angela's blog

I'm watching an episode of one of my favorite shows, Frasier, and it's the one where the guy in the hospital pretends to be Frasier to get bumped in the line so he can be seen sooner. The stranger dies of a heart attack, and so the public mistakenly thinks Frasier is dead. Frasier then reads his own obituary and realizes that his life wasn't ever as accomplished as he thought or hoped it would be. It got me thinking ... what would I want to accomplish? I'm not talking about leaving a huge legacy, about being wildly popular or anything like that. What are three things, just three!, that you would want to accomplish before you ... you know ... head off into the misty unknown. I know of 2 that I want - right off the top of my head, but I'm struggling with number 3. My top two are write a book and run a marathon. What are yours?

Posted by Mrs. Cooper at 5/22/2006 10:32:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

As you go about your weekend activites today and tomorrow keep the Rintelmans in your prayers. Katie, who was scheduled to graduate this weekend from Washington University's School of Architecture, was at the Dad Vail regatta with the Washington University crew when she got the news: Just outside of Cedarburg, WI, Katie's hometown, her younger brother, Brian, her father Don, and her mom Ann, along with Brian's best friend T.J. were in a car accident. A 22-year-old driving an SUV rear-ended the Rintelmans' vehicle, forcing them into oncoming traffic where they were hit by an oncoming semi. Brian and T.J. were pronounced dead at the scene. Don died in the medical evacuation helicopter en route to the hospital. Ann sustained head injuries and has recently been upgraded to fair condition. Katie flew home to be with her mom. The memorial for T.J. was on Thursday. They are waiting to plan the funeral and memorial services for Brian and Don Rintelman until Katie's mom is doing better. Katie graduated this weekend from Washington University's School of Architecture. She wasn't present for the ceremonies. She flew home to be with her mom. As you go about your activities this weekend, drop a prayer for the Rintelmans. ** I swam with Katie my senior year in college. She was a freshman. She is one of the most loving, faithful, cheerful people I know. We might all say that God's got our back, but Katie, Katie KNEW that God was with her. I've lost close touch with Katie but she tried to come to our wedding last year and couldn't because of a family trip, and I had recently talked to her about how excited she was to graduate this year. This news made me sick to the very core of my being ... Katie doesn't deserve this, none of the Rintelmans do. No one does. Say a prayer for the Rintelmans this weekend, but especially for Katie.

Posted by Mrs. Cooper at 5/20/2006 03:40:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

I've been thinking about JJ and me lately. And yesterday's blog pointed out some of our differences, and looking back, it was maybe a bit of a downer. Although the point of the blog was to say that I don't think we ever know until we know ... that profiles aren't always the most informative. But here are some things you might not have known about my husband, and about us. And if you find us boring, well you need to find something else to do other than read my blog! ;-) JJ is the most patient person on the face of the planet. Most of us are not born with the gift of this kind of patience. What other kind of person will sit there patiently watching Sex and the City with me, just because I want him to? JJ is also incredibly supportive. I think he really is one of those husbands whose number 1 priority is to make his wife happy. I know that others out there exist and I certainly know of others. But 99% of the time he is the most unselfish person I know. JJ is handsome. I think so. And my opinion counts the most. So there. JJ keeps my emotions in check. As in, he makes me feel them. Call it a role reversal. It's true. And now some tidbits about our likes and dislikes: We like the Food Network. Our favorite show is Good Eats. We also enjoy Iron Chef America. But we watch Good Eats religiously. Our favorite shows (that we watch together - we watch stuff separately a lot too) are Scrubs, Good Eats, Ed (although that hasn't been on the air in forever) and American Idol. We don't like our food over browned and crispy. I'm talking about the crunchy cheese on top of baked pasta dishes, or the crunchy on top of casseroles. I can handle crispy brown on french fries, tater tots, but I don't like crispy tops to lasagna or chicken. But we do love our Mexican food, Italian food, and Chinese food. Not so much fans of Indian food. We love Steelers football. His favorite players are/were from the last season: Jerome Bettis, Hines Ward, Troy Polumalu. Mine are: Ben Roethlisberger, Hines Ward, James Farrior. We also both like books about sports. For fun, we play Boggle. JJ's getting really good. I now have to work much harder to beat him and we're also learning tons of new words. We love anything by Sara Groves. ANYTHING. We like dogs. He likes cats ... I'm allergic, so I like cats, but well, they are actually a hazard to my health. But I envision that in the future we will be getting a dog. We like to read non-fiction. I largely read non-fiction. He almost exclusively so. We like snow. Although I still don't think JJ has experienced a "real" winter yet - you know, the kind where the temperature is below freezing for 30 days in a row, and they have to cancel school because the wind chill is dangerous for kids waiting for the school bus. As in, windchill is -30. Oh yeah, of course, the most important thing we have in common? We like each other. A LOT. You might even say we're soulmates.

