Not the best of weather this week. Always cold. Lots of precipitation that makes it difficult to drive. I kinda feel like I'm back in Wisconsin. It's pretty brutal.
My one consolation is that I have not flown off the road yet. Not once. And that's saying a lot, because we only have one Jeep in our family and the lady of the house has dibs. As always, I've been rocking the 1999 Ford Taurus. Don't get me wrong. I love the Taurus. And so do Middle School boys, now that I think of it. Right after I was on Wheel of Fortune, I was driving around with some boys and one of them was really impressed with my ride. "This is a pretty nice car. Did you buy this with your Wheel of Fortune money?"
The Taurus is nice. It's not 30 G's nice, however. Even in light of the fact that it has given us 145k strong miles and counting. But I appreciated the sentiment, considering how much grief I get for driving a family sedan.
But who cares what people think? I'm almost 29, here. Gettin' pretty old. I don't exactly have time to drive some tricked-out ride up and down the plaza. I got stuff to do. So the family sedan will suffice.
What I've learned the past few days is that substance beats style any day. I have seen soooooo many people with their 2wdsuv's and trucks sitting in ditches. People who got those cars for no practical reason whatsoever. If you are dropping the extra change on the gas guzzler, you had better at least get the tow package, a trailer hitch and the 4wd. And you better use that mug. Otherwise? You're just faking it. And then the dude in his Taurus chuckles as he passes you on the road when it's snowy. Because he might have 3 hubcaps and a cassette player, but at least he's practical and functional.
Now if you have been shamed into getting an actual SUV that you can use, check this bad boy out. My very Chuck Norris looking friend emailed that ad to me the other day. It's so poetic it almost brought a tear to my eye.
On the other hand, you could always get a Civic. Or a bike.
For some people, liberation comes when they get to shut off their phone. I can understand that. They can be hard to tear yourself from.
For me? It's my keys. I know I'm free when I don't have to touch them. It means I don't have to drive, lock anything up, have responsibility. My legs are able to move freely without the rhythmic banging of cut metal reminding me that I have to lock things up and drive places. I am able to leave a room without looking around to make sure I haven't left my keys somewhere. I have freedom. And freedom feels really nice.
I've always been skinny. I'm fine with that. In high school I had delusions that I could somehow lift enough weights to be the buff guy, but it was never meant to be. It drives my wife nuts, but what can you do about your genes?
But even skinny punks can get soft. Near the end of this past semester I was feeling way out of shape. It had been 18 months since I stopped ballin on a regular basis, and I had done nothing to keep myself fit. Add to that the fact that I was eating horribly due to my busy schedule, and it was time to make changes. So, between the end of classes and graduation I did a two week natural food diet. It helped me flush out the nast that had been building up, and also trimmed some of the pudge that had been accumulating.
But then it got really real. I started doing pushups and situps. I figured that I didn't want to spend the money or time to go to the gym, but I did want to work on my core strength. Amazingly, it is working like crazy.
Ok. I'm not buff or anything. But I also lost that mini-Buddha that I was hauling around. And, I have a 4-pack. And, my wife remarked the other day that my upper body had "exploded". Seriously. Who knew that just doing pushups and situps for 8 weeks could rock the casbah.
I feel better. And I saved a lot of money. The gym I was goign to join was the sweet Star Wars themed place. Then, it closed all of the sudden right before I was about to join. I couldn't figure out how such an amazing business model could fail, but then I saw this video over at my boy Adam Paul's blog. It explains a lot. Good thing I stuck to my pushups.
Every day at work we take time to pray together as a staff. We pray through the Psalms every 3 months using a Lectiomethod, and it has been a great experience these past couple of years. A lot of introspection and a lot of listening for God. Pretty counter cultural to what we are doing, and very different from the high energy stuff we do most of the day.
During the summer, we add an extra 15-20 minutes onto our time (during the school year we just do 30 min) so that we can do some worship through song as well. It's a smashing way to start the day, and I enjoy it because we do more of the black gospel style of worship.
Well, the other day when we got to the singing part, we all just got the giggles. Really bad. And then we all just started clowning around and cracking jokes until we could hardly breathe anymore and tears were starting to form in our eyes. It was the first time all summer something like this had happened, so once we were recomposed we took an opportunity to process why we had lost it.
