Those of you keeping score at home know that lately I’ve been having even more trouble with technology since I had to get a new phone. It hasn’t really gotten any better.
This time however, I’m not whining about how I can’t answer my phone, or how I can’t do this or that with my phone, I’m whining because I frequently refuse to carry my phone, and it turns out that’s not great either.
Every Sunday, I leave my phone at home when we go to church. I consider it my one day of freedom from the electronic leash (plus, my ringer is set really loud, and I don’t think that a robocaller triggering “Slaughter on 10th Avenue in the middle of church would go over particularly well). Also, don’t even get me started on trying to figure out how to turn the volume down. I’ve got enough trouble.
Anyway, a couple Sundays ago, the lovely and talented Jess and I, along with our normal Sunday lunch buddies, Steve and Dot Bickerson, went to our customary Sunday lunch spot, a local diner (not to name names, but it’s got a large, wavy-haired, fat kid in front) where I proceeded to order my customary Sunday lunch – the pork tenderloin, no tomato, with fries and coleslaw. I can’t remember what anyone else had, but honestly it’s not really all that important.
It is commonly known in our small circle of friends (and after this story, our circle may contract even more), that although we really enjoy eating there, the fat boy’s food doesn’t always agree with either of us. It’s not his fault really, nothing we eat agrees with us. We both live in a constant state of digestive crisis. Fortunately, we do like to live dangerously.
On this particular occasion, the food hit me even faster and harder than normal. With no time to even excuse myself, I got up and walked as quickly as it’s possible to walk with your entire body clenched from the jaw down, praying the whole while that the bathroom would be empty.
A dramatic recreation of this traumatic incident.
My luck was in and the bathroom was deserted. I closed myself in the stall, and took care of business (and let me take a moment to mention my gratitude to the laws that mandate those safety bars in public bathrooms. Sometimes it’s good to be able to brace yourself). After the accompanying sigh/groan of relief and a moment of self-congratulation about having the fortitude and kung fu grip needed to make it to the facilities, I’ve got to say, I was feeling pretty good about things. Sadly, that good feeling was too good to last.
If I might digress a moment (and honestly, who’s gonna stop me?), I’d really like to know what jackass designs handicapped bathroom stalls. I mean, come on man, you’re designing this thing for people whose mobility and physical capabilities are already limited in some way. So why in the name of all that’s holy, would you put the toilet paper dispenser UNDER THE DAMNED GRAB BARS?!!!!! It’s not like the wall ABOVE the rails is so cluttered up with stuff that there’s no room for it.
Seriously, can you imagine having to lean over far enough to reach your hand up into a dispenser lower than your knees if your legs don’t work? It’s hard enough to do with more or less fully-functioning legs. It just ain’t right.
It’s also waaaaaay less right when you go through all that only to find out that there’s no toilet paper, which is what happened to me on this particular occasion. I’ve gotta say, the fat boy really lost some points with me that day.
So there I sat, my forehead still damp with a cold sweat, fruitlessly sliding the little door on the dispenser back and forth, as if a roll was hiding in there somewhere, or would magically appear if I really believed hard enough. It didn’t.
Still, I’m not one prone to panic. I know that I can’t be the only one who is adversely and drastically affected by the fat boy’s food. Sooner or later, I told myself, someone will come in whom I can ask for help, so I settled in to wait.
Sure enough, a few minutes later, somebody came in and bellied up to the urinal, just outside the stall. Being the considerate guy I am, I waited to try to get his attention until he got to that sweet spot between flushing and washing hands to say “Excuse me? Hey? Excuse me?!”
“You talking to me?”
Like there was anyone else in there. “Yeah, uh, I was wondering if you could do me a favor?”
“Maybe?” He sounded a little nervous (as one would, I suppose).
“There’s no toilet paper in here.” I waited for him to stop laughing, then said, “I was hoping you could tell one of the employees?”
“Yeah man, no problem,” and he left.
I waited. I waited some more. Then, for a change, I tried waiting. I was beginning to doubt that my new friend had actually told someone about it. As I sat there with my legs going numb, I could hear the sound of happy families enjoying their meals. I could even – and this part is absolutely true – hear the lovely and talented Jess laughing (she has a hearty laugh that really carries. It’s just one of the many things I love about her) as she and Steve and Dot visited. It sounded like they were having a really good time. It was also like she didn’t even know I was gone.
I thought that surely enough time had passed that she’d come to check on me, or at least send Steve. I was wrong. I actually started thinking about just yelling for help, but I was really hoping to get out of this with at least some dignity. I found myself wishing there were some sort of device, a personal communicator if you will, that I could carry in my pocket and would enable me to contact Jess and let her know of my predicament.
And then, I remembered – my phone! I could just call her – that is, if only it wasn’t sitting on the printer back at my house. Of course, there’s no guarantee that it would have worked anyway; the lovely and talented but frequently uncommunicative Jess is notorious for not answering her phone (at least when I call).
Still, I could at least have left a voicemail, or as a last resort, texted her. Those probably wouldn’t have worked either – She is just as technologically unsavvy as I am, and has no idea how to check either her voicemail or messages. Still, at least there would have been something with which to make her feel guilty about later (althought she doesn’t really do guilt, either).
At any rate, after sitting there for what seemed like hours, but was probably more like only 10-15 minutes, another guy came in, and I went through the previous exchange all over again. This guy however, actually went and got help, and a few minutes later, a roll of toilet paper slid into the stall. Thank God.
Ironically, as I was finally leaving the bathroom, I met Steve coming to check on me. We went back to the table where I told them about the whole ordeal. They laughed and laughed. Steve and Dot eventually stopped laughing, but Jess was still laughing all the way home.
I take some comfort in the fact that there are probably few husbands who make their wives laugh that hard or that often. She’s a lucky woman. Just the same, I’m going to start taking my phone to church from now on.
Stupid technology. Can’t live with it, and apparently can’t live without it either.
It’s no secret that I both hate and fear technology but, like most of you, I find myself forced (okay, that might be a little strong – maybe begrudgingly caving in) to use it. As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, I recently had to upgrade to one of those smartphones.
It was not an easy transition. It still isn’t. Still, I suppose there are some benefits to it. It’s kinda handy to have when we’re watching tv, and there’s an actor/actress that I know I’ve seen before, but can’t remember where, I can IMDB ’em and stop aggravating myself about it. And yes, I know a simpler, low-tech solution is to just stop being so obsessive-compulsive about trivial things. Like that’s gonna happen.
Another thing I do like about it is being able to have different ringtones for some people. I’ve got Mick Ronson’s “Solo on 10th Avenue (Live)” set as my default ringtone. I can’t help it, I think it’s a great instrumental, and it really freaks out the kids in the writing center when my phone rings.
Photo from thisdayinmusic.com You probably know him from his work with David Bowie, Mick Ronson, and Mott the Hoople. Great stuff.
It only took me about a week to figure out how to get it from my computer onto my phone, but I did it. I was pretty proud of myself (much like when a toddler actually learns to get a spoon into his mouth with food still on it).
I like to have a different ringtone for some people, especially the lovely and talented Jess. I thought that since she’s the source of most of the joy in my life (and yes, I AM that romantic. Sorry ladies, I’m taken), Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9* would be the most appropriate (you may be familiar with it as “Ode To Joy”).
Photo from Classicfm.com. I’m also pretty sure that Beethoven looks less grumpy here than I did trying to turn him into a ringtone.
First, I thought, there’s probably an app for that. Apparently there are about 1,000,000,000 apps for that, but after about two hours fumbling around on my phone downloading and deleting and cursing and quitting and trying again, I thought, “Screw it, I’ll just make my own. It can’t be that difficult, right?” Hahahahahahahahahahaha
The first thing (obviously) was to get the Symphony. I’ve got it on cd, but those are all in a box in the attic, and if I recall correctly, my disc got ruined, probably from a combination of beer spilled on it and being dropped on gravel too many times (it’s a long story, but I ruined a lot of cds that way back in the day).
Fortunately, I had mastered downloading music from Itunes years ago. The problem there was finding the right version (there are about 1,000 different versions on Itunes, from different orchestras, composers, etc., and did I mention I might be a little OCD?)
Finally, I settled on the 1968 London Philharmonic version (honestly, I don’t even really know why). I got it downloaded, and thought I had it in the bag.
However, since it’s about an hour-and-a-half long, I thought that might be excessive. Surely, I thought, there’s a way to get just an excerpt (of course it has to be the right excerpt).
I decided I needed an audio editor (I may have one on the computer already, but damned if I could figure it out). Fortunately, I have also mastered the Googling. I googled “free audio editor”, and got waaaaaay too many links.
After another couple hours of self-torture, I finally decided on one and successfully downloaded it. I figured out how to copy the right track into the program, and I really thought I had it whupped. I was wrong.