Posted by Mrs. Cooper at 5/19/2006 02:33:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

I've been seeing a lot of commercials about match.com and eharmony.com on TV lately and I know plenty of people who have found their significant others online. Take Michael (formerly known as Fogle!) and Sandra - they met online and they're doing great. My friend Susan met her husband David on match.com. And so on and so forth. We have friends who have tried the websites. JJ has a good friend who has profiles on both and I know people who have profiles on one or the other. The other night I was looking at the profiles that people fill out and I suddenly realized: Do we really ever know what we want to marry? Take my father-in-law. I was reading one of his books and back when he started playing the dating game, he wanted his future wife to be a cheerleader, and know how to deliver puppies. Don't ask, I'm just quoting. JJ likes blonds. If you've ever seen me, you know, I'm not blond. Sean and Paula started dating when they were 17. Sean knew very shortly after that Paula was the girl he'd marry. He had never seriously dated anyone else. So it's not a question of "I'll try this model and if it doesn't work, I'll try the next one." Laura and Jeff Hemmer met in high school. They married in the summer of 2003. They had never dated anyone else. On the other hand, my in laws both had multiple boy/girlfriends before they met. And so did Susan and David. Rachel said to a friend of hers after she met Curtis that she was going to marry him. How she knew that I don't know. Steve and Sabrina have pictures of them playing together in playpens and cribs. They're only a month apart in age and their dads were best friends. They moved away from each other when they were children, and didn't live in the same place again until shortly before they were married. And now they're married and about to become parents. So how does it work exactly? And if you had to fill out a profile about the kind of person you'd want to marry, what would it say? I'll be honest - I didn't think I'd ever marry someone like JJ. I like brown hair and brown eyes, but that describes a pretty good percentage of the population. I always thought I'd marry a musician. Charlie, who is now one of my good friends, and I dated in college. We went to high school together but were never really friends until after I graduated. He's a year younger than me in school so he graduated the year after. Charlie and I went to the same preschool - there are yearbook pictures of us together to prove it. He's a brilliant musician - plays piano, clarinet and can sing. Before we ever dated, we used to talk on the phone for hours. He'd drag a phone into the music practice rooms in his dorm, put the phone on the piano, and play for me. Preludes by Rachmaninoff, sonatas by Beethoven, concertos by Mozart. When we were in high school we worked at the symphony office together. It's strange - it's been so long since I've been to the symphony I don't even remember where it was the last time I went. And it's not that JJ wouldn't go with me ... but he doesn't like classical music, never has, and probably never will. For JJ to go with me to a symphony concert would be a favor, a sacrifice. Something he didn't really want to do but he would just because I wanted to. Some people find this kind of sacrifice romantic. I don't. I think it's a hassle. I also never thought I'd marry someone who is as much of a homebody as JJ is. It's not like I have ever, nor will I ever be, anything of a party girl. But I love to skate (or rollerblade I guess), swim, run, bike, and I can do it for hours at a time. Or at least I used to. I used to put on my skates and just hit the trail with a pair of headphones. JJ's been saying since we started dating that he was going to buy a pair of rollerblades and skate with me. It's been 2 years and he hasn't yet. I always thought I'd marry someone with a sense of humor like mine. Who would pick up on how my brain works so well that we could finish each other's jokes. My sense of humor is a little funky, don't get me wrong, but a few people have picked up on it. Charlie, TL, Elizabeth, Laura, sometimes Laurel, Steve. But what I find funny JJ doesn't, and what he finds funny I don't. I don't like dumb humor - you know the kind - where someone makes fun of something or someone just for the sake of it. JJ loves dumb humor. I love humor of the kind that can be seen in reruns of the show Frasier, which is, I've realized recently, very similar to what Gilmore Girls might be like for boys. But I find that sort of humor hilarious. I think JJ finds it a little boring. And yet everyone from JJ's grandparents, to my in laws, to the Australies (or at least Steve, who told JJ when started dating "Dude, it's about time!"), to my friends from high school all say that we're perfectly suited to each other. How is that possible I wonder? Do we really "just know"? And if we do "just know" then how does a profile on match.com or eharmony.com really help? And what about someone like me? Who wanted to marry someone who loved art and classical music as much as I do, who would understand how significant a painting by Monet was, or how different Van Gogh's paintings really were? Is it just luck? Or even just good luck? How do we explain who we marry? Maybe we don't need to explain it. Maybe, like it is in my case, and in the case of my in laws, in the case of Sean and Paula, in the case of Curtis and Rachel, you just know. And you count on God for the rest.

