A Whale of a Christmas.....Conclusion

The time had come...the journey almost complete. Without fanfare, without announcement, the tail of the humpback whale stood tall before us splashing down with a force and power beyond belief. Majesty and beauty swam silently around us.
One last time the captain trumpeted the news that what we had been waiting for was right before us, just waiting for us to behold with awe and wonder.

Stillness. Silence.
The commotion that had been evidenced earlier was no where to be seen. Cameras clicked minimally from outstretched arms instead of from an upright postition. Children were sleeping on deck, adults were slumped over in chairs and benches, drooling in a medication induced stupor. The long anticipated view was not beheld, but rather, ignored.
I on the other hand, was rather amused by the whole scenario, preferring to snap endlessly at the whales as well as the comatose passengers. After all, this is what we had journeyed to see in the first place!
As I ponder the Christmas season, may it be that we are not so enraptured with the fish, the dolphins, and the sea otters along the way that we actually miss the intended adventure. All too often the unimportant hurriedness of the season and the glittering to-do lists numb our hearts to the pinnacle of the seasonal excursion: to behold the Baby lying in the manager who came to save not the whales, but the World.
Merry Christmas!

A Whale of a Christmas....Part 3

As we sailed out for another 20 minutes or so Mr. Captain used the microphone to shriek with delight at the sight of dolphins leaping joyfully in and out of the water alongside our whale-bound boat. As people lept to their feet the cameras clicked away as if Britney Spears were waving and intentionally running along side our vessel.

Within a few minutes the excitement died down and seats were reclaimed like a game of musical chairs. Light chatter was interrupted by the sight of a small boy pointing his finger to the starboard side of the ship. After a minute or two we could easily make out the shape of a few small brown sea otters playfully rolling and swimming in the beautiful ocean swells. What a magnificent sight I thought as the clicking resumed and the chatter began again.

We've got to be getting close I thought to myself. It's been almost an hour and a half. Finally, the chance to glimpse one of God's most majestic creatures was within our grasp....

A Whale of a Christmas... Part 2

As the boat began to fill with people our captain announced that each passenger was required to take a motion sickness tablet in order to proceed. Understandably, the crew didn't care to swab the deck any more than necessary so the mandatory pills were passed and we were on our way.
Heaving stomach contents was my hobby during pregnancy (a memory quite easily regurgitated, pun definately intended) so I knew that only half a pill was required to quell my queasiness. Other voyagers mindlessly swallowed a whole pellet, some even two.
About 20 minutes into the journey the captain excitedly announced that beautiful schools of fish could be viewed from the starboard side of the ship and as if on cue all the passengers lept to their feet and began digitally clicking away at the panaromic wildlife.
Oohs and Ahhs could be heard as we continued to sail onward in search of the fabulous Humpback whales.

A Whale of A Christmas!

I have a long-cultivated love/hate relationship with Christmas. On one hand it's a wonderful time of year with celebrations of love, joy, and an almost-expected consumption of chocolate. On the other hand it is chock full of extra ovarian-specific chores like excessive baking, wrapping paper wrangling and department store parking spot vulturing. I always say the month of December is like camping: regular life made harder.
Due to an obvious strain produced by the impending holidays my loving spouse decided to take me on a business trip with him to Monterey California smack in the middle of December. I was estatic even though the work load increased exponentially on either end of the trip. Who cares I decided, and the sunny coast of Pacific Monterey beckoned.
To fill an empty day I ventured on an exciting boating expedition in search of Humpback whales. The tour took a group of us two hours out into the beautiful ocean spray and what I gleaned during the journey will be the subject of my next four blogs.....keep reading to find out how the meaning of Christmas was so bountifully and hilariously displayed on my seabound journey!!

Herbie doesn't like to make toys...

Today my son came home from school and informed me he was told to bring some Christmas jokes back to school for his show choir performance. In truth, every year they tell horrible campy schtick jokes during the Carnival and Carols performance and I wince, desperately wishing they would come up with something actually funny.
This year the director asked the students to come back with good material, and Camden was all shiny and hopeful that his comedian mother would supply him with some and make him look the star.
"I don't like to tell jokes" I said in a small meek voice. "I want to be a hu-mor-ist and tell funny stories."
"WHAT? You're a comedian?!#% And you don't like to tell jokes?"
Why am I such a misfit......

Gobbling it up...

I remember those days. The days of waking up and wondering how I was going to fill the whole day with three small children. I am not naturally a morning person, but all toddlers are, so I was up and depressed by 6 a.m. most days. Lunch was a peanut butter and jelly by 9 a.m. Such was life. I thought it would never end.
The teen years came upon me, schedules grew, and I woke up wondering how I was going to fit it all in with three active boys. I started housework by 6 a.m. so I could get everything in before collapsing into bed by midnight. Some days I didn't even have lunch until 2 in the afternoon if at all.

I think of this today because my eldest son came home from college last night for the first time in 5 months. I can't believe that much time has passed. All I want to do is spend time with him. He is home for 5 days, and I wish they would stand still. Looking back I'm sorry I ever wasted a single minute.
Happy Thanksgiving... give thanks for every minute with those precious children. I am.

The Gamble of a lifetime...

