The Summer of This Malcontent

Summer started out not with a bang, but a whimper … mine. 

It began with my first case of food poisoning.  For two weeks my poor primary care doc ran every test imaginable, during which time I was so nauseated my only refuge (much to the kids’ delight) was passing out on the couch for hours at a time.  A test finally came back positive for campylobacter – a bacteria found mainly in raw chicken.  Then I got a call from the Butler County Health Department, whose raison d’etre is apparently to convince you, through a series of pointed questions, that you are totally incapable of caring for yourself, your family, pets or potted plants, and probably should not be trusted in the kitchen with a butter knife.  Where have you eaten in the past two weeks?  Did you eat chicken?  Eggs?  Egg products?  Are you in contact with chickens?  (I had to laugh at that one: Yes, in fact, the chickens and I have a deeply personal relationship: I would personally like to wring their necks.)  Do you cook your meats thoroughly?  At this point I considered saying it must have been that one time that instead of bleaching and then washing my cutting boards as I usually do, I licked them all clean.  But they didn’t seem to have much sense of humor.  In the end, nobody else came down with it, and through the miracle of modern drugs, I'm still here.

At Space Camp

Your confidence in the future of the Space Program can only increase knowing Jack's team took first in the Speed Lego Assembling competition.

Other things happened that first month, too, or so they tell me.  Jack went to a week-long Space Camp in Hutchinson, Kan.  It was the first time he’d been away for that long outside of family visits, but we didn’t feel terribly apprehensive after dropping him off.  As Jim said when we left, “Did you see all those nerds?  He’ll be fine.”  While there, Jack designed and launched a rocket, did some other space-campy stuff that filled his schedule from 7 a.m. until 10 or 11 p.m., but he’ll remember it most for the sleep deficit he racked up.  Jack has entered the awesome teenage boy years, when there is never enough to eat, and this injustice is only surpassed by the torture of having to wake up.  Every day.  In Disney World, there’s a ride called Mission: Space, where you get to be a part of a team going into space.  Each passenger has an assigned critical role in getting the ship to its destination safely.  Of course, Jim and the boys do everything out of order, including hitting the HyperSleep button first thing, instead of waiting until after launch sequence.  We weren’t allowed to call Jack during the week, but we texted him in the evenings, and Jim teased him about his responsibilities in an upcoming launch simulation.  “Remember to hit the HyperSleep button,” Jim texted one night.  And with all the anguish that can be transmitted through plain text typing, Jack fairly wailed in his response, “THERE IS NO SLEEP BUTTON!!!!!”

Woody learned to mow the lawn with the zero-degree riding lawn mower this summer.  This is impressive when you consider that at 70 pounds, Woody’s barely big enough to keep the seat pressed down adequately for the safety feature (which cuts off the engine when it’s riderless) to not engage.  Daredevil Woody, who is uncharacteristically cautious around objects with moving parts, approached this task with trepidation.  Unlike Jack or almost anyone else who mows a lawn in ever widening or tightening circles, or who goes back and forth in straight lines, Woody mows the lawn like a gnat, flitting wildly about in a seemingly random fashion.  Except gnats are faster.  Woody never got out of turtle into rabbit.  But we got some spectacular lawn carvings out of him.  Once he carved a Mickey Mouse head, and another time he and Jack cut “I love Mom” into the front lawn (even spelled correctly) with some heavy prodding from Jim.   

Life on the farm changed drastically once, after repainting the exterior of the house, we decided to confine the chickens to their coop and enclosed yard.  Now the front porch is eerily clean, possibly sanitary, and we even managed to get a few tomatoes out of the garden to eat for ourselves instead of watching the chickens peck them all to pieces.

The ducks now reside in a Dogloo, which is enclosed in the old dog run next to Amanda’s depot.  There they have easy access to the water spigot for their eternal baths that never leave them any cleaner, and they can scold Amanda whenever she steps out of her door.  Sometimes they scold her when she’s not even home.  

