On Fumes

I sat down last Friday to write my weekly blog entry, the topic of which was going to be how little energy I had. But I just didn't have the energy to do it.

Let me explain.

On Thursday, I had just finished grading three courses worth of final papers and calculating the final grades (and fretting over those handful of "surprise" grades about which I knew I would get questions). That same evening, we had our party for David and Trinity at the Heritage Lounge on the ISU campus. Forty or so of our close friends braved the cold, damp weather (and the confusing layout of Tirey Hall) to help us welcome Dave and Trin into the family. The two of them were in fine form all evening, running and jumping and tumbling and eating: not a tantrum between them, though Dave did body-check Trin over a cookie at one point -- an incident that was over almost as soon as it began.

Here's a shot of Dave in his natural state: full speed ahead:













And here's Trin looking very "That Girl" with her party dress and drink in hand:














Meanwhile, Nancy and I were trying desperately to get Christmas going in our house. On Friday, we strung up some lights and garlands outside, and bought a small Christmas tree (I mean SMALL -- on-the-table small). Nancy started baking cookies and I started assembling presents. With so many people giving Dave and Trin gifts, Nancy and I were at a loss about what to give them. Then Nancy came up with an idea that initially struck me as insane but, as with almost all ideas that spring from Nancy's mind, it has worked out splendidly: turn the TV room into a playroom for the kids.

Now, I'm the kind of person who doesn't even like to shift the furniture around; once things are in place, that's where they should stay as far as I'm concerned. Nancy and I have an unspoken agreement that any changing of furniture will take place in my absence. So you can imagine how I felt about completely reformatting an entire room of our already-too-cramped house.

And here's what Nancy had in mind:

1. Move all the sleeper sofa out of the tv room and put it in the living room.
2. Put the couch in the living room out on the back porch.
3. Remove all the books from the built in bookcase.
4. Repaint all the trim (over 50 percent of the room is trim).
5. Repaint the walls in a nice sunny yellow.
6. Buy and assemble a small table and chairs.
7. Buy and assemble a book organizer.
8. Buy and assemble a plastic easel set.
9. Remove entire record and CD collection from closet, replace with toy box.
10. Do all of this each night after the kids go to sleep -- without waking them up, of course -- and try to keep them out of this most-used-room during the day.

The last point above required us to move the TV, DVD, and VCR out to the living room for a day-and-a-half and act as if they were always there. Luckily, the kids are just young enough to be gullible about such things and no questions were asked. I suppose it's really all about whether or not they have access to Thomas and Elmo. It doesn't matter where that access is housed, just so long as it's there.

Nancy finished painting on Monday night and my bloody knuckles and I finished assembling the last of the furniture at the same time. Then came the fun task of moving the couches around. I was impressed to find that Nancy had managed to get the sleeper sofa turned on its side and at least out the playroom door on her own. "That's the kind of girl I am," she replied when I gave her the raised eyebrow of approval. We managed to get the big living room couch out the front door, up the driveway, through the back gate, and on to the back porch without waking up the kids or freaking out the pets. Let's see professional movers do that!

We went to bed sometime near midnight, absolutely exhausted.

That night, in true Christmas Eve fashion, Trin contracted a nasty little cough that kept waking her up every 20 minutes or so, and David -- having heard so much about this Santa fellow and his penchant for leaving loads of presents for kids -- was just too wound up to sleep. We finally gave up trying to sleep at about 5 a.m. and went downstairs.

Dave and Trin ripped into their bounty with the speed and skill of mercenaries. As I tried to keep wrapping paper from engulfing us, Nancy worked to keep the presents going to the right child -- no easy task since David believes firmly that all wrapped things are for him. We were both successful, and the kids were awash in gifts from "Santa" -- or what our friends and relatives had apparently told Santa that they wanted. That was phase one.

A couple of minutes later, Nancy looked over at the door to the TV room and said, "What's that!?" There was a red piece of paper stuck to the door. We took David and Trin to see what it was. A note from Santa! Nancy read the short note aloud while David squirmed in her arms and Trinity tried to push her way into the room:

Dearest David and Trinity --

You have been very good this year, and so the elves and I have prepared a special surprise for you.

We hope you enjoy your new room, and spend many happy hours there!

Kindest regards,
Santa.

p.s. Thank you for the delicious cookies!



Enjoy it they did (and do)! For about an hour after we let them into the room, we just listened as they discovered the new toys and furniture that were all for them and them alone.

I stretched out on the couch, looked at Nancy over in the recliner, and said, "Good idea."

And then, free from the weight of everything that had come before -- the fretting, and hustling, and panicking -- and with the sound of the kids' excited voices mixing with the smell of still fresh paint, I fell asleep.

We Are Fam-i-ly

Introducing David Lazarus Pethick and Trinity Frances Pethick:









Oh, and I got the news yesterday that I was granted tenure at DePauw.

Oh, and Nancy sold a $2500 painting two days ago.

All in all, with the exception of Trinity's 24-hour violent stomach virus, it's been a very good week.

Swamped Things

It's that time of the year when all hell breaks loose. Fifteen weeks ago, that syllabus looked like a thing of beauty: rigorous but manageable, a document to inspiration, a brilliant guide for the perplexed. And now, as December looms and students speak of "finals week" as if it's the final stop on Death Row, I wonder where all that potential went. Have I really accomplished what I set out to accomplish? Have I gotten through to anyone or has this been just a colossal waste of everyone's time? Why, oh why, did I assign a rough draft of their final papers? What was I thinking?

And so I find myself setting deadlines I can't possibly keep, and apologizing to the same people over and over again about why it's taken so long to get these damn papers back, and trying to rationalize my own inefficiency as a product of some unseen and unknowable force that makes the clock in my office run faster than all the others.

And now my mind is reeling with all the things that are piling up...and I can't figure out where to start. What stories should I tell? What do I remember about this last week or two?

I remember my folks and Aunt Mary coming to visit over Thanksgiving, and I suppose I should write a blog entry about all the, well, thanks we gave. But that seems too obvious.

Perhaps I could tell you about how David got sent home from daycare on Monday before Thanksgiving with a fever of 102. Of course, that meant that he couldn't go back on Tuesday, either, so Nancy and I were put once again into the position of having to decide which direction the possession arrow was pointing and who would be canceling classes. Nancy ended up with the boy. And if the folks at daycare thought 102 was high, they should have been around for the 105 he popped not once, but twice in the next 36 hours. Motrin was able to bring the fever down (and the boy would bounce right back into high-toddler action the second he started to feel better), but then his temperature would climb right back into those dangerous regions again. We called the doctor, of course, and they were encouraged by his good attitude and his willingness to drink a lot of fluids. But the fever wouldn't break and they told us to bring him in. On a whim (having heard nothing too bad in David's lungs), the doctor ordered a chest x-ray, which revealed that David did, indeed, have pneumonia. And so the doctor prescribed two immediate shots and then a course of Ceftin for 10 days -- as a way of keeping him out of the hospital. These shots must have hurt like Hell because needles have never bothered him before. He wailed like a siren when they stuck him with the first one, and on the second one, I think he said something in an ancient language designed to cast an evil spell on the nurse. And as if to drive the point home (so to speak), he pointed his finger at the nurse when I picked him up, and said (through his tears? In a trance?) "No!"

The shots made him feel better, though he had big welts on either haunch. But then came the Ceftin. He took his first dose quietly. But the stuff must have been pretty damn foul because he outright refused to take it from that point on. I'm not talking about your average toddler refusal. This was all out war on anyone who got close to him with a teaspoon or a syringe. He tried to be nice about it at first, saying simply, "No like it." But when we persisted, he recognized that the only way to get it through our thick skulls was to morph into a tiny Hulk and beat us into submission. Have you ever held an angry badger? I think this might have been as close to that as it gets. The doctor then told us to try and disguise it in some orange juice, which apparently can cover up a whole range of odors. David took one little sip of his "juice" and said (without making eye contact) "No like it." Dammit! Nancy did some experimenting on her own and put a teaspoon of the stuff into a big bowl of ice cream, stirred it up, and took a bite. She found that the taste of ice cream had completely given way to one of the most vile and bitter tasting things she'd ever had. And so we requested a new medicine, much to the dismay of the doctor. He prescribed Cefdiner, which has a pleasant strawberry flavor that David finds quite tasty.

