A Bucket List for Baseball Fans

Jeff made the comment several years ago that he would like to see a baseball game in every Major League baseball park. I think you could call it one of his Bucket List things-to-do. I started planning trips around baseball games and over the last couple of years, we’ve checked off a handful. It’s kind of become a project, and I have made most of these trips with him (Wrigley Field is the exception–he and Darren, a Cubs fan make the Cardinals v. Cubs game a guy thing). Along the way, I seem to have become a baseball fan. I never cared much for the sport as a teen or college kid. It seemed kind of slow. However, as an adult, I’ve come to appreciate it more. So now, I’d almost say this is a joint bucket list item.

Anyway, this weekend, Jeff found a book: _The Baseball Fan’s Bucket List_, written by a father/daughter team. It lists 162 (for the 162 games in the regular MLB season) things that every baseball fan’s should experience. Jeff has found a new goal in life.

While every item on the list isn’t something that every fan can or wants to do, it’s a great starting place. It includes a game at every MLB park but also includes other goals such as key match-ups–Cardinals v. Cubs, Dodgers v. Giants, Minor League events, coaching a Little League team, owning a piece of baseball memorabilia, etc.

I highly recommend this book to any serious baseball fan and am including a link to it on amazon.com.

The Baseball Fan's Bucket List: 162 Things You Must Do, See, Get, and Experience Before You Die

What’s fer dinner???

Well, I put together a menu of pork tenderloin mole’, Spanish rice, and a wilted southwest spinach salad.

My family gave the mole’ a big thumbs down. I don’t know if I did something wrong, but the presentation sucked. Looked like canned bean dip dumped on top of the tenderloin. Wasn’t bad tasting, but wasn’t great either.

However, the spinach salad was a big hit. LK wasn’t too fond of it, even though I tried it mainly for her. Everybody else at our house likes raw spinach salad, but LK only likes her spinach cooked. I thought the wilted salad might be close enough to “cooked” to suit her, but alas…no. The rest of us ate it up though. Here’s the recipe:

1 ripe avocado, diced
2 t. lime juice
6 c. spinach
1/2 cup red onion rings
1/2 cup thinly sliced radishes
3 slices bacon, diced
1/3 cup picante sauce
2 T water
1/4 t sugar
1/4 t cumin

Toss the avocado with the lime juice.
Combine avocado, spinach, onions, & radishes.
Cook bacon until crisp, add picante sauce, water, sugar, & cumin. Bring to boil & pour over the salad. Toss lightly & serve immediately.
Recipe says this serves 6, but as I indicated, LK only tasted it and the other 3 of us ate the rest.
Here are my deviations from the recipe:
I used thick cut bacon which generated a lot of bacon grease…more than I thought we really needed, so I poured off all the grease I could and added back about 2 T of olive oil. Heated until the oil was hot, then continued.
I also made the dressing and kept it over low heat while I finished the rest of our supper. When I got ready to pour it over the salad, it looked like it had cooked down some more, so I added a couple of tablespoons more of picante sauce and a dash of water are returned to a boil. This worked fine–you just need enough dressing to coat your salad. Eyeball it.

This one is definitely a do over.

Is this sick?

OK, let me tell you my dirty little secret. I’m addicted to McMillan’s website.
For those not from Booneville, McMillan’s is a local funeral home.
To be more specific, it’s not like reading the obits every day. McMillan’s website has a webpage for each family to post photos of their loved one. At first, when someone I knew was at McMillan’s I would go to their page and scroll through the posted photos. Often I would see a side of this person that I had never know. If it was someone in their 80s or 90s, someone I had known all my life as “an old person” it was interesting to see photos of a young man kicked back next to a new 60s model car smoking a cigarette, or a young woman that I knew as a sour old lady with a 50s hairdo, no wrinkles, and a huge laugh on her face. There are photos with family members I didn’t know and photos in exotic locations.

I was touched in some way by these photos. I don’t know if that makes sense. But it made people who I only knew as acquaintances seem more real. The photos are a celebration of a life lived well in a way that the standard obituary isn’t. It’s also interesting to see what the family of each person chooses to put on these photo montages. I sometimes wonder if the person being memorialized would choose the same moments.

