Reader contribution - Let me give you hand, or if you prefer, take one away

Background – I had a heated discussion with my dear friend Sujatha at the gym this week about our struggling economy.  The subject centered on the unemployment rate and the fear of one’s spouse losing their job.  Sujatha is of the mind that if you think about a subject, and focus on it intently, that you will bring some form of it into being; be it a positive thought and something you desire, or be it a negative thought rooted in fear.  This belief is commonly called the “Law of attraction” and it was the motivation behind Sujatha’s desperate attempts to change the subject so that we wouldn't attract something negative from this very negative conversation!  In general I agree with her, but stubbornly wanted to make my point (I’m Irish and us Irishwoman want to make our point when we want to make it, regardless of the consequences!), therefore I turned my frustration to her and told her that she has no fear of this because her husband is an orthopedic surgeon and that there is no chance he will lose his job.  In other words, she has the luxury of not having to worry about this subject and therefore it’s easy to ignore it.

Sujatha is an extremely kind and sensitive person and therefore my frustration wasn’t lost on her.  In fact, she spent most of the remaining day thinking about what might cause her husband to lose his job because I had been a good Irish woman and made my point! After much consideration, Sujatha came up with just two realistic scenarios in which her husband could lose the ability to perform his job; loss of his eyesight, or loss of the use of his hands.

S.C.O.U.T. - Sujatha’s husband arrived home from work that night and while he was pulling off his wedding ring she noticed that he winced while ever so gently wiggling the ring off his finger.  She asked him what was wrong and he told her that his assistant had dropped a heavy instrument on his hand that day and that it must have bruised because it was still very tender.  Sujatha was dumbfounded as she connected the amount of focus she had poured into the thought of her husband hurting his hands that day to the fact that he was now, for the first time in Sujatha’s memory, standing in front of her nursing just such an injury.  Thankfully it wasn’t serious, just a fractured thumb and blackened nail, no career ending injury, but the uncanny timing of this event gave Sujatha pause none the less. 

You can decide for yourself if you think these events were connected, or nothing more than a coincidence, but for the record Sujatha, I give you my Irishwoman’s promise (for whatever that’s worth), that we will now only speak of positive things when we meet at the gym ;) 

Reader contribution - A son's love for his mother

Background – My friend sent me this story about Anna’s blog, “An Inch of Gray”.  Anna is the woman who lost her son Jack in the floods this past September, and this entry “Jack-ed up phone”, is about how her cell phone will start playing music at random, only since her son died.  This is her blog entry and then the link for the song that randomly started playing on her phone: 

S.C.O.U.T. ~ Anyway, this past Friday morning I walked down to the Bridge for only the second time since the accident. It's just too hard seeing how very, very far the bridge where they found Jack is from where he fell in the water in our neighborhood. I mean really, really far. It's too outrageous seeing a mere trickle of water, even after days of rain, in the shitty little creek bed, yet to know that on that one horrible night it was a raging wall of water that reached over the banks, the bridge, the road.

I took a picture of the cross that friends erected on the roadside. I wanted it for myself, and to share with you on the "Jack's Thrift Store Playlist" post.

So that night, on our way to pack shoe boxes in Jack's memory for Operation Christmas Child, Tim, Margaret and I ducked into a pizza place to get Margaret a slice. It was loud and crowded. I felt trapped. I was angry at all the families having a care-free Friday night.

I went to stand outside on the stoop and heard music coming from my coat pocket. Again? It was one of the very songs that had popped up in the thrift shop weeks earlier.  Which one? Check it out. Believe me, it's worth it.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6l4AnJ5yjo&feature=youtu.be

How could anyone ever possibly argue that this was just a coincidence and not her son trying to comfort her and tell her that “life is such a gift” and that she needs to “live and to love, and to forgive and never give up”.  How could anyone possibly argue that?  Anna will see Jack again.  I’m not sure about a lot of things in this life, but of this I am sure. 

August 30, 2010 - Twenty odd, very odd, dollars

Background – Yesterday I bought a small folding bookcase for $59.99 and, after getting it home, liked it enough to want two more for another area in the house.  I went online because I figured such a common bookcase could certainly be found for less than $50 bucks with all the sites to choose from.  After searching at least ten sites for the exact same bookcase, I came to the conclusion that $59.99 was the lowest price I was going to find and laughed at myself for making such a fuss over a sum of twenty odd dollars or so; but I was stilled bummed about my failure to hit the “goal price”.  I sucked it up and headed back to the store to purchase two more bookcases and relinquish my twenty odd dollars.

