Delilaah

Somewhere along the line I got the reputation of being an egghead.

Nah, no way. Would anyone who listens to the Delilah show be the Volvo-driving, NPR-listening type?

Aw, come to think of it...

Do you know who Delilah is? She's a grandmother and a late night painter who has a radio show at night when she takes dedications -- here she is played on B101, a soft rock station. Delilah's got the kind of voice that makes you feel like maybe you and she could be friends -- as though you'd run into her on your village street and were catching up on the local news. Wives send songs to their husbands who are overseas, would be lovers to the object of their desire, daughters to their mothers.

Every twenty minutes or so in the car, after hearing Kelly Clarkson and Fall Out Boy's latest masterwork once or three times over, I torment my kids with Delilah and her listener's sometimes fascinating stories.

And sometimes night, driving home from a meeting or time with a friend, I'll find it relaxing to check out the gentle dialogue between her and other listener

Oh, but those songs -- wasn't living through them in the 80's enough for America?

Easter at the American Bar & Grille

We decided we would go out for Easter this year, since I was going to be exhausted, and my ex didn't want to cook. Easter and Christmas and birthdays we do as a family, because we are, of course, still a family by virtue of having these two kids. I wonder what could happen if someone else becomes a part of the celebrations. Interesting. Easter dinner really was one of those occasions that seem very funny -- after a week or two has gone by. I was chatting with a guy I didn't know, innocent stuff about his kid and eating with kids, and how tiring it coud be. The good thing is, there are no dishes, I said. When I got to our table Mr. C told me the guy I was talking to was a secretary in his lunchroom at school. As the DQ pointed out, there's no such thing as a lunchroom secretary, although maybe there ought to be. Anyway, each that man came back to our room, Colin refused to get up to say hello. The DQ ate chocolate cake and cheesecake, and then complained about how sick she was. Slightly dazed from the letdown goes with preaching and celebrating two services, I didn't hear my son hurl a firecracker across the table. What I did hear was the DQ say : "you jerk!" Anyway, you know the drill -- he won't tell me, she won't tell me, I threaten, the ex wants to move to someone else stable. When we finally get outside near his RAV4, she hisses into my ear: "he told me the dress was sthe only pretty thing about me!" I have to confess, I started to laugh, hazed with the food and the sun and the end of a week of very hard work -- and cracking up at his apparent glee at giving it back to her for all the times she's called him a nerd. I'm not sure, but I think I may even have seen a smile on the DQ's face.

Did you know?

That when owners let their cats run outside they live less than three years on the average?

I noted this when cruising through one of blogs on the New York Times website.

That happens to be useful information for this cat-owner, who has a black and white two year old who is always leaping onto the screen door, trying to escape. He's gotten out a few times -- watching him tree a squirrel and then get a paw on the grey guy's back was a scary experience. We keep him inside, but he requires a lot of play time. His destructive, " I'm gonna paw everything off her desk" instincts sometimes cause me to wonder if we are right in keeping him inside, but this piece caused me to realize that we are making the right choice -- for Inky, as well as for ourselves.

After all, we are dealing with a domesticated animal, not a feral one. Loving him and those crazy cat ways means making it more possible for him to hang around until the times, which will come, when he prefers to spend most of his time sleeping in the sun, and chasing birds only in his dreams.

The wild Christ

I'm going to try to post this week but I may not manage to get a lot written online. This thought did, however, occur to me. I've been pondering how hard we work, those of us who profess Christ, to domesticate Him--and God in general...

The empty tomb was not just surprising. It was shocking, and even terrifying. It appears the Roman watchers assigned to guard the tomb mentioned in the Gospel thought so--or why would they have fled?

May the untamed, wild, subversive Christ confront you this week--however He chooses to do it.

Are you scared? I am, a little bit. But for those who claim to follow Him, a domesticated, house cat, marginal Jesus really isn't an option.

More on this theme later.

Shrinking Jesus

Salon has an interesting piece on Bart Erhman, who has become a virtual one person Jesus seminar. His new book, 'Jesus Interrupted' apparently looks at the different versions of the Scriptures, the fact that we have no original editions, and the differences between one writer's viewpoint and another.

Interestingly, one of my PTS professors, Dr. Story, was part of Ehrman's journey away from faith. Dr. Story was a lovely man, a teacher who didn't let you get away with a lot. I was thrilled to get a "B" in his Hebrew course. Read the article to see how a comment on a term paper apparently was a catalyst that later led to Ehrman losing his faith. That, and the issue of theodicy-the problem of evil.

You don't have to agree with Ehrman (and I don't) to grapple with the issues he raises. While I find his viewpoint on humans and morality a bit disturbing, I sometimes feel the same way.

Hardball

What is Obama doing with regard to the automobile industry? It seems, from what we can tell, that he is being pretty tough on them. This piece from today's New York Times made me wonder if he's really on top of the situation.

As the daughter of parents who were loyal members of teacher's unions, and a woman who seems to pay her mechanics close to 90 dollars an hour to work on her car, I find the idea of paying those just hired 15 dollars an hour vaguely shocking. That's in part because I have the klutzy person's reverence for those who understand such mysteries.

But although lawyers and doctors, and those white collar guys climbing the corporate ladder at places like Comcast probably do better, it really isn't a bad place to start. And it does seem like Rick Wagoner, faced with the potential death of American automibles, has done an excrutiating but noteworthy job of preparing GM for a future of green and smaller cars.

It may be that Obama is coming down on GM because we've already spewed out enough money at the large banks-and where has it gotten us? ;-)

But there's no one size fits all solution to this crisis-and not to respect innovation, if when its innovation forced by circumstance, doesn't seem to be a helpful way to move us forward.

For an opposing view from David Brooks, see this.

All I can say is--glad they didn't elect me! Much easier to take potshots from the sidelines.

Wishing...

I could return to that more innocent self. There are elements of my personality I don't like so much now--mostly the ones that involve men. When I began this dating biz, I didn't realize I'd attract that much attention. At first, I was flattered. Then I was amused. Then I was a little dismayed that so many guys would simply be trying to get me into bed with them. And now I'm coming to the conclusion, not that I am particularly hot, but that there are simply a lot of horny guys out there who, put it bluntly, just want to get laid. I'll tell you that I've gotten better at knowing who the decent, really nice ones are--they are the ones who are genuinely surprised by my online stories.

Well, dogs are going to be dogs, and some guys are just being themselves. There are all kinds of messed up females, too. That's not my problem. I'm not prey for opportunists with itches to scratch-like the guy who emailed me last night that he gave a good massage. My conundrum is trying to find a way back to being that trusting, genuine, less jaded woman that I was when I signed on to this dating site. I have a feeling that if I do bump into a guy who is genuinely decent and kind, that's the woman he's going to want to meet.