George and Papa were discussing baseball it would seem. George was sharing his love for playing second base and catching. Papa mentioned that someone closely related to George used to love those same two positions. George tried to guess, “my dad? my sister?”

“No, no,” Papa replied.

So George kept guessing. He named off nearly every relative he could think of. But none were the one Papa was talking about.

“She’s closely related to you. Very close.” Papa nudged, trying to get George to realize he was speaking of his mom, Jules.

When George finally gave up guessing and Papa revealed that he had been speaking about George’s mom, George replied, “But she’s not related to me!!”

“She’s not?!” Papa asked incredulously.

“No! She’s a girl, she has long hair and I have short hair AND her last name wasn’t even the same as mine before!”

Well, there ya go, Jules. Is there any doubt remaining that this boy could possibly be your son?

I didn’t think so.

I’ve really been impressed as of late. My dad has come a long (LONG) way. He not only has wireless interent at his house and a LAN so he can print from anywhere, not only does he have a huge plasma TV and satellite to the house, but he recently bought himself an iTouch (after getting one for my second mom and watching her love hers so very much).

He even sent me his very first text message the other day and has my blog as an icon on his iTouch.

I’m impressed beyond words.

But when my sister shares that my dad is FREEZING their food trash so it doesn’t “stink up the trash”? Yeah, you may have taken a dozen steps forward into the technological era, Dad, but freezing your trash? Yeah, that just aged you. You are SO like your father. (Love ya!)

It was only an uncle and a godfather at first. Then the occasional friend at school. I’ve noticed it more and more over the years, but it’s almost always his peers, rarely adults. He’s not adamant about it either way. Call him this, call him that, it’s all good in his book.

But today. Today, printed in the church bulletin as a participant for the mission trip this week was his name. Flash’s short name. It seemed like a typo to me. I mean, sure, to his buds he’s the short version, but always for me, and certainly for official purposes, he’s always going to be the full-fledge FLASH, right?

I was sharing this oddity with my sister at which point she said, “Um, Papa and G’ma call him the short version all the time now.” WHAT?!?!

When did this happen?

Apparently when he was in TN a couple weeks ago, the cousin he was down there with asked which he preferred and Flash? said the short version. And so the short version it is.

Mind you, I have no problem with this at all. It’s exactly WHY he got the name he got (or a name like it anyway). I don’t have a name you can shorten. It’s just short. There’s nothing more formal about it. And I wanted him to have the option.

Which apparently he’s decided to start exercising that option.

No matter what the bulletin read this morning, though, he’ll always be full-fledged Flash to me.

I just talked with my boy.

Sigh.

He has a week-long missions trip starting Monday and it’s just so hard for me to not be there to prepare him (more mentally than the actually packing part, but that too).

I know he’s in good hands; his aunt just went on a missions trip out of country. His grandpa is a minister. His nana will make certain he has every necessity. It’s just that I’m his mom.

Sigh.

I still have seven or eight weeks until he’s back.

Sigh.

It’s been going on forever. Seems like the minute I get home in the evening, he’s playing his music loud enough to be annoying, but not loud enough to disturb anyone else but me, his downstairs neighbor. Day in, day out, five hours of his urban music choices, it gets old in a hurry. Sure, I’ve talked with the boy’s mom. Sure, they’ve both arrived at my door with an apology. Sure, I’ve complained to management. Sure, they’ve said they’ve sent letters. But here it is, another typical night at Chez Liza and I’m going stark raving mad with the noise.

I know he’s thirteen year old left alone while his mom works second shift. She used to work third shift, and so it was quiet on the northern front during the evenings and he slept while she was at work (most of the time). But now, with her on seconds, he’s left to himself until after 11 and so the music goes. I know from his mother that he’s teetering on the edge of the very wrong crowd. A mostly B student in school, his troubles come from hanging out with the kids that make the wrong choices.

Tonight I couldn’t take it any longer. I will be the first to realize that my house is pretty quiet compared to most. With no TV, there’s little to run interference with the noise coming from upstairs. But when I have to put on headsets for the THIRD time in a week just to hear a movie on my computer? It’s gotten to be too much.

So I traipsed upstairs and knocked on the door. The music was still blaring, and there was no answer. I tried louder and louder approaches until the music was finally turned off, but no answer at the door. I was frustrated. I returned back to my apartment irritated once again.

I left another voicemail for management (after just having spoken with them on Monday about this ongoing, continuing issue).

It remained quiet upstairs for quite awhile. That isn’t a surprise. This boy is often immediately repentant and compliant, but boredom overtakes him eventually and he’s back to his old ways.

