Christian Rock, a New Member of the Family, and what got dumped on Sarah at a Toby Mac Concert.

Good morning all!

Last night, Hubby took me to Toby Mac's Hits Deep concert.  Now, this was definitely outside the box for me.  First of all...rock concerts have not been my friend of late.  Second of all, we JUST saw Piff the Magic Dragon last weekend and honestly, two big nights out among people...that's a lot

for me.  (Let's just say this is the month when all those "PERFECT" Christmas presents are happening.)

Side note, see this show. It's hilarious!

Also, while I do enjoy Christian contemporary and rock music, I'm not an avid listener and other than the headliner, Toby Mac, I had zero knowledge of any of the other acts playing this very concert.

To fully understand me (who would want that?) we have to go back to the dawning of, well, me.  See, I was raised in what can only be called a super ultra mega religious conservative family. All of my elder relatives were in THE MINISTRY  (not the band, no, service to GOD) and I, too, was educated parochially and then went into the ministry as a parochial school teacher.  As far as my upbringing was concerned (and I'm not making this up) when it came to music, popular music was the work of the devil (unless it was Perry Como or The Kingston Trio.  The Osmonds were a big too edgy and the Partridge Family...well that was just going to send you straight to Hell.)

When Christian Contemporary music started popping up, it was a whole different battle for my elders. See, in my family, the PIPE ORGAN was the only proper instrument in church and, really, if there must be something else, I guess we could get crazy and play trumpets, but only on Easter Sunday.  When it came to this new music, this...well, AMY GRANT...that was considered at the very least useless, and, in some realms, more damaging to good Christian teens than say, satanic backmasking.   (You younger folks, go look that up.)

And this was all before Brittany Spears wrapped a snake around herself.

Wow, did I get off topic.  

Anyway, my point is that I wasn't exactly raised listening to CC music. Which doesn't mean I haven't had the opportunity to get into as an adult. Plenty of adults (most of them in my church choir) listen to K-love and know all the songs and all the artists.  Not me.  I liked listening to the radio as a teen, we all did, and in college I experimented with alternative rock, but by the time I became a full on adult, my musical tastes were pretty much set and, not being a big scholar of music, I'm perfectly satisfied with my CD collection as it is.  I'm more into movies now anyway, so my last several music purchases have been movie soundtracks.  But, thanks to a recent change of churches, my church choir, and musicians like Mike Westendorf, I'm learning.

So we're at this concert last night and I don't know any of the songs or any of the artists, and there were a lot...but still, I was having fun.  The message was positive, the music was high energy, and the crowd was awesome.  

As we know, Sarah has had issues with concerts in the past.  There have been multiple Rick Springfield concerts where she's gotten a rum and coke dumped on her.  There was that Melissa Etheridge concert where she sat next to a guy who either was a Nazi or had no idea that his over head hand gesture was really, really, really funny, given that he was at a Melissa Etheridge concert.  (Crack a book, dude!)  There was the Pat Benatar concert where she sat in front of people who argued for ten minutes about who was really supposed to be in the seats, and then DUDE shouted, "Play Love is  A Battlefield" the entire concert and then when Pat did, he didn't recognize it.  And how many countless other concert mishaps have there been?

Well, something got dumped on Sarah this time too...all courtesy of the older lady behind her.  

Love, and the courage to, how do I put this...PRAISE JESUS! out loud.

See, I grew up in one of those churches where we show our love for the Lord by sitting very quietly

I mean, is there a single person who looks like they're enjoying what they're doing?

and focusing on how sinful we've been.  The lady behind me clearly came from a different denomination.  She was definitely not ashamed about her faith, nor was she shy about adding commentary to the performers' talking points.

She started slowly, a few "Amens" and "Yes Lord" as the opening act performed.  The second act was a little loud, but she managed to get a "Mm, Hm yes!" over to me.