At roughly the same time that I realized I had no idea how to work the program, I also discovered that neither the program nor the website had any kind of instructions, FAQ’s, or anything helpful (and I picked this one because all the reviews from computer wonks said it was sooooooo easy to use. Freakin’ computer wonks).
By the way, don’t you love it when writers think that EVERY aspect of their activities are so fascinating that that they must be documented in excruciating detail? I don’t know if every writer has an inner narcissist fighting to get out, but I’m pretty sure this one does. My apologies.
Anyhoo, the remaining details are (fortunately for you) pretty fuzzy, even to me. I ended up fumbling around and ended up with about a dozen versions of the same edit, in various formats. I just couldn’t manage to move any of them onto my phone.
I finally managed to get one onto it, and my phone promptly told me it was an “unsupported” something-or-other. So, it was back to the drawing board. I continued to try and re-try every one of them, but my computer would just make a dinging noise and nothing would happen.
Eventually, I noticed that I was accessing them through something Windows File Explorer calls “quick access”. Now I don’t know what that is (and I’ll bet you don’t either!), but it turns out you can’t copy things from whatever it is, even though it shows up as an option.
I tried it again, after finding the actual folder they were in and, after roughly three days of struggle, it finally worked. So now, I’ll know which calls I actually need to answer. Also, you don’t want to know what your ringtone is – you know who you are.
*by the way, this link is to the 1989 Berlin Freedom Concert, performed on Christmas day, and conducted by the great Leonard Bernstein. It was performed to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall, and Bernstein changed the word “joy” in the singing part to “freedom”. It’s performed beautifully, and worth the time just to watch Bernstein. He conducted it completely from memory, without any sheet music. The look on his face is a thing of beauty. It was the last time he would ever conduct this symphony.
Some days, you just know going in, that it’s going to be a shitty day. Take the other day for example; I woke up when the alarm went off – my least favorite way to wake up, or at least least favorite normal way to wake up (waking up to being swallowed alive by a giant anaconda for example, would be worse, but extremely abnormal). Anyway, I get up, stagger through the canine obstacle course that is our bedroom, and head to the bathroom to find the lid on the toilet down (almost always a harbinger of impending doom).
“Huh,” I thought, with my cloudy, morning-brain, “I wonder why Jess put that down?” I figured it was to keep the dogs from drinking out of the toilet.
It wasn’t.
It turned out that my wife, the lovely-but-tragically-digestively-challenged Jess was running late for work when the previous night’s meatloaf hit her. I blame myself of course, after all, it was me who made it, and me who got careless with the garlic powder (I like garlic, sometimes a little too much). It was a new container, and instead of opening the shaker side of the lid, I accidentally opened the spoon side of the lid and gave it a hearty shake. I estimate that I dumped at least a quarter to half-cup of garlic powder into the meatloaf, hence the ensuing (and ongoing) digestive tragedy.
At any rate, not to be too indelicate, our pipes were apparently not up to the challenge, and since the diligent, and extremely time-conscious Jess was (conveniently?) running late, she simply had no choice but to leave me a fabulous parting gift. It was a disappointing and unpleasant start to the day.
Well, I got that taken care of, as well as my own ablutions (oh, don’t act so grossed out, you do the same thing), and got all the dogs outside to do their thing, had my morning smoke, got all the dogs back inside, managed to survive the three-ring-circus that is feeding time at Casa del Moon, and headed for the den to do some writing. My entry to the den was blocked, however, by the dog gate (Molly the old Golden Retriever sleeps loose in the den, and Mattie the young, crazy Jack Russel/Beagle mix sleeps in a kennel in there). Normally, the gate is only shut at night, to keep Molly from wandering.
“Huh,” I thought, “I wonder why Jess latched that gate?” I figured it was just an accident, one of those things you just do without thinking, because you’re busy thinking about other things.
It wasn’t.
It turned out that Molly had experienced a tragic digestive crisis of her own overnight. Three times (apparently what the lovely and resourceful Jess was thinking about was how glad she was that she was running late for work). For more info on why Jess latched the gate, see my post, My Dog Eats Poo: A Disgusting Allegorical Tale. ‘Nuff said on that.
So, my morning was pretty much eaten up by cleaning . . . well, let’s just leave it at that.
To top it all off, I had to go to work.
I don’t like going to work. I’ve been doing it all my life, and I’ve never liked it. That’s why I want to be a writer-it’s so much more fun. Sadly-so far at least-it’s also far less lucrative, so I get the dogs all squared away, saddle up, and head to work.
Now don’t get me wrong, I like this job better than any other job I’ve ever had. I like helping people to improve their writing skills, especially when they really want to improve. Unfortunately, this particular day’s students didn’t really seem to want to improve, they just wanted me to tell them what to write so they could pass their classes. This always puts me in a bad mood.
Then a kid comes in. While one of my colleagues is reading his paper, this kid is blathering on about one of his classes which focused (in part) on the Civil War, and he didn’t feel that the other side (the side he identified with) was fairly represented. Then, he made the mistake of asking me what I thought.
I knew where he was coming from: when I was a kid, most of my heroes were Confederates (my family also has southern roots). Let’s face it-the South had all the cool guys: Robert E. Lee, J.E.B. Stuart, Stonewall Jackson, Mosby’s Rangers, etc. What did the Union have? A bunch of incompetents, an alcoholic, and a couple of deeply devoted arsonists. But then, I told him, I read some books, a whole bunch of books, in fact, and had come to the conclusion that better men never fought and/or died for worse cause, i.e. the right to own another human being as property.
He seemed to take offense to that, pointing out that the Civil War wasn’t about slavery, it was about state’s rights.
I pointed out to him that the only state’s right the South was specifically interested in, the only one that couldn’t have been settled peaceably was the right to own slaves. If you doubt me, and I’m sure some of you do, here’s a link to the Declarations of Secession of Virginia, Texas, Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina. As far as I can tell, the other nine states never really mentioned any specific reasons (other than hating Lincoln, and/or perceived unfair treatment) for seceding. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.
He, of course, countered with that old chestnut, “But most confederates didn’t even own slaves!” True enough, but, those guys were talked into war by the guys who did own slaves.
He then asked if I thought all people who fly the Confederate Flag now are racists. I told him no, I didn’t think that, but, I asked him, what would you think of me if I was flying a Nazi flag over my house, not because I was a racist, but because I was proud of my German heritage and had ancestors that fought for Germany? He didn’t seem to have an answer for this.
All this time, I was getting more and more aggravated. I have a pretty low tolerance for stupidity, and virtually no tolerance at all for willful stupidity, and this kid was pretty much the poster child for it.
It got quiet for a while, and then he asked me what I thought about the cool kids club. I didn’t know what that was, until he said it’s spelled with all K’s. I told him I wasn’t a fan.
He didn’t say anything, so I waited. And waited. And waited some more. Finally, I asked him what he thought about the KKK. He was really quick to point out that he wasn’t in favor of hurting anybody, and he really liked black people, in fact, he had a lot of black friends, but there were some things that he did like about the KKK. I asked him what those were, and he hemmed and hawed around for quite a while, just um-ing, and well-ing, etc.
I finally asked him if he was having trouble thinking of something good to say about them that wouldn’t make him sound like a racist, and he just laughed, and said something about racism being pretty much over in the good ol’ USA.
By this time, my head was about to explode, and of course, my mouth started moving faster than my brain. I told him that, of course, he could say that, he was safe. He asked me what I meant by that.
It’s important to understand, at this point, that we were not alone. There were several others present, all young white men, including one gay kid.
I said, “I mean you’re safe. I’m the safest person in this room. I’m white, middle-aged, at least marginally middle-class, and married. At this point, I am pretty much my only natural predator. You guys are less safe than me, because you’re younger, and more likely to get yourself into stupid, potentially life-threatening situations, a stage I’ve already survived. You guys are safer than Xxxxx.”
Xxxxx asked why they were safer than him, and I said, “Because you’re gay.”
This came as a complete surprise to Xxxxx, who pointed out that no, as a matter of fact, he was not gay.
Talk about derailing your own argument. Here I was, trying to point out that there are segments of our society that live their lives at considerably more risk than others, and that for those who are at virtually no risk to deny the evils of racism, xenophobia, homophobia, sexism, etc., that plague large portions of our society is, quite simply, deluded and disingenuous bullshit, and instead of making my point, I merely succeeded in making myself look (or at least feel) like the biggest asshole in the room.
Xxxxx wanted to know why I thought he was gay, and all I could think of was that I just thought he was. I had of course launched into that compulsively and diarrheatically vocal apology mode which usually only makes things worse, and makes you look like an even bigger asshole than if you’d just said, “I’m sorry” and shut the hell up.
