Congratulations, It's A Child!

Sometimes some things are so silly that even talking about them gives more credibility than is deserved. I risk that event today.

A while back I talked about the great divisors of life. I mentioned that actually being alive was probably the most significant, i.e. you are either dead or you are alive. The next most significant divisor is our sexuality. Again, this is a matter not of absolutes, but of most common, and, for most of us, being male or female will be the most significant identifying feature after life/death. It defines who we are, how we respond to relationships, how we introduce ourselves, and how we view all aspects of life. I love how from the beginning our sex is important ranging from the development of tests that can determine the sex of the child (and the never ending discussion of whether to know ahead of time) to the doctor's stereotypical initial birth announcement, "It's a girl (or boy)!"

So I read an article about a Canadian couple who are committed to raising their most recent child with no reference to it's sex. I wish them the best of luck on that one. Normally I'd be concerned about child abuse issues, but this one is so silly I have no objection. There is no way that this child can be raised gender neutral. The cultural forces, for better and worse, and the base genetic drives will completely overwhelm any good or silly intention for neutrality.

Actually, the biggest surprise to me is that parents who already have a child would still think that the base sexual drive can be neutered. As Ray Kinsella said, "...we're dealing with primal forces of nature..." (extra credit movie quote). I still have the image of my son, our youngest, showing up for one of his sister's birthday parties, one boy in a sea of girls. They had all their American Girl dolls. He ran upstairs, came back with his Darth Vader figurine, and sat still for as long as he could. Unfortunately, some of the American Girls did blow up later in the party ...

The link to the story is here:

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/05/24/genderless-child-creates-media-firestorm-toronto/?test=latestnews

If you have nothing better to do, read it and share your thoughts.

Lost In Translation

I had a conversation the other day which I had to pass on to you. Obviously, I talk a lot about relationship. I also recognize that there are quite a few definitions for relationship. Apparently this can cause some confusion.

Up here there are quite a few old family names with many branches and members. In fact, I've been told that there is a standing rule that no one who lives north of Sister Bay can date any one else north of Sister Bay. Apparently there was a family reunion a few years back where a husband and wife both received invitations. Separately.

Anyway, trying to keep the names and connections straight is sort of a county-wide pastime. The other day I was talking to a Bob Brainerd about buying some lumber. Part way through our conversation he alluded to his wife having worked for the county Parks Department. Something in my mind clicked and I asked, "Oh, are you related to June Brainerd?"

A horrified look crossed his face and he barked, "No, she's just my wife!" I guess I'll never figure out how they had children ...

That's So Gay

It's interesting how these blog posts form. In this case, it stems from a news article I heard this morning while driving to the landfill. In essence, homosexual men are complaining that "gay" is being increasingly used as a synonym for stupid. As soon as I heard the complaint, I started laughing.

Please note that I am not laughing at the man offended, at gays in general, or at sexuality at large. Neither am I laughing at the kids who have hijacked "gay" for their own purposes and meaning (as silly as this one seems to me).

Instead, as an English/Writer/Word dude, I was laughing at the irony and of the abysmal historical knowledge. All language is in flux. Language, by definition, is a cultural construct. As such, it will change to follow the new-cut riverbed of our meandering social stream. At times, the modification of language and word meaning is fairly logical. At others, it seems quixotic.

The irony here, of course, is that "gay" was usurped from its prior meaning of light-hearted happiness to represent, instead, homo-sexual men. I don't understand that etymological shift, but whatever.

In like fashion, I don't understand the current, typically youthful, use of "gay" to mean stupid or silly or lame or dumb or whatever.  I do understand that it represents a continued shift of language and, while I am not likely to use the word as such, I am not going to find it anything other than childish.

This is not to say that there should be no constraints on language. I think it appropriate for there to be a tension between modernity and history. This includes the fact that words do have power and that their power should be respected. I, as an example, try to limit "awesome" to that which is not only spectacular, but to that which is spectacular and God created. If I am going to be in "awe" of something, and since I can't think of a higher emotional state, that word should be limited to creation of the highest order and, by extension, that which created it.

