Not Theolonius

I've been having a splendid week so far, and I mean that sincerely. People constantly ask me how I occupy my time at home with Little Miss Muffet who sits on a tuffet and couldn't even run away of her own volition if a spider sat down beside her. I tell them I end up killing a lot of the spiders. And thinking about blog posts that make sense to a Cheshire cat. Anyway. So this splendid week kicked off with buckets of rain which prompted a jaunt to the mall for some marathon mall-walking, and subsequently satisfying the curiosity of strangers over and over with, "It's a girl. Yup."

Do you know who we saw at the mall? I'll give you a hint: MONKS! Oh throw some sand on me and call me a mandala. What's better than a monk? Monasticism in general = fascinating. Meditation, eating sparingly, living communally? I would flunk out of Monastic Living 101 after 45 minutes. Ergo! Monks are awesome to me. Particularly ones that shop at major places of commerce wearing sandals and man bags. I noticed one was inspecting some flashy wallets and I wondered maybe if he had a weakness for posh change purses pre his monastic life. I don't know if I've conversed with a monk before, but if I had had the wherewithall to speak with these monks, I would have had the following Q's for them:

- So, what brings you here today? - Did you try a free sample at the pretzel stand? Or does taking free things that are not necessarily gifts cause an imbalance in the universe? - Have you SEEN the prices on those all weather parkas? Who do they think they're kidding? I should probably read up on monk life a bit more in case I ever have the opportunity to interview one...In the meantime, I enjoy living with an equally zenned out baldie. And her dad.

Recognizing my brother

He walked hurriedly as he turned the corner, his car keys jingling, Bible in hand. It was sundown and immediately the synapse fired in my head - "Are you going to church?" I asked.

"Yes," he said, not turning around.

"Is it your sabbath?"

This was enough to make him turn around and point to the sky as he smiled at me, "No, it is the sabbath of the Lord!"

I told him I kept sabbath, too. He shook my hand warmly. We talked about our respective churches and promised we would visit them. He wished me and my family a happy sabbath before he was off to lead the youth program. It was so nice to meet another Adventist in my neighborhood. ***

One of my favorite parts about being a Seventh-day Adventist is that we can spot one another. Sometimes it's the lack of jewelry, sometimes it's a Bible, sometimes it's the casual mention that we can't be somewhere on a Saturday. It's always so heartwarming to meet another Adventist, because the walk can be hard and lonely at times, and very very hard to explain. You meet another Adventist and suddenly you don't have to explain yourself. And I don't want to go all Tom Cruise, "You just know...I mean...you just know!" But living in a city where everyone purposefully disinterests himself in the other, hiding behind cellphones and ipods and underneath Red Sox caps, it's just so nice to meet someone who also holds the same things sacred. I understand all the arguments against organized religion, the resentment of the money/time suck, and yet I would argue that an organization itself cannot harm a person. People harm people. And it is for this reason that I hope my family and I can only bring help and not harm to others - be they believers or not. And hopefully through the vehicle of our religion, we can bring more help to more people. Perhaps that is idealistic, but it's hard not to feel idealistic when you feel such warmth from your brother, who is also your neighbor. Praise God. ***

Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing. ~ Phil 3:17

99 Bottles of Milk on the Wall

I've resorted to drinking songs. Baby Girl has been high-maintenance this week, which in my case means that she's been hyper-alert and attached and responding to my attentions and affections. It's kind of like I was an unknown rocker and my cover of "Jenny's Number" just got forwarded by a bazillion tweens on youtube and now it's exploding on itunes and this is all I've ever wanted but the fanship is really out of control and people keep prank paging my cellphone with "Please call 867-5304." Yeah, or. I guess it's not really like that at all. Since I only have a fanbase of one and she doesn't know how to text message yet. But she's a fan of me, and it's all I've ever wanted, but all at once, all day every day, and man would I just like to dust a bookshelf during the daylight hours.

But instead she's really being a bit of a mom hog of late.

She's striking a nice routine with me, though. Falling asleep at more of a seventh-grader's bedtime - an improvement over a college freshman-just-tasting-freedom-for-the-first time's-bedtime. However, now that we're nailing an earlier bedtime, this means less frequent and much shorter naptimes during the day. And when it's time to go down, oh I know it, because she starts pawing at her face and quakes back and forth, kinda like she knows the skinny jeans are never going to fit, but she's going to try to wriggle into them anyway.

So we go back to her room and sit in the glider, pop the binkey in and we sing.

Since this happens several times a day now, you can imagine there are only so many songs that I can work into my rotation. I try to sing her hymns to drive home the whole God loves you as subliminally and as often as possible into her little ears. But the truth is that I don't know the words to that many (and hoisting up a hymnal whilst holding all 13.3 lbs of this lump of love is ruff stuff) and I was only in one musical in my life, so I'm jumbling a lot of "Twinkle, Twinkle" with a lot of 865-5309-ee-iii-een.

Which is why I've started in with "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall." It's not that I want to encourage drinking to excess. I don't even drink, ever. But at least with this song, the repetition sort of lulls her, and it's not as though the lyrics are exactly complex. And tell me you don't feel proud when you can report back to Lovey Loverpants each day, "We were only at 67 bottles and she was totally down for the count!!!"