An Apple for the Teacher-5

Tom was so preoccupied with his expected promotion, Jill felt neglected and left out. She was sure their marriage was headed for trouble.

"Hi, Hon. How was your day?" Tom stalked through the kitchen and pecked at Jill's cheek as he passed by. He doesn't want to know how my day was, Jill thought. That was just an announcement of his arrival.

Their relationship was too predictable. Had she grown dull? Maybe that was why Tom drew deeper into his work.

Tom returned to the kitchen and investigated dinner. "Heard a good one today." He popped a piece of carrot into his mouth. "Seems Steve and Julie have decided to call it quits. Steve says the spark is gone. Julie said she wouldn't fight it. Really makes you wonder, doesn't it?"

"No, not really," Jill replied tartly.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Jill could almost see the chip on his shoulder. Well, she was just the one to knock it off. "I'll tell you what that means. Men do not want to work at marriage. The minute it takes effort to keep the spark going, they get lazy and decide to bail out."

"Is that the way you feel about me too?"

"If the shoe fits. . ."

Tom grabbed the newspaper and stormed out of the room.

Jill sank into the nearest chair. Why had she deliberately provoked him? All she wanted was a little reassurance that their relationship was alive and healthy. She couldln't bear it if Tom left. Tom was the only one who had ever loved her. She had to find some way to east the tension she created just now.

Jill rose slowly, took a deep breath and headed for the family room.

(Continued. . .)

An Apple for the Teacher-4

It began to rain as Jill's meeting with Mrs. Marquette ended. Jill gathered papers to grade and turned out the lights. Gray clouds filled the sky. She shivered in the light misty cold while she fumbled with her car door. That day had been gray and rainy too, Jill remembered, as she pumped the gas pedal to get the old yellow Volkswagon started.

She had fought hard to hold back the tears as she struggled up the steps of the children's home, rejected and alone again. A "forever family" was what the case worker had said. Well, forever didn't last long. It was all right though, she told herself. She was eleven years old. She could take care of herself. She didn't need a mother and father. They would only boss her around and tell her what to do . She'd make it on her own.

And she had. Jill let the VW rest for a moment. It was probably flooded again. She glanced in the mirror. What did Cassie have that she didn't at that age? Jill remembered her school pictures. She wasn't beautiful but she was cute. Cassie on the other hand was homely and her personality wasn't the least bit pleasing. How had Cassie attracted an adoptive family and Jill failed?

Well, Jill thought, as the VW roared to life, I have Tom--that is as long as he still wants me.

(Continued. . .)

An Apple for the Teacher--3

As Jill greeted Mrs. Marquette, she recalled the pictures she had poured over as a child. Each one had reflected the image of an ideal mother; the kind any child would be happy to have. Mrs. Marquette could have posed for all of them.

"We are so excited," Mrs. Marquett said, "now that Cassie has been placed with us for adoption."

For a moment, Jill blocked out what this picture book mother was saying. The word "adoption" had cut through Jill, hitting an old wound. She sat stiffly in her chair as she listened to Mrs. Marquette describe Cassie's numerous foster home experiences and the original neglect Cassie experienced in the birth home. Mrs. Marquette was concerned about the strange behavior that had resulted.

"Mr. Bridges recommended you highly. I am confident Cassie will adjust to your classroom and we will see a lot of growth and development in her this year," Mrs. Marquette said as she stood to leave.

As she shook Mrs. Marquette's hand, Jill felt her shoulders grow heavy as if the load Cassie's mom carried was shifted onto her now. Could she carry it?

(Continued. . .)

An Apple for the Teacher--2

Cassie seemed to draw deeper into herself as the day progressed. Jill sensed a real challenge to her teaching abilities as she observed her new student.

When she wasn't wandering around the room as if in her own little world, Cassie sat and chewed her fingernails. She didn't even attempt her schoolwork unless Jill stood next to her and coaxed. During the week, Jill found the extra attention Cassie needed quite taxing. Cassie needed to straighten out--soon.

The class sensed Jill's tension and took advantage of it. With a sigh of relief that Friday had arrived, Jill opened the door for the students to run out to the waiting school buses. Maybe with a fresh start on Monday. . . , Jill thought. She eased into her chair.

"Hello." Mr. Bridges, the principal, appeared in the doorway. Jill stood and realized that he was not alone. "This is Mrs. Marquette, Cassie's mother. She'd like to talk with you about Cassie."

(continued. . .)

An Apple for the Teacher

Every so often I get ambitious and begin going through old files to see if there is something I wrote a while back that is worth resurrecting, rewriting and submitting. Here is a story that I thought my blog readers might enjoy. It's timely since school is starting all over the USA now. It was originally written in 1987--on a typewriter!

An Apple for the Teacher

It was ceramic. Without pencils sticking out of the top, it might be mistaken for a real apple. Jill set it on her desk afraid should she drop it, it would shatter against the hard schoolroom floor. The apple represented a long hard road traveled and held the prospect of better things to come. She wasn't superstitious, but she didn't want anything to happen to this honored trophy bearing the words "Jill Passep, 1987 Educator of the Year."

Jill's morning routine was interrupted by the school secretary at the door. "Mrs. Passep, this is Cassie." The secretary smiled as she nudged a very shy six year old girl into the room. "She was just enrolled and Mr. Bridges felt you would be the best choice for her teacher."

"Hello, Cassie." Jill crossed the room greet her. "Let me show you around the room before everyone else gets here."

Cassie barely glanced at Jill. Her eyes seemed focused on the ceramic apple on the desk. Jill directed her toward the bulletin boards, the collection of leaves and bugs on the table along the window, and finally to the supply cabinet where she found Cassie the books and worksheets she needed.

Silently Cassie accepted the school supplies from Jill. She shuffled to the desk Jill assigned, stored her things, and sat quietly with her hands folded awaiting her classmates.....

Poor Pluto!

What are they doing to the solar system?
Redesigning?

If you haven't heard, Pluto is no longer a full-fledged planet under new guidelines that redefine the qualities of a planet. There are now 8 planets and 4 dwarf planets, including Pluto.

Pluto has been classified a planet since its discovery in 1930--long enough for most of the population to have had to memorize it along with the other 8. My favorite way to remember them and their order is: Mary's Violet Eyes Make John Stay Up Nights Period.

Now, I ask you, how can you have a sentence with out a period? Perhaps the way they name the other dwarfs will lend itself to more punctuation...Exclamation Point

Cruise-ing on his own.

What is happening in Hollywood? Lindsay Lohan gets a reprimand from a director and now Tom Cruise is set free from Paramount!

"It's nothing to do with his acting ability. He's a terrific actor," Viacom chair Sumner Redstone is reported saying. "But we don't think that someone who effects creative suicide and costs the company revenue should be on the lot."

Of course Cruise's publishing partner's response is that he quit first.

I have to say, Redstone is right. Cruise's behavior does affect the way he's perceived on screen. It took me more than half of the recent Mission Impossible to separate the character from the personality. I kept thinking, "What a jerk."

I'd like to think this is the beginning of Hollywood cleaning up its act but I'm not that naive. It's a start though.

Hell Has a Zip Code

You read the title correctly. Hell now has a zip code. It’s KY1-1400. The hot little burg in the middle of Grand Cayman island along with the rest of the Cayman islands now has a zip code. It seems the citizens of Cayman were having difficulty receiving packages from online orders because the country did not have any zip codes so the government applied zip codes to all the little towns and areas of the islands.

Ivan Farrington runs the little establishment in Hell and sells postcards for you to mail to friends and family. He dresses in a devil costume and tells devilish jokes upon request. His new postal stamp will sport the new zip.

Yes, Hell now has a zip code…but it’s still closed on Sundays. Hmmmm.

The Worry-Free Parrot Fish

Diving in Cayman the other day, I couldn’t help but be amused once again by the colorful parrot fish of the Caribbean. They are brightly multicolored mostly on a turquoise blue background with a mouth that looks like a beak—thus the name parrot fish. They go along crunching on rocks and then excreting them. Know those sandy beaches you love? The parrot fish helps make them.

While this may seem like a mundane job, the parrot fish seems to be quite happy in his lot in life. With all that roughage, he’s probably not constipated which certainly helps his mood. When you see the parrot fish from the side, his eye looks bright and clear and his “beak” is shaped like a smile. Rather than swimming along, he seems to skip through the water making him appear carefree and happy-go-lucky. You can almost hear him singing, “Don’t worry. Be Happy.”

Ah, yes. The Caribbean. Even the fish are happy!

How Hot Is It?

I knew it was hot when the A/C started running almost continually.

I knew it was hot when I couldn't walk barefoot across our wood deck.

I knew it was hot when the kitchen windows were fogged up on the outside because it was cooler and drier inside.

I knew it was REALLY hot when the Canadian geese started cooling off in the mist of the neighbor's sprinkler.

Mona Lisa Speaks?

She's always been a mystery but now a Japanese acoustics expert is claiming he knows what she sounds like. Dr. Matsumi Suzuki measured the face and hands of the famous Mona Lisa. and created a model of her skull. Somehow with all those calculations, he figured out her tone of voice.

He claims the voice he has created is 90% accurate. Because the lower part of her face is quite wide she would have a lower voice but the pointy chin would add mid-pitch tones. The voice he has created says, "I am the Mona Lisa. My true identity is shrouded in mystery."

