How cold is it? you ask.

It's cold today, has been cold for several days. No melting of snow. It's just sitting out there in piles, all white and icy.

How cold is it? Well, my mother might say it's "colder than Billy Heck." I heard her say it many times.

Just today I wondered where that came from, so I did a small bit of research. On the internet, of course. You can find anything on the internet, you know.

Turns out there have been and probably still are people named Billy Heck or Billie Heck, but there is no such saying as the one my mother used. The actual saying is colder than Billy hell. I don't know why the Billy was stuck in front of hell. And it seems to me that we know how cold hell is. It isn't. It's hot.

Anyway, I also know why my mother said Billy Heck instead of Billy hell. She didn't swear. To use the word hell in that way would be swearing. So she changed it.

At least, that's what I figure.

Random

A friend of mine said today that she had to "coherse" her daughter into doing something. The third time she used the word that way, I used it correctly. She didn't notice. You know. That's the way of it. She was still cohersing a while later, so I finally said, "There's no h in that word. It's coerce." She asked how to spell it; I spelled it; she didn't believe me. I told her to look it up. She said it's a regional thing. I said, yeah.

*     *     *

Speaking of spelling: Sign on a business downtown this week.
Looks like we're in for a bad spell of wether.
I like it.

*     *     *

Paula Deen said of her brownies. "They're so good they'll knock the socks off your feet and into the washer." 

For today

I want world peace. No joke. I don't know if I'll get it, but I want more of it than we have lately had.
Sometimes I think I need to stop reading the news.

I want peace here at home in my country. America. I love this country, and I pray for this country. Sorry to say I haven't a lot of respect for our government leaders. Too much politics. But I'll say no more about that.

I pray for peace in the homes of my children, for joy and for health and for love. I pray that my children will love their families and love one another. Always a mother's hope.

I am one thankful woman, by the way. Words fail me here, but my life is full and good.

Of course, yes, of course, there's more, but I'll keep it to myself for now.

An Idea

Driving home just now I saw this verse of scripture on a car bumper. Actually, an SUV, but I don't suppose that matters. 2 Chronicles 7:14. So I came home and looked it up.

2 Chronicles 7:14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

Here's what I wonder. If you put that scripture on your bumper, do you forget it's there? I'm afraid that's likely. Or is it already part of your thinking so that you do those four things, or try to, every day? 

1. humble yourself (myself)
2. pray
3. seek your (my) Father's face
4. turn from your (my) wicked ways

I believe we are called by God's name. Or by the name of his son. We have taken his name and call ourselves Christians. And, goodness knows, we need forgiveness. And we need healing.

It's not on my bumper sticker, but it's in my head now and worth trying, I say. I wonder how long I'll remember.

Hastings. It's a huge store.

I'm not judging. Well, I'm trying not to.

I mean, I know little about what passes for music these days, so I guess it should not surprise me that people who work in a store that sells music and CDs with music on them know nothing about certain other music, like Handel's Messiah.

"I'm looking for the Messiah." That's me speaking to the manager of the store.
"Is that music?"
"Yes." That's me.
"Is it Christmas music?" That's him.
"Moan." I didn't say the word. I moaned.  Then I said, "Yes," like the polite old lady I am.

He asked Amber to direct me to the Christmas music section. I looked it over and said, "I'm looking for the Messiah. Have you heard of it?"

Pause. Then I showed her the CD cover I carried in with me. It said Handel's Messiah.

"Oh. Hondel's Messiah. Yes."
"Good. Do you have it here?"
"Hmmm. Not sure."

We looked. All this stuff was used, by the way.

"Let's go over to the classical section," she said, which was even smaller than the Christmas music section.

"Here," she said. Then, "Oh no. That's not Hondel. That's Hayden." The Hay part as in what you feed your horses.

Believe me. I don't usually do what I did then. But I did it today. I said, "That's Haydn. You'll want to know how to say it correctly." Note. I didn't correct her pronunciation of Handel. It is German, after all.

To her credit, she thanked me and said, "I guess I haven't ever heard anything by him."

This is no big deal. I'm aware of that. It just seems kind of big to me.

I said to her as I turned to go, "This is a very small classical music section."
"Yes, I know," she said.
"When people like me are gone," I said, "there won't be one at all."

Just home from shopping

What I don't want when purchasing items.

1. Do you have a ____________credit card?
2. Would you like to open an account today and get 15% off your purchase?
3. Are you a member of our rewards club?
4. Would you like to join?
5. Would you like to donate 73 Cents (or 47, or 29, or 8) to Food Bank, Red Cross, Boys and Girls Clubs, Am Fam, whatever?
6. Please take the survey on the back of the receipt. You could win--what?--half the world or something like it.

What I do want.

The cashier tells me what I owe. I pay it. We exchange a thank you. I take my stuff and leave.

Body surfing. Believe it

A poem I read the other day said that people under water do not know up from down. Seems unbelievable, but it's true. I know from experience. 

So this post. It's from something I wrote some years ago.

Pardon the varied spacing and such.

It's one thing to catch the wave and ride it in. There's a technique to it, of course, but that is not what this is about. This is about when you don't catch the wave.

When you miss it you miss it, and one of several things can happen.  Maybe you are not low enough in the water or don’t swim hard enough and the wave moves too fast and gets ahead of you.  In that case you just float up, watch it break, and start looking for the next big one. 

   Or maybe you can’t get out to it in time and it begins break on you.  In that case, if you can get your breath, you dive through the wave, right below the top of it, and you’re okay.  

Otherwise, it takes you under, and, in that case, you are “taken” in the worst sense of the word.  Time slows then as you are tumbled, churned, rolled over and over, thrown to the sand, which is the only way you know down from up, unless you open your eyes and catch one glimpse of light above the water’s surface.  There it is, you think, there’s the top, all the while holding your breath, needing air, fighting for it, for control, for a way up and out, but fighting does not save you. 

It’s the wave, as if it has had enough of you, has taught you something, perhaps, and simply lets you up.  And when you break through the water and open your mouth wide to grab in air, you look around and see that everything and everyone looks the way they always did, like nothing at all had happened, and no one knows you are not the same person who went under.  But you’re not, because you’ve been down there in panic, thinking your life was ending . . . within a breaking wave on the Santa Monica beach you know well so close to your home and yet not there with your mother or anyone you love or might love if you could survive and your life shouldn’t end in such a stupid way with your bathing suit full of sand your mouth shut so that you can’t cry for help or shout against it or say anything to anyone and your eyes shut so that you can’t even see the end coming . . . under water, but actually becoming a new person with this forced immersion, this sudden, ceremony-less baptism.

     And if you come out of it a new person, if the wave teaches you, what do you learn?  That you are not invincible?  That the wave has a will of its own and your will cannot interfere there?  Perhaps you learn not to fight but to relax and give yourself over, that some things—many things—are stronger than you and you are small against them.  Or perhaps you learn that whereas you thought you were strong you are not or maybe that you are actually stronger than you thought because, after all, you came up and walked away.  Perhaps you simply learn to value life and breath.