Hot Chocolate for snobs

 In the interest of pandering to my prodigious affinity for Wishful Thinking, I made hot chocolate. Don't misunderstand. It's not cold today. Relatively speaking, it's cool. Ish. Cooler than it was in July. Practically long sleeve weather time. So I decided to indulge in an alternative-to-coffee beverage. It is more complicated than it sounds.

I'm not one for the pre-packaged hot chocolate mixes. I find them too sweet and some are even plastic tasting. I'd read a bit about cocoa nibs and was intrigued. They are being touted as an alternative to the caffeine heavy coffee and I'm thinking "what's wrong with caffeine?" but an alternative hot beverage is fine. Variety is good!  So not long ago we were at Your Dekalb Famer's Market (also known as My Happy Place) and they had tubs of cocoa nibs. Also this Costa Rican sugar that is minimally processed and has a delicious almost-molasses-but-sweeter flavor. I bought them because of course.

So, because reading instructions is for sissies, I dove right in to figure this stuff out. I ground up the nibs and mixed them with coffee for a brew. No chocolate flavor. How disappointing. The second time I used only nibs and brewed them (after a grind) in the coffee maker. Bleh. So weak and bland. Surely all those foody types touting this stuff don't mean this bland sad liquid. I gave in to common sense and read the methodology. Oh! French press not coffee maker! Roast the nibs first! Steep for much longer than you'd think! 

I roasted the nibs about 10 minutes at 350F (preheated) and caused the house to smell like the richest brownies ever conceived. Then ground those nibs, a bit more than would be used if they were coffee beans, and dumped them in the French press. 1/4 cup of nibs to 1-1/2 cups of boiling water and 10 minutes of steeping later, a decently chocolate hot drink happened but I still wasn't quite satisfied. Definitely better but not *quite* there.

Second time around, same amount of nibs, ground a little bit finer, same amount of boiling water. This time I added a tiny pinch of kosher salt and about 1/2 teaspoon of the fancy-pants Costa Rican sugar. 10 minutes steeping, and after pouring into the cup, about a tablespoon of heavy cream. THERE we are! It is a hot chocolate without being super sweet or overly creamy. Chocolately, comforty sit-on-the-couch-under-a-blankety beverage that I can't really trust anyone else to get right. Sort of like the chicken soup I want when I'm sick. There is a chewy sediment in the bottom of the cup that tastes like a deep dark chocolate almost baking chocolate but not as bitter thanks to the sugar. 

I suppose if I felt SUPER fancy I made homemade marshmallows to go on top, but I'm recovering from hand/wrist surgery and still kind of unmotivated to do things like that. Maybe by Christmas. As it is, whipped cream and a shaving of dark Ghirardelli would be fancy and good enough. 

Good Lord what is that THING....

 It was sometime in the 20-teens. I don't remember exactly when, I assume late Summer or Early Fall. Probably early Fall because I was at home alone. Anyway, for some reason I can't remember I was walking behind the storage shed in the backyard, when I happened up on an enormous and beautifully constructed, like PERFECTLY formed spider web...It was easily 3 feet in diameter. Right in the middle of this beautiful feat of engineering and natural art was a HUGE spider. I mean it was confusingly large.

"Oh!" I  thought. "A Spider of Unusual Size! And I have no idea what kind! Is it violent and poisonous? Will it leave it's lair with fangs dripping venom and blazing eyeballs and devour my dogs in their sleep?"  I knew it wasn't the normal yellow and black orb weaver that shows up every Fall. I love those. I call them my Ladies and move them gently if they build their webs in problematic spots.

I stared at the spider for several moments, waiting to see a reaction. It did not react. It did not care anything about me being there. Normally if I see a spider on a big web, I'll give a web leader a little tap to see it react, but not knowing anything about A Spider of Unusual Size, I (wisely, I believe) chose not to do this. I took note of it's unusual (to me) characteristics, it's fat thorax and long hairy legs, and unusual (to me) coloring. "Pretty thing" I thought....but had no idea of it's personality.

So, because we live in the miraculous Age of the Internet, I looked it up. The search engine was told to find "Huge spider with spotted body and potentially nefarious intentions"  (ok maybe not that second part) I figured there was some university entomology department with information. I read that this was known as a Joro spider, sometimes as a Banana spider (Trichonephila clavata), an invasive species from the Far East. "Ok, so is it dangerous? Will it eat my dogs, cause a child's limb to wither and fall off? Does it have TREACHEROUS INTENTIONS?"