Right before the intermission (this was a Looong concert with a half dozen artists playing) the MC came out and talked about how HOPE is so important and how he'd gone to Ethiopia and met with a young family of children whose parents had died and how a 12 year old boy was the head of household and how HOPE in the Gospel moved some Americans to sponsor the kids.  The story started with how the parents died.  

Lady behind me:  Oh Lord.

MC: These children lived in four mud walls.

Lady behind me:  Oh Lord Jesus.

MC:  There was no floor. They had no beds, and no roof. When it rained, they were sleeping in mud.

Lady behind me:  Mm, Mm.

MC: They had no school supplies.  They had no clothes. They couldn't go to school,  These four children just wandered around with not enough food, no clean water, no way to go to school and they slept in mud.

Lady behind me:  Oh Lord.

MC:  But then, someone filled with the HOPE....

Lady behind me: Mm, say it!

MC:  Filled with the hope of the love...

Lady behind me: Say it, Say it!

MC: With the hope of the love of Jesus...

Lady behind me: He's sayin' it! Ses Lord!

MC: Sponsored these children and now they have a roof and they have a floor and they have four beds and they have school supplies and they have clothes!

Lady behind me: He's sayin' it!  Lord, he's sayin' it!

MC:  And now they know the HOPE and the LOVE of JESUS!

Lady behind me: HE SAID IT!  Yes, LORD! HE SAID IT!

Now, I'm not sure if it was the story about these children in Ethiopia, or the verbal expression of unashamed faith from the woman behind us...but guess what?

It's a GIRL!

Yep, we, the Bradleys, have now sponsored a young girl in Rawanda. Her name is Claundine, and a buck a day and some letters from us to her will build her a house, clothe her, feed her, and give her the hope in the love of Jesus.

That's a mighty powerful buck a day. Yes, Lord.

Can't wait to tell Skippy and Peaches they have a new sister.

So...in summary...my plan going forward it to listen to more CC music on the radio because, and I know there are those who are going to disagree with me, one can only listen to so much 80's jams before you need something else. Plus, I think I can go to concerts again without worrying that my shoes are going to get ruined by rum and coke.

 I also plan to include less sitting quietly and more "YES LORD PRAISE JESUS" in my life.

Also, I have a new kid to care for, so there's that!

Gen X-ers REJOICE! We've taken back the malls!

Can you name this movie mall?

Hello and happy Saturday to all!

Ah, the mall.   A place where teens in the 80's and early 90's would go on a Friday night or Saturday afternoon to hang out. We'd meet friends there, we'd maybe get an Orange Julius, and we'd head over to Sam Goody or Suncoast Video to check out the latest in music or movies.

Then we grew up. And had families.  And it was suddenly sort of a pain in the rump to go to the mall, what with the stroller and the diaper bag and having no money because of what was in the stroller.  We had full time jobs and we were too tired to go anywhere on a Friday and Saturdays were taken up with soccer games for our kids or some kind of volunteering at our kids' schools.

So we stopped going to the mall. And Sam Goody and Suncoast Video went out of business.  

Flash forward to 2020.  Many of us haven't make a point of hitting the malls in a long time.  The kids are grown up, they can take themselves shopping.  Target has everything a person could possibly need and whatever Target doesn't have, Amazon does, and frankly, shopping in our sweats is awesome.  We meet our friends at coffee shops and bistros now, when we have the time or the energy to leave the house.  Netflix and all of her many streaming service sisters have replaced the need to go anywhere to see a movie.  

Oh, and our musical tastes are set.  Anything new pretty much sounds like the devil's noise. 

Also, malls are full of kids, right?  We are in the process of getting ours out of the house, why on earth would we want to go where there are more noisy kids who dress weird and have no respect for their elders? 

Sears and Boston Store went out of business.

My point here is that last night Hubby and I had a minor case of cabin fever, so we did something we haven't done in a really long time. We went to the mall on a Friday night.  I gotta be honest, I don't think we've done that since we were in college, prior to the dawn of the 90's.

Not that we haven't been to a mall since 1989, we just really haven't gone to hang out and see what's going on.

