Monday Meanderings - 1.26.2014

If you follow this blog you know that the pecan tree out front over-achieved this year (much to the detriment of numerous tree limbs) and produced a bumper crop. I gathered more than 40 pounds of pecans and others gathered perhaps an equal quantity - especially the little Vietnamese Lady.

You will recall that I ran the Vietnamese Lady off at one point; she was hogging all the pecans. She would spend hours in the yard and flowerbed, snagging every nut at hand, and another woman had stopped and politely asked if she could gather pecans, so I wanted to give her a chance, too.The other lady only came by a couple of times, and I eventually relented and let the Vietnamese Lady gather at will, and she was diligent.

The other day there was a knock on the door, and the little Vietnamese Lady stood there with a plastic bag of apples and oranges for us. She handed them over, said something I didn't understand, and made a "Thank You" bow, with her palms pressed together, and then left. I'm pretty sure there are no apples and oranges to be gathered anywhere in this neighborhood, so I'm sure they were purchased, or bartered for with pecans that sell for about $14 a pound.

Saw a Sleep Number bed advertisement the other evening that promoted some new feature to deal with your partner's snoring. Not exactly sure how it was supposed to work, but Barb was not impressed. She said the only way she could figure that it could successfully deal with the snoring partner was if that side of the bed could eject the offender out the window.

My sister and I attended the same institute of higher learning, though she was Class of "ought-nineteen" and I matriculated much more recently than that. Okay, not that much. Last evening she asked me about a particular tradition of the opening chapel ceremony, an impressive ritual that kicks off the new school year, and then had the gall to suggest that I might not have been in attendance!

Like many conservative Christian colleges, our Alma Mater conducts a daily chapel, and requires your presence at the same, and has done so more than 100 years. They are so keen on your attendance that they check each and every chapel to see if you are in your seat, and when you miss more than a mere handful, you get to visit the Dean.

Although I had good intentions, my absences made me a regular visitor. I won't say how regular, but I soon noticed that there was a chair reserved for me in the Dean's outer office. Interestingly, I sat beside that Dean, Paul Faulkner, in Bible class yesterday. He claims that he doesn't remember my transgressions. But I doubt that.

Here's one of my chapel attendance stories: on the last day of a particular summer semester, I found myself for some reason in chapel, in my assigned seat, and sitting beside me was a good friend. I asked him what he was doing in that seat, and he said that it was his assigned seat, and asked if I was in my regular seat? Turns out, we went through the entire semester seated beside each other and neither of us knew it until the last chapel of the year.

But I never missed an opening chapel. One, I needed to find my assigned seat. At least once.  Two, I might be seated next to a cute Freshman girl. You never knew until you checked it out.