I read on, and learned it is a fairly peaceful, non-venomous arachnid that "will only bite if it's abdomen is squeezed."  WHO IN THE HOLYHECK FOUND THAT OUT??

So I thought about it. I know how these things work. My father was a professor who regularly had a couple of graduate students under his mentorship. Graduate students generally do the scut work of research. (They also tend to show up at the house at 5:30 pm, for trivial reasons, silently hoping for an invitation to dinner...but that's a story for another day)  I decided I knew just how the "it will only bite if it's abdomen is squeezed" conclusion came about.

Entomology Professor (EP): Hum....Here's a spider that is Scary Looking. I wonder if it's violent and aggressive, or what.  HEY GRADUATE STUDENT...COME HERE.

Graduate Student (GS): SIR YES SIR (or something)

EP: See that giant scary spider? Go figure out it's personality. Molest that thing until it bites you, then see if you die.

GS: (gulp) SIR YES SIR

GS returns an hour later, limbs and constitution intact.

EP:....and?

GS: SIR...it only bites if you squeeze it's abdomen.

So after that, I told my Brave and Reckless Sons that there was a huge in interesting spider in the back yard, to leave it alone because it may bite.

Flying teeth hair and eyeballs or...O THE HORROR

The Time: Late evening, after dark

The Date: Mid-Summer, early 2000's

The Place: The deck off the back of the house, East Alabama

So. Picture this...it was a solid, average, middle-class family spending a warm Summer evening on the back deck. The Family consists of parents in their late 30's, and 4 sons aged 15,13,12,and 4.  

The Mother (that would be me) was doing something uninteresting and mother-like while everyone else was doing something...else. I don't even remember what.

While doing (whatever), The Mother (that would be me) noticed a movement on the brick wall of the house, next to the french doors that opened into the kitchen.

Now, understand that The Mother (that would be me) has an unreasonably strong adverse reaction to a certain type of bug common to the Deep South known as a Palmetto Bug. Palmetto Bugs are huge dark brown shiny greasy cockroach-type monsters with squinty eyes and nefarious intentions. 

The aformentioned movement was a Palmetto Bug of Unusual Size...quite large for a bug that leans toward 2 inches long on an ordinary day, this one was easily the size of a casserole dis...ok maybe I exaggerate but it was big enough for my near-sighted self to see it from 20 feet away and I could tell right away that nasty creature had ill intentions toward me. It was squinting at me and waving it's forelegs in a menacing manner. I didn't trust it.

As I stood there, trying to decide if I should ignore it or point it out to someone stronger and braver than I, IT LEPT OFF THE WALL AND FLEW STRAIGHT AT ME

Then, as I froze in fright...

IT FLEW DOWN THE FRONT OF MY SHIRT AND INTO MY BRA. 

My husband and children got to witness the world's fastest strip dance accompanied by a hypersonic shrieking and hyperventilating. 

And yes. Palmetto bugs are giant flying cockroaches.

Once I quit flailing and realized my sons were looking at me with shock and amusement, I put my shirt back on and asked for a Beverage.

Our COVID adventures

 In January of 2020, The Capt (aka The Fella) and I took a fun trip to the Florida Keys. We spent several days having a fantastic time, and came home. A few days later we both started feeling sick. Like a weird cold, only not, and after 3 days or so I felt better. He did not. He got worse. And worse, with fever and trouble breathing and all sorts of worrisome and "this ain't the flu but I don't know what else it might be" sorts of symptoms. After 12 days in the bed and coughing and trouble breathing I bullied him into going to the doctor. He was too sick to argue with me, and off we went. The doctor ordered some tests and said "It's not the flu or anything else we have tests for but I've heard of a strange new thing that's popping up, only we don't have a test for that and you are still alive and breathing so I'm going to say go home and treat it like the flu. I'm sorry I can't do more for you."

Through all of this I'm looking at the breathing issues and handing him my asthma inhaler a few times  day. It seems to help.  We have a couple of tanks of 32% Nitrox, for scuba diving and I'm eyeballing that pretty hard, thinking maybe I oughta attach a regulator and make him breathe on that instead of the normal 21% O2 air we all breathe. He's a certified O2 provider (as a DAN <dive medicine> instructor) so I could pump him full of enough drugs to briefly function and go to AirGas and get an O2 bottle. I didn't do that but sure thought about it hard.