All of this leads me to wonder if the voice of Mona really is that low, perhaps it is something of a self-portrait of DaVinci. Or is it just an early version of Marlena Dietrich?

(Apparently at one time there was a link to the voice but I was not able to connect to put the link here. If anyone finds a working link, please leave a comment with the link. I for one would like to hear the old girl talk.)

Crazy Baseball Statistics

We watched the Indians win over the Detroit Tigers last night at the Jake. Normally I don't watch all the statistics and biographical notes they post as each player comes to bat but last night, my eyes wandered to the scoreboard as Travis Hafner came up to bat. A blurb appeared next to his batting stats. It was another statistic. He has hit the most career home runs for a player from North Dakota second only to Darin Erstad.

And I need to know this because...???

Where do they come up with all this stuff? I can understand batting averages, ERAs, etc. but do I need to know how a player compares to other players from their home state? I spent a little time at Google and found that the Elias Sports Bureau is the official statistician for MLB as well as most other sports venues. Once they get the stats down, all sorts of available software can quickly scan them and put them together in any sort of comparision you'd like.

Did you know about the O-zone factor? Me neither. It is data that measures a team's success at scoring runners from second or third base as well as it's success at preventing the opposing team from doing the same thing. Is this what I've been destroying by not giving up my aerosol hairspray?

I'm waiting for the next statistic to go something like this: "Now here is the only left-handed batter with six toes who has astigmatism in the right eye and has hit five times against a pitcher who is right-handed, less that six feet tall, missing a toe on the left foot, and has a hangnail. He hits one into center field. A way back. Waaaaay back! That ball is outta here!"

Mommy, What's a Book?

"Mommy, what's a book?"

"Well, honey, a book was something your grandmother used to read to me. It contained stories of faraway places, funny animals, and goofy things that happen to kids. When she went to school, she had to buy books for her classes so she could study from them. I remember her telling me how wonderful it was to hold a new book in your hand and touch it's crisp new pages as you explored the story inside. She said the paper and ink of a new book was like a perfume to those who loved to read."

"Mommy, what's paper?"

How many decades down the road will it be before books are obsolete? I mean real books with printed pages between a book cover. Books on tapes/cd, e-books, ipods, and probably a dozen more gadgets I've never heard of yet are becoming more and more popular. Technology seems to change doubly fast as we speed into the future.

Will there be a paperless society? Did Henry Ford's generation seriously think we'd ever build a space station? It's dizzying to think of the possibilities for the future.

Ghostwriters

No, those are not ghosts who write but rather people who usually remain anonymous while writing books for/with another person who most likely has some celebrity status or is well known in a particular field. They are not named or necessarily acknowledged as having contributed to the production of the book. They are paid for their work with a flat fee or some other type of contract that may allow for a portion of the sales.

This week on the writers' forum to which I belong, we have been discussing the ethics of the practice. Some say it's a business and ghostwriting is just another way to pay the mortgage. Others are concerned that it is unethical and deceptive to not mention the ghostwriter somehow, i.e. using the "author's" name and "with" or "as told to" the ghostwriter. (Some of Tom Clancy's recent books have added an extra name.) In the Christian publishing arena this has become quite a debate. Some "authors" have accepted awards for writing their book when it was actually ghostwritten. Ethical? Business? Part of the job?

There are some famous people from the past, Corrie Ten Boom and Dave Wilkerson among them whose books were ghost written. Joel Osteen and Joyce Meyer use ghostwriters as well to some extent. Hilary Clinton's book It Takes A Village was actually ghostwritten by Barbara Feinman. The novelization of Star Wars was actually written by Alan Foster not George Lucas.

For those of you who are not writers, I would be interested to know how you would feel if you purchased a book only to find out later that it was written by someone other than the proclaimed author.

The Master Painter

Back in my college days (I was an art education major) I was required to take a series of art history courses. They always seemed to be scheduled at 8 a.m. and they always followed the same format: slides and a droning lecture. It wasn't easy to stay awake sometimes.

I did perk up when we got to Impressionists. I love painters like Renoir and Monet. But I was surprised when the instructor pointed out that many paintings were not done entirely by them. They would put in the basics and then their students, those they mentored, had to copy their style and, under the master's eye, finish the paintings.

For some reason that came to mind this morning. It was probably a result of a discussion on ghost writing on a writers' forum. A ghost writer often writes a book for someone else and many times does not get the credit for it. He is the master of the work, creating the framework of the story, putting the words together and making them come to life, but someone else gets credit.

If we see God as the master in our lives, we can choose to be like the student painters, copying the master, filling in what he has begun in our lives but giving him the credit. Or we can choose to be like the self-acclaimed celebrities who never credit their ghost writers, letting God set the framework, put together the story of our life, but not give him the credit and hoping that no one discovers how fake we are.

A Red Paper Clip

It's all the buzz in the news. A young writer trading a red paper clip for a house. Well...there were a few other trades along the way. I think it's more a story of how publicity can work for you. Once the ball got rolling, Kyle MacDonald caught the attention of the media and after a few appearances on TV in Canada and on "Good Morning America," he was contacted by Corbin Bernsen (L.A. Law and Major League).

It seems Bernsen was looking for some publicity as well. He offered MacDonald an item to trade on his blog: a speaking role in the movie he was directing. Give the kid (MacDonald) credit. He wanted to keep his quest legit so he kept Bernsen's offer in his back pocket until he could find something valuable to Bernsen to trade for it. He did--a snowglobe featuring KISS. (Bernsen collects snowglobes and is a KISS fan).

Meanwhile, a little town in Saskatchewan, Canada, named for the author, Rudyard Kipling, decided to get on the publicity bandwagon. They needed a boost for their dwindling town population and saw a way to draw some tourist trade. The members of Kipling's council bought a house and offered it for trade to MacDonald. In addition, they are going to hold an "American Idol" type audition for the role in the movie. More publicity now. More publicity when the movie comes out.

So how is MacDonald going to pay for the little things like heat, lights, taxes? He'll probably be bagging groceries at the corner store until his writing career takes off. It should do well. After all he's got the publicity thing down pat now.

Googled!

It is always fun and interesting to see who is reading this blog. I use Sitemeter.com . It gives me general areas of where people live, what pages they've visited, who referred them to my site, and how long they stayed. I love to see the referrals from Google.com because they list the search words that led the visitor to me.

Yesterday I was looking over the statistics for Writer's Wanderings and found that someone had visited through a search for "water squeegies". That led them to my post about our flood. Now how many people search for water squeegies? Not many, I'll bet. I wonder if the searcher expected to find a story that drew an analogy to God cleaning up a life of sin?

I have never purposefully intended for this blog to be evangelistic. The only thing I intended to do "religiously" was to post on a regular basis. But God, Jesus, and my faith are all a part of who I am so if you've googled (that's a word in the dictionary now) something and you've landed here, maybe it was by divine appointment...and maybe not.

Panda Birthday

Happy Birthday, Tai Shan!

The National Zoo's baby panda is one year old today. From a tiny four ounces to a whopping 56 pounds, Tai Shan has certainly been well nourished by his mother and zoo officials. The tiered birthday fruitsicle must have been a real treat for his young taste buds.

Tai Shan's name means "peaceful mountain." I remember the angst when our grandchildren were due and needed names. Somehow Anglo Saxon names just don't translate as poetically as the Asian names. I wonder if the name was wishful thinking on the part of zookeepers? After all gaining 56 pounds in one year, he's on his way to becoming mountainous and wouldn't you want something that big to be peaceful?

The Hoax

Last night was date night. We went to the theater to see Pirates of the Caribbean. I love watching Johnny Depp at work. What a great actor. He truly gets into character. The other thing I like about him is that he doesn't seem to be part of the outlandish Hollywood scene.

I was disappointed though, in the to-be-continued-ending. Two and a half hours of action, comedy, adventure, and no resolution. Do I really have to wait a year to see how it all works out?

The real reason for my post however is one of the previews shown before the movie began--The Hoax, starring Richard Gere. The scenes showed him at a publishing board meeting pitching his book and demanding a million dollar advance. The hook is that the book is a hoax--he is making it up as he goes along. He makes a comment to a friend, "The crazier I sound the more money they'll offer."

The Hoax is based on the story of Clifford Irving who wrote a bogus autobiography of Howard Hughes with the help of his friend Richard (Dick) Suskind.

Alas, Richard Gere is not paired with Julia Roberts this time, but the movie will be interesting. A new look at the world of publishing.

The Ugly Duckling

Two white swans appeared this spring in a marsh area near our home. Each Sunday morning as we traveled to church, we would see bird watchers with binoculars and cameras spouting long lenses, observing the couple.

It wasn't long before the obvious happened. The couple produced an egg and it soon hatched. The offspring looks nothing like his parents. He is gangly, oddly fuzzy, and gray. He reminds me of Hans Christian Anderson's story, The Ugly Duckling.

Since I seem to be into analogies lately, I drew this one. A new Christian is like an "ugly duckling." He starts out eagerly following those before him. He's a bit awkward at times as he begins to learn scriptures. But before long, he becomes more graceful as he is filled with God's grace. God gives him a new look--clothing him in pure spotless white.

I will watch the little swan as he adapts to his world and I will think about how God is still feathering my life with his grace and remaking this "ugly duckling."

A Flood of Thoughts

Last week during all the heavy rains in our area, our basement flooded. My Barnabas friends (a group of writers formed to encourage each other) tried to encourage me by saying, "You'll get through this. You're a writer and you'll even find lots of things to write about from this." At the time it seemed a little crazy. But they were right. There were a lot of analogies to be drawn from the experience.

