Work's getting exciting again, lots of drunks and thieves, and drunken thieves!

Just wrapping up what turned out to be a trying week. First, via a scheduling mistake I missed about six hours worth of very important and expensive meetings on Tuesday (which I've gotten a letter of reprimand for), then being told on Wednesday I couldn't be financed for the Lasik appointment I was supposed to have Thursday, which was the biggest bummer because I've been looking forward to that particular appointment for about a month and been wearing glasses (no contacts) for about that long in preparation. I've rescheduled for February, so I can figure out what's going on with my credit & possibly save enough so I don't have to do the CareCredit thing. I have wanted to get Lasik for about a decade, so that was the biggest letdown. Then there was breaking my toe the day before missing the meetings on a dumbell the kids had hidden under a jacket in the dining room. I've also been tense because my second big Biology test which I took this friday. Still waiting for the results on that one.

Brandy can tell you I was very melodramatic about all this. Since Friday I think I've been able to rein it in a bit. I do want to curb the habit of telling people my problems, as it seems I'm always more eager to tell them then they are to listen-even if they ask-and It doesn't help much. The whole deal did help me realize that my stamina for disaster has gone way down. I managed to say "blessed be the name of the lord" but with a very sour face. I'd prefer to be to the point character-wisewhere I could honestly sing a worship song in similar circumstances.

Our microwave has developed a Zeus complex. The other day as Brandy was heating up some peas in a bowl it began throwing lightning around inside and making a loud snapping noise...not a good sign. So remembering a couple years ago in St. Paul when our then-microwave spontaneously combusted I had Brandy unplug it until we can figure out what's wrong or throw it away.
As a man once sung - "Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got til it's gone..." I had to heat up my cold coffee by dumping some boiling water into it. Just not the same.
Radioactive cube of convenience, why have you failed us?

And yet, Romans 8:28 is in full effect. Though He slay my microwave, yet will I trust Him.

Polycarbonate windows to twenty-twenty
even with insurance, they cost me plenty
Medical magic for my myopea
the key to a mole-eye's eye utopia
A tribute to my new spectacle pair-
now I can see, and my eyes can get air
I cannot live by contacts alone-
but glasses too - til I get Lasik done.

Worship came out of my eyes
I poured out my soul
through the grate
down a hole
while my Idols lay still
as all idols will
now it's dripping in the dark
it's not like a set of keys
I can't bend hanger and fish it out
for a soul is a slippery thing
best kept for sure hands
and I need yours now
to forgive,
and fish it out.

Just got back from my first responder class.

I asked a lot of questions this time. Probably the biggest impression I came out of it with is that Man is mortal. Very mortal. They were describing all the ways in which one might be seriously injured, for example a stab about two or three inches deep into the center line of the body could pierce the aorta, and kill you in less than a minute, or a broken femur can pierce the femoral artery and do the same. There were quite a few more examples until I raised my hand and asked "Is there any part of the body that isn't vulnerable?!" The answer was basically a no. Then they explained (while we were practicing on the mannequins) that CPR in a lot of cases is simply keeping the organs alive and viable for harvesting because more than half of the time with an unconscious, non-breathing no-heartbeat person they're not going to live. CPR by itself rarely saves anyone whose got no heartbeat, what it does is keep the brain and other vital organs oxygenated til they can get a defibrillator to re-start the heart.

All this got me looking at everyone a lot more carefully, how delicate we are! We're like tissue paper in water, just a little bit of hard current & we're torn to pieces. I found myself acting very gently towards the mannequins, they're shaped like people, so I want to treat them like people-especially the chil & infant mannequins, I feel a lot of compassion on them, even though they're not "real". I carry the infant mannequins like babies, and make sure to set them down gently. It's wierd, but I can't imagine acting any other way, I would feel like I was losing my humanity if I threw them around like some people do. I even defended the baby mannequins when another guy called them ugly babies.

I remember being like that even when I was little, I had stuffed animals and I would treat them like they were alive, I would get furiously upset, scream and fight and cry, if someone was being rough with them or pretending to hurt them. I was that way with animals too. Even back when I didn't want to have any babies of my own (when I was young) and didn't see what was cute or endearing about babies, I still felt an innate protectiveness towards them. I didn't really want to be around them, but I knew they had a claim on me. I knew they deserved my help and protection by the very fact that they existed. I didn't like the fact that they were sticky and stinky, but I would have died protecting them.

I would much rather be this way than any other. I dont want to change. I think Jesus is that way too- "A bruised reed he would not break, a smoldering flax he would not quench."

Why do people have to die? I will be very happy when they don't anymore. It's so horrible to think that human beings will be in hell - but I suppose they will have rejected the gift of humanity so completely by that time that they won't really be human beings anymore.

Its so good to know that Jesus will raise the dead, to never die, that people will be alive and protected, never to be attacked again.