Ghent

When I mention Ghent, two people have quoted to me now: "Tell me you went to Bruges first.  You don't want to miss that gem." 

What movie is this from?  I feel out of it for not knowing the quote.  Is it from the 2008 Colin Farrel flick "In Bruges"?  I'm at a loss.

Regardless, Ghent was a Gem indeed.  There aren't words for how the clear slanty autumn rays bathed this city in light.  Maybe some pics will suffice.  I wish I was Courtney or Jodie or Elisa at this juncture.



This is Grace, roomate extraordinaire!

George, Lindsey and Grace.

The symbols of  Ghent.

Grace Choi shown for Scale.   This was a two-handed sword.  Obviuosly.

George drinking Mussel juice.  Grace pretending to drink Mussel juice for purposes of the photo.  To me, the smarter option of the two. ;)

Bikes literally as far as the eye could see.  I think this is where bikes are grown. 

Chasing Light.

To quote the Dassler, "Glory be to God for Dappled things."

Belgian iPhone Nights.

The iPhone camera has this cool button that switches the camera from the back of the phone to the face of the phone  Thus, I can capture my face looking like this....when I look at things like this:

Ew.  As if regular ones weren't weird enough.  These are orange.  And I dont know why.
Yes, lets keep them on the "DL".  

More Grocery Store Prophecy.  I give you Cheesus of Nazareth.

Mia also knows exactly how to take a picture of herself as she looks at the phone.  In rapid succession.  I had about 50 of her thumb.

And of her folks.



And of Gordon.  Who made us dinner.  Lamb Shanks stuffed with Goat Cheese and Olives, slathered in Spicy Dijon mustard and rolled in bread crumbs.  Parmesean Risotto, veggies, and vanilla ice cream with fresh Strawberries.  Love this guy.   (PS I stuffed the lamb LOOK OUT!).

Mia also loves taking and watching video of herself.  We watched this video about 20 times.  And she would laugh every time.



Belgium Sneek Peek.



Don't be fooled, this is actually a  HUGE smile.  (I had just given her one of my rings to play with!)



There are indeed waffles under there.

Amelia loves to "Cheers".  She learned it on the Amstel tour. 

The Flat.

Dont be fooled.  I had just given George one of my rings to play with.

October

Summer-y.

Liz got a ring.

She also had a blue and orange shower.

Julee and Nell got new outfits on Labor Day.



Indiana Eye Candy.  Thanks, Earth.



 St. Louis had some good days in June.



The Cards had 14 runs.  Too little, too late.

Had some good dates in June as well.

That's right, Fade, Ditto, Ditto, Fade.  I got a great scrabble partner.

Luke got some goat. 

Awwwwww CREEP OUT!

Uh.  SO the following pieces of "art" are hanging at my present employment location.  They say the definition of "art" is anything that elicits an emotion.  Thus, I think this does qualify as "art".  I am sufficiently creeped out.  All the time.  Some of these are in the kitchen areas...and I didn't even come close to capturing everything that deserved capturing.  Tell me I'm not crazy to think these are odd at best?

Nothing like a "pig-rooster-fish".  In the kitchen.

"Laser Dog"

The family that doesn't know what to do with it's hands.

Ok this is not super creepy, since I found out it was for an ad campaign back in the day.

This smacks of severed body parts.

This wasn't creepy since I actually was in Switzerland and they do have a profound number of hard-boiled eggs, but otherwise, I would have found this odd.

Hey. This is how people used to "measure" stuff back in the day. Let's hang it up!

Dear Diary

Last night I arrived at the Hampton making excellent time from Chicago.  Except that the rental car clock was wrong.  It was not that excellent after all, but I didn't know that until morning.  I got to my room more than half an hour after I parked the car and thought WOW that check in was long.  However, that was no stretch because check in WAS long.   They didn't have my reservation but that gave me time to boot up my computer, which gave me time to capture this funny sign.  The Hampton has a "guest of the day". 

Today it was NOT Barbra Boget.  Hmm.   Shame on her.  Wonder what she did....  asked for too many towels...rented by the hour?   Oppressed Mark Phillippe?   I do not know how one becomes Guest of the Day or what one gets for being said Guest of the Day.  I know there is a special parking place, but beyond that I am unclear.  

 I proceeded to arrive at work ("early?, no LATE, no no phone is right ON TIME, whew, OK") was immediately whisked up to the area above the production room ceiling.  A literal stainless steel forest of pipes, hangers, duct and cables.  "Don't step here, but don't worry if you do, the safety nets will catch you.  We have never tested it, but it's prolly good."
I was literally on my stomach at 8:30 this morning clinging to a steel beam.