As my husband and I used squeegies to push the sludge back into the sewers (they had gushed raw sewage into our fininished basement), I thought about how God cleans lives. He can, in an instant, clean all the filth that sin has deposited in our lives. Our cleanup took much longer and was not nearly as efficient.

Remembering the chaos that ensued when I realized the basement was filling with dirty water, I thought about how I frantically went through each room looking for what seemed most precious and setting it on higher ground. Later, as we went through boxes that were soggy, I pulled out a couple of old flower containers. They were not sentimental nor were they expensive but I was beginning to fight back. I wanted to hold on to some of those things--not throw them on the heap that was growing at the curb.

How often do we hold on to things that keep us from God--unimportant things--when He is trying to clean our lives of what keeps us from Him.

Then there were the goldfish. If they had stayed hidden in the rocks in the pond instead of swimming into the flow of the water that was receding, they would not have been left on the grass to die. Too often we go with the flow instead of standing with Christ, our rock.

Yes, my friends, there was much to think and write about.

Wicked

What's it like to be green? Is it any more acceptable than a talking animal?

Those were some of the questions posed in the wonderfully produced musical, Wicked, we had the privilege of seeing last night. Light-hearted, adventurous, and filled with great music that enhanced the story, Wicked kept us enchanted by it's telling of the origin of the Wicked Witch of the West from Oz. It's a classic comparison of good vs. evil but perceptions are topsy-turvy. The "wicked" witch is green but the "good" witch is...blonde!

I was fascinated with how the tin man, the scarecrow, and the cowardly lion came to be. I'm not sure how much of this is in the original novel, Wicked, The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, by Gregory Maguire. I started reading the book shortly after it came out in 1996 but lost interest. Perhaps I'll pick it up again if my reading list ever gets shorter.

For now I will just savor the memories of a well-staged, well-produced, and beautifully performed musical that proposed the possibility that green might be good and blondes...well, they have redeeming qualities.

Nemo Lives!

When I last posted, I had no idea what was before us. Thursday afternoon we had two storm fronts move in on us and for almost an hour the rain turned into a torrential downpour leaving much of our area flooded. Our backyard became a raging river, floating our 500# bridge away from what was a dry riverbed in our yard and wedging it between two trees. As I watched the water rise wondering if it would reach our basement windows and begin to flow in, I was unaware of what was happening beneath me.

Storm sewers filled and overflowed apparently into the waste sewers and for whatever reason of engineering, our basement became flooded with about 8" of filthy water. Our basement was finished so the damage is extensive and, needless to say, we are concerned about getting it cleaned up properly for health reasons.

My beautiful pond was full of muddy water from the creek that had swollen to emense proportions. When the water receded, I found my little goldfish speckling the yard. I ran the hose in the pond to flush as much dirty water as possible. It cleared some and I went about working more on the immediate problems in the house once the cleaning company came to extract the carpeting and help clean floors.

Today I headed outside for a breath of fresh air. I stood looking at the pond that was beginning to resemble normalcy. Suddenly a little flash of gold caught in the beam of sun shining down. Nemo lives! Amazing how God can take a little thing and bring hope for a better tomorrow.

Finding Nemo

Yesterday I was surprised to find a little goldfish (comet) in the small upper section of my pond. I didn't put it there. The comets I bought (after the blue heron dined on my old ones) I placed in the larger pond where they could go deep should the shadow of the predator pass over them again.

No, this little guy had to have traveled through the filter, then through the underground tubing (about 25 feet) to the top of the waterfall, pop out into the tub that fills and spills over the rocks, then slide or jump into the upper pond. Reminded me of Nemo. I wonder if he has a father looking for him in the large pond?

Eventually the little fellow will probably find his way into the stream under the bridge that leads again to the large pond--but what an adventure he'll have to tell! Makes me think of the trials in life--sucked into the darkness, not seeing our way, popping out into deep waters, over rocky cliffs, and bumpy streams but finding refuge in the big pond with our Father.

No Sweat!

Today I caught part of an interview with a dermatologist who was extoling the effects of botox on other parts of the body than the furrows in your forehead. They were discussing excessive sweating and how botox could be injected into parts of the underarm to control it. Yuck!

The best part of the interview came when the doc said, "Sweating is a good thing when done properly."

Properly. Hmmm. I didn't know there was such a thing as sweat-iquette.

Coincidence?

There have been many times in life where things have happened or people have come into my life that seemed to be coincidence. I prefer to think of them as part of God's plan for me.

Yesterday at the writers conference, I sat down to lunch with a lady I didn't know who told me she was expecting an editor to lunch with her. I was excited when she told me I should join her. It was an editor who might be interested in one of my proposals.

A few moments later, another writer joined us, a man named Israel. Just as we were beginning to get to know each other, the editor came over to the table and led the lady away to another table where he was conferencing with other writers. I was disappointed. I thought that maybe God had planned for me to sit there and talk to the editor.

I smiled at Israel--he reminded me of one of my kids--and began asking about his writing and his background. He writes Christian sci-fi and fantasy and is a missionary to Jews in Israel. I could not believe my ears. Here was a man who could give me all the information I needed to fill in the gaps in a novel I have been working on for years. It involves a woman who falls in love with a Jew who has found Christ.

Coincidence? I think not.

Imprint-666

Yesterday I missed the mark (pun intended). I should have been posting about the ominous day of 6/6/06. Many are so superstitious about it that they even scheduled births either before or after the date to avoid the stigma to their child.

In the Bible, if the experts are correct, 666 is the mark the Beast, the Anti-Christ, will require people to wear to show their allegience to him. It will be imprinted on their foreheads. In the Left Behind series, the authors come up with another imprint, a cross on the forehead of Christians that can only be seen by other believers. I like that idea; an imprint that shows us as followers of Christ.

But perhaps we are overlooking an imprint that already exists. It is not embossed, engraven, stamped, or tattooed. It is the change in a life when one meets Christ and accepts him as Lord and Savior. It is the change that makes others wonder what's different.

A few Sundays ago, a man who had been married to a Christian woman for 40+ years before coming to the Lord himself told us that he had quietly, one morning while his wife was in church, accepted Christ. He didn't tell his wife for a few months what he had done. When he did, she countered with, "I knew it. I could see the change in you."

Networking

For me, it's that time of year when I have to come out of my shell--the annual writer's conference. Knees knocking I approach editors and publishers and feed them my ideas in the hope that something in my arsenal will pique their interest.

Question is: how do you keep your palms from sweating when it's time to greet them with a handshake? There must be some good advice for that. I just haven't found it yet.

And then there's the networking--getting out there to meet new people and share ideas, accomplishments, and goals. Usually, that's done over lunch or dinner and hopefully, without a piece of spinach between my teeth.

Normally I'm not that shy about meeting new people but here at the conference that new face could just be the open door for a published work.

No pressure.

Canned Oxygen

More than once I've heard my husband say, "I wish I'd have thought of bottled water." Well, now the Japanese have beat him to the punch again with canned oxygen.

Oxygen spas/bars have become popular in many places. You can sit down and inhale flavored oxygen for a few minutes and walk away refreshed and de-stressed if you believe all the hype.

Now, in Japan, at 7-Elevens you can buy a can of "flavored" oxygen--grapefruit or mint. It looks like a fat can of hairspray and has a plastic mask attached so you can fit it to your nose and mouth and not loose any precious air to the...well, air. The cost is about $5 which works out to be about 18 cents everytime you inhale.

Apparently sales are rapidly increasing which means it won't be long before it will be on the shelves of our local convenience stores.

"Two bottles of water and a can of O2 please."

More to Pond-er

Pond-ering

When we sketched out the pond for the landscapers to install, I didn't think much about its size. I wanted it large enough to put some nice plants in it and some fish. As many things in life do, it grew bigger than I planned. It is a lot of work to keep it cleaned up and the alga under control (especially this time of year).

Today I looked out the window and was greeted by a beautiful water lily bloom. Its translucent blushing pink petals were opened to the sun drinking in its warmth. What a beautiful surprise.

Hard work has its rewards.

Does God Love an Atheist?

I ran across an interesting article about Julia Sweeney, a former SNL cast member (http://marty-center.uchicago.edu/sightings/archive_2006/0525.shtml). She quit the show in 1994 to go out on her own in Los Angeles. Shortly after, a series of tragedies including the death of her younger brother caused her to question and eventually give up her faith. She had been a practicing Catholic.

At first she came out with a comedy monologue called, God Said, "Ha!", implying that God had a weird sense of humor. Then when she finally gave up on God entirely, she put together a monologue called, Letting Go of God. The article describes it this way:

Furthermore, she finds that the Bible contains no satisfactory response to her personal tragedies. In a manner at once poignant and comical, she recalls her brother's months of "unspeakable suffering," comparing them bitterly to Jesus' relatively quick death and resurrection: "Someone once said: 'Jesus had a really bad weekend for our sins.'" As the Bible study course progresses, she finds herself turning away from the "bi-polar" deity found in the Bible's "nutty stories." Finally, she accedes to a little voice inside that has been whispering, to her horror, "There is no God."

The line that bothered me was "Jesus had a really bad weekend for our sins." A bad weekend? Perhaps Sweeney is only considering physical pain. She discounts mental anguish, verbal abuse, and a broken heart. Also discounted are the three days he spent in hell. Been there lately? No, neither have I but I can't imagine the horror of that. And, what is time? I can remember an auto accident when a few seconds felt like hours as I watched the windshield splinter ever so slowly before my eyes.

