The Day After Yesterday

At 2:30 pm yesterday, we weren’t sure how it was going to go.  I had been hauling books upstairs for at least an hour, and the water level had risen during that time.  Still, the electricity, notoriously fickle, was still on and the sub-pump was still working.  Both were keeping things under control.  Yet, with another hour’s work ahead of me, not to mention 15 or 20 boxes of other materials, the loss of either could be devastating – and especially since high tide was a few hours off.  So Lynn-nore called Sir Walter Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth.  SWR proved invaluable, helping me move to empty bookcases upstairs and move those umpteen boxes to safer, dryer locations.  The rain stopped.  With everything upstairs, our apartment felt like a storage area.  Lynn-nore cooked a quick dinner of Tortellini and they had to be on their way.  Caleb was perfect the entire time, rocking lackadaisical in his swing, alternately snoozing and waking.  During his waking times, he was content to suck quietly on his thumb and contemplate the smooth clicking sounds of the rocker and the living room scenery.  Kara was also quite good.  She offered to help me do several different things, and Kara also spent time playing with Queen Elizabeth once she had arrived.  During evening hours, we held Caleb for awhile (who was a quart low) and I began sifting and shelving books.  The “toss” pile had grown to some 20 volumes by midnight!  Lynn-nore and I went around most of the evening feeling very much like we did in college.  We couldn’t explain it.  Something about having all my books up in line-of-sight again; something about having friends to dinner and it not being a scheduled thing; something about moving everything around, it all felt optimistic, energetic, youthful and familiar.

This morning did not feel youthful.  It was dark and the rain on the windows kept whispering: “shush….shush….sleep...sleep.”  Kara’s first words were, “Why are you waking me up when it is still dark-time?”  I woke up too late to shave.  AM light always feels like science fiction.  You turn it on to simulate some liminal organic, living past with cardboard industrial prefab.  Mornings in commercials are always sunlit and 9 o’clock.  Kara’s school invited students do dress up as their favorite bible character today.  Lynn-nore puzzled over this for awhile.  Eventually, she and Kara came up with Moses’ sister, Miriam.  L. put Kara in a brown/earth tunic, with a white shawl and carrying a baby in a basket.  The original baby was a girl with blonde hair (I made a crack about how Moses had been replaced in the pilot by Sarah Michelle Gellar.)  Speaking of cracks, it didn’t occur to me until Kara and I arrived at school that she could have been something besides people.  There are lots of things mentioned in the Bible.  We could have, for example, put her in an Eeyore costume and had her continually ask people, “Why are you beating me?”  or sweetly chime out, “Hi! I’m a talking ass.”  Kara and I did decide that Ogasa, who was being particularly loud this morning, must have decided to come as one of Daniel’s lions (pre-Angelic stopper.)

 

Coastal Flood Warning!

Coastal Flood Warning from the National Weather Service:  

A COASTAL FLOOD WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 8 PM EDT THIS EVENING.

Widespread minor with areas of moderate coastal flooding is likely around the time this evening’s high tide cycle (6pm). Storm force northeast winds of 40- to 50-mph with gusts to near 65mph today will produce a storm surge of 3 to 3 ½ feet.  This, combined with strong wave action of seas climbing to around 25 feet across the MA coast, will produce extensive minor coastal flooding.  Reporting at 12pm, the storm surge had risen to 3 feet at Boston and 2.3 feet in Nantucket.

Needless to say, I’m taking some sick time and heading home to move the library and our files upstairs.  Too bad the washer & dryer can’t magically lift themselves a few feet off the floor.  Everything else is in plastic tubs.  The word at work is “Why haven’t we lost power yet?” combined with stories of the effects previous nor-easters have had on the local power grid.

My cute little man! 

Strong and Smiley! 

Cute picture, but it Caleb doesn't really look like this. His face is usually much rounder and smilier! 

Friday mid-October Noon

You couldn’t ask for a clearer, more blue, more New England fall day than today.  I was just up in Rowley having lunch with Mike Tucker.  There was a blue clapboard house right across the road that was the picture of anglican comfort and good sense.  Pumpkins are everywhere.  They are lined up in rows on windows, stacked in the corners of stairs and driveways, and even squared carefully atop a roof.  The trees are being stubborn about turning this year, but there’s enough on the ground to skitter along roads and sidewalks, slip into floorboards, and cluster around doorfronts.  The air is cold, though, coming down out of Canada.  With a high today of 50 degrees, it isn’t long before winter comes and the snow with her.

I was dreaming a ghost story when the alarm went off this morning: 6:15am.  Caleb stirred.  It is hard to believe, really, that the dark of a house, the solitary action of cleaning up, of sneaking around to find shirt and shoes, means that you gain entrance into the bright, knockabout world of daytime.  Larger thoughts fill up the mind.  They make Lynn-nore worry at the knots in her stomache.  I can’t seem to stop looking at what is right in front of me: Caleb smiling a huge, round toothless smile, his blue eyes narrowing atop bright chubby cheeks; Kara pulling my fingers to show me the pumpkin seeds she picked out by hand; Lynn-nore leaning back against the kitchen cabinets telling me all about a phone call with her mom.

