more fallible attitude »

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

Follow Katy on Twitter

Follow Katy on Facebook

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.

Search

Advanced Search

Syndicate

Login

E me at katy @ ngenius.com

What A Way to Go! (#275)

Both of these items are in today's news, raising a basic question about one's philosophy of life, and this is it:

If you are destined to die while waiting in a long line, which long line would you rather be in?

Now go and live likewise!

---

Operation Sticker-Free Car (#276)

Okay. I've whined about how sick I am of all the ribbon-shaped bumper stickers that have flooded the market in the past few months, even the ones with wonderful sentiments like "Support Our Troops."

Maybe I've just been frustrated because sticker-slapping seems too easy. It's almost gotten to the point where all you have to do to consider yourself a supporter of a worthy cause is wear a pin or dress your car in stickers or tie a yellow ribbon 'round the old oak tree.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not looking for another cause that consumes my entire life or anything. Hey, I've got my mama, remember? But is it expecting too much that whatever effort--large or small--I choose to make in support of a cause is actually meaningful is some substantive way?

For any of you who really want to support our troops, check out this organization. It's a non-profit, run by the mother of a soldier in Iraq. She's done an incredible job of figuring out what the troops need and meeting those needs. You can adopt a soldier to send cards and care packages to, if you enjoy that sort of thing. Or you can use pay pal to make a donation.

Forget sticker shock. I'm looking for something real, and this morning I found it.

---

Class Envy (#277)

I'm sure Senator Kerry figured he had the St. Louis audience where he wanted them when he talked about how they would all continue to get tax cuts, but that the top 1% of wage earners (those making more than $200,000) would have the proverbial screws put to them.

Still, I think he crossed a line when he said that from the looks of those assembled, only three people in the room would have to fork it over--Charlie Gibson (the moderator) and the two candidates.

From the looks of them? Where does he come up with this stuff? It's a well-established fact that some of the most successful business people in the country don't dress the part. Think of Sam Walton driving from store to store in his beat-up pick-up truck. Warren Buffet isn't too impressive to look at, either. And the young wealthy tech entreprenuers appear every bit as middle-class as their employees.

Senator Kerry taking one cursury look at the St. Louis crowd and deciding there wasn't a success story among them is insulting. Hey, I don't look at someone's designer suit and BMW and automatically assume the guy's in debt up to his eyeballs, though, of course, he probably is.

I'm growing weary of the whole class envy thing. Pitting the 99% (like those poor schmucks in St. Louis) against the one. I personally know a fair number of small business owners who fall into the 1%. To look at them you'd never guess it, and it's probably a good thing they never ramped up their lifestyles to match their earnings.

If Kerry is elected, their ability to provide good jobs in the community (to members of the 99%) will be seriously compromised. Kerry's plans to provide health care to those who are sick of their high premiums and $4000/year college assistance to the deserving will be paid for by the 1%, who will have no choice but to cut employees to cover their hiked-up taxes.

I'll bet you anything there was a member of the 1% in that St. Louis audience, a person who has chosen to blend in with his neighbors and friends and just be a regular guy. Too bad Kerry doesn't understand that looks are deceiving.

Somebody, please give him a copy of The Millionaire Next Door!

---

Motivating Mom (#278)

My sister Liz and I were at Mom's place, sprucing her up to get ready to go out to lunch. Taking a shower is a big deal for her, and putting on her shoes and socks is an ordeal, so we tried to pace ourselves.

Mom herself provided the pacing.

"Let me show you this article I clipped from Family Circle," she said, in an effort to kill a little time while she caught her breath. "It's about fibromyalgia."

So we all sat down and had a science lesson.

"Before we go, I need one of you to fill out a deposit slip for me. Here, let me find my checkbook..."

Another few minutes of stall time.

"I've been thinking about that container of love letters in my closet. One of you needs to take those. They're just taking up space."

Okay, Mom.

And then the clincher:

"Katy, before we go...you remember me telling you how I bought that package of Hanes Her Way panties? And how I meant to get a size 9 but when I opened them I realized they must be size 6? Come here with me, I want to give you those panties..."

Eeeewww. I can't think of anything worse than wearing OPP (other people's panties).

She found two likely pairs in what I'll just call her Scorched Earth Panty Drawer From the Very Bad Place, and held up one for our approval.

"That's not a size 6, Mom," I said. "Do I look that big to you? Two of me would fit in those."