S.C.O.U.T. – I had gotten my bookcase at the back of the store, but there were none left in that spot.  The clerk told me that they had a few more up front and I headed off to find them.  The bookcases I located in the front window of the store were marked with a sign that read “$49.99” and I immediately jumped for joy at my good luck!  I would indeed get my bookcase for the price I had been so determined to find. 

As I filled the cashier in on my story and my apparent “good luck”, she suddenly lifted her head from her clicking and her clacking and informed me that the price wasn’t coming up in the register.  These bookcases were $59.99.  We called the manager over and she quickly figured out the problem.  The $49.99 sale on these bookcases had ended yesterday and the sale sign hadn’t been taken down!  She gave me the sale price and destroyed the sign. What uncanny timing!!

Another case of “ask and ye shall receive”?  I don’t know…I’ve asked for a lot of things that I haven’t gotten (yet); although I have a sneaking suspicion that God, the universe and “the powers that be” know me better than I know myself and that I get the things I’m supposed to get, the things that really feed my inner happiness.  Justification?  Reaching?  Maybe.   Maybe these things really are just coincidences, the problem is that when it happens that little tingle running down your spine makes it feel anything but coincidental.  My goofy dog Scout says he knows me better than I know myself and that the “real me” really wants to give him that big bag of “Bacon Bits” in the fridge.  Sigh, typical.

Reader contribution - Faster than a speeding lacrosse ball (named Scout)

Background – My son had spent the day at a physically grueling lacrosse tournament and was finally lying in bed trying to relax into sleep while reviewing the day’s events.  He was headed off to yet another tournament the next day and found himself thinking about ways to improve his performance and “kick up his game” so to speak.  As his mind drifted, he found himself wondering just how fast his reaction time could be.  Just how fast could he catch and then shoot the ball?  What are his physical limits?  He ran through a number of scenarios that would test, and answer, that very question before settling on one particular set of circumstances.  He drifted off to sleep wondering whether, in infinitesimal chance that this particular play should occur, he would be able to react quickly enough to catch and then shoot the ball, thereby turning it into a goal.   It was only a dream however, because in his seven years of playing lacrosse he had never seen it happen.

S.C.O.U.T. – It was the second game of the tournament and my son was sliding back and forth around the goal, shouting to his teammates that he was “OPEN”!!  The ball came hurling his way and he easily scooped it out of mid-air, wound back his arm and shot it at the square orange framed net.  He aimed slightly to the left in order to avoid the swiveling goalie, who was determined to thwart his success, and ended up hitting the goal pipe with a loud claangg.  The strange part, however, was that the ball bounced off the pipe which sent it hurling straight back at my son.  In one smooth motion, his reaction time was lightning fast as he caught the ball, shifted his weight forward and shot, this time hitting his mark and scoring the goal.  He couldn’t wait to tell me after the game how he had been day dreaming of that exact scenario only the night before; wondering if he would be fast enough in the split second that the ball bounced off the pole to catch it and score a goal.  It was as if he had to tell someone about this strange case of uncanny timing because he was in awe of the fact that his daydream had come to full fruition the very next day.

Once again I find myself wondering if it was just a coincidence, or perhaps a premonition, or rather some mind/body/universe connection.  My goofy dog Scout simply nods his head knowingly and nuzzles my sons hand in a furry congratulation for a game well played.  One of these days he’s going to give up some of those cosmic secrets he’s guarding, so help me God!

August 20, 2010 - A lesson you won't soon forget

Background – My youngest son had the same Social Studies teacher two years following my older son.  This teacher told both of my boys this story, which seems to show that it made a lasting impression on him.

The teacher was hanging around the house on a day with very little going on when the doorbell rang.  He answered the door and found a young Mormon on his doorstep poised to deliver “the message”.  Normally he would have said “no thank you” and politely closed the door, but this particular day was so slow that he uncharacteristically decided to listen to what the kid had to say for a short while.  He ended up allowing this young man to cover quite a bit of information about the Mormon Church, including its history, its message and many of its current practices.  After a much longer time than he had planned, the conversation came to an end and he thanked the young missionary for the interesting lesson and told him that he would think about some of the things they had talked about.

