Free Coffee

So this morning Calvus and I were sitting at Bruegger's doing Hebrew (as is our wont) when a middle aged man with very distinguished looking spectacles came up and wished us good morning.

"You two gentlemen come here often, don't you?"

I looked up and said that we did.

"Well, I'm glad to see you studying Talmud. My name's Ken, and I think this is the sort of thing we want to encourage. Have some coffee on me."

We both said our thank-yous to Ken while he handed us two small pieces of plastic. I wondered whether we ought to tell him that we are both Christians, and Calvus a pastor at that, but he was out the door almost just as quickly as he'd come in.

Then we looked down at the small plastic keychains. They weren't gift cards for a free coffee. They were two memberships in an unlimited mug program. This kind Jewish stranger had just bought us unlimited free coffee for a year.

So we might visit Bruegger's more than once a week now.

In other news, here is a throwaway paragraph from Paul and the Faithfulness of God that made me stop reading just so I could think about it for the next fifteen minutes or so:
Paul's detailed understanding of what human beings actually are can again be see in continuity with his Jewish traditions, but also in implicit dialogue with the surrounding culture in which, ever since the pre-Socratics, quite sophisticated analyses of human interiority had been offered. Humans, noble in reason, infinite in faculties, can be understood from a variety of angles, or perhaps in terms of several interlocking features: 'body,' 'flesh,' 'mind,' 'heart,' 'spirit,' 'soul' and 'will.' These words sometimes appear to designate different 'parts' of a human being, but, as many have pointed out, it is better to see them as each encoding a particular way of looking at the human being as a whole but from one particular angle; as though one were to describe a piece of music in terms of its basic theme, its harmonic structure or its tempo--or indeed its orchestration, its historical period, its place within the composer's career or even its role within a wider cultural narrative. The song or symphony would be exactly the same, the rich, rounded whole. Each of the aspects means what it means because of all the others; but one would use different language to draw attention to these different facets or aspects of it, without implying that this facet or aspect could be split off from all the others.

And lastly, James is sick. But here is a video of him laughing at Curious George drinking juice.

Also, O should sit at Bruegger's with me and talk about football every Tuesday morning until a stranger gets us season tickets.

Updates

1) James is no longer quite so scared of the dark. About a week ago I put on Zarathustra, took out our camping lantern, and turned out all the lights in the house. James was going along with it until the last light went out. I even asked him "James, should we turn out all the lights and just have one lantern on?" "Yeah, oh wow!" he said. When the last light went out he started to shriek and cry, and he wouldn't calm down until we'd turned on EVERY light in the house, even in the rooms that we were avoiding because they meant brushing our teeth and getting in the crib.
But today, he discovered my Mag-lite and carried it around for most of the morning. (James, don't shine it directly in your eyes.) This evening I gave it back to him and turned off all the lights one by one. He laughed uproariously as he toted around the sole light in an otherwise black house, delighting in "extinguishing" it by holding it under a pillow. With him occupied and unable to see, I put away all of his toys. This was exciting because when he sees me putting away trains and blocks and trikes, he knows that bed time must be near, and he tries to take out of his toy box whatever I'm putting in. When the lights came back on, everything was already stowed for the evening. (Albeit in a rather messy heap.)

2) For all those concerned, we found Lego kitty this week. Lego kitty (or "mow-mow," as James calls it) is one of two plastic animals that came with a duplo set he got for his birthday last year. The other animal is a little doggy (we call that one "woof-woof") and we'd been missing the kitty for several weeks. James would get out the duplo box, point to the picture of the cat, and say "Where's mow-mow?" Then he'd look under the sofa for it and forget what he was actually doing, because looking under the sofa is so much fun. But anyway, it got to the point where we were sad whenever we saw "woof-woof" because we didn't know where "mow-mow" was. We found Lego kitty under Mommy and Daddy's bed (?) earlier this week, and promptly lost Lego doggy for several days. But this morning I found Lego doggy under the Christmas tree skirt, and the two friends were reunited at last. James didn't want to let them out of his sight all day, and they had to come with him when we went to check the mail and when we drove to Staples. It was very fortunate that I've retained some of my hearing, because when I heard the "click" of something falling I thought to look in the aisle behind us and saw Lego kitty lying beside a box of printer paper. A salesperson also pointed out to me later that "your son dropped his toy" and we had to go back into the store after we'd purchased our printer ink to retrieve Lego doggy from the checkout area.

