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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

Sex (#185)

I am such a sucker for a good catalog filled to the brim with stuff which I could, technically, afford but which I wouldn't dream of dropping the big bucks on.

I am crazy about travel catalogs, and can't get enough of pretend shopping for the perfect travel purse--the kind with compartments for everything including your passport and airline tickets. Of course, shopping for a purse without the right shoes, hat, and travel wardrobe makes no sense, so I pick out coordinating tencel shirts and pants and skirts and dresses, all with one requirement: they must be crushable, packable, absolutely wrinkle-proof under the most extreme conditions, and able to be washed in a hostel sink, hung to dry, and ready to wear again in a couple hours time.

OK, I guess that's more than one requirement, but you get the idea.

Such are the fantasies of a world-travel wannabe, of someone who envisions herself--and her husband--doing Ireland and Scotland in the near future and wants to pack as lightly and sensibly as possible.

My favorite travel catalogs always have a men's section, too, and this one is no exception. I know just what Doug would like: a faux-suede camel colored, machine washable, wrinkle defying blazer with inside zippered pocket for airline tickets. Doug looks beautiful in camel.

"Look, babe," I say, "only $199 for this great travel blazer. You would look wonderful in this. I can just see you traipsing along the auld sod, looking all Irish and foxy..."

He looks at the picture. "It looks dressy to me. I don't think I'd want to get that dressed up on vacation..."

"I'll tell you what," I say, "if I was a guy, that's the jacket I'd want."

Twenty-year-old Kevin can contain himself no longer.

"But, Mom, if you were a guy, you wouldn't think like you do now," Kevin says. "So how do you know what you'd want?"

Oh, yeah. There's that.

---

Marginal Comments On A Fallible Wife (#186)

To any of you who are new visitors to fallible, as well as to Doug's blog marginal, and who found our sites through the article on blogging in the April issue of Writer's Digest Personal Writing magazine, welcome! I hope you discover something here to entertain, inspire, and motivate you in your own personal writing life.

Please feel free to leave me a comment so I know who you are! I love to visit the blogs of my wonderful readers.

And many thanks to Mick Silva for letting me know that the fallible/marginal blurb had run in Writer's Digest. It was a complete surprise to us!

By the way, my 74-year-old mom recently let me know that blogging is dead, as evidenced by the fact that she hadn't seen my name or picture in a single newspaper or magazine article about blogging since last summer. She might as well have said, in other words, "Blogging is SO mid-2004..."

Mom, I hope this renews your faith in both me and the future of the blogosphere!

Sheesh. Even middle-aged with-it chick bloggers still need their dear old mom's approval. Some things never change.

---

Just Terrible (#187)

Doug's running out the door to a business meeting. He gets a little flustered at times like this, because the phone always rings at the last second when he's supposed to be in the car already, and then he can't find his keys or his wallet, and then he catches his reflection in the mirror and figures out that he forgot to shave.

Still, I have to say I'm shocked by what he says to me just now, instead of his usual gooey good-bye.

"I love you terribly."

That's right. A deer caught in the headlights has nothing on him. I stare at him a moment and wait, but he's silent. Stunned. Apparently unable to extricate himself from the sticky linguistic morass in which he now finds himself.

"Huh," I say finally. "Well, I love you more terribly than you love me! So there!"

In case you're wondering, if there's anything that man has down-pat, it's love.

(Happy 28th Anniversary, babe. I'm all about the D...)

---

Our Father (#188)

"Go to my brothers and tell them, 'I am returning to my Father and your Father. To my God and your God.'"

---

"It is finished."

I heard him say the words himself, with the last gasp of breath he was able to draw as he hung upon that horrible Roman cross. He spoke so few words, after they forced their torturous wreath of thorns into his brow and hammered the spikes into his hands and feet, that it's easy to recall every phrase.

"Today you will be with me in paradise."