And then, I started clicking on names I didn’t know. Here’s some man I don’t know who apparently played basketball at New Site in the 70s. A ninety year old widow in a photo from the 50s with her Navy husband. Another lady in three photos of herself with her poodle. Sometimes, I will click through photos of a stranger and find a familiar face, thus discovering an unknown connections.

The obituaries tell you the facts. Who this person was, what they did, who they married, how they died. The photos tell a bigger story. In some ways a more important story. An old man who looks kind of sour in the cover photo, but beams at the little blonde haired three year old cutie on his lap next to a Christmas tree. The demur lady with the modest dress seems different from the younger version holding up a huge catfish grinning at the young man in the photo. I bet there was a story behind that fishing trip that made her family want that photo out there.

So is this a sick obsession? Am I intruding on other people’s space? I don’t think so. I think everybody has a special story, not just the biographical data of a standard obituary. And I think we honor these people by taking the time to want to see and share the story of their life.

So now I’m thinking I should start a file on my computer of the photos that tell my story. (That’s my Mamaw Martin in me folks–you know she told us for 30 years how we were to do her funeral. I’m getting a-hopefully-early start with my kids.)
What story will your photos tell?

What’s been cooking…

Meridith wanted to make lemon bars recently so I found this easy recipe for her.  She did it all herself other than me zesting the lemons (cause nothing’s nastier than getting too much of the white pithy part) and beating the eggs (cause she wasn’t beating them hard enough).

So-Easy Lemon Bars

1 roll refridgerated sugar cookie dough(16.5oz)

4 eggs, slightly beaten                               1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

2 T all-purpose flour                                  2 T butter, softened

2 T lemon peel, finely grated                   1/3 cup lemon juice (2T lemon peel and 1/3 cup juice is about 2 medium lemons)

1-2 T powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Spread the sugar cookie dough evenly in a 9×13 ungreased pan.  Bake 15-20 minutes until light brown on top.  Remove from oven.

Mix eggs with sugar, flour & butter until well blended.  Add lemon zest & juice.  Pour mixture over warm crust.

Bake 20-30 minutes until set and edges are golden brown.  Cool completely, about 30 minutes.  Sprinkle with powdered sugar.

To cut without tearing, dip knife in hot water often as slicing into squares.

I made this next recipe last night, or actually I put it together yesterday morning and it cooked all day.  My only problem was that when I got to the step about adding the cornstarch on HI and making the sauce, it wouldn’t thicken.  I finally poured it into a saucepan and heated on the stove and it thickened up nicely.  It may have been because the timer had gone off on my crockpot about 3o minutes before I got home and it probably was taking longer for it to heat back up.

Slow Cooker Asian Short Ribs (this is from the Real Simple magazine website, which has some great recipes which usually aren’t terribly involved)

1/2 cup low sodium soy sauce                                1/3 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup rice vinegar                                                   2 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed

1 T fresh ginger, grated                                            1/2 t red pepper (I left this out)

3 beef short ribs (about 4 pounds)                        4 large carrots, quartered, then sliced vertically

1 small head cabbage, quartered

2 T cornstarch                                                             1 T sesame oil

scallions for garnish

Mix first 6 ingredients in bottom of crock pot.  Add the short ribs.  (I just rolled these up and laid them in my oval crockpot.  I had to use foil to cover it since this kept the lid from sitting all the way down until they had cooked down a little.  I think you could cut them up into sections of 2-3 ribs just as well.)  Put carrots & cabbage on top of ribs.  Cover and cook 5-6 hours on high or 7-8 hours on low, until meat is tender and pulls away easily from the bone.  (Mine was literally falling off the bone–I had trouble getting them out of the crockpot without all the meat falling off.)

If crock pot is on low, turn up to high.  Transfer cabbage, ribs, and carrots to a serving platter.  Mix cornstarch with 1 T water, whisk this into the cooking liquid in crock pot.  Whisk until thickened, 2-3 minutes.  (as indicated above, I finally poured this over into a saucepan and finished it up on the stove.  When thickened, stir in sesame oil.

Pour sauce over meat and vegetables, garnish with scallions.

Everybody at my house loved the ribs.  The girls wouldn’t eat the cabbage, and I personally thought it was very mushy.  When I do this again, I’ll probably run home and lunch and put the cabbage in for the second half of the cooking time.

The next two recipes came out of Food & Wine magazine:

Chicken Sukiyaki

Made this last week, Meridith loved it, Jeff and I found it a little bland, LK ate the chicken out of it and a little spinach.