Or maybe I can tell you the story about almost singing David to death. On Saturday morning we all went for breakfast at the Hilton Garden Inn, where Mom, Dad, and Aunt Mary are staying during their Thanksgiving visit. Being a buffet style place, the meal with the kids went without a hitch. Both Trin and Dave were well behaved and both found the packets of sugar fascinating: fun to chew on until their soggy and then rip into them for the sweet reward inside. After breakfast, Mom, Nancy, and Aunt Mary went shoe shopping while Dad and I took the kids home. Nancy came home with two pairs of Earth Shoes, which are apparently not only comfy as all get out but environmentally friendly as well. A little bit later in the day, Mom, Dad, and Aunt Mary went to church while Nancy left me with the kids so that she could go to the store. Of course, the second Nancy left, Dave and Trin began wilding. Since music is said to have certain soothing qualities, I thought I'd break out the guitar and play a few songs for the kids. When I came back into the living room, David was eating a weird looking piece of paper, but oh well, paper shmaper. Trinity, for her part, was trying out for Cirque de Soliel by flipping in and out the playpen. And so I began to play...and sing. And before I knew it, a relative calm had descended upon the room. David was quietly chewing on the paper over by the couch (still chewing?) and Trin had taken to playing with a plastic coat hanger over by the dining room (I said it was a relative calm, didn't I?). I finished the song, pleased with both my own performance and the effect it had on the kids. And Dave was still chewing on that piece of paper. What is that piece of paper, anyway? And so I walked over to him and heard the crunching coming from his mouth. Paper doesn't crunch. I looked down and realized to my sheer and utter horror that what he had been chewing on all along was not a piece of paper but a packet of silica gel from Nancy's ever-so-environmentally-responsible-and-comfortable shoes.

CUT TO THE FOLLOWING SEQUENCE:
Throw down guitar. Pick up child. Insist that he spit out what's in his mouth. Rush to sink. Pour water into child's mouth. Continue insisting on spitting. Notify just returning mother/wife of incident. Note shock on her face. Continue plying child with water. Get phone. Look up number for Poison Control. Slam front door in process. Truly break already cracked pane of glass. Call poison control. Get told it's no big deal. Breath sigh of relief (though still suspicious that they hadn't really understood my questions). Return to living room. Kick box of "vegan" shoes across the floor.

Or maybe I should just say that David's fine (on both counts), though Trin has gone mad (just ask my parents), and we had an absolutely lovely visit with Mom, Dad, and Aunt Mary over Thanksgiving (and a little bit beyond). We were all sad to see them go, especially David and Trin, who got unholy amounts of attention, and Peanut, who got more walks than any dog deserves (and gave Aunt Mary a special treat in return). Eddie, of course, couldn't care less.

Nancy and I were saddest of all. Having family visit takes us away from the maddening flow of the semester -- gives us a chance to stop and remember what fun it can be to sit around the dinner table, wrangling crazed toddlers, talking, and not worrying about papers or assignments, if only for a little while...before all hell breaks loose.

Introducing Mr. Clean

Yesterday in a meeting I heard myself say the following as if it were the most natural thing to trip from my tongue: "Oh, darn it!" I've also heard myself utter such invective as "shoot," "gosh," "good golly," "holy moly," "good lord," "shucks," and "mother of pearl" in the last few weeks.

Now, for those of you who know me well, you are well acquainted with my ability to drop the f-bomb with the best of them. Oh, I can equate you with all sorts of anatomy, make suggestions about your relationship with your mother, call upon a higher power to banish you, and suggest a range of activities with which you might be intimately involved. I can do this without a warm-up, and I can bring the hard stuff even for the smallest infraction on your part.

Sailors have got nothing on me.

Nancy once thought it would be a good idea to make me pay a sum for every foul slip of my tongue. But she quickly realized that I saw it as a form of building our savings rather than a punishment (which is why I think she found the following commercial so funny).



What really got me to think about toning my language down was an incident a couple of weeks ago in the car with David. I was going through a swanky neighborhood looking at the big houses when, out of nowhere, a big pick-up truck cam e barreling over a hill and almost forced us off the road. "Slow down, asshole!" I said a bit too loudly. "Slow....down....asshole," said David from the backseat. "Dammit!" I said realizing my folly. "Dammit!" replied David. Nicely done, I thought: asshole and dammit in the period of five whole seconds. I quickly started shouting "Darn! Darn! Darn it!" at the top of my lungs, hoping Dave would follow. And he did.

I haven't heard the two words from his mouth since that day, though I know in my soul that he placed them somewhere not too far away, and is just waiting for the perfect opportunity to pull them out for the world to hear in all their glory.

With my luck, that day will be Tuesday when Mom and Dad get here for their Thanksgiving visit. I can hear it now:

"Say hi to Grammy and Poppy, David."

"Asshole!"

"David! That's not a nice thing to say! What do you say when you do something bad?"

"Dammit!"

And, of course, it's not just the foul language we're trying to keep at bay around here; a grab bag of foul odors demands our attention, too. The combination of a cat, a dog, two toddlers, and two generally lax adults has given rise to a pungent little visitor that settles in various parts of the house at different times. There's no telling when you'll meet this fellow, but there's no mistaking him.

In preparation for the visit from my folks, we're trying to get things at least looking clean, even if they are not really clean (see previous post about "pee-pee couch"). And, thus, the following commercial for Stanley Steemer has us both simultaneously doubling over in laughter and wincing from the sting of recognition.



The commercial works on two levels: horror and relief. First, we all recognize the dog's activity because we've all seen it in our own homes (if we own a dog or cat, that is); the horror comes from the fact that it is happening in front of company. The relief is in the promise that the product can clean what's been there all along, even buried deep in the pile of the carpet and, thus, reassure you and anyone who visits that yours really is a clean house.

Sorry, Mom and Dad and Aunt Mary, we can't make that promise. Not yet, anyway.

"Fiddlesticks!"

Pee-Pee Couch

Well, it's almost official.

No, not the adoption; the bureaucracies are continuing to drag their feet on getting two signatures.

What's now official is that we have hit some form of bottom here. Perhaps not ROCK bottom, but at least a shelf of some sort on the way down. The evidence of this decline is that one of our couches is now referred to (at least in the 1 and 2 year-old circles) as "pee-pee couch."

So, how did "pee-pee couch" get its name? About a week ago, Trin and I were in the process of getting her changed from her pajamas to her clothes for the day. We do this in the master bedroom upstairs. Standing naked in front of the bed, Trin said, "pee-pee," a comment that I, in my usual fashion, ignored. She waited a few seconds, and then urinated just a little bit on the floor. I groaned, grabbed some baby wipes and stared to clean up the very small mess. In the meantime, Trin sprinted over to the love seat in our bedroom, crawled up onto the seat cushions, got on her hands and knees, and gave me an impish little look. "What are you looking at?" I said. No answer. And then it hit me. Oh no! Before I could do anything, I saw the liquid begin to spread out from under her, pooling up around the indentations made by her hands and knees. I grabbed her as quickly as I could, whisked her to the bathroom, cleaned the urine off her (and me) and then returned to the couch. It was too late (it was too late immediately, I suppose) -- the cushion underneath the slip cover was soaked. There's nothing much more to be done, beyond cleaning the cushion and cover as best we can, getting a new slip cover (I ripped it irreparably in my haste to remove it), and then doing the unspeakable: turning the cushion over and pretending like it never happened.

And, of course, no matter how well we clean it, the couch will always be known forever more as "pee-pee couch": a none-too-subtle reminder that something sordid is always lurking just below the shiny happy surfaces in the Nichols-Pethick household.

I've Got You Under My Skin

I've got a secret.

I don't like Halloween. I never really have. Of course, I have to pretend it's fun now that we have David and Trinity to think about. And I do have to admit that they were pretty cute in their costumes this year: David was Tigger (or "Orange Pooh Doll" as he called it) and Trinity was a Lady Bug complete with antennae and shiny silver wings. But even their cuteness can't overcome my deeply felt and long-held dislike of Halloween.

Here are the top 4 reasons that I am not The Great Pumpkin:

Costumes: Even as a kid I found it very hard to decide on what to be. And I always opted for a run-of-the-mill cowboy or pirate. And even these simple costumes annoyed me by the end of the night: an eye patch became a sweaty burden; make-up dried on my skin; some garment inevitably made it difficult to walk. This list goes on. And then there were the two years, 9 years apart, where I thought I'd had it figured out. 1977 saw me cultivating a true love of KISS. And for Halloween I thought I'd go as Peter Criss, the drummer, whose character was a cat (for those of you not in the know, KISS wore full-face stage make-up and lots of leather during the 1970s). Of course, I didn't have leather, or real boots back in 1977, but I did have long hair and my mom's make-up. So, with Mom's help, I donned a dark shirt, a denim jacket, blue jeans, and her boots with the tops adorned in tin foil. And, of course, the make-up. And off I went to the Ella B. Allen elementary school Halloween party. There was, of course, a costume contest, and all the kids got in a line and traipsed across the stage a couple of times. The judges then announced the five finalists: "The Princess, The Dragon, The Butterfly, Puss-in-Boots, and Sir Walter Raleigh. You are the five finalists. Please stay up on the stage." So, I lost. No big deal. I turned and started to walk off stage. "Where are you going?! You're one of the finalists!" "No I'm not," I said. "Yes! Puss-in-Boots!" My face turned a little bit red, I hung my head a little and muttered something like "I'm not Puss-in-Boots." "He's in KISS!" said a mystery voice from the audience. "Oh, I'm sorry! Oh well, you still need to get back on the stage." So there I was, demoralized, embarrassed, emasculated even (there's irony in that one). I ended up losing, of course. But that right there convinced me that Halloween costumes were for chumps.

