Rock, paper, scissors: wheel of wow!

Hip Hip Hooray today is Webkinz Day! Ok, I know what you're going to say. "Cass is this another one of your strange little holidays like Mother Goose Day (May 1) and Frog Jumping Jubilee Day (May 19th). What are you going to blog about next My Bucket's Got a Hole in it Day. No silly! this in an important holiday! Besides, Hole in the bucket day isn't until May 30th. (Strange little piece of family trivia here; when my daughter was a toddler she called her bottom her bucket. So having a hole in your bucket has a WHOLE different meaning to us!) Anyways......... Webkinz Day marks the anniversary (this year it's the 5th) of the day Ganz (a Canadian company) first released Webkinz. Now according to my thing only 11 of you are reading this and I'm guessing that Lisa L is probably the only one who has no earthly idea what a webkinz is. In short think of it as a Beanie Baby with an on line component.

I used to mock one of my friends who collected Beanie Baby's (One year for her birthday I glued a doll to a can of beans and added a lable that said "B"s Beanie Baby! She didn't laugh). A few years ago when my 10 year old daughter wanted a Webkinz I refused on the basis that she was much too old for a stuffed toy and computer game. Now here we are 3 years later, she has 7 of them and I have ummmmmmmmmmmmm? 12! But hopefully by Mother's Day (yeah a real, real holiday!) I'll have 15 so I can get my second super bed! So what happened? Peer pressure first of all. I "oh so helpful" ladies on my favorite parenting boards convinced me that not only did all of their kids have a few but they themselves played with them. So I caved. And then I thought it was kind of fun and started "babysitting" H's while she was at school. That was fine until we disagreed about what on line clothes to buy the little critter; custodial disputes if you will. Then I started giving her into trouble for not doing her daily Webkinz chores; I have a hard enough time getting her to do chores in real life never mind in Webkinz land but hey. So by then it was pretty obvious that I needed my own; dozen.

What's the appeal? Sometimes it's the thrill of the hunt. You need to find 36? gems to get your "legendary crown of wonder." It took me a looooong time of searching 6 virtual mines to find them all. Now I've got 2 crowns and am working on my 3rd. There's also virtual trading for stuff that's pretty cool. Right now I"m in it for the shopping experience. Every time I play my hippo/beaver/lamb/caterpillar/pink flamingo/dog/goat/dragon/turtle/elephant and frog earn money. Money that I spend furnishing my 23 room, 9 garden mansion. And like the front of my current notebook says "shopping (even the fake kind) is cheaper than a psychiatrist. I'll say! This being America even in real life I could either spend $20 at my favorite thrift shop and get a lot of therapy or I could spend $20 at the counsellors office and get 1 minute of therapy. My husband of course prefers that I get my thrills by clicking the "wheel of wow" that earns me $20 kinzcash that I put towards a navigation control center for my space room.

Before anyone mocks me I'd like to say 1 word: FARMVILLE: 80,085,797 monthly users!

And speaking of games that we mock I'll take "rock, paper, scissors" for 500 please Alex. Rock, paper, scissors is a kids game right? Silly North American of course it isn't. Turns out that RPS or rochambeau or kauwi-bauwi-bo as it's called has been around in Japan since the late 19th century. The first time I encountered it outside of my elementary school playground was on my first night in China. After an exhausting flight from Vancouver, being met at the airport by a big bird puppet (don't ask) and 40 degree C heat and 100% humidity, then being told that I was to live with 2 strange guys, I was taken to a street bar to meet some of the other teachers from my company. Sitting in a plastic lawn chair, drinking ice cold pineapple beer and practicing picking up peanuts with chop sticks I noticed something familiar about what the men at the next table were doing. "Are they...............?" "Yep" I was told by another teacher, "it's a drinking game here; actually it's an everything game here and it's huge." In my 2 years in Asia I would come to appreciate rock, paper, scissors as a great decision making tool. Have 2 students arguing over who's going to go first? Make them rock, paper scissor for it. It worked 100% of the time and was a binding agreement. It worked so well that foreigners would sometimes suggest amongst ourselves that the whole North/South Korea debate could be settled by one long rock, paper, scissors match. Winner takes the whole peninsula. WE ARE JOKING OF COURSE! Someone very close to me does a very dangerous job in that region. I'm all too aware of the political climate and cultural differences.

