Second Verse Same As The First - Sort Of

So I'm gone again for Friday night and Saturday. Last week was Drama and Worship in London and this weekend is Dunamis: Spiritual Warfare in Burlington. Yeah, so I'll be unavailable except for select late night periods.

I'm a little excited for this weekend's conference.

Where My Lasers At?

I feel I should come laser equipped.

What do you think?

Thats Embarrassing

Yesterday I went to call home. I pushed what I thought was the speed dial number for my parents. The phone rang, an unfamiliar voice answered and I figured I hit the wrong speed dial number and had called one of my friends' houses. So I said thought I had dialed the wrong number. The unfamiliar voice replied, "No, I don't think you did." I was confused. I muttered a bit and then realized I was speaking to my own Mother. She has a bad head cold.

...greatest daughter ever. Cough.

Daddy

Daddy has gone to visit Johnny in Iowa until Saturday. I have no doubts that fun times and perhaps mayhem will ensue.

Good News

I'm CITB chair for next year. *grin*

Don't Be Sad

Just to let all y'all know. I'll be away from my computer until Sunday post-Church. So no blogging and such until then. Don't cry. It'll be ok.

Somedays....

Sticks Out Like Sore Thumbs

Dear Thumbs,

I'm sorry that I maimed both of you yesterday. These were not desperate acts of hate. I promise I love you. Please stop sticking out and hurting when I type or massage or use my right hand. I'll give you extra moisturizer :)

Laura

_____
Sigh, left got a paper cut across the knuckle whilst attempting to help me put a sheet of poetry in my backpack.

Righty, oh righty, I'm so sorry. I was putting up a Buxtehude poster at church last night and I slipped and then my lovely long nail on my right thumb went backwards for a while. Oh blood, oh swelling, oh pain.

Smoerman's Night Out: A Tale In Parts (like Dickens)

Once upon a time there was a lovely young woman named Smoerman. She was a very hard worker and decided at the end of a long week that she needed to get out a bit.



She decided she should change out of her teacher clothes before going out into public.



"Gurgle, gurgle," went Smoerman's stomach. She knew it was time for food, so off she went to Jack Astors to satisfy her dining needs. There were so many good things on the menu. It was hard decide.



There was something about the waitress she liked, but she just couldn't put her finger on it...



Embarrassingly while she was thinking about the doctrine of transfiguration, she tried to take a drink and the straw went right up her nose.



Out of rage and surprise to having the straw up her nose she let an expletive slip from her lips.

Smoerman's Night Out: Part the Second

When we left our heroine she was in peril of being thrown out of the restaurant for all of her sailor talk. Or maybe it was pirate talk...



Finally her buffalo chicken strips in the flavour of hot arrived and she began to consume them with much passion.



Interrupting her enjoyment was her twin brother Earl...



It seems Earl had come to tell Sarah that he was moving to Zimbabwe. This made Sarah sad. She both cried and snotted.



Not wanting everyone to see her now abnormally puffy eyes, Smoerman put on her classy shades.



Now she was all worked up (no thanks to Earl - who had left again). So she ordered dessert and went out for a smoke.


The sweet, sweet nicotine calmed her angry nerves. When she came back the strangely familiar waitress brought dessert. Mmmm, dessert!



With dessert consumed and plumping in her stomach Sarah decided she should vacate her table at Jack Astors and head out for a valuable night of proselytizing in dance clubs. So she asked for her bill. And oh did she get it.

Smoerman's Night Out: This Tale Is Brought To You By...

The letter F:



Lower case g:



And L is for Mercy:



Loving...



We love Smoerman.



The end.

Very Large Kitties

Its official - my brother is now a Kitchener Panther (in the inter-county league).



I'm thinking about getting season tickets. Most of the home games are on Sunday afternoons at 2pm, with a smattering on Thursday nights. There are 18 home games and the season tickets cost 40$, so that's 2.22$ a game - tickets for students are ordinarily 5$ or 7$ for regular types. So if you're a student and you think you might want to go to more than 8 home games with me this summer it might be a good idea for you to think about getting season tickets too. The season starts in early May. Think about it and let me know and then I'll make a trip and get however many sets might be required. I should also mention that he'll play twice here in Hamilton, and also in Brantford and Guelph.

I am more than excited to have my brother so close this summer - this is the closest geographically we will be in 4 years!

So, in closing - Go Panthers and buy tickets (and therefore come with me to games)

I Wish I Was There

Chelsea in Spain for spring break.

What's that? It feels like -13 here? Oh.

Personal Decision

I have decided I'm going to start dressing like the characters on the Cosby show.

The end of a saga?

Well, my parents took pity on my dehydrated and financially depleted self and sent me money to get hydrated again. I'm still holding out hope that my old faithful will reappear. But in the mean time, I'd like to introduce you to Pamela:

Should I Put These Around The School?

