Daddy wil do that

"Don't worry, Mommy. Daddy will wash the dishes tonight."

So spake my firstborn when my wife suggested that he could be a big boy and help her clean up the kitchen the other afternoon. Evidently my reputation for late-night housework marathons is not confined to my co-workers; the children have now caught on as well.

A violet fluid

Breaking out of a years-long hazelnut rut, I just tried -- and loved -- a violet latte at the J&S on Thomas and Hamline. I got a bit of a double-take from the solitary barista when I ordered, leading me to believe that she must not make a lot of that particular permutation, but the delicious result has certainly made me eager to try other flavors going forward, even when the choices are not quite so exotic (I could have also tried lavender).

Budget permitting, of course, I am looking forward to spending some regularly-scheduled time in various coffee shops in the coming months as I work to get my writerly groove back in preparation for my upcoming adventure into an MFA writing workshop beginning in January.As the household/family routines (bedtimes, nutritious evening meals, sufficient sleep for parents, et cetera) gradually fall into place, my creative routines will, I am grateful to report, be next on the list to be acknowledged, accommodated, and encouraged. (My historical preference is to write in bars, but pints still seem to demand a higher price point than espresso drinks. Sad, but true.)

The Plot Against America by Philip Roth

After a much-longer delay than I had hoped for I am finally reading Philip Roth's 2004 novel, a fictional memoir of his imagined childhood as Jew during Charles Lindbergh's presidency, covering roughly the years 1940-1942. I am currently about one hundred pages in, and it is a very compelling narrative so far, richly textured with observational detail, making me eager to find out what turn the story will take next.

I have never read anything by Roth before and I have the impression that this work is somewhat atypical of his writing, not just in terms of subject but in style as well. But I would be inclined to try more Roth in the future if this book continues to be as good as its first three chapters have promised.

"Did God Die?"

I will be honest: I did not really think much at all about when the questions about religious beliefs would begin to come out of my son's mouth — I am not, after all, any good at forethought of any kind — but I am fairly certain that had I given this eventuality the planning it indubitably deserves, I would not have expected it to start at age three. But I should have, because that is when it has.

This morning, as Primus and I were eating our early breakfast, giving Mama and Baby a little extra sleepytime, he looks up at me and asks, very intensely, "Did God die?"

Not really expecting that one, I hemmed a bit, then said, "No, I don't think so."

"Jesus is dying on the cross in the office," was his reply, referring to the large crucifix in the other room, a gift from my parents and grandparents on the occasion of my confirmation and high school graduation.

Oh, that. "Well, yes, Jesus died for us, and Jesus is God. So, I suppose..." Seeming answered, he returned to his oatmeal.

So we (my wife and I) need to do some serious deciding about how exactly we want to approach our tentatively-shared faith with our ever-inquisitive offspring. Neither of us want to cram him full of glib rote catechetical formulae; we want to share from our hearts what the core beliefs of our faith mean to us as earnest believers. And to do that, I am going to have to snap out of my spiritual sloth and get my head around my personal faith, because it will prove singularly difficult to confidently share something with Primus that I am not consciously incorporating into my daily life.

Singin' In The Rain

The Lad loves puddles, and rainy days mean fresh, full puddles that must be splashed in. Today was no exception: even though he is still a ways from getting over a ragged-sounding chest cold I bundled him up and headed out. We were about fifty feet from the building when gave a little skip-hop and started singing at the top of his puerile voice:

"I'm SINGing in the rain
just SINGing in the RAIN
what a GLORious feeling
I'm HAppy again"

Then came the amazing part. He brought his battered blue umbrella down and held it out at arm's length as he began a slow twirl, rotating the umbrella rather gracefully as he trailed the edge through the puddles all around his circumference.

Perhaps he will soon take up dancing as well...

Squidginess: chronic or reversible?

I am not a fit person; I never have been. Oh, I was a slip of a thing in my youth, but scrawn does not really equal fitness. Never quite reaching six feet, I was a wispy 143 pounds when I started college, where I managed to gain sixteen pounds by the end of my first semester, twenty-three pounds by the time we broke for summer. I enjoyed the mandatory Phys Ed course, especially my first experience with weight training. By the end of two months I was able to bench-press 95 pounds (more than half my body weight, mind you), and felt more physically confident than ever before in my young life.

