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Friday Five- The "Fried" Edition

(The Friday Five source is here- a webring of bloggers to which I belong.)

As I zip around the webring it is quite clear that we are getting BUSY. "Tis the season" when clergy and laypeople alike walk the highwire from Fall programming to Christmas carrying their balancing pole with family/rest on the one side and turkey shelters/advent wreaths on the other.

And so I offer this Friday Five with 5 quick hit questions... and a bonus:

1) Your work day is done and the brain is fried, what do you do?
When my brain is fried, I like to do what my friend Anne would call "cook it out". I usually will go home and bake something or make a large pot of some kind of soup, even if I'm not hungry. I can always freeze it or give it away and the mindless chopping, stirring and tasting uses new sections of my brain. I also am an avid penpaller- so I almost always have letters to write. If I'm too tired to write letters, I will decorate envelopes or write some postcards. Sometimes I do a little internet trolling and just read from Wikipedia article to Wikipedia article.

2) Your work week is done and the brain is fried (for some Friday, others Sunday afternoon), what do you do?
I generally consider my work week from Tuesday to Sunday, with a (sometimes) short Saturday break in there. Monday is my day. I like to sleep in (ooooh, 8 am!!) and then make a "luxurious" work-out decision... But when my brain is fried on Sunday night (and fried it usually is), I come home from Confirmation, brush my husband, kiss my dog and pet my teeth and fall into bed. (Or some combination of those verbs and nouns.)

3) Like most of us, I often keep myself busy even while programs are on the tv. I stop to watch The Office and 30 Rock on Thursday nights. Do you have 'stop everything' tv programming or books or events or projects that are totally 'for you' moments?
I don't have television, though I do enjoy a few DVDs from Netflix. I looooooooove to read, so I'm usually involved in a book. A new book from Tony Horwitz, Celia Rivenbark or J. Maarten Troost will usually find me hiding in the bathtub and turning pages as quickly as I can read them. I also have a couple penpals whose letters I answer almost always on the day I receive them. It's fun to read their letters and equally pleasurable to write back. I haven't had a cross-stitch project that totally absorbed me in a couple years. Usually, it's a book. With me, almost always a book.

4) When was the last time you laughed, really laughed? What was so funny?
This is a hard one for me. Not because I don't like to laugh, but I usually find that people laugh at what I say. It's hard, therefore, to remember when I laughed and laughed at something. My favorite laughter moment of all time is the first time I read (there's that theme again) Dave Barry's Book of Bad Songs. I had tears pouring down my face. I love that book and it makes me giggle even to think about it. The first time I read it, I was at a sushi restaurant, sitting at the bar. I really should have gone home because I was making such a spectacle of myself, laughing and laughing. The evening culminated in me reading a portion of the book to the sushi chefs and all of us joining in on the chorus of "Knock Three Times (On the Ceiling if You Want Me)". Aaaah, good times!

5) What is a fairly common item that some people are willing to go cheap on, but you are not.
Socks. Not fancy, serviceable- just not cheap.

Bonus: It's become trite but is also true that we often benefit the most when we give. Go ahead, toot your own horn. When was the last time you gave until it felt good?
I got the time of a woman's surgery wrong recently and I appeared at the hospital half an hour before she did... at 5:30 am. Whoops.
Seeing the look on her face when I was there to spend a few minutes and pray with her so early in the morning was great for me. I knew it would help her go into her surgery in a good frame of mind and that's all I needed to not think again, all day, about what time I woke up and drove to the hospital. It's moments like that when I feel closest to the understanding of my call and I feel the most privileged to do what I do.

Comments

1-4 Grace said…
People are always appreciative of pre-surgery prayers.
i think the moment of vulnerablity coupled with the prayers is menaingful
will smama said…
My Mom and I were just talking about Erma Bombeck the other day. This was a really fun read, thanks for playing.

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