Cruel

Student Life has their lost and found out right now. There must be at least a dozen water bottles, with at least half of them being Nalgene-esque. None of them are mine.

Ok?

Is it ok that last night while I was getting ready for bed that I prayed that my precious friend Nalgene would show up today?

Just To Make You Feel Better

Yesterday in conversation with Smoerman I was trying to come up with the term cousin, but couldn't. Instead I invented the equally useful term: Grandsibling. In a sentence: Some of my older Grandsiblings are married.

DSB Is This You?

nataliedee.com

Missing

My purple nalgene with the red lid and beads around the neck is missing. I'm pretty sure I left it above the coat racks after choir. Have you seen it? Did you pick it up? Security and Student Life do not have it.

Love Is...

• prayers
• hugs
• text messages of uncanny content
• half a batch of cookies
• back rubs
• a cool, clean living room floor
• an open door policy
• hot tamales
• emails
• seeing/meeting needs before they are spoken
• follow-up
• late nights and early mornings
• reciprocity
• not understanding but still understanding
• tears as prayer
• laughter as healing
• calling first
• music
• tactile
• eye contact
• blessed solitude
• interruptions
  
• full of sugar
• warm beverages
• open ears
• schlagt'd
• grace
• allowance
• cranberry juice
• shared observances

Memories of Etta

One year when John and I were relatively young she and Sue (her best friend) took us back to school shopping and took us for a treat at Laura Secord's. It was the first time we'd ever been there and got something.

Candlelight Christmas Eve Service - Etta was singing O Holy Night with the sanctuary lights off and from behind the wall for the choir stairs at Smithfield United - in order to read her music she wore Uncle Peter's headlamp.

Her Scottish accent, her real shortbread at Christmas and her beautiful knitted dolls (some of which sit in Grandma and Grandpa Stewart's room right now - wearing a knitted version of our family tartan).

Singing in the choir with her for years, her beautiful operatic soprano voice and how it encouraged me to keep working my range and to keep getting better.

W.H. Auden

I
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public
doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

I Was Worried (No, I'm Not Pregnant)

You Will Be a Cool Parent

You seem to naturally know a lot about parenting, and you know what kids need. You can tell when it's time to let kids off the hook, and when it's time to lay down the law. While your parenting is modern and hip, it's not over the top. You know that there's nothing cool about a parent who acts like a teenager... or a drill sergeant!

Would You Be a Cool Parent?

What Happens Now?

I don't expect my love affairs to last for long
Never fool myself that my dreams will come true
Being used to trouble I anticipate it
But all the same I hate it -- wouldn't you?

So what happens now?
Another suitcase in another hall
So what happens now?
Take your picture off another wall
Where am I going to?
You'll get by, you always have before
Where am I going to?

Time and time again I've said that I don't care
That I'm immune to gloom, that I'm hard through and through
But every time it matters all my words desert me
So anyone can hurt me -- and they do

So what happens now?
Another suitcase in another hall
So what happens now?
Take your picture off another wall
Where am I going to?
You'll get by you always have before
Where am I going to?

Call in three months time and I'll be fine I know
Well maybe not that fine, but I'll survive anyhow
I won't recall the names and places of this sad occasion
But that's no consolation -- here and now

So what happens now?
Another suitcase in another hall
So what happens now?
Take your picture off another wall
Where am I going to?
You'll get by, you always have before
Where am I going to?
Don't ask anymore.

I Miss My Brother.

O Magnum Mysterium

My life flows on in endless song
Above earth's lamentation.
I hear the real, thought far off hymn
That hails the new creation
Above the tumult and the strife,
I hear the music ringing;
It sounds an echo in my soul
How can I keep from singing?

What though the tempest loudly roars,
I hear the Truth, it liveth.
What through the darkness round me close,
Songs in the night it giveth.
No storm can shake my inmost calm
While to that rock I'm clinging.
Since love is lord of Heaven and earth
How can I keep from singing?

When tyrants tremble, sick with fear,
And hear their death-knell ringing,
When friends rejoice both far and near,
How can I keep from singing?
In prison cell and dungeon vile
Our thoughts to them are winging.
When friends by shame are undefiled,
How can I keep from singing?

A Friday Night Well Spent

Baseball Bus Accident (not involving my brother, but pray anyway)

Bluffton U. team in fatal bus crash

March 2, 2007 - AirTran is offering free flights to families of the players involved. Flights leave from Detroit, Flint and Dayton. A charter flight is leaving from Toledo Express at 5:30 p.m. today. Call 800-247-8726 for more information.

The Atlanta Medical Center's phone number is 404-265-4000
The Piedmont Hospital phone number is 404-605-3297
Grady Memorial Hospital's numbers are 404-616-5242 and 404-616-5163
The Red Cross in Atlanta is offering assistance. Call them at 404-870-4440..