Turns out that rock, paper, scissors isn't only an Asian game or a kids game either. Turns out there is an actual United States Rock, Paper, Scissors league (no I"m not making this stuff up!). Check it out at http://www.usarps.com/ or http://roshamblog.wordpress.com/ Laugh all you want but they're competing for $25,000 college tuition. Yes, I do see that they are competing in bikinis and it has as much chance of being a credible sport as beach volleyball (which I don't mind, we used to play it not on the beach but in the actual river). But hey as one girl put it "I could make $25,000 just by putting my fist in the air." Hmmmmmm, where is my daughter who's going to college in 4 years? I bet if she started practising now......... As for me? I'm about to go see if it's time to spin the "wheel of yum!"

Picture of mortality

Flipping through countless Easter pictures of my friends kids on Facebook. Most of the pictures alike; kids searching for eggs, kids with Easter baskets, kids in new Easter outfits. Easter in North America. A random click on a cousin's profile and new pictures. More kids; his nieces along with their parents and grandparents in the traditional "group pose" on vacation in Hawaii. I don't flip through this picture though. I pause on it giving it both my attention and emotions. A mixture of shock, nostalgia and happiness. Maybe it's because I miss the people in the photo. Maybe it's because I'm caught off guard about how much the girls have grown. Maybe it catches my attention because I'm jealous. I would LOVE to vacation with 3 generations of family in Hawaii. Port Clinton in July of this year will just have to do eh Dad? But I'm sure that the photo catches my eye because I have a similar picture downstairs.

Later this summer I'm planning on doing some photojournaling. Preserving the stories behind some family photos. I have a how to book that encourages picking out the photos and spending some time with them. Putting them in a visible spot and really examining the details. So I've started with a random one taken 36 years ago at our summer cabin. It's my uncle, my mom, 2 older cousins and myself. Mom and Uncle T sit in those old aluminum framed lawn chairs with the webbing; the boys and I are in various states of play in front of them. The sun shines in their eyes. My mom is wearing a chenille bathing suit because it is after all 1974. A random picture of every day life, or at least life on vacation. Life on vacation tends to move itself in suspended animation yet go by all too fast. To the little girls in the Hawaii picture it's their Dad and his first Daddy when Daddy was about their age.

Of all the pictures I have to work with I think I chose this one to start photo journaling with because I see just a glimpse of my cousins and myself as we are now in our parents. Like a reflection in shard of mirror. Not in how we physically look like them, but how we are becoming them. Or are they becoming us? Whatever it is for a fleeting second I'm reminded of their humanness. Maybe it's just because they're dead that I usually only think of them as parents. But in this hot summer day picture I'm reminded that they were real people. Parenting was one of their many roles. But in addition to that they were real people. My Mom was a woman who had sex, who missed her Mom and may or may not have loved shopping. (Part of the "deal" of losing a parent at a young age is that you don't get to learn any of these things about them.) As John McCrae said in "Flanders Fields" We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved... Soldiers, my parents, my hospice patients, my homeless brother; all human; all loved and were loved. Easy to forget, good reminder.

The other reason I chose this picture is because my mom and my uncle are dead. They have been for 15 and 28 years. Cancer took them both. But of course they didn't know that back in 1974 and that's what scares and fascinates me. They had no idea what the future would hold. Susan Sontag said “To take a photograph is to participate in another person's mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time's relentless melt.”

Their vulnerability scares me because I can relate to it. How many random pictures do I have that some day my kids will look back on and say "that was before............" "If only we had known then what we know now........." Yes I know that all of this should make me vow to live every day to the fullest. All the great country music song stuff like "Live like you were dying." And some day it will. But for now it freaks me out a bit. Honestly I'm afraid of dying young and leaving my kids behind. I know they'll be ok if that should happen. I'm proof of that; I have cousins who are proof of it, I have a step daughter and I'm still in contact with the children of 2 precious friends who died waaaaaaay too young. Knowing that death at a young age can and does happen makes me confront my own mortality. If it could happen to them it could happen to me. “Parents, however old they and we may grow to be, serve among other things to shield us from a sense of our doom. As long as they are around, we can avoid the fact of our mortality; we can still be innocent children.” Jane Howard.