Gen X-ers, I'm here to tell you, it's a real revelation! We've taken the mall back!  

Well, not the outside of the mall. If your local shopping mall is anything like ours, it's currently going through something of a renovation.  The outside of the mall is a ring of new eateries, gastropubs, and wine bars, book ended by state of the art movie theaters with their own bars and restaurants, and entertainment venues. We have something called WHIRLEYBALL, which we watched last night.  It's like bumper cars and la crosse had a baby and the younger generation is raising it now.

No, what I'm talking about is Generation X is taking back the INSIDE of the mall!  

There we were, on a Friday night, walking laps around the mall because it was cold outside and the only other people in the place were...

More Gen-Xers!

What once was the mothership for trendy teens has become the quiet locale for a cheap date night for the 40 and up crowd.  We got coffee at our local coffee shop and then headed over to the mall to get a little exercise and talk to each other.  AND WE WERE NOT THE ONLY ONES.

Hubby noticed it first.  We walked in through the back door of the mall (The back door? Yes, we came in through the doors where the storefronts are empty no one's built a restaurant yet.  Very dark, but there was a ton of parking.)  We walked in to the barely lit end of the mall and he pointed out immediately that we were not the only middle aged couple carrying coffees.

The longer we looked, the harder we were laughing.  The storefronts that were actually open (and the mall closest to us is literally dying from the inside. The outside is fine, but the actual inside of the mall is dying.) were empty of customers (Except 5 Guys burgers, which was packed with people.) but the mall area was nicely full of people.  

Tell your friends to meet you at the mall!

I must add, these were people who had little or no intention of actually buying anything.  We were there to have a nice evening with our significant others and, having spent a lifetime together, we had our coffees and each other. We didn't need movies, we didn't need more stuff, we didn't need whirleyball. 

It. Was. Awesome!

Now, did we actually stop in a store and buy something?  Well, sure. I mean, we stopped at
Barnes and Noble and it's a rare trip there that we don't find something. Sure enough, Hubby found a Hootie and Blowfish album (on vinyl...how throwback is that?) and a healthy eating cookbook (I like his optimism) so we got that.

Then we came home, fired up a couple of episode of "Man in the High Castle" on Amazon (we're in season 4 and I'm pretty sure I still have no idea what's happening) and tossed a frozen pizza in the over.  

Dinner and a movie? Not anymore. Mall walking and streaming movies.  

And, with no kids hanging around to bother us, it's PERFECTION!

Valentine's blast from the past...Remembering NOelle C.

This was originally posted February of 2013 when I was working at Stuff, Installed with Noelle C.  For those of you who remember her, or who had to work with her, this will be a fun trip down memory lane. For those of you who did NOT...I promise you this is 100% the truth. This was my life.

I realize it's Saturday, but if you're like me, Friday goes by in a blur, because it's the very best day of the week.  I'm as far away from my next Noelle C encounter as I'm going to be at any point in the week on Friday morning.

So Thursday was Valentine's Day and most people I know don't have a big feeling about it one way or another, especially when it lands on a week day.  Maybe we exchange cards, or, maybe, like in my house, we make a big deal about ignoring it, and then get each other "Ground hog's day" gifts.  (Actually, the anniversary of my first date with hubby in on the 27th.  It's our 27th February 27th as a couple.  So that's really our big romantic day, and we'll be spending it this year service baked potatoes at the Lenten Dinner at our church.)

Personally, I think Valentine's Day is stupid.  If you're in a relationship, and you need a specific day to have to buy your honey something nice like flowers or candy or a bottle a Jameson's Irish Whisky, then maybe you're in trouble in the love department.  And if you aren't in a relationship, Valentine's Day is just a big old day to make you feel worse about yourself.  Bonus, if you're a guy and you don't get your woman something sparkly and expensive on Valentine's Day, well, according to the TV advertisers, you're just not a man.

As always, however, Noelle C managed to make this day, which is already weird and uncomfortable for most people, even weirder and more uncomfortable for those of us who have to work with her.  And here are the top fives ways she managed that.