As we talked, our founder mentioned that sometimes the Spirit knows that we need to laugh. He explained how we had all be carrying a lot of stuff around the past couple of weeks, and that when you are in the middle of all the drama you don't realize how it is wearing on you. And there comes this point where you need a release, and sometimes you cry it out but there are other times where the Spirit invites you to laugh it out.
It was crazy how right he was. Last week was really emotional in that two of our kids we work closely with were essentially orphaned. The matriarch grandmother of one family had passed away, and now one of the girls she cared for was in a custody-limbo that one of our staff has been really involved in and supporting her through. One of our boys had his mom up and move with the rest of his siblings to Memphis last week, leaving this young man with his grandmother and her 4 teenage kids.
My heart has also been burdened as I've seen a third middle school boy have to take on too much responsibility. His mom has a good job, but she has to work nights, so he is the defacto caretaker of his younger siblings. He makes sure they get fed at 9pm at night. He walks them down to the drugstore on Saturday mornings to pick up cereal for them to eat. And it's draining him, because it's too much for a kid to handle.
And then we had one young man who was one of the first to be a part of the ministry 8 years ago suffer from a point-blank gunshot that critically injured him, though it does look like he will survive. It sucked because he had actually gotten out and into the military, and was doing something productive with his life. He can survive the service but comes back to the hood and gets shot.
So all of this stuff was just there. We were all carrying different parts of it, and it was heavy. And that morning God knew that our hearts didn't need to sing. Our hearts needed to laugh and be silly and we needed to see each other smile.
Films such as King of Kong and Unbreakablebring to light the notion of the arch-nemesis. There are some people in life who have a person who is either ideologically or in practice end up thwarting whatever it is the person in question is trying to do. Superman had Lex. Batman had The Joker. Papa Smurf had Gargamel. The list is endless.
This reality brought to light a very important question for me: Who is my arch-nemesis?
It's a difficult question to answer. Seeing as though I'm practically a Jedi, one might start looking in the Sith department for a suitable name. But since most of the good ones are already taken I think we should just move a long. Nothing to see here. Move along.
A friend postulated that Bill O'Reilly might be a good candidate. On the surface it seems reasonable enough. However, I think he already has formidable foes. Since I'm more toward the political middle, Al Franken and Keith Olberman would be better choices.
I love meat. That would mean that PETA could be a good adversary. However, I am against dog fighting and horse racing, so that wouldn't work either. Call me crazy, but whenever there is a chance that a competitor has to be put down immediately following a competition, I'm out. I was worried I was going to have to give up basketball when Paul Pierce went down a couple of games ago. But since the trainer let him live, I'm still good with the NBA. Not so much with boxing or MMA, however.
See? It's not as easy an exercise as it appears. So what do you think? Who would be a worthy arch-nemesis for me?
For the first time in the history of our relationship, Stacy and I will experience a September that is devoid of the academy. No school whatsoever. And the icing on the cake is that fact that in two months, Stacy's intern year will be over and thus ends what will probably go down as one of the craziest years we will experience as a family. And to think, it didn't even include any trips to Asia to add family members.
As I was reflecting on the seminary experience a couple of weeks ago I was thinking about what that diploma says. (That diploma that is sitting at the seminary at this moment because I set it down to pick up a small child, and then forgot about it) It says a lot about the hours that I spent in class. It says a lot about the late nights I spent reading and writing.
But the diploma also says a lot about other people in my life. It is a statement that I have an incredibly loving and patient wife. When you read between the lines, there are statements about how I had great professors who taught well. The diploma addresses the fact that without parents, in-laws and an amazing nanny, Elli wouldn't be the joyful well-adjusted child she is now, because the stress of the past semester would have wiped her out.
Most of all it says a lot about God. Because I was a punk kid who didn't really want to embrace the ministry thing for a while, but God showed patience. And God showed grace to bring me to a city that I didn't really want to come to, but that held the perfect seminary for me. And then God did me a huge favor by surrounding me with people who taught me how to handle the Bible with grace and humility, and how to use that knowledge to share with others how amazing God's story is.
And so it is over. I exhale. I enjoy my family. I resolve to do everything I can to make the most of the experience.
I was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. Of the 28 years I have walked this earth, the first 18 1/2 were spent in the Rose City. Then came a year in Wisconsin, four in rural Kansas, and the final 5.5 in Kansas City, Kansas.
