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Personal blog of christian
writer & fallible mom
Katy McKenna Raymond
in Kansas City, Missouri

Katy is represented by
Greg Johnson at
WordServe Literary

Read more Katy at
LateBoomer.net

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Recent Posts

• Try
• Becoming Brenda Starr
• Off Beat
• Scattered
• That’s It
• So I’ve Finally Signed With An Agent. Now What?
• The Spoon
• Sciatica
• Sweetheart
• A Woman’s Train of Thought Has No Caboose
• However much we own, we are all still living on borrowed time
• After all, when restaurants shrink portions, they don’t shrink prices.
• As with everything in life, balance is key.
• Slow down, you move too fast…
• Yeah, I know. I have issues.

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E me at katy @ ngenius.com

You Say Potato (#305)

I've always resisted having couches that were too comfortable. When the phrase couch potato was introduced, my resolve only strengthened. Who wants to be known--even by one's self, especially by one's self--as the chick who doesn't have the gumption to haul her sorry hmmm-hmmm off the sofa? Not I.

The way I look at it, if the rest of my time on earth is getting one day shorter every twenty-four hours, I've got stuff to do. Stuff that can't happen in a supine position.

Don't get me wrong: I can be as laid-back as the next woman, maybe moreso than many. But it's controlled laid-backedness. It's laid-back with a purpose. Maybe my brand of personal relaxation is so planned that it's something I need to speak to a qualified therapist about, I don't know.

All I know is, this isn't going to happen to me. Please believe me when I say I'm not even laughing.

---

The Straight and Narrow Blog (#306)

I'm thinking of starting a second blog, one with more topical specificity.

(By the way, I just now discovered that specificity is a very fun word to type. I suggest you try it, just for fun. It gets your left hand, which for you may be your less dominant hand, going all fast and furious and even a little spazzy. Specificity. Oh, yeah. Very fun...)

On fallible, I mostly write about family stuff, church stuff, Jesus stuff, and friend stuff. Occasionally, I write about writing.

I don't often get into commenting on current events, politics, conservatism, liberalism, terrorism, money, fad diets, or scrapbooking. But I could. I really could.

Knowing what you know about me, and having read what you've read, do you have a suggestion for a second blog, a companion to fallible, one with a significant dose of topical specificity?

I trust your judgment.

---

I Almost Missed It (#307)

This fall, I really, really looked forward to missing filling out tens upon thousands of forms for my last kid's senior year of high school. I wanted the chance to miss the sports physical form, the enrollment form, the medical release form, and the field trip permission form.

I craved the opportunity to miss John Hancocking away my right to sue the school and all its representatives should anything disastrous and probably preventable befall my child when he's not under my watchful care.

Right about now you're probably thinking, what about notarization forms? Ah, yes...la piece de resistance. What mother doesn't live for those special mornings when her kid is running out the door and yells, "Hey, Mom, I have to have this notarized by first hour"? Yes, Notarization Days were the best of all.

Kev graduated in the Spring, and will be attending college this fall. I ain't filling out diddly squat on his behalf, and it's sad, sure, after 25 years of filling out forms.

Just not that sad.

Besides, new forms have a way of filling any void outdated forms may leave. In the past week alone, I've carted my mom to two new medical offices, and have filled out no less than fifteen pages of forms on her behalf. I have her entire medical history memorized, from the umbilical double hernia surgery at the age of eleven, to the Hepatits C she contracted from a blood transfusion when she gave birth to me, to 1989's shattered elbows (yeah, plural) now tenuously held together with pins and plates. I can spout off the names, dosage amounts, and frequencies of all her dozen or so meds in my sleep--and often I do.

And with Mom, it's not just filling out and handing in. Each doctor's office, diagnostic imaging center, and emergency room has its own pile of forms they want us to have for our records.

Yesterday was the last straw. I turned in the requisite pile of filled-in paperwork at the little window and the medical office clerk pounced. She thrust the papers in my face with a sarcastic smile and said, "Here's some HIPA forms, for your mother's records."

I pushed the papers away. "No, thanks. She's been HIPA'd to death. You can keep your crummy forms."

"OK," she said. "I understand. You don't have to take them, or even read them."

Then she reached into a slot underneath her desk.