About an hour and a half later, my buzzer rang. Since we moved in two years ago, no one has ever rung the buzzer except UPS and the boy upstairs. He would never come to the door to ask if Flash could play, he’d always ring the security buzzer out in the hall. And here it was again. I knew immediately it was him. And I knew even before I clicked the button that he wouldn’t reply to my inquiry as to who it was. But I also knew there’d be a note outside my door. It’s his trademark apology.

I didn’t go get it right away. I waited until quite late, actually. I know he’s back and forth between his apartment and mine waiting to see if I’ll read it. At one point he went around his apartment bouncing a ball just to be blatantly annoying – I’m sure trying to get me to come out and see his note.

I’ve been thinking about it all night. I HATE the noise. I hate the lack of respect. I get that he’s only thirteen, but dealing with this every.single.day is causing me angst. But then I think of him and how he’s left on his own from 2 until after 11 every single day. And during the summer there’s not even school to keep him busy for any portion of that. He never has friends over, never seems to go anywhere unless he and his mom go together and so it’s easy to see how his days would get long and his time would get dull.

His note begs me not to tell his mom and apologized every which way he can think of. Full of spelling and grammatical errors, it’s much more a note of an child half his age. But I read it with a heavy heart.

And so I decided to try something different. I don’t have a way of getting ahold of his mom, and I rarely see her any more, so I had to resort to a note back, but I’m hoping it works. In my note, I asked his mom if maybe he would like to come play a game with me in the evening. Maybe come outside and play washers, or there’s always my favorite – Yahtzee! Just something to do since Flash is gone for the summer and maybe the two of us would enjoy the company.

I don’t know if he’ll feel comfortable enough to do so, but outside of our noise altercations, he’s always remarkably polite to me, so perhaps it would be okay.

I just worry that with continued time on his hands, this boy is going to let trouble find him. In greater ways than just annoying his rather quiet downstairs neighbor. And since I seem to have the time, maybe investing some of it in him wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

Let’s hope they go for it.

Some friends tried to convince me to give online dating another try. They pleaded their case – one of them even pointing out that she married someone she met on eHarmony. I shook my head and said, “no dice”. There’s just no convincing me to spend one.more.dime on trying to meet someone online.

So they said, “It’s “free communication weekend!” Just fill out a profile! You don’t have to subscribe until someone wonderful catches your eye!”

Yeah. Or never. I might just subscribe NEVER.

But I relented to filling out a profile. I agreed to do only that which was free and nothing more. If for no other reason than to be able, once again to say, “See? This online dating thing? IT BLOWS CHUNKS. And besides, I’m quite happy being single. 99.9% of the time.” So I answered the 40 bazillion questions and I uploaded a photo and I refused to subscribe all twenty times that it tried to convince me to.

And this weekend, the dating service sent me some matches. And I read through them, but I’m not impressed. I didn’t not take advantage of all this “free communication” hoopla.

And then today, I get a text message from TB. “eHarmony? Really?” And then in my inbox there it is. eHarmony thinks that TB and I would make a great match and has sent me his information.

I would like to send eHarmony a reply. I would like to delineate for them the 1000+ reasons why TB and I are a terrible match. (And for those of you wondering if we really are a horrible match, I’ll just say this, I have refrained from publically documenting the ongoing drama with TB. Trust me, we are NOT even close to being a match.) I didn’t send a note to eHarmony. I refrained. For now.

But I’ll say this, it just goes to prove my point: people can put whatever they want down on paper. They can appear to be whomever they wish to appear to be. Christian, responsible, mature, independent, funny…but there’s nothing quite like reality to remind you that the internet allows us to create very false personas of ourselves.

So you’ll pardon me if I continue to be a cynic at this online dating nonsense. If I keep my $60 in my pocket and think of a hundred better ways to spend the money other than hoping that the man God has in mind for me is out there on the computer impressed with all I had to say about myself. Egads. It gives me the willies just to think of it.

I babysit five kids everyday to supplement my piddly summer school income. While most of the time is all fun and games, I do make the kids read for half an hour after lunch every day to keep their brains from completely rotting over the summer break.

Leading by example, after the lunch dishes are cleaned up, I hunker right down with the roomful of kids and pick up a book myself. Lately, I’ve been fascinated by Randy Alcorn’s book, Heaven. I was particularly intrigued by the chapter I was reading the other day on Alcorn’s take on the question, “Will there be dinosaurs in heaven?” After consulting the Scripture he cites and listening to his reasoning, I admit, I got a little excited at the idea that we might someday ride a Tyrannosaurus Rex (they would be tame and herbivores, of course). I leaned over to George, (sitting nearby reading How to Eat Fried Worms), and whispered, “Wouldn’t it be awesome if we could ride dinosaurs in Heaven?”

George replied, “Wouldn’t they eat us?”

