Friday Quick Takes

Some good Christmas ideas from Jen at conversiondiary -- is it already that time?

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We just returned from a trip to OKC. Another 24 hrs in the car round trip. But this was one of our easier trips: maybe the kids are getting used to getting carted around for days. Movie fare on the little TV included Anne of Green Gables. Even the boys liked it. The tension between Gilbert and Anne is much more thrilling and realistic than Twilight’s Edward and Bella.

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I didn’t get much reading done in the car because Husband drove when it was dark, and I took the afternoon shift.  But I did get around to listening to part of Walden and then to the Dalai Lama’s book on the Mind and Life, which had been downloaded for me on my ipod by my brother in law.

It has been years since I read Walden, and hearing it made it seem as if Henry David was in the room telling me about his experience. At first I envied his detachment from material goods, but then I grew a little frustrated. His continued insistence that to work is enslavement began to bother me, because work also has a liberating side. Work well done is cause for satisfaction. But then he means more the work for pay done by the people living in the little shanties like the one he buys.

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The Dalai Lama’s book was definitely interesting. He talks to a lot of scientists about how the mind works. Every time he would say something like “in Buddhist tradition,” I was struck with the similarity between Buddhism and monastic Christianity. From what I can determine, a chief difference is that Christians focus on love for others and transcend suffering by accepting it and trying to see/make something good in it, whereas Buddhists transcend suffering by detachment from the things that cause it. The Buddhist looks within; the Christian looks outward.  Wish someone other than Richard Gere read it; I can't get his smarminess out of my mind.

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We were greeted at the Texas/OKC border by a huge new casino decorated with facsimiles of famous buildings around the world. It rises up in a no man’s land, garish and glitzy. Like the casinos near my parents’ house and near where we vacation, these casinos, though somewhat remote, have huge parking lots. Here, there are parking garage after parking garage. Where do the people come from?

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The wedding was one of the least stressful weddings we’ve been to. There wasn’t the rushing to be places on time that seems to accompany weddings. Instead, it was a 3 day series of parties. My biggest stress was fearing that my 5 yr old, the ring bearer, would do something inappropriate during the ceremony.  When he started getting antsy on the steps, his father made him sit down before catastrophe ensued.

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The second biggest stress was my bad haircut. Why oh why oh why do I always seem to get bad haircuts before picture events? Why are my worst haircuts the ones I spend the most for? Maybe if I spent 45 mins doing my hair, using good products, and a straight iron, I might look something like the stylist intended but instead I look like I have helmet head. Where’s my bandanna?

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Although the trip was long, and we're still putting away laundry, the time spent with all the cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents was worth it. Love those guys. Thankful that we have extended family whose company we enjoy.