This is not a Pipe

Antagonist: Oh, now where have you been?
Protagonist: Me? I’ve been holding my breath.
Antagonist: And where has that gotten you?  No posts on your blog and nothin’ today neither.  People are going to start thinkin you’ve died or something.  They’re going to stop checking to see if you’ve written, and that’ll be it for you.  May as well talk to yourself then.
Protagonist: You’re right, I know it.  It’s just, I can’t stand speaking right now.  It hurts to hear the words.  Like a bomb falling with each one, messing everything up.
Antagonist: You think too much.  You just have to get yourself out there and see what happens.
Protagonist: But the tension - I hate it!
Antagonist: You’ve gotten stuck - don’t tell me about it.  Standing there isn’t going to get you any further.  The future gets blame enough without carrying your blog along behind it.  Now get your fingers out your ears and open up your eyes a little, oh and pass me something from the fridge while your up.

Caleb and Grandpa!  

I just snapped this one of Caleb sleeping in his crib beside me. He was such a sleepy boy! I had to wake him from a similar position this afternoon to go pick Kara up from school and he's been looking forward to being back in his crib ever since!

And so it goes...

So, it's been 10 days since Thom's last post, even I'm getting sick of looking and not seeing anything SO, here's a brief update on life in New England. We survived about 10 days of straight rain, truthfully, some of it might have been coming at an angle, but it all just kept coming and coming. Fortunately we only had standing water in the basement that first weekend, after that it was just the moldy stench of a soaking wet rug that kept reminding us of the deluge. Yesterday Kara, Caleb and I came home from a playdate and I thought - that's it - that's the last day I'm coming home to the smell of wet carpet - SO, after moving three tons of basement stuff the rug is no longer with us. We dragged it through the dark cobweb invested back hallway behind our basement that leads to the bulkhead door and out it went. A short trip in the truck and it is now disposed of completely.

Meanwhile in other news, Thom's parents were visiting this weekend. His Dad and Karen spent the rainy days of last week bicycling through Vermont with the rest of the hospital execs from East Alabama. We enjoyed a nice weekend visit with them which culminated in a delicious meal at Legal's Sunday evening.

Kara had a fun day today exploring a local farm with her class on a Pumpkin Patch fieldtrip.
Evidently there's a story in there somewhere about a firetruck coming to the farm, but all I've heard so far is "We were on the hayride and we saw fire and a firetruck, but we couldn't get to it." and "There was a firetruck and everything!" Still don't know what happened. If it weren't for the fact that Queen Elizabeth teaches 1st Grade at Kara's school and attended the same field trip I might never get the whole story! (well, I supposed I could actually ask Kara's teacher, now that I think of it!)

Tonight I have a Pampered Chef show - have to leave in an hour. First kitchen show I've done since February. I'm a bit nervous, but it should fall into place ok. Unforunately it's an hour away, so I just hope I break even with the price of gas these days!! (I should, but it seriously affects profit margins)

Friday should be interesting -- I'm volunteering to help out with lunch duty and recess duty at Kara's school. Should be an interesting day.

Hope everyone is well!

Two Catastrophes

Yesterday was the day of two catastrophes. First, the basement flooded. A simple glance down basement showed at least 3” of water, with the sub-pump sleeping on the job. Lynn-nore had long ago re-worked the basement so that everything was off the ground, so there was no need to panic. Still, all that water sitting there and the pump just sleeping away under its wooden trapdoor. Something had to be done!

Taking the broom from its nail beside stairwell, I managed to prop my foot up against the opposing wall, holding myself above the water and providing enough leverage to lift the submerged trapdoor. Bits of dust, cobweb and other unpleasantness pooled around, angry at my labor. And there it was, the pump itself, out cold.

A placed toe made a tentative hold on the trapdoor. I poked and whacked the quiet submersible, all to no avail. And then, just as I was about to give up, it whirred into life. The hose which came up out of the water quivered and shook and took the flood to who-knows where across the ceiling and out of knowing. I dropped the trapdoor and declared victory, going upstairs, then, to continue the Sunday morning sprint to church.

The second catastrophe was a power outage. A manhole just down the street shorted out under the heavy rain and turned back the clock 100 years just at the twilight of the day. Praise God the busy sub-pump had finished bailing us out. Candles came out of hiding and assembled in motley assortment on the living room table. Lynn-nore went at dug-in candle wax with a steak knife. Kara clapped her hands and jumped around the couch in excitement, and Caleb, observing the whole thing stretched out comfortably on the floor, cooed. I called the power company.

The power didn’t come on until 3:30am. I was sound asleep. Lynn-nore told me this morning that Kara’s lamp came on and she, too, did not notice. Lynn-nore got up and went around the house turning everything off – a modern problem, just when things get going again you turn them off as if to say, “Okay, our control over the elements is back in order now. No worries.” I got a good night’s sleep out of it, and woke up late on purpose: mischief minded.