3) Our printer is temporarily up and working again, now that I've purchased some ink and installed all of the correct drivers. That poor printer takes a lot of abuse. James finds it fascinating, and will come running into the bedroom whenever anything is being printed so he can dance to "music" it makes. He also turns it on and off recreationally, and has been spotted cramming toys into the paper tray.

4) James and I discovered a charming low-cost Christmas tree stand at a greenhouse about a half a mile up the road from our house. If we'd gone there instead of the Dairy and H---eye falls in December the whole Christmas tree fiasco could have taken about 45 minutes. Also, the number of people who've read that story is shockingly high, given the number of illicit undergarments contained therein. But pretty much everyone has found it humorous, and we haven't (to our knowledge) been disinherited by anyone yet.

5) Our stock sound for "Pittsford Library" has changed from "ooh-ooh, ah-ah" to "choo-choo." Whenever we tell James we are going somewhere, he has a reactionary sound. For example, if I say that we are going to Daddy's church, he says "choo-choo." (There is a train there.) If we say Wegmans, James says "choo-choo." If we say Barnes and Noble, he says "choo-choo." If we say Uncle Calvin, he says "mow-mow." (Uncle Calvin has a cat.) If we say "Mommy's church," James makes drumming motions. "Grandma's house" also means drumming motions. Alexa's house is "whooooo," which is the vacuum sound, and the carwash is "swish-swish." There are two Curious George dolls on the children's shelf at the library, which is why it usually is "ooh-ooh, ah-ah" but there has been a train display up there for the last two visits, so it has changed to "choo-choo."

6) We are still never bored.

We Made Brownies

We made brownies today. It is the coldest day in my memory, and I was home alone with James for the late morning. I went out briefly to the store and to the garage across the street. We needed toilet paper and contact solution, neither of which you want to be out of during a state of emergency day. It's bad news to attempt a substitute for either. The Neon was also due for an inspection, so I dropped it off at the corner garage and trudged up the hill to our apartment. I don't think "snow" adequately covers what's happening outside right now. In my fat black copy of German Myths and Legends there are all sorts of words like "bifrost" and "rime." I'm not sure what those terms mean, but it has to be something like what's happening outside today.

James at two is a different sort of creature than James at 18 months. James at two is still sweet and happy and generally cooperative, but he is also becoming much more specific about what he wants. Today he wanted to bake something. He dragged one of the kitchen chairs out from behind the table, slid it across the linoleum to the counter, climbed on top, then opened the silverware drawer and began to pull out all of our measuring cups and spoons.

"James, do you want to make something?"

"Oh, yeah. EAT!"

And then he showed me a 1/2 tablespoon and nodded. I found our last box of brownie mix in the pantry behind the mountain of recycling I haven't taken out yet--it's very cold, you know--and set the oven to preheat. I poured the brownie mix into a bowl, and let James stir it with a spoon (be gentle, don't spill) while I greased the pan and searched for eggs in the refrigerator.

There was a little bit of fine brown powder spilled on the counter when I went back to him, but he hadn't been too messy. He went back to digging in the silverware drawer atop his chair while I mixed in the oil, water, and eggs. Brownies are so easy to make that even I can't mess them up. When I reached over James to get a clean spoon for mixing, he indicated that he wanted to stir as well.

"Just Daddy's going to stir the brownies for a minute."

This did not go over well. He leaned over my arms, attempting to put his spoon in the bowl, and then when I held it out of reach he tried to climb up my arms. I moved over to the other side of the sink, and he (whinily) resumed digging through the silverware drawer. A few seconds later he tipped the chair over backwards and crashed to the floor. He managed to land perfectly, but scared himself badly enough that I had to hold him and "there, there" for a few minutes. I put the chair away back at the table and went back to mixing the brownies. As the oven beeped, a sniffling James was dragging the chair back to the silverware drawer.

I scraped the batter out into the pan as he watched, still holding his spoon. Again, he wanted to do it too. I let him scrape a little bit, but when I went back to working on the spatula-layer, he started to cry again.

"Do again, do again!"

"No, Daddy needs to do the spatula part by himself."

He stuck his spoon in the pan and began to stir it.

"No James, that's going in the oven. Let me take your spoon."

I took the spoon away and put it in the sink. Whine, whine. Fuss, fuss. He reached into the silverware drawer and pulled out another clean spoon.

"James, don't get another spoon dirty. We're done stirring for now."

