Three Points and a Poem

I have not been to the school that trains Baptist preachers, however, I have heard many times in Baptist churches that the ideal sermon for Sunday mornings is “Three Points and  a Poem.”  Back in my more afraidreligious days, I actually had a notebook specifically designed for one to take notes during the sermon.  And sure enough, the page was designed in three sections for the three points.

I am not preaching a sermon today, if I did it would be all the reasons one might want to really think about religions that shoot their wounded.  But I do have 3 points today and I’m always up for a good poem! Here goes.

Point 1:  Limits

On Friday, I planned to do some Christmas shopping after my Toastmasters meeting in Memphis.  My first stop (after Chik Filet) was Fresh Market.  Food items in Fresh Market are the absolute best in the whole world and very expensive.  At Fresh Market, I can purchase 100% Kona coffee, Honeycrisp apples the size of basketballs and fresh limes the size of my head.  The fruits and vegetables sold there are obviously grown in heaven, but don’t tell the Baptists. 

There are spices and nuts and flavored gourmet coffee beans.  I could devote days worth of blogposts to what one can find in Fresh Market.  It is nirvana for me.  But it is terribly expensive.  I love Fresh Market and what is within its walls so much that I could spend my entire paycheck there every month.  I have tried to fool myself, saying I am only running in to get a bag of coffee just to push a buggy load of fresh fruits and veggies out to the car. 

I seem to have little control over myself in Fresh Market.  As I walked into Fresh Market on Friday, I walked over and grabbed a basket.  A basket is my self imposed limit in Fresh Market.  I put the basket limit into practice a long time ago. 

See, the basket will only hold so much fresh, heavenly food.  A shopping cart will hold HUNDREDS, maybe THOUSANDS of dollars worth of Fresh Market goodies that I can’t resist.  I imposed the basket limit for self control.

On Friday I loaded my basket carefully.  Not only is there a volume limit on the hand held basket, there is a weight limit.  There’s only so much weight I can lug around in a basket.  As I browsed the succulent Ruby Red grapefruits the size of Saturn’s moons, and the HoneyCrisp Apples shining in the crate, I laughed at myself and my basket limit.  I thought of other such limits I use on myself, and oddly, most are related to food.

The One Plate Limit.  I love vegetables.  Country seasoned and slow cooked veggies are the best.  Therefore, I love those redneck country buffet restaurants.  There are many out there, and I will admit my favorite is Ryan’s.  The vegetables are seasoned and cooked just like I would cook them at home.  I think I am the only person in my family that enjoys a nice meal at Ryan’s.  I have no friends that would be caught alive in a Ryan’s either. 

My husband refers to places like Ryan’s as “the trough” (See:  http://www.enasco.com/product/C14448N  for an explanation).  Whenever I have harassed convinced him to take me to Ryan’s, he likes to point out that we are the thinnest people in the place.  As a matter of fact, if someone lined up all the eaters at the trough along the wall, he and I would be considered anorexic and painfully thin. 

To contol my love of country veggies at Ryan’s, I have a self imposed one plate limit.  I can pile my one plate as high as I want with anything off the trough buffet I want, but I only get ONE PLATE.  This plate must include any bread I might scarf down want to enjoy, but since those yummy yeast rolls can be easily balanced on top of  a mountain moderate portion of fried okra, this is not a concern. 

My One Plate Limit has served me well.  Although I weigh a little more that I want, I am still wearing the same jeans I wore in 2000 thereby proof that the One Plate Limit works in preventing mid-life weight gain.

Hurting Shoe Shopping Limit.  Yet another limit, with nothing at all involving food.  I’ve never been a marathon shopper.  The magazines and TV would like to make us all believe women live to shop.  Although I’m sure that is true of some women, I can’t say that I know many who want to do nothing other than kill a weekend in a mall.

I take shopping in spurts.  When I am traveling, I’ve been known to peruse a mall in a strange city.  It is safe for me to walk around by myself in malls and I do not have to buy something to enjoy the experience. 

