storytime!

So, I decided to go to the orthodox church for nativity vigil tonight. Partially because I hadn’t ever been to this service and partially because I figured they wouldn’t do the traditional Christmas hymns. I’ve been pretty much completely bah-humbuggy this year and have pretty much ignored Advent, with the intent of avoiding Christmas as much as possible.

I walked into the service and stood behind some other people. I was thinking the service would be fairly long, definitely more than an hour, probably closer to two or three, but wanted to know if it were longer than that, for sure. Finally I walked over to Steve, a (longer term than me, anyway) member and asked “How long is this service.”
He paused and said “Really long.”
Needing a bit more clarification, as I knew that much already, I asked “Yeah, but how long”
Holding up three fingers, he said “Three hours. I think. I mean, Easter vigil is about that long, so I believe it will be about that long.”

So yeah, it was a little over three hours. Three and a half, if you count the post-communion prayers. My clothes smell highly of incense. Gotta say, I really love it.

In other words, I’m finally getting used to the “Christ is Risen/He is and shall be” response and now they’ve gone and changed it to “Christ is Born/Glorify Him” or something.

One final note on the Orthodox service, I was totally wrong about the carols. They were sung. I thought I was going to have a panic attack during them. Ugh. BE NORMAL DANA.

conversation*

sound, something like a *moo* comes from a room
“Where is that cow noise coming from?” ~charge nurse
“Uh, I think that’s a BiPAP” ~other nurse
“Yeah, but you have to admit, that’s a really realistic cow sound.” ~another nurse

(so true. it totally sounded like a cow.)

*actual work conversation. really.

internet conversations 5

isaac: it’s been a pretty bad day.
dana: “when something good happens we say masha’allah, something bad happens que sera sera” ~k’naan
isaac: but what if you don’t know if it’s a good or bad thing?
dana: mash’ara
dana: que sallah
isaac: que sera allah

‘que sera allah’ might just be the most perfect phrase ever.

jonah

josh: you know what happens when you put god off, right?
dana: no, what?
josh: it goes something along the lines of
josh: boats and oceans and storms;
josh: big scary sea creatures and emesis…
dana: oh yeah, right…

Unfortunately I can see myself in this. I’m in the middle east and I decide that I want to go somewhere, and in the back of my mind one of the really good reasons to go to this place is because it’s far away from some other place that maybe, just maybe i should be going. So, I head off in my own direction and hey, what the hell! I can get there by boat! I’ve never gone anywhere via boat before. Let’s do it.

And then the skys darken and there’s a large sea creature and the end, though. There’s probably no vomit for me…

Remind me that never having gone anywhere by boat might be a perfectly fine thing when that day comes…