Later I ate at Jimmy John's.  I didn't know that they were quite SO fast... I mean I had literally just handed over my visa and my number 16 sub was thrust back into my hand with my receipt.  I was further impressed when two delivery boys came sprinting out of their cars into the shop for more orders.  And I was a bit less impressed when not one, but BOTH of them completely independently "forgot" something, had to go sprinting back in for something else, and BOTH of them came back out and tripped over themselves.  One guy got completely tangled up in his own empty delivery box as he was maneuvering it out the door.  Maybe Jimmy John's business plan is just inefficient.  But I'm absolutely sure I could work there.  They didn't call me Mach 10 for nothing.   

Several of random conversations with strangers.
"You must play volleyball."  "Yes, I do, and Basketball." (security guard at airport)
"You must play volleyball."  "Yes, I do, and Basketball."  (co-worker lady in the bathroom)
"You must be wicked smart." "Yes, I am." (enterprise guy)
"Must not be too smart, because you could be saving money on one of our corporate deals...." (enterprise guy)

Tips Toward More Picturesque Speech and Phase 2.

My brother in Mexico:

"Yeah my buddy is badly sunburned.  I mean, his back looks like Joe Pesci's hand after he grabbed the doorknob in Home Alone".

Phase 2 of the healing process is underway.  I want to thank everyone who has been so great and so patient with me as I continue the process.   I am sure I have thirteen Father's Day posts brewing for my Dad's care alone and that wouldn't be enough.

Phase 2 means I have downgraded from "wolverine with slege" to only an "occassional freak out/sock monkey attack".  It means I sold my house.  One set of giant responsibilities gone.  Downsized a little.  Unshackled a lot.  It was absolutely not emotional for me to leave the house at all.  I really thought it would be a little bit more.  I had more attachment to the DMV I think, because of the monumental good times that were had there and the memories that place held (Anyone remember the night of the burning cork? Almost cost me my security deposit, thanks Mark and JD).   Moreso, I think it was unemotional because I truly believe God wanted me to sell the house.  (Insert disclaimer about not wanting to sound crazy here.  I am always leery* of people who use that phrase a lot.  How do you KNOW he told you ANYTHING).  Well.  I think the gut has a lot to do with it.  And I think complete detachment and looking up at the sky and saying "Well, whatever.  What.  Ever.  You. Want.  I'll do it.  I'll do anything.  Just please tell me, because you know best, you know the past the present and the future, you made me, and you can see around the corners that I cannot and I completely trust You."  

The series of circumstances around the sale of the house in this Market worked out almost flawlessly.  I didn't lose my shirt.  Maybe only some earmuffs.  A few hiccups here and there that threatened the deal (and here I am not even closed yet, maybe I speak to soon).  Moving happened (or is still happening), with only a few minor tragedies.  Me falling down the basement stairs as one, and the boxspring mattresses not fitting up the stairs being another.  (It must be noted publicly, and I choose this venue:  Luke, you were wrong about King sized matress box springs belonging to people with only King-sized houses.  They come as two twins. BAM).

The transition into Phase 2 was aided by some new scenery.  I was in Michigan for work recently and I didn't have the luxury of sulking.  New people, new situations, new harassment kept me on my toes and forced me to drop the "woe is me" and pick up my big stick. 

There are signs of life.  Lightness, even.  The key will be to maintain a fair distance from things that make me question myself, delete the accusatory words that are bunk, and cling to Jesus, who has answered all my questions, tended my wounds, secured my future, hasn't prevented pain or trouble, and loves me enough to die for me.  (I cant deal with it...can you?)

Not out of any woods.  Still in the place where infection can set into the stitched up wound.  But I hope soon it will become a light scar attached to a story about the goodness of God.  Come quickly Phase 3.

* It has come to my attention that I use the word "leery" incorrectly".  I think it's correct in this context. 

Just Wow. Thanks Tosh.0

Random Text Messages:

To me.  From an unknown number at 6:15 am.

"U better man up.  Wants good.  Sexy. Sheryl"

Me:  "???"  {Who the frack is this?  And what the heck are they saying?  Who do I know named "Sheryl"?}

"Do you know what i'm talking about? Sexy.Sheryl"

Me:  "Who is this?"

"Sheryl.  Sexy. Sheryl."  {Ok.  Must be her signature...Thanks Sheryl.  I thought you were calling ME "Sexy Dot'.}

Me:  "Do I know you?"

"Wow.  Bus 766? Sexy.Sheryl"  {Ok.  Now i'm 100% Sure this is no Sheryl of mine}

Me:  "I think you have the wrong number."

Just a Reactionary

I promised deep, overly personal writing and here it is.

Hi.

