"Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy"

 We are all very excited that J's brother Tim is getting married in April! I have many wonderful things to say about Tim and his bride-to-be. Yet, as excited as I am about seeing them joined in the sacred institution of marriage and in supporting him as a loving and encouraging family, I am even more excited about the backless dress that J is planning on wearing to the wedding.

I'm excited because I've SEEN it. She tried it on when it arrived, and immediately announced that she'd need to get something to cover up the back at the ceremony. She's probably right about that. It isn't that the dress is immodest or provocative--she just look DISTRACTINGLY good in it. I quoted Shakespeare upon seeing her, who said (somewhere in his works, I'm sure) "Hot DAMN!"

My assignment for wedding prep was to wear the black suit that I wear all weekend every weekend. (I'll have it dry-cleaned immediately beforehand, I promise.) But my second assignment was to find a tie that would complement J's dress.

This turned out to be a fun project. We ordered ties/vests/accessories for the boys in the same emerald green as her dress, and I looked high and low for something in the appropriate color and style.

I found, back in January, a silk tie with silver dots on the J. Crew website.

"There it is!" I cried. I quickly purchased it and then went back to thinking about J in the backless dress.

Several days later, we got a package in the mail. 

"My tie is here!" I announced. J came back into the library to see it, and we both looked in stupefied silence as I pulled a red dress out of the package. It was a lovely red dress--strapless and summery. Size medium. It was in a plastic bag that was clearly labeled "Green Silk Dotted Tie." But it was not a tie. There was no way to wear it around my neck.

I was on the phone with customer service, and found out that I couldn't do a straight exchange. I'd have to mail the dress back, and then they could refund me the amount for it. And then I could order a tie.

I mailed the dress back. The tie immediately went out of stock.

So I resumed my search of the internet for the Perfect Tie, and couldn't find anything. The whole matter fell out of my head for a few weeks, and then I checked again and the tie was back in stock! I quickly ordered it a second time and told J to watch out for a package.

She texted me while I was at a rehearsal last week: "You have a package!"

I asked her to open it for me and send a picture--I wanted to see it in person.

She texted back a picture of herself holding a red dress.

"What did Dad say?" Owen asked afterwards.

"I can't repeat that." J answered.

Customer service was contacted again. No, they were still unable to do a straight exchange. But they COULD overnight me a green tie for free if I purchased another one and sent the (second) dress back. 

The "overnight" ended up taking five days. But, look what arrived in the mail yesterday!

I haven't decided whether or not I should keep it this time. I think that I need a good, long look at J in her dress to decide whether the color matches.

"Here's yet some liquor left"

 

"It is indifferent cold, my lord"

 The sun was briefly out today, and even James is ready to be done with winter.

"Dad, I'm ready to be done with winter. And that's saying something for me."

(James sleeps with his window cracked all winter long and wears shorts and a t-shirt around the house.)

It's certainly stupid cold outside. I've been trying to run very first thing in the morning--even before I have my first cup of coffee. This morning I padded through completely virgin snow at 5 and didn't see anyone else in the neighborhood except for two dog-walkers down by the (closed for the season) ice cream shop. 

Our cardinal friends were back outside yesterday after having been gone for over a week, and I've also seen enormous dog footprints in the yard in the morning. (I'm sure that they aren't bear-prints.) Last year it felt like all the birds in the neighborhood all returned on one March morning, and we stopped school to watch and listen. That day might be just weeks away now.

Or it could be a frigid and eternal March. This is, inevitably, where we get suckered into believing that the winter is over.

Wendell Berry, "Winter Night Poem for Mary"

As I started home after dark,

I looked into the sky and saw the new moon,

and old man with a basket on his arm.

He walked among the cedars in the bare woods.

They stood like guardians, dark

as he passed. He might have been singing,

or he might not. He might have been sowing

the spring flowers, or he might not. But I saw him

with his basket, going along the hilltop.