S.C.O.U.T. - The following week, the teacher, who was a student at the time, went to his own Social Studies class and was surprised to find that a large part of the exam he had come to take was, in fact, on the Mormon Church.  During his studies, he hadn't anticipated this and therefore would have failed the test completely if not for visit from that young Mormon.  As it was, he passed the test with flying colors! On each occasion that he told this story to one of my kids, they said they could see how he was still amazed at the uncanny timing of the event.  Once again trying to impress upon this current class how “strange” it was that he had, on a whim, done something so out of character only to have that very thing play so crucially into the following weeks events.  It was however eighth grade, which is an age group nearly impossible to impress, therefore I feel certain that the next class will also be hearing about this bizarre turn of events and maybe they’ll see the “strange case of uncanny timing” in his story! 

My goofy dog Scout just wants to know if those "Mormon guys" bring treats with them to the door?  If so, he could find it within himself to forget his "vicious dog" routine and let them in the house.  Typical.

August 25, 2010 - Lightly popped love, courtesy of the universe

Background – On a whim, I bought my hubbie some “lite” kettle corn at Trader Joe’s today (good stuff…110cal/pkg, 3g fiber and only 4g sugar!).  I never buy him snack food.  I mean never, ever, ever; and I don’t have a good explanation as to why I picked up this bag of “lite” kettle corn and dropped it in my basket on this particular day.  The hubbie will back me up on this one, and add that the low fat triscuits and whole wheat pretzels I’ve tried in the past don’t count as “snack food”, neither of which he ate, or appreciated.

S.C.O.U.T. – When he got home from work, I proudly presented him with my impromptu gift.  He took one look at the bag and said “Oh, you saw that report on “The Today Show” this morning”. 

I thought for a moment and then shook my head “no”. 

Certain that I must have seen the report (as this is the only possible explanation for why I had bought him Kettle Corn to snack on) he elaborated.  “You know, the report where the lady said that lite, popped snacks are best” he said while nodding his head and waving his arm in an attempt to help me remember. 

I still had to say “No, I didn’t see that report”. 

Perplexed now, he said more to himself “that’s weird because after I watched the report I thought “I think I’ll get me some of those lite, popped snacks”( I could almost see his wheels turning “there’s no way she can say “no” to “lightly popped snack food”) .  Humph, “I guess you get what you ask for!” he announced triumphantly after snatching the bag from me and heading for the family room.  What a strange case of uncanny timing!

For the record, “lightly popped kettle corn” is a poor substitute for the real thing, as the now stale, only half eaten bag in the pantry will testify.  My goofy dog Scout is annoyed that God, the universe and the “powers that be” haven’t delivered the snack food that he’s been asking for, including snausages and pigs ears (blekkhh).  Perhaps I’ll give him the rest of Dads uneaten, infinitely healthy, “treat”… he is not amused, and not interested.

August 20, 2010 - What a waste... Yuuukkkk!!!

Background – Wednesday of this week I watched a previously recorded episode of the show called “Monsters Inside Me” (not a show for the faint of heart).  This episode chronicled the story of a man who, after a traumatic run-in with a swarm of angry bees (no, that’s not the punch line!), developed seasonal allergies so intense that he began to get desperate.  His aunt told him about a program she had watched on TV where doctors were using worms to treat all sorts of autoimmune disorders, and specifically using hook worms to treat allergies.  Upon looking into the matter further, the man became convinced that it could work.  He promptly booked a trip to a small African village that had a very rudimentary sewage system in order to be able to walk around barefoot in the human waste (I warned you – Yuukkk!!).  Just as planned, he was able to infect himself with hook worms, and now claims that his allergies are infinitely better to this very day, all the while managing the health challenges that his new “intestinal residents” present, uugghh.

As you might expect, I couldn’t shake the weird, yukiness of this story and walked around grossing myself out with it for the next two days.

S.C.O.U.T. – Two nights later, I hop into bed and pick up my Uncle Johns Bathroom Reader to catch up on a little fascinating, random trivia.  Popping open the book to the last section, which I read three weeks ago, the very first title in the lineup, is… “The Worms Crawl In”.  My first thought was YGTBKM (you’ve got to be kidding me) as I eagerly continued on to confirm my suspicions; not only did this topic top my grossest subject list, but it was also about to become a S.C.O.U.T.  This section was indeed about using parasites to treat everything from arthritis to psychiatric disorders.  The chills ran up and down my arms as I contemplated the strange appearance of this article.  I had never, ever heard of this bizarre treatment, and yet two completely unrelated sources had presented me with this concept within a two day period; simply uncanny.  I wonder if there’s a worm to cure a chronic case of the “S.C.O.U.T.s”?

Have you ever heard of this bizarre treatment?  Have you ever heard of this bizarre treatment twice in two days? No, I thought not.  My goofy dog Scout is too yukked out to discuss; he did however muster enough strength to request seconds on his heart worm medication.