memoir
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My Personal Testimony
I was driving to work one morning minding my own worrisome business when I suddenly found myself stalled by road construction. I could not move. There were cars in front of me, cars behind me and cars to the right of me. To my left was a cement meridian, two empty lanes for west bound traffic, and a north-south side road that formed a T-intersection.
Barreling down that road was an 18-wheeler.
Time stalled. My attention focused solely on that rig. It wasn’t going to stop. For a brief eternity my gaze locked with the truck driver’s. I could tell that we both knew I was going to die.
As he shot into the intersection my breath caught. I closed my eyes and tightened my grip on the steering wheel. I thought of my family; my students who weren’t going to have a teacher that day; my friends; and my God.
When was the last time I’d given God a thought? What part of my life held any eternal value? When I stood before him what could I possibly say to defend the life I’d lived?
Before despair could claim me I heard my soul cry out, “Father, I know I’m not ready, but I’m coming home. Please, please, forgive me.”
Instantly my car filled up with so much love, and so much peace, and so much joy, it overflowed. I was held fast in the serene embrace of God.
Slowly the intensity faded. Was I alive? I hadn’t heard a crash. I felt no pain.
This world filtered back to me one sense at a time. My hands were clutching the steering wheel. The radio was playing. I could feel sunshine on my face. I opened my eyes. There, outside my driver’s window was the grill of the semi, just a hair-span from my door. On the grill of the truck was a dead fly. I could see the veins in its iridescent wings.
I was alive. Alive in a way I had never been before. The joy and the peace of God still reside within me today, and the next time I find myself standing before the throne of God, I will still be unworthy, but I will remember the mercy the Lord has already showered upon this disobedient child whom he loves.
In my life, there is nothing more important than that.
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Smooth, Smoothy, Smoothiest
Those words do not describe me. I have been making smoothies for myself on and off for months. I have also been making horrible smoothy messes on and off for months.
I have this exact, handy-dandy Magic Bullet Blender. It looks fool-proof, but if there’s a way, I’m the fool that will find it. I’m just that talented.
The Magic Bullet motor is powerful. It chops, mixes, and purees like magic. (Hence the name, right?) And we’re supposed to think the “bullet” part refers to the shape of the containers–BUT, it refers to the whirling speed of your smoothy. Have you heard of centrifugal force? Yeah. Don’t release the bullet cup before everything stops spinning. Trust me on this.
I also bought the 22 oz. travel mug so I could take my smoothies on the go. It has a flip top to make it easily transportable and is spill-proof as long as you remember to tighten the lid. (No biggie. I needed a new purse anyway.)
I bought my smoothie mix from Costco and I really like it. I make it with unsweetened Almond Milk and a drop or two of local raw honey. I haven’t tried adding any protein powder yet. I’m afraid it will make my drink gritty. If you know of a good brand that won’t feel like sand in my mouth, let me know.
I’m just not a breakfast eater, but I need more than coffee or I quickly run out of writing steam. My stomach doesn’t want to contend with solid food before 10:00 a.m. or so, but drinking my breakfast seems to work. In fact, a cup of coffee and a smoothie around 8 a.m. can hold me until about 2 p.m.
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A Sweet Bedtime Story
When she started chemo, He bought two new 800 thread count Egyptian cotton bed sheet sets. They fit very snugly on their mattress. She no longer has the strength required to get the fitted sheet onto or off of the bed without assistance.
He also bought her fancy chocolates.
Tonight after dinner, She decided to enjoy the sheets, the chocolates, and her newest novel all at the same time.
Hawaiian weather often makes eating chocolate an adventure. Especially lovely chocolate bonbons with exploding liquid centers.
While changing the sheets, He strongly suggested she not eat bonbons in bed again. Alas.
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He & She: Calamity Jake
She: “A beautiful morning!”
He: “Indeed. Bright light in sky appears in East. Around here, this time of year, that’s news.”
She: “This calls for a hearty celebration. Would you care for waffles, or eggs and bacon, or an omelette, or …”
He: “Hm. Choices, choices. Let me finish getting dressed first. One cribro at a time.”
She: “Cry what?”
He: “On a morning like this, what have you got to cry about? Does it really matter to you how quickly I put my socks on?”
She: “You’ll be the one crying if your waffles get cold. It might even be a crisis.”
He: “Like I said. A cribro.”
She: “What?!?”
He: “Would you please tell me how come every time your life gets exciting, it’s got to be a girl?”
She: “I’m not sure you want to go there …”
He: “Too late. They used to call hurricanes by girl’s names, but people complained, and now they alternate. Fair is fair. Last time I looked, I was still a guy, and besides, I don’t wish for people to think that, every time I screw up, I blame it on my sister. So, cribro.”
She: “Come to the table. Your blood sugar is obviously way low, you can’t afford to miss breakfast.”
