I had an employee review today.  These used to be horrible, but that was back when I had a horrible boss.  Today’s was nice. 

One thing that the company does with reviews these days is send out an e-mail asking for input from co-workers and other managers – people that might have had dealings with me in the past year.  One of the comments received was this:  “Mike can be warm and helpful and funny – or he can be surly and obstinate and frustrating.  I have noticed that my recent interactions with him have been of the first type.”

Boy does this ever describe me accurately.  I think my mother, my wife, and certainly my children would agree that this is definitely me.  I am glad that recently I have been warm, helpful and funny.  It must be because I am happy.

   *  *

With this palsy affecting my ability to be understood when I speak, I have been a little concerned about the opportunity I was given to teach in church this past Sunday.  With only one half a face working I had to stretch my sagging face into a mock-smile using my hand to enunciate, and although I got used to doing this it was sometimes very annoying.  I imagined that I would need to teach with one finger poking my mouth into a smile to keep my lips tight.  After all, I had to do this every evening when I read to my children.  I did not like the image of teaching that way but I was willing to do the best I could.

I need not have worried because once again God provided exactly what I needed to fulfill my responsibilities:  I reported in an earlier entry that my mouth began twitching a bit last week, and this twitching increased slowly throughout the week until Sunday when I was able to speak clearly.  As I taught, I only felt the need to stretch my mouth when speaking one particularly difficult word, but I wonder if that was just habitual after three months of having a mush mouth – I may use the palsy as a crutch.

It makes me wonder how my life might have been different had I made differetn choices:  I was offered the opportunity to teach one month ago but I declined because I had a trip to the mountains planned with the family (I still remember the luscious wild raspberry ice cream from that trip with fondness and a bit of longing).  The trip was a fun one and full of good memories that will stay with the children for the rest of their lives but I could have cut it short to teach if that had been more of a priority.

There will be some who will say that it is a good thing I did not accept the opportunity because my face was not ready, or who might say that God put that trip in my way because my face would not be ready to teach yet.  I don’t see things this way.  I truly believe that God gave me exactly what I needed to be able to do His work the way He wanted it done and I believe that if I had accepted the opportunity to teach a month ago, God would have provided the healing in time for me to teach well a month ago.  The timing for my face to come back alive was too perfect to be anything other than a miracle -- a miracle that was just waiting for me to claim it.

It has humbled me to realize that I only have this mouth by the Grace of God.  I should use it better than I do.

    *  *

I took a couple of days off because I felt achy, and I paid for it today.  I still don’t feel all that great but there comes a time to be a man and just deal with it… right?  That is what I am being told anyway.

Since I am the only sucker that they have to do my job, I had three days worth of work to do today and only one of me to do it all in.  On top of this I had to work with my old supervisor – a guy who spent most of his time telling people that he hated me and was trying to make my life so totally miserable that I would quit.  He did a good job of making me miserable, but when I heard about what he was telling people I could not give him the satisfaction and stuck around until I was reassigned.  I got my payback in just knowing that he hated me but was powerless to fire me.

Today he got his.  He messed me up royally and glossed it over as stupidity.  “I told everyone what I was going to do before I did it” he said – as if that made it all ok.  I will need days to sort out the mess he made.  He already knows I think he is an idiot so I did not need to refresh his memory.  Imagine someone who is proud of the fact that he has been fired from every job he has ever held… yup that is my old boss.

This is short – I have to go back to it and get as much done as I can tonight.  The people expecting their phones to work tomorrow will not recognize the problem but they will complain if they don’t have dial tone.  Life, Liberty, the Pursuit of Happiness, Dial Tone:  the inalienable rights.

I am invisible when the phones are working.

    *  *

I have always been the warm one: in college I always seemed warmer than the girls I dated, and when I married I had to get used to being used as a foot heater.  I imagined that my body was strong and capable of surviving in the cold because of this and I was perhaps a bit proud.  I remember how uncomfortable it was to have someone sucking the warmth from me, but I remember that it also felt good to be caring for someone else by sharing my heat.  I can even remember mentally tabulating being warm as an asset that women might find attractive  about me - it was a very short list.

Then came the dry time when my Ex had no interest in me and quit even touching me.  This season lasted for about 5 years while I was working out the terms of divorce and was determined not to begin any move toward dating until the divorce was final.  I had permission from my Ex to date, but it was not her permission I needed and God let me know that this is what he wanted from me.  During this long period of time I had no reference point to judge my heater by and I assumed it was still working as ever.

