Bringing Dad Home

Dad comes home this morning. After one week in the regular hospital and two weeks in rehab, he is finally coming home. His doctors and therapists all declare him to be a “model patient”, and rave about the progress he has made. We have all seen an increase in his energy and enthusiasm in response to the rigorous physical therapy he has undergone. The trick will be whether he can move around well enough and safely enough on his own at home with dependable balance. No rehab on earth can alter the fact that he’s 88. But, Dad is optimistic, so we will be too.

 The great home decorating lollapalooza of 2013 is over! Pam has wrought a miracle transformation of 5 rooms of our house. When Kaitlin got home last night and took the “tour” she was blown away. I sent cool panoramic pictures to Patrick and he was blown away. Even Molly seemed thrilled with the results and all the new things to sniff. As I looked at the final product it occurred to me that Pam is one of those people about which others often say, “You know, she could do that for a living”. In Pam’s case, “that” would be anything that she becomes interested in and sets her mind to do. Whether it’s baking cake pops, interior design, scrapbooking, children’s church, planning an elegant party, or just being a gracious hostess, she does nothing haphazardly, nothing is left to chance, everything has to be perfect, and usually is. Maybe she does need a “chic nook”.

 For the past month or so I’ve been working on a novel, (don’t worry, I won’t quit my day job). I wrote one twenty years ago that’s still in the bottom drawer of my night stand, so this is a purely therapeutic, and self indulgent exercise. But I must say, it’s also a blast. I’ve managed to fashion an entirely separate world of my own design, populating it with characters that I care about in some strange paternalistic way. The story involves the general themes of gambling, luck, clairvoyance, the power of dreams, a tragic romance, suicide and redemption. As a genre I suppose it would be classified as a psychological thriller. It’s been great fun, and I have no idea yet what will happen next, and won’t until it appears on the screen when I write. Kinda cool.

Tom Wolfe Is The Man

                                                                                  

One of my literary heroes of the past thirty years or so has been Tom Wolfe, he of the brilliantly tailored white suits and Richmond heritage. My first taste of Wolfe was his 1979 book, The Right Stuff about the Apollo astronauts. Then I read his first novel, The Bonfire of the Vanities in the late 80’s and was mesmerized by his craft as a writer. Then I had to wait 11 years for him to research and write the fabulous, A Man in Full. For some reason unknown to me, I didn’t read I Am Charlotte Simmons when it was published in 2004, so I bought the i-book version  a couple of days ago for $9.99 and have been blazing through it ever since. I was so inspired to read Simmons because of the recent release of his fourth novel, Back to Blood.

I Am Charlotte Simmons is not an easy breezy read. It’s depiction of the often debased life of the modern American undergraduate experience, while true enough, comes awfully close to being merely raunchy. Its lurid portrayal of sexual debauchery seems excessively and unnecessarily descriptive for my taste. But the way Wolfe captures the cloistered arrogance of academia is worth putting up with the occasionally over the top raunchiness.

Can’t wait for Back to Blood, a book Wolfe publishes seven months after his 81^st birthday. My man, Tom.

My Barnyard Manure Detector Is Going Off

Fresh off his golf vacation in Florida, the President yesterday breathlessly intoned that the looming sequester was poised to visit untold devastation on our nation. A government with a 3.6 trillion dollar budget is about to be eviscerated by an 85 billion dollar cut.

A mere ten years ago, this same government managed to get by on only 2.2 trillion dollars of spending. That’s a 68% increase in the budget in ten years. And yet this government will be brought to its knees by a 2.3% decrease in spending?

Here’s a question for you. Has your income increased 68% in the last ten years? I did the numbers for the Dunnevant family and found that our family income has increased roughly 28% since 2003. Not bad, but compared to my government, I’m an underachieving hack. Second question, how many of you would be thrust into economic Armageddon if you were forced to reduce your yearly spending by 2.3%?