"And from his mother's closet hath he dragged him out"

One of the noblest things that you can do as a homeowner is to convince yourself that some irksome and obligatory task is actually a fun privilege. (Help me out, Tom Sawyer)

I put "Clean out the linen closet" on our February fun calendar and even suggested that we play the Tetris theme as we sorted out months years of mess and neglect. It was SO much fun that I think the boys should take care of this very fun job the next time it comes up. (Est: 2032)

The first item of business was to get rid of all of the towels that had animal hoods on them, since we no longer have children so small that they need to be wrapped (giggling) up in a crocodile hood once they are removed from their baby bath. 

I sorted the cleaning chemicals, the travel toiletries, the replacements toothpastes, deodorants, and travel liquids, and refolded a dozen sets of various size bed linens, each of which is missing at least one component. 

I found a paper bag marked "Lush" at the back of the closet and remembered that several years ago I bought a bath bomb (avocado-scented) for J as an idea for a romantic date night and hid it away in the back of the closet. What I had failed to remember at the time was that our bathtub is the least romantic place in the house, and possibly the least romantic place in the entire western hemisphere. It is slow-draining, grody, scuffed and peeling-painted, mildewy, caulk-separating, germ-festering and generally anaphrodisiacal. It's probably a good thing that we never tried that date.

Also appearing in the linen closet were dozens of LEGOs (of course), pieces of pencils, a half-empty box of Saran Wrap, an EyeWitness book about music, and someone's Favorite Rocks collection.

I'm sorry that you all missed out on the GREAT FUN that was cleaning out the linen closet, but don't worry...I'll let someone else take a turn next time around. 

CATCH-22, Chapter 19

"Will a minute and a half be enough?"

"Yes, sir. If it doesn't include the time necessary to excuse the atheists from the room and admit the enlisted men."

President Trump Colonel Cathcart stopped in his tracks. "What atheists?" he bellowed defensively, his whole manner changing in a flash to one of virtuous and belligerent denial. "There are no atheists in my outfit! Atheism is against the law, isn't it?"

"No, sir."

"It isn't?" The president colonel was surprised. "Then it's un-American, isn't it?"

"I'm not sure, sir," answered the chaplain.

"Well, I am!" the president declared. "I'm not going to disrupt our religious services just to accommodate a bunch of lousy atheists. They're getting no special privileges from me. They can stay right where they are and pray with the rest of us. And what's all this about enlisted men? Just how the hell do they get into the act?"

The chaplain felt his face flush. "I'm sorry, sir. I just assumed you would want the enlisted men to be present, since they would be going along on the same mission."

"Well, I don't. They've got a God and a chaplain of their own, haven't they?"

"No, sir."

"What are you talking about? You mean that they pray to the same God we do?"

"Yes, sir."

"And He listens?"

"I think so, sir."

"Well, I'll be damned," remarked the president colonel, and he snorted to himself in quizzical amusement. His spirits drooped suddenly a moment later, and he ran his hand nervously over his fake orange short, black, graying, curls. "Do you really think it's a good idea to let the enlisted men in?" he asked with concern.

"I should think it only proper, sir."

"I'd like to keep them out," confided the president colonel, and began cracking his knuckles savagely as he wandered back and forth. "Oh, don't get me wrong, Chaplain. It isn't that I think the enlisted men are dirty, common and inferior. It's that we just don't have enough room. Frankly, though, I'd just as soon the officers and enlisted men didn't fraternize in the briefing room. They see enough of each other during the mission, it seems to me. Some of my very best friends are enlisted men, you understand, but that's about as close as I care to let them come. Honestly now, Chaplain, you wouldn't want your sister to marry an enlisted man, would you?"

....

"The hell with it, then," the president colonel asserted in a huff of independence. "I'm not going to set these damned prayer meetings up just to make things worse than they are." With a scornful snicker, he settled himself behind his desk, replaced the empty cigarette holder in his mouth and lapsed into parturient silence for a few moments. "Now that I think about it," he confessed, as much to himself as to the chaplain, "having the men pray to God probably wasn't such a hot idea anyway. The editors of the Saturday Evening Post might not have cooperated."

