A Weekend Smile

When I saw this video last week for the first time, it totally made me smile, and even cry a little, watching the surprise and overwhelming excitement on the girl's face.  I couldn't resist sharing it here:

Whimsical Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Today's eclectic Whimsical Wednesday collection is inspired by the fact that I've been working on some baby gifts this week, and by an outburst of my slightly twisted and sarcastic sense of humor.  As always, I'd love to hear if any of these images caught your attention, and why.

Source: morganton.com via Lisa on Pinterest

Source: coolmomtech.com via Lisa on Pinterest

Source: imicki.tumblr.com via Lisa on Pinterest

Source: thefrogman.me via Lisa on Pinterest

Source: toysrus.com via Lisa on Pinterest

Source: amazon.com via Lisa on Pinterest

Source: etsy.com via Lisa on Pinterest

Random and Crazy

It's been the kind of week full of random and crazy things.

Things like getting vaccine injections in both arms (plus a TB test in one arm).

(When was the last time you stood in line at a pharmacy on a university campus to buy a vial of vaccine?)

There was the mask fitting.  I have to get a mask fitted to wear in case of certain sorts of outbreaks.  The office seemed a little odd, an impression that was cemented when the young man, about my age who had watched me come in from where he was sitting in the waiting area and was trying to catch my attention opened the conversation with "So you have to get drug tested too?"

I so wanted to burst out laughing at this poor guy's attempt at attention getting flirtation.

I wanted to laugh equally hard when, a few minutes later, I found myself sitting in an odd room, with a mask over the lower half of my face, while a woman pumped smoke out of a little vial, waved it at my face and instructed me to turn my head all around, and inhale and exhale.

There was the challenge of wearing new jeans to work.  New jeans on a day when I shouldn't have had to do anything but sit.  New jeans that I thought would stretch out just a bit faster, in that way that all jeans eventually stretch out.  Nope.  And of course, I spent the day bending, lifting boxes, and continually adjusting the slightly uncomfortable fit of the jeans that will be perfect when they just stretch out a bit more.

That was the same day that I packed a pair of ballet flats to wear around the office, allowing me to shed the warm and cozy boots I wear for my commute by transit and on foot, through the snowy city.  Oh, did I say I packed a "pair" of ballet flats?  Well, if pair only indicates two, then I suppose I did.  Two different left shoes!

And did I mention that through all of this I've had a voice that croaks and squeaks? The remnants of the cold that had me flat in bed last weekend.

It's been that kind of week, and honestly, I just have to laugh.  It's good to know that I'm still collecting random and crazy stories!  (I mean really, I've read some bad opening lines, but, "So you're here to be drug tested too"????!!!)

Reasons to Fear Canada

This image made me chuckle when I came across it the other day:

found here.

Taught to Rebel

So, two things ran through my mind when I spotted this on pinterest the other day:

1. So funny!
2. Don't let the folks who are into boycotting Disney see this one!  It will only give them ammunition!

Source: themetapicture.com via Heather on Pinterest

You Ask, I Answer, Take 13

By popular demand, today's edition of "You Ask, I Answer" will address the "ping-pong ball" story that I referenced in Thursday's edition.

As I mentioned on Thursday, because I am nearsighted in one eye and farsighted in the other, and because my left eye is lazy, my brain primarily processes signals from only my right eye.  This leads to a significant lack of depth perception, and to a great number of embarrassing stories and moments.  The story that continues to hold the place of honor in family lore involves a public school, seventh grade, junior high school physical education class, a ping-pong table, and some visiting missionaries.

Besides my impaired vision, you should also know that I have extremely pale skin, which has been diagnosed as being hypersensitive.  What that means is that anything leaves a mark.  In seventh grade, the hypersensitivity was at it's peak, and if I simply scratched my skin, even lightly, it would raise a bright red welt for all the world to see.