Midnight, the sole remaining Mammoth Stock Donkey, and Max, the bloated goat, got out once this summer and wandered up to the new neighbor's place.  This isn't too unusual, but what the neighbors frowned upon was that we apparently didn't realize they were gone for two days, and it would have been longer but someone finally called us.  And then we only went to retrieve them because common courtesy demands it.

We didn’t really travel this summer: with the retirement of one partner, Jim’s anesthesia group was a little short-staffed and summer is vacation time for all the partners whose kids are in regular school. 

So naturally, with Jim working non-stop, we decided to begin the renovation of the kitchen.  But first Jim had to finish piddly little projects, like ripping some ancient built-in shelves out of the boys’ room, patching the resulting holes in the wall and ceiling, repainting the walls, and laying hardwood floor in the boys' room.  Also repairing the damaged ceiling in the basement from when the pipes froze and burst last winter because our heater quit working when some darned mud daubers built their nests in the exhaust pipe of the heating unit.

Tearing out the old built ins.

Floor in progress

That done, Jim took out all the cabinets in the kitchen and began building a new custom kitchen island out of quarter sawn oak, complete with dovetailed joints in the drawers.  He also began laying the hardwood floors in the kitchen.  Also, he put in my new gas stove top.  But then his vacation week ran out and it’s been slow going since.  As usual, my main responsibilities include finding tools we haven’t seen in months, and then sighing heavily and looking distressed whenever Jim has to drive back into town (usually multiple times a day) to pick up a single item we can’t find, but without which, all work comes to a halt. 

Dove-tail joints.

The new kitchen island -- mostly done

Laying new floor ... and eating off it.

Rule #1: Even remodeling, NEVER disconnect the TV!

We got started on school in August, and with different grades (Jack’s in 8^th, Woody’s in 6^th, Betsy’s in 2^nd, and Lucy’s into everything), I’m gradually coming to accept school is the only constant.  But at least the kids keep it interesting.  Jack, proving he’s not come too far from the days when he wrote in a book report that he would “recommend this book for people who like to read long books”, signed a letter “Honestly, Jack” after attempting and scratching out “Sincerely, Jack” multiple times.  Clearly, “sincerely” is too tricky to spell with any confidence. 

On one vocabulary exercise, Woody was supposed to select from a list of things that might be considered “ferocious”.  He correctly identified a) a strange dog, b) a wild bear, and c) a hungry baby.  I gave him extra credit for the last answer.  After one sociology lesson where we discussed the growth of the feminist movement, he frowned and asked, “Are there any ‘meninists’?”

Lucy turns 4

Lucy is not in formal school, but that hasn’t stopped her from trying to teach the others a thing or two.  This was a recent tearful exchange:

Lucy: “Betsy said a bad word!”

Betsy: “I didn’t!”

Me: “What did you say?”

Betsy: “Vomit.”

Me: “Vomit’s not a bad word.”

Betsy: “Lucy said it is!”

Me (incredulously): “Why are you listening to the three-year-old?!”

The finished results in the boys' room.  Why did we even bother?

So I guess that's it for now.  Hope you all have a beautiful fall!

Spring 2014

It has been a busy two months here.  Jim broke his annual tradition and did not put out the tomato plants just before the final winter frost.   However, he did put them out just before the day we had gusty 50 mph winds so the end result was the same.  Coincidentally, on that day he also finished assembling a darling little pre-fab greenhouse.  After the windy day, Jim remarked it clearly was designed to be an indoor greenhouse. 