The thing that got to me, I guess, is this. I don't really care whether you are single, married, homo-sexual, bi-sexual, in a polyandrous relationship, celibate or any other of the myriad of sexually expressive constructs. Again, whatever. Up here there is a girl my son's age who is now attending a very good college. Smart kid and very talented in her sport. Her mom and dad are divorced (after 3 kids and 8 years), the mom is the managing partner of a local company and the dad, who does not have a ton of educational experience, works as one of the new employee trainers part time, for her, and goes home to his sugar-daddy each night. As mentioned some posts ago, since it is a small community, everyone knows. Indeed, since it is one of the more significant businesses, almost everyone deals with one or both of them fairly regularly. As far as I know, and this is the important part, no one cares. She is kind but a bit aloof; he is a lot of fun to hang out with but not the most responsible. For both, their sexual choices have a part in developing the persons they are today. However, neither are defined by their sexual expression; their sexual choices are not who they are but simply part of who they are. I like that.

So, when I get someone on the radio telling me that "gay" is a sacred word, insisting that it remain the PC term, and leaning heavily on the insinuation that being hip and modern and accepting and contemporary is all delineated by a reverence of this word, I want to gag. So I laugh instead; if he really was so hip and smart and relevant, he would recognize that "gay" was stolen from an entirely different context, that language is ever changing, and that 20 years from now it will likely mean something entirely different again. Underneath his relatively benign request is an insidious implication for protected status. I decline.

Boats, Water, and Swimming

We got the boat in the water. It has been a story of fits and starts. To start with, last fall I had Lee drop it at my house so I could do some work on it. However, this spring has been so cold, windy, and wet that I never did get the time to attack any of the cosmetic things I wanted done.

So, a week or so ago, I put the water impeller and tubing and plugs back in place, re-lubed the lower unit, and fired it up. It started easily. It also leaked easily. I must have had a section of the head which didn’t drain well last fall and the head and corresponding manifold section had splits from freezing.

After talking to Lee I decided to just try JB Weld on the splits and that seemed to work. So Lee stopped by one morning and we loaded it up and brought it down to the docks. Again it fired right up and now didn’t leak. However, since it started up so easily at home, I had never run it long or tried it through its RPM range. Now, down at the dock, even when warmed up, it wouldn’t idle. As soon as I throttled down to anything under 800 RPMs, it just choked out and died.

Lee popped the gas up while holding down the carb air intake to try to create more vacuum to suck out any sludge, and, while it helped some, the problem largely remained. We managed to slide it into reverse and off the trailer and over to one of the slips. Over the next few days I ran the boat a few times and even did a superficial carburetor cleaning, but never really got it fixed.

By now it would idle low enough to safely shift, though and we did get out last Sunday for a few hours. Then, on Monday, I got the call that the slip spaces needed clearing out and that I needed to get the boat out to the mooring. This boat hadn’t been on that mooring so I loaded up the ground tackle I needed and punched through the wind to our mooring spot. However, once there, I found that the guy who stripped the buoys in the fall and re-installed them in the spring had completely messed up hanging it and there was no way I would be able to fix it in those swells.

So we motored back to the dock, explained our frustration, left the boat in the spare slip, and waited for a calmer day. By noon yesterday the wind had slowed some and shifted some and out we went again. This time things went quite well and we both straitened the buoy out and got the main hawser and back ups set properly.

With everything in order, Jen and I went back one more time to the dock, dropped her off, loaded the kayak, and went back to the mooring solo. It’s a good setup and it worked well even single-handedly. After I clipped on to the mooring, I threw the kayak over the edge and tied it to one of the back cleats. I then shut down the boat and grabbed a few ropes that I wanted to bring back home.

Unfortunately, one of those ropes was identical to the line I was using to tie the kayak. The end result of that identity crisis was that I looked up to see the kayak quietly floating away. I waited for 5 seconds to comprehend the limits of my choices, stripped down, and dove into to water that I knew would be cold. In reality, cold would have been an improvement. I swam as fast as I could, got the kayak and swam it back to the boat. I scrambled back on board, double tied the kayak, and toweled off. I flipped the batteries back on and checked the gauges. The water temperature was 42 degrees. Feeling what I believe is referred to as refreshed, I finished shutting the boat down, slid into the kayak, and paddled back to the dock. Problems and misadventures aside, it’s good to be back on the water.