1/4 cup low sodium soy sauce

1 teaspoon Dashi powder (see note)

2 teaspoons sugar

3 tablespoons canola oil

1 small onion, sliced lengthwise

4 ounces shiitake mushrooms, stems discarded, thinly sliced

Salt

8 ounces light silken tofu, cut into 3/4 inch pieces

5 ounces baby spinach

1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breasts, thinly sliced

steamed sushi rice, for serving

In a medium saucepan, combine the soy sauce with the dashi powder, sugar, and 3 cups water and bring to simmer.  Cover and keep warm off the heat.

NOTE:  Dashi is a clear Japanese stock.  It is available in powdered for at Asian markets.  In place of dashi and water, you can use 1 1/2 cup low-sodium chicken broth mixed with 1 1/2 cup water.  Which is Booneville, Mississippi is exactly what I did.

In a large non-stick skillet, heat 2 t. oil.  Add onions & mushrooms, season with salt and cook over high heat until lightly browned, 5-6 minutes.  Add the tofu and cook untillightly browned, about 1 minute.  Add the spinach and cook just until wilted, about 30 seconds.  Scrape the mixture onto a plate.

Heat the remaining 1 T oil in the skillet.  Add the chicken, season with salt, and cook over high heat, stirring twice until just white throughout, about 3 minutes.  Return the vegetables and tofu to skillet and cook, stirring just until combined.  Spoon the mixture into shallow bowls, add sushi rice, Ladle the broth on top and serve.  You can use broth to suit yourself.  I make it almost like a soup.

This last one, I used too much chili powder and the girls didn’t eat much of it.  Meridith rubbed some of the chili powder off and ate what was left, but next time, I’ll reduce the chili powder greatly.  Jeff loves fish tacos and orders them whenever we are somewhere that has them.  He doesn’t normally like salmon–says it’s too fishy tasting for him–but in this recipe, it doesn’t really taste like salmon at all.

Chipotle-Rubbed Salmon Tacos

2 T mayo

1 t fresh lime juice

2 t chipotle chile powder

2 t finely grated orange zest

2 t sugar

1 pound skinless wild Alaskan salmon fillet, cut into 4 pieces  (wild salmon has more omega-3 fatty acids than farm raised.  The frozen salmon at Wal-mart is wild.  It is fine for this recipe, but isn’t very firm–I figure because it’s been frozen? and falls apart easily–I don’t like it for meals where you serve the fish as a main dish.)

1 T plus 1 t extra virgin olive oil

8 corn tortillas (healthier, but harder to cook with than flour tortillas because they are grainier and fall apart easier)

salt

1 Hass avocado, mashed

Apple-Cucumber Salsa (recipe follows)

1 cup finely shredded cabbage

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In a small bowl, whisk the mayo with the lime juice.  In another small bowl, combine the chile powder with the orange zest and sugar.  Rub each piece of salmon with 1 teaspoon of the olive oil and then wiht the chipotle mixture.  Let stand for 5 minutes.

Wrap the tortillas in foil and bake for about 8 minutes, until they are softened and heated through.

Heat a grill pan.  Season the salmon with salt and grill over high heat until browned and just cooked through, about 3 minutes.

Break each piece of salmon in half.  (I kind of chunked it up instead of leaving it in one big piece.)  Spread the mashed avocado on the warm tortillas and top with the salmon, apple-cucumber salsa, and cabbage.  Drizzle each taco with the lime mayo and serve right away.

Apple-Cucumber Salsa

1 Granny Smith apple, peeled, cored, and diced

1/2 cucumber, peeled, seeded, and diced

1/2 small red onion, diced

1/2 small red bell pepper, diced

1 1/2 T white wine vinegar (I used red wine vinegar because that’s all I had)

1 1/2 t sugar

salt

Mix apple, cucumber, onion & pepper.  Stir in vinegar & sugar.  Season with salt.  Serve.  ( My kids actually liked this a lot and ate up all the leftover salsa even though the fish was too spicy for their tastes.)

Health info for one Salmon Taco with salsa:  237 cal, 11 g fat, 1/6 g saturated fat, 22 g carb, 3 g fiber

What I’ve read lately…

Been reading some interesting books the last couple of weeks, thought I’d share.