After several weeks he's breathing better, still feeling crappy, but at least I'm not looking at his gums and nail beds to make sure he's getting enough air. He starts to feel a bit better, able to function and do the things he loves, like teaching scuba diving, work on getting his charter boat put together and ready for work, and do some stuff around here. Still not back to his old self, but improving so I am feeling good about his recovery.  We make a few fun trips, do some diving, and I notice his stamina isn't what it used to be.

Nope, it's not. He was an all-day goer, prior to getting whatever this mysterious disease was. And...food ain't right. Everything smells weird, tastes weird, all the really good stuff like bacon and grilled steaks smell...ew. Like rotten meat. His favorite food of all time, shrimp....He eats a few and has to stop because he gags on it. When we met in 2017, he could go to Reinhart's in Augusta and put away 4 dozen. He could sit down to a plate of a dozen Oysters Bienville and then order more. and no, he wasn't fat. He was a muscular and solid beast of a man.

On particular dive trip down to Roatan, Honduras, we did what's called a "hot dive", that is, jumped into the water and immediately dropped down. Typically on a dive, you jump in, spend a moment on the surface, and slowly descend. But, the waters were rough that day, so down we went. Afterwards he experienced a sharp pain in his ear and he assumed that hot dive and messed with it. Then later on, after returning home, the pain was in a tooth, so he went to a dentist. The dentist determined it wasn't a tooth, and did a CT of his head. Sinuses, he said. Go to an ENT. That was done, and the ENT said sinus infection and here's some antibiotics. That didn't work so he did a "roto-rooter" surgery and figured out that infection had been there likely since...early 2020. When Capt was sick with (we figured it out) COVID. 18 months ago. He'd had a sinus infection for 18 months. Gross. Surgery cleared it all out (eventually, I won't go into the details of the recovery. Suffice to say it was...interesting.)  Something happened during the surgery, we haven't gotten an answer. He came out of sinus surgery with bruises on his lower back and a vertebrae (L4) shifted out of alignment. Yes. It hurt and No, no one will tell us what happened, only that "No, of course you weren't dropped during surgery!"

And he has very gradually become weaker, more depressed, less able to function. Prior to being sick, he'd had a heart stress test and was informed that he had the heart of a 25 year old athlete (he was 53). Now he has blockages, including an 80% one that required a stent. Because of that he's on a blood thinner. More fatigue. 

He can't eat much more than fruit and meal replacement shakes. Occasionally he'll crave something in particular, like fajitas, and we'll jump in the car and go to a Mexican restaurant and get fajitas. He has a few favorite foods from his childhood, a certain casserole in particular, that he can eat a bit of, but a full meal, of the sort you and I can sit down to and enjoy? Forgetaboutit. He's lost a lot of weight, a huge amount of his muscle mass (seriously. When we met he was STRONG, and a bulky chunk of solid muscle.), and has no energy.

We have been to multiple doctors, looking at every system for answers. They all say the same thing. "Your (enter system) seems to be fine, I can't find anything wrong with it. I've seen this in a few other patients. They all had COVID. You probably have Long COVID and we can't do anything for it. Run along."  Chest pains? Cardiologist. Ook, yeah you've got a blockage.. here's a stent. Irregular heart beat, yeah I see that, here's a pill (that didn't help. Here's a different one. Same thing. Here's a different one.) 4 pills later one has been found that seems to be working a bit. Still chest pains, so a pulmonologist does some tests. Nothing wrong, move on, move on.  Digestive, can't swallow, stomach pains, gastroenterologist runs tests, nothing wrong, Long COVID probably. Sorry, can't help. Back surgeon, yep, can see the problem with your back, I can fix that.

In the mean time, he can't sleep, has anxiety attacks, can't run charters or teach diving, can't eat, loses weight, gets weaker, angrier, more frustrated, more depressed. I try to help and fail. I've got all kinds of shortcomings of my own (mainly personality stuff) and am also frustrated and feel helpless.

So I wonder if the issues are side effects from his medications, and look all that up. They can be, only everything started before the heart stuff. I look up Long COVID and go down the list of symptoms. Check, check, checkity check. Is the fatigue a result of not being able to eat full meals, medication, or syndrome? This huge constellation of symptoms, seemingly unrelated but apparently all caused by the same thing (according to the doctors)is frustrating beyond belief. 