So, if the President and his party are to be believed, in 9 short days, our very way of life will be plunged into a desperate struggle for survival. Children will starve; old folks will be cast out into the mean streets, millions will lose their jobs, infrastructure will collapse before our very eyes, our air and water will instantly be polluted beyond recognition, our meat won’t get inspected, but worst of all, no one will be able to answer our tax questions at the IRS, all of this calamity because 85 billion dollars will have been trimmed from our 3.6 trillion dollar government. 85 billion, or put another way, the amount of money that our government spends every eight days.

We are being asked to believe that a sequester that cuts the equivalent of a little over one week’s spending will plunge us all back into the Middle Ages. Hmmm.

Call me skeptical.

The Birth Of A Man-Cave

For the better part of a month now, we have been in the process of remaking the upstairs of our house. I say “we”, when it would be more accurate to say “Pam”. It’s not that I am uninterested in the project or that I disapprove of anything that has been done; rather, I am more like a willful participant in Pam’s vision. My contribution so far has been to respond, ”I love it”, when asked, “What do you think of this?” This system has worked beautifully, producing as it has, a complete remake of the kids’ wing of the house. The new paint and decorating touches make that end of the house nearly unrecognizable, leaving barely any evidence that we ever actually had kids. That’s not entirely fair, of course. Kaitlin and Patrick will always own their end of the house. It’s just that everything over there looks so…clean, a marked contrast to the years when they ran the place.

Now I’m told that I need to take the lead in redecorating my little office from where I am typing this blog. I have been given the liberty to create a “man-cave” out of the place, which sounds wonderful, but from the size of it, I think that the word “cave” is a bit too grand. But a “man-closet” sounds terrible, even effeminate, so Man-Cave, with capital letters, it shall be.

First order of business will be to clean out the mountain of official marriage paperwork. These are the documents, photographs, paper memorabilia and assorted debris which 29 years of a happy life produce. On the shelf above me are 9 picture albums. On the cloth board in front of me are no less than 22 pictures pinned up with thumbtacks, the unfortunate ones who never made it into frames, but if thrown away by yours truly might insure that year thirty never comes. To my right hangs evidence of our 13 free resort vacations courtesy of Life of Virginia from 1989 to 2001. To my left is a shelf dominated by as random a collection of “Pam stuff” as can be imagined. This particular shelf is so precarious, so filled with danger, so fraught with peril; no amount of money could induce me to touch it. But this particular shelf is a garden of delight compared to what lies behind the doors directly behind me in the left corner of my office. Here lies that space that shall not be named. It is the “closet of doom”, containing as it does, Pam’s filing cabinet from hell. In this ordinary looking tan metal cabinet there are four drawers. On the doors of the top three are affixed aqua colored sticky notes. Drawer number one, “KIDS church”, drawer number two, “Scrapping Pics”, and door number three, ”Travel”.  Door number four has no label, making its contents too terrible to contemplate. The chances of me touching this filing cabinet are about as high as the chances that I will win the gold medal in the decathlon in the 2016 Olympics.

Once proper care has been taken in organizing this minefield, I will then move on to the business of painting, buying furniture and all the accompanying nick-nackery so essential to modern decorating. When completed, I will publish a photograph of the results. I am told that the room should reflect my tastes and sensitivities. Hmmm. Maybe a Blazing Saddles theme with a Fathead of Cleavon Little, or perhaps a baseball theme with a simulated pitcher’s mound in the corner with real dirt!

I’m going to drive Pam crazy.

The Most Disgusting Blog Topic Ever

I have written before in this space of my wretched opinion of the month of February. Nothing that has transpired in the 2013 edition has done anything to elevate my views of this miserable month. This morning I see that on Thursday we can look forward to heavy rain and 40 degrees. Peachy.

Spring training has begun, the only bright spot that occurs during this festival of dreariness. I now get to read baseball gossip each morning, my lifeline to sanity. There was a professional basketball All-Star game yesterday I’m told, and it appears that a woman has won the poll for the Daytona 500. I can hardly contain myself.