"Imperious Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay, Might stop a hole to keep the wind away"

 It's been a BRUTALLY cold week in Rochester, but that hasn't kept the boys inside. They go outside to play a game that they call "Lateral," which looks to be similar to what my brothers and I called "Kill the Carrier" when we were kids. I sit inside and watch them from my desk with hands at wildly different temperatures.

My hands are at different temperatures because the Library turns into an icebox when there is any kind of westerly wind up. One of my hands, tucked into my bathrobe, stays reasonably warm. My right hand, holding a pen and writing at my desk, is a block of ice.

It was so cold yesterday that when I went for a run in the morning I couldn't feel my feet as I ran through the snow on the sidewalk. I did notice that something on my left foot felt wet once I came inside. "That's odd," I thought "because these shoes are just a few weeks old and I don't think they have any holes yet." I found out when I took my sock off later that it was blood. I never felt my one toenail cutting open the neighboring toe because I didn't have any feeling in my foot at the time. (It hurt plenty afterwards.)

I had a look at the insulation on the original structure of our house when I was perched up on a ladder last summer, installing a vent fan above the bathroom. It turns out that there really isn't any insulation. There is a layer of aluminum siding that went on at some point in the 80s, and then there is the original cedar shake siding. And that's it. 

We haven't been completely remiss about weatherproofing over the years. When we were first in the house we qualified for a free New York State energy efficiency upgrade that basically paid for two contractors to seal every crevice in the basement with an ugly expanding spray-foam. I've caulked, sealed, and patched various windows and rotten wood spots over the years. And this fall I secured the two dryer vents on the western side of the house, discovering in the process that what stood between the vent opening and the inside of our house was...absolutely nothing. (A mouse or two also discovered that this fall, which was what led to the re-sealing. The mice subsequently discovered my mousetrap collection.)

None of this bothers James, who came downstairs this morning in a t-shirt and shorts. It was 9 degrees outside.

"Aren't you cold?"

"Not really."

And apparently he wasn't. I made him put on a coat before we got in the van, but he took it off once we were driving. 

"I'm too hot."

They do look pretty chilly by the time they come in from playing Lateral/Kill the Carrier/Tackle Each Other Into Snowbanks, but I sometimes wonder if this is just an act to plead for hot chocolate. (It's a good act. They always get hot chocolate.)

Next week is supposed to be a bit warmer--a balmy 20 degrees of most of the week, if my weather app proves to be reliable. (It hasn't proven to be very reliable recently.) I will be ready for warmer weather. But there is a small part of me, perhaps the part that fathered James, that doesn't hate the cold of January. It's good to feel like you're alive and fighting when the world has turned so frosty and that it feels intentionally hostile.

But I'm not going to go so far as to start wearing shorts.

"And he, repulsed, a short tale to make, Fell into sadness"

 Aunt Martha was over last night, and we somehow ended up reading old blogs aloud. I enjoyed the brief season when the kids were doing all the writing for me, but I think that it might be over. And, alas, they want to know why I don't post stories about them anymore.

"Because I don't get home until 11 at night, and then I have to get up at 5:30 in the morning to start prepping the heat-fixed slides for your Biology homework!" is the snide answer. But really, I should be taking some time to write down memories. I wouldn't remember any of the hilarious things that Owen said when he was 3 years old if I hadn't blogged about them.

So, we try again. I am digging for blog prompts, and J gave me a great one the other day. She's having her class (she is teaching a spiritual formation class for work) do an exercise this week, and I was the guinea pig. The assignment was to write two stories. One is in the "A Stranger Comes to Town" genre, and the other in the "A Man Sets Out on a Journey" genre. One was supposed to be closed and other open-ended, but I didn't remember that until after I'd written them. But anyway, here I am, attempting to write regularly again. 