5)  The grandest of grand entrances.

Every single work day of her life, Noelle C enters the office jingling her keys and singing "good morning good morning"  like some sort of twisted Disney fairy sprinkling magic dust on everyone.  It's especially annoying to me because for 99% of her entrance I'm four feet or less away from her and I almost always on the phone with a customer.  Which means at 10:54 four mornings a week, while we're four hours into our work day already, Little Miss Sunshine bounds in making all sorts of racket. 

Valentine's Day she ramped it up.  Big time. 

She flung wide the door, which means all the cold air from outside washed in behind her and settled over my desk in reception for the next three hours.  She jingled her keys with one hand and with the other she held up a plastic bin of those horrible gummy chewy cinnamon hearts.  This was a HUGE bin of these things.  It truly is my least favorite candy of all.

She then did this odd little dance where she marched like she was presenting Simba to the African safari, and skipped like an 8 year girl at a May pole dance.  This she did until she crossed the showroom and leaned over my desk where she jingled her keys IN MY FACE and shouted in a high pitched voice "HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!"

I was on the phone.  With a customer.  Who was telling me some very technical details of a problem relating to the thing we installed in his home. 

4)  Just take a crow bar to the boss's personal life. He won't mind.

After harassing me, she did her weird dance right into Lumbergh's office.  She stopped with the keys, and sang her "Happy Valentines' Day" song (Think  "Ren and Stimpy's 'Happy Happy JOY Joy' song  but without the attention to musical excellence) at the top of her lungs.  (Again, I'm on the phone.  He's on the phone.)  Then she stood there and waited for him to get off the phone.  When he made the mistake of doing so, she said, "HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY, IT's A DAY OF LOVE!  DO YOU HAVE ANY ROOOOOOOMAAAAAAAANTIC PLANS TONIGHT?"

This, all said in what I can only think was her attempt at a flirtatious voice.

I felt like gagging.  I know what Lumbergh was doing for Valentine's Day. He and the wife (yes, he has a wife.  She is lovely.  Noelle C has met her.) were going to one of their kids' volleyball games.

I don't know what he said, but I could hear him squirming in his chair because she also has no sense of personal space.

3) A door is no barrier to what she has to say

So for the last three days, Noelle C has been telling everyone, EVERYONE in the office to be on the lookout for a customer who was going to come in and buy something for us to install.  If he did come in and buy something, she was going to get a commission.  Her quest for commissions might be the most annoying thing yet, but that's another blog for another day.

She's asked if he's coming to the office every hour for the last three days.  So when he finally showed up in the showroom at about noon, she did what anyone would do in that case:  She dove behind her desk and refused to talk to him.  (See, in order for her to get the commission, she actually has to talk to him in person. So by NOT talking to him, she can blame whomever does talk to him when the thing doesn't get purchased.)

So Lumbergh went to speak with this customer.  Now the guy was not what you'd call a chatty person.  And he spent nearly half an hour staring at our displays, saying nothing.  When there's someone in the showroom, my day comes to a stop because I either have to talk to that person, which is fine, or I have to sit and work quietly without making or taking phone calls.  (Given that I'm the customer service person and 99% of the phone calls I take are unpleasant, I can't be doing that in front of new potential customers.)  So I'm sitting there, pretending to write our thank you notes to customers, while Lumbergh is standing there waiting for this guy to talk. And what's Noelle C doing?  What she always does.  She's talking to herself.

Loudly.

I had to check because at this point she was talking so loudly I thought she was actually on the phone.  Nope, she was just saying random things to make herself look good.  Things like, "well, I already booked an appointment with so I can just move on to the next person.  And oh, I booked that one too.  Well, what am I going to do?  I booked two appointments and it's not even noon."

This went on for several minutes, annoying me, and annoying Lumbergh to the point where he closed her door, so as not to disturb the corpse of a customer we had standing in the showroom. 

That didn't stop her. oh no.  She just got LOUDER so we could hear her through the door.

