Saturday, February 17, 2007
Love thy neighbor..
No.
If MY neighbor loved ME, indeed, treating me as they, themselves, would like to be treated, then I would consider it. But I feel their lack of love for me negates my responsibility to reciprocate. Turn the frost-bitten cheek, as it were.
Tuesday night we were beset by an ice storm of sorts. And ice storms, academically-school-cancelling-ly speaking, are the best kind of storms to ensure a snow day. They mangle power lines, cover streets with sheets of deadly slickness. It's an equation for school-bound disaster. I love it. Wednesday I stayed indoors and watched the mayhem from the front window. Thursday, however, while the rest of the public school world decided that it was still to iffy, George Mason insisted we forge ahead towards higher learning. Bah.
Thursday morning I decided that 30 minutes would be an ample amount of time to release my car from Ice-Storm-Hock. What I didn't realize was that the ice that formed was secretly made of titanium and about 2 inches thick. And what's even funnier is that the girl who lived in Nebraska and claims to have grown up enduring the winteriest of winters there has nothing larger than the free hotel ice scraper that is no larger than a spatula at her disposal.
Needless to say, the entire "freeing of the car" operation took nearly 2 hours and involved said scraper, a garden spade, a snow shovel, patience, adult maturity and lots of kitty litter (much to the Monsters' complete confusion -- "She's cheating on us with another cat! Look how she's taking our stuff out to her car!"). You'll notice that "neighbor" was not included on my tools list.
However, that's not to say there wasn't Neighbor participation in the whole escapade.
Now back to Jesus. I think He'd back me up on this. Frankly, I think that if His camel had been locked in ice, He too would have expected that Good Samaratin He always spoke so highly of to come skating to His aid. I'm willing to wager that since the Holy Land hasn't had all that many ice storms that Jesus surely didn't mean for those old adages to extend to these sorts of wintery situations, right?
As it turns out, I've done enough neighbor-loving this week already. I let my two lab partners each use an arm to practice their IV insertions (not simultaneously. I'm neighborly, not crazy.). Apparently, when it comes to vascularity, I'm "stacked". Thought you'd like to know.
If MY neighbor loved ME, indeed, treating me as they, themselves, would like to be treated, then I would consider it. But I feel their lack of love for me negates my responsibility to reciprocate. Turn the frost-bitten cheek, as it were.
Tuesday night we were beset by an ice storm of sorts. And ice storms, academically-school-cancelling-ly speaking, are the best kind of storms to ensure a snow day. They mangle power lines, cover streets with sheets of deadly slickness. It's an equation for school-bound disaster. I love it. Wednesday I stayed indoors and watched the mayhem from the front window. Thursday, however, while the rest of the public school world decided that it was still to iffy, George Mason insisted we forge ahead towards higher learning. Bah.
Thursday morning I decided that 30 minutes would be an ample amount of time to release my car from Ice-Storm-Hock. What I didn't realize was that the ice that formed was secretly made of titanium and about 2 inches thick. And what's even funnier is that the girl who lived in Nebraska and claims to have grown up enduring the winteriest of winters there has nothing larger than the free hotel ice scraper that is no larger than a spatula at her disposal.
Needless to say, the entire "freeing of the car" operation took nearly 2 hours and involved said scraper, a garden spade, a snow shovel, patience, adult maturity and lots of kitty litter (much to the Monsters' complete confusion -- "She's cheating on us with another cat! Look how she's taking our stuff out to her car!"). You'll notice that "neighbor" was not included on my tools list.
However, that's not to say there wasn't Neighbor participation in the whole escapade.
- Two neighbors, mother and daughter, called out of their front door on two separate occasions to remind me to get the ice off the top of my car. For safety. They, can bite me.
- One neighbor quickly shuffled from his house to the car in a manner as to not have to make eye contact with me.
- And my favorite, our next door neighbor arrived home and parked on the street. I assumed he had vacated his car during one of my many trips inside for more ice-tools. It was only after I had unshackled the car from it's surly ice bonds, some 20 minutes after said neighbor's arrival, that he got out of his car and quickly dashed into his house. Either he just had to hear the end of the chapter on his book-on-tape, or he was desperately trying to avoid being even remotely neighborly. {A word on this neighbor. This is the same neighbor who, on February 17th, still has his light-up Frosty and motorized snowboarding Santa in his front yard. The very same neighbor who puts out his trash DAYS before trash day -- only to have it inevitably end up on our lawn. And indeed, the exact same neighbor whose two very young children, last summer, managed to, on two separate occasions, wander into my house, up my front entryway stairs and into my kitchen while I was cooking. Imagine MY surprise. I ushered them out and Pops, standing in his yard, claims they must have mistaken our house for theirs. Cha. The Betrothed is convinced he's having his children case our joint. He's not my favorite neighbor by any means.}
Now back to Jesus. I think He'd back me up on this. Frankly, I think that if His camel had been locked in ice, He too would have expected that Good Samaratin He always spoke so highly of to come skating to His aid. I'm willing to wager that since the Holy Land hasn't had all that many ice storms that Jesus surely didn't mean for those old adages to extend to these sorts of wintery situations, right?
As it turns out, I've done enough neighbor-loving this week already. I let my two lab partners each use an arm to practice their IV insertions (not simultaneously. I'm neighborly, not crazy.). Apparently, when it comes to vascularity, I'm "stacked". Thought you'd like to know.
# posted by Cathy @ 10:43:00 PM 