Before the 50 mph winds

and after

Our luck has been somewhat better (depending on what the goal is) with fowl this year.  All six of our ducks and the five chickens from last year survived, in spite of our Christmas attempt to roast them in their coop.  Jim made some adjustments to the little red barn he built several years ago – cutting a door in one wall and building an attached A-frame chicken yard with the help of brother-in-law Josh -- and moved the birds out there.   In fact, they’re doing so well, Jim brought home 13 more chicks from Atwoods in March, and then four more a few weeks later.  The juvenile birds graduated this week (thank goodness) from their confinement in a stock tank in the garage, under a heating lamp, where they had been taking turns roosting on the water dispenser and pooping in it.

Home Sweet Home

As for the ducks, we have a mix of males and females.  We know this because my nephew Jacob, who is in fifth grade and was visiting on his Spring Break with his family in April, would announce ecstatically multiple times a day, “THEY’RE MATING AGAIN!”  The heads-up was hardly necessary since all of the kids’ noses were already plastered to the windows to witness this fascinating (and apparently, hilarious) spectacle. 

So, obviously, the ducks are laying eggs.  We’ve incorporated the eggs in our cooking, for lack of anything better to do with them, although I can’t shake the feeling they’re somehow vulgar and morally questionable, on account of the show during which they were produced. 

The ducks kept climbing into their drinking water ...

So they got a stock-tank pond.

Dinner and a swim!

We had our first real Spring Break this year, since someone was here for us to enjoy it with.  Luckily for them, my sister, Sally, and her family arrived for the perfect Kansas spring week where they got to experience not only winter-bare trees and dead, yellow grass, but also a few random oppressively hot days, mixed with snow and freezing temperatures later in the week.  

Gracie and her chick.  It's even still alive now!

Making Aunt Amanda's birthday cake.

The finished product.

Fun!

We took a road trip to Mansfield, Missouri, where the guys stoically endured a tour of the home of children’s book author Laura Ingalls Wilder.  In exchange, we girls agreed to visit the Springfield Bass Pro store and everyone agreed on Silver Dollar City in Branson.  At the Wilder home, the boys’ favorite site was the public bathroom that had great big picture windows looking right into the stall area.

One of the Wilder homes.

The boys' favorite site at the Wilder Home.  Nobody told them to not pretend shooting each other out here.

Aunt Amanda and Gracie

Jake and Woody in the infamous coffin.

Dad and Lucy

Jake and Jack

Meanwhile, Josh has found his Silver Dollar City souvenir.

Woody and Jacob got on famously and Woody asked one evening after they left, “Mom, when will I un-miss Jacob?”  I guess when I un-miss seeing my sister. 

Sal gets some target practice in.

So Josh does, too.

Group Photo

Jack is wrapping up seventh grade, and looking forward to his first experience with Space Camp at the Kansas Cosmosphere in June.  I just found out we have to get him up-to-date on his tetanus and MMR boosters.  Heh heh.  I wonder if I can still get away with just showing up with him at the doctor’s office the day of the shots, and then taking him to McDonalds for ice cream after?

Woody is sad winter is over; he refused to put away his plastic snow fort brick molds (one of his Christmas list items), and also when I went to get some steaks, a hard-packed, baseball-sized ball of ice fell out when I opened the freezer door.  It was the last snowball of the season which Woody cheerfully informed me he was saving so he could nail Jack when the time was right.  In other news, he recently announced, “When I grow up I want to be an engineer.  And a mechanic.  And a casino owner.”  It’s difficult for him to put effort into school this late in the year so I wasn’t surprised to hear the following from him as he composed an essay on patriotism: “I like this country because it’s the land of opper … oppertoon … chances.” 

Poor Betsy has to put up with so much: she is the only six-year-old who ever had a baby sister follow her around wanting to do whatever she is doing.  While this is fine when one wants to jump on the trampoline while wearing inflatable swimming rings (don’t ask: they just do), it’s not so precious when the baby sister yells random answers to all the addition flashcard problems, or feeds your pet rabbit an entire bag of rabbit food at once, or says bedtime prayers first.  When Lucy gets started, she goes on and on, thanking God for so-and-so’s bedroom, and the chicken that died (I swear there was only one, and it died last fall), and eventually she trails off into other lengthy commentary, while I drift off for a short nap.  Betsy groans, “Mom! She’s telling a story again!” and sure enough, Lucy will be recounting her version of the day’s events, which clearly is more interesting to God if embellished with a few random details from the boys’ latest Dungeons & Dragons episode.

Recently, Jim and Lucy were looking over old vacation photos, and they came across one picture of Betsy brushing a pot-bellied pig at the petting zoo.  Jim said, “Awww, look!  It’s Betsy with Aunt Amanda!” and Lucy nodded wisely and said, “When Aunt Amanda was a cow!”

Betsy with Aunt Amanda "when Aunt Amanda was a cow."

Jim's second attempt at a green house: no kit, no plans, no problem.

TA-DA!

I guess that's it for now.  Hope you all are enjoying the spring!

A Brief Overview of the Rest of Last Year, and Also Apparently Some of This Year

Here it is the end of January again, and we haven’t opened our thermal-lined curtains in days.  Any energy-efficiency benefit we may have received from heating this oh-so-aesthetically-charming 1970s ranch with 8-foot dropped ceilings is completely lost through the 40-year-old floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall windows.

January is the month I start cleaning out the pantry, trying to scare out the mice who’ve been enjoying our Holiday Indulgences.  We’ve had so many mice this winter (we never see them, just the “evidence” of their presence) I’ve had to resort to sealing everything in plastic containers and tubs.  While inconvenient, it’s more practical than Jim’s suggestion which was we should put a cat in every cereal box. 

It seems I owe you a few months worth of updates. 

October/November 2013

Jim and I may be the only parents ever to have surprised their kids with a trip to Disney World. 

Let me clarify that statement: we are the only parents to have surprised their kids with a trip to Disney World, in spite of the fact we had to drive through numerous states, over multiple days, including last, but not least, Florida.  You’d think the flat terrain, palm trees, Spanish moss, sunshine and 75 degrees in October, and Florida license plates would be a dead giveaway, not to mention the ten-foot tall Disney World billboards spaced every half mile for the last hour.  Also that gas station we stopped at, bursting at the seams with Disney key chains, postcards, pens, ceramic Florida state thimbles, stuffed and mounted alligators, and oranges.  We all even took a bathroom break there.  You would also think that by now the kids would expect that if we are going on a road trip of any duration, there’s a 50 percent chance we’re going to end up in Orlando.

To be fair, we threw them off the scent since we traveled by way of Missouri, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Virginia.  I had this misguided notion the kids would enjoy an educational trip to Williamsburg, Va., as much as I would.  Also, I wanted to go there before I die.

It certainly was educational.  I told Jim, as we were leaving the last day, “Well, I learned that there is a certain age you shouldn’t take children to Williamsburg.” Jim said, “And it’s whatever age Woody is.”  Not that the scenery wasn’t gorgeous, even in the two days of straight rain in which we drove there.  It was.  Not that we didn’t plan on one of the kids getting sick (pick one, any one) or Jack snoring all night, every night.  That happened. I just thought historical sites touted as being “family friendly” might actually be prepared for total unmitigated chaos.  Silly me.

Williamsburg, Va.

Woody and That Man Who Introduces General Washington

Williamsburg was picture-perfect, and all the employees were dressed in character and knew their stuff about colonial America, imparting their knowledge with onlookers when they (the employees) weren’t part of a re-enactment.  We walked for miles trying to tire out the kids, ate semi-authentic colonial food (not the squab, thank you; we like our baby pigeons which have heads and claws still attached to be alive, and not dinner) in very authentic buildings, visited blacksmiths, armories, the governor’s mansion, the original prison and jailer’s home, and participated in a colonial-era spy ring.  

And everywhere we went, Woody swung from the rafters, Betsy demanded, “are we were there yet?” and Lucy lamented that she was “hongry”!  Jack, who did seem to enjoy it, picked out a flint and steel at the general store, which he cleverly struck over and over inside the car in an attempt to set it on fire.

MMMM.  So glad we aren't eating here. 

Resting

Ye Olde Wiggery

Hard to tell if the kids are mesmerized or bored.  And maybe the blacksmith too.

How did anyone survive with this armor?!

Ah.  Jim must have been trying on the kids' armor.  Wait.  Why did Jamestown have armor for kids?

Meanwhile, at the church ...

The Armory.  Now THIS is more like it!

How Woody slept in Virginia.

On to Yorktown!

Betsy luring the ducks to certain death.

The highlight of the trip was the day we went to Yorktown where they had a “child-friendly” interactive reconstruction of a colonial farm complete with cabins, slave quarters, outbuildings, cotton crops (if you count three cotton plants as crops), livestock, and crusty old employees who detested most children, and especially mine.  

This became clear when Lucy and Betsy were running excitedly into a gaggle of geese and ducks, and the caretaker of that section called out to the girls not to chase the birds since if they (the girls) did, they (the birds) would become mean, and he would have to put them down (the birds … I think).  

Then a sour-looking woman in the gift shop requested that Woody not play with the wooden pop guns someone had temptingly left out on display (and not bolted down at all, or even locked behind glass), next to the stuffed animals, coonskin hats, and other toys.  I was mad enough to tell them what I thought of them on their visitor comment card, complete with my real name, address, e-mail address, and phone number.  I haven’t heard from them yet.

You don't say!

That's the door to the prison cell on the left.  Just the window on the door for ventilation.  No insulation, no heat source.  Yikes!

From there we cranked out the drive to Florida in one day -- the day that followed the night when neither Jim nor I got any sleep because Jack was so congested he couldn’t rest, but tossed and turned, moaned and groaned until 2 a.m., when Jim got up, packed the car, and I dosed Jack with one of everything I had in the medicine box (worth every square inch of space it takes up) before loading up the kids and heading out.  So for the rest of the day, the kids watched movies, played video games, and Jack passed out sitting up, head back, mouth open, for most of the drive. 

Fishing with Dad at Disney World

Lucy was too scared to watch Fantasmic from anywhere but inside Dad's shirt.

Nana made the girls' dresses for breakfast with the Disney Princesses.

Awwww!

Awwww!

Waiting to get on the new Ariel ride.

 

This was the next to the last night. Things are beginning to unravel.

We’ve got the Disney Routine down now, from knowing exactly what rides to tackle, and when, to knowing just what day the kids are going to put their heads down on the restaurant table and sigh, and ask, “When will be done?”  Usually that’s a couple of days after I start thinking it in my head.  Jim has never thought that.

Something we did differently this time was we brought along our bikes.  The girls rode in a tag-along trailer behind Jim.  I rode behind the boys to ensure they obeyed all the laws of the road on the campground.  Laws like: "Stay On the Right Side, Guys, For Crying Out Loud!"; "HAND SIGNALS!"; "Stop BEHIND the Stop Sign!"; "No Riding Side-by-Side!"; "What Did I Say About Stopping BEHIND the Stop Sign?"; and finally, but most important, "WOODY!  Brakes!"  

For being an athletic kid, Woody never could seem to figure out how to use both front and back brakes.  We ride all the time here at home, but not on well-traveled roads, and most of Woody's stops involve jumping from the moving bike.  "I can't remember which is the back brake!" He'd wail after flipping head first over the handlebars for the umpteenth time.  "Don't try to remember!" We'd holler in disbelief.  "Just pull BOTH brakes!"  By the time we left, Woody's crash helmet had proved it's mettle.  

2^nd Part of November 2013:

We got the call that my Uncle Joe was in the hospital at Tulsa on the drive back from Disney World.  Joe had struggled to shake illness over the summer, and received a diagnosis of cancer in the fall. We were able to stop in Tulsa, however bedraggled and stir-crazy we were, to kiss Uncle Joe goodbye.  He was sedated, and agitated, when I saw him.  He kept reaching up his arms, pulling his hand out of mine.  I thought he was irritated with me for trying to hold his hand, but one of my cousins later said she thought he was reaching for someone.  Grandma?  Grandpa?  Mom? That idea made me think.  Here I was imagining Joe was all but gone from us.  Maybe so, but not lost; not wandering hopelessly, but reaching steadily for the hand to lead him home.  Joe passed away a few days later. 

My older brother, who had planned to fly out for Thanksgiving, changed his tickets to fly in for the funeral in Crowder, Okla.  Afterwards, he survived the 5-hour drive back with all of us.

Not to brag, but I think visitors to our home are treated to a new perspective of their own lives.  Three days here makes most people glad they decided against ducks, chickens, dirt roads, and children.  The kids’ constant refrain was, “Uncle Sendo, watch this!” “Uncle Sendo, wanna play [a video game, football, Monopoly …]?", “Uncle Sendo, Knock Knock!”  Uncle Sendo good-naturedly did it all.  He even mentioned maybe visiting us again.

Torture.  I mean, Playing Monopoly.  Jack, Woody, Bets and Sendo.

Can't wait for Thanksgiving Dinner!

You might never suspect it was Jim who married into the family.   The similarities are frightening.

Martha, Sendo, Amanda

December 2013

This month was most notable because I came down with the flu twice, thereby disproving Jim’s often and loudly proclaimed theory that I sold my soul to the devil in exchange for not getting sick. 

The other exciting event was the chicken coop burned down after we headed into town one Wednesday night.  Our neighbor called us 10 minutes after we left and asked if we were having a bonfire on our property.  Visions of roasted chicken came to mind, followed by a giddy, guilty moment of hope.  But then I remembered the ducks also roosted with the chickens.

By the time we could get off the turnpike and turn around, the entire Benton Volunteer Fire Department was at our home.  It probably helped that our other neighbor was a volunteer fire fighter and they all thought it was his home on fire.  I was sure they’d be furious when they realized they’d been called out to extinguish the flames on a lousy chicken coop, but even though the coop was burnt to cinders, and the fire had spread to underneath Jim’s Kubota tractor and was heading toward the wood pile and propane tank, they got it out.  

By a stroke of luck (or maybe fate was leering at us), we had not closed up the chicken coop before we left.  A couple of chickens had crispy feathers, but they and the ducks were out huddled between the fire trucks and the legs of the fire fighters, clucking and quacking, as they glared furiously at their benefactors. 

The charred coop is still there.  We moved the birds out to a small barn Jim built several years ago and never used to its full potential.  We have one chicken now who refuses to go to that coop each night.  It's probably the one that insisted on laying her egg in the burnt out coop for days afterwards.  We have to go hunt her down by flashlight and carry her out to the safe one.  Lousy chicken.

The remains of the chicken coop and yard.  It actually doesn't look much worse than it did originally.

January 2014

I finally got the Halloween Jack O’ Lanterns off the front porch.  

I also had this conversation with six-year-old Betsy:

Betsy: “How did your mom die?”

Me: “She died of cancer.”

Betsy: “How did my Grandma die?”

Me: “Your Grandma is my mom.  So she died of cancer.”

Betsy: “Sooooo … your mom died of cancer, and my Grandma died of cancer …”

Me: “And that’s because my mom –“

Betsy: “Is you?!”

The conversation could have ended there, but three-year-old Lucy joined in:

Lucy: “What did my Grandma die of?”

Me (sighing and rolling my eyes): “Cancer.”

Betsy, shocked: “She has a Grandma?”

I think Mom and Joe would have enjoyed that conversation.

Happy (and hopefully warm) Valentines Day to you all!

Betsy, Joe, and Lucy, 2012