I make no defense for myself. Xxxxx is a really nice kid. He’s very soft- and well-spoken, and speaks proper english, is always neatly and tidily dressed, doesn’t curse, doesn’t talk about women, and has good posture. Apparently, to my hunched, slouching, profane, vulgar, only conditionally showered, torn-T-shirt and worn-out jeans and shoes-wearing mind, that all adds up to gay. I made assumptions about him, based on purely circumstantial evidence, and, in a twisted kind of way, I supposed I proved my point, just not the way I expected to.
Hell, for all I know, that other kid, the stupid one, probably does have a lot of black friends.
All I know for sure is that I should have stayed in bed.
And, of course, that I, and most likely most of you too, have a lot farther to go on a personal level toward fixing the problems our society faces.
Warning: the following post contains innuendo, double entendre, tasteless humor, and disco music references. Proceed at your own risk.
I often wonder how I got so lucky with my wife, the exceptional and clearly-out-of-my-league Jess. Not so much about how I got her (I really believe that was God’s doing, with an assist from alcohol), but how we’ve managed to stay so happy 22 years into it. I mean, let’s face it: I was no prize when we got married, and now, I’m even less so, and even though the still lovely and long-suffering Jess remains my dream girl, the years of living with me have taken a toll on her.
We no longer do nearly as much of the things that we used to do constantly. We don’t drink much anymore, although really that’s no great loss. We don’t travel much due to a lack of funds and abundance of dogs, as well as the fact that we both really like it right here. What we used to refer to as the “carnal Olympics” has slowly shifted from a daily occurrence to a weekly to a “Hey, we oughta do that again before we forget how” basis (although we both spend a lot of time reflecting fondly on all of the gold and silver medals we’ve accrued over the years). It kind of hurts to have to admit that we’ve become boring, middle-aged adults.
Still the most beautiful woman in the world
Correction: we’ve become happy, boring, middle-aged adults, and I think the key is laughter. We laugh a lot. We laugh when times are good, but we also laugh also as much when times are bad. I’ve always been able to make her laugh (and yes, laughing at me counts), and I’ve always thought she is one of the most genuinely funny women on earth. It also helps that the one aspect of our lives and personalities that hasn’t matured at all is our senses of humor.
I’ll give you an example: A couple of weeks ago, we were getting mom’s house ready for a renter. Now this is the house that we all grew up in, and it was killing me to think of renting it, but I couldn’t afford to leave it empty. So there we were, cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, and I was getting more and more depressed the whole time. We had decided that we needed to re-caulk the tub and shower, so I was trying to get rid of the old caulking. If you’ve ever done that, you know it’s no easy task. Lots of rubbing and scraping, rubbing and scraping.
I find that often, when doing a mindlessly repetitive job, my mind tends to wander. I get into a rhythm, and my subconscious will drag some old song up out of the vaults of my memory. So it was that I found myself scrape, scrape, scraping away, with the chorus from K.C. and the Sunshine Band’s disco classic, “Shake Your Booty” running on an endless loop in my head. As if that wasn’t bad enough (have you ever noticed, when this happens, it’s never a good song, or even one you can remember completely?), my subconscious kicked into overdrive, and “shake, shake, shake . . . shake, shake, shake . . . shake your booooo-tayyyy! shake your booooo-tayyyy!” became “scrape, scrape, scrape . . . scrape, scrape, scrape . . . scrape your caulk off! scrape your caulk off!” complete with the horn part.
Not a pleasant thing to have running through your mind over and over again, but I have to admit that, while distressing, the sheer stupidity of it did kind of cheer me up. When we took a smoke break, I told Jess about it, and she thought it was pretty funny. Then we sang a couple of choruses, just trying to get it out of our heads. It didn’t work, but we laughed and laughed. That was it for the rest of the day. Every time she’d come check on me, she’d ask, “Get your caulk all scraped off yet?” and I’d stretch my aching back and say, “No, and all this caulk scraping is getting pretty painful,” and we’d laugh some more. When we’d take a break (and I’ve found that frequent breaks are a key to making a bad job last a really long time), it was because I needed a break from scraping my caulk. When it was time to go back to work, she’d tell me, “You’re not gonna get your caulk scraped off sitting here,” and we’d laugh again.
I suggested, at one point, that perhaps she’d like a turn at scraping the caulk off, but she seemed to feel quite strongly that it was my caulk, and if anybody was going to scrape it off, it was going to be me. She also reminded me that I prefer it when she sticks to caulk application. I conceded the point, and we laughed some more. It really brightened up my whole day. In fact, we got about two or three day’s worth of caulk jokes out of that. It’s a good sign, when the jokes outlast the task.
That, I think, is really the secret to our success. We make each other laugh. A lot. About everything. There is very little that is off-limits. We both recognize our individual and collective shortcomings as sources of humor, and frequently, the more embarrassing the better.
Nothing makes us laugh harder than when we’re outside, having a smoke, or playing with the dogs, and one of us gets that shocked, deer-in-the-headlights look, and full-body clench that signals a sudden, impending digestive disaster (you other middle-agers know what I’m talking about). Of course, when that happens, only one of us is laughing; the other is too busy trying to hurry to the bathroom without actually moving anything between the neck and the knees (it’s funny to them too, but, in a digestive crisis, seal integrity is the paramount concern). For that one, the laughs come later, either from relief or embarrassment.
We spend a lot of time laughing about things that happened years, or even decades, ago; like the fart-heard-round-the-world at Stonehenge, or the time I got her to zap herself with an electric fence (I told you I’m no prize), or the time she gave me a concussion “accidentally” slamming a hatch lid on my head, or the time we both fell through the floor when replacing her mom’s living room floor (it’s really kind of a wonder we’re still alive).
Trying to outrun the camera timer. That hill was a lot steeper than it looks
We laugh about the way she used to mispronounce zealot (zeelot), or the time I absent-mindedly thought a bunch of calves in a field were full-grown miniature cows (“Why would anybody bother raising those? You’re not gonna get much meat.”). Yes, we are frequently idiots, but we’re happy idiots. And that’s the important thing. Much more important than dignity, or pride, or success, or financial security (thank God, because we’re usually running pretty short on all those).
The best woman in the world, and her biggest shortcoming
I really think that, if you want a good relationship, find someone who makes you laugh, and thinks you’re funny too.
P.S. Just in case you don’t have that stupid song running through your head, here’s a link: K.C. and the Sunshine Band, “Shake Your Booty” . It’s also funny how easy it would be to make the entire song fit caulk-scraping. Also, now that would make a great video. Enjoy!
This Saturday is June 4th. It marks the 22nd anniversary of my marriage to the lovely and all-round-best-woman-on-earth, Jess, and the beginning of the 23rd year of her life sentence. Through it all, she has never complained, never whined, never asked for anything other than my love (and a new dog every once in a while). She has stood by me through thick and thin (okay, I was never really thin, but compared to now . . .). I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, if it weren’t for her, I’d either be dead or in prison by now. I honestly believe she was sent to me by God, who was apparently tired of having to spend so much time keeping my stupid ass alive.
Jess and her boy Harry
She was been there for me through years of a sort of slow-motion nervous breakdown. She’s been there for my kids. She’s been there for my family. She has supported me, advised me wisely, and never hesitated to let me know when I’ve gotten out of control. In fact, she’s the only one who’s ever been able to stop me, once I start to spin. Even though she has often joked that she has absolutely no mothering instinct at all, she’s the most nurturing person I know. She used to make fun of me for giving away pictures to sad-sack kids at baseball tournaments, when the kid didn’t have the money, but she’s just as soft a touch.
I remember the first time I saw her, it was all I could do to keep from climbing through her window to introduce myself. She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Fortunately, for once, I showed some restraint, and it paid off. Of course, I pursued her relentlessly; I had to – she wasn’t playing hard-to-get, she really, really didn’t want to be got, at least not by me. She was the first woman I ever really tried to impress, and I’ve got to say, I failed miserably.
Even though I did completely fail to impress her, I did manage to make her laugh, and for once a woman was laughing with me and not at me (actually, it was, and still is, a little of both), but at least she was laughing. We’re still laughing together. We both intentionally say and do stupid things just to make the other laugh. She is my best friend, and I’m hers. I honestly believe that the two of us could live completely isolated from everyone else, and we’d be fine, as long as we had each other.
Jess and I laughing like idiots. She’s still got the most beautiful smile in the world.
She’s still the most beautiful woman in the world to me, even if 22 years of living with me have taken a toll on her. I wouldn’t trade one night, or even an afternoon, with her for a month with Scarlett Johansson (which I’m sure will be a relief to both of them), or anyone else. My biggest fear in life is letting her down.
I first proposed to her in the middle of the night, over the phone from Italy, phenomenally drunk (me, not her). She was very understanding and told me to ask her again when I was sober. The next day, when I got up, I called her and asked her to marry me again. I think she was only surprised that I remembered I’d asked her. She told me to ask her again when I got home (she is many things, but one thing she’s never been is easy).
