11/11/11

I know.  I am posting on 11/12/11.  Really, I don't get hyped up on dates because they are arbitrary.  Dates, calendars, gemstones, the zodiac, all those things are just ways of measuring time or making categories based on time.  It's always been interesting to me that from the Roman calendar to the sundial to the measuring of years Anno Domino (the year of our Lord) every way measurements are made bases the system on Jehovah's creation or the ransom sacrifice of his only-begotten son.

You know how the KJV says Adam begat Cain and Able and Abraham begat Isaac and Ishmael, etc?  It's interesting to me because I think the women did most of the getting and the gatting, but anyhow, when we say Jesus is Jehovah's only begotten son, we are saying that back when in the past tense, Jehovah begat Jesus.  I may have said that in this blog in the past. If so, forgive me.  I'm not really senile yet that I know about (would I know about it if true?  Alzheimer's patients seem pretty happy and oblivious) but I have certain linguistic ideas that are "staples" of how I think about the world.  So I may be repeating myself just because I like my topic.

Anyhow, I would have blogged yesterday just because I like writing and just because I would have found something to say.  Unfortunately, I got the news yesterday morning via email that the man's father passed away in Oklahoma at 5:05 p.m. on 11/10.  When I say "the man," I always mean the man I married and with whom I share two lovely daughters.  I had to tell that man, the father of my children, that his father had died.

Last night, I did not blog because I was listening to him talk about his family.  In some very real ways, we are his only family now other than a mom and brother 1600 miles away, people he had not spoken to in about a year prior to yesterday.

My father-in-law was a cool guy.  I say that because I never divorced him.  I always liked him.  He was from Poland and he had those Slavic features I kind of like in a guy.  He served three tours in Vietnam and I'm against war, but his stories were interesting.  I gave him a copy of the book "The Things They Carried" when I read it for a class and he was not much of a reader (newspapers, CNN kind of guy) but he read that and told me he couldn't put it down.  Funny how we always got along better than he did with his sons.

He lost a daughter almost exactly my age when she was 13.  He never talked about that much except to say the military doctors were idiots who let her go misdiagnosed.  They were treating her for a back ache when she had kidney failure.  From what I have heard from them of her symptoms, I think she had a severe sleep apnea, so you can understand how panicked I was when Kimberly had the same issues at age five.  I went to doctors till I found one who had a diagnosis.

We did go our separate ways.  Their other daughter had the first granddaughter six months before Carly was born.  And they showered her with love and gifts and attention.  My kids really got the shaft for grandparents on both sides.  It's kind of ironic because I was reading in Dear Abby this week, a day or two before he died, about a woman who always went to her mother with her children and now that her son's wife goes to her mother, she feels left out of her grand children's life and she wants a time machine.  That is pretty typical in society.  There's a reason for that saying: "A man is a man until he takes a wife.  A daughter is a daughter for life."  I do not say that smugly as the mom of two girls.  But I am happy about it.

Not that I'm getting grandchildren anytime soon, and that's okay too.

I guess the man is upset.  It was his father.  The man is now 51 and a half years old and is stubbornly refusing to realize he can't do everything he used to do.  I don't like this realization either, but putting your head in the sand like an ostrich accomplishes nothing even for an ostrich.  It doesn't change anything.

My father-in-law was 79 and went through a bout of cancer related to Agent Orange about five years ago.  This year, it came back.  No funeral, no burial.  He was a very practical man who donated his body to the OU (Oklahoma University) medical center.  He was down to 85 pounds.  When they are finished, the school will cremate his body and send the ashes to his widow.  Still, nobody can say he got cheated out of a long lifespan.  Well, nobody but us.  All of us are sinners thanks to our original parents and cheated out of the lifespan our Heavenly Father desired for us.

And I know a peace that the man cannot have because he will never listen to anything from the Bible, but today I know that someone will be welcoming Mitchell Randall back to life someday and it just might be me.  This makes me entirely happy not over his death this week, but his prospect for resurrection in the future.  Man can cremate.  Jehovah can create.  That one little letter in the word cremate can be so easily dropped by Jehovah.

That is why I did not blog last night.  I was listening while holding the hand of the father of my children.

Dossier

Well, I went to see what all these committees have had to say about me and I finally got to read the entire file. 

Mostly, it is lame.  They say in one instance that I don't let all my students talk about their interpretation and that I cut them off.  Then a few paragraphs later they say my classes don't have a beginning, middle and end.  Sometimes I do have to steer a class discussion in another direction specifically for the reason that I have a middle and an end and I have to get there.

I don't think they know I've been on the theocratic ministry school since 1972 and that I have a clear idea of having an effective conclusion. 

Anyhow, the best part is that there is a memo I should have gotten in 2010 and I never received it.  How they can expect me to do something when I didn't get the memo is pretty short sighted. 

