JPB Tea Party Indeed

Well, my friend Jackson has just informed me that he does indeed read my blog, but that I "never" write on it. True, it's been a roller-coaster week, where one minute, I'm teased with thinking I'm feeling better, then I crash all over again. It's so exhausting.

SO - while Jackson sits and plays lots of guitar songs for my amusement, I thought I'd not be lazy and get on this blog thing. Of course I'm laughing a great deal, as much as I can with my mouth closed and not to hurt my throat, so there will be thought breaks in this, as usual.

For all of the counting-downers - I am down to three days of treatment (which equals 6 treatments.) How giddy am I, if for nothing else, not to have to go five days in a row. Have I mentioned how amazing it is that to treat something SO SMALL does SO MUCH damage to my body?? Diane, when she was here for a surprise visit - which was JUST the pick-me-up I needed, suggested a paper chain. So now one of my nightly rituals is to take the chain link off with the countdown day (today was 4) and sit on my front porch and burn it. And wow, does my neck look like I fell asleep under one of those old sun-lamps!

Darling Kenna, who's blog is connected to mine - wrote about the need for women bonding and the "tea party" idea. Now this summer has made me much more genteel, and I have had LOTS of time to read/view Jane Austen books/DVDs. But really, I thought the whole story of the summer where we came up with that was just fun. And as I've had this entire geodesic dome of memories to pull out and ponder over - well here's another one.....

Summer of '95, I was working Centrifuge. (If you don't know what that is, just google it) Had the fun to be working on a travel team all over the west. Our last place to have camp was Jenness Park Baptist Camp in gorgeous Sonora, CA. This is where I started my friendship with Kenna, as well as Kimberly and Vicki. (the latter, as friends sometimes do, have kind of dropped off my radar, over the years, but should they read this, I wish them well) It was an INTERESTING summer with all sorts of angst that twenty-somethings have when in a forced-love situation. (meaning - we're all Christians so we're going to get along dang it,but we're going to be southern and dysfunctional and not talk out anything.) They boys had this lovely thing called the "House of Bitterness" (and oh my gosh, I'm so giving out camp secrets, but it's been 10 years, there's got to be a statue of limitations) where they could vent out their frustrations. One of their jobs was cutting wood for the winter, and they arranged an entire three room house by the end of the summer. Now, us girls (no it's not grammatical, get your own blog if you want that) had our little coping mechs. The first one was the Cuehlo Clean. Cuehlo was a cabin that was on our saturday cleaning to-do list - but no one ever stayed there. So basically we rarely cleaned it (sorry Rog), and took the time to flop, rest and have a "tea party." By the end of the summer, we had LOTS of those, we called them JPB, for obviously the fact that we were AT JPB for goodness' sakes. (However, for those of you who are creative and know me, there might be other things the "b" stood for.) And that was just good girl time, so to hear JPB Tea Party, just brings back good memories.

And as for THIS summer, one of the good things (and yes there are many that I'm sure I'll be processing out over the years, for NOW, I really just want to feel better.) that I've gleaned is the deepening of my relationships that I would have never thought possible. We'll talk in the Church about community and relationship and really sacrificing yourself for others, well I get to live it. Find the story in one of the three Gospels of the four friends who had a sick friend, and knew that Jesus could heal him, only the place where Jesus was teaching, was way increibly crowded and they could not carry their friends' mat through the door. So, they cut a hole, they CUT a hole, they CUT A HOLE in the host's roof and lowered their friend through the roof. so Jesus could heal him. And Jesus did. That's the kind of love I'm talking about baby, and the kind of love I'm getting to see first hand.

In the news - the RNC - happy sigh - I mean did anyone SEE Zell Miller and not just have a patriotic moment?????

Hurricane Frances, as we speak is tearing up my homestate. God be with my family and all those in Florida.

It's opening game weekend here in Tennessee and that's HUGE. Little sad that I'm not going, but then I remembered that I wouldn't have been going anyway- I only get my uncle's tickets (to which I'm EXTREMELY GRATEFUL for) when he or my cousins can't use them.

So, this has been wordy and should make up for the lack of recent blogging.

Jackson's still playing guitar and doing a great job in spite of what he says, excpet when he slips into 70's ballads - aighhhhh!