First off: The beard is no more. I cut it off in front of the church Easter Sunday (4/21/2019) and then went home and shaved clean for the first time in YEARS. The last time I shaved clean, I was traumatized because my then-two-year-old goddaughter refused to talk to me for two weeks. (She is 16, now.) I had grown the “old man” beard fairly steadily for about six years and just felt the nudge to cut it off. I think I’m over it, now.

So… Last night, I got the “bright idea” to document my life every day during the month of May. Actually, the idea was to make a live video, but I decided ten minutes before I started writing that making posts to my website was something that I could better manage. Honestly, I’m expecting at least half of these posts to be “nothing exciting happened”, but I figured I may as well go with the inclination anyway.

Today… Man… Today…

It started off with my sleep being all jacked up. Not getting into the details, but I’ve had digestive issues for years now. I’m pretty sure I just need to cut certain foods out of my diet and stop eating after a certain time. Of course, this time is compounded by a mild gout flareup in my wrist. So… I drank black cherry juice, which makes my stomach do circles. In any case, it affected my sleep so I was late getting up.

As part of my regular routine, I get Mom up, take her to run some errands, and get lunch, only to glance at Facebook while we wait on our food. Oh… I see the Chapel service being streamed from the seminary. Oh… I remember that I was supposed to play piano at the chapel service being streamed live. Of course, I remember this two hours after I was actually supposed to be there. Kareem was definitely not winning the day.

(Mom, on the other hand, had a great lunch!)

What in the world was I thinking? (10 Days Post Shave.)

Knowing that I was on transportation duty for my church’s group study tonight, I ran my electric piano down to our sister church to set it up beforehand. With the piano, I can only carry one other person in my car. Without the piano, I can fit four more. I needed to pick up three people. Once I get there and haul everything to the room, I realize that I left my piano stand at home. I had to run the seven miles back home and then turn around and fly back up the road to pick up my people for the class, which of course I got them there ten minutes late. Everyone was already in line getting their food.

My pastor-brother was at the time trying to get his laptop to work with the projector. No go. I happened to bring mine, so we tried it. I fared even worse. The church WIFI was for whatever reason not having me. The plan for the class went out the window, so we improvised. Thankfully, two regular members of my worship team were available for the draft and stepped up to the plate. Unfortunately, by the time I got to the table, all the meat was gone. It was tacos. I MISSED TACOS!!!!

This was not an exhaustive accounting by far… but suffice it to say, today was not my day. It was still an awesome day and – despite my outright missing a service I was supposed to play for – everything got done that needed to be done. I forgot chapel, but I had lunch with my Mom. I do it just about every day, but I can never take it for granted. I had an unplanned 14-mile detour to pick up a flimsy piece of metal and was late picking up my people, but we had a great laugh about it for the entire ride to the church. I got nothing from the food table except for two chocolate chip cookies my guitarist-friend swiped for me, but my pal from El Salvador hooked me up with homemade tamales. They were good, too.

I’ll take it.

To leave it off, there is an ongoing situation that has been on my heart for about a week and a half. Whichever way it is resolved, I know the result will be for the best. For now, I can definitely use some prayer…

…which I could have had if I hadn’t forgotten chapel service.

For the record: I am totally not keeping this bald-face thing going.

All the best,

TKP
5/1/2019

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