Three Days, In Photos and Gifs

Friday morning Caedmon and I headed out earlyish to take advantage of the early bird special at the oil change place.  It probably has a better, more exact term, but to me, it's the oil change place, as it is the place where we go to get our oil changed.  As you can see, I am modeling excellent language skills for our children.

The problem is, this was my first time at this specific oil change place, and as I was unfamiliar with the customs and mores of this strange land, I drove up the wrong way to the garage.  As I was trying to turn the vehicle around in a somewhat tight spot (ah, so that's why this way is exit only!) there was a somewhat befuddled mechanic looking out the windows at me.

Him:

Me, as I executed a nine-point turn:

After finishing there, we still had a good 45 minutes to kill before the library opened, and as I have a Target gift card, our destination was clear.  I don't go to Target often, as I like for our bank account to remain at reasonable levels, and Target is a den of spending sin.  Everything is just too tempting and too cute, so I just don't go.  Well, except for Friday, of course.

You should know that I love stripes, and I love black and white together, and this pitcher just kind of jumped into my hands.  Besides, it was $3 and now I have the perfect container for my pink peonies come June.  Until then, it's holding all my wooden spoons for me.

After Target and the library, Caedmon and I headed across town to the Blood Shop, as it is lovingly called by our youngest.  We brought plenty of books for him to look at while I was donating, but every time we go there the nurses are all, "Would he like to watch cartoons?  Let's change the channel and get this boy some cartoons!"  I was also reminded no less than three times to be sure and get a snack for Caedmon, too, when I was finished.  "Make sure your son gets a snack when you do!" "Don't forget to get your boy a snack!"  "Don't leave without getting your son some cookies and juice!"  Honestly, he doesn't look malnourished, so I guess Blood Shop Nurses are just extra nice to small boys.

He is pretty cute.

Saturday it was a good thirty degrees below freezing so I couldn't go for a run, and my hand still hurts like the dickens so I felt like I couldn't do much of anything else, plus my coffee maker gave up the ghost, and the children were exhibiting their cabin fever by pretending to be human pinballs, our house being the pinball machine.  So I did the only sensible thing, and made all three of them do a Jenna Wolfe pyramid workout with me.  They were a lot less pinballey after that.

Sunday morning I woke up and thought, Maybe today I'll get to go for a run!  My weather app informed me otherwise.

We did find one door to the van that wasn't frozen shut, so we made it to Wal-Mart to get a new coffee maker and to church.  Then we returned home to watch a game that I won't mention, except to show you a photo of Atticus decked out in his Vikings gear.

Due to the outcome of the game-that-shall-not-be-mentioned, our house is in full-blown mourning.  I'm trying to figure out how to help Derek process his grief:  So far I'm thinking black cloth over the mirrors and stopping the pendulum in our clock, although this requires removing the batteries which feels a lot less, I don't know, mournful.

The above isn't really an accurate representation of Derek right now, because the man doesn't cry (like, ever), but I'm sure it's how he feels on the inside.  Actually, it's probably more like this:

So You Married a Football Fan

When I was a kid, our Sunday schedule was pretty set:  Get up.  Go to church.  Go to Sunday school.  Come home.  Wait foreeeevvvveeer for lunch.  (It was maybe thirty minutes.)  Eat lunch.  Read the funnies.  Do whatever for the rest of the day.

I had no knowledge of football.  I did not know it had a season of its own, I did not know it was a thing that happened on Sundays, I did not know that there were people who placed any kind of importance on sports in their lives.  My family simply wasn't interested.  I was vaguely aware of the existence of sports only because there were a couple kids in my elementary school who wore Starter jackets with strange symbols on them.  There were a few front yards around town with arrowheads and the word "Chiefs" emblazoned on various things, but I thought that just meant Native Americans lived in those houses. (Well, "Indians" in my childhood brain.)  This isn't that strange, okay; it was southern Kansas, there were a few Native Americans in my school system, plus the Ponca nation just across the state border.

