Category Archives: humor

Waiting for the Christmas Spirit

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Waiting for the Christmas Spirit

The kitsch and spangles and baubles and bangles,
And department store Santa, just really can’ta
Seem to bring me the spirit of Christmas.

And I’ve been waiting to feel it –
the real Christmas spirit
Hoping it’d come by now.
The stockings are stuffed,
the tree is all buffed,
The cookies are baked and frosted and fluffed
But there’s still something missing –
a feeling, a tingling
that’s supposed to come every Christmas.

Except…
Maybe that Christmas feeling,
that energy and tingling
Is something I can have every day –
It doesn’t depend on spangles, or jingly-bell jangles
Or jolly men dressed all in red.
It comes in the sharing
of laughter and caring
And the comfort in words with love said:
To all – Peace! Joy! Hope! Every moment of every day.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell, from The Madcap Christian Scientist’s Christmas Book

The_Madcap_Christian_Cover_for_Kindle (6)

T’was Two Weeks Afore Christmas

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T’was Two Weeks Afore Christmas

T’was two weeks afore Christmas and all through Eff Bee
not a creature was stirring – not a she, he, or me
We were prostrate and spent from the holiday bustle
not a twitch could be seen from the teeniest muscle.

We lay all unblinking in our respective beds
while visions of gift-wrapping swirled through our heads
And clad in our jammies and our way cool madcaps
we had the vague hopeful hope our bodies would take naps.

Holiday jangles and jingles pinged through our brains –
Presley, Crosby, and Mathis taking us down memory lanes –
and would we remember every member to be gifted?
We mentally went through our lists, hoping none were omitted.

There were homes to be decorated and cards to be sent,
parties, caroling, and cookie-making, and we hadn’t made a dent.
But with a collective sigh we remembered there and then
that it’s really about good will to all creatures, women, and men.

And so our thoughts finally settled and our bodies relaxed
as we thought of those we love and a world festooned in pax.
With our hearts wrapped in kindness and the world as our ‘hood
We’re all brethren and sistren – and verily, it’s all good!

– Karen Molenaar Terrell, from The Madcap Christian Scientist’s Christmas Book)

photo by Karen Molenaar Terrell

 

Karen in the Kitchen

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First, I will don my way cool apron that my friend from Canada sent me, and that has the Canadian word “Eh?” written on it in really flamboyant letters.  Of course, putting on the apron isn’t going to actually keep me from having flour all over me by the end of my culinary adventure – but I think I look sort of cute in it. And that’s the important thing.048

Next I will haul the turkey out of the fridge, where it’s been thawing since Sunday. I will dice home-grown onion and garlic, apples from our orchard (yes, apples – using apples in turkey stuffing is a Karen tradition – because I, traditionally and invariably, FORGET TO BUY CELERY!!! and then I find myself scrambling around the kitchen, looking for something crunchy I can throw in the dressing… and… yeah… well… apples …and, true to tradition, I just realized that I, once again, FORGOT THE CELERY!!!), and toasted Dave’s Killer Whole Grain Bread (the bread will be toasted, not Dave).  I’ll sprinkle sage and rosemary over everything that’s within arm’s reach (this includes the dog, the cats, and the sons). Then I will yank out the turkey’s innerds, and replace it with toasted Dave, and put the whole shebang in a pre-heated 325 degree oven.

Pie-making comes next. I love making pies. There’s something kind of comforting about pie-making. I especially love making pies when there’s rain pounding against the windows, and a fire in the woodstove – the rain adds a certain ambiance, and it looks like we might be getting a lot of ambiance today.  I’ll combine the flour (2 cups), and butter (2 tbs, plus 2/3 cup) and water (6 tbs) in a bowl, and then grab half of it and roll it out on a floured cutting board, and lay it in the bottom of my glass pie plate. The bottom crust will be a picture of perfection – it will be seamless and smooth. Next, I’ll put the frozen blackberries that I picked last summer into the pie shell. I’ll add 4 or 5 tbs of flour, and 6 tbs of sugar, and loosely mix the pie’s filling.  Now it’s time to roll out the top crust and place it on top of the pie. The top crust is the crust that everyone will see. It will have holes and tears in it. That is another Karen tradition. Once I’ve got my holey crust attached to the pie, I’ll lightly sprinkle sugar over the top, to make the pie look sort of sparkly when it’s done.