He stuck the spoon in the pan and began to stir it. By the time I'd put the new spoon in the sink he already had another one out and in the brownie mix.

"Okay, down you go."

I picked him up, set him down on the kitchen floor, and set the third spoon in the sink.

There were many tears as I scraped off the spatula and spoon. I looked at him and felt sorry for the child. All he'd wanted to do was to help me make brownies, and he'd only been allowed to use his spoon once in the whole process.

"Hey, how about a treat. Don't tell Mom I let you do this, but would you like to lick the spoon?"

He stopped crying so hard and nodded. I handed him the batter-covered spoon and waited for (as far as I know) his first reaction to raw brownie batter. As soon as he got a taste he shoved the whole spoon in his mouth so far that he almost gagged on it. Once he'd licked off the initial spoonful he gestured at the pan of mix.

"Do again."

"No, we're going to bake this mix so we can have yummy cooked brownies."

And that was when the crying started in earnest. He was genuinely distressed when I put the brownies in the oven, and he actually attempted to open the oven to get at the batter again.

"James, I'm going to tell you what Nama told me when I was little. Someday, when you're a grown up, you can make a bowl of brownie mix and eat the entire thing raw. But as long as you're here you can only have a taste."

"Nama, Nama!"

He made his begging please sign.

"Do you want to talk to Nama on FaceTime?"

"Yeah."

"I don't think she's home."

"Nama, Nama!"

We didn't get ahold of Nama, but we did tell Papa how upset we were that we couldn't eat more brownie batter. The brownies looked great when they came out of the oven, and we're about to serve them to our guests tonight. I should probably go help, because J just finished making biscuits with James, and he's now flipping out that she won't let him stir the empty bowl with his spoon.

Hebrew Mondays

It is Monday morning at 6:00, and in the early darkness thousands of alarm clocks are going off around the city. Everywhere in Rochester people are rolling away from their warm beds and spouses having slept too little after watching football too late the night before. They grope through the darkness to their bathrooms and kitchens, shivering in the winter air.

I do not turn on my coffeemaker. I pull on a pair of dress pants, a button up shirt, and two coats. I pull my lunch out of the fridge, throw trumpets over my shoulder, and make sure I have everything I need for my teaching day in my bag. I close the door to our apartment as quietly as possible behind me, make my way downstairs, and step into the crunch snow, walking through our courtyard to my car. I leave behind everything but my bag of books, and continue walking through the snow down the street and up to Clover Street. There usually isn’t any traffic at that early hour, and I cross the street to the Bruegger’s bagel shop.

The bagel shop has already been open for several hours, and the two faithful bagelers are behind the counter looking bleary-eyed. I set down my book bag on the second table and chat with them about the weather while I order a bagel and a tall cup of coffee.

This is where I meet Calvus every Monday morning to read Hebrew together. He usually arrives a few minutes after I do, and when he greets the bagelers they brighten up and look awake. He always remembers more about their names and previous conversations than I do, and the few times I’ve been there without him they look disappointed that he doesn’t show up. (“Where’s your brother today?” they ask)

We eat our bagels and chat about how our weekends went, and then one of us will say “Well, want to do some Hebrew?” If I grew out a beard like his, we would look perfectly Jewish—sitting in a bagel shop in Brighton, NY, reading aloud from Exodus.

We both had much quicker work of Greek, and there are several words that we seem to have forgotten anew every week. We’ll get stuck on a single funny form for almost ten minutes one week, and then another week we’ll rattle through six or seven verses with no problem. (Genealogies make you feel very good about your linguistic prowess.) When something theologically interesting comes up we puzzle over it, but the morning is more about practicing speaking and translating than anything else. I keep a notebook with tiny illegible handwriting, and Calvus keeps a notebook with even tinier and more illegible handwriting.

We work until 7:15 or so, and then Calvus asks if I have time for another verse before I have to leave to teach. I usually don’t, but sometimes we do another verse anyway. We finish up, and I duck my way across a much busier Clover Street.

Out of all the poor folks who have to wake up early on Monday morning and start another work week, there aren’t many who get to start by having a hot cup of coffee with their brother and read 3500 year old literature from halfway around the world for an hour.

It’s a good way to start a Monday.

New Computer

We are officially old, and it does not feel good.

I am sitting on the couch with a brand new Toshiba laptop in front of me, freshly arrived from China. (Or perhaps Korea or Japan or Germany. One of the countries that was an enemy back in the good old days of us old people.) I don’t understand it at all.