2) EAT THE CANDY!  EAT IT!

By three PM no one had eaten any of that vile chewy candy.  I don't like them.  Lumbergh doesn't eat candy.  And PM doesn't like non-chocolate gummy sort of candy.  And since we are the only other people in the office when she's there  (The sales guys rarely come in and the installers are gone by 7:30 every morning.) no one had eaten this rare treat from hell. 

As she was announcing that she was going to lunch in the conference room  (Another daily announcement)  she stopped and noticed that the candy hadn't been touched.

But she was.  So she picked up the candy and started shouting this.

I BROUGHT THIS CANDY IN AND SET IT NEXT TO THIS HORRIBLE BOX OF STALE DONUTS!  AND NO ONE HAS EATEN IT.  (PM brought in donuts for Fat Tuesday on Tuesday...it was a lovely gesture and they were very good donuts. Noelle C, of course, didn't eat any because she's given up sugar forever.)

SOMEONE EAT THIS CANDY OR I WILL KNOW YOU DON'T LOVE ME AND I WILL QUIT.

This was my MOMENT!

And I was weak.  She waved that horrible tub of hearts under my nose and I took one, but into it, and then held it in my mouth away from my taste buds.  Lumbergh watched this with amusement, and whispered, "Just spit it out."

Oh, great.  Suddenly I'm nine at we're at my grandmother's and she's made us all taste some weird German dish that tastes like lye and rotten eggs and Lumbergh's my mother telling me it's okay to spit it in a napkin.  This is exactly how all office people behave, right?

Well, Noelle C offered the candy to Lumbergh who said, "I don't eat candy, you know that."  So she went to PM and repeated that if he didn't eat it, she'd know he didn't love her.  PM is a good guy.  He took two.  And then he sent a text to Lumbergh  "eat the candy you coward."

Lumbergh took a piece and pretended to eat it.  This made Noelle C's heart almost explode with joy.

And I got to spit something into a garbage can.

1)  PET YOUR COWORKER

This wasn't a great week for me.  It just wasn't.  A lot of things went sideways and wrong and I had to deal with it.  But when a guy called to complain that something we installed was malfunctioning because it made his water too bouncy.  (It's a blog for another day, but I'm not making that complaint up.  The thing we installed in his tub made his water too bouncy and he was now getting water on the floor.)

After spending quality time trying to explain to this Mensa member that he probably just needed to close his shower curtain, I hung up and put my head on my desk.  "This week is giving me more gray hairs." 

Noelle C, who can't hear anything managed to hear that.  She came over to my desk, and started picking at my hair...like a monkey picking bugs out of another monkey's hair.  Then she started to pet my head.

And you wonder why I have three bottles of wine, in my fridge, ready to go the minute I get home from work.

So hey, happy Valentine's Day weekend all.  I'm going to go get some discounted candy.

Reposting my best Valentine's stories: My first married Valentine's day.

This was originally run in February of 2018, but I did promise a few people that I'd explain why I didn't decorate my house this year for Valentine's so today and tomorrow, I'm posting my favorite horrible Valentine's Day story.

Those of you who know me know that, while I've been known to write a romance novel or two, (Four) I'm really not that into Valentine's Day.

I can't tell you where it started. I mean, in spite of my less than awesome high school career, I do not recall having any serious heartbreak on or around this Day of Love. I just remember thinking "Who needs it?"

College years, again, for the most part I had a date for V-Day, so you know, I haven't a clue why I've been a warrior against celebrations.

And then I remembered, this morning, a story from my first year of marriage, and I realized I had a fun story.

Here we go:

It was the first Valentine's Day after got married, way back in 1991.  It was a snowy day, but I wasn't worried about getting to my job as a data entry clerk for a medical equipment company.  After all, I was driving the BRAND NEW 1990 HONDA ACCORD Hubby and I bought right before we got married.  I would be super safe on the roads.

I should mention, the Accord was the ONLY car we owned. Hubby worked at the school across the parking lot from our house and our thinking was, hey, he could walk to school and I could drive and we'd NEVER NEED a second car.