Classes have been cancelled today at Bluffton University.

ATLANTA (AP) - A charter bus carrying a college baseball team from Ohio plunged off a highway ramp early Friday and slammed into the pavement below, killing six people, injuring 29 and scattering sports equipment across the road, authorities said.

The bus, carrying the team from the close-knit, Mennonite-affiliated Bluffton University, toppled off the Northside Drive bridge onto a pickup truck on Interstate 75 shortly before dawn, police spokesman Joe Cobb said.

"It looked to me like a big slab of concrete falling down," said truck driver Danny Lloyd, 57, of Frostburg, Md. "I didn't recognize it was a bus. I think when I saw the thing coming, I think I closed my eyes and stepped on the gas."

The impact broke his windshield, pushed his truck into the concrete and wrecked the front bumper, but Lloyd wasn't injured.

Four students, the bus driver and the bus driver's wife were killed, said police Maj. Calvin Moss.

Nineteen students - three in critical condition - were being treated at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, Dr. Leon Haley said. He said all but two students were awake and talking Friday morning, and doctors were checking them for broken bones.

"All things considered, they are pretty calm," Haley said. "They are very aware of what's going on."

Three other injured people were taken to Piedmont Hospital, and seven were taken to Atlanta Medical Center, Haley said. Officials at the three hospitals said 28 of the 29 were college age, and the age of the other injured person could not immediately be determined.

Piedmont hospital spokeswoman Diana Lewis said the team's coach, James Grandey, 29, was in serious condition and expected to improve.

"This is a profound and tragic day in the life of Bluffton University," school President James Harder told reporters Friday morning in Ohio.

Classes were canceled. The school called off other sports trips planned during next week's spring break, Harder said. He said he had no details on the identities of those killed and injured.

"This is deeply impacting all of our students, faculty and staff. We know these people on a first-name basis," he said. "For now we're pulling together and supporting each other as best we can."

On campus, students and residents of the community filled the school's basketball gym to grieve together and learn more about what had happened. Some wiped away tears as they came in. The university, with about 1,150 students 50 miles south of Toledo, is affiliated with the Mennonite Church USA.

The baseball team, which went 17-21 last season, had been scheduled to play its first game of the season in Sarasota, Fla., Saturday against Eastern Mennonite College of Harrisonburg, Va., and it had eight more games scheduled in Fort Myers, Fla.

Cobb said the bus was southbound on I-75 when it crashed about 5:30 a.m. The driver may have mistaken an exit ramp for a lane, he said. It was dark at the time, but the weather was clear.

When the bus went off the bridge and landed on its side in the southbound lanes of the interstate.

The National Transportation Safety Board was called in to investigate.

Five fire trucks were at the scene as firefighters pulled crash victims through the roof of the bus. Baseball equipment bags littered the scene after the crash, and luggage spilled from the vehicle when it was set right side up.

There was blood on the overpass near where the bus went over.

When the bus was righted, it was clear that all the windows on the driver's side had been shattered, and there was considerable damage on the front of bus and on the roof above driver's seat.

Calls Friday to the charter company, Executive Coach Luxury Travel Inc. of Ottawa, Ohio, were not immediately returned. Harder said the school had used the company in the past.

Steve Rogers, a Bluffton University assistant football coach, said he was working out in the weight room with members of the football team around 6 a.m. when they saw news of the bus crash on television. When they saw the markings on the bus, "that's when reality hit everybody," he said.

"Nobody knew what to say or what to feel," he said.

His players started calling friends on the baseball team, trying to reach some by cell phone. "It hits home harder than it would if it had happened at a bigger school. Everybody knows each other," he said.

Matt Ferguson, a freshman on the baseball team from Pleasant Hill, Ohio, said most of the freshman position players stayed behind.

"We were bummed out we didn't get to go. Now, we don't know what to think," he said.

Ferguson said players had been hearing from those on the bus, mostly calling to say they were all right, he said. He'd heard many of the teammates on the bus were sleeping when the crash occurred.

"They didn't see it coming," Ferguson said.

The team is close-knit, he said. "It's one huge family. We spend all day together. We go to classes together. We do everything together."

At a chapel service the night before, students a had offered a prayer for their sports teams and other students to travel safely over spring break, said Barrington, a junior from Brooklyn Heights, Ohio.

"Sometimes you take that stuff for granted," she said.

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

Postcards

I was talking to Chelsea today and she expressed disappointment that she had gone from postcard list monopoly to not being represented on the list. She was almost to the point of sending a post card that she had intended to send with other mail just to get back on the list. That's dedication. I told her there was no need as she had 7 postcards that had gone unrecognized from a package she had sent, and that I would do a special post about those just for her. So I give you, Chelsea's 7 Postcards From Rome