the beards

Last night Mr. D had his monthly poker night, so after I tucked in the boys I had the TV remote and I could watch whatever I wanted, or not watch TV at all (as is often the case), for as late as I wanted.  After some light reading, I flipped the TV on and began surfing the channels.  Other than Masterpiece (Sunday nights), Mad Men, and Sons of Anarchy (Tuesday nights) I don't really know what is on when on which channel anymore.  The few random sitcoms I still follow (The Middle, HIMYM, Modern Family) I can catch up on by watching online at my leisure.  When I do turn on the TV, it's always a  surprise.

Flip.  Football.  Flip.  Stupid Lifetime movie.  Flip.  Weight loss infomercial.  Flip.  Angry lady on news station.  Flip.  Angry men on news station.  Flip.  Football.  Flip.  Dumb sitcom.  Flip.  Flip.  Flipflipflipflipflip.

And then I found Duck Dynasty and got sucked right in because reader?  That is the most funny and oddly sweet show on TV these days.  In my now second-favorite episode (my first being when they get an RV and get the farts), one of the daughters is learning how to drive and everybody's got an opinion on how to teach her while Grandpa and Grandma take over chaperoning duty with one of the grandsons and his new girlfriend.  The duck obstacle course they set up for the girl to drive through was HILARIOUS.  And dad in the passenger seat with his duck call, warning her every time she screws up--I was laughing out loud.  And their focus on having fun but keeping the grandkids pure was absolutely heartwarming.  But the episode that took the cake involved lawnmower races because I know guys who would totally do this exact thing.  Meanwhile, grandpa is charged with building a princess playhouse for his little granddaughters.  When the building project ends up a two-story fort that looks nothing like the picture on the box, the girls and grandpa turn it into a duck blind.  They're covered in face paint and toting BB guns and grandpa offers them a crisp dollar bill for any decoy they can pick off the picnic table below.

Duck Dynasty.  Pure redneck awesomeness for the whole family to enjoy.

I ask you reader, when you thought about the future and TV when you were a kid watching The Jetsons on one of five available channels, did you ever imagine it would look like this?  Sixty-odd channels and the only thing fit to watch is a show about super-hairy redneck duck-call makers.  Don't know about you, but it's not what I expected.




Si's commentary about "Evil Meneval" and "being wingman" is classic.

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the year we left home

Poor Mr. T is at Boy Scout camp all week--his first night there they had a string of severe thunderstorms blow through. Of course he's in a tent. Of course it's the first night. Of course his mother is worried...

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we're getting ready for Mr. G's party. In the middle of a heat wave, he was hard-pressed to find a buddy who didn't want to attend a pool party (with water balloon games!).

I'm a fan of reading obituaries and came across this charming excerpt last week:
[Robert]was a hard worker who truly loved family farming and the simple pleasures that coutnry life afforded. In his free time, Robert enjoyed mowing the lawn, traveling the countryside on back roads, and stopping for a burger or ice cream cone.
I would have liked Robert. He sounds like a man living the dream. And an excellent grandfather, no?

I've got grandfathers on the brain lately. My sons are severely lacking in this category in the biological sense, but we've got some swell older gentlemen stepping up to the plate. J, the neighbor who Mr. G adores, will let Mr. G tag along in the yard and garden and talk to him about important stuff, like tips on playing ping pong and the names of different caterpillars. Our neighbor G is quick to hand popsicles to my crew and talk to them about hunting, dogs and sports. Since his grandchildren are peers of Team Testosterone, he'll cheer on Team Testosterone at flag football and baseball games, too. D is our handyman, a jolly guy who smells like Swisher Sweets. He lets Team Testosterone "help" when he's here, allows them to try out the tools, explains the finer points of construction, tosses a baseball with them when they finish. C has been my sons' spiritual mentor at church, greeting them every week with a huge smile and leading them in AWANA and holding them up in prayer. I am so thankful for surrogate grandpas.

The Year We Left Home by Jean Thompson begins with an older couple, surrogate grandparents, getting the American Legion hall ready for a wedding reception. From that moment we're pulled into the Erickson family and journey from 1973 to current times, watching them tear apart and rebuild through a series of tragedies, small and large. Similar to Jonathan Franzen's Freedom, it's so much better. Both are about dysfunctional families, both deal with modern day issues, both provide perspective on American culture. Both draw clear pictures of life in the Midwest, capturing exactly the setting. But that's where the similarity ends.


Where Franzen goes into 30-page political diatribes, Thompson is succinct, but no less provocative.

Students coming and going, the artsy sort, with big portfolio cases and scuffed boots and funky knit hats, and they looked at him kind of strangely because after all he didn't belong here and it showed and it was funny that these kids who were all about looking peculiar and different seemed to draw the line when it came to his peculiar self.

Thompson masterfully describes Iowa, only missing two insignificant beats (one being a reference to a blacktop road, when everyone knows the farmhouses sit on gravel and dirt roads, only the main byways are paved in Iowa--picky stuff only a native would recognize). She nails the place, time, culture, mood--uses details in a stunning way.

