The Girl with Stars in Her Eyes

This is a humorous story.
Yet, this is not really a funny story.

The other day, Sue awoke with a shower of shooting stars playing before her very eyes.  A series of flashes in her field of vision with a smudgy gray ring also to be seen in the middle distance.  A bit unsettling.

A call to the optometrist and a description of what she was seeing quickly brought the response of, "How soon can you get in here?"   Pretty quick was her answer.

The congenial Doc took a look and a listen and then he did an ultrasound image of her eyeball.  Hmmm.  Just as he thought; the vitreous humor (the liquid filling inside of the eyeball - that's the 'humorous' part of the story) had pulled away from the back of the eye and this was causing the optic nerve to fire and make a light show for the brain to enjoy.  Only most of the brain was not enjoying the show, but was wondering what in heavens was going on.  

The doctor assured her he had the same thing happen to him, and even he was unnerved (even though he knew what was going on).  He assured her that it would eventually fix itself.  Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday.  What a trip - as the hippies used to say.

So, I did marry a girl with stars in her eyes.  Sometimes at night I look deep into her eyes and look for those stars.  But she tells me those are her stars only, you can't see them and then her eyelids drift down as she slips into heavenly sleep.

From the Pulpit

The message from the Search Committee and the message from Pastor Paul; 

"Sue, you belong among this congregation and we will support your ministry."

This message was delivered to Sue when she started part-time work as Director of Ministry for Children and Youth at First Presbyterian, Garland on September 1, 2015.

Sue hit the ground running as they say, and it was not long afterward when she was approached with the opportunity to preach on October 18, while Pastor Paul was out of town.  She welcomed this opportunity to come.  On the designated Sunday, I slipped into a central pew and joined a family of Sue's fans from her previous church as the introit began.  Sue conducted the entire worship service from announcements to prayers to benediction.

The sermon delivered from the pulpit by Sue was, "To What are we Entitled?"; preaching from the Gospel text of Mark 10:35-45.  Two of Jesus' disciples were asking for special places of honor in His Kingdom, only to cause greater disharmony among the other 10 disciples once they all found out about the inside-job seeking to secure a place of honor.  Using her seminary training and hermaneutical skills, she, like I think any good preacher, wrestled and struggled with the text and then crafted an applicable message relating that most-human interaction amongst the disciples of wanting to be made first above everyone else, and then tied that attitude found in the Scriptures to circumstances of to which we can relate in our very own life.  It was a good message.  I am sure that for God and everybody else on down, all were pleased.

Now, does Sue believe her time in the pulpit gives her a greater reward in heaven?  No, I think she is the type of preacher who practices what she preaches. 

Oh Honey, Do I Look Faaabulous!

Comes a time when even the minimal amounts of hairs on my head get kind of weedy and overgrown.  After I've usually let the growing go too far, I pick a morning and go to the hair shop to get things trimmed back to proper proportions.  I usually see Vicki at this particular hair-shop chain and she does an above average job, though I have never been all that finicky about my hair "style" - though maybe I should have been more particular in my thicker hirsute years when I had my chance.

None-the-less, I step through the door a bit after 9 AM; the ubiquitous Vietnamese young lady stylist is already working on her client, and I am expecting Vicki at chair #1.  I look around for Vicki for just a moment, when stepping out from behind the wall stocked with hair product was a new stylist.  She was 6 foot-3, wore a tight sweater stretched across her prominently displayed boobs, looking as if they were stacked on a shelf.  Her black & white horizontal striped knit skirt was tight and mid-thigh length.  I took in her height,  her clothing, her black and white colored hair-do and a very strong and square jaw line.  She immediately stuck out her hand, which was the size of an oven mitt and greeted me with a husky voice, saying, "Hi! I'm Sabrina, I'll be your stylist today!"  

I thought to myself; I would have guessed your name was Lola.  But no.  We'll just go along with Sabrina.

I'm not the world's most passionate man, and I'm not dumb but I don't understand 
why she looks like a woman, but talks like a man;
well girls will be boys and boys will be girls,
It's a crazy mixed up muddled up shook-up world.
  - The Kinks

Sabrina was attentive to my wishes and quite explanatory of her choices of "stylists" tools to get me the look I craved.  We talked of weather, drought, and the care of homes and the local housing market.  Sabrina told me "they had just bought a cute little pier-and-beam place in East Plano".  She went on to say that the buying a house in these times is just "crazy insane, don't you know it honey!"  But now that her house papers were all signed, Sabrina said that she was a "satisfied wife - how often do you hear that from a woman?" she asked me.  I admitted that domestic tranquility was a beautiful thing.

Sabrina then asked, "How 'bout I just trim those eyebrows chief?"  I thought to myself, this is way too close to what I think they mean by "manscaping", so I politely said I'll just leave my eyebrows as they are, thanks.  Sabrina trimmed my neck and then asked if everything looked acceptable.  I said it looked fine, but really, I was feeling so faaabulous, and I know I just looked maaavalous to boot.

Sabrina did quite a job on my head.  Maybe in more ways than one.