The third time proved to be the charm, and she said yes. We decided to get married in the base chapel, so we had to go to the Chaplain for counseling. I think it was supposed to be 5 or even 6 sessions. I was so angry after the first session (with the Chaplain, not Jess), that I was ready to just forget about a church wedding and go to the Justice of the Peace, or whatever it is they’ve got in England. Jess talked me down eventually, because she wanted a church wedding. After the second session, Jess was so angry (again, at the Chaplain, not me) she was ready to go to the J.P. Eventually I got her talked down, mostly because I was pretty sure that if we didn’t get married in a church, we’d both regret it. The third session began with the Chaplain telling us that we might as well just set a date and skip the rest of the sessions, because we were obviously determined to go through with it, no matter how big a mistake he thought we were making. That’s a confidence builder, I gotta say.
The lovely and talented Jess. The strongest woman I know.
When we went to get the marriage licence, they asked if I’d ever been married before. I said I had, so they checked the divorce box. They asked her the same thing, and she said no. They asked her age. She told them she was 25. The woman nodded and said, “Ah, spinster.” I’m not kidding. They actually checked the box for spinster. Now that I think of it, Jess’ life has really been just an unending string of indignities since she met me.
Jess and I immediately after one of those rare occasions that she was the embarrassing one
I know that no marriage is perfect, and that every couple has rough times, but I honestly don’t ever recall us being unhappy. Sure, there have been tough times, but I’ve never felt anything less than overwhelming love for her, and never felt like her love for me was in question. Everything that’s ever come up, we’ve faced together, and we’ve never let anything come between us. She’s always been there for me, and I’ve tried to always be there for her.
If it sounds like I’m bragging, it’s because I am, about her, not about myself. I’m a pain in the ass, and I know it. She has always been the rock in our relationship, the one person I can always count on, and I’ve tried to be the same for her. The good times we’ve shared are too numerous to count, and the bad times too inconsequential to remember. I love her just as much today as the day we were married. I can’t even imagine my life without her, and I thank God for her every day.
To finish off this wildly inadequate tribute to the love of my life, I’ll add an essay I wrote for my prose class:
Finding My Happy Place
There are some places, some things in the world that demand you stop; stop rushing to the next place, stop worrying about the bills, stop stressing about everything, and just be there; the north rim of the Grand Canyon, the badlands of South Dakota, the night sky over the Indian Ocean or the Arizona desert, Loch Lomond and Glen Coe in Scotland, just to name a few. They are usually lonely places, the kind of place that makes you feel alone, even with a group, and yet strangely not alone, like you’re suddenly intimately connected to something infinitely bigger, wiser, stronger, and more kind and loving than you’re really equipped to understand. They sneak up on you when you least expect them, and become a part of you, forever.
It is June, 1994, and my wife Jess and I are on our honeymoon, touring around Ireland in her little Mazda pick-up truck. We’re doing all the usual touristy things; China and crystal shopping in Waterford, taking distillery tours, exploring the beautiful gardens and ruins of Blarney Castle (as well as standing in line to kiss the Blarney Stone, and, of course, buying the pictures), and drinking gallons of Guinness and whiskey at pubs crowded with tourists just like us. It is the best time of our lives (so far, anyway). We are young, healthy, and wildly in love.
As we drive out along the Dingle Peninsula, on the west coast, I’m in a kind of photographic frenzy; it is some of the most beautiful country I’ve ever seen. I’m like a starving man at a buffet, so intent on getting it all that I can’t take the time to really appreciate any of it fully.
At every wide spot in the road, I tell her, “Ooh, ooh, pull over baby, pull over!” like a three-year-old begging his mommy for candy in a grocery store checkout line.
“We just pulled over.”
“Well pull over again! We may never see this again!”
“It’s the same thing you just took a picture of.”
“Yeah, but it looks different from here. Besides, you’re driving, you’ll never see this if I don’t get a picture.”
“Okay, fine,” and she laughs at me for being an idiot, and at herself for indulging me, and pulls over and waits for me to jump out and walk back to where I’d originally asked her to pull over. Thankfully, she is driving very slowly, so I don’t have to walk far.
I take several pictures, using several different lenses and shutter speeds, then climb back in the truck and we pull back onto the road. Of course, within a quarter-mile, “Ooh, ooh, ooh, honey pull over . . .” and the whole thing starts again. Sometimes I win, sometimes she does, but really, we both win every time.
As we stutter through the countryside and up into the mountains, the road becomes narrower and narrower, with hairpin turns that force us to slow down even more and stop rubbernecking. On the east side of Conor Pass, there is a small car park with a beautiful view of the valley below. We stop and both get out to look. We have to be careful, as there isn’t a lot of room. If we’re not careful, we’ll find ourselves standing in the middle of the road. Behind us is a steep, boulder-strewn slope that looks to flatten out higher up. We climb up that slope, climbing from rock to rock, until we can peek over the top, and I feel God put his hand on my shoulder and say, “Look. Look what I made for you.” I am awestruck.
The plateau is a large bowl, holding a small lake of crystal-clear water like a beautiful secret. There are no signs down below, telling of its presence. It is a surprise reserved for only those adventuresome enough to climb this slope out of curiosity, or the desire for a better view of the valley below. And what a view it is; the broad valley stretched out below, lush and green, the kind of green you only get in Ireland, crisscrossed by ancient stone walls, holding at least three lakes, and bounded by more mountains, stretching off to the Atlantic Ocean in the distance. The valley is even more gentle and pastoral in contrast to the boulder-strewn ruggedness of the highlands we stand on. We sit on a rock by that little lake for some time, not even talking, just happy to be here in this place together. Jess takes her shoes off and soaks her feet for a bit. There may be other people up here, in fact, there probably are, but, in this place, they are reduced to mere wraiths, flitting on the edge of our consciousness, barely registering to us, and I’m sure we’re the same to them. I don’t remember anything but Jess and I, and the lake, and the countryside. We have never just been anywhere, as completely as we are here. We sit here, unwilling to break the spell, time seeming to stand as still as ourselves.
Sadly, time is not standing still after all. The sky has become overcast, the clouds are lowering, and we still have to get over the top of the pass, now shrouded in the clouds. As we work our way down the slope, I pause to take a picture of the valley below. The sunlight has found a hole in the clouds, and a single beam shoots through, illuminating the lakes in the now shadowed valley. That picture hangs on the wall in our kitchen, and I pass it dozens of times a day, almost always pausing to look at it and remember that day.
On the way down the slope, we happen upon a small, actually tiny, waterfall. Jess sits down on a rock next to it, and I take her picture. I will use that picture as a bookmark for years. It’s probably still in one of my books somewhere, and I’ll find it again someday. In the picture, she looks the way I still see her, beautiful and happy, with a gorgeous Mary Tyler Moore smile that never fails to make my heart beat a little harder.
We make it over the pass without a problem, and on down the mountain to the village of Dingle, a lovely little town with live traditional Irish music in nearly every pub. The next day, we take a dolphin-watching boat ride, along with dozens of other tourists, in the harbor, and drive the tourist-burdened road around the Slea Head loop, visit prehistoric forts and miles of beautiful coastline, but after Conor Pass, they all feel a little touristy and anti-climactic. On our way out of Dingle, we stop at Conor Pass once again, and feel the same magic as before.
We follow that up with a visit to the Cliffs of Moher, and a drive through the Burren. The Cliffs of Moher bring much the same feeling as Conor Pass, but it is too crowded, and just too immense. Our attention is split between the cliffs, and the tourists crawling up to the edge, wondering which one is going to fall off first. The Burren, with its weird, other-worldly landscape and prehistoric dolmen, or tombs, also brings those feelings, but it is so unsettlingly strange, and almost sinister, that it is just a bit like seeing what happens when God gets angry. Impressive and wonderful, yes, but also ominous and haunting. If the Cliffs of Moher are a big, flashy gift to the world and the Burren is a warning glance from a stern parent, then Conor Pass is a gentle, warm, and loving hug from your daddy.
Jess at Pedlar’s Lake, at the top of Conor Pass, in 2013
We will return at least twice after this first trip, once around our tenth anniversary, and then again for our twentieth. Both times we have either friends or family with us, and it affects them all the same way. The last time, we find a girl skinny-dipping while her boyfriend sits on the shore watching. It’s funny and a little bit awkward, but it is also fitting; after all, what could be more appropriate in that rugged Eden than a pretty nymph unselfconsciously enjoying, and being a part of, all that beauty? At least, in my mind she is pretty; we politely keep our distance. To tell the truth, I envy them. Jess and I are too conventional, too inhibited to allow ourselves that kind of freedom, that kind of joy, and to be honest, the sight of me skinny-dipping would certainly mar the sense of wonder for any other passers-by, so it’s probably just as well.