Last week was the first time in my life where I felt dissonance when I was asked where I called "home". We were introducing ourselves to a guest lecturer in class, and as my turn approached to make my first impressions I could not decide exactly what to say.
On the one hand, I love the PDX. Always have. The culture is woven into my DNA, and I will never loose my West Coast swagger. I sport my Blazer's apparel, I check The Oregonian's website twice each day, and I have a solid majority of my coffee imported from roastaries from the homeland.
And yet, recent events make me wonder if I have slowly been infiltrated into the ranks of the Midwesterner.
Exhibit A: Culinary Tastes We all know that I love barbecue. In fact, I have a five year plan that pertains solely to meat. This past weekend I had the opportunity to tick off a very important task on said plan. Along with the two core members of my start-up barbecue team, I became a certified barbecue judge in the eyes of the Kansas City Barbecue Society. Such certification does not come without great personal sacrifice. I had to endure a 4.5 hour class, which included two hours of tasting and judging meat. But as everyone would agree, you can never have too much preparation when it comes to judging meat. It's a sacrifice I am willing to make.
Exhibit B: Rooting Interests I am now a Kansas City Royals season ticket holder. Crazy, I know. I'm just such a sucker for a good deal. So when the Royals offered up 2-for-1 season tickets I couldn't pass it up. According to my computations, I could sell most of the seats on craigslist for a slight markup, sell some to my friends for the price I paid, go to a handful of games and break even. Not a bad deal. Stacy and I finally made it out to a game on Saturday and picked up our powder blue season ticket holder hats. I shall wear it proudly, with my powder blue noggin held high. Fortunately, I have a lot of experience rooting for young up-and-coming teams that are not held in high esteem by national sports audiences. Until this year, rooting for the Blazers hasn't exactly been an uplifting experience. I anticipate better days ahead for both squads, however. Ahhhhh. The eternal optimism of a true fan.
There isn't really a sure-fire standard for determining a hometown. The best thing I could think of is to figure out if people in the town you live would vote for you. If they see you as one of them, then you can consider your location a hometown. But if you are an outsider, then you have either been gone too long, or you are a johhny come lately.
And it is with that thought that I would like to simultaneously announce my candidacy for Kansas's seat in the US House or Representatives for the 3rd congressional district, as well as for the seat representing the 3rd district for the State of Oregon. Whichever state gives me the most votes will be considered my home state.
If I actually manage to win both races, then I will initiate a hostile takeover of Wyoming which will allow me to start a new state. Orsas. Unless I decide Kanegon sounds better.Bring it on, Dennis Moore and Earl Blumenauer.
Clearly, the main problem with taking three weeks off from blogging is that I get waaaaaaay too sassy.
I watched the Grammy's for about 5 minutes. Long enough to see Alicia Keys perform, and mention to my wife that I really want to attend a show should she swing through KC. When tour dates were finally released, there was the coveted KC date staring me in the face.
I just so happens that the show is on the same night as our huge awards ceremony at The Hope Center. No Alicia in KC for me. Onto plan B.
Checking out other dates, I scoped to see what would be within a manageable 4 hour drive. And there it was. St. Louis. But what is this? Another day I can't attend due to a work commitment. Well, freak my leg.
So no Ms. Keys for me. I'm bummed. I guess this Thursday's Aaron Mitchum Band concert will have to do as a replacement. It should be an adequate replacement, I imagine.
Also on the musical horizon, a new Gnarls Barkley album. CeeLo Green and Danger Mouse up to their musical shenanigans again. I was watching the new video on Youtube and peed my pants. "Run away. Run away. White children. Run for your life." All of this with a Justin Timberlake cameo. I'd post the video here, but apparently it can cause Epileptic seizures. Who knew?
On a completely non-musical note: Is it possible to get the smell of baby spit up off of your pants without taking them off and washing them? I don't think so. This morning as we were walking out of the house, Elli spit up her string cheese onto my pants. I didn't have time to change my outfit, so I wiped them off, hit them with Lysol and then spritzed with some cologne. Unfortunately, I can still smell residual spit up. I probably should have "accidentally" spilled some bbq sauce on my pants at lunch, but I wasn't thinking clearly.
On the rare occasion that my eyes pass upon a male fashion ad, I observe a beautiful sweaty man. The idea is that women dig sweaty dudes. Maybe. But most likely, women dig dudes rubbed down with copious amounts of baby oil. Personally, I have not had the best luck wooing my woman through means of perspiration.