Someone, somewhere along the way, at the junior high school I attended, decided that since they had ping-pong tables, ping-pong would be the perfect activity to pair with the wrestling unit for their physical education classes.  On a given day, half of the class would be wrestling, while the other half would play ping-pong.
One spring day, the phys ed period fell near the end of my school day, and I was assigned to play ping-pong.  I'd never played before, but thankfully the friend I was assigned to rally with had a bit more experience than I did.  It seemed to be going well.  I wasn't missing too many (for me anyway!), which seemed a small miracle in light of the challenges that my limited depth perception provides for hand/eye coordination.  And then it happened.  She returned the ball, hard, and I missed.  It connected solidly with the left side of my neck, stinging painfully, and immediately raising a bright red, perfectly round welt.

The school day ended, and I walked home, bursting into the house, nursing my wound, and expecting that my parents would be home and ready to offer sympathy.  Instead, what I encountered was my parents, sitting at the dining room table, chatting with long-time friends of theirs, a missionary couple visiting from Ukraine.  Missionaries who tended to be conservative, but also loved to tease.

I displayed my wounded neck, expecting the usual mixture of laughter over my unique misfortunes, and sympathy over the large and still painful welt.  Instead, before my mom could express sympathy, one of the missionaries piped up, "It looks like a hickey!  Lisa's got a hickey!"  The table exploded into laughter.

I was a naive seventh grader, only recently exposed to the vagaries of public school after years of being taught at home, and was embarrassed to have to ask what a hickey was.  Once it was explained, my mortification was complete, since kissing was not something that had ever crossed my radar, and since I took myself a bit too seriously in that pre-teen manner, and was sure that these people's teasing would be taken seriously by someone.

The welt lasted for several days, brusising slightly.  I wore higher collared shirts, hoodies and did whatever I could to conceal my injury for the next several days, certain that if a missionary could think it looked like hickey, then the junior high students who loved to bully and torment me could also make that inference.  I was nothing short of horrified at the particular turn this had taken and couldn't imagine that there would ever be a day I'd find this spectacular occurence of my clumsyness to be humorous.

A decade and a half or so later, I chuckle good-naturedly every time one of my brothers brings it up.  It comes up shockingly often, given that in the last sixteen years, I haven't gotten any less clumsy, or any less likely to be hit in the head or face by flying objects of any shape and form.  I still blame my depth perception, and my brothers will take every opportunity to share some of the more spectacular incidents of my injuries, including the ping-pong ball!  I feel sympathy for the sheltered and mortified pre-teen that I was, but mostly I'm just amused by the incident, and even by my own embarrassment!  I've even been known to tell the story myself, when the moment calls for some levity, or for proof that my lack of decent depth perception really can have some hilariously disastrous results!

Mute

Earlier this week I came across this video on a blog I read and it made me laugh, so I had to share.

Transit Evangelism

Wordpress has a blog with a daily post prompt that I follow, and every so often I flag one of these prompts for future reference or writing fun.

Yesterday, they posted this prompt, and I immediately began to chuckle, knowing just what story it was that I'd tell.  I have quite possibly told it here previously, but can't resist the chance to tell it again!


Topic #78:
What is the strangest thing that’s ever happened to you on a bus?

It was a Monday morning, around 7 am, and I had just boarded a train packed wall to wall with other rush hour commuters.  I had my headphones on, and a hood up around my face, and was preparing to get lost in the daze of the first day after the weekend commute, tired, and definitely not thinking entirely clearly.  There were people touching me on all sides, all also lost in that Monday morning commute daze.  We shared that mutual, "I want to be alone even though I'm being crushed by people" glaze in our eyes.

She was standing just behind and to the side of my right arm, which was reaching up to hold onto a strap overhead - the only way to keep my balance in a very full and moving train.  She was shorter than me (no small feat since I am barely five foot two inches tall), the top of her head near the armpit of my extended arm.  I'd noticed her when she got on the train, simply because she held a large bible in her arms, with ruffled pages, the mark of one that is well-used.

And then it began.

There was a rustling as she whipped something out of the bag she carried.

"You want this?" (her tone was brusque, confronting, interrupting the glazed peace we'd been enjoying.)

I looked to see who she was talking to.

It was me.

Great.

The train was so full that I couldn't even turn to fully face her, but I was her chosen target for the day.

"No thank you."

I returned to my glazed silence.

"Are you a Christian?"

She wasn't catching all of the silent "leave me alone" cues.  She was still waving the object she'd pulled out of her bag, an object that upon closer examination was a sermon CD from a large local church, in one of those white square envelopes.

