MICHElon!

have you heard that stupid ad for michelin tires where the guy keeps saying, "MICHElon!"? it drives me crazy.

however, michelin tires do not drive me crazy. they drive me straight. they drive me safe. they drive me good.

they do all those things even better when i have 4 new ones that i didn't have to buy.......my wonderful parents sprung for them for me.

yay, PARents!

sad

i don't know why, but i am having the hardest time that i have had since per left. i know the holidays probably have something to do with it, but that's not the major part of the explanation. on the other hand, maybe it is, because i don't know what the major part of the explanation is.

i have lost joy. it's that simple. i have lost joy. there isn't anything that sounds good to me. even writing has become a struggle whereas in the past, i couldn't get enough of it. not only that, but the words don't flow as easily as they used to do. i don't know what to say. except that i'm sad.

i have fallen into some bad habits - not dangerous ones, mind you - but depression is a slippery slope and who knows where my bad habits might take me if i don't snap out of it.

one of the bad habits is what i eat. with very few exceptions, since per left (january 2010) i have not cooked anything for dinner other than string pasta with a rotating 5 or 6 different sauces. i know that might not sound so bad - and it certainly could be worse - but it's not normal. it's not normal to eat spaghetti practically every single night for dinner for almost 2 years. it's just not.

i also don't sleep in my bed anymore. i sleep on the couch. i've been doing that for about 3 or 4 months now - and i don't know why. it's not that sleeping in "our" bed stirs up unpleasant feelings, because it doesn't. it truly doesn't. to tell you the truth, i wish it did stir up unpleasant feelings - because then, at least, i'd know why i'm not sleeping there! as it is, i fear that my choice to sleep on the couch is symptomatic of something deeper.......a giving up, if you will. a "so what," so to speak.

not that i am giving up. don't panic.........i'm not. i have too much faith in the Lord and what He has planned for me in the next life to do something stupid like giving up believing that the best is yet to come. i may have run out of joy, but i haven't run out of hope.

but, i'm concerned about myself. i'm starting to feel a little like miss havisham from charles dickens' novel, "great expectations." (sorry, i don't know how to underline on here.) as you might remember, miss havisham got dumped at the altar and she essentially stopped living at that moment. she never took her wedding dress off, she stopped all the clocks in the house, and she started to decay. i feel a little like that.

but i won't decay. don't panic........i won't. i have too much loathing for satan to let him destroy me.

i probably should have my Christmas tree up by now - and last year at this time, i did - but this year, i don't. i don't know why it's harder to decorate this year than last. i truly don't. it's a mystery to me why i am getting worse, not better.

i haven't even done the simplest thing - like taking down the autumn wreath or removing the pumpkins. ordinarily, they would be long gone before i return to work on the monday after thanksgiving, but it's not lookin' good for the home team at this point. i've been telling myself that the reason i still have the autumn things up and none of the Christmas stuff out is because i am starting a new tradition......i am waiting till december 1st to decorate.

but i don't believe that even myself.

i have avoided listening to Christmas music - something i usually chomp at the bit about.

my house is getting dusty. i don't care.


on the flip side, i am still doing the laundry for abby and eli and their big family. i am still going to work. i am still tending to the cats and the dog. i still get the mail and i still pay my bills. i still watch the small amount of television that i usually watch. i watched the ohio state game yesterday. i am not totally gone.

i am under a doctor's care and i have become an american.......i'm on prozac!

but i am sad in a profound way that i have never before in my life been. i guess you could say i am lucky.

and the irony of all of this is, i feel grateful to have the privilege of carrying this cross.  because carrying this cross has opened my eyes and my heart and my soul to what really matters in this life - the next one.

i am eager to get to the next one.


which is why i am not going to do anything to hasten its arrival.

how the halloween grinch stole thanksgiving

it was easy, really. all he had to do was get rid of the center, which would have held everything together, and boom.....thanksgiving was stolen.



first, the halloween grinch made sure that halloween got top billing over thanksgiving. he made sure that people plan halloween parties in excrutiating detail. he made sure that costumes are an enormously big deal. he made sure that haunted houses are open for an entire month and corn mazes even longer. he made sure that the stores and the aisles were filled with so much candy that they practically smack you in the face the minute you walk in.

then, he made sure that sitting around the table on thanksgiving lasted only a coupla hours (and then we're on our way to the real enchilada - black friday!). he told the stores to get rid of the halloween stuff and put out the Christmas stuff. he told them to squeeze a few orange and brown cocktail napkins next to a couple of ceramic turkeys - in a token nod to thanksgiving - and call it a (thanksgiving) day.

