Monday, August 18, 2003

The student ministry at my church is hosting a fundraising variety show next month. It’s a country-western theme with a chili cook-off too. I was asked to sing a song from O Brother with two other gals - we’ll be singing “I’ll Fly Away” as a transition between acts.

And I’ve signed up with LP to do a really funny version of Dueling Banjos with penlights up our noses. You have to see it, it’s hilarious, as my family will attest in the comments. *hint, hint* Anyway, I need a copy of the song and I really don’t want to buy it…so if anyone has a copy that I could borrow, I’ll pay for the postage to and from.

It’s a weird request, I know. And if I can find a way to post the video of the skit, I’ll do it, although given that it’s done in the pitch black dark, I don’t know how it’ll translate to video.

Bryan at Clarity Amidst Chaos gets gratuitious linkage for this post about herbs and herbs (it’s called “well this explains my recent urge to tongue bathe” if the permalink doesn’t work).

I laughed out loud. Run over to see why.

I remember seeing a Friday Five or similar question meme in my early days of blogging that asked if you kept your blog secret from your family and closest friends or if you were open about it with everyone. I wasn’t sure how to answer, because at the time it was a little of both. My sister knew, of course, she was the one who started me in the world of blogging. But my parents didn’t know. And I did email some specific friends with the URL, I have friends all over the country and I knew the blog would be a great way for them to keep up to date on my life without having to send mass letters or emails. But there was a large group of people in my daily life that had no clue, because I didn’t want them to have a clue.

So today, this question came back to me with an email from my mother. She and Dad had our new pastor and his wife over last night. I asked what they talked about and she mentioned that they had talked about my blog (what!?) and a discussion we had had over lunch yesterday about a couple of the theological discussions at Thinklings.

I have to admit to a fleeting moment of unease at the thought of my pastor knowing about my blog - my narcissistic rants, snarkiness, complaints, whining, not so kind stories, links to maybe questionable sites, etc. And I responded to my mother’s email with the following:

Hmmm, it makes me a little nervous when you mention my blog to some folks. Not that I’m too worried about the content - but there are some folks that I’m not sure would appreciate it or get it. I don’t know. Of course, if you had objections to anything on my blog you wouldn’t have mentioned it to our pastor, right? What’s funny is that while my thoughts, snarkiness, picture, etc. are published for all to see on the WWW, I somehow think I can keep it a little bit secret from some friends and family. I think once you and Dad knew about it and started visiting regularly, I had no chance to keeping it low key.

Does this mean it’s open season on Jen Speaks, please tell everyone in the family and church about my blog? Not really, because the truth is if everyone read my blog, then I would probably be too self-conscious to write as I do now - freely and with little self-censorship. What you see is what you get with me here at Jen Speaks.

Not that I’m sharing my deepest, darkest thoughts or feelings. There’s plenty of my life that I don’t share here and don’t plan to share here. I won’t talk about my love life, if I ever get one. :wink: I won’t talk about family arguments. I won’t talk about church disputes. I won’t talk about matters in my job that are to be secure - unless it makes the news or is in the public domain already. I won’t name names of people in my stories - to protect their privacy. If they comment, then they’ve opened themselves up and that rule may change. And there are a bunch of other self imposed guidelines I won’t bore you with. This is my online journal. I’ll talk about what I want to talk about, be it traffic, my job, my family, my church, my politics, my dog, whatever.

So let me ask you, my fellow bloggers - how secret is your blog?

We get the occasional letter from a prisoner with requests for anything from, “Where’s my money?” to “Why haven’t I been moved?” and so on. Today’s installment of Prisoner Mail can be viewed here.

I especially like his assertion that he “haven’t did nuffing wrong…”

It’s sad really.

PromoGuy’s Monday Mission 3.33

1. Are you good at responding to emails and/or Blog comments?

I used to be great as responding to email, I’ve slacked off since the blog started a year ago. I’m good about responding to blog comments. It’s all about the blog right now.

2. Does it make you crazy when people won’t reply to your emails even though you know good and well that they are reading them?

Sometimes. Mostly I just want an acknowledgement that they received it more than a real response.

