goodbye waterdeep

on saturday, don and lori had their final waterdeep show in the KC area before moving to nashville.  they asked kirk to run sound (he's become a bit of a regular go-to guy for them lately), which is just a bittersweet, full-circle thing for him.  it's kind of his dream job to run sound for them, and just when he's become a trusted person they know to call on, they move on.  i know it was a little sad for him.  

i should say, it was a little sad to me, too.  their music has been the part of my life, like i'm sure it has for many of you, that allows me to be who i am with all the rough edges and dirty, dark corners.  their persistent honesty and raw lyrics make me feel like i belong with christ, like there's room for someone like me.  they don't clean it up, make it nice, package it just so.  i feel at home with their words.  there are a few significant things in my life that have allowed me to truly experience the gospel, the good news of grace and mercy:  waterdeep, sara groves, brennan manning's writing (e.g. ragamuffin gospel), cs lewis, being married to kirk, and working with kids that are as rough on the outside as i am inside (and sometimes outside!).  

so, thanks don and lori.  (and sara, brennan, clive, kirk, etc....)

funny percival story

so, cecil's brother, percival, is just the sweetest, most playful cat.  taking a cue from my friend tiff, i have a litany of cute-sy nicknames for him:  percy, muffin, muffin-face, biscuit, smudger (i don't know), etc.  

anyway, he got into a little scrape a while back and had a gash on his arm.  he never seemed to be bothered by it (because he's just a sweet cat, so playful), no limping, no cringing when i touched his arm; i thought i would just let it heal and skip the vet.  well, it wasn't healing, so finally i took him to the vet and found out it had got infected.  i know, gross.  anyway, antibiotics didn't help, so finally, we had to take him in to cut away the infected part and stitch him up.  traumatic.  

kirk dropped him off in the morning, they put him under, shaved him and stitched him up. later that day i went to pick him up.  i just felt so awful, his arm looked horrible and the stitches ran the length of his arm!  i was looking at him and i noticed that his whiskers had been shaved!  here's the conversation (my thoughts are in italics):

"what happened to his whiskers?" i said to the vet.

"what do you mean?" said the vet to me.

"his whiskers have been cut."

"i don't know what you're talking about."  (what the - ?!  how can you not see this?!) 

"look.  half of his whiskers are gone!"

"well, we didn't do that."  (WHAT THE - ?!  who says that??)

"well i certainly didn't do it.  when we brought him in this morning, he had whiskers!"

"well, we didn't cut his whiskers."  (i want his whiskers back!  give them to me NOW!)

well, see for yourself.  the shaver-guy must have been on drugs.  i nearly asked for a discount on account of his whiskers being shaved.