Posted by Mrs. Cooper at 5/18/2006 10:56:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

I saw a promo for a newscast about parents monitoring their children. From what I could gather, there's a device out there, similar to a cell phone, that can be forever monitoring kids. It can tell you where your kid is, where he's going, how fast he's driving, and so on. I understand that these electronic devices are useful. And believe me I am all for technology and advancing it. After all, a built in GPS system in my friend's car got us around a flooded road when we tried to go to the beach. A cell phone let me know when my younger brother got into a car accident and needed me to come get him. But, and perhaps I just don't understand as someone who is not a parent, is it really necessary to get one of these devices just to keep an eye on a teenager? Surely the average American parent doesn't need an expensive device to know where his or her child is? I'm not THAT old and yet at 24 I can still remember when it was my responsibility to call my parents if I left my friend's house to go to an ice cream shop. Or if I was staying at school late to study with a friend. I didn't have a cell phone. My parents didn't have a GPS system. They had to trust me to tell them where I was and what I was doing. Now, granted, most of my friends and I were pretty good kids. If we were staying after school it was because we were working on a project or practicing for an orchestra performance or at a sports practice. If we left a friend's house, it was to go to another friend's house, or in some "extreme" cases we'd leave a friend's house to go get something to eat, go to a Barnes and Noble to get a dessert or soda, and it might be a few hours before we got home. Is this super child monitoring device really that necessary? Or is it an advertising gimmick to replace good parenting? I don't believe that there's any way to replace good parenting. You can install cameras, plant phones or GPS devices to watch your kids but shouldn't the point of these technological devices be a complement to parenting, to be helpful instead of to replace good sense? For instance, I think it's a great idea to give your teenage son or daughter a cell phone with a limited number of minutes so that you can be contacted if they leave where they are, if they're stuck in traffic, in case something happens to him or her on the way home from a party. But is it really necessary to monitor your child to the extent of how fast is he driving, where exactly she's going? Is your child really not trustworthy enough without these devices? The disclaimer to all this is that I'm not a parent. I don't know what it's like to have a teenager out at all hours of the night, I don't know what it's like to hand over the keys to your car to your 16-year-old and say "Drive carefully", I don't know what it's like to drop your daughter off at a friend's house and just assume that her friend is as responsible as you know your daughter is. But my point is that isn't there something that can be done about all this? Something that parents can do? I've been the victim of good parenting and I never went anywhere without calling. One time, ONCE, I forgot to call because my friend Sarah (of law school graduation fame) and I were watching a movie at her house, and we fell asleep and lost track of time. It is, and always will be, hard to keep track of time when you're not awake! I got home at 10:30 or so, even though I had said I was going to be home at 9:30. I got into enormous trouble. And that was that. But after that I was still allowed to go out, it was an honest mistake. It never happened again. The responsibility that I learned in high school, to let people know whether I'm going to be late, to show up to places on time, and to avoid situations that might be trouble later, has followed me up to now. Isn't that the whole idea of parenting? To teach your kids to stand on their own two feet and to know right from wrong, without someone watching them all the time?

