Katdish.net

How to Draw a Picture (Part 10)
(Excerpt from Duma Key by Stephen King)

“Be prepared to see it all. If you want to create–God help you if you do, God help you if you can–don’t you dare commit the immorality of stopping on the surface. Go deep and take your fair salvage.”

How deep are you willing to go?

Do you find yourself swimming in the shallow end of life? Safer there, no? Less of a risk. It’s where most of us seem to congregate isn’t it? We choose not to go deep, where the water is murky. Too many unknowns lurking…

“How are you?”

“Fine, thanks.” (My life is a mess.)

“Work going well?”

“Can’t complain.” (There’s rumors of layoffs and I fear I’m first on the chopping block.)

“What happened at school today?”

“Nothing much…” (I just don’t fit in. I don’t have any friends.)

“Is something wrong?”

“Just tired I guess…” (Yes. Everything’s wrong. I’m hanging on as best I can, but I need you to throw me a lifeline.)

Too many of us live life on the surface and are afraid to dunk our heads and drink deeply, because those waters are murky. But those waters are really the only thing worth tasting in this life.

That’s where we will find Living water.

“For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

Revelation 7:17

No twitter post tomorrow…9/11

In addition to classing up my blog a bit, another outcome of Billy Coffey’s Monday posts here has been the introduction to some really good writers via the comments section. Sarah is one such writer. Before she sent me her post, Sarah asked if I wanted something “real”. Oh yeah, I’m all up in real. I love real! Here’s Sarah:

I hit rock bottom thirteen years ago. On Sunday, September 22, 1996 I woke up in Virginia Beach, in a house I’d never seen before, wearing someone else’s clothes. I sat up and watched the mid-morning sun stream through the window of a strange bedroom. For the first time in months, the alcohol, nicotine, and drug-enhanced fog cleared. It was time to go home.

How did I get here? I was a pastor’s daughter and granddaughter and niece and grandniece. I had always gone to church and believed in God. I knew the difference between right and wrong; and believed in doing the right thing. At eleven years old, I had asked Jesus to be my Savior. But now, as I stood in a strange bathroom, smoothing my hair in the mirror, I didn’t recognize this person that I was looking at—and I didn’t like her either.

Going home was a simple thing. Sorta. It was a simple three-hour drive south. But the emotional and spiritual trip was a lot steeper and more treacherous. Like an epic journey of sorts. First, I had to seek the truth about how I had gotten to rock bottom. Then, I had to allow the people in my life to see the truth about me. Honestly, that was the part that terrified me the most. It was hard enough to look in the mirror, take off my mask, and like myself. To then show that dirty, bloody, sweaty face to the world…

I couldn’t do it. At least, not at first. I came back to my parents’ house and threw away my cigarettes, beer, and pills. I started spending more time at church. Got a good church-going boyfriend. Hung out with good church-going friends. I immersed myself in my pseudo-Christian spiritual pool and ignored the real issues. I wasn’t really healing—I was hiding. I was putting another layer of band-aids on my heart, but not letting the Holy Spirit do surgery. Whenever I slowed down, the Holy Spirit would be there whispering to me that He wanted to do more and be more to me. I was afraid of the process—afraid of the pain. And so, I ran.

One of my favorite stories in the Bible is about a man named Mephibosheth. He was the son of King David’s best friend, Jonathan. When he was a child, he had been dropped by his nurse and was lame in both feet. Because of the strife between King David and King Saul (Mephibosheth’s grandfather), Mephiboheth had lived for years in exile in a desolate country called Lo Debar. But when King David heard that his friend’s crippled son was living in exile, he sent for him and called him to come live in the King’s house and eat at the King’s table like he was a son of the King.

I can identify with Mephibosheth. I was crippled by sin and spent a lot of time in Lo Debar before I finally accepted the invitation to live in the King’s house and eat at the King’s table.

Running three hours north to my non-Christian boyfriend hadn’t healed me when I was eighteen. So, when I was twenty, I ran three hours west to be near my Christian boyfriend. I made this man my idol and determined that his love was going to heal me and give me peace and a purpose. It didn’t work. It couldn’t work. It made the gap between me and God even bigger. And it pulled my boyfriend further away from God, too. We threw away two years on a relationship that was doomed to fail and at the end, I was at rock bottom again. And this time, my life circumstances wouldn’t allow me to go home to my parents’ house to heal. This time, it was just me and God.

I have spent the last ten years walking home from Lo Debar. And my writing—my blog, my guest posts, the magazine articles that I write, and my personal journal—are all parts of the travelogue. I’ve decided that if I’m going to accept the King’s invitation (which I have accepted) to live in His house and sit at His table, I want to take as many people with me as I can.

You can see that I’ve taken my mask off now. It’s something that I have to choose to do on a day-by-day, minute-by-minute basis. When I started writing, I made a promise to God, to myself, and to my readers that no matter what, I would be real with us all. Every time I write, I have to take off my mask and risk getting hurt. But if it helps other to accept the King’s invitation, it’s worth it.

Won’t you join me for the trip? The King is waiting and the banquet is worth it.

To read more from Sarah, visit her at Living between the Lines and follow her on the twitter, @sarahmsalter

I posted this yesterday. But because it was a holiday I wanted to make sure that everyone who might have missed it had an opportunity to read it today. Few things make me angrier than causing harm to a child and the so called prosperiety gospel. Combine the two? Grrrr….(okay, end of mini rant). Here’s Billy:

The television is largely ignored around our house for most of the day, but like all good rules it is relaxed after dinner. By then a day’s worth of school and play have left my children with as much energy as a bowl of Jell-O. Sitting on the couch and being entertained by Phineas and Ferb is all they can handle.

My daughter is generally Holder Of The Remote when I’m not around, and as my own energy level was Jell-O like yesterday evening, I wasn’t around. I had instead camped out in the rocking chair on the front porch, watching the mountains rather than the TV.

I rocked as the cool September breeze blew through the open living room window, letting in the fresh air and letting escape the sounds of my daughter’s channel changing.

News: “Unemployment continues to rise across the Commonwealth…”

A preacher on the Christian channel: “…faith can heal you of your greatest pains…”

ESPN: “…Red Sox continue their collapse…”

And finally Spongebob: “I’m so cold, I can use my nose drippings as chopsticks.”

Which is where I thought she would stay. My daughter loved Spongebob.

But then it was back to the preacher: “…God loves His children and wants to prosper them…”

I kept rocking, gazing out over the porch to the mountains beyond. A slight smile crossed my face, and why wouldn’t it? My daughter had just passed up Spongebob to learn something about God.

“…He doesn’t want anyone to be sick! Disease is Satan’s doing…!”

Still, it seemed a bit odd. A bit over the top. A bit…

“You’re not healed because you don’t believe!!”

“Dang it!” I said, jumping from the rocking chair and bursting through the door as calmly as possible but not quite. I sat beside her and palmed the remote, changing the channel back to Spongebob with as much nonchalance as I could.

“How ya doin’, sweets?” I asked.

Nothing.

“Wanna watch some Spongebob?”

(nod).

“You okay?”

(nod).

But she wasn’t. I knew that. And I also knew it was too late. The damage had been done.

At bedtime when I went to tuck my daughter in for the night, I could see her tears from the doorway.

“What’s faith?” she asked me.

“Faith,” I said, sitting down beside her, “is believing that God can do whatever He wants.”

“Do you have a lot of faith?”

I’d been father long enough to know that sometimes parents must lie to their children. But I never made it a practice to do so when it comes to matters of faith, so I said, “Sometimes I do. Other times I don’t.”

She looked at me, crying. “The preacher man said I have diabetes because I don’t have faith.”

“That’s not what he said,” I answered.

“He said if I had enough faith, God would take my sugar away.”

I didn’t answer that time. Because again, I couldn’t lie—that’s pretty much what the preacher man had said.

I sat by my daughter’s bed for a long while that night, holding her hand and stroking her hair until the tears left and sleep finally came.

As I gazed down to her I wasn’t thinking about how special she was or how she struggled with her disease. No, I was thinking about how much I would’ve liked that preacher to be there to hear my daughter doubt her faith. I wanted him to see the tears he caused her to shed. And then I would’ve taken him out back and shown him what happens to adults who hurt my little girl.

The whole prosperity gospel movement is still going strong, and there are no signs that it will slow anytime soon. Check the bestseller lists. Turn on your television. They’re everywhere, standing in front of thousands of people in their thousand-dollar suits and pretty smiles, prophesying that God is just chomping at the bit to make you as rich and successful and healthy as they are.

I don’t normally rant, and I never judge. But as I sat there looking down at my daughter, I knew without a doubt that there was a special place in hell reserved for people who manage to contort God’s word to equate faith with wellness and piety with affluence.

I can understand their appeal, I really can. A God who wanted nothing more than to heap material blessings on anyone who paid enough attention to Him makes religion seem a little more palatable. A little more…human. And their theology is mixed with just enough truth to make it seem right.

But if you think it is, if you think that’s how God operates, then I’ll invite you to spend a day with my daughter.

Maybe then you’ll see that God isn’t after our comfort or our health as much as our faith and our trust.

To read more from Billy Coffey, visit him at What I Learned Today and follow him on the twitter at @billycoffey.

For those of you visiting here from What I Learned Today, welcome. I typically don’t introduce Billy’s guest posts because most of you already know Billy’s writing and it needs no introduction from the likes of me. Those of you who have been reading my blog for awhile know that I have done a few posts about the prosperity gospel. It is one of the few things that makes my blood boil and puts me into full ranting mode pretty quickly. But I have yet to put it into perspective as well as Billy does here:

The television is largely ignored around our house for most of the day, but like all good rules it is relaxed after dinner. By then a day’s worth of school and play have left my children with as much energy as a bowl of Jell-O. Sitting on the couch and being entertained by Phineas and Ferb is all they can handle.

My daughter is generally Holder Of The Remote when I’m not around, and as my own energy level was Jell-O like yesterday evening, I wasn’t around. I had instead camped out in the rocking chair on the front porch, watching the mountains rather than the TV.

I rocked as the cool September breeze blew through the open living room window, letting in the fresh air and letting escape the sounds of my daughter’s channel changing.

News: “Unemployment continues to rise across the Commonwealth…”

A preacher on the Christian channel: “…faith can heal you of your greatest pains…”

ESPN: “…Red Sox continue their collapse…”

And finally Spongebob: “I’m so cold, I can use my nose drippings as chopsticks.”

Which is where I thought she would stay. My daughter loved Spongebob.

But then it was back to the preacher: “…God loves His children and wants to prosper them…”

I kept rocking, gazing out over the porch to the mountains beyond. A slight smile crossed my face, and why wouldn’t it? My daughter had just passed up Spongebob to learn something about God.

“…He doesn’t want anyone to be sick! Disease is Satan’s doing…!”

Still, it seemed a bit odd. A bit over the top. A bit…

“You’re not healed because you don’t believe!!”

“Dang it!” I said, jumping from the rocking chair and bursting through the door as calmly as possible but not quite. I sat beside her and palmed the remote, changing the channel back to Spongebob with as much nonchalance as I could.

“How ya doin’, sweets?” I asked.

Nothing.

“Wanna watch some Spongebob?”

(nod).

“You okay?”

(nod).

But she wasn’t. I knew that. And I also knew it was too late. The damage had been done.

At bedtime when I went to tuck my daughter in for the night, I could see her tears from the doorway.

“What’s faith?” she asked me.

“Faith,” I said, sitting down beside her, “is believing that God can do whatever He wants.”

“Do you have a lot of faith?”

I’d been father long enough to know that sometimes parents must lie to their children. But I never made it a practice to do so when it comes to matters of faith, so I said, “Sometimes I do. Other times I don’t.”

She looked at me, crying. “The preacher man said I have diabetes because I don’t have faith.”

“That’s not what he said,” I answered.

“He said if I had enough faith, God would take my sugar away.”

I didn’t answer that time. Because again, I couldn’t lie—that’s pretty much what the preacher man had said.

I sat by my daughter’s bed for a long while that night, holding her hand and stroking her hair until the tears left and sleep finally came.

As I gazed down to her I wasn’t thinking about how special she was or how she struggled with her disease. No, I was thinking about how much I would’ve liked that preacher to be there to hear my daughter doubt her faith. I wanted him to see the tears he caused her to shed. And then I would’ve taken him out back and shown him what happens to adults who hurt my little girl.

The whole prosperity gospel movement is still going strong, and there are no signs that it will slow anytime soon. Check the bestseller lists. Turn on your television. They’re everywhere, standing in front of thousands of people in their thousand-dollar suits and pretty smiles, prophesying that God is just chomping at the bit to make you as rich and successful and healthy as they are.

I don’t normally rant, and I never judge. But as I sat there looking down at my daughter, I knew without a doubt that there was a special place in hell reserved for people who manage to contort God’s word to equate faith with wellness and piety with affluence.

I can understand their appeal, I really can. A God who wanted nothing more than to heap material blessings on anyone who paid enough attention to Him makes religion seem a little more palatable. A little more…human. And their theology is mixed with just enough truth to make it seem right.

But if you think it is, if you think that’s how God operates, then I’ll invite you to spend a day with my daughter.

Maybe then you’ll see that God isn’t after our comfort or our health as much as our faith and our trust.

To read more from Billy Coffey, visit him at What I Learned Today and follow him on the twitter at @billycoffey.

I really don’t have a post today, just a scripture that has been on my heart that I wanted to share:

I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart; for whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God’s grace with me. God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.

And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.

(Phillipians 1:3-11)

With a grateful heart,

Katdish

Again…Sorry/You’re welcome!

Subtitled: How to be unintentionally annoying on the twitter

Yes, I’m still in a mood…

Some people just have a knack for sucking the fun out of EVERYTHING! Case in point – people who think twitter is some contest to see who can get the most followers.

Okay, I openly admit that it’s a bit of an ego boost to have a bunch of followers, but that is SO not the point. It’s social media people – that’s means to socialize, not cover my tweetdeck with your ginormous head and tell me how you’ve been voted the top tweeter with the most followers. REALLY? That’s amazing considering the only other thing you ever tweet besides “Look how great I am” is lame @$$ jokes and tired old quotes that are no doubt automatically generated by some robot.

And yes, I will also openly admit that Twitter and other social media outlets are outstanding ways to promote an idea or even a product. But if you think you’re going to get me to pay attention to you just because you have a few thousand followers you’re wrong.

Engage me. Make me laugh or cry or think or pray or ponder an alternative opinion. But shut up about your stupid self all the time! Yeah, I talk about myself a lot, but that’s just me being adorably annoying. It’s what I do.

But I also have conversations with people. THAT’S SORT OF THE POINT.

Which bring me to my next point: These trolling services that seek out new people to follow so that you can get a courtesy refollow. Then, if the person doesn’t refollow you within a certain time (usually 24 hrs), it automatically unfollows that person. Unless the unsuspecting person uses NutShellMail.com, they never even know you unfollowed them. LAME, people! L-A-M-E!

So how do we fight this? Well first off, if you’re not signed up for Nutshell or similar service, do so. It will give you updates on follows, unfollows, DMs – replies, the whole she-bang sent to you via email. I dig it the most. Next, unless you know the person, wait 24 hours before you refollow them. If you get an alert from NutShell saying they have unfollowed you, then you will know that they could care less about your tweets. You’re just another lemming follower to them.

Know this – if I’m following you, it’s because I have taken the time to look over your profile and found you engaging in some way or another. Either that or you’re Chris Daughtry, who last time I checked IS STILL NOT FOLLOWING ME! But I’m not bitter…

And now that I have ranted incessantly on my Friday twitter update post, I have no room for tweets. But don’t worry – it was a banner week and I will update later today. Which, of course – I will tweet over and over again…

Sincerely,

@katdish
Gaining followers the old fashioned way: One annoying tweet at a time.

If you read my blog yesterday, then you know that a) I am lame, and b) it was Helen’s birthday. As promised, here’s my little Ode to Helen:

No songs, no beautiful haiku’s, wonderful polka videos. Many of my bloggy gal pals paid tribute to Helen yesterday, and they did it up right. But because I want those of you who don’t know my friend Helen to see what I see in her, that’s what I will attempt to do here.

Helen has been reading Hey Look a Chicken for almost as long as I have been writing it. I believe her very first comment here was on my post, The Top Ten things your friend/significant other with ADD wants you to know but keeps forgetting to tell you:

Helen said: I happen to be cdo. That is like ocd, but in proper alphabetical order, as it ought to be!

And that, as they say, was the start of a beautiful friendship. If you follow @helenatrandom on the twitter, then you already know what a great sense of humor she has. What you probably cannot surmise on 140 characters or less is that this funny gal is also compassionate, loyal, articulate and incredibly intelligent.

Okay, so many of you might be asking yourselves, “If she’s so smart, why does she follow this blog?” Answer: Shut up, who asked you? Okay, real answer? I think we’re kindred spirits. We’ve both had obstacles to overcome. Still do. But Helen handles things with grace, humor and a heart for God.

I don’t think I could pick just one favorite post from Random Musings, but the following excerpt is from one of my favorites. It’s Helen at her transparent best:

I have especially good memories of being a child on my way to and from school, passing a house that had beautiful light up nativity in front of their house. How I loved it! I remember walking up to the baby Jesus as a kindergartner, with my mom calling after me “Helen, I taught you better than to walk on the grass. You don’t even know these people! They might be angry!”.

I remember a middle aged (probably thirty-nine like me) woman coming outside in her house dress, telling mom it was okay, not to worry about it, I have her permission to stay on the lawn as long as I like, and come as often as I like. That was so nice of her. Poor lady. I don’t think she realized that I would take that as permission to come and kneel before the Christ child every day the nativity was up, every year through eighth grade.

Actually, she never came outside when I was there again. But, God bless her, she never said “Stop it already. You are no longer small and cute when you do this! You are absolutely frightening!” I mean, think about it. I probably looked like I should be riding the short bus. And, while I could read and write well above my grade level, and could hold my own in math, I was rather slow socially. Obviously. And, of course, I thought it was every body else.

My poor mother.

I was probably in Sixth Grade the day I came home half an hour late with my knees wet from the snow. It was the first day baby Jesus was up that year, and I had a lot to say.

Mom was always a worrier, and my coming home that late (very over protective) with pants wet from the knee down pushed her to the edge. She was yelling “Where were you? What on earth could you have been doing?” etc, I’m sure you all know the drill. And I look at her like she was…..well, acting strangely and say “Mom, didn’t you know the Nativity on the next block was up today? Where else could I have been?” Of course, she tries to convince me that the permission given me was not for all eternity, but I said “Wouldn’t they just say something already if they changed their minds?” Mom was exasperated with me, so I tried to keep my time with the nativity short from then on.

On my way to school, I would wave to the Holy Family, then stop to talk to them for a moment on my way home. Yeah. I know. Short bus. I looked like a big dumb kid. But I didn’t care. I wish I cared a little less now….

By the time I entered college, the family either moved, or didn’t put the nativity out any more. Either way, by then I was too grown up by then to do childish things, and not grown up enough to do child like things.

I do still cherish these memories. Every time I see an outdoor Nativity, I reflect on how I can receive Him like a child now. I guess the answer is to just love Him without wondering how I am being perceived by others.

In case you were wondering, we do not put out an outdoor Nativity (my husband doesn’t like them, and I have submitted to him on this matter), though I have Nativity sun catchers in my window displaying the story of that glorious day. I have not seen any children gazing in wonder, but if I do, I will be sure to tell them to get as close as they like, take as long as they like, and come as often as they like.

In interest of full disclosure, the set above is not the one I remember from my youth, but it is beautiful, isn’t it?

So, that’s my friend Helen at Random Musings. Did your world just get a little brighter? I know mine did.

Happy Belated Birthday, my friend! Here’s another Nativity scene for you:

Hey folks! Guess what today is?

It’s Helen’s birthday!

Who is Helen you ask? Surely you jest! She’s just one of my favorite people in the whole entire world, that’s who!

Among her many talents, she is the holder of the birthday list. So it just figures that I (who sucks at remembering birthdays) would forget. Forturnately, someone sent me an email reminder. Unfortunately, I already had a post scheduled for today. So tune in tomorrow, when I will give my dear friend’s birthday the pomp and circumstance it so richly deserves. Even if it is a day late. Have a wonderful day, my friend!

Now, the rest of you people – please go read Tony’s C’s post just below this one. It will be delightful, I’m sure…

Today’s guest blogger is Tony Cradic – Christian, husband, father, blogger and musician. I seem to meet a lot of musicians in the blogosphere, sort of like in the non-virtual world. Well, Tony’s a drummer, so technically he’s not really a musician. (SNORT! Sorry, Tony. Couldn’t help myself.) Here’s a little background on Tony in his own words:

I was a religious nomad for many years. Although raised in a Christian home, my faith was invaded by doubt shortly after arriving for college. I began to explore different religions and belief systems before coming to an agnostic state. I dwelled there for many years. My revival came in the early years of 2000. I continue to seek answers but understand now that God never intended for us to know or discover everything. Once I stopped boxing in God with secular limitations and accepted His true omnipotence, my battle was over. My ideas are by no means new and my beliefs are as ancient as the Crucifixion, but they make me who I am today. Tony C Today, like the USA Today, is always in color and usually on the lighter side of things.

And now here’s Tony’s exciting adventure into the world of culture:

My teenager has been playing on a competitive soccer team now for about 5 years. As for me, I never played the game, much less understood the concept of running around for over an hour to win or lose 1-0 and never legally hitting anyone…but then again, I spent my teenage years banging my head into other teenagers playing the football spelled with two o’s. Point goes to the current day teenager.

Playing on a travelling team has allowed us to play in soccer tournaments in other cities and take in the ‘best of’ what the host town offers. This past weekend was a revisit to the city of Asheville, North Carolina. Our prior visit a year ago was somewhat limited by an eleven month old in tow, so this year Mrs. Tony C wanted to experience the cultured downtown area on a weekend evening and expose our girls to a taste of the artsy side.

Now, I know some of you are trying to wrap your head around the words North Carolina, cultured, and artsy all in the same sentence, but downtown Asheville has really emerged as a mixing grounds of artist, musicians, locals and tourist…at least according to a visitor website I looked up.

Mrs. Tony C (reading from tourist brochure): Asheville skipped the urban renewal process that stripped the character from many downtowns…

Tony C: Sounds eclectic (eye roll).

Mrs. Tony C: I’ll bet the buildings are really old and beautiful. Didn’t you always want to be an architect?

Tony C: Actually that’s George Costanza…I wanted to be an astronaut…

Mrs. Tony C: Astronaut…architect…whatever. Sounds like an excellent place to expose the girls to a different cultural environment.

Tony C: So is a NASCAR race, but…

Mrs. Tony C: Tony! Don’t start! We have an obligation in the educational process of our girls. We’ll go downtown after the second game and walk around. I heard there’s a great pizza place called the Mellow Mushroom downtown….sound okay?

Tony C: Sounds fantastically stoner…

Mrs. Tony C: Tony!

Point goes to Mrs. Tony C.

After conducting a drive-by to check out the downtown scene, I found a relatively close parking spot because it was still early. Navigating the ‘un-renewed’ streets of the downtown area was quite interesting and using the GPS on my Blackberry was no help. Finding our dining destination would require my innate sense of navigation….good thing I was along.

So we wondered around aimlessly in the downtown area while I tried to orient my internal compass for over an hour. Along the way, our girls were definitely exposed to a new cultural experience that included new vocabulary words, public marijuana smoking, three exposed breast, an impromptu phallic sculpture, and a crack ho…well…okay, I didn’t actually see the crack, but she left no doubt about the ho part.

Point goes to Mrs. Tony C. (for educational experience).

Teenager: Is that art dad? (Pointing at street performer painted white head to toe)

Tony C: That’s performance art dear.

Teenager: Is that art? (Pointing to sculpture of old junk parts)

Mrs. Tony C: That’s welding metal art.

Tony C: A.K.A. lowbrow… (Hateful glance from Mrs. Tony C)

Teenager: A.K.A? What’s that? Hey…is that art?

Tony C: A.K.A…also known as…and no, that’s a lady breastfeeding…don’t stare.

It was about this time I gave up on my internal GPS and asked directions from a lady with more facial piercings than I would have believed humanly possible. We were actually only a block or so away from the Mellow Mushroom…which turned out to be a pretty good place to eat. I was just a little paranoid about the green on top of our pizza, but turns out it was actually just oregano.

Point to Mrs. Tony C.

The walk back to the car was a pretty quick pace…especially when stuffed with pizza and soda. The two year old was completely worn out from a day in the sun, as was the teenager from a day on the field. I suddenly realized there were very few other people with strollers…very few…and all of them had the same look of astonishment I’m sure adorned mine and my wife’s face. Just before leaving the happening downtown area, we crossed one last performing artist… a well proportioned young lady in only a golden bodysuit and bright, white wig… frozen in place.

Tony C: Remember what that’s called? (Stopping to check her out)

Teenager: Performing art?

Tony C: Yes it is…let’s give her a dollar and see what she does.

Mrs. Tony C: Tony! (soul-piercing glare)

Tony C: Second thought, let’s get to the car before it gets dark.

Shut out…once again.

To read more from Tony C, visit him at Tony C Today and follow him on the twitter at @TonyCToday.

Oh, and incidentally – BEST. HEADER PICTURE. EVER. Don’t believe me? Go check it out.