The wonderful thing about these lonely places is that, once you’ve been there, they become a part of you. All you have to do to visit them again is think about them, and you’re there again, feeling their magic for the first time, again, and again, and again. They become your “happy place”.
On our second trip, I take a new picture of Jess by that little waterfall, to replace the bookmark one. In it, she’s ten years older, ten years heavier, but her smile is just as bright and joyful as it is on our honeymoon. Although the years of living with me have taken a visible toll on her, she is just as beautiful as the day I met her. She has a magic of her own that affects me the same way Conor Pass does. Every time I look at her, it’s as if God lays his hand on my shoulder and says, “Look. Look at what I made for you.” Conor Pass may be our happy place, but Jess is mine.
It’s Monday Morning!!!!! Yaaaaay!!!!! Okay, honestly, I feel like a lot of you are not sharing my enthusiasm. I don’t blame you, it’s not your fault. You’re probably having a regular Monday like I usually have: you wake up tired, drag yourself out of bed, stumble through your ablutions, probably cut yourself shaving, remember that you forgot to do laundry over the weekend, so now you’re sniffing your way through the pile of last week’s work clothes, trying to find the least wrinkled and most olfactorily acceptable ones (because you have just enough work clothes for 1 week). Finally ready, you stumble off, bracing yourself for the slings and arrows of outrageous stupidity that you know you’ll have to face throughout the day at your soul-crushing job.
I know your pain. That’s usually how it is for me. In fact, that’s how I thought today was going to be: just another freakishly horrible start to another run-of-the-mill week. My wife, the hard-working and sunnily optimistic Jess, woke me up at 6 a.m., in the morning! Let’s face it: That’s a terrible way to start any day, much less a Monday, and, just 6 hours into the new week, my spring was already sprung. Instead of springing out of bed, I oooooozed out, like chubby lava reluctant to leave it’s nice, warm, comfy volcano.
I was even less enthusiastic about this Monday morning than usual, because I had to take a math test. Well, technically, I didn’t have to take it until next Sunday, but I am trying to get ahead in my math class. You see, I suck at math. When I went back to school, I had to take a math placement test. The test confirmed what I had always known; I am extraordinarily mathematically incompetent. I thought, “No big deal, I’m going to school to study English.” Ah, those were the days . . . I was young(er) . . . I was naive . . . I was wrong . . . so very, very wrong. It turns out that, even if you’re studying English, you still have to take math and science classes and foreign language classes.
Now, two and a half years later, I’ve bluffed my way through all of them – Environmental Science, Geology, and not one, but two, semesters of Spanish, getting A’s in all of them (which, quite frankly, gives me cause for concern regarding the quality of the education I’m getting). And when I say bluffed, I do mean bluffed. I’m pretty sure that I now speak less Spanish than I did at the start of the first semester, all I learned from Environmental Science is that we’re killing the planet in a multitude of ways, but that’s okay, because in Geology, I learned that the planet is trying to kill us in a number of ways, most of which involve lava and rocks.
That just leaves math; my old nemesis. My dad was amazing at math. He could do stuff in his head that I still can’t do, even with a calculator. Fractions, decimals, algebra, all that stuff, he seemed to be just naturally good at it. Sadly, the math gene apparently skips a generation, at least in the males. My sister is an accountant, so she is, presumably, pretty good at it, but neither I nor my brothers could do simple addition without a calculator. What can I say? We’re word guys.
Anyway, to make a long story truly endless, I’ve been working very hard to get ahead in math because I know that I suck at it. Also, because this is no ordinary math class. It’s called “Math for the Humanities”, and, as explained to me by numerous advisers, it’s a math class designed for mathematically-deficient English and History majors like me, to give us the math credits we need to graduate without over-taxing our math-challenged little minds. THEY LIED!!!!! I’ve had to spend the last two weeks converting Babylonian numbers, Mayan numbers, even Egyptian numbers into Hindu-Arabic (which is apparently what our numbers are called) numbers, and vice-versa. Ironically, the Egyptian numbers are the easiest, and they’re not even numbers, they’re pictures. A typical Egyptian number looks like: fish fish fish squiggly thing squiggly thing curleque curleque curleque hooky thing stick stick stick, but at least they give you a chart.
There’s also multiplying, dividing, adding, and subtracting in bases other than 10. I’m not going to even try to explain what that means (to be honest, I’m not even sure what it means, much less why it’s important to know how to do it). In high school, I was one of those kids who was always asking, “Why do I have to learn this? When am I ever going to need this?”, which is fairly common, even today. However, now, I’m 50 years old, and I know, excuse me, I KNOW I’m never going to need to do any of this!!!
Why else would I be an English major? If I was any good at math or science, I’d be studying them. There’s actual money to be made in math and science. My sister asked me what I’d be qualified to do after graduating with an English degree, and I told her, quite truthfully, “Be a stripper.” Then my wife, the very funny and needlessly cruel Jess, chimed in with, “Honey, you’re not qualified to do that either.”
So anyway, I’ve been struggling with this math stuff for two weeks now. I sit here at the computer, straining my brain, cursing at the computer, and talking myself through these math problems: “Okay . . . so 8 x 6 is 42 . . . ” while the much more mathematically capable Jess sits in the living room watching Pit Bulls and Parolee’s shouting, “No it’s not!” and giggling. Finally, last week, after going through the practice exercises for four hours, I felt like I was ready to take the test. I clicked on it (the whole class is on-line), and the computer said I couldn’t open the test until February 1st.
You probably heard me screaming.
So, this morning, February 1st, I ooooozed out of bed, took care of the critters, and sat down to take the test. I thought about going through the practice exercises again, and then realized that I just don’t care enough. So I clicked the thing, and took the test . . .
. . . And kicked it’s ass! (cue fanfare) That’s right! I killed it! I beat that thing like a rented mule! I showed it who’s boss! I got . . . wait for it . . . an 86%!!!!! Okay, I’ll wait a moment for you to stop laughing.
There, finished? No?
How about now?
Okay, that’s enough. Listen, 86% might not seem like much to crow about, but for me, it’s like . . . well, it’s like me almost qualifying to be an Olympic gymnast (those of you who know me and have heard me straining to tie my shoes even back when I was thin will know how surprising that would be).
What, you thought I was kidding about how badly I suck at math? If you’re a regular follower of this blog, then you know that I am, if anything, a master of the understatement, and that my humility is outshone only by my absolute honesty.
Anyway, not only did I experience an absolute and unqualified triumph over that horrible test, I also managed to get a load of laundry done, peruse the Facebook a little bit, fold and put away the laundry, and write this little gem. Not bad for a Monday morning. Of course, it’s only 11 a.m., and I still have to go to class, but I’m feeling uncharacteristically optimistic today.
Merry Christmas everybody! Right now, I’m sitting here feeling sorry for anybody who isn’t me. Last night, in an effort to minimize the cooking over the next couple of days, I whipped up another huge batch of Slopbucket; arguably the greatest and deadliest meal known to man (the recipe is in another post entitled “Adventures of a House-Husband: Home Cooking Edition”). It was, in a word, AWESOME!!!!! That knocking you heard last night? That was the sound of my arteries (and possibly my colon as well: there’s a LOT of Velveeta in this stuff), slamming shut and reverberating around the world. That weird and ominous thundery yet kinda gurgly noise you heard this morning? It was probably just weird and ominous gurgly thunder (but there are a LOT of peppers and chili seasoning in this stuff too).
Even more awesome is the fact that there’s enough left over for supper tonight, and it just gets better with age, like wine, whisky, and my wife, the lovely and gustatorily adventurous Jess (although she’s still just 27, as far as I’m concerned). I haven’t looked forward to supper this much since . . . well, last night, I guess. Still, I’m really looking forward to it. A lot. You might want to sleep with your earplugs in though. But enough about that.
I decided to try something different this year; cooking dessert stuff. Every year, my wife, the ever-more-awesome and eternally lovely Jess, makes Christmas candy, primarily Buckeyes, Peanut Clusters, and what she calls Moose Balls (don’t knock ’em ’til you try ’em). They’re basically Buckeyes, only instead of peanut butter, it’s cream cheese and crushed Oreo cookies rolled into balls and dipped in chocolate. They’re awesome, and I love ’em, but I got to thinking that she might enjoy something new. Plus people keep posting videos of how to make all this stuff on the Facebook, and it looks so simple. Seriously, watch the videos: it’s almost like the stuff makes itself.
I mean it combines two of my favorite meals; Chocolate and Lasagna. What could go wrong?
And then there was this: Cinnamon Roll French Toast Bake. The sweet-toothed and just plain sweet Jess loves her some Cinnamon Rolls. I figured she’d enjoy this for breakfast Christmas morning (Sorry, I can’t figure out how to link the video, but here’s one to the recipe).
