employed

i am no longer a dreg on society- i got a job in the Facilities Department at Simpson University being a paper pusher...literally. i create and track paper trails of everything from who fixed that broken sprinkler to who is renting the off-campus housing. Not what i want to do with my life by far, but it pays pretty well, i get to work with my fun friend Dee, and i can get out of the house for something other than spending all of Josh's hard-earned money. Simpson has a good record of promoting from within, so hopefully i'll be able to put in my dues and find something better suited to my abilities. And i guess it's also a good sign that within 24 hours of working there, my boss asked if he could borrow one of my Nintendo games. Last week while Josh was in Sacramento working i painted, wallpapered and decorated our bedroom to within an inch of its life, so now the total of rooms we've "Markle-ized" in our new house is.............ONE. WOOHOO! Anyway, it was fun and all and he liked the surprise, but it struck me as such a 'stay-at-home-wife' thing to do (i don't even have the 'raising kids' excuse!): "Look honey, while you were hard at work, i redid the bedroom! Don't worry, the throw pillows were %10 off!" i knew i needed to find a job. i didn't realize that Redding would offer so little, or that what it did offer would be so hard to find, but i have to have faith that i can stick it out at Simpson until i find a position i can really shine in. Until then, i'll just have to bring my own sparkle, push the limits of the 'no flipflops rule', use the power of Nintendo to my advantage.
Oh yeah, my official title is Facilities Secretary and my predecessor's name was Pam, how great is that? (if you do not watch The Office you A. will not understand why that is great and B. are living an incomplete life.

Postsecret

One of my favorite sites is Postsecret. People put their secrets on postcards and mail them to a guy named Frank in Maryland, who posts some on the Web every Sunday and has compiled a few books out of them. Some weeks there are themes to the secrets and this week's theme is fathers. The following blurbs are responses to this postcard (if the picture doesn't show you should still be able to click on it to see):

"My dad used to say that inside of the car's air-bags was uncooked popcorn. When you wrecked the popcorn would pop and you would have a snack until help came."

"When I was little, my dad told me ATMs worked by having little monkeys inside them. I believed that for years. Now I work in a bank, and wish it were true!"

"My dad told me the worst swear word you could possibly say was "Bostonian". It meant "someone who has no private parts." My brother and I used the word until we were teenagers and my father giggled every time we said it, right before he sent us to our rooms."

"When i was little my dad told me that polyester was a small animal in Australia & they would kill it to make clothes. That night i sat in my room reading the labels on my clothes for hours & threw all of the polyester ones away."

"When I was little my Dad told me that the tune played by the ice-cream van was the ice-cream man letting everyone know that he'd run out of ice-cream."

"When we'd approach exits or toll booths, my father told me the sound the car made when it went over the rumble strips was the car getting angry because I had been bad. I still sit up a little straighter when I hit a rumble strip."

And finally, my own dear father once told us he had a crooked nostril because he'd insulted my mother's stew and she had punched him in the face. i lived YEARS of my life believing my mom was that defensive of her cooking. i might have even told a few people. Sorry mom. Blame dad.

-kallie

"Is it cold in here? i feel a chill." -Satan

i owe many, many apologies to many, many fans of the Harry Potter series. It is everything you all always said it was, and this literary snob is humbled. i thought it was hype, i thought it was asinine, i thought it was waste. i thought wrong. Rowling is brilliant and i have a crush on Harry (even though i know that makes me kind of a weirdo) and i desperately want Guilderoy Lockhart's autograph and my own owl and i want to be the third Weasley twin and i want Snape to like me and i think Ron is beyond hilarious and so on and so forth. i cannot read these books fast enough; i'm thankful it has taken me this long to get acquainted because now i can read them all back to back to back without having to wait for the next one to come along. i can't wait to do my own Harry Potter film festival and you're all invited. Owls too.

