Going Royal

If we're friends on Face Book, and assuming you read every single one of my posts (!), you would know this about me:  I don't really care for sports, not having played any when I was young.  Unless you count kick the can.

However, I graduated from a sports frenzied high school.  Our Jefferson City Jays football team was amazing, winning a couple of state championships in a row.  I think.  I'm sure I'll be reminded if my memory is faulty.  Well, that's already been established in myriad situations.  But I'm talking specifically about that state championship thing.

Later on in life, I used to get very irritated when I was on staff at a church and we had to consider the city's sporting schedules before making plans to undertake anything that required a lot of folks.

And then there are the players' salaries.  Massive amounts of hungry people could be fed, homeless be sheltered, diseases researched and cured with the billions paid to sports personnel.  I haven't done the math because I only have ten fingers and ten toes.  I think I'd even blow up my solar powered calculator attempting that equation.

And, can we talk about the tedium that sports watching entails?  I think soccer is the worst culprit (sorry soccer fans and players...I still love YOU).  When a score is 1-0 after ninety minutes that really just amounts to a lot of running around, kicking a ball, sometimes headbutting (why are no helmets involved) and quite a lot of flopping.  I'll bet you're surprised that I know that term.  Now THAT'S a reason to watch soccer...so I can yell, "He's TOTALLY flopping!"

Lastly, but probably most importantly...I can't handle close games.  I can tune into the last few minutes of a basketball game and get completely tied up in knots if it's a three or four point game.  I blame Brian Presberry for that.  He made some crazy last second shot and our Jays won by one point against our arch nemesis, Columbia Hickman.  I think I had already graduated because I can see it perfectly in my mind and I wasn't sitting with the million other Jayettes...I was across the gym.  That doesn't really matter, except to point out that my brain stores ridiculous things that I need to get rid of to make room for things that matter now.  Like why I got up and went into the kitchen.  (That happened this morning.  And, sadly, it's not the first time).

So that's why I don't care for sports.

But...something happened to me last month I haven't been able to decipher yet.  I didn't watch one single baseball game the entire regular season.  I heard from time to time that the Royals were doing well and I was like, "Oh, yea.  That's good."  I don't even think I watched any of the games against Houston.  But by the time Toronto rolled into town I found myself oddly attracted to it.  I watched all the games.  Stayed up way late and considered asking my doctor for a prescription for nitroglycerin.

By the time the World Series rolled around I knew the batting lineup.  What's up with that?  By the end of the first game I knew which Mets players and pitchers were gonna give us trouble.  "Us?"  Somewhere between Toronto and the Mets I became a fanatic.

My kids were giving me funny looks.  Ron just kept rolling his eyes.  I would sit alone in our lower level (Ron won't let me call it a basement) and whoop and clap by myself.  Kate and I would text like mad, emogi-ing hand clapping and thumbs up and smiley faces with tongues hanging out.

It was a bit ridiculous.  Ok, more than a bit.

The last game, when it was tied in the ninth, I went upstairs to wake Ron up and watched the rest of it in our bedroom.  The weirdest thing happened.  It happens when I talk to the kids and we're watching the same thing...there's like a three or four second delay in what they're watching and what I see.  Our windows were open and I could hear people cheering before I saw what was happening on the television.  So...I knew they Royals had won before I saw it.  I remember whispering "They did it! They did it!" before the final strike was thrown.

The next day I watched everything I could about the Royals' hard fought victory.  I even watched a replay of the last three innings...and I still got nervous, even though I knew how it would end.

I debated back and forth about going to the parade.  Tyler and Ron had to work and Kate doesn't love big crowds, so I stayed home and watched it all unfold on TV.  It wasn't until the images started hitting Face Book that I was able to fully comprehend the magnitude of it all.

Amazing.  Just amazing.

If I had to use one word to describe how I felt it would be...

Joy.

Those Boys in Blue played with pure joy.  They love the game.  They love each other.  They have families who love and support them.  They know each others' skill sets; combined they're a force to be reckoned with.  They have freedom to play the best game they can, not dictated by an ego-driven manager.  But it's the joy that spills over, like the Gatorade Salvy loves to splash around, that makes them so likable and fun to watch.

And the fans!  Straight up beer-drinking, high fiving, Moose-calling, joy-filled men, women and children of all ages.  They love their Royals and their Royals love them right back.

If wishes do come true...I'd keep this team intact for another 100 years.  Or until their knees/arms give out.

I guess that makes me a fan, too.  And I kind of like it.

When's Spring Training start?  PLAY BALL!

Bloom, Dammit!