Friday & Fair

Caleb woke up at 6am this morning sucking loudly on his finger. For some reason, he cannot abide having anything on his feet, and so he kicks his covers off and leaves them throwaway at the bottom of his crib. A school morning, I did the usual exercise of dragging myself out of bed and into the shower. During High School, my bathroom was the shower. The shower head came right out of the wall, and the floor was all smoothed concrete. It was very ugly, but quite convenient when it came to self-dragging; nothing to step-over, simply lean against the wall and wait until you wake up. Last night, a few of the Survivor contestants received a shower. The smiles on the faces of the losers reflected not joy for the winners but the knowledge that the jungle insects would find the perfumed skin of their compatriots a far tastier dish in the coming days. Kara has decided to begin cultivating what, by her teen years, will become a stolid resistance to waking for school. This morning, after I was done, I pounced on her like a gorilla, hugging, kissing and bouncing her around while making gorilla noises. There was much laughter and giggling. Today is “bring a friend” day at her school. Her friend is Mrs. Tucker, her Sunday School Teacher.

Wednesday night we went to the Fair. A long-time family ritual, made more affordable by company tickets, the Fair is always an experience in same-and-different. “It was colder last year.” “Isn’t that the place we usually get such-an-such “Have we seen the hatching chicks?” This year, Lynn-nore sensibly cut costs from the ridiculous by pre-making our dinner as well as bringing a few caramel apples along. We still enjoy a ½ pound of Jordan Almonds and some German fries, but, at $5 apiece, home made caramel apples saved a bundle. Kara always enjoys the rides! She even went up in the Ferris Wheel with Mommy and twirled in a spinning strawberry with Daddy. We always see people we know, this year two members of the Black family, and we always stop by the petting zoo to see “Goatie Goat” .”(Though in actuality a different goat each year, Kara imagines each to be the cheeky black one which ate from her hand during her first trip to the Fair two years ago.) Each year we also visit the building of vendors hawking their wares. One of these is always selling various dips with unlimited free samples. Another favorite demonstrates a high-powered hot/cold blender which makes ice cream, soup and salsa from the strangest combinations of fruits and vegetables. Free samples are provided. The giant prize-winning pumpkin this year: 1300lbs!

The Teflon Man

The Teflon Man is walking around today with his legal pad, quick stepping, yet relaxed, hands in pockets and eyes disaffected.  I know well this affect:  He is proud of himself today.  He is like a cock pruning himself before the open door of the barnyard.  Upper management must be on the meeting schedule; he feels like a winner.  The Teflon Man is a fascinating corporate creature, and I’m sure I cannot do him justice.  Yet, allow me to share the following observations:

Distinctively middle-management, the Teflon Man survives by his wits and his allegiances.  His problem is that he is under-educated.  He is an associates degree amid the MBA’s of the meaningful people, and of this he is painfully aware.  His primary defense mechanism is an office-legendary knack for jargon.  A meeting with the Teflon Man is an immersion in business acronym.  The subject is stunned, feeling unaware of the conversation, knocked off balance, providing the Teflon Man a powerful advantage.  Those close to the Teflon Man are usually in the know about this or that catchword, and by such gnostic knowledge he maintains a tight circle of favorites communicating in three-letter grunts and clicks.  Jargon is a powerful wall and he knows how to use it.  In the eyes of the big fish, this ability gives him access to meetings he wouldn’t normally be in, and grants his opinions a weight that they may not ordinarily have had.  Consequently, he has, over the last five years, constructed a web of allegiances in key places throughout the entire company.  In short, he is untouchable.

Also, one has to admire the Teflon Man’s skillful manipulation of that most important form of office currency: the personal anecdote.  See, the basic attitude taken by American business is that people are resources akin to electricity or a power plant.  If the business was fire, some of us would daily be carted off to the incinerator.  Business prefers its resources be easily stored and transported, but people are annoyingly difficult.  They have personal wills and this irritating need for meaning.  It would be best if those who are going off to die remain serial numbers rather than human beings.  It is easier to think of people as collections of marketable skills or label them according to their allegiance to the ideals of the firm (as betokened by little things like elemental tardiness or an arbitrarily discerned but too large percentage of sick days taken, things which don’t apply to those who matter.)  Personal anecdotes dispel this.  Sharing personal anecdotes says, “I am not a resource!” It is political speech of the highest order in cube-ville.  Teflon Man is a master.

Amazingly tight-lipped, the Teflon Man simply does not talk about his family life save where a tale is needed to extend or confirm personal power.  He uses an anecdote to form a buddy-chain with a big fish in a meeting.  He uses an anecdote to advertise his position as a living person, as one who matters.  He uses an anecdote to communicate his willingness to be “one of you little people.”  Oh yes, this is especially true in that silly, adolescent exercise called: the personal review.