-kal

catching up

Sooo, Memorial Day Weekend: i drove through the trees to Portland to visit Katie and Bobby, who took me to the rose-less rose gardens and all over that great Northwest city. Saturday Katie and i did even more driving, going to Seattle to attend Rachel's bebe shower (they made us give parenting advice....we made stuff up). Afterward we got see Rachel's house and Taylor's nursery before we did more driving back to P-land. At this point i was averaging 6 hours/day in the car. Sunday meant brunch with the Flath Clan because it was Katie's sister's birthday: a very enlightening experience, as anyone who's lived with Katie can surmise. i might have to have brunch there every time i visit Oregon. Out of 8 people i was one of 3 who weren't medical professionals or future medical professionals!! Families are funny. Anyway, then KaBob and i saw the movie 'Hot Fuzz' and pretty much died laughing/being scared. More on that later. We did a Borders trip so i could audiobookize my drive back home, then scooted our buns into night church and dinner. Later? easy-bake cookies and fancy wine, a fun combo. Monday morn i drove back home, only to be twenty miles from Redding when the Evil Cal Trans Holiday Weekend Crew closed a lane of the Shasta Lake bridge; it took me two hours to go 13 miles. Thank Baby Jesus i filled up in Yreka. Josh, left to his own devices for three nights, had decided to cook, so i was greeted with a bellyfull. Unfortunately, no magical elves had come and landscaped my yard, painted my house, or shaved my kitty in my absence. Thanks to Katie and Bobby for being super hosts/tour guides! i had mucho fun, can't wait to make another visit!

a Ghandi quote from Brandon

"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

'HOLY CRAP IT'S WALT!'

What's more fun than watching the fantastic season finale of Lost late at night? Recording it and then listening to your husband watch it the next day.

illumination

As Winter (not incorrectly) pointed out, Unemployed Kallie watches many, many movies these days (party due to the miracle of DVR and to the HBO channels we get for another month). Today i found 'Everything Is Iluminated', starring Elijah Wood and directed by Liev Schrieber. What begins as a quirky, odd-couple type film about an eccentric and withdrawan Jewish man (Wood) teamed with Alex, a hip-hop loving, Adidas-and-Kangol-clad Ukrainian tour guide in search of the woman who helped his grandfather escape the Nazis, slowly becomes a very moving story of past and secrets and family. Rounding out the cast is Alex's Grandfather, who pretends to be blind so he can have his "Officious Seeing Eye Bitch", Sammy Davis Jr Jr, by his side at all times, even though Sammy is a deranged dog adopted from the Center for Forgetful Animals. Alex is the translator and his broken English is funny and Jonathan (Wood) is an odd guy who doesn't speak any Russian or eat any meat, and is afraid of dogs. (Sorry SD,JJ) As they search for the apparently invisible village of Trechnibrod, Grandfather begins to take particular interest in their journey and his character becomes more than just 'grumpy old man'. The movie ends beautifully without losing sight of its original oddball flavor.

Everything is illuminated in the light of the past.

end of an era

Thusly the last of us has commenced education at that fabled, $350 million dollar campus nestled in busom of a seagull on a branch somewhere near Mexico. All Bakers are graduated and accounted for and our intellectual reign of terror has come to a close. Public $afety can retire their tickets and pepper spray, for their enforcement of all things arbitrary on all persons Us is officially over. Bongo walked, and we did our darndest to be the loudest patch in the quilt, then we bid adieu to the magical Point for many, many years. Who knows if any of our DNA will ever return? No bricks mark our having been there, no trophies or records adorn any walls with our name...Should none return, we'll simply be apsorbed like so many others into the general flavor of the air. That's why it tastes so good.

answer questions using only song titles

PICK A BAND: Ben Harper

1.) Are you a male or female?: She Believes

2.) Describe yourself: Diamonds On The Inside

3.) How do you feel about yourself?: Blessed To Be A Witness

4.) Describe where you currently live: With My Own Two Hands

5.) If you could go anywhere, where would you go?: One Road To Freedom

6.) Your best friend is: Gold To Me

7.) Your favorite color is: Brown Eyes Blue

8.) You know that there are: Roses From My Friends

9.) What's the weather like?: So High So Low

10.) If your life was a television show, what would it be called?: She's Only Happy In The Sun

11.) What is life to you?: Glory and Consequence

12.) What is the best advice you have to give?: Don't Take That Attitude To Your Grave

13.) Your current love interest is: By My Side

14.) What's your favorite hobby?: Burn One Down :) just kidding

15.) When you think of your friends you think: I Shall Not Walk Alone

16.) What do your friends think of you?: When It's Good

17.) What will you name your first child?: Suzie Blue

18.) You always travel with?: Picture of Jesus

don't see Spidey 3

We already wasted 2+ hours and $20 on this sad excuse for a summer blockbuster, i won't waste more time telling you just how awful it was. Just don't see it. And do your friends a favor and warn them too.

Les Picturresse (that's French)

The house.

The waterfall. It's huge.

The living room. (We removed ugly wood paneling and put up sheetrock. Not quite textured and painted yet.)

Fireplace. Also huge.

Bizarro kitchen.

The mystery room. First owner had an open air patio/bird sanctuary, second owner walled it up, put in a skylight, then ran out of money. Now it's The Room That Connects The Garage To The House And Is Scary At Night When Josh Isn't Here. Suggestions for future incarnations are welcome.

