It ain’t writ by Jewel, nor by Willie Nelson neither. But here’s a genuine country anthem with lyrics by Indiana resident Jean (based on this comment), and tune by me. It’s a little ditty we call “(I Was) Standin on the Side of Love,” an it goes like this:

(I Was) Standin on the Side of Love (crappy MP3 of a crappy MIDI version of the tune and chords)

(I Was) Standin on the Side of Love (PDF of lead sheet, with tune and lyrics)

And now… the karaoke version, so you can sing along! MP3 file with country guitar, bass, and drum with occasional banjo and mandolin, and an “oo” track that you can sing along to. Lyrics are below.

(I Was) Standing on the Side of Love/karaoke version

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Jean, my older sister, just bought a new horse, after her last horse died tragically. In describing her new horse on her blog, she used some jargon I didn’t understand. I left a comment to that effect, and Jean responded with a lengthy post explaining the jargon. (“SLB” obviously stands for “Snotty Little Brother”).

Jean wrote a good explanation of the jargon, and now I feel I know a little more about the World of Horses. That’s probably a good thing, because once when I went to visit Jean, I almost got myself in trouble.

Jean invited me to go out and visit her horse at the barn where he lived. It was a lovely place, although I think I was about the only man there. Jean showed me around, and we stopped at the riding rink, where the woman who runs the barn trains both horses and the women who ride them. An attractive young woman was riding a horse around the ring, and after watching her for awhile, Jean said, “Wow, she has a good seat!” Now, as a heterosexual male, I had just been thinking exactly the same thing, but then because I try to be a good minister and a nice guy, I studiously looked at the horse and not the young woman.

Fortunately, before I started blushing, I realized Jean was using some horse jargon that I didn’t understand (and still don’t).

After that embarrassing moment, I wound up talking with a woman who was a professional ornithologist, who humiliated me by hearing birdsongs I simply couldn’t hear.

All in all, visiting a horse barn was a challenging experience for me.

Through an interesting chain of circumstance, today I wound up meeting my cousin Nancy in Boston. It was lunchtime, and we were both hungry. We talked about where we might have lunch, and I mentioned that my stomach is still feeling queasy and all I really wanted to eat was some nice white rice and soft vegetables. Nancy, who is a fluent Chinese speaker and who worked in the Chinese community in Boston twenty years ago, said, “I know just what you need. Come on.”

So we walked down to Chinatown, and then walked around looking at restaurants. When we got to the Windsor Dim Sum Cafe on Tyler Street, Nancy said, “Here, let’s try this one. See in the window?” She pointed to a neon sign with Chinese characters and the word “Congee” in Roman letters. “They have congee here.”

We went inside. Nancy ordered various dim sum dishes for herself, and chicken congee for me. It turns out that congee is white rice made with eight or ten parts of water to one part rice, and cooked slowly for an hour or more. The end result is a warm, comforting rice porridge. The chicken congee had chicken broth and bits of chicken in it. “Comfort food,” said Nancy, “people eat it when they’re sick, too.” I liked the chicken congee so much I ordered a bowl of plain rice congee. My stomach felt much better afterwards.

Now I shall have to try to make congee on my own. I found this recipe for basic congee on a software devceloper’s blog.

My stomach is still pretty queasy from the nasty viral infection I had last week, so I am still eating lots of bland foods. In particular, I am eating lots of gelatin desserts. For those who might be in the same situation, I offer this brief guide to gelatin desserts.

Be careful of Royal brand gelatin desserts: some flavors include aspartame as a sweetener, in addition to sugar. I discovered that aspartame can (how can I put this politely) further inflame the gastro-intestinal tract, leading to unpleasant consequences.

As for Jell-o brand gelatin desserts, stick with the old tried-and-true flavors. Some of the more exotic flavors, like “Berry Blue” and “Black Cherry,” taste chemical-y. Whereas good old orange Jell-o tastes like Tang orange-flavored drink. Actually, come to think of it, Tang tastes chemical-y too, but at least it tastes like chemicals I’m used to tasting.

I will be glad when I can return to eating normal food.

Self: Please remember that if you have strained your abdominal muscles from a bout of power-barfing in the past seven days, it is not wise to watch old episodes of the Muppet Show. You will just strain your abdominal muscles all over again from laughing so hard. Especially if you watch the show featuring Carol Burnett.

On the other hand, your overall attitude will improve enormously.

The Wall Street Journal reports on the best and worst jobs. The top three jobs are math-related: Mathematician, Actuary, and Statistician. The bottom three are Lumberjack, Dairy Farmer, and Taxi Driver (hi, Craig!). Best jobs are rated according to work environment, income, employment outlook, physical demands, and stress.

I got curious about my own line of work. Somewhere around 1994, I decided to get out of carpentry, and move into church work; now it looks like that was a good choice. Carpenter is rated at #176 (out of 200 jobs rated); whereas Clergy is rated at #70. Better yet, Clergy is rated as the #1 most satisfying job — so while we clergy will never make as much money as the people with math degrees, on average we’ll be happier.

Today I happened to run into someone who is in the helping professions, and our conversation quickly turned to the state of the economy. “It’s getting bad,” he said, “and it’s going to get worse.” We both admitted that we’re feeling the pressures in our jobs — it feels like there’s an increased demand for everyone in the helping professions, while at the same time given the economic situation we’re all worried about funding cuts (not so much cuts in our salaries, but cuts in programs we manage or depend on).

Almost immediately after that conversation, I happened to be talking to someone else who said she has noticed that people are becoming less polite and less courteous. It feels, she said, as if people are a little on edge. Or maybe, I said, as if they’re angry. Yes, angry, she said. This economic mess we’re in is enough to make anyone angry.

Just because I’ve had these two conversations doesn’t mean my feelings have a firm basis in reality. So tell me what you think: Is the economic situation getting to people? Are you noticing a diminishment in politeness? If you’re in the helping professions, are you feeling a little more stressed than usual?