Thursday, December 13, 2007

the little (medium, and large) st. nick

Since Friday, four different Santas have visited our resident’s and learning center’s children (well, three came together and switched off for fear of heat stroke).  I had an obsession of getting my picture taken with each one:

 
You better watch out,


You better not cry.


You better not pout,


I’m telling you why…

At Warren Village, when we sing “Santa Claus is coming to town,” we don’t lie.

And not a single child cried.

Any votes for a favorite?

Posted by Rumbels at 06:27:47 | Permalink | Comments (3)

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Devotion to Seconds.

I would love some more pie, I said as I picked my plate up with both hands. It wasn’t quite cleared of the cranberry sauce and gravy from dinner, or the crumbs that accrued into the mixture as I attempted (in vain) to savor every bite of the traditional pumpkin. The empty spot where the previous piece was served had a siren call sweeter than the indigestion brewing in my already too full stomach.

Good girl, you eat it up, Jerry’s family praised as I forked off the point of my new slice. Blessed enough to be taken in for Thanksgiving by a family as quirky as mine, I laughed over the eggnog and cheered to another year of blessings abundant. Aunt Wilma recounted family stories from last year, and I—in proper attempt to amuse myself quietly—did the natural 23 year old “I’ve-got-no-idea-what-the-hell-anyone-is-talking-about” act.

I zoned out.

David interrupted. You like that pie don’t you?

It’s delicious, I responded as I licked the cool whip off the fork.

You say everything is delicious, even if it’s not. How’s the meatloaf stuffed with spinach? Delicious. How’s the spinach muffins? Delicious. How’s the spinach with a side of spinach? Delicious (that time he said delicious daintily, as if to mock me. I was impressed with his impression). How do I know if you really like it?

David’s references were to the Learning Center food that is constantly infused with spinach to meet government nutritional requirements. While it is the butt of staff jokes, spinach has never really bothered me. I mean, a free meal is better than not eating.

Well, you’re just going to have to trust me, I reasoned. And that I came back for more.

He laughed, patted my back, and said alright. Two poor man’s margaritas later, we headed back to his house to start a “Home Alone” marathon and finish a few rum and cokes.

Fast forward a few weeks to December 10th. The full stomach has since been emptied, the leftovers have been gobbled up (no pun intended). The snow that fell Thanksgiving night is covering Denver streets once again. While I think about my blessings everyday, tonight was the first night I thought about the implications of the pie from Thanksgiving.

And how much of my life is devoted to seconds.

Granted seconds can change everything, as seen by this popular chain letter email:

 

If you want to know the value of one year, ask someone who failed their final examination.
If you want to know the value of one month, ask a mother who gave birth to a premature baby.
If you want to know the value of one week, ask the editor of a weekly magazine.
If you want to know the value of one day, ask a daily paid laborer who worked to feed his family.
If you want to know the value of one hour, ask a man waiting for his girlfriend.
If you want to know the value of one minute, ask someone who missed their bus.
If you want to know the value of one second, ask someone who survived an accident.
If you want to know the value of one millisecond, ask someone who got a silver medal in the Olympics.

Valid. I know the value of a few of these. But I mean seconds in infinite sense of something more than the finite measure of time.

As a child I often found myself singing the ever popular first is the worst, second is the best song. What happens third, is still unclear. I’d prefer the treasure chest over the hairy chest. Yet, it is safe to assume to sing the song would imply being in the number two position. Second.

As a Christian, I focus spiritually on a second coming. The belief that the first time was true, but true to this allegiance of seconds, once wasn’t enough.

And in my entirety, I often feel I am defined by second chances. No surprise there. Countless times I’ve brought my hands to my head with a loud exasperation—how did I manage to fuck this one up, and how will I fix it? Relationships. Jobs. Red socks in the white laundry load. Second chances.

The second helping of pie was just the start.

Michael J. Fox writes in his memoir Lucky Man, “I learned that in the mid-1990s, the National Institutes of Health were spending an estimated $2,400 per victim each year on HIV/AIDS research, $200 on breast cancer, $100 on prostate cancer, $78 on Alzheimer’s disease, $34 on Parkinson’s, and only $20 each on diabetes and coronary heart disease.”

Rumbel’s not-so-fun-fact: Heart disease is the number one killer of Americans, at 15 percent. One out of every 5 women. My father’s mom. Conundrum: why is the number one killer getting the least funding?

Fox continues. Whenever people debate federal funding for medical research, there’s an assumption it’s a zero-sum game. Any member of ’special interest’ groups, be they AIDS, cancer, or Parkinson’s advocates, are all competing for a bigger slice of the pie.

What’s really needed, of course, is simply a much bigger pie.

As my AP pointed out tonight in conversation, one of the hardest things about fighting social injustice (as we US-2 missionaries are commissioned to do) is figuring out how to prioritize all the needs that should be addressed.

My Momma used to be a waitress. She taught me when serving pie you should always position the plate so that the point of the pie is pointed at the person who ordered it. I agree with Fox in that we are given definitive slices, that the path of funds is clear in its receiver. That we can’t take part of someone else’s unless its offered. Until then, we have to fight in hope that the pie will one day be bigger so that the slices even themselves out.

This might be a solution to curing disease, but in our lives why have larger slices been sought after as if in a quest for the antidote to the fatality of life?

