I'm part of a fabulous small group where each week, anyone who wants to can share what they've been reading in their personal devotions and what spiritual insights they've gleaned from it. As a result of this format, we end up discussing a good variety of topics each week.
In our group, I've become known for a talent I have for picking out some of the more ... strange verses in the Bible. They're now known as "Kim Verses." I'm so proud.
I decided that it was selfish of me to only share these amazing portions of the Bible with my small group, so I thought I should share what may be the most awesome story in the entire Bible (besides Jesus dying for our sins and stuff) with the two people that read this blog.
It all begins in Judges 3:15. Israel is asking for a deliverer from the evil Eglon, King of Moab, and the Lord sends them a man named Ehod who, it's important to note, is left-handed. Ehud is quite the clever one and in preparation for meeting the evil Eglon, he makes a special double edged sword. He's also quite violent, as it turns out.
The awesomeness begins when Ehud meets up with the evil Eglon who, as the text describes him in verse 17, is "a very fat man." Haha! Ouch.
But wait, there's more! Ehud makes his way into the evil Eglon's private quarters to deliver a "secret message" from God and there stabs him so thoroughly with his sword that Eglon's "fat closed in over it." You can't make this stuff up. Ehud makes a quick getaway out the window, leaving the evil Eglon dead in his room.
BUT, this story doesn't get truly awesome until Eglon's servants come by, and finding that the doors to his room are locked, assume he's "relieving himself." Naturally. Then, in verse 25, comes the kicker. "They waited to the point of embarrassment, but when he did not open the doors of the room, they took a key and unlocked them. There they saw their lord fallen to the floor, dead."
Wow. I start to feel a little bad for the evil Eglon. First, he's so fat that the sword he gets killed with disappears inside his flubber. Then, while he's laying dead in his room, his servants are outside thinking he's having bathroom troubles. AWKWARD!
And awesome.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Pedi in the Nude
Over the weekend my mother and I traveled to Lake Geneva, WI, one of my favorite places. It's full of memories for me—for the majority of my childhood, my grandparents owned a villa up there where we'd spend many weekends with my cousins and shop at the Sentry and watch Judy Garland movies and convince my little cousin that Methuselah was still alive and eat fudge and buy rings from the Treasure Cove that turned our fingers green.
The villa is gone now, but we still like to visit and on this particular visit my mother and I decided it would be fun to go classy for a change and get a pedicure. We made an appointment at this fabulous spa in The Abbey Resort, where we not only got our pedicures, but also got to use their indoor pool and hot tub. Good deal!
Since this place is so swanky, when you get there they give you a locker for your things and inside the locker is a most fabulously soft robe and some flip flops to wear as you wander about the pool and salon area. Not being the type to go to these kinds of fancy places, I did some preliminary research in the "Spa Etiquette" section of their website. (Yes they did actually have a section titled just that.) This is what the suggest re: what to wear to the spa:
Yes, I think they are insinuating that you may go nude under your robe. However, being the modest young lady that I am, I chose not to take that path and I wore my bathing suit AND shorts under my robe.
So as I was standing by the table of nail polishes waiting for my name to be called, there was another woman there as well, choosing her polish, maybe in her 30s. We casually chit-chatted about the polish, etc. when she came out with the truth. Our conversation went something like this:
Her: It's so hard to decide on a polish.
Me: I know, there are a lot of options.
Her: It feels really weird to have nothing on under my robe. I've never had a pedicure with nothing on!
Me: ... Ha ... Yeah
**Awkward silence while I pretended to be intensely focused on picking a polish color even though I already knew which one I wanted.
Yeah, nobody wanted to know that, lady. I didn't know what to say back. If I told her that I was normal and put clothes on under my robe, she would have felt weird so I just went along with it. Luckily for me, my pedicurist called my name soon after that.
A few minutes later, naked lady sat down just a few chairs from me for her pedicure and as I occassionally glanced in her direction, I noticed that she was a little concerned about flashing the entire room. Every so often she would look my way, probably to see how in the world I was covering myself up, but I wasn't given the fact that I was wearing shorts. She was probably horrified. She finally asked her pedicurist (is that even a word? I'm going to keep using it) for an extra towel to cover up.
Once I was finished with my pedicure I headed to the pool, making sure to completely avoid naked lady because she either A) thought I completely flashed everyone during my pedicure in a very obscene way or B) realized I did indeed have clothes on under my robe even though I led her to believe I did not. Either way, I didn't want to have another encounter with her.
