tomorrow, jesus comes

I told you I was going to write more about religion this year, and let's see, so far, I've told you about St. Joseph, who apparently, after his carpentry duties were done, moonlighted as a realtor on the streets of Jerusalem. Or was it Bethlehem? Or Nazareth? See, this is why religion confuses me. And I went to Catholic school.

Anyway, as I was saying, tomorrow, Jesus comes, and we still have to prepare the way...I mean, boxes. Allow me to explain:

Several months back, I received a phone call from man asking if we had any goods that we wanted to donate. He said he was with the 'Jesus Center' and that they took all sorts of items, including furniture, appliances, disgruntled and high-strung toddlers (kidding...well, kinda). And, I, in my very typical trusting, girl-scout way, said, "Well, shucks, we sure do. Why don't I give you my address and phone number and social security number so you can kidnap and rob me blind, all in the name of Jesus?"

I really didn't say that, but I did tell him that I would have some items ready for pick-up in the next couple of days and then hung up the phone. Then, as I typically do, I had a moment of "What the bleep BLEEP was I thinking??" telling this man where I live and that he could come pick up my used slippers. Jesus Center...are you kidding me? Right. If I was looking to scam someone (or throw them into my trunk and head for the hills), I would call them up and say I was collecting items for Jesus.

Somehow this was not covered in any of my religion classes, and, um, I dunno, I'm thinkin' maybe it shoulda been.

Anyway, lucky for me, Jesus showed up a couple days later in a big white truck (go figure, huh) and scooped up our boxes (labeled, very appropriately, 'JC', as I had been instructed to do).

As all of you know (unless you have been in a monastery in a remote part of...somewhere), we are moving, so we have been sorting through our personal belongings and other shit that has somehow found its way into the past five years of our life as a married couple. Last year when we moved, we had a baby, and the move was fairly quick, so we really didn't have much chance to purge the system clean. And, let's face it, we didn't have Jesus. It was a lose-lose situation. But in the past few months, we have probably reduced the size of our craptastic piles by at least half. And we are proud because we are givin' it to Jesus.

Now, I feel I should clarify that what we are actually giving to Jesus are acceptable, respectable donations. We have a policy here in our house that no undergarments, no matter how newish-looking, are eligible for donation. And Jesus hopes you all have the same policy.

:::

We are still revelling in the somewhat unbelievable bliss that we have a buyer for our house here. I'm telling you, people, I have not been the most religious of persons these days, but I truly believe there was some kind of communion-of-saints hocus pocus that went down in the backyard flower bed last week. I'm just sayin', our house has been on the market for about three months, and we got the contract a week to the day that Eli pitched St. Joe into the dirt.

You might wonder what we've done, if anything to celebrate? Um, crumbs on the floor...it's a beautiful thing.

If all goes as planned (god, we hope), we will fly up to Maryland on March 10, close on our new house March 11, and the new buyers down here in Texas will close on this home March 20. And then a giant meteor will strike the Earth. Seriously, that's how I feel sometimes. How many stars can really align before something dreadful happens? I know, I shouldn't think that, but I can't help it some days.

One more thing, and then I'm off: I'm working on a new photography web site (yay), and I need some music suggestions. I think I can feature like 5 or so songs on the site to accompany my slideshows of photos. I want some cool music, but I don't have lots of money to pay for the rights to, like, Prince or something, so can anyone recommend some good, haven't-made-it-big-but-should-have artists, kinda folky, acoustic-y, that I could check into? Jill, I've already thought about Over the Rhine and Dar Williams. Maybe I will write them to see about rights. Jean, I know you've got some cool off-the-beaten path musical tastes, too. Help.

And, oh, yeah, bedtime songs. If I have to sing 'Puff, the Magic Dragon' one more time, I will breathe fire, thus setting the bed sheets ablaze.

Help.