Every Flourish...

Yesterday was a day devoted to Christmas decorating at the Dunnevant house. Actually, its been going on for over a week now, room by room. Pam is something of a maniacal genius in this regard. When it is all finished there will be seven Christmas trees. There will be Department 56 Christmas villages all over the place. The people who will soon populate these villages know nothing of COVID, refusing as they do to socially distance, and not a mask to be seen. Today is the day devoted to bringing these mythical residents of Christmas Town out of exile. By the end of the day they will all be out there in the snow covered streets doing wintery things. I envy them.

In past years, I must confess, this decorating obsession of my wife’s has been a little annoying. Not that I don’t love the end result, but it has seemed a bit excessive. When I hear her complain about never having enough time to get crucial things done I silently mumble to myself, “Here’s an idea...maybe don’t spend ten days decorating the house!” But this year...I’m loving every excessive flourish. This year it seems perfect. This year, I celebrate every twinkling light, every ornament, every wreath. This year it feels like striking a blow against everything that 2020 has been. We may have endured a horrifying political season, a miserable election, endless social upheaval and this interminable and infuriating pandemic, but Christmas is coming. We may not be able to hold everyone in the family close, but our lights will shine like a million stars if we have anything to say about it. And, it isn’t just us. Our culdesac looks like a cross between the North Pole and Vegas...and I’m loving it. Makes me want to gather my neighbors in a circle out in the street, hold hands and sing that weird ending song from the Grinch... Fah who foraze! Dah who doraze!

Everyone knows that Christmas trees tell the story of a family. Ours is no different. Every weekend trip away to someplace nice has an ornament. Every vacation, every life event is represented. When we hung the ornaments last night it was like an episode of This Is Your Life. The soundtrack featured Harry Connick Jr, James Taylor, Nat King Cole, and The Carpenters. Then Pam opened up the kid’s hand made ornaments that used to go on the “kid’s tree” years ago. They have been in a box for the past few, but not this year. No, this year they need to be on the tree...

Cat Plague

Anyone who has read this blog for any amount of time will be aware of my love for dogs. What you may not be aware of is my loathing of cats. I have for the most part tried to keep this loathing under wraps, knowing as I do the odd attachment many of my readers have to felines. Indeed, my own family is full of cat lovers, (mostly women I might add), so I try to tread lightly. Especially since perhaps the biggest cat lover of them all is my beloved niece Christina Garland. Now, anyone who knows Chrissy is aware that there isn’t a sweeter person in the world. She is a wonderful mother, wife, etc etc...but this glaring weakness in her character, perhaps, dare I say, her only weakness has always troubled me. I try to drop little hints to her about her cat problem, but it is quite true what they say that the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. Unfortunately, Chrissy remains stubbornly unaware. I suppose I can’t really blame her. Her own mother, my sister, is an unrepentant cat person who recently indulged her life long addiction with yet another kitten. Now, every fifteen minutes she sends a Marco Polo of the little tyrant doing something “cute”, the mere image of which sends me into a sneezing fit. But, what can I say? You don’t get to pick your family!

The year of COVID has granted all of us extra time for self reflection. One thing that has become clear to me is that my attempts to rescue the cat lovers in my family from their dangerous obsession have been woefully lacking. To that end, this blog post is intended to be the opening salvo of a new, more robust anti-cat initiative. From time to time I will produce more and more public service anti-cat information in this space. Education is always the key to a better life. I can think of no other tool for the task of ridding Chrissy of her feline fever than...Gary Larson. 

The House of Flying Pictures!

This is my firstborn GrandPup, Jackson, aka Jack, Jacko, Jackie-Jack. He had a very bad day yesterday which I will explain shortly. But first, a little background on this beloved dog.

Of the three Golden Retrievers in the family, Jack is the only English Creme. He is also known for not being the sharpest knife in the drawer, although his comparative lack of basic intelligence is more than made up for by a generous helping of lovability. You will never meet a snugglier dog. Then there’s the matter of his most striking characteristic... epic clumsiness. If the three Goldens in the family were athletes, Lucy would be the fleet and agile wide receiver on a football team, Frisco would be the graceful center fielder on a baseball team. Jack would be the second string offensive tackle on the practice squad. Watching Jacko run is like watching some kind of dog cartoon, all four paws flying out at odd angles, tongue flopping around all over the place. It’s nothing short of adorable, actually.

So, anyway, Jack had a bad day yesterday at the new house in Columbia. It was his first day alone in his new home. Pam and I had been with him last week, and Jon had Monday and Tuesday off. Yesterday was his first solo and, let’s just say...it didn’t go well. First off, a delivery of lumber was dumped in the side yard for the completion of a fence Jon is finishing in the back yard. The sound of crashing 2x4’s hitting the ground was I’m sure disconcerting. Then, at some point during the day, a very large painting that was hung in the kitchen inexplicably came unhooked and crashed to the floor. When Kaitlin returned from work she found a spot of pee on her bedroom carpet and both vomit and poop on the floor in the study.

In Jack’s defense, I’m thinking that if I were him, alone in a new house for the first time, and suddenly pictures started flying off the walls, I’m pretty sure I would have lost control of most of my bodily functions too! Jack must have been thinking, “My humans have left me alone in house of flying pictures! What I do to deserve this??” Poor boy. Tomorrow will be a better day. He will adjust. But until he does I have advised Kaitlin to close the door to any carpeted rooms!

Jack...in happier times.

I’ve looked for books that might help him make the adjustment but so far haven’t had any luck...

The Bible and The Far Side

Just a few examples of twisted humor that I find hilarious and most other people find stupid...

Also, this...just read a headline that an investigation has been launched into alleged use of LSD by marines at Camp Lejeune. Seriously?? Can you imagine anything more terrifying than fully armed Marines on acid??

So, when times get tough my morning routine features a little Bible reading and a browse through The Far Side...both for much needed doses of eternal truth.

A Bad Back and My Dad

Many years ago I attended a picnic at my sister’s house. I don’t remember the occasion or the year, only that suddenly I found myself flat on the floor in her living room, gripped by excruciating pain while everyone else was outside in the yard. I had come inside to go to the bathroom and when I took the first step after exiting the bathroom, my back seized up in a tight and painful ball dropping me like a rock, face down onto the carpet. I could not move and could barely scream out for help. I can’t remember how long I was on the floor but eventually my sister Linda came inside and found me there. At first she laughed, figuring I was trying to play some trick on her. Where would she have gotten such an idea? Finally she realized I was in great distress. And since my big sister has always been the type of person who knows exactly what to do in the clutch, she ran into another room to fetch her nurse’s bag. Back then she was a public health nurse who made house calls in Gilpin Court, tough woman—my sister. Anyway, I remember her pulling a giant needle out of her bag and giving me a painful shot in the buttocks, one that she seemed to take just a bit too much delight in administering. Later she told me it was Demerol. Within ten minutes or so I was able to sit up. The subsequent trip to the doctor revealed that I had damaged a muscle in my back the previous day when I had helped a friend of mine move a spinet piano up a flight of stairs in his new house. Although I didn’t recall being in any pain while moving the piano, the doctor assured me that it had done some kind of damage which had resulted in the severe spasm that had thrown me to the floor the following afternoon. A couple of days later I was totally fine and feeling cocky when I saw my Dad who asked me about how my back was feeling. When I answered, “Great! No problems at all....” he looked me square in the eye and said, “Listen son, I don’t care what that doctor told you, I’m here to tell you that you’re going to have trouble with your back for the rest of your life so you better get used to it.” My Dad, Mister Encouragement.

He was right. Of course he was.

Although I haven’t been thrown to the ground since that day at Linda’s, my back has always been like a temperamental child for nearly 30 years now. I can go months with no problems whatsoever despite lots of strenuous activity, then throw it out brushing my teeth. The list of benign activities that have managed to throw out my back are truly laughable. My back has been sent into violent spasms over...

-teeth brushing

-plugging in a lamp

-picking up my car keys from off the floor

-filling my car up with gas

The past few days, after all the lifting at Kaitlin and Jon’s new house, the back has been quivering between good and evil. Every move I make, I am aware of it. I can feel the muscles tighten and loosen back there and every thing I feel makes me suspicious of its intentions. It will probably work its way out on its own. It usually does. But I did resort to taking a muscle relaxer last night to be on the safe side. May do it again tonight.

So yeah...Dad had it right 30 years ago. He hurt his back when he was in the Navy during WWII on a ship somewhere near Guadalcanal, and it gave him fits for the rest of his life. But, I take great comfort in the fact that when my Dad was 80 he was still putting in a garden every year...by himself! But it was so like my father to give it to me straight, no sugarcoating—“Your back is going to give you trouble for the rest of your life!” That’s just the way he was. Mom, too. They parented us with very little regard for our tender feelings. They were in the truth telling business. If I wanted a feel-good story I could watch Mr. Rogers. None of this, “Everything is gonna be alright” nonsense. Nope, tough luck about your back there, Son! By today’s standards I suppose it sounds a little harsh, and maybe it was. But I would give almost anything to have them both back. I don’t know about you but I need someone who I can always count on to tell me the truth. Don’t you?

2020 Ennui

2020 has now managed to slog its way into December. COVID is not only still with us, it appears to be ascendant. There is a vaccine on its way, but public confidence in it, along with everything else coming from government officials, seems at an all-time low. We are witnessing a poisonous and petulant transition of power never before seen in American politics. Our new President looks more frail with each passing day, and the old President seems hellbent on blowing everything up on his way out. I returned to the office yesterday to a death claim and more bad COVID news. It is fair to say that I find myself fighting against a rising tide of depression.

That probably sounds more dramatic than I intended. The fact that I feel a bit depressed is no bombshell. Life is full of highs and lows. Not every season is filled with triumphs. There are times in life when events conspire against you. That’s just the way life works. You grind through the dark times and eventually the sun breaks through the clouds. It has always been this way for me and I think for most people. This just happens to be one of the dark moments. When you’re essentially an optimist, having a pessimistic outlook is disconcerting. It catches you off guard, feels foreign, as if your mind has been invaded by an enemy. 

But, I will power through this at some point. I always have in the past. Good COVID news would help. A couple of good productive weeks at work would help. Good things happening to people I love would help the most. I have much to be thankful for. The blessings I have experienced in my life make a very long list. So, you can’t fairly complain when you experience a few setbacks, especially when those setbacks are beyond your control. This is the last I will speak of this in this space. Nobody wants to read about someone else's problems. All of you have plenty of your own problems, right?

Why do mermaids wear seashells?

Because she outgrew her b shells.

Wonder Woman

Spending an entire week helping your daughter move in to a new home is unlike a Maine vacation in one significant way...I actually lost weight. Apparently, packing and unpacking boxes, cleaning and moving furniture, burns more calories than fishing, sitting around a camp fire, and drinking beer. Who knew?

We are back after a week in Columbia, delighted to have slept in our king size bed last night, and so thoroughly proud of Jon and Kaitlin we can hardly stand it. Their new house is beautiful and, for the moment, clean. There’s only one room that remains unfinished—the study— and even that is coming along nicely. We even put up the tree before we left...

At this point I should probably stop using the term we, since although we all put in our fair share of labor, this entire enterprise would have been an unmitigated disaster without...Pam Dunnevant. It is almost impossible to overemphasize just how indispensable she was to the successful completion of this mission. Everyone has their own work style. Some people require supervision to stay on track, others work best when given a list, etc...but my wife thrives in chaos, and this skill is a dramatic thing to behold in action. From the time we pulled into their old driveway on Sunday afternoon until we crawled out of their new one Saturday morning, she was like a cross between the Energizer Bunny and a Teamster foreman. Whether it was her down on her hands and knees scrubbing a stubborn spot on the bathroom floor, or packing up an entire kitchen by herself, or throwing together delicious meals for everyone every night, she was the queen bee around which the rest of us merely buzzed. It was an amazing performance that had all of us glancing at each other asking, Who is this woman, and when is she gonna crash? But, she never did. She would be forgiven for sleeping until noon this morning...but she won’t.

I had my moments. Friday, I was given a list of five objectives for the day. I love having a list. I finished everything by 2 o’clock in the afternoon, but my best moment of the week came later that afternoon when the internet guy showed up to hook the house up to the World Wide Web. This guy was very tall, wore his mask on his chin and was a dead ringer for Snoop Dog. We all understood roughly 25% of what he said, which made it difficult to determine how to proceed with his directives. Eventually we were able to make out the fact that unless he could gain access to the walk-in crawl space under the house he could not continue. The door was locked and Jon, who was at work, had the only key. Snoop was about to pack up and leave when a skill I learned during my misspent youth came back to me at the perfect time. I ran into the back yard, retrieved an old expired credit card from my wallet I keep for just this purpose, and slid it between the lock and the door knob and DING, I was in! We retrieved Snoop before he was able to make his escape, he was able to hook up the internet and everyone lived happily ever after.

But, my wife was the thing this week. Amazing.