I guess I could go back into my chart at the donor center where I donated blood regularly and see if they keep temperature information.  Somewhere there might be over 200 regular recordings of my body temperature and I could perhaps trend it and see if I am warmer or colder now.  All I know is that in recent memory my body temperature has been about 1 degree below average.  It was still in the range considered normal so I had no problem donating.  I never wondered if I had lost my heat but that is probably a very good thing because with such a short list of assets, the thought of losing one might have been devastating.

You can tell that my body temperature has been much on my mind lately, but such things should be expected from a newly wed who is still discovering new things every day.  You see, I just realized that with Carol I am the cold one.  I have noticed it only peripherally before this, but early this morning it became clear when Carol scooted over and wrapped herself around my sleeping body.

“Why are you always so cold?” she wondered in a drowsy, half asleep voice that indicated she really did not expect an answer.  I was happy not to answer because although I recognized that my skin was very chilled, I was blissful as her body heat began to chase the cold away.  It was like a warm blanket – fresh from the dryer – being tossed over me… no, it was even better.  I was quickly back to sleep and slept better for being warmed. 

I feel some loss of masculinity for not being the warmer of the two of us; for taking her warmth instead of providing my warmth to her.  I recognize this feeling and then I try to file it away because there is absolutely nothing I can do about it.  Besides, it feels nice.  Right now I am happy being a girly-man (think Hans and Franz from SNL) and I will just go on letting Carol warm me.

    *  *

I knew a family in Florida that had 13 children under the age of 15.  Yes, they were Mormon.  Three of the children were adopted, but having 10 children in 15 years is equally impressive.  I guess if it were important to me I still have time to catch up but I think I will allow them the victory. 

This family was a marvel of efficiency, but then it had to be.  They had things like laundry down to a science:  Everything was laundered and sorted into bins in the laundry room.  You were welcome to take the bin to your room at any time, but there were always emergencies where someone was lacking just before school.  In these cases you could get a clean piece of clothing only by trading a dirty piece – shirt for shirt, pants for pants.  The mud room was more of a locker room where shoes, coats, backpacks and toys were put away before coming into the house.  Milk was dispensed from an industrial tank in the fridge -- the tank was filled from leaking milk cartons that were purchased at a substantial discount.  In short, everything revolved around raising children in the best way possible.

In our family, we have not needed to resort to the trade system, we still buy milk in cartons, but we do have laundry bins that the clean laundry is sorted into much like this family did.  We also have a storage system where backpacks can be placed and important schoolwork can be filed, and a huge shoebox by the front door.  It has been interesting to think of all the many things that we do that mirror solutions this family in Florida found.  It is especially interesting because many of the solutions have come from Carol and she never met them.  Perhaps sometimes there is only one good way to do something.

This family in Florida was regularly offered discounts when they went to dinner or to a ball game because people mistook them for a charitable group.  People would even stop them on the street and ask what charity they represented.  As far as I can tell they never accepted the discounts and were never offended by the questions they got; their focus was on their children.

I thought of this family last night because while Carol and I were sitting on the front step watching the kids play ball, a truck drove up and an elderly man got out with a pair of roller blades.  He simply asked if we had someone who could use them before leaving them with us and driving off.  We have at least three pair of feet that will fit in that pair of roller blades.  This man obviously thought of us because he knew we had lots of feet.  He could have given the roller blades to a charity, but he gave them to us.  I guess that makes us his charity in a way.  Other neighbors seem equally as interested in our welfare although they show it in the fruits and vegetables that are left rather than by leaving shoes.  Accepting these gifts has not bothered me because although money is extremely tight, we are not yet to the point that we can’t provide for the kids.

Do you understand the delineation I make?  There is a difference (in my mind) between accepting a gift because someone wants to share and accepting something because if you refuse it your children go without.  I am sure that this is a symptom of pride but knowing it is a dangerous sin does not make it any easier to avoid.  It has always been hard for me to ask and perhaps because of this I have never learned to accept gracefully either.

All this reflection and introspection can not be healthy.

I will stop now.

    *   *

My job is often tedious.  I believe that part of this is a result of my having done the same basic thing now for… 16?  18?  for too many years to count.  It is rare that anything really exciting comes my way and when it does it is most often a serious problem needing immediate resolution.  I don’t really get to enjoy these times much, at least until they are over but then fatigue generally mutes the enjoyment I might otherwise feel at a job well done.