But it was not a routine I was capable of maintaining. I kept sporadically active throughout the rest of college, particularly enjoying intense games of racquetball with a few good friends. Regularly scheduled physical endeavors never lasted for long, however. Why? My explanation is that, growing up a country boy, there was never any need for me to seek out physical activity; the whole day was full of it, from throwing hay bales to milking goats to the mile-long walk to the mailbox and back (seriously). And when I wasn't doing chores around the farm, I was excavating pits in the grove with a shovel or breaking large rocks into hand specimens with a sledgehammer for my collection. Why would I need to exercise? When would I have the time, or the energy?

Unfortunately this was not a mindset I could easily shrug off when my lifestyle changed dramatically to an urban existence. By the time I had graduated and worked in retail for half a decade (including at least a year where my work lunches consisted of two doughnuts and a quart of chocolate milk) my waistline had expanded several inches, and my face was so round that I have difficulty recognizing myself in photos from that period. Then the Boy was born, the fiscal belt for our household was excruciatingly tightened, and to save the money spent on bus fare I began walking the two and a half miles to work each day, and frequently walking back home as well at the end of my shift. Combined with a dramatic reduction in calories (not only where the doughnuts out of the question, but food in general took on something resembling scarcity), this summer of privation was characterized by one colleague as the "Frog Daddy Less Input, More Output Plan", and the pounds literally fell away. On the eve of our son's birth I weighed myself in the hospital at two hundred twelve pounds avoirdupois (or fifteen stone two, for our British readers). By August I was a more familiar one hundred seventy pounds, a drop of more than forty pounds in just seven months without any real effort, just force of circumstance.

Life has eased a great deal, and having learned no real lessons apparently, I have gradually swelled to a more generous girth than I find entirely pleasant or practical. This time, I really want to push myself to actually build up healthy habits of both eating and activity. I am starting with daily push-ups, trying to build up to a solid number of steady, confident reps. I have plans to start stretching extensively twice a day, in addition to my pedestrian commute each day (about three miles round trip). And more vegetables, less meat, nothing fried in my diet. It is a slow, sporadic process, but I have real hope that I can gradually push myself to become, if not a brand new me, at the very least a me I can take out in public again.

Don't love LE

I don't love Louise Erdrich. To say "I love Louise Erdrich" would be a profoundly flippant statement dishonoring the deep respect I have for her writing. Bone satisfied may be more accurate. I have just finished Four Souls and Painted Drum.
Four Souls was a fleshing out of Fleur Pillager from The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse but the sentence that knocked my breath from me with it's power and truth was this [Nanapush speaking of Fleur]:

She should have known that it is wrong to bear a child for any other reason but to surrender your body to life.

Painted Drum took me by surprise because the first character voice we hear was more like a modern novel seemingly devoid of intuition and mystery. The painted drum draws us back to the reservation and the initial character comes back unable to ignore or hide the full dimensions of her life, history, love.

Pushing the swing higher

We are swinging very high these days. It was only at the beginning of this summer that the Boy graduated from the bucket-with-leg-holes that is the playground Baby Swing to to the classic strip of rubber on chains: the Big Kid Swing.

So far no serious mishaps have occurred as I nervously indulge his gleeful demands of "Higher! Higher!" My own admonitions of "Hold on tight!" are only partly acknowledged as he shimmies his hips, lurching the swing about as it hurtles through its sweeping arc.

As nerve-fraying as his excited nonchalance is for me as a parent, as a former child it is impossible not to share in his exhilaration and wonder how long it will be before he is ready for the rigors of leg-pumping and the breath-taking rush of his first underdog.

impossible dream

When I was four my mother took me to a college production of Man of La Mancha. Never imagining I would fully understand the upsetting bits she ended up carrying me from the auditorium bawling. So began (or solidified) my theatrical bent and empathetic support of the underdog. "The Impossible Dream" has been part of my psyche and unconscious mantra ever since. No wonder I cry every time I hear it or get misty when someone mentions Glenn Gould.

I was a little nervous when they announced on the Morning Show (MPR) they would be playing a different take on the song by Ken Boothe. First I heard the Reggae beat, my trepidation increased, I heard the first lines, predictably began tearing, still leery, then thank my stars I wasn't the one driving as I would have had to pull over. As moved as I normally am by the song it was nothing to my pregnant reaction, emotions rallied as never before, to hearing this new version. All who wish me ill now know my kryptonite.

splashing in the pond

Well, I think I have left this blog go sufficiently long enough without an entry. If anyone is still curious, we are, in fact, still alive. Indeed, more of us are alive than ever before. In another month the Three of Us will officially become the Four of Us (although the new one's presence is VERY obvious already). Exciting stuff, and more could obviously be said, and hopefully will be very shortly. But I should start small here, and strive for consistency before I extend myself too far into verbosity.

Sprinkle, really?