Fast forward to 1986 in Isla Vista, CA, the college town for UC Santa Barbara. Isla Vista isn't much more than a square mile or so in size and already packed with thousands of college students. Halloween is one of the two big events of the year; the other is/was the Inter-sorority Volleyball Tournament. Anyhow, on Halloween, many thousands more come streaming into town, wearing costumes and packing lots and lots of mind-altering substances (to compliment those we residents were already sporting). It's a nightmare. And if that alone wasn't enough to solidify my disdain for the nasty little holiday, 1986 saw me deciding that I would be "The Sky." I would simply wear a blue sheet with some puffy clouds attached to it. My friend, and former roommate, Kai, had decided to go a "Vinyl Man" for which we melted down a significant number of his record albums in the oven and wrapped them around his arms and legs (I said there were mind-altering substances involved, didn't I?). In any case, I couldn't have picked a more uninspired (and uninspiring), uncomfortable, and unrecognizable costume if I'd tried. It was about 11:30 at night when it became clear what I should have been. Making my way back home down Del Playa, a guy dressed as a priest stopped and genuflected. I was puzzled for a second until I realized that I looked an awful lot like the statues of the Virgin Mary that adorned every CCD class I ever attended -- you know, the one where she's stepping on the serpent. "Bless you," I said, and went home to call it a night. That was the last time I ever wore a costume.

Candy: Don't get me wrong; I love candy. I love it too much. And so do David and Trinity, who must have gotten plenty of it at daycare. Both of them were begging, clawing, and screaming for "Candy!" when I pulled out the giant tub of the stuff for the trick-or-treaters that were going to be arriving any second. "No candy. You're too young and you've clearly had too much already," I said in my annoyed "World's Greatest Dad" way. Cue crying. Now, with two toddlers, an antsy dog, and a black cat that we decided to try and keep indoors for the night, we came up with a plan: one of us would sit on the porch with the candy while the other stayed in the house with the 4 beasts, and we would take turns doing this. One hour, several dozen trick-or-treaters, 96 tears (Trinity), 5 aggravated groans (me), 11 or so incantations of "Stop it right now!" (Nancy), and one broken window pane (David) later, we decided to shut down the entire operation and go to bed.

Terre Haute: Is there any other place on the planet where trick-or-treating is carried out over TWO nights? It's oppressive. And no one can tell me why it's done.

Teenagers: If you are taller than me and/or have bigger breasts than me, you don't get candy. It's that simple.

But Halloween isn't the only thing that's been irritating around here...

A little over a week ago, we started noticing some red bumps on David's back that were obviously itchy, too. We've been fighting a flea problem (thanks Peanut and Eddie!) and we assumed that they were flea bites. So, we did all the things you're supposed to do when you've got fleas: Advantage for the animals, washing the bedding, vacuuming the floors. But the spots kept on coming, and looking a little funky, too. So, we took him to the doctor on Monday thinking he probably had Chicken Pox. But the spots weren't behaving like Chicken Pox. Quite a puzzle.

Well, the long and short of it is that he didn't/doesn't have Chicken Pox. And they are not flea bites, either. My kingdom for Chicken Pox or Flea bites. Instead, he had... Scabies! WHAT?! What does that mean? Are we filthy beyond compare? Have we done something to make the Gods angry? Where did he get them? Can I get them, too? The answers to these questions, by the way, are: No (I don't think so); Probably; Daycare, most likely (though they deny this possibility); Yes!

For those of you who don't know, scabies is a highly contagious skin disease caused by a microscopic mite. You get through human contact (not usually pets or household items, though clothing can be a factor). And they look a little something like this apparently.



The little suckers burrow under the skin, set up house, and start laying eggs. The bumps get itchy and, if untreated, things go downhill from there. Luckily, only David ever reached the itchy stage, but we ALL had to participate in the treatment.

And so we got our prescriptions for 5% permethrin cream, covered ourselves and the kids from head to toe for 8-12 hours, washed all the clothes, blankets, and sheets, vacuumed all the floors, scowled a lot at each other, washed the cream off, and got on with our lives. The cream eliminates the scabies after only one treatment, thank goodness, so things are back to normal here we hope.

But I itch just thinking about it, and I can barely get myself to say the word. It just sounds like something you'd get from crawling around a grubby abandoned trailer in the middle of the woods after a family of raccoons had just gotten finished trashing the place. I feel sullied and abject.

But at least now I know what I want to be for Halloween next year...

Long May You Run

It's a bittersweet day. Loretta*, our beloved 1992 Chevy Corsica, has found a new home. With the arrival of Ruby, the 2006 Camry, last month, we found ourselves with four cars and a driveway that could accommodate only three comfortably. Loretta had already been relegated to "back-up" status after an illustrious, if sometimes contentious, tenure as our primary transportation. Ellie Ann, our 2000 Hyundai Station Wagon, and Goldie, our 1996 Chevy S-10 pickup had assumed the primary transportation duties, and Loretta sat quietly rusting at the head of the driveway. It was time to let her go. We found a family through the Department of Child Services who needed a car (they were riding around on a scooter!) and handed her over today. I have to admit, I was a little bit sad when I heard her fire up for Gina, the new owner, point her headlights out onto Eight Street, and slowly slip away. And after 11 years and 150,000 miles, we'll likely never see her again.



The whole thing has got me thinking. What is it about our cars that makes many of us wistful for them after their gone? Is it simply the number of hours we spend in them? Is it the fact that we are utterly dependent on them? Is it the care (and money) that we put in to maintaining them? Or is there something else? How is that they become so much a part of us that we feel like we've lost some vital part of our identity when we part ways? Is it the memories of long trips? Exciting adventures? Great music on the radio? Steaming up the windows?

Even at the age of 2.5, David loves cars. He's got a whole fleet of Hot Wheels that he knows intimately. And he tells us each day which of our cars he wants to go to daycare in: Red Car (Ruby) or Silver Car (Ellie Ann). Today he even requested Brown Truck (Goldie) though we had to deny his request since there are no child seats in the truck. Even Grey Car (Loretta) has been on his mind from time to time. I wonder if he'll notice she's gone?

And so, in honor of Loretta's newest adventure, I thought I'd have a roll call for all the cars I've known and loved at some point in my life. Here they are in no particular order:

2006 Toyota Camry (Ruby): the nicest car I've ever had.

2000 Hyundai Elantra Station Wagon (Ellie Ann): the first car Nancy and ever bought together. Zippy little friend.

1996 Chevy S-10 Pickup (Goldie): a little bit of a dog when it comes to power, but a good way to get stuff to the dump.

1992 Chevy Corsica (Loretta): Given to us by my parents after my Grandfather passed away. Got us from Portland, ME to Bloomington, IN (and back and forth many times). Always seemed to break down in Scranton, PA -- her own little Bermuda Triangle.

1986 Ford Escort Wagon (Marilla): Given to us by Nancy's mom after Nancy's dad passed away. Marilla was a godsend at the time. She never could pass inspection the first time out, thanks to perennially bad tie-rod bushings, and eventually the front driver side wheel came off (just as we were getting on the highway).

1982 Subaru Station Wagon (Caroline): My second car in Portland, ME. Got us from Portland to Yellowstone, down to San Diego and back again in 1991 with only one problem: a hole in the gas tank. Got tipped on her side by some idiots one Halloween night and was never the same after that. Eventually had to have her scrapped.

1973 VW Bus (Chuck): Traded my VW bug with my brother Steve for Chuck. Chuck was my band car. No middle bench seat in order to accommodate drums amps, etc. Got broken into in Santa Barbara and then again in LA. Got me from San Diego to Portland, ME for the biggest adventure of my life. Chuck once broke down in Flint, MI and had to limp 80 miles back to Midland (where my Grandmother lived) on the highway in order to get it fixed because no one in Flint seemed wiling to work on a VW of that era -- this was 1988 in Flint and not a good time to be driving a foreign car there. Eventually sold Chuck to a deadhead and her boyfriend in Portland for $800 (of which I only ever got $200). They turned her into a cliche, of course.

1973 VW Super Sports Beetle (Buttercup): Unfortunately named by my freshman year girlfriend in college because it was bright yellow (I should have know right then that it wouldn't last). My parents bought me this little gem in high school and I promptly got pulled over 4 times in one year, nearly losing my still-freshly minted driver's license.

1973 Triumph TR6 (the Triumph): My brother Steve's car, but I got to drive it while he was gone away to college. Took it on my first and only date with Tricia Dawe. Stalled it at a light, she laughed, the date went downhill from there. I got rear-ended by a woman with Mexican plates on Bonita road. When I got out of the car, she pulled away and hit 805 South. No insurance, I'm guessing. Nobody was happy about that one. It's still in my parent's garage along with Chris's 1974 TR6.