However, when it is time to shop, like it is now because Christmas is next week, I have to set limits.  To set shopping limits, I wear slightly uncomfortable shoes.  I know that my feet will only hold up for so long in uncomfy shoes, therefore I know when I enter the store/mall that I have a limited number of hours to accomplish my goals.  This prevents me from wasting precious time browsing and spending money on items that are not my list.  I must get my list finished before the Hurting Shoe Shopping Limit kicks in.  Because once my feet start hurting, I’m done.  No exceptions.  I love my feet and I need them to keep running.  I am not about to risk messing them up with marathon shopping trips in high heeled boots.

Another funny thing to me is I have several pairs of uncomfortable shoes and each one has a different time limit.  When my husband whined and moaned and finally agreed to go to the mall with me last weekend, I wore my 3 hour boots.  That way I would not be tempted to keep him out too long and thereby have to kill him.  When I went shopping Friday (starting with Fresh Market) I wore my 6 hour shoes.  Because I had a lot of items on the list, and I started very early.

Point 2:  Explain This Please

As a grandparent, it is important not to piss off the parents.  Parents have rules for the grandkids and they expect grandparents to respect those rules when the grandkids are visiting.  Everyone should understand that grandparents are allowed a few minor liberties with the rules, but grandparents must realize they can’t cross every line the parents lay out.

As a STEPgrandparent, that rule is even more important as not only do I have to suffer the wrath of stepchildren if I mess up, I have to suffer the passed-along complete bullshitwrath of my stepchildren’s mother. 

I realize that I must follow rules set out by my step children for their children or I can mark those babies off my list of grandchildren.  I love those babies and I enjoy seeing them and spending time with them, so I do my dead-level best to abide by THE RULES, no matter how damn stupid and idiotic they are.  Sometimes I think THE RULES are only imposed on me and my husband and the sole purpose of said RULES are to make life hard on us.  As evidence, I offer…

When the two oldest grandchildren (now 4 years old) were old enough to pay attention to television, we were told in a harsh manner that SpongeBob was not allowed.  Nope.  It is of the devil, horrible and one kid out of two was not allowed in the same room where SpongeBob was playing on the TV. 

I admit, I have not watched children’s cartoons in decades and although I could pick SpongeBob out of a line up, I knew little about him.  So I asked why.  Seriously, please tell me what is bad about SpongeBob because I truly don’t know. 

I was told it was just bad for children.  Period.  No other explanation.

So I checked out SpongeBob.  It’s pretty dang funny if you ask me!  I saw nothing wrong with SpongeBob.  OK, it was silly and there were MAYBE one or two comments in an episode that were over the heads of young children, but the show seemed harmless.

On Friday, the non-SpongeBob watching child was brought to our house for the weekend.  As usual, his mommy barked out orders and RULES that we must follow while we kept him for the weekend.  She has begun telling us what to watch on television while he is here.  She told us that we must watch Power Rangers Jungle Fury at 11 am on Saturday.  It was a RULE.  Whatever.

So we watched.  OH. MY. GOD.  Teenagers possessed by the spirits of animals, worshipping animals.  OK – just a kids’ show, right?  But why is poor cartoon SpongeBob and his silly antics not appropriate and teenagers worshipping and possessed by spirits OK? 

We were also told just last year that if we had said children at our church during a commuinion service, we must immediately leave church and take the children away.  They do not want their children participating in any religious sacriments or services until the child fully and completely understands what he/she is doing and what it means.  We have avoided making a spectacle of ourselves  fleeing our church service by making sure we do not have the grandchildren the one Sunday per month that our church has communion.

I’ve been invited to two church services to see the various grandchildren in Christmas programs.  All three of the older grandchildren have “big” roles in their respective children’s celebration and observation of the birth of Jesus. 

One child had shit his pants this weekend and I took him the bathroom to clean him up.  As I was washing his ass, he noticed the small ceramic manger scene on the counter. 

Kid:  Is that the Away in a Manger house?

Me (smiling):  Yes, it is.

Kid:  But, but, where is the chimney?

Me:  What chimney?

Kid:  The Chimney for Santa to come down?

Me:  But Santa doesn’t come to the Away in a Manger house.  That is where Baby Jesus was born.  See baby Jesus in the manger?

Kid:  But baby Jesus needs toys from Santa.  He needs a chimney.

So…….we don’t want our kids participating in ANY church service until they COMPLETELY understand what they are doing……..

Point 3:  Why don’t I care?

