Day 7

There is a cynic that lounges lazily in my soul, knowing everything, surprised by nothing, scoffing at mystery and wonder.  This week, I was challenged by my cousin Rita to be anti-cynical, to examine the light instead of the darkness, to consider the half-full portion of the glass rather than the empty space above it.  I was challenged to be thankful.

Over six days, I avoided the obvious; the “stuff” I’ve accumulated: the abundance of food, the roof over my head, the clothes, and the toys.  Not to diminish these things, because I am truly grateful for them… humbled even, under the realization that most people around the globe own much less than I do.  Instead I focused my gratitude on the people who have enriched my life.

As I thought about each person; my wife, daughters, parents, siblings, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, nephews, nieces, friends, church family, theatre family, teachers and more; I was struck by the vastness of my treasures.  I felt like Jimmy Stewart’s character at the end of It’s a Wonderful Life, when his brother raises a glass and toasts “to George Bailey, the richest man in town.”

But I was perplexed by another thought as well.  In recognizing the enormity of my blessings, I felt the need to be thankful.  And as much as I was thankful to each person in the story of my life, I also realized I was thankful for them.  And if this is true, to whom do I express my thanks?  The Universe? My Lucky Stars? Good Fortune?  Karma?  None of those answers satisfied me.  Thanks must be uttered to a person.

And so I say it.  I say “Thank you God, for all your blessings, this light that I see shining in the darkness.  Thank you also for the darkness, because in the trials and grief your blessings shine all the brighter.  And thank you for love, God.  That was your best idea yet.”

And the cynic in my soul has nothing to say in response.

Looking Back at the Finish Line

It’s been a few weeks since our $2 a day challenge.  In case you missed it and are in too much of a hurry to go back and read about it in my previous three blog posts, my wife Jenny, my daughter Meredith and I lived for five days with a food budget of $2 per day per person. 

I was telling a friend about it shortly after we finished.  I promised I wouldn’t mention his name in this space nor give you any details about him, because you might know him (especially if you go to my church).  He looked down at me from his four-inch height advantage for a second, smiled, and shook his head.

“Please don’t take this the wrong way,” he said, “but in Nigeria we have a saying: ‘White people do the darndest things.’”

When I looked at our project from his perspective, I had to agree.  There are relatively few white people in Nigeria.  How few?  According to that bastion of knowledge known as wiki.answers.com, “out of 150 million people in Nigeria the white population is only 50 thousand.”  I expect that this 0.0001 percent would be quite affluent compared with most of the rest of the population.  I can only imagine how our project would look to someone in financial trouble.  It would seem like we were treating poverty as if it was a game.

But I’m glad we did it.  Maybe it was a game, but it was also an education, and I learned many important lessons.

So here’s my list of stuff I learned:

1)      I think about food a lot.

I think about what we are going to eat for dinner.  I go to sleep anticipating what I will have for breakfast.  In the middle of the day I think about what snacks I can have.  Food for me is not about nourishment.  It’s about entertainment.

2)      I trade money for time and comfort.

It’s hard work to eat on a tight budget.  It’s so much easier to use frozen or convenient foods, or to simply “punt” (as Jenny puts it) and head to the local fast food chain.  My friend Rob told me in response to my blog post titled "Two Dollars a Day" that since they moved to a more rural location, they save a lot of money by raising their own food.  I really admire that, because raising chickens or goats or growing a garden is hard work.  Unfortunately for many, that simply is not an option.  And sometimes, our schedules are so hectic with work and family that we cannot afford the time to eat more simply.  On the other hand, planting a fruit tree or a tomato bush might be a great investment.

3)      You can eat pretty well and healthily for $2 a day, but you need to plan very carefully.

In fact, Jenny planned out our menu so carefully that when the five days were over, the peanut butter jar and the sugar bowl were empty, the strawberry jam and the milk were gone, and we only had a few spare pieces of celery and a slice or two of bread leftover.  That was it.  If it had been my responsibility and not Jenny’s, we probably wouldn’t have made it.  Most families aren’t lucky enough to have a Jenny.