Looking Forward To Going Upstairs

We had two nice days in a row. Unfortunately, they occurred last week and it was the only time this year that we have had two nice days in a row. Today was wet, cold, and windy.  I look forward to more soft, sweet days of summer warmth and languorous evenings. Not only are they excellent in and of themselves, but they bring the opportunity to go upstairs.

Upstairs, for us, since we live in a one story house, is the roof of the north wing. That portion of the house has a 1:4 single pitch roof. We have a ladder that permanently stays leaned against the east side, the low side, of that roof. Once up and on, it's quite easy to walk around but I also made a small platform of inverted angle which provides a flat deck large enough for a few people to sit. This is our upstairs.

I love to take my cup up in the morning and feel the dual warmth of coffee and rising sun. In the mid-day it provides an occasional nap spot or meteorological station to watch the storm clouds form. In the evening and into the night it is best used as a point from which to bid the day adieu and watch the stars find their stage marks.

Today it is too cold, too wet, too windy. Tomorrow will likely also prove poor reason for use. But next week ... next week holds the hint of promise and the forecast of days of sufficient loveliness to beckon us upstairs to the mystery of a world fourteen feet above ours.

What To Watch?

We turned off our TV. Well, actually, we didn't turn off our TV but we did discontinue our Direct TV subscription. By extension, since we don't get a conventional signal up here, we, de facto, turned off our TV.

There are a number of reasons we did this. First of all, it is economically duplicative. Between Hulu, Netflix, the local library, and other internet sources, broadcast TV is largely reproducible. The other reason is the first.

The explanation of this incongruity is found in the reasons we watch TV. For Jen and me, broadcast TV serves three very specific purposes. First, it provides local information via newscasts including weather information. Second, it allows us to watch the one series TV show we follow (that's a partial tease; that show is likely a near-future blog subject). Finally, it provides a source of distraction.

The last is the largest reason we shut it down. Easy distraction is one of my nemisiseseses (as Dwight Schrute would say) and that thing directly addressed during Lent. I guess this is one of those cut-off-the-hand-that causes- you -to-sin sort of things.

Regarding our followed TV show, Hulu has it the next morning with fewer commercials and the ability to watch on our schedule. And, since early morning tends to include some stupor and coffee filled time anyway, why not watch it then as opposed to the more usable time of the evening?

Local news is quite similar. I can get any of the local TV channel's information from their respective websites. In addition, I remember my Dad telling me something years ago which just stuck. I asked how he kept his desk so clean and he told me that each day presented more new issues than that to which he could reasonably respond. He went on to explain that he had developed both the sense and the habit to know which requests where legitimate and those which were merely the output of someone's angst de jour. Those which appeared to be of the latter sort were set aside for a deliberate period of time. If the issue never surfaced again, the matter was discarded. If it came back, which rarely happened, it was dealt with at that time. I want to remember that he estimated that over 1/4 of the stuff that crossed his desk went into that file set for non-legitimate issues.

I think that a lot of our news, especially in this 24 hour news cycle world, fits this quality. It may seem important at the moment but, when viewed from a  historical perspective of even a few days, it is shown as more gossip than anything else. In any case, missing the news for a few days is an effective filter since anything worth knowing will be still around a few days from now. So, for me, I find that the lack of news both morning and night is actually giving me a more balanced overview. And I love following the news ...

Our experiment (for such it is) of dropping TV reminds me a little of the movie Overboard. In it, a rich brat of a woman, via the movie magic of amnesia, ends up spending 3 months or so living and believing that she is the wife of a working class construction dude with 3 kids. After she regains her memory and social position, her butler counsels her by pointing out that she has been given the rare gift of having truly experienced two dramatically different lives. What she does with that knowledge is her choice.

I don't know what I'll do long term. It would be hard to miss the Packer's games in the fall. And the winter evenings are a lot longer than the spring and summer. And I truly like to watch TV. But my real point here is to encourage you to not just think about things and imagine things (which is already far more preferable than just existing in default mode), but to actually effect a change and live there for a while. Experiential knowledge is far more real than intellectual investigation by itself. And I am not talking about TV, but about everything. Shake it up. Try something different. Take something on. Give something up. Most of the things we use to fill our lives are easily obtained and removed. You have little to lose. Experience the change. Then decide how to live. No rules, no guilt, and no one looking over your shoulder. Claim your life for yourself.