For this reason, I try to enjoy the little things as much as possible.  Today was such an occasion:  For years we have provided hold music from a CD player that I wired into the phone system by splicing a set of headphones.  It works, but CD players are not meant to spin constantly and forever so we have been replacing them every year or so.  Today we went hi-tech and I put in place… get this… an MP3 Player!

Not that it was difficult, but it provided a moment of doing something new and different, even if that different was only ripping the old and worn CD’s and putting them on the MP3 player.  Oh, I also got to preview all the tracks to make sure that the classical music was traditional enough for our corporate image.  It is interesting that the music I was supplied by the man who is taking the reins of this company next July did not pass the test because it was just too – energetic.  Client Services will thank me for not getting callers blood moving when they have hold times of two or three minutes.

All too soon my chore was complete and I found myself back fixing phones, moving people from one cubicle to another - and then back again when they decided to re-re-re-arrange their seating... GRRRR.  More of the same.  Fix this, install that, repair his, move hers.  Audits, error logs, and placing orders just does not thrill me much.  It is almost a fourth of a mile from my desk to the room where the phone services come into the building so at least I get to walk a lot... good thing or I would be really, really fat by now.  With eight kids you need a certain amount of weight to throw around, but I think I would easilly exceed this if I did not do so much walking.

Different is good.  Carol spends every morning getting kids off to school except the one day a week she works.  For this day, getting the kids ready and to school is entirely my responsibility and I enjoy it.  There were ample events that might have set me off this morning – spilt milk, lost backpacks, slow walkers – normal things that take on a sudden urgency as I realize the time, but these problems were enough different from my day-to-day routine that I enjoyed managing them.

I hope Carol enjoys her days at work in the same way I enjoy my mornings at home.

    *  *

Saturday morning allowed me the chance to head into the mountains behind the house for a few hours.  Carol is convinced of the importance of taking time for ourselves and she really pushes me to find opportunities to get away for an hour or two on a regular basis.  I believe that it is helping me feel more grounded and stable.  I am glad that she is so supportive.

Saturday morning marked the beginning of the Grouse hunt here and so I went with a friend to go look for the elusive birds.  Grouse are woodland birds similar to chickens and are often called ‘hens’ because of this similarity.  Grouse hunting is marked by extreme hiking and occasional bird sightings because the birds are usually very widely distributed in remote places.  Dogs help a lot when hunting grouse, but a hunting dog is not in the plan right now.

Dusky (or Blue) grouse seem to prefer steep hill sides forested thickly with spruce and pines – basically, if you see a steep mountain that only an idiot would think about climbing, you will find grouse there.  Perhaps because of their habit of eating spruce needles, these birds have a flavor that is not as mild as their cousins the Ruffed Grouse.  Dusky grouse have little fear of people and will often flush from the ground to sit in the branches of a nearby tree – where they make easy targets for someone carrying a shotgun.  I generally won’t shoot a bird unless it is flying, but these critters often refuse to fly from their perceived safety in the tree.

The Ruffed Grouse prefer more open land and are most often found where the maples and aspen trees are growing.  These birds will hold to cover until flushed and then will fly a fair distance before alighting again.  They are not as big, but most people consider them better eating.

I hope I don’t sound like an expert on grouse because I could not find any Saturday.  I think that our spring that was wet and lasted late took many of the young birds this year but certainly there are still some birds up there somewhere.  I found many lovely places where a bird would be fortunate to live, but I did not find any birds.  Oh, sure, an old crow was annoyed by our presence enough to heckle us from his tree and a spattering of LGB’s (that is an ornithological classification – little grey birds) flitted in autumn silence, but they hardly count when you are bird hunting.

We began just at dawn, and as we walked up the sides of a draw the sun came up behind us.  As we walked a noise started and grew louder as we continued and the air was warmed by the rising sun.  Eventually the noise was loud enough to become grating – the buzz of a million insects flying somewhere just out of sight.  As the day warmed it became evident that every hornet and wasp on that hillside was frantically searching the spruce and fir trees branch by branch.  I stopped for a moment and watched, fascinated by the methodical search as every needle on every branch was thoroughly examined. 

I have seen these insects become very aggressive and I have heard that they are looking for good, quality protein to prepare for the long winter hibernation.  I imagine that any insect crawling over any of those trees is in big trouble right now as the constant buzzing from every direction indicated that they meant business.  Unlike flies or mosquitoes, I held no interest for them and I felt comfortable getting up close for a good look.  I could have spent hours but I was there for a different purpose.

