New Blog Feature: Grinning

Lately, I have been looking for circumstances that make me smile. I tend to inappropriately laugh like Mary Tyler Moore at Chuckles the Clown's funeral, but still I pursue the grin.  To be sure, there is some real pain and suffering, but it's a good thing to pause and give thanks for the absurd and amusing.

Saturday a group of lawyers who work with hubby JR invited us to a concert which included a lovely picnic supper beforehand.  It was chamber of commerce weather in Atlanta, and we pulled up to the amplitheater and walked to the VIP gate per instruction.  First smile came as the clearly marked VIP gate was nestled between two dumpsters.  As we approached a very nice lady enthusiatically greeted us and gave us the "special VIP bracelet, because we are special VIPs".  When she called me a special VIP I do think I laughed out loud assuming she was saying it tongue in cheek.  Nope, turns out we were extremely important.  Second smile of the VIP arrival came when I looked down at my VIP lime green hospital band VIP identification that was taped to my wrist so tightly that circulation to my fingers became a problem.  However, because of my VIP status I was given a second band.  It's all who you know.  The lady greeting us was so sweet but she kept calling us VIPs, telling we are going to have a great time because...yes we were VIPs and on and on.  It was odd, I said to hubby, it's like have to explain a joke--if you have to tell us again and again and again that we really are VIPs then clearly we are not.

I received a prayer request card that read, "pray for a family member who needs therapy."   I was honored to lift that up in prayer, and I it may well be the therapy sought is for a serious situation.  However the way it was phrased made me smile, because it is not a universal request?  It's the prayer card/request we all want to write. 

I had a service man come to the house for a maintenance issue and he was kind and professional, but as he explained that he was looking to move into "semi retirement" from his current work, he asked me to keep an eye out for a job that did not require him to "work much or think much."  OK.

My daughter's coach who chided the team, "Girls, you are going to have to get your dresses dirty... MOVE!"  Girl athletes have a way of going from tough to prissy as a group. 

My 10 year old nephew breathlessly yell/talking to us on the phone about how he and some buddies "ding dong ditched some girls" Saturday at a great sleepover. 

Finally for this entry, I am loving a new book titled, "My Bangs Look Good and other Lies I Tell Myself"  by Susanna Aughtmon. 

"Laugter is the closet thing to the grace of God."  Karl Barth