"But if she's refusing to read and accept HIPA paperwork, she'll need to fill out this form..."

Nostalgia is funny. Just when you identify something you think you're going to relish missing for the rest of your life, something else rises up to take its place.

---

Leviticus? (#308)

"J'ever eadaby?"

Thus opened the conversation between the gas station cashier and my husband.

"Ummm...j'ever?" Doug handed him a debit card, mesmerized.

"Yeah...y'know...the diet where yeadaby." The clerk seemed pleased to pass on his unconventional but trendy nutritional advice.

"Uhhh...yeada?" Let's just say Doug's never been into fad diets.

"Yeah. Bee." By this point, the clerk spoke with the clear voice of authority.

"Oh...you mean, did you ever eat a bee..."

"Well, yeah, I did. What I wanna know is, jew?"

One thing about Doug: He knows a ministry opportunity when he sees one.

"No. Christian. How about you?"

"Ummm...I eat bees."

Alrighty, then.

---

Divine Expectation (#309)

Jesus bent down and scribbled in the sand.

"Let the one who is without sin among you cast the first stone."

One by one, the community's supposedly upstanding men trailed off until only Jesus and the woman remained--only those two, and His sacred scribbling.

Did Jesus draw a line in the sand, silently daring even one sin-stained man to boldly cross it, stone in hand? Did he write in a secret code only the woman caught in adultery was able to decipher, perhaps some words of comfort like, "Don't worry. I'll protect you"?

Or was He killing time, making the woman and her accusers squirm with discomfort for a few minutes before He spoke the words that would set her free?

"The men are gone," Jesus said to the disgraced woman, when the stones of condemnation had been dropped into a pile at their feet and the coast was clear. "I won't accuse you, either."

Of course, He could have accused her and left it at that. He deserved to, since He had committed no sin Himself and had all the stones in the world at His disposal.

But His unconditional love for her demanded more of Him than just that He avoid accusing her or judging her. His unconditional love required that He equip and expect her--in her newly forgiven state--to change.

"Go, and sin no more."

There's a difference between lack of accusation and expectation of change, a fine-tuned note of grace that deliniates one from the other. I believe the difference is unconditional love.

What if Jesus had turned to the woman and said, "Looks like this is your lucky day. I got those dudes to back off, didn't I? Go do your thing, and I'll go do Mine."

In order for her to make the changes in her life that she so desperately needed, He held her to a higher standard than she would have ever held herself. When He said Sin no more, she received the grace to obey. And with that grace, she truly understood His unconditional love.

She didn't have to be perfect to receive His love, but once she experienced it, there was no way to remain unchanged.

---

R-e-s-p-e-c-t (#310)

"My fellow Americans: we are here tonight united in one simple purpose: to make America stronger at home..."

With these words, John Kerry opened his speech accepting the nomination of the Democratic party for President of the United States.

Stronger at home is easy to agree with. Is there a candidate anywhere who wouldn't commit to strengthening our economy, our education system, our families? Is there a candidate anywhere who wouldn't espouse his particular version of more affordable health care, fairer taxes, and safer streets?

Even if the parties disagree in the particulars of how to make America stronger at home, we can all at least nod and yawn and be lulled into a familiar, comfortable sense of deja-vu when we hear the soothing words.

Yes, John Kerry almost had me at stronger at home.

But then he took a breath and hammered out the second plank of his platform: "...and respected in the world."

That's it? That's the core value that will define the Democratic Party in this presidential election?

It's hard not to think of Winston Churchill at a time like this. Hard not to picture him toughing it out, singular in his opposition to other, more powerful world leaders--including those in his own country--who would have continued forever in their policy of appeasement until the enemy was at their very own gate. And perhaps even afterward.

It's hard to forget Churchill's nearly-ruined political reputation and the broken, wholly disregarded man he had become by the time public opinion began to shift in his noble direction.

He had chosen a different value, a value which the rest of the world was slow to embrace, and one for which he garnered no respect, except in hindsight. He proposed standing against the gathering forces of evil, doing what he believed was right, though none go with him.

My father fought with the British Army for eight years, stationed both in Egypt and in Sicily. I remember him saying how America's forces were more than a bit late to the party, how if it weren't for Churchill going it alone, the world might have been lost.