The oak-veneer cupboards were marked with years of fingerprints, scrubbed down and reappearing again and again with the persistence of ghosts. Here were the same yellow-striped plates and cloudy-glass salt and pepper shakers, the same slant of afternoon light making the air in the room turn slow and brown. Everything here was familiar, a comfort to him, but at the same time he wondered how long he'd have to sit and endure it.

Her characters are so authentic, she digs so deep into them that they're repulsive at first and then slowly grow on the reader. The Bumbles agreed that Chip ended up a favorite, which didn't make any sense on the face of it, yet Thompson delved in and revealed for all of us a sympathetic person instead of relying on cliche (a trick Franzen didn't master as we'd previously agreed that very few of the characters in Freedom evoked our sympathies, they behaved more selfishly, had less redemption). Thompson switched the point of view around between key characters, and while we all wished for more closure for the mother's character and speculated on why one brother in the tale was left largely unexamined, we found the result very satisfying. It was interesting how one could trace back to little things, insignificant moments that resulted in defining events for a few characters. And just as in real life, a few startling coincidences made us gasp or laugh out loud.

Finally, instead of writing a sprawling 562-page saga about American life (I'm talking about Franzen's Freedom), Thompson took the entire work up a notch by employing one of my favorite structures to her novel. Each chapter reads as a stand-alone short story, but the collective work is threaded together with common characters, themes and settings. I'd love to do this with a book, I've made a feeble attempt, and let me tell you it's no easy trick. Her mastery of language AND form AND structure should leave Franzen groveling and weeping with envy at her feet. I enjoyed both, but I have to give The Year We Left Home the extra gold star.

Spill it, reader. Have you read this book? Will you?

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on presence and presents and fabulous

We made it in and out of Iowa for Thanksgiving without much hassle. It was a sad day for half the group--2 of Mr. D's siblings lost fathers-in-law in the last 4 months, the pain was still pretty fresh for those families. I'm used to this holiday being about my in-laws, but each year my husband says, just before everyone heads in to load their plates, "Where's the meat? When do we eat?" which is exactly what my grandfather said after grace before every single meal. I don't know if he understands how much I appreciate it when he quotes my grandfather.

The day after, my sister-in-law and one niece and my mother-in-law loaded into an SUV headed for the nearest shopping mall. I was glad to escape back to Wisconsin, my hands free of shopping bags.

In a side note, my MIL had one of those plug in fragrance diffusers you get at Bath & Body Works. It fell out of the wall and leaked faux vanilla scented oil all over our shoes. Consequently, my laundry room reeks of this smell, which is NOT intended to be inhaled by anyone with asthma. Oy. I cannot imagine what my MIL's kitchen smells like with that seeped into the floor.

So now it is the end of Thanksgiving, the start of Christmas. My FABULOUS bloggy friend Anne Marie over at Na-Da Farm Life summed up my feelings about the holiday very nicely in her blog today. Actually, I summed up my feelings about it pretty well, too, over at Eco Women today. I don't want to be caught up in the "buy-get-spend-shop-greed-consume" aspect of Christmas. I want to be present in the holiday, enjoying all the sounds, tastes, sights and smells. I want to sled down snow-covered hills with my sons and feel the cold on my cheeks and their arms wrapped around my neck. I want to hear my kids giggle while we watch Elf together, crunching popcorn and drinking cider. I want to smell the tree in our living room and see how many ornaments my kids can cram onto the lowest branches. I want to spend my holiday season making memories instead of going out to get stuff. I want Christmas presence--of mind, body and spirit.

But that doesn't mean I won't give presents. I just want the presents I give to be good ones, thoughtful ones, quality ones. I'm not buying someone a sweater marked 50% off just because I found a good deal. I want to give lovely things.

Anne Marie is addicted to lovely things, and her taste runs simple like mine does. For November's FABULOUS, I'm giving away the item of choice from the Na-Da Farm Etsy shop to one lucky winner. How can you win? Each comment in the comment box is an entry to win November's FABULOUS. Check out Anne Marie's blog and breathe in the serenity of nature, family, hand crafted and vintage. (And there are horses.)

Spill it, reader. Are you making your Christmas simpler, celebrating more with experiences than with stuff this year?

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of handymen and holidays

Yesterday I made 2 phone calls--one to a new handyman referred by our local lumberyard who showed up at my door a few hours later. Mr. W is a delightful middle-aged Dutchman with rosy cheeks and a hearty laugh that punctuated every other sentence. I wanted to invite him to move in with us--he embodied the grandpa of my dreams. He took notes and measurements of the projects I want done and promised to call with a quote--he knew exactly what to do to fix things around here and I breathed a huge sigh of relief when he drove off. Our last handyman ripped us off on the final job he did for us a few years back and we haven't called anyone since (aside from our plumber who is an absolute angel). The last job went over both deadline and budget. Our old handyman usually showed up hungover, hairy and wearing a t-shirt with the logo of a local "adult" video store across the back. I'd silently thank God that my boys couldn't read yet whenever he wore that shirt. It's good to feel optimistic about a new hire.

