Why I Love Racing: Daytona 500 weekend

I am one of approximately 30,000,000 women in this country that love NASCAR. There I've said it. Go ahead, look at me funny. Most people do.

If there are supposedly 75,000,000 NASCAR fans in the US, how come I can find a million who like pro basketball or college football, soccer or even curling, but I can only find a few who love the loud, pounding, screaming, rubber-crumby, exhaust-fumed, chili-cheese fry scented intensity of a day at the race track. Except, of course, the 75,000 people who actually go there. But they don't go to my church, work with me and they're not related to me for the most part. So I keep saying I'm a fan and I still keep getting that "oh my, you've grown an embarrassing second head" look.

I don't mind. I think it's awesome to watch two ridiculously expensive metal objects hurtling across the finish line at Daytona going almost 200 miles an hour and in closer proximity to each other than I would drive to another car on I-70 at 55 in perfect weather with new brakes and tires.

I think it's wonderful to spend a day in the sun, sing the anthem, salute the flag and look on in humbled, respectful silence as a Stealth Bomber flies overhead. I love the camaraderie of the other fans, the hot afternoons turning over slowly to a dusty pink twilight as the spectators filter out and we munch contentedly on chips and brats in the parking area while we hold forth with our post-race rundown.

I understand those drivers better than any football player on any team I've ever watched on the Sunday afternoons before NASCAR took its place. I've gotten to know them and even if they are multi-millionaires, they are just a few lucky breaks removed from the guys and women bumming around our own home tracks. For all their fame and fortune, I can still see Dale Jr. changing oil in his daddy's dealership or Kurt Busch working for the water department.

I've seen their spouses, their motor coaches, their kids, their hobbies, their homes. I've seen them in moments of triumph and in times of intense pain, frustration, unbearable sadness and sheer, silly fun. They are friends. They're arrogant and airheaded and slightly insane and they live a big life, which they share generously with those of us who admire what they do when they get behind the wheel. And man, can they drive really fast. Don't tell me that doesn't take amazing guts and skill.

So, happy Daytona 500 weekend, all you fans out there who are still slightly embarrassed by the corn-pone, tobacco-spitting, redneck reputation of your favorite sport. Break out the barbecue and the beans and the Bud Lite because Sunday afternoon is our SuperBowl, our World Series, our Championship.

Like Forrest Gump, that's all I got to say about that.

Oh, except, "Gentlemen, start your engines!"

Pimp Someone Else's Blog

A quick note on yesterday's post. I did in fact clean the window, although it was sort of unsatisfying in that my arms got tired and I didn't get the glass perfectly sparkling. So now I have to gaze through smeary glass. I'll have to bring glass cleaner tomorrow and maybe a razor blade... A word of advice -- don't let your friends have the spray mount while you're on vacation. And for those of you who think now that I am one sandwich shy of a picnic, perhaps you're right.

I still wonder about the birds.

Anyway, this morning I'm pimping someone else's blog. I read Rabbi Gellman now and then and I have to say I really enjoy his writing. I also like the spirit of what he's saying and how it ties in to what we're discussing in "40 Days of Purpose". Too often we think if we throw the poor a bone, we've done something special. But dignity and self worth is the meat on that bone. And if you're in the family of God, these people we're deigning to "help" are not some scrubby strangers but rather our brothers and sisters. They're family.

Random Wednesday afternoon-ness.

It's time to take down the window.

When I went to Hawaii in November, my office mates papered my office window( about 3' x 4 1/2' worth) with many tiny Hawaiian-themed pictures and backed it all with hot pink copy paper. I have a sudden urge to rip it all down. I want to see out the window in to the hall.

I'm just daring someone to come and do it again, really. Or daring Fate to hand me some massive work project I can't possibly finish before going on the road. Because if I take an hour to clean up that window, something will happen.

It's just an impulse, really. Like that one I get to cut my past-the-shoulder length hair all off. Or pass my exit on the way home some night and keep driving until, say, Colorado.

The inner hallways of people's brains are complicated places. A few days ago I had the most breath-taking dream. Like, it sucked the breath completely out of my chest. I dreamed someone was trying to kill me. They pointed the gun at my chest and pulled the trigger. It clicked. Again. Click. 4, maybe five times. Then I reached over and we wrestled over the gun and I took it and it fired harmlessly in my hand.

What does that mean?

Do birds like to fly? Or is that like asking if we like to walk?

OK, I'm taking down the window now.

thoughts about love

One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, "Which commandment is the first of all?" Jesus answered, "The first is, 'Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.' The second is this, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these." Mark 12:28-31

I have never fallen out of love. I have allowed love to cool, diminish. I have ignored it until it went away. But I never had a day when I just woke up and said "I don't love him anymore".

While going through "The Purpose Driven Life" I see how important it is to do both of the things Jesus tells us -- Love God, love people. Annoying, tempermental, untrustworthy, difficult, moody people. People like me. People like you. People like the guy in my church that always looks like he just woke up, talks a mile a minute and either yells at his girls or ignores them. I see the failures I've had, when I've promised to love and neglected it until that love was a rotting albatross I just had to get away from. I see there are a lot of people I've never loved at all.

I want to live a purpose driven life but more than that -- I want to live a loving life. I wouldn't mind just closing the book here and taking a few years to work on this commandment from Jesus. Love -- love God first, then my family, then my brothers and sisters in Christ (even the annoying ones) -- then the world. Because by love, we prove who we really are and who loves us.

Woah. Some Valentine I got -- the never-ending, never-fail, always-enough, incredibly perfect love of my God. How awesome!

Belated Happy Valentine's to everyone reading. I love you!

Homeward Bound

The fog comes on little cat feet. It sits looking over harbor and city on silent haunches and then, moves on.
-Carl Sandburg

Homeward bound, I wish I was,
Homeward bound,
Home where my thought's escaping,
Home where my music's playing,
Home where my love lies waiting
Silently for me.
-Paul Simon

And so Gordy has moved on. While I was in a meeting in another part of the building, he went off to a new home with one of my coworkers.

And I feel that in some small way, I did something good.

But I wish I could have said goodbye.

Gordy in from the Cold

There I was in the warehouse, minding my own business, when suddenly I hear this pathetic sound reverberating through the doors.

"meow, meow, meeeeooooooow."

Off to investigate, my co-worker and I discover that there's a cat outside the loading dock. Dirty, beaten, starving and dehydrated, this little boy had once been loved and was now wandering around the West Bottoms alone, hoping for a handout.

Well, he got more than one.

Let's say maybe he found his way in to the offices. Maybe everyone in the marketing department sorta fell in love. And a couple of someones brought food. And someone else donated a litter pan and then litter -- then he got a quick check up and tests for those most deadly of all kitty killers - feline immunovirus (FIV) and feline leukemia. And he was negative.

Say he's sleeping on my desk even now.

I must be crazy. Perhaps it's the water.

Anyway, Gordon needs a home. Gordy is a nice boy. Loving, middle aged, slightly tom-like attitude. Declawed, peachy-creamy marmalade. But Gordon can't stay in the marketing department forever. So if you know anyone in the Kansas City area that can take him, please let me know.