Conversations

Yesterday evening a couple of family friends from what seems like a lifetime ago stopped by. They are a bit younger than my folks, and I think were the first couple my sister and I called "Auntie" and "Uncle" who were not actually aunts or uncles.
After moving so many times in the last 15 years, I must say it's fun to talk with folks who remember when I was in elementary school - and what I was like back in those days. I'm not sure if it's a pro or a con, moving away from the people who know you and your history the best - a little of both, I suppose.
One of the most fun parts of the evening (besides the dinner they took us out to enjoy) was introducing them to the Munchkin, and then watching the Munchkin enjoy their dog, Mandy, who is a Dachshund mix of some kind. The Munchkin is completely in love with dogs, and the conversation she had with Mandy was pretty dang hilarious.

Dining Room Organization Duet

Once again it has gotten late. Technically it's tomorrow, but I'm so close to finishing NaBloPoMo that I am thankful once again I haven't changed the time zone on my blogger settings... A college friend of mine, who also moved to Bozeman last year, came over this evening to help me sort out boxes in our dining room. We still don't have a dining room table in the dining room, which has made it a convenient catch all for all kinds of things, including half-unpacked boxes of china, crystal, and heirloom dishes and silver. Now it is organized, and quite a thing of beauty. The pile of "figure out what to do with this" stuff isn't too big, and I will confess has more things originally belonging to Grant than to me, but it feels good to have at least one more space in the house a little more organized and tidy. At this point things mostly have places, and are mostly in them. We'll see how long that lasts. The great thing about having this friend over was that she gets as excited as I do about vintage textiles, dishes that belonged to my great-grandmother, and that when I held up my Grandma's butter ball paddles she instantly knew what they were. We even looked online to find out how to make butter balls. Someday I will be the ultimate hostess, just like my grandmother always was, perfect butter balls and everything. Enough for tonight, it's past my bedtime and I'm afraid this stream of consciousness might spill over its banks in unseemly ways... Happy 6th day of Christmas!

Plan B

Surprise, surprise, the day didn't exactly go as planned (read yesterday's post for more info). It's not entirely my fault, though. The plan included a fun social event, the plan for which was hatched on Christmas Eve Day. While Grant led worship up at the hospital I headed to some members'/friends' house for a spaghetti dinner. Another family was there, too, and the three of us women decided we'd like to get together to make some more Christmas cookies, particularly of the more labor intensive variety: krumkaker and rosettes. I volunteered our kitchen, since I knew that would be motivation to clean, plus I have a krumkaker iron and all the equipment for rosettes. (Mind you, I've never actually made rosettes - the whole pot of hot oil has always been a little intimidating to me. I was looking forward to learning from a pro). I also invited two more women from church to join us, so we would be five. Good thing our kitchen is big enough to accomodate that many butts. Unfortunately, our experienced rosette maker had to cancel. We'll reschedule some time in January, so I'll still get practice with the cookie making. I thought I might make krumkaker on my own today, but never got that far.

After the plan for the day was derailed I ended up riding whatever whim took hold... Got a lot done in the project room, though it's still in that "it always gets worse before it gets better" stage. I remain hopeful.

Tomorrow will find me in the office, trying to cram as much work as possible into a single work day. I'm hoping I can plan the work and then work the plan. Happy 5th day of Christmas!

Yuletide Greetings

Merry Christmas! We had a lovely day in Bozeman - a few snowflakes fell as the sun came up and while we opened our packages - it was a little like being in a snowglobe. Worship this morning was considerably more intimate than last night, which was to be expected. I always think it's amazing how few congregations even have a service on Christmas Day, and am glad we do, even though it is fairly small. We began with "Carols By Request" - letting folks choose their favorite carols to sing. It's one way to get more music in, since we don't sing too many Christmas carols during Advent. After returning home we had lunch, talked to our parents and then took naps before getting ready for Christmas dinner. We'd invited a member of our congregation to join us - she's an international graduate student at MSU and is a lot of fun. Her tales of Christmas in Zimbabwe were interesting - definitely not like Christmas in Bozeman! Hope you enjoyed the first of the twelve days of Christmas. Merry merry!

Things I Didn't Know About Hannukah

Hannukah begins today - and no, it's not a "Jewish Christmas," though it surprises me how many uninformed Americans think it might be. A few years ago I bought a couple of children's books about Hannukah to have on hand to help tell the story. It's too bad so many folks have Bibles without the Apocrypha, since the Hannukah story is alluded to in the "in-between" books of 1 and 2 Maccabees. Maybe the best way to learn the story and how it's understood today is to expand our circles of friends to include more folks of different faiths.

One of the experiences I am most grateful for during my seminary days is CPE - Clinical Pastoral Education. CPE tends to get a pretty bad rap from pastor-types, and in some cases, rightly so. It's no good to be taken apart and then not put back together again. What made my CPE experience so good, besides a good supervisor, was the friendship forged with the only other woman in my group, a rabbinical student named Sarah. Early on in our summer of hospital-chaplaincy-fun, Sarah and I decided that there would be no "dumb questions" between us - and I got to learn a lot about her tradition, the different branches of the Jewish family tree in America, and to see my own tradition through different eyes. (All of the rest of our group were Christians, and we had to promise not to baptize Sarah if she ever fell asleep in the break room...).

So, here's a link to an OpEd piece from today's New York Times, which helped me put Hannukah in some historical perspective. I'd encourage you to read the comments, too, as they were interesting, also.

Op-Ed Columnist The Hanukkah Story By DAVID BROOKS Published: December 11, 2009 Hanukkah is the most adult of holidays. Its lesson is that even the struggles that saved a people are dappled with tragic irony, complexity and unattractive choices.