Meaningful Glances

Thanks to an atypical December storm, we are buried in snow. At all (or most) of 40 feet above sea level, we have over a foot of snow on the ground for the first time in my lifetime. OK, so "buried in snow" was a bit of an exaggeration - it is nonetheless a wild start to Winter. Under the top 6 inches or so of snow is a nice hard layer of ice about a half of an inch thick that only adds to the general misery of people trying to move around as usual (via automobile). On foot it can be pretty interesting, too, but it's definitely a lot more manageable. I just got back from walking with a neighbor to the Safeway across the street for a few more supplies before night falls. We lost power for several hours yesterday morning and have had a few brief interruptions so far today. Accordingly, our candles and matches are laid out where we can easily get to them, and we are stocked up on batteries for the one flashlight I can find. The real problem isn't light, of course, it's heat. If our power goes out like it did Sunday morning, it only takes a matter of a few hours for the interior of the house to dramatically cool off to near see-your-breath cold. This is what led us to take up my dad on his offer to ferry us to their house yesterday, where we ended up staying overnight even though the power was back on here at our place by the late afternoon, according to a neighbor.

Even under the imminent threat of a power outage, there's a certain appeal to looking out on this dazzling carpet of white from the windows of our home. We've already been able to help two neighbors since getting back late this morning, so I feel like we are where we need to be. Obviously - and thankfully - we have power for the time being, and we're making the most of it by cranking up the heaters, shutting off rooms to let them heat up, and baking cookies, because let's be honest - nobody wants to be stuck in a good old fashioned snow-in without some cookies (pronounced "coogies") close at hand.

Church gatherings all over our area were cancelled yesterday, including our own, and forecasts are not looking favorable for holding Christmas Eve services, either. First, we were to be thawing yesterday evening and in to today. Instead, 6 more inches of snow dropped on us. Now our beloved meteorologists are telling us that another heavy Pacific storm system might push the freezing level up a few hundred feet on Wednesday. We'll see...

So while I've got the chance and also, in the interest of full disclosure, not much else to do, I thought I'd upate a blog that I'm sure the one or two people who used to read it have given up on long since. To those few and any other who might happen by - Merry Christmas! May the peace of God cover your houselholds as richly and beautifully as the snow now covers ours!

Hey, it's the latest craze! Tagging friends and family to cough up a few quirky tidbits about themselves, and now it's my turn! I suppose it's only fair, given that I've read up on most everyone else who keeps a blog. Problem is, as I mentioned to Brigetta the other night, I don't really draw a line between "normal" blogging and "quirky" blogging. I, for better or worse, don't seem to have that filter when writing. Read my previous entry for proof. So here's my attempt at coming up with 7 more quirky fun facts about myself (in no particular order):

-I hate shower drains. I will make every effort to stay away from them myself and I cringe when I see someone else (like Evelyn) touch ours.

-While down-climbing Mt. Hood in 2005, I was convinced that I was sweating blood. Literally. It was getting a little warmer and I was utterly exhausted (14 hours of climbing will do that to a person). I opened my outer layer to cool off a bit and noticed a rust-colored stain on the left side of my white polypro layer, on my abdomen. I actually said to a few members of my climbing party "I think I might be sweating blood." Not alarmed, mind you, but just matter-of-fact. It seemed like an appropriate thing to say, but they quickly reminded me that sweating blood would be extraordinarily bad, and that I almost certainly wouldn't still be ambulatory if that were the case. Good point. Besides, as it turns out, it was just a leaky, cola-flavored energy gel packet that I had stashed in my jacket's inner pocket. Exhaustion does funny things to a person...

-I once threw an egg from the roof of a friend's house towards a road about 50 yards away...and actually hit a moving car (speed limit on that road is probably 35). Aside from the both of us, junior highers at the time, nearly falling off the roof while laughing, no real harm was done.

-And speaking of eggs - my go-to most embarrassing moment as a child: Approximately 2 weeks after my oldest brother, Scott, had shown me that, if you hold an egg the right way, you can squeeze it as hard as you want and it won't break, we happened to be making ornaments in my 5th grade class that involved...wait for it...eggs. I've never been much of a showoff (Ha!), but I decided to pass on this wonderful discovery to a few of my closest neighbors in class. If you guessed that it went off without a hitch...you're wrong! No - instead, in a show of nigh-on-Herculean strength, I managed to crush the egg and forcefully expel it's contents on to myself (it exploded). Face, hair, clothing...pretty much everything. Fortunately, the whole event left no lasting psychic or emotional scars.