Happy Mother's Day!

After today, I wish that every day was Mother's Day. Gorgeous, sunny, quiet, and all together lovely. We had a surprise church service yesterday afternoon, so today didn't even include that commitment. It did start out a little bleary eyed, however, since we went to the drive-in movie theater last night and actually stayed for both features. In truth, I do not remember the last time I stayed out that late.

Today we went and had breakfast at The Cookery and then walked around town and down to the beach and docks. From there we went home, took care of chores, and planted some lilac bushes which were Jen's mother's day gift. Once done we made lunch and headed out on the boat for Adventure Island and then to Chamber's Island. We both actually fell asleep after lunch. It was wonderful.

By late afternoon we were back home and I made a salad and grilled two rib eye steaks on the grill. A simple dinner but excellent especially when combined with the remainder of a gift bottle of Primus, a multi-grape blend from Chile. Apparently the original grape roots came from France in the early or mid 1800's and, after the French vines got clobbered by some mold or something 50 years later, the French actually bought some root stock back and rebuilt their vineyards. However, one grape was never reintroduced but did remain in Chile. That grape is relatively indifferent as a solo grape but makes for an excellent blender; the same idiosyncrasies that prevent it from starring on its own add delightful differences to a blend. In any case this bottle, a 2007, was one of those fun wines which just roll out flavor. 30 seconds after a swig, you are still tasting things not present immediately. Highly recommended and a nice companion to the steak.

But the thing I really enjoy about Mother's Day is that component nearest to me, namely "mother-of-my-children dayness". That a little awkward, but the idea is this; the primacy of my relationship shifted from being my parent's child to being my wife's husband about 25 years ago. So, with all due respect to my own mother, "mother" to me first brings the image of Jen as she is the mother most immediately in my life. However, of course, she is not my mother. But, the fact of her motherhood to our kids only reinforces her status as my wife. To put it simply, were she not my wife, she would likely not be my children's mother.

So I reflect on her status as wife (and by extension, mother). And what I find delightful are the components of woman/wife/mother which are intrinsically different (thank God) and which are un-ascertainable to me as man/husband/father.

In Genesis 2, God looks around and finds no "helper" for Adam. Unfortunately, the beauty of the hierarchical truth found in that comment and in God's solution has been frantically twisted and successfully hijacked for confusion and evil for most of the Christian history.

But truth is truth, and there is a profound truth here hidden from English translations. It is, simply, this; in almost every other instance when that same Hebrew word is used in the Old Testament, it refers to God as our 'helper'. How awesome is it, how profound a calling and purpose, how high a standard is set when God himself sees that human relationship is unfulfilled without the presence of women and refers to their absence in the same term used to identify his aspect as our helper? Women carry in their created marrow the image of God as help to our need. Very cool. Thank God for women and Happy Mother's Day.

My Widest Regret

Today was delightful, sunny, quiet, fairly warm, and very spring-like. The projects on which I worked were frustrating, however. It seemed that everything I did took care of the issue needed, but also revealed a problem hidden beneath the original. Caring for the second revealed a third, etc...  I think I would have found the day frustrating were it not for the people with whom I had contact in trying to complete the tasks at hand.

This evening, by the way, we had a simple peasant style stew with browned ground beef, and great oversized chunks of vegetables poking above the bowl rim with thin slices of Swiss cheese and a wine that I bought a few months back and haven't gotten around to trying. The wine was a 2005 Vino Nobile Di Montepulciano from the Corte Alla Flora vineyards (Italian). It is a 3 grape wine and we really enjoyed it. It presents from crisp and clean on the front end to earthy and substantial on the back. I kind of thought of a Chianti but it is more sophisticated, both thinner and taller. Not an everyday wine for me, and definitely beyond our simple dinner, but it would be great with anything from an intensely flavorful pasta to a filet mignon and I recommend it.