1977 Chevy Luv pickup truck (The Luv): Another high school car. Somehow got pulled over for speeding in it. That alone should have impressed to cop enough to let me off with a warning. First car I drove after getting my license. Failed to set the hand brake in the Watkins's driveway on that maiden voyage. Almost watched it roll down that long, long hill. Lot's of trips to the beach with many, many friends in tow. Intersting fact: three teenagers drove this car,and the clutch NEVER gave out.

1975 Honda Civic (Henrietta): My father's pride and joy. I learned to drive a manual transmission in Henrietta. She saw her end on Bonita Road when some idiot tried to pass in the middle turn lane. My mother was driving, waiting to make a left turn going the other way, and got hit head-on. Scariest moment of my life, getting the news that Mom was in the hospital. She was OK, though banged up worse than anyone I'd ever seen. And Henrietta was gone. Went with Dad to take pictures of the car in the wrecking yard. She was almost unrecognizable.

1960s-era Chevy Malibu (The White Car): Had belonged to my grandparents. Classic white sedan with turquoise interior. My brothers both got to drive The White Car in high school. This may have been my favorite car as a kid, and to this day I wish I had gotten a chance to drive it. We sold it to one of our ne'er do well neighbors who promptly got hammered, got behind the wheel, and drove it into a ditch on our street (almost taking out one of our other neighbors in the process). This is one I wish we had back.

1968 Buick Le Sabre (The Buick): Had belonged to my father's aunt and uncle, Toots and Lou. Hardly had any miles on it. The biggest damn car you ever saw. Believe it or not, I took my driving test in this beast and managed to parallel park it without any problem. I still attribute my parallel parking skills (which are formidable, by the way) to learning it in this car.

1970s-era Ford of unknown model (Frieda): My dad named this car (a sign of love and devotion), but I'm not sure he ever really liked it all that much. My only enduring memory of it is my cousin Marty getting sick to his stomach in the back seat.

1960s-era Chevy Malibu Station Wagon (The Station Wagon): This was the first car I ever remember. We had it in Annapolis, and Marshfield, and then in San Diego. Mom drove Chris, Steve, and I across the country in it on our way from Marshfield to San Diego in 1974: three kids, a dog, no AC, and only an AM radio. My mother is a saint for not killing the lot of us. I can still remember two songs on the radio that played over and over again: Band on the Run (how appropriate!) and Billy Don't Be A Hero. I used to ride alone in "the way back" before seat belt laws existed on the books.

So, what about you? What were your important cars?



*Apologies to our good friend Loreta, whom we met after we had named our car.

All Tomorrow's Parties

This last week was my Fall Break. Thanks to working at a private school, I get a full week off in both the Fall and Spring (as opposed to the almost insulting one day that Nancy’s state school got last week). Of course, I had big plans for the break. I promised myself that I would not only get all of my grading done, but I would finish an article I was working on, mail out my book proposal, get ahead in my class preps, and get all the household stuff done that had been queuing up for a few months. So where am I at? Well, for starters, the blog is a day late and my grading remains untouched, as do my article, book proposal, and many of the household chores. And yet I’ve been working my butt off. I’ve even got a list of things that I accomplished.

So, how to make sense of the yawning disparity between my goals and my achievements?

First, it’s official: I’m getting old and don’t have the stamina (or patience) I used to have for a pile of tasks. Nor do I have the physical abilities I once had; my body resists much of what it’s asked to do. The other day, Trinity started mimicking the groan I let out whenever I get up from a place on the floor or whenever I have to bend down to pick up some toy or blanket that she has dropped from her perch on my left arm. Here’s Trin’s impression of me:



I’m also a hopeless procrastinator. My motto seems to be: “Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow?” For instance, I started to write this blog entry last night, but found myself without any ideas or energy, and distracted by the prospect of doing just about anything except what I was supposed to be doing. The only thing I could really get excited about was the bottle of beer in front of me. It was a long day taking Trin to the dermatologist in Indianapolis and my energy level was down to beer drinking level (as opposed to sitting down and writing a coherent, enlightening blog entry). Here’s how it goes most of the time:



Though I’ve always been a procrastinator, I’ve been getting the feeling that my increasing age and awareness of my declining physical prowess is adding to the problem – giving me more fuel for the fire (or lack thereof). For instance, the other day I was trying to take care of some bills but got sidetracked by a “real age” questionnaire on the internet. I don’t even remember what thread led to it, but it was impossible to pass up. There were pictures of three people with their biological age, and their “real age” listed along with the “causes” of the difference (two were younger than their biological years, one much older). I wonder, I thought, how bad it’s getting. And so, I took the test. Here are my results:





So, the good news is that I’m still younger than my actual age. But I can’t help but feel that the test is asking the wrong questions, or at least not asking enough questions. Sure, it wanted to know a lot about my red meat intake, my exercise routines, and my consumption of alcohol, and my general stress level over bills, family, etc. But if it really wanted to know about me it would have asked questions like:

-Are you up for tenure this year?
-Is your dog’s bladder alarm set for 3:30 a.m.?
-Does your house smell of diapers?
-Can you leave your keys on the usual surfaces (i.e. tables) without them disappearing?
-Does you daughter throw her food on the floor every night?
-Have you watched anything other than Thomas the Tank Engine in the last three months?
-Which person most accurately describes you: George Bailey before or after the intervention by Clarence the angel?

I wonder how the answers to these questions would have affected the outcome. Of course, this paints a rather one-sided picture of my mental state these days. I could also include:

Is your job fun and interesting? Does it afford you flexibility?
Does your wife make cookies on a regular basis?
Do your kids crack you up daily?
Etc.

Of course, I’m doing all of this thinking about age and happiness instead of doing what I should be doing: grading papers. I’ll get down to that just as soon as I figure out the perfect time of day for exercise, and what clothes I’ll have to wear for that exercise, and what part of the basement to clean out for the exercise equipment. That shouldn’t take more than a few hours, and then I’ll be ready to go for real. Or maybe I’ll just put it off until tomorrow; after all, it’s been a long day and I’m feeling tired.

Trace Evidence

The two year-old room at the daycare has been beset by an epidemic. The kids are biting each other like it's always lunchtime and they're made of cheese. The teachers are at their collective wit's end. And some of the parents are none too happy. The parents get a report when their child bites someone, as well as when their child has been bitten. Each type of report attempts to maintain the anonymity of either the offending child or the victim. But the parents are starting to cast accusing glances at each other and thinking the worst: "I'm guessing by the looks of the marks on Jimmy's arm that it was...Katie." "Those choppers belong to Billy and no one else. I just know it!" My little Cassandra wouldn't bite if she wasn't provoked by your little monster....and she never THOUGHT of biting until YOUR child got here."

They all do it, of course, but I think David has become the go-to villain in all their fantasy scenarios. David's an expert biter. He can get you from a sitting or standing position; standing still or on the move; on your arm, leg, or even your forehead. The boy's got mad skills. Just ask Felicity* (name changed to protect the innocent). She's the golden girl of the two year-old room. She speaks more clearly than any other child, she's potty trained, and apparently she pisses Dave off. I can understand it. Felicity's mom lobbied the daycare to have he daughter moved up from the 1 year-old room to the 2 year-old room ahead of Dave, even though she's younger. She's often found grilling the teachers about anything that might have happened to her daughter, such as when she had an accident in the bathroom. I was there to hear her all but blame the teacher for her daughter wetting herself. Yikes. And she never thought that Felicity's calling Elmo "Dodo" was even remotely cute (which it was...very); she just worried that "she'll never get it right if we reward it." Where Felicity embodies control and training, Dave is chaos and intuition. It's like Rocky versus the Russian in "Rocky IV." Anyhow, daycare picture day was last Friday. On Thursday, David bit Felicity on the forehead. He left a full dental record on the poor girl. Any parent would have been upset, of course. But you can imagine how Felicity's mother must have reacted. The two year-old teacher told us in a worried voice that "Felicity's mom is a nurse." I'm not sure what that has to do with anything other than the fact that she is well equipped to administer care to her daughter in the event of, say, a forehead biting. Perhaps she thought she was going to take a plaster cast of Dave's teeth marks and put them on file with the local authorities. I'd like to think her mother's concerns were about her daughter's health and any pain she might have had to endure. I think it was more about picture day.

On the Monday after picture day, we all got a note from the daycare director regarding biting in the two year-old room. It assured us (for SOME reason) that expulsion was not an option at this point. Hmmm....I wonder how the issue of expulsion came up? It's a nice, non-threatening, understanding and diplomatic note that casts no particular blame. But it still made me want to bite Felicity's mom on the forehead.