Finding no birds in this first location, we drove on to another likely looking spot.  As soon as we stopped and got out of the car I could smell Mountain Maggots.  I could not see them or hear them, but I knew that they had been there for the odor left behind.  Soon I also saw their tracks confirming that they had spent some time in the area: the banks of the small stream were trampled and muddy with their tracks and their dung.  I hate Mountain Maggots and I don’t believe they belong in the mountains.  I once found some tracks on my property and I was furious.  I now hold every maggot I see personally accountable for the invasion of my property all that long time ago.

It is not that I have anything against wool, and I certainly love a good lamb gyros, but sheep don’t belong in the mountains.  It is undeniable that they crop the vegetation and provide some relief from forest fires, but this benefit can not make up for the destruction they leave behind.  It is my observation that areas where sheep are grazed quickly lose diversity (did you see that mom?  I said lose, and not loose.) and only the most tolerant grasses remain. 

I don’t know that mountain maggots interfere with Grouse, but I am blaming them for the lack of birds in that beautiful forest.  The only good sheep is one served with dill sauce.

   *  *

I guess I have control issues.  This is something that I would never have imagined, but it is true.  Where another’s control issues might be related to getting other people to do what they want, mine are more personal:  I still can’t control half of my face.  Talk about issues!

I guess that being in ‘the club’ of control freaks makes it perfectly OK for me to speak about other people and their control issues… right?  I would never think of telling jokes about Jews (unless I were to first convert), but since I am on the inside of this one myself, it is OK to talk about control freaks and the stupid things they say and do.  Right?

I am not going to do it.  I could write a thesis about my recent run in with a control freak but it would do no good, make me feel no better, and some control freak would just make me take it down anyway.  Let me just say that control freaks really bug me.

Anyone who has been reading this (and recently I have picked up some new regular readers despite my inconsistency with writing) will know that three days after Carol and I got married I woke with Bell’s Palsy and the left side of my face completely unresponsive. 

OK – Let me stop right here and address that thought:  I know what you are all thinking because I hear it loud and clear every day.  Even when you say nothing, I can tell by the smirks and pregnant pauses in the conversation that you are thinking that my palsy is somehow related to being newlywed.  Remember, I had been married only three days so there was nothing crazy going on; popular opinion at work would have you believe that Carol and I invented something so crazy and wild that my broken face was a result.  If you are reading here only in the hope that I will let something slip about this magical new thing, you are wasting your time:  Neither of us is that creative.

It does not matter much what the cause was (I have become convinced that it was stress although I did not recognize that I was feeling stress at the time), I have been suffering through patiently even when the only signs of any progress were subtle – an eye closing all the way or a tear forming.  Sometimes people would comment that I looked better – or that my face did not sag as much anyway – but these people most often saw me in the morning hours while I was fresh.  The sag increases with fatigue (and with stress).  It has been a painful experience, both physically and emotionally.

Friday evening was the first Symphony of the year.  I had full season tickets last year, and I got them specifically to force myself to find a date with someone who appreciated music every week or two.  I really did not get to invite that many women to the symphony before I settled comfortably on the one I married.  When I settled on Carol, I changed the remainder of the tickets for the season from Saturday performances to Friday to make Church easier Sunday morning.  When I did this, the seats were different for every event and we had a chance to explore the Symphony hall and see where we wanted to sit.  The request I made for tickets back two rows and closer to the center were ignored and I have the same seats as last year.  They are not bad seats and they have the added appeal of being the seats where Carol and I started out.  I think I will keep them.

For the first symphony this year, they chose two Beethoven works – Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major and the Ninth Symphony.  I greatly enjoyed the Piano Concerto – the soloist was Garrick Ohlsson – but the Ninth left me wanting a little; it seemed… It seemed mechanical:  all the parts were there, and all the parts went off on time and on pitch, but it lacked the power to move me in the way I had expected.  It will never be a performance you see available for purchase because it has been done so much better by many others.

While I sat through the hour-long performance of the Ninth, I tried very hard to get some response from my broken face.  I used the beat of the music – live music has a force to move that recorded music lacks – and tried to get my face to respond.  I asked Carol if she could see any movement and she said she could not.  It did not matter, I was sure I could finally feel something small tugging at muscles that have been flaccid for so long. 