Posted by Mrs. Cooper at 5/15/2006 05:31:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

This weekend I added one more thing to my very small but ever growing list of culinary accomplishments: pulled pork. I went and got a cut-just-for-me pork butt (which is actually the pig's shoulder - don't ask me why, someone just started calling it Boston Butt and that's what we call it today) and then put a dry rub on it. I got the recipe for the rub from one of my favorite Food Network shows, Good Deal with Dave Lieberman, and it was a lot of stuff. Coriander, chili powder, garlic powder, mustard seed, salt and pepper. It took over 3 hours to make because it slow cooks in the oven but the meat that came out was really tender and juicy and very flavorful - before the sauce! I was happy that it turned out decent since we had Michele and Dylan over for dinner and I didn't want to have to resort to pizza or something. For dinner we had pulled pork, green beans, fries (for Dylan and JJ) and tater tots (for me and Michele). For dessert it was cake and a frosting/topping of your choice, chocolate ganache, strawberries, whipped cream, or any combination thereof. I don't like it when my husband gets sick but Saturday night he gorged himself at the dinner table and for dessert and was uncomfortable all night. Like his stomach was going to explode, he says. Well, that'll teach him to eat more than he should. ;-) Yesterday was Mother's Day and JJ and I were pretty proud of ourselves for our gift selection this year, if I do say so myself. Rather than get something stereotypical (and we all know how I feel about stereotypical gifts and customs) we wanted to do something more personal. We got my mom a big book full of some of the best photography done on China. We figured since we're headed that way in a week she would enjoy looking at the artsy side of it. We got JJ's mom a tea-for-one teaset complete with mug and teapot. It had a spray of lovely blue daisies on it. In an unrelated, but mildly tangential topic, I have decided that I like daisies. They're happy flowers. I was crabby on Saturday and asked JJ to bring me flowers and he brought me multicolored daisies - pink and yellow and white. They're just so cheerful. I don't know what kind of daisy he got exactly (other than the kind from Kroger) but gerber daisies are so big and sunny that they have to cheer you up. Sound bites from hopetown kids yesterday: - "I didn't get mommy a present. She says that I'm her present!" - (when asked what she got mommy for mother's day) "That's daddy's job!"

Posted by Mrs. Cooper at 5/15/2006 11:40:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

Graduation is upon us. Again. Every May it rolls around. And there are 5 people in particular that I can think of to congratulate. First, my little man Dylan. He's graduating from preschool and heading off into the big boy grown up world of kindergarten. I know he's going to be great and JJ and I love him very much. Congratulations Dylan! We wish we could come to the ceremony! My cousin Jennifer is graduating from the University of Colorado - Boulder this weekend. I haven't seen her in years, we think maybe 10, at least 5 or 6, and I talked to her for the first time this week in a long long time. It's hard to imagine that the girl who used to drive me a little crazy but was lots of fun to hang out with when I was 10, the one who used to pinch me in the back of my dad's van when we were 7 or 8, is graduating from college. Congratulations Jennifer! My best friend from high school, Sarah, is graduating from law school next week. She will be Sarah Cox, J.D. She's graduating from the University of Califorina - Davis Law School and Sarah and I have been friends for 10 years. I remember when we graduated from high school and then a couple of months later we got our IB scores. We miscalculated the time difference between here and Switzerland (where they were posting the scores) so I was an hour early meeting Sarah at her house. We got back in bed and waited for the scores to post. I can't remember our actual scores anymore, but I remember being SO excited because both of us got our IB diplomas! And now Sarah is going to be a lawyer! I won't be there to climb in bed and wait for the results of the bar with her ... but I know she's gonna do great. And finally, some of my very good friends are graduating this weekend from the University of North Carolina Medical School. Congratulations to the new Dr. Jennifer Check, M.D. and Dr. Sarah Ralston, M.D. Your journeys through medical school have inspired the rest of us to aspire to become greater. You took your desires to help those in need and turned them into dreams come true. Both of you have the greatest hearts and spirits I could ever hope to have the pleasure to know. I'm so glad both of you are staying because I would miss you terribly. Congratulations to all the graduates ... I feel like perhaps the most appropriate thing to put here is a quote from one of my father-in-law's books. In the prologue to his second book, Chances and Choices, my father-in-law talks about how life is a series of choices, but that life is also a series of chances. It's a great passage to think about every time you start something new in your life. At least I think so. It reminds me that even if I make the right choices, I always need help from some perfectly placed chance happenings. (I'll point out that this maybe doesn't apply to my man Dylan since's he's only 4, but for the rest of you ...). I'll let him say it. From the lips of the eloquent Jackie K. Cooper: When we look back at where we have been we see that in some instances we were in the right place at the right time. And in some instances we were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Life takes twists and turns that we all try to control but sometimes can't. We are set off down a road that has many pitfalls and brambles to make our way through. Or just when we think we can't plod through the muck and mire another moment the sun comes out and dries the road and makes it passable once more. If we could see the future we would make all the right choices, but we don't. That is why chance is so important. Things that we do are like ripples in a stream. They span out and touch the shore of other people's lives. Whether it be by choice or chance these things do happen. We do cause other lives to alter directions and move in different ways. That is what makes life so great - the not knowing. So congratulations to Dr. Sarah and Dr. Jen, Sarah Cox, J.D., and to Jennifer. And to the thousands of proud graduates all across the country, I hope that as you start your careers, or whatever it is that you choose to do next, that your life will be filled with great chances and choices. Love, Me