Last night I came home from a fun night out with the boys in my class. We visited a local establishment called "Power Play" where we raced go-karts, played video games and engaged in laser tag warfare. It was all very fun. And sweaty.
I sauntered into the house with my man musk rolling in full effect and greeted my wife with a hug and kiss. According to the magazine adverts, I expected her to throw herself at me in a moment of unbridled passion. Instead, I was greeted with an announcement that I was stinky.
Stupid magazines. In all honesty, I did stink. And it wasn't the good kind either. The sweat stench that comes from a hard day of work in the yard or superhuman exploits on the basketball court have a certain sweetness that underlies the stink. But not arcade sweat. It's stale. It's humid. It is a little extra spicy.
The only sweat that smells worse is theme park/water park sweat. The stench that can only be attained when the fruit of your pores spends all day mixing and dancing with the sweat of all the other people who have preceded your presence in the roller coaster seats you occupy throughout your visit. That sweet ecumenical tonic that is brewed when dirt, junk food sweat and the urine of small children who lost control of their bladders on the water slide ends up coating your skin with a thin film of sticky and stink.
New Year's is not that big of a deal to me. At least not like it is for some folks. I don't enjoy staying up late and watching Dick Clark and Ryan Seacrest hold their celebrations. I'd rather get a good night sleep and feel ready to go in the morning when the soccer matches come on, followed by the arduous task of watching as many bowl games as possible. That's how we roll.
I typically will not make New Year's resolutions, either. I have a five year plan. I have another multi-year plan that I am dedicating myself to. Otherwise, I find it far more efficient to constantly evaluate, tweak and change a little bit at a time throughout the year.
On October 30, 2007 my friend KHook posted a YouTube video on facebook. It was a clip from Def Poetry Slam (a fabulous show, by the way), where Taylor Mali decries the endangerment of the difinitive statement. Hilarious.
While I do not struggle with making definitive statements, the video did get me to thinking about words I overuse. I came to realize that I said "actually" far too often. It was unintentional, but the result was a certain pretentiousness to everything I said. As though my statements were unexpected, revolutionary, new or otherwise brilliant. Things that the people I talk to could never have possibly considered before.
Be it resolved that I shall attempt to remove the word "actually" from my speech until a point in time where I am not running it into the ground.
I feel like such a better person now.
Here's the video. And if you are not offended by slightly R-rated humor, you should go to www.youtube.com and search for "Taylor Mali Proofreading". You won't be sorry. Not that anyone who writes or reads this blog would enjoy slightly R-rated humor. No. Of course not.
One of the challenges I face whenever I head off to Portland to see my parents is getting in enough uniquely Portland experiences. There are certain activities that exude the West Coast Vibe that I find so elusive in the Midwest, and engaging in said activities provide me sufficient fuel for my own personal swagger. Over the course of a few days, it can be a challenge to rack up enough experiences to tide me over until my next trip.
Today, I hit the jackpot.
For lunch we headed off to Chinatown to hit up our favorite resuraunt. When we attended Chinese Baptist Church throughout grade school, we got plugged into some of the finer aspects of Asian-American culture in PDX. Dim Sum at FongChongs is certainly a highlight, even with a recent change in ownership. The dumpling feast is a must every trip out, and today did not disappoint.
After a nap and a few rounds of Guitar Hero III, it was off to coffee with a friend from high school. And while I can certainly have coffee in KC, it just isn't the same. Fair Trade rolls far deeper out here, as do free WiFi. It's one of the most advanced coffee cultures you will find in the country, as witness to by the fact that I was "doing coffee" in high school, well before there was even a single Starbucks in Kansas City.
The coup degrace however, occurred this evening. My father, my brother-in-law, his dad and myself attended a Portland Trail Blazers Game. The Blazers and I have a long and storied history, going back to when I was in grade school and my dad shared season tickets with another guy. The Blazers were my first love, and when I was not watching games in person I was listening to them on the radio. Every year I would memorize the media guide, and pictures of the players completely covered my walls.
When they moved into their new arena in 1997, I even had the opportunity to be a part of a city-wide choir that sang the national anthem before the first game. It was a dream come true.
Then I moved away, the Blazers fell on hard times, and I was forced to endure ridicule from my midwestern friends due to the Blazers' failings both on and off the court. They were bleak times for a longtime fan.
