The Friday Round-Up

When Diane Rhem does hers on NPR, she has a panel of experts. I have a panel of me. There may be "language" in this post, so be prepared.

Although I have a neurosis about making phone calls to almost everyone these days (it used to just be "official" calls like making appointments but it has progressed to dreading even calling friends) I had no problem yesterday calling a new local church which has sent out at least a dozen fliers announcing their opening on Sunday for an Easter service. They guarantee child and youth services and "genuine relationships" among other things. After I got the one yesterday with a picture of the white-man hippie Jesus arising from the tomb with wings on the back of his robed body, I called them and got their answering machine. I left a message with my name telling them that if I wanted to go to their service, I probably would have been alerted to the time and date by the first two or three fliers and to stop already. I got a call back from the pastor this morning and he said he'd take my name off the mailing list, which I thanked him for. I wanted to say a lot more, but was in a rush getting my husband out of town and so I didn't and the son-of-a-bitch got me by muttering a hasty "God bless you" before he hung up the phone.
ACK!

I have an entire weekend to myself and am looking forward to it with great glee. It is, without a doubt, the most beautiful time of the year here and I intend to spend most of my daytime time outdoors, weeding. This may not sound like much fun but for me, it hardly gets any better. I put a book on tape into the antique Walkman and wreck my fingernails in the warm dirt. To me, that is heaven and no promise of freaking angels sitting around playing harps or sitting at the right hand of God can compare. God's side must be pretty crowded and I'm going to have my yard all to myself.

My daughter's wedding is in three weeks and WE ARE NOT READY. We went out twice this week to get stuff and I have ordered a dress on E-Bay and dammit, it better fit and it better look great because I am having a terrible time with this shopping thing. When I put on real woman clothes I feel like I'm in drag and I don't want to feel like I'm in drag at my daughter's wedding. She and I have such diverse taste in clothing that if she wasn't born at home and wasn't the spitting image of her father's sisters, I'd think she'd been switched at birth for my real child. But really, we're having a good time although she's getting stressed out as the date approaches. She called me today from work, weeping because more of the groom's family is going to be there than ours and she doesn't know them. My husband asked me what was wrong when I got off the phone with her and I said, "She's a bride. She's supposed to be freaking out and she's doing her motherfucking job."
"Oh," he said.
I do understand her anxiety and I have a bit myself but as I keep assuring her, all will be well, and she will end up married. At least she gets to go on a honeymoon.

I think my kids are going to come out on Sunday to dye Easter eggs. This has nothing to do with the resurrection of our Lord and everything to do with childhood memories and a table full of coffee cups with various shades of dye in them and the joy I take in seeing my kids, adults all, doing a childish thing and having fun doing it. I will make some food and we will eat outside under the blooming Bradford pears and that, my friends, is my idea of a holiday celebration.

I'm sure I'll soon find a few words to say here about Easter and religion and how I have no tolerance for any of it. I am becoming the very worst sort of out-spoken heathen and I feel a need creeping up on me to speak my truth as they say somewhere (where they probably also say things like "thinking outside the box" so you know that's a stupid thing to say) but for right now, I believe I'll just glory in being alive on this, the second day of spring, 2008 and living in a place where it all looks like a picture painted by Thomas Kinkade, Painter of Light and I'm not kidding.

Happy Spring.