I remember wishing, when Jesus turned to the criminal hanging next to him and uttered these words, that he was speaking them to me instead. Was it wrong of me to envy a thief who'd been condemned to die? I'd been forgiven by Jesus, too, and all I wanted afterwards was to be near him, to sit at his feet, to listen to his stories. I didn't know much about paradise then--I still don't, I guess--but just the thought of "today you will be with me" made me wish I could trade places with that robber. I'd spent many days with Jesus in the past couple of years, but it seemed that instead of it being the beginning of a new life, like I'd hoped, it was just another desperate ending.

"Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do."

How could Jesus say that? It looked to me like they knew exactly what they did. They were unflinching in the execution of their duties, which included treating this innocent man as something less than human. They mocked him with steely precision, as if they'd been practicing their jeers for ions, and perhaps they had. Their voices never cracked as they dared him to save himself if he was really the King of the Jews. Once, though, when a soldier offered him a sip for his parched tongue, I saw the kindest look--like a streak of purest sunlight--pass from Jesus to the man. For one instant, their eyes locked. In that moment, a solitary soldier knew exactly what he'd done, and he backed away from the cross with his head bowed in remorse.

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

Now my heart was breaking along with Jesus's. For once, Jesus didn't address God as his father, and it hurt me to hear it. Ever since I've known him, he's called God "Father"--infuriating the leaders who accuse him of blasphemy. The soldiers thought he was crying out for Elijah to deliver him in his hour of need, and mocked him even more. And the soldiers weren't the only ones. His own people--who had followed him from place to place and promised they'd leave everything for him--now turned their backs as if they'd never met the man. Even his mother and John and I couldn't bring ourselves to gaze into the broken face of his agony. For in his face we undoubtedly would have seen the sins of his betrayers, but not only theirs. We would have seen the horror and the treachery of our own wretched sins, as well.

"It is finished."

Joseph of Arimathea asked permission to care for the body of Jesus. He had become a disciple but now, instead of following where Jesus led, he led the rest of us to the resting place he'd prepared beforehand. He wrapped my friend in cloths of linen and placed him in a tomb that he'd recently hewn from a huge rock. I myself saw the men roll an enormous stone in front of the opening and I wept bitterly. I needed to hear the Master's lovely words one more time, to feel his grace touch my heart, to see his face. I wanted to cry out "Father! Help me!" But I couldn't. I just couldn't.

"Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?"

It was the third day, and I was back at the tomb again. I couldn't have stayed away if I'd tried, even though my tears still fell so freely that I could hardly see the path. Was this the gardener speaking to me?

"Someone has moved the stone away!" I said to the man. "Where have they taken my Jesus? Tell me where they've laid him!"

"Mary!"

I fell upon Jesus and clung to him, until he spoke these words:

"Go, and tell the others: I go to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God."

Not just your heavenly Father, Jesus? But my Father, too? How can these things be? Dear Jesus, I believe you. I do!

With that, I ran to find the disciples, my heart filled with a joy unspeakable.

It is finished.

---

I’m Just Sayin’ (#189)

The shorter the rest of my life gets, the easier it is to see where all this is going.

Just so you know, when I say "this," I mean my stuff. The stuff I've spent a lifetime longing for, saving for, going into debt for, acquiring, dusting, repairing, maintaining, showcasing, and storing. Yeah, that stuff.

I've entered the stage of life when I really don't want any more stuff. I remember distinctly when this happened to my grandmother, who--it must be said--had some primo-quality possessions.

"All I ask is that you don't give me one more thing I have to dust," she announced one Christmas when she wasn't much older than I am now. That was easy for her to say, as it turned out, and almost impossible for us to do. Let's be real: How many books of postage stamps can you give your grandma?

Now I'm starting to get it, and big-time. Every once in a while, I offer some treasure of mine to one of the kids, imagining that if they don't exactly value it as much as I do, they'll love it because they love me. That's the way affluenza spreads to the next generation, right?

Don't kid yourselves, people!

The hightly-collectible Scottish and Irish Santa Clauses I am currently embracing unto my bosom from far and wide to the tune of $40 each will someday be distributed by my children, to whom I gave birth in great pain, as part and parcel of the great Kris Kringle Diaspora. Mark my words, no two will be left huddled together as they are scattered into the uttermost parts of the earth, even as far as the outermost edges of eBay. And probably for $2 each.

