Car troubles

I'd like to welcome you all to my first LIVE blog post! Well, sort of live.

What I mean by LIVE is that I just toted this here laptop out to my car to

yep, you guessed it,

inventory the items of my car! Yay!

Per a reader's (hi Dave!) request, I spent a good ten-twelve minutes clearing the mountain of snow off my car, then pulled it into the garage to clean it out. So, back by popular demand, here's the list of items that have accumulated in my car over the past several months:

In the main cavity of the car:

• a lamp
• wallet
• 6 CD cases
• 1 pair of shoes
• 3 receipts (one dated as late as Sep. 26)
• applesauce container and lid
• 11 used napkins/tissues/paper towels
• 6 unused napkins/tissues/PT's--which did remain in the car for future nose blowing
• Greater Kansas City "Street Finder" atlas
• my medical insurance info (safe place, there, underneath the seat, buried under:)

• Wonder Woman notebook
• various food, water bottle, and straw wrappers
• 1 (of 2, total) water bottle(s)
• lip gloss, interestingly not entirely frozen

Also. Yeah, we're not done here yet. That was just the front passenger seat. Did I not remind you to get a snack before reading this? My bad. In the rest of the car there was:

• 2 pairs of gloves
• bracelet
• 12 earrings
• Kleenex pack
• $1.11 in change
• industrial staples (Dad put those in there, btw...But, no, I haven't removed them since summer)
• bobbi pins
• hair ties
• 3 scarves
• 2 sweatshirts
• another tube of lip gloss, seemingly a little more frozen than the other, Sprite-flavored, one
• 2 dresses
• 2 hangers
• hat
• optical mouse
• 2 newspapers
• lotion
• sinus rinse bottle
• chapstick
• food processor
• 1 pair of sweatpants
• 7 cups
• 2 pens
• pastry bag with partially eaten donut (hi, Caitlin :)
• marker
• 18 socks
• 2 pieces of gum
• what I believe to be, but cannot be entirely sure it is: a yellow m&m
• a "Warhead" candy, stuck to the little "well" on the door, aka a door handle
• quality check sticker from...something...clothing, I assume
• tag from car dealership when I had service done on the car (this summer)
• straw
• coffee sleeve

And...there are paper towels in one of the cup holders. I will not tell you why they are there because believe it or not some things do embarrass me, and besides, if you contact Caitlin she will be more than happy to exploit me and my ways, I'm sure.

Um. But we're not done here. Oh no. I haven't told you about what I found in the trunk. Hold onto your hats, here we go!:

• a backpack (full of items which I am not going to inventory)
• a bra ;)
• 2 muffin tins
• cat litter
• 4 cups
• Cherry Coke can
• bowl (been there since Nov. 2, when I brought candy to the newsroom for election night. Maybe Nov. 3, if it was after midnight when I left the newsroom. Is that a little better? Saving face at all here?)
• microwaveable plate with lid
• green apron
• piece of tulle ribbon
• Charlie Brown notebook (not to be confused with the Wonder Woman notebook found in the main vehicle cavity), with notes inside from the Supreme Court case I covered--holla!
• 2 parking tickets (shhh)
• more paper--mostly school stuff
• 12 newspapers
• 2 (unused) napkins
• desk organizer tray

And, issues of the following magazines (keep in mind I am part of a journalism program, so the majority of these were free--if you're scratching your head at some of the titles):

Endless Vacation

Columbia Woman

Ladies' Home Journal

Better Homes and Gardens

Farm Journal

News China

Information Week

Columbia Magazine

New York

Communication Theory

Global Journalist (Univ. of Missouri production! Art Director=our very own DB reader, Mary!)

Milwaukee Magazine

The Week

Real Simple

Rolling Stone

Trust

Harvard Business Review

MBQ

The New Yorker

Emerging Photographer

Ahhh. So, my reflections on this particular cleaning session. Well, I have to say,

and I'm being honest here,

it wasn't as bad as I thought.

Quit laughing, Dave.

It has been worse. Don't believe me? Read this and then this and then cast your vote.

That could be thanks to Caitlin and Riley's pre-cleaning session, mentioned in a December post.

Also, I honestly thought I needed to buy more socks. I was just telling Mom I would like some more, and I only had four pairs with me in Chicago. Looks like I'll be good to go for my upcoming restricted-spending plan (stay tuned).

And, my meal choices may well be expanded if I bother to take some of the above items into my apartment. J-school friends, anyone up for muffins? Cupcakes? Anything requiring a food processor? I'm also coming back with a kitchen table, so we don't have to eat on the floor anymore! Yay!