Even this season began without much hope. Greg Oden went down before the season even started. Suck. The losses mounted. But then things turned around as the boys pulled off 11 wins in a row going into tonight's game.
The arena was sold out, it was loud, and people weren't afraid to act silly. It was a grand night. Capped off with a victory that inspired people to continue to cheer even as they exited the arena, thus warming our spirits in spite of the frigid mist that was hanging in the air. Just like the good old days.
I went to the mall yesterday. All of your criticisms are valid. Idiot. Sellout. Whatever other critique you would like to lob. I'll take it. But just know this. I had a plan and I executed it to perfection.
Prior to this trip, I was able to avoid treks to the mall. But as we were preparing to celebrate with my family and Portland, we realized we had not yet picked up one of the items on our list. My sister just got married this past fall and then are moving into a house later this month, so we figured a Macy's gift card would be a helpful and practical gift for them as they settle into life.
The downside to easing myself into the Christmas Season, I found myself in need of a last-minute trip to Macy's.
There was an aspect to the trip that was selfish. Having made my pilgrimage to Portland, I'll be danged if I'm not going to make regular trips out into public to be baptized by the mists of my birth town. But if you are going to go hang with the homies, you have to be smart about it.
I started my journey by winding through the side streets to get to the mall. I was not going to allow myself to get stressed by traffic. So I enjoyed the scenic drive, which I ended by parking across the street from the mall in overflow parking. The short walk was nice, and I saved a ton of time by not jockeying for one of the precious few parking spaces that were actually available.
As I entered the store, I walked straight past the first few registers I saw. Housewares was packed. Women's clothing was ridiculous. As I sashayed my shifty hips past all of the people lined up deep in these sections I attempted to hold back a smirk. Eventually, it stretched across my lips and I cot a little cocky. As I passed a guy who was standing with his wife at the tail end of a long line, I whispered into his ear. "Rookie". It wasn't very nice, but as my plan unfolded I couldn't help but to allow the pride line up.
With my target in sight I felt my pace quicken. I turned a corner, and was finally back in the men's suit section. I rightly assumed that (a) not many men would be returning suits the day after Christmas, (b) not many men would be purchasing suits the day after Christmas and (c) most shoppers would be so flustered by the frenzy of shopping that they would lose their sensibilities and not have the same foresight I had. Right, right and right. I stood in line at the register for 90 seconds behind an elderly couple, and stepped up to my place at the front of the line to procure the gift.
All told, I made it from the car, to the store and back to my car in less than 15 minutes. Nothing like writing out the blueprint for success and watching it materialize right before your eyes.
It's always an odd sensation to come off of a 3 day silence and solitude retreat. Before I left, I remember thinking that I would come back and have to bust out a handful of blog entries to get all of the thoughts out of my head that had not had the chance to escape via my mouth. But then the opposite happened. I was so used to being quiet, that I had to ease my way back into the land of the expressed word. Even Wed evening when I was having dinner with Stacy and Elli, I realized that a good period of time had gone passed as we sat there together where I had not said anything.
Very early the next morning, I had to get up and force myself out of my hiatus, however. Whenever we travel as a family for Christmas, we have a little private celebration the night before we leave. Since we are heading out of town tonight to make stops in both Central Kansas and Oregon, I had to finish up my gift for Stacy.
For the better part of a year, I've been writing her a book. It was somewhat challenging, because I was trying my hardest to work on it when she was either sleeping or not around the house. And after early intentions of having friends proof-read my writings, I made the call early on in the process to just edit my writings myself and present them to Stacy as my pure thoughts. A noble thought, though very difficult in practice. While all 24000 words make sense to me, there is no telling if there will be any coherency to a second reader. I guess we'll find out as she works through it this week. She should get the gist, seeing as though it is the story of us and our dogs and our relationship with God.
In a fortunate turn of events, I could not have picked a better year to give my best Christmas gift ever. That is because Stacy pulled out all of the stops. We tend to keep Christmas low key at our house, but she decided to surprise me by getting me a new smoker. Not just any new smoker, but the Weber Smokey Mountain. I had had my eye on this particular beauty for a while, but was thinking I'd try to get my hands on one next summer. I dropped zero hints that it was the desire of my heart. Yes, I did mention it once on the blog, but Stacy doesn't read the blog. Too busy saving lives.
