HE'S WEIRD, SHE'S GRUMPY

Scene: Dad, Mom, daughter (#4) in kitchen.  After some typically odd behavior by Dad, this mirthful dialogue ensues.

Daughter: You're weird, Daddy.
Dad: Yes, it's a wonder that your mother married me.
Mom: He tricked me.
Dad: She thought I was normal.
Mom: He thought I was nice.
Dad: But, we still love each other.
*hug*

I never even saw my Dad and Mom together, let alone say anything good, bad, or indifferent to each other.  So, I am thankful for these unplanned moments where playful banter makes the bonds of affection in our marriage visible to our children.  Because, Lord Knows, there are other times when they see all too clearly our flaws...

Thankful for… a Doughnut?

Modern Manna for the famished office worker

It is another New Year and I am recycling my annual commitment to be more thankful for my blessings large or small and to be less disgruntled with, for example, government shutdowns that disrupt family vacations.  (O.K., letting go of that…)

Last Friday, I neglected to set my alarm, so I woke up 20 minutes later than my highly-regimented morning dictates.  Friday is a running day, so I had to weigh the option of cutting my run short versus skipping breakfast, neither of which were very appealing.  But, life is about choices, as I so often remind my children to their deep gratitude.  I chose to run.  In the back of my mind, a faint hope flickered that maybe someone would bring food into the office.  This happens quite often in the December holiday season, but almost never in the post-Christmas reality-check month of January.  So, perhaps it was less a hope than wishful thinking, or even a faintly desperate prayer.

To compensate for missing breakfast, I tossed an extra apple in my backpack on the way out the door.  Still, by midmorning my apple was gone, my ritual 10 o'clock banana was gone, and my stomach was growling.  At precisely my moment of fainting hunger (play dramatic music here), one of my coworkers came around with a nearly empty box of doughnuts.  Apparently someone from the department next to our I.T. group had brought some in for their peeps and there were a few extra.

There are a lot of bad things you can say about the nutritional benefits of doughnuts.  But, to a man fainting with hunger, it was like manna in the wilderness (a wafer that tasted like honey, Exodus 16:31).  That lovely, puffy, round yeast donut sprinkled lightly with cinnamon sugar tasted marvelous, eased my gnawing hunger, and got me through until lunchtime.  So, on the list of things I am thankful for in 2014, I am putting one, fresh cinnamon sugar doughnut.

Simple Living and Literature

There are lots of blogs out there about simple living.  They cover everything from getting rid of stuff you don't need to living off the grid.  Some advocates seem just a little too serious about it, almost reverential, as if simple living actually produces a utopia of earthly living.  Truth be told, 72 ideas for simplifying seems an oxymoron.  However, raising children simply is a matter of sanity in our small house with 2 people per bedroom and ALL THEIR STUFF.  My better half, however, prefers to have two of everything -- in case one breaks.  So, how to keep her anxiety about the need for backup appliances and kitchen ware at a minimum, while also reducing the number of devices?  Still working on that.  And how to convince my children that their valuables are mostly an odd assortment of junk that they will forget about in 6 months?  Still working on that, too...

Well, truth be told, I have my own simplicity battle to fight.  And that is with books.  I haven't found a way to leave the 'Friends of The Library' used book section of our local library without SOMETHING.  There is always at least one book I really want.  Today, it was not one, but three books.  Total cost was so low ($5 - and that included a $2 tip!) that I was helpless to resist my book rescue impulse.  But where am I going to put them?  Don't know yet.

I moved a whole bookcase and two storage boxes of books to the garage in December, and I am already on track to defeat that effort by the end of this year.

It all comes down to value.  Booklovers understand exactly my dilemma.  You know who you are: with your stacks in the hallway and your bookcases where every shelf has a 'secret' row of books due to chronic 'double-parking' to make use of all available space.  Somehow, someday, I will have to face the reality of sorting my books into two groups: the one's my children will want when I am gone, and the ones that will go into the recycle bin.

