Katdish.net

(This post was first published as a column by the Staunton News Leader.)

“I like walking with you, Daddy,” my daughter said.

Her tiny hand slipped into mine and stayed there. Our joined arms moved back and forth in a soft cadence that echoed our footfalls.

“Me, too,” I said.

“Let’s play I Spy,” she offered.

“Okay. You go first.”

Our game began with the obvious—black for the truck in the driveway we were passing, red for the mailbox on the other side. Yellow for the sun. Gray for the dog that just bounded out from the field.

But then things began to get a little more difficult. On my part, anyway. I missed the orange on the robin that was pecking its dinner from the grass. And the brown on the rabbit that sat nearly invisible on the side of the road.

Missed the yellow hair bow on the little girl who was playing with a balloon in her backyard.

Missed the white on the rocks that scrunched under our feet.

Even missed the black on the very shirt I was wearing.

No father wants to be beaten in a game of I Spy by his seven-year-old daughter. Especially when that father happens to take a lot of pride in noticing things that others maybe wouldn’t. But as we walked and talked and swung our arms, I had to admit the obvious.

I was losing it. Slipping in my noticing.

It had been imperceptible rather than sudden, this change in me. That’s the worst kind. Change that comes sudden is painful, but at least you don’t go around wondering what happened and where you went wrong and how it got to be this way.

My thoughts were broken by the approach of a married couple taking that strange gait that is more than walk but not quite jog, puffing and sweating against the summer sun.

My daughter waved with her free hand, and I offered a “How ya’ll doin’?” in their direction. The man managed to nod weakly and gasp a “heeep,” which I took as hello. The woman was oblivious to us, transfixed on her goal of putting one foot in front of the other.

I looked down to see her gazing up to me, wrinkling her nose. I shrugged—beats me. We walked on.

A few more losing rounds of I Spy later, and we were greeted with another pedestrian. Younger woman, very fit. Decked out in Spandex and and armed with an iPod and a watch that looked as though it could not only count calories and measure distance, but split the atom as well.

She zoomed past our wave and “How are ya?” as if we were just more gravel and blades of grass. Just two more obstacles to avoid in the pursuit of a flatter stomach and firmer butt.

My daughter and I walked in silence a for a few steps, our game suspended. Then, “Daddy?”

“Hmm?”

“How come people walk so fast?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Most people around here use walking as exercising. But it’s only exercising if you go fast.”

She looked down to the road and kicked a pebble with her flip flop, thinking.

“Exercising’s good,” she offered.

“Very,” I said.

“And walking’s good, too.”

“Yep.”

“But,” she said, “walking shouldn’t be exercising.”

“It shouldn’t? Why?”

She threw her arms up (and one of mine in the process) and said, “Look! Everything’s so pretty! These people are missing it all because they’re going too fast!”

I looked down at her and she up to me. She said, “Those people would be really bad at I Spy, Dad. They would lose every time because they can’t see anything.”

They’d lose every time. Because they’re going too fast.

We continued on then and resumed our game. The result was both inevitable and expected. She won without much of a contest.
But in a way, I won too. I learned something that evening with my daughter. Something important.

In the end, life should be a walk and not a run. We fool ourselves into thinking that the point is to get somewhere as fast as we can. It isn’t. It’s to have somewhere to go and then enjoy the trip to it.

There will always be a gap between where we are and where we want to be. In our deepest hearts we are all wanderers in search of something. That’s okay. Even wonderful. Just as long as we wander in wonder and hold the hand of someone we love.

To read more from Billy Coffey, visit him at What I Learned Today, and be sure to catch Part One of his interview with Lynn Rush tomorrow about the call that every writer dreams about.

(Not Oswald Chambers)

July 19th.

“Ye call Me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am.” John 13:13

Our Lord never insists on having authority; He never says – Thou shalt. He leaves us perfectly free – so free that we can spit in His face, as men did; so free that we can put Him to death, as men did; and He will never say a word. But when His life has been created in me by His Redemption I instantly recognize His right to absolute authority over me. It is a moral domination – “Thou art worthy . . .” It is only the unworthy in me that refuses to bow down to the worthy. If when I meet a man who is more holy than myself, I do not recognize his worthiness and obey what comes through him, it is a revelation of the unworthy in me. God educates us by means of people who are a little better than we are, not intellectually but “holily,” until we get under the domination of the Lord Himself, and then the whole attitude of the life is one of obedience to Him.

If Our Lord insisted upon obedience He would become a taskmaster, and He would cease to have any authority. He never insists on obedience, but when we do see Him we obey Him instantly, He is easily Lord, and we live in adoration of Him from morning till night. The revelation of my growth in grace is the way in which I look upon obedience. We have to rescue the word “obedience” from the mire. Obedience is only possible between equals; it is the relationship between father and son, not between master and servant. “I and My Father are one.” “Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered.” The Son’s obedience was as Redeemer, because He was Son, not in order to be Son.

I thought this devotion was very timely, as my friend Chris Sullivan prepares to leave a very comfortable life for a mission trip to the Dominican Republic tomorrow. If you haven’t read this post yet, I would highly encourage you to do so:

Help! I’m a coward. I Love Baseball!

Everybody and their brother thinks that they have ADD these days. You can’t swing a stick without hitting 10 people who think that they would benefit from a prescription for Adderall, or at the very least, a significant helping of Ginko Biloba. But trust me, unless you have a green, “do not duplicate under penalty of law” prescription from your doctor, drink your Red Bull cafe latte and relax — you’ve probably just got too much going on.

I, on the other hand, am the Tanya Tucker of Attention Deficit Disorder: I was ADD when ADD wasn’t cool. I fancy myself a bit of an expert on the subject. Or at least, how it affects my relationships with the people in my life. I don’t introduce myself as, “Hi, my name is Kathy and I have ADD”. But if I enter into any type of meaningful relationship with another human being, I need to put that on the table. Otherwise, they end up getting pissed off or offended, or both. Please don’t think I’m trying to make excuses for bad behavior. If I realize that I have been rude (intentionally or not), I deeply regret it and am the first to offer an apology and try to make amends. The problem is “realizing it” part.

I also recognize that there are people who think that ADD and ADHD are just made up conditions to excuse people with poor impulse control, bad manners and lack of discipline. I would invite these people to spend a day inside my head and then get back to me with their in-depth analysis. Good luck with all of THAT!

For those of you who have friends, family and spouses who suffer from this condition and choose to love us anyway, first let me say thank you. It means the world to us. You are the rocks of stability that anchor our crazy, mixed up lives, and I think God has a special place in heaven set aside for heroes such as you.

Now, on to the list:

1. We don’t mean to keep interrupting you. But if we don’t tell you what we want to say, it’s gonna fly out of our heads and be lost forever. And, by the way, it’s really important!
2. That comment we just made makes perfect sense. You just weren’t in on the conversation we started in our heads a couple of minutes ago.
3. When we tell you that something is going to take about an hour to complete, go ahead and add on the rest of the day. We suck at time management.
4. Please don’t ever send us to Wal-mart for just one thing. There’s just way too many things to see before we get to the liquid detergent aisle.
5. We’re really not sure how a loaf of bread, a half gallon of milk and a few other things added up to 87 dollars, but we’re pretty sure we needed that stuff. Okay, we already have 6 bottles of ketchup, but you never know when you’re going to need lots of ketchup.
6. We think it’s really cool that you’re good at complex mathematical equations, but please don’t try to explain it to us. It’s very overwhelming.
7. If you need us to run more than one or two errands within an allotted time period, please make a detailed, step by step list of instructions, then staple it to our foreheads. And be sure to call us and encourage us while were attempting to accomplish aforementioned errands.
8. If at all possible, do not allow us to handle the family finances. We will either drain the bank account by paying every bill as soon as it comes in, or will forget to pay any of them until we get the “red” ones.
9. We are actually very forgiving of what we consider to be your OCD tendencies, and hope that you will return the favor when dealing with our shortcomings. (We’re actually pretty amazed at what you are able to accomplish without any gnashing of teeth, and more than a little jealous.)
10. We crack ourselves up. Seriously, we think we’re hilarious. Please play along.

I’m sure you could add many more items to the list, but then it wouldn’t be a “Top Ten”. “Top 47” is not nearly as catchy! Since I like to add something about Jesus to my posts whenever I can, I’ll share with you my favorite quote from Him. It plays inside my head whenever I mess up (which is pretty regularly):

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

(2 Corinthians 12:9)

My writing schedule is sort of vampire-like. I eat dinner and try to have some family time every night. Then, when everyone else is in bed, I turn on my computer and write. My self imposed deadline for posting is 12:01 AM. I usually finish the post before then, but not by much. And then there’s the distraction that is the twitter.

The following is a conversation that started out innocently enough (Don’t they always?), and quickly spiraled downward into the twitter ho abyss. Sorry, Candy. Couldn’t resist this one. The conversation will actually be in correct order. There were so many involved in this conversation that I had to cut and paste each tweet. Much of the conversation was left on the cutting room floor because Wendy and Helen out-tweeted everyone 3 to 1. They have their own twitter posts today (Which will not doubt be hilarious), so check theirs out as well. As always, Sorry/You’re Welcome:

Me: @Helenatrandom Snort! Remind me to tell you about the time I was reprimanded by dh for laughing in the colonoscapy recovery room.

Helen: @katdish Thanks. You’ll like this: I told the med student before the procedure: “I’m glad my husband’s butt is in your hands…”

Wendy: @Helenatrandom – Why are you always trying to put Bob’s butt in other people’s hands?

Helen: @weightwhat It’s a nice butt….I’m generous like that…

Billy: @Helenatrandom Starting to blush here a little…

Helen: @billycoffey Wow! I’m good!

And then sweet Candy chimed in…and that’s when the fun started…

Candy: @katdish @Helenatrandom i was virtually ignored during my c’scopy because RB was on the bed next 2 me passing a kidney.

Helen: @CandySteele Yikes! I hope the hospital was having a two for one sale that week…

Candy: @Helenatrandom hardly. The day cost us a fortune and I had to stay awake enough to take care of him afterwards. Ugly.

Wendy: @CandySteele – That’s very inconsiderate to take the attention off of you just for a couple little kidney stones.

Billy: @CandySteele You guys do EVERYTHING together!

Wait for it……

Wait for it…...

Candy: @billycoffey special, bonding moments. There was lots of moaning that day.

Candy: @billycoffey oops, that sounded so WRoNG!

But alas…the genie cannot be put back into the bottle. Candy had thrown twitter chum into the water, and the hungry sharks were ready to attack.

Billy: @CandySteele You just made me blush more than Helen did. That’s quite an accomplishment.

Candy: @billycoffey very unintentional. Sort of shot from the hip there, didn’t I?

Me: @billycoffey @Helenatrandom @CandySteele @weightwhat Snort!

Me: @CandySteele Annnnnddddd……That’s what she said

Wendy: @katdish – I’m tellin’ ya, we were separated at birth!

Me: @weightwhat Great minds…

Helen: @CandySteele Candy! That was so funny! I knew what you meant, but thought you were pulling an @katdish with the double entendre!

Helen: @CandySteele Another TWSS moment, brought to you by @CandySteele…

Candy: @Helenatrandom and just drug the soon to be famous @billycoffey through a blush session.

Helen: @BillyCoffey And I am the one supposed to be making you blush on twitter! @CandySteele TEACH ME!

Billy: @Helenatrandom @CandySteele @weightwhat @katdish This is why I’m afraid to get on here with you people.

Helen: @billycoffey Don’t worry…Our bark is worse than our bite…..RUFF RUFF!

Billy: @Helenatrandom You have to admit that’s a pretty scary bark, though. Much more pit bull than poodle.

Me: @billycoffey Hey. You’re welcome for introducing you to all my high brow friends.

Billy: @katdish How could I ever thank you?

Peter: I came on to see if there was anything good to RT. Apparently the tweeps I follow don’t have anything deep to say on a Friday night.

Helen: @PeterPollock Pacific Ocean. How’s that for deep?

Candy: @PeterPollock run away very fast. It’s getting scary here.

Peter: OK, twitterland is getting positively weird. I’m outta here.

Me: @PeterPollock Oh Peter! Lightweight!

Billy: @CandySteele You better beg @katdish not to put this on her twitter post next week.

Me: RT @billycoffey: @CandySteele You better beg @katdish not to put this on her twitter post next week.

Helen: @billycoffey Are you kidding? Try stopping her! (And if she doesn’t @weightwhat and I will do our own twitter posts…)

Me: Too late. It’s been RTed. It’s as good as posted.

Candy: @katdish PUHLEEZE – I don’t want to tarnish his Yankee reputation before the book comes out!

Me: @CandySteele Seriously, Candy – he writes for me. How much more tarnished can you get?

Candy: @katdish that’s true. He can only go up from there.

Billy: @katdish I seriously think I was less tarnished about ten minutes ago.

Jon: @Helenatrandom @CandySteele @weightwhat @katdish I’m a little worried for @billycoffey with all this estrogen in the Twitter room!

Billy: @ofmercy Sometimes I think they have more testosterone than I do.

Jon: @billycoffey I hear ya on that one! They have well developed masculine sides!

Billy: @ofmercy The fact that they will all take that as a compliment proves your point.

Billy: @katdish @Helenatrandom @CandySteele @weightwhat You’re the women my mother warned me about when I was in high school.

Me: @billycoffey You’ve only known us for a short time. You have no idea.

Jon: @billycoffey they keep saying we have “no idea” – I think that is a veiled threat!

Wendy: @ofmercy – You have no idea.

Candy: @billycoffey we are harmless, totally. And I’m old enough to be your mother. What’s her twitter name? We can bond.

Wendy: @CandySteele – You don’t need to start with the crazy talk like that…

Wendy: @ofmercy! You’re here! Did you bring your galoshes?

Helen: @ofmercy Oh Goody! Come join us….We need someone new to bother….Let @BillyCoffey rest…for a moment…

Me: @weightwhat How come I can’t see @ofmercy on my tweetdeck? Did you block me Jon?

Wendy: @katdish – He just shot out one tweet and has gone into hiding. Did we scare him?

Me: @ofmercy Okay. Let’s just do this, Jon. What’s wrong with me?

Billy: @katdish Oh, I know this! Me! Me!

Wendy: @ofmercy – Yes, just what IS wrong with @katdish. And did you ever tell her what kind of nut she is?

Jon: @weightwhat I take safety behind my iPhone!

Wendy: @ofmercy – I don’t think that little thing will be your best choice to hide behind. Got a bunker?

Jon: @katdish What, pray-tell, do you mean what is wrong with you?

Me: @ofmercy I mean, do I use humor as a defense mechanism? Do I have delusions of grandure? How is that spelled anyway?

Wendy: @katdish – I’d tell you how to spell it, but I’m too good for that.

Jon: @billycoffey A little help?

Billy: @ofmercy I’d better not. If I make her mad she might not let me post on her blog anymore.

Me: @billycoffey Mr. Coffey, if you didn’t write for me on Monday, I would actually have to write something. Nope. Not gonna happen.

Billy: @katdish So you keep me around because you’re lazy? Thank you! Anyone else out there need someone to guest post on their blog?

Candy: @billycoffey I always need a guest post since mine R infrequent.Now I’m leveling out the estrogen/testosterone ratio here & going to bed.

Jon: @katdish you are a woman of great passion, creativity, and unwavering loyalty!

Me: RT @ofmercy: @katdish you are a woman of great passion, creativity, and unwavering loyalty! (Aww! Cool. Thanks)

Me: @billycoffey That’s what you were going to say, right? What @ofmercy said? Yeah…I know.

Billy: @katdish I told him to say that.

Billy: @ofmercy @katdish scares me. She’s a ninja.

Jon: @billycoffey COWARD! :O Where’s that redneck, mancard holding, word wielding guy who doesn’t back down!

Billy: @ofmercy No, after midnight she turns into a shiny vampire ninja. Much more dangerous

Jon: @billycoffey So what is your secret – how do you do it? manage all this…whatever it is…

Billy: @ofmercy Trust me, Jon. You do not want to go there.

Jon: @billycoffey Are they usually…ummm…like this?

Billy: @ofmercy No. Usually worse.

Wendy: @ofmercy – C’mon Jon, you love us. Don’t deny it.

Helen: @ofmercy I’m a bad influence on them….Oh, who am I kidding? We are bad influences on each other. At home we wear ankle length dresses.

Billy: @weightwhat @ofmercy @katdish @Helenatrandom Heading to bed to dream of colonoscopies, kidney stones, and moans. Pray for me. Goodnight all

Helen: @billycoffey Looks likewe are giving you something new to have nightmares about…You are welcome…

Okay folks…that took forever and a day! No more of my ridiculous tweets this week. Be sure to check out The Fellowship of the Traveling Smartypants today. We’re having a blog carnival where you can check out lots and lots of tweets by some of my favorite twitter hos.

Okay, so here’s the deal…

I have met some amazing people over the past year via this blog and others. However, there is a group of gals that have gone above and beyond the casual relationships ordinarily established on my blog and others. These women are my friends and my prayer warriors. As I sit and write this post, emails are flying fast and furious as we join to lift up another friend in prayer. I will unabashedly say that there’s not much I wouldn’t do for them, and I love them dearly. One of those women happens to be celebrating a birthday today. For a bit more background on this little posse, you can check out Annie’s post here.

Several months ago, I embarked on a ridiculously overambitious project of assigning fictional characters to blogger friends of mine. I really should update that…(But I digress…) Here’s what I wrote about Candy:

Candace (Candy) from Steele the Day as Phoebe Bouffet from “Friends”

So it seems that Candy is a bit of a health nut — kind of a granola girl. (Just like me, only completely different.) The only reason I know that she is older than I am is that she tells me that I remind her of her daughter and, she said she didn’t know who Heart was but was down with Sonny and Cher. I gotta tell you, that always throws me when she says stuff like that because she just seems really young at heart (must be the green tea). She’s not quite as nutty as Phoebe, but she has her moments!

UPDATE: I wrote that was when I was first getting to know Candy. She’s every bit as nutty as Phoebe! She is also hilarious, kind, compassionate and just wonderful all the way around. I hear she also makes some mean Chex mix in obscene quantities.

Happy Birthday Candy! I love ya, gal! Even if your husband still refuses to follow me on the twitter…

It’s Wednesday. Guest blogger day here at HLAC. I love a good short story. And I really love Brian’s short stories. So here ya go:

Imagine you’re a thirteen year old boy. Now imagine you’re running away from home. You’re packing your backpack with all the necessities. Toothbrush, your favorite pair of shorts, an extra shirt.

Imagine your parents screaming in the other room. She’s lazy, he’s never home, yelling that never ceases. You wonder if they’ve forgotten you.
You drop your best hat in your pack.

You’ll show them. They don’t need you. They don’t love you. You’re leaving for good. They probably won’t even miss you.

Imagine you slam the front door on your way out.

Imagine you hear them stop fighting. That’s not possible though. They don’t care if you leave. You’ll see. You’ll be at your friend’s house in no time. Everything will be okay. You can pretend it’s a sleepover so his mom doesn’t call your house.

You knock on the door, but no one’s home. No one cares about you. You don’t have anywhere to go.

Imagine you find a tree house. Now imagine that’s your new house. You climb up the ladder and set out your stuff. With no one around you won’t need to brush your teeth. No one will come to find you anyway.

Imagine balling up your backpack and laying your head on it. You curl up trying to keep warm. You feel splinters digging through your shirt and mosquitoes biting your ankles.

You toss and turn, but can’t sleep.
You’re full of questions and don’t know what to do. Where will you go? No one wants you.

Imagine you hear your name. Now imagine you hear it again. You look out the window of the tree house and see your dad’s car. Imagine both mom and dad are in the car. You feel a smile on your face.

Imagine you jump out of the tree house. You run towards the car waving your arms. Your parents get out and run to you. The hug you and kiss your forehead. They love you. They’re sorry. They didn’t realize. They were so worried. They never want to lose you.

You know you’re loved. You believe your parents. You go home and sleep in your own bed. You wake up to both parents awake. Mom’s making breakfast and dad doesn’t look like he’s ready for work.

Imagine he’s staying home today. Now imagine your parents are going to get help.

Imagine they love you.

You’ll never run away again.

Check out more of Brian’s writings here: Brian C. Russell

I know I’ve posted this before, but it bears repeating. I know I need to hear it:

Brennan Manning said:

The Lord Jesus is going to ask each of us one question and only one question: Do you believe that I loved you? That I desired you? That I waited for you day after day? That I longed to hear the sound of your voice?

The real believers there will answer, “Yes, Jesus. I believed in your love and I tried to shape my life as a response to it. But many of us who are so faithful in our ministry, in our practice, in our church going are going to have to reply, “Well frankly, no sir. I mean, I never really believed it. I mean, I heard alot of wonderful sermons and teachings about it. In fact I gave quite a few myself. But I always knew that that was just a way of speaking; a kindly lie, some Christian’s pious pat on the back to cheer me on. And there’s the difference between the real believers and the nominal Christians that are found in our churches across the land. No one can measure like a believer the depth and the intensity of God’s love. But at the same time, no one can measure like a believer the effectiveness of our gloom, pessimism, low self-esteem, self-hatred and despair that block God’s way to us. Do you see why it is so important to lay hold of this basic truth of our faith? Because you’re only going to be as big as your own concept of God.

Do you remember the famous line of the French philosopher, Blaise Pascal? “God made man in his own image, and man returned the compliment”? We often make God in our own image, and He winds up to be as fussy, rude, narrow minded, legalistic, judgemental, unforgiving, unloving as we are.

In the past couple of three years I have preached the gospel to the financial community in Wallstreet, New York City, the airmen and women of the air force academy in Colorado Springs, a thousand positions in Nairobi. I’ve been in churches in Bangor, Maine, Miami, Chicago, St. Louis, Seattle, San Diego. And honest, the god of so many Christians I meet is a god who is too small for me. Because he is not the God of the Word, he is not the God revealed by it in Jesus Christ who this moment comes right to your seat and says, “I have a word for you. I know your whole life story. I know every skeleton in your closet. I know every moment of sin, shame, dishonesty and degraded love that has darkened your past. Right now I know your shallow faith, your feeble prayer life, your inconsistent discipleship. And my word is this: I dare you to trust that I love you just as you are, and not as you should be. Because you’re never going to be as you should be.”

Do you believe that He loves you?

NOTE: You many have noticed that I when I post a song video here, I will also provide the lyrics to the video. The reason I do this is because not everyone who reads my blog is able to view videos on their computers. It’s ususally an easy matter of cutting and pasting the lyrics from another source – no big deal. As far as I could find, there is no transcript of this particular speech by Manning. I typed what he said as I heard it, so if I misheard anything, I apologize. I think I got it right, though, and I’m so glad I typed it out, because sometimes I’m a little thick, and the exercise helped me soak in every single word.

Okay, so…many of you have already read this post, but since I have a few new readers thanks to the twitter and my fabulous corral of guest bloggers, I thought I would start reposting some of my more ridiculous posts on Saturdays. Let’s face it, traffic is down on the weekend, and I actually have a life beyond the internet. I wrote this post on my way to Georgia to attend a Catalyst One Day and “Off the Blogs” later that night. Here’s me being random:

I typed this on the airplane. There’s more to my day, but it’s late and I gotta get some sleep. I need to have my sarcasm “A” game on tomorrow. So, here ya go:

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

12:50 pm – Sitting in seat 8F on CO airlines flight destined for Atlanta. The captain announces that we will be delayed from taxiing to the runway because something just blew into the eyes of a member of the ground crew and they need to find a replacement. Wut?! (The crew member, not his eyes.) Begin reading “Under the Overpass” by Mike Yankoski. Thanks for the recommendation, Marni!