And she's not the only one. As my last post indicated, I spent the weekend in Ann Arbor at a "leadership conference." After spending every waking hour in a room without windows, working through every meal and being talked at about things like "learning outcomes," "takehomes," "satisfiers," "leadership attributes," etc., I felt very much like grabbing anyone with a receding hairline and wearing pleated khakis, taking them by the face, and chomping down on the thin layer of skin covering their skull. I know it sounds violent -- and over-reaction, to be sure -- but corporate speak combined with no fresh air for two days straight does strange things to an otherwise mostly rational mind.

Finally, I think Nancy wants to bite me on the forehead after our recent outing to get our fingerprints taken at the office of the Department of Child Services. Before I tell you that story, I would like to ask if it puzzles anyone else that we had to get our fingerprints taken not as part of the Foster parent licensing, but as part of the adoption process. It seems to me that you would want the FBI to run criminal background checks on people BEFORE you give them kids to take of, rather than after they've committed to the child and are wanting to adopt them. The timing seems backwards to me.

ANYHOW....

We showed up at DCS at 8:30 and had to fill out a single form and then have full sets of prints taken: all fingers on each hand together and then separately. After a mere few minutes filling out the form and signing things, we got down to the business of the fingerprints. I let Nancy go first because she's done this kind of thing before, back before I knew her, when she was younger and wilder (but that's another story for another day...let's just say she was let out on her own recognizance, paid a fine, and cried during her mug shots). But I digress.

It turns out they don't use ink anymore. Instead, you place your fingers on a small scanner, and it creates files that are then sent electronically to the FBI. And since this is now a computer-based process, you can imagine that it went without a hitch. Nancy did the combined fingerprints first and without incident. But then came the individual fingers. In order to get a complete print, you have to roll your fingers from side to side within a certain area on the scanner. The program then scores the print on a scale of 0-20 (I think). Anything under 13 is unacceptable. For some reason, Nancy couldn't get a score over 13 to save her life. It took well over 20 minutes to get a complete set of prints for her. Of course, Nancy immediately found humor in the absurdity and had the person administering the process in tears, she was laughing so hard. But I could also tell that Nancy was also getting just a little mad: not because we were in danger of running late to our various meetings for the day, but that the machine was saying something about her abilities to roll her fingers skillfully. Of course, that's a silly notion; there had to be something wrong with the stupid machine. I begged to differ, almost jokingly. I said I thought it was her rather than the machine. I received a withering stare. We're nothing if not competitive.

She finally finished getting all her prints accepted by the machine and now it was my turn. Nancy and her new pal waited gleefully for me to give it a go, confident in their shared certainty that I will have as much (if not more) trouble and that I, the stupid husband, will finally see the truth. Sadly for both of them, I was ten for ten on the individual fingers -- done in a matter of minutes, slowed down only by the temporal demands of the gadgetry itself. It was a triumphal moment for me. I celebrated for some reason with a Tiger Woods-style fist pump (can you say "dork"?), while Nancy and the administrator decided that the machine must just have needed time to warm up. "Nonsense," I said. "I'm just better at it than you." Nancy's reply was simple:

"Bite me."

What's that sucking sound?

It's the sound of my free time whooshing off into some unkown part of the stratoshphere. I'm currently in Ann Arbor, MI at a "leadership" conference (can you imagaine?!) with a number of other geeky academic types, discussing the subtle semantic nuances of such exciting topics as "learning outcomes." Plus, I have one hell of a slow internet connection in my "deluxe executive suite" at the Four Points Sheraton (picture a regular hotel room with a half wall dividing the room intwo, and a microwave in the corner). They've scheduled every single second of out time here and so I will have to return next week to tell you all sorts of fun things about fingerprints and biting people in the forehead. Until then...

Moderate Damage

As I write, Ruby, our beloved 2006 Toyota Camry is being given the once (maybe twice) over by our trusty mechanic. There’s nothing wrong with her, per se, but like every other important addition to our family, Ruby has a troubling backstory.

It all started the other day when I noticed a very slight and brief shudder in the front end at a stoplight. Because I suffer from acute buyer’s remorse, I notice minutiae like this for at least a couple of months – until, that is, I sully the car with errant scraps of paper, muffin crumbs, or spilled coffee. And then I just roll with it. But for now, I’m hyper-aware and vigilant. So, the shudder was noted and filed away in the “things to fret about” file in my brain. And then I noticed that the driver’s side door has a little catch to it when I open it…more than the other doors (and you know I checked them all). And there’s a little bit of what looks like white paint along the edges of both front fenders – hardly noticeable to the unworried eye, but glaring now. I said to Nancy: “I’m pretty sure Ruby was in an accident at some point,” in the hopes that saying it would make it not be so (as if I could fool the fates so easily). So, I did what I should have done before buying the car: I ponied up the $24.95 for CARFAX and checked the vehicle history on-line. Sure enough: on February 11, 2007, Ruby was involved in a front end collision in Warren County, Ohio, resulting in “moderate” damage. And so it has come to pass that I am now on an obsessive quest to find out everything I can about what happened. I have the accident report number, but calls to the Warren County Sheriff’s office and the Ohio State Patrol have yielded only assurances that these offices did not handle the case. So, now it’s on to local police departments. I want facts. I want pictures. I may even want a new car, depending on what my mechanic says. I still love Ruby; but cars, unlike kids, don’t usually recover from “moderate damage.”

This fact-finding mission reminds me in some ways of the process we’ve gone through with David and Trin in order to find out what kinds of damage were done in the past. Information about their medical histories was sketchy and sometimes contradictory for a long time. We had all sorts of questions that no one seemed able (or willing) to answer with any certainty or accuracy: How bad were David’s injuries that led him to be taken by DCS? Did Trin ever actually test positive for meth? Or was she taken as a precaution, merely because of exposure (her bio-mom did, in fact, test positive twice during the last three months of the pregnancy). A couple of weeks ago, we got to go through all the files on the kids and got answers to most of these questions. It was an exhausting and sobering couple of hours. The results, happily, were that the extent of damage done to the kids was less than we had imagined. More disturbingly, the extent of the bio-parents’ pathology greatly exceeded our expectations. The damage there is much more than moderate.

Both Trin and Dave are outstripping everybody’s expectations these days, in a good way. I’ll give you a little illustration of just how cool these kids are. On Saturday, we went to Turkey Run State Park for a hike and some lunch. It’s a longish drive (about 50 minutes) and, I’ll admit it, the kids were horrid for the entire 50 minutes. But when we got to the park, they stepped up their respective games. Dave got off to a rough start. He was raring to go, but fell early and skinned his knees. After that, he didn’t feel much like walking and we had to carry him pretty much the entire way (2 miles). To make matters worse, he fell sound asleep at about the 1-mile mark and became a 30-pound sack for the rest of the trip. But he is the single most beautiful boy when he sleeps, so it all balanced out. Trin, on the other hand, found her hiking groove and walked much of the way. Her crowning achievement was climbing all 70 steps that led back to the parking area after crossing the suspension bridge over Sugar Creek. Need I remind you that she is a mere 18-months old? Everybody sing along: “Come all without, come all within. You’ve not seen nothing like the Mighty Trin!”

Dave’s shining moment came a little later as we ate lunch at the Turkey Run Inn. At the tender age of 2.5, he has mastered (I mean mastered) the art of using silverware. He ate his entire lunch with his napkin in his lap, using his fork, and didn’t drop a single piece of food. Stud! And lest I make the mistake of downplaying his physical prowess by concentrating on his table manners, I would also like to point out that he is both the fastest runner of all the 2-year olds at day care, as well as the best jumper. In fact, his new favorite activity (besides watching “blue choo-choo,” aka Thomas), is climbing on top of a box in the kitchen (about a foot off the ground), getting his balance, and jumping off. He typically lands about two feet from the box and sticks the landing every time. I’m working on teaching him how to stand up straight and raise his hands as the final flourish of his flawless dismount. Now if we can just get him to put his pajamas on without a fight…

So Dave and Trin are doing great, resilient little munchkins that they are. “Moderate damage” be damned! And with any luck, Ruby will be one of us for a long time to come. As for Peanut and Fast Eddie, we may never figure out what the hell’s wrong with them.

Anything Worth Doing...

We bought a new car this week (well, new to us, anyway). Its name is Ruby. It’s a deep, well, ruby red 2006 Toyota Camry with 23,000 miles, and I love it. Nancy and I decided to get it because we realize we needed a second reliable car for hauling the kids around town. We thought we had a second (and third!) reliable vehicle until two Fridays ago when our ’96 Chevy S-10 pickup and our ’92 Chevy Corsica both broke down within 1 hour of each other while I was trying to get to work. The truck’s alternator went south and I had to fork over $232 dollars to get that fixed. The Corsica, meanwhile, spilled all of its coolant on the way to the gas station thanks to a cracked upper radiator hose. I was able to fix that one myself. In fact, I took a certain amount of masculine pride in the grease that I couldn’t completely wash off, and the two cuts on my thumb from having to use a wrench in a very confined space. Sure, it hurt when the wrench let go and my hand slammed into the air filter housing. But it was a sublime kind of pain. The kind that says: “You are doing something for yourself. You are working hard.” Every once in a while I catch a glimpse of my still scraped thumb and feel a little flutter of satisfaction ripple through the deepest core of my being.

