I have a blogging friend who sometimes thinks in bullets.

I sometimes think in bullets too, but I think my bullets are different than hers. Remember my bad hair day when I had to get my passport picture taken?

Anyway.

This time of year I get cagey. It’s cold in Kansas and it’s easy for me to start thinking weird thoughts if I don’t have a few hundred projects. So to keep myself in check, Ben and I organized our walk-in closet. (I smashed my finger during demolition and Ben had to do most of the work without me.) Then I painted an accent wall in my living room. Pictures to follow. Someday. Now I’m sewing more curtains to hang near the new orange brick color. Even more curtains will follow when I move to update our mud room. Porch actually. I live in an old crooked farmhouse where everything is reliably a half bubble off ‘a plumb and ain’t nobody ever heared of a mud room, so it’s a porch….

…about those bullets…

I think my sewing habit is fixin’ to get to me, cause this is what my world looks like through the eye of a needle…

   *so glad this camera has a micro function and my readers can’t see all the dishes I haven’t done

   *what happened to the make your house over in one day, days

   *since when did Khaki come in more than one color

   *why does Ben’s stash of chocolate taste better than mine

   *why did I just hide the wrapper under everything in the trash when I’ll tell him what I’ve done later anyway

   *if I start now…could I be a black belt by morning

   *sphnicker sphnicker

   *is that the litter box I smell or the my new favorite perfume

   *why do I have to dust my sewing machine’s parts along with everything else in this place

   *how long has that spider’s web been there

   *do these yoga pants make me look fat

   *what is it about grandkids that make grandparents try arm-farts before they get into the shower

Praise the Lord, and pass the ammunition.

What do your bullets look like?

Simply,

Sis

Aunt Sissy, Ben’s sister took this embarrassing, but telling picture of me. What a mess. Thank you for that, Sis. It illistrates how I feel ever year at this time. Today, November 23, 2009 is no different. As a result of wallering in self pity I wrote this poem…

Be warned it’s awful.

So it’s almost Thanksgiving,
Preacher says to practice Thanksliving.
Try as I might, I can’t get it right.
But I’ll confess then to try to keep from sinning.

Barney says “It’s dark. My new birthday bike will sleep in the rain.”
He knows this drives me insane.
But with cries I learn, a wicked witch is the concern
Under the deck she lives…what a pain!

Traveling back from the garage I’m giddy.
My new stove is here and it’s so pretty.
But I fear as we pass from electricity to gas…
a KABOOM would be a real pity.

All my fears realized
as my life flashes before me eyes.
a huge flame sears dinner, with a @#$%^ I’m a sinner
in shock but I’m alive.

All fires put out and birthdays aside,
in shambles our dinner now lies.
Even though the calls close when chaos comes to boasts
it’s in these truth I now colide…

These precious days slip by
in less than a blink of an eye
it’s up to me to choose
joy in life’s season or in homemade hell reside?

My apologies to my friend Don, the English teacher. He is on a quest to wipe out ignorance. God bless him. My friend, know you have a long ways to go with me.  So does God for that matter. Not that your on the same …. oh never mind.

Joy.

I’ll choose joy.

It needs a title.

Sis

It’s a rainy and cold fall day outside. I love it. Rain makes me happy. Inside this old farm house it’s warm, there’s coffee in my tin cup and the wood stove is stoked. Days like this make me feel froggy. Ribb-it Pabb-it! As I sit and watch the rain fall my mind drifts to the huge gun show we went to this weekend.

I love gun shows. (You know I’m a sniper, right? And even taught Bo to shoot.) Ben loves gun shows too and the kids are starting to think gun shows are the coolest. Ben had a few ideas of what he needed. I was looking for a small pistol with a lot of punch to carry after I get my concealed carry license. (If they’ll even give me one after my episode bailing Russell out of jail.) W was looking for some throwing knives. And Barney, well, you just have to know Barney, he wasn’t looking for anything. He likes to save his ‘spend’ money for a rain-er day. His forte at gun shows is visiting with folks and schmoozing them out of some free candy. Different strokes for different folks. Right?

Anyway.

 I found a sweet little shooter for a nice price and decided I probably couldn’t leave the show without it and a concealed carry holster. There are all sorts of holsters you can carry: right hand, left hand, cross draw, inside the pant outside the pant, ankle, shoulder…Well, you get the picture. If you have a body part big enough, you can strap a gun to it.

