Random 3AM musing

If it takes you 2 hours to fall asleep at night because you can't stop thinking about things and 2 hours to get out of bed in the morning because you keep hitting the snooze and can't STOP sleeping, then shouldn't we be able to flip this somehow? For Pete's sake isn't that 4 hours of thinking when you should be sleeping and sleeping when you should be thinking! It's like being in the ocean but you can't drink the water. It's like RAIN on your wedding day, it's the free ride when you've already paid. It's the good advice that you JUST didn't take... who would have known.. it figures... a little TOO ironic, dontcha think?

Empty Closets and more

Sunday was one of those weekend days where you get on a cleaning/laundry tear and the next thing you know you're cleaning out your closet to get rid of shirts you've had since high school, old bridesmaid dresses (Elizabeth... not YOURS) that flannel shirt you never wear but is so comfortable you're convinced you MAY some day soon.

How liberating I now feel.... how in control.... how much more aware of what I DO have now... how much more room for shopping for new clothes I have...

Then father has to go and harp all mass long on the need to "Empty our Hearts...." to make room for what God wants. Hmmmmmm.... Why do I feel set up?

So lets see,,,, what do I have in my heart that I never use or that's been there since high school or is really so not modern any more...

Well.................................. there's all this stress from work... boy talk about an old rag that I NEVER can use for anything ... all this doubt about..ummm.. my life's direction..... I think that matched an old outfit I used to wear.... lack of a usable prayer life.. that's a WORN OUT pair of slippers that are very comfortable. Anger.. that matches Everything! And that crap is just thrown about on the floor and here and there and everywhere I can't really see what I DO have in my heart.

I know how to empty a closet, but how does one go about emptying one's heart exactly? When I cleaned out my closet I went through each thing one by one... yes... no... maybe go... That just seems like an exhausting task to do with my heart. I could pray, "God please empty my heart." This is like the take everything out of the closet and throw it on the floor approach, then decide which things you want to put back in, and burn everything else without having to look at it again. I like this idea.

Or.... perhaps there is a middle ground by quickly grouping everything. This is how I cleaned the linen/junk closet back at my mom's house. All clothes in one pile. All linens in another pile. All papers/pictures in a third pile. This is a Quick Triage approach. Prayer life... what do I do well, what has to go? Work life... what do I do well, what has to go. There's different sections of my heart-closet isn't there?


Father tells me the outcome of all this emptying will be more room for good stuff. God can have room to deliver better stuff in my life ... I can see more clearly my good stuff and not let the bad stuff cloud my vision of myself. I can be liberated ............... I can have more control. Gotta go now... Off to the mall..

Redskins Spoil Ring Party 14-13... Oh What a Night...

Oh What a night..... Back in September.. 20005...


AFTER NINE YEARS OF HUMILIATION LIVING IN IRVING TEXAS, home of Texas Stadium .....

Where the Redskins had not won a game against the Cowbowys in Texas Stadium for nine years....

REVENGE.... And not just a small piece... We're talking the largest crowd in a decade, 65,000+ on hand for the Cowboys Ring of Honor induction of Jerry's so called triplets... Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith and Michael Irvin.... DENIED !!!!! Makes me want to break out in song.. "Hail to the Redskins, Hail Victory, Braves on the warpath.... FIGHT for 'ol DC" AND with old coach Joe Gibbs at the helm, at the LAST meeting of the 'Skins and the 'Boys in the old Texas Stadium before a new one gets built in Arlington... well life just doesn't get much sweeter. Oh... did I mention... I am watching the game in the Flying Saucer in downtown Fort Worth with a few hundred or so die hard Cowboys fans all around me.... Whooping and Screaming it up, I was, all by my lonesome when Moss catches the 11th hour recption in the end zone... thinking "I may get beat up".

And this is just the dolce half of the lucious meal of an evening...

While searching for a football fan friend to watch the game with, I find a friend who is also looking for someone to join a spontaneous indulgence of having just bought front row tickets to... LYLE LOVETT AND HIS LARGE BAND at Bass Performance hall in downtown Forth Worth... The Jeep and I think its a grand idea and we turn West into the Sunset. Friend is waiting in the car, and as we arrive hands me a cold brown bag that I keep low as we swing past the Police Station and head towards Cow Town.

Now I've never been to Bass Hall but I was amused that this gorgeous new hall with its hand painted dome and spiraling tiers of balconies and muted candelabras at each notch is filled to the brim with Jeans, Cowboy boots, Cowboy hats, Cowboy shirts and a few... Cowboys.

The Large Band is so very aptly named, and not being overly familiar with Lyle, and having pretty much swore off Country music in general, I was a bit amazed that the night kicked off with a brass band and a jazz round robin through all the instrumets. The intro culminated with a spotlight in the back on Ms. luscious Francine who jazzed and bopped and sayshayed her little black bootie up to the front stage to welcome out her four soul brothers who covered a '70s staple "Dinosaur" with so much groove & steam the Soul Train was jealous.

What the hell kind of Country music is this? I asked myself and my wide eyes?

I suppose that had I known Lyle was a Houston Texas native it would have made sense that the progression of Texicana that has a natural slight turn to the Swing would follow that bent and spread into Blues and Swing at its "Large Band" edge while recessing into its Americana folksy story lines at its Ballad roots. All mixed together with Lyles Dry Dry humor... and with a few Gospel Souls thrown on top the evening made for a simply electrifying satisfaction of the musical appetite. You were wiping your eyes on your neighbors shirt one moment, falling off of your chair at Lyles poll of the audience as to which of the individual band members they thought drove a truck the next, and ready to rise up and shout Alleluia and stomp your feet by the end.

At the end of the Show, Lyle comments, "Its been a pretty good day, if you care to know. Started with coconut pie at my favorite diner in the afternoon and ends in Bass Hall with you fine Texan people". With the exception of losing a cutthroat game of checkers in double sudden death overtime, I just couldn't more fully agree.

The Big Easy comes to Dallas

So yesterday my friend M sends out an email asking for help because he has adopted two sisters 47 and 38 with her 10 year old daughter and put them up in an apartment.

They have been in the Superdome for 6 days and Dallas' Reunion Center for 5. With the 25,000 originally bused into Reunion, only 1,000 have not been placed in someone's home or in an apartment. Those left feel many levels of abandonment and trauma. Why has everyone else found a place to go? M has provided an apartment for them in Oak Cliff, but has run out of funds and they need furniture and "things to make an empty apartment in a new town feel like home".

My soul has been waiting for this email ever since CNN began showing images of chaos and throngs shouting at the cameras, "Help, help, help, help - We're dying out here."

Where is the soul of the home? Why every woman knows the answer to this... The kitchen of course. I can't wait to make my twice weekly pilgrimage to Mecca (Sam's Club) that is so conveniently on my way home and ring up some of those non-stick pots and perhaps a set of Tupperware to get the hearth started in the home.

Once home, as I pass through into the kitchen for a well deserved glass of water, my heart takes a jump as I pass by the watercolor of a Lousianna Bayou on my Dining Room wall. It stops me dead in my tracks and I am consumed with longing and grief. For the place that I have gone to since College for so many spring "Breaks" as refuge from the stoms of my life, where the people have opened their arms to me with a Blue note of soul soothing trumpet or a "Hey Darlin" or a "You gettin thawed out yet?" Those people are hurting now and the achingly beautiful pink bayous of their land have turned against them. It is time for me and our country to turn to our most hospitable people and open our arms with "Hey Darlin." The picture on the wall comes down and is added to the Hearth Pile. What has come from New Orleans must be returned back to it.