And what the heck are we supposed to do with this?? (yes, that's INSIDE the house.)

homebodies

We've been in our house for a week now and stuff is starting to sift out of boxes and into the right places. We're also figuring out things like 'the switch to turn on the light for the front walk is down near the floor on an electrical outlet in the guest bedroom, of course.' We've met a few neighbors and learned that part of our house used to be an open-air bird sanctuary in the 50s, which does alot to explain the ghost birds that keep showing up and slamming doors, pushing rocking chairs and generally causing mayhem. (okay, some portions of that sentence may not be true, i'll let you decide.) The previous owners left alot behind; some good things (ladders, paint supplies, furniture) and some not so good (TRASH FOR DAYS, tvs that don't work, 'gardening' supplies we upstanding citizens won't need) so in addition to unpacking we have to wade through all that. Cosmo, though tenative at fist and still scared of the waterfall even when it's not running, seems to like his new place. He can do his sprints and chase bugs without any rottweilers trying to put him in their mouths, but a part of him misses 4-legged company. An electrician is coming tomorrow to sort out the labyrinthine light/breaker box situation, then we can take care of the awful wood paneling and get a decent color of paint on the walls. Josh is telecommuting to his job at the winery and will eventually have to go down and work Tues/Weds/Thurs every other week, but for now is going down for those days every week in April. Not too fun but he stays with his parents and sees the fam more than he did when we lived in Elk Grove, so it works out. i am still waiting for the perfect job to drop from the sky, but am also looking for something to keep me busy until then. Despite all the trials and frustrations, we're immensely glad to be in Redding. We'd definitely lose our minds if we were doing trying to make a perfectly finished, astoundlingly boring plastic Elk Grove domino our home and only having a few corporate chain stores to do it with. Tonight while we were walking around the block we even saw stars! STARS! Can you imagine?? It's just wacky what these small towns have. Anyway, that's the update. The chaos of the move prevented us from getting any pictures of the house while it was empty, but as soon as we have it cleaned up a little (give us 6 months) we'll try to take and post some. COME VISIT! We even have a bed for you!

A 3 year old's perspective on monsters

Cute little girl, but i wouldn't mess with her.

Keeping up with the Davidseses

David explains his ordeal and the future of his brain: http://www.streamdavid.com/2007/03/26/a-traumatic-week/

i'm so glad you asked! To answer your question...

->'When are you actually moving?'
Thursday, March 29th. We'll load up the U-Haul with all the cds and Star Wars gear we've pilfered from our unsuspecting roommates, poke an air hole in whatever box the cat landed in, and drive off into the sun...north. There will be a brief return to Elk Grove on Saturday the 31st to get Josh's car and attend a gathering, but the Day Of Moving is Thursday, a week from today. (yikes)

->'Do you need help moving? Please say no.'
Technically we probably need help, but we're not organized enough to manage a team and we'd probably get more stressed out dealing with stuff AND people. Our ever-loving parents are helping and i think we're set. You're welcome.

->'You know it gets hot there, right? Like, REALLY hot??'
*sigh, roll eyes, walk away from you*

->'Is it true the house has a meth lab?'
No. That is a complete myth with no substantiation other than the marijuana grow room in the garage.

->'What's happening to your Elk Grove house?'
Our precious, stinky roommates are also moving out; Brandon is getting his own place in Sac and John is going to Costa Rica to drink coffee and write his manifesto.

->'Is Kahlua going to Costa Rica too??'
The Most Beautiful Dog On Earth is going to live with John's mom in Lake Almanor until John gets back and will come visit us in Redding whenever Bev goes on holiday.

->'Who gets the Nintendo Wii?'
Brandon is Wii-sitting while John galavants in the tropics. We'll buy our own; the people of Redding need it. (i hear Wiis make EXCELLENT housewarming gifts...)

->'When are you going to post pictures of your house?'
We have photos, but the previous residents had not moved out, and their...um, i guess you could call it 'aesthetic' (or standard of cleanliness) was not good, so we'll take pics of the empty house and post them as soon as possible.

->'When is the inevitably awesome housewarming party?'
Tenatively scheduled for the last weekend in April.

->'How did you get so pretty?'
God and Darwin made a bet. God won.

Update

David is doing much better. He's sitting up, talking, laughing, eating solid foods, and playing peek-a-boo. (Wait, are we still talking about a grown man?? Oh, scratch the peek-a-boo.) Apparently seizures sort of run in the family and he only had the one and none since. Still awaiting results from various tests, but everything's looking good.