"Yes, I am."  (Perhaps now this conversation is done?)

"What kind of Christian are you?  Are you evangelical?"  (Her tone remains brusque, insistent, almost attacking.)

"Yes, I'm evangelical."

"You want this?"  She offered me the sermon CD again, and again I politely declined.

"What church you go to?"  English was not her first language, and her tone and words demonstrated this.

Well, now I know I'm in trouble.  I was, at the time, attending a church with one of those non-traditional, post-modern, single word names.  The kind of names that sort of make older members of the faith community suspicious of the church, wondering if it isn't really a cult.

Honesty won out, and I told her the name.  "Epic."

There was a momentary pause as she assimilated this information.

"What kind of name for a church is that?  Should be 'Church of Christ' or 'Church of God in Christ!'"

We lapsed into another momentary awkward silence.  I looked around briefly, catching the eyes of all the other commuters, watching this Monday morning drama play out.  Their eyes said, "I'm so sorry it's you, but I'm sure glad it's not me."  I thought that perhaps this last answer had slaked her curiousity, but I'd underestimated her determination.

She burst out, "You have friends who are Pentecostal?"

"Yes."  (I was smiling, laughing inside, as I pictured a few of the ones with more Pentecostal leanings, including some who'd told me that they thought this sort of "street evangelism" could be effective.)

"You take this," she brandished the omnipresent sermon CD, "and give to them!"

I acquiesced, accepting the CD.  My stop was approaching, and it seemed the easiest way to end this horrifically awkward encounter.

The only thought in my shocked early morning brain was, "That is how NOT to do evangelism."

But that, that is not where this story ends.  There is a laugh yet to share.

After recounting my tale to my dad, he commented that as a pastor, if someone was using his sermon cds in such a fashion he'd want to know about it, so I contacted the church in question, sending an email, describing what had happened, and telling them that I thought that perhaps they'd want to look into this, since it didn't seem to present the best image of either the Christian faith, or of their church.

It was a few weeks before I heard back from the lady at the church that I had been in touch with.

She wrote to tell me of the roundabout way in which they'd discovered who was so brusquely evangelizing while using their materials.

A woman had approached her after services one Sunday, asking for prayer.  The church staffer agreed, asking what it was that she could pray about.  The anonymous woman confided that she'd received a ticket that week, and that she didn't want to tell her husband.

The ticket?  It was for being a public nuisance on the trains!

A Thing in Your Nose

On Sunday I attended the church my dad pastors, the church I grew up in, to hear some friends who are missionaries share their hearts.

Those of you who have been faithfully reading this blog know that I seem to have a certain magnetism for nosy older ladies when I pay visits to that church, and the seeming ability to shock them without trying (my favorite story on that front is recorded here).

This past Sunday was no exception, though it was a different lady, with a more bold approach than usual.

The service had ended, and I was standing with a small group of people - the missionary friends and a few others, when this particular lady walked up and inserted herself into our circle of conversation.

She paused for a moment, stared at my face, and then chose the following as her introductory remark:

"You have one of those things in your nose!"

She turned to our missionary friends, and commented that their daughter "does too."

I really thought we were past the stage where the elderly church ladies notice and are shocked by the tiny stud that I wear in my right nostril, since I've been wearing it for over three years now, but clearly I was wrong.

She continued to study my face intently.

"I could never do that.  I get sick too often and am always blowing my nose."

The mental image of this take charge matron of an old lady wearing a nose piercing was cracking me up.  Cracking me up in the inner voice starts to lecture sort of way, "Lisa Christine!  This would not be the appropriate time to laugh.  It would also not be the appropriate time to ask her where she had ever gotten the impression that anyone thought she should pierce her nose."

For once, the mental voice kicked in soon enough, and the filters reached my mouth.

I replied calmly, explaining (though with some secret amusement), that I too am often sick, and suffer from allergies and blow my nose constantly.  The nose ring is not a problem for this, and hasn't ever been, except perhaps for the first few weeks after it was done, when the wound was still healing.

"Well, isn't there a big thing in there, on the back, to keep it in?"