And that’s got me thinking about the nature of work in general. Is there something hard wired into us that makes work and accomplishment of tasks so satisfying? When I watch David and Trin play, they seem to have tasks in mind that they want to accomplish. Even if it’s just going down the slide, they don’t just want to do it again. They seem to want to do it better – faster, more smoothly, with more flair. And they don’t seem to mind the bumps a bruises that go along with their efforts. David, in fact, appears to like and admire his "boo-boos" in much they same way I enjoy my scrapes and scars.

Either it’s hard wired, or we do a tremendously good job of pounding it into their brains so thoroughly that it becomes part of their being, their flesh and blood. Every conversation I have with David and Trin seems to involve some element of discipline: put that away, take this to Mommy, do this and not that, time to wash up and eat. I sound like their boss. And then there’s television shows like Thomas the Tank Engine, the whole purpose of which seems to be indoctrinating them into a strong Protestant work ethic through stories about the importance of working diligently, and catchy little ditties like this:



All work and no play make Jack (and Thomas, and Percy, and Kelly) a rather satisfied boy, apparently.

For me, it’s not just about physical, dirty work. I also get a certain amount of satisfaction out of teaching a good class or writing a good essay. There’s a specific kind of fatigue that tells me it went well and that I’ve done something difficult. At the same time, I’ll admit that I suffer occasionally from a certain existential angst about what use value my career might possibly have. This condition has recently worsened with the completion of my tenure file, which is now being reviewed by several different committees who will determine whether or not I am fit to continue at DePauw. The general anxiety that accompanies the tenure-review process has got me cataloging my salable skills outside of the academic world: television production, retail, cleaning gutters, mowing lawns, changing radiator hoses, shunting trucks, and hauling freight. Admittedly, there’s not much left there after all these years, so I hope I get tenure so that I can keep paying for Ruby, my love, who gets me to work comfortably and on time.

So, I close with two questions for each of you: What kind of work do you find particularly satisfying? Or what do you find particularly stisfying about your job?

No Butts About It

Well, David had learned and said the “F” word. It was inevitable. Every boy loves to say it. It makes them feel powerful and just a little naughty. They know it’s not nice to say, so say it they will. And do it, too…

Wait a second. You probably thought I was talking about the big one…the “F Bomb.” No, we’re not there yet. This is the little one: a bomb of sorts, but more like a firecracker. Yes, “fart” is now a part of David’s ever-growing vocabulary. The big surprise here is that it was NANCY who taught it to him, and taught him that it’s a little bit funny. So, now we’re on the slippery slope to purposeful farting, requests for fingers to be pulled, fart jokes, attempts to emulate real farts through either the heels of the hands on the mouth technique or the far more mysterious (yet apparently more satisfying, annoying, and addictive) hand in the underarm technique (one I never could master), and, of course, endless ridicule of anyone else who dares to pass wind in his presence. God help us all.

And with that in mind, I give you this little bit of poetry from the short-lived CBS animation show, “Creature Comforts.” The show was produced by the same folks who did the original “Creature Comforts” and then went on to “Wallace and Gromit” fame.



Perhaps the fact that, due to TWO people wearing diapers in the family, our house has some “dark notes” at all times explains why I find this so funny. Or perhaps it’s the utter deflation of the pretension behind the real voices. In any case, I just about soiled myself laughing at this. And, yes, despite the fact that I am on the verge of turning 41, I am a child when it comes to potty humor.

Speaking of the potty, my softball team is in the toilet. I’m on a new co-ed team now and we got beat 10-0 last night in our first game. It was so bad that we only got 2 hits: a single by our left fielder, who was then forced out at second on the way to a double-play, and a double that I hit and was then thrown out trying to stretch it into a triple. It was quite sad, actually. As I rounded second, I had the thought that triples just aren’t my thing (see previous post regarding lack of wheels on the basepaths). But this one went to the wall in right-center, and it’s softball. So a triple it shall be! Just as that thought crossed my mind, I saw a small round shadow on the ground over the right shoulder of my own lumbering shadow. Nah. Couldn’t be. Oh yes it was. One hop to the third-base woman, knee high and two steps ahead of me. A perfect throw. There was nothing I could do but groan and try to avoid the tag. No such luck. I slunk back to the dugout.

Of course, the team we were playing was last year’s champs. The men are all built like wide-receivers: lanky, fast, and strong. They get to every ball, have shotguns for arms (with accuracy to match) and hit the ball a mile. The women on their team were all Indiana State softball players as far as I could tell. Our team is comprised of aging professors and social workers. The worst part about the game, though, wasn’t losing. It was the arrogance of this other team – throwing people out at first from the outfield, dropping grounders and line drives just to make close plays, and talking to each other as if the our team wasn’t even there (which, in some ways, we weren’t). It’s pretty clear to me that our team will be bringing up the rear, so to speak. But the league is supposed to be fun. So, to them, I raise the heels of my hands to my mouth, apply pressure, and blow.

Maybe in a couple of years, I’ll have David teach me that underarm thing, once he inevitably figures it out. Of course, by then, he’ll likely be on to bigger and better offenses.

I'm Always In Love

Short and Sweet

This week’s blog entry is going to be “short and sweet” for a couple of reasons. First, short: my tenure file is due on Monday and I’m running out of time to put it together. Second, sweet: I think I may have been (unintentionally) a bit of a downer the last couple of weeks, so I’m looking to lighten it up a bit. So here are a few things that fall into that category of “short and sweet” this week…

1. David and Trinity (of course): We just got back from signing some preliminary adoption paperwork at the lawyer’s office this morning. We found out that we are the only family being considered for David and Trin. You might think this would be obvious, but given that we are working with a state and county administrative unit, nothing is ever certain or easy. This is probably as good and efficient as it gets. And depending on how expedient the child welfare folks are at getting some simple paperwork done, we might be only a few weeks out from making everything legal and permanent. As for the little wild ones, here’s some audio we picked up this week. Nothing extraordinary or particularly meaningful here – just a good glimpse into life at the homestead.



2. Mom: Yesterday was Mom’s birthday, so ya’ll send her some good wishes if you haven’t already. This is the woman who makes a point of singing “Happy Birthday” over the phone every year on each of our birthdays. She had a nice lunch at Anthony’s, courtesy of the St. Rose staff. And then she and Dad went out to the Olive Garden for dinner. It’s been hot in San Diego lately and Mom told me that she just wanted to go somewhere relaxing and enjoy herself. As a former Olive Garden employee (I was on the original wait staff at the Portland, Maine branch) I meant to remind her not to let them know it was her birthday or else they would feel compelled to sing her one of those inane “Hospitaliano” songs. It would ruin her appetite. So, Mom, I hope the trip to the Olive Garden was without incident.

3. My tenure file: There has been something of a “arms race” developing over the past several years at the university. Tenure files have expanded like Barry Bonds’ hat size. People have started including every little bit of “evidence” that they can cobble together: like every email from every student they’ve ever helped out, or badges from every conference they’ve attended. No one who has to read the files likes it, and yet nobody seems able to stop the madness. Until now. I want to keep things lean and mean if possible. Of course, I might be shooting myself in the foot, but then again I might become a hero. The real reason I’m trying to keep things short and to the point is that I simply don’t have time to build the behemoth that I probably should. We shall see.

And that is all for now. Keep it tuned here for more updates. I'm off to collate and copy and three-hole punch my way to a permament position on the faculty.

By the way, Nancy wants me to remind you all that she’s tall and bitter.

Full Speed Ahead

Classes started this week. After nearly nine months of not having to worry about the little details of running three courses last semester (thanks to my private school perk: the pre-tenure leave), I’ve been slapped back into reality by the sudden roar of the start-of-school engine. And this bus doesn’t stop or slow down for another 17 weeks. And we’ve got extra passengers now, sitting in the back throwing food, taking each other’s toys, and doing a whole lot of whining.

I’m reminded of the movie, Speed, which is a cinematic tour de force. Don’t believe me? Watch it again as a chilling allegory of post-industrial life: a city bus, under the control of a madman, that can’t slow down under 55 or else it will explode, killing everyone on board. It’s “no-fat” storytelling at its best. Not a wasted moment. Every time one crisis is narrowly averted, another, more deadly problem arises immediately to take its place. Feels like life around here right now.

It all started when we got back from Maine.

1. Nancy and I both had to attend meetings scheduled for the very next day after our return.

2. Trinity got sick with a nasty cough. Sounds like she’s smoked six packs a day for her entire young life.

3. This made Trinity stop sleeping through the night. So none of us slept through the night.

4. Neither Nancy nor myself could find the time to get our syllabi done before midnight on the eve of classes starting.

5. The copier in my department broke down.

6. Keys to my new office, such as it is (I call it Dick Cheney’s Bunker), were not forthcoming.

7. Nancy got Trinity’s illness. More coughing and not sleeping through the night.

8. Temperatures in the area hit 97, with humidity to match.

9. Only one of our cars is air conditioned.

10. Dave got horribly ill with a fever of 103.

11. This happened on Wednesday. Nancy and I both had classes from 10-4 on Thursday, so we had to find emergency respite care (thank goodness for the Sanchez family!).