And what if I don't die young? What if I DON'T share the same fate as my mom and uncle? What if I get old? Without a picture of my own mom at 70 then I'll be honest and admit that getting older without her as a road map kind of scares me. As the class of 1990 approaches our "cough" 20th reunion there's a new question on the horizon for the first time; aging. There's a line in another song that says "I still remember when 30 was old." Heck I do too! And honestly I think that 40 is old. But it's gaining on me. I looked up an ailment the other day on line that basically said "well, that's what happens as you approach middle age." MIDDLE AGE? MIDDLE AGE?! Maybe it's my work with hospice that's making me think "when I get old, when I prepare to die I'll do....." How did that question get in my head? It's sort of like 10 years ago going to an endless string of friends weddings and thinking "when I get married I'll............" Or making a birth plan for having babies; this is what I want this is what I don't want.

I've mentioned before "The American Book of Living and Dying" by Groves and Klauser who maintains that the dying are teachers. I'm not at the point with my hospice work or patients where I can say that I've really learned cues on how to live and die well. Yeah obviously I've picked up the belief that hospice is the only way to go, that I want a Do Not Resuscitate order, I want to take my own quilts in and a moving picture frame. But other than that not much yet. Maybe I've been too busy learning the ropes to take the time to be observant but it will come I'm sure. For now the knowledge that I'm mortal and that everyone is human is a start. Loved and were loved..........

Things that go bump and "choo choo" in the night

Every job has it benefits. No not that type of benefits, I mean the perks; the cool stuff. Having a husband who works for an auto repair place we save a lot of money on vehicle maintenance. When I was a child my mom worked for a movie theatre and I got into all movies for free. There's an old family story about how during the war in Scotland my grandma was able to trade away her candy rations for other things because she had a relative who managed a Cadbury plant (By the way, Cadbury's European branch is waaaaaay better than their North American one. But it's recently been sold to Kraft so it doesn't matter. I've read a complaint that said "the same people who make maccaroni and cheese are going to take over cream eggs and flake bars? Are you serious?). My parents volunteer for a thrift shop. The benefit to this is that they get first pick of a lot of "good" stuff. Good in this case refers to Archie comics (yes they still make them), funny hats for our dress up trunk and "the clock."

My Mom picked up a train clock for my boys. Not just any train clock but one that makes LOUD train noises every hour on the hour. It's fun, it's whimsical, I like it. Except for when I'm trying to sleep or hear something. We're having a family dispute about where to put it.

The train reminds me of other odd sound effects I've known. Ok, so I have little boys; I hear A LOT of odd sound effects. But some are more odd or interesting than others.
Everyone has storys of dying toy battery noises. The ones that seem to self activate in the middle of the night. In our house a frantic search to "shut that thing up" usually leads us to a pile of unpacked boxes and random guessing about what one the toy is in. New houses bring their own random noises that you need to find the source of. We traced the last round of flap, thud to the dryer vent being slammed closed in the wind. One time the offender was the neighbors cat that sounded like a crying infant.

Cars make strange noises. My husband the mechanic can diagnose a problem within a few seconds of hearing a sound. Even on cars that we pass on the street. Not all noises are that easy though. Like the time the "seatbelt is not hooked up" alarm went off in our car during a veeeeeery long road trip. It was a blizzard, we were all tense and tired and nothing we could do would shut it up. At least it could have had the decency to be in tune with the Christmas music.

Some sounds need explanations. Like the time my Mom sent a talking doll to a cousin in Australia. Every time you turned the box over the doll cried "Mama!" We had to explain this to the postman.