Although folks would be hard pressed to catch a glimpse of it now, there was a day when I was SUPER into entertaining and puttin' on the dog.  Southern Living and Martha Stewart Living provided my daily devotionals and, at times, I was able to channel Martha just by clicking my heels together three times and repeating "Use only the VERY BEST vanilla."

Southern Living has the best recipes out there, if case you're wondering.  Never made a bad dish from that magazine.  MS Living was chock full of ridiculous decor ideas that looked beautiful but required surgeon-esque skills and loads of specialty items.  I didn't even attempt those crafty things because I'd read the directions and my eyes would start to glaze over.

I did, one holiday season, buy a crap ton of glitter and made dozens of ornaments and candles with the stuff (Word to the Wise: don't do the candles...the glitter caught on fire.  I probably did it wrong).  When we decorate at Christmas, there are still traces of that sparkly endeavor in every box we unpack.

It slowly became...a problem.

I had butter molds of butterflies and acorns and unicorns (not really).  I combed the Colonial Williamsburg catalog for faux magnolia leaves and King Charles bedspreads.  I created holiday menus and printed them out...mainly so I'd keep on track, but - truth be told - also so I could practice my taste tantalizing verbiage skills...fresh hot yeast rolls, with sweet cream butter and assorted jams.  Homemade pumpkin spice with freshly whipped sweetened cream...

Very hoity toity.

But, then, after years of getting my kicks from all things fancy, I went into a self-imposed rehab.  Actually, I got bariatric bypass surgery and couldn't really eat all those things anymore.  So I tossed (or sold) all my butter molds, cancelled my Southern Living and Martha Stewart subscriptions and tried to develop some better habits.

Fast forward to last Saturday, when we were getting ready to come home from NOLA.  I bought a couple of magazines (Southern Living and Martha Stewart Living, of course) because - horror of horrors - out plane wasn't equipped with WIFI.  As I flipped through the pages of MSL, I noticed that they're still publishing Martha's monthly calendar of events.  And I remembered that it always served as a huge source of "Oh my gosh, can you believe she's doing that?" moments.

Once again, it did not fail to entertain.  Alongside her schedule of yoga, weight training and riding horses were her friends' and colleagues' birthdays, hair appointments, refrigerator cleanings, etc.

But...the one I love the most (and I remember seeing it on her calendar before...which leads me to believe the editors are cut-and-paste gurus) is the day she's set aside to force her forsythia and pussy willows to bloom.

Picture it.  A cold, grey, concrete room with a card table, one folding chair and a naked light bulb haphazardly hung from the ceiling.  Martha is in the chair.  A lone stick in a clay pot is on the table.

Tension fills the air.

In a strong, direct "I will not be dismissed" voice, Martha commands, "You.WILL.Bloom."

"NOW!"

"Or I will twist you in two, you ungrateful twig of a tree."

Martha fixes her steely gaze on the naked branch.  One minute passes.  Two minutes.  Thirty.

Finally, with a silent shudder and a spectacular clenching of its roots, a spec of yellow leaf begins to poke its head through the dormant bark.

Martha, her work completed, exits the room with a victorious stride, leaving the door open as a wide-eyed intern to timidly comes forward to finish the job.

Don't even try to tell me that's not the way she gets it done.

game changer

Yesterday, when I was promoting Ken Burns' "Civil War" series on Facebook, I said it had changed my life when I watched it twenty-five years ago.

Now, I'm the kind of person who believes when anyone makes a statement like that, it's pretty much mandatory that he or she explain those events.  Because, honestly, they don't happen that often, and who doesn't like a life-changing story?  Oh, we read of them DAILY on Facebook...although I doubt the veracity and monumental-ness of many of them.  I mean, finding 8,320 uses for Dawn dishwashing liquid does not qualify for "life changing" status, but apparently social media gurus tasked with creating scintillating copy have been born again by discovering that Dawn can make an effective mosquito repellent (unless you live in Minnesota...the only effective mosquito repellent there is hibernation during the summer months.)

So, here's my story.

I have a degree in history.  In the middle of my junior year I switched from a sociology major to history, pretty much because I liked the professors more and I have some kind of mutated brain that can retain and retrieve lots of dates and names and stuff that's useful in history tests.  And I can pull off some pretty convincing BS on essays. (I often say I got a BS in BS.)

When I was a student at William Woods College, we had this mini-semester at the end of the year, right after spring break, called Short Term.  Basically, folks took a four-week class from 10-12 (or if you were one of those overachievers, a class from 8-10), and the rest of the day was free to do all the things college students do all year long, except you don't have to cut classes to do it.