The Chocolate Lasagna looked to be the most complex, so this morning, I started with that. It went pretty well, although the first step was to mix some stuff up and set it aside. I did that, but then it was really kind of unclear as to what to do with it. I also learned that using a mixer is a skill. A skill I do not possess, apparently. Those little whirligigs can really fling the heavy whipping cream. You’d think that something like that would come with some kind of cover, or they’d make mixing bowls with deeper sides, or something.
Fortunately, I had Dude, Mattie, and Molly, a highly efficient and enthusiastic cleanup crew. They had my back. And my chest and legs, as well as the walls, countertops, etc (yeah, it got a little freaky in the ol’ kitchen this morning). Anyway, I got everything mixed up and ready. I put down the first layer of Graham crackers, and started smearing the cream cheese mixture over it. Now in the video, it smeared right along, with no problem at all. Not in my kitchen though. In my kitchen, it was like trying to get rid of snot. That stuff stuck to everything, and wouldn’t spread out at all. I ended up with the Graham crackers piling up and shattering into pieces which I then had to try to put back into something resembling a layer, like a frustrating (but delicious) jigsaw puzzle.
Finally, I referred to the recipe. Yep, I was doing just what it said. Oh wait . . . remember that bowl of stuff I’d mixed up and then set aside? Yeah, neither did I. There was a sentence in the middle of a paragraph that said to “fold” it into the cream cheese mixture. Now, I don’t have any idea how to fold a liquid, so I “dumped” it in, mixed it up, and everything went fine after that. It really makes me wonder about who wrote that recipe though. I mean, you just don’t stick something like that in the middle of a paragraph. There should have been a separate step in there. Were they pressed for space? Were they limited to a certain number of steps? Or, were they just expecting the people who used that recipe to know what they were doing? If that was the case, then they were wrong. Very, very wrong.
At any rate, I got that done and put in the fridge, and tackled the Cinnamon Roll French Toast Bake. Now that one really looked easy. Twenty minutes later, I was still trying to get that first can of cinnamon rolls open. Poppin’ fresh, my ass. They might be fresh, but there was very little poppin’ going on. I’ll admit, I was a little worried. The instructions warned me to make sure I pointed the ends of the can away from myself to prevent injury. Apparently those things are under a lot of pressure. I could not get that thing open to save my life. I even read the instructions. They said, “Push spoon against seam. Unroll tube.” I tried a spoon. No luck. I tried a butter knife. Still no luck. Finally, I resorted to a steak knife. That did the trick. Apparently (happily) the Pillsbury people are laboring under an extreme misunderstanding about how much pressure that cardboard tube contains. There was no pop, not even when I stabbed it with the steak knife. A little oozing maybe, but certainly not the explosive blast I was led to expect. I’ve got to say, I felt a little silly (and kind of disappointed, too).
Anyway, I got it done, and both dishes turned out great. Well, at least they look great. We have yet to try them. Still, I’m feeling pretty optimistic about it.
Of course, Christmas isn’t just about food. It’s also about presents.
Now I don’t know about you, but in my family, traditionally, it’s the grandparents who give the worst gifts. Don’t get me wrong, when I was a kid, I always looked forward to going to my grandparent’s houses for Christmas, but it was because I looked forward to seeing them and all my cousins (plus, my Dad’s folks lived in Florida, and Pa had a huge collection of Louis L’amour and Max Brand westerns). It was not for the gifts, which were normally underwear and socks, or their equivalent.
Note: If you are one of my grandkids, you should stop reading now, unless you’re just into preemptive disappointment. Seriously. Plus, what are you doing reading this blog? I’m pretty sure there’s some at least mildly inappropriate stuff on here. There’s certainly supposed to be. Go read something good for you!!!!!
Now my wife, the cool and generous Jess, and I have always tried to get the grandkids something pretty cool for Christmas, but this year, I decided it was time to go traditional. I do, of course, remember the expected disappointment of opening deceptively festively wrapped packages of underwear and socks, so I decided to go a different route. We got them books. Now, when I was a kid, I would have been thrilled to get books (yes, I was a weird kid), but I’m not sure my grandkids will be equally excited. Still, they’re good books, and they’re smart kids, so who knows?
I got the oldest boy Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. It’s a great book, and full of stuff that he’s almost certainly not going to learn about in school. Plus, he’s gone with me to the Rez a few times now, and I feel like to understand the present situation out there, you have to have some understanding of the history.
I got the oldest girl My Name is Malala, the story of an Afghan girl, Malala Yousafzai, who was shot in the head for insisting on going to school, survived that to face her attackers, and won the Nobel Peace Prize by the age of 16. I figure in a world full of Kardashians, Britney Spears’es (she’s still a thing, right?), Miley Ray Cyrus’es and various other assorted females who seem to be mostly famous to for their ability to vibrate their posteriors faster than the speed of sound, as well as the scarcity of their clothes, she could do worse than learn about a girl only slightly older than herself who stands for something good, does it fearlessly (or maybe in spite of fear), and is trying to make the world a better place. I also figure that if nothing else, it would be good for her to learn that not all Muslims are psychopathically religious headcases who want to kill her.
Jess got the younger boy The Indian in the Cupboard. Hopefully, it will induce a love of reading like Jess and I have. I don’t think it’s particularly heavy or inspirational, but we both started out reading fantastic adventures, and we figure it’s a good way to get him started.
At the very least, it should be less disappointing than socks and underwear.
Of course, gifts aren’t even what Christmas is really about, they’re just symbolic.
The Real Meaning of Christmas
If you really want to know what Christmas is all about, you’re looking in the wrong place. This is a silly place (mostly), for silly ramblings. The real meaning of Christmas is beautiful, and deadly serious. Look around you. All those people of different races, creeds, colors, lifestyles, etc.? They’re what Christmas is all about. They’re why He came. Well, them, and you, and me (that’s what I believe. You, of course, are welcome to believe what you believe as well). If you need more information than that, go to church tonight.
At any rate, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy Hanukkah, and Happy Kwanzaa to all.
The fall semester is over, finally. I’ve been looking forward to this forever (at least that’s how it feels). So yesterday, I decided to tackle a job I’ve been putting off; building sideboards for my truck. I need them, not so much for myself, as for hauling a load of clothes and other donations out to Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. I’ve gotta say, I haven’t been looking forward to it, either building the sideboards or the long, long drive to S. Dakota the week before Christmas. On the other hand, at least I’ve got the time to do it. So I bit the bullet and got stuck into it. First, I had to take the stainless steel rail things off of my truck in order to get to the pockets for the sideboards. I thought, you know, how bad can that be? Four bolts and four screws, right? No big deal, ten, fifteen minutes, and I’d be set. Hahahahahahahahahah. Rust is some pretty incredible stuff.
Two hours later, I finally got the last bolt loose. I strained what muscles I have left in my arms and shoulders getting them off, but I did it. Mission accomplished! I’m still a man who can do stuff! Then of course, it was time to go to Lowe’s to get the plywood and hardware. I was extremely careful to make sure I got everything I needed. You guys know what I mean. None of us have ever managed to complete a project with less than two, and usually at least three or four, trips to the store. Well this time was going to be different! I was going to achieve the holy grail of modern American masculinity: I was going to come home with everything I needed to build those sideboards in one trip. I went over and over the plan in my head (because lists are for sissies, right guys?). I even moseyed up and down the aisles, browsing, just in case I noticed something I might need. Finally, I realized I really did have everything. I was going to be the first guy to ever accomplish this. I was gonna be a legend! People were going to point me out on the street to their sons and say, in a hushed and reverent voice, “Look, it’s HIM! He’s the ONE!” They were going to go bed at night, praying that their sons would grow up to be as manly as me.
I got home and got started building. Everything was going great, even better than I expected. I had to cut down the 2×4’s to fit the pockets of the truck – my cuts were perfect. They fit like a glove. It was all going so well. Then I hit a snag; the eyebolts I had bought were just a little bit too short. Okay, disappointing, but at least I’d remembered to buy them. Not only that, but I’d made sure to buy them the same size as the carriage bolts I was using, so I could go ahead and finish building them, and just stop off at Lowe’s the next time I was in the neighborhood and pick up longer eyebolts and just switch them out. I mean stopping by Lowe’s is not the same as having to make a special trip, right? Okay, so there might be a little less awe and reverence in those guy’s voices as they point me out to their kids, maybe I wouldn’t make the cover of American Manly Man magazine, but what the heck, right? As far as I was concerned, it still counts.
Then, out of the blue, disaster struck: I’d been so careful to make sure I had the right number of bolts, fender washers, lock washers. How did I manage to forget nuts? That’s just stupid. Who forgets nuts? My delusions of grandeur came crashing down around my ears. I was just an ordinary guy after all (and don’t say I told you so; especially you guys. You know you think the same thing every time you go to Lowe’s when you start a project).