-To show my undying love and devotion to Crystal, my major second-grade crush, I threw her coat in a mud puddle. Ms. Stoner (serious, that's her name) had the audacity to give me a "conduct" (short for misconduct) for my actions.

-I, more than just about any other substance on earth, including second-hand smoke and nuclear waste, despise peanut butter. My brothers used to torture me by forcing me to smell it.

-The secret to my immaculately-coiffed hair? Herbal Essences hairspray. There may not be much to hold, but what's there is on Maximum Hold! With a hint of orange flower.

So there it is. I'm not sure there's anyone left to tag, but I would like to see Scott and Mr. Cory hijack their spouse's blogs to join in the fun.

I have a confession to make.

I like foofy hand soap. Call it a weakness, call it slightly bent - it's alright, I'm secure in my self-image (as far as you know), but I've got a thing with my hands. A texture thing. I generally hate the feel of denim (Brigetta likes to scratch her jeans just to cause me pain), I don't like the way liquid hand soap makes my hands feel after washing, and just overall disapprove of textures that are half way between rough and smooth. I abhor having long fingernails and will frequently (seriously - watch me play guitar at church some time) use a hard edge or corner to apply slight pressure underneath them, because...well, I have no clue. Brigetta used to be convinced that I was autistic somehow - "on the spectrum," as she would say - I just figured that it was perfectly normal to walk on the balls of my feet over linoleum because I didn't like the way it felt on the rest of my feet. That is normal, isn't it?

But back to hand soap. Today is the second "Daddy Day" in a row for Evelyn and I, and we celebrated by getting a chocolate donut at the "donut store" (Albertson's) after dropping mommy off at work, then went to the mall this afternoon for our official "Daddy Date." This morning, as I was resting on the balls of my feet in the kitchen and washing my hands, I noticed that our last container of foofy hand soap (it foams!) was getting low. The multitask alarm went off in my head, and so, as part of our Daddy Date, we hit up Bath & Body Works for some new, exotic (foofy) scents. The picture above is not, as it may seem, Evelyn shoving the soap nozzle up her nose. Close, but she had enough self-restraint to avoid actual insertion. A friendly associate at the store made her way over to explain that the sale on soaps was a "mix 'n' match" sale (it always is), and proceeded to point out several options that we hadn't yet put to the sniff test. "Yeah, listen - this ain't exactly my first Bath & Body Works rodeo," I wanted to say. I smiled politely instead: "Thanks." Besides, none of the other soaps foamed. We settled on Enchanted Orchid, Japanese Cherry Blossom, and - get this - Midnight Pomegranate. "Oh, man, I can't sleep, it's midnight, I've got work in the morning...what am I gonna do? Hey, that pomegranate looks good..." You can understand my skepticism as I unfastened the top to get a sniff...but, sure as Al Gore invented the internet, it smelled exactly like midnight!

Midnight. What a great marketing word. Milky Way Midnight, Midnight Madness, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. I could have added it to the first line of this blog and totally changed the tone. Go ahead, read it out loud to yourself and see if you don't blush. At any rate, it makes for a great soap scent because, let's face it, Pomegranate is just not enough.

What do you do for a soap-sniffing encore? Go see the goldfish, the Mickey store, and find a way to make mac 'n' cheese sound new and exciting, of course! "We're going to go pick up super yummy mac 'n' cheese from a mac 'n' cheese store, Evelyn!" Again the eyes widen - score one for daddy. "OK! We go pick up mac 'n' CHEEEESE!" I am wholly convinced that I could say anything in this tone of voice and garner the same reaction. "Hey Evelyn, we're going to go run over a whole kit of baby rabbits in our van! How's that sound?" You get the picture.