I know mothers who start collections of Hallmark ornaments for each child upon birth. Don't they know that by age six, those entreprenurial tykes have purchased huge price catalogs of Hallmark ornaments, just ready to collect their cash when Snoopy and Strawberry Shortcake and Barbie finally transfer from Mom's fake tree into their hot little hands?

So, my plans have changed. The accumulation ends here and the great dispersion begins now, with me still alive and kicking and able to spend the cash I raise from getting rid of my own junk without any help from my very willing progeny.

My purse, my friends, is where all "this" is going!

---

Gotcha! (#190)

I know you can't judge a book by its cover, at least not in any ultimate sense. But it sure is tempting, isn't it?

I'm going to admit here and now that on more than one occasion, I've judged a book on just a portion of its cover--its title, to be exact.

Every once in a while, a title jumps off the cover at me and so impresses and delights me with its cleverness that I rush to the clerk in a frenzy to purchase the book posthaste! Today was one of those days.

Here's the title that snagged my bucks: "Some Writers Deserve To Starve!" (Sub-title: "31 Brutal Truths About the Publishing Industry")

Does this ever happen to you, or am I just an easy mark?

---

The Love Chapter (#191)

"Love never fails."

---

Men who speak--or better yet, sing--with the tongues of angels don't impress me much. At least not until I get to know them, get to know whether or not they're the real deal. I'm cautious, I guess.

My husband has the most beautiful, sincere, sexy voice I've ever heard, and at first, I didn't trust him, either. I'll bet he smooth-talks all the girls, I thought. I'd played victim to more than a few romantic con artists before Doug's silky words slid into my soul. How did I know whether there was genuine love behind his kind and gentle words? How did I even know what real love would look like, in the flesh?

All I can tell you is, I know now.

He turned out to be exceptionally wise, my man. He has an unbelievable sense of God's timing--when he says he thinks the time is right for us to move on or to stay put, I tend to listen because he's usually right. He's sensitive to the whisperings of the Spirit, which is wonderful, but if he heard God speak in an audible voice and shared the truth of the message with me minus the love, what good would it do?

All I can tell you is, he gives me love.

Sometimes, I'm the most emotionally impoverished woman he knows, the woman others might recoil from in the hopes of finding someone a little less needy to minister to. I'm afraid messing with me can be like surrendering his body to the flames, only no one is there to witness his goodhearted sacrifice but me. He could find a higher-profile charity case who would make his ministry look a lot more successful in the community, but he's chosen me instead.

All I can tell you is, he's changed my life.

You've probably heard by now that love is patient and kind, not jealous, proud, or rude. You've probably heard that love doesn't get angry easily, and that love doesn't keep track of all the ways you offend it--even if you do it on purpose. If you're like me, you've said yeah, yeah, so prove it already. If you're like me, you figured you'd never meet Love this side of heaven--at least not face-to-face.

All I can tell you is, I've been blessed.

You see, I've met more than my share of love in my time on this earth. First I met the Love of all Loves, the One who never fails, Jesus the Savior. And then I met my husband, my Valentine, the one who makes it his ambition to protect, trust, and believe in the love God has placed in my heart. I'll never forget what Doug said the day we joined our lives as one. "I want to spend the rest of my life showing you how much God loves you."

All I can tell you is, he has the voice of an angel.

---

Motion Sickness (#192)

"I haven't had one good SECOND in this hospital--and I don't mean MINUTE, either, I mean SECOND!"

So what did she expect? Vegas? A cruise ship? It's hard to know with Mom sometimes.

She was understandably tired and frustrated by Tuesday afternoon, though. I admitted her to the hospital on Monday morning and by the time she expressed her patent dissatisfaction with every aspect of hospital life, she'd had thirty hours worth of annoying--if not painful--tests.

My one comfort, by that time, was not her endearing personality, but rather that we hadn't spread these tests over a several-week-long period on an outpatient basis. Imagining getting her in and out of my car in snow and ice after the doctors had pronounced both hips at serious risk of pathological fracture (meaning they could break spontaneously without her even falling) was more than I could deal with.