I have been walking thru a weird but, I think, good tunnel with God. Post-break-up, I have been trying to keep busy. Keep my head up. Keep the TV watching and crying to a minimum by watching TV with people and crying only in the bathtub at night. I have been engaging in the typical extreme behaviour reactions that characterize my very life. This includes pledging nunnery and joining eharmony. Immersing myself in social events and sleeping until 2:30pm on beautiful Saturdays. Beating myself up and numbing myself. Swinging between the two attempts at control that Jan Meyers called me out on in her book, The Allure of Hope, which, I think along with The Ragamuffin Gospel, must be close to canonized into holy scriptures by now. Jan is buddies with the Wild at Heart crew. And I have to admit, have always had a wildly divided heart toward those books. I think I know why.

The trecherous prescription is waiting and hoping. Despite the past and the bleakness of the earthly future.

That doesn't seem sufficient enough for me and certainly feels like someone let a rabid wolverine with a sledgehammer loose in my ribcage. He's trying to play me like a xylophone from the inside, and God seems to say: "Feel this. It's good. It's how I made you. To feel appropriate emotions."

I say: "Ugh."

So I know I'm not the only person with dissappointments. So that is why I blog. Maybe I am not the only person who needed to hear this. My pendulum freakishly swings. I do stuff extremely. I always have. A person finding themselves in my shoes has what Jan calls three options, or what I have been calling "three doors."

Door number one: I'm going to kick sorrow's ass if it kills me. Or you. Or I'm gonna beat myself senseless so God doesn't feel the need to arrange my life to punish me this way. That means clean up. It means CLAMOUR. Re-double ministry efforts, service projects, find out what needs to be fixed, focus on self-improvement. Surely all these things will get you what you want. Invite people places. Be less weird. Your pain must have a reason. You are flawed. Change you.

The second door is also extreme. Accept despair. Lower expectations. Avoid being dissappointed. You don't deserve anything better anyway. Shut your heart down. Drug the wolverine. Take away his sledge. You want TOO MUCH. Change your want.

Or. The sucky awesome option of door number three. The only real one anyway. The other two hopefully are short-lived dissatisfying fixes. (Sadly I think they can easily become hotel rooms we check into and never check out of). Door number three is to feel the reality of the pain, but not to doubt the goodness of God who allowed it. And keep hope alive while walking in the tension that your desires may not be granted in this life. I am just talking about my chronic single-ness and lack of direction in life here. Some people have much worse lots to apply this thinking to and I. CAN. NOT. IMAGINE. some of them. We were all made for more than this. But we are ALL loved and seen, just as we are, right now. You are loved AND you don't desire enough.

I read this paragraph about sixteen times the other night.

"I see you. Your loveliness is intoxicating Your heart is full and substantial, and I am drawn to know you. I see your confusion, stubbornness, and darkness, and I will not back away. You are not too much for Me. You are deeply enjoyable, and you are safe here. There's so much more of you I want to know; I can't wait to know all of you. And you can never know all of Me. I can't wait to shelter you and release you to flourish."

I read it a bunch because it's really hard to believe when you are not thrilled with your current circumstances. I read it and acknowledged that I do believe it, yet I still groan for fulfillment. I acknowledged that this part of the deal just bites (and snarles and plays chopsticks on my ribs).

My mama helped immensly today by telling me something that I wasn't even aware that I needed to hear from her. She was telling me that she wasn't dissappointed in me. I am not sure how long I have wanted to hear those words but I so did need to hear them today.

Its ok if I never get married or have babies or if no one ever "gets" me.  I will always want that. But it's ok if I do not get it. It's ok to be sad about it. But I will not check out of life or into a clinic for depressed spinsters, or onto a singles cruise (not more than once anyway). And I will not be angry with God. Much. I will confess my Anger, my Envy and let them go. Daily.

Jesus is great about tending wounds, by the way. Just incase you are in need of wolverine wound care. So if you see me and happen to find me lingering near doors one or two. Remind me that 3 is the magic number.

Sucky number 3.

Is It Just Me?

Does anyone else think that the tag line "Eat your way to the Stadium" in the commercial for Cardinals tickets/McDonald's promotion is disturbing and disgusting?

Broken Heart Hook Hand

My blog was under construction.  Once again my heart is under reconstruction as well.  I pray your patience while I deal with my busted self a bit.  I tend to process things in writing.  Deep, overly personal, public writing.  Here we go.

First of all, I have amazing friends.  Friends who, I was prepared to move across the country from.  Friends who, when I broke up with the reason  to move, came over with orchids, pie and good jokes.  I also was invited to hang out again and again and that totally rocked.  Thanks guys.