Sunday I had improved enough that Carol could see some small movement when I really, really tried hard, and today the muscles are responding in ever increasing vigor.  It is slow progress, but any progress is welcome.  I would really like to get over my personal control issues even if it means having to keep to myself all of my scorn and mockery of those for who control issues remain.

   *  *

It is raining and it is a wonderful rain.  It is the kid of rain that comes slowly – first a sprinkle and gradually works its way into a real rain.  It is also the kind of rain that comes straight down without even a breeze to disturb it.  In short, it is the perfect rain for open windows.

I like rain and I still remember with fondness the warm summer rains in central Florida.  Those rains were perfect for being out in because although you got wet quickly enough, you never really got cold.  I miss rains like that.  Our summer rain is too infrequent for my taste, and now the seasons have turned from summer to autumn.  The calendar may not show it, but the rains speak loudly of the change:  a walk in the rain today would quickly become uncomfortable because of the chill air.

I sat by the window this morning while the last of the kids got ready for me to take them to school and I watched and listened to the rain.  I had a Cabela’s magazine open in front of me, but I could not tell you what section was open because the rain held me captive.  I did not want to leave but I had duties and responsibilities.  This does not mean that I was not tempted to return home after letting the last of the children off to school and it was only my overly sensitive feeling of moral duty that kept me from calling in sick today.

Well, I could not very well call in sick without being sick, although I did call in once telling my boss that I was having trouble with my eyes and just could not see the point of coming in to work that day.  I had to repeat myself twice, but once he caught on he laughed and wished me well.  I think my current boss would have responded this way as well despite the short hours I worked trying to recover quickly from the palsy – for all the good that did me.

Days like today don’t come very often.  I hope doing the right thing was the best choice today.

   *  *

Sometimes I am so happy that other people give me things to blog about.  I just got another installment in the e-mail debate I included earlier, so that will be the entirety of my blog today.  By the way, did anyone reading the earlier comment come away with the feeling that the conversation was about money?  I was glad that this was clarified in this last exchange.

First the message from Ben:

Thank you for sharing... :-)

I forgive you, you simply cannot understand yet, and you may never really know..

Yes, there is a popular belief that you can buy anything in this world with money even children..

and yes, children will learn the truth eventually that money cannot buy true love...

Money love is a form of security, perceived, but the wrong type..

unfortunately it is popular with a small segment of the LDS population.

Money can be a great thing, if its used to do good, to help people truly in need, to teach people to be kinder, more loving, to be grateful, more thankful, to be gentle.

There is not much point to earn anything if it going to be forcefully taken from you before you have a chance to eat, to have shelter, to clothe. Its not much point in having a business, if it is going to be physically destroyed by someone who depends on its production. Biting the hand that feeds seems to have a stronger following than it should.

I am truly grateful for all the money kindness you have blessed my children with. I will always be thankful..

My concern is sometimes my children behave very spoiled, very entitled, very demanding, even haughty at times..

They have so much, yet they seem to be unable to see.. I have seen so many children around the world with so much less material things, so fewer opportunities, such reduced privileges, yet these children act and appear much happier and kinder and more loving, more at peace, and much more grateful than my children..

I know my children have the ability to be thankful and grateful, to be courteous and kind, to be more pleasant and at peace. They can certainly be if they choose to be..  They can avoid becoming spoiled entitled american brats..

Yes, they will figure it out for themselves... eventually... that they can live a full and rich life without game-boys, without TV, without movies, without iPod, Bpods, Cpods, Dpods.. without wii or playstations or computer games..

that they can be happy being outside, and being active and getting dirty.. without having to be entertained...

Then they will learn that relationships and how you interact with others is the most important activity you can ever participate in, in life. It is the way you talk, the way you listen and act towards others that shows your true character..

We all need the basics for sure, after that everything can be creatively created..

May you be blessed for all the kindness and love you send out into the world..

May you receive many great returns on your spiritual investment..

cheers,

  -Ben

And this is the reply.  Just pretend it is from me and that I did more than cut and paste someone else’s ideas for this blog today.

Dear Ben,

Thank you for your forgiveness, although I believe it is misplaced.  Thank you also for this treatise on money.  I think you may be surprised to find that we are in complete agreement about money and its place:  Money is only important as a tool that allows me to care for those I love.  It is obvious that you have missed my point entirely so let me begin my own treatise.

