Come Monday, It'll Be Alright

I love Mondays. I especially love Mondays when

Jimmy Buffett tickets go on sale. The ice and snow are layered upon the pavement. The cool winter thermometer dips below 20 degrees and Ticketmaster.com and Ebay.com (unfortunately...) provide a light of hope at the end of the dark winter tunnel. Buffett? Jimmy Buffett?! As in, Margaritaville, paradise, pirates and parrots?! Could it be?! Yet another coming of the great Margarita god? Yes, my children, it's true. The savior of summer is on his way. The earth will breathe again. The sun will shine again. And I'll be right there watching it happen...on 3 different occasions. God is indeed good.

A Bit of An Update

It's been so long since I've consistently shared my daily musings...

Here's just a few of the random thoughts clogging my brain:

- Record snowfall. Here in Jerusalem, we've had over 70" of snow this winter. We've proudly beat the record set in 1978. Hint: if you want to hear about the winter of 78 (or 82 or 26 or 39...), just ask any local. They'll be glad to give you a play-by-play of each snowflake, abandoned car on County roads, and not-so-daring stories of how they survived.

- Minky. Minky is studying dental health in school. He's actually considered the idea of brushing his teeth without being reminded.

- Minkyism. The other day, my mom told Mink that she was hoping to come visit for my birthday this Spring. She apologized for not being able to make it for his birthday, to which he replied flatly, "It's ok, Gramma. I'm used to you never being here for my birthday."

- Rab. Rab, in his ongoing soft-pedalling midlife crisis, continues to ponder what occupation is calling to him. In the meantime, he's continuing to be a stay at home dad. The role shift is a little weird, but overall it's really a great thing. And it definitely gives the locals something to be fully and deeply confused about. Rab's arranged an after-school routine and homework regime, and he's redone Minky's bedroom (bright, licorice red, pictures forthcoming). Rab's still in midstream with redoing the dining room. Please don't ask how long I've been living with a multi-colored (all bad), patched up dining room. The topic only makes me cranky.

- Sony. Sony is doing really great (big surprise, I know). He's thoroughly enjoying middle school and voluntarily comes to Confirmation each week with great fervor. He's actually not supposed to start confirmation until 7th grade, but heck, if the kid wants to be at church I'm certainly not going to stop him. Maybe his enthusiam about confirmaiton can help asuage my guilt over all the times I left the kids at home on Sunday with Rab so that I could worship peacefully.

- Spiritual Direction training. I continue to love SDDP (the acronym for my spiritual direction training program). I met my supervisor a few weeks ago and she rocks. Well...as much as a peaceful, calm nun can rock anyway. I'm loving the reading. I'm grudgingly getting through the required verbatims (argh...memories of CPE!).

- Estate of My Greatest Fan. I'm still serving as personal representative for my Dad's estate. For awhile there, my sister was calling every day with her anxiety and panic about the business buyout. She has some reason to be frustrated but it really began to wear on me personally. We ended up serving a notice to creditors to a nearby business that may (but really shouldn't) have interest in my dad's dough due to contamination of the land we own now. For the meantime, we're waiting out the 30 day notice period and the break in daily decisions and news is a welcome one. The entire estate stuff, overall, has been a real source of disappointment and energy drain. It's a long story I'm fairly sure I shouldn't share here (and you, dear reader, probably really don't want to hear it anyway). I talked to one of our lawyers yesterday and in order to transfer one of Dad's investments, I have to get a "Medallion Signature Guarantee" on a bunch of papers. Well, as one might imagine, Jerusalem has no bank that offers such a service. As soon as the paperwork arrives, I'll be heading about 35 miles North to get to a bank that can provide the service. Just where the hell am I living?!!?!?!?

- Therapy. Ever since Dad died, I've been sustained and strengthened by therapy. I'm so thankful for it. Just wanted to share.

- More Minky news. We've started with a new psychologist/psychiatrist team. They're solid, reputable, good guys with a no prisoners attitute. Last night, Rab and I introduced THE NEW PLAN, which includes black and white rules, clear cut boundaries, an all-or-nothing points system and other counter-intuitive (to me) stuff. As we were stating that part of the plan includes the expectation that there will no longer be discussion or negotiation on Minky's part, he interupted with, "Well, what if I really have something I need to say?"

If you've made it this far, I'm impressed. Hope to hear from you and to find out if anyone is even still checking the blog.

I Really Should Be Writing My Sermon

Instead, I'm finding out what I'd look like as a Simpson's character.

Facebook is dangerous, addicting and wonderful

In the past week, I think I've spent over 6 hours on Facebook. This doesn't include time spent on the myfamily.com site for my graduating class, time spent on MySpace, and time spent with Cafe Mom (yeah...thanks for that, Bluejeangirl!).

In my well spent hours, I have sent and received flowers and other items for my garden, found old friends from The Other Seminary, found out that John and I are wayyyyyy too similar, and learned that there are far too many fun timewasters on Facebook.

I need a life....or at least some friends in the same town.

Why I Love Buffett Concerts

1. Nobody thinks twice of offering an upset woman a ride when her husband is flipping out.
2. Neighbors in the jammed post-concert parking lot are more than happy to pull up an extra chair, grab an extra dessert, pour you a cup of coffee, and invite you to sit down and chat as if you're an old friend while you all wait for the traffic to clear.
   
3. If you find a dropped cell phone on the stairs, the person who dropped it is fairly sure that when they call, you'll be willing to find them in the overly-crowded mass of people and return it.
   