I just spoke at a huge corporate event. Not necessarily huge in numbers, maybe 85 people or so, small in comparison to most of my audiences these days, but huge in significance.
This audience was comprised of the spouses, mostly women, of the upper tier leadership of Procter and Gamble, one of the largest companies in the world. They are amazing people from around the world, all different nationalities. I was to emcee, humor, teach, and entertain them as their keynote speaker. This is an audience to impress if there ever was one said my brain. My heart said something different.
Instead of trying to impress, I dared to encourage. My middle son Cooper said to me one day while preparing "Mom, these are just people like you, moms and dads, doing their best. Just people." What a genius I thought.. a chip off the old maternal block...
So that's how I approached it. I talked about life, humor, parenting, and sacrifice. I taught them, embraced them, and encouraged them just like I try to do with every audience I have the priviledge of speaking to. And you know what? They left encouraged, and refreshed, in need of both just like you, and just like me. It wasn't a gamble after all.

Humble pie is actually Mighty tasty....

Have you ever found yourself wondering why you do what it is you are doing?
For example, when I had my first son, I used to lay face down on the carpet by his crib while he slept thanking God that He saw fit to make me a mom. An exaggeration? Nope. If you'd known me B.C. (before children) you'd understand. God was taking a chance on me... at least that's how I felt.
I had a similar experience this last weekend at a speaker's seminar I participated in. There I was with a group of ten women, all desiring to be better speakers, and all working in a learning lab to perfect our skills. I was the veteran of the group by far. Some of these newbies had just started to look into the possibility of speaking for the very first time. I thought I would be at the head of the class...
To my amazement, there were women in this group who were clearly born to speak. Articulate, polished, moving...you name it, they had it. I was humbled beyond belief. Here were women without my fourteen years of microphone experience, not to mention the 20+ years of musical theatre time, and they were twice as composed as I have ever been.
My conclusion? Five years ago I would have crawled into a hole and never spoken again. This time, I saw the humor and promise of what God has called me to: not by might, not by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord.

No such thing as a free lunch!

Teenagers! The economy! Who can understand either?
My friend just told me she was missing her entire jumbo roll of aluminum baking foil. That stuff isn't cheap, but that's just a detail to her determined teenage son who used the whole roll to make himself look like a burrito in order to qualify for Chipotle's "free" burrito day.
His "free" $5.00 burrito cost his mother $7.00 in foil....but who's counting? Certainly, not him.

People Junkie

People pleasing is a dangerous business... especially in the business of comedy, and clean uplifting comedy at that. I don't even go so far as to say I'm a Christian comedian because I don't really do "church stuff" that much like Mark Lowry or Chonda Pierce do. I just make observations about humankind and because I am a Christian I want it to be uplifting and clean.
There is difficulty in that because the people who enjoy clean comedy, or the venues where it is presented are often church related venues. And church venues have not traditionally been places where laughter and quirky observations have always taken place. So.... you are left with a paradox of an audience that wants to laugh, but is not always sure how and when to, in my humble opinion.
So I seek, on a daily basis, to please both God in what He has given me in the way of humor and observation, and the audience I am dealing with who really need to laugh. I am trusting the Author of Laughter to help guide me and that's really all I can do.
What is the paradox you find yourself in today?

Enemy territory

As I said two posts ago (they are out of order, sorry....I really do know how to do it now thanks to my husband/webmaster!) I just taped my first comedy DVD live in front of an audience that consisted of both friends and strangers.
The taping went amazingly and the comments were 99.9% positive. It's that darn .1% however that gets my attention~ and that is just wrong. I cannot please everyone all the time, and even trying to please most people all of the time is impossible. But I keep trying, and even though the entire audience is laughing until they cry I can see out of the corner of my eye that one gal who is only slightly enjoying herself and I let it bother me.
This is not a healthy thing, and I am going to fight it. Hard. Join me... not that this ever happens to you.... :)

I just tried to place an order for something via the internet. I wanted to use the virtual sales rep to answer a few questions when I saw the words you rarely see...OFFLINE AT THE MOMENT. So, I tabled my need for the item and decided to come back to it later. Wow, no one is offline anymore. We are always buzzing and connected and multitasking and ready for business. When I saw those words, I realized I was jealous. I want to be offline for a little bit! I want to be able to take a minute off, breathe, and have the busyness of life table the need for me and come back later. Children aren't always that willing, and little ones just can't and shouldn't be tabled. But there are plenty of things in life I can go offline with to concentrate on the more important things. Find your offline moment today.

Checking a new box

Ok, blogging....check that box. I have checked the Facebook box, and the website box as well this year. Checksville, that's me! But, in 48 hours I will have checked a box that I am scared to death to check and that is... taping my first live comedy DVD! I have the best friends in the world...a whole bunch of them that are willing to come hear me blather for almost an hour about stuff that either irks me or cracks me up. I'm afraid they'll slip into a coma, or start making up sudoku puzzles or something. It's time to do it, and I have to just bite the bullet and risk it. Here's to checking a new box.....

MY FIRST BLOG!!

Hi there... I have never done a blog before but at the request of a bunch of Hearts at Home moms I am starting! I will try to keep it up and make it funny, but you know how it is...laundry piles up and life keeps going. And some days I am just not funny no matter how hard I try!
What is the rule on blogs? Are they supposed to be funny? Or can I tell my deepest darkest secrets that no one cares about? Hmmm..let's stick to funny because that's way better reading.

I did have a funny thought today though when I think about it. Flying made me think of it. I can't tell you how many times I have been steamed when the ticket agent asks my husband if he has personally packed the contents of the suitcases when we are on vacation. He always says yes! The truth is, when our family goes on vacation it is ME who has packed all those suitcases and he rarely has any idea what is even in them! Liar liar pants on fire. I may have them haul him away next time.... hmm....
talk to you soon...send me your thoughts! Sal