he told them to decorate the store in red and green, not orange and brown. he told them to pipe in Christmas music because research shows that people spend more money if they pipe in Christmas music.

he told them to feature turkeys, of course, in the meat aisle, but he asked them to be sure to have a lot of holly and mistletoe decorations around the turkeys, not a lot of pilgrims and indians. as a matter of fact, don't have any pilgrims and indians, just holly and mistletoe. there.......that's better.

he told them to open their stores on thanksgiving, and they did. he told them that they'd make a whole lot more money that way, and wow, that sure sounded good! that sounded even better than the roast turkey sounded!

then, he told everybody else - all the mommys and all the daddys and all the aunts and all the uncles and all the grandparents and even all the children that getting in line at midnight is a whole lotta fun - because if you do, you can get a whole lotta stuff - and they believed him, so they got in line.

somewhere in all of there, he told them it was ok to eat their thanksgiving dinner, but don't forget to nap and don't forget to watch football! and, oh! don't forget to say what you're thankful for. that's important, too. (but don't get bogged down thinkin' you have to thank God. you can thank anybody. whatever floats your (gravy) boat.)




the families that i work with in my job have many things in common but the main thing that they have in common is actually something that they don't have and the something that they don't have is the thing that produces all the other (dysfunctional) things that they have in common.............they don't have a center.

just like the grinch who decided that hey, if he wanted to make halloween more important than thanksgiving and spending money more important than Christmas, then heck, this is a free country, he can do whatever he wants. and families decided that hey, they can do whatever they want. and they don't need some stupid "center" to hold them together.

families can do whatever they want. if they wanna have two mommys, they can have two mommys. if they wanna have two daddys, they can have two daddys. a mommy and a boyfriend? sure! a mommy and a boyfriend and then another boyfriend and then another? - sure, as long as it makes her happy.

kids who raise themselves because their mommys/mommys and their daddys/daddys and their mommy's/daddy's/boyfriends/girlfriends are too busy to raise them themselves? sure.........as long as it makes 'em happy!

going to church? nope. not if it doesn't make you happy!

having structure and organization and dependability and tradition and things you can count on in good times and bad? and an actual bed time? nope. not if it doesn't make you happy!



one of the greatest and most destructive lies that our secular/relativistic culture has bought into - hook, line, and sinker - is that nothing matters unless the individual says it matters. and if the individual says you can build a home outa whatever you wanna build a home out of - as long as it makes you happy - then you can build a home out of whatever you wanna build a home out of .

hell, even the 3 little pigs figured that one out.



if only the halloween grinch - i mean, grinches - who stole thanksgiving would figure it out, too.

food DOES equal love

not because the italians said so. and not because your grandmother from appalachia said so. and certainly not because my mom said so.

my mom thinks food equals bad. the less of it, the better. in her opinion.

you know how when company comes over and so you usually cook more rather than less? well, my mom cooks less. my mom's theory is, everybody's fat, so why make 'em fatter.

my mom watches her weight like most people watch t.v. in other words, constantly. if she goes up as much as half a pound, boom, she's on a "diet." she is thee most food-disciplined person i know. not to mention insane.

neither my brother nor i totally escaped food-relationship insanity. i mean, what chance did we have, right? but given the pauper's example of a proper serving of food which our mother gave us, i think he and i turned out pretty well, all things considered.


despite the fact that i grew up being shown that food equals bad, i have come to understand that nothing could be further from the truth. and not because the italians said so. and not because your grandma from appalachia said so.

but because Christ said so. i mean, basically, right?

Christ used bread - his body - to exemplify the penultimate in love. he used wine - his blood -  to do the same thing. food equals love.


happy thanksgiving, everyone.

those who can, do. those who can't, teach. those who can't teach work at the butterball hotline.

it's a turkey, people. you're supposed to be smarter than it is.


all the hoopla - every year, without fail - over how to cook a turkey is explanation enough why there's no peace in the middle east and why our national debt is in the trillions (and climbing). if we can't even cook dinner, it's hopeless.

cooking a turkey is not the rocket science that everybody seems to think it is. basically what you need is a turkey and an oven.

you can argue all day, if it makes you happy, over whether to baste or not. whether to brine or not. whether to stuff, whether to unstuff. cover with foil/don't cover with foil. fresh herbs, dried herbs, no herbs. (speaking of no herbs, i had a great-uncle once named herb. well, herbert, to be exact. nobody in my family could agree on which herbs, if any, to rub under (over?) the skin of the turkey, but we sure could agree on this - don't invite uncle herb(ert) to dinner.)