But, I don't think I can do it.  Severing so many connections with so many pleasant hours in other worlds and places would be painful.  On second thought, I'll just leave it for the girls. 

A Year For Friendship

As the high school literature tutor for the daughter we have in ninth grade, I toured through selections of Aristotle's ETHICS this past week, including his thoughts on friendship.  Some snippets from Book 8:

"… without friends no one would choose to live, even though he possessed every other good."  

"Perfect friendship is the friendship of people who are good and alike in virtue; 

                for they are alike in wishing each other's good…"

"Those who wish the good of their friends for their friends' sake are in the truest sense friends."

"Friendships of this kind are likely to be rare; for such people are few."

(Aristotle: On Man In The Universe, Classics Club edition, Louse Ropes Loomis, editor).

As I pondered my New Year -- what to prioritize, what to jettison -- Aristotle brought friendship into focus.  Specifically, I began to think of those handful of people who are virtuous, who wish my good simply for my sake, who are true friends, who are gifts to my life that make it worth living:

"My friends have come to me unsought.  The great God gave them to me."   

ESSAY VI Friendship - Ralph Waldo Emerson  (http://www.emersoncentral.com/friendship.htm)

The question that came foremost was: Have I reciprocated?  Am I the friend that others value for the good I wish them and the love I give without reserve?  Do others see me as a gift?  Or, am I the weaker brother in constant need of stronger companions?   

No, this is not me trolling for reassurance, rather it is simply the expression of the desire I have this year to renew in myself that virtue I see in my dearest friends, so well explained in these words by the one who lived them best:

"Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends."  

(Jesus, shortly before his crucifixion.  John chapter 15, verse 13, New International Version)

Children, Government, and Business

I received two important notices recently having to do with my children.  The first came via the U.S. postal system.  It was an envelope full of information that boiled down to a threat: prove your children are yours or you won't be able to have them covered by your health insurance.  Apparently this is a new provision of the euphemistically named 'Affordability Care Act'.  I have company insurance and have never had to do more than provide social security numbers and birth-dates.  The new requirement is two forms of proof -- a tax return showing my children as dependents and a copy of their birth certificates.

Contrast this with the cheerful, colorful e-mail from Barnes and Noble announcing that one of my children in the B&N Birthday club was eligible for a free treat in the cafe.  What did I have to provide to get that notice?  Simply a first name and birthdate.  What do I have to do to redeem it?  Simply show up with said birthday club member and coupon in hand.  No other proof required.  Were I inclined, there are any number of ways I could 'game' that system.  But B&N assumes that their customers are generally honest, trustworthy people.  They believe my daughter is my daughter because I say so.

The government is not trying to win my patronage.  They already know they have a monopoly.  Theirs is a raw exercise in power and control.  Underneath it is a presumption that everyone who signs up for health insurance is prone to fraud and the truth needs to be weeded out by this faceless bureaucratic exercise.  The information I collect and send to 'prove' my children are truly mine will do nothing to change the reality of their existence or our relationship.  It is simply a large waste of my time.

Barnes & Noble on the other hand, is doing their best to convince, not coerce, me that a trip to their store will be worth my time, my daughters time and their time -- a mutually beneficial interaction.      And I can't wait to get over there and prove them right.

Snakes In The Dark

Other than headlights of passing cars and one or two other regulars who brave the pre-dawn hours to pound the pavement, I am alone as I jog.  I like it that way.  Running takes little thought and my mind is free to consider my day, my life, the cosmos.  For those who need lots of social interaction, this may sound odd, but I have never had enough time by myself to actually get tired of it.  Of course, with my family, I have never had an opportunity to test the limits of solitude.

On my route a few weeks ago, I came upon a surprising sight: a person standing in the middle of the intersection I was approaching, apparently trying to flag cars down.  My first thought was that there was some sort of an emergency.  As I drew closer, I saw under the glare of the street lights that it was a young man, quite agitated, wanting to cross the street but unable to.