Let the record show first that I was a vocal supporter of an Apple computer. But perhaps further explanation is needed. You see, our old computer is stupid. We got it for free back in 2007 when we agreed to stay in the ghettos of Greensboro, NC for another year at the Happy and Safe Apartments. (Motto: You probably won’t hear all of the car alarms going off because the parties are so loud.) The management offered us an enticing incentive (it took me forever to find the italics button on this strange machine) to stay on as tenants for another year by offering a brand new laptop for renewing our lease. We did renew, and the complimentary laptop served us quite well for 6 years.

2 years ago, however, we had a child and decided to take a trillion photos of him lying on the floor and looking frightened of us. Our old Toshiba laptop, already growing old and slow, was completely overburdened by the influx of photos and videos. Plus, that same small child regularly used the computer as a conducting podium/trampoline. Hey, it was free. It didn’t bother us if it took some abuse.

J has been working a lot from home recently as a worship leader/musician wrangler, and her job requires a steady and up to date computing machine. We were both aware that our old Toshiba was no longer up to the task. Here’s how a typical morning of being a stay at home Mom/worship leader might look.

8:30-James is up and breakfasted, and J needs to pick songs for the Saturday service and get them to the office by 10. She pulls out the computer, plugs it in, and turns it on.

8:47-The computer reaches the login screen. James is standing on the piano wearing only one sock, there are matchbox cars in the sink, and he has removed every single pot from the lower kitchen cabinet. Julie enters her name and password.

8:51-The computer flashes a “not responding” message as it tries to pull up the desktop screen. James is vacuuming the floor with a tennis racket, and then begins to beat the bookshelves as hard as he can.

8:56-Norton anti-virus informs J that it is not up to date. Would she like to upgrade to full virus protection? There is a crash in the pantry and James repeats “uh-oh” to himself several times.

8:59-J manages to pull up firefox while sweeping the garlic powder back into its container. James is crying because he wants more juice.

9:07-J attempts to log onto the worship leader website, but chrome gives her a “not responding message.” James is on her iPad surfing Youtube unsupervised.

9:13 J has planned half of the Saturday service when a window pops up informing her that automatic updates will restart the computer in 15 minutes. James is shrieking because he dropped Curious George in the crib and can’t reach him to get him out.

9:18 James keeps on pushing Curious George at the Ice Cream Shop in front of the computer screen while J swats it away and tries to finish her service. James pushes a random button and a photo pops of him asleep on the floor at two months old. J clicks to close out of the photo but accidentally restarts the computer. All her work is lost, and it will be at least another twenty minutes until she can turn the computer on again.

This is why we needed a new computer. And as I said, I campaigned for a macbook. We’ve had nothing but the best from my iPhone and her iPad, and we would have been happy to show our loyalty to Apple. But, since we didn’t have enough money to feed James AND to buy the really nice laptop, we decided to get another Toshiba.

Still, there was a lot to be excited about. Our machine would have the latest Pentium processor, a whole terabyte of storage space, a new long-lasting battery, and the latest Windows software.

I don’t understand it at all. I think my face looks like what J’s grandparents look like when we pull up videos on our phones.

The thing is, I’ve always been one of the kids when it comes to techie stuff. When my parents came to my third grade open house and puzzled over how we could keep track of all the information we needed to do that fancy “logging-in” business I was already buying supplies to show them an adventure on the Oregon Trail. I understood intuitively how to make the newest technology work because I was as young as the technology itself. Also, my Oregon Trail strategy was to stock up on ammunition and only carry a little food, and then to hunt a lot and just carry what I needed.

But now, I’ve grown old and the technology is no longer intuitive. Even as I write this blog entry in Microsoft Word 2013, I keep on accidentally shrinking the page view until I can’t see the words anymore, and my glasses are in the bathroom and I don’t want to get up because of my back because of how I had to bend over for an hour to play trains with James. (Choo choo!)

What used to be “windows” are now “apps,” except instead of being like the apps on my phone they jump away every time I get near the touch pad, and I can’t ever find the start button to get back to my desktop.

We’ll probably learn and adjust, but if we don’t James will show us. Because he is young, and even though he’ll want to use this expensive new machine as a conducting podium, he will automatically know how to use it in complex, enriching, and efficient ways. Mainly, watching Curious George on the Netflix app.

O Tannenbaum

We had three things to do today.