“No,” I said, “no one is going to be mean and kill anybody in Heaven. Besides, we can’t die when we’re in Heaven.”

“So they wouldn’t eat us?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Oh,” replied George with a smile. “Then I’d kick him in the leg!”

Romans 3:23-24 “…for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came through Jesus Christ.”

My sister has decided her ipod Touch has an additional quality that she greatly appreciates.

When Bear is impaired enough that Jules has to drive home, the ipod Touch will keep Bear so entertained, he won’t tell her how to drive!

Maybe Apple needs to start doing commercials using that as the selling point!

My sister was headed into town the other night and asked if I wanted to meet them for dinner. I was on my way back from dropping Flash at the airport and thought company might not be a bad idea.

No sooner had they arrived and George was planted in the booth next to me that this story started spilling out of the boy. It turns out he spied a gimpy racoon on the road in front of their house the other night and had pointed it out to Bear. Bear figured out it was a racoon half stuck in a trap, trying to get to the woods (more than likely to die in privacy). Taking it upon himself to ease the suffering of the poor animal, he and George searched out a large rock, konked the animal on the head and then removed it from the trap. Being nice and all.

Already I was ruling out ribs, steak and even a burger for dinner.

George was delighted with this chance encounter with the dying racoon. My sister began describing the “manginess” of the animal and Birdy simply turned her head away, disgusted once more to have to live with such gruesome events around her.

I survived that story (and even managed to somewhat enjoy my chicken caesar salad) that night, but the story was yet to be over.

I was watching the kids and some additional youngsters the other day at my sister’s house and they were out playing in the sprinklers. At one point, George headed to the barn to get a broom for me to sweep off the deck and comes back commenting on how bad it smells over by the barn. I had barely even glanced in that direction when George loudly proclaims with relief, “Oh, yeah! It’s the dead racoon that’s in the trash!” As if that’s what anyone would do with a dead racoon. Apparently the thought was throwing it in the woods in their backyard would just cause it to smell in the heat. There’s logic there, I think. You might have to really look hard to find it.

In any case, my sister calls me this morning and is talking about how Bear had left the trash can down at the street and how she went to get it last night and found it was covered in maggots. Let me say that again, covered in maggots. I was immediately thinking of a hundred reasons I had to get off the phone just then, but if you know anything about my sister, you know she’s darn hard to end a phone conversation with.

She went on. She said it was hard to even find a place to put her hand to drag the trash bin back up to the house because there were so many maggots. Maggots, people.

She brought the trash can up to the house, got the hose out and sprayed the can down with the highest pressure she could and then sprayed the maggots on the ground with Seven so they would die. She had the wherewithall AND the foresight to not just spray them down (as I might have done, albeit screaming and running around like a grossed-out chicken) but to then kill them as well.

“But the minute I turned around, the trash can was covered again with the maggots,” she said. This went on for quite awhile apparently.

I have no idea how this story ends. I had to get off the phone and I had to shiver and make ugly faces and then sing “Jesus Loves Me” six times over in the car to just get the image of maggots out of my head. Even then, I think it was easily two in the afternoon before I put my hand down on anything before checking for maggots first.

I do love the idea of living outside of town at some point in my life, but if that means I’m going to have to deal with killing half dead wildlife and throwing carcasses in my trash only to then deal with maggots, you can safely count me out of that plan.

1. Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good.
2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.
3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.
4. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and parents will. Stay in touch.
5. Pay off your credit cards every month.
6. You don’t have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.
7. Cry with someone. It’s more healing than crying alone.
8. It’s OK to get angry with God. He can take it.
9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.
10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
11. Make peace with your past so it won’t screw up the present.
12. It’s OK to let your children see you cry.
13. Don’ t compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn’t be in it.
15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don’t worry; God never blinks.
16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.
17. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful.
18. Whatever doesn’t kill you really does make you stronger.
19. It’s never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.
20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don’t take no for an answer.
21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don’t save it for a special occasion. Today is special.
22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.
23. Be eccentric now. Don’t wait for old age to wear purple.
24. The most important sex organ is the brain.
25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.2
6. Frame every so-called disaster with these words ‘In five years, will this matter?’
27. Always choose life.
28. Forgive everyone everything.
29. What other people think of you is none of your business.
30. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.
31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
32. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
33. Believe in miracles.
34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn’t do.
35. Don’t audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
36. Growing old beats the alternative — dying young.
37. Your children get only one childhood.
38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.
39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.
40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s,we’d grab ours back.
41. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
42. The best is yet to come.
43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
44. Yield.
45. Life isn’t tied with a bow, but it’s still a gift.”

Written By Regina Brett – 90 years old “To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me. It is the most-requested column I’ve ever written.”My odometer rolled over to 90 in August, so here is the column once more.