Respected in the world? It's nice work if you can get it, I guess. But it makes a much better side effect than a job description.

Not only that: it takes a whole lot of being willing to go without it before it starts to come your way.

And unless you've earned it, why would you want it anyway?

---

Where’s the Party? (#311)

John Kerry's daughters, Alexandra and Vanessa, have just finished introducing their father to the Democratic conventioneers and Doug has disappeared from the room.

Surely he's coming back, I think, and I wait almost until the several-minute-long campaign film is done running before I go hunting for him.

I find him in the kitchen, standing in front of the other TV, engrossed.

"Watching him in here?" I ask, proud of us for being a two-television history-in-the-making family.

"Yeah," he says, but then I look a little closer at the screen.

"What is this?" I ask.

He doesn't blink. "Last Comic Standing."

Well, then.

---

Against the Rain (#312)

If I'm sitting in one spot and the dark storm clouds are moving fast, alternating with spots of blue sky and bright sun, I'm miserable. The rapidly shifting barometric pressure in my head is so unbearable that I'm often reduced to a pill-popping, praying, trembling specimen of womankind.

The only thing redeeming about the situation is that I don't need my favorite weatherman Gary Lezak at KSHB-TV in Kansas City to tell me what's about to happen. I've got Dopplar radar beat all to heck, and could save the NBC affiliate oodles of bucks, if they'd only tap into my early-alert system.

From now on, though, I'm going to stick a wet finger into the wind before I get in a car and drive sixty miles per hour on a day like today, unless it's in the same direction the storm is moving.

What just happened inside my head felt something like a sudden-onset insanity with a cranial explosion on the side, just to make it colorful.

That'll teach me to go against the rain.

---

What I Really, Really Don’t Want for Christmas (#313)

I've never been a big one for message t-shirts. I don't know why, but the idea of random members of the reading public perusing my chest for a slogan of the day--no matter how noble my chosen sentiment may be--makes me nervous.

I'm tempted sometimes by the bookish slogans like "So many books, so little time." I've nearly succumbed to the comic allure of "If a man speaks in the forest, and there's no one there to hear him, is he still wrong?" 

I admit I did bow to the homespun wisdom of "What if the hokey-pokey really is what it's all about?" Even so, I've never worn it out of the house. 

My basic aversion to message shirts began back in the '70s,  when I worked with a girl who had a shirt I've never forgotten. It said, "I am a virgin. This is an old t-shirt." Let's just say it brought her a lot of attention, and she had enough problems already.

Here's another attention grabber, for anyone wanting to make a strong statement of personal values. Remember: All the money raised is for a good cause. Or at least, that's what they say.

As usual, I think I'll pass.  

---

Joyful, Joyful (#314)

Our trash gets picked up on Monday mornings, early. Really. Really. Early.
 
We need to invest in some heavy-duty metal trashcans because where we live, there are critters. The kind of critters who succeed in eating their weight in plastic trashcans the first time you put them out. We keep pricing the metal ones when we're in Wal-Mart or Home Depot and in ten years of comparison shopping, they keep getting more expensive.
 
We're too cheap for our own good.
 

Instead of springing for decent trashcans, which would allow us to put our trash out on Sunday night without regard for the antics of squirrel, possum, skunk, fox, deer, coyote, and crow, we stick post-its on our alarm clocks. We remind our self-employed selves (who have no where to go on Monday morning, and like it that way) that the alarm must be set for some ungodly pre-dawn  hour, so that Doug can load up the car and haul trash down to the end of our long driveway.
 
Sometimes we forget the post-it note, and neglect to set the clock. Sometimes, though, because God's mercies are new every day, it isn't too late. This morning I bolted upright just moments after the truck most likely finished making its roll down our road.
 
"Doug! The trash!"
 
He sprang from the bed and was gone. He was back in only minutes, too soon, I thought, for him to have met with success. I expected him to groan and say, "They were long gone. I missed it--again."
 
Instead, he came in gasping and said, "I caught up with them a couple of roads over. They almost got away, seemed like they even sped up a little as I rounded the corner. I wasn't sure they were going to wait for me. That one guy on the truck--he's been picking up our trash forever--he's just the happiest guy I've ever seen. Always has this huge smile on his face..."
 