It is not so much that she bought me the smoker, it is what the gift symbolizes. It demonstrates that she is a willing accomplice in my plan for meat smoking glory. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy just thinking about it.
When we get back, we'll have to have a nice little christening ceremony, as well as a memorial service for my old smoker. I think I shall name this new beauty Darth. It seems fitting.
Welcome to my three day blogging hiatus. This morning I am heading off with the rest of The Hope Center staff to go on a three day silence and solitude retreat. We go on a handful of single day retreats throughout the year, and take an extended one between our two semesters. Last year it was in January, which made my schedule feel very claustrophobic as we we had a ton of stuff to do to get ready for the fall semester, so this year we tried moving it to January. While it does mean I'm missing out on a Christmas party tonight and will find myself a little bit behind on holiday travel preparations when I return later in the week, it is nice to have a little advent listening break. It should be good
Thus, no blogs until Thursday. I will have a good deal of reading and writing to do when I get back, I'm sure.
Before I go, let us celebrate this day. After three putrid years of basketball, preceded by four mediocre years, I do believe my beloved Portland Trail Blazers are turning things around. They have won 7 games in a row, they are at .500 1/4 of the way into the season, and they are doing it without Greg Oden and with a bunch of upstanding citizens. I don't know if they will still be over .500 when I reemerge later this week, so I just thought I'd chronicle this moment for us all.
There is a time in every young boy's life when he daydreams about what it might be like to be a superhero. Having some ability that would afford you the opportunity to leap into action and do good for others while thwarting the schemes of evil doers. Throwing on the tights and cape and really doing something good for society.
I had my shot at superherodom the other day, sans the multi-colored tights/underwear combo. I was sitting in my office, and I heard something outside of my window. A manifestation of a super ability, one might say. I hopped up to take a peek, and what do I see? A man I do not recognizing stooping behind my friend's jeep to remove the licence plate.
There has been an outbreak of this sort of activity in our parking lot recently. It's an easy snatch, and you can turn some quick coin on hot plates, so they are very tempting. Just another day, livin' in the 'hood.
Recognizing this as an opportunity to save all of humanity, I lept into action. I paged one of my co-workers and the next thing you know there are people running and screaming all over the building. Two people ran outside to confront the guy, while I ran to another phone to call the police. Eventually, one of the people who ran outside was able to track the gentleman down and retrieve the plates with little drama.
When everything was said and done, it took a moment to catch my breath. The adreniline rush was incredible, but then it all faded into a mist of gloom. As good as one might anticipate such a deed might make one feel, the opposite was the result.
I found myself glum at the fact that life had run me smack dab into the path of a broken and desperate person stuck in systems and cycles of dysfunction, but there was little to be done about it. Sure, we saved my friend some money and a trip to the DMV, but other than that what else was accomplished? Nothing much, except for a reminder that things are never as simple as they seem.
So, I'm returning my tights. I don't want to be a superhero anymore. I don't want to zoom from scene to scene putting out fires and wrestling Lex Luther into submission. I'd far rather be in a place where I can process society's ailments when they smack me in the face, and figure out what I'm called to do in light and in spite of them.
I had some studying to do yesterday, so I holed up in a local coffee shop to get some work done. It is a quaint little place called The Filling Station, which used to be a car repair shop. It has the huge glass garage doors that they open up on nice days, and they have splendid fresh juices and wraps. Granted, I have to get the hot chocolate there since they don't ride the Fair Trade bus, but that's ok. (mom, please don't read the next two sentences) The whole experience is pretty nostalgic for me, because it reminds me of a place that my friends and I used to go to in high school when we didn't feel like going to study hall my senior year. I'm pretty sure they have since knocked down that wonderful place and replaced it with a Starbucks. It adds good balance to the road, since there is another Starbucks right across the street.
Anyway, so the fun begins in earnest when my computer finally boots up and asks me which wireless network I would prefer to connect to. While I am certainly going to connect to The Filling Station's network, I take a moment to peruse all of the available networks. As I'm checking these options out, I realize that the name of your network can say a lot about who you are (or in the least, who you want to be). So, if you could be friends with just one of the owners of the available networks, which one would you pick?
"Apple Network" - This person is obviously cool. They are living in one of the nearby trendy lofts which is decked out with swanky postmodern minimist decor. They have fashionable glasses and an iPhone.