The big question behind all of it is WHY? Let's say it was purely an accident that this disease was let loose on the world, part of a Pandora's Box situation. WHY has a previously strong and healthy man been laid low? then let's say it wasn't an accident and the conspiracy theorists are right. I don't even want to go there but that could be my own propensity to bury my head in the sand and want it all to go away and we return to 2019 and dreams of a charter business and scuba instructing and a place to live that's tropical.  *poof*

But, you know, they say if you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plans. Every day I pray for God to heal him, for the doctors to have wisdom and come up with a solution, for a return to Life as we knew it. God will do what God will do and I can ask for all sorts of things and He will still do what He does. Planned out from the beginning of time, we're threads in a tapestry that we can't see in it's entirety.  

In the mean time, I see how plans and dreams were thwarted for no apparent reason but in retrospect, how terrible it would be if we were stuck in a place with financial obligations and work obligations and an inability to fulfill them due to infirmity.  We'd looked at Panama (the country), even talked to a real estate agent and an immigration attorney. The day before we were to fly there I got sick with a cold. The idea of flying to a tropical paradise only to be quarantined in a hotel for 2 weeks was unpleasant, so we cancelled the trip. Not long after, all hell broke loose there and we recognized God's hand in stopping that endeavor.  If Capt had been able to follow through on the myriad job offers for running charters for others, then got so ill as he did after the sinus surgery, we'd be stuck some place with financial obligations that couldn't be met because of the inability to work. As unpleasant as the whole situation is right now, God's hand in closing windows and doors is very apparent.  

So now, we wait to see where and what it is we're meant to do. Neither of us wait very well.

Ch...ch...ch...changes

 Over the last few years (basically since Himself died, and then meeting Capt) I have seen/experienced significant changes, of a personal nature. I've become more aware of how my actions affect others, and am more conscious (ok, try to be, anyway) of what I say, facial expressions, etc...so I can be more tactful. I can't say I always succeed, as it's a lifelong habit that needs changing. I am about as tactless as a...um...something tactless. (It's afternoon and I'm working on the brain-fog-eliminating coffee). I'm not very good at it but I'm trying. 

I've also changed a lot physically. A LOT. My body has shrunk from a 210 pound size 20 to a 145 pound size 8/10. HOW? I quit eating. No seriously. No fancy diet plan, no nutritionist or calorie counting. I just...cut everything down by about 2/3 and eliminated (well, mostly. Some things, like tomato sandwiches, I can't and WON'T give up entirely) wheat. I am not deprived of the really good things like excellent french fries or high dollar ice cream. I still eat chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes, and gravy. I just... quit eating as much of all those things. Except for the occasional mood-induced consumption of an entire pint of Talenti caramel gelato. I mean...sometimes a woman's gotta just do it. Especially while binge-watching Yellowstone. C'mon. What Would Beth Do? 

The problem with the physical change is that the mental acceptance of said change is having trouble catching up. I go to buy clothes, and head straight for the size 12. I mean, when I was a size 20, 12 seemed like the Ultimate. It was the End Goal, the Dream I Didn't Think I'd Achieve. But, putting it on and it's huge. Way too big. Ok, so try a 10. That's better but still a little loose but the ol' brain that still thinks I'm in the late upper half of the 100's balks at anything smaller, screaming DON'T KID YOURSELF, GRANNY. YOU HAVEN'T BEEN AN 8 SINCE 1989. So I console the brain by figuring out how to alter the item to make it fit. (Just buy the 8 you dingus) (no, I can't. I am not an 8. Only slender people are an 8, You know, people that aren't me.)

Now and then I'll actually take time to look in the mirror. It's always startling. I have long hair now, down to the middle of my back, and it's wavy, blond, with streaks of silver. Where the heck did that come from? I don't have that hair. I have short mousy colored hair, in an unflattering-yet-practical cut of the sort busy moms (who don't have time to care for themselves) wear. The blond is a result of the sun, working outside, and not wearing a hat. There's a tan on the skin there too. Also a result of working outside. And I am very uncomfortable talking about liking what I see in the mirror. It smacks of vanity, self-absorption, several other self-pejorative qualities I was raised to abhor.  Phrases I heard growing up come to mind. 