Ben, there are things in this world that are much more valuable than money.  Time and love both trump money every time.  You mention well-adjusted children who have nothing, yet who know how to be happy.  I would ask you to compute the love they are shown and the time they are given and see if this is not the root of their happiness.  Wealthy children can be happy and well adjusted if the really important needs are also met.  I know your children are happiest and respond best when they have been given adequate time and feel truly loved.

There are some in this world that wander ceaselessly; who are always looking for the greater good they can do.  There are some who are looking to do some great thing, but in the effort they overlook the simple thing that is most important and they neglect their own children.  I don't know what good you have been doing in the world, but I do know that your children feel badly neglected by you.  I trust that you are aware of the cost and that the good you have done is worth the cost to them.

From where I stand, you deny your children not only your time, but the time of your ex wife as well.  When you left and refused to offer any support, insurance or security, you forced your ex wife to enter the workplace full time and denied your children her time as well.  If you are unhappy with the way your children behave today, you must look to the past to find the reasons for their behavior. 

I know you maintain that all the problems the children have are because of the way your ex raised them (or did not raise them).  I know from common acquaintance that you feel you will be the one to save your children from the errors of your ex.  I don't see the root of the problem the same way you do, but we do have the same solution to the problem: make your children enough of a priority to spend time with them and show them your love.

You took the time to thank me for the money I am spending on your children, but that is something I don't deserve any thanks for.  Money comes and goes and is worthless to those who do not value it.  I give money to people I care very little for – even politicians on occasion.  If you want to thank me, thank me for the time that I give to your children.  Thank me for the late nights when they are sick, for the early mornings getting ready for school, for the weekends when I stay home rather than trip off to some exotic location. 

I could live the life you live - it is not so difficult to travel to all the wonderful places stamped in your passport, but I have chosen instead to focus my time and love in raising children who belong to another man – a man who neglects them continually.

Yes Ben, I believe you choose the life you do because you are blind to the harm you do your children in your selfish pursuit of personal fulfillment.  I can not see how the value you have been to the greater world will counter the harm you have done through your absence in their lives – especially as these priorities (your children) were given to you by God Himself.

It is hard for me to feel badly about the decisions you have made because you have created the perfect opportunity for me to step in and be a dad to your children.  If I were thinking only of myself I would encourage you to stay away because I love spending time with your children and I melt inside when they come asking me to help them with a problem that should by rights be yours to fix.  It is hard not to resent the few times when you have come to take them away from me but I know how much the kids need to know you, and I know how hurt they are when you stay away.  I would thank you for your negligence if I could overlook the harm it has done.  Regardless of how good you think your reason for being gone is, it is never good enough for the children.

One more question before I close:  If it is not money that keeps you away from your children, what on earth is it?  Providing for their needs is the only thing that can keep me away from them - they are truly wonderful.

       Eric

September is here and I find myself in various stages of readiness:  I love the fresh peaches of September, and the gardens overflowing with vegetables too.  I also love the beginning of the hunting season with Dove and Grouse signaling the start.  September also has some of the best fishing of the year, but I am totally unprepared to take advantage of this.  I am not ready to let go of summer even though I am glad that we are past the summer heat and the high energy bills that come from trying to cool a house.  September means that snowfall is only two months away and I don’t even know if I still have a shovel. 

I am seriously conflicted about September, but at least my angst came a little later this year than in previous ones.  Every year, the end of summer brings a feeling of loss for all the activities that I did not complete.  Perhaps the regrets came a little later because I actually did quite a bit!

I bought a new house.

I got married.

I got myself five more kids.

I took the family of 10 to California for vacation (driving).

I made it up to the property twice – once with my three children and once with Carol’s five.

I took the eight kids camping.

I was able to go fishing from the canoe twice and river fishing twice as well.

I have been out shooting guns a few times.

I have been able to watch the kids find peace in their new environments.

I found a 12 passenger van to carry us all in so we don’t have to take two cars.

The yard at the new house has not looked this good in a long time – despite all the toys everywhere.

That is really quite a list.  There are plenty of things that I wish I had been able to add to that list, and these undone things are the cause of the morose feelings of this time of year, but I can be proud of the things that I was able to finish.  I have long believed that you can tell a person’s true priorities by the things they actually accomplish – to say this a different way, the important things always get done.  This year I can be satisfied with the things that were done and the priorities that they spotlight.

Those things that were left undone this summer were really not priorities, despite the joy I would have found doing them.  It has been a good year.

