Wednesday, April 29, 2009

While the cat's away...


Beloved is in Indiana busily recording the lead vocals on her third CD project, drenched in HOPE (read all about it at http://www.restinhimministry.com/), and I'm on my own.

Early on in our marriage, if we were going to be separated for any length of time, she would pre-prepare meals, get them all organized in the freezer, and leave a detailed note on how to warm them up. Well, either her confidence in my ability to survive without her has quadrupled, or she has stopped caring whether I live or die. Her words to me upon her departure this time: "There's some leftover spaghetti in the fridge, if it hasn't gone bad yet."

And eating is actually one of the least of my concerns when Beloved is away. Boredom tops the list. I simply lose all motivation to accomplish anything of note when she's not around. Perhaps if I commit to creating a record of my sans Beloved activities, it will give the oomph to do SOMEthing...

Friday, April 24
Following a dinner of eggbake (leftover from last Saturday's jewelry "party"), I spent some time at my church's (http://www.valleycc.org/) "Family Fun Night," watching preschoolers throw a volleyball under a net and high schoolers throw a basketball (and a couple junior highers) through a net. Then I went home and cried while watching a YouTube clip of a few hundred people dancing to "Do Re Mi" (from The Sound of Music) in the middle of a train station in Belgium. I don't know why I cried, but I did. And I have with each subsequent viewing. Maybe you should check it out (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkBepgH00GM) and see if you can explain me to me.


Saturday, April 25
Had a heart-stopping breakfast of bacon, three eggs, toast, cheese and juice. And just to make it completely dangerous, cardio-vascularly speaking, I spent all morning sitting at the computer, writing pastoral-type emails on Facebook. After picking up our lawnmower from the little old magician who was getting it into gear for the summer that will someday arrive, I posted "Almost the News II" and started this post.

The evening repast was a large bag of movietime popcorn and a Cherry Coke while I watched State of Play. It was a good movie; easy to sit through; even when the slightly older woman in the row behind me would loudly gasp at every single plot twist. I have no idea what the title means, but I'm really hesitant to admit that for fear that it reveals how utterly stupid I am. I am also still in a state of shock from learning that popcorn refills are no longer free. Somebody fix the economy!

Sunday, April 26
Led worship and tried to entice people to sponsor me in Amnion Crisis Pregnancy Center's "Life is Beautiful!" fundraising walk. Nothing was growing on the spaghetti, so I warmed it up and wolfed it down. After looking through the paper (napping), there was a pre-marital counseling session with a couple who is having an out-of-town minister perform the ceremony. (That's really a great arrangement. I get to do the important [but really too late in the game] stuff, and the other guy has to sweat through all the icky details of who-stands-where and what-happened-to-the-ushers.)

Monday, April 27
Lunch at work was a bologna and cheese sandwich, corn chips, and raisins. Yeah...that's how exciting it is when there's no leftovers going on at home to take for lunch. Dinner was a different story, praise God. My neighbor and his 3-year-old princess were bach-ing it for a few days, so he invited me over to try his Pork Chops Mexicali. They were so good, I offered to be his wife.

After dinner, I picked out some shirts to put in the donation bag for the Vietnam Vets who were coming through the neighborhood in the morning (brandishing machetes and semi-automatic weaponry, no doubt), watched Gossip Girl in hopes that ActorBoy's appearance would be this week (it wasn't; maybe May 4th), and popped in the first of seven ManMovies being loaned to me in my temporary bachelordom: 1957's The Enemy Below, starring Robert Mitchum. The man's nickname should be "Monotone Mitchum." Seriously...there was one scene where he was telling another naval officer about how his wife died right before his eyes. He might as well have been discussing the color of paint on the ship's deck, for all the emotion he mustered up.

Tuesday, April 28
I worked from home in order to facilitate a 2-hour break from 9:30-11:30 so I could speak on behalf of Amnion Pregnancy Center (http://www.amnioncpc.org/) in a high school health class. I know, I know...everybody thinks that a guy telling teenagers to keep their pants on is like asking the ocean to stop waving at you. Survey says...BZZZZZ! True truth: 52.2% of American teenagers are NOT sexually active. That's the majority, babyyyy! [Editor's Note: That figure is now (August, 2019) 73%.]

To reward myself for a job well done, I grabbed a Filet-O-Fish and some fries on the way back home. Mickey D's is now printing "Nutrition Facts" on their food containers. (Kind of like Hitler publishing a list of his favorite Jews.) Just by being a good boy and eating all my fries, I took care of 38% of my daily need for fat. That's called efficiency!

I finished off the last of the spaghetti and had some steamed broccoli with it for dinner, followed by a rousing session of paying bills, balancing the checkbook, and watching Humphrey Bogart fight the Germans in Sahara.

Wednesday, April 29
More bologna and cheese for lunch, but AngelFace came over and made tacos for the two of us for dinner. And there were leftovers!!!! The rest of the evening was spent at church with my small group of prayer warriors and then on the couch watching John Wayne in Flying Tigers. This was definitely the best Man Movie of the week so far: some decent air battle sequences, a good helping of humor, a pretty nurse, and The Duke, for crying out loud!

To be continued. The world breathlessly awaits...

No comments: