Healthy Living...Without Doritos?

So, I have lost 10.4 pounds since my wife informed me that the Dunnevant house was going on a diet right after the first of the year. No, it wasn’t my idea, and no, I wasn’t exactly enamored with the news. But, truth be told, I had added several unwanted pounds over the holidays and had inched up to nearly an all time high for poundage, so I went along with the plan. Besides, when it comes to eating here at Chez Dunnevant, my wife does 90% of the cooking, so if she decides to go on a liver and onions kick, then I either have to develope a taste for liver and onions, or go hungry.

The diet is some sort of online thing that I don’t entirely understand. It basically involves eating a lot of fish and chicken, vegetables and fruit, not eating a lot of bread and beef, and substituting salty snacking with carrot sticks dipped into homemade hummus. Oh, and also smaller portion sizes. In other words, like my wife observed last night, We are finally eating the way everyone else we know eats.

In this endeavor, we have been aided greatly by the new Insta-Pot I got Pam for Christmas. She has prepared probably at least a dozen new recipes, many of which were ideally suited for this new age pressure cooker. The very best thing about this diet is the one thing that I never expected...the meals Pam makes are absolutely delicious. 

There is one thing I miss. I’m not a big sweets guy. I mean, I’ll wolf down chocolate if it’s available as quickly as the next guy, and I love ice cream and doughnuts. But, when push comes to shove and it’s 9 o’clock at night, what I want is a bowl of the saltiest, chip-iest thing you got, with a half dozen slices of block cheddar cheese. Well, under this new regime, that ship has sailed. It’s replacement has been either a couple of clementines, or the aforementioned carrot sticks and hummus. The expression, kissing your sister, fairly leaps off the page!

Now, we’re not nuts about this dieting business. We haven’t turned into a couple of walking buzz-kills when we go out with friends. There’s nothing worse than going out to dinner with a couple who spend the entire meal bemoaning how many calories are in the chili-cheese fries, and how they will have to fast for three days afterwards. Nobody cares about your diet. The only thing I do differently when we eat out is I’ve substituted water for beer, and I look for an entree that isn’t a 16 oz T-Bone. Moderation in all things, my friends...moderation in all things.

The net result of all of my wife’s hard work and diligence is that I am now within 4 pounds of what I weighed when I was lucky enough to marry the gorgeous and talented Pamela Jean White 35 years ago.

....but I still would give an appendage for a bag of Doritos.

Finished!!

A couple of days ago, I finished writing my third novel. It’s a story about guilt and grief centered round Jack Rigsby and the brutal and random murder of his wife. Jack blames himself for all of the seemingly inconsequential decisions he made leading up to the murder, and once he discovers that he has a 25 year old connection to the killer, his guilt kicks in to high gear. It’s called Saving Jack, and it is one of the best things I’ve ever written.

But, there’s a problem. It took me eight months to write, including two months when I hit a wall and was unable to type a single word. In all of that time, the characters were never far from my mind. If I wasn’t writing about them, I was thinking about them, trying to imagine what their next move should be. Then I would alternate between cheering them on and being terribly disappointed in their behavior. I know this sounds crazy, since my writing was the source of their bad decisions, but when one of them would make a poor choice, I found myself terribly put out with them for it...a strange mess, I know! So, now that it’s finished...I miss them. It’s like I abandoned all of them, left them in suspended animation, frozen in space and time.

I will now send the manuscript to my whip smart, Master’s Degree in English Literature daughter for a full audit where she will comb over the thing, eliminating balky sentences, correcting clumsy formulations, and searching for plot errors and contradictions. I’m sure that during that process, I will receive several texts which will begin...Dad, on page 87...what the heck? And yes, she will be compensated for this work. It’s a difficult job, and if you want it done right, you have to pay. For those of you who might be wondering whether of not my daughter would be willing to criticize her father’s writing, fear not. Nothing riles my girl up more than bad writing, and sloppy grammar!!

Once she finishes her work, and if I still have a novel left, I will need to decide what to do with it. Since I don’t write for a living, I will not be under any starving writer pressure to get it published. I write for fun, not for profit. But, if it’s as good as I think it is, I may actually try to this time. If that isn’t possible, I may go to the time, trouble and expense of self publishing it as an e-book. Either way, it was a blast writing the thing, incredibly challenging and terrific fun. 

I Miss You, Pop

Recently, for some unknown reason, things my Dad used to say have started popping into my head. Normally, I can go weeks, even months without any Dad-wisdom visitations. But lately they have been coming fast and furious.

Here’s the thing about my Pop. He was not, by any of the tortured definitions of this horribly chunky phrase...woke. No one, living or dead would ever have confused him with the political activists, Neo-marxists who populate so many American pulpits these days. Dad had no political heros of any kind, feeling as he did that too often the goals of the State were at cross purposes with the goals of the Gospel, properly understood. But, this is not to say that he wasn’t critical of the church, or church people. In fact, the general worthlessness of many religious people was one of his life long annoyances. In that regard, two things he used to say have recently come to mind...one an oft repeated phrase, the other an awesome joke...

Dad’s problem with many church people was his perception that they wore their holiness like a crown, and their head in the clouds religiosity rendered them impractical and useless. This sentiment was neatly summed up in the phrase...

Some people are so heavenly minded, they are no earthly good.

It was hard to argue with back then, and doubly so today, don’t ya think?

To illustrate what he meant by this he would tell what amounted to a great joke, which dad wouldn’t have characterized as such. He would have preferred the term...illustration. I’ll let you be the judge...

There was a very Godly and religious man who lived in a lovely house in the country right next door to a very ill-kept house with a back yard overgrown with weeds and abandoned by neglect. One day someone bought the run down place and immediately set about clearing the back yard of the mess. Every weekend the man could be seen hacking at the weeds and hauling away trash. The religious man was particularly irked that he did much of this work on Sunday, and complained to him often about his Sabbath violation over the fence as the man worked. After three years of back breaking toil, the man had produced a lush, beautiful garden filled with fruit trees, flowers and vegetables. One day, the sanctimonious man stood at the fence and observed loudly, Isn’t it a wonderful thing what God has done with his magnificent creation? His neighbor, looked up from his work and answered, Sure is. But you should have seen this place three year ago when God had it by himself!

I miss you, Pop.

A Wedding Weekend

Both of my kids moved away from Richmond years ago. Pam and I have become accustomed to this unfortunate fact and have learned how to live with their absence from our daily lives. We look at our friends whose kids live down the street and we are envious. But, our kids are happy and well adjusted and have many good friends in Columbia and Nashville. Both are gainfully employed, healthy, and as of this moment, neither has a prison record. What do we have to complain about? Nothing!

So, this past weekend was a treat. My son and his wife were in Richmond for a wedding. They arrived, after a 10 hour drive through a rainstorm around eleven o’clock Friday night. We had a wonderful day with them Saturday, attended the brunch wedding with them yesterday from eleven until around three in the afternoon, then watched them drive away in another rainstorm an hour later. 36 hours with our kids...

Two weeks ago, I told you all about a dear friend who had abruptly and shockingly passed away. One week ago today, I described for you the jarring mixture of grief and grace that was her funeral. Today, I will tell you about a wedding.

Patrick has been friends with Sam since they were both in middle school. I’ve always had a soft spot for Sam, an off-beat, loveable goof ball of a kid. Watching him grow up, I always thought that it was going to be vital for him to find the right woman, someone who gets him, someone who can appreciate his idiosyncrasies and deadpan humor. In Stephanie, he has found such a woman.

The wedding was like an old home week for Grovers. We arrived at the venue, some hip, ironic, industrial space down on Clay Street...the kind of place so beloved by millennials, and immediately recognized several couples that we spent a lifetime with at our old church...Hope and Steve Chapel, Rod and Betty Hudson, Jeff and Cheryl Chadwick, and of course, Sam’s parents, Garland and Martha Isaacs. Catching up with all of them felt soothing, like we were hitting the refresh button on our lives.

It was a lovely service which featured Sam’s beloved dog, Ru in a doggy tuxedo as one of the groomsman. Did I mention that Sam is off-beat? Actually, Ru was far more composed and well behaved than the groom throughout the twenty minute service, who was fidgeting worse than Johnny Depp at a prayer meeting. Stephanie was a stunning bride in a classically beautiful dress. The brunch food was delicious, if you can find something to 
complain about when there’s chicken and waffles, shrimp and grits and mimosas around, 
you complain too much.

But, the highlight of the event was the toast delivered by the groom. In typical Sam fashion it started out as an Eyore-like sob story about all the things he had failed at over the years, but then, in a beautiful and profound twist he pointed out that if he had achieved his earlier dreams of being a baseball player, or actor or musician, chances are that he would have missed out on finding the best dream of all...Stephanie. It was a beautiful moment. I was very proud of him.

So, a tumultuous two weeks ends with a wedding. I prefer weddings to funerals. I prefer seeing my son’s car arriving at the curb in front of my house rather than watching its taillights as it leaves. I prefer hello to goodbye. But, I’m thankful for all of it.

Perjurypalooza

I haven’t watched one second of the Michael Cohen Show in real time because...well, because I have a life. But, I have watched highlight clips and have read at least parts of the transcripts. From what I am able to gather, it has been quite an event, about which people are either repulsed or enthralled. A regular perjurypalooza!! What’s my take?

1. If Michael Cohen had been a Democratic Party fixer for the past fifteen years, then suddenly turned against a Democratic Party President, the Republicans on this committee would be hailing him for his willingness to speak truth to power, while the Democrats would be thrashing about in sackcloth and ashes, appalled...appalled that a convicted liar had been called to testify at a Congressional hearing. Since its the other way around, the rolls are predictably reversed.

2. I have noticed that not a single Republican on this committee has actually offered a rigorous defense of the President’s character. Instead of preening, How dare you sir, impugn the integrity of the President of the United States!!...Its been more like, Yeah, well, you’re a convicted liar, liar pants on fire. 

3. But what of the substance? Thats tricky. Michael Cohen has been Donald Trump’s personal attorney for ten years. Neither of them have demonstrated a firm grasp of the concept of truth, even as a laudable goal. The two of them have made their bones by treating truth telling as a transaction-based value. So, its very hard for me to believe anything that comes out of the guy’s mouth. I would, however be willing to say that there is probably a 50/50 chance that half of what Cohen is saying is true, along with a 50/50 chance that he is lying about the other half. Or maybe its the other way around. Whatever.

4. What difference will any of this make? Don’t know. Since the President’s relationship with the truth has always been tenuous, hearing his ex-lawyer accuse him of being a liar doesn’t exactly strike me as breaking news. But, it sure makes for great cable news ratings.

That’s all I got.

Oh, one more thing...If they dont cast Nicolas Cage to play Cohen in the upcoming Netflix movie about this, it will be the worst casting mistake since Ben Afflack as Batman.

I Went To a Funeral Today

I went to a funeral today. The viewing was Sunday afternoon. I went to that too. There was a long, slow moving line, at the end of which was the family and the open casket. As I got closer, I couldn’t bring myself to look at my friend. She was two years younger than me. I had never seen someone in a casket who was younger than me, so I didn’t look. I didn’t want to remember her like that. But I did want to see her husband and the kids, all dear to me and all grieving an unspeakable loss. So I stood in line and struck up conversations with strangers with whom I shared nothing other than our common love for the departed. After we made it through the line, we gathered around a television screen and watched a slide show of photographs, our beautiful friend’s shining face beaming back at us. Here she was holding a grandchild. There she was holding her middle son as an infant, looking tanned in the warm South African sun. It all seemed so unfair.

I had not been looking forward to the funeral. Whenever I hear them called celebrations, I cringe. It’s like we are trying too hard to deny the fact that we have all suffered a crushing loss. As people of faith, we believe in an afterlife, we believe that we will one day be reunited with those we love. But, to call a funeral a celebration lands rudely on my ears, trite and disrespectful. Putting aside the theological ramifications for a moment, here’s what I know...the world I live in was a better place before my friend left it, and now that she is gone, it has been reduced, there is less love, less empathy, and less selflessness. I will not pretend to celebrate that.

We arrived thirty minutes early, and still had to park somewhere in the surrounding neighborhood. The church was packed to overflowing. The service was simulcast on the internet and watched by hundreds of other people in half a dozen countries around the world. My friend was once a missionary in South Africa. The friends she forged throughout Sub-Saharan Africa were the life long kind. They stopped whatever they were doing at whatever time it was over there to listen to the service.

We sat close to the front, very close to the row where the family was seated. To be seated so close to them was to feel the immediacy of their loss. Part of me wished I were in the back, far away from the pain. We watched them cling to one another. We could barely abide watching our friend’s parents, wondering what they must have been feeling as they prepared to bury their second child.

A man at a keyboard asked us all to stand and sing a song. The words were on the screen at the back of the stage. We all sang the words from memory. It was a familiar song, and these people were church people. We could have sung it with our eyes closed. Many people did, including me.

Then I watched my friend’s husband and her three adult children rise from the front row and make their way to the podium. My heart was in my throat. A hush fell over the assembly. The kids were holding on, being resolute and strong for their very brave dad who read aloud from Proverbs 31. The fact that he made it through felt like a miracle of grace. He then looked down at his bereaved in-laws on the front row and thanked each of them for allowing him the privilege of 35 years as their daughter’s husband. When they made it back to their seat, the atmosphere of the building was drenched with sorrow. Then something amazing happened...

Our dear friend, Gordon Fort rose to give the eulogy. For nearly thirty minutes, his words redeemed the day. He spoke with the perfect mixture of compelling biography, humor and the unique insights that can only be provided by intimate friends. He didn’t try to hide the shock of such a loss, even justifiably lamented that she only lived 58 years on this earth. But at the end, he looked at the family, each of them, and called them by name...Did not Kim love you well? Ladies and gentlemen, I am here to tell you that Gordon Fort is clutch.

The man at the keyboard again. This time a familiar hymn, the words, powerful and sobering...

When peace, like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll,

What ever my lot, thou hath taught me to say, it is well, it is well with my soul...

Pam and I mingled within the mass of people slowly making their way out of the church. We saw people we hadn’t seen in months, some in years. All of us united in grief and overcome with love for such an amazing, selfless woman. We drove home in quiet reflection, praying for the family. We thought of how exhausted they all must be, how thoroughly worn out from all the hugging, the tears and condolences which probably all started sounding the same after a while. Now the family must find their way to Atlanta to lay her to rest. More tears, more embraces.

Tonight, we went to dinner with friends. It felt like the kind of night where we needed to be around friends. We ate a meal together at Brio’s, and talked about our friend. We will miss her. In a few weeks, maybe a couple months, we will recall our friend with nothing but smiles and fondness. For now, its mostly sadness and loss. But thats ok, I think. How could we not?

In the meantime, I will say a quick prayer every time D. Ray comes to my mind. I will keep Paul and Trevor and Emily in my thoughts. And I will hold on to Pam and my four adult children ever tighter, and be grateful for every day that I have them.

Fighting Back

It’s 40 degrees and raining in Short Pump for like the 28th day in a row. Practically everyone I know is grieving a dear friend who’s  viewing is coming up tomorrow, with the funeral service on Monday. In other words, this weekend promises to be the low point of 2019. Accordingly, I am forced to fight back with one of the few weapons at my disposal...cringe-inducing Dad Jokes:

1. I started a company selling land mines disguised as prayer mats.

    Prophets are going through the roof.

2. Need an ark?

    I Noah guy.

3. I’m positive I just lost an electron.

    Better keep an ion that.

4. How does an attorney sleep?

    First he lies and on side, then he lies on the other.

5. What do you call a super articulate dinosaur?

     A Thesaurus.

6. What superlative did Robert E. Lee win in high school?

     Most Likely to Secede.

7. How did the Native Americans get to America first?

    They had reservations.

8. I have a phobia about over-engineered buildings.

    It’s called a complex complex complex.

9. Napoleon may not have designed the coat he wore..,

    But he certainly had a hand in it.

10. What do you call children who are born in whorehouses?

      Brothel sprouts.

11. The guy who invented throat lozenges died last week.

      There was no coffin at the funeral.

12. What happened when the semi-colon violated grammar laws?

      He was given two consecutive sentenses.