But as it turns out, there are people in this world who live and die (figuratively... for the most part) by their football team.  I know this because I married one of them.

First of all, my husband's come a long way in eleven years, mostly because he realized that Scary Monster Football Derek doesn't do much toward making warm, fatherly memories in the hearts of his children.  He still hollers and glowers and whoops during the games, but he intersperses it with games of catch with the kids and weird, forced smiles thrown in my direction to show that he is still aware of and thankful for my existence.  

But let's say you're still a newbie.  Sports, you say?  Oh, yes, I have heard of the sports.  They make for wonderfully emotional movies.  Isn't it remarkable how the good-hearted underdogs always win?

If this is you- me, a little more than a decade ago- there are some things that you need to know.

#1.  Your loved one is no longer your loved one.

If this sounds like crazy Jedi logic, that's because it is- crazy, that is, but also true.  That perfectly sane, reasonable human being you thought you knew?  They are gone, gone, gone, replaced by wild-eyed, irrational Sports Loved One, at least for the next few hours.  I recommend reading a little classic Robert Louis Stevenson to help you understand this phenomenon, because that is surely Mr. Hyde sitting in your chair, wearing a treasured NFL jersey that may or may not have been washed in quite some time, depending on the level of superstition in your Sports Loved One.  

#2.  You scratch my back, I scratch yours.  You watch sports, I get an extra hour of the Great British Baking Show.

Once you've accepted the reality of the presence of Sports Loved One, it's time to figure out just how you're going to get through this.  You could throw yourself a little fit, make Sports Loved One good and miserable with lots of sighing and eyerolling at key moments in the sports thing, but do you really want that kind of behavior boomeranging back at you when you're in the bookstore with a stack of new-found treasures and what you hope is a winning smile directed toward your loved one?  A little tolerance goes a long way and can be redeemed in a variety of ways, say, in hours-long wanderings together in an antique emporium. 

#3.  Engaging Your Sports Loved One

Okay, so you're ready to practice some tolerance.  But what does tolerance look like?  In the early years of our marriage, it was helpful to me to pretend Derek was a wild animal any time the Vikings were playing.  If you've ever read anything about approaching dangerous animals, you'll find that experts recommend what is known as an "open approach."  You'll find that many of the same principles apply to Sports Loved Ones:  First, you approach the animal/SLO openly, perhaps deliberately making a subtle noise to let them know you are there.  Try delicately crackling a chip bag, preferably in their diagonal line of sight.  Be very cautious about making eye contact.  If at all possible, AVOID CONTACT, but if you must, follow the previous guidelines, and above all, REMAIN CALM.  I do everything I can to stay away from my Sports Loved One, but Doritos are Doritos, man, and sometimes needs must.  

#5.  Immersion.

If you've ever invested time in learning a foreign language, you know that the best and fastest way to acquire this second language is through immersion.  Now, I don't want to alarm you, but merely by virtue of being in a relationship with your Sports Loved One, your own immersion has begun.  Don't fight it, dear.  Parts of your brain may find it slightly appalling that you now use such sports idioms as "throwing a Hail Mary" and "huddling up."  This is natural and expected, and will help make up for the errant All this fuss for a piece of overboiled leather, and It's just a game! that still occasionally slips through your lips.

#4.  Enforced Calm.    

If all else fails, start having babies.  Babies tend to cry when you let out heartfelt screams, even if it is because Adrian Peterson scored a touchdown for your beloved Vikings.  The parenting books don't say so, but infants provide wonderful aversion therapy for the excitable sports fan in your house.  If kids aren't really your thing, perhaps a high-strung dog would meet your family's needs.  Anything that will scream back and with greater intensity at your Sports Loved One will suffice, really; babies are just what we ended up with.

You can do this, sports novice.  If we all stick together, maybe come up with an official colored awareness ribbon for those of us who live with and support our Sports Loved ones, we, too, can have an entire sports event decked out in our chosen color.  I vote puce.  

Ponderances From a Winter Walk

I went for a walk yesterday morning.