It was all downhill after that. I managed to scrounge enough nuts by raiding my brother-in-law’s garage (thanks Ron!) to get one sideboard built. Then came the final blow; I couldn’t get the sideboard off the truck. When I was a kid, we had heavier sideboards than these, and I could just pop them out by myself no problem. Well not anymore. I fought and fought, but couldn’t get them out. Too short, too out of shape, too weak, too pitiful. Guys were going to be pointing me out to their sons with snickers, “Look, it’s HIM, heheheheh. He’s the ONE, hahahaha.” I felt so ashamed.
I had to wait until my wife, the lovely and tall Jess, came home from work so she could help me. My humiliation was complete.
Today wasn’t shaping up to be much better. When I got up, I was in fairly excruciating pain. Apparently, I strained every muscle I have, trying to get that stupid sideboard out. Everything hurts. I’m moving even more stiffly and robotically than normal. I am a tower of pain (okay, more of a well-rounded mound of pain, but you get the picture). I wanted to do some writing for fun, so I came to the computer and started checking out the Facebook, looking for inspiration. Nothing. just the usual round of political rants from both sides of the fence. It was really bumming me out.
I wanted to write something funny, something to brighten at least my own day, but couldn’t think of a thing. Everywhere I looked, just the usual depressing stuff; Terrorists, greedy capitalists, free-loading socialists, abortion, gun control, mass shootings, religious rants, etc. You know, Wednesday. There was nothing funny in the world. Everything sucked. Everybody sucked. I sucked.
In the midst of all this suckage, I gave up. I decided that I’d get some housework done. I managed to brush my teeth and take a shower without too much pain or self-loathing. I started in on the kitchen. Now I won’t say it’s clean, but I did manage to get the dishes done and all of the current bio-hazards taken care of. I started to do the laundry, but it turned out we’re out of softener. It’s no big deal to me, but the civilized and sophisticated Jess clings to a higher standard than I, so I just gave up until I could get some.
That left me with the computer. I remembered that we English geeks are having a white elephant gift exchange at the writing center tomorrow, so I decided to burn some cd’s for it. I know that technically it’s copyright infringement, and I’m against it, but I also figure that none of them have ever heard of these bands, and if one of these discs persuades someone to buy an album, then I’ve done the band a favor. So I started working on it. I put one or two songs from each album on a disc, enough to give a taste of each band’s oeuvre, without getting too carried away.
As a result, I spent about two hours just listening to music. Not just music though. Great music. Lucero, Todd Snider, Jay Farrar, and many others. Before I knew it, I felt so much better. Not physically of course, it still hurts to move anything but my fingers, but spiritually. The music reminded me of how blessed I am. I’ve got a beautiful and fantastic wife, the lovely and loving Jess, and great friends and family. I’ve got what’s left of my health, and my brain still functions pretty well. I’ve got a warm house, dependable transportation, and plenty of food. I’m not wealthy (financially anyway), but I’m doing okay. I don’t want for anything (other than a pain- and diet-free way to lose weight). I’m a lucky, no – check that – blessed guy.
I think about all the people, both in this country and out of it, who can’t say the same. People who live in no-shit real poverty. People whose neighborhoods are war zones, literally. People who actually have to worry about freezing to death in the winter, every winter. People who can’t feed their children. People who look at me and those like me like we’re Donald Trump (wealthy, I mean, not assholes). I think about that, and I’m glad I’ve got the time to take coats and gloves and stuff to S. Dakota, that I’ve got friends who can donate that stuff. I’m glad I’ve got a dependable truck and funds to make that drive. I’m glad I live in a country that people still want to come to because they believe it’ll make their lives better to be Americans (and I do believe that’s why 99.9 percent of them come).
Sometimes I just need a minute and a good song to remind me that things really aren’t as bad as I think; at least not for me. The trick is to keep trying to take what I’ve been blessed with to make somebody else’s life better too.
So I’ve been trying to write a new post for weeks now, without success. I’ve started I don’t know how many, and I just kept either getting angry, which is bad, or getting depressed, which is worse, about every one. Part of the problem was mostly, I was writing about politics. I’m having a hard time writing satirically about politics right now, mostly because the whole political system is already seeming like a “Spinal Tap”-style mockumentary.
But we just had a really good weekend here at Casa de Moon (see, those two semesters of college Spanish finally paid off), so I thought I’d just tell you about that instead. Like all weekends, it had its ups and downs, but for the most part, it was the best weekend I’ve had in quite a while.
It all started with my little brother David and his wife and kids coming up from Florida for his son, Jonathon’s wedding. They got here on Wednesday, and in honor of their visit, we had the whole family in (or at least all those who could make it) for Pizza King and cards. We had a great time, and a lot of laughs. It was totally worth all the housework I had to do to get ready. See that’s one of the problems with being a house-husband; my wife, the lovely and estimable Jess, still went into her pre-family gathering cleaning frenzy, but since she was working, I was the one who had to do the actual cleaning, and I’ll be honest, I’m not good at it. It all just seems so pointless. I look at it from a guy’s point of view; if company can visit without the fear of actually sticking to anything, then it’s clean enough (you guys know what I’m talking about). Jess, God bless ‘er, feels differently, so it turned into about a week of her leaving me a daily “honey-do” list, and me trying to figure out what she wanted done (define “dusting”, does she want a “guy” dusting, which is basically sweeping a hand across the front of the shelf, or does she want the full-on “Pledge and a dust-rag, take stuff off the shelf, instead of dusting around the stuff, even if it can’t be seen” kind? Guess which one she wanted. It only took me two tries to guess correctly.)
I felt she really got carried away with it. Every day, she’d put “put away dishes” on the list. Now I ask you, what’s the point of that? We used those plates last night, we’ll use them again tonight, and tomorrow night too, probably. It’s so much more convenient to just grab them out of the dish drainer than out of the cupboard. She even wanted me to vacuum the kitchen floor. Now what, I ask you, is the point of that? We have dogs (the poor man’s Roomba). But I digress.
So everybody got here, and we had a great time. Lots of laughs, everybody enjoyed themselves, and I almost won one game of “Up and Down the River”, our family game. It may be the bloodiest, most cut-throat non-gambling card games ever invented, and we play it every time we get more than 4 of us get together. One of these days, I’ll write up the rules for you, so that you too can enjoy the frustration and hilarity of having your throat cut by your 84 year old aunt.
Then came Friday, and the English geek bonfire. Another great time. Kind of a small showing, but a really good time. It was really good to have folks around who enjoy talking about books and writers and writing. It was, in some ways, an evening of discovery. For example, I discovered that I have regained my amateur standing as regards drinking. I was standing there, mumbling some inane story (my apologies to all those who were present), when it hit me; I’ve gotta pee. So I excused myself and wandered over to the trees to take care of business. While I stood there, leaning against the tree, talking to myself, it occurred to me, “I’m a lot drunker than I ought to be.” Then, as if to confirm the fact, it also occurred to me, “I think I need to puke.”
Some of the best English geeks ever!
I was right. A couple of times. On the up side, I didn’t get any on me, or simultaneously soil myself in any other way, so I have not lost all my skills, but still, it was kind of disappointing. I haven’t drunk ’til I puked in years. Actually, I can’t remember the last time I did, so this came as a complete surprise. Shortly thereafter, the party broke up (it was pretty late, so I don’t think the two were necessarily related). At any rate, the painfully honest and beautiful but merciless Jess assured me that I was not being a jerk, so that was nice.
So we get back to the house and got ready for bed, and we realize that we’d forgotten to take our pills, so it’s back to the kitchen for that. Unfortunately, I missed my mouth with one of the pills. Naturally, it was one of the little, white ones, so even though we heard it hit the floor, it blended right in with the linoleum. Of course, that’s the problem with the poor man’s Roomba, they’ll eat anything, which is how we ended up crawling around on the floor, butt naked, at three o’clock in the morning, laughing like idiots. Especially when we figured out that we couldn’t find it because when I got down to look for it, it got stuck to my knee, and it was just moving around the floor with me.
So that was a pretty good night.
So Saturday morning, I wake up with a low-grade hangover (something else I haven’t had in years), and a wedding to go to. My nephew Jonathon, a great kid, was getting married to a very pretty and sweet girl named Jessica (which contributed to the Wednesday night hilarity greatly, trying to figure out how to differentiate between Jon’s Jess and my own lovely Jess. The first suggestion “new Jess and old Jess” was quickly shot down, as was “little Jess and big Jess”. I think we settled on “new Jess and classic Jess”), at the Indianapolis Yacht Club, which is hilarious in and of itself, kind of like the Florida Alpine Club.