The big event for me every February is a story that never gets told, largely because it is something that is seldom mentioned in polite conversation. But, if I am ever to write on this subject, February would be the logical choice. Yes, I am referring to the annual mid-winter dog-poop removal project, or AMDPR for short.

Dog owners in this audience know the drill. All year we go out into the back yard every Friday or Saturday, usually right before cutting the grass, to remove the week’s damage. It is a mundane task requiring only 10 minutes, rubber gloves and a grocery bag. But then winter comes. The weather gets bad, the back yard becomes a bog, so the job goes undone…for weeks and weeks. Finally, once the middle of February rolls around, it takes the dog 15 minutes to find a bare spot. Something has to be done. So, on the most favorable day available, you gird your loins, and begin the hour long ordeal of filling a 45 gallon garden leaf bag with 8 weeks’ worth of Fido’s bowel movements.

This is the only time of the year where the great old joke about dog-poop and women doesn’t apply, since…what, wait…you haven’t heard that joke? What do women and dog poop have in common? The older they are the easier they are to pick up…that doesn’t apply during AMDPR, since the opposite is true. Eight weeks of exposure to the elements does horrible things to canine feces, let me tell you. But there’s a job to do, so you trudge on, reminding yourself, that you really do love your dog, and spring is on it’s way.

In a few short weeks this will all be over. The grass will begin to grow, the birds will begin to sing, tulips will bloom and February will be but a hideous memory. Hopefully by then I will be able to find more noble topics to write about.

Synonymetry

Welcome, students to today’s edition of Vocabulary Enhancement Training. As you know, in this class we take quotations from famous people, pick out phrases, and try to come up with other, perhaps more creative ways to communicate the same meaning…sort of advanced synonymetry…if you will.

So, today’s quote comes from Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi who, when told that if the sequestration went through, Congressmen and women would also get a pay cut, responded that a paycut would be “beneath the dignity of a congressman’s job”. Now, I want us to concentrate on the phrase, “dignity of a Congressman”.

What are some other ways that we can say the same thing more creatively, without changing the original meaning? Anyone?

 “How about instead of “dignity of a congressman”, we use…chastity of a prostitute?”

Excellent!

“I’ve got one! “scruples of a banker”.

Perfect!

“self-control of a toddler?”

Wonderful!

“soft hands of a brick layer?”

Beautiful! Class, I must say I’m overwhelmed with your responses today.

“Basketball skills of a white midget?”

That’s very creative, but let’s try to keep race out of our language. Oh, and the term “midget” might be seen as pejorative towards the vertically challenged. Bill? You’ve been awfully quiet today. Do you have any ideas on our topic?

Bill: “dignity of a congressman”? That’s a tough one. How about the efficiency of the DMV, or the Friendliness of the IRS, or maybe the fidelity of Bill Clinton?

All of those are excellent! Class, you have outdone yourselves today. Ok, next week our phrase will be “audacity of hope”.

Dad's Valentine's Day

Last night after a marvelous dinner that featured the insanely beautiful and delicious dessert pictured above, my wife prepared a special Valentine's plate for my Dad. There was a helium filled balloon with a Valentine's greeting and a giant picture of sugar cookies. Pam picked that one because it reminded her of the ones Mom used to make for the kids every Valentine's Day. She also bought a package of heart-shaped Reeses peanut butter cups. Then she placed the delectable treat in the picture above underneath a clear cake bowl and off we went to the hospital to see Dad.

When we first arrived he was laying back in his bed looking particularly tired after his second full day of rehab, but as soon as he saw this cake, he perked up. When asked if he wanted to eat it now or wait until later he answered, "Give me that fork!". He sat up and plowed through it with unrestrained glee, and as is his practice, cleaned the plate. For the rest of our visit, Dad was animated, his voice clear and strong, demonstrating once again the value of a sugar rush. It's been 9 days now since he first was admitted to the hospital and last night was the best he has looked. I credit my wife's gift of thoughtfulness, her cheerful love for Dad, and her culinary skills for his turnaround.