4. A guy you meet in the will call line is more than willing to give you his extra backstage passes when you tell him the story about how your connection didn't come through.
   
5. Sitting in the lawn is a positive, fun, joyful experience full of people who want to set the rest of life aside for awhile and enjoy the experience.
   
6. Being a parrothead means using your husband's backstage pass to take the nice lady next to you to the backstage bathroom so neither of you have to wait in line.

Come Monday, It'll Be All Right?

24 hours ago: Waiting for Jimmy Buffett to come on stage
23 hours ago: Soaking in every moment of a great concert

12 hours ago: People watching with Rab on the Magnificent Mile and watching the sleepy city begin to stir
10 hours ago: Having a great breakfast with friends

4 hours ago: Looking at and attemping to avoid the stack of bills on the dining room table
3 hours ago: Sitting in the ER with Minky who had ripped his toe apart with a stick (all will be ok)

I want to go back to Margaritaville!

Buffett Bound Baby! The Sequel.

Woo hoo! Tickets are in my email for July 21 and July 28, and a supply pastor is in place. Buffett is coming to town, and I'm heading for the lawn! We had to change our vacation plans due to the concert schedule - not the first time we've scheduled vacation around Jimmy's appearances... All is well with my soul.

What a show!

I've got a post on my laptop that's all ready to go...but I'm on another computer right now. That post will have to wait.

Just got back from the concert. What an amazing show! David Crosby showed up and played some tunes (including Southern Cross) and local musician Jack Johnson (a la Curious George soundtrack) sounded great and chimed in on Pirate Looks at 40 and other favorites. Robert Greenidge and Peter Mayer both had amazing solos (steel drums and guitar respectively) to bring the band into Desperation Samba, one of the classics. My only disappointment was that Amy Lee wasn't there - she's my hero because she's a woman who plays the saxophone. I played the saxophone in 6th grade...but I never sounded as great as Amy Lee. Guess that's where my rock star career came to an end.

Great venue! It only holds about 4800 people so there are no bad seats. Really loved the SB Bowl - great sound, great food, great size. West Coast crowds are kind of a trip though - they all tend to sit down too much and seem to have an "entertain me" mindset. I'll take a Midwest crowd any day.

It was an amazing day: about 79, sunny and clear. I walked along the beach, up to the harbor and then along State Street (SB's main drag). Spent the afternoon asleep in a hammock on the lower terrace (more about terraces in the post from my laptop later) - yeah, life is rough here in Santa Barbara.

More internet fun

You Are Impressionism

You think the world is quite beautiful, especially if you look at it in new and interesting ways. You tend to focus on color and movement in art. For you, seeing the big picture is much more important than recording every little detail. You can find inspiration anywhere... especially from nature.

What Art Movement Are You?

Check out my sidebar...on one "Yeah, I know you can tell I need a life" afternoon, I did a bunch of these. They are addicting! Even C got hooked when I showed him.

Buffett Bound Baby!

My great faraway friend, Journey Girl, forwarded an email to me from the amphitheatre near her house the other day. She (jokingly I found out later...) put a comment to the effect of, "so, want to come to Santa Barbara in October?????" at the top of an announcement about a Jimmy Buffett concert.


Journey Girl knows me very, very well and I'm surprized she thought that Buffett was something to joke about. As soon as I got her email, I logged on to NWA.com and booked a flight to Santa Barbara using my airmiles. I really did. Then I emailed her with the flight plans. On my way up to campus, I called her and she was so surprized I was coming! (Good thing I called...)

Anyway, if the phone doesn't ring from October 18-22, it's me (That's a play on a Buffett song for those of you non-Parrotheads).

WHAT A RUSH!!!

Woo hoo! Yee haw! @)*!)$)&%!!!! I did it, I did it, I did it! Today we did the ropes course. What a blast! The weird thing is how what seems scary isn't and what seems easy is freaky scary! I'm still on a bit of a rush.

Our options were to do the incline log, the flat but higher log, the grapevine (with a wire underneath our feet), the zip line, a huge 3 wire swing and the leap of faith. I mustered up the courage to do all of it but the leap of faith, and I got to do the zip line twice. It was a blast.

Here are pictures of me on my adventures. Unfortunately, harnesses and cameras pointed upward 30 feet do little to make a girl look skinny. Guess I'd better start losing weight before I get up there again! I need to get more pictures from my buddies. These are a good glimpse for now.



Belaying down...

It's official

We're talking about the name change. I'm officially skdo now. The Judge just signed it. I was right about it being a guy, but he wasn't wearing a black robe. I guess they only get dressed up for the big cases.

The whole event only took about 20 minutes and most of that time involved commuting to the courthouse, parking the car, and waiting until the magic hour of 8:30 when the judge entered the room. He asked if this change was for me, if I was changing my children's names, and if I had any ID then he signed the paper. It was that simple.

I got in the car and Grand Illusion by Styx was playing on the stereo. A bit ironic, don't you think? The actual line that was being sung: "And still we wonder who the hell we are..." A bit more ironic.

I came home and TT asked where I had been. I told him I changed my name to Julio. He scrunched up his face, cocked his head and said, "So you're not S any more????" Then I told him what I'd really changed my name to and TT said he was changing his name to TCAOD (he already has 2 middle names, now he wants 2 last names like Mom). I told him he'd need to talk to the judge about that and, in true TT fashion (this time with charm and not oppositional tendencies), he said, "I don't need the judge to say it's ok, Mommy. I say it's ok."