"Crowley" - This person is very outgoing, and wants everyone to know who they are. Sounds kinda like a glory hog, to me.
"Mine" - Well, well, well. Aren't we selfish?
"MLK Net" - Socially conscious, justice oriented. Good grasp of history.
"Urban Linksys" - Enjoys living in the city, but not for the same reasons or toward the same ends as MLK Net.
"Two Naked Chicks" - I'm not joking about this one. Other than that, I have no comment.
A lot of people assume that life as a doctor's spouse is obscenely luxurious. Sipping mojitos. Popping bonbon's. Jet setting around the world to exotic locations. Nothing like having a phatty sugar momma. Holla at ya boy.
Well, I'm here today to demystify the current state of life in the Dashiell house. I'm terribly proud of my wife. I love talking with her about all types of doctor stuff, and dreaming about how we can reform our health care system in a way that doesn't leave the poor (and soon to be the middle class) in the dust. I think it is amazing to watch how God uses Stacy to minister to women in an underserved area of town. And while our experiences are unique and intriguing, they are probably not so in the way most might expect.
Take a recent Friday night, for instance. Stacy was working a 24-hour call shift at the hospital, so Elli and I went up there to join her for dinner. It's a nice way to break up the long shift for Stacy, and both Elli and I enjoy visiting her. We typically hang out in the call room if Stacy can't break away long enough to spend a few moments in the cafeteria, which is nice in its own way because the call room tends to be a little more private.
Elli is very inquisitive, and as we were hanging out in one of the OB offices, she was bumming around for something new to play with. When she got bored with the broken phone that was on the floor, she moved over to a shelf of OB teaching supplies. Books, props, you know. The usual.
Well, I stopped paying close attention to everything for a while, and when I looked up I saw Elli playing with some type of soft-ended cone. I assumed they were fake breasts, but boy was I wrong. Stacy kindly informed me that our daughter was gleefully chucking numerous synthetic cervix around the room. That's right. Cervix.
If you are at all like me, you might wonder why doctors need numerous synthetic cervix in their office. In an obvious show that I didn't pay all that much attention in anatomy class, the cervix is an indicator of how close a woman is to giving birth. Doctors manually and blindly use their fingers to measure how dilated the cervix is, which is a tricky skill to master. Thus, they practice with the synthetic variety so that they aren't bumbling around like idiots during labor.
Silly me. I thought that you measured how dilated a woman was with a tape measure or something. Who knew?
Since training devices cannot be used at every point in time during the day, you should know that these particular implements bring toddlers great joy. Now you know, in case you are every in the doctor's office with a fussy child. You now know what to ask for. Just something I learned hanging out in the hospital while living a life that I wouldn't trade for anything in the world.
I try not to be "Inane Poster of Daily Life Blogger Guy". Only on special occasions. Like today. Thus...My day... **Woke up, did some crunches, read. It was nice. The coffee was good. Life was grand. **Life got a little less grand when I went outside to find that the paper guy failed to enclose my morning edition in a protective plastic bag. What the freaking heck? I swear I was jostled from my sleep by a two hour killer thunderstorm in the wee hours of the morning. **I walked down to the corner and popped two quarters into the machine for a dry paper. **Commenced with daily paper reading. **Showered. **Went downstairs to get the cloth diapers out of the dryer. What?!?! Still wet? Great. Why is everything wet this morning? At least my bed wasn't wet when I woke up. That would be embarrassing. Start the dryer, since I obviously forgot to do it last night after I transferred everything from washer to dryer. **Got Elli up. Ate oatmeal with her while downloading Crowder's new album from iTunes. **Cursed myself for not remembering to bring my iPod home from work. **Read to Elli. **Sang songs with Elli. **Watched Elmo with Elli while doing her hair. **Got dressed. Broke out my new light-pink microfiber suit jacket for the first time. Price paid: $20. Price listed on the price tag: $295.00. I can't believe these things made the clearance rack. **Went back downstairs to check on diapers. Still wet. Gaaaaaaa. Didn't realize that dryer was set to "air fluff" instead of "heated dry". Make necessary adjustments to automatic laundry drying equipment. **Threw disposable diapers in diaper bag. **Forgot diaper bag on the window seat, where it sits at this very moment. **Took Elli to the pet store. Got 80 pounds of dog food, thus bringing the weight of the contents in my cart up to 98 pounds, including infant. Checked out the doggy daycare, much to joy of infant. Checked out fish, much to joy of infant. Checked out rodents, much to joy of infant. Checked out doggy grooming station, much to joy of infant. **Dropped Elli off at childcare provider, where she will get to wear size 5 diapers today, since dad forgot her size 2's on the window seat. **Hung out with kid at his school. Took one for the team and ate school hot lunch in a show of solidarity. Sloppy Joe, chocolate milk, beans and tots. Dropped sweet Napoleon Dynamite reference. Crowd goes wild. **Go to work.