Since I’m such a petite little thing. *cough cough*  I thought I would try on an inside the pant holster. So I went to a booth with acres of holsters and fake guns to fill them and commenced to looking. It was then I had a realization. The same realization I have every time I try on a swimming suit or underclothes. Did the people the people before me wear underwear? Was is a thong? If so. How many days have they had them on? I started to panic, as I am somewhat of a germaphobe.

While I was panicking…Barney was sticking holsters in every crevice and pocket to practice his quick draw. With a “Hey Mom, watch this…Hands on da hind…Draw, Hippee!…Bap-bap-bap!…Stop or I’ll shoot…Freeze dirt bag!!!”

He watches too much Cops, I thought as I started to get dizzy. Feeling a little sick, I started digging through my purse for some hand sanitizer. That’s when another dilemma presented itself. When I finally find the hand sanitizer, is it appropriate to douse the holsters with it before trying them on? I missed that tidbit in the gun show etiquette class Ben presented us with before going in.

“Can I show you something, Ma’am?”

Oh good Lawd, here we go… 

“Uh, yeah. I’m looking for a inside the pant holster with a strong clip.”

“It doesn’t get much stronger than this one. ” He said holding out a holster as he grabbed somewhere below his belt. “It will hold it right in there for you…”

I threw up a little in my mouth.

“Uh, okay. *Glup* Can I try it on?”

That’s when he paused, looked me up and down, at Barney the Deputy, around like we were making a illegal deal and said with a shrug and a whisper…”Uh, yeah…I’ll let ya.”

I was insulted. I wanted to shout, “I’M CLEAN! I WEAR UN-DER-WEAR! FRESH ONES–EVERDAY!”

Instead. I picked up the holster and fake pistol stuffed it into my pants before he changed his mind and commenced to doing squats right there in the middle of the aisle.

Barney was gut laughing joining in squats beside me saying, “This is fun!”

Is that what you call it? Fun? It reminded me of being in a Victoria Secrets dressing room trying on underclothes while the neon sign flashes *STRIP*, the stripper music plays and the lady outside says…’remember to keep yer panties on…’ Worst day ever was more like it. Fun is not the word I would use to describe sticking something foreign in your pants, contorting yourself into erotic positions in front of thousands of people while your six year old gut laughs and shoots bad guys.

To make matters worse, my self respect, self image and any hopes of dickering well lay scattered around me like the bleeding hoodlums Barney had just shot in his imagination. Today there would be no haggling about money. No dickering. No ‘is that yer friendliest price?’ I had been robbed of my dignity while trying to protect myself.

I paid the asking price and was walking back over to Ben while trying to figure out how long it takes before you know you have some sort of venereal-holster disease.

“Did you get it?’

“Yep.”

“Cool, can I see it? Sexy! You gonna wear it to bed?”

Normally that would be funny, but I threw up in my mouth. Again!

The next day Ben’s friend came over.

“Can I shoot yer new gun Sis? I brought some ammo!”

“Sure, Chucky, go right ahead.”

“Is it okay if I try it on?”

What was I supposed to say? Remember to keep your panties on? I was feeling dirty, like I was some kind of a pistol pimp. I would have to change his name from Dr. Reginald to just plain old Reggie.

“That would be fine, if you would just shoot me first.” I said, looking around for a sword to fall on.

Simply,

Sis

SINthia

PS ~ Shoot low, Sheriff, they’re riding shetlands. Yeah Baby! The evil twin is back. (If you haven’t had a taste of my bi-polarness, you can check it out here.) Sis is such a pistol packing panty-waist. That’s why I try to drag her to all the gun shows I can. Lord knows she doesn’t go to Victoria Secrets anymore. The next gun show I drag her to will be like this one…

It was eight o’clock Halloween night, 2002. I was nine months pregnant with Deputy Barney and W was three then, singing and splashing around in his bath when the phone rang. I closed the door to the bathroom when I went to answer it.

“Hello…”

“B, it’s your mother.” She was crying. I knew that Dad’s battle with sclerosis of the liver had ended.

“What happened, Mom?”

“It’s…it’s not your Dad…It…it’s Jay. He’s dead.”