Posted by Mrs. Cooper at 5/14/2006 03:21:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

FedEx dropped a package off about half an hour ago. It was full of our travel documents for our upcoming trip to China in a little over a week. I think that I'm supposed to be excited about this trip, it's a wonderful opportunity, I'm going to remember it forever, and stuff like that. Well ... I might. But I'll be honest, I'm a girl who likes her modern conveniences. I love air conditioning, indoor plumbing, and knowing I can drink water from the tap and use ice that was made in my refrigerator. I like knowing that if I need to grab something out of my car I can run down barefoot, or with just a pair of flip-flops on, and not have to worry about disease and garbage and other kinds of junk. Call me spoiled if you will, that's my life and I like it. I've been reading over this packet of information and most of it is pretty standard: your checked suitcase cannot weigh more than 65 pounds, your carry-on cannot be more than 45" wide, please mark your belongings with your name. Some of it is specific to this particular travel group: Please wear your China Focus issued nametag at all times as that makes you easy to distinguish for our travel guides, please remember your sequence number, this will help insure that you are accounted for when we travel from destination to destination. And then some of it just makes me nervous: most public toilets do not have toilet paper so carry a package of tissues with you, most public toilets do not have hand washing facilities so you may want to consider bringing your own hand sanitizing wipes or gel. I didn't know if maybe the travel agent was exaggerating or perhaps was a little overzealous in its warnings. After all, they didn't want us to be unhappy with them if we found something unexpected, right? And then I did a little research on google. Apparently, for a country that is supposed to hold a lot of international power, not to mention exotic mystique, China's ... let's call it the indoor plumbing system, leaves a lot to be desired. As I've read in the last half hour or so, most of China's public toilets have what they call 2 flavors: Western Style and Asian Style. The Western Style toilets are basically the ones ... not in the ground. They are made of porcelain, like most of the ones in the States are, and stand a few inches, up to a foot or so above the ground. They have flushing devices, but these don't always work. The Asian Style toilets are porcelain troughs in the ground and usually the trough runs the length of the public restroom. Sometimes walls form little cubicles. If you're lucky, the little cubicles have doors. Usually, they don't. They don't flush. In some of them it's someone's job to come along every once in awhile (from twice a day to once a week or less) with a bucket full of water, and "flush" away the refuse by pouring the bucket into the trough, hopefully with enough force to wash everything away. So, you're wondering, how does one use a toilet in the ground? Squat. There's a skill I hope I never have to use. It sounds ... well let's just say unsanitary for one thing. I certainly hope that what I remember is NOT the toilets ... but somehow, I think if I have to use an Asian Style toilet that I'm going to remember that for at least awhile.