4)      You can eat pretty well and healthily for $2, but you will probably feel hungry.

Portions were smaller than what we were used to, and there was not a lot of protein to give us a full feeling.  I was certainly looking forward to the end of the week.

5)      When your food budget is extremely limited, your family is only one minor disaster away from going hungry.

On the last day of our experiment, the coffee maker died.  As I made our morning brew by boiling water on the stove and pouring it manually through the filter, I imagined how a family struggling to make ends meet would deal with a similar situation.  I realized that most of the appliances I have, like the coffee maker, are non-essential.  But if the stove had gone out, or the refrigerator had died, the consequences would have been dire.  A week or so after our experiment, we had an entire gallon of milk go sour.  I poured it into the sink and was grateful that Jenny had purchased a spare gallon.  I also took note that if it had happened during our challenge, I would have been watching ten percent of my food budget literally go down the drain.    

6)      The poorest families throughout the world get by on much less than $2 a day for food.

It was challenging enough to have a food budget of $2 a day.  In reality, the poorest of the poor survive on $2 a day total.  That covers food, clothing, transportation, housing…everything.  To make matters worse, that statistic comes from Australia.  Two dollars in Australian currency converts to about $1.25.  That is not a challenge I am ready or willing to try.

7)      It doesn’t take much to make a huge difference for a hungry family.

That’s the good news.  For a family just scraping by, something as simple as a can of peaches could be a source of unimaginable joy.  If you are have enough money to buy food for you and your family, be thankful.  If you have more than enough, be generous.  Give to your local food bank or to an organization that fights hunger worldwide.

On Friday, when it was all over, Jenny took the amount of money we had saved over the week, put it on a grocery store gift card, and handed it to Pastor Craig.  He knew of at least one family that could use it.

But that same night, Jenny, Meredith and I also celebrated by bringing in Chinese food.  We almost spent more on that one meal than we had on food for the entire week.

Tighter Belts

It’s time to tighten our belts.

Jenny pulled out her calculator yesterday.  It’s one of those extra fancy ones that math teachers use...the kind where they put made-up symbols on the keys—symbols that have nothing to do with actual math.  I think math people put them there to frighten people like me so that we don’t borrow their calculators.

But it’s a big, scary calculator and big scary calculators don’t lie.  They give you the cold hard truth, and the cold hard truth was that we were over budget.

I know how it happened.  When Jenny came home from Winco on Saturday we realized we were under budget, and we had almost an entire dollar-fifty to blow on whatever we wanted.  We felt like we were living life high on the hog.¹  I suggested that we splurge and buy (from ourselves, since they we already in the fridge) some oranges to supplement our lunches and give a little boost to our vitamin C.  Everyone got to have one orange a day…those little ones that are called “Cuties,” named after famed horticulturalist Thomas Cutie.²

Unfortunately, the Cuties were a little more expensive than we realized.  When Jenny ran the numbers yesterday, she announced that we had a sixty-seven cent deficit.  When you have a budget of thirty dollars for three people for five days, sixty-seven cents is pretty big.  I know it’s over two percent, and I don’t even have a big scary calculator.  While I was tempted to just ignore it, I realized that some families would not have that luxury.  If they were to run out of food, they just wouldn’t eat.

We decided to cut back by four oranges.  Jenny and I both gave up ours for the last two days (Meredith, being a growing girl, did not have to endure this extra hardship).  It gave us a four cent surplus.³

Even with that, it’s going to be a close thing.  I think we have just enough milk.  The jars of peanut butter and jelly will definitely be empty by Friday.  There might be a spare crust of the third loaf of homemade bread, but not much more than that.  Even the sugar bowl is looking empty.

I’m typing this at a school where I just gave an assembly.  The assemblies are done and I am waiting for a meeting with the principal.  As I am sitting here in the cafeteria, typing away, the lunch lady just offered me an apple.  At first I refused because it felt like cheating, but I changed my mind.  After all, it was free. 

I’ve never been more excited about having an apple.  It’s funny how such a little thing feels like a big deal.  I can't even describe how grateful I am for it.   