"It's a good thing you're smart because you'll never be pretty" (A family member)

"Why are you here? No one wants to see your face." (High school)

"Go get a bag to put over your head" (High school)

"You're fat. Go away." (Middle school)

and...(here's the big one. It's what makes this post so awkward and uncomfortable...)

"Nobody cares what you have to say."

Those voices are loud in my head. I try to ignore them, but you know how it is. For some reason your brain gloms onto the negatives and ignores the positives. Those negatives, I don't know why they're so much louder than the good things. Especially since I haven't heard those things since the early 1980's. 40 years. Words are so incredibly powerful. That "sticks and stones" thing? It's bullshit. They do so hurt.

But now I am trying. I am, right now, in the midst of getting new things in my wardrobe. Things that FIT. That fit and suit my kind of oddball sense of style. I like skirts that float round my legs, that have embroidery or beading on them and look good with a fitted t-shirt and a pair of comfortable sneakers. But dammit I will NOT PAY FULL PRICE. No. no no no no no. Thrift store thankyouverymuch. And Ebay. and now there's this new (to me) place called ThredUp. Oh lord what a rabbit hole that has been. The past couple of days, and continuing into next week, there has (and will be) a steady flow of packages with clothes I sucked in my psyche and punched the Size 8 option (gosh that was scary. I can't even tell you how much but woah...) and hit send. And...they fit. Not tight, not loose, and I'm not even planning on the "but I might gain back my weight" in that same corner of the brain that had me getting clothes for the kids a bit big so they could grow into them. 

Now, Capt looks at what I get and says things like "that's definitely You." He's gotten me some nice things that fit well, but are a little scary because they aren't the sorts of things I'd gravitate toward, and yet, they're comfortable and I like them! A Lot! I'm not sure if the "that's definitely You." is necessarily a compliment, but I like these smile-inducing skirts with the beads and embroidery and floaty style. 

Oh! 2 of them (this is SO COOL!) are made from recycled Indian saris....you know, that long long piece of beautiful silk fabric Indian women wrap around themselves as a garment? That have amazing prints and borders on them? Yeah those! Long hippie floaty wrap skirts that are so cool and comfortable and colorful and I don't even care that it's an odd concept for a skirt because they make me smile. I can braid my hair (that's LONG! What the heck!) and wear a peasant blouse from the 1970's and some Jesus sandals and look like my aunt who was a bona fide hippie in the early 70's. 

I'm hoping before too long my brain will catch up with my phyz, and I'll accept what the mirror says, relax, and enjoy it. I'm 57 now, and will never be mistaken for a supermodel. And that's ok. At this age, it's not something I aspire to (never have really...remember the "good thing you're smart..." comment?) but being able to accept the words of the person who loves me best, and whom I love best (Hi, Capt!) as reality, instead of "oh he's just being nice because he has to" is kind of a new thing, and strange, yet wonderful. Buying clothes that are smaller than I ever thought possible, and not having to return them because of size, is also a strange, yet wonderful, thing. Learning to love without self-condemnation and silent internal accusations of Vanity and Pride is...difficult. But it all goes together. Wearing the right size clothes. Looking in the mirror. Allowing love into the brain. Recognizing personal worth as a human isn't based in what someone told you when you were 12, but rather based in the knowledge that you are Loved and Valued by Someone who saw fit to create you and put you on this planet, fearfully and wonderfully made. Psalm 139:14 says "I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

Now, I know my value as a person isn't based on how I look, what size I am today, or anything other than being a child of God, fearfully and wonderfully made. But wow, it is a peculiar feeling to have a body that is of a sort I never thought would happen, to be able to find clothes that fit both my style and my body. To be able to get up off the floor without help, climb stairs without getting winded, even accept a compliment as genuine and not some sort of relational obligation. 

Ch...ch...changes (Turn and face the strange)

 2 gold stars to the person who knows the origin of the title.

(I'm going to make the text bigger)

There. That's better. Old people problems, starting with eyesight. What happens? What are the changes? Dry hair and skin (I'm going to start at the top and work my way down). Gray hair (not a problem, mine's silver and I like it). Dry skin means no more acne (YAY!). Eyesight changes. I was so offended when the optometrist told me I needed bifocals. 