Posted by Mrs. Cooper at 5/12/2006 10:34:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

This weekend was very relaxing. At least to me. Of course "very relaxing" means that here I am on Monday morning and none of the work I wanted to get done is done and my house is still a mess. And just for the record, for you husbands out there, when your wife looks around and goes "This place is a mess" the perhaps somewhat more encouraging answer is "Well, what can I do to help you clean up?" not "That's okay you don't have to clean it right now." With that out of the way, here's the weekend in a nutshell: Saturday I ran a ton of errands. We're going to China soon (in 2 weeks - ack!) and so I've been looking at things we need to pack and stuff we need to buy. Unlike a weekend trip to visit family or going out of town for a conference, this trip, to me at least, takes a little more in the way of preparation. JJ doesn't feel that way necessarily but then again, if it were up to him, we'd pack the Monday morning before we're leaving. At any rate, I realized awhile ago that when we go to China we can't take "travel size" toiletry items. In case you've never used the 99 cent travel aisle at Wal-Mart or Target it's this great stuff for 99 cents that cuts way down on toiletry space in your luggage. IF you're making a trip that's less than 3 or 4 days. We're going to be gone for over two weeks. So not only can we not forget anything (our usual policy when we're packing is "It's okay, if we forget something we can probably buy it when we get there") but we have to bring enough for two weeks. To put that in perspective, I go through a bottle of shampoo and conditioner in about 5-6 weeks. So those little 1 ounce travel things definitely won't cut it. After errands I made chocolate chocolate chip muffins for the WAMmers for breakfast on Sunday morning. I don't much like chocolate, but they sure did smell good. I tasted one and it seemed ok. The not liking chocolate thing didn't help. Saturday evening we went to Rob and Nikki's for a cookout. What do you think of when you think of cookout? I think burgers, chips, hot dogs, beer ... you know the kind. Well the Wagners do cooking up right. We went and Nikki had chicken marinating in fajita seasoning, spinach and mushroom enchiladas ready to go in the oven, margaritas in the blender, and queso and chips and salsa out for us to snack on. Rob grilled the chicken, and some portobello mushrooms. And we made fajitas! Probably the best part of the evening for me was hanging out with the girls I used to hang out with - Mamie and Sarah and April and to a lesser extent Kristie even though I think Kristie is great fun. I miss the company of those girls a lot, and of course I miss hanging out with their respective boys, too. I might be trying out Mamie's all girls' small group for a few weeks. I'd be doing two small groups so I'd be really busy but I MISS THEM. So I think it would be worth it. Yesterday morning I worked with the preschoolers. At the 8:45 service. It made me tired. It also made me think a lot about the type of parent I want to be when ... well, whenever it is that we have kids. I'm often struck by the vastness of children's personalities. Even within one family. Look at the Forrests. You have Jaylyn, who's lively and vivacious and sweet, and probably the most loyal child I've ever met. She watches over her sisters like a good big sister should. Then you have Jessie, who's not exactly calmer, but is very sweet, KNOWS how cute she is, and much more touchy feely than her sister. Yesterday there was an incident where one of the little girls in my class got hit and started to cry. I brought her over and talked to her and she said she would feel better if the child who hit her said sorry. So I brought the guilty party over and asked the child to please apologize. After some very strained "Sorry" she said, sweeter than sweet, "It's okay. I forgive you." I had to conclude that, at 4, forgiveness is not something that kids just pick up. If you think about it, it's not really in human nature to tell someone who just hurt you that it's okay and that he/she has been forgiven for it. And this may or may not be true but I concluded that this little girl's parents must have had, at some point, a discussion with her about forgiveness and what it means when we need to forgive people for hurting us. For that, I applaud them. I am starting to understand how complicated parenting really is. I'm saying that from the standpoint of one who is not yet a parent. So let's just say straight from the beginning that I really have no idea what parenting is like. But I have so much admiration for people like Michele, and Rachel and Curtis, Amy Lynn and Benji, Kim and Howard and all those other parents out there that parent with all they are. Hat's off to you all.

