I’ve been pretty under the weather the last few days after a mild hiking excursion on Saturday.  It was getting a little nippy toward the end and I was feeling the chills after church the next day.  I haven’t been able to take much time off work to recover, due to deadlines and all, so I’ve been returning home and hiding under the covers while sweating, shivering, coughing, blowing my nose, and tossing and turning due to my legs which ached because of the hiking. I haven’t been sick for awhile.  I’ve been taking these gummy vitamins and the fact that they taste like candy is incentive enough for me to take them on a regular basis.  You’re only supposed to take two to get your daily allowance of vitamins, but the kid in me wishes they were less potent, so you had to eat 20 of them to get your daily dose.  Required gummy snacks as part of a healthy diet?  Yes please!

I still have yet to open this wedding save-the-date I received, particularly because when it was handed to me for some reason I thought the envelope was recently licked and I didn’t feel like touching saliva at the time.  I think I’ve waited long enough (dried saliva is muuuch better) and probably should open it. Actually I’m finding I tend to do that with certain letters.  I think I like the idea of hiding an unopened letter in a drawer somewhere to later open it, perhaps brightening a rainy day or something.  I guess letters these days are so much rarer that they kinda feel special.  I still have a letter I wrote to myself when I was in Mexico a few years ago on a missions trip with my church.  Although I think I can almost recall the jist of everything I wrote which kinda deflates the tires of any surprise that opening this letter may have caused.  Not sure when I’ll open it. Come to think of it there are a lot of letters like bills I don’t open immediately so maybe it’s just procrastination after all.

Today I ran into (figuratively) this post I thought was interesting, from Dr. Varner who teaches the sunday school I’ve been attending the past few weeks.  Last sunday he said we could “Romans 8:28 someone to death”.  That particular verse says that God works all things for the good of those who love God and have been called by Him and I suppose Christians sometimes use it in a swiss army knife type way to try to comfort those who are suffering.  Anyway, I don’t normally hear people use verses as verbs either.  Which reminds me, I probably should Ecclesiastes 5:12 myself soon after I … hmm, does anyone brush their teeth in the bible? I’m sort of impressed he uses tumbr actually.  I hardly know many who’ve even heard of tumblr, let alone someone in his, um, age demographic (a bit older).  And yellow font on grey background, with white highlighted titles?  Kinda savvy if you ask me.  And 137 pages of posts?  Letsee, I’m on page four…

In church yesterday I noticed out of the corner of my eye this girl who I thought was taking notes on the sermon but wrote “Have you ever loved someone so much you would have given your arm for them?”  I think she was writing a letter of some sort or at least jotting down her own thoughts and I didn’t want to read much of what may have been a personal journal but she seemed to be writing about this guy she liked.  My mind sorta wandered as I wondered if I ever loved someone so much I would have given my arm for that person.  I know I’ve never had to physically detatch my arm for someone (I have given a jacket which has two sleeves but that probably isn’t as meaningful).  I also noticed she was writing her name over and over again, maybe to practice her penmanship.  Man, I thought no one practiced that these days.

I don’t know why but lately I’ve been thinking a lot about something someone said in a bible study a while back (fall of last year).  When we first started going through Ephesians, the leader said that he hoped that we would learn to not be led by emotions.  I kinda understood what he was saying and I’ve often heard the proper Christian life described like a train where truth is the engine and emotions is the caboose.  I guess lately I’ve been thinking about the impossibility of this in light of what Lewis wrote, that we all do things and make choices that attempt to maximize our joy.  Whether we chose to eat ice cream or carrots, go for a walk or veg in front of the tube, read the bible or throw it away, we’re all doing things that we think will maximize our joy.  If that’s true then even someone who takes effort to not be led by emotions is doing so to try to maximize his joy.  Sounds kinda futile if you ask me. I also remember him saying something about not criticizing his sermons…

I had trouble finding a seat at church today because I was a little late so this man scooted over and let me sit at the back.  Then he leaned over to apologize that he didn’t offer his seat earlier.  Then while looking around, he asked a lady standing by him if she wanted to sit and he got up so she could sit down.  At this point I was sort of divided on whether I should do likewise.  On the one hand, I probably wouldn’t be able to find another seat (it was that packed), but on the other hand I think that’s the chivalrous, servant-like thing to do, but on the other hand (yes, there are three hands) maybe the best thing for me to do for him was to just enjoy the seat he offered me, which I suppose is what he originally wanted.  It was all very complex but the woman who sat by me eventually got up to look for a better seat, after which a different man sat down next to me.  I ended up sitting in the same spot the whole service but left thinking I should probably work on my seat manners.  While most people were scattering for a seat, one guy was actually looking for an opportunity to give his up.

After I wrote the post before last, I got Theo chocolate in the mail the other day as a gift.  Thanks Scott! I actually saw another bar of Theo (the chocolate, not me) at the natural foods market, which I picked up simply because it was a whopping 91% dark chocolate.  Not that I keep track of these percentages but I don’t think I remember eating chocolate at such high concentrations.  I’m waiting for the right time at work before unleashing to my coworkers this beast, this test of wills, this monster which is … 91% dark chocolate.  Madness, they say?  This … is… THEO!

I just came back from a few days at home (Portland) and I learned something: sometimes it’s funny to substitute “Yes” with Kool Aid Man’s “Oh Yeah!”  Do you want more beans?  “Oh yeah!”  Do you have ointment for those scars on your arms?  “Oh yeah!”  I can see how such enthusiasm in more tedious situations can come off as being disingenuous, but I only mean it to be silly.  I thought it’d be funny to get people in the meeting tomorrow to play along, also subsituting “No” with “Naaaaawwwwwwww……” but I’m thinking that’s probably not going to happen.

When I was ordering a salad to pick up after work, the guy asked me for my name and I said Theo and he said, “Oh like the chocolate.”   Normally I would have just said, “Uhh, yeah…” and went on with things but I was curious so I inquired and he explained that chocolate actually comes from the Theobroma Cacao tree and there’s a chocolate company in Alaska called Theobroma .  Apparently Theobroma means food of the gods. I was just glad they heard me correctly.  The other day someone at church th0ught my name was Leo. (to which I can now respond if I’m feeling especially enigmatic, “No, Theo.  Like the Chocolate.”)

Ug.  I feel stuffed, like I just ate a whole bag of blueberry shortbread which makes sense because I just ate a whole bag of blueberry shortbread.  My direct manager gave us all these really nice gift baskets with tons of goodies and I couldn’t help myself.  So, feeling stuffed I went down to the gym after work and did a mild workout, mild because I find working out to be incredibly boring and find myself having to do a crossword while running on the treadmill and having to step off the side every time I fill in an answer, which I think severely undercuts any fitness goals I’m trying to achieve.  Luckily, I don’t have any goals! I guess general fitness might be a goal but that sounds a bit vague.  I need something specific, like lifting a car over my head.  Or something less imaginary, like having a six pack.  How exactly do you measure a six pack anyway?  What’s the cutoff between a one pack and a sixer?  When does a hill (or great plains in my case) become a mountain?  Or a crevice becomes a canyon?  When does a knife become sharp, or an archer becomes skilled, or an acquaintance become a friend, or a … Hmm, I guess I can try to just drop my bp a few points.