"That may be true," she agreed. "But they sure aren't a size 9, are they? Maybe they'd fit Liz."

Liz, who's not a drop bigger than I am, shook her head violently. I'm not positive, but I'm guessing Liz doesn't wear snow-white high-water granny panties.

I wanted to speed up the So Not Victoria's Secret fashion show, so I grabbed the companion pair in her charitable panty collection and held it up for inspection. My mouth dropped open at the sight.

Through a process of repeated and concerted stuffing and stretching that could only be accomplished by a determined woman with an ever-expanding girth and a well-developed sense of denial, her formerly waist-high size 9s had become low-rise bikini size 12s.

"Whoa, Mama," I said. "You're stylin'."

"Give me those!" she said, snatching them from my hand. She stuffed them back in the drawer with a huff of disgust, grabbed her purse, and said, "We're outta' here."

I still know how to get her going.

---

Patriotism (#279)

Chances are, unless you've been in the market for a new washing machine in the past six months, that you've never heard of Fisher & Paykel. They're the New Zealand-based manufacturer of machines that are all the rage in Europe and elsewhere--and apparently for good reason.

When our Maytag died this week, we fully intended to invest in another one, or perhaps a Whirlpool. We looked at both brands at Lowes before the young salesman asked if he could show us an alternative.

All we'd said was that we valued durability over tons of features we rarely use, and he started talking up the benefits of the Fisher & Paykel. It has so few moving parts that in the rare case it breaks down, he said, the typical owner is able to fix it without calling a repairman.

The way Doug and I look at things, the fewer moving parts the better. We bought the machine and it was delivered today.

The kid at Lowes said the machine should last at least 15 years, and perhaps much longer. They don't make predictions like that on any of the American machines.

"Wow, babe," I said with a mixture of pride and glee, as our first load of clothes whirred efficiently in the next room. "This may be the last washing machine we ever have to buy."

"Of course, that would mean we were..."

"Oh, yeah... Dead."

Another good reason to buy American.

---

How Long, O Lord? (#280)

Things I've said that I hope other people will wish they'd said first, one of many in a series:

"The older you get, the easier is it to stop believing in delayed gratification."

---

Just Another Good Cause? (#281)

It's been at least ten years since my cousin Scotty Joe died of AIDS. I didn't know him well even though we both grew up in Kansas City. In fact, I wouldn't have recognized him if I'd seen him out in public.

Still, I always loved his dad, my Uncle Francis. So my mother and siblings and I all attended the funeral, to support him. Aunt Julie and Frances had been divorced for many years by then, and she had taken Scotty Joe into her home when he returned from San Francisco in the advanced stages of the disease. She and Scotty Joe's four siblings had taken care of him to the end, and in the process had become close to Scotty Joe's many gay friends.

The first time I ever saw a proliferation of lapel ribbons was at Scotty Joe's funeral. Most of the people in attendance, in fact, wore the ribbons, and someone introduced the wearers from the pulpit as those who were standing in solidarity to find a cure for AIDS.

Maybe ribbons have always left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth since then. I asked around a bit that day, curious as to the large number of gay couples, most of whom seemed to have not actually known my cousin or his family.

"Oh, not everyone here knew the deceased," I was told. "They're just here to support the cause."

There's little more aggravating than a funeral with an agenda.

These days, there are ribbons for every cause under heaven. It reminds me of the hundreds of different "Chicken Soup" titles, which multiplied like rabbits until finally people started complaining that they were gagging on Chicken Soup. I feel like we're being strangled by ribbons.

Now it's bumper stickers in the shape of ribbons. Political bumper stickers, mostly, though some are non-partisan with messages like "Support Our Troops." One must pull up dangerously close to a car's rear bumper to read the slogans, and it's hardly ever worth the effort.

Until now. Kansas City SUVs are sporting a fancy ribbon with our fair town's most heartfelt cause espoused upon it:

"Go, Chiefs, Go!"

Who knows whether the Chiefs are a lost cause? All I know is that if it's come to this, it's time for the ribbons to go.

---

The Art of Creation (#282)

Creation Science has never held my interest. Even when we moved on to Intelligent Design, I balked.

Don't get me wrong. I'm a big believer in God as Creator of the whole shebang—big bang, or not. It would be difficult to believe that our heavenly Father is involved in the smallest details of our lives (like numbering the very hairs on our heads and the grains of sand around the seas, and caring for the fates of humble sparrows and the lilies of the field), but that He wasn't the benevolent force behind the origin of everything.