I do have an external evaluator.  It's kind of interesting to me that all my recommendations from Arkansas, and all my students like the job I do.  It's just this committee I can't get along with.  Anyhow, the external evaluator is a professor at another university that I have never met.  She read my files and my published work and she gave her evaluation of my work too.  And she liked me.  I guess it will seem like bragging to only post her parts, but legally I can't post the other things (about 40 pages) so you can see how these few paragraphs gave me some faith in myself.  She wrote this:

I found much to admire in her work including consistent depth and complexity about gender and class.  Writing about class and motherhood, in particular, seems sadly unfashionable in some literary circles, and I am always delighted to read work by contemporary writers who deal with the real struggles of everyday life.  This aspect of Dr. Randall’s work stood out to me during the first round of evaluations and it stands out now. I admire Dr. Randall’s obvious work ethic, too.  Her dossier is filled with evidence of working hard to be published via traditional and online venues – it seems logical to seek publication online – Dr. Randall is correct that having a cyber-foot print as a writer can be important to a career.  Her individual print publication credits, reputable journals, good bylines with Jim Daniels and Katharine Ayars are all appropriate.  To pursue book-length publication at this point would be wise. Dr. Randall does what Hemingway said we should do.  She writes one true sentence.  Then she writes another one.  And she’s doing it across genres, with impressive publications in creative non-fiction, fiction, and poetry.  That she’s published so widely and well is remarkable given the teaching and service demands she faces.  I enthusiastically recommend Dr. Randall for renewal. Her writing is fresh and informed by deeply-felt experience.  It's writing that's gendered, of course.  Dr. Randall writes terrific women characters and speaks about her own life from an intimate, revelatory, relate-able place.  But hat's really unique is how Dr. Randall writes about class.  This is something that seems often to be missing in contemporary literature.  What a joy it is to see Dr. Randall addressing a single mother's struggles to pay for groceries and rent in her story "Drive-Thru Laundry."  How amazing it is to see a discussion about the cost of a ruined mattress and a bag of designer M&Ms in "Jaded Green."  What a revelation it is to see a paragraph like this from "First Silicone Church" where the writer/speaker is confronting the class differences between herself and a friend.  What reality she brings to the page!  (I use an exclamation point once ever seven years and then only when I mean it.  I mean it.)  As I was reading her work, I found myself writing in the margins.  This is what I do when I'm engaged and excited about what I'm reading.  Mostly, with Dr. Randall's work, I wrote the word "yes." Dr. Randall's voice and subject matter warrant a broader audience.  She echoes vital writers like Lorrie Moore, Amy Hempel, and Alice Munroe.  Dr. Randall shares these writers' ability to write from inside women's experiences.  Her balance of humor and pathos, and most especially her attention to class issues, make for essential reading.  I expect her success will be ongoing and I look forward to being able to teach a collection of her writing in my own classes soon.

Heal, Heel, Hill

Technically, hill has a little different pronunciation than heel or heal.  It's kind of like, tin and ten do not sound the same either if you do it right.

Yes, I think about words all the time.  The dogs are healing well.  They are able to go up and down the stairs if we don't watch them, but are trying to carry them mostly.  Zora was slower getting back on her feet than Arwen.  She takes everything harder like that.  Funny, because Arwen is so prissy and Zora is the only one of them that howls, although Myra, Abel's daughter's Chihuahua who is a sibling but not a litter mate for our dogs, also howls.

Which is a slant rhyme for heel.  Howl.  That's how it works in poetry.  You got words that are cockeyed to each other and it's called a slant rhyme, like heel and howl, or noodle and needle. 

So someone is going to feel like a heel tomorrow because I finally can go read the dossier that has the reports that have been filed about my performance and find out exactly what these people are work with are about.  I don't really have much sense, and after I'll be at the meeting, but I might not have my brain straight (as if I ever do).

And, life is all uphill.  We had our CA last week so we are having the oral review tomorrow.  I went with Fay to Pittsburgh and she left her book bag in my car so I think I'll slip over to East Hills and visit and return her bag.  Then Sunday we go to the second day of the CA because we are old and like to break it up.  Two days back to back kills me with school.  And guess what?  I love worldly people for somethings!  Hooray but Thanksgiving is coming.  I just want those three days off.  And most of the students ditch you on Monday and Tuesday of that week, so in practical terms, it's a week off.

I'm ready.  Tomorrow is a long day.  I probably need my beauty rest, and I know I need some mental rest, so goodnight.

Pay as you Spay

Well, I am never going to be a Chihuahua grandmother, at least not from Arwen or Zora.  We took them to the vet this morning at 7:45 and checked them in.  They whined.  They gave us looks simultaneously dirty and bewildered over the shoulders of the assistants taking them through the doors beyond which unauthorized personnel is not allowed.

They are home and resting.  They are glad to be back.  I love them.  How did Jehovah put that in me, to become so attached, not to my dog, but my daughters' dogs?  And of course I worry how we will get the dogs through Armageddon.  Like worrying about the daughters is not enough.

As I passed the economic department today at school, which has just relocated to Biddle Hall, they had the TV monitor playing the news with the stock strip running across the bottom and there was some headline about bullion bust.  So the gold market is doing something and last week it was the Greek government and Kim watched some 20/20 episode lately about in 2000 there were 11 billionaires in the USA and now there are over 400.  No wonder the general populace is marching on Wall Street and trying to figure out who to vote for.