Ten days ago, each of two doctors discussed the results of Mom's alarming bone scan on the phone with me, and afterwards I read the report myself. On one typewritten sheet, these words appeared six or seven times, referring to the corresponding "hot spots" on the scan: "This finding is most consistent with a diagnosis of bony metastasis."

So they poked and prodded and CT'd and MRI'd and mammo'd and xray'd the dear girl till she was blue in the face. They gave her heart a thorough eval, and then checked out her breasts, lungs, liver, kidneys, thyroid, and brain--any one of which they were sure would be housing a fast-spreading primary tumor.

The results? If there's a tumor there, they can't find it!

They still haven't gotten the results of blood tests which are looking for a certain kind of lymphoma or multiple myeloma, both blood cancers which are also famous for mets to the bones. Unfortunately, blood tests won't always reveal these cancers, making a bone marrow aspiration or bone biopsy necessary for definitive diagnosis. And Mom probably can't endure one of those tests, since a needle could easily fracture her bone.

The bottom line is that IF Mom has cancer, we may not know it until her symptoms become much more pronounced. And if she does, it's apparently a blood cancer for which there is no real cure, so--in one way--why agonize over isolating it?

You all have been such a tremendous support these past couple of weeks! Please don't think for a minute that your prayers weren't needed--I, for one, have desperately appreciated them!

We've been on a crazy roller coaster and for a while there, it seemed like the carnie in control of the switches had quit his job. Mom is back in her assisted-living apartment now and doesn't seem much the worse for wear, but I'll tell you what: I'm still just a little bit breathless.

Mom may yet turn out to be okay (not counting the congestive heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, Hepatitis C, diabetes, and degenerative arthritis) and I finally learned to spell metastasis...all in all, a pretty good week, wouldn't you agree?

---

“If I Die Today, There’s Not Enough Make-Up In The World To Make Me Look Good In My Casket.” (#193)

You probably think the title of this post sounds like something my mom would say but, uh, it came out of my own mouth.

That's right. At three this afternoon, after spending almost the entire day in bed attempting to recover from one of the most grueling, exhausting, and emotionally bizarre weeks I've ever endured, I heard myself utter these words.

The words aren't much, but they're all I've got, so they'll have to do for now.

Wasn't it St. Paul who wrote in one of his epistles, "I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now"?

Well, you people are amazing. You could bear my words just fine, I'm sure. But my fingers have forgotten how to type, my mind how to formulate coherent thoughts, and my eyes how to focus on anything but the insides of my closed eyelids.

I will blog again, and soon, I promise. In the meantime, a grateful smile has crossed my lips just thinking about my wonderful readers who have become my friends.

And I wanted to say Thanks.

Also, if there are any actors out there who could part with a generous quantity of take-no-prisoners theater make-up, my face just might be the worthy cause you've been looking for.

---

Big Fish (#194)

"Everybody has to die of something," Mom said, after wincing only once when my brother John dropped the "c" word. "But, honestly, cancer hadn't crossed my mind."

The two of them talked for a couple of hours before my sister Mary and I showed up with the promised supreme pizza and the surprise box of sugar-free Godiva chocolates. By the time we arrived, John had begun to use one of the most amazing talents God's graced him with, the ability to pull hilarious old stories from the depths of my mother's soul.

So Mom regaled us with the stories of her life--not a few of which involve fascinating descriptions of various and sundry articles of underwear, noxious personal gas emissions, wetting her pants in the middle of passing an 18-wheeler on I-70, and well, you get the general idea.

(The nut doesn't fall far from the squirrelly tree, huh?)

"Tell us the one about when Aunt Mary had Alzheimer's and Dad wanted to take her with us to see the horse races," John begged.

"You mean when I got behind the wheel and everyone piled in and closed the doors?" Mom began. "That's a good one. Poor Aunt Mary wasn't quite inside the car, and she held onto the outside door handle for dear, confused life while I plowed through the parking lot..."