The postman had to explain something to us once. We lived in a rural area where the local post office was on the main floor of a neighbors house. We got a call one Saturday morning not long before Christmas saying that we needed to come and pick up the mail NOW! I tried to remind them that they weren't open on Saturdays but they told me that in this case they'd open! When I got there the post man made his way to a heavy peice of furnitiure; like a bookcase with a counter, ladden with packages, I had no idea what was going on. What type of package could we be getting? I was very excited as I scanned the piles trying to guess. Our mail wasn't ON the counter, our mail was UNDER that counter. The postman heaved up on one corner and pulled out an envelope that filled the room with noise. It was a musical Christmas card that had become stuck in the on position. The only way to silence it was to put it under something very heavy. I put it in the trunk of my car and laughed all the way home. My Mom was the nostalgic type who never threw out cards not even malfunctioning ones. I'm pretty sure that it came to rest in a desk drawer and for years afterwards we always knew when someone had been in that drawer by the sound of the card.

Korea was full of strange noises. They would probably have been less strange if I had spoken the language but I didn't so until I got used to them I spent most of my time in a state of alarm. The problem is that somehow Koreans have figured out that using a microphone and an amplifier are a great way to market stuff. In the middle of a grocery store you'll find a man with a mic encouraging you to buy produce. (Apparently that's an idea that has caught on here because there's a local grocery store that has sound effects throughout. There's a recording of seagull sounds in the fish department and you can hear chickens as you pick out eggs. Without prewarning this is very stressfull for people with anxiety disorders!) Anyways I hated it........ And if that wasn't bad enough they took the show to the road. Trucks would roll through my neighborhood in the evening with a man and his microphone encouraging me to buy tofu, or socks or whatever. Think of it as the icecream man on steroids selling tofu. There were common noises too that were far too loud. Grandmas chopping vegetables at 6:00 AM. Some combination of their knives and cutting boards made the noise echo throughout the building. Kids with squeakers in their plastic sandles, thumping down the stairs.

Not all the noises were unpleasant though. Walking home in the middle of the afternoon I passed a ground floor appartment and heard music. The tune was familiar but the words weren't. I stood outside the window and hummed along until I found the words. Ahhhhhh a hymm. And the other words were probably prayers. I had stumbled across a ladies bible study. Some noises, like the clock are joyfull (just not at 3:00 AM!)

Marshmallows I have known

I'm not a huge fan of Rachel Ray's. I find her kind of fluffy and I don't happen to have on hand any ingredients for her so called "quick" meals. Besides, she's not a fan of slow cookers because they're too slow. Anybody whos isn't a friend of slow cookers is not a friend of mine! And what's with the "Yum -Oh!" stuff? But I did pick up one her her magazines in the world's best thrift shop for a quarter just for grins. It had the most incredible recipe for toasted marshmallow milkshakes. Probably one of the best milkshakes I've ever had. Little Miss Teen loved it and begged to make another batch right then and there (because 13 year olds live by the creed of "if one is good more is better.") The boys didn't dislike them they just didn't appreciate them as much as we did. What's the scripture about "don't cast your pearls before swine?" http://www.rachaelraymag.com/search/marshmallow%20milkshake?searchSource=hdrbox-Recipes

I love good milkshakes. Thick and preferably fruit flavored. The ones of my childhood were made from fresh raspberries from our own bushes and honey. Toffs is a local dairy that makes great ones. I really like ice cream and should probably give it it's own blog entry sometime.

I'm sort of neutral about marshmallows. I like them well enough, not well enough to eat raw and plain as a snack like my family does. My Huggyband loves them and also used to love to play a game called "chubby bunny" (seeing who can stuff the most marshmallows in their mouth at once) with his youth group. I can't stand Peeps and I don't like marshmallow filled chocolate stuff. But the kids sure do. I guess I'd say that I prefer them in baked goods. If I can find my moms recipe for marshmallow chocolate/marshmallow butterscotch cookies I'll post them. I don't know that I've ever eaten marshmallow cream. Americans seem to be hung up on something called "Fluff." http://www.marshmallowfluff.com/pages/homepage.html. Apparently it's like marshmallow cream only better? I think I've seen it in grocery stores here. Fluffernutter sandwiches fluff + peanut butter seem to be some sort of American icon/staple/delicacy. You can make it at home but it sounds complicated and involves raw egg whites in case you're squeamish about that sort of thing. http://www.grouprecipes.com/58165/home-made-marshmallow-fluff.html There's also something called "Amish peanut butter" that involves peanut butter, marshmallow cream and corn syrup. I love that stuff but it's really sweet so a little bit goes a long way. http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Amish-Peanut-Butter/Detail.aspx

