boston commoner.

welcome home

It’s here again. I haven’t had it in a while. Spurts of desire to hop on a plane and go visit people and places, maybe, but not this deeper, blacker drive to fly away and disappear for a while.

I’ve always had a thing for the idea of traveling. Traveling, as a reality, however, has sometimes proved disappointing. There is so much tourism. Everywhere you go, you run into packs of American high-schoolers on Senior trips. In Rome, they lined all of the sight-worthy fountains. They were throwing stuff in, laughing at their amazing wit in contriving such an original diversion from the ancient city. In the Alps, it was said that you could always pick out the Americans on the slopes; they were the ones in the blue jeans (ha ha ha! ho ho ho!). I asked my boss if people could tell so easily that I was American. They said, “Not so much.” Must be the perpetually chubby face. Someone told me I have the face of a Dutch milkmaid. In Salzburg I was sick for three weeks and couldn’t eat, and when I finally came to and could receive visitors, the women stared at my cheeks and said, “You’ve lost weight… You’re pretty!” They were surprised. Astonished, actually. As if I’d been pulling a fast ugly one on them all that time. Women are always blaming men for their eating disorders, but I think we do it to each other. I was afraid to ingest anything beyond clear soup and tea for another week and a half after those well-meant comments. (more…)

I know I should be thankful that I even have a job. A relatively easy, flexible job at that; one that affords me time to sit here and do this whole blogging thing in the first place. And I am, I guess. Thankful, that is. When I think about it. Which I should do more often. But I hate my alarm clock. Hate it hate it hate it.

Why am I so tired? I feel like I got old all of the sudden, within a matter of weeks; my hands dried out, I started longing for bed at around 9:30pm, and can suddenly no longer tolerate spinach. And I like spinach! My stomache reminds me, however, that no matter when, where, or how I eat it, that I simply oughtn’t. Sad.

I think I can blame the dry hands on the diving temperatures and my over-heated apartment. The tiredness… Well, blame that on poor time management and the frustrating nature of life in general. I guess. But this issue with the spinach… That’s just about aging. Pretty soon it will be nothing but creamed corn and pepto bismol. And what is with this cherry-floavored pepto bismol, all of the sudden? Ack. Not that I’ve tried it. Yet. But as I said, it’s only a short matter of time.

I “visited” my apartment for the first time last week this past Saturday. You can imagine the pile of bills and other junk mail that tumbled out of my post box when I was finally able to check it. Among these was my first electricity bill. I was too busy to open it that night, so I stuck it in my bag along with my latest bank statement, a new writing magazine (I’ve yet to crack the front cover), and my unopened car insurance bill. Out of sight, out of mind? I don’t think so. That night I had a dream. Actually, it was more like a nightmare. It featured an electricity bill in the amount of $360.00. Yes, I remember. It came with an itemized list of charges for “special parts.” I don’t know what the special parts were, but such is the nature of night horrors. (more…)

A recent post about personality types on Meanderings got me thinking about this song we used to sing at my old church in Sunday School, Children’s Church, and other kids’ ministries:

He’s still workin’ on me

To make me what I ought to be.

It took Him just a week to make the moon and the stars,

the sun and the earth and Jupiter and Mars.

How loving and patient He must be,

‘cause He’s still workin’ on me. (more…)

I haven’t seen my poor little apartment all week. I have been home helping my mom, who has her own busy schedule at this time of year, by watching my younger brother in the evenings. It doesn’t make sense to go back to Boston just to sleep and wake and come back here at 8am, so I’ve been sleeping here, instead. Saves gas money and morning aggrevation. Kind of. Anyway, a couple of days ago I caught the tail-end of a news report about an apartment building that burnt down in Boston since I’ve been away. I seriously wondered for a while if it was my building. I’m still not sure it wasn’t. If it were, it would make last weekend’s fiasco look like a walk in the park. But we’ll cross that bridge if we come to it… (more…)

Here is a recent picture of my Pastor’s family (or, at least, part of it). The old, bearded man is Pastor Bill. The pretty, much younger-looking woman is his charming wife, Deb. The tall, handsome, still younger man is Dave, their youngest son (the two older brothers are long gone and married; I’ve never met them, but I’m sure they’re as great as the rest of the Edmondsons). And last, but certainly not least, is the baby of the family, Linda. She is delightful, and always invites me for Sunday lunch, even when her parents don’t ;o)

These are great people. Pray for them!