Jay was my older brother.

“Oh no, Mom. What happened?”

“A car wreck….”

I was absolutely devastated. I felt like there was an gigantic elephant standing on my chest and if I were to let my breath out, I would never be able to draw another one. Why Jay? Why not Dad, he was the one suffering. Why now? Wasn’t a job transfer, selling a house, having a baby and a sick Dad enough for one family to deal with? My relationship with God was an infant at most, at that point. To tell you the truth, I didn’t know if it would survive my anger with this loss.

I got off the phone and put in a quick call to Ben to tell him, then got busy getting W out of the tub and into some jammies for a midnight drive to Nebraska. I was trying not to cry and just kept saying over and over to myself, “Oh, God, I don’t know if I can do this…”

“Mo Mo (Elmo) slippers, please,” W said around his finger he was sucking.

He loved his Elmo slippers. He couldn’t put them on by himself, no matter how long he tried, but regardless he loved them. The phone rang again and I said, “W, you’ll have to try to get the slippers on all by yourself. You can do it.” He started crying and saying “I can’t.” I left the room, closing the door again to answer the phone.

It was Ben telling me he could have all the time off we needed and that he would be home soon to drive us to Nebraska.

When I got back into W’s room. The Mo Mo slippers were on. W sat happily bouncing his foot and sucking his finger.

“Oh, Babe, you got them on all by yourself. Good for you…”

“Yeah, Uncle Jaybird helped me.”

“What?” I said, gasping for air and looking around at the empty room.

“Uncle Jaybird helped me, cause I couldn’t do it myself.”

“He did?”

“Yeah,” he said softly, totally content.

“Where is Uncle Jaybird now?”

W giggled, pulled his wet finger from his mouth to point beside me and said, “He’s right there, Monnie.”

“How does he look?” I whispered.

“Fine.”

“Does–does he look broken?” I choked.

“No, he looks whole.” W said.

He looks whole. The exact words I needed to hear right then. I couldn’t imagine my vivacious brother, being thrown from a vehicle and broken beyond belief by the impact of landing a long ways from his car. Whole, I thought. I wish I were whole. I’ll never be whole again.

“Is he still here?” I asked, wanting to throw my arms around the air and hug tightly, never to let go.

“Yes, W said giggling again. Can’t you see him?”

“No. What’s he doing?”

“Smiling.”

It was right at that moment I knew I was going to make it. Even though I was beyond sad and on the verge of total collapse, death was no boundary for God.

Two Bible verses popped into my mind. Verses I had hidden away in my heart as a child, then forgotten.

“You shall mount up on the wings of eagles…you shall run and not grow weary…For the LORD, your God, is with you.” and “My grace is sufficient for you…for MY power is my great in your weakness.” (My paraphrase.)

That was just God telling me: neither death nor life, angels or demons, past, present, or future could keep me, Jay or anyone for that matter, from his love. And whatever box, in all my humanness, I had built around Him, was no bounds for His greatness.

That was seven years ago.

I still miss my brother. Some days I feel cheated that my kids and grand kids will never know his humor and love for life. I don’t know why some people’s days are shorter than others. I don’t know why bad things sometimes happen to good people. I don’t understand why there are so many people who have babies they don’t want, when there’s so many who want babies they can never have. I don’t know why.

I have come to know God’s perspective is way different that mine. The Bible says ‘My ways are not your ways…’ Duh! That statement isn’t enough for me some days. I still want to know why. I try to read the Bible everyday. Some days that leaves me with peace but no answers. After I read the fiction book ”The Shack” (I reviewed it here) I gained understanding. Through the words of that book, I now understand that God is three persons, in one. I know, as humans, we are limited to the three dimensions of this life, but someday we will see and understand the perpetual dimensions of eternity. I’ve come to know, this side of heaven, this human won’t have all the answers. At best, this sinner, will have a relationship with a compassionate God who sheds his love and grace on me when I most need His mercy. And, as promised, has never given more than I can handle.

That faith, in these truths, my friends, is simply enough!

Sis

PS ~ I don’t collect much stuff. The one thing I do collect is stories, like this one. If you have one PLEASE share it with me. Write it down in an email and send it to me sis(at)reclaimsimplicity.com. In the process I hope you find God’s peace.