But all argument over whose pain was greater, Jesus or her brother's, aside, Sweeney isn't exactly the atheist she portends to be. After all, she named the monologue, Letting Go of God. How do you let go of something you don't believe exists?

Thankfully, Jesus spent that weekend...and more...because he loves Julia Sweeney too.

Audio Books

For a long time I fought the notion of listening to a book instead of reading it. I didn't want my imagination to be tainted by the inflections of a reader, or the interpretation of the voices of characters. Then I started driving to Wheaton each year for a conference. I found it much nicer to listen to a book for six hours than to keep jiggling the seek button on my radio to tune in a station every 50 miles or so.

Now, I'm really into the audio thing. I always have a CD or tape of a book in my car. Sometimes it takes a couple of months to finish a book. (I don't do a lot of driving. I'm sort of chained to the computer at home.) I only get books that are non-fiction for driving around town. They are easier to find your place again when you haven't listened in a while. The novels I save for the long trips--like down to Columbus to visit the grandkids. I was tempted once to circle the block to finish off a good book but with those little eyes watching out for Grandma, I figured it wasn't a good idea.

I've learned to time the endings better.

DaVinci Da Choice

I've always thought of life as a series of choices. You choose to follow an occupation. You choose a spouse, where to live, how many children to have. You choose what books to read and movies to see. You choose to believe...well, whatever you believe.

I have had an unusual amount of hits recently on a previous posting from over a year ago. It was about visiting Milan and viewing DaVinci's Last Supper--before reading Brown's code. It wasn't intended to open a debate. It was posted to say merely that I enjoyed the work of art and did not look for hidden meanings. That was my choice.

These are some of the other choices I have made:

• I choose to believe the Gospels are true, written by men who walked with Jesus, saw Jesus and recorded what happened. When the Bible was put together, the criteria was that it be the earliest writings (less lost to memory) and from those closest to Jesus.
• I choose to believe God had a hand in what was written in the Bible.
• I choose, by faith, to believe in Jesus as my Savior and Lord.
• I choose, by faith, to believe that God chose to send his son, Jesus, to sacrifice himself in order to give those who believe the gift of salvation.
• I choose, by faith, to beleive that Jesus rose from the grave to show us that we can have victory in life as well as death.
• I choose to believe in that sacrificial act of love and the freedom God gives me to make those choices.
• I choose not to remain anonymous in my faith.

[Check out The DaVinci Code: The Biblical Response]

SMILE!

Microsoft Robotic Mania

This week I spent several days in Las Vegas with my husband at a conference for Microsoft's Embedded Devices. At least I think that's what it was. I don't do well with the technical stuff. I went to spend some time with him, get rid of the distractions around the house so I could concentrate on some new book ideas, and yes, to enjoy the excitement that only neon Las Vegas creates.

Wednesday night was a special dinner for the conferees and guests at Tao's restaurant and nightclub in the Venetian. The entertainment for the evening was a robotic competition. Now when you say "robots" to me, I conjure up pictures of large people-shaped metal creatures with arms and legs and a voice that says, "Danger, Will Robinson!"

Uh-Uh.

We stood on a balcony overlooking three large boxes with white rings on top of them. Men were paired off at each box and at the signal of the referee, they placed little square 8" boxes of metal parts in the ring and pushed a switch. When the program finally started running, little red lights flashed and the boxes began moving--sometimes in circles, sometimes straight for the competition. The winner was declared when his robot pushed the other robot out of the ring.

Men stood around cheering, jeering, and high-fiving. Huh?

Is this the future replacement for boxing, wrestling, and chicken fighting?

Farting Dogs and Meatball Weather

What fun to spend a day with the grandkids! We spent hours walking around the zoo having as much fun balancing on the curbs while we walked as we did in seeing the elephants and their friends. But the best part of the day was the quiet time we spent when we got back. We did my favorite thing--read.

Children's books have gone far beyond Dr. Seuss. The two good reads we did were about a farting dog that almost got sent back to the pound because of his flatulence and a town called Chewandswallow that never had to shop for food because it came from their weather every day. The dog saved himself from the pound by fending off some burglars--by farting, of course. But the townspeople had to desert their homes when their weather went haywire and gave them more than they could eat. When the weather said "Cloudy with meatballs" they ran for cover.

Ahhhh, what little imaginations will do with those stories...

Heart Blossoms

Have you been enjoying our spring this year? Are you like me and go outdoors and just breathe in the freshness that this time of year brings, especially after an April shower? It is like being set free from winter and ready for a new adventure as the garden begins to pop with color. I found a passage in Isaiah that kind of describes those feelings.

“Even the wilderness will rejoice in those days. The desert will blossom with flowers. Yes, there will be an abundance of flowers and singing and joy! The deserts will become as green as the mountains of Lebanon, as lovely as Mount Carmel’s pastures and the plain of Sharon. There the Lord will display his glory, the splendor of our God.” Isaiah 35:1-2

The mountains of Lebanon are a beautiful place, snow-capped and greened with cedar trees. Waterfalls flow down the sides of the mountain, especially in spring as the snow melts back. Imagine the burst of color when the trees bloom with their reddish 2-4 inch long catkins—the blooms that produce the cones.

As mountains go, Carmel is not very high. It sits near the Mediterranean Sea. Anemones and cyclamen grow wild on the sides of the mountain. As you look south along the coast you look over the plain of Sharon with its fertile fields fed from the cool waters that flow from the mountains. What the joy that all that blossoming must bring.

We drive across the Cuyahoga Valley to church each Sunday. It is probably the best measure of the coming of new life that the spring season brings. While in the winter it can be beautiful with a fresh snowfall, when there is no snow, it is full of barren trees and brown grasses. Everything appears dead. But as soon as the weather begins to warm and spring rains and sunshine begin to comfort those dormant plants, the valley begins to show a tint of yellow green that turns into a deeper green speckled with white and pink blossoms as plants and trees burst forth in bloom.

That’s kind of like our lives many times. We feel barren, dead, colorless. But then God shines the light of his Son on us and rains down blessings and we blossom with new life—new hope. It is there in that blossoming dessert Isaiah says, that God will display his glory and his splendor.

My lilac bushes are just about to open up and grace my yard with color and fragrance. I’ve been watching them—expectantly. If, instead of opening their buds and welcoming God’s sunshine and rain, they remained closed and dried up, the glorious color and splendid fragrance God gifted them with would never be known.

Open your heart to God’s son and accept his rain of blessings and let his glory and splendor be shown in you.

As it says in Isaiah, “The desert will blossom with flowers. Yes, there will be an abundance of flowers and singing and joy!” When our dessert flowers, our joy soars, and yes, we may even start singing.

Buy a Building Name

A recent news story told of a community that was selling the rights to name a school in their area. This buy-a-building-name craze is really spreading. What happpened to the idea that public buildings were named for people who had done something for their community, state, or country?

Our arena which is home to the Cavaliers used to be known as the Gund, named after the owner of the Cavs. I believe he helped build the place and certainly has contributed to our community. Now the fellow from Quicken Loans has bought the team and immediately the name of the arena changed to the Quicken Loan Arena. It is sheer out and out advertising--albeit expensive advertising. Every side of the building has a huge Quicken Loan sign in blazing lights. The side facing Jacobs Field (our ballpark) is prudently placed where it can be seen by most people in the stands and, when a home run is hit, stands a good chance of being seen by TV viewers.

And now we are going to sell naming rights to schools?

I would ask what's next--names for babies? But that's already been done on e-bay. Maybe we'll sell the rights to name the Washington Monument or the Empire State Building. After all, if it's all about revenue wouldn't that help add to the coffers of state and federal governments? Maybe lower taxes? Sure. Do you suppose someone would go for buying the right to name my house? I see mortgage payments disappearing with that prospect.

It will be sad to see this turn into a vanity or marketing ploy with all of our public buildings. Sad because it's a sign that we are loosing respect for the memory or appreciation of the people who never ask for anything in return when they contribute to society but are at least honored by their name being on a building or a monument or sometimes only a plaque on a wall--not even lit by lights.

T. Davis Bunn Shark Attack

When I first heard of the shark attack on T. Davis Bunn, author of the Lazarus Trap, I thought it was a joke--something to draw me into a new marketing ploy. Boy, those authors will think of anything. And then I checked it out. Sure enough, he was attacked while surfing near Melbourne, FL.

That is precisely why I would rather dive with sharks at their level than be floundering around at the surface like a wounded fish. It's an invitation to dinner.

The question that arises now is what will Davis Bunn do with this experience? As a novelist he is sure to incorporate his extraordinary encounter into his work somewhere. This is a guy who rides around in taxi cabs in New York just to get the feel for the cadence and color of a cab driver's language. As the story went at the writer's conference where he taught, he also got the lowdown on some other interesting aspects of city life and applied them to his novel.

But Bunn is also a Christian and I'm sure is thanking God for looking out for him. A hundred and twenty stitches later, I'll bet he's not thanking his lucky stars...he's thanking his Protector.

Weeding

This spring I am suffering for the lack of interest I took in cleaning out the flower beds last fall. They should have been weeded one more time before winter arrived. I remember looking at them and thinking--hoping--that winter's cold would kill them off.

