Past the Angst

Whew! I was having some serious angst on Thursday over Boot's weekend visit (considering how the last one went), feeding 120 people the next day and coming up with a worthwhile sermon on top of all that. It all turned out okay, though. Yippee, it's over! I also hadn't had nearly enough sleep all week and am happily caught up now.

Friday, J & I fed 120 people from the film production crew (+ cast & other folks) that's been working on a shoot at our church. I just didn't see how we were going to pull it off. The people in charge of lining up food for the shoot were nice, but quite demanding. I found the demanding part a little odd, since they were being fed by volunteers from a non-profit church spending their own personal money on the food. Had we been caterers, I could have understood pickiness thoroughly. However, we simply stepped in & volunteered. When both the food & labor are free, your right to be picky is null & void, in my opinion. But, we got all the sauce and pasta cooked beforehand at home & lugged it to the church for reheating. I am so glad that's over with!!!

Friday evening when Boot arrived, I was studying in the bedroom. I thought I heard him come in, but since he didn't bother to come say hi, I thought it best to wait. It turned out that he had come in and went right to bed. I was worried about what that might mean for his mood over the weekend, but he was perfectly pleasant, thank God! Friday night, we just hung around the house. Boot talked about boxing and clothes almost non-stop.

I had to be at the church early Saturday morning for the film shoot. I was thrilled just to be an extra & not responsible for ANY food!!! Before the filming started, we all hung out in the fellowship hall for about an hour and a half. During that time, I was able to visit with the other lesbian couple for awhile & then talked "heretical theology" (as he put it) with a parishioner. For all his assurances that he is not a liberal, he sounded pretty liberal to me! It was interesting. Fun to have intellectual conversations unexpectedly like that. He wanted to talk about the possibility that Jesus was not divine and about the fact that it doesn't matter because God accomplished what he intended through him either way. Also, about the whole homosexuals in the church debate being simply a red herring for men to keep women barefoot & pregnant. I assume he means that lesbians, having no men nor need of them, buck the system by not being barefoot & pregnant, therefore those kind of men find them threatening. He also told me that he thinks God's whole point in scattering the people after the building of the Tower of Babel was to create diversity. It was a refreshing conversation. The film production was, as well. Plus, the sanctuary was filled with white lilies, tulips and hyacinths and the smell was fabulous. We had white hyacinths in the chapel Sunday morning, too. Ahh!

After the shoot & lunch, J & Boot were out getting their shop on. Pie was still asleep when I got home. I hate to make him wake up on weekends unless there is something going on that he needs to be awake for, so I let him sleep until 3:30! This meant that he didn't get his meds & was utterly wild later, but I just didn't want to make him get up. He has his whole life to rise early & be productive. I spent my time being productive, though, spending a couple hours working on my sermon. I wasn't very happy with it, but I did have the bones, at least. When J & Boot returned, J & I napped for a bit. Then, she went to the grocery & Target with the children, allowing me to snooze longer. We had tacos for dinner & just hung out, nice and relaxed.

Oh, I forgot the part where Pie & J thought it would be a great idea to take Storm out for a walk. Boot said, "I don't think this is such a good idea, guys" and I told them she wouldn't walk, she'd just sit down and refuse to move. They wanted to take her to the front office & back & wanted us, who wanted no part of it, to come with them. Well, Boot said, "If it gets too freaky, Daria & I can just go back" so we went out with them. They carried her down the steps, where the struggle began. She may sit at the door inquisitively, but with the leash on, she was having none of it. She hunkered down and made a couple of breaks in the direction of the door. Finally, after about 5 minutes attempting to talk her into going for a walk, they gave up. Now, they are planning to try the leash on Lutley as soon as his hair grows back. Right now, he looks like a rat, alien, poodle or cross between a mini lion and a freshly-shorn lamb. In other words, really weird. So weird, in fact, that when he came home from getting groomed, the other cats were afraid of him! Pixie got used to him most quickly, ceasing the hissing & curling up warily on the bed with him that evening. Storm continued to growl and pounce him for a few days and Fred, who must weigh twice as much as he does, would growl, flatten his ears and try to melt into the wall or furniture behind him anytime Lutley got near, for at least a week! He was terrified!

Sunday, I went to the early service & led the adult ed class, then came home to a sleeping household. When they were all up & dressed, we had breakfast at Denny's & then prowled the mall. Pie was really grouchy about the whole thing. He hates shopping for anything besides video games and his brother wanted to go into dozens of shops. Boot is a certified clothes horse. He had already bought himself 2 t-shirts & J had bought him one before we all hit the mall. He found a belt he really liked Sunday, with an enormous buckle, in an "urban fashion" store that is going out of business. Sale price was $30. Good thing he has found an older couple to do odd jobs for! He wanted my opinion on the buckle in comparison to two other buckles under consideration. I had to tell him that I'm not much of a belt buckle judge. Honestly, if I were going to get an enormous buckle, it would have to have something to do with rodeo. I did point out the one I found prettiest, though, and that's the one he got.

When we got home, Pie huffed into his room saying, "Finally, I get to play my game!" Boot hung out in the living room with us & watched "Man of the Year" with Robin Williams, which was really funny. When it was time for him to go, he gave nice hugs & told us he loves us. Improvement, for sure! J made bacon-wrapped pork tenderloin, mashed potatoes and a salad for our dinner. We spent some time at the book store, where she got a new volume of vampire tales, then came home & snugged into bed. I woke up in the morning with my sermon written in my head. I love when God helps me out like that! I spent much of the day polishing it & J and I hit the church parking lot just after 6 for the evening service. I realized we hadn't brought bread or juice for the service. I had assumed the AP would handle that, since she was doing that part, but I realized we hadn't really talked about it, either. Luckily, there was juice left. However, the bread she had to offer was the soft wheat sandwich slices the confirmation class had their sandwiches on. I didn't really have time to cube it & it certainly wouldn't do for intinction. There was no time to run out for a loaf. So, I settled on some pre-made communion cubes I found in the sacristy. The AP said they looked like colorless Chiclets & the DCM's husband thought they tasted like styrofoam. They sure did! They were also the shiny, slightly puffy texture of Japanese rice crackers. Next time, I am bringing a loaf of bread & we're doing it by intinction! However, despite the weird element, the service went off without a hitch and people really liked the sermon. The AP said I did a fantastic job and asked if I thought I could handle it alone next week.

We came home and helped Pie Pie with his homework. He was crying over it & saying it just doesn't make any sense. It was mean, median, mode and range in Math and vocab in English. He said he knows it in his head, but he just can't get it out on the paper because he gets distracted and forgets what he was going to write. It's been a long time, years, since his dosage was upped. Perhaps he is not getting enough? We are going to talk to the doctor on Thursday when we take him in for his check-up. This is just like it was for him back in first grade, pre-meds. After we got through the work & he'd had a couple of tacos, we put him to bed & had taco salad ourselves before hitting the hay.