Hot Flash Ramblings

Early-Monday ramblings...

Our weekend company just left and I am wishing again that I didn't have that curse...well, awful tendency...from my mother to stress out about getting company. We used to joke about Mom and her "gonzy loat psooch" dreams. "And I was trying to clean the kitchen and here a van drove in and it was a gonzy loat psooch and I didn't have anything to feed them and I didn't have anything planned for supper and you children wouldn't cooperate and ..."

I guess it stems, with good reason, from a custom of some Amish to pile in a van and take a trip to visit various relatives and not let them know you're coming, since neither of you has a phone, you know.

So "gonzy loat psooch" is technically a "whole load of guests" which doesn't translate the panicky nuances of dark-dressed-and-suited cousins from the East getting out of a van and you know the house is a mess and you were going to have just corn on the cob and sliced tomatoes for supper and these are "feiny leit" [fine folks] from some place like Ohio or God forbid, Pennsylvania, who have every blade of grass trimmed properly even on the far side of the barn.

So yes, Mom found company stressful, even having guests for Sunday dinner. And I do too, and then I always enjoy it and think I ought to do this more. Like our guests this weekend were people a stage older than us who totally get the pressures of the life we live and all the roles Paul tries to juggle. And I wouldn't have had to stress about getting ready.

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I have been thinking a lot about regrets. Especially situations where you did the best you could with what you had at the time, and later realize another course of action was actually right there in front of you and you should have taken it and didn't. Hard stuff.

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Yesterday we had special meetings at church and ate supper there, and during the course thereof "Junior Baker" whose real name is Earl I think, came over and was talking to Paul. Junior is an older fellow who grew up as Mennonite as the rest of us but he feels deeply and sheds tears freely if he wants to and raises his hands and shouts Hallelujah when a quartet sings about Heaven, so to put it mildly he is not like most Mennonite men and we all love him to pieces.

So yeah, he was talking to Paul and I wasn't paying much attention until he said something about "that woman's writings" and I looked up wondering what woman's writings he reads and here he was talking about me and complimenting me in a rather oblique way, but then he shook his finger at me and got emotional and said, "And I hope you give God the glory for your talent!"

Well, when Junior says that it's not really appropriate to clutch your hair with both hands and shriek, "GAAAAHHHH, I don't HAVE any talent and I don't know WHY I even bother writing and the less I think about all this the happier I am!" So I said something more Mennonite like, "Well, I don't feel I have that much but what I do have, yes, I give God the glory for."

The thing with Junior is, he thinks Paul and I are wonderful. Paul's preaching, oh my, Junior will pat my shoulder and get tears in his eyes and not be able to find the words to express the wonderfulness of that sermon and Paul himself. I love it. And I always agree with him.

But I am far less comfortable with him raving about my writing, which is probably very Mennonite of me.

Quote of the Day:
"You're kidding, right?"
--Steven, when I told him to borrow a pair of black jeans for school from his dad. Yes, I was, but it won't be long til he can.