It was one just of those weekends. We’ve all had them. Some more than others, and some to greater extents. At any rate, we can all relate to those days, weeks, months, in which it seems nothing will jive, when life has cosmically alligned the great bulk of the month’s responsabilities with a series curve balls and minor, but time-consuming inconveniences to converge on one important weekend. And even though you volunteered yourself for most of those responsabilities, you didn’t see it coming. It hits you hard, several times, sqaure in the nose, until it runs out of destructible tissue and decides to attack your ears, eyes, jaw bone… When it decides you’re almost beyond suffering, it comes in for a final blow to the temple, but by then you’re not really feeling it anymore.

My temple blow came last night on my way home from our Sunday evening Bible studies, in the form of a red battery light on my dashboard, a rather unorthodox “clunk” under my hood, and an overheated engine. We were in Allston, at that point. The tow cost 150 smackers. (more…)

Well, Lisa is out of the hospital, as many of you already know. It sounds as though she’s doing very well, but will need another, smaller surgery at some point in the future to remove a small remnant from the tumor. For those of you who did not receive her e-mail on the subject, I’ve included it below. (more…)

1) A Miracle on 34th Street (Admittedly not my favorite, or even a holiday necessity, but I needed a 10th, and we have to start somewhere.)

2) Frosty the Snowman ("Happy… B-b-birth-day!")

3) Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (If only to make fun of the wool-and-clay animee.)

4) The Homecoming (A Walton Family Christmas…"G’night, John-Boy!")

5) Scrooge (The Albert Finney version, of course.)

6) White Christmas (Because Bing Crosby looks like my Grampa.)

7) How the Grinch Stole Christmas (MUST be the old-school version, complete with songs and funky, 70’s-style, psychadelic color schemes.)

8) Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown ("Loo, loo, LOOOOO, loo, loo, LOO LOO loo (gasp) LOO LOO LOOOOOOO loo loo loo loooo…")

9) It’s a Wonderful Life (Jimmy Stewart is my hero.)

10) And last but definitely not least… A Christmas Story ("You’ll shoot you’re eye out, kid!"… “Jinger Bears, Jinger Bears, Jinger Are da Raaaay!"…I could go on…and on and on…this is my all-time favorite Christmas Comedy Classic. It just isn’t Christmas with Ralphy.)

Well, for any of you who’ve recently visited Mels’ recent post on the subject (and many of you have), the title for this post makes perfect sense.

About 20 minutes into this morning’s commute, the first flakes fell. Well, they were more like fuzzy raindrops, but you could tell by the way they dispersed on the windshield that they were at least partly flake. Saturday’s forecast: Snow, snow, snow. Seems we’re getting an early start :o) (more…)

“A couple of years ago, I was standin’ out there where all you guys are, watchin’ my dad do the same thing, thinkin’, ‘He’s nuts!’ I seriously thought he had lost his mind, or somethin…”

It’s not every day you get to watch a teenage Bostonian girl admit what she was really thinking about your church family all of those months before she got saved. Especially since it wasn’t all that flattering. But so began Felicia’s testimony, as told before the congregation of the International Baptist Church of Boston this past Sunday.

A sweet prelude to any baptism, a new believer’s testimony can touch the hearts of those floundering in the coldest waters of the mundane. Like Mandy’s story, Felicia’s was told in her own words, flavored by the fresh expression of one otherwise ‘un-churched,’ combined with local colloquialisms and accents, all bound up by the barest and boldest sincerity of newborn faith–faith in Something real; in Someone substantial; in Somebody so grand, He can’t possibly be made up, Who has left so much evidence behind and around Him that He needn’t ever be so. (more…)

Some people are too talented for words. I’m not one of them, but Melita Matzko is. Here’s one of her recent cityscape photos.

Have a wonderful weekend, folks!

Many thanks to all of you who’ve been praying for Lisa. As to her current post-op status, many have asked and there seems to be some confusion. I myself am not sure what is going on, but I hear there’s a recent letter on Lisa’s condition floating out around there somewhere (apparently several of you ahve gotten it, or wanted it, but there’s been some trouble in it’s circulation). The most up-to-date info I, personally, have is contained in the following coment as posted yesterday by a fellow prayer partner and friend of Lisa’s:

Continue to pray. Lisa was moved back to ICU today (11-2-04). Her sodium levels are too low. They have done another CT scan, but results aren’t in yet.

-Comment by Kelley R

Here is some older info from Lisa’s mom concerning the initial diagnosis, operation, and problems they encountered after the first few days: (more…)

Well, I have to hand it to Kerry. He had the opportunity, under law, to drag this thing out for another 11 days, despite the fact that a win was, apparently, a mathematical impossibility by earlier this morning. But he spared us all this horrible fate, wrapping things up with a simple phone call. It’s kind of..fun? funny? horribly sad?…to hear what some of his disappointed supporters have to say about things now. And I don’t mean that to sound remotely vindictive. But, for example, one news clip just revealed a Boston woman’s deep thoughts and political analysis on the election outcome:

“I’m..I’m sad, because…because…I wanted Kerry to win, and I mean…well, I think we’re held hostage by conservative terrorists, in my opinion…”

Ummm… My guess is that she was one of the democratic supporters vehemently advocating that America set aside its electoral college system and elect by popular vote this time. She was probably sure that if we did so, Bush would lose (he would have in 2000, apparently, had overall popular vote been the standard for election). But Bush WON the popular vote this year. Indisputably. So my question is, who are these conservative terrorists??? It seems that the election was fair, and that President Bush won, either way, justly; while the election was very close, “democracy” has declared itself a winner. (more…)

About a month ago, I had the priviledge of attending my first outdoor baptism service. An international student and long-time attendee of the Sunday evening evangelistic Bible studies, Mandy (Jia Man) had recently been attending the Sunday morning worship services, as well. One Sunday after the worship service, we were all cluttered in the hallway, as usual, pretending to leave. Our group is always pretending to leave. We’re hopelessly unskilled in the art of exodus. We’re always finding other excuses to stay, initiating new conversations, sitting down again after we’ve stood up to go…twice… (more…)

Okay, just some quick alerts and apologies with which to start off the month:

1) ALERT: Her name is Sherry Dubois. Maybe you know her? She’s one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met, particularly gifted in the area of foreign languages, administrations in general, and making me crack up ALL THE TIME :o) In the side-splitting sense, of course. I know her as Olga des Waldes, ex-german-class buddy extraordinaire, but she wears many hats – ‘Blogger’ being the latest addition to her cap collection. Check out her thoughts here. I think you might need to register to post a comment, but it only takes a second; I promise you, Olga will NOT let you down! She doesn’t know the meaning of the word entaeuscht.

2)APOLOGY: I was offline all weekend and utterly appalled at the number of spam comments that wormed their way into my blog while I was gone. I updated my “spam words” list and hopefully that will take care of the immediate problem. I’m aware that any of you who posted previously probably received those ads in your inboxes, and I’m mortified. Thankfully, this particular spam wasn’t vulgar, just ittitating; in either case, I do want you to know that I’m working on making this blog as spam-proof as possible. I hope this episode doesn’t dicourage your commenting in the future!

That’s it for now! Enjoy your Erste November!