Maybe it was the word "science" that got me down. From Physical Science, to Biology, to Chemistry, to Physics--I've never gotten it. I was a language girl myself. Give me a full schedule of English, French, Spanish, Literature, and Creative Writing, with weekends full of Speech, Theater, and Debate, and I was a happy kid. But just mention the word Science, with all the Ds and C minuses inherent in the word, and I flinched.

Still do, I guess.

I knew in advance that this morning's message at church was going to be about Intelligent Design. I could have stayed home and waited for the reruns tonight. After all, Doug is always reading books in bed like "Darwin's Black Box" and giving me the condensed-version explanation. He knows it helps me sleep. (Yawn...)

But I went, and I didn't pay attention to a word the pastor said. I didn't have to.

You see, all during the singing and then seamlessly throughout the message, a man stood silently upon the stage with an easel and brush and painted. No one introduced him or referred to him in any way. The canvas was blank before the music began. Slowly a stormy seascape began to emerge, one with a mountain off to one side and a brilliant setting sun sinking beneath dark clouds.

I was mesmerized.

For an hour and a half, the creator shaped his artistic vision on the canvas. Many times, he stepped back to peer at it from a distance. More than once, he scratched his chin or shook his head, stepped up to the work again, and made corrections. I found myself trying to predict where his brush might land next, whether he might feel the need to sharpen the angles of the mountain or tone down the reflection of the sun on the angry waters.

Sometimes, I could almost feel with the creator exactly what needed to happen to the edge of the cloud or the breaking wave, and wasn't surprised when he felt the same way. Other times, he caught me off guard with the freshness of his insight and the sensitivity of his touch. Through it all, I wept.

By the end of the service, Mark Christopher Weber had completed his painting, and members of the congregation gathered around him to talk about its beauty. Just looking at his creation made them recognize and appreciate the artist.

I may not know much about Intelligent Design, but I've encountered the Creator like never before.

---

Somebody Stop Me! (#283)

Okay. I never claimed to be completely free of at least a small tendency toward a significant obsessive/compulsive disorder. Never.

So what could have prevented me from blogging for an entire week, especially when ever since the Grand Opening of The Apple Computer Store on the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City last Saturday, I've had my very own iBook? What?

Stuff, that's what.

My current estimate is that I've unloaded 1500 pounds of unneeded, unwanted, broken, useless, outdated, never-to-be-read-again, never-will-be-worn-again stuff. It may be closer to a ton by now, judging by the semi-constant huffing and puffing of the two heavy lifters in the family, Doug and Kevin. (Thanks, guys!)

And I'm not done yet.

But I've got a sense of freedom I haven't experienced for many years--if ever. One of the side benefits of getting rid of junk is developing something of an abhorrence for acquiring more of it, a reluctance to do anything to get entangled in clutter ever again. In other words, I've lost the will to shop.

So I'm a little O/C. I gotta say that these past few weeks, it's been paying off for me, big-time.

Just to prove that I'm not totally given over to my new found passion for dejunking, I'm going to hereby commit to never bloging about it again.

Of course, you might recall that I said that about bras and panties, too.

---

Weightloss Program Astonishing Success! (#284)

Update on the weightloss front:

Last weekend, we hauled 200 pounds of donated (not overdue!) books to the library.
In addition, we hauled approximately 260 pounds of pure trash to the street. I also have 250 pounds of food to give to Harvesters. And perhaps 150 pounds (so far) of clothing to be repurposed at the local thift store, along with another 140 pounds of assorted knick-knacks and paddy-whacks.

I've only begun to scratch the surface, folks. And I've lightened our load by a good half ton. How's that for quick weight loss?

Now if I could just ditch some of this old exercise equipment, I'd be in even better shape...

---

Shared Values (#285)

"If I was a single man," begins my son, Scott, who's been a married man for all of a month, "I'd camp overnight on the sidewalk outside the door."

"What time will you and Brooke get there?" I ask. The doors open early, and there's a chance not everyone will get in. Doug and I plan to be among the first.

"Eight," he says. "Some of us are meeting across the street at Starbucks. When we see the crowds start to gather, we'll make our way over."

"So," I say, "Is this an official Emergent event, then?"

Scott and Brooke attend a cool church, and I know how much the concept of community is valued by them and their friends.