Luckily I got out of there free and clear with one more fabulous Lake Geneva memory to add to my list.
The villa is gone now, but we still like to visit and on this particular visit my mother and I decided it would be fun to go classy for a change and get a pedicure. We made an appointment at this fabulous spa in The Abbey Resort, where we not only got our pedicures, but also got to use their indoor pool and hot tub. Good deal!
Since this place is so swanky, when you get there they give you a locker for your things and inside the locker is a most fabulously soft robe and some flip flops to wear as you wander about the pool and salon area. Not being the type to go to these kinds of fancy places, I did some preliminary research in the "Spa Etiquette" section of their website. (Yes they did actually have a section titled just that.) This is what the suggest re: what to wear to the spa:
We will never compromise your modesty. You will be given a robe and sandals to change into before your treatment. What you wear under your robe is up to you, our therapists will only expose the portion of your body that is being worked on.
Yes, I think they are insinuating that you may go nude under your robe. However, being the modest young lady that I am, I chose not to take that path and I wore my bathing suit AND shorts under my robe.
So as I was standing by the table of nail polishes waiting for my name to be called, there was another woman there as well, choosing her polish, maybe in her 30s. We casually chit-chatted about the polish, etc. when she came out with the truth. Our conversation went something like this:
Her: It's so hard to decide on a polish.
Me: I know, there are a lot of options.
Her: It feels really weird to have nothing on under my robe. I've never had a pedicure with nothing on!
Me: ... Ha ... Yeah
**Awkward silence while I pretended to be intensely focused on picking a polish color even though I already knew which one I wanted.
Yeah, nobody wanted to know that, lady. I didn't know what to say back. If I told her that I was normal and put clothes on under my robe, she would have felt weird so I just went along with it. Luckily for me, my pedicurist called my name soon after that.
A few minutes later, naked lady sat down just a few chairs from me for her pedicure and as I occassionally glanced in her direction, I noticed that she was a little concerned about flashing the entire room. Every so often she would look my way, probably to see how in the world I was covering myself up, but I wasn't given the fact that I was wearing shorts. She was probably horrified. She finally asked her pedicurist (is that even a word? I'm going to keep using it) for an extra towel to cover up.
Once I was finished with my pedicure I headed to the pool, making sure to completely avoid naked lady because she either A) thought I completely flashed everyone during my pedicure in a very obscene way or B) realized I did indeed have clothes on under my robe even though I led her to believe I did not. Either way, I didn't want to have another encounter with her.
Luckily I got out of there free and clear with one more fabulous Lake Geneva memory to add to my list.
Friday, August 7, 2009
Mini Kicks on Route 66
Last weekend, my fun bf and I took a nice little road trip on Route 66 from Chicago to Bloomington/Normal. I'd always been kind of curious about Route 66 since there are signs for it along Joliet Rd. which is not too far from where I grew up. But I never bothered to do any research on it because ... that's just how I roll. Lucky for me, I now have a boyfriend who does do research, and my curiosity about Route 66 has been quenched!
So the bf and I had discussed a possible mini road trip, and then one day we were downtown eating at the Bennigan's on Michigan Ave. which was just about a dream come true for me considering all the Bennigan's in the suburbs are gone, and the Michigan Ave. was gone but now it's back, and I was so excited to go that we took a picture:
Anyway, back to Route 66. While at that particular Bennigan's, we were fortunate enough to get a lovely window table and we noticed the sign on the sidewalk, right smack next to the Bennigan's, that marked the beginning of Route 66. I was disappointed in myself that I had no idea that was even there. But this revived our Route 66 discussion and inspired us to act.
So Scott went to the library and got some books on the Route and we set off. We ventured back to the Bennigan's (unfortunately did not eat there) last Saturday morning and started our journey.
Our first stop beyond the usual Chicago suburbs was Joliet. Joliet is very proud of their affiliation with Route 66 (or the "Mother Road" if you're obsessed with it and write books about how to travel it).
Joliet also has a Route 66/Joliet museum. Someone inexplicably decided to charge for the Joliet part of the museum, so we skipped that which just left of some random Route 66 stuff to look at in the lobby area and the gift shop. We also sent this awesome email postcard to my mother:
Our next stop was at the Launching Pad Drive-in for lunch. It also happens to be the home of the "Gemini Giant," an enormous astronaut man holding a rocket.