Now, I worked for the Teflon Man for years, and found him to be a good boss simply because his ambitions kept him out of mine.  No one would call him a good manager.  He is no good for the furtherance of others; mentoring is out of the question (though the Teflon Man enjoys considering himself a mentor.)  A personal review by the Teflon Man is a nightmare, simply because he hates doing it.  Therefore, one expects that criticism will predominate simply because it must and not because he actually has anything of substance to say about an actual job.  What he most desires is your invisibility and his visibility to all those who actually matter in the workplace.  So, the way he uses the personal anecdote in a personal review is extraordinary.  Always just enough to qualify as an anecdote and no-more (not an actually sharing of life but a revealing of himself as one who matters), he smiles glassily and first asks you to share one.  It is like having one of the popular kids offer to share a smoke with you.  “Tell you what,” it says, “I’ll give you the privilege of acting like I care while you tell a personal anecdote.”  Not expecting this (honor?) you sort of muddle something, and -- this is where the mastery comes in -- then he shares one of his own. It isn’t like brotherhood.  No, that shared smoke is actually a way of communicating whose in and whose out on campus.  What he’s actually saying by doing this is that he is the one who matters and you do not.  The Teflon Man is a fascinating corporate creature, and I’m sure I cannot do him justice.

Go Team ! 

"It's a kairos, Paulus, it's a kairos."

Here is a reason to put down that tome, theologian!: There is a story about Reinhold Niebuhr, the American-born theologian, taking a fellow theologian Paul Tillich, who was a recent immigrant from Germany, to see the Red Sox play at Fenway Park. After several innings Tillich was still having trouble getting the knack of the game. As play progressed, an impressive double play was started by the shortstop on the home team. Fans throughout the stands roared with approval and applause. Puzzled by such an overwhelming response to a play that had not seen a ball hit over the fence or even far enough to score a base-runner, Tillich sought an explanation from Niebuhr. Failing to communicate the significance of the event in understandable baseball terms, Niebuhr finally said, "It's a kairos, Paulus, it's a kairos." With that explanation, Tillich understood. (For Tillich, kairos was the category of time and history that marks turning points, occasions of depth rather than events continuing the normal chronometric measure of time.)  See, there is a theology in sport, a theological anthropology to be precise.  Baseball, with other sports, present us with the heroic, wherein a force larger than life is present and wherein the course of events is transformed by the nature of the event itself.

Only a little of why I love Fall

Fall is coming in, but for academics it is springtime for the inquisitive mind. Leaves belie the trust of Summer, and abandon us to the cold of space. Even the sun lies. Isn’t it closer to us in Wintertime? Only the equator seems to keep faith, and it, too, is but an imaginary line.

Perhaps it is the turn inward. All philosophy begins with the question of being (das Sein), says the German philosopher Martin Heidegger, a question raised by the realization of our own way of being in it (Dasein). All frontiers are beyond the reach of every person save the space inside themselves, and the question of other people. Fall is a coming inward.

Fall, to, is possibility. Who would have thought in the heady, monochromatic heat of deep-green Summer that so many colors could occur? Who would have expected that common Maple on the way to the library to divide itself in twain between yellow and rusty red? Who was it that made the choice? Which leaf or branch served as Major General and sorted out the ranks? We step among the bravery of paratroopers and take no notice. Each tree and leaf is like a Christmas package wrapped from the inside out. That birch tree has not turned. And there that elm remembers youth in shades of yellow-green. Does my neighbor, too, have hidden colors?

Fall is time. The weather turns too horrible to trump one out of doors. Better to have independence and only go out at will, bundled up against the cold. A well lit table and some wine will do for hours of heady exploration. The mind, says Calvin, is always better at its own temptation. Friends cease cavorting about the lawn and step in to conversation. Even the heavens seem to smile. Early evenings allow the curious to contemplate the stars at leisure without sparing sleep. Our breath rises cloudy and cups the cold moon. It reminds us of mortality and we wrestle with it, or make our peace. Here is a humble gait more proper to the state of man, and we have time to think it over.

Fall is culture. The liberal arts are too lazy in the summer to produce or perform for the rest of us. In Massachusetts, the BSO runs off to the hills of the West. And we conspire in their escape! We dawdle on the sandy beaches and forget Debussy, Bach and Mahler. All for shame. We lick our chocolate ice cream melting crowded at kaleidoscopic summer carnivals and neglect Isben, James and Shakespeare. All for shame. If expectations could keep from falling limp in the humidity, we might have had a show! But Fall to the rescue scoops them into her coat and delivers them up to us. Stir us back to life again! Awaken us, you artists! Enough warm afternoon naps in folding chairs; unpack our souls!

Hi there! I thought you might like to see some new pictures of me and here a little about what I've been doing lately. Here goes! 

Sometimes Mama puts me on my activity mat where there are all kinds of noisy toys hanging above me and I LOVE to swing my hands and feet at them. 

You think that was funny, wait til you here this one. Keep reading! 

It all started when Mama put me on my belly on the bed to see what I would do.  

so I rocked back and forth and back and forth and suddenly....  

Surprise! I rolled over! 

Hope you liked it! 

He Stands!

Caleb can stand –stand I tell you – Stand!  Just let him hold your hands to steady himself, and he stands perfectly straight and even for half a minute or more at a time.

450 Jahre alt - the Peace of Augsburg

“In obedience to Your Imperial Majesty's wishes, we offer, in this matter of religion, the Confession of our preachers and of ourselves, showing what manner of doctrine from the Holy Scriptures and the pure Word of God has been up to this time set forth in our lands, dukedoms, dominions, and cities, and taught in our churches.”