what kind of salt  - regular, kosher, or sea - is one of the newer entries into the GREAT TURKEY DEBATE. olive oil vs. butter is also gaining some attention.

once the turkey is done, the science is far from over. now you gotta figure out when to carve it........immediately, 5 minutes from now, 10 minutes from now, 30 minutes from now, or never. norman rockwell was a fan of the latter.


i threw a naked turkey into the oven one year with my eyes still closed from sleep. i remembered to put it in a pan, but that was all i remembered to do. several hours later, it smelled like heaven in here. coupla hours after that and it tasted like it, too. (i thought about calling the butterball people and rubbing it in their faces, but rub them with what - salt? herbs? dried?..... )

please tell me you're not a black friday fanatic

what they really should call it is "black and blue friday." not because people sometimes end up with bruises on their arms as they fight their way through the crowds (though that, too) but because their souls are bruised. their souls are bruised by the idea that money matters.

oh, sure, money matters. but it doesn't matter more than staying at home with your family, where you belong.

it doesn't matter more than allowing other people to stay home with their families, where they belong.


if you are a black friday fanatic, you have probably mapped out your mission. you have probably studied the ads -  ad nauesum -  and you probably know where you're going first and where you're going second and where you're going third. you probably feel pretty proud of yourself for being so organized and so thrifty. after all, you're not doing it for yourself - you're doing it for your family.


i remember when the day after thanksgiving wasn't known as "black friday." somehow, our parents managed to put food on the table even though they didn't break the door down with "bargains."

they still managed to pay the light bill and the phone bill and the gas bill.

on the day after thanksgiving, we took a walk or played cards or went outside and hung lights.

mom wasn't dead tired.

dad wasn't dead tired.


funny.

there was stuff under the tree.

no, i don't cut fat and calories on thanksgiving.

i do that all year. i'm not gonna do it on thanksgiving.

i have watched my weight ever since 5th grade. yes, ever since 5th grade. that's an insane amount of watching. i'm not gonna do it on thanksgiving.

on thanksgiving, to tell you the whole truth, i am not only not gonna cut fat and calories, i'm gonna add them. i am gonna go the whole milk, real butter, and full-blown fat content cream cheese route. i'm gonna put regular cool whip on my pumpkin pie - and i'm gonna have two slices - maybe three. so sue me.

i am going to eat the dark meat and i am going to drench it in gravy.

rolls? HA! i am not only gonna do rolls, i am gonna do cinnamon rolls - with icing! and i'm gonna chase 'em with a pumpkin roll!

i will put stuffing on top of my mashed potatoes and i will not drizzle gravy over all of it - i will dump gravy over all of it. and then i'll have seconds.

by the time i'm done with the corn pudding and the green bean casserole and the sweet potatoes that are laden with brown sugar and pecans, i will be ready to go back for thirds.

and fourths.

and fifths.

in honor of fifth grade.

you should be a writer

people are always telling me that i should be a writer and they tell me this after they've just read something i wrote.



people don't really mean that i should be a writer. what people really mean is that i should make money being a writer. i don't wanna make money being a writer.

do you wanna make money riding your bike? or walking in the woods? do you wanna make money baking cookies with your grandchildren on a rainy afternoon? what about learning a foreign language? you wanna make money doing that?

writing (i think it's writing!) relaxes me. it helps me unwind. de-stress. when was the last time punching a time clock de-stressed you?

besides. don't forget about the time-honored value that writing has of allowing one to "express yourself." if i ever start "expressing" myself by throwing my money around, please. by all means - shoot me.

not that i think that money is evil. it's just that we all need far less of it than we think we do. as long as you've got something to eat and something to wear and a soft place to put your head at night, you've got all the money in the world.

besides.

i can't use money to say that i love you.

this is what coping looks like.

of all the questions i get asked as a counselor, probably the most common one revolves around how to cope better, with the assumption being that if a person copes better, he'll feel better.

people think if you're crying, you're not coping. or at least not coping as well as when you're not crying.

they think if you're coping, you'll go out and have fun.

you'll wanna put up the Christmas tree and if you don't, well, surely by this time next year you'll wanna put it up.

coping and feeling good aren't as related as everyone thinks. a swimmer who is trying not to drown will probably thrash around in the water in an effort to cope. but he probably won't feel good.