He saw me and started to speak from about 30 feet away.  Something about needing to get home and his phone battery was dead.  Then he took a few steps in my direction, which put him right in the traffic lanes.  Although there is not much traffic at that hour, a car had to swerve slightly to avoid him.  I told the young man to get out of the street.  Reluctantly he came over to the sidewalk where I was standing.   He made a distinct effort to appear harmless, intentionally keeping his hands out and up, giving his name, explaining that all he had was his ID, social security card and dead phone. 

Then the story got more complicated.  He had been riding with friends who had been in a car accident.  Apparently no-one was seriously hurt, but the car was inoperable.  Rather than wait around, he had decided to walk home.   I asked where home was, and I don’t remember what he told me.  But, his aunt lived just up the hill in a large apartment complex.  Then it got really interesting. 

“I was going to walk up there, but I’m afraid of the snakes.” 

He was sure he could see snakes in the shadows, which explained why he was standing in the middle of the street where the lights were brightest.  Even standing next to me, he was agitated and kept looking around and asking, “Aren’t you afraid of the snakes?  Can’t you see them?” 

I used the excuse that I wasn’t wearing my glasses and that it was a little hard to see in the dark.  So, how to assess this situation?  Here was a troubled young man that needed to get to his aunt’s house.  And he couldn’t get past the snakes.  What else could I do?  I asked for a little more information about his aunt to gain some assurance that this part of his story was real.  Then I volunteered to walk him the several blocks to his aunt’s place.

That was one of the most unusual walks I have had in a long time.  It only took 10 minutes or so, but most of the time was spent quietly, walking next to a young man who looked furtively at each dark shadow we passed and had to be encouraged to keep walking more than once.

“Don’t you see them?”

                  “No, I didn’t see anything.”

“Are you sure there are no snakes there?”

                  “Yes.  Come on.  You are going to be fine.”

“That’s amazing that you aren’t afraid of them.”

                  “Thanks.  Let’s keep moving.  We’re almost there.”

Once we arrived at the apartment complex, he visibly relaxed.  After navigating through the buildings, we came to the right one.  His aunt lived in an upstairs unit, so we parted at the foot of the stairs.  I shook his hand and wished him well.  He thanked me and headed up the stairs.  I turned and walked briskly away, throwing a glance over my shoulder to make sure he didn’t come back down, not completely certain of my own safety.  My morning routine still waited to be finished and I was going to have to hustle if I was to make my train.

There are any number of psychiatric* or physiological explanations for his ‘snakes’, no doubt.  Drugs, head trauma, genetic disorder.  Maybe his aunt wasn’t all that happy to have him show up at 5 am.  But, all I could think of was that here was a young man, lost, afraid, in the dark.  Now, he was in a safe and familiar place.  Most of us have been there, or maybe are there now: lost or afraid or in the dark, or all three.  Physically or spiritually or both.  And aren’t we thankful for someone who comes along, the unexpected Samaritan, who takes time to bring us back into the light?

Next time, it may be me, it may be you who needs a guide.

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peduncular_hallucinosis

No Vacation Is Complete Without...

In spite of the government's worst efforts, we had (as mentioned) a lovely time on our vacation.  After many years of family road trips, several recurring features have become a predictable part of our vacations.  Here is the 2013 edition of that broad rhetorical question "Would it be a vacation without..."  (and the implied answer is "Absolutely not!").

... ice cream almost every day?  (Thank you Reimers and The Forks).
... a movie almost every night? (Why else would there be a DVD player in our room?)
... a hike that is just a bit too long, for somebody, well almost everybody, except Dad?  (Nelder Grove and Lewis Creek Trail.  Which is why we have ice cream).
... a museum docent who is absolutely thrilled to discover someone willing to listen? (Thank you to the  enthusiastic hosts at California State Mining and Mineral Museum and Mariposa Museum).
... at least one restaurant that becomes a new family favorite?  (Thank you DiCicco's).
... a few hours at the local bookstore?  (Thank you Branches Books.)