Thus begins the preface to the Augsburg Confession (Confessio Augustana), a statement delivered by Philip Melanchthon and the princes of Saxony to the Emperor Charles V on 25 June, 1530, in the German city of Augsburg. Charles V, keenly aware of the threat posed by Turkish troops along his borders, convened the Diet in the hopes of re-uniting Catholics and Protestants and thus strengthening his military capabilities. Reunification was not to be. Yet, Augsburg did eventually provoke peace between the two with the publication of the Peace of Augsburg in September of the same year.

“The ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the Augsburg Confession, dogma, appointment of ministers, church ordinances, and ministries hitherto practiced (but apart from all the rights of Electors, Princes and Estates colleges and monasteries to taxes in money or tithes) shall from now cease and the Augsburg Confession shall be left to the free and untrammeled enjoyment of their religion, ceremonies, appointment of ministers, as is stated in a subsequent separate article, until the final transaction of religion will take place.” (Peace of Augsburg §20)

Interestingly enough, in an ecumenical celebration held today to mark the 450-year anniversary of the declaration in Augsburg, the region’s governing authority, Bundespräsident Horst Köhler, did not describe any sort of peace between Protestants and Roman Catholics. Rather, he called the announcement an important step toward the separation of Church and State: "Staat und Kirchen begannen zu lernen, sich nicht gegenseitig durchdringen und instrumentalisieren zu wollen."

story time morning, with small bear

Kara is always asking anyone who will stand still to tell her a story. She’s always saying, “Tell me a story,” and when that doesn’t work, “Tell me a story about when you were a little boy/girl.” She can even be particular, “Tell me a long story, like that time about the tree (referring to a near-death experience I often tell her involving falling headlong out of a tree.)” She can be quite persistent, that little lover of narrative. And, indeed, nothing motivates her like a story withheld – I’m referring to the cruel but parentally useful dinnertime, “Take another bite and I’ll tell you what happens next.” Lynn-nore came up with that one – only a woman could have invented it – and it truly is brilliant.

Anyway, this morning she was jumping up and down in the bathroom, reciting the aforementioned story mantra, and I was in an obliging mood, so I began like this:

Once there was a small bear. He had been chosen among all bears living to go and seek out the Great Bear, the origin of his kind, in the deep jungles of Africa. Through many adventures, the small bear had made it across the ocean to the shores of Africa. And, through many more, was now parachuting down into the jungle, his quest coming closer to its end.

Kara was ecstatic! She has a hard enough time holding her body still, anyway, and spun tight in the dewy tresses of a tale unraveling, she sometimes jumps up and down or simply squeals in anticipatory delight. This time she put her hands together and urged me on, “What happened next, Daddy? What happened next?”

Well, I continued, all the while putting toothpaste on the end of her toothbrush, once on the ground, the bear was seized by strong quick scouts of the Trout clan, and taken, bound, to King Trout. Everyone knows the trout people are no friend of bears, and, seeing this bear there among them, the trout king went crazy with joy and revenge. First, he ordered small bear to be stripped of all his possessions. Second, he ordered that small bear should be boxed soundly with wet and fishy trout tails. And, finally, he said that small bear should be thrown back, defenseless, into the thickest part of the jungle.

“What happened then?” asked Kara, now brushing her teeth. I had better things to do, and nearly left the story there but for her foamy protestations.

Undeterred, I said, small bear set himself to complete his quest. He remembered that while parachuting down into the jungle, he saw a monkey village in a clearing near the hills of the horizon. He decided to make for the village, in hopes that the monkeys would feed him and set him back upon his aim to find the Great Bear, the origin of all his kind. What he didn’t know, however, was that between him and the monkey village lurked a hungry lion. (Kara stopped brushing.) “Keep brushing, Kara. Get those back teeth, too: top and bottom.” Yes, as small bear picked his way carefully through the vines and branches of the jungle, he was unaware that though he did not see a lion, a lion most certainly saw him. The lion was tracking him already and slowly, ever so slowly, would soon get close enough to have his meal.

And that was it. Kara was done, and it was time for Lynn-nore to fix her hair and for us to be off to school. Today, after all, is Kara’s first gym day – a beautiful, blue New England clear day – and we didn’t want to be late. She asked me, “Is that true about the bear?” “No,” I retorted.

But, true or not, what do you think? How would you end the story? Or Is it better not knowing, perhaps peeking between the fingers?

ode to caffeinated liberty

San Francisco Blend™, ah the aroma! You are the dark continent, the new world, sought among the choice offerings of my employer. Named for California, gold rush and the Golden Gate bridge, and yet a product of the New England Coffee Company. In you I glimpse these whole United States. You are the Manifest Destiny that overran the West. You are verdant New England, from which the dogged soul of America yet brews. Your heat stokes the fires of patriotism. Captain John Smith ground ye at Jamestown. And to you - oh patriotic drink! - the Sons of Liberty pledged their allegiance in Boston harbor. You warmed the humble camps at Gettysburg. Tired cowboys toasted you along their muddy drives. And it was you who went in tin and rucksack with the Yanks into the European and Pacific theatres of war. Product of our continent, embodied drink of our civilization, succor of our mighty universities. I drink to you, liquid friend of liberty, taste of democracy, and aroma of the free world!

blopy ennui

How to write a blog entry? I have been reading along a few blog connections, once-, twice-, three-times removed from the usual haunting-grounds. Doing so is always a reminder of the “style” that affects blog writing-and-reading: ennui.

