Raining on the Inside

Last night I was in my kitchen, working on homework, when suddenly I heard that most dreaded sound: water coming down somewhere it's not supposed to be.

I went into my transition room (a square area that is basically a hall-hub for my bathroom, office, the stairway, and the back entryway) and found water coming in through the roof.

Which is an especially unusual situation when you live in a basement.

I started yelling for my daughter to run upstairs and ask them to turn off whatever water was running, and stood there staring stupidly at the three or four streams of water coming down. It took my daughter to suggest that we get a bucket under them. (Doh!) I was too stunned and appalled to actually think at that moment.

The leak was blessedly short-lived and minor in impact, but still. . . !!!!

The cause? Someone upstairs had left the water running in the bathroom sink with a washcloth stuck in the bottom so the drainage was stopped. The three suspects are one of the sweet but easily distracted twins (who have ADD) and the sweet but easily distracted Ex's God-daughter.

No arrests have been made, and the authorities Upstairs do not seem inclined to investigate the case.

queenofhalves, be sure to pack rain boots and an umbrella when you visit.

A Preacher's Story

Thanks to wlotus, who recently posted a link to a "A Story of Grief and Compassion" in her LJ, written by a man who used to be a minister and who is now working on the third floor of an office building. I found it sad, wise, and uplifting, and so I clicked back to the homepage of RealLivePreacher.

There, I found his story, which resonated with me on all kinds of levels. Part of it is my own story. Part of it is my father's story. Ultimately, it expresses most of the important aspects of my own journey in faith, from a warm and affirming childhood in a loving Christian church, through seminary, disillusionment, Dark Night of the Soul (although my Dark Night came before seminary), and out on the other side into an understanding of Christianity and faith that I could not have imagined before the terrifying initiation of the Dark Night.

It's well worth reading: http://blogs.salon.com/0001772/stories/2002/12/26/thePreachersStoryIn4Parts.html

The bottom line, which I loved, is this: Faith isn't something you have, it's something you do.

Bedtime Stories

My daughter and I have been having an ongoing struggle around the subject of bedtime stories. The first issue is that she really isn't all that interested in stories -- a fact which boggles my mind. She would much prefer to read from an encyclopedia or read Calvin and Hobbes cartoons, which she loves.

There is, of course, nothing wrong with either of these, but I keep wanting to introduce her to some really good novels. She loved the first two books of Bruce Colville's Land of the Unicorns series, but it takes him 2+ years to write each book. She also loves Harry Potter, and her most common response to my suggestions of other books we could read together is, "I'm waiting for the next Harry Potter book."

Trying to explain to her that reading a novel now will not in any way diminish HP when it comes out has no effect.

Two nights ago, I finally put my foot down about yet another evening of Calvin and Hobbes. There is such a thing as Too Much of a Good Thing. I told her she was going to sit through the first chapter of The Jungle Book, and if she didn't like it we wouldn't read any further, but by damn she was going to at least give it a try.

As a little person far more interested in animals and the natural world than she is about fairy lands or real-life stories, Jungle Book was a pretty safe bet. Sure enough, she was delighted to snuggle up last night and listen to Chapter 2, about how the Bander-Log capture Mowgli, and Baloo and Bagheera enlist Kaa in their rescue attempt.

I read Jungle Book several times when growing up, and used to be able to quote most of the Law of the Jungle, but haven't looked at it a decade or more (although I still can quote the entire opening stanza of the Law, much to my surprise). Thanks to poliphilo for reminding me about the fun of Kipling.