Things that took my mind off the election today...

When I walked through our neighborhood to church this morning, I saw a business that I hadn’t noticed before. It’s called First Century Bank. That seems very odd in this 21^st-Century world and it led to several strange images in my head. The first is Jesus and the moneylenders, so I saw Jesus walking into this bank on 4^th Street, all angry and turning over the desks. Later, I told my friend Cherie’ about it and she thought it was funny, too. So we wondered about the banking. Did people bring in fish to trade for shekels? It conjures up visions of a Vacation Bible School marketplace.

How can I not love this?

I got to church and leafed through the bulletin to see what hymns we’d be singing. None of my favorites, unfortunately. And we had incense since it was the Feast of All Saints, so people were already coughing and clearing their throats, even before the procession. Anyway, I looked at the schedule for Sunday School and the names of the classrooms got me giggling a little bit. Two of the rooms seem normal enough for an Episcopal Church—the Julian of Norwich room and the Mary Magdalene room. The other two cracked me up, but this is L.A. and it is the Episcopal Church. I know I said that already, but I just want to emphasize that we tend to be a pretty hip and welcoming bunch. The other two rooms are named Harvey Milk and Mother Jones. I just think that’s priceless.

There were two things at church that got me thinking about politics again. There was a discussion between the two services about the proposition to repeal the death penalty in California. I would have liked that, but I didn’t know about it in time. I missed it because I was at the second service. If I’d gone last week, I might have been informed, but my attendance is a little spotty. The other thing was that the nice man sitting in the pew in front of me was wearing an Obama sweatshirt. That got me wondering where my Obama t-shirt is hiding and whether I should try to find in and wear it tomorrow.

Beachy Coffee Table

A couple of days ago I painted an old trunk white. We’ve used it as a coffee table for years, but it seemed too dark for our little space, so I decided to lighten it up and make it more “beachy.” Today, I finished cleaning up the copper fittings and sanded off some of the paint to make it “shabby chic.” I wondered if I could fix up some more old stuff and have a booth at the Rose Bowl flea market. That distracted me for awhile—from the election and from the blister I had on my index finger from sanding.

Tonight I had dinner with Cherie’, one of my Kansas basketball mom friends, who’s in town on business. We watched the sunset. Even though it was at an early 4:58, thanks to the end of Daylight Saving Time, the old sol was its usual, spectacular Santa Monica self. Really, that sunset is a cure for all ills. We had tapas and sangria. We acknowledged, briefly, that there’s an election Tuesday, but really didn’t discuss the candidates or the issues. We talked about our lives, our kids, basketball, gluten free recipes, travel and faith—things that matter… things that bind us to the people we care about… things that, likely, will still matter whatever happens on Tuesday.