Well, it didn't. Those weeds are tough old characters. As long as the roots are still in the ground, they'll grow back and twice as bad. Ask my aching legs and back.

When you're on your knees a lot (I've been at it for a week now), you begin to think about praying and other spiritual things. I couldn't help but see the analogy between the weeds I was plucking out of the ground and the weeds we let grow in our lives. If we don't keep the garden of our life weeded out, the weeds will take over and destroy the flowers and the beauty of that garden.

My sins of omission--not weeding in the fall--have certainly made my life more painful this spring. Makes me want to look and see if I've been omitting anything important in the rest of my life.

Okay, one more analogy and I'm done.

I've also been spreading weed preventer in all the beds. Hopefully when all those spring seeds from dandelions and maple trees start floating through the air they won't sprout when they land in my flower beds. Scripture reading and prayer seem like a good weed preventer for life.

Done.

Papua New Guinea

The following is a sample story from my newsletter, JOURNEYS.

“Shout our name from the mountains to seas, Papua New Guinea.” The strains of their national anthem still play in my mind. I expected a great dive adventure. I didn’t expect to fall in love.

Perhaps it was waking anchored in calm inlets to hazy purplish sunrises with the distant call of exotic birds, or looking out at the lush green islands of Milne Bay that contrasted sharply against the clear skies and deep blue waters that drew me in. Without a doubt it was meeting the wonderful people of the villages that dot the islands so far away from the usual conveniences we take for granted.

Silently the dugout canoes sliced through the water from each village as we neared. Men, women, and children in canoes congregated at the sides and back of the live-aboard with fresh fruits and vegetables to trade for staples like rice and sugar. Some displayed crafts of wood and shells to sell or trade for T-shirts. Some fished. But all watched as we came and went in our dive gear. We were the entertainment for the day.

The paradise above was magnified in the treasures below. Abundant colorful marine life in all shapes and sizes played over a patchwork quilt of brilliant corals. An abundance of lionfish, countless varieties of nudibranchs, endless fields of anemones with their guardian clownfish, and the unusual--the hairy ghost pipefish, kept us diving back in for more. On this 10 day trip, we were limited only by our ability, stamina, and common sense. (Read the rest of the story.)

News-Wordy

Okay, so it seems lately I'm doing a lot of complaining but I need to get this out. When I listen to the news on TV, I want to hear the news. Instead I hear "Coming up is..." and then there are four or five teasers which may or may not be coming up any time soon. This wastes at least a minute and a half--long enough to give me another news story.

Then there's the one that really drives me nuts. Waiting for the weather. There are two teasers in the half hour news program and at least three in the hour version and two of those promise the full report after the next commercial. After the third commercial the report is finally given.

I liken this to writing a story and rambling on and on. Good writing is tight writing especially when writing non-fiction (that's what the news is supposed to be). Readers lose interest if you promise them something and make them wait. TV viewers do too. We turn the nightly news off way before the weather finally arrives no matter how many times they promise it's coming. After all, when we get up in the morning, it will still be weather and we'll know whether the sun is shining or not.

Gas Prices--Shorter Drive Thru Lines?

This noon I stopped at Wendy's to get my son some lunch. I was going to use the drive thru. When I saw that it was wrapped around the building, I decided to go inside instead. We were through the line and back in our car before the last car made it up to the ordering box.

Now, I'm no expert on how much gas is wasted on an idling car but as the pennies, dimes, and quarters keep getting added to the price, doesn't it seem ridiculous that people would be waiting 15 minutes in a drive thru line?

As we passed McDonald's on the way home, I glanced at their drive thru line--around the building just like Wendy's.

What's it like in your neighborhood? Maybe we should do a study on drive thrus and the waste of energy sources. I'm sure the government would have some kind of grant available for that--probably even at a drive thru window.

...And Babies Were Three

Scratching and chirping continued over our heads in the dining room long after our intruder was carted off by the animal warden. With the help of our son, Bob removed the speaker in the ceiling of the room and began to pull down the insulation. It wasn't long before he pulled the first baby from the warmth and comfort of its nest. Two more followed.

Instead of the usual chicks and ducks, we were graced with three baby raccoons for Easter.

The Intruder

The animal warden arrived that afternoon to see if she could determine what was in the attic. The minute we mention chirping sounds, her face clouded. The consensus was that we had a raccoon in the attic and she probably had babies. Apparently baby raccoons sound a lot like baby birds.

We set the box trap in the attic and baited it with some cat food. The warden assured us that we would know when we had caught our intruder. Well, we didn't hear much that evening and when Bob checked in the morning, the trap was empty--the food was gone!

Clearly we were dealing with a clever raccoon.

Undaunted, Bob bought some more cat food--two varieties--and reset the trap adding a bowl of water and wiring the bait to the cage.

His efforts were rewarded. The next morning two beady eyes blinked at him when he inspected the trap. He left his trophy catch on the porch for the animal warden and went off to work. Her report came back that indeed the raccoon was a female and she was obviously nursing babies.

The trap sits in the attic awaiting some hungry babies. If they don't show up, they will be routed from their nest this weekend. Usually kids get chicks and ducklings for Easter. Looks like we get raccoons. Stay tuned.

More Noises

The scratching was incessant in the evening. During the day there was only an occassional shuffle. Whatever was between the floors was nocturnal. That began to narrow things down. Mice? A raccoon? A skunk?

A skunk was frightening to think about. That could mean de-stinking the whole house if it let loose when cornered. A raccoon is destructive as are mice.

Bob opted for mice and set a couple of traps with his favorite bait--peanut butter. In the middle of watching our favorite shows we had TiVoed while gone, we heard a horrible clunking sound that seemed to run the length of the dining room. Something was in a trap and it was desparately trying to get out. And that something was BIG and angry. Rule out mice.

"Call someone," I began to chant. We have an animal warden and there are other pest control people. "Call someone."

Bob just kept shaking his head. "What could it be? What could it be?"

"Whatever it is, it's big and mad. Call someone."

He went to work the next day and, sure enough, the consensus at work was that he should call someone. He contacted the animal warden for our city and set up an appointment. At four, we would get an expert's opinion on what was in attic.

Did You Hear That?

What is it about husbands? When you say you hear a noise they just look at you as though you had just said the voices in your head were back. There couldn't possibly be a noise in the engine of the car. A tow and a repair bill always proves that statement wrong. What about the noise in the attic?

For weeks I said I thought I heard something walking in the eaves above our front porch and the response I got was, "I don't hear anything." Well, of course not! I was talking to the man who couldn't hear the stereo cries of his twin babies when I laid them down one on each side of him while he slept. And in thirty-some years, that hearing has faded even more.

He humored me and looked in the attic. There were no footprints in the fluffy layer of insulation so it was obvious I was just hearing the wind. We went on vacation.

Two weeks later we returned and while relaxing in front of the TV one night heard a terrible racket that sounded like a nestful of starlings. Were they back and in the attic? Oh yes, that was another noise--in the chimney--a couple of years ago that I imagined.

There was no denying it this time. He actually admited hearing the rumpus. To add to the mystery, we happened to look out the front door and find that part of the flashing over the porch had been bent as though something had fallen through it. The nosies began again.

What in the world was up there? Was it feathered or furry? Big or small? And how in the world had it manuevered between the first and second floor to lodge right above the dining room table?

Millenium Cruise Tragedy

We have just returned from our South American/Panama Canal cruise aboard the Celebrity Millenium. I meant to post while we were gone, but I left my password at home and for some reason my computer would not remember it for me. Can computers have senior moments?

At our first port, Arica, Chile, a group of passengers arranged a tour with a local company to go into the national park in the mountains just outside the city. Tragically, on a narrow winding road, their van swerved to miss on oncoming truck and went off the road, tumbling down an embankment for about 300 feet and killing 12 of the 16 passengers.

We had no idea what was wrong as we waited for the ship's crew to cast off the lines that evening so we could make our way to Callao, Peru. As passengers began to gather to watch the ship's departure, rumors began to circulate that there had been an accident. There are always rumors abounding when there is a change in schedule and we didn't take them seriously until we began to see more official cars arrive and cruise staff (we later learned a doctor and nurse) leave the ship with suitcases.

About two hours past our scheduled departure time, the ship's captain informed us that there had been a tragic accident and 11 people had died (one more passed away in the hospital). The details began to filter through. One man recounted having seen the van at the bottom of the embankment when their tour bus had returned down the same road.

It began to sink in.

There but for the grace of God...

While we had not been on the same tour--ours was an excursion to a coastal walk, arranged through the cruise company--it could still have been the scenario for us. We might have done the same thing had we not chosen the coastal walk instead. We love to explore parks and nature rather than the cities.

The ship was quiet that night. The nightly entertainment was canceled. No one would have attended the show. Many were lined up at the computer centers aboard ship. All with the same idea. The news media would be broadcasting with no names mentioned and there would be hundreds of families wondering if their loved ones were okay. Thankfully, I had wireless on my laptop and didn't have to wait long to let our children and family know we were all right. The messages, I hear, arrived just before or after they received the news.

We stayed the night docked at Arica until arrangements were in place with families and friends of those who died and the officials cleared the ship to leave after their investigation into the accident. The Millenium crew and the Celebrity Cruise company were outstanding in their handling of the situation as far as we could tell. While due respect was given to those who lost their lives--a room was arranged for any who desired to pray or meditate and counselors were available--the cruise was not given a melancholy atmosphere. Passengers went on to enjoy their vacation time but stopped for a memorial service the following week to remember those whose lives had come to such an abrupt end.