Synonymous with apathy, fatigue, languor, tedium and a weariness of the world, ennui [/ahn-WEE/ - though if you have nothing better to do the first syllable can take the stress] is its own history lesson. Ennui is actually a Latin phrase which has been wadded up into a little paper ball by the tedious, nervous palms of passing languages. The original Latin read mihi in odio est and meant: “I am in a condition of dislike or hatred.” This was vulgarized into inodiare, odious, which the French subsequently seized and digested down to a single adjective: anoier, “to annoy, worry or bore.” Later still, having nothing better to do, they modernized it into its present form, ennui.

Reading and writing blog-copy is always an immersive exercise in sustained ennui. Posts accrue as the levels of ennui build up like plaque in one’s life. (There is that observation about the inverse relationship between the status of one’s blog and the state of one’s employment.) This makes sense because blog writers blog their own opinions which they usually at least have some inkling of before they begin to write. Not so blog readers. Blog reading is a unique experience in literature in that one seeks out blog-copy, rejoices at the discovery of a good, well-written bit of it, and then begins to read already well-within a state of fight-or-flight ennui. It takes tremendous effort not to simply give up on the whole process of reading, even if well-satisfied, and for no cause other than the erotic possibility that something elsewhere might prove more titillating. (How many people will make it this far?)

So, how does one write a blog entry? What can a writer do to make their blog-copy (blopy) irresistibly sticky to every cornea languishing like sinners in the lake of ennui? It is a good question, but, on the other hand, I’m bored with this topic. Maybe one of you can suggest something, that is if you can muster the effort required…and I haven’t even addressed the aspects of ennui that have to do with hatred. Who is hating whom? Is hatred involved in every blog relationship (blogship). Have we stumbled into a sado- (writer)-masochistic (reader) literary genre which deserves all the deconstructive and hypercritical techniques which literary theory can possibly bring to bear? Will anyone actually read far enough into this post to sit agog at the use of the words “sadist” and “masochist” in this post? Are the feminist bound to show up? Could this be a doctoral dissertation? Who am I oppressing? What does this have to do with racial inequality? Is the university system just a self-indulgent petri dish for the infliction of cultural and financial French ennui (or perhaps Freedom ennui) upon the world?

Damn that Jackie Paper!

Thick green spit lands splat on the pine yellow wood.  This is the first time I remember ever chewing apple-green gum, and I thought it tart and tasty.  Besides, the resulting contrast was brilliant; the stains made invisible cones for this tri-wheeling 3-year-old.  It was early.  I can’t believe I was out just riding around so early on this Saturday morning!  It was cold, too.  No one was awake; the whole neighborhood was quiet and even washed out in the thinness of paraffin-white sunlight just bleeding through the trees.  I was so awake I couldn’t believe it!  There’s an ur-memory of an annoyed and bleary parent opening the garage door.  There was nothing but to make slow 8’s and wait.  I noted that if I accidentally rolled over one of the gooey green pylons, a discolored streak would trace the path of the offending wheel for half an orbit or so.  I was waiting for our neighbors to wake up and let Amy come out and play.

Amy and I were the best friends.  I have no memory at all of her parents, or of her house, really, outside of the 3 or four square feet of new yellow deck receiving now the well-placed expectorations of apple-green gum.  We must have run around all over the place, her backyard had a swing-set.  Most is faded and gone, but I remember that she had brown, rather unkempt hair, that she laughed a lot, and that she agreed that Green Eggs & Ham marked the zenith of Dr. Seuss’ prolific gifts.  We must have had a lot of literary opinions.  Occasionally, an offending book was subjected to ritualized defacement.  She would scrawl over a page or two with some rude nub of crayon and then pass it over to me.  I would admire her handiwork, we’d have a laugh, and then I’d choose a page and draw all over the spine and straight across full lines of text and illustrations.  We sat nearly a whole evening just inside the main hallway of my house defacing a book and laughing about it.  My parents were both singing “Puff the Magic Dragon” along with another couple in the living room, and, indeed, their entire generation, and so we were joining in by drawing odd dragons with overlong necks, whose powerful wings and pointy teeth were goofy against scrawled, happy grins and sugarplum, multi-colored clouds.  Damn that Jackie Paper!

Classified Tableu

This weekend, was a fine one. Saturday, Lynn-nore and I took the kids (thanks to library passes) to the Museum of Science. Kara was an electron, spinning crazy from exhibit to exhibit. Caleb was a telescope, wide-eyed and taking it all in. Lynn-nore was a field-guide, stopping to dig a midden with Kara, twisting the map 180° to locate our position, raiding our supplies when necessary. I was a hypothesis. I wanted to know “how to identify sand x from these other four types using a microsope and your skills of CLASSIFICATION.” I wanted to stand there with the over-sized “identifying butterflies” chart trying to figure out the name of this or that chromatic creature. (My favorite was the Banded Orange Heliconian of Northern Mexico.)