We all laughed our heads off, not because we'd never heard this story before, but because we had. We've heard them all before, but somehow they feel fresh now, crisp with the kind of edgy life that's always so much more well-defined by the dying than by those who imagine their best years lie just ahead.

Mom hasn't been telling these stories, the stories of her life, too often in recent years. She put a halt to it, it seems, when she was only almost dying, but now the story of who she is must be told in no uncertain terms. Suddenly these stories contain for us--and, I think, for her--an eternal significance.

"Everybody has to die of something," Mom said. And then she started living, once again and out loud, the story of her life.

---

Steep Decline (#195)

"This is Dr. Barnett," he says.

I glance at the clock--8:40 in the morning. This can't be good.

"I just spoke with your mother, and she asked me to call you. I've got the results of her bone scan."

This should be the nurse calling, I think. Only she'd call late in the afternoon, after she's taken care of all the sick people. Yeah, that's what should be happening. She's supposed to call to say Oh, your mother's torn a ligament in her hip, that's all. Probably happened when she was in therapy to recover from her knee surgery. She'll be fine, or not. But it won't kill her, if that's what you're worried about. It won't kill her at all.

But this isn't the nurse. It's the doctor and it's early and he's calling before he sees his very first really sick patient and I can't help but jump straight to my twisted question which is, of course, A torn ligament can't kill her, can it?

Of course it can't, you silly daughter, you. And so you see, therein lies the problem.

"There are a number of areas of bone that don't look good. Both hips, her right shoulder blade, several ribs..."

"She's had lots of compression fractures," I say, "and broken ribs from a car accident. That's what the bone scan is showing, I'm sure. Old injuries, healed injuries..."

"Those show up, too," he says, "but that's not what I'm talking about."

I call Mom when the doctor disconnects. I have to know what she heard, how much she gathered from what he said. I have to know if she can still add two plus two.

"He says my butt has a hot spot," she says, as if the doctor has just complimented her on her perennial sex appeal. "Well, not my butt exactly. My hip."

That's all he said? I ask.

"And that maybe I've got a couple of other hot spots, too, on other bones."

She doesn't ask me what is meant by a hot spot, and I don't tell. There are more tests to come, many more tests, but all will point to a conclusion within the next few days. We'll all know the whole truth soon enough.

"You know what I think?" she asks. "I think next he's going to tell me I need a hip transplant. I'm about to cry just thinking about it."

If a hip transplant could fix what they think is wrong with my mother, I'd be a happy girl. We'll have to tell her their findings soon, but we'll get through this weekend first, before the next round of tests.

"Use your walker every time you move around, Mom," I say. "And don't walk any more than you have to until they figure this out, OK? Your bones are really at risk of breaking right now. So please be careful."

"If you say so," she says. "But I still bet he's going to tell me I need a hip transplant."

What he's going to tell her, unless an unforeseen bit of serendipity proves him mistaken, is that she has a cancerous tumor somewhere in her body in such an advanced stage that it has metastisized to her bones.

What he's going to tell her is that she's dying.

"He never mentioned a hip transplant to me, Mom," I say. "Really."

And I'm telling her the truth. He never did.

---

Everything’s Up To Date In Kansas City? (#196)

My mom comes up with stuff, a lot of stuff, that bears repeating. She did it again this morning.

"Mom," I said, "that's just too funny. I'm going to have to blog it."

"No, don't," she said. "You can't blog that."

I thought for a second that perhaps her sense of decorum or modesty was kicking in. I should have known better.

"Why not?"

"Because blogs are out of style."

So, after all the years I've spent in therapy to recover from the bad pixy cuts, the rubberized grey snow pants I was forced to wear if the weatherman forecast flurries, and the clod-hopping saddle oxfords I trudged around in when the whole world had gone to classic penny loafers, I learn that Mom's chief concern in life is that I be in style.

"How do you know blogs have fallen from fashion?" I asked.

"You never see them anymore."

"Anymore? What do you mean? You've never seen a blog in your life."

Which, of course, is the reason I can write with impunity about the dear woman here at fallible.com.