God doesn't talk much about feeling good but He talks plenty about how to cope. Christ showed us how to cope - carry. your. cross. even if you do have blood dripping down into your eyes.

pop psychology tells us that we shouldn't carry our crosses even if we do have blood dripping down into our eyes. especially if we have blood dripping down into our eyes. pop psychology tells us we should cover our crosses in comfy 100% natural cotton grown on some green farm somewhere. we should add some padding to the cross. medicate it. rub a little mentholatum on it. better yet, throw it on the ground and get somebody else to carry it. after all, it's their fault anyway that we even have this stupid cross to carry in the first place.


Christ carried His cross so that in carrying ours, we would not be doing so in vain.


i call keeping that in mind the real kind of coping.


the real kind of feeling better, too.

schools couldn't function without the drinking fountain

kids like recess and kids like lunch and kids like gym but none of 'em like any of those things better than they like the drinking fountain. schools couldn't function without the drinking fountain.

drinking fountains, in general, are not all that enticing. if you're at the food court in the mall and you have a choice between the free drinking fountain and buying a bottle of water, you'll buy the bottle of water every time. and if you don't, there's something wrong with you.

drinking fountains in churches are almost always terrible. the water isn't cold and it comes out of the thingamajig too low. you practically gotta make out with it to get anything out of it.

drinking fountains at target or kohl's or bed, bath, and beyond are, well, beyond awful. they're always right by the bathrooms! who wants that?

but drinking fountains in schools? ahhhh........that's a whole 'nother story. drinking fountains in schools are a school kid's dream come true.

drinking fountains in school are your ticket outa here. "can i please get a drink" is every school kid's favorite question. it even beats "can i please go to the restroom" because if you ask if you can go to the restroom, everybody knows your business. but if you ask if you can get a drink, who cares. the end result is the same - you get out of the room - but you still have your dignity intact.

walking down the hall on your way to the drinking fountain is probably thee best walk you will ever in your whole life take. you can go as slow as you like and you can peek into all the other classrooms on your way. if you see someone you know in one of the rooms, you can get his attention and make goofy faces at him. and then he gets in trouble for laughing. and by the time the teacher comes out in the hall to see who was out there making the kid laugh, you're long gone. it's the perfect crime.

as you turn the corner and eye the drinking fountain, you slow your pace even further. you don't wanna hurry a good thing. you wanna stretch this out as long as possible. and besides, you aren't thirsty anyway.

but alas, as slow as you go, ultimately, you gotta face the music. you gotta catch up with the drinking fountain and you gotta get your drink.

but before you do, you look both ways. the hall is empty.

you turn the drinking fountain into a spittoon.

and then you sneak into the bathroom.



you return to your classroom, dignity intact.



ahhhhh........the glorious, wonderful school drinking fountain.  :)

why we shouldn't care WHEN you put your Christmas tree up

what's practically as traditional as Christmas decorations themselves is griping about people who put theirs up "too early."

"too early," in most people's definition is before thanksgiving. if you string your lights before you carve the bird, most of us would like to shoot/eat you and not the bird.

how.ever............why? why the hell should it matter to me when you put up your own damned Christmas tree? if i don't want the federal government telling me what kind of insurance i have to get, why in tarnation do i think you want me telling you when it's ok to put santa on the roof?

besides, why isn't it actually better to put your wreath on your door before all your crummy relatives barge through it to wolf down the thanksgiving dinner you've spent all day making? (and besides, all they did was stop by kroger and bring you a lousy package of cookies!)

why isn't it better to celebrate longer?

why should when you celebrate have one iota to do with when i celebrate?



well, one thing's for sure.......this year, i pledge to be tolerant of those who put up their happy Christmas decorations whenever they damned well please.

and i pledge to stop being scrooge. and enjoy them.

after all.......if the worst this world can do is herald the coming of the Savior of our rotten, sinful souls for two months instead of just one, then, well.....

where's my hammer?

the thanksgiving book

granted, abby is trained as an early childhood educator, but still. it kills me what a great mother she is.

yesterday, when i dropped off the laundry, i noticed that the playroom had a book about thanksgiving displayed in an artful and accessible way. when i was a young mom, i displayed abby's thanksgiving book(s) in an artful and accessible way, too. they were thrown on the floor.

but, no. abby had the book on the toy shelf, above the section of the toy shelf where the rest of the books go. in other words, kind of like how they display books at the library. only this wasn't the library. this was their home. the home with 2 toddler twins and 2-month old triplets in it, don't forget.