I was forwarded an e-mail yesterday that had me laughing.  Maybe you have seen this before, but if not, you will see it here.  This first e-mail is a note from a man explaining to his ex-wife why he could not take his kids during his weekend:

I would like to be, but I do not have enough money..

I have not been able to eat for a day or two, fortunately some people share.

Had 10 dollars, but I dropped in on the floor and lost it..

So I have been fasting again..

I have to find a way to eat first..

cheers,

  -Ben

Hopefully my mother will send me some money.

This is the reply Ben received back:

Ben,

McDonalds is hiring -- and they give employee discounts for food.  Check it out -- they even have schedules for people who can't get out of bed until noon.

But then again, it is easier to beg mommy for money. 

I see lots of people with fewer prospects than you have - no skills, no education - and most of them are managing to provide for themselves and their family: you can't even provide for yourself. 

I met (John Wayne) the other day when I was out getting shoes for your son - I never imagined that (John Wayne) would be doing so much better than you at this point:  He has a car, a house, a job, and he was going to get a burger with his son so he obviously had at least ten dollars.

When I tuck your children into bed tonight, I will tell them that you love them.  I won't tell them that you just don't love them enough to get a job that would allow you to see them, but they will eventually figure that out for themselves.

Eric

Now that I have had more time to think about this, it is not funny anymore.  Ben is obviously broken.  Somewhere he has a fundamental illness that is affecting his ability to function and that is not funny.  Perhaps originally the humor I saw in this came from the fact that Ben is so unaware of his being broken that he believes his decisions are rational, but that is not funny either.  In fact, it is becoming depressing to continue to think about this at all.

Another thought I have been rolling down the steep slopes of my mind to see where it goes or what it will bowl over is this:  How often our best intentions end up being something other than what is needed!  I won’t say how I know this – obviously I live a Brady Bunch life where Carol and Mike never are misunderstood and never disappoint – but I learned it somewhere on TV. 

Take for instance a man who comes home from work to find that his wife is not feeling well.  If this man were to immediately go to work and make every effort to insure that his wife could just tune-out and get the rest she needed, he might find that his efforts were misinterpreted as being uninterested in her.  The man might feel that he is giving the greatest service and the greatest benefit while his wife becomes more and more convinced that he has no interest in her well being at all.  If the man could just put down the mop and recognize that the kids won’t actually eat each other despite their animal behavior, he might recognize that what his wife really wants is just some attention from him.

Nope, I don’t have any problems like that.  I am so glad I am not broken.

    *  *

Little Alice has been wearing sandals all summer long – that is when she has been wearing shoes at all.  Little Alice has a brand new pair of shoes to wear to school but she does not want to wear them because they ‘hurt her feet’.  Bobby wears the same size shoe right now and tried on the too-small shoes (despite their being pink – I thought this was a rather big thing for a 6 year old to do for a sister) and said they were fine but this did not persuade Alice. 

I was on my way to work when the shoe debate began so Carol called me so I could talk some sense into Alice.  She would not hear it from me either; she refused to wear shoes.  She wanted to wear her sandals to school and we might have relented but she needs shoes to be able to run and play.  We were at an impasse and going no where when suddenly Bobby resolved the whole problem.

“Here, Alice – you can wear my shoes to school.”  He said.  At first this seemed like he was maneuvering himself toward not having to go to school since he would not have shoes, but when Carol asked him what he would wear, he replied “I will wear the old ones.”  These old shoes were replaced when they became too small for his feet.

Sometimes the children actually care for each other.  Sometimes they deal with discomfort to make someone else a bit more comfortable.  Sometimes this family actually works.  Alice is happy wearing her big brother's shoes and Bobby is happy because he made his little sister happy.  Carol and I are happy because we know happiness is contagious.

  *  *

In church a few weeks ago, a question was asked:  “If you had one thing you could tell your children before you died, what would it be?”  I gave a smart-alecky answer as I often do and said “Get Therapy”.  I have had some time to think about my answer and the more I think about it, the more I realize that it is probably going to be good advice.  That is not to say that there was anything wrong with my children before, but now that I have been an influence in their lives I am sure I have messed them up thoroughly.

This morning was a perfect example of a dad totally messing up a child’s life.  Carol had to work, so that left me getting 8 children ready for school.  It is the second day of school for the two youngest, and all the kids are still finding their routine with school, but the morning went without too much difficulty.  I was actually feeling that I had things in control after I dropped one child at the bus stop and another at the Junior High, but then I got the phone call.