Instead of reading a book or taking a nap (which I could really use) right now, I thought I'd take a little time to update this ferociously neglected blog. It's a "Daddy Day" today - Evelyn is mine all mine until mommy gets home. She is snoozing cozily in her recently reinforced bed (see Brigetta's blog for more on that), and I am here in the office (den, family room, man cave, whatever), having just cleared out the remains of our "playhouse." "Fort," apparently, was not as attractive to Evelyn. "Do you wanna help daddy build a fort to play in?," I'd say. "I don't have to," came the reply. "What about a playhouse - should we build one of those to play in?" Behold the eyes widen; "That be OK!!! We make build a PLAAAYHOUSE!" And so on. Down came the futon matress, quickly followed by the vacuum cleaner - it turns out Evelyn wasn't quite as neat with her breakfast this morning as I thought - and then there were blankets to gather, books to weight them down, chairs from the dining room, pillows from every corner of the house, and one light-up penguin wand from the zoo. It took up all the free space in the room, excepting a few feet in front of the door when "we" finally finished it. "We" meaning "me," despite the "help" from both Evelyn and Scout. It's - and any of you fellow fort builders out there can attest - delicate work putting together a masterpiece of this magnitude. When you realize that one big bible isn't enough to hold this blanket on that support and there's no way to walk around to get at it, you must crawl through the unfinished structure to make the repair. My problem - excuse me - my help today decided that they would crawl through with me. "Stay right here while daddy crawls through." Yeah right. "I crawl with you," said Evelyn. Scout agreed by licking me from chin to eyeball. So "we" built it together, took our penguin wand inside and had ourselves a time. It's amazing how the same old toys and activities become fresh and exciting when you're in a "playhouse." We sang the ABC's what had to have been a half dozen times, hammered on the hammer bench, typed on an old keyboard, fixed Daddy's hair, took a "rest" (for all of five seconds), and experimented with falling flat on our faces. OK, that last one was just Evelyn, and even though I do generally enjoy a good face-flop on to a mattress, I had to explain to her when she asked me to try that daddy was too tall to try it in the playhouse. I wish I'd been able to take pictures, but I think Brigetta has the camera with her at work today, and my cell phone camera wasn't able to pick up much in the relative dark of the playhouse interior. Instead, you get my thousand words, give or take a few (thousand).

And that is a slice of my new-and-improved Thursday. In the current absence of a second job, here's where all the time goes: Mondays are family days - zoo, park, swimming, the mall, you name it. We find time to get out of the house as a family and have fun on the only weekday that we all have off. Tuesdays start off with Brigetta out the door early and Evelyn getting to "sleep in" and have breakfast and some play time with me. At around 10am, Miss Julie comes to pick Evelyn up for the afternoon while I set in to work on the coming Sunday services. Brigetta picks up the kiddo after work while I snoop around the kitchen to see what the girls could have for dinner while I'm off climbing with Randy. I get my kisses and hugs when they get home and then it's off to the gym so I can be back for the bedtime routine. Wednesdays start off much the same, except that Brigetta doesn't have to be away quite so early, so she gets Evelyn up and out the door to Julie's on her way to work. I spend that morning and afternoon trying to more or less finish work on any chord charts and other things that need to be done before Sunday so that I can make a brief stop by the office in the evening to make copies and pull any charts I didn't print from home. Thursdays, as you now know, are Daddy Days. I get to be Mr. Mom, and I'll be honest - I love it. Not easy, certainly, but worth it. When Brigetta gets home, I'll head out to practice with the rest of the worship team and try, once again, to be home in time help Evelyn go night-night. Friday is usually the day that Evelyn gets to go to Granny and Papa's (my mom and dad) to play in the late morning and early afternoon, though this week they will both be out of town to a wedding in Virginia, so I get an extra Daddy Day. Woohoo! We might even have a car and a camera for that one, so look out - there may be some pictures coming your way tomorrow.

As if on cue (a really, really early cue), the sounds of Evelyn discontentedly stirring are tickling my ears, so it's time to stop typing and go to take my little short-napper for the walk I promised before rest time!

Addendum:
"Hey Sweets, why such a short nap today?"

"I just wake up. I was jumping."

"Do you feel like you have to go potty?"

(Contemplating with head to one side) "I feel...like I have to go play."