Posted by Mrs. Cooper at 5/08/2006 08:33:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

I have to tell this story. Most of you have already heard it. Or were there for it. But it's still funny. My pastor and his wife have 5 children. Anna Grace is 8, Benjamin and Wesley, identical twin boys, are 6, Caleb just turned 2 in January, and Joshua was born in December. This story is mostly about Caleb. Saturday the newhope techies, WAM team, hopetown volunteers, and a variety of other helpers went to East Chapel Hill High School to set up the auditorium for The Big Event. This included unloading a truckful of equipment from Creative Visions, setting it up, plugging in the rented equipment, holding rehearsal, and going over as much of worship as we could on Saturday. During the process we would often have short lulls in between actively setting up. One of these was when Sabrina went out and got us all lunch from Wendy's and we were waiting for the band and vocalists to arrive and the stage to finish being set up for rehearsal. While people dug into their food I was helping to do some last sound checks before rehearsal started and during a break I saw the 3 oldest kids running around, with Caleb chasing them. At some point Anna Grace said she had to go to the bathroom. With Anna Grace being 8, I think she was more informing me that that was where she was going to be as opposed to anything else. However, Caleb, the 2 year old, who is mid-potty-training piped up, "I have to go bathroom too!" Well, I didn't think it was a great idea to have Caleb running around to the bathroom himself since there were other events going on in the high school. I walked over and said "OK, come on." He lifted his arms up and said "OK!" So I picked him up. By the time we got to the door of the auditorium, something ... didn't ... feel ... quite ... right. When we got to the bathroom I discovered the problem: Caleb didn't make it to the bathroom. He had peed ... on himself and consequently, on me, too. I cleaned him up the best I could, and then told Anna Grace that Caleb had had an accident. Her response was "It happens. I'll tell dad." It gets better. I didn't have another shirt with me. So there I am, and I have to stay to run a rehearsal, with Caleb-pee on my shirt. I asked JJ to go home and get me a shirt and as he left he ran into Jamie. Who was wearing two shirts. Jamie's such a good friend she gave me the shirt off her back! Which was very nice of her. And meant I didn't have to wear a shirt soaked in pee. The rest of the afternoon Caleb ran around in a t-shirt, his diaper, and his brand new velcro kid hiking boots. It was adorable. I was told at small group on Tuesday by two of my friends who have little boys that at that age, when they say they have to go to the bathroom they mean NOW. I'll remember that in the future.

Posted by Mrs. Cooper at 5/04/2006 03:14:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

In three weeks JJ and I will be in Beijing, China. It will be 9 at night instead of 9 in the morning. All of the people will look like me, and if I want to, I can talk like them. But I don't think I'm going to fit in. My parents are taking us on a tour of China. They have paid for the tickets, made the hotel arrangements. JJ has taken the vacation time. I will be between semesters. So we're going. First to Beijing, then to Xi'an, then Guilin, Suzhou, and finally we will end up in Shanghai. JJ barely has enough vacation days to go, so we will be coming back early and will not get to see much of Shanghai. But we will see the place where they filmed scenes in the movie Hero, and we will see the Forbidden City, and the Great Wall. We will see the life and ways of my past, the ways that my parents brought overseas with them, and tried to impart on my brother and me. We will see years of history and experience an entirely different culture. For JJ, this trip is exciting. He's never been out of the country so excitement is surely mixed with eager anticipation. But he is a true tourist. There is nothing riding on this trip for him. He will go over to China, and come back, and he'll still be American. He'll still be the boy from Perry, Georgia, the one who has been a journalist for the last 20 years of his life, the one who loves Steelers football, the one who loves TexMex food, steak, and soda. He'll be the same. But I don't know about me. For me there's a lot more to this trip than a leisure vacation. The last time I was over in that part of the world I was only 18 months old. My brother was the size of a large kidney bean. My mother had found out she was pregnant with Bryant the day before we flew to Taiwan. And at that age, there's video of me banging on walls in a Buddist temple, and running around in a diaper, and having what looks like a great time. At that age there was no pressure, no desire, no questions. I didn't know exactly who I was or who I wanted to be. But now, I've hit a point in my life where I might not know exactly who I am yet, but I know exactly who I want to be. And what that means is that this time, when I go back, even though I'm going to be a tourist, I will be looking for me over there. I'll be looking in the culture and the history, and learning where I came from and why I am the way I am. I'll be looking at the Terra Cotta soldiers, and the Chinese countryside, at the people, at the customs, and wondering how much of that is still in me, how much of it have I remembered and how much I have forgotten. You see, I've been blessed to be a Chinese-American all my life. But growing up in the United States, I've always been more American than Chinese. My schooling was American, I celebrate American customs like backyard barbeques and shopping malls, the 4th of July and Memorial Day, and I believe in independence and freedom like an American. Now I have a chance to see how much of me is Chinese. How much of me is still Chinese, and how much has been overshadowed by the American in me? I don't know the answer to that question. If you asked me whether I'd rather find more Chinese me in me or more American, I wouldn't be able to answer that either. I believe in a lot of things that my mother and father don't. And a lot of these things that I disagree with have been cause for anger, strife, and argument in the past. I don't want to be exactly like my mom and dad. Not only that, but I believe that they came here, to the U.S., so I wouldn't have to be. I believe that they came here to give me opportunities that I couldn't have if they had stayed. But because of the chance they took to come to the U.S., and because of the chance they took raising me as a Chinese-American, rather than just as a Chinese daughter who happened to be born in America, I perhaps identify myself as more American than I do Chinese and I'm not sure that that's okay. Up until now I've been able to plead ignorance, or at least I've been able to plead mostly ignorance because I've lived my whole life here. This trip might not change a thing, but I expect that I might feel different when I come back. How, I don't know. But I expect something to happen during that 13 day tour. So I'll be watching and waiting to see what happens, because when we go to China, I will be a tourist, but maybe, just maybe, I'm hoping that when I get off that plane, I'm going to feel like a native.

