Friday, January 22, 2016

Snippets of weird and wonderful observations on American life

We landed in Denver on January 9th and so have been here for two weeks. Geoff and I are off to another land already. Saturday January 23rd we travel to Mendocino, California for a minister/missionaries retreat week at a lighthouse. It should prove to be a restful and insightful week. We are definitely looking forward to it.

With two weeks in Denver already having flown by I decided I'd share some observations.

Though we're not in Rome anymore I have had "When in Rome, do as the Romans do." swimming around in my head. A more grounded statement could be argued from Paul's perspective, "Be all things to all people." Of course his ultimate goal was in saving souls, whereas the previous statement is mostly geared at fitting in. Now, in Denver, we find ourselves doing as the Denver Brittons do . . . Watching Wheel of Fortune every night. Obviously this is not qualified as an activity geared at saving souls, nor is it our effort to simply fit in. But, this is an activity already in place in this household when we arrived and so we participate.

I have to admit, it is nice to switch off the brain (though some of those puzzles can be quite challenging :) ). The other night we watched one of the contestants win a weeklong trip to Italy and the prize was valued at three times the amount we spent on our 18 day Italian holiday. My observation? What on earth could cost more than three times the amount we spent for less than twice as long as our stay?  Truthfully? We lacked nothing. We toured Florence, Venice, Soriano and Rome. Every day was rich, full, invigorating, insightful, beautiful, historical and yummy.

Watching Wheel of Fortune has renewed my observation that the world's system produces an insatiable hunger for more, but less is always delivered. With God we are dealt abundant blessings, always.

WHY do people arriving at the gym (to exercise) spend extra time vying for that closer parking space? No less than five people were lined up for a closer space last week. Are we NOT there to exercise people? Just park and walk for crying out loud!

The nearby liquor store is advertising a rewards program for frequent buyers. Is this the epitome of health in the land of often obsessive attention to Both healthy eating and safety?

The DJ on the Christian radio station the other day shared how a friend recently panicked when she arrived at a job interview because she realized she'd forgotten to put on perfume before she left home. THIS is a problem to panic over? Her solution? Smear the car air freshener all over herself. Yessssss, this is a picture of maturity.

And in a bit of a confusing twist I saw an AARP ad the other day in which they proudly highlighted quite a few of their "poster children." Members of AARP who have started new careers at age 50. WAIT? Isn't AARP for the retired person????? Those "go-getters" aren't retired, how can AARP claim them?

Today Geoff and I passed a High School on the left and on the immediate right was a Planned Parenthood office. Coincidence? I think not. Just as a candidate's posters can't be within 100 feet of the polling place on Election Day, there ought to be some sort of law that a Planned Parenthood business should be placed roughly a billion miles from a high school.

We are being inundated by all the updates in technology in place since we were here in 2013. We hear the Islamic call to prayer often while in Uganda. Today we passed a Mosque and realized we NEVER hear the call to prayer here. We wondered if the silence was due to a "call to prayer" App because, despite the silence, there were MANY cars in the parking lot on this holy Friday.

A few days ago Toby couldn't contain his excitement regarding a planned trip to Sonic--the fast food restaurant. Wednesday featured 50 cent corn dogs and he wanted to make sure he also could get tater tots. He was so exuberant about it I smiled and told him that I love him for his joy over such things. He sported a defensive tone, "but we might live in Uganda for a very long time so whenever we're here we should capsize on these things." I laughed. Of course he meant capitalize. But, since capsize is to turn oneself upside down, that's a pretty good description of what tater tots and corn dogs might do to you!

Enjoy life and stay healthy, friends.

2 comments:

Just A Southern Girl said...

Smiled and chuckled all through this post.
The first thing we notice when we go back to the states on furlough is how CLEAN everything is!
The second thing is the sheer abundance of everything... and I'm not just talking in the stores. Houses are more ample, and have an abundance of appliances; the yards seem huge and generally are so well maintained. Parks have lots of playground equipment and picnic tables and trees and flowers and... Sheer abundance.
These are not bad things. I like the clean! I like the appliances and the parks and the level sidewalks and...
But it always takes some time to adjust to a new reality. A reality that used to be so familiar but now seems starkly odd to us.

BTW, we spent a year at Kasana (June 2001-June 2002) filling in for some missionaries who went on furlough and still maintain contact with some of the folks. We hold the dear folks at New Hope close in our hearts. It was that experience that propelled us to full-time cross cultural work.

Tremonisha said...

Okaaaaay, wow! So that is totally ALARMING AND NOT A COINCIDENCE that there is a Planned Parenthood across the street from the high school. Thanks for bringing that info to light.