This may not sound like something worth sharing if you live in a warmer climate where you can walk around outside at this time of year without taking your life in your hands.  But here?  Here it is cold.  Here it is snowy.  Here everyone I've talked to lately is discussing Seasonal Affective Disorder.

But yesterday morning, after I watched the older two kids climb onto the school bus, I went for a little walk.  Derek is working evenings this week and thus has the mornings off, which means Caedmon is in heaven and I get to do things like go for walks when it gets all the way up into the teens.



Things I thought about on yesterday's walk:

•  How happy I was to be outside breathing fresh air, even when that air took the form of bitterly cold wind that blew the fresh snow currently falling from the sky into my face.  This only happened when I got too close to the edge of town.  This is how desperate I am for fresh air at this time of year.

The view out my kitchen window: pretty, sparkly, white prison bars.

• How much I love my coveralls.  My grandma got them for me years ago, and they keep me so warm I don't care a whit about the fact that they make the mechanic next door and me appear to be twins whose mother insists on dressing us alike.  We're like the Bobbsey Twins Grown Up, although I'm sad to inform you that Freddie became a heavy smoker, but still a perfectly nice neighbor.  

Just add long underwear- both pants and top- beneath these, jeans, thick tall socks, a sweater, a heavy coat, snow boots, scarf, mittens, and stocking cap on top, and you're ready for a pleasant if stiff-legged winter walk.

• How many fitness-ey people I've heard expound on the virtues of  THE CORE; namely how it should more or less constantly be in use and how it's essential to human survival, etc, etc, all of which, despite years in a dance studio, I happily ignored, but I finally tried it while doing yoga, and lo and behold, those annoyingly fit people were all completely right!  Which is irritating! 

Anyway, since discovering The Power of The Core (I believe some refer to them as "abdominals"), I've been discovering all kinds of helpful applications for THE CORE, and yesterday was no different:  On any given surface outside my front door there now exists a substantial layer of ice under around a foot of snow.  You know how, when your boot meets an unexpected sheet of ice and you go into a lock-kneed, off balance skid, even if you don't fall you still end up pulling a weird muscle around your rib cage or right in the middle of your back?  Well.  It turns out keeping THE CORE taut while mincing across the ice helps you both keep your balance and helps to prevent the pulling of heretofore-unnoticed muscle pulls.

I went looking for a "people slipping on ice" gif but instead I found a hydrogen bond gif!  Fitness-ey people will tell you that as those mickey mouse-things slow down you need to engage THE CORE, but excellent Chemistry professors will say things like, "Look, if I ever ask you a question in this class and you have no idea what the answer is, just say, 'Hydrogen Bonds!'  There's a good chance you'll be right." 

• Both how happy I was that football season is over (I know, Husband.  I know.), and that the Vikings weren't in the Super Bowl (I KNOW, OKAY?), because I don't know if our family could survive such an event.  I already have a plan for immediately before and during the game, should the Vikings ever make it that far:  The children and I will vacate the premises, for everyone's protection and well-being.  I don't know where we'll go.  I don't know what we'll do.  I just know we won't be with Derek.  And if the Vikings win, great!  Super!  It will no doubt be the happiest day of my husband's life, and I'm barely speaking hyperbolically, here.  

But if they lose?  Oh.  Ohhh, gracious.  

For whatever reason, this is what occupied my brain for the bulk of my walk:  

Scene:  Our house, outside appearance normal.  Upon opening the front door, however, it's like walking into Great Expectations, complete with Derek in a decaying wedding dress and his insistence on referring to all three of our children as "Pip."

I once had a lit professor who posited you could never take a Dickens reference too far.  I do believe my husband would disagree at this point in time, although the apparent gruesome quality of the above scene with Derek Crisler cast as Miss Havisham entertained me enough on my walk to make me forget the cold for large chunks of time.  




That giant mess of junk and thoughts and thinks up there?  I would have taken it all this morning when I walked the kids to the bus stop and straight back home, as it was several degrees below zero and I could feel the mucous membranes inside my nostrils freezing.  This is a very disconcerting feeling.