First:
The Time Traveler’s Wife–I kept meaning to read this and had several friends recommend it. My main hold back is that it wasn’t available on Kindle. I finally broke down and bought it in paperback. It was well worth the price of a hard-back. For those who haven’t read the book or watched the movie, our protagonist finds himself disconnected in time and at random moments finds himself in the past or future, naked and hungry. He meets his future wife when she is 12 and he is in his 40s–he’s been married to her for several years when he time travels back to her childhood.
My main complaint is from the viewpoint of a hard core sci-fi reader–there is not enough explanation as to the mechanism of his time traveling. However if you read it more as a romance, it’s enchanting.
After reading the book, I watched the movie over the weekend and have to say it’s one of the few movies based on novels I’ve watched lately that didn’t disappoint me.

Daisy Chain: A Novel–I downloaded this one because it was free for kindle. Later found that it was promoted under the category of Christian fiction, which in my mind usually translates to “Harlequin romance without the heaving bosoms.” I honestly think this is a miscategorization. While the story does have Christian faith woven through it, it stands on it’s own legs as southern lit. Telling the story of the young son of a Bible-thumping, child-beating preacher whose best friend goes missing one summer, Daisy Chain is as once dark and uplifting. This is the first part of a trilogy, and I may have to buy the next in the series to see what happens with my favorite characters.

Pirate Latitudes: A Novel. This was a finished manuscript, found and published after Michael Crichton’s death. I find it interesting that his last published work was such a departure from the majority of his works. A historical piece set in the Caribbean. Pirates & treasure & hurricanes & krackens, Oh My!
Seriously, this may have been an unpublished manuscript for many reasons, not least of all because it’s just not that good. Or let me rephrase that, it’s just not as good as really good Crichton can be. It’s like he tried to cram every pirate story he ever heard into one novel. Unless you are secretly in love with Errol Flynn, give this one a pass. Better yet, read The Pirate’s Daughter, another novel set in Jamaica, loosely based on Errol Flynn’s years living there.

Half-Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel–part memoir, part novel, this story is based on the life of the author’s grandmother as told to her by her mother and other relatives. It’s a fascinating look at life in the old west. Our heroine leaves home on a horse as a young girl to take a teaching position 800 miles away. Over the years, she teaches school, runs a cattle ranch, learns to fly an airplane and sells prohibition gin out from under her baby’s cradle. No shrinking violet, this woman reminds me a great deal of what I imagine my grandmother’s early year might have been like.

Catalyst: A Tale of the Barque Cats–but sci-fi fluff from Elizabeth Scarborough and Anne McAffrey. Cats that patrol space ships and communicate with their humans. The anti-government spin on this one is a little heavy but hey, I’m not reading talking cats for political commentary.

The Jungle–yeah, Upton Sinclair. It was free for kindle and while I’ve read about it all my life, I’ve never actually read it. Powerful stuff, but I’m not turning socialist just yet. I think we all have a mental image, whether we realize it or not, of immmigrants that is based largely on our 6th grade social studies class. The Jungle is worth reading if nothing else just for the very realism of life as an immigrant to our countries in the early 1900s.

Primal: A Quest for the Lost Soul of Christianity by Mark Batterson, reviewed…with Deep Thought by Catherine

No, peeps, sorry but I’m not channeling Jack Handy today.

Let me give a little back ground first. I have been teaching a Bible study based on Mark Batterson’s book, Wild Goose Chase, this quarter. From that, I got interested in Batterson’s blog. From the blog, I discovered that he had a new book being published this month.
On his blog, Mark began giving away free copies of his new book…seems like everyday I’d see a new invitation: “If you work with campus ministries, email me for a free book.” “If you are a youth minister, I’ll send you a free book.”

So I’m sitting here thinking ME! What about ME! Why can’t a middle-aged mom/dentist get a free book?!?

Then it happened, “If you have a blog and will write a book review, we’ll send you a free book.” HEY! I qualify!

So I sent an email, got a book, all is well.

Well, not so much.

I was supposed to have this review up by yesterday. And I thought that would happen. I had the afternoon off, was gonna do my grocery shopping for our office Christmas party this week, then go home and write this review while Leslie Kate and Meridith worked on homework. Yeah, in the words of John Chancellor, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.”

Let’s just say that didn’t happen and leave it at that. I had ideas floating in my head and figured I would write it all down this morning…wouldn’t be the first time I didn’t get something done on time.

