Sit Ubu, Sit. Good boy.

God is a good trainer. I am a bad dog.

My wife's little sisters have these dogs, Rat Terriers. That's pretty much what they look like, tenacious rats. One of them, Martin, is passable as a dog, but the rest look like they are only a milk bone away from scurrying into the walls.

I see the girls sometimes attempting to train these unruly mongrels (not really, they can be fun, I'm just not a small dog person...heh, thanks for ruining that Demetri), they might sit them in a spot and either walk away with or throw something the dog really wants. We've all seen this happen, with our own dogs or someone else's. With the rat terriers, on the rare occasion that they don't just take off after what they want, they sit there, starting holes through the treat, and shaking. Literally vibrating with anticipation and desire. Vibrating with desire? Let's not change the rating here, huh?

In this way (and hopefully ONLY this way) I am a rat terrier.

Sometimes my beautiful wife has to work at 4am, sending her to bed at 8 or so the night before. This is my coveted Mike time. I usually just play video games, but is it ever glorious. From 8pm to 10 pm one or two nights a week, I am free to do whatever I want. As long as it doesn't make noise. Usually I just play video games.

After my commitment outlined in my last post, I decided that I was going to help Michelle make dinner, since she had worked all day too, and I was going to read the Bible and pray with her after dinner, before my Mike time. Dinner took a little longer than anticipated, it was our first attempt at Chow Mein, wherein I learned some things.

1) Non-stick from Ikea is NOT non-stick. Buy products with names I can pronounce. Nebvarschtyykes, sounds like "never sticks" but may well mean "do not use me for Chow Mein preparation."

2) I think chopping celery and then onions might be some sort of diabolical cocktail of finger stinkiness. Like the celery opens up the pores on your hands to allow the onion to take root becoming a permanent part of your personal bouquet of odors. I am fairly confident at this point that I will smell like onion for the rest of my life. I may as well accept it and think of clever excuses to use at parties. "I know, can you believe it? That guy behind me must bathe in onion juice. That's what I get for shaking hands with people I didn't smell thouroughly first."

When we were done with dinner, I was ready to get our reading done and hop on the computer. God, or my wife, or both, has other ideas. Michelle needed to take a shower, so I sat on the couch, watching my minutes tick by, also watching this stupid show called Wipeout. Don't waste your minutes on it. Then we did our reading, and we prayed, and then I was totally ready to hit the computer when Michelle asks me about how I would share the gospel with someone, and I tried repeatedly to give quick and simple answers. But God, or my wife, or both (I think they may be in cahoots) made sure that I stayed put until she was satisfied, and I was shaking with anticipation and desire. See what that whole rat terrier thing was about? See what I did there? Full Circle.

The point is, God is training me. And it's not always easy. In fact I've found in life that the easy thing is NEVER the best thing. But I am so thankful that He is do faithful to me when I am so unfaithful to him.

That was long winded. You get extra points for adding in the comments the words "purple monkey dishwasher" to prove you read this far.

I think I'm going to rename my "Mike Time" "Selfish Time." Gotta keep it real.