My best marshmallow story is of planting them on bushes in Korea so my friends 4 year old daughter could pick them. We had the day off for some obscure Korean holiday (perhaps election day? On election day there everybody gets the day off. And they have city, province and national elections all in the same year, all 1 month apart from each other) and we were bored and broke. I must have just read this story by Nancy Sweetland http://www.janice142.com/JoyPage/Marshmallows.htm about planting marshmallows on bushes for her kids to pick (well where do you think they come from???) and was inspired to try it myself. STOP NOW, FOLLOW THE LINK AND READ THAT STORY! So I did. I grabbed a bag of marshmallows and staked out a corner of a local park. Of course the Koreans thought I was crazy but what else is new? Young M probably thought that everything else was odd in Korea, why not this? So at the appointed time young M and her Mom came along and picked a bucket full of marshmallows that we then took back to my apartment and put in hot chocolate. I also seem to remember listening to an impromptu saxophone concert in the park that day. Very cool.

But as far as I'm concerned the best way to eat marshmallows is roasted! Roasting involves fire and fire stresses me out. I'm all for candle light church services as long as I don't have to hold the candle. I'd prefer to light birthday candles at the table rather than to walk into a room with them. I'm thrilled that they now make battery operated tea lights. I don't like fire, (I'm surprisingly ok with fireplace fires. And yes I do watch the fireplace channel on TV, in fact I bought a DVD of it! I have great memories of watching it with some friends, all curled up under blankets on a cold winters night. Now my kids request that I put it in) And I DO love campfires.

My first campfires were at our family cabin. The cabin is a sacred place to me. In my head it becomes so magical and mystical that some days I forget that it actually exists. It's been 10 years since I've been back but occasionally I'll catch glimpses of it in the photos of family members still enjoying it and I remember that it's real. It's still there the problem is that I'm not and that kind of makes me sad. That's what memories are for. An oh the memories we made! Canoeing the lake, catching turtles, growing up. Campfires....

My second best memory of campfires is of camping as a young adult. And oh how we did camp! I was blessed to be a part of an amazing young adults group. We spent a lot of our summers camping. Memories of those camping trips probably need there own blog entry. Just like my friendships, memories of those trips have gotten sweeter and more precious over time. There was the time we went camping in the rain and it turned out to be one of the very best trips. I was baptized on that trip. You will never convince me that a church baptism is anywhere near as fun as one outside. But at least church baptisms are warmer. The problem with summers in BC is that there is just a short time when the water in lakes and rivers warms up to an enjoyable temperature. The first weekend in July up at Wells Gray is NOT one of those times! I remember the total chaos and disorganization of just getting there. Figuring out when and where we were going (5 zillion lakes in BC and my youth pastor always picked the ones farthest from Kamloops.) packing (it was my job to pack the duct tape, lawn chair and the food that most of the others didn't plan), getting lost.......... We'd get there and there would be a scramble to build an elaborate tarp system over the camp. For some reason this always involved someone climbing a tree.......... And then we'd hike. Hiking with my young adults group is another story for another day (a horror story that is!). After that there would be the mandatory burned dinner and finally (probably after another forced 10 km march) we would settle down to a campfire and some of the best worship music I've ever heard. Just as I'm convinced that indoor baptisms aren't as fun as ones outdoors (because I was baptized on one of those trips, in a freezing cold lake in early July. Brrrrr!) I'm secretly convinced that worship music sounds better outdoors as well. Besides, with indoor worship you can't really have s'mores, and roasted marshmallows, s'mores, great worship and even better friends all kind of go together. Thanks for the memories gang! Oh and here's what we discovered: s'mores are much easier to make if you make them with Nutella!

Marshmallows and memories; pretty sweet!

