On the Road Again

As much as I hate to say it, our apartment search has, once again, begun.


Zak and I love the home in which we currently live. We love the people we live with. My two best friends are under the same roof. I get to walk to work.

I see this from our front porch.

And we get to walk five blocks to this.

We're really spoiled. This house is huge. We have a bedroom that's twice the size of my bedroom at my parents' house. We can see the GG bridge from our bedroom window (on a sunny day, anyway.)

We have a porch and a living room and a working fireplace that makes the SF winter (and summer) nights bearable. 

I know it's time to move on. I know we need a place of our own, and a home space filled just with us. That doesn't make the change any easier. That doesn't make it any more fun to search for hours on Craigslist, looking at posting after posting of rentals that are too expensive, too small, to far away, too dangerous, too sketch.

Last time we were moving, God stepped in and stitched everything up nicely. I know He will take care of us this time around, too. We're playing the waiting game again, and He's in control of the clock. 

We watch the sand descend, grain-by-grain, into the cup. 

Source

I could give you all an update, I suppose. And when I say "you all," I mean the 3 readers google analytics tells me I get on a monthly basis.

This week begins Lent. Last week, I saw a bunch of Catholics walking around with the ash on their foreheads for Ash Wednesday. We don't do Ash Wednesday, but I get a little thrill when I see those crosses, because it means our Lent is about to begin.

The students were required to attend church every night this week; therefore, I was required, too. Even though most of the service I spent trying to keep the kids from molding their candles into balls of wax, I did enjoy it by the fourth day. And then it was over, and I felt as if it had only just begun.

Photo at Holy Virgin Cathedral, from Tikhon Thompson

Castleville

In other news, I've quit drinking caffeine, which means I never get anything done. I come home and my clothes are on the floor and I think I should pick them up but instead I end up clearing shrubbery in my Castleville.

That's a Zynga game. Don't ask.

Most things are the same, I suppose. I don't write as often. Obviously. Sometimes I think I should move back up to the mountains, where the only thing I ever did was write -- write, and complain about the snow and try to cook things that always ended up worse than I thought possible.

I dwell on Common Threads. Lives naturally take on a theme - or perhaps more accurately, a motif. For some people, it's addictions - to people, drugs, travel. For others, it's accomplishments - in school, at the workplace, finishing project after project in the home.

I don't know what my theme is, my 'common thread'. I bounce around from one place to the other and before I know it, I've forgotten where I started. On purpose, mostly.

In fact, I forget where this blog began.

Pie

I have recently checked my Google Analytics statistics and, since the numbers have revealed a neither surprising nor disappointing amount of "hits" to my site, I have decided that blogging about my vices will neither help nor hinder my popularity, seeing as I have, quite frankly, none.

To one of my many vices:

Dutch Apple Pie


or, the Spiritual Quest


(The most Adamant Questioner being my Self)

In my younger years I swore an aversion to pie of all denominations--be it apple, pumpkin, or berry. This hatred stemmed from an unfortunate experience at an elementary school party, where I was given a slice of "birthday pie". I sat beside the pool, hoping to continue to take part in the festivities while I enjoyed my dessert. I hardly enjoyed a forkful. Some middle school boy decided to perform a cannonball and subsequently drenched the bite of pie already halfway into my anticipatory trap. I was doomed thereafter to assume all pie was watery and chlorinated.

Yet, at this very moment I consume a large slice of dutch apple pie: a newly warmed leftover from the birthday party this weekend.

Some of you know we had tart, not cake, at our wedding, since I (and therefore my husband) also happen to hate cake. Tart is a close relative of pie--the crust the culprit. I now find it difficult to say "no" to a large slice of pie, as long as said slice is at least a quarter of the whole. I don't quite remember the turning point.

Pie is not the first of my conversions. At one point in my upbringing I distinctly remember loving broccoli. Today I cannot stomach the nauseating miniature trees.

I remember also a time when I prayed devoutly as I eat pie today.

When I was a kid, Sunday worship was enough. Or, if we were true Americans, Saturday nights. Then I converted. Now I feel inadequate if all I attend is Sunday morning. In the church we are supposed to spend our evenings confessing and our mornings drinking the body and blood of Christ. In all honesty, most times I count myself lucky if I remember to pray before I eat.

Perhaps my aversion to the "Experience" stems from my reluctance to turn my back on my heritage. Or, more plainly, the "me" that is my family.

Why must it be one and not the other, though? Why cannot I have the red and gold cross of the Orthodox church, the incense, the prayers, the protection of Christ's saints--why cannot I have all this as well as the upbeat contemporary worship music, the hope of a Protestant, the remembrances, the fellowship in community? The relationship with Christ?

I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God and is God come into the world to save sinners, of whom I am .. one. First?

Isn't that Protestant and Catholic and Orthodox? Aren't the followers of Christ all the same?

Can't I have apple pie and not feel guilty for it?

Isn't tart just a relative of pie?

I know my color wheel...

Purple shampoo is not going to fix this.

What I need is blue. Blue toner. Blue anything. I wanted to try Kool-Aid. Zak threatened to tell our grandkids about it if I did.

Needless to say, I am not attempting to neutralize my orange hair with blue Kool-Aid. Although, it worked great when I was a kid. Once I had a pink streak for three weeks. Or at least some of my friends did. Or.. the kids I wanted to be friends with had a pink streak. I wore floor length floral dresses. With built-in jean vests.

The point is, if I put blue on this pumpkin, it might at least turn brown. Blue and orange are complementary colors. It's science. Or the color wheel. Are colors science or art?

I'm not going to try it with Kool-Aid. Yet.

For now, feel free to revel in my foolery. I was going for ash blonde. I ended up with Jack.

-O lantern, that is.

Don't OTC your hair.

I never learn.

I thought I'd be able to dye my hair with an OTC boxed piece of junk, since I was just trying to fix the lower half (which is the last of the dye from before the wedding).

Instead, I once again ended up with a "lovely" orange hue.

UGH.

I never learn.

And I have no idea how to fix it.

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It's not that I'm doing nothing with my life. I'm just doing nothing with my education.

I teach English, and I was an English major, so I guess that's something. It's also the one thing I repeatedly swore I would never do.

I don't write anymore. It's not that I don't want to; I think I've mostly just forgotten how.

See this post? Peppered with "I"s. The capital kind.

In other news, my friend published another book. Buy it on Amazon. Please.