I've started reading mysteries again. I spent most of this pregnancy rereading Laura Ingalls Wilder, L.M. Montgomery and introducing myself to Kingsolver, Erdrich, and various pregnancy/parenting topics. But this last month I have once again been craving the comfort of a good mystery. I don't like to be bothered with romance or too much suspense, I just love watching/reading about other people puzzling things out. I have recently broken away from my usual Laurie R. King and Ellis Peters and begun looking for Patricia Sprinkle. Not her Maclaren series, which is too light for me, but her new genealogy series. As my husband says nothing like a bit of history to give the illusion of depth. And while I enjoy some pulp to quiet the neurotic insomniac part of my mind I don't want to feel like I'm actually numbing my brain. So far Death on the Family Tree and Sins of the Fathers have been striking the balance for me.

Fourth

I have fond memories of the Fourth of July as a child: going out to the golf corse, my little brother falling asleep on the same picnic blanket every year and staying up with my mom to watch the fireworks. We weren't just watching fireworks: we were describing our world, trying to devise the perfect name for each one. There were easy ones like popcorn and the slightly more interesting blueberry cobbler and prom dress and my favorites screaming yellow zonkers and fizzing mimis.

It wasn't just fireworks; my mom helped me capture sunsets. When I was older I switched dance studios and my lessons took us from our small town to the next following the sunset. They were all so beautiful I wouldn't want to go inside for my lesson. So the ride there was filled with descriptive phrases my mom would copy down while she waited to drive me home again.

I see now how vital it was for her to keep her hand in writing/describing everything from fireworks to family vacations, but I reaped the benefits of closely observing my world and solidifying each precious moment by our descriptions. At the same time never losing the wonder and awe that I could never encompass or remember it all. Eventually, I saw the value in that lesson, too.

Sushi Feast

Mama Fish Head made sushi last night — from scratch. It was as far as I know her first attempt at crafting this most exotic if foods (in the eyes of most Minnesotans at least). The result was quite simply excellent and delectable. It was deliciously paired with a Kloster Eberbach 2001 Steinberger Reisling which the fellow at Haskell's recommended very enthusiastically. Evidently "2001 was an awesome year in Germany," at least where wines are concerned.

And today, when I got to take a freshly sliced roll of leftovers to work for my lunch, it was difficult to contain myself. I really wanted to stand up in my cubicle and wave my arms in the air crying, "I am feasting upon delectable homemade sushi, you suckers!" But really, what would that have accomplished?

Quieting

I reread Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver and I am still recovering. I know it didn't hit me this hard the last time because until I reached a few pivotal moments I wasn't sure I had read it before. I remember enjoying it but inexplicably unable to keep it and Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich straight. I think this is the first time I've read a book where all the major points of my life have been reimagined and fictionalized. Is the oldest sister experience so universal? The plot was different enough from my life but the emotional experience rang true every time resolving in ways that kept me up until 3a.m. waking my husband with almost silent racking sobs.

This intense experiencing of a book/movie/poetry/play was a regular occurrence until mid-college when body sobbing was no longer cleansing. That's not to say I haven't wracked my body sobbing, but it's been mainly reserved for the death of a loved one and I never feel finished or cleansed. I miss feeling the world around me so completely. I miss the abandon with which I would throw myself into the heartbreaks of the world and my own. I miss that magical sensitive self and wonder if she was a sacrifice to growing-up or if I will see glimpses of her again as I continue to heal from private wounds. Perhaps the latter.

At any rate I think it's time to go into a contemplative ghost period. In casual conversation I've been babbling about things I didn't intend to mention just to fill in the silence my social awkwardness inspires in people. I find when I am saying a whole lot of nothing it's time to listen to silence and let the world pass through me as if I were just an outline. Meanwhile my substance quiets and heals and waits for something meaningful to say.

At the game

The Boy attended his first Sporting Event yesterday. My big little brother's high school baseball team is in the playoffs, and we went to see them play. He got to see his strapping young uncle get a solid base hit, and make a great catch in deep center field. It was a fine example of the sport all around, and they won 2-0, moving a step closer to the State Tournament.

Of course, the real highlight had nothing to do with Sport (or perhaps everything to do with it): the bleachers full of tanned teenaged girls in tank tops screaming my brother's name when he got up to bat. That sort of thing really makes the trip worth it.

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

The other day I was flipping through a notebook from college, seeing how many pages I had used up taking notes (not very many). But then I got to reading what notes there were, and inspired by what I read (yeah, I know: by my own class notes) I pulled this book off the shelf and read it over again.