But then, in the middle of the night, while I was sound asleep, something happened that changed the way I thought about what I had read in this little book.

I got a text message at 1:13AM. It just said, “Amber has developed swelling to the left side of her face and bleeding from her nose. Moved chemo to this week. Pray it works if it is the tumor back.”

And cold, hard reality invaded my warm, fuzzy thoughts.

Simply put, Primal is an in depth look at the Great Commandment. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. Batterson challenges each of us to love God with each of these attributes that God has given us. It’s not enough to just love God with our hearts–we need to seek out new ways to love Him…by learning with our minds, by doing with our strength, and by being open to his wonders in our soul.

And when I finished this book yesterday morning, I was patting myself on the back. I don’t mean to say that I’ve got this Great Commandment thing in the bag, but I really felt like I was open to the concept and working on it day by day.

Then I woke up and got that text message.

Let me tell you about Amber. Amber is my daughter, Leslie Kate’s, best friend. She’s 9. She was diagnosed with an inoperable tumor called rhabdomyosarcoma when she was in second grade. Through chemo and radiation, that tumor was successfully treated. In October, at a routine check-up, they found a new tumor. This one was in an area that allowed surgery, however the doctors have not given Amber great odds of long-term survival.

The first time Amber went through this, our girls were not best friends. They were just two girls who happened to know each other at school. So my involvement was pretty much limited to, “Oh no, we’ll pray for her.” And I meant it. But it wasn’t personal. Does that make sense?

Amber and Leslie Kate became best friends when they ended up in the same homeroom in third grade. They became inseparable. When kids at school were making fun of Amber for having funny hair (when it was growing back out after chemo), Leslie Kate decided that if they didn’t quit, she was going to hit them. She said she knew that hitting was against the rules and that she would get in a lot of trouble, but that it was “just something she had to do.” It was hard as a parent to argue with that.

As our girls have grown close, I have gotten to know Amber’s family more. So this time, I have a front row seat for this drama. I don’t even know if that is an accurate analogy–I feel like we have a part in the play. And I’m not so sure that I would have joined this group if I knew what I was getting myself into…

Instead of praying for Amber and her family then going on with my life, I know about chemo schedules and white cell counts. I know Angie’s work schedule and how hard it is for her to work the night shift in the ER when her baby is in Memphis at St. Jude with her daddy. I know about pink coffins and nine year olds who are planning funerals.

And you know what? This morning, I didn’t feel like loving God with my heart–because my heart hurts. My mind wants to question Him. My soul has a shadow over it–as I wrap gifts for my children and wonder if Amber will have another Christmas. And with all my strength I want to scream, “IT’S NOT FAIR!”

And as tormented as my thoughts are, I can only imagine how Amber’s family is feeling right now.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I don’t know how other people feel, but writing is cathartic to me. Even as I was writing the last couple of paragraphs, I was thinking, “You know, that’s just not true.”

Oh, I would much rather that Amber was a perfectly healthy 9 year old and that she and Leslie Kate were planning sleepovers that didn’t revolve around white cell counts. But when I wrote that I wish I wasn’t so close to the situation, I realized that maybe that’s what this Great Commandment thing is all about.

God doesn’t just want us to love him with an unscarred heart–he want our love even when our heart is bruised and aching.

It’s easy to love with a soul that soars at a beautiful sunset or wonders at the sight of a newborn’s perfect toes. But my soul lifted as I walked the halls of St. Jude two weeks ago and looked on with wonder at what people with hearts like Danny Thomas can do when they put their faith in God and their intention in serving Him.

God expects us to love him with all our mind. And I think that means that we shouldn’t close our minds off from the hard questions. I probably won’t ever understand “Why?” but that’s OK. The most unloving thing I can think of is closing myself off from God instead of asking those questions.

And strength. This is where the rubber meets the road, isn’t it? I think this may be one of the few parts of Batterson’s book that I disagree with. He talks about using our strength to serve God’s purpose–doing stuff for God in other words. And I think that is important, and it is a way that we express our love for God is through works.
But today, I’m thinking that loving God with all my strength is maybe loving little girls with cancer, up-close-and-personal rather than from a distance…even though I know it leaves me open to more hurt.

Because when you get down to it, it’s not my strength…it’s God’s strength, and I hope that I am a willing conduit.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
So there you have it. I don’t know if it’s the book review that Batterson’s people were looking for. Honestly, I don’t even know that it qualifies as a book review.