Dietitians and nutritionists cite the larger plates filling our cupboards as a cause of obesity. What used to be a standard nine inch plate has become as big as 15 inches. Do the visual cues of larger plates trigger a stomach expansion leaving us insatiable? In life, do we really need a bigger pie if we’re always going back for more?

As for now, the appeal of seconds—and second chances—is still attractive to me. Maybe because I know I’ll be going home soon and anticipate eating as much of my Momma’s cooking as I physically can. Or because I know the inevitability of me messing up good things that are going for me.

Or just maybe, I’m obsessed with seconds only in the hopes that one day I’ll eradicate the songs of them being the best; I’ll help rewrite the universal melody that the first shall not be the worst when the first is the last.

Posted by Rumbels at 08:18:13 | Permalink | No Comments »

Sunday, December 2, 2007

Self Proclaimed Calcium Fortification

In new, yet typical Beth Rumbel fashion, I’m posting another blog that had its origin as a missionary monthly email update.  It’s horrendously outdated, and by horrendously I mean a month and 2 days.

But in between the time I wrote this, and this said month and 2 days later, the most important piece of information you need to know is that the Rockies lost the World Series.  BAH!

Enjoy.

“For all of you who have had the luxury of keeping up with monthly updates, and possess the keen fox like memory of my roomkate’s a few days ago, this kibitz is for you.

And if you don’t have the keen fox like memory to remember details, I will gladly refresh you—because who are we kidding, I know I certainly don’t:


“Rocktober Update:  Yep, you read that right. We don’t have the month of October in Denver this year - we have “Rocktober” - officially declared by the governor of Colorado to celebrate the Rockies first World Series. Woo woo” (Kinne, October 2007).


So let me tell you a little something about this “Rocktober.”  If you didn’t hear that it was named in honor of the Rockies, you might think of it as a hardcore month of hair metal (including but not limited to the infamous “I stuck a fork in my electric outlet” hairstyle (another parentheses inside parentheses!- which was later to be replicated in the late 80’s slash early 90’s as seen by my older sister’s school picture hairstyles (3rd parentheses- no, I personally never had this said mega perm)) or the leather pants so tight they’d make a ROCK in a hard place look comfortable), or a month devoted to my hometown’s pseudo hero- Rocky Balboa, the Italian Stallion.


Interestingly enough, Rocky (and forgive me if I spoil the ending to this love story of pet shops and boxing violence) lost his first fight.  Granted, in Rocky II we learn from the hate mail of his competitor Apollo Creed (unrelated to the apostle’s creed, although it would be sweet as BOSTON crème pie if they had some correlation) that many fans thought this fight’s ending was fixed. 


Despite my love of hair metal and Rocky, and my giddy daydreams of the glorious love child these two could produce, Rocktober was quickly named to satisfy the new found insatiable thirst of Coloradoans for a sports team very few were loyal to, and even fewer actually understand.  The Colorado Rockies.


Geared up with their Yankee-wanna-be pinstripes, and their mascot who would serve more purpose as a purple blob of territory for dogs to pee on rather than a form of fierce imitation (see photo), the Rockies made the baseball postseason.

Don’t get me wrong.  It’s not that I’m jealous—in Philly we live and let our hearts break slash die every sporting season to our humble saying “well, there is always next year.”


No, not jealousy.  Rather, a disbelief that the goodness the word “Rock” carries is being shamed by the entity known as the Rockies, and their bandwagon fans who have engaged in adultery on their truest love, the Broncos.

On a side note, this secret love has dissolved; I am interested in seeing the way the fans here will return to the Broncos tonight.  Will they come with a pride in the form of jerseys to cover the “scars” on their heart, or ashamed of their lacking loyalty—with beers in both hands—double fisting to drown the sorrows of the players they struggled to quickly memorize the names of?


It’s not just for rock music and Sylvester Stallone that my heart breaks.  It’s for rock’s distant cousin, the crock pot, who has provided one delicious meal so far for roomkate and I.  Who doesn’t like salsa chicken?  Mighty tasty, let me tell you.


It’s for rock paper scissors, in the days before the steam roller was introduced to ultimately wipe out any chance you had of winning by fair game.  Even with the fierce power of scissors, there is no stopping the steam roller.  Or the middle school advanced maneuver, the samurai sword.


And it’s for the primitive uses of rocks that are still applicable today.

(cartoon compliments of www.toothpastefordinner.com)


Rocktober.  The self proclaimed month of calcium fortification.  The milk purchased from our local King Soopers had imprinted under it’s expiration date- GO ROCKIES!!  My teeth and bones have not participated in the solidarity of our state via the cows who aren’t treated with BGH but are unjustly spoken for by the Colorado farmers (I feel they would be more loyal to the Milwaukee Brewers, or another Wisconsin team for being the Mecca slash motherland of dairy).  Rather, I have relied heavily on vitamin supplements for this month’s calcium intake.


With two days left to bask in all that is Rocks related, I’m considering purchasing a pint of rocky road ice cream and watching old episodes of Fraggle Rock on youtube.  Or eating a packet of pop rocks while guzzling soda to see if my stomach would indeed blow up.


Hope for my sake that it doesn’t.”

Posted by Rumbels at 02:22:25 | Permalink | Comments (1) »