There were also "off campus" excursions to far away places like Savannah, Georgia and Charleston, South Carolina in courses called "The Civil War South."  Two weeks of classroom and two weeks of travel.  I was fortunate to be able to go on one of those trips and spent hours and hours walking through battlefields and antebellum homes and cities that were pristine and oozing southern charm... and pretty far removed from the carnage that took place there a hundred plus years ago.

So it was hard for me to really feel like I had gotten an intimate picture of how really devastating it was for our country.  I still had a passion for history, but it was a read-the-textbook-memorize-a-bunch-of-facts kind of passion.

Enter Ken Burns and his ground-breaking documentary in 1990.  Through the stirring narrative, journals, diaries and authentic images, some of them so graphic in nature it was difficult to comprehend, the Civil War - and its  people - went from being stories from my history textbooks to real, live, 4D people.  The dead - in a real sense - came to life for me.

It was at the end of the first episode that this metamorphosis crystallized for me...the reading of Sullivan Ballou's letter to his wife, written one week before his death at the first Battle of Bull Run.  Its eloquence, honesty and unabashed love for his wife moved me to tears and I felt the heartache that families across the young nation had to endure for four long years...still does every time I hear it (you won't be surprised to learn that I've watched the series multiple times).  If you're interested, here's a link to the text of his letter (it was edited in the film, but it's no less impacting in its abbreviated form). http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/primarysources/sullivan-ballou-letter.html?referrer=https://www.google.com/

That same year I saw "Dances With Wolves," which also gave me a more accurate picture of the travesty borne by Native Americans at the hands of our greedy, arrogant and misguided forefathers in their attempt to conquer the continent.  Again, the Lakota (and all Native Americans) became flesh and blood people, not just the subjects of Hollywood oater films - most of which portrayed the white folks as righteous crusader-like overlords and the Native Americans as uneducated, savage heathens, whose claim on their ancestral lands was illegitimate and a nuisance.

And here's where the story comes full circle...once I had established in my mind that these folks had beating hearts, eloquence of thought and speech, and a real loss of family, lands, culture, etc., I was able to make that same connection with...Jesus.

I've been a Christian all my life, but it wasn't until I saw those two films that I was able to take what had been an abstract idea in my mind and transform it into a living, breathing soul that walked the earth, teaching, loving and, ultimately, dying for my sin.

I know that's a very roundabout way of getting to a mature faith, but everyone's climb to the mountaintop is different, right?

I was humbled twenty-five years ago as the light bulbs kept blazing on in my head.  While I'm grateful to be an American, I can't say I've always been proud to be an American.  These two periods in our history are gruesome and grisly...a crossroads that my favorite "Civil War" commentator Shelby Foote says was a "hell of a crossroads."

Let's make sure we always try to choose the right path.

with this ring

We went out with our dear friends, Randy & Kim, to celebrate our anniversary last weekend and I'm just now able to sit up straight...I sprained my laughing muscles.  It was such a good time.  There's a richness to relationships that span decades and shared memories that bind us together as to make us inseparable.  Pure joy.

During the course of the evening, we talked about our early married life and I shared a story about Ron's wedding ring...

After I graduated from college, I moved to Branson, or more specifically, Point Lookout, where my dad was president of School of the Ozarks (now upgraded to College of the Ozarks).  I got a job waiting tables (my first - and last - attempt at that position) at a cute little restaurant in Branson called Harbor Lights.  It was on Lake Taneycomo, so I'm not how the "Harbor" moniker applied, but it was a decent place.  It was in town, not out on "the strip" - this was long before Branson flamed into the entertainment capital of the universe, so our customers were mainly locals.  And the occasional couple in town to drop or pick up kids from one of the Kanakuk Kamps.  These were the rich folks so we always vied for their tables.

But I digress.

Our wedding was three months away and I had to buy Ron's wedding ring.  I found one I liked and probably put it on layaway.  Every night after a shift I'd come home, pop into my parent's bedroom and dump my tips out of the pockets of my very stylish autumnal themed polyester smock onto their bed.  Then I'd count the quarters and dimes and nickles...and sometimes the bit or two pieces of "folding" money I'd managed to earn.  On a good night I'd make seven or eight bucks.  I remember once getting a $10 tip and thinking I'd hit the big time.  Ah, the age of innocence...

Finally, after three months of schlepping platters of food, ladling thick dressings on top of plain old iceberg lettuce, sneaking hush puppies when the cook wasn't looking and coming home smelling like a vat of grease, I'd made enough money to buy his ring...$125.  It was the first really big purchase of my life and I felt very accomplished.

Imagine my horror when Ron came home from work one day empty fingered.  School of the Ozarks has a mandatory work study program (in lieu of tuition) and Ron worked at the Transportation Department, punching coal.  A dirty, hot job.  He'd been washing his hands and, unbeknownst to him at the time, his ring slipped off and washed away.

I was devastated.  I'd worked so hard.  Listened to a third rate combo every weekend, doing bad covers of bad songs.  I'd had to throw a glass of water on a customer on Fourth of July because someone thought it would be great (and safe) to light sparklers inside and her chiffon blouse caught on fire.  I'd burned my fingers repeatedly splitting and smushing baked potatoes.  I'd had to try and erase the image of the cook and another waitress practically "doing it" in the walk-in.

It had taken every bit of three months to earn that money...now we had bills to pay.  We were never going to get enough money to buy another one.  I was inconsolable.

Then...miracle of miracles...the next day Ron went to work and someone had been cleaning out the drain and found his ring.  I'm sure tears were shed when he showed it to me.

It's been on his finger ever since.  Well, almost ever.  He had to take it off for his knee surgery earlier this year.  As he handed it to me I took a good look at it.  The fine row of ridges on the outside are long gone, rubbed away with wear.  It's no longer perfectly round, but has a rather oval shape.

It still has a good, heavy feel to it.  I smiled as I remembered the mountain of coins I amassed to buy it.

And then I slipped it on my third finger, next to my wedding rings, to keep it safe.

love shack

For those of you expecting a post a la "Fifty Shades of Grey," I apologize.  Although that woman has made a lot of money with her sordid accounts of sex and that single girl.  And I do have a lot of time on my hands...perhaps a Baby Boomer version..."Fifty Shades of Gray Hair."  What do you think?  If I ever were to write such a tome, believe you me, it would be LOADS better than the original.  And LOADS more realistic.

"Hey, you wanna?"
"Sure, why not?  I've got ten minutes before I have to take the foil off the casserole."

There you have it...brief, steamy and food at the end.

Back to the love shack...Ron and I commemorated our 34th wedding anniversary this weekend.  We commemorated it by me watching Ron sleep off his jet lag, having been in California all week, working 14 hour days.  We watched a little telly, went to the Farmer's Market, Ron went fishing, we both took naps.

Ok, we laid low because we're hitting the town this coming weekend with our friends, Randy and Kim, who got married exactly one week after we did in 1981.  No doubt it will be a night to remember (if I take notes.)

Ron and I often look at one another and say, "Did you ever think..."  We usually both shake our heads and act all mystified that we've been able to endure three plus decades.  I'm sure there were plenty of folks who were whispering at our wedding, "They'll be lucky to make it six months."

We met in an anthropology course at Westminster.  An 8 a.m., TTH 90 minute class, called Fossil Man.  It was easily the most boring and tedious class I've ever taken.  And I was a sociology major for the first three years of my class, so I know boring.

After class, we'd walk down the hill together, chatting, flirting.  Still, it took my roommate to set us up a year later before we actually went on a date.  After that first night, it was a whirlwind romance.  We got engaged in November, 1980 and got married the following August. I was the classic "went from my parent's house to the sorority house to my husband's house."

Neither one of us had had any independent living experience.  It was a rude awakening.  It took us several months before we realized that spending $25 every week at Wal-Mart was not smart financial planning.  Nor did we have any reliable family planning.

Thirteen months, to the day, after our wedding we were parents.  The first of many unexpected twists and turns in the Martinhouse saga.  It's a miracle that Kate can walk and talk and has all of her limbs.  We had no idea what we were doing.

Our first house was a trailer.  The bedroom was so tiny that we had to take the door off because it wouldn't shut with our double bed in it.  So we resorted to opening the bathroom door halfway; the door was the exact width of the hallway.

We went back to see it a couple of years ago and drove right by it twice before we recognized it.  It gave us great pause.  Looking back, I can't believe we lived there.  Looking forward, I can't believe we came from that to where we are now.

We've obviously had our share of challenges and conflict...emotional, relational, financial.  The first ten years were a struggle, the next ten were challenging on many fronts and the last ten have still provided us with plenty of opportunities to throw our hands in the air.  But, in the end, we still share a deep, abiding love for one another.

And the realization that, honestly, who else would have either one of us?  We've both got quirks and damaged parts.  Neither one of us would have a very good profile on match.com.

So what if our love shack isn't as hoppin' as it used to be?  I treasure the worn-out, lived-in, broken in jeans kind of feeling we have.  We've been through a bit of the refiner's fire and we're not perfect.

We're mellowed.  And we'll just keep getting better and better every year.