the rest of the play area was organized and "theme-friendly." that's my term, not hers, but suffice it to say that the whole thing coordinated. the theme is thanksgiving and the play materials reflect that.

when i was a young mom, my "theme" was thanksgiving, too, and abby's play materials reflected that - she had mashed potatoes on her dollies and stuffing on her stuffed animals. (come to think of it, having stuffing on her stuffed animals is theme-friendly!)

as i walked from the playroom to the family room, i saw the triplets on their backs, on their "play mats," and they were developmentally appropriately swatting at the little toys that dangled over their heads. they were dressed in coordinating outfits and all was right with the world.

well, not really. they weren't dressed like pilgrims. and the toys they swatted at weren't turkeys.

bad mother, abby. baaaaaad mother.

penn state is not as uncommon as you think.

everyone is, rightfully so, outraged by the penn state scandal.

everyone, wrongfully so, thinks that penn state is the exception.


penn state is not the exception. most people cover up sexual abuse. trust me, i know. i work with sexually abused children. i know. trust me.

parents routinely disbelieve their children when their children tell them that they have been sexually abused, especially if the abuse is committed by a friend or a relative, which it usually is.

relatives deny it.

teachers waffle.

courts disbelieve.

blah, blah, blah.


the number one factor that determines the extent to which a child is likely to have a successful recovery from sexual abuse is whether or not he or she was believed when he or she disclosed (the abuse). and the number one task that the clinicians who work with these children have is to get through to the adults that yes, you morons, yes........the abuse happened.

people look the other way all. the. time. and yes. they look the other way in 2011 just as they did in 1911.

do not fool yourselves.

do not believe everyone who self-righteously says that they wouldn't sweep sexual abuse under the carpet.

believe me. there are a whole lot of brooms out there.

the only flaw in the plan is you don't wanna do it.

apart from natural disasters and illness, there is not a single human problem that cannot be prevented or solved by following the 10 commandments. and even natural disasters and illness can be made better by following them.

but nobody wants to follow the 10 commandments.

nobody wants to follow them, but nobody has a better plan. nobody has come up with a better plan for successful living than the 10 commandments, but damned if we don't keep trying.


and yes. the label that i am filing this post under is "things that make no sense."

if you're lucky, this will happen to you.

(my son-in-law, eli bowman, wrote this. about himself. about all of us....... if we're lucky.)


Here's the truth about your health. It can be taken away from you before you even know it. You can be doing all kinds of things right and all kinds of things wrong, but somewhere down the line you are likely to get some kind of curveball. That curveball may vary in severity, but it catches you off guard just the same. I got a curveball today, AND an MRI. 3 bulging discs pressing on nerves and 2 degenerative discs to go along with arthritis in my spine. I can't pick up my babies on my own, my already exhausted wife is working twice as hard now while I'm home to make up for some of the things I can't do and won't be able to do for awhile, and I can't play around with the twins the same way as before. There are lots of things I just "can't" do anymore. I ultimately have two options. The first would be to feel sorry for myself and to bring that self-pity into my physical therapy sessions where it would lessen the effectiveness of the treatment. Then I could go home and bring that depression into my home and burden my family with it. This would make the next several months terrible for anyone I loved and cared about. They would have to watch me suffer through painful therapy while defeated emotionally because I'm thinking that my youth has just left the building. I could do that to them and myself. I could choose to be a shell of a man for 7-12 months...or I could take option two, which is to put on the armor, apply the war paint, yell for someone to beat the drum, and march head on into this thing while looking it straight in the face and yelling "You and I both know that I am going to beat you!". So I choose to be the one who gains the upper hand. I choose to take my health seriously, and forsake the habits that only lead to less years with my grandchildren. I choose to listen to all the doctors and do EXACTLY as they say, to the letter, without shortcuts, even if alone. I choose to wear my back brace at work, because it means that I care more about being around for my family than I do about what Jane Doe in Underwriting thinks about the way it looks. I choose to play with my kids, even if it means standing up or sitting down in a chair instead of rolling around on the floor. I choose to be as helpful as possible to my sweet wife, even if that means she has to hand me a baby while I'm standing by the changing table so I can change a diaper JUST to hand them back to Mommy so she can lay them to bed. I choose to have a healthy back again. So let's draw out our war plans, Docs, and rally the troops. Tell them it will be a painful battle that will last for months or possibly even years. Tell them that they're fighting for the greatest cause one can fight for...love. Give them the war paint...now give it to me...and let's go win my back...back!