Confession Time: What were you doing when you should have been in church?

Spent most of Sunday asleep recovering from a bout of gastritis and all of its attendent miseries on Saturday. When I was awake, it was generally just to take more "pink stuff", rehydrate and fall back into bed. Exciting-huh?

I was really and truly planning on going to church this past Sunday.... Hagee is getting so much attention lately, and he's in the same city as me, so I was going to go see him in person. But I didn't get home until 1:00am Saturday night, so that meant I couldn't drag my butt out of bed until 11. What's wrong with me???? That wasn't even a particularly crazy night. We drove up to Waller, TX (close to Prairie View) to hang out with friends at a pinball swapmeet. We sat around all afternoon playing pinball and old video games, drinking beer and eating chilidogs. It was a great way to spend a Saturday. Maybe I'll make it to Hagee next week.

I woke up and played Mario Cart for a little bit on the Wii. We had our last dance concert of the season yesterday (my last concert at this particular studio ever). I watched my ballet girls dance a Tarantella and my 2 jazz classes dance to Canned Heat and Do Your Thing. RickU is such an awesome guy that he came and sat through the whole concert just to support me and to see my 3 numbers. (My own dad would skip my dance concerts when I was performing in them...Rick has sat through probably close to 25 where I haven't even been dancing.) Then we went to the cast party where I danced with my students and he sat at a table being completely ignored by the stuffy dance parents (one of the reasons why I'm leaving).

Hank, I peaked at your photos and saw that you went to see Movin' Out. I'm completely jealous. I think Twyla Tharp's choreography is so interesting and fun. I would love to see what she did with Billy Joel's music.

Mandy U

Yesterday (Sunday) I slept in late, then drove down to Waxahachie, Texas for the Scarborough Renaissance Festival.

I did attend the "Hey Nunnie Nunnie" slapstick comedy show while there, which was mildly amusing.

But mostly I was enjoying all the pushed up cleavage and feminine curvature on display, which I appreciate more as adult than when I was a teenager at my first RenFest, being all obsessed with AD&D, Monty Python, etc, and more easily distracted by swords, magic staffs, crystals, fake dragons, etc.

I was kneeling by my bed yesterday, and my wife was saying "Oh, God!" Does that count?

Rob Miles
--
There are only 10 types of people in the world;
those who understand binary and those who don't.

Slept late. Fruit shake breakfast. Web surfing. Did some writing; posted "The 30,000" on www.HankFox.com. Worked on some sales material for one of my clients. Studied pile of bills, suffered low feelings for .25 seconds, then went off to take pictures of dancers coming out of a show I'd seen a few days before, for my Flickr site. Visited friend. Laundry. Late lunch. Drive home. Worked on more sales stuff for client; sent off 4 business emails. Checked incoming email and surfed web. Dinner: Sandwich and Ugly Juice. Movie, with raspberry and honey tea. 30 seconds of TV news. Reading. Dreamless sleep.

Total time spent thinking/worrying about God, Allah or myriad other gods, spirits, spooks, celestial powers, or any of their earthly organizations, followers, bobbleheads or creationist attack monkeys: Zero.

Haven't been "to church" in 43 years! So let's see, while others were devoutly wasting time yesterday, I baked banana bread (much tastier than the "eucharist," blech), worked out at the gym, picked up the Sunday papers, and started putting together the evening's dinner while listening to some fine music. No genuflecting or petitioning "the Lord" involved!

One is nearer God’s heart in a garden
Than any where else on earth.

I think most people are familiar with those lines from her 1913 poem "God's Garden," but only that portion, which is often misquoted as "One is nearer to God in a garden/Than anywhere else on earth."

Works for me. Especially on nice days.

And as for me - I had an incipient migraine that I decided to sleep through. Then I had errands to do. And a chunk of Sunday morning was wrestling with Comcast and Earthlink to get my new computer handling email. (That actually came after I slept off the migraine.) When I get a house with a garden, I think I'll be there on Sunday mornings when possible. Living in Texas I learned that early morning, when temps are usually still only double digits, is the optimum time for such things.

Besides, Sunday is usually my only day to sleep late. If you follow the "my body is a temple" credo, then I prefer to worship at the Altar of More Sleep, Followed by Blueberry Pancakes, Or Maybe Peach Or Mango Ones In Season, at every opportunity.

Sunday is my only day off. My husband and I read the paper, clean house and do laundry. I take an hour to do homework (like my 5 page paper due today) and he has lunch with a friend. Every Sunday evening, we have my parents over for dinner. We hang out, watch movies and enjoy our time together. Way better than church.

This last Sunday morning my wife and I took our dog on a 2-hour walk on the local beach trail. This was probably most beneficial for our dog who would have been shut up in house had we gone to church somewhere. Dogs aren't exactly welcome in god's house unless the pastor is dyslexic.