The guy must be a Christian, I thought. That would explain his early-morning joie-de-vivre, and even his obvious satisfaction with a job most of us would find thoroughly disgusting.
 
Or maybe he just sees Doug coming and his cup of mirth runneth over. 

---

The Poop on the Democrats (#315)

You know, if I was the head of the committee planning a major convention in a big city, this would be job one in my mind.
 
News flash to all you committee heads out there: Kansas City is the most toilet-friendly city in the universe. Keep our fair town on your short list! Not only can you go into any establishment and use the facilities without making a purchase, the bathrooms are almost invariably on the main level. No long flights of stairs to climb like in New York and Boston, only to then find yourself face-to-face with a very locked door.
 
And for those among us who still think the Dems poop don't stink, we're about to find out the truth. 

---

Engaged? (#316)

I just got off the phone with an old friend, and by that I mean one I've known a long time. He's actually only forty years old, a youngster in my book.

"So where is Scott getting married?" he asked.

"Jacob's Well, down in Westport," I said. And then, to be cool, I added, "It's an emergent church."

I'll just throw in here that my friend is a pastor, which is the only reason I brought up Scott's association with the emergent movement. I was hoping he could bring me up to speed.

"I don't know what that means. Can you tell me?" he asked.

"A little bit," I answered, "but not enough to be very useful. If in your reading you run across the terms 'post-modern, relevant, and engaged in the culture,' you're getting warmer. Does that help?"

"Not really."

"Well, then," I suggested, "your best bet is to google it."

"What?"

Oh.

---

Meow! (#317)

My sister Mary had a couple tickets to see Cats at the Starlight Theatre in Kansas City the other night and decided to take her three-year-old grandson, Connor.

She figured they'd only stay until intermission, and walk to the car while it was still daylight. She hoped Connor wouldn't realize they were missing the last half, since if he did he might beg to stay until the end.

Turns out, within forty-five minutes of the show starting, he was ready to blow out of there.

"Grandma, let's go back to your house now," Connor said. "Those cats are making me nervous."

---

Foot in Blog Disease (#318)

I went to see Mom tonight. She told me a nutty story about how right after she had her bunion operated on thirty years ago, she and my dad got on an airplane bound for Las Vegas.

Doctors orders were for her to soak her foot three times a day. Much to my father's chagrin, she hauled a gallon-sized jug of white vinegar onto the plane with her.

"I didn't want to take a chance on getting out there and not being able to get ahold of white vinegar," she said, and then she got a funny look on her face.

"Um...yeah, I can understand that," I said, sympathizing with my poor father, long gone now for twenty years.

"Hey," she said, eyes twinkling, "if you changed the words around a little, that story would make a good blog, wouldn't it?"

Everyone's an entertainer...

---

Retiring to Starbucks (#319)

You've heard of the latte factor, right?

That's the amount of money that a person fritters away on lattes or bottled water or cigarettes or massages or acrylic nails or other non-essentials. The idea is to eliminate (or reduce) one's personal latte factor with the goal of becoming a millionaire by retirement age--and all without significantly altering one's lifestyle.

I'm down to one latte per week from my previous average of seven, and so is Doug. Right there, we should already be gazillionaires, so what's the deal? I forfeited the nails a couple years back, but my portfolio remains lackluster. I drink tap water exclusively and have never smoked, but am tempted to for comfort when I consider the sorry retirement looming up ahead.

I occasionally think about getting a massage, but even the thought of it induces a guilty pleasure that makes me tense enough to need several sessions with a chiropractor to recover, and there goes my money.

Scott's been here today working with Doug, and he may have solved our retirement woes.

"If you'd just install Cold Fusion on your computer," I overheard him say to his dad, "I'll bet you could save two hours a day."

I'm no slouch. I can do the math. In ten seconds, I'd calculated that at Doug's hourly rate times two hours per day, multiplied by the number of years left until we retire, we'd have a cool $1,080,000, not counting interest.

"How much does it cost?" I asked Scott.

"I don't know...maybe $800?"

"Wouldn't cost me a thing," Doug chimed in. "I've had a copy sitting in the closet for a couple of years."

Sigh. I'm going out for a latte.

---

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