3. I recently watched the FOX special “101 Things Removed from the Human Body” which was quite disgusting in a can’t-help-but-watch kind of way. It got me to thinking about many of the accidents I had as a child. I remember climbing over a fence after T-ball and catching my palm on the top of the chain-link fence. Went through my hand and tore it right open. What’s the most unusual thing you’ve had inside your body?

Nothing unusual to report. I had a toenail practically ripped off a few years ago, but that’s a-whole-nother question.

4. What person from your past would you most like to run into and visit with for an afternoon? Why them? What person would you like to not ever see again as long as you live? How come?

I would most like to see my friend from junior high, Tiffany. We were pretty tight while I lived in that town, I moved away but we managed to keep in touch until my junior year of college - she went into the Army after high school and I lost touch with her when she moved to Germany. I haven’t heard from her since and I have no idea where she is now.

There’s not really anyone I don’t want to see again.

5. What was the last bad meal you (or your special someone) paid too much for? What’s the story there?

Lunch today. No story, really. We wanted to try a new place, had heard this place was good. It turned out not to be good. We won’t be returning.

6. If out-of-the-blue you were forced to find a new career, if there was just suddenly no need for your field of expertise, just what job do you imagine you would seek out? Do you have any skills you can “fall back on?” (If you stay at home or are a student, adjust to fit your situation)

Gee, wasn’t I in this position last year? I toyed with the idea of grad school to get my MBA. Honestly, in my current position, it ain’t gonna happen. Government jobs are as sure as you can get.

7. If you were to open up your own restaurant, what would it be called and what type of food would you serve? Describe the “feel” of the place (the decor, the music, etc).

Ah, here’s where my domain name comes in. I was in culinary school several years ago. A friend said I should open a restaurant and call it “Freakin’ Jen’s” - and we talked about the kind of food I would serve. It would be a homey, relaxed kind of place. The food would be served family style and be eclectic - pasta, steak, seafood - you name it, I have it.

BONUS: How long can you stand the heat?

How do you indicate negative time?

Isn’t she just adorable?

We’re heading north this weekend for her baby dedication at the Cooties’ church. I can’t wait to see her live and to see her in action.

Voting is underway at Tony’s. He’s changing his blog title, you have a chance to make your voice heard. There are some good choices…but make sure you vote for N.

My computer spontaneously rebooted as I was posting something last night. I decided not to get involved with checking for the blaster worm virus just then since The Mayor of Casterbridge was getting ready to start. So I’ll check into that tonight when I get home. I can’t imagine how I got it, if I did, since I haven’t downloaded anything from the internet or opened attachments from email since that thing made it’s appearance.

The Mayor of Casterbridge was excellent, as expected. And I have to clarify that while the book was one that was read in my AP English class in high school, I didn’t actually read all of it. So what I remembered was from long ago class discussions about the book, which is how I managed to get a B+ in that class - class discussions. We “read” a ton of books in that class, but I only read two: Pride and Prejudice and Dante’s Inferno. We read Hamlet and King Lear out loud in class, so if you count those, then I read four.

An aside: Someone just microwaved something really smelly and it’s making me a little nauseated. Sometimes I hate being right next to the kitchen.

Anyway, back to the TV movie review - I give it 3 out of 4 stars, it loses a star only because there were a couple of places where things felt a little disjointed - like they super-edited for time (it was 3 hours).

Sunday, August 17, 2003

Why is it that I can’t resist watching this kind of crap? I especially love it when the genetically altered, now super-smart shark turns on the oven that LL Cool J is hiding in.

UPDATE: I think it’s because Thomas Jane looks hot in the sleeveless wetsuit.  :grin:  And I thought he played a great Mickey Mantle in 61*.

I went to a party at LW’s last night. She and her husband have parties all the time. They rent a Moon Bounce for the kids, and the people are a mix of their neighbors and deputies with wives/girlfriends. It was a lot of fun, but I knew that things were just getting going when in a serious rain the guys hooked up the Slip-n-Slide to the hose and started sliding down it. It was a good time. I enjoyed meeting the neighbors I had heard so much about as well as some of the deputies with whom her husband works.