One of the best stories to come out of the trip occurred in the CLASSIFICATION section.

A particular spinning-ginny display had been set up on a low table. Two seats faced each other, the spinning wheel between them, and, to the side, a heterogeneous cornucopia of nickle-weight shells. The task: CLASSIFY. One person classifies a bunch of shells simultaneously opposite another person and, when they are done, they spin the ginny and try and guess what methodology their partner employed. Lynn-nore and Kara decided to give it a go.

Now the first time they performed the CLASSIFICATION exercise, the methods both used were pretty straightforward: clam shells go with clam shells, tube shells with tube shells (this is very scientific.) The second time, Lynn-nore decided that she was going to, I won’t say impress, but let’s just say outplay our daughter by sorting shells in the most unusual way she could think of. This time she turned them over, so that what were similar clam shells became purple and yellow clam shells. She had discovered a greater point of CLASSIFICATION. Feeling congratulatory, and Kara being so quickly done, the ginny was spun only to reveal that Kara, rather than her Mom, was the real master of CLASSIFICATION-al ingenuity. Whereas Lynn-nore had turned them over and found some new feature of the shells, Kara assembled them into groups resembling table-settings: plates with plates, silverware with silverware! We all had a big laugh out of that one.

Perserverance pays off! He's been working at this all week!! 

103 Dead

Tired doesn’t begin to describe it.  Oh my! we could barely drag our dry bones up into life enough to stand up and deal with the little guy this morning.  Fussing, kicking, working himself over and over again into grunting, whimpering, crying little places, he started up at 5:30 and just wouldn’t quit.  “I can’t do it! I just can’t move,” Lynn-nore groaned, “Can’t you do something with him?  I’m so tired!”  Two junkies fought over that last hit of sleep.  I lost.  I’m up patting his belly, his hands and arms flailing around, clutching and releasing my fingers.  No luck.  I pick him up, rocking side-to-side, placing him against my bare shoulder.  He swats at me, raking with sharp baby nails across my face.  He head butts me.  He tries to throw himself onto the floor.  He grabs chest hair and yanks hard.  I turn him sideways and rock him.  He seems to like this, and lies still without protest.  The green LCD from the baby monitor fascinates him, and he arches his back to get a better look.  Baby hands move on their own accord.  They meet together and shuffle around each other in a nervous tug-of-war; Trumps at a deal.  Then it occurs to me: I am holding my son.  I look down at him, stretched out, his face worshipful in the green light; his hands as impatient as a capitalist at Sunday prayer; his legs and feet draped out and relaxed in the empty air over my right arm.  I will hold you, little one.  I’ve got you for a while.  I am not tired anymore.  The words of Psalm 103 fill fragrantly the silent space between us: “The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.  He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. As a father has compassion for his children, so the LORD has compassion for those who fear him. For he knows how we were made; he remembers that we are dust.”  He sucks at his fist while the sun’s slow rising makes the dim room blue around us.  Indistinct shapes solidify into the familiar surroundings of home.  It is time for me to get cleaned up.  Lynn-nore re-animates, putting aside the bedcovers like a corpse putting off a shroud.  Bleary, she croaks, “He’s hungry, give him to me.”

Calling all Harry Potter fans

Really cool site Thom found... get sorted by the sorting hat!! Or, just for fun, sit around and try to guess which house each of your friends would be... So, here's my results!



be sorted

Kara's Gone Up in a Spaceship

I dropped Kara off to Kindergarten this morning on her first full day. She wore a red, Polo shirt and khaki pants. Her backpack, a real prize that Lynn-nore discovered at a Hallmark store, was pink bubble gum and she was clutching a stringy-headed blond doll with puffy muffin feet. On the way, she was nervous. She asked me about my own first-day at Kindergarten.

My first day I was typically clueless as to what was happening. The stream-of-imaginative-consciousness that was my immersive world of play and song was being directed in a different, somewhat uncomfortable direction. No doubt my Mom tried to clearly explain what was happening several times – we visited the classroom a week before – but her words fell like golden leaves to the forest floor. The seasons were changing, but so brilliantly. Therefore, to be honest, the first day of Kindergarten was kind of a shock.

When Kara and I arrived at the school, I played like I didn’t know where her class was. “Now where do we go from here?” I said. Kara grasped an extended finger and hauled me inside and up a flight of narrow navy steps. A wide, olive pair of slacks disappeared at the top of a far-away staircase. Voices bubbling, pushing, stumbling. We turned the corner and found the hallway already adorned with hooks, against which backpacks and other paraphernalia were hurled like siege troops struggling to climb a muddy wall. Kara’s name stood proudly above her own hook, and we put her backpack on it. Someone in the room behind us chimed, “Kara’s here!” And her teacher said, “Good!”