I'm sure that this week as we all return home, we will hug our families a little tighter and feel a little more thankful.

Tornado Wimp

Okay, when it comes to tornadoes, I'm a wimp. The minute the little boxes go up on the radar screen, I go into my tornado preparation mode--leaving the TV on to watch the storms approach and pacing with an ear for that train they say you hear and a small flashlight in my pocket in case the lights go out.

I've never been in a tornado. Had one pass close to another house we lived in. All the while it was tearing up a garage a mile down the road from us, the sun was shining in our yard--is it any wonder I get nervous?

I have had plenty of "tornado dreams." They are right up there with the dream of being in a convertible and driving up a hill that gets increasingly steeper and then the car starts to free fall. Thankfully I wake up then--sometimes screaming. In the tornado dreams, I see them coming in the distance, ripping up houses and buildings. I know they're getting closer and sometimes I can even feel the wind pick up...of course that could be my husband snoring in my face. I wake up before they hit but the anticipation sets my heart racing.

This morning amid news reports of the storm system approaching us (after leaving houses in ruin in Missouri) I looked outside to see--sunshine? Taking advantage of the warm weather and the sun and knowing it wouldn't last--this is Cleveland, good weather never lasts--I went for a morning walk. To the north, the dark gray skies told the story of the storms out over the lake. To the south, the sun shone through a small gathering of clouds. As I walked back east however, I had the sense of being followed. I looked over my shoulder and there they were, the thick black clouds of the front that was approaching. I picked up my pace and by the time I arrived back in the house, the sunshine was gone, replaced by dark twilight and the ominous rumble of thunder.

I'm a wimp. The TV is on broadcasting the storm's progress. I have my trusty flashlight, and my eye wanders to the window to check the skies outside. It will probably just be a lot of noise and rain but my heart will race as fast as it does in a good action-thriller-suspense movie or book. I'm such a wimp.

Snapshots of Life

Random thoughts of what has passed and what is to come:

• Watched our Antarctica trip on video...how magnificent it truly was.
• Looking forward to our next trip--South America and the Canal.
• Anticipating VIP night with Tyler at his preschool.
• Remembering Kotomi yelling at Grandpa in Japanese.
• Encouraging Tracy in her new venture--http://trig-out.blogspot.com/
• Wondering what kind of adventures Danielle will find in life--something in those eyes...
• Amazed that Caleb is sitting up already. Is he six months old already?
• Blessed and encouraged with feedback from speaking at the women's retreat.
• Excited at the prospect of more opportunities to speak to groups.
• Waiting...waiting...waiting on news about my novel.
• Eager to begin the next book.
• Praising God for all the opportunities in my life to serve Him.
• Thanking Him for all the good snapshots of life.

Take Two Laughs And...

In the 10th century B.C. the writer of Proverbs said, “A cheerful heart is good medicine.” In 2005, a researcher at the University of Maryland Medical Center said basically the same thing. Dr. Michael Miller, director of preventive cardiology released the results of a study showing that laughter may be an important factor in reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease leading to heart attacks.

“At the very least,” he said, “laughter offsets the impact of mental stress which is harmful to the [lining of the blood vessels].” Stress causes constriction of the blood vessels.

Dr. Miller is not the first to study the impact of laughter on our health. Dr. William Fry of Stanford’s Medical School has also looked into the impact of laughter’s effects on pulse rates, oxygen levels, and blood pressure. He found that 100 to 200 deep “hee hahs” can benefit your body as much as ten minutes of rowing.

Norman Cousins is one of the pioneers in humor therapy. He suffers from a very painful crippling form of arthritis. He found that watching 30 minutes of funny videos provided him with 2 hours of pain free restful sleep. He documented all his research in a book titled Anatomy of an Illness.

Another advocate of humor therapy is Dr. Hunter “Patch” Adams who gained notority by dressing in a clown outfit—red rubber nose and all, to make his hospital rounds. A movie about him came out in 1999 starring Robin Williams. Dr. Adams says, “Joy is more important than any other drug.”

What does all this mean? Have a good laugh. You might find yourself reducing stress and enjoying better health. And don’t be surprised the next time you see your doctor and he tells you, “Take two laughs and call me in the morning."


[http://www.umm.edu/news/releases/laughter.html, http://www.jesthealth.com/art13jnj.html,
http://www.patchadams.org/home.htm ]

Joyful Retreat

This weekend I spoke at a women's retreat. The theme was joy. A more "joyful" group you'd never find anywhere. They were fun and certainly enjoyed each other's fellowship. An Unbirthday Party took away the sting of adding another year onto our ages. Our gift bags included a small rubber duckie--something the organizers never realized could be filled with water and squirted.

The best gift of all though was the gift of encouragement and love that was shared among those who attended. Those are the things that help us to realize we're not alone when the going gets rough in life--when we hit the rocky roads or the potholes of life. God puts those loving caring people in our path to remind us of the joy he gives to those who love him. His joy goes beyond the "happily ever after" in life to the forever joyful.

(Information on my speaker's topics can be found at http://www.karenrobbins.com/Speaker%20Information.htm).

Smoking Bans

There is a wave of smoking bans overtaking the country again. Communities, cities, counties, and states have passed bans for smoking indoors in public places or are considering legislation to effectively move smokers to the outdoors or their own homes. I haven't done the research but I'm wondering--is this how Prohibition got started?

While personally I'd be happy to see all smoking done away with for health reasons (my father had emphysema), I'd hate to see the country go through another round of underground commercialism. Instead of speakeasys there'd be "smoke-easys" springing up in backdoor alleyway joints. Can you imagine raids on attic tobacco growers? If you purchased too much tissue paper for wrapping gifts would you be suspected of rolling your own cigarettes?

There's no easy solution to the insanity of smoking. We all need our "drugs." Mine is chocolate. I can appreciate the addictive qualities of tobacco and chocolate but my chocolate addiction doesn't harm the person in the same room with me when I eat it.

Which leads to another whole imagined scenario--lawsuits. If we banned all smoking in all public places and it was only done at home, with our lawsuit mentality I could imagine children suing parents over being raised in a home with smokers. It's not too farfetched to imagine a slew of lawsuits in apartment buildings. There's already been one on record where a woman claimed her neighbor's smoking was causing her ill health.

How do we get the kids to stop thinking it's cool or awesome, or whatever the teen volcabulary dubs it now? That's where the promise is. If we can stop the younger generations from getting hooked, then we may see smoking disappear from public as well as private view. Of course, what's the chances the smoking habit would be replaced by something worse? Like I said, we all need our "drugs."

Revisiting My Da Vinci Post

What I wrote about the Brown book, The Da Vinci Code, Monday has been preying on my mind since. Here I am saying that his book is fiction and therefore should be discounted when I am a Christian fiction writer. I wonder, do people discount Christian fiction because it's fiction?

I guess the answer is in my philosophy of life--life is made up of choices. I choose to believe the Bible. I choose to believe Jesus is the son of God, the Savior and Lord. I choose to believe that he never had an affair with Mary Magdalene that produced children. That would have been contrary to all he taught, to his purpose here on earth and in eternity.

In my writing, my protagonists reflect those beliefs. They struggle with growth in their faith and the influences the world has on them--like rumors of those accusations found in the Brown book. There will always be opportunities to discount the Biblical records of Jesus' ministry then and now (you see I choose to believe in the resurrection and a living savior). Those who choose not to believe will always find reasons to justify their non-belief.

Did Brown set out to win support for the suppositions in his book? I don't know. Like I said before it was a great puzzle to figure out--suspenseful. I'm sorry that people who look at the Last Supper now will look to it for the clues it is purported to have rather than the great work of art that it is.

The controversy is good in some ways. It forces people to reexamine their faith. It forces people to make choices. Will you believe in the Bible and the Savior it portrays or will you follow the premises that demean him?

Da Vinci -- Da Rumble

Do you hear it? It's beginning again. The rumble over The Da Vinci Code can be heard in the distance, getting louder as it approaches. The release of the movie in May is already causing a buzz as the movie trailers are beginning to pique curiosity all over again.

I read the book. Ho-hum. It was a decent adventure/mystery story--a good puzzler, if you like solving puzzles. A great novel? No way. It was slow and sluggish in places and the characters were not so deep that you really cared that much about them. If the publisher is smart, he'll take the profits from all the hoopla surrounding the book and publish something that is truly worth reading and caring about.

So what about this hoopla? Where did it all come from? Whoever started it--publiscists, media, evangelicals--it certainly paid off in dollars for author and publishing house, and now the movie makers. By the way, in case you've really been out of all the loops, the commotion has been over the premise that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had children together. The protests raged when the book came out over the propagation of the premise as though the author had presented a theological dissertation. Dan Brown wrote the book as FICTION.

I can't help but wonder if the book would have quietly gone into the night had the Christian world not taken up arms against it. Of course it sold millions of copies--to those who who wanted to find out what all the rumble was about. Now Tom Hanks and Ron Howard will add to it. Will I go see it? Probably. My husband hasn't read the book--too long, so he'll want to see it. After all, he's curious to know why everyone is in such a dither over the whole thing, as are so many others--guaranteeing it to be a box office hit.

Parenting Tips

When I was raising five kids, I could have used a parenting tip everyday--probably two. A writing friend of mine whose expertise is in early childhood behavior and parenting is offering a Daily Discipline Tip each Wednesday. Her wise counsel can be obtained at http://www.brendanixon.com/ . Click on the sidebar that says Daily Discipline Tip to sign up.