One of the projects for the day was to finish getting the boat ready to drop in and to clean some of the remnants of projects long planned and long forgotten from the area by the boat so that the trailer can more easily approach. And moving that stuff one more time, without a definite need for it, and looking around at all the other stuff I have accumulated over the years brought me up hard.The truth is that I have acquired and collected stuff over the years as I knew that someday I would find a use for it. In addition, I have taken on innumerable projects under the guise of living a full and well purposed life.

While I have learned much from the handful of projects which I actually took from imagination to reality, I have more frequently obtained parts of the project without ever proceeding with any level of completion. So now I look around my yard and see, quite frankly, a mess. For a while I had storage a mile a way, but that land sold and I needed to move the collection out. As a storage unit for all my false starts would need to be barn big, the only realistic option was to move everything here.

So I am faced with a daily reminder of my varied interests and, at times, convince myself that it shows a richness of interest and even a quality of intellectual pursuit. But I kid myself. What is shown instead is a life habit of taking on projects for distraction's sake. Somewhere along the road I decided that frantic busyness was the same as a rich quality of life. In place of experiencing some things deeply, I experienced many things shallowly. This I regret. While there is time enough in the week to do anything you want, there is not enough time in the week to do everything you want. I think if my yard were more empty, my life would be less. It is good to learn new skills and take on new challenges and be useful and engaged with mind and hand. I need to clear out and start with a new paradigm of that which is worth my time. But how do I get rid of all this cool stuff?

Happy Birthday!

It has been a busy last few days but it's time to get back to writing. Today was an interesting variety of events book-ended by music. We had a lot of music this morning in church; it was packed and people sang! The middle of the day included getting blown across the county, selling Lars' trashed Benz, fighting with a stupid music transcription program (how is it that computer programs can be the most patience trying events around?), and taking a walk at the highland meadow section of the state park. This evening we had our first rehearsal for the choral portions of Bach's 77th Cantata. Man, it's fun to sing good music ...

Last night we had a small, day-late birthday party with sweet-and-sour meatballs on Basmati rice, a garbage salad with one of everything and a glazed pecan dressing. And left over grilled shrimp from the night before and some of the good chips and some cheese curds and some good Cabernet and two kinds of carrot cake of which Pam's was better.

The night before Jen and I had our own birthday party for me with grilled shrimp and not a whole lot else. It was interesting to have my first birthday ever with only one other person celebrating. It was a quiet, lovely, cold, rainy evening, a delightful end to a day that started with the serenade of Sandhill Cranes bubbling landing instructions as they glided down to the neighbors field.

One of the most poignant things about my birthday, however, were two moments of pure nostalgia. Both, coincidentally, are about my Dad. The first was earlier in the day when I was working on getting the boat ready to drop in. I needed to replace the brass drain plugs removed last fall to drain the manifolds and winterize the boat. Because of the space constraints at the back side of the engine, no socket wrench would fit and I need a regular box wrench instead. I ran into the house, flipped open the top part of the toolbox where I keep my wrenches and grabbed the first 7/8" wrench I found. While I now have a couple of sets, I once had only one. The wrench I grabbed was from that original set. And my Dad bought me that set at Fleet Farm about 30 years ago. I remember being there with him getting some other stuff and seeing the set on sale. It was my birthday and he asked me if I'd like it. I did and I still do.

Later in the evening, Jen gave me a present of a small mixer-blender appliance designed for smoothies or whatever in a one-serving, easily cleaned size. She washed it and I made a quick protein shake. After I hit the pulse button, though, I was transported back about a million years.

Somewhere in my ancient history, my Dad would cut our hair. That stage didn't last long, so I must have been pretty young, maybe 3 or 4. I'd sit on a high stool and he would use an old-school electric clippers to trim. Beside the nervous buzzing of the tool, I remember best the smell of the heated oil that protected and lubricated the blades. For whatever reason, the new motor of the gifted blender, heated through use and starting it's burn in stage, had the identical smell to that old electric trimmer and, for a couple of moments, I was sitting in some kitchen or basement or hallway, shivering in my underwear, feeling my Dad's arm holding me from tipping off, and smelling burned, light-weight oil while the soft, shivery fluff of cut hair tickled down my back.