7 Chattering Takes

One
I kind of feel like I should never have to write again, having reached the pinnacle of human existence. I was about to cut into a large and succulent shrimp when I got a little ding on my phone informing me that I had an email. Thank goodness I have my phone with me always, even when I’m spending an entire day alone with my husband, or I would not have had any idea until the evening.

Just to be clear, I wasn’t published by Time magazine, but by Time.com which is what all magazines do now–they have their online presence and their print presence and oh my word my head is the size of a Spiedie Fest Ballon.

Two
Speaking of the Spiedie Fest, which is not yet, anyone and everyone in Binghamton should go to Good Shepherd’s Health Fair and Ice Cream Social. Saturday 12-3 Free Ice Cream, very cool displays and vendors–EVERYTHING is free. Seriously, Go! Have a lovely time! We’re so tragically sorry to be missing it.

Three
I am nearing the end of a whole twenty-four hours alone with my own husband. Part of surviving a road trip with six children is getting to leave them with their grandparents and then racing back downtown to wander the river walk and some of the old Spanish Missions so comfortably settled along the river. Finally got to see the San Jose Mission–completely charming, as everyone said it would be.

Four
Wandered around and wondered to myself about the word Mission. Would anyone then recognize what we do now as ‘mission’? And how much of what they did then would we be willing to accept as relating at all to the gospel? Wish someone would write up a long history of the word and how it’s changed through Christian history.

Concluded to myself that hostility is really crucial. If you are hostile to the culture you are going into, but not at all hostile to your own culture, that is probably very bad. If you are not at all hostile to the culture you are going into and only hostile to your own, that is probably not optimal either. But if you can be hostile to both, and affectionate of both–well, then, you would be Jesus, wouldn’t you, and this conversation would be moot.

Five
Days like this are so important, for me, because I really need to talk. I don’t really know what I think about anything until I begin to talk, and talk, and talk, and keep talking while Matt nods his head and orders another glass of wine. An outsider might have thought that we were having a nice conversation, where both of us say stuff, back and forth, as it were. But it is really 24 hours of me talking at him, and him being nice about it. I always like to fool myself and think that I am not someone who talks too much, but I see, of course, that that is Not True. Given the chance, I would probably never be quiet even for a moment.

Six
Did briefly stop chattering to watch a pretty funny movie, The Correspondents, written and directed by Ricky Gervais. As a committed fan of the British Office, I was hopeful that this would be ridiculous and it was. Love the way, so ironical for me yesterday, he chips away at the great tidal wave like desire of everyone to be famous, even for no good reason. Basically, in the movie, Gervais plays a sound technician for a radio station and very foolishly throws away the tickets and passports required for him and the celebrity radio reporter to cover a war in a small Latin American country. The two of them hide in an attic apartment and do their best to invent the war with their cell phone and a lot of video game sound effects. They get their comeuppance when they have to actually travel to the country and all kinds of bad things befall them. Really funny.

Seven
Offered to go with Matt to his gym and stand around while he works out because let’s not kid ourselves I wouldn’t have any idea what to do in a gym but look sarcastic and unhappy. Very graciously, however, he thought perhaps we might go out to breakfast instead. So I must stop doing this and toddle off to eat something unhealthy.

Have a lovely day! And go read more quick takes! And go to the Fair if you’re in Bing! Don’t Forget!