But it’s what I got from a book titled Primal: A Quest for the Lost Soul of Christianity, by Mark Batterson. And from a little girl named Amber.

I recommend this book highly and would suggest that it would make a great way to start your new year.

Let me add for those of you who know me and know Amber and her family…I got Angie’s permission before posting this.

Happy Hannukah!

I just want to say from the get-go that this is not an anti-Semitic post. This is a post about a little Southern girl, with more joy than she can contain…and an answer for everything.

So here we go…

Picture it…Monday night…40-something degrees…I’m running late, Jeff is sick as a dog, and I’ve got two girls to get to our local Christmas parade. One is walking with her Girl Scout troop, the other is watching the parade with me downtown.

So I fly in the back door, Leslie Kate (of course) is not dressed yet. I throw clothes on her and add layers to my work clothes until I am somewhat sausage-like.

We get up to the starting point of the parade and I run around hunting her Girl Scout troop (Thanks Cristy–I don’t know if I ever would have found them without you pointing me in the right direction). I zip up her coat, pull her hood up over her head, stick a cell phone in her pocket and tell her to call me if she gets too cold/tired and doesn’t think she can finish the parade route. I’m just estimating, but this was easily over a two mile walk.

I went on downtown with Meridith, still worried that LK will get tired and want to drop out. I talk to my sister who is nearer the start point and tell her to have an eye out for LK.

Well, when they get to us, she has pulled her coat off and has her Santa hat in her hand. She’s all smiles and barely slows down and is past us in a whirlwind. Those of you who know LK can nod your head and grin here because I know you can appreciate an LK whirlwind.

Well, after the rest of the parade goes by, I head over to the pick-up point. I have to wait a long time because the parade stalls right in front of us for a long time. Her Girl Scout leader calls me and I assure her I am on my way. She is obviously amused about something.

When I get close, Micah (GS Leader) has LK next to the street waiting for me and comes over to talk to me. She’s laughing and says, you’re not gonna believe what your kid has been doing. I assure her that whatever it is, I can probably believe it.

She says, She’s walked the entire parade shouting Happy Hannukah! to everyone along the way. Micah says they asked her why she was yelling Happy Hannukah and her answer was that all the other girls were saying Merry Christmas and (her exact words) she didn’t want to blend in.

I talked to a few of my friends who all told me, yeah, she yelled Happy Hannukah to us, we didn’t know why.

One friend added, when I explained that she “didn’t want to blend in,” that there wasn’t much risk of that, since she was the only girl scout who didn’t have her Santa hat or her coat on, but instead was dragging her coat down the street by one sleeve and was holding her hat by the pom-pom and twirling it over her head.

Yep…that’s my kid.

I asked her on the way home if she even knew what Hannukah was.

She answered that she knew it was something Jews did, but she wasn’t really sure what a Jew was.

(OK, here’s the part where I may offend someone, and to be honest this was one of those parenting moments where you just get too smart for yourself. You see, I should have said OK, well let’s go get some hot chocolate and moved on…but oh no, I decide this is a teaching moment.)

So I proceed to try to explain to my 9yo little Southern Baptist kid the religious and cultural aspects of Judaism. Somewhere in there I get to the part about Hannukah being a holiday that Jewish people celebrate and that they don’t celebrate Christmas because they don’t believe that Jesus Christ was the Messiah.

LK opines at this point that, well Jews must be pretty stupid then.

I try my best to instill a little cultural sensitivity which basically comes down to, It’s not nice to call people stupid. But for some reason I add, anyway, Jesus was a Jew.

Without even pondering that, she give me that poor-mama-you’re-so-stupid-too look and answers back, “Well that’s just cause they didn’t have any Christians yet.”

Yep…left me speechless with that one. I didn’t even try. Just took the kid to McDonald’s and loaded her up with saturated fats and processed sugars and called it a night.

License to Breed?

Jeff and I were discussing a child in our community yesterday. This child has a father who is just barely able to take care of himself, much less a child. I don’t know anything about the mother, but she is not in the child’s life. The fact that she would birth a child with this man doesn’t say much for her intelligence and/or common sense. I don’t know if she chose to abandon the child with this father or if some court somewhere decided that he was the better parent of the two, but either option does not speak well for her.