My tip for the day: A piece of chocolate can calm the nerves, lift the spirit, soothe the beast, and refresh a weary soul. The trick is to let it s-l-o-w-l-y melt in your mouth. By the time its gone your troubles seem a lot smaller.

This tip comes to you free of charge from a confessing chocoholic.

Ah, Chocolate

The love affair with chocolate in America extends far beyond eating it. A trip to Hershey PA, the town that was built on chocolate, will engulf you in all sorts of chocolate themed activities—Hershey’s Chocolate World where you can learn about chocolate making—theme park rides centered around chocolate bars—and of course the ultimate: the Chocolate Spa where you can immerse yourself in a cocoa bath or be covered in a chocolate body wrap. All guaranteed to be calorie free treatments.

Personally, I’d rather eat my chocolate.

You do have to be careful in your chocolate forays however. I did have a near death experience about a year ago. We were on the Queen Mary 2 and eating at the specialty restaurant on board ship. The desert was called Fallen Chocolate Cake. It arrived warm from the oven in the shape and size of a large muffin. The aroma wafted up and began to set my taste buds for the treat ahead. There was a scoop of vanilla ice cream beginning to melt next to it on the plate.

I took my fork and gently cut a small wedge from the cake. As I pulled it away, dark lush creamy chocolate flowed like molten lava from inside the cake and pooled around the ice cream. Ah…

The waiter had described the dessert as “death by chocolate.” I ate every last bit of it anyway.

Well, if I’m going to die—let it be by chocolate.

Web of Lies

Arachnophobics beware! Brandilyn Collins's new book will send you screaming back to your therapists. I just finished reading Web of Lies and must admit that I now make sure my shoes are on before I tramp around in the basement. Her characters, Annie Kingston, a forensic artist, and Chelsea Adams, a Christian whose visions have helped to solve crimes, come together in this book. Their combined efforts finally nab one of the creepiest villains you'll ever find--emphasis on creepy.

I met Brandilyn at Mount Hermon Writers' Conference last year--sat in on a couple of workshops. To look at this lovely lady with a beautiful sense of humor and spirit, you would never guess that somewhere in that mind lurks the creative fodder to chill you to the bone. Her forays into the minds of her villains are remarkable in creating the suspense that holds you in your seat turning page after page.

The Hidden Faces Series (Annie Kingston) and the Chelsea Adams Series are recommended reads--especially Dead of Night, my favorite. These books are best read during the day unless you enjoy that spine tingling little feeling that comes when you read a thriller shivering under your covers with just a reading light on.

One more thing--when you read Web of Lies, do it with your shoes on.

Be A Barnabas

Barnabas, the man who was nicknamed "Son of Encouragement" in the Bible, seems to keep cropping up in my life. A few years back when I needed some real encouragement myself, I decided that you get what you give and tried to "be a Barnabas." It worked. My attitude about people changed when I had to look for the good in them and encourage it.

Encouragement is not just praise. It is also comfort and consolation. It's what helps someone through those despairing times in life.

Barnabas cropped up again when I joined a writers' forum online. I became a part of a group of encouragers. We cheerfully refer to ourselves as the Barnabas Babes. When someone is down due to rejection, illness, stress, you name it, we jump in with words of encouragement and prayer support. On the other hand, we also applaud accomplishments and try to keep the green eyed monster of envy from ruining our honest good-wishes for each other.

Praise is good but encouragement is better. Praise needs you to be successful to be received but encouragement is given rather you succeed or not. Praise is a part of encouragement but if it is the only part, then there is no room for growth. Encouragement urges us ahead despite our circumstances.

In a few weeks I will be giving a talk on encouragement to a group at a womens' retreat. Its title? Be A Barnabas, of course!

Life Jacket Drill

We have been on enough cruises to know the drill. At around 4 or 5 p.m., after everyone should be aboard and ready to sail, the announcement is made that the alarm will sound and everyone--and they do mean everyone--needs to get their lifejacket from their room and proceed to their muster station indicated on the back of the stateroom door.

Some ships insist you wear the bulky orange vest that makes you feel pregnant all over again all the way to the muster station. I think that's to keep people from tripping on the straps if they aren't wound around the life jacket. Everyone assembles while those in charge take attendance. A demonstration of the proper way to wear the vest follows along with sometimes humorous descriptions of all the nifty attachments--a light for reading and whistle to irritate the marine life. Everyone is usually good natured about the whole thing. Although there was one cruise where the photographers (who are often irritating enough) decided it would be cute to take picures of everyone up to their chins in orange covered cork.

The Antarctic cruise actually had two life jacket drills. The second was for the inflatable life jackets that we would wear while on the zodiacs. The information went something like this:

You will proceed to the gangway with your parkas zipped and hoods up, holding any loose items in your right hand while the crew puts the life jacket over your head and secures the straps for you. If for any unfortunate reason you should find yourself overboard, your life jacket will inflate automatically. If the automatic inflation for some reason fails, there are two red knobs you pull to inflate the jacket. If for any reason that should fail to inflate your jacket and you have not sunk and are still conscious, you can manually inflate with the tubes at the top of the jacket. Of course by that time, hypothermia has probably set in and your life jack will only serve as a means of recovery rather than rescue--which explained the big loopy strap on the back of it.

The Iceberg Souvenir

Well, a little update on the delivery of the "iceberg" from Antarctica.

It was a great hit!

Tyler couldn't have been more pleased. He and Danielle ran and got their plastic seal, penguin, and polar bear (although polar bears are from the northern hemisphere--but then the iceberg was from my driveway...). They played with the iceberg in the plastic container for a bit and then decided we could float it in the bathtub.

Lori ran some cold water and we set it in the tub. Next time I'll have to give my iceberg more of a solid ice base. The packed snow absorbed water too fast. Tyler kept insisting he was going to get in the tub with it. We finally convinced him it was too cold.

The play continued in the bathroom for a while until Tyler noticed the iceberg getting smaller.

"We haffa put it in the freezer. It's gonna melt!" He fretted.

We rescued the melting berg and plopped it back in the container. Lori saved its life by putting it in the freezer and we went on enjoying the rest of our visit with all the grandkids.

When we got back home late Saturday night, I checked my e-mail before going to bed. A note from Lori said, "Tyler had to kiss his iceberg goodnight."

If he becomes too attached, I might have to make another trip to Antarctica and get another one. Hope he doesn't want it in the middle of summer.

Iceberg, Ho!

I'm a little late in posting today. I've been out making an iceberg.....

Yes, you read that right. I'm making an iceberg. We've had about 6 inches of snow over the last few days--perfect for iceberg making. Let me explain.

Just before we left for our trip to Antarctica we called our grandkids to say we'd send a penguin postcard. Tyler (our 4-year old grandson) burst into tears over the phone. For some reason he'd gotten it into his head that we were taking him with us so he could see the glaciers and icebergs. He has developed a fascination with them and has seen our Alaskan pictures with the glaciers and small bergs in the water. I felt terrible.

When it came time to buy souvenirs, I decided I wanted to get something really nice. I was surprised to find little to choose from for grandkids. Somebody missed the boat--er, ship--by not ordering more things for grandparents to buy. There was little to choose from.

I ended up with a couple of fleece vests, the word Antarctica written across the back and "free" mittens snapped inside the pouch on the back of the vest. Clothes. I could imagine the disappointed look on Tyler's face. The girls might enjoy the clothes but he's far beyond that.

In one of my more creative moments--I do have one or two--I decided to make him an iceberg. I've packed some snow in a large plastic container and we plan to put it in a cooler with lots of ice packed around it to keep it from melting too fast when we take it to him. I will explain to him that the glaciers are made of snow that is packed down and when it slides to the ocean, it breaks off and floats in the water. We'll put it in the bathtub--with Mom's approval, and maybe float a couple of boats around it.

I know he's probably smart enough to figure out it's not really from Antarctica but what's an imagination for if you can't use it?

Penguins and Penguins, Oh my!

Penguins and penguins and penguins. And then more penguins. Our trip to Antarctica was filled with them. It’s summer in the southern hemisphere and the penguins have migrated to their breeding spots. If you have seen March of the Penguins, you sort of have the picture. We were not as far south as the Emperor penguins so the conditions were not severe.

Thousands of penguins (we saw mostly Gentoo and Chinstrap and then Magellan in Argentina) cover the small islands and outcroppings of the Antarctic Peninsula where the ice has melted. During the winter, Antarctica is twice its normal size because of the ice that forms around it in the sea and the penguins live out in the open sea. When the ice breaks up and begins to melt, the birds return to their rookeries, find mates, and do what comes naturally to perpetuate the species.

At one of the lectures aboard our ship, the expedition team leader had given a talk about what we would be seeing. His specialty was something other than birds and penguins and he poked fun at the other team member who was to talk about the different kinds of penguins on the continent. The leader showed a slide with a shot of two penguins, one facing the camera, the other with its back to us. “There are really only two kinds of penguins,” he quipped. “Black ones and white ones.”

At each rookery landing, it was hard to stop taking pictures. There were too many good shots and we wanted to make sure we got them all. Thank goodness for digital—we took over 700 pictures plus video.