I woke up from an impromptu nap yesterday to the sweetest little voice you've ever heard asking, in the sweetest way you've ever heard, "Can we go get some sand?" Even after Evelyn repeated these words for the seventh time in rapid succession, it was still brain-hemorrhagingly cute. A little groggy yet, I sauntered out to the living room to find Brigetta resting her eyes momentarily in the rocking chair, having successfully convinced Evelyn to come ask me to go get sand. Mustering our energy, we decided that, it being late in the day, getting sand in the morning would be a better way to go. Evelyn did not agree. Evelyn had also failed to take a nap earlier in the day. So with hugs, consolation, and the promise of sand in the morning, the storm eventually passed.

This morning, as promised, we piled in to the van for a trip to Home Depot, or as Evelyn called it, "The Sand Store." After studying each potential bag for carcinogen warnings and other cautionary statements, we settled on two 50-lb. bags of play sand, one of which now fills Evelyn's turtle box (formerly the turtle pool). She immediately and copiously thanked Daddy for the sand, while simultaneously digging in with her sparkly green "scooper." She's back in the house for a bite of lunch as I write this, but we'll be back out in the sandbox soon.

A Diet Mt. Dew and several powdered mini donuts are, as I'm finding out right now, a rather lame attempt at chemically coping with a lack of sleep. You could probably infer from the photo above (Wizard Falls, Metolius River in the background) that we've just been on a vacation. If you are a part of, or know of our family, then you wouldn't even need to infer - you'd just know. Slightly less regularly now than in the days before children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren littered the literal and metaphorical landscape of our familial life, my dad's side of the family - as many as can make it - gather in central Oregon on or around the 4th of July for hijinks, shenanigans, card-playing, and, of course, vast amounts of calories. And let's not forget laughter. Like an effervescent glue (acid free!) that adheres pictures to pages, so this ubiquitous yet unseen substance holds together our renunions, preserving them for years to come with ever evolving inside jokes, pranks, and/or general tom-foolery (gaudy rainbow panoplies notwithstanding). After a year or two hiatus (I can't remember which, and I don't care enough to figure it out), and some "judicious" planning (read "saving money for gas"), we caravanned over to Tollgate - a spacious development of nice homes situated in the Deschutes National Forest just outside of Sisters - with my oldest brother, his family, and our parents for a few days of R & R, only in the case of my little family, the first "R" could well be substituted with "red-eyed" in place of the more conventional "rest." Don't get me wrong - we had a tremendous time being with the rest of the family - but the nights were shorter than planned, thanks mostly to an out-of-sorts 2-year old who, despite stellar and easy-going trips to the beach in the past, decided that she was most unimpressed with the sleeping arrangements at our Tollgate rental house, as well with her perceived lack of proximity to "mama." I'll say no more, lest I begin to sound ungrateful for the rest of the trip, which I most certainly am not.

The Tollgate pool was, with little doubt, the main attraction for the little ones this year. The mere mention of a pool or swimming can wipe away the darkest and most pitiful clouds from Evelyn's face, and I estimate a similar level of interest in my brother's three daughters, based, mostly, on the screams and shouts of delight, as well as the persistent requests for me to display my pool hand-standing abilities. I, in my avuncular magnanimity, could hardly say no to those shining faces (or quivering uvulas if the request was loud and close enough). If, in the picture above, it looks as though Evelyn (far right) couldn't be happier, it's likely because she honestly couldn't be. She got to go to the "cool" (don't know why - "p-p-pool" just doesn't seem to register) every day we stayed! "That be a good idEEa," she would tell you if you were to suggest such a plan again, or just "Yaaaaaaay!" with a definitive nod of assent. On Saturday, all the great-grandkids (to my grandparents, anyway) in attendance got to go - with supervision of course - to the Wizard Falls Fish Hatchery on the banks of the Metolius River to feed the fish and have a picnic. While perhaps not as engaging as getting to be in water themselves, the kids enjoyed themselves thoroughly, throwing bits of foul-smelling "food" to the swarming schools of trout and sturgeon and watching them flail about in a sort of desperate, Darwinian contest to decide which would be fed and which would go hungry. Doesn't that sound fun to you?