Maybe it’s just too much work.  I haven’t had my usual holiday enthusiasm this year.  I’m not depressed, unemployed, broke, or contemplating major life changing stressors.  It’s been a busy year with 2 grandchildren added to our family a big wedding just a few weeks ago.  I must have used up all my energy before Christmastime arrived.  I have begrudgingly hauled boxes of shit up and down the attic stairs and put up 3 trees.  I have decorated and set the holiday table.  I draped garland and wreathes along our fence. 

However.  The wind has blown a few of the wreathes off the fence.  I bought enough garland to finish out the fence and it is still in the bags in the garage.  I notice last night that about half of the (at least) 25 strands of damn lights on the main tree in the dining room are not working.  Piss! 

And I decided I just don’t care.  The half lit tree will remain half lit.  I’m not taking all that shit down to find and fix the problem.  I’m not reattaching the wreathes to the fence.  What we have is what we’ll have, unless of course more shit blows away or falls off or doesn’t work and then THAT is just what we’ll have. 

I’m thinking with enough wine flowing and margaritas served, no will notice the half lit tree.

And to close…

A Poem

Set your limits to avoid the bad

Don’t figure out stepkids or you’ll go mad

If the tree is bare

Who really cares?

Just give the gifts and we’ll all be glad.

 

 

 

Old Christmas Stuff

I must start out by saying I set a record (sort of) this morning. I went for a run. I didn’t set a record time or distance. I set a temperature record. The coldest temperature I’ve ever run in was 29 degrees last year. Today is was 28 with a wind chill of 23 degrees when I stepped out the door. I wore insulated underwear under my normal cold weather layers. I got hot before I finished. Yes, you can sweat in sub freezing temps if you try hard enough.

I’ve been busy decorating for Christmas. Every year I pull out my stuff and as I put the decorations on the tree and the stuff out that sits around the house, it seems each item holds a memory for me. Decorating is a trip into Christmas past.

I have been poor in my life and the decorations acquired during the poor years have the most special memories and mean the most to me. Although some of my items are chipped or the paint is fading, they still have a special place among the new shiny stuff I put out every year. I have been asked by people I’d have to classify as assholes why I don’t replace particular items. Let’s start with someone asking me why I still used a vinyl table cloth.

When you are poor, you don’t have the luxury of spending big bucks on items that you only use a month out of the year. You also need what little you can afford to last for a long time. The vinyl red and green plaid table cloth was purchased in the mid 90’s. The cloth table cloths were twice the price of the vinyl. I had kids, which meant the table cloth was likely to be stained. Vinyl took care of that also.

I have served many holiday meals on that table cloth. For over 10 years, that vinyl plaid has been on the table for Christmas morning breakfast, where my kids and parents enjoyed a feast that I had great pleasure in preparing. Apparently vinyl was a good choice as the table cloth looks the same on my dining room table today as it did when I bought it over a decade ago.

Yes, I can afford a nice table cloth now. But I don’t want one.

My tree is full of such relics of days gone by. The small plastic apple ornaments purchased in 1985 when my 5 year daughter had a breakdown over our first real tree that year. We had always used a small artificial tree, but this year we had a real one. She had a hard time dealing with that change, so my mom bought a 4 foot tall artificial tree and the apple ornaments so she could have her own tree in the bedroom she shared with her 2 year old brother.

There are the pictures of my kids, made in 1985 and 1988 when they were in kindergarten. The teachers did polaroid pictures and glued them into mason jar rings. There are glass balls with designs on them that I have had since the early 80’s. There are some really pretty and more expensive gold musical instrument ornaments given to me by my husband the first year we were dating. There are ornaments I remember buying from the Christmas store in Pigeon Forge Tennessee while on vacation right after 9/11. I have the first Santa figure given to me by my boss in 1994. The gift was a shock as my boss hated my guts and made my work life a living hell. But then she gave me that Santa. I have the stockings that hung on my wall in the 80’s and 90’s with my kids’ names in glitter paint on them.

So much in life is disposable now days. I refuse to dispose of my memories.

I don’t care how rich I get (if I get rich at all) my old worn out Christmas stuff is staying with me and will be used every year. It is just one way to remember where I have been and how far I have come.

I really don’t care who likes or doesn’t like my Christmas decor. I like it.

Memories….like a coat so warm the cold wind can’t get through…

Moments by Emerson Drive