Seven on Saturday

1. Oooh boy, did I have a week. As far as I'm concerned, Wednesday didn't happen. I woke up in the wee hours wracked by the worst kind of back pain, the dreaded spasms. They hit about every other year. This time I decided I wasn't messing around. I went to urgent care and got a shot of Demerol, and after sleeping nearly 18 hours, I woke up on Thursday morning with nary a twinge. Lesson learned: a little intervention not only relieves the pain, but also gives my back the rest it needs to restore itself.

2. I have tentatively started a photo-a-day project, which you can find through my Flickr page (see right). So far, I'm only committing as far as January. I missed Wednesday for obvious reasons, but that doesn't count because it never happened.

3. My dad sent along this video:
It is wonderful. My favorite part is that you don't know who will start singing next. The people start looking around at their fellow shoppers, not suspiciously, but expectantly, believing that the seemingly ordinary people are capable of something extraordinary. It reminds me of the incarnation, and of Jesus telling people that he can be encountered among the least of these.

4. Speaking of my dad, I got a kick out of this FB activity:
Indeed.

5. Last summer I was in the audience for a taping of Dr. Phil. Because I don't actually watch Dr. Phil, I didn't catch the episode when it aired back in October. You can't tell from the YouTube clip that it's me, but I know where I was sitting.
That's right. Front row.

If I didn't watch Dr. Phil before that taping, I sure wouldn't take it up now. A totally surreal experience that demonstrated how very much shows like that are not based in reality. After a concerted effort to stir up animosity between the stay-at-home and working moms, Dr. Phil stepped in to say, "Ladies, ladies, let's all just get along." I would kind of like to see it, if only to see if you can catch me rolling my eyes. But that would involve paying attention to the Dr. Phil reruns schedule, and... no thanks.

6. I'm in the process of rereading Marilynn Robinson's Gilead for the church book club, and my heavens. It is so good. I read it far too quickly the first time around. This time I'm savoring every word.

7. The nice thing about the photo-a-day project is that I sometimes end up with a couple extra keepers. Here are some outtakes from a recent trip to the Trump golf course, where they have public walking trails.

I got in trouble for suggesting that the girls have a chicken fight.


Cactus, smog, and Catalina Island


Pretty flowers.


Us. (And Smog and Catalina Island.)


My favorite Easter sermon started with an image of people looking at the ocean: "Something about being in the presence of something so deep, so mysterious, so big, just grasps people. I’ve heard it said that gazing at the ocean actually causes one’s soul to expand. The soul simply grows in response to what it sees."


Goodnight. :)