Blocks, faux-brick, cardboard blocks, were my salvation those first, awkward 20 minutes of Kindergarten. The teacher, merely a faceless force-field of adult energy and will, shepherded me into the room like an alien abduction. My Mom was part of the plot, smiling guilty and waving. Adrenaline survival made her passing of no consequence; she could not (or would not) help me. Blocks stacked high, each one upon another. Blocks propping and pushing each other. I can build a wall. I can build a tower. I can build a city with many windows, and I do. Slowly, the blocks anchor me and open up to me the existence of other children like myself. There’s a girl playing with dress ups, a dark frilly dress with white, fur trim. There’s a short little boy just coming in the room with blond hair. There’s a mat on the floor that looks like a little village which has been flattened upon the brittle glass of a microscope slide. We are in the space saucer. It is taking off.

I took a photograph of Kara opening her backpack as it dangled on the hook. Her teacher, dark brown in a brown dress and brown hair, said, “Kara, get out your blue folder and your snack.” I started to open the backpack, but then stopped my fingers and let Kara do it, passing the baton of power over to this new authority in Kara’s life. A taller little girl with bright, blond hair curled cloud-like upon her head came out of the room like a soldier and ushered Kara inside. The door of the spaceship closed. The little blond girl was in charge. “Here, Kara,” she stated, “here is where you put your snack…” I turned, earthbound, and drove on to work.


be sorted

Big laughing smile from our amazing little guy! 

Sleep - Per chance to dream~

I am writing to report that for the first time since February I actually got seven hours of consecutive sleep!!!! Caleb slept from 10:30pm to 6am and I went to bed at 11pm. It was GLORIOUS!! It was phenomenal!! It was amazing!! And to add to that he went back to sleep from 7am to 9am and since Kara was still asleep (she had been up late last night) - I slept again! That's a total of about nine hours of sleep since yesterday. I don't know what to do with myself!!! Seems I should be able to run a marathon today!!

Ok, and for my simple life, today's agenda is play with kids, go for a walk and mail something, dust the bedroom and living room, do two loads of laundry and make some calls to share the good news of seven hours of consecutive sleep!

Then maybe I'll take a nap! :-)

Unfounded Malaise

Occasionally you find your own life boring. It was interesting a moment ago, but then it became boring again. Such times are bad for blogs. The strange thing is, there is no real reason for this malaise. Just last week, my Mom and Grandmother were up and we had a wonderful visit with them. We walked on the beach, climbed on rocks, ate some good chowder, saw a few good movies, played games and passed Caleb around the whole time. Caleb certainly enjoyed all that back-rubbing, rump-patting and sweet-talking. He even figured out how to smile responsively and coo. Then, also, there is Kara's new Kindergarted experience. She was telling me all about it last night. She loves school! (and why shouldn't she?) She loves seeing her friends. She loves learning new things (she's taken to quizzing me about the planets recently.) Not only that, but she can somehow control herself at school in a manner of which we at home only dream. I wish I'd enjoyed the experience more myself, because now it sure does look fun! As for me, I was up till 1:30 setting up the online syllabus which comes with Kaplan's General GRE study guide. Combine this with a period of re-grouping and goal setting and there is just no reason for malaise. No reason at all.

Kara has been spending a lot of time this summer playing with her LeapPad, a gift she received as a Christmas present when she was three is finally turning into a great early reading tool ! She's learning about reading and also about the planets, classical music, maps of the world and math skills. 

Caleb is loving his mobile. He watches the vehicles go 'round and swings his arms at them! 

Kara set this up so all of her stuffed toys could see Caleb and he could see them! 

Thou Shalt Not Murder

In my post the other day, I made light of the then-new events in New Orleans, abstracting out the real people and inserting a goofy cartoon. It is right there - I'm not deleting it - it is right there below us. I was in a goofy mood that morning, yes. But looking at it now, I am ashamed of myself. I have broken the fifth commandemnt. For, as Martin Luther's Large Catechism reminds us, that commandment means for us not to harm our neighbor (and sarcasm is a form of harm) and also that we should have compassion upon him and do whatever is in our power to rescue and save him. Luther even goes so far as to write:

"It is just as if I saw some one navigating and laboring in deep water and struggling against adverse winds [emphasis mine] or one fallen into fire, and could extend to him the hand to pull him out and save him, and yet refused to do it. What else would I appear, even in the eyes of the world, than as a murderer and a criminal?"

Since posting, I am almost moment-to-moment struck to the heart by what I see and hear coming out of New Orleans. The elderly, the sick, the poor, tourists ("aliens among us") cry out into cameras and microphones, devastated, helpfless, in fear for their lives, and in some cases dying for want of basic necessities. As Tim Naftali of Slate said in an article posted yesterday:

"How is it possible that with the fourth anniversary of 9/11 almost upon us, the federal government doesn't have in hand the capability to prepare for and then manage a large urban disaster, natural or man-made? In terms of the challenge to government, there is little difference between a terrorist attack that wounds many people and renders a significant portion of a city uninhabitable, and the fallout this week from the failure of one of New Orleans' major levees."

It makes me angry that with so much advanced warning - clear warning - it has taken days for medical supplies to begin to trickle into the outskirts of the city, and that gangs of untrained thugs can gain and keep power over so many in an area within the continental United States. Yes, it makes me angry, but I can't forget my own flippant unkindness. God help those who are effected by this tragedy, and help me to demonstrate kindness instead of callousness.