By the time we sit down for our feast, our plates will be full of turkey, stuffing, mashed sweet potatoes with butter and cinnamon, and cranberry sauce, and we’ll be half-way through dinner before someone – probably one of the sons – will ask me about the dinner rolls. And they will either be burning in the oven, or still sitting in the cupboard. It is another Karen tradition.

May your holidays be filled with a feast of love and laughter.  And don’t forget the dinner rolls.

– Excerpt from The Madcap Christian Scientist’s Christmas Book

Link

Ode to Black Friday

I do not like Black Friday, sir
I do not like the brrr, grrr, whirrr
I do not like to fight over socks,
I do not like to get crammed in a box
store, you will not see me at the Mall
I do not like it, no, not at all.
The crazy, scrambling, hunter’s race
doesn’t fit my ambling, gatherer’s pace
I like to feel, I like to sniff
I like to take my time and if
I take more time than Sally and Sam
it’s the way I shop, and it works for me, ma’am.
So you will not find me camped outside the store
You will not find me standing at dawn at the door
You will not find me wedged in the mall’s lot
or crammed in traffic, with wares newly-bought.
For I do not like Black Friday, friend.
Well, except online shopping maybe – they’ll send.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell
from A Poem Lives On My Windowsill
(available from Karen Molenaar Terrell’s Amazon author page)

A_Poem_Lives_On_My_W_Cover_for_Kindle

 

 

“I have wrestled with the beast and emerged victorious! Mostly.”

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I have wrestled with the beast and I have emerged victorious! And in one piece. Mostly. Okay, so there’s a teensy chip out of my forehead. But other than that… I’m good.

I got it into my head that today I would go through the mountain of mail we’ve been accumulating on our counter over the last several months. And when I say “mountain” I am not exaggerating – it over-flowed a basket I started putting it in, and then slowly crept along the counter, working its way west like some insidious beast.

It took more than four hours. I filled up a quarter of our recycle bin. I finally got to a place where I was sorting what was left into files and notebooks. I put one of the notebooks back on its shelf, the notebook knocked a framed poster above it, which knocked the framed poster above IT, and the top poster came crashing down on my head. Glass everywhere. I sort of crumpled up underneath the frame and squatted there until I felt my senses come back to me…

… and felt blood coming down my face…

My husband tried to help – wiped the blood off my face – put a towel to my forehead…

I started laughing.

I went into the living room and started singing hymns to myself. My husband poked his head in to see what I was up to in there, and started cracking up when he saw me. We are a fine pair.

I started taking stock of myself then: Still bleeding? Nope. Still breathing? Yup. Able to think? Yup – well, I mean… as well as I ever did. Has anything really changed here? Nope. Okay. I think you’re good to go…

The son and I had been watching an old Disney movie together – Robin Hood and Little John – and reminiscing about those years when he was little and we’d watch old Disney movies together. We were having a cozy, nostalgic time together tonight. Eating pop corn and drinking cocoa while I worked my way through the flotsam and jetsam on the counter, and he did homework for his university classes. And I felt so completely wrapped up in the warmth and coziness and love all around me that the crashing poster just didn’t seem a part of my night – it couldn’t touch me, or take away from the sweetness of the night in any way.

It was like the whole thing had never happened.