Pray for David!

David is at Scripps Mercy Hospital in San Diego after his hosts, Eric and Tiana found him unconscious Monday morning. He'd had some seizures and had to be intubated (quick! reference all that jargon you learn from tv medical dramas!) and heavily sedated and strapped to his bed, but an EEG revealed that he wasn't having any more seizures. He's since been extubated and taken off sedation and will soon be moved out of ICU. He'll have an MRI and tests tomorrow to try and determine what the cause of all this was, but he's fine for now and is surrounded by family and friends. Being the vagabond artist he is, David doesn't have any health insurance and is of course listed in the hospital files as 'HOMELESS'.

oh by the way...

We bought a house.

What i Did On My Presidents' Day Vacation

Friday: Josh took the day off (a phenomenon that occurs once every 9.34 years, depending on the strength of the Yen) so we slept in and then met David at the Pleasanton b.a.r.t. station and went into The City. SanFran= BREADBOWLS + SHOPPING. i willy wike it. It was pretty quiet and everything closed early so we left. The guy at Baskin Robbins was cool though. Went home and played Wii whilst Kahlua showed off for David.

Saturday: More Wii, then a late lunch at Lodi Brewery with MaryBeth. Went wine tasting at Jewel and kind of offended some boozy middle aged ladies who were trying to get their flirt on with Sam The Tasting Room Guy. Then, of course, back home for more Wii. Josh made wings and they were good.

Sunday: Decided to piggyback on the youth group's trip to Sierra At Tahoe so we packed up our snow gear and sleeping bags. While they all left for a long slow caravan full of road sick 13 year olds, we went into Sacramento and showed David around the Capitol and ate our brains out at Michaelangelo's. We also played 'Guess What Your College Friends Will Name Their Future Children' which was pretty fun. (sorry, the results are sealed for our safety) Got to South Tahoe Community Church around 10 and slept poorly on floors and chairs after all the little hoodlums finally fell silent.

Monday: Got up at 6. 6!!!!!! on a day off!!! Good grief. A flat tire en route to the slopes delayed Josh and MaryBeth until around 1, so they didn't get very many runs in, but it was beautiful day. i played lodge-mom out on the deck, which sounds very hepful and sacrificial but it really just means that while everyone else is out on skiis/boards/tubes i go through their lunches and swap their Doritos for my Lays and eat their pudding. It also means i'm privy to conversations like the following one from some of the junior high students, who spoke in all seriousness:
"If Jesus were here, would he ski or snowboard?"
--"He'd probably ski because old people ski." (ouch)
"What about God the Father and the Holy Spirit?"
--"The Holy Spirit would totally tube!"
---"Yeah!"
----"He's a tuber."
"And God would snowboard."
--"Yeah, i could see God boarding."

Don't try to find the logic. Just appreciate that they weren't talking about their cell phones for once. On the way home we stopped for fries and David and Josh ignored me when i said those Animal Style fries would not be kind to them. i was right. We vegged and recovered and had a yummy steak dinner while we caught up with the Heroes and Kahlua demonstrated her utter inability to perform her 3 tricks out of their usual order.

So that was le weekend. We've now made our contributions to David's road trip, so we're set.

my turn

My old cronies from the PLNU philosophy/theology shoebox have tagged me in their game of 'Name The 3 Most Important Theology Books Of The Last 25 Years'. Silly boys! i have the bad habit of only reading theology when assigned by a grown-up to do so. My first love is literature, so Scott suggested i list the 'The 3 Most Important Theology NOVELS of The Last 25 Years'. A curious challenge indeed, Mr. S., and since i'm pretty sure all you eggheads are totally void of proper fiction, i'll accept in the hopes that you actually read a story now and then in between your Hauerwas and Cavanaugh binges. (for their picks: Charlie, Matt, Kaz)

This wasn't easy. The 25-year limit killed me, mostly because it eliminated the best of John Steinbeck. Other gems for consideration (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Carrie, To Kill A Mockingbird, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Catcher in the Rye, The Illustrated Man, Slaughterhouse-Five) were also lost to the past. i honestly don't think that the 25-year rule should apply to novels, but rather than blorgue (yes! i made up an AWESOME word! it means to argue over blogs :P) i'll work despite it. Also, i didn't know whether i should judge the books on the theological impact they had on ME, or their general theological content. Furthermore, novels with great social commentary didn't always carry eqvuilelant theological theses. Tricky. Nevertheless, here you have it. The final three ended up being very, very different from each other in settings, characters, and purposes. i'm sure there are better options, but i'm exhausted. i would fully appreciate disagreement, suggestion, etc.

