Sunday, October 31, 2004

Chumped

I get to say "see ya" to another Halloween. You know what that means, right? Christmas season. Yeah, I know...isn't there another holiday between Halloween and Christmas? Thanskgoober or something? I dunno.. All I know is that I saw a house on Modaus road today decorated for CHRISTMAS. Picket fence covered in garland and red bows. Definetely not some house that has decorations up all year b/c they're either too lazy or too old to take them down, either. Pure, 100% decoration.

I -maybe- can understand the greed-o-logic that drives retailers to decorate, but this is the first time I've EVER seen a residence take on Christmas garb so soon. No wonder so many of my friends loathe Christmas - because it can be so overhyped already...without adding to it.

End: Rant

Otherwise, this day has beeen a balance of good and bad.

GOOD: Stacey got rid of her migraine that she developed at 3:00 a.m.
BAD: The medicine she tooked knocked her silly for hours and hours, so she had to miss church.

GOOD: Music this morning; stage energy (it was especially moving to see Heidi get into the music); No glitches...
BAD: Maybe it was our responsibility (i.e., we didn't 'connect' as well with the corwd as we should have), but I always hate it when there's some big magoo on the front row who stands there and won't even open his mouth to sing, and it appears to be a 'contagious' condition to those around him/her. It' s happened before. Okay, okay...I'm sorry. I shouldn't say such things. Even as I type this, I can't possibly know what goes through people's heads every Sunday morning. Maybe they love it. Maybe it just doesn't "openly" show in their actions. A lot of times, after all, people who don't connect are new to the scene. So, I guess I'm the magoo, not them. But...still...I felt the crowd, overall, seemed "sleepy," for lack of a better word... At least at the end, when Jordan rallied some people into the song spontaneously...that was very cool and uplifting. If people didn't connect with THAT unexpected 'boom' of energy, I don't know what will...

GOOD: The opportunity to gather Christmas gifts for children internationally.
BAD: OMG...though the video promoting the whole idea contained some powerful images and stories, the narration and the overall...'cheesiness' of it utterly shattered the 'mood' of the morning. That's only my opinion, and I may be alone in that. Mind you, it wasn't the challenge to help or the description of need I found cheesy (by any means), but the video seemed to primarily target an audience of much more 'conservative' settings than ours. Still...our church needs opportunities like that (missions-related stuff), so that part of it is exciting... So flame me if you disagree with my opinion...

GOOD: Small group was laid back tonight, to say the least.
BAD: Only Eric and Wendy and their young-uns showed up. Well, Eli did for a bit, then bolted after about 5 minutes. Read J-mo had a headache, but I don't know, for sure, what happened to everyone else. So we just wound up eating, watching "Kindergarten Cop" (-sigh-), playing some GTA: San Andreas, then...everyone headed out...after which, I played more San Andreas, then wound up up here blogging. Oh, much joy. Call tonight's small group "collective malfunctions," I guess...sick kids, headaches, schedule conflicts, whatever...made for a "Why didn't I just cancel it?" kind of night... Still, hope Eric and Wendy enjoyed the opportunity to veg out for a bit... I'm just glad I didn't buy food to grill out...

GOOD: The "Trunk 0r Treat" event at the church last night.
BAD: Nothing...it was an incredible success. I still can't believe how many kids showed up. I hope that 'community impact' we all want to see is really starting to happen. If I have to pick something bad it's that we ran out of candy, but that wasn't for lack of preparation. Running out in this case was a very good thing, really...

GOOD: Managing to keep my temper and sarcasm under control today
BAD: Having to keep it under control in the first place.

ONE MORE 'ONLY GOOD' THING: Got yet another suprise check in the mail from our house sale in Birmingham. That makes for 1 expected and 2 suprise checks, the latter both being much more each than the one we expected. God rocks...

KEY PHRASES:
1. File this under "things you don't ever want to hear your waiter say": "Good catch!" (uttered as J-mo singlehandedly prevented some malfunction at Applebee's the other night).
2. "Home Depot employees get paid to smile and say, 'hi.'"
3. "No nibbling allowed." (sign at Firehouse Subs)

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