many t-shirts from various catholic schools i sorted, folded, and packed in boxes. at one point, i got a little jealous of the next table over, who were sorting plaid school girl uniforms, kilts, and jaunty vests, until i realized they had to figure out some special codes for packing their out-of-the-ordinary clothing. so i went back to work. it was a little difficult keeping a bunch of middle schoolers motivated to keep working after three hours of folding sweatpants from our lady of fatima, but all in all, we had a good day. i was very proud of them.
after that was over, i went home and crashed. i previewed the incredibles for our lock-in this weekend, and incredible it was. then i went to bed at 10 o'clock, which i haven't done since the seventh grade.
mary kay and pad thai:
saturday i slept in (fantastic) and then cleaned my house and went to a mary kay party. three hours later, lo and behold, my skin was soft and exfoliated. so kristi, porterhouse, full-time, megan piersma, eric and sarah plantinga, and sarah's family went out for dinner at the spice island tea house, or the spice island of pleasure café, as we sometimes like to call it. almost all of us got the pad thai and loved it. yum.
a-picnicing we go:
today we had an outdoor service at church which was lovely but hot, and a picnic afterward. i have to go shopping after i leave here to buy avocados to make guacamole for the other picnic i'm going to tonight. it's for the cco staff in pittsburgh, and i think it will be fun-filled and fraught with laughter and merry-making. and lots of guacamole.
and finally, crappy cell phone update:
I HAVE ACTIVATED MY NEW PHONE! YAY! i'm finally done with the crappy old phone. the number is the same, so call me so i have your number in the pretty new shiny one.
if you're still reading, wow. okay. time to let you get back to your regularly scheduled life.

the monkey's getting married

i've just received an email that says that thomas j. clark, my dear friend and fellow RA in schultze-eldersveld, has been betrothed! i couldn't be happier for him and his fiancee, ruth. tom has been in love with ruth since the good ol' days in SE in 02-03, and now that they are engaged, he claims to be "the happiest man on the planet for a time, times, and half a time." cheers to you, tom and ruth van essen-clark. best of luck to you.
these are the lyrics to adam sandler's "growing old with you." normally, adam sandler=poor taste, but i heard this at another wedding this summer and loved it. so, this is for the happy couple:

I wanna make you smile, whenever you're sad
carry you around when your arthritis is bad
all I want to do is grow old with you

I'll get your medicine when your tummy aches
build you a fire when the furnace breaks
oh it could be so nice growing old with you

I'll miss you, kiss you, give you my coat when you are cold
need you, feed you, even let you hold the remote control

Let me do the dishes in our kitchen sink
put you to bed when you've had to much to drink

I could be the man who grows old with you
I wanna grow old with you

when it don't come easy....

i'm in my office, killing time for a few minutes before my new senior high youth leaders get here to discuss the godbearing life, which is the book i'm making them read (a. because it's excellent, and 2. because i can make them read things if i want to. that's my job.) i'm listening to patty griffin, who i love. a few months ago, my dear friend anya sent me the lyrics to "when it don't come easy," and it will forever make me think of her. as she is leaving this week for her new job, this is for her. and also, this is a picture of anya and i driving into the city when she and oofie came out to visit in march.

Red lights are flashing on a highway
I wonder if we're gonna ever get home                                 
I wonder if we're gonna ever get home tonight
Everywhere the water's getting rough
Your best intentions may not be enough                                  
I wonder if we're gonna ever get home tonight                     
But if you break down, I'll drive out and find you
If you forget my love, I'll try to remind you
I'll stay by you when it don't come easy
When it don't come easy

I don't know nothing except change will come
Year after year what we do is undone
Time gets moving from a crawl to a run
I wonder if we're gonna ever get home

You're out there walking down a highway
And all of the signs got blown away
Sometimes you wonder if you're walking in the wrong direction

But if you break down, I'll drive out and find you
If you forget my love, I'll try to remind you
I'll stay by you when it don't come easy
When it don't come easy

So many things that I've had before
They don't matter to me now
Tonight I cry for the love that I've lost
And the love I've never found
And when the last bird falls and the last siren sounds
Someone will say what's been said before
It's only love that we're looking for

When you break down, I'll drive out and find you
If you forget my love, I'll try to remind you
And stay by you when it don't come easy
When it don't come easy

i heart you, an.  remember the children.  :)

ugggggh

wow. consistent blogging is a big responsibility. i don't have time for this right now. penny and i are going into the city. good day to you.

jail break

this isn't a real post... but i just got done with promiseland, the elementary program i run at the church, and i love these kids! this picture is from a few months ago. the lesson was about joseph in jail. so cute. okay, that's all, folks!

cellamaphonesmas

crappy cell phone update:
i am about to retire my nokia cell phone. ever since the unfortunate incident at thanksgiving ("KHADIJA!!!!") when my phone shattered into a thousand pieces on my kitchen floor, i've been looking forward to this day. (granted, some might say i have abused my phone. but there have been countless other times when my phone has leapt from my purse onto the pavement. as i've been saying for months, my phone hates me.) the screen is cracked, the antenna is broken, and the back cover has been fastened to the phone with scotch tape since november. lately, the battery has been holding its charge for approximately twelve minutes, even after a full night's charge. therefore, i've decided to get rid of it. unfortunately, my old contract is not up until the 13th. so, even though my new cell phone arrived on tuesday, it will cost me $150 in early termination fees if i activate it before next week. boo. so, my shiny new flip phone is packed neatly in its box where i can't be tempted to play with it. oh, cingular, with your rollover minutes and your pretty graphics... how i love thee.
p.s. i've selected the windmills wallpaper in tribute to the dutch. yay!

in other news, my baby sister and her best friend liz are currently making the trek through the void that is ohio, on their way to come see me! i'm very excited to play with them and show them the wonders of pittsburgh. i'm not sure exactly what we'll do... perhaps we'll go to the hookah bar on the southside. i can't get anyone to go there anymore. i think they'd both enjoy it. and there's always ikea! anyhow, here is a picture of the two of them at tracy's wedding in june. (i've decided that i need to post more pictures. it's starting to look boring.) all righty then. back to work.