Narrate

December 5, 2011


Many weeks and months have passed since I gave a straight narrative of the Buenger activities (don't you feel boredom coming on, just anticipating a recital of "we went _______" then "we ate ______" and "saw ________").  Well, if your friends can't give you a little boredom and a chance to snooze at the screen this hectic, fast-paced, and stressful time of year, then what are friends for?


Do you believe in coincidences?  Me neither.  Except, here's what I read on my friend D'Anna's facebook page tonight:


Don't you just hate when you painstakingly prepare a beautiful quiche, put it in the oven, wait patiently for the timer to go off alerting you that your masterpiece is ready, and then discover that you forgot to turn the oven on? Yeah, me too.


The exact same thing happened to me last Tuesday.  I decided that I would whip up a quiche and use up the extra pie crust I made for Thanksgiving (and I want you to notice that I was using healthy ingredients, like broccoli instead of Karo syrup and sugar or chocolate and heavy cream).  I know I had the oven on at some point, because I baked the crust for about ten minuted before I filled it.  


Anyway, I checked it at the minimum bake time and thought the egg part still looked runny.  It also looked that way at the maximum bake time.  At some point around then I noticed the oven was off, but I thought I might have turned it off the first time I checked it.  I kept cooking it a little more and a little more.  Eventually, I doubled down on the bake time and pulled a decent well-cooked quiche out of the oven to serve to The Very Hungry Caterpillar Walter.


Given that very lame mistake, I was a bit leery when I was tapped as the voice of God for the liturgy on Sunday.  However, when I thought about it, I figured acting as God, even for just a few minutes at the beginning of a church service might be pretty handy for someone like me.  If I forgot to heat the quiche, I might just smite it down or materialize as a burning bush to finish it off.  Did I mention I was the voice of the Old Testament Hebrew God?  


The God-thing was fine for those few moments during the worship service, but no residual effect lingered that gave me the capacity to answer prayers or even comfort my people (which was the theme of the liturgy).  I haven't even been able to channel my inner God to connect with Elaine and Mark and catch up with their doings down under.  Every time I get on the computer, it seems like they have just moved on to something else.  Plus, my trusty little MacBook is about to go to MacBook heaven.  Even the Geek Squad only offered workarounds to make me more comfortable until the inevitable end comes.  Can I enroll in Mac Hospice?  


[Note Bene:  if you come across a word or letter that doesn't belong in a sentence, it is NOT MY FAULT.  Part of my Mac disease is cursor hopping.  I'll be typing along at the speed of molasses--looking at the keyboard so I don't make mistakes, of course--and when I look up at the screen, my little blinky friend has decided to pay a visit to the previous line or take a Ground Hog's Day trip back several words, returning repeatedly like some perverse arsonist admiring the burning building.  My touch pad is no better, picking up random parts of the screen and moving them by slight of hand.  I won't even mention the spinning beach ball of death that haunts any effort that requires more than a minimum of active memory.]

Having discovered that I neither had God-like powers to resurrect my Macbook from death or even the ability to properly time the baking of dinner, Walter left this morning--choosing to entertain himself in the archives in Austin for the week.  I think he also noticed the fit of organizing and furniture re-arranging that struck me when I finished class for the  semester last Thursday.  We now have a fresh look in the living room and all indications are that I plan to  steamroll my way through the house, until everything is flattened or at least de-cluttered and put away.


I don't know why I'm such an invalid when it comes to keeping up with household chores and normal, routine activities during the semester.   All I can say, that I don't have classes and my schedule still doesn't have much wiggle room.  But at least by tomorrow the laundry, including all the towels and 
sheets) will be washed and I will have a fresh haircut.


Wednesday, Erin's Dream Wands, which played a small role in the lighting of the Childhood Cancer Awareness Christmas Tree (Thanks to Ruth Hoffman and Amber Masso of the American Childhood Cancer Organization and the teens and teachers at Hammond-Oliver High School), will serve as the First Presbyterian Church, Bryan's Advent service project.  We will be making wands for the Cure Me, I'm  
Irish fund raising event in Boston in March, benefitting groundbreaking neuroblastoma research.

Then, the lanyards and other beaded delights are headed back to Canyon Creek Presbyterian Church for   the Women's Dinner and gift market on Thursday night.


No doubt Presbyterians all around will be saying God is among us this week.