 Skin that, shall we say, sags on my face. As a seamstress I understand how to fix that with assorted tucks and alterations. However, as Not a Doctor, I won't do it on myself. Occasionally I'll look in the mirror and pull back a bit right at my ears, and temporarily lose 10 years from the look of my face. As a frugal (some say cheap) person, I will not spend the money to do something so frivolous as get a facelift. Nor will I do other things to youngify (I just verbed an adverb!) my body, especially if it's purely cosmetic. Other things sag as well, but since I'm not a Ford Model, or a Bunny, or anyone else with a Sugar Daddy W/Deep Pockets, those procedures will remain undone.

It is an odd feeling, is it not, to have the same brain as I had when I was 16 or 20, only with 56 years worth of experiences. To have children older than I was when I gave birth to them. My youngest is nearing 23 (on the 31st). My mental image of him is from a series of photographs I took when he was 4. He was wearing blue overalls and a bright red shirt, playing in the back yard with his Tonka trucks. I am sure he would resent me thinking of him this way. One surprising lesson I learned with having 4 kids was this: Each child remained a baby until the next one came along. I have no trouble seeing the other 3 as adults in their 30's. Even if they don't act like it. (another story that shall remain untold here). But #4...sigh. Capt has been instrumental in me treating #4 like an adult. 

I remember, as a child, having Nuclear Bomb Drills. Those involved crouching under my desk at school. As if those desks were All Powerful Protection against a weapon only God could contain. Now kids do Active Shooter drills. With the way things are going at the moment (March 16, 2022), it may not be too long before Nuclear Bomb Drills are reinstated. I hate (grieve, worry) that the world seems to be headed that direction. Our current administration is as weak as it's ever been, and the rest of the world knows that. 

Which brings me to the other changes.  Capt and I are dreamers. We've worked hard to facilitate dreams we've both had for a very long time. Scuba diving, fishing charter, an RV to live in while running fishing charters. A place in Florida to park the RV. All things we've done to further a life we have both wanted. Now? Fuel costs mean it would cost more to go to Florida than the price of a charter. The boat and truck are parked. Hell, it costs $10 in fuel just to go to town and back. So we drive the little one, it's gas instead of diesel so it's only $4 for a run to town. We are doing work on the Alabama property now, getting it functional in the event we actually have to live here full time and grow our own food. We can do it and I am thankful we have the option. Not everyone does. But getting all ready and excited then having it yanked out from underneath by an event over which we have no control is...well...offensive. Yes. I'm offended. And angry. And resentful. I'm also pissed that my family doesn't understand what I'm feeling. They all think I should be perfectly content to stay right here (like they are) and simply don't understand why I would ever want to do something so frivolous as, y'know...have a dream and want to follow it. Pisses me right the hell off. All of it. 

All I really want to do now, since I can't go to Florida (or the Caribbean, thank you COVID You Asshole) is sit on the couch and read books. Let the house go to pot (Eventually pride and bipolar mania will set in and I'll clean things up), eat salad from a bag and cheetoes, and occasionally walk the property and wish.

But, thanks to ch...ch...changes and all the strange I have to face, thanks to inflation and fuel costs and other things I have to complain about, I am forced to sit here and reconsider it all. I am being made to face my own selfish sense of entitlement because I've got a nice roof over my head, no one is throwing bombs at my children, or blowing up the grocery store....in which there is ample food (even if there's no hashbrown patties and limited selection of Ore-Ida frozen potatoes). I have a way to plant a garden that I know won't get run over by army tanks, and plenty of seeds. If it came down to it, there's a pond full of fish and a backyard full of healthy squirrels and an occasional deer. I can make a mean Brunswick stew with a couple of squirrels and some leftover pork. I've got dependable electricity, and the ability/know-how for preserving food if electricity fails. So really, in the grand scheme of things and in spite of all my griping, I've got it good. Sometimes I need to remind myself.

Sunday, Sunday

I love a Sunday morning. It has a certain vibe to it, probably from 56 years of conditioning that Sunday is a Day Apart.

I remember when we lived in Illinois. We moved there when I was 5, and then to Georgia when I was 9. Sundays involved Mom insisting I wear a dress (BLEH!), and church was close enough that, weather permitting, we'd ride our bikes instead of driving. I never thought anything of it. The place we attended, a Presbyterian church, had a very contemporary style sanctuary. After the service I would go up with a couple of other kids, and blow out the candles, then dip my fingers in the hot melted wax to make fingerprints.  Sunday Dinner afterwards was always something Mom had put together to slow cook in the electric skillet, or whatever that thing was called that was a precursor to a crock pot. Usually it was chicken and rice. That's still my favorite meal although I make it a little different from the way she did.

