Friday, November 24, 2006

Do Not Drink?

Okay, so I was emailing my friend Marty the other day, and sent him these pictures, because I had told him about them a couple weeks ago, and promised to pass them along. They were taken when I went out to the West Coast at the end of September. They're from the bathroom at the toll booth at the top of the Coquihalla highway...


Okay, you have to wonder... are they having a regular problem with people drinking from the toilets? Someone had to have tried it, or there wouldn't be a sign, right? And are people carrying a mug around, like the sign pictures, just waiting for the opportunity to dip the thing into the toilet and drink their fill?

I've developed a little bit of a reputation the last while for collecting odd signs found in bathrooms, and I didn't even notice this one immediately. My friend was in the stall next to me, and when we had both emerged to wash our hands, she turned to me and asked if I'd noticed the sign. I hadn't so I went back, and immediately cracked up. We ran out to the car quickly, grabbed the camera, and took these pictures.

So, that's my grand advice for the day - Don't drink from the toilet.

In Your Mercy, Hear Our Prayer

Was listening to some music on my ipod on my (very cold) commute into work this morning, and this song came on. It's a Steve Bell song, but one I hadn't heard in quite a while.

It seems to me that the lyrics project a very holistic theology - a concern for the environment, for the poor and brokenhearted, for those we love, and those we don't even know.

I was caught by it this morning, and hope the cry for the mercy of the Father in so many arenas of life will catch your hearts as well.

Hear our Prayer
Music by Steve Bell
Lyric by Steve Bell and Jamie Howison

Now we pray to You Father for peace in the world
For the right use of all You have given
A respect for creation in us be restored
Lord in Your mercy
Hear our prayer

And we pray for the poor of the world everywhere
And for all those who suffer from hunger and fear
For those who are homeless - for those who need care
Lord in Your mercy
Hear our prayer

Now we pray for those close to us, those who have needs
For the friends that we love and for all our families
For these loved ones we pray Jesus grant them Your peace
Lord in Your mercy
Hear our prayer

And we pray for ourselves for forgiveness of sins
For the evil around that is born from within
And we ask You oh God that You heal us again
Lord in Your mercy
Hear our prayer

Now in closing we ask You dear Father on our knees
Lord for mercy on all those we call our enemies
So that all might be one in Your love and Your peace
Lord in Your mercy
Hear our prayer

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Thank God it's Friday

Okay, so Friday doesn't officially start for another thirty minutes, and I'm going to sleep for about six hours before I officially kick off my Friday, but I'm definitely glad it's coming.

Work tomorrow will be mundane, but doable. I don't particularly love it, but I don't hate it. I like it, and that makes me happy.

I have tentative plans for a movie date tomorrow night with my dad. My mom is going to a seminar for the evening, and dad and I are thinking about going to see the new Will Ferrell movie, "Stranger than Fiction." We both find the premise intriguing.

I plan to spend the weekend reading, possibly writing, and mostly practicing driving. I took tonight off from the whole driving thing. I needed a break, and thanks to all the snow, the roads are crappy anyway!

And with that, I'm off to bed. See you all on the weekend!

Morose

I just want to be up front. I've written about all kinds of moods on here. If you've been reading for a while, you've weathered the last year that I suffered from severe depression, you've weathered the season in which I came to the realization that God had healed that depression, you've hung around while I walked through very messy life stuff with a number of friends. You've seen happy and sad, up and down, and many things in between.

Today, I'm morose. Angry at life and possibly the world in general.

I had a nightmare last night. First one in a long time. Not happy. Terrorists, and a very sick, insulin dependent man. I was on an airplane again. There was a baby again. What is it with those two things showing up in my dreams, and what the heck do they mean?

In about two weeks we're going to have to put my very healthy dog, Shiloh, down. He tore his cruciate ligament last week, and the only options are surgery that costs a minimum of $1500, or give him anti-inflammatory drugs and hope like hell that this tiny chance actually occurs, and the ligament sort of reattaches itself. It's not looking good. I think he gets the pill for another two weeks, and then, because my parents aren't going to spend that kind of money on a pet, we're going to put him down. And I'm angry that it stares me in the face every time I move in our house. And I'm angry that it costs so much. And I'm angry that we have to do this. And I'm angry that it sort of makes sense as a financially responsible choice. And I'm grieving because, even though I would never choose on my own to have a pet, Shiloh has been part of our family for the last 13 years, and the whole situation sucks.

I'm also lonely. Seems all of my closest friends are now living elsewhere in the province, country, or world. No one to share heart connect with easily.

I'm confused about next steps. Life feels cloudy and tenuous as I am thinking about the future.

I feel a bit lost. Not sure how exactly to take who I am and make it fit in the church and circumstances of life that I find myself in. (Funny, isn't it, how I feel this way just a couple of weeks after dreaming every night about lost things....)

I'm discouraged for/with my brother. He's a music student prohibited from playing music. He doesn't know what the future holds.

It snowed three inches last night, and then the temperature dropped. I do not like winter. That would be why almost all of the places I'm considering either long-term or short-term moves to are either southern or coastal. Milder weather.

And, just to top everything off, driving standard is not going as smoothly as I'd hoped. I was doing pretty well last night, even managed to start on a hill a couple of times, and then, I turned into our alley, hit some ice, and slid out. I almost hit a fence. My brother had to come push me out. Following that, there was a slight debacle where I rolled down the entire length of the alley with my clutch in because every time I tried to hit the gas, my tires spun. Turns out I was in reverse, not first like I thought.

And, we're in the middle of crazy, stressful, busy, renewal season at work. Whoo hoo... I have a spreadsheet waiting for me... and we all know how much I LOVE numbers!

So there you have it. I am not so happy today. The nightmare is lingering, I'm on the brink of tears, and my muscles ache from jerking awake several times from the nightmare, plus the general tension of everything else that's going on. Hope you all have a far better day than me.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Foggy Brain

Do you ever have those days where everything just feels slow and foggy? Where thinking is almost painful?

I'm on my second day like that in a row.

I think this is partly what grief does to me, partly what exhaustion does to me, partly what deep underground thoughts do to me, and part stress from information overload.

Lovely, no?

If you think of it, say a prayer... It's only Tuesday, and I have quite a few more busy days to go before a day of rest comes around again.

And, in the midst of the brain fog, I have to practice driving a standard. Because I need to be proficient by December 1st, so that I don't have to pay for a bus pass AND car insurance for the month of December.