12. Temperatures have remained in the high nineties with no relief in sight.

And just when we thought we’d gotten through it all – our syllabi got done, we made it to our classes, the kids were taken care of even if they still weren’t totally healthy – the power went out at 6:00 last night. None of us noticed right away because we had all the lights out (see points 8 and 12 above). The only thing that gave it away was the ceiling fan ominously slowing to a halt. The air in the house became dewy almost immediately. I prayed that it was just us and that I could simply flip one of the breakers in the fuse box. No such luck. A transformer had blown and even the traffic lights were out. We were in it for the long haul. Bedtime was drawing near for the kids and the upstairs bedrooms were heating up.

I felt the bus about to explode.

At 1:00 this morning, Dave woke up screaming. Neither of us could touch him or calm him down. It brought Nancy to tears. She was sleep deprived and scared. I, in my characteristic fashion, was being no help. I was simply mad that I couldn’t do anything, ignoring the obvious option of simply being comforting. I chose irritability. It was a bad choice. By 4:00 Dave was finally back to sleep, and so was Nancy. The bus was in flames, but we had all managed to escape mostly unscathed.

Trinity slept through all of it.

I have a sore throat today.

I, Me, Mine

We had a funny moment this week. David has developed a sense of ownership. And like all two year-olds, it’s way out of proportion. We were watching the final round of the PGA Championship (or, I should say, it was on and we happened to catch a glimpse now and then) and, at one point, David walked up to the screen, pointed at the very small image of the ball in the fairway and said, “Mine. My ball.” “Uh, no dude, that’s Tiger’s ball,” I replied, laughing at the combination of misapprehension and audacity. To which he simply repeated, “Mine.”

It was cute at the time, but then it got me thinking. A few days before, Barry Bonds had just hit his record-breaking 756th home run and I had the good fortune of reading a very well considered debate on my friend Beth’s blog. The debate centered on the issue of whether Bonds’s record should stand unencumbered by an asterisk if he were found guilty of using “performing enhancing drugs.” I really wanted to chime in, but I didn’t feel I had anything new or interesting to offer.

And then Dave claimed Tiger’s ball as his own and I started thinking about greed. And it occurred to me that whether Hank Aaron or Barry Bonds is the rightful “owner” of the homerun record is beside the point. For me, the point is that astronomical sums of money are at stake: ticket sales, ridiculous salaries, billions in advertising dollars and endorsement deals. That’s what makes athletes take steroids. It’s the logical extreme of the free-market: do whatever you can to stay alive and get ahead. What did Gordon Gekko say in “Wall Street”? “Greed is good.” And he meant this in the most Darwinian terms.

But it’s not just Barry Bonds or any number of other high-profile athletes, CEOs, politicians, etc. It’s you and me, too. Just look at the crowd swarming to claim the 756th homerun ball:

The lucky fan who withstood the torrent of blows and scratches and other indignities to finally claim the ball now holds something “worth” perhaps a million dollars. The struggle for the ball was not about claiming a piece of history for its own sake; it was about claiming it for the payout.

But there’s another side, too.

When Henry Aaron hit his record-breaking 715th homerun back in 1974, the ball was caught by a guy named Tom House, who was a relief pitcher for the Atlanta Braves. He was in the bullpen at the time and happened to come down with the “historic” ball. (If you ever see the footage of the homerun, you can see him jumping up and down very briefly before the camera returns to Aaron in his homerun trot.) In any case, the important point here is that House gave the ball to Aaron.
Of course, he didn’t have much of a choice: he was a teammate and would hardly have survived the outcry from fans and teammates had he decided to cash in at his teammate’s expense. Who knows what he would have done had he simply been a fan in the stands? But the point is, at the end of the day, House asked for nothing in return as far as I know. He knew the personal value of the ball to Aaron; he didn’t worry about the monetary value to himself.

And now, as I think about Dave and his toddler obsession with possessing things that don’t really belong to him or that he hasn’t earned (or that don’t even have any real meaning for him), I hope that I can teach my kids to be the kind of people who would give the ball to the person to whom it means the most without worrying what it might cost them.

Of course, after having said all that, I have to ask myself: what would I have done if I ended up with the historic ball? The answer, truthfully, is that I just don’t know. How about you?

Cesi n’est pas des vacances

PROLOGUE: In the Weeds

Why am I so damn tired?

Didn’t we just spend twelve days in Maine? Rocky coastlines, buoys ringing gently in the salty breezes, slow tramps through deep piney woods? All of these things were there. And so were we…with the Frenchies. “The Frenchies” is what we sometimes call our two-toddler collective, otherwise known as Dave and Trin, as French is their last name, at least for the time being. And “the Frenchies” make a mockery of quiet bliss.

So picture this: I decide to drive to the store in Newport, about 10 miles down the road from Nancy’s mom in Corinna. David says he wants to go for a “silver car ride.” I ask, “Do you want to go to the store with me?” He says, quite clearly, “Yes.” So we get in the car. I start the engine and begin down the driveway. David starts to wail. “Momma!” “Do you want to stay here with momma?” I ask him. “Yes,” he says. I go back up the driveway, stop the car, and start to get out. “No! Silver car ride!” he yells. Do you want to go to the store with me or not?” I ask. “Silver car ride!” “OK,” I say. I get back in the car. Repeat. I have no idea what he wants and everything he says he wants is not quite what he REALLY wants. We’re at loggerheads.

It puts me in mind of another vacation episode, though not my own, from 1991. Nancy and I had jobs waiting tables at the Grant Village restaurant in Yellowstone. Sometime in August, a group of tourists from France came in, sat at my six-top, and proceeded to run me ragged. Every time I stopped by the table, one of them ordered something from the bar (they did this one at a time – they never ordered two drinks at the same time). For those of you who have waited tables, you know that going to the bar can really slow you down, put you “in the weeds” as they say. So, I went into the weeds very quickly with them. And then there were the multiple and unevenly spaced orders for appetizers, and so on. Now, I wasn’t the best waiter in the world, but I was really trying, and they were just killing me and telling rude jokes about me in French. Little did they know that my busser, Marc, was from France and was reporting back to me occasionally. Of course, I wasn’t worried about the fun they were making of me. I was worried about them stiffing me on the tip. I even had Marc go over and try to explain to them that I was doing everything I could. To no avail. Their bill came to $106 and my tip came to $0. I was defeated. Marc came up to me, put his arms around my shoulder and said, “Sometimes, Jonathan, the French can be a real bitch.”

PART 1: You may NOT move about the cabin.

The good news is that we didn’t have to bail out over Amish country. And, in fact, the flights to Maine were surprisingly uneventful thanks to the US Airways folks, from the curbside check-in clerk who took care of our incredibly heavy and cumbersome bags, to the flight attendants who entertained Trinity from Indianapolis to Philadelphia, right down to our fellow passengers who maintained patient good humor throughout, and the kids who slept from Philadelphia to Portland.

The flights back to Indiana were another story.

Our first leg was from Portland to Detroit and the flight was scheduled to leave at 6:00 am. Nancy and I arose at 4:00 am in the darkness of our digs at the Embassy Suites near the airport and got dressed. I took the luggage downstairs, and then we went in to get the kids. For some reason, we thought that the early hour would mean that they would continue to sleep even after we packed them in the car and did the airport check-in routine. It seems that one side effect of sleep deprivation and deep fatigue is acute optimism. The kids woke up in their usual manners: David slowly and somewhat stormily easing into consciousness, Trinity giggling and bouncing, ready to rumble.

We also thought that the early hour and smallish city would mean a relatively quiet airport. No such luck on either account. The line at the Northwest Airlines counter was long and awkward thanks to a small flight of steps far too close to the kiosks, and a soldier en route to Okinawa who didn’t know what happened to all his paperwork and thus held up the line for far too long. (By the way, does it worry anybody else that a young man in the military would be so careless about his paperwork for international travel?). Once we finally got our boarding passes (at 5:15), we scurried up to security (with me starting to sport a caffeine-deprived ‘tude about incompetence, etc.) and were met with a line that I can only describe as Space Mountain-like in its length. “We’re not getting on this flight,” I said, ever so helpfully. But thanks to a crackerjack crew in security, the line flew and we boarded our very full flight at 5:52.

And then Dave decided that flying was for chumps and began to chant “Airplane. NO!” We tried Play-Dough and that worked for a time, but then he truly broke down. The WMDs came out: kicking, hitting, hair-pulling, biting. The boy was exhausted and confined – a dangerous combination if ever there was one. The fit was atomic. After walking him up and down the aisle for several minutes he finally fell asleep (as did Trin) for the last 20 minutes of the flight. Nancy has bruises on her arms, and the cabin of the plane is probably still spotted with blue Play-Dough.