(My inner voice is still very amused that I am discussing the logistics of nose piercings with this "nosy" old lady, when only moments before I'd been having a very good conversation about ministry in South East Asia with my friends.)

And so, I explained the logistics of the fact that my particular nose ornament is made of surgical plastic or silicone, and no, it doesn't have a back, it's more of a corkscrew shape that prevents it from coming out, and it sits flush against the inside of my nostril.

This seemed to stymie her, and she moved on, leaving me rather amused that yet again my Sunday morning had taken an odd old lady turn.

Canadian Palm Tree

For those of you in far-away warm places, who have been so amused by my love affair with palm trees that grow outdoors, and have so generously sent me palm tree photos from spots scattered across the globe, I thought I'd share a picture of a Canadian Palm Tree.

 

Yes, it is indoors!

Squirrel Underpants!

Last weekend I was out with a friend and we stopped in a toy and novelty shop.  This product was too funny not to take photos of.

I'm not sure how well you can read that, but the top part on the back says "A portion of the proceeds from this product will be donated to the Small Animal Decency Fund which seeks to rid our neighborhoods of any potentially offensive naturally occurring indecent exposures."

For some reason this goofy product made me remember signs by the beaches I visited in California, warning people not to feed squirrels, and a funny conversation my friend and I had about those signs and about things like finding squirrels as a display in a foreign zoo.

And so, I present to you, Squirrel Underpants!

Wishbone/Backbone

Right around the new year, someone I know had this as her facebook status:

So and So has her wishbone where her backbone should be.

I read it and cracked up.

And related.

How many times have I sat around wishing for something to work out, when what I probably needed was to collect myself, grow a backbone, and make it happen?

No more wishbone where my backbone should be.

When I read that facebook status, I was in the process of making decisions that would shape 2011, and the status, however humorous, actually shaped those.  It's funny, the things God has used to challenge me.  Facebook statuses, time with friends, books.  God speaks in funny ways to me.  And I'm so thankful that I'm learning to listen for those prompts, even when they come in humorous facebook statuses.

Wolves and Sheep and The Ache

I came across the video below on Carla Harding's blog the other night.

I am a university student again, and while I don't relate with all of this this time around, some of it is still deeply powerful, and it's definitely worth listening to.





Not long after watching this, I also came across this cartoon at nakedpastor.  It spoke to the same parts of me that the video did. I think far too often I've been a victim of the second frame from the cartoon, rather than the first.  Wolves among Sheep, instead of Sheep Among Wolves.

Apparently Not in Canada!

On my last day of work after Christmas, one of my final administrative tasks was to total up the inventory sheets that our volunteers had tallied the donated toys on, as they "priced" them and sorted them into age groups.

One would think that making a tally would be self-explanatory, right?  Four lines, and then a line through, making groups of five, for easy totaling at the end.

A few minutes in to my task, I discovered that this is apparently not as self-explanatory as I'd thought, and starting taking pictures, emailing them to a friend in California with incredulous comments.

Pictures like this:



And this one (it's hard to see, but they made check marks!):



And last, but not least, there was this:


This person counted in groups of six!

That last one was my final straw.  I sent it to my friend with a message that read "This one counted in groups of six! Do they seriously not teach this in school or something??"

I laughed out loud when her response came:

"Apparently not in Canada! ha!"

I've been laughing ever since.

I Did It Again

Some time ago now I wrote about a classic foot in mouth moment in my life. It was one of the more ridiculously humorous moments I've had.

I did it again this morning at the same church, with the same person. Perhaps not quite as badly, but it was definitely a case of "same story, second verse."

Sigh.

My internal voice started warning me the second I walked in the door. She was standing right there, waiting. The long time nemesis to my ability to be gracious. The one who has the unique ability to bring forth in me a raging case of foot in mouth disease.

And so my internal voice was talking. "Be careful. Smile. Be polite. Minimal words. Filter."

It didn't work.

I seem to possess the unique ability to shock this woman, even when the things I say aren't all that shocking.

"Are you ready for Christmas," she asked.

I laughed, cheerfully, and answered lightly, honestly, "Nope!"

So far so good.

"Well you know it's going to come anyway, whether you're ready or not!"

