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Well, Rhys cut her third tooth this morning – the first one on top! I found out because I heard her grinding the top and bottom teeth together. Ouch! That’s like nails on the chalkboard to me. She doesn’t seem to mind it much, though.
So yesterday, after being cooped up in the house all weekend with a fussy teething baby, Michael and I decided to grab some coffee and go for a Sunday drive. We headed south of town to explore some small towns – Newton, Cumming, Winterset and DeSoto. Winterset and Desoto we found by accident. After blowing through Newton and Cumming (almost too small to be called towns), we found ourselves on the east side of Cumming where we saw a sign – “John Wayne Birthplace”, and an arrow to follow this road. So we went, and every five minutes or so we’d see another sign or one that said “Winterset” and an arrow. So we kept following this winding road – “Cumming Road”, it said. Not even a highway, and no mile markers or anything! After about 30 minutes, we started to wonder how far Winterset/John Wayne’s birthplace was. But the sun was going to go down soon, and it couldn’t be that far, right? Then I started spotting signs for the famous Madison County Bridges. Hmmm. Without a map, I figured we were two to three counties east of Des Moines. A little further than we wanted to go with a teething baby! But we plugged on – we’d gone this far, and the Duke’s house couldn’t be far.
When we finally got to Winterset and to Main Street – renamed “John Wayne Drive”, it was totally worth the trek! A classic small town built around the square with small brick buildings, shops, and the centerpiece – the Madison County Courthouse. Huge Victorian houses everywhere – my mom would love it! It was really quaint – I felt like Marty McBride in his Delorian (our Honda Element was WAY out of place in this Ford-pickup town!). We followed the signs and got a couple of pictures of the John Wayne birthplace – a small, four-room house (closed by the time we got there, of course) – but we got there! And if we would have taken the interstate we’d have missed the cute “town” of Cumming, complete with the Old Irish Settlement (a popular place for outdoor weddings, I hear), some good fresh country air and space to stretch our elbows. The only thing I needed to make it complete was a root beer float from Scoops in Winterset – closed for the season. Maybe next time.
Funny what you can find on those back roads! Now that’s some true grit.
Once again, I caught myself staring out of the window this afternoon into my drab, cold backyard and remembered that I had this book, called “Cold Snap as Yearning”. It’s a collection of prose essays, written by Robert Vivian – I would never have read this book except that I was assigned to during a writer’s workshop class in college. Some of the language is beautiful, poetic, and as I was thumbing through it I found this essay – “Hereafter in Fields”. In it, Vivian describes the (mundane) drive between Omaha and Lincoln, Nebraska, and how making this commute everyday made him start to notice the fields flanking the interstate. Here’s my favorite excerpt. Enjoy!
“I would go into them if I could, wandering knee-high to the bend of a meandering stream. I would look into their tentlike gaze for some brief, fleeting notion of grace. But no doubt this is a fanciful delusion, half-crazed, because what they do best they do at a distance, as a moving panorama, the texture of the earth’s body entire and not a particular vale or region where I stand rooted to one spot. I am a temporary voyeur of the moving earth, rolling over it a few times a week, wondering each time at the subtle mysteries of where the land meets the sky, how they meet in changing juxtaposition, and how these work their wonder in fields. Then, sometimes, if I am lucky, I can get the whole feel of it, and I am sucker-punched by grandeur, by my mote-like presence in a world that is meant to knock me to my knees. It has become the difference between hearing and listening, singing and saying, watching and seeing. It’s the hereafter in fields, waiting at the edge of every city and small town, beckoning you to lose yourself in contemplation of the land and sky and your brief sojourn between them, joined by the speed of memory.”
(c) 2001, Universty of Nebraska Press
Rhys was demanding that I publish more photos of herself as well. The little diva! OK, OK, here you go, baby….
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Appearing today for the first time on Lions Under Oaks, our nephew Jackson! What a smile!
He looks like he’s 4 months going on 40, doesn’t he? Looks like he’s posing for one of those “Welcome Our Newest Associate” photos that companies publish in the newspaper. Cracks me up.
It’s this time of year that I get so restless! Not quite spring, not quite winter (although this big Midwestern snow tells me that Old Man Winter still has some muscle!), and not quite anything to do. I’ve been dying to get outside and dig up my garden plot, but there haven’t been warm enough days for me to want to work out there. TV’s getting really old. I don’t have an easel yet to put my 1000 ideas onto canvas, so I’m waiting around here for a break in the weather, dreaming for a sunny Saturday when Rhys can swing in the yard, I can work in my garden and Michael can laze in a hammock. Saying that, I realize I need a swing, garden and hammock. Argh!
So here we sit, renting TV shows and old movies, planning what we’ll do in the yard this year, waiting to break out the sandals and get out of the house to do more than go to Target to buy a million things we don’t really need. I’ve been so bored I’m reading John Grisham. John Grisham! I can’t stand legal thrillers, but I’ve been digging into Michael’s stack lately. Ah, well! One of them is actually pretty good bedtime reading – “A Painted House”. Check it out if you are as bored as I right about now. Anybody else feeling my pain?
Michael and I bought our first home almost a year and a half ago….in the dead of winter. Which, in the Midwest, I do not recommend. Our neighborhood was covered in a beautiful blanket of snow, and looked so quaint. Then, it melted, and all manner of things started to sprout up in the yard. I was reminded of this last weekend when I was out raking leaves (again!), and happened upon some “treats” that my neighbors love to leave in our yard. One big-wheel seat, various dog toys, an old broom, broken glass, flower pots, a frisbee, part of a gutter (I know it was theirs because it was painted the same color as their house!), a solar landscaping light, and a baby doll (which I uncovered raking, and thought it was a corpse at first, scaring the crap right out of me). All these things go in the trash, and it’s a shame, but they obviously don’t want them back. Nobody comes after them, and when we thoughtfully throw them back over the fence, they come right back. We did this with the 4′ long gutter piece several times before putting it in the trash for my neighbors. I am about ready to go over and have a talk with them! I am not their trash can! Ah, well.