And, speaking metaphysically, I guess it never really did. 🙂

“Accidents are unknown to God, or immortal Mind, and we must leave the mortal basis of belief and unite with the one Mind, in order to change the notion of chance to the proper sense of God’s unerring direction and thus bring out harmony.”
– Mary Baker Eddy

Report to the Mother Planet

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- Karen Molenaar Terrell

– Karen Molenaar Terrell

The Noble and Heroic Pablo

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We are surrounded by heroes. Yesterday I discovered one at the local espresso stand. Or… I guess he discovered me, really. I had just ordered a mocha, and was waiting at the window to conclude the transaction, when I heard someone say in a gentle voice behind me, “I don’t want to embarrass you, but you have a tag on your pants.”  I turned around and saw this young man smiling at me, sort of apologetically. “You have a… ” – he stretched his fingertips out from each other vertically – “…a tag on your pants.”

When he stretched his fingertips out from each other length-wise, I knew he meant I had one of those long plastic strips on my jeans that tells what size they are – I had just bought those jeans the day before and hadn’t realized the plastic strip thingy was still affixed to them. This was embarrassing in so many ways – one of the chief ones being that my jeans size is not something you would ever hear me bragging about, if you know what I mean – and I certainly wouldn’t knowingly walk around with it affixed to my pants for everyone to see.

I started laughing and peeled off the strip. “Thank you!” I said, holding out my hand to shake his hand. And then I discovered that he knew how to shake hands the proper way! – shake, roll the thumbs over, bump fists, and end with a retreating finger-wiggle. He was surprised that I knew how to do this and, by way of explanation, I told him I teach at an alternative high school, so… yeah… “And that’s all the more reason to thank you for telling me about the plastic strip on my pants! Can you imagine how that would have gone over at the high school?!” He and I both laughed together then at the image that conjured up for us.

The barista made a joke about me wanting to leave the plastic strip on my pants to show off that I had new jeans. I pointed out that the plastic strip gave the size of my jeans which is not something I’d really like to advertise to the general public, and she and my hero chuckled about that. “But we’ll just keep my jeans size between ourselves, right?” I asked my new friend. He nodded in the affirmative, and assured me he would never tell – my secret was safe with him.

By this time my mocha was ready and my bill paid. My hero and I introduced ourselves, and I learned his name was Pablo. I asked him if I could take his picture and write about his noble and heroic self in my blog, and he good-naturedly agreed.

I’d almost made it back inside my car, when Pablo yelled to me, “You forgot your debit card! Oh! And you forgot your backpack!”

Sheesh.

“Thanks for taking care of me this morning, Pablo!” I said, grabbing my card and pack. And he smiled his hero’s smile and wished me a good day.

Pablo

Pablo the Heroic

The Time-Meister

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I posted a short video clip on Facebook about Daylight Savings Time that totally cracked me up (if you haven’t seen this, you need to check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4EUTMPuvHo), and I asked a couple of my FB buddies if I could share their responses in this post.  

The great 21st century scientist, Allen Nelson, says –
” I’ve had to change my watch THREE times this week:
– I was in the UK on Sunday, when THEY changed their clocks back.
– I flew home on Wednesday, so had to change time zones.
– And now I have to do it AGAIN !?!

“I know where I am, but I’m not sure when I am.”

And the great 21st century philosopher, Magda Constans, shares –
“I found out that North Korea permanently turned back their standard time by 1/2 hour this past August, so if I were there during that time I’d have gained 1/2 hour, and last weekend I was in Rome, where we changed the clocks back an hour, so I gained an extra hour in Rome, and this weekend we’re changing our clocks in Toronto so I’ll gain another hour. If I keep this up I’ll never get old! LOL!!! Time is illusive, eternity is timeless.”

For me, this is the time of the year when I re-discover my power over time… I mean…not my power over the whole world’s time or anything, but my power over the time inside my car. I will re-discover my power not because I’m, like, a brilliant quantum physicist, but because I do not know which buttons to push and what order to push them in to move my clock backwards. So for six months I will be driving in a parallel universe to the cars around me – a universe in which my car will be moving in a realm an hour ahead of every other car. Of course, when spring comes all the other cars will catch up with me again. But still… six months as a time-meister ain’t bad, right?

Time

The objects of time and sense disappear in the illumination of spiritual understanding, and Mind measures time according to the good that is unfolded.
– Mary Baker Eddy