J had to teach a lesson at home, I had to teach two lessons at H---n, and we needed to pick up a Christmas tree. It was going to be a low-stress sort of Friday.

We've been playing up the Christmas tree thing quite a bit over the last few weeks for James, and he's finally been getting into it. He visited Alexa the other week, and she has a Christmas tree up at her house. When I picked James up I asked her if she had set up the tree with her Mommy and Daddy.

"No," she whispered "Santa."

Alexa has the most baleful deep brown eyes that have ever appeared on a child, and I think that for a second I believed her.

We loaded James into the Neon carseat and scraped the car off. This is not as easy as it sounds. First of all, the Neon is small car, and James is very heavy. Whenever you put him in the carseat, you have to hold a wriggling thirty pound bundle while stooping over and trying not to bonk either of your heads, and since it's been snowy out he usually gets you both soaked in the process. He also has developed a great love for brushing/scraping snow off the car, and he is deeply upset when you don't let him take part in the process. (I promised him that when he's a teenager he can scrape my car off every morning, but he doesn't want to wait that long.) So, I put him in his carseat while he wiggled and shouted and kicked snow all over me, and then scraped off the Neon and also scraped off the PT Cruiser, which we needed to drop off for some tire service.

That part of the trip went fine--it was starting to snow pretty heavily and traffic was bad, but the tire place is just down the street from us, as is Mt. Wegmans, which was our second stop. We picked up lights and ribbons for our tree--James, won't decorating the tree be fun?--and said hello to the train as we puttered around in our race-car shopping cart. He dropped George in the muddy parking lot on the way out, so George now has a filthy stain on his face as well as backside and paws. (Separate incidents.)

I loaded James into the car (and got us both soaked) again, and we drove to the P---d Farms Dairy, where a Christmas tree vendor was selling trees, stands, and festive woodcarvings. It bothered me to be purchasing a Christmas tree from someplace other than Hu-Lane Farm, where my grandparents have sold Christmas trees my entire life. I spent many winter breaks working there for them, helping to bale and load the trees or to clean the Christmas shop. More than anything else, the smell of wreaths and cinnamon bread in the front of their barn evokes the Christmas spirit for me. My cousin K has taken over the operation starting this year, but between the bad weather setting in and a hectic orchestra schedule next week, we agreed that there was no way we could make it all the way out to Albion and back to keep our Christmas purchase in the family.

We arrived at the Dairy and unloaded James into the snow. There was a dog and two cows outside, so he was immediately pleased. I looked at the prices on the Christmas trees, and was not. The cheapest trees were $65, and the tree stands would cost another $40 on top of that. Also, there was a big "cash or check only" sign up front. We had maybe $50 between the two of us. I asked whether there was an ATM in the dairy, and there wasn't. J and I huddled and talked through our options, and James began to cry as he suddenly realized how cold he was. We went into the dairy and used my phone to look up other sellers. There was a Boy Scout stand 20 min south of us in H--e Falls which I knew sold cheaper trees, and we decided to try our luck there.

J bought a latte while James ran around the Dairy and tried to touch all of the pies, and we received news that J's student had cancelled. "All we need to do is get this tree, and then I'll be done for the day!" she told me.

I picked up the snowy wriggling bundle and loaded him into the car again. The snowfall had turned from heavy to very heavy, and the rural roads to H---e Falls were completely coated with no signs of a plow. I could feel us slipping on the snow and ice, and J asked if I wanted to turn back.

"No," I said "We've worked all morning to get this blasted tree, and we're going to bring one back with us and have fun doing it!"

James was decidedly not having fun at this point. He wasn't crying, but we heard a lot of whining from the backseat as I crawled along in the snow and tried to keep my windshield clean and some sense of where the yellow lines might be.

When we finally arrived at the tree stand James immediately spotted a playground on the other side of the square. He was begging and reaching for it before we'd even unbuckled him. J told him maybe we could visit the playground and say hello once we'd picked up a tree? "Don't you want to help Daddy pick out a tree?" she asked. James just pointed to the playground and made more beggy whines. There was no one at the tree stand, but someone put up a big sign that read "Weekday shoppers please leave payment in the drop box outside the Scouthouse." The prices were much better, and in no time I'd found a suitable tree to load into the trunk of our car.

I threw it over my shoulder, and (proudly remembering the tree-hauling days of my youth) carried it back to our car where I was promptly informed that I would have to return it and select another. So, I threw it back over my shoulder and put it back where it came from, then found another tree and took it back to the car. (Have I mentioned that we were parked rather far away--the fond recollection of doing this when I was younger wore off very quickly.)