I have read all three of Krakauer's full length books, and this is, without qualification, my favourite. The journey of Chris McCandless fascinated me from the moment I read the book's cover, and he has never entirely left my thoughts since.

For those of you who have not read the book, you should. At the risk of courting a charge of pretension (not that it would be a first) I would say that Into the Wild is an important book. Certainly it was important for me when I first read it, and it held up very well through a second reading.

The book opens with the discovery of a young man's body by moose hunters in Alaska. Krakauer, initially commissioned by Outside magazine and then driven further by his own fascination with the story, traces the journey of this Chris McCandless from his privileged life in suburban Virginia to his lonely death in the Alaskan bush, with as much detail as he can discover of the in-between. It is not a journey you will easily forget.

In the years since I first read it, this book has continued to be active in my mind, and the questions it raised are still there as I search for the answers in my own soul.

Son calls father

My son called me at work today.

Now, given that he is 16 months old, I should probably note that he did technically call me, not by himself. I answered the phone in my cubicle, and my wife said simply: "Your son wants to talk to you."

Apparently what he actually wanted to do was listen to me, and I obliged him, chatting brightly to the expectant silence at the other end of the line. I asked him about his day, what new things he had learned or discovered, whether he had eaten anything. After a few minutes of this my wife came on the other extension. She explained that stretched as tall as he could, reached the phone cord and pull it off the hook onto the floor. This feat accomplished, he held the handset in both hands, looked at my wife eagerly and said "Da?" repeatedly until she dialled me up and put him on the line.

It is hard being away from family all day as I am. It is suddenly that much harder now that he actually misses me when I am absent. It is both touching and devastating, depending on which end of the day I am on.

Ducks in the yard

Spring is really springing this week. Today my wife and son walked down to meet me on my way home from the Job. Free from my cubicle for the rest of the day, a cool breeze on my face and the warm rays of the sun upon my back, it was a very nearly perfect afternoon.

Just a few blocks from our apartment is a house whose yard is a sort of best-effort inner city version of a "wild space" which, to be fair, is a pretty good effort. Most of the yard is taken up with a large multi-tiered pond, ringed with rough blocks of limestone, surrounded by cattails, small trees, and marsh grass.

The house was recently on the market, and the new owners have been there only since last summer sometime, I think. As we walked by this beautiful spring afternoon, a middle-aged woman emerged into the yard carrying a rake and said, loudly and (to me) somewhat disconcertingly: "Okay, ducks, what are going to do now?" Before I had time to wonder why she was thus declaiming, a pair of Mallards flew up out of the pond and went winging off over the interstate just behind the house.

The woman then turned to us conspiratorially and said, "The ducks just won't stay out of my yard."

I just smiled at her. I wanted to say very carefully: "You have a freaking duck pond in you yard. What part of this is surprising or confusing for you?" But I didn't want to seem hostile, or smarter than her.

The boy is too much of me

The Boy takes after me more than I can begin to explain.

Let me just say this for the benefit of those who know me well, then I will attempt to explain:

The Boy twirled today.

That's right, he just started walking yestreday, and tonight he made this beautiful, smooth, controlled and completely random 360º as he strolled along the edge of the coffee table. Wow.

In case you don't know, I twirl. Not so much of late, because life hasn't made me feel so twirly these days, but historically I am known to twirl quite a bit for someone of my age and lifestyle choice. Some have even gone so far as to claim that I flit, the veracity of which I can neither confirm nor deny at this time.

And now my first-born son, who already looks more like his father than can possibly be permitted, is twirling with some of his first steps? It is quite too much to be borne, not just by me his overwhelmed proud papa, but by the world, which did nothing, nothing at all to deserve another creature like me. I have to keep reminding myself: he is his own person. He will have his own things. He will not be another you. I hope this is true. He can look like me, and stuff like that. That's pretty cool. He can have some of my more desirable personality traits; I'm okay with that. But Lord, a twirler? It is too much...

Traci DePree

Well I've done it. I've read not one, but two Christian novels by Traci DePree — a can of peas and dandelions in a jelly jar. If I came upon a third I'd probably read that too. While the writing started out immature, by the second book of the Lake Emily series she had found her voice and rhythm. It was not saccharine like a Chicken Soup story and the deus ex machina was only slightly convenient. The vignettes and plot lines are wholly plausible. While her multiple characters seem to be fixated on avoiding "self-pity" the lack of sex scenes is refreshing and the awkward prayers endearing. I cried healthy cries (a lot), laughed a bit, smiled with comfort and was inspired to tackle the dishes. There's my confession: I read a Christian novel and I liked it.