I'm back

What a strange trip the last two days were!

Basic impressions:

• Nicole C. Mullen is fabulous--I will be purchasing her CD(s) this afternoon, assuming I can find them somewhere
• The world has too many women trying too hard to be Christina/Mariah/Celine/Whitney/Britney
• Where are all the brunette Christian women leaders??
• Shilling for Christian materials (even bags with cute Christian sayings)...is still shilling. I don't want to pay this much money to listen to infomercials every 90 minutes
• Speaking of paying money: TVs in elevators?? In big, fancy hotels?? I was treated to The Garden Weasel ad while riding up to the 16th floor. Can someone say Cognitive Dissonance?
• 36-week pregnant women, while fully capable of doing an awful lot of things, should NOT do jigs on stage, even barefoot, even if they are doing kick-boxing classes at the gym. Watching that large protrusion fly about is...disconcerting. On the other hand, I'm pleased to know that your husband is appreciating your "greater offerings"
• Watching a couple of thousand women trying to catch a cab in a slightly seedy part of a large city at 10 p.m. on a Friday is quite a sight; much more entertaining if at least a third of the crowd comes from Small Midwestern Towns and has no clue about touts (in spite of the touts' threats that we could all be stabbed and left for dead in the Big Bad City if we weren't careful, our group of four managed to flag down our very own cab, thus avoiding having to pay someone else to stick his hand in the air)
• I. HATE. PINK. Age is not bringing me to any easy compromise with this fact. On this basis alone, I would prefer never to go to another women's conference
• On the whole, I'd've rather been at a bridal shower.

On the other hand, I had a good time with most of the group I went with--our pastor's wife is so freakin' dingy it's mostly hysterically funny even when she makes people late twice in two days--I ate a lot of good food without overdoing any of it, I realized that even if I'm only gone overnight, I still have to bring my Rx or I will have a headache the size of Mongolia (not good in an arena filled with loud, bad, music), and I've come to the conclusion that I really appreciate men. A lot.

I called home a couple of times. I felt I 'should' because the other women I was with were calling every few hours to check on the kids and (some of them) to issue more orders about behavior, social activities, food, and so forth. My theory is, generally, if I'm gone, it's not my responsibility if things ball up. Beast can handle most emergencies, food-related, kid-related, house-related...whatever.

He ended up spending yesterday fixing the extractor {something} on the {something else} after it dumped water on the basement floor twice last week. Then he did the week's laundry, rehung the hardware in the back hall, and replaced the curtains now that the painting is finished there.

I suspect more of this order-issuing stuff was a whole lot more of "I miss the kids" than "My husband is an idiot" but it sure sounded more like the latter. And, to be fair, some of these guys--one in particular--really is kind of Lax Dad ("NO, Todd! You CAN'T count the popcorn and candy at a movie as dinner for preschoolers. Not if you want to sleep tonight!"), and they don't 'do' childcare the rest of the time. Some of that is because the moms refuse to give up control. Some of it is just different styles.

And I remember going through this when Sparky was younger with Beast so I wasn't totally upset. Just amused, and glad I'm past that stage of life.

Beast, on the other hand, was amused that I was the person telling other people to relax about being late (again) because of Pastor's Wife (again). I am the most anal person about lateness, but really, this wasn't emergency surgery, or a wedding, we were late for after all! Although...P.W. may very well be the person who is actually late to her own funeral (hopefully not for several decades yet). It's annoying, but expected.

Right. I'm off to get ready for church, after which we have a congregational meeting I have to "clerk" for during which we will vote on FINALLY taking out a mortgage to FINALLY start building our new building, after 8 years of "wandering in the wilderness." Hallelujah. Amen.