This week Bob put most of the pictures on a CD so we could begin to share them with others. He didn’t take a lot of time to edit so the slide show is almost an hour long—only for the stout of heart and those, like family, who have to watch. Somewhere in the midst of all his work, he sat back and said, “You know, that expedition leader was right about penguins.” He flipped through a few pictures. “There really are only two kinds.”

Colorful Antarctica

Our first day in Antarctic waters was gray and misty with spurts of drizzle that tried to dampen our spirits. No way. This was an adventure and we were awed by our first glimpses of large icebergs and a rookery of penguins.

The next day, however, brought bright sunshine and clear skies--clear blue, blue skies. This is where it gets difficult because I am going to try to tell you in words what I saw not only with my eyes, but my heart and soul as well.

Bright whiteness, pure white snow, whiter than anything I have ever seen graced the mountains and glaciers that ran down to the water's edge. It was made more shockingly white by being set against a backdrop of crystal blue skies. Here and there coal gray rocky cliffs poked through the ice and snow and were met by the surf of the ocean gently licking at their base.

How I wished that for just a few minutes the buzz and hum of the ship could be silenced, for I know that the quiet would have felt holy.

As I stood on deck and drank in the pristine beauty of my surroundings, the words, "whiter than snow" came to mind. This was the whitest snow I had ever seen and yet the Bible says Jesus washes our sins whiter than snow. What a wondrous miracle.

Not My Cup of Tea

As we explored the shopping area of Buenos Aires, we noticed some unusual items in many of the store windows. I’m not an expert on drug paraphernalia but these items looked suspicious. They were round cups made of wood (actually a gourd) and a variety of other materials and each had a silver/metal straw in them that ended in a little silver strainer-type contraption on the end that was inserted into the cup. Did you smoke something in it, I wondered?

Window after shop window, we passed the same thing with unique designs, materials, and decorations. This was getting to be too much, I decided. At an outdoor craft market there was a table full of these cups with their unusual straws and a fellow whose English was pretty good so I gathered the courage to ask.

“It is mate--our national drink!” He was amazed that I didn’t know that. From a chair behind him, he picked up his own cup and showed me. “It is our tea. See?”

I peered into the cup at a concoction of liquid mixed with some sort of leaves. There was more leaf material than liquid it seemed. Then the light bulb went on in my head. Of course, they put their tea leaves in the hot water in their cup and the drink is strained through the straw. How clever. It reminded me of the Japanese teapot my daughter-in-law had given me where the strainer was in the spout.

I lifted the cup close enough to my nose to take a whiff. It was not the aroma I expected. While the gentleman insisted it wasn’t tobacco, I was sure it had to be at least a first cousin to the plant. It reminded me of my grandfather’s old cigars when they would get wet in an ashtray he kept outside.

The opportunity arose to purchase some tea and one of the cups but I passed. I can’t imagine it tasting any better than it smelled and tobacco juice isn’t my cup of tea.

A Different View

[Apologies to those of you who read regularly. We were without internet for two weeks traveling through Argentina and the Antarctic. Yes, you will be hearing about it. Here's the first...]

Rain dripped off the end of my nose as I watched my footing on the catwalk at Iguazu Falls in Argentina. We were treading carefully on the Superior Walk, the higher level of trails for viewing the falls. Even through the mist and the rain, the falls were a spectacular wonder of nature (will post pictures and review on my website soon)—tons of water spilling down more than 200 different waterfalls. While they aren’t as tall as Niagra, they stretch over a wider area.

Just like Niagra, however, the Iguazu Falls are viewed from two sides—the Argentinean and the Brazilian. Of course there ensues a debate over which side is better. Some argue that the Falls are best viewed from Argentina, others say Brazil. As our guide put it, “It’s a different view.” We heard that phrase a lot.

“Take the lower circuit. It’s not necessarily better. It’s just a different view.”

“Be sure to go out to San Martin Island. It’s a different view.”

“For a different view, go down to the river.”

Every time we rounded a corner and saw the Falls from a new angle, we laughed and said, “It’s a different view.”

And our guide was right. Everyone had their own opinion about which was the best view.
But isn’t that how the world is? Everyone getting “a different view?”

Where do babies come from?

In FAO Schwartz there is a baby nursery similar to what you might find in the maternity ward of a hospital. A half wall is topped off with Plexiglass to allow you to view two rows of bassinettes each containing a brand new life-like baby doll. The sales clerk is dressed like a nurse and will pick up the baby of your choice and bring it out for you to hold. Then if you so choose, you may purchase the darling bundle for a cool $80.

This unique marketing idea could create all sorts of complicated issues with the age old question, "Where do babies come from?"

"Mommy goes to the hospital and they help her get the baby," Mommy explains.

Little Janie sees the babies behind the window just like at FAO Schwartz and turns to Daddy. "How much do these babies cost?" Daddy just shudders.

Now little Janie wanted a baby sister but Mommy shows her a little baby brother. Janie knows that when you buy something at the store, if you have a receipt you can return it.

"Mommy?"

"Yes, dear?"

"Where's the receipt for Baby John?"

"Receipt? Why do you want a receipt?"

"I'm gonna take him back and get a sister."

Of course that's more of an exchange. She probably wouldn't need a receipt.

Shhh! Don't tell her.

Hearts Anonymous

Hello, my name is Karen and I have a problem. It came with my computer. It's Hearts and I can't stop playing it. I do limit my playing time and use it as reward for goals met in my writing. My true problem arises with Pauline, Ben, and Michele--the other players (computer generated). I think they look into my hand sometimes. How else could they know I hold the queen of spades alone and then play a spade for me to suffer the consequences of having to play it and be penalized?

I find myself talking to Pauline. She seems to love to take all the tricks and leave the rest of us with 26 penalty points. "That wasn't nice, Pauline...You already played the ace of hearts--didn't you?"

Of course Michele always wants to send me the queen of spades when she has it along with the king and ace. That would be fine if I had all the high cards in the hearts suit. Then I could be like Pauline and take all the tricks. Michele's very sensitive though and I hate to yell at her.

Ben just sits there and chuckles at us girls but we get even with him every so often. We gang up on him and let him take the queen of spades along with all but one of the hearts. "Gotcha, Ben. It's not so funny when it happens to you, is it?" Of course if we do it too often his penalty points add up and the game ends sooner.

Do you see my problem? Instead of talking to myself, now I'm talking to computer generated card playing friends. I think I'm safer going back to talking to myself. It's a little more conventional.

Love, Janis

Janis Joplin and James Dean. I will never understand the need to esteem them. James Dean was just getting his career started when he died tragically--0nly three movies, albeit in one year and with two academy award nominations--but he has become a Hollywood icon. Maybe that's because he didn't have time to make a continuing success of his life...or a mess of his life as so many actors have done.

Last night we went to the musical, Love, Janis. We left at intermission. I didn't appreciate the psychedelic music when I was in college at the time and my tastes haven't changed. Besides, it's TOO LOUD! I could have sat through the music (my fingers were in my ears to reduce volume--Bob hates when I do that). And I would have sat through the music if the story was intriguing or compelling but it was the story of a girl gone wild in pursuit of...well, I'm not sure. I thought it was great music but as the story unfolded I couldn't tell if it was the music or the high she got from the recognition and the crowds and the drugs.

It was watching the actress down some pills with a bottle of alcohol and drape herself across a chair as if in a drug induced stupor that sealed the decision to leave. I knew what was going to happen. There wasn't going to be any redemption--just more drug influenced music and ramblings about how great she was at defying the conventional way of life. It was sad to think of what might have been if she'd have used her talent without the drugs but I couldn't garner enough sympathy to sit out the second half of the show. I knew the ending. She overdoses on heroin.

Now what is there I'm missing here? This was someone great? This was someone who changed the world for the better? This was a dope addict who played loud music and, as her mother noted, screamed when she sang. She wasted the talent she had. What's to admire? It's just a sad story.

Roller Coaster Rides

I'm embarking on a roller coaster ride. That's what happens when you submit your work to editors/publishing houses. My agent sent out ten proposals for my book, In A Pickle. Thus begins the clackety-clacking as my coaster car begins its trek out of the loading area.

I don't do real roller coaster rides at amusement parks any more. I can't stand the feeling of free falling and, in today's new modern contraptions, I don't want to be zipped upside down while twirling through a corkscrew and free falling at the same time. Whew! Just the thought of it makes this morning's coffee churn.

For me, the fun will be in the survival, not the ride. So, here I am facing the roller coaster of submitting my writing for publication, teeth clenched against the inevitable ups and downs. I'm not even going to think about those corkscrew turns. I'm already out of the loading area and through my first couple of free falls. I'm going to have to cut back on the coffee and hope the ride isn't too long. Survival will come with a contract clutched in one hand while the other one unbuckles the seat belt.

King Kong

We went to King Kong yesterday. To be blunt, it was an exercise in bladder control. By the time the commercials and trailer run, you can add almost 15 minutes on to an already long movie. We sat down at 3:45 and didn't get out until almost 7:30.

Was it a good movie? It's a remake. The original was a good movie. This one made fun of the first and the second. It was comical but way overdone. At one point I wondered how much footage of Jurassic Park they had inserted. It seemed to go on and on.

The computer generated Kong was interesting to watch. They did a great job giving the ape human qualities--right down to the sign language exchanged with his little Barbie doll as they watch the sunset and sunrise.

I guess I'm a bit cynical but, you know, if a writer did that much narrative storytelling, she'd be told to cut it out and move the story along. At least when you're reading a book, you can take a potty break and pick up where you left off.