I get so tired of myself sometimes that I don't know how you stand reading any of this.  All I could think of today was that the end of this system is coming, and here I am worrying about a job next year.  It would be nice in a way if it comes before then and I don't have to worry about it.  I think sometimes about taking a job abroad (better pay) to send Carly the money to live on while she finishes nursing school, but if the great tribulation came and I could not travel back to her, is there any worse thing I could suffer than being away from her in such trials?

Lately I've been thinking about Jehovah's name because the circuit assembly theme is "Sanctify Jehovah's Holy Name."  How his name means he can cause to become whatever is needed to fulfill his purpose.  Last year, my lovely sister Jennifer was stressed out.  Economic hard times hit Arkansas and Jamie's profession hard.  He is a house builder.  He is going to school to be a respiratory therapist.  In the meantime, Jennifer was a medical transcriptionist juggling too much work and responsibility.  So Sister Scully sends an email about her employer looking for house inspectors in Arkansas and do I know anyone who would be interested and qualified?

I guess if you can build a house, you can inspect one.  Jamie is doing great and so is Jennifer and their two children.  And no one saw that coming, that way out to bless them.  So I am heartened that even though I don't know what to think of my job, that Jehovah will not leave me in the lurch.

As I spoke to Fay on the way to the assembly hall Saturday, she offered for Carly to live with her while I am gone if it comes to that.  Today, Carly got a card in the mail from Fay.  Sometimes I want to hurl rotten tomatoes clear from Pennsylvania to Oklahoma and say, "Mother, how can you not care about my babies?"  And I still don't know the answer to that one, but I do know that I have my sister Fay here who does care.

Now, I'm going back downstairs to sit beside one of my doggies and read for class.  I don't know when the tribulation is coming, but I am sure we all have the same father and same last name.

Sanctify God's Name

Well I am waiting for the dryer to finish off a batch of clothes.  I went downstairs and graded (there is daylight at the end of the paper assignment 2 tunnel) and came upstairs to find dampness, so while I wait, here I am.

Here is my favorite little pearl I picked up at the circuit assembly on Saturday.  We have a new circuit overseer that I have not met yet (he comes to Windber the first week of December) but I saw him before the session started and I thought who is that tall fella in a green tie?  Of course it was him.  Gotta say that tie worked for me!  Anyhow, on the part about sanctifying Jehovah's name, he said, "We all have the same father and the same last name."

So when we go out in service, people see us, they don't say there goes Mark Harrison (that's our new CO's name).  They say there goes one of Jehovah's Witnesses.  We all have the same father, Jehovah, and we all have the same last name, Witnesses.

Ain't that cute?

So anyhow, Fay told me a joke on the way over there.  I have to share.  It goes like this:

A brother had a talking parrot for many years and when he finished his life's course, his family came along and resold the bird at the pet shop.  So a guy buys the bird, takes it home, and the next morning is Sunday.  The bird is waking him up and it's saying:  "It's Sunday.  Time to get up and go to the Kingdom Hall.  Get up sleepy head."  And the bird will not shut up and let him sleep in so he finally moves the bird to the living room.

The next day when he gets up and is leaving for work, the bird says:  "Time for the daily text," over and over till the guy finally goes early just to get away from the squawk box.  When he comes home, the bird starts in again saying:  "Read the Bible daily," over and over. 

The bird is really gorgeous and he wanted a talking bird, but this one has such a limited vocabulary.  So he sits there arguing with it and finally saying a few expletives and the bird says "the tongue is a fire James chapter three" over and over till the man blows his cool and grabs the bird and slings it against the wall!  Feeling contrite, ashamed, and scared, the man runs over to where the bird lies on the floor, shaking its feathers a little and coming back around but he also has a damaged wing.  The bird looks at the man and in a panicky squawk starts saying:  No Blood!  No Blood!


Which reminds me that Carly is carpooling to Derry for clinical class this month and she and another girl stopped at Petco in Latrobe.  Well, all the Halloween costumes for dogs were on clearance and the other girl has a Yorkie and was grabbing all the little outfits.  Then she asked Carly if she wanted some because she knows Carly has a Chihuahua.  And Carly said, "You can have them.  My dog is a Jehovah's Witness so she won't be wearing pumpkin sweaters."

Good night my sisters.  We all have the same Father and the same last name.

Circuit Assembly tomorrow!

Got to get up at the crack of dawn, so no blogging.  But I'm pretty happy.  See you late Sunday.

worldly people stink

I'm worn out.  I had all my nerves ready to go but the thing is, I asked to read my dossier from humanities.  I had to request it with a signed document which I sent in 9/20.  I still have not received that document.  My panel did not want to meet with me till I read it.  So my meeting was postponed.  I was all dressed up, no place to go, but happily the chair of my panel was upset with the people who were supposed to take care of this six weeks ago and he let them know it.

A  little poetic justice.

That's all I know today.  My brain is scrambled eggs.  Goodnight.