It seems that I dropped my daughter on the wrong side of the street – it was obvious and logical to me that the bus would drop off on the east side and pick up on the west side, but the people who built the route were smarter than I, and to keep kids from having to cross the road the bus runs the same direction when it is picking up and dropping off!  My daughter saw the bus but could not get across the busy street and was devastated to see her friends fly by in the bus.  Of course they could not miss her standing on the wrong side of the street either.

I felt horrible.  I know how little mistakes like this are huge in the memories of children; how watching their friends drive by on the buss and know that it was only because of their stupid father that they were left on the wrong side of the road can say with them for a lifetime.  I swung back by and gathered up my daughter, but even getting her to school 15 minutes before the bus was not enough to erase my earlier mistake.

I wonder how much therapy will cost when my daughter finally decides to rid herself of the demon lurking in her psyche that I formed for her today.  This is just that much more motivation to make sure all the kids have jobs that pay well.

     *  *

Labor Day:  How did this come to mean a day where we work twice as hard as any other day of the year?  This year’s weekend would have been another ‘calorie negative’ weekend if it had not been for the vast amount of food I cooked.  Despite being well fueled, I feel empty today.  I need a vacation day to recover from the vacation.

First I must thank my mother – without her our weekend would have certainly been a total disaster because I did not plan the weekend far enough in advance to get a reserved spot at any campground I wanted to spend a weekend in.  We could have gone to the property but it lacks some basic amenities (a toilet), so we were stuck fighting everyone else for one of the limited number of camping spots on the biggest camping weekend of the year.  My mother went up Tuesday morning to save us a spot and spent four days alone (well, she had a dog for companionship).

It took us forever to pack and to go.  Nothing went right and there were times when I wondered if we were making a bad decision – especially when Marcia and Greg started screaming “I am not going!  You can’t make me!  I will run away before I go!”  It was not what I wanted to hear when I was working so hard to try to make an enjoyable trip for them.

We finally got to the campground and found that my mother had landed the nicest spot in the place – the one that is never available because the campground host reserves it for his family to use.  She moved her trailer out and I backed our trailer in.  Dinner was hot dogs and s’mores because I was too busy setting up camp to cook as well.  I set up the trailer and two tents to hold everyone, and before I was done I had the campground host counting heads and telling us that we had too many people for the site.  He was kind enough not to charge us for extra people when he found out that they were all our children.

When I go camping, I generally have no agenda to follow.  There are so many things to be done that I trust everyone will keep as busy as they want to.  This camping spot helped because a nice stream tumbled past and water draws children with even more consistency than it draws a dowsing rod.  I only had to keep the food coming (I am camp chef when camping so I can give Carol a break from that task that is generally hers), and take everyone fishing – everything else was left up to impulse.

I only got half the kids out on the boat because the weather turned.  I knew it was going to turn because I had been following the weather report, so it was no real surprise but it was still a disappointment.  I enjoy taking the canoe out with the kids.  I did get a chance to take Carol out on a short ride one evening – I wanted to impress her with my skill, my strength, and my ability to find my way back to shore in the dark.  I know I failed the last one because I beached the boat 50 yards further north than I thought – it was a moonless night though.

When the rain started, it really started.  It was cold and rainy all evening Saturday and only cleared up for a little while on Sunday.  I was glad that I had the trailer and the tents, the awning (it did not make it home because it rained so much that it collapsed and is now in the aluminum recycling sack), and the experience needed to keep things comfortable.  It is interesting that with all the complaining I heard when we were preparing to leave, no one wanted to leave even when the rain really started coming down.

We are home now, but the after-effects are at least as daunting as the preparation or the experience it’s self.  Everything came home wet and muddy, so it all needs to be dried, swept and washed, dried a second time, and put away again.  Carol is taking possession of the tent trailer and making sure it is ready to go for our next trip (and I really, really appreciate this), but there is enough remaining to give me a headache thinking about it.

I need to remind myself that I did not go camping to prove myself to anyone, nor did I go because the kids needed a vacation.  I did not go to be thanked, I did not go to show off my skill with a fishing pole or a Dutch oven.  I simply went because I wanted to get away into the mountains.  The price I paid in effort and discomfort is well worth this experience.  Anyone who has ever experienced the sensory bliss provided by a beautiful forest after a real drenching knows exactly what I am talking about.