Jesus woud make a milkshake

I started volunteering for a local hospice last week. As far as picking an organization to volunteer with goes, it was a pretty obvious choice because like I said my family has been involved with them for the last 15 years. In terms of "why now?" it was also pretty obvious. At the turn of the year I realized that I was becoming increasingly frustrated with the lack or complication of serving at my church. I am all about practical ministry. I believe 100% in the power of prayer but I also believe in the old adage of "preach the gospel at all times; use words when necessary." The church we were at made that hard. There were few opportunities to love on people in a practical manner and what there was required training and long term time commitments. Mind you hospice does too. I went through a 6 week course and will do another 5 week one as soon as it's offered. I also had a criminal record check. But that was it, no committees, no selection process; just go and care for people.

So last Saturday I had my first volunteer shift at the hospice wing of a local hospital. As it was my first shift I got to shadow a couple of experienced volunteers. The first lady was an about to retire kindergarten teacher. I gave her my Easter Bunny purse. I had picked it up the day before at my favorite thrift shop for $1.79 knowing that hospice people would love it and also knowing that if anybody admired it I would give it to them (not the first time I've done that.) Sure enough the teacher admired it and I gave it to her, shuffling the stuff that was in it to a zip lock bag. She laughed and told me about the time when a fellow teacher admired her Valentine's Day skirt and asked to borrow it. The teacher took it off and gave it to her at the end of the day. She wore her under slip and raincoat home.

The second volunteer I shadowed was probably one of the kindest people I've met in a long time. She just loved on the patients. Love oozed from her. One of the patients was a grandpa and at some point in our shift one of his daughters and granddaughters, and family dog came for a visit. Yes pets of all sorts are welcome in hospice. The workers even find loving homes for them once their owners pass. The grand daughter was about 12 maybe? Too old for the toy room down the hall. She was bored, as I'm sure most people visiting hospice, or even hospital patients are. After you've given the latest news there really isn't much to say or do. Now I'm reading "The American Book of Living and Dying" which I'm sure will argue that there's lots to do with the dying; they are teachers after all. But for the most part.......... Basically you're waiting. In hospitals you're waiting for the patient to get better and get out of there. In hospices you're waiting for the end of life to come. Waiting is exhausting. Mentally and physically taxing.

The volunteer I was with offered to make the girl a milkshake. A small well stocked kitchen with ice cream and a blender would make it possible. The little girl shyly refused but it's a gesture that I don't think I'll ever forget. Love is making a child a milkshake while she sits by her grandfather's bedside. There are no rules, no policy's and procedures, no permission needed. Just love on a child who's probably feeling out of place and scared. Just love.

It reminded me of "the" Tony Campolo story. You know the one where he threw a birthday party for a hooker? Don't know it? You're amongst the few then. Seems back in the day I had a pastor that must have been especially fond of Compolo because twice over the course of a few years he told the birthday party for a hooker story. After hearing him tell it the second time I left for a youth conference where Tony Campolo just happened to be speaking. And what story do you suppose he told? Yep, the birthday party for a hooker story.

So the story goes like this. Tony, who's a well known (especially to pastors from Saskatchewan) Christian speaker found himself at a divey restaurant in Honolulu at 3:30 in the morning one day. In walks a bunch of hookers and he here's one named Agnes (I'll pause while some of you smile at that because I AM NOT making that up) say that it's her birthday the next day. Well Tony decided right then and there to throw her a birthday party the next day. Sure enough he shows up with cake and streamers the whole bit. The hooker is of course moved and Tony of course prays for her.

When he's finished, Harry (the restaurant owner) leans over, and with a trace of hostility in his voice, he says, "Hey, you never told me you was a preacher. What kind of church do you belong to anyway?"

In one of those moments when just the right words came, Tony answers him quietly, "I belong to a church that throws birthday parties for prostitutes at 3:30 in the morning."

Harry thinks for a moment, and in a mocking way says, "No you don't. There ain't no church like that. If there was, I'd join it. Yep, I'd join a church like that."
http://www.swapmeetdave.com/Bible/Agnes.htm

I've been through a lot lately. Stuff that makes me question God, his wisdom, his character. But one thing I do know is that if Jesus were here he'd throw a birthday party for a hooker and make a 12 year old a chocolate milk shake.