After that we went through a series of extremely small towns including Braidwood, Gardner, and Dwight where we found a bank designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and and big windmill they seem to be very proud of. My favorite town was Odell, where we were informed by way of Burma Shave signs as we entered the town that they believe "everybody is somebody." We then came to what appeared to be their main attraction, an old gas station with a gift shop inside. As we left, more Burma Shave signs bid us farewell and encouraged us to visit the museum in our next stop, Pontiac, IL.
Pontiac was actually a cute bigger small town with a great Route 66 "museum" in their old Fire Station/City Hall.
Their "museum" (run by old guys who probably call Route 66 the "Mother Road" on a regular basis) consisted of a bunch of random artifacts from each town along Route 66 from Chicago to St. Louis, all displayed in glass cases, along with a bunch of manikins dressed up in old-timey looking garb, a little tribute to Steak & Shake which was starting in Bloomington, IL, and a bunch of random little junk from the movie Cars. It was borderline garage sale, but still great.
The rest of the City Hall building was filled with some antique stores and Route 66 Photo galleries in the upstairs areas. We quickly realized that these rooms upstairs used to be jail cells. I was particularly excited that they kept the toilets in tact.
After Pontiac, we headed down to Bloomington which we figured would be a good ending to our mini road trip, but it turns out there's absolutely nothing in Bloomington. So we hopped on I-55 and made our way back.
We did manage to run into a few of the same people who were clearly making the Route 66 trip, which made things interesting. Our trip down there took a total of 7.5 hours. The trip back: 2.5.
So the bf and I had discussed a possible mini road trip, and then one day we were downtown eating at the Bennigan's on Michigan Ave. which was just about a dream come true for me considering all the Bennigan's in the suburbs are gone, and the Michigan Ave. was gone but now it's back, and I was so excited to go that we took a picture:
Anyway, back to Route 66. While at that particular Bennigan's, we were fortunate enough to get a lovely window table and we noticed the sign on the sidewalk, right smack next to the Bennigan's, that marked the beginning of Route 66. I was disappointed in myself that I had no idea that was even there. But this revived our Route 66 discussion and inspired us to act.
So Scott went to the library and got some books on the Route and we set off. We ventured back to the Bennigan's (unfortunately did not eat there) last Saturday morning and started our journey.
Our first stop beyond the usual Chicago suburbs was Joliet. Joliet is very proud of their affiliation with Route 66 (or the "Mother Road" if you're obsessed with it and write books about how to travel it).
Joliet also has a Route 66/Joliet museum. Someone inexplicably decided to charge for the Joliet part of the museum, so we skipped that which just left of some random Route 66 stuff to look at in the lobby area and the gift shop. We also sent this awesome email postcard to my mother:
Our next stop was at the Launching Pad Drive-in for lunch. It also happens to be the home of the "Gemini Giant," an enormous astronaut man holding a rocket.
After that we went through a series of extremely small towns including Braidwood, Gardner, and Dwight where we found a bank designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and and big windmill they seem to be very proud of. My favorite town was Odell, where we were informed by way of Burma Shave signs as we entered the town that they believe "everybody is somebody." We then came to what appeared to be their main attraction, an old gas station with a gift shop inside. As we left, more Burma Shave signs bid us farewell and encouraged us to visit the museum in our next stop, Pontiac, IL.
Pontiac was actually a cute bigger small town with a great Route 66 "museum" in their old Fire Station/City Hall.
Their "museum" (run by old guys who probably call Route 66 the "Mother Road" on a regular basis) consisted of a bunch of random artifacts from each town along Route 66 from Chicago to St. Louis, all displayed in glass cases, along with a bunch of manikins dressed up in old-timey looking garb, a little tribute to Steak & Shake which was starting in Bloomington, IL, and a bunch of random little junk from the movie Cars. It was borderline garage sale, but still great.
The rest of the City Hall building was filled with some antique stores and Route 66 Photo galleries in the upstairs areas. We quickly realized that these rooms upstairs used to be jail cells. I was particularly excited that they kept the toilets in tact.
After Pontiac, we headed down to Bloomington which we figured would be a good ending to our mini road trip, but it turns out there's absolutely nothing in Bloomington. So we hopped on I-55 and made our way back.
We did manage to run into a few of the same people who were clearly making the Route 66 trip, which made things interesting. Our trip down there took a total of 7.5 hours. The trip back: 2.5.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)