"Sure I have. I saw you in the Kansas City Star, didn't I?"

She had me there.

"But, Mom, that wasn't a blog, per se. That was just an article about blogging...There's a difference."

"Mark my words, it's out of style."

"How do you know?"

"I haven't seen an article about you since that one last Spring. Blogging's as outdated as an old Monkey Wards catalog."

Once my mother gets an idea firmly planted in her mind, she doesn't delay in spreading her version of the truth far and wide. She wouldn't hesitate, if she thought something was newsworthy--like the untimely demise of blogging--to call My Brother The BigWig Executive At The Local NBC Affilate and offer him the poop and the scoop.

For my own sake, for the sake of NBC's reputation, and for the sake of the entire blogosphere, I'm going to have to turn this around, and fast.

If any editors, agents, or publishers are lurking and would like to save the institution of blogging for future generations, drop me a line. I've got a couple of book proposals and a completed novel I'd love to talk to you about.

I'm thinking if I don't get published in print again soon, Mom just might ruin this blogging thing for all of us.

---

So Many Cults, So Little Time (#197)

Doug and I are no strangers to borderline-cultish behaviors.

Back in the day (and I'm talking THE day, circa 1970 and following), we were bona fide Jesus Freaks. We were a bit too young (17) to have been full-blown hippies before we became Jesus Freaks, but God fixed all of that. If you weren't a hippie when you joined our rockin' church, you became one in short order.

There were about 1500 kids at the Ministries of Agape in Kansas City, and if you were really committed, you joined with the several hundred who lived "in community" in a certain apartment complex on the south side of town. (This was after the commune called "House of Agape" closed its doors due to all the young people who crashed there eventually pairing off, getting married, and deciding what they really needed was...well, closed doors.)

We couldn't wait to get back from our honeymoon so we could take up residence in our little corner of the community. We found out too late to save our bottom line that another way the group proved its ongoing coolness as well as its astute discernment in collectively hearing the Voice of God was for every household to purchase a Volvo. I happened to have an inheritance from my grandparents, a significant portion of which went to plunk down the cash to make sure we kept up with the Joneses.

Not the Jim Joneses, you nutty people, you. Just the plain old Jesus Freak Joneses.

Were we members of a cult? I don't think so, but lately the old feelings of needing to fit in in order to feel worthy have been creeping back into our lives. We're drinking more Kool-Aid than we used to, and serving it to our friends and family. Frankly, a deja-vu feeling is haunting us, and it all started with the Grand Opening Of The Apple Store On The Plaza In Kansas City.

The opening itself we might have gotten past without being pulled in to the religious fervor of it all, even though the line of espresso-sipping, iPod-listening, scarf-knitting young urban Christians stretched several blocks long. We distinguished ourselves that day, though, among our believing peers, by purchasing not one but two new computers--an iMac G5 for Doug and an iBook G4 for me.

Our son Scott and his new wife Brooke embraced us more passionately and joyfully than they had on their wedding day, welcoming us into the fold. Their pastor, Tim Keel, eyed us with new, well-founded admiration as we whipped out a debit card and laid claim to our status as true Mac-carrying members of the Apple Cult To End All Cults. What a rush!

Since then, we've discovered that the Sabbath--for Mac users blessed enough to live within driving distance of an Apple Store--is Saturday. That's the day the faithful make their way, as if on pilgrimage, to the Plaza. Some come bearing faulty iPods, and others wear their plastic bag backpacks filled with return goods. Still others tote large white boxes stamped with grey, bitten apples, reminding us that no matter how perfect the cult, folly still reigns supreme in the world.

Those truly blessed among us are privileged, when our Macs require the attention of a professional at the Apple Genius Bar, to meet with Brandon Edling. Brandon really is one of the best reasons to visit the Store, unless you just enjoy wandering around with other starry-eyed followers, drooling over enormous monitors and darling iPod speakers. Brandon is brilliant, patient, and determined to serve the devoted with good humor and astonishing skill. (Thanks, Brandon!)

If you're hankering for a good, old-fashioned cultish behavior, I can't recommend Macs and the Apple Store highly enough.

