the horribly pathetic bunglings of last Sunday (and then some)

This past weekend was just too funny of a counterpart to our last weekend and my last post.

Saturday was ok--got lots of yard work done, but DH and I were for some inexplicable reason just. . . off in our relating with one another. It was weird, esp. since Friday night we had a really nice interpersonal date night. But for some reason all day Sat. it was like anything we said to one another came out wrong.

Sunday morning started out fine, but went downhill pretty much as soon as we got to church. We were attending the 11 am service, and I had not gotten a chance to eat a snack before we left (breakfast was at 7:30, and that just does not last!), and I was getting shaky--so before we left the house I grabbed my stainless steel travel mug, in anticipation of a chai from the Abbey coffeelounge. But when they handed me my drink--I could not find the lid in my purse. I figured it must have fallen out in the car. Bummer. So as we walked into the service, I was trying to decide what to do--a completely full, open, hot beverage is a recipe for disaster. And Sunny and Merry had been invited to read scripture during the service, so they would be sitting with me--dramatically increasing the elbow bump factor. DH was volunteering in one of the children's classrooms that morning, so I was the only parent to be with the girls in the service. But the chai was too hot to drink down (my burned tongue attested) and we needed to get in so the girls would be ready for whenever they would be called up to read. . . So against my own better judgment, I took the mug inside the service and tried to give it a sheltered spot under my seat.

Ha. Of course you all have figured out what happened. Right after the "mingle." You know, the turn-and-say-hello-to-someone-near-you part, during which I met a lovely lady named Maggie and a lovely young Asian couple named Esther and Lester (I am not making that up), all sitting in the row behind me. Maggie-I-Just-Met tapped me on the shoulder and pointed out the deluge of foamy liquid washing the carpet under my and Sunny's seat. Well, those of you who attend church are doubtlessly horrified. In my own defense, I would like to point out that since the Abbey is part of the church, it is common for people to bring drinks in, and the church does not discourage it. And the carpet is dark red, and really old, and already stained all over. (Not in a gross way, but in a well-used gothic mosh-pit way, which suits our style of church ; ) But still, this is hugely embarrassing, and have I mentioned that because of the girls reading Scripture any moment now we are sitting in the left-hand front row? I did not want to make a scene, so I just whispered reassurance to the caring Maggie, Esther and Lester, that I would clean it up later.

But a moment later I realized the friend sitting next to me had quietly gone to the bathroom and brought back a wad of paper towels, and Maggie and Esther and Lester were helping mop up the mess! Hello mortification!

So now I am trying to help them, "discretely," of course knocking over the mug again in my flustered bent-over-double moppings and dumping out whatever had been leftover from the first spill. Have I mentioned that the service was in progress through all this? I tried to keep a calm facade, and got the paper towels strewn over the big wet puddle under my and Sunny's chairs, and sat quietly mashing down the paper towels with my feet while trying to listen to the speaker.

Have I mentioned I got the chai because I was completely low-blood sugar and shaky and did not think I would make it through the service without nourishment? And that chai is a treat I only allow myself to have a few times a month these days, so witnessing it nourish the carpet was not only appalling but a huge bummer?

OK, enough about the Chai Incident. The girls did a great job saying their Scripture from memory, and while Maggie slipped out before the end of the service, at least I got to apologize to Esther and Lester and try to explain that I am not normally a complete idiot. And, fittingly, the closing idea of the sermon--which was on the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control--was that I can't. But God can.

Which I so well illustrated that morning.

After church we went to a church cookout, a "thank you" event for those who volunteer with the children's ministry, so the food was provided. Mexican food, to build your own burritos. Mmmmmmm. We were at a park with playground, and had a nice time. And there was enough food left over that we were sent home with enough for dinner too! Whoo-hoo!

But DH decided to take the long way home, driving from Santa Cruz to our village along the shore, something we do fairly often and enjoy. But we forgot that this is the first official weekend of summer, and we were crawling in traffic past the Boardwalk*, and then again later in Capitola, at which point I looked at the clock and realized we had taken over an hour to get that far--a trip which would have been 15 minutes on the highway. Sigh. But hey, the kids were content (Smiley sleeping, and Sunny reading Shel Silverstein aloud to her sisters. the. whole. time.) and it was fun watching the surfers on the water and enjoying the brisk ocean breeze.

Until a moment later when a lady backed into our mini-van.

And as I slipped back on my sandals (I had been lounging in the front seat with my bare feet up on the dash through our leisurely drive) to go look at the damage with DH, I stuck my hand into a huge mound of dog shit that had, unbeknownst to me, caught a ride in front of the wedge heel of my sandal. (I don't routinely use crass language but, well, sometimes you just have to call it like it is.)

Savor the moment with me.

Luckily I found some baby wipes and did the best job I could. And once I managed to get shoed and out of the car, the lady and DH (with the help of the Capitola parking police officer whom the lady had been trying to hurriedly avoid when she hit us) had worked out that the damage was not enough to warrant involving the insurance company, and the lady gave us a token $50 just by way of an apology. Really, the dent was almost not noticeable, and is certainly not worth repairing, so I guess we just made fifty bucks for our trouble.

So . . . whoo-hoo?

The most amazing thing about the whole day, though, was that none of these things put me in a bad mood. I mean, some days I get grumpy for almost no reason at all, and here all these bad things were happening, and we would just sigh and say "oh well!" and cheerily move on. To the next disaster.

Still, there was plenty of good in the day, ending with me not having to make dinner when we finally got home (from church!) at 5 p.m.

I think the rest of the evening was fine. Or at least it was pretty much a blur by then. Monday the wreckage continued (figuratively and literally) when the girls all woke up crabby and fighting, and then Smiley pulled one of my new glasses (which we bought just two weeks ago to replace the plastic we had been using daily, and which I absolutely love) off the kitchen table and smashed it. And he got his first ever spank from mommy. Sigh.

Don't worry--yesterday ended up being not a horrible day and not a great day, just a normal day with little bits of horrible and great sprinkled throughout. But I am really glad for the sermon on Sunday and those fruits of the Spirit that are still fresh in my mind. And the idea that I can't do them on my own, but that God's Spirit can and will do them through me, if I allow Him to, even when I am a bumbling mess!

'Cause I got the mess part down.


*Rebecca, Mina and Susan, if you read this post--check out the link and know I am totally thinking of you. ; )