I left at about 9pm, because I needed to be at church at the usual 8am for worship band practice. We didn’t have the full band, just our worship leader playing guitar/singing and three ladies singing. We were having communion this morning, so we had a couple new songs specific for that and they were great. Actually all of the music was great and with the harmonies we worked on we sounded really full, even without the entire band. It was a good time of worship. And the message was good too - our new pastor is going through Acts 2 - this morning was about what it really means to be in community within the church and it was good. I wish our full congregation had been there to hear it, there were some folks that were out that I think could have benefitted from the message. I know I did.

And that’s about it for the weekend. Exciting reading, I know. Tonight’s plan is to blog for a little while and then watch The Mayor of Casterbridge on A&E, I read that book in high school, so I’m interested to see how it’s translated to a TV movie.

Saturday, August 16, 2003

Tony is pondering a blog name change and is asking for your help in the form of a contest. There are some really creative suggestions so far. My personal favorite comes from McGehee: Rosen Rants (without Guildenstern).

The women’s ministry of my church hosted an night out with the gals last night.  We had a potluck dinner followed by the viewing of A Man Called Peter - the story of Dr. Peter Marshall, a Scottish man who emigrated to America after being called by God to the ministry, he completed seminary, served in churches in Georgia, married his wife, Catherine (who wrote the book of the same title), moved to Washington, DC - where he served as the pastor of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church (the church of the Presidents), and then served as the Chaplain of the Senate until his death. The website I linked is his son’s - Peter John, who is also a minister today.

My mother has been trying to get me to watch that movie for years. I’m glad I finally saw it - it was an excellent retelling of his life and just the little bits of the sermons they did made me want to find out more. I may have to add the book to my list of “must reads.”

It was a fun evening, it was a late evening. I need coffee…

Friday, August 15, 2003

The Marshal brought in the making for ice cream sundaes!

This means I won’t be leaving at noon as originally planned.

I’m taking the afternoon off from work, so I’ll only be here for a couple more hours. Yay!

Read here for the scoop on Mrs. Cooties’ adventures in getting home last night. We’re still awaiting Mr. Cooties’ story to be posted.

Thursday, August 14, 2003

Our whole computer system was down for most of the day. I posted that one entry this morning, visited a couple other blogs and then our internet died. And all other network programs were also down. We didn’t know it was the worm virus from the other day until about 2:30pm. Turns out our IT folks decided to shut down the whole net to stop the worm from spreading, then they started checking each server - one by one - and bringing them back up when everything was clean. I got internet back at about 4:30pm.

Hmmm…

I heard about the power outages in the northeast at about 5:00pm, when LW and I were talking with The Marshal and he casually mentioned it and assured us it wasn’t the result of a terrorist attack. So we went to watch TV in the conference room - and it was eerily reminiscent of 9/11. And I found myself with the same minor anxiety I had on that day - the Cooties work in Manhattan - and I knew that if the power didn’t come on quickly, they would have a hard time getting to their day care to pick up CootieGirl and then home.

We haven’t heard from them, at least I haven’t yet.  I can’t wait to read Jaynee’s post tomorrow (or whenever she’s able to do it) about their trek home. If you pray, please pray for them and all who are without power tonight.

UPDATE (8:15pm): OK, I’m a little concerned. Denis called Mom, he managed to get to Hoboken, he’s hooked up with some fellas - one has a car. So he’s gone to get the car and is going to return to pick up Denis and another guy to take them home. Denis will then pick up CootieGirl from the day care center.

We have no idea where Jaynee is. She hasn’t called Denis or us at all, so we’re thinking that she doesn’t have a working cell phone for some reason. I’m guessing that she’s pretty unhappy now, worried for Denis and CootieGirl, and wondering how on earth she’s going to get home from mid-town to New Jersey. Fortunately, she’s a smart lady, she will find a way home. I just worry more for her emotional state than her physical safety at this point.

And they have no power at home too - Mom tried to call their home phone to leave a message on their machine. The machine didn’t pick up.

So as I said, if you pray, please pray for Jaynee (and all affected, especially as it gets darker) and Denis, he’s worried about Jaynee too, of course. I’ll keep you posted as I get news from Mom.

ANOTHER UPDATE (9:15pm): They’re all home. Yay! I can’t wait to hear their odyssey.