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Showing posts from 2017

Waiting for a balm in Gilead

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I handed my pill bottle to the young girl behind the counter. She dutifully went off to perform whatever ceremony one does to ensure I am in the Walgreen’s system. I’m waiting. Seemed like only yesterday I was so care free. Then I turned 40 and my warranty ran out. Now I might be coming to a place like this every 3 months for the rest of my life. But better this place than the alternative offered by my high blood pressure. For a new “old guy”, all this is very fresh. And now I’m anxious to top it all off. I was about 2 minutes into digging this craterous monument to self-pity when I was distracted by an oddly familiar sight. Behind her stood row upon row of shelves stacked to the ceiling with pills and other assorted medical accoutrements. Hand-written signs were taped in front, alerting the cadre of health-care technicians to the alphabetical order constraining the chaos of their pharmacological candy factory. Another worker waited patiently on speaker phone with just the rig...

When Work is Worry is Work

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We just finished a four-day weekend that culminated in celebrating the 4th of July with friends and their very nervous dog. Now it's over and I'm back home and tempted to pull some late work hours. If I am honest, I am just as anxious as that dog. Inexplicable "explosions" are happening around me in my industry. I am frightened by the prospect that my utility could one day expire like it has for so many unfortunate souls. My mind is quick to jettison the value of all this recent downtime in order to focus on worrisome strategizing: What do I do? What don’t I do? How do I position myself? Is this what God wants me to do in this situation?  So to help my focus, I put on a YouTube live feed of a river in Alaska. Good background noise for all my pontificating, I thought. But I was soon captivated by a bear hunting salmon as they swam upstream. I watched this bear systematically snatch a single fish and proceed to eat it over the course of several minutes. Meanwhile...

Kiss Your Dinosaurs

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This Mother’s day, I’d like for you to know why I love my Mom so much. And why this website exists. She tells the story that as a small child, before I could even tell time, I knew exactly when it was 4:00. I also knew how to turn on the television. And when I turned the television on at 4:00, I had only precious seconds to race back across the room, to the protection of the sofa, before "it" would appear. The "it" in this case was the ferocious T-Rex in the opening of "The Land of The Lost". You can watch my fresh hell for yourself at the 1:11 mark   here . Don't be fooled - the banjo music only adds to the horror. Now you must understand the frightening image was a necessary evil; I really loved the show. So I pushed the terror into my stomach as this monster would steer its gaping maw away from the fleeing Marshall family - and run towards me! His roar sending shivers down my still-growing spine. Every weekday at 4:00. Stomach acid ...