Here's to second semester, with new cuisine and a--MORE than likely--still messy car. Cheers.

Hands

I have various memories from my childhood spent in church. When we used to sing the song "Down in my Heart" in Sunday School, I thought the words were:

I've got the love of Jesus love of Jesus
down in my heart
Where?!
down in my heart
Where!?
down in my heart
Tuesday!

The words are "to stay." (I think. Well the point is the words do not include "Tuesday.") Picture it, little Bailey (bowl hair cut), belting "I've got the love of Jesus TUESDAY!!!" You're smiling, I know you are. :)

I also used to think that a "sermon" was a person, an usher, to be exact. Mom would always tell us we could have gum "after the sermon," and she always passed out pieces of original Trident as the ushers were collecting the offering. Thus, I thought, "man walks down the aisle, then I get gum, he must be the sermon."

When I was nine, my family moved to Colorado and discovered an amazing church that was incredibly formative of all of our personal faiths. Most obviously illustrated, but no less powerful than the rest of our stories, is the fact that my dad walked in the doors of this church an engineer, and walked out five years later a first year seminary student. It was our pastor at that church who first asked my father if he had ever considered the ministry.

But I digress. My mom used to have this really thick hand cream, we're talking intensely thick, it was Neutrogena Swiss Formula, and she only ever had it in travel sized tubes. I figured this was because it was so freaking thick that it would take her a whole lifetime to use the entire thing. She'd put this stuff on our fingertips and I felt greasy for the rest of the day, it seemed. I remember her putting it onto my hands during church sermons (the part of the service where the pastor preached, not when the ushers collected the offering, to be clear. Though there might have been some Trident gum occasionally involved), and I think onto my brothers' hands too, but I remember more vividly watching her massage this Neutrogena lotion onto my father's hands during church.

Calmly (my mom does most things in a calm manner), but laboriously, she gave Dad a little manicure many Sundays. She always kept her eyes on the pastor, only occasionally glancing down to oversee her work, as if her brain and heart were the supervisor, her hands the obedient workers. I knew that Mom's focus was always with the pastor, so in love with her friend Jesus, His love in return so crucial to her every moment, thus deserving her full attention during the Sunday morsel of a lesson. Her heart was always in both places, of course, in love with my daddy and Jesus.

Her hands treated Dad's one at a time, one finger at a time. First she'd open the tube, swiftly put a dob on her finger, hastily like an expert, knowing exactly how much to use unlike her daughter who suffered from greasy hands in her grabby eagerness. Then she'd dab a little bit on each cuticle of one hand, then start rubbing one finger at a time, from the tip downward. Then on to the next hand. Dad always had a little grin on his face, enjoying the pampering, also looking forward like Mom, occasionally glazing over a little in response to the manicure's sensory grasp of his focus. But he was always listening, absorbing the words that he would one day form in his own style and share from the pulpit to a crowd including the woman holding his hand, the woman who has held his hand faithfully for 32 years. While Mom tended to Dad's hands and heart, Pastor Flannery and Jesus tended to Dad's heart and mind.

We remember things better if we have one of our senses stimulated while we take in some piece of information. A whiff of cinnamon can put each person in the world in a different place all at once. Thin, greasy fingers webbing their way through your own would magnify a preacher's words, I am sure. The fact that love was involved in this mix of lotion, sermons, and hand holding made the imprint impenetrable upon my father's heart, I have no doubt, even if he has no conscious recollection of this weekly ritual (I mentioned to my Mom recently that I remembered observing this interaction between her and Dad in church, and I'm not sure she even remembered the event).

Jesus washed his disciples' feet before he died, a concept I still don't quite understand, one I am honestly afraid to grasp fully for fear it will terrify me, to comprehend love so deep. I also can't comprehend the disciples' love for Christ, so devoted even while being chastised and tortured by others for their devotion. Nonetheless I regard this love as sacred and never want to let go of this man who washes my feet new every morning, every minute, every day. All He wants is our hearts, and He may have mine. Simply for giving me parents who love each other and myself and my siblings so much, shown in the way they hold hands in church, the way they hold our hearts and always have, and by giving us the best gift they could, introducing us to Jesus.

Last week I visited my parents during Holy Week, and my dad washed my hands during the Maundy Thursday service with the rest of the congregation. "Bling Bling," he said, gripping my hands in the soft terry cloth towel, "love one another as He has loved us."