home again home again diggity dee

Well I just arrived home after spending a short weekend with the family and friends. It actually seemed to short for once though I still didn't want to spend much more time there. I spend a lot of these visits in awkward silence with my siblings. It's not that we don't get along it's just that I feel I have little in common with them since they are all so much older than me. Of course, it doesn't help that we are all naturally quiet people (except the pre-teen children of course).

It was Easter Sunday so I went to church. Of course, I go to church almost every Sunday when I'm here at home in Virginia. When I'm in PA however I usually skip because I don't really have a home church there anymore. Today I went to the church I attended while I was living there 6 six years ago. It's hard not to draw comparisons to my church here. While both are Evangelical Free churches with "contemporary worship" they're just different. I definitely prefer the music at the church down here. The instruments are basically the same (including drums, bass guitar, guitars, keyboard and a few people singing) the music up there always seemed more bangy and cludgy and more repetitive. Some of that might be poor acoustics. (Churches should really pay more attention to details like that.) The worship leader reminds me of someone making fun of worship leaders. Kind of like Will Farrel's portrayal on SNL (not that I watch the show). Maybe they're trying to be too contemporary. The church I go to here does not have special music very often. That's something I like because I often see it as showy and also because I've sat through some awful special music (Bless their hearts). Anyway this was Easter so I think they did do more musically than usual. None of the music was really bad. A little while ago I was telling RR about an arrangement of "O Sacred Head Now Wounded" that I heard while I still attended there regularly. They did a choral version of that Rolling Stone's Paint It Black arrangement (as I like to call it of that hymn. For some reason when a worship song disturbs me when it reminds me too much of pop music. Naturally I was slightly disturbed again when another song reminded me of the Blues Brothers. Hmmm... Maybe I'll start referring to it as the SNL church.

Despite all those things I'm glad I went. It did provide a time of spiritual focus. It did turn my eyes to Christ. Well, it also turned my eyes on myself and my position in relation to Him but I think I was able to pull myself back to focusing on Him. One of the Hymns that we did sing had the line "Man of Sorrows! What a name For the Son of God" except I think they changed it to "What a name for My King" but the meaning is still the same in the context that caught my eye. It's one of those things I've heard all my life but maybe never really caught.

Dinner with part of the family was good. The food was pleasing. I don't mind eating peas anymore. The beets... Well... I could eat them again. I was surprised that chicken done in the crock pot actually was tasty.

The trip back was pretty good. The traffic was heavier than normal but it kept moving. Eventually darkness and rain overtook the day and pretty soon it was just a parade of headlights, taillights and their reflections on the road. Again I listened to commentaries tracks on DVD's for the trip. I listened to the commentaries on Spiderman 2 and about half of the Director's commentary on Xmen 2.

I spent a fair amount of time regretting not stopping at the last rest stop on I-81 before getting onto I-64. I could've pulled off at some later exits but the pressure hadn't built up enough yet to warrant me running into a McDonalds. No there isn't some good logic in my thinking that you're not perceiving. Anyway after you get past some point there isn't a lot of places to stop and those place were closed or didn't seem to have a rest room. I even stopped at a mini mart/gas station/general store kind of place out in the country. I was well off the interstate by this time. Yes, I was still on the right road. This place seemed to be hobbled together from a couple of buildings with the inside obviously not laid out as originally intended unless the original intent was simply poorly conceived. I didn't see a restroom there so I exited and went back to my car thinking that I should've asked someone if they had one. Even with a painfully pressurized bladder I didn't want to talk to strangers busy with customers... or that guy putting boxes in the dumpster. I sometimes wonder if I'd cry out for help if I was in real physical danger. I hope I won't have to find out. Anyway, I get back in my car and drive down the road. I get to a point where I normally turn left onto a different road but I decide to stay on the one I'm on because I know there's a town up ahead and this road will also take me where I need to go. Well, it looked like all the little shops along the road were closed down for the night. It only occurred to me this minute that I could've asked to use the bathroom at the firehouse. Even if I did think of that when I could've acted on it I probably wouldn't have. There was a guy outside the place in front of his pickup truck doing something that gave me the impression he might be drunk. So I drove on into the night. Eventually I got to the place that sold ski equipment and whatnot. There's a little ski slope place nearby that'd shock most avid skiers with it's lack of height or variety... but I've never been there myself so I can't say for certain. There's a big open sign on the outside and a mini-van in the driveway. I pull in there and go inside right after a girl who got out of the mini-van. She's greeted by a worker at the store and says she's just with the people using the bathroom. The store worker says something about the bathrooms being for customers only. She also adds that they're having a sale. Everything in the store is buy one get one free or take 30% off. Okay... so I get to use the bathroom but now I have to be a customer. I decided to look around and see what they have. They didn't have any coats I liked and some were more expensive than I like. I did buy a pair of glove liners and some balaclava thing that I can use for my motorcycling. I also bought a couple of hand warmers. They were only 1.75 (buy one get one free) and supposedly last up to 7 hours. I can picture them coming in handy some time. Yeah, I spent $20 to use the bathroom but I got things that I wanted to buy anyway... 4 months ago. Oh well.

All in all it's been a good day, I guess. Now I have a phone call to make ;)