A STRANGER COMES TO TOWN
The announcement came over the loudspeaker into my classroom: “An admissions counselor from Houghton College will be in the Guidance Office from 9 AM to noon today to speak with seniors who might be interested in attending Houghton College next year.”

I was several weeks into my Sophomore year of High School and desperately unhappy. I hadn’t even made it through the first week of school before I began skipping classes again, an offense that had led to worried parent-teacher conferences and empty disciplinary threats the year before. I wasn’t getting into trouble—I was sneaking out of Gym class and out of Introduction to Agriculture to practice in the band room. When my lips were too tired for any more practicing, I’d go to the library and read.

Most of my teachers turned a blind eye. I wasn’t a disruptive student, I had no trouble with the classwork, and I was usually discreet. But I was miserably bored and unhappy, and I couldn’t imagine facing another three years of high school under the current conditions.

So I lied. I pretended that I needed to pick something up at the Main Office, walked down to the Guidance Office, and introduced myself to the Houghton admissions ambassador. I don’t remember anything about them now, but they were probably just a recently graduated college kid. What I do remember was that I made a series of completely improvised bluffs. 

“I already have nearly all the credits I would need to graduate,” I explained, “but I’m technically…TECHNICALLY…just a sophomore. I’d be very, VERY interested in attending Houghton next year. Can you tell me whether Houghton has any policies about a minimum age to enroll?” (I had just turned 15.)

The admissions counselor, whether they believed me or not, played along. And that playing along led to a formal application and an audition that buoyed my spirits beyond measure. I suddenly felt hope and had a tangible goal in my future. I didn’t end up going to Houghton, but I did leave High School at the end of my sophomore year after putting in a furious year’s hard work to pass all the necessary college entrance and high school Regents exams without having taken half of the coursework. 

I have no idea who that admissions counselor was or what happened to them, but they unknowingly changed the trajectory of my life just by showing up on a Monday morning in Albion. They gave me an opportunity to work towards a meaningful goal and to be transformed from a bored, irresponsible, slacking teenager into a hard-working student who was seizing life with both hands. 

A MAN LEAVES ON A JOURNEY
I had no interest in Bible Quizzing. Among other reasons, I was convinced at the the tender age of 10 years old that I was going to be an important scientist, and I considered memorizing quotations from the Bible to be a waste of my valuable scientific time. 

My parents brought me to our church (Albion Free Methodist) early on a Saturday morning, and I piled into a 15-passenger van with a crowd of much-older teenagers. Our youth group leader and quizzing program head had spent several weeks of Sunday School time attempting to prepare us for the upcoming quiz meet, and I’d barely remained conscious, let alone attentive, throughout the preparations.

Once we arrived at the church which was hosting the meet I started to feel some butterflies in my stomach. This felt suspiciously like an examination, and I HATED looking foolish in exams. I began to rapidly read and re-read the pocket sized portion of scripture that I was supposed to have studied and memorized 4 chapters of. 

I quickly found (to my intense relief) that most of the other quizzers were not any better prepared than I was. And I also was surprised to learn that either by osmosis or by Sunday School literacy I was able to answer questions on a good bit of the material just from prior knowledge. I ended up taking 3rd place in the Individual Competition, and was handed a small trophy. I was hooked from that moment on.

It was unadulterated selfish ego—pure competitive teen insecurity—that made me stay up late, pacing back and forth in the hallway as I memorized the New Testament. And I’m so glad that I did. I only wish that I’d memorized the Psalms with the same intense effort (back when my brain was younger) that I devoted to the gospels and the letters of Paul. I’ve been collecting interest on that selfishly undertaken work for years now, and for whatever reasons I did it I am grateful for having such a large chunk of scripture carved into my memory. My relationship with scripture is far from finished, and the work that was started at that first quiz meet—wrestling with my own ignorance of the Bible, recognizing the power of knowing its stories, and seeing within myself a mixed bag of motivations for engaging with it—has continued for the thirty years after and still goes on.

"the occasion of my sudden and more strange return"