Later that evening, after the big family dinner and a discussion with one of my uncles, my brother, and later my cousin that was both spirited and lengthy, and in which we also - once again - solved all of the church's problems (tongue's in my cheek there), we (mostly just the men) gathered at my grandparents rental house for a "late-night party," which is usually our way of saying "playing cards until 10pm or so." Usually. I'll be darned (literally, I will be mended like a sock) if we didn't finish up the last game until almost midnight, when someone (*cough*Jeff*cough*) mercifully let Scott (my oldest brother) shoot the moon to win our first ever game of seven-handed hearts. For those unfamiliar, seven is a slightly ridiculous number of people to play hearts with, but it made for some interesting moments. By interesting, of course, I mean "horrible," but that's only because I lost. And that took us right in to Sunday morning - a time to clean up and prepare to leave, and also a time to gather as a group of like faith to worship God and share in yet another meal together before finally giving our hugs goodbye and going our different ways. For our part, we backtracked in to Sisters to top off the tank (ouch), take a few pictures of the eminently picturesque mountains for which the town was named, and stock up on caffeine-laced products before our three-plus hour ride back home. Even though we arrived feeling something not unlike lethargic, I speak with confidence for all three of us when I say (write) that we are glad we had the chance to go, glad that we are part of a family that makes it such a priority to get together, and above all, glad that Evelyn can now sleep in her own bed.

Congratulations, Mom and Dad! Forty years ago today you made promises to each other that I'm ever so grateful you kept! Brigetta and I have just been watching episodes of a mini-series on the Discovery channel called "When We Left Earth." It chronicles the NASA missions, including the Apollo launches which, of course, led to mankind's first steps on the moon. Here's a wild thought: you guys were still newlyweds when that happened! I'd ordinarily steer clear of this sort of thing - you know, couching your marriage in historical terms, making you feel old, etc. - but I couldn't help myself on that one. Besides, you've faced, whether you're comfortable with it or not, a lot of history together. No need to recount man-on-the-moon moments. There's Wikipedia for that.

No, I'd rather share a couple of my impressions from what I can recall of your 40 years together, keeping in mind that I didn't exist for the first quarter or so of that time. Perhaps the simplest, most powerful image I have is really a series of images. They are of the welcome home hugs and kisses you were never shy about giving to each other in front of us. It didn't need to be "welcome home from a long hunting trip." It could just as easily have been "welcome home from going to the store," or "welcome home from work." That Dad and Mom loved each other was abundantly clear. The impact this has had on me is inestimable as Brigetta and I enter our 7th year of marriage. It's a priority woven in to the fabric of my being. My child must see and know that I love her mother. At the danger of becoming cliche, love is the foundation on which we hope to build our family's character. We love God, each other, and those around us. You could have told me those things until you were blue in the face, but I do not believe it would have made the difference it has if I hadn't been able to see it in action.

The second thing that comes to mind is a memory I know I've shared with other people in my life, but I'm wondering as I write this if I've ever shared my version of it with you, Dad. I don't remember much in the way of specifics, but it remains to this day my most vivid memory of you being angry at me. I'm sure there were too many moments like this to count - especially in my teenage years - but on this occasion you chose to show it, and strangely enough, I'm glad that you did. All I remember is that I had said something extremely sarcastic and disrespectful to Mom - I think I might have even yelled it at her. You weren't home at the time. Some time after you did get home, you confronted me in the hallway, right outside my room at the time. The look on your face was as close to murder as I've ever seen it. You held me against the wall there and verbally let me have it for disrespecting Mom. You'd think I'd be able to tell you exactly what you said, but I can't. The impression was enough. You were willing to put up with a little sass yourself, but treating my mother like that was. Not. Happening. It was...well, impressive. I was impressed. I still am. In that moment you modeled for me how to passionately defend my family (even from within). It had nothing to do with chest-beating, macho threats, or violence, and everything to do with not being afraid to tell someone when the line had been crossed. Similarly, Mom, I've heard you tell stories of how ticked off you were when people said something unfair about your husband, especially early in his ministry at MCC. Both of you have had the other's back all this time, which is another incalculable gift and legacy that I am compelled to pass on to my child (or children some day, but don't read that as an announcement).

So thank you! Thank you for leading by example - for backing up your words with actions. Thank you for loving each other, and for teaching us how to love our families. Congratulations on your first 40 years of marriage! May there be many, many more full of love and laughter!

Love,

Andrew