The second phone call was to "M." This is Green Girl--you did the excavating and connected us to city water last fall? Yes, well, I wondered if you could help me with patching up the lawn and level out the area where my vegetable garden is going to go--that sort of thing. Can you come by so I can walk you through the project I have in mind and then you can write up a quote? Today or Wednesday is good.

The phone rang last night (before the 9:00 hour, Jen!). It was M, he asked to speak with Mr. D. I handed over the phone and listened to Mr. D's half of the conversation. There he sat going over the details of the job I'd called him about, confirming that he'd do the work and what it might cost.

Ummmm, dude? I called you, not Mr. D. The fact that you just called back to talk specifically to Mr. D about everything we discussed leads me to draw one of two conclusions:

a) You're under the impression that Mr. D is the Alpha Male of our household and any and all planning and purchasing must get his approval. I, on the other hand, am the "little lady" who can't be trusted to handle such "important issues" as hiring a landscaper/excavator to help me complete the work of the yard I have planned. You had to call Mr. D to confirm that what I told you is what we really want.

b) You're overwhelmed by my beauty and general awesomeness and you're more comfortable talking turkey with Mr. D who is not cursed with my level of charm and brilliance. Tongue-tied in my presence, you can communicate only with Mr. D who lends the discussion no such distraction.

***

I made shamrock cupcakes for Mr. B's kindergarten class--in blatant violation of the Healthy Treats Policy. They turned out okay--but I'm not posting pictures because I know most of you read Saucy's blog and I'd be embarrassed by any comparison. I also remembered to leave chocolate coins in the boys' leprechaun traps. Now they're conspiring to capture the Easter Bunny and demand marshmallow shooters for Easter.

Dream big, boys. Dream big..

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a small moment of great significance

Because of crossed signals, I sat alone at a strange restaurant yesterday waiting for my college roommate--but I had my current manuscript in hand with a pen and made good use of my time editing and writing revision notes in the margins while ordering a sandwich and coffee.

While I sat in my booth by the window so I could watch for Kel's arrival (which is rescheduled for next week), a very frail old man came in, supported by a much younger woman. He was bundled up--scarf, coat, mittens, hat. He had clear plastic tubing running into his nose and pushed a walker ahead of his shuffling steps. I took little notice--family style restaurants cater to older folks and from the looks of the place, I was probably the only patron not using my AARP card to get a discount.

With all the care of a museum curator handing the dust of ancient Egyptian pharaohs, the young woman eased the man into the booth in front of me and sat across from him. A moment later the waitress came over and said, "How are you? It is so good to see you again." She paused and that's when I looked up. "I think I'm going to cry--I'm so happy right now." Tears welled in her eyes and I couldn't hear his answer. She introduced herself to the man's helpmate--his granddaughter.

Then another waitress came over and introduced herself to the granddaughter and welcomed the man back--from where, I do not know--but she also had a gentle way with this fragile man who somehow had returned to his restaurant where he was a regular.

The third waitress came over to the table, again expressing her pleasure to see the man again, introducing herself by name to the granddaughter. She also had tears in her eyes.

It touched me--the genuine affection for this gentleman. I wondered what he'd done to merit it--and what happened to make his return so wonderful for these waitresses. It pleased me to know that three waitresses care so much about their customers--they know the names of their regulars, the concerns of their regulars and make them feel at home in those booths of the Apple City Family Restaurant.

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a charming moment

You know how it can get so cold outside that it burns? That's today. The wind has whipped across our fair state since last night and the freeze factor zaps your skin of moisture within seconds. Naturally we're fresh out of milk and other Important Foodstuffs, so Mr. B and I made the run to town. No one else was there and we made it through the store and checkout in a half hour. Mr. B dumped extra money in the bell-ringer's bucket. (that's dedication! To stand outside ringing a bell in such weather!) Our next stop was the post office.

I've been a huge fan of old men since my bartending days when they'd sit across from me and talk fishing, politics and football while nursing a tap beer or a whiskey-soda. There's a certain elegance to some old men (James Stewart springs to mind), a polish and manners. Others have a dundering quality, but such kindness and sparkle to their personality that their physical awkwardness doesn't matter (Walter Matthau). Today's old man was short with a huge nose, thick glasses and he was bundled up to his chin in a plaid flannel coat, topped off with a cap with floppy earflaps. We stood beside each other waiting our turn and I smiled at him.

"You know, I've heard it's best to tell jokes while you're standing in line waiting with someone."

"Really? Hmmm, let me think...I don't know that many jokes." I cast around and came up with something not beginning with "knock-knock." "What's brown and sticky?"

"Candy?"

"No. A stick."

"Good one. What did one strawberry say to the other strawberry?"

"I don't know. What?"

"If you weren't so sweet we wouldn't be in this jam."

Then it was my turn at the counter.

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