In frustration, I made the comment, that “people ought to need a license to have children.” Something that I’ve said and heard said many times before. It’s just the kind of sarcastic comment people make in frustration over circumstances that we cannot change.

I don’t know what I expected from Jeff. Agreement? At the least, a distracted “yeah, you’re right”?

But instead, he said, “You know, we joke about that, but if we really lived in a country where the government got to decide who was allowed to have children, what kind of society would that be?”

And you know, he’s right. I still think that people ought to be more aware of the consequences of their actions. In particular, the consequences that their children will pay for their parents’ actions. But I just don’t know how we could effect that change.

Thoughts?

Flat Stanley goes to Hawaii

Hi everyone!  This is Flat Stanley!  I just got back from Hawaii.  Dr. Mincy was going to Hawaii for the American Dental Association convention and Mrs. Tankersley asked her to take me along.  This blog is a record of my trip.

We left Booneville  on Saturday, about 5:30 AM.  With a layover in San Francisco and the time difference, it was 9PM when we landed in Honolulu.  There is a five hour time difference between Mississippi and Hawaii.  Actually it’s four time zones, plus they don’t use daylight savings time.  So when it was noon in Hawaii is was 5pm in Mississippi.  This made it hard to stay up for evening events because at 6pm, we felt like it was 11pm!   And we kept waking up at 3AM because to us, it seemed like 8AM.

Our first day in Hawaii, we climbed Diamondhead.  Diamondhead is a mountain that is part of an extinct volcano crater.  The hike to the top is about a mile.  It is very steep and has a bunch of steps (I think about 200, but I lost count).

That’s Dr. Mincy and me looking down from the top of Diamondhead.

That’s Dr. Mincy and her husband Jeff.  Behind them, you can see Honolulu.

I got this cool certificate for climbing Diamondhead!

The next day, we went to Pearl Harbor.  We toured a WWII era submarine, the USS Bowfin.  We also went out to the USS Arizona Memorial.  Last, we toured the battleship, USS Missouri.

Dr. Mincy saw this rainbow over the boarding ramp of the Bowfin and thought it was pretty cool.

Here I am on the USS Bowfin.  You can see the Arizona Memorial and the USS Missouri in the background.

We didn’t take any pictures of me inside the Arizona Memorial because we felt it would be disrespectful.  You see, when Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Japanese in 1941, the battleship Arizona was sunk, killing nearly 1200 men.  Many of those men’s bodies were never recovered.  The USS Arizona is their grave.  The Arizona Memorial is a symbol of respect to the men who fought and died that day.  It is also a symbol of recovery and hope, as the US rebounded from this attack and went on to win the war.

This is an oil slick rising up from the USS Arizona.  They say that the Arizona leaks about 2 quarts of fuel oil a day.  Since a battleship carried about 2 MILLION gallons of fuel oil, this leakage may continue for many years to come.  While some environment experts thought an attempt should be made to drain the oil out of the USS Arizona, it was determined that this could not be done without disturbing the remains (bodies) of sailors still inside the battleship.

The US Flag flying over the Arizona Memorial is actually attached to the mast of the USS Arizona herself.

Next, we toured the battleship, USS Missouri, also known at the Mighty Mo!  The USS Missouri was in operation throughout most of WWII, the Korean War, Vietnam War and the first Gulf War.  However, she is most famous for being the site where the surrender documents were signed by the Japanese, ending WWII.

That circle behind Dr. Mincy is the actual spot on the deck where the Japanese, General Douglas MacArthur, and other Allied commanders signed the surrender documents which ended the war.

This is Mr. Jeff standing on the fore deck of the USS Missouri.  See those big guns behind him?  Those are 16-inch guns.  Each of those guns–not all six together, but ONE of them weighs as much as the space shuttle and can fire a round 23 miles!

This is the shell that those 16 inch guns shoot.  Mr. Jeff cut Dr. Mincy out of the picture, but each of those is almost as tall as her!

The next couple of days, we rented a car and did some sight-seeing outside of Honolulu.  We went to the North Shore and saw sea turtles:

It’s hard to tell, but you’ll have to trust me–that’s a sea turtle.

We hung out of the beach from the Beach Boy’s song, Surfin’ USA, Waimea Beach.

