A “Where were you when …?” event?
I saw someone tweet this yesterday (for those of you not familiar with Twitter, a tweet is a twitter post)”
“Where were you when Michael Jackson died? … Welcome to the 9/11 of pop culture”
Whether I agree that his death has that level of significance or not, it’s an interesting question for me to think about because … where was I when Michael Jackson died? I was in my car on the way to pick up the kids from daycare and heard just a snippit of a radio news report with the words “Michael,” “Jackson” and “died,” although not necessarily in that order (well, I guess “Michael” and “Jackson” were, but anyways).
So what did I do? I’m a breaking news junkie and I needed to know more, but I was in the car and 45 minutes from being home. The radio had gone back to playing music. I had my handy dandy iPhone but which app should I use? The AP Mobile News app wouldn’t have breaking news like that. Hmm. I could google and maybe find something. But there had to be a better way!
Twitter. I turned to Twitter for the latest updates, and I wasn’t alone, according to this story in the Wall Street Journal:
“We saw an instant doubling of tweets per second the moment the story broke,” Twitter co-founder Biz Stone told the New York Times. He added that the volume of Jackson-related messages hit 5,000 per minute at its peak.
“This particular news about the passing of such a global icon is the biggest jump in tweets per second since the U.S. presidential election,” Stone told the paper.
The WSJ article goes on to say that Internet traffic on news sites doubled as the news was breaking at around 5:30 p.m. EDT, which was the exact time that I was leaving work and driving to get the kids. So, yeah, within 10 minutes of that I was up-to-speed on the news and following the Twitter updates. I even posted the following tweets
After I got home I clicked over to Facebook to see if people were doing the same kind of thing, and folks were certainly talking about it but they were beyond sharing the news and were reacting to it with Facebook statuses like “was madly in love with Michael Jackson as a kid. Sad to hear he’s passed away.” and “Oh Michael…what will we do without you!!” I even responded to one of those comments about a childhood memory of my pink fringed Breakdance shirt (it was quite the cool shirt!).
The news cycle on this story just blows my mind, that within minutes the news was around the world, and that we all turned to each other to find out about it, not “the news.”
So maybe it’s not a bad question after all — Where you when Michael Jackson died and how did you find out about it, not because it’s of the same magnitude of 9/11, but because in thinking about it you just might realize just how much times really have changed.
And along those lines, another thought-provoking tweet from late yesterday
At dinner … talking twitter breaking news. Said second coming will hash with #risen
Yes Man
I’m not a big Jim Carey fan — his kind of humor is a little over-the-top for my tastes. But his latest movie “Yes Man” wasn’t quite as overbearing as some of his other movies. It’s similar to “Liar Liar” where Carey plays a dad who lies all the time, and when his son wishes that his dad couldn’t tell lies and he can’t. In “Yes Man” he chooses to say “yes” to every question and every opportunity that he is offered.
Without spoiling too much of the movie, the moral of the story is that it’s good to say “yes” and to put yourself out there, take chances, etc. BUT within reason and without being stupid. I feel quite silly saying a Jim Carey movie has inspired me, but seriously I like the idea of saying “yes” more because all too often I don’t really have a good reason to say “no.” Our pastor has been saying for years to “put your ‘yes’ on the table” in reference to being willing to say “yes” to whatever God calls you to do. Tell Him “yes” first.
So, yesterday, one of hubby’s female co-workers invited me to a meet and greet lunch with a group of ladies that I don’t know — I barely know the co-worker! I know what hubby has told me about her and we’ve met once. But I said yes! Why not, right?
Is there such a thing as too many purple pens?
I think I need at least one more, don’t you?
The Right Words at the Right Time
I love the idea of a perpetual calendar — reading the same thing year after year but finding new relevance in new ways. I believe this is the third year that I’ve had the Power of a Praying Parent desk calendar on my desk, and some days things don’t seem relevant at all; couldn’t make it fit if I tried. Other days the verse or thought is “good” but still not overtly relevant. Then other days it’s just right on, as if Someone knew what I was going through and chose that verse or passage just for me on just that day.