As it happens though, David and I are also both fans of the comedy classic, Caddyshack. We grew up watching it over and over again. So it seemed a shame to miss the opportunity to pay homage to one of our primary formative influences. For the ceremony, itself, I went with the plain old suit and tie, out of respect, but for the reception, I ditched the tie for a Captain’s hat and cravat, going for the Judge Smails yacht-club boat christening look.
Alright, I’m no Ted Knight, but still, pretty darn spiffy, I think.
Apparently, Caddyshack is nowhere near as popular as it used to be. I was called Mr. Howell several times, as well as Skipper, and there were quite a few who apparently thought I was actually part of the Yacht Club, there to keep an eye on things. The funniest part was when they said that the table captain would be around to explain to each table the method of serving dinner, and everybody in the place looked at me. Still, a good time was had by all. It was a lovely ceremony, and everyone seemed to enjoy the reception a lot. I got to see some old friends that I haven’t seen outside of a funeral in years, which was nice. My granddaughter, little Sharon, really enjoyed line dancing with the bride, and I enjoyed watching.
Also, my oldest daughter Kim made it to the wedding, which was a surprise, as was her bright blue hair. When I was getting ready for the reception, she said, “Hey, I’ve got a captain’s hat in my car too!”
The nut didn’t fall far from the tree here. Great diseased minds think alike! I’ve never been so proud.
It also helped that my nephew is also a Caddyshack fan, and his lovely bride Jess has a great sense of humor.
Jon and new Jess, and the family’s designated weird, flaky uncle.
All things considered, it was a great weekend, despite the fact that I had to keep explaining the whole Caddyshack thing. Looking back at the pictures from that evening, though, I can see how people might be inclined to think of the Skipper or Mr. Howell. What do you think?
Judge Smails, aka Ted Knight
The Skipper aka Alan Hale
Mr. Howell, aka Jim Backus
Alright, I’m no Ted Knight, but still, pretty darn spiffy, I think.
At any rate, it’s an honor to be compared to any of these comedy giants!
So that’s pretty much it; a great weekend. My deep thanks (and apologies where necessary) to my family, friends, and fellow English geeks. I needed that.
Happy living is an elusive bird. We all want it, but it seems like no one wants us to have it. It’s kind of aggravating.
Lately, I’ve been kind of worked up about things. It seems like the world is just spinning out of control. Confederate flags, gay marriage, dozens of people shot over the July 4th weekend in Chicago, violence of every sort run amok, churches burning, terrorists, conspiracy theorists screaming that Obama’s invading Texas, it’s just nuts. And everywhere you look, somebody’s got the answer: Take down that flag, leave it alone, give the gays equal rights, gay marriage will destroy traditional marriage, ban guns, make everyone carry a gun, stricter laws, we need better prisons, we need worse prisons, seal the borders, do what I say, I’m the one with all the right answers. It doesn’t matter where you look, FOX, MSNBC, CNN, NPR, the Facebook, Twitter. Everyone’s got the answer, or knows someone who does. Just watch this video . . .
It’s kept me stirred up for several weeks now. I’ve started several posts presenting powerful arguments capable of crushing all opposition to my viewpoints. Being predisposed toward irascibility and somewhat pugnacious in temperament, I just can’t seem to help myself. I seem lately to just be looking for things to make me angry. I read articles that I know are biased, and often blatantly false, and then, just in case I’m not angry enough, I read the comments too. Sometimes I think there is something very, very wrong with me (and those of you who know me will probably agree). Unfortunately, rage is the one emotional I am truly comfortable with. Also unfortunately, I’m not alone in this. Everyone seems to be angry about something, or several somethings, usually at least one or two from the list above, or something that someone else said about something from the list above.
In fact, anger is a growth industry right now. There’s gold in them thar internet flame wars. Frankly, that’s one of the things that makes me angry. Vast fortunes are being made by making people angry, and I can’t seem to get a piece of the action. My last post was, I thought, at least fairly controversial. I even went so far as to actively solicit responses. I did everything but beg people to comment. Now I’ll admit that my intentions were good, and I genuinely wanted to hear what people thought, but still, I thought I’d at least get some hot interweb troll action. I mean, if there’s one thing I’m usually pretty good at (besides telling fart stories), it’s pissing people off.
I have to say that the response was pretty disappointing, overall. First of all, there really weren’t many comments at all, and those that I did get were uniformly civil, well-thought out (even the ones that disagreed with me), and even loving. Even the woman I had offended (the basis of the post), messaged me on the Facebook, a very civil, kind, and generous response. It was really kind of disappointing (admittedly in a sick and twisted way).
On the other hand, it did confirm what I had always suspected; that the vast majority of people are generally kind, generous, and decent. Even those with whom I vehemently disagree. I hate to admit it, but I think Anne Frank was right: “Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart.”
It troubles me that I see and hear so many swearing that we are in the End Times. That God has abandoned us because we have abandoned Him. The sentiment that, because of gay marriage, “persecution” of WASPS by minorities, and the fact that, okay, maybe you should think about what that Rebel flag bumper sticker on your truck really stands for, the world just can’t get any worse. It’s just not true. The world can get worse. It has been much worse. Yes, there are still a lot of things that are wrong. There are still a lot of things that need to be fixed. But my feeling is (and I know I’m no kind of religious expert) that if God didn’t abandon us because of 400 years of genocide, 300 or 400 years of slavery, 150 years (give or take) of institutionalized racism (complete with lynchings, rape, and murder), along with a number of land grabs, imperialism, and war profiteering, all committed frequently in His name, or according to His will (or rather our interpretation of it), then letting a few gays get married is probably not going to put him off of us, either.
I see and hear a lot of Christians hollering, “Please Jesus, come back soon,” and I can understand the sentiment, but if I’m honest, I’m not really in that big a rush for it. When he does come back, we’ll have eternity, but for now, I’m not through with this life yet. There are way too many books I haven’t read, too many fart stories I haven’t written. I haven’t told my wife, the lovely and all-round best woman ever, Jess, how much I love her enough times yet. I haven’t lain awake at night listening to her snore enough. I haven’t hugged my grandkids enough. There are too many places I haven’t been, too many things I haven’t seen. I haven’t written enough, or worked enough, or played enough yet. Maybe I’m wrong for feeling this way, but God gave me this life for a reason. He gave us this world with all its wonders for a reason, and I don’t think it was to just mark time until he came back.
Anyway, I know that you probably only read this blog for the fart stories (don’t worry, I’ll get back to ’em), and I didn’t mean to get all heavy with my half-assed theology. Sorry. This is all just stuff that I needed to get off my chest. The thing about being angry all the time is, it’s exhausting. It saps your energy, your will to live. I don’t know about you, but it wears me out, and really makes it hard to write the fart stories, which are, frankly, much more fun.
So last night, I was in bed (calm down ladies), reading The Ball and the Cross, by G.K. Chesterton, and I read a passage that really brought it all home to me; “The whole peace of the world was pent up painfully in his heart. The new and childlike world which he had seen so suddenly, men had not seen at all. Here they were, still at their old bewildering, pardonable, useless quarrels, with so much to be said on both sides, and so little that need be said at all.” That seems like a pretty apt description of today, with the fear-mongering 24-hour news networks blaring out their prophecies of doom, and alleged “satire” news websites promulgating panic-inducing videos, and ourselves buying into it all, and joining in by smearing our fears and petty hatreds across the Facebook, insisting that “everyone needs to see this”. Well, guess what. We don’t. Neither do you. Give it a rest. Give yourself a break. And trust me, I know I’m just as guilty of this as you are, but I’m working on it.
I think that’s why I never finished any of those argumentative posts I wrote about earlier. Deep down, I knew it was pointless, and that it would just add to the problem. It would be a better world if everyone quit arguing, and spent some time actually thinking, because, believe it or not, not everyone who has a Rebel flag bumper sticker is a racist. Liberals who point at the south and jeer them as racist rednecks should listen to Randy Newman’s “Rednecks” (a word of caution, it contains offensive language, but it’s contextually necessary, not gratuitous. Also, you have to actually LISTEN to ALL THE LYRICS in order to get the point he’s getting at.). Also, if you are a proud displayer of the Rebel flag, you probably should spend some time thinking about what that flag really means, what it is telling people about you, and whether it’s true.
Christians, not every gay person wants to ruin our marriages (admit it, we were doing that just fine without any help from them). Gays, not every Christian belongs to Westboro Baptist Church. We don’t all hate you or want you to go to hell (Sorry, I don’t have a song for this one).
The point is; well, I guess the point is that we all have a point, and we’d be better off thinking carefully about them before taking our hats off and showing them to the world. Get off the Facebook, and read an actual book. Concentrate on the things you love more than the things you hate. In the words of Ray Wylie Hubbard, “the days when I keep my gratitude higher than my expectations . . . well I have really good days.”
