Bomb threats make me sleepy

On Sunday after church, Jonathan and I got together with Jen and Jen and Joe the Sunday school superintendent and Andrew, and a handful of mothers with tents and Christmas trees and small children whose names I don't know, and we started decorating for VBS.

It's a camping theme (thus the tents and trees), and it was so much fun. Jonathan and Joe got inveigled into moving chairs and tables and then making the columns into "deciduous trees" by the copious application of brown paper. I got to raid the sacred supply closet and make bugs and bats and other fauna to populate the trees.

So there we were, stringing pompoms, gluing popsicle sticks onto bat wings, and be-glittering fish, when Joe hangs up his cell phone and casually states, "By the way, this building is under a bomb threat."

Oh, is it?

"Yeah, apparently someone left a suspicious package out front by the sign. So the police and the bomb squad are out there. They've closed down the road. I think they have a bomb-sniffing dog, too."

"Didn't the police knock on the church doors and tell us?" demanded one of the mothers.

"Yeah, they did. And now I'm telling you. It's not that someone called up the church and said 'I'm going to blow you up!', there was just this mysterious briefcase out front. So someone called the police."

Andrew slipped out to go report on the excitement for us. I added jaunty feathers to my hot pink bird. Jonathan made more trees.

Around three o'clock, everyone started drifting away. We decided we should go, too, so we went out the side door to retrieve Olwen. Sure enough, there were a gaggle of squad cars and a bomb trailer and news guys with cameras. Unfortunately, one of the police shouted at us as we headed for the car. We explained that we really weren't trouble-makers crossing police lines; we had just been in the church and happened to be parked over there and wanted to go home.

"Oh," the policeman said. "Well, you're free to go out the back way, but you absolutely can't go over near the sign until it's over. I'm not even allowed over there. I'm sorry."

Sniff.

We went away and sat dejectedly on the curb. Another nice policeman drove up and said it could be another hour, or five, and asked if there was anything he could do to help us. Not really. About five minutes later, he drove back. "It's all clear! You're free to go!"

Hurray!

Home we went, and I slept for about two, two and a half hours. I tell you, bomb threats make me sleepy.

And stuff

Verizon is bound and determined that I need a new cell phone. They've been bombarding me with ads. I don't know why (though I can make a few cynical guesses). But I don't really want a new phone. My current one works just fine, thank you. I like it. I have the right chargers for it. Furthermore, it has all my phone numbers programmed into it, and why would I want the bother of typing them all in again? I'm not necessarily opposed to having a new one, but it just absolutely doesn't rank up there with, say, a theoretical new pair of pants that fit. Or a pair of sandals I could wear to work.

I am, in fact, trying to clear out the apartment so as to fit in cribs and suchlike. I'm busy throwing away dead technology and unnecessary papers and packing away old clothes, so the concept of getting new junk is kind of horrifying. Tuesday night I put away two bags of necklaces I hardly ever wear and cleaned off my bulletin board.

On the other end of the trendy spectrum, my brave attempt to grow my own herbs this spring has been a pretty good flop. Some of them are still alive, but the rest died from... I'm not sure what. Lack of love and water probably didn't help. I even managed to break one of the pots. Organic food is all well and good, but it's simply impossible to grow a baby, work, and keep up with a mouse and house and garden. I don't know how ladies ever make it through the first trimester without a husband.

I recognize that programmers need something to do, and some people actually like gadgets. I'm also delighted for people with time and energy to grow edible things, and someday I might too. I suspect, however, that God has seasons for people, and this is a season in which doing and buying and keeping on top of inessential though very cool things isn't on my Called-To list. Perhaps I should break it to Verizon gently... or just keep throwing away their ads.

I failed

Yesterday afternoon, John Who Goes to Conferences stopped by my desk. We chatted a minute about this and that, and then I noticed he was fiddling with some kind of knit armband with a purple logo on it.

"What's that?" I ask.
"You don't know?" (Clearly not.) "Blockbuster last Fourth of July, also 1985?"
"I was in Scotland last Fourth of July..."
John taps it meaningfully, as if by looking more closely at it, I will comprehend all. I rack my brains for movies that came out last summer. It's not Kung Fu Panda, and it's not the classic Batman symbol, but maybe there's more than one?
"Batman?"
"TRANSFORMERS! Transformers. Robots in disguise!" And with that, he went off shaking his head. I definitely failed.

"The Lord bless you and make you live long and prosper"

Vulcans and Deuteronomy... a great combination.

When we all get to heaven

I just discovered that Touchstone has a whole collection of posts on the importance of graveyards. :-) I believe it was Dr. Smith who first got me interested in theology of Christian burial; one of his many areas of arcane knowledge. He did it in freshman Rhetoric, no less. The randomest things turn up in his classes.

Your pardon, I need to go check on my husband. I think he found some undead sausage in the fridge.

Good instructions

This is a poem from Neil Gaiman, the author (I learn) of the book Stardust, and it's full of good advice if you should happen to find yourself in a fairy tale.

Hat tip: Semicolon.

Mixed compliment of the day

"You're the mother-load!"

Only my nice husband can say that and make me laugh. It could have been very unfortunate.

Yawn

Really odd things happen when you talk without being awake. Whose herb garden did you go into?