After we moved to Georgia, we started out at the little church near our house, up on the top of the hill. Something Happened, and we changed to another small church in town. It's the one where I took Confirmation Classes and had my First Communion. I was able to convince the (whoever...pastor? Elders? I don't know) that we should be allowed to keep the little cup from that Communion. I still have it somewhere.  Then Something Happened, and we changed to a large church in the big town nearby. I don't know what happened, but I have learned over time and maturity that someone would do or say something that my parents disagreed with, and we'd move.

Same pattern after we moved to Alabama when I was 17. Start out at a church, get pissed, move churches. Eventually I married and moved away. I wasn't as diligent about attending church then. Sundays involved a certain "do I feel like it today?" until the kids were old enough to need Sunday School, and we began attending regularly again. There were still days of "do I feel like it?" or perhaps, with so many children, someone had a cold or something. But I enjoyed the fellowship and was a regular participant in Bible/book studies, handbell choir, and the like. 

When I had a mental breakdown (another story for another time) I found I'd have serious panic attacks when I was in the worship service. I discussed with the pastor, who, fortuitously, also had a PhD in clinical psychology. He suggested I skip the main service, and do what I could. Perhaps attend the smaller evening services held in the little chapel. Those were much easier. Then we moved. For some reason the panic attacks stopped (Thank goodness!) and we began attending main services again. Until we had to stop, again.

My second son had some serious allergies, and being around people wearing perfumes would give him terrible headaches. We tried sitting in different parts of the sanctuary, even up in the balcony, but there was always someone wearing too much scent. So we quit attending services, just going to Sunday School, and I attended weekday Bible/book studies and handbell choir. 

Then we moved. The kids were in middle/high school by then. For 5 years we didn't go to church at all. I didn't want to go alone (we let the kids make their own decisions about church when they started high school), as my husband worked 7 days a week. I thought it would make him look bad if I went and he didn't. Until one day, a friend called me a White American Heathen (She's a Black Ethiopian African) and said I Needed Church. Ok, fine, so we (one of Himself's rare days off) visited her church (A Presbyterian one) and I was instantly hooked, and started attending regularly again. I went whether Himself could or not. The youngest (4th grade by this time) came with, and made friends. After a year we put Son4 into the small private school associated with the church. I made friends, attended Bible/book studies, and joined a weekly Prayer Group. I learned what a Real Church feels like, with family, accountability, help in a time of need. 

Himself died, church helped immediately after, kids fell all apart and I heard things like "Oh dear!". A few men stepped in to try and help with Son4 (16 by this time)...but not much was done to help with the older kids (in their 20's) and I was struggling mentally and spiritually. I met Capt, and because of reasons, left the church and we moved here.

Now, we've tried to find a church, having visited a few. We started regularly attending one, and I did some Bible studies and helped with the Children's Program a bit. But, because of really logical reasons, and a strong feeling of betrayal by the leadership (not my story to tell but it's ugly), we left. We had never formally joined but...anyway. We left.

Now, we don't have a church. Sunday mornings are spent drinking coffee, catching up on the whatever, maybe one of us will go back to bed for a bit. I spend time thinking about life, and philosophizing. 

I kind of miss Church, the fellowship, the dressing up a little, maybe having lunch with someone afterwards. I miss all that. We are at a turning point in our lives right now. Maybe moving soon, so getting involved with something is kind of pointless, at least until we know what we're doing. I haven't left God...Oh no. He's done too many good things in my life for me to want to do that. I have too much gratitude to wander away. That said, the man-made institution of organized religion had an unpleasant taste in my mouth right now. There's a lot I do miss but there's a lot I don't. I have seen some of my good friends hurt and betrayed by the institution into which they put their entire trust. I want to be very careful in how we choose one. There is no perfect church. They are all made of flawed human beings, but somewhere there is one that will minister to our particular needs, and in which we can also serve effectively and help someone else who needs it. 

In the mean time, I maintain this feeling that Sunday is somehow a Different Day from all the others. It's a day of rest and reflection, of remembering where I came from and to Whom I should be grateful for what I have.