We were idiots.

Now, I could have taken the interstate to my job. We lived a minute from the exit and my job was a minute from the exit. I would have arrived safe and sound and there would be no story.

Which is probably why I instead decided to drive the back roads.

I mean, what my actual thinking that morning was involved this thought, "This is Valentine's Day and I know Hubby and I have NEVER in our years together, celebrated it, and I know I've been militant in my hatred of the day, but I should get him a card. And I can stop at the grocery store on the way to work if I take the county roads instead of the interstate.

Which I did.

I'm an idiot.

So there was I was, cruising along on a snowy morning, the roads slippery and fun with snow and a little thing we here in the Northern lands call "black ice."  Which I didn't see.  Because you don't see black ice.

The next thing I remember was spinning...a lot.  I spun and spun and spun and wondered just when I would hit something to stop the spinning.

Then I did and I heard a tremendous crash, like the back window of the car had shattered.  I opened my eyes and I realized I was in a ditch, facing the wrong way on the road. I'd hit two trees, one full grown and one small one and thanks to these trees being on the drivers' side I was not able to open the door.  I was also not able to get out of the ditch.

Now this is there it gets good. See, in 1991, cell phones weren't a thing people had.  So here I'm sitting on a pretty deserted county road and I don't have a way to call for help.  I manged to crawl out of the passengers' side (and into about three feet of new snow, which filled my shoes) and get up out of the ditch. I did NOT look at the car because I knew I'd killed it.

The first house I got to didn't answer their door.  The second house did and the lady very nicely let me use the phone to call my husbands' school and say, "I killed the car."

Not knowing EXACTLY where I was, I gave him my coordinates as best I could and then staggered back to the car.  

Now on his end, Hubby had to borrow a car from one of the other teachers, because, again WE ONLY HAD THE ONE CAR.  So it took him a bit of time (let's just say the teachers at that school were less than charitable...but that's another story) to get to me.  

"I killed it." I said to him. "I shattered the back window."

He got out of the borrowed car and looked at our.  "No, you didn't. It's fine.  Look."

Friends to this day I have no idea what made that shattering noise, but every window in that vehicle was intact.

Hubby drove the car up and out of the ditch. The door was dented, but I could get in and out.  He suggested I go home, but I felt FINE and didn't want to miss a day of work for something so silly.

Again, I'm an idiot.

I drove to work, a little late now. I stopped in and explained to my boss why I was late. Now Dave was a very nice man, probably one of the kindest bosses I ever had.  And he, too, suggested I go home.  I said, no I was FINE. I mean, it's not like I was tarring roofs, I was a data entry clerk.

So I got to my desk, turned on my spiffy 1991 computer, and while I was waiting for it to heat up  (because that's what you did in 1991) I started crying.  Right there at my desk.  I sobbed for a few minutes and realized this was not going to stop any time real soon. So I turned off my computer, and went back to my boss and sobbed that I needed to go home and, hey, could he drive me?

Being a great guy, Dave did, and he had another guy from the Quality Control department follow us so he could get a ride back to work.  They dropped me and my dented car at home and then went back to work.

Now, that's enough of a story. I mean, no cell phones, so I didn't tell Hubby I was home until he saw the car in the drive way during recess and figured it out.  But there's more to it.

See, my boss was a nice guy, but my car did NOT look all the banged up.  And I don't blame him for his next move at all.  He and the other guy from QC drove back to the office by way of my accident route.  I don't think and hour had passed, so the skid marks and the spot in the ditch where I landed were still there.  They were impressed that I hit two trees and didn't destroy the car. They were MORE impressed, however, the I completely missed hitting the transformer box that stood about six feet away from my spot in the ditch.

Dave told me the next day, when I pulled it together enough to go to work, "If we are ever under a scud missile attack, I want to stand next to you."  (This was during the first Gulf War.)

And THAT, my friends, is my Valentine's Day story.

Oh, and NO, Hubby never DID get that card.