Speaking of good friends, I must go back and relay a story.  A few months ago, Liz invited me over to what could have EASILY been a "couples only" dinner.  I could have easily said no, but I am glad I didn't.   I arrive and I meet her new beau, we'll call him "J".  I had met him once before, but in a big group of people.  Tonight it was just the three of us for a bit and I was glad for a chance to get to know him better.  He and Liz and puttering around the kitchen making the fixin's for a delicious mexican meal and our conversation went something like this:
J:  [Casually, with his back to me, making guacamole] "So Lindsey, last time we talked you mentioned you were an engineer, maybe moving to Portland... and you had a hook-hand?
Me: [Slightly suprised... Wow.  What a nice guy...he remembered ALL that stuff about me after meeting me just once and then I MUST have told that dumb story about me breaking my hand in college when I had that weird blue-cast that was shaped like a claw...oh, and he just called it a "hook".. whatever...close enough...whatever he's probably slightly nervous and mixing up that OTHER story i probalby told about the time i stuck a crochet hook in my ear...wouldn't be right to correct him at this point..don't want to embarass him..so I say dramatically with hand slapping the counter] "I DID have a hook hand!  Wow, good recall!"

J and Liz:  [Uncontrollable Laughter.]

L:  [That IS funny, I know.  Maybe not THAT funny, but maybe they are both nervous.  Who cares it's fun to over-laugh.  I'm in.] "Blabbity Blah blah college.  Blah basketball.  Yeah taking a bath with my arm hanging outside of the tub. Hah!"

J and Liz:  [More Uncontrollable Laughter] "Blah bla yes, more things about that blah blah HAHAHAHA"

Me:  [This is fun, I am ON. Everything I say is GOLD.  I like this boy of Liz's!] "Yeah it looked like Gonzo from the Muppets"

J and Liz: [Still Laughing exchanging lengthy glances...]

J:  "Lindsey I have to tell you ...I was very excited and nervous to see you tonight.  When Liz and I went on our first date, we went to the Drunken Fish.  And it was interesting that they had a website for people going on their first date that we happen to see.  One of the points that they suggested for an ice-breaker is to just look at your new date and say: 'You know I think I've met you before, only last time you had a 'HOOK HAND' ..."

J and Liz: [Uncontrollable Laughter].

J:  "So Liz and I thought it would be great to try that line out on one of her unsuspecting friends.  And we picked you.  And we are so glad we did.  We definitely made the right choice."

Me:  [Light bulb coming on...I've been punk'd] "Oh. Hook hand. Heh. Yeah, I uh...had convinced myself I had told you that story before."

J:  "Of all the responses I could have possibly gotten, that was NOT what I was expecting."

J and Liz: [Uncontrollable Laughter].

Me: [DORK! Lindsey! DORK! Not anywhere NEAR COOL! Doh!]


Now J just refers to me in general as "Ole Hook Hand".  
You will forever have my allegiance, mister J.  For that, and since you take really good care of Liz.

New Look

Thanks for your patience whilst I was re-constructing.

More posts from me a-comin.  In a nutshell.   I am no longer moving away.  I am staying here for the forsee-able future.

I am also not slated to travel in the near future.  Hooray.

Summer in St. Louis for me!

Lets hang out.  I'll be tracking you down.  Do not worry.  No one shall be safe.
No cool person will go uncontacted.  NO event invitation shall be denied.

I need peeps. 

To Own a Jabberwocky

I think WFDHAM's reign is over.  I need to write more and I needed a new blog, a new start and I'm trying on Alice for size.  She's got smashing curly hair, doesn't really know who she is (at the BEGINNING anyway).  And prompts quotes from the Queen like "Use the curtains if you have to.. .please clothe this enormous girl".  I feel you Alice.  I also know the joy of eating one thing that makes you expand and other things that make you contract.

I unfortunatly gave up making fun of myself long ago.  So I have to take that height joke back.  But since it's celebratory in nature and Alice does indeed slay the Jabberwocky even though she didn't know she could...I will adopt all parallels to this strange and beautiful story.

I also have adopted a new template.  Called "Lefty Stretch" which also smacked of 'me-ness'.  Left handed and stretchy.

So the expanded quote that frames the new blog title is this deliciously weird quote that also makes me think of my golf game. (Even though I knows it's really croquet).

"The chief difficulty Alice found at first was in managing her flamingo: she succeeded in getting its body tucked away, comfortably enough, under her arm, with its legs hanging down, but generally, just as she had got its neck nicely straightened out, and was going to give the hedgehog a blow with its head, it would twist itself round and look up in her face, with such a puzzled expression that she could not help bursting out laughing: and when she had got its head down, and was going to begin again, it was very provoking to find that the hedgehog had unrolled itself, and was in the act of crawling away: besides all this, there was generally a ridge or furrow in the way wherever she wanted to send the hedgehog to, and, as the doubled-up soldiers were always getting up and walking off to other parts of the ground, Alice soon came to the conclusion that it was a very difficult game indeed."

Blast from the Past.

There we go... a little bit of Love for WU. 

Some TV Love.
And some more.

Relax.  I know I'm a has been.  Perhaps a "never was".   Not really even a major factor in any of this stuff when it was happening.  It's just fun for me to talk about and fun to see my fellow alumni in the media.    The historic TV footage of me often included me commiting turnovers that made highlight reels of opposing teams :).