On the second leg, from Detroit to Indianapolis, David found a friend in the seat behind him and played happily the whole time. Trinity, on the other hand, turned into a combination of Jackie Chan and a cornered badger: flipping, shoving, jumping, kicking, biting, yelling. I never knew that 23 pounds of baby would be so hard to hold (I’m seven times her weight after all) but the girl put me through the wringer. At one pint, she got under my seat as if she was carry-on luggage for the person behind me and was about as difficult to remove as a cat under a car seat upon arriving at the vet – dead weight clinging to the floor.

We finally landed, got off the plane, got coffee, got our luggage, got our car, and got the hell out of there.

I must add that one of the more enjoyable moments of the trip was the shuttle ride that David and I took to get the car out of long-term parking. We rode the “orange bus” and David held my hand the whole way.

PART 2: Hello Strangers

Our two brief stays in Portland before and after staying with Nancy’s mom in Corinna afforded us the opportunity to do two important things: introduce Dave and Trin to the ocean, and meet up with some old friends.

On Sunday morning we drove out to Two Lights State Park and crawled around on the rocks that lead down to the water. Dave was skeptical at first, but then took to it and didn’t want to stop. But we left Two Lights without incident and headed down to Crescent Beach to let the kids run around on the sand and stand in the water while the waves rolled in around their ankles. The sight of them stamping their feet in the water and laughing uproariously was worth the price of the trip. We got soaked with salt water, chased some sea gulls, explored some seaweed, and then returned to the car to change clothes and get ready for our next adventure.

We met Doug and Gretchen at a restaurant/bar called Three Dollar Dewey’s. I was once thrown out of Dewey’s back in the late 80s when a friend of mine decided to help herself to one of the beers in the fridge behind the bar. I have the feeling that Nicole, our waitress on this day in 2007, would have liked to oust me once again. It was fantastic to see D & G again and we were hoping that the kids would be their charming selves and let us catch up with our friends in the manner to which we’ve become accustomed: a nice cold beer and lively, intelligent conversation. Well, it was lively. But I can’t say that there was much conversation between David hurdling through the wait stations and Trinity throwing her entire lunch on the floor and trying to wash her hands in my water glass. Honestly, I don’t recall even eating my own lunch or what anyone else ordered for that matter. It was chaos. At one point, David was prostrate on the floor crying, at which point I gently reminded him that laying the floor in a bar and weeping is behavior reserved for the end of the evening, not mid-day. Doug and Gretchen were impossibly understanding and calm through it all, and made the very wise suggestion that perhaps we should go for a walk and continue our visit outside. We got the bill, paid up, and I apologized to Nicole who, clearly unaccustomed to the ways of toddlers, gave me a quiet, withering stare that said simply, “I don’t like you.” As D & G pointed out, she should just be thankful that we managed not to spill any liquid, despite David’s fascination with the mixing popcorn into Nancy’s water glass. In any case, our visit took a turn for the much improved while walking. Trin and Dave stayed in their respective strollers (Dave eventually fell asleep) and the four of us were able to actually have some conversation – not as much as I would have liked, but some anyway.

After a good long walk, we ran into two of Nancy’s friends, Greg and Ann, who had come up from New Hampshire to see us and meet the kids. We bid adieu to Doug and Gretchen (far too quickly for my liking) and continued on to Arabica Coffee with Greg and Ann. Dave continued to sleep for a while and Trinity got her groove back pressing her nose and mouth against the window next to our booth. Greg told us the story of one of his sculptures causing a stir and a call for censorship at Plymouth State’s faculty show. He showed us some pictures of the work and, as usual, it was very good and, unlike some of Greg’s other work, not very shocking (I see more offensive displays on the backs of pickup trucks every day). It’s really a shame to see our institutions of higher learning bowing to the whims of so-called “moral guardians.” To them I say, pshaw!

After our visit with Greg and Ann, the kids were done meeting new people and we returned to the hotel, had some dinner, and called it a day. The next day, we were on our way to grandma’s house bright and early.

PART 3: Nichols

Getting to Nancy’s mom’s house in Corinna gave us all a chance to slow down and relax a bit. Nancy’s mom thought that the kids might take a few days to warm up to her. But within the first few minutes, Trinity had asked to be picked up, wrapped her arms around Grandma Nichols and gave her one of her patented smooches on the cheek. Love at first sight! And David wasn’t far behind. After lunch on that first day, grandma went to take her customary afternoon nap. David started to get a little rowdy and we told him that he needed to be quiet because Grandma Nichols was sleeping. He obliged. After grandma got up and came out to the kitchen, David went into her room, pointed at her bed and said, “Nichols. Sleep.” From that moment on, she was known to him affectionately as “Nichols” (though sometimes “grandma” too). The upshot of this is that she likes it, and I now have something to call her after 17 years of simply avoiding any kind of formal address.

The kids fell in love with all the family members quite easily. There was Aunt Susie who has chickens that they could go see and feed. David even let Aunt Susie give him a bath. There was Uncle John (Susie’s husband) who let David ride his “orange tractor” and had a cool chainsaw and hydraulic wood splitter. There was Cousin Beth with her bicycle. There was Uncle Bob and Aunt Amy who had horses and a big back yard with a hose for them to play in and a fountain (not) to throw rocks in. There was Aunt Cathy and Uncle Paul who showed them all sorts of cool bouncy games and let them play in a big box (which IS endless fun!). We learned a lot about parenting from Nancy’s family, especially her mom who is the paragon of patience. While we spend too much time saying “No” when they are doing something they shouldn’t, or making quick and panicky moves to keep them from mortal danger (such as bread knives), Nancy’s mom moves at an even pace and speaks with an even tone. She just picks them up and redirects them to some other activity, or takes the sharp implement out of their hands and says, “Thank you.” All without incident. We’ve been trying to emulate her at home and it has produced some good results so far.

Outside of the house, there were also all sorts of things to see and do on the farm. There were, of course, the chickens, which had to be fed their raisins every day, sometimes twice – maybe three times – a day. There were the blue tractors up on the hill just begging to be touched. There was the cornfield that we tramped through to get to the blue tractors, and the mud puddle that David fell in (much to his delight, believe it or not) right next to the blue tractors. And then there was grandma’s tractor that got a whole lot of “riding,” and a dirt road on which to run (and sometimes fall and get very impressive scraped knees). There were birds and squirrels and even two raccoons in the bird feeders just outside the windows every day. And there was even a wild thunderstorm that produced nearly golf ball-sized hail.

Unfortunately, I think we may have witnessed the birth of a phobia for Trin during the thunderstorm. In the midst of it all, I was playing with David on my lap while Trin sat next to me looking out the window. The storm was right over us and there was a lighting strike probably no more than a quarter mile or so away. David flinched a little, but I made a funny face at him and he laughed. Trin was totally quiet for a couple of minutes, but then got off the couch rather hastily and crawled into Nichols’s lap and just stayed there looking terrified for about a half hour. When I took her to get ready for bed, she let me do the whole greasing up/hydrocortisone routine without any struggle whatsoever (not normal). She went to sleep easily enough, but once the storm started up again at about midnight, I found her lying awake in her crib watching the bright flashes, seemingly frozen with fear. Poor little thing. We’ll see how it goes the next time we have a big one here in Terre Haute.

All in all, it was a great visit and very hard to leave. It was a relief to see how easily Dave and Trin took to everyone, especially Nichols who is probably glad to have some peace and quiet again.

EPILOGUE: Hello Strangers Redux

Our return to Portland allowed us to meet up with our oldest Maine friends, Todd and Gigi, who now live in Lowell, MA. Given the short amount of time we had that day, we decided to just meet at the hotel and order pizza. They brought the kids two fantastic stuffed animals: an elephant for Trin named “Winks,” and a dog for Dave that we named “Herbert” but he dubbed “Ross” (because Trin has a dog named “Ross”). We decided to name it “Herbert Ross” and now Dave is the proud owner of perhaps the only stuffed animal in the world named for the director of “The Goodbye Girl” (not to mention “Footloose”!). Once again, it was hard to have much more than child-based conversation, as Dave and Trin flew about the room eating (and dropping) raisins, tearing up bits of wrapping paper, and pushing the buttons of the air conditioning unit.

But who needs adult conversation when Dave is there to sing his ABCs to you (which he can do!) and perform his amazing ability to recognize any and all numbers up to and including ten? It was like he knew he was in a room full of professors and was reciting his lessons for the day. And who can really feel all that exhausted and fed-up when Trin crawls into a friend’s lap, rubs and then kisses his closely shaved head? Nobody. Not me. Not Nancy. Not even Nicole, I bet.

Yes, the French can be a real bitch sometimes. But they can also charm the pants right off you.