It's not very nice to drop off the face of the earth and not blog for an entire week with nary a mention of my well being. I apologize. As a family we are currently in the middle of the ongoing process of figuring out what life looks like now that we have a medical resident in the house. Some days it's peachy, but some days it's crazy. When it's crazy for a sustained period of time, the blogging falls off, but not for lack of things to blog about. Just for lack of energy and available hours.
The other night Stacy and I decided that it's a bad thing when life starts looking like a TV show. It was in the midst of what is becoming a routine conversation in our house where we compare how our days have gone and assess the various signs that the apocalypse is indeed upon us. As I do this youth ministry thing on what is roughly the North side of the 'hood, Stacy is working at a hospital about 30 blocks away on what could be seen as the Southern border of the same neighborhood. So we end up having a pretty good idea of what is going on in the streets, especially considering that Stacy is currently doing a rotation in the Trauma Center/ER. You see some pretty crazy stuff go down when you work the 7pm to 7am shift in that particular establishment.
Of the lessons we have learned over the past few weeks, few stand out more than the respect we have for police officers. Those cats are brave. To quote Stacy, "I've cut way to many uniformed pants off of people this past month". I'm not really sure what causes people to think it is appropriate to shoot at civilians and police officers, but it seems as though there are a lot of people to whom that is an acceptable problem-solving technique. Which explains why I see some of the things I see when I'm hanging out with kids in the neighborhood.
A couple of weeks ago I was out with some kids mowing lawns. We had just unloaded our truck when a squad car pulled up half a block behind us to run our tags. They were trying to be discrete, but since it's a fairly regular occurrence the kids knew exactly what was going on. We checked out, so they proceeded to the car in front of us.
Whatever they found when they ran those tags was not good. I know this because the officers got out of their car, and one of them felt the need to grab his assault riffle before they approached the house. I took that as a cue that we should find a different lot to mow, and we packed up our stuff and quietly left before things got dramatic. See ya later.
So anyway, I think we're figuring out the life rhythm now. It's a crazy rhythm, but there is a beat there nonetheless. I fully anticipate a more regular blog flow resuming this week.
Yesterday Stacy was outside and heard one of our neighbors calling to her from across the street. This particular neighbor is the collector of all things information on our block, and an apparent rumor had started up recently that the Dashiells are going to be moving to Johnson County. We neither heard nor started this rumor, mind you, so it was good that this neighbor was able to find that there was no merit to what the mill produced.
I like my friends in Johnson County. Nice people, they are. I might even work at another church there some day. However, I am here to unequivocally state that the Dashiells are not moving there. For those of you who don't live in the KC Metro area, you should know that the JC is the wealthiest county in Kansas. According to the book What's the Matter With Kansas, it got that way when KC Missouri was desegregated and all of the rich white people moved out to the unsettled regions of the city where they wouldn't have to mix and mingle with people of other socio-economic and racial backgrounds. Some people dispute this account. I wasn't in Kansas at that point in history, but I think it might have some merit.
So I'm bummed that our friends in our neighborhood assume that since Stacy is now a doctor we are leaving them. Judging by what has happened to the urban core in Kansas City over the past 50 years, it's reasonable to assume that we would join the aristocracy once we gained some type of social and financial mobility. It's what most people do. It is not, however, what the Dashiells will be doing.
We love our neighbors. We love our house. We love our neighborhood. We love the fact that our multi-racial family gets to live on a multi-racial block and that Elli will probably be picking up Spanish when talking with her friends over the next couple of years. We really really really really like those things.
And thus, we are not moving. Just thought you should know that in case you had heard otherwise.
I'm a husband, a dad, a student, a Christ Follower. Mostly, I'm just this dude trying to figure out how God wants me to live this life, and I'm open to suggestions.