I had one of those “then other days” last week, June 16-18, to be exact. Finn has been having a problem with migraine headaches for nearly a year and these last few weeks they’ve increased in severity and frequency, so we’ve been trying to figure out what to do, which doctors to see, which advice to take, which medicines to give, etc. On Tuesday, June 16, the day after Finn started a new medicine my calendar had this to offer:
We have prayed our children through every cold, flu, fever, and injury, and the Lord has always answered. We never hestitate to take them to a doctor when they need it, of course, because we know God heals through doctors, too. The point is to pray first and then, when we are healed, we are not to question or doubt.
On Wednesday, the passage on my calendar was from James 5:14-15:
Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, annointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up.
Finally, on Thursday, the calendar offered me this prayer, the prayer that was already in my heart:
Lord, because You have instructed us in Your Word that we are to pray for one another so that we may be healed, I pray for healing and wholeness for my child. I pray that sickness and infirmity will have no place or power in his life. And if we are to see a doctor, I pray that You, Lord, would show us who that should be. Give that doctor wisdom and full knowledge of the best way to proceed.
Wow. Wow. Who is to say that if when the Praying Parent calendar people put this calendar together that God knew I’d need to read those things the third week of June 2009 and therefore impressed upon them to include those pages on those days? It seems kind of extreme to build the entire calendar around one user, but if there are messages for me in June, perhaps he orchestrated it so that there are messages for multiple others on other days and in other years. And while nothing has really jumped out at me the last few months, in a few years something from another month — that I’ve now read over and over each year — may be the relevant thing. Isn’t that neat that God can be so big that we can’t wrap our minds around Him but at the same time be so up-close, personal and involved to have years-ago influenced and orchestrated the devotional passages that I would read today? I believe it happens more often than people know or acknowledge.
There are several pages from the calendar that I have torn out and tacked to the wall of my cubicle because they are ones that I want to read more often or ones that are relevant to where I am. September 23 — joy doesn’t have anything to do with happy … look into the face of God and know He’s all we need. September 9 — even if your child is beyond your daily influence you can pray for his mind to be sound and protected. July 12 — I pray my child will respect the wisdom of his parents and be willing to be taught by them … [and] have the desire to be taught by the teachers You bring into his life. And now June 18 — prayer for healing, wholeness, that sickness will have no place or power in my childrens’ lives, and wisdom for us, as parents, and any doctors He sends us to.
Bear with me
I’m not happy with the new look but I don’t want to revert back to the old one yet either. So be patient please as I play around with some other options.
Frozen in Time
While I was on work travel last week the 3yo found the dial that sets the temperature in the fridge and freezer and turned both dials to “1,” which is the lowest cool setting. Hubby discovered it and cranked the dials up to the maximum “5,” but we do not know how long the dial had been turned down. We do know it was on low long enough to melt the ice cream which then ran all over the lower shelf of the freezer. And, I was concerned enough about how long things in the freezer had been defrosting that I cleaned out and threw away pretty much everything that could spoil. The only things left were popsicles, a pie crust, two bags of pecans and the top of our wedding cake.
Wait. What did that say? The top of our wedding cake? Yes, the top of the cake which we had at our wedding more than 10 years ago. In true wedding tradition, we saved the top tier of our cake for our first anniversary. But when our first anniversary came around we actually had planned a trip back home for a friend’s graduation. It felt strange to eat it any other day, and since we were leery about eating it anyway we just decided to do nothing. I think now it’s just about seeing how long it can actually survive. It’s moved with us six times, including the big six-hour move from Indiana to back home. (We transported it over ice in a cooler.)
This week’s melted ice cream actually got onto the foil that was wrapped around the bakery box that the cake is in, so I had to replace the foil. I took a quick sneak peak inside the box and was scared of what I’d see, but it still looks exactly the same. I wouldn’t eat it now, of course, but on what grounds do you throw away a 10-year old cake? Unintentionally it has become a symbol of our longevity, so barring major freezer meltdown, as long as we’re together, the top to our wedding cake will be in the freezer. How funny to think about our boys someday having to figure out what to do with some decades-old wedding cake!