1:20 pm- The flight that was supposed to take off at 12:45 is now in route to the runway. I am frantically attempting to type birthday wishes to Frank, husband of Beth, who still hasn’t posted a Snuggie video. Mission accomplished. Still waiting on said video. Wuzzup with dat? Feeling rather gangsta at the moment, fo shizzle. (Editor’s Note: Stil waiting on video.)

1:30 pm- Hear the flight attendant shoving that stupid cart up the aisle and smashing a couple of unsuspecting elbows in the process. Grateful to have a window seat with an empty seat between the woman sitting on the aisle seat. I’m not anti-woman sitting one seat over, it’s just nice to have some elbow room. She is a well dressed, attractive woman reading a book (WDAWRAB). Hold on, I’ll try to see what it’s called (gotta be on the lowdown – shhh!) It’s called “I Feel bad about my Neck”. No, I am NOT making that up!

1:40 pm- I order a diet coke and a bag-o-pretzels. The bag contains approximately 5-1/2 pretzels. I couldn’t eat another bite! Meanwhile, WDAWRAB breaks out a deli sandwich chock full of deliciousness. It pays to plan ahead! Well, at least I guess it pays to plan ahead, I wouldn’t know.

1:45 pm- Oh snap! I am not making this up! WDAWRAB just pulled out a giant bag of Skittles! This, I am confident, is a sign from God declaring the awesomeness of the adventure that awaits me! Kewl.

1:50 pm- Captain has turned on the seatbelt sign as we are expected to experience some mild turbulence. I am lamenting the fact that I didn’t pee before I boarded the airplane. My husband told me to leave the house no later than 10:15 am for a 12:45 flight. Shea, right! Turns out he was annoyingly right yet again. Because I left a tad bit later than that (11ish) and by the time I got to the “Tacky Texas Crap Gift Shop” just before Gate C-29 (which is the very last gate at the end of the concourse), the final boarding call was being made and I had to throw my bag-o-tacky into by purse and make a run for it. Obviously, I made it. So there.

2:00 pm- I seriously gotta pee. Proceed with kegal exercises.

2:01 pm- This isn’t happening right now, I just forgot to tell you this: The pilot said earlier that it is 45 degrees in Atlanta. Forty freaking five degrees? It’s 78 in Houston! I did not bring a jacket. Oh well, it’s a good thing sunshine follows me wherever I go. Still have to pee. Now I’m doing the jiggy leg.

2:10 pm – I just asked the flight attendant when we’re supposed to land in Atlanta. She said 3:45. And I’m thinking, “How suck is that?” She must have sensed my alarm, because she informed me that they are an hour ahead of us. Good thing, cuz I really gotta pee. You know, like Forrest Gump after he drank all those Dr. Peppers at the White House?

2:15 pm- I wonder if anyone would pay money to have me write a book where I simply ramble on incessantly with an occasional prosperity gospel rant. That would be awesome. Angela got mad at me because I tagged her on Facebook for “25 Random things about me”. Which is strange, because I could spout off about 325 random things about me right outta the gate. Seriously, turbulence or not. I’m gonna go find the bathroom…

2:20 pm- Okay. I’m back. Could they make the aisles of these airplanes any narrower? I’m not exactly petite, but it’s not like I’m big like Fat Oprah (who I like way better than Thin Oprah). I just touched at least eleven shoulders with my butt. That’s ridiculous. Then, when I get back to my seat, WDAWRAB, who is listening to some time management CD on a portable disc player with some sweet Bose headphones, stands up to let me in and the dang CD player fell on the floor and under another seat. Katdish: Annoying people at 10,000 feet and beyond.

2:25 pm- There is a little yellow triangle with an exclamation point on my computer battery thingy, so I guess that means “Your time is up”. Also, the trash Nazis are coming down the aisle and they look like they mean business. Now the triangle just turned to a red “x”, so I suppose that would indicate that my battery means business as well. Bummer. Oh! We’re descending, and it’s 64 degrees. I don’t need no stinking jacket! Now, go about your business. I won’t be back until I am safely in Alpharetta with my laptop plugged into the wall!