At least that's the plan.

westward ho

To no one's surprise I am a HUGE fan of anything that Ken Burns touches.  His documentaries could provide homeschooling moms with an entire curricula of history.  Just sit the kids down in front of the telly, press play and then head out on a week-long spa retreat.  They are that captivating (and long).

Not long ago I finished "The West" (which I may have mentioned in a previous post, but I'm too lazy to go see if I did).  Technically a "presented by" Ken Burns, the film is by Stephen Ives, but it's got Burns' fingerprints all over it.  It's a well-rounded account - the good, the bad, the ugly and the shameful means by which Manifest Destiny was embraced and carried out, no matter what the cost.  I won't go into detail here, but just Google Mountain Meadows and you'll read about a tragic event that I've never seen in a textbook about the American West. (Of course it's been a long spell since I saw a textbook on the American West.)

On my [unbearably hot] walk yesterday, I noticed a sign that indicated that the Oregon, Santa Fe and California trail passed right in front of me more than a century ago.  I said a prayer for all the men, women and children brave enough to make the arduous journey toward what they thought would be a better life.  Newly established territories and states flooded the East Coast with pamphlets promising unending acres of arable land and bounteous harvests, sweet spring waters and lots of wide open spaces.  As you might guess, dust bowls, droughts and plagues of locusts were not included in the "must see to believe" verbiage.

As sweat was trickling down by back, nose and into my eyes, I thought about those poor women who were confined to long dresses, multiple undergarments and sturdy shoes.  I was about to expire with yoga pants, a tank top and my new Asics.  Folks were made of sturdier stock back then, I suppose.  Or, more likely, they simply didn't know how hard it was going to be.

My great-grandfather was an '89er...a Norwegian immigrant running for his family's future in the Oklahoma land rush.  He staked out a 161-acre tract in what is now suburban Oklahoma City.  There's a street named after their family and my mother has very fond memories of her time spent on the farm.  I'd give anything to be able to walk through the house and soak up the history.

Because my mind tracks like a hummingbird, I was reminded of our trip to the Grand Canyon several years ago.  I was moved to tears after winding my way down the paved pathway, finally having it open up in front of me.  Grandeur beyond words.  As I stood there, looking from side to side, across and down I had to wonder...what in the world did the very first people to view this beautiful, cavernous hole think when they saw it for the first time?  Pretty sure this is what the conversation would have been...

Man: Well, looks like we'll be stopping here for the night.
Woman: Oh, come on we can go a few more...WHOA!  Well, okay then.

I mean, seriously.  That thing is big.  And rocky.  And probably full of snakes and scorpions and other buggy things.

Pretty sure I couldn't have been a pioneer.  Unless they had a tricked-out glamping Conestoga wagon.

if you can't say something nice...

...don't say anything at all.  One of the sagest pieces of advice my wisdom-filled mother taught me.  And I'd like to say that I always, always abide by it.  But I don't.  But I try.  Most of the time.

This is not one of those times when restraint will win out.

In just over a year all card-carrying voters will be heading to the polls to elect a new president.  Already the rhetoric, mudslinging and hyperbole is being vomited out of a million mouths, most of it reprehensible, inflammatory, inaccurate and completely not necessary.

I'm doing my best to ignore it, but my Facebook page is blowing up with articles about what a terrible president we currently have and there's a billionaire who's giving Sarah Palin a run for her money for saying the most ridiculous things I've heard in a long time.  LISTEN UP REPUBLICANS...if you want to have a decent chance next year, get this guy off the mic and turn your attention to some folks who have some serious political chops.  At this point, the only Donald I'd even consider casting a vote for is Donald Duck.  And he doesn't even wear pants.

Okay, rant over.  But probably not for long.  I'll try to keep it in my head and heed my mom's advice.

In other news...

I walk most days and my current favorite song is "Seventeen" by Ratatat.  I guess you could call it rap, although there aren't any words (excepting the intro Mr. Ratatat gives stating that he doesn't write any music anymore, he just kicks it from his head...).  Basically it's got a central beat and then it's just three or four chord progressions, each about a minute and a half long.  I play it about five time in a row just to keep me moving during the first part of my walk.

I like to listen to my music loud.  Probably too loud and in a few years I'll be staring blankly at people when they speak to me.  However, when I approach other walkers or lawn mowing people, I always turn it off, lest they think I've gone 'round the bend.  Once I pass them, though, it's all about the bass, baby.

I think I'm so hip.  I'm sure my kids would replace "hip" with "pathetic."

I don't really give a rip.

Lastly, I have this weird reaction whenever I see a lone shoe or sock or child's toy on the sidewalk or on the road.  I immediately think, "abduction."  Part of me wants to pick it up with a stick, bag it and tag it and take it to my local CSI station.  Because you never know...