A Prayer for Owen Meany- John Irving, 1989 (you know i can't make a list without it)- Time magazine reviewed it with the following: "Framed by the myth of victim as redeemer, the book removes guesswork without reducing expectations. One knows going in that the mischievous author is staging a kind of 'Gospel According to Charlie Brown.' But anyone familiar with Irving's mastery of narrative technique, his dark humor and moral resolve also knows his fiction is cute like a fox... Through the miracle of literary hindsight, the mess of two decades is foreseen by a sawed-off Christly caricature, Owen Meany, a granite quarrier's son who speaks in capital letters and believes the sacrificial arc of his life has been plotted by God." Excerpt: I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice--not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany. I make no claims to have a life in Christ, or with Christ--and certainly not for Christ, which I've heard some zealots claim. I'm not very sophisticated in my knowledge of the Old Testament, and I've not read the New Testament since my Sunday School days, except for those passages I hear read aloud to me when I go to church. I'm somewhat more familiar with the passages from the Bible that appear in the Book of Common Prayer; I read my prayer book often, and my bible only on holy days--the prayer book is so much more orderly. Read it, theo-junkies, you'll laugh, cry, and wet yourself. i promise.

Beloved- Toni Morrison, 1987 - The ghost (known only as Beloved) of the baby whose mother cut its throat to save it from slavery returns as a woman to haunt her mother and family. One womanist theologian wrote: "This text grapples with problems of human fallibility. It is concerned with the tragic, active forgetting of community, history, and the power and cultural origin of myths. Beloved examines the ambiguous powers of memory and community, which can be both creative and destructive. Memory is vital for revisioning communal and social transformation that is healing. ... Morrison's work is not Christocentric, but presents a combination of Christian and pre-Christian worldviews. Beloved suggests that Jesus Christ is within the community of ancestors. ... Jesus perfectly embodies the power to save lives and hold together that which would otherwise fall apart. Christian womanists are called to proclaim a theology whose pragmatic consequences are the preservation of life, the healing of wounds, and the sustenance of community. Beloved reminds us of our own creative and destructive potentials." Excerpt: Everybody knew what she was called, but nobody anywhere knew her name. Disremembered and unaccounted for, she cannot be lost because no one is looking for her, and even if she were, how can they call her if they don't know her name? ... By and by all trace is gone, and what is forgotten is not only the footprints but the water too and what it is down there. The rest is weather. Not the breath of the disremembered and unaccounted for, but wind in the eaves.... Certainly no clamor for a kiss. Beloved. Read it. There's a reason Toni Morrison's a Nobel Prize winner.

Mystic River- Dennis Lehane, 2001- Said the New York Times in its review of Clint Eastwood's film version (which, in my opinion, was as true as humanly possible to Lehane's book) : "Dave's abduction is an act of inexplicable, almost metaphysical evil, and this story of guilt, grief and vengeance grows out of it like a mass of dark weeds. At its starkest, the story is a parable of incurable trauma, in which violence begets more violence and the primal violation of innocence can never be set right. ''Mystic River'' is the rare American story that aspires to -- and achieves -- the full weight and darkness of tragedy....When Sean realizes he must tell his old friend Jimmy that his beloved daughter is dead, he wonders what he should say: ''God said you owed another marker, and he came to collect.'' This grim theology is as close as anyone comes to faith, but Mr. Eastwood's understanding of the universe, and of human nature, is if anything even more pessimistic. The evil of murderers and child molesters represents a fundamental imbalance in the order of things that neither the forces of law and order nor the impulse toward vengeance can rectify. The problem -- the tragedy -- is that grief, loyalty and even love spring from the same source. When Jimmy learns that he has lost the child who saved his life by forcing him into responsibility, he rages like a rabid beast, and you know his fury will only lead to more hurt. ''We bury our sins, and wash them clean,'' he declares later as he prepares to enact his vengeance, but this is wishful thinking, mere sentiment, and you suspect that Jimmy knows it." Excerpt: When Sean Devine and Jimmy Marcus were kids, their fathers worked together at the Coleman Candy plant and carried the stench of warm chocolate back home with them. It became a permanent character of their clothes, the beds they slept in, the vinyl backs of their car seats. Sean's kitchen smelled like a Fudgsicle, his bathroom like a Coleman Chew-Chew bar. By the time they were elven Sean and jimmy had developed a hatred of sweets so total that they took their coffee black for the rest of their lives and never ate dessert. The only non-required reading i've ever read with a pen in my hand.