"Not quite official. But you're right. A lot of people from Jacob's Well will be there," he says. We exchange a knowing smile.

The new Apple Computer Store opens on the Plaza tomorrow!

---

“Lose Two Hundred Pounds This Weekend!” (#286)

Now there's a book title that reaches out and grabs you! And to think I didn't even find it in the diet section at Barnes and Noble. I had decided to peek into the dreaded shelf of housekeeping/organization/clutter disposal books, and this one by Don Aslett is what I came up with.

I occasionally buy a book for its title. I don't even look inside. I just enjoy the title so much, I figure it alone is worth the money. I felt that way about Marc McCutcheon's Damn! Why Didn't I Write That? Is that a great title, or what?

Lose Two Hundred Pounds This Weekend struck me the same way. But when I got it home, and started catching the author's vision, I realized how deadly serious he is.

Aslett believes that nearly all of us are suffering from too much stuff. And that it weighs us down in every way: financially, emotionally, professionally, spiritually, creatively. His advice is to set aside this weekend to lose at least 200 lbs. of stuff we'll never need, use, want, or care about again. Then next weekend, do it again. Do it until you've lightened your earthly load by a ton, or two tons, or three.

Think you don't have that much worthless junk? I know I do.

The challenge before me is a spiritual one. I'm asking myself how Doug and I would respond if we had an opportunity to live in another country for a year, or go on an extended missions trip, or even open up our home to someone in need.

Right now, we'd have to say, "Sorry, Lord, no can do. There's no room in the inn, if You know what we mean. Maybe next time..."

My junk has become an enormous weight, one I'm no longer willing or able to bear. In the past three days, I've accumulated at least 300 pounds of clutter that's on its way out, and I've only just begun.

Don Aslett says that physical weight loss is often an unexpected side benefit of ridding your life of clutter, since much eating is related to frustration, distraction, and the need to comfort ourselves.

I think he's on to something, and as simple as this book is, I'm glad I bought it. I'll keep you updated on my progress!

---

Shoulders (#287)

In one corner of our bedroom stands a cabinet holding a TV, DVD player, and a gazillion movies. On the other side of the room, on my favorite Eastlake Victorian antique dresser, rests an almost 28-year-old wedding portrait of Doug and me in a beautiful gilded frame.

And here I am, caught in the middle with you.

To my left, Fox News is showing continuous footage of Hurricane Ivan, interspersed with coverage of the war in Iraq and even a tiny bit of what we may come to remember as "Rathergate."

I have the volume muted. I've heard it all before. Heck, I even woke up around 3 am and checked on the hurricane's progress, prayed for the people in its path. But even without volume, the fast-moving pictures hover there, on the left side of consciousness, causing me to be hyper-aware of current events and the weight they are on our lives.

I don't know what made me turn to the right just now. I don't know why my eyes fell on the young couple, the man seated like a prince, the girl standing beside and somewhat behind him, her fragile hand on his shoulder. (We did "fake submission" so well back then!)

All I know is that their heads are completely obliterated by a flashing, furtive superimposition of world events. The fading colors of the couple from the shoulders down seem barely able to support the riotous winds and floods of life. It almost looks as if her knees are buckling under her gown, and I swear he's white-knuckling the oak arms of his chair.

I'll get up in a minute and turn off the TV. I won't forget about the world and its concerns, but I need to see the young couple's shining faces again.

To read their eyes, to memorize their smiles, to remember the incredible lightness.

---

If This Is True, I May Be In Luck! (#288)

"Outcomes rarely turn on grand gestures or the art of the deal, but on whether you've sent someone a thank-you note." Bernie Brillstein

---

What I Know For Sure (#289)

The back page of Oprah's magazine bears this permanent title, and underneath it appears a monthly article of at least a thousand words written by Oprah herself.

Every time I turn to the back, I'm struck again by the audacious words. It's a title few of us would dare ascribe to our own writings or thoughts, since contained in its simple five syllables are two words which have fallen out of fashion: Know and sure.

The way I see it, Oprah has earned the right to know at least one thing per month for sure. (Anybody who gives away a brand new Pontiac to every member of her studio audience like she did on yesterday's show has earned a lot of rights!)

But what about the rest of us? Do we believe so absolutely in a dearth of absolutes that we wouldn't personally claim to know a single thing for sure?

How about you? Is there anything you'd be counted for? Anything at all about which you'd say, "This is what I know for sure"?

---

copyright 2011, ngenius media inc.