Posted by Mrs. Cooper at 5/03/2006 08:25:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

I don't need or want a dog right now. We don't have the space or the time for a puppy. Plus, neither one of us is home enough during the day to deal with letting the puppy out of the crate to get exercise and not be boxed up. I have to admit that our first run-in with a dog was the perfect storm gone wrong. If I hadn't been sick, and therefore didn't have to run to the bathroom every 10 minutes, making the dog panic and meaning that every time I came out of the bathroom there was pee on the floor, and if I hadn't been so weak from being sick that I could barely carry the dog up and down the stairs we probably would have been able to give the poor dog a fair chance. So it's true, the first time we got a dog it was a disaster. But in the future, when we're settled down, I'd like to have a dog. And to that end I've been looking and looking specifically at two breeds, Aussies and Shih-tzus. The more I read and the more I research the two breeds, though, I'm leaning toward Aussie. Aussies are known for being sociable, and not having in-bred problems. Sarah had an Aussie when we were in high school and Sissie is one of the most lovable dogs I've ever met. And Sarah now has Keeley who is also an Aussie and reportedly very sweet. I'm not of the temperament to have a dog in a third story apartment. I'm also not of the temperament to have to undo anything a previous owner might have done that led to strange behavior. The only thing with getting a bred Aussie is that it's going to be expensive. So it's going to be awhile. Whenever it is we get a dog, I'd like to get a puppy, and that way the puppy's only home would be ours. This a long way in the future, but last night Sarah was telling me it was Keeley's birthday and I was looking at puppy pictures so there you go.

Posted by Mrs. Cooper at 5/02/2006 08:05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

This weekend our church returned to its very first home, East Chapel Hill High School. We rented equipment from Creative Visions and set it up in the school again. We drove in at 7:30 in the morning on Sunday, again. We worshipped in the high school, again. I'm still largely recovering from the work we did this weekend and all of the energy that it took. At some point I'll give more details about it all and maybe steal some pictures from people who have them to post, but for now, it was too big an event for me to describe the undertaking here ... it took almost 8 hours of setup on Saturday and almost 7 hours of rehearsal and strike on Sunday, with rehearsal and worship in between. But JJ did take a moment to hand out a nostalgic thought which I totally forgot about in the hectic-ness of everything. We met there, at the high school, when I signed up as a techie and JJ was one of the most experienced ones at the time. After he mentioned it, I thought about it for awhile and then I realized something ... after "Hi I'm JJ, good to have you aboard" and "Thanks, I'm Angela, what can I do to help" our first words were these: JJ (hands me a handful of XLRs): Plug these in. me: OK. Isn't that romantic? We've been just as romantic ever since ;-).

Posted by Mrs. Cooper at 5/01/2006 06:52:00 AM | Permalink | Comments