We hiked two miles into the rainforest to see this waterfall.  Jeff & Catherine got to jump in.  I didn’t want to mess up my hair.  :)

That’s about as close as Dr. Mincy let me get to the water.  :(

We stopped at a McDonald’s to get a snack.  They had something called a haupia pie on the menu.  It’s kind of a coconut fried pie.  Pretty tasty!

After all this sight-seeing, we got to the main reason for this trip.  Here I am at the ADA meeting:

I had a great time in Hawaii with Dr. Mincy and her husband!

I can’t wait to see where I go next!

Love,

Flat Stanley

What do kids hear when we tell them what we think we are telling them?

Our morning started out pretty typical.  In the midst of the every morning rush to get everyone washed, dressed, fed, and at school/work on time, the sounds of a screaming fight wafted from the kitchen to our bedroom.

Both girls coming trampling into our bedroom and Meridith blurted out, “Daddy, will you tell Leslie that she can’t go to school and talk about God.”

OK, so Jeff’s still trying to figure out what shirt to wear today and waiting for his second cup of coffee to kick in.  ”Do what?” he questions.

“They say you can’t talk about God at school and LK  is wanting to take her Bible to school with her.  Tell her she can’t do that.”

OK, time out here.  Jeff and I are not as concerned with Leslie Kate wanting to take her Bible to school as we are trying to figure out who has told Meridith that she can’t talk about God at school.  So we ask her, “Who told you that you can’t talk about God at school?”

“I don’t know, just people.”

“Well, was it a teacher or principal?  Was it another student?  Was it a Sunday School teacher or another adult?”  It seemed important to us to determine where this information was coming from and if it had been misunderstood.  She never could/would tell us where she got this idea.

So we settled this discussion by telling LK that if she wants to take her Bible to school with her that’s fine.   However, she can’t get to school with her homework, $1 for snacks, and a lunch without losing something before she gets home, so we suggested she might think about whether or not she could keep up with it.

We talked to Meridith about separation of church and state and how that applies to schools and that no one has said that she can’t go to school and “talk about God.”   Her teacher can’t stand up in front of class and evangelize to her and 20 other 12 year olds, but if she and her best friend want to pray before their math test, no one should stop them.  (In fact, if anyone is listening, PLEASE let Meridith pray over her math test, a little divine intervention wouldn’t hurt.)

Now here’s what I think has happened.  And I could be completely wrong, but it’s my theory.  This week, Meridith participated for the first time in See You At the Pole with her youth group at church.  For those not familiar, this is an opportunity for Christian students to make a statement about prayer in school by having a non-school authority-led prayer before school, typically held around the flag pole in front of the school.  However, instead of the faith-affirming message that it is OK to be a Christian, my kid has absorbed the message that talking about God at school will get you in trouble.

The thing is, there seem to be a lot of Christians out there who actually want our kids to believe exactly that.  And I realize that there are a lot of Christians who DO believe that if that isn’t the situation right now, that it is where our country is headed.  However, when we let our fears and frustrations color how we talk to our kids, we run the risk of a break down in communications.  It’s a fine line.  On the one hand, I think that a 12 year old is old enough to begin to understand what is going on in the world and nation around her.  On the other, if a subject is confusing to adults (and quite frankly, I think a lot of adults on both extremes of the issue of separation of church and state have very little understanding of the actual facts) it can certainly be confusing to children.

So what’s my rant?  I guess what I’m thinking and trying to get across is that we (being parents as well as adult authority figures) should spend as much time listening as we do talking.  It’s amazing what you can learn about your kid(s) when you just ask a question, then shut up and listen.  I did this earlier in the week when I talked to my 12yo about a 13yo who I learned was pregnant.  I asked her what she thought about that, and was amazed by how she answered.  In the same paragraph, she showed an amazing level of maturity and understanding about what this child was losing by becoming pregnant at such an early age(“Mama, she won’t ever be a kid again, will she?  She’ll be somebody’s Mama for the rest of her life.”), but also a disturbing amount of faith in how a purity ring will protect her from having sex (yes, that’s a whole ‘nother blog).

I am also not really ranting about whatever teacher, leader, stray homeless person, whoever, made the initial statement that led my kid down this line of thinking.  And that’s because I strongly believe that it is MY job to be involved and know what’s going on in her head.  That’s right, MY kid=MY responsibility…which seems to be a line of thinking that a lot a parents don’t agree with these days (again, whole ‘nother blog).

So guys, let’s be careful out there….

Have a great day.