Fashion Smashion...

Once upon a time, not long after I moved to Kansas City, my employer offered a 2-day long workshop on business attire. By "offered," I mean "required all employees to attend." They brought in some expert from the Jones Store to tell us what to wear and what not to wear.

The Jones Store wasn't exactly a high-falootin' store, but at that time I was 21 and barely making minimum wage so when I shopped there it was to visit Clarence (my mother's name for the clearance aisle). This expert was some sort of personal shopper or something. I'm pretty sure she would have steered me away from Clarence if I had asked for her assistance.

Anyway, one of the important lessons I learned during this workshop was that a person should not wear white shoes to work, EVER, unless you're a nurse. But definitely not ever in an office setting. When I shared this information to friends after the fact, they said, "right, you shouldn't wear white after Labor Day." No, we're not talking about THAT rule. This all happened in the middle of July and it was very clear that white shoes were forbidden in the office at any time of year. EVER.

Maybe it's common knowledge, but that was the first I had heard of it. It was also the first two of my co-workers had heard of it. Michelle was just a few years older than me and Linda was about 20 years my senior. We discussed it at lunch and all of us thought it was kind of ridiculous, but had different ways of responding to the news.

That night, Michelle went home, retrieved the white dress shoes from her closet, and tossed them in the trash. Linda went home, set her white shoes aside to take them to be dyed a light pink. I went home, found my white shoes buried at the bottom of the closet and wore them to work the next day.

Dear Winter,

I think it's time we parted ways.

I hate to do this to you so close to Valentine's Day, but let's face it, you were planning to leave me around March 21 anyway. Why prolong the agony?

Sure, you look pretty and all, but I just feel like you're always dumping on me.

And you don't do anything to help around here. You leave a mess in the driveway and I'm the one who has to clean it up. Sure, if I left it there long enough, you'd take care of it eventually, but that's just not good enough.

When I think of you, I get a chill...not in a good way. Occasionally you'll surprise me with a brief showing of warmth, only to take it away the next day.

I have had it.

Goodbye, and good luck.

Ruth

A Commercial Break...

Clearly this blog is lacking a clear sense of direction. My last entry was a letter to God. This entry is about a random memory that was in my head this morning when I woke up. I’m not sure why it was there or why I’m sharing, but…

I think most of my former teachers would say I was a good kid. Not perfect, but I got good grades and didn’t cause or get into trouble (much).

Except there was this one time…in 8th grade…

In English class, we’d been given a group assignment to create (on paper) a made up product and write a commercial for it. My team consisted of my best friend, Mary, and another gal, Michelle.

I came up with the product idea. I’m not sure if I’m proud of that fact or not. Our imaginary product was a spray that would remove gunk from stuff. For instance, if you stepped in gum, you could use our product to get it off your shoe. The product name was...

OFF
UCK

Our commercial went something like, “If you step in gum, don’t panic, just say ‘Off Uck.’” And we had a catchy little jingle of some sort.

Anyway, at some point our English teacher got wind of this idea and was not happy about it. She didn’t specifically tell us NOT to do it, but word had it that if we went through with it we would be facing detention. Well, I wasn’t keen on detention, but even more than that I wasn’t keen on bringing two friends down with me. So, we kept the concept but changed the name slightly to “Yuck Off.” Yeah, that’s a lot better.

Dear God

Dear God,

I know You’re probably pretty busy trying to decide who’s going to win the big games tomorrow so I’ll try not to take much of Your time.

Something has been on my mind. You see, again today a status update showed up in my Facebook news feed that suggested if I’m a true Christian, I should change my status update to say as much for at least an hour. I didn’t. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve forgone these opportunities (or some variation of them) to become a true Christian.

I’m concerned I’m going to hell. Actually, that’s not entirely true. I’m more concerned with the during-life right now than the after-life. I don’t mean to seem short-sighted. I just feel like while I’m living, I should focus on living a good life and contributing what I can to make the world better in some small way. I figure You’ve got the after-life thing figured out, and I’ll wait to be surprised when the moment arrives.

Anyway, back to the Facebook issue. I’m a little torn. I mean, I want to be a true Christian, I’m just not sure if I have to post it on Facebook to make it true. I imagine there’s nothing wrong with posting those updates, but is there anything wrong with NOT posting them? So, I went to bible.com and searched on the word “Facebook” to see what the Good Book might have to say on the matter. That search yielded no results, so I tried “social networking,” again with no success. I considered discussing the matter with my pastor, but she isn’t even on Facebook. (Yes, I said, “she.” Hope that doesn’t rock Your world.)

So, without any guidance from the Bible or my pastor, I’m left to ask myself, “What would Jesus do?” I pictured Jesus sitting at His laptop--or maybe He uses an iPhone, hard to say--while one of those messages shows up in His news feed. Would he update His status so that it would show up in the news feeds of His millions of friends? “Jesus Christ is…a true Christian.”

I think not. I’m pretty sure Jesus wouldn’t even be on Facebook. Or writing a blog. So, perhaps that’s my cue to sign off. But, if You’ve got any insights, send me a message. E-mail is best.

Peace out and Amen,

Ruth

P.S. Go Packers!