Meanwhile, J had attempted to take James over to the playground to "say hello"--this is Momspeak for "not actually play on any of the playground equipment since it is covered in snow" and they didn't even make it all the way over before James completely melted down. It was snowing so hard that they were both coated, and James was sobbing enormous two-year old tears. She loaded him into his carseat--and got soaked--and then we set about trying to load the tree in the car.

We opened the trunk and discovered it was full, of course. <2 year old screaming> There was a huge black trash bag filled with clothes we'd intended to take to Salvation Army, as well as a roadside kit and a box full of miscellaneous auto junk. I moved the trash bag to the backseat next to James <2 year old screaming>, which ripped in several places while I moved it, and he immediately protested it being next to him. We collapsed part of the backseat to slide the tree through, and pushed it as far into the car as it would go...and there was no way that the trunk would shut. <2 year old still screaming>

We both began digging for something to tie down the trunk, and I eventually found something small and elastic in the salvation army bag of clothes. The wind was blowing, the snow was everywhere, James was still screaming, and when J found that I was trying to use a thong to tie down the trunk she immediately yanked it away and put it in her coat pocket. I walked back up to the tree stand and rooted around in the muddy snow until I'd found a length of baler twine--we really could have thought some of this through ahead of time--and then came back to the car, where James was still screaming and I managed to tie down the trunk.

J had started the car and blasted the heat for James, who was still screaming. I walked over the scouthouse with forty dollars and found no evidence that there was or ever had been a drop box there. And that was how we stole our Christmas tree.

Eventually we got home and brought the tree upstairs, where it is currently leaning against a wall, since we forgot to buy a tree stand. James eventually stopped crying on the way back, and seemed to feel a lot better after he had a grilled cheese sandwich and some juice. I felt very good about getting the tree inside, even though it isn't set up, and after I left a message for the Boy Scouts inquiring how I might pay them, I went back out to close the trunk and discovered that the latch was broken, requiring a call to the locksmith. J, as far as I know, still has a thong in her coat pocket.

And that is the story of the 2013 Christmas tree.

UPDATE:
A locksmith repaired the back of the car, and I went to teach at Hochstein. I told J I'd pick up a tree stand on the way back. I went to the P---d Plaza and struck out at Rite Aid, Michaels, Bed Bath and Beyond, TJ Maxx, and Wegmans before giving up and coming home. The tree is still tied up and lying in the corner of our apartment. If we think we can survive it, we'll make another attempt to go out and find a stand tomorrow. Also, here is a picture of James on the trip back:

Thank You

Well, it's now been over a month since I've blogged, and it's time to say what I always say when I come back from a long hiatus--thank you.

Thank you to all of you who celebrated James' second birthday with us. A nasty cold notwithstanding, he's had an awesome 48 hours playing with all of his new toys, and he definitely knows he's been showered with attention and love. He loves his family so much, and it's been fun to watch him make some genuine "buddies" over the past year. Not just his stuffed animals, either--I think he's completely in love with Alexa Hamway. And her vacuum cleaner.

Thank you to all of you who have watched James at some point over the last month. We've been figuring out our new weekly rhythm in Pittsford, and we like it. It definitely requires more childcare than we used to need, and we are so thankful to those of you who have helped us out. We know that he can be tiring and that it can be an inconvenience to you. We are so thankful that you are around. Thank you Calvin, for listening to him practice drums on Wednesday evenings, thank you Kylie for lighting every candle in your house, thank you Lucas for spending the night on our couch, thank you Mom and Dad and everyone who have loved on him.

Thank you especially to Mom and Dad for hosting a birthday party for James last Sunday. Thanks for getting the food ready, for cleaning up, for entertaining a dozen people, and for celebrating that little bear with us.

And thank you to J, for being a great mom and a great wife. Your son loves you so much--I love to see him light up when he interacts with you, and I even love it when he howls for you instead of me when it's my turn to rub his back during a sick night. The last two years have been spectacular. And you look amazing in those new jeans. Holy cow.

Okay, more fun blogging coming up shortly. We finally moved our desk upstairs, so I have a writing surface again. This week's homework is to send me topical ideas or verses for LCS devotions on Dec. 4th. The name of the game is to be interesting without being so provocative that I get fired.

And now, get ye hence, for Shakespeare night approacheth.