I promise, you'll feel just like a kid again.

---

Well, Then. She’s Certainly Not A Homophobe (#198)

Sometimes, I just don't know where I fit in.

I belong to a really great online fiction writers group, filled to the brim with wonderful Christians. It's inspiring to read their discussions about how they would never say "Oh, my God!" either in their personal lives or through one of their novel's characters. Similarly, the initials OMG are never found when they pull random spoons from their alphabet soup.

These folks write mostly for the CBA (Christian Booksellers Association) rather than the ABA (American Booksellers Association), and the general consensus is that readers in the CBA market are very particular about appropriate word use.

A recent discussion included a reference to Margaret Graham's book "Mercy Me!" The octogenarian author somehow managed to outlive the CBA powers-that-be which, just a few short years ago, apparently would not have allowed such a title.

I had always thought I wanted to write for the CBA. My target audience for my novel--I think--is Christians who just haven't made the grade. Imperfect people with long-term problems that rarely get fixed the first time they pray about it. I want people to read my stuff and feel hopeful for themselves, even if they've screwed up big-time.

Although I doubt I can say "screw" in the CBA.

The thing is, I'm not living a CBA kind of life. Doug and I even have an expression for some of the stuff that gets said and done around here. It's a joke, really--at least, it always makes us laugh. One of us does something iffy and the other one says, "That is SO not CBA!"

I'm spending a lot of time and energy these days with my mother, a genuine dyed-in-the-wool ABA character. How can I hang with someone like her and not end up writing for the ABA?

Yesterday, my sister and I were trying to figure out her bank balance. She hadn't written down a deposit and we couldn't find her receipt. She told us a confused and confusing story about her encounter with the bank teller, in an effort to explain why she hadn't handled the transaction well. She couldn't help her confusion, she said, because the teller's physical appearance was so distracting.

"It' not my fault," Mom said. "I just love her boobs so much, I can't think straight."

OMG!

See what I mean? If you were me, would you be able to write for the CBA?

---

Mercy and Truth (#199)

I'm going to put an idea out here and see what happens.

Doug and I have been friends for many years with Steve and Cathy Gordon, here in Kansas City. Steve is the band director at Maranatha Academy, where all three of our kids thrived under his care.

Cathy is a nurse who operates Mercy and Truth, a ministry dedicated to combining quality medical care with the message of the gospel, and delivering it to the needy.

I've gotten involved with one aspect of Mercy and Truth's many endeavors. In fact, I kind of created my own niche and am attempting to fill it, but falling rapidly behind. I asked Cathy if I could crochet baby afghans, so that each new mom who leaves her birthing center can wrap her baby in a handmade blanket. Cathy loved the idea, so I let my fingers do the flying.

She didn't project a huge number of births when I came up with this idea. I gave her the first installment of afghans--nine total--feeling sure I could keep up with her original projections. Then she gave me the update--in 2005, the birthing center expects to usher 50-100 newborns into this world, some of them to mothers as young as fourteen, many of them to high school girls, many more to immigrant moms. All of them living in poverty.

If any of you readers would like to donate even one handmade blanket (crocheted, knitted, quilted--anything made by you!), would you send me an email or a comment? I've got six more afghans ready to give, but I'm quickly falling behind, and I would so appreciate your help!

Cathy says I've got to see the look on the face of a new mom when she's been given a gift by someone she doesn't know. It makes me smile to think about it.

I'll go ahead and put this out here, too: I'm hoping to expand this effort a bit more by purchasing, whenever and wherever I find them, infant-sized outfits, onesies, socks, shoes, hats, sleepers, etc. I think it would be cool for the new moms to be able to pick out an outfit for their baby's going home day, with maybe a bag of Pampers and some Wet Wipes to get them started. Wouldn't that be fun?

I'm a great shopper, and have been known to find darling outfits on a clearance rack for a buck, but again I'm having a hard time keeping up with the need.

For any of my readers in the KC area particularly: If you're looking for a way to get involved in serving the community, you can't beat Mercy and Truth.

Any takers?

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