He: “Mister!”
She: “Oy …”
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The Island of Doctor Quilldancer
She: “Hey! I thought you were the mad scientist around here!”
He: “Ah, no. Place where I work frowns on the bwa-ha-ha stuff. Bad for fundraising.”
She: “So I’ve got to do it?!?”
He: “The fundraising? No, we’ve got experts to … oi! Put .. the .. lab .. coat .. down! Do I wish to know where this is coming from?”
She: “The island!”
He: “The one we live on?”
She: “Not this island! That island! The one with all the animals on it!”
He: “The critters we’ve got aren’t good enough?”
She: “Not for the military. They wanted something special.”
He: “Special forces?”
She: “Exactly!”
He: “Such as?”
She: “Well, cross a chimpanzee with a mouse and you get something really small and really smart. Perfect for espionage. And their sense of humor helps with training and esprit de corps.”
He: “Cool. Did it work?”
She: “Not really. It’s hard to spy on people when they’re standing on tables and screaming.”
He: “Should’ve crossed the chimps with starlings. Aerial reconnaissance.”
She: “Worked fine until the chicken hawks showed up. Then they figured out that, screw the bananas, screw the esprit, they could get killed out there! And they went AWOL.”
He: “You would expect them to be intelligent.”
She: “And then there was the cross between the rhinoceros and the cheetah.”
He: “Woot! Fast biodegradable armor!”
She: “Fast biodegradable dumb armor. How do you control a tank that can run you down at 60 miles per hour and eat you, whether you’re friend or foe?”
He: “Well, what did you expect? You were cheetahing! Did no one call you on this?”
She: “Why would they? We were taking gorilla warfare to new levels!”
He: “And then you woke up?”
She: “Um, well, yeah!”
He: “Good. I was wondering how I was going to get a security clearance on short notice so you wouldn’t have to kill me for listening to this.”
She: “You know what’s weird?”
He: “Weirder than AWOL flying chimpanzees?”
She: “Here I am, designing all these beasts and doing the mad scientist thing, and at the same time I’m the gal jumping up and down yelling this is a really dumb idea! Shouldn’t that be, like, two people?”
He: “It’s a dream. You can do whatever you want, be whatever you can, ah, dream up. Just don’t try this at home, huh?”
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Easy Fix
She: “It’s hard keeping all the plot lines straight when you’re writing several stories at once.”
He: “Tough to keep all the alibis consistent, is it?”
She (ignoring him): “Not to mention all the character names straight. And how they look. Did she have red hair in this other story too?”
He: “Easy fix. Keep the stories going long enough, and they’ll all have blue hair.”
She (still ignoring him): “So I’ve set up this universal character table, I can refer to it instead of having to go back to each story every time I need to check on a name, or eye color, or what have you.”
He: “You have a Universal character table? Cool! Do you have a Paramount one?”
She (belatedly suspicious): “.. what?”
He: “Or a 20th Century Fox one, or a …”
She: “Warner Brothers, or a Disney, or a Columbia. Yes dear, I’ve got them all covered.”
He: “Nice.”
She: “And you’re a jerk.”
He: “!!”
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It Is Well With My Bowl
She: “Please pass the salad dressing?”
He: “OK … Dang!”
She: “What dang?”
He: “Something else we can’t use because we have town water.”
She: “I like town water. Or do you really wish to go back to flushing the toilet with a bucket?”
He: “Not I. But it means we can’t use the salad dressing. Read.”
She: “‘Shake well.’”
He: “Exactly! We don’t have a well. And if you think I’m going to interrupt my dinner to track the Honolulu Water Department’s lines mauka five miles and up two thousand feet to shake their well, just so I can have a spot of sauce on my lettuce, you can think again.”
She: “I’m so glad I asked …”
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Chiefs & Peons
She: “Did you know that handkerchiefs are coming back into vogue?”
He: “No …”
She: “And … never mind, I can’t tell you.”
He: “Can’t tell me what?”
She: “About the cool colors they come in now. You’d be appalled.”
He: “Probably. But I’m going to find out sooner or later, so …”
She: “Purple, and teal, and lavender, and fuchsia. And some in boring white.”
He: “Which they all will be, sooner or later. Once you throw the hankerpeons in the laundry with the bleach.”
She: “Hankerpeons?”
He: “Since when are chiefs going to stand still and let you blow your nose on them? Somebody should have been thinking about this when they were handing out names for things.”
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Make It Beta
Currently, beta readers are checking my first book for continuity errors and plot holes. Apparently they want better writing and are picky about their coffee, too.
text message -
He Is Helpful
She finished her novel and said to He: “I just typed my tentative title into Amazon. Three-thousand other novels have the title, A Place to Belong.”
He said: “That’s easily fixable.”
She said: “Yeah, change the title.”
He said: “A Place to Be Short.”