Then I have the photo of the week……this is what happens when you combine an impromptu trip to Home Depot (thanks, Michael) and a toolshed you don’t want. Michael gets a hold of a sledgehammer and decides to have some fun with it…..
Now it looks worse! Also, there used to be a birdhouse attached to the front that is scattered in pieces about 10′ from the shed. Michael’s job this weekend? Tearing down the rest of that eyesore!
Here is my next-door neighbor’s yard. This is just part of their front yard. I swear there is more furniture outside the house than in. SOMEBODY please explain this to me!
The kicker is that most of that stuff has sat thru 2 snowy winters or more, without moving or anything. There is a bag of cement that has sat out in so much rain that I’m sure it’s a solid block now. Under all that stuff is a garden. Yup, a garden. But you wouldn’t know it, would ya? Notice the swingset and kid’s toys? These people are grandparents, they don’t even have kids! Crazy. The swingset looks kind of nice, though, maybe I could put it where our shed is….they might not even notice…..
I’ve lost them! For the next three weeks, I’m a loner. This is a photo of Michael and Rhys getting ready for “The Dance”: watching the Duke/UNC game last week (for you non-basketball fans, it’s a HUGE rivalry!), prior to making his selections for the tournament. Poring over stats, video highlights and office gossip to put ink to paper in four brackets (named after cities that don’t seem to have anything to do with where the games are being played!). I don’t get it, but I made a tradeoff: Michael watched Olympic ice-skating with me, and for two weeks last month I subjected him to all sorts of Torino trivia and Olympic moments, great and small. He had all he could take when I made him watch four hours of ladies’ figure skating coverage.
So now it’s payback time! I’ll be watching, like it or not…and you’d better believe that Rhys has a KU cheerleading outfit to root on the Jayhawks with (thanks, Cynthia!). I guess if ya can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.
Why do I have this compulsion to celebrate every holiday? Saint Patrick’s Day is tomorrow – no, I’m not going to indulge in green beer – but I have this little quirk that makes me want to celebrate the holiday. Why, though? I’m not Irish, or Catholic, and don’t like green beer anyway. Why is it that Americans use any holiday (usually the minor, we-have-the-day-off-but-don’t-know-why holidays when your bank is closed and you don’t get mail) to prove how much alcohol they can throw down? I never understood that. Ah, well.
So I’m thinking. Why do we celebrate this saint, Patrick? Why do we eat the corned beef, do the pub crawl, wear green and pinch those who don’t look good enough in it to wear it? Dunno. But I do know that I am nerd enough to find out, so I Googled it….and of COURSE I’m going to post what I’ve found!
http://chi.gospelcom.net/GLIMPSEF/Glimpses/glmps075.shtml
Seems like Patrick was a wild man, standing up to the Druids and evangelizing the Celts of Ireland not long after the Roman Empire withdrew from the island. What is interesting to me is that he claims he was told by the Holy Spirit to go back to Ireland (after escaping slavery there) and tell the Celts about Jesus Christ. Kind of a prodigal. All this when he was only 22! (and of course, way before the Catholic church was organized)
I guess I can celebrate the life of a man who was wild, reckless and unbending in his devotion to his faith and who listened for the voice of God. Something tells me, though, green beer just won’t do it……Cheers!
1. They were created to cause pain and difficulty.
2. Some how it always feels like I’m moving backwards.
3. My legs always feel like they are going to explode at the calf after 3 minutes.
4. I’m normally not getting on them of my own free will…Lindsay makes me do it
5. Champps boneless wings with wedge fries is better…this only leads to more ellipticals.
6. They make noises that sometimes sound like farts…when everybody looks up it is always the look of “yep…the fat guy let one go again.” Guilty by association. This is not right.
7. There always seems to be one guy that has shaved legs working out on them…this leads me to think about why my legs aren’t shaved and where shaving legs came from…don’t get me wrong, shaved legs are good (on my wife), but why does that guy shave his legs? Not cool.
8. They always face TVs. This isn’t bad, except that the TVs are always small which leads to squinting. Squinting leads to headaches…and you get my point. Also, you would think that all the money I am paying for a gym membership would lead to the purchase of BIG TVs. What are they doing with all that money?
9. Cleaning the machines. Why is this the job of the paying client who works out on them? It is always awkward. Also, who cleans the machines if it is busy and there are people lined up? Isn’t it easier to jump off and let the next victim worry about it? Makes sense to me. Who says that brush of chemicals with your sweat-stained towel is getting the job done anyways.
10. A little thing I like to call “potato butt.” I’m a big guy. I recognize that it is my fault that I am this big and that stress, too much work, and a horrible diet has lead to my bigness. Thus…the reason for being on an elipitical in the first place. However, who gave big people the green card on wearing “butt” tight pants. This should not be…dimples and spandex do not go together like peanut butter and jelly. You won’t catch me in tight pants, so why should other big people subject others to this? Especially on eliptical machines. These machines only highten the need for these individuals to purchase larger gear.
This is my first shot at this blog thing. Not too many deep thoughts here…I just needed to say what everybody else is thinking. You know its true. Also, remember…if Chuck Norris is running late, time better slow the heck down.
Peace Out
the fam – 12.05