(In retrospect, who says something like that?)

Even as I responded again, my internal voice was screaming those same warnings it had been sounding since I entered the building, "Lisa Christine, be polite! Smile! Filter!"

And then the train derailed, though I didn't know it yet.

My mouth opened, ignore the warnings still sounding within me, and I spoke, still with a cheerful tone, "That's okay, I'm not its biggest fan. It can come and go and it will be fine."

Honesty is not the best policy. Sharing a bit of ambivalence over someone's pointed cheer is bad news.

And the shock registered on her face.

I wasn't even going for shock. I've been guilty of shooting for that in the past, but today I was going for the opposite.  In this case, I was simply expressing the thought that crossed my mind - that though Christmas is special, I'm just a bit ambivalent about it.  Glad for it, but not all that worried about it's coming and going.  It really didn't occur to me that this would be a piece of news that would be shocking, or offensive. 

But it was.

Sigh. Sometimes I just can't win.

At least this one won't require a report to mom and dad to allay the tattling concern of a well meaning busy body. That, in nearly three decades of navigating this stony pastor's kid journey is a blessing all its own!

A Chuckle

I get the daily Garfield cartoon by email, and have for years.  It's been a while since I've posted one here, but this one really did make me smile when I read it:

You Might Be a Book Nerd If...

I took this photo last night, after I crawled into bed for a quiet evening. This was the stack of books that I felt was necessary to have within arm's reach!  Because it's hard to see, let me just tell you that there are 12 books and two journals there. 

Yep.  Book nerd.  Can't even deny it.

I Speak English

My major job at work right now is phoning families that have been referred to us by other agencies to set up appointments for them to come in and "shop" for toys for their children for Christmas.  It's fabulous, as it basically means that all day every day I'm making people happy. 

However, making these phone calls all day has made me incredibly aware of how much of a blessing it is to be living in a place where I speak the dominant language fluently.  Most of the people I phone are immigrants with varying degrees of ability to speak English.  I can't even imagine how difficult it would be to navigate a new culture on a daily basis, knowing people are trying to communicate important information to you about appointments, about your immigration status, about your health and children, and have to struggle to understand.

That said, there have been some moments of general hilarity, or deep poignancy.  The woman who was so relieved when I called, and admitted she was having a hard day.  She'd lost a baby recently, and was grieving.  She told me that she was so happy I called because she was doing enough grieving, and she didn't want her living child to also grieve.  Being able to provide Christmas for her child was a miracle in her day, and I got to be a part of it.  There was one woman who turned down my offer of an appointment, telling me that while her income was still low, she could provide for her children, and she'd rather the gifts go to a family who was in the place hers had been a few years ago.  And then there was the woman who, when I asked her to spell her last name, did so emphatically, in her thickly accented English, and had me working hard not to burst into laughter.  Her response?  "It's Fu.  Eff.  You!"  I cracked up as soon as I hung up the phone.  The whole thing was made far funnier by her complete lack of awareness as she proudly spelled her name for me, ensuring we were communicating smoothly!

These are my days, and I'm glad I speak English.  It's something I took for granted, and patiently calling these people day after day is making me re-think that.  It's a blessing to speak the dominant language of the country in which you live.  And it's one I'll remember, if, as I dream of, I one day find myself transplanted to some place where I am no longer fluent in the dominant language.

On Boss's Day

Someone sent me a link to this e-card the other day, and I had to laugh.  For those of you who remember reading the little I shared about the job I lost in May, you'll laugh too.  For those of you who don't have that context, well, my former roommates referred to that place of employment as "The Soap Opera" and would ask what had happened each day when I got home.

(just as a side note, I find quite a few of the cards on someecards to be funny, but a whole lot of them definitely cross my line into inappropriate and crude.)

Favorite Things

The other day was one of those days where I jotted every little thing that made me smile in a note in my iphone throughout the day in the hope that it would help improve my hard day to be focusing on those things.  I'm committed to showing up every night with a daily 5 list, even if it's been a really hard day.  A lot of days it helps to keep track of this, but when I came across this cartoon from ASBO Jesus late that night, I laughed and laughed and laughed.  Because it was just SO true.