She said it was a Gala variety apple.  It’s green and red, and somewhat small.  Some might even say it was cute.

I think it more than makes up for the orange.

Endnotes

¹ But we weren’t, since living high on the hog is illegal in all states except Washington and Colorado.

² Not really.  It’s because they’re adorable.

³ I told Jenny she could buy another bay leaf.

Fourteen To Go

The first meal is under our belts.

Well, not quite under.  That won’t actually happen for another twelve hours or so.  Maybe that’s more than you wanted to know.  I suppose that was a bad choice for an opening metaphor.  Let me try again….

We had our first meal of our $2-a-day experiment.  We started today, Sunday, and we will be done after lunch on Friday.  So far, so good.

I shouldn’t be surprised.  Jenny has never made anything that tasted bad, unless you count that one time, early in our marriage, when she accidentally used sweetened condensed milk instead of regular evaporated milk to make Alfredo sauce, leaving us with ravioli covered in what really amounted to a dessert topping.

But like I said, that was early in our marriage.  Jenny makes amazing meals, all from scratch.  Meatloaf, twice-baked potatoes, flank steak tornadoes, Thai chicken salad, homemade spaghetti sauce, chili, patty melts with mushrooms sautéed in stout, oven-fried chicken marinated in buttermilk, fish tacos with a mango salsa…I could go on and on and on, but I’m starting to get hungry again.

She’s taken the $2 challenge very seriously.  She even had me weigh out the amount of coffee needed to brew a pot so she could calculate the cost (about forty cents).  She left for Winco Saturday morning with her jaw set, clutching her reusable grocery bags—a woman on a mission.  She returned a couple hours later, her eyes glowing with triumph.  She was under budget by a little more than a dollar.

“They must have thought I was a nutcase,” she said.  I understood that to mean that she was talking to herself in the grocery aisles, but she is always talking to herself in the grocery aisles.  What she actually meant was that she had gone armed with a set of measuring spoons, carefully measuring out and weighing things from the bulk bins, like a teaspoon of yeast.  What she actually meant was that she had purchased one bay leaf.  One.  The cashier couldn’t even get it to register on the scale at the checkout, so she just charged Jenny four cents.

“She ripped you off,” I said.

The first thing she made was a loaf of no-knead bread, which we plan to use for peanut-butter sandwiches for our lunches.  She found the recipe online.  Total hands-on time to make is less than half-an-hour, but it has to rise over a period of eighteen hours, so don’t think you can just throw it together right before dinner.  The first attempt was a little flat, but we have high hopes for the recipe with modifications Jenny has already implemented for Batch #2.  The interior was soft and the crust was crispy.  Total cost, thirty-three cents.

For Sunday dinner she made a lentil stew, with carrots, celery, tomato, and onion, all served over rice.  I thought it was delicious.  Meredith said she wouldn’t ask for it again, but she ate it all, mainly because we said we would let her taste the homemade bread if she cleaned her plate.  Meredith’s objections aside, it was filling, nutritious and tasty.  Not only that, we have two containers leftover for lunch on Monday (for me and Jenny.  Meredith wanted peanut butter and jelly).  Total cost, just shy of two dollars.

I’m not sure if Jenny has used the bay leaf yet.

Two Dollars a Day

Lately I’ve been worried about what I am going to eat.

I know what you’re thinking.  You’re saying to yourself, “But Kevin, isn’t that in direct violation to Jesus’ command in Matthew 6:25, specifically the part wherein he says, as translated by the New International Version, ‘do not worry about your life, what you will eat?’” ¹   

To which I respond, “Yes, you are absolutely correct.” ²

Jenny and I had been talking about poverty a couple weeks ago, and she mentioned that some of the poorest people in the world survive on two dollars worth of food per person per day.  I believe it was my suggestion that we should try that for a workweek, so I have nobody to blame but myself.  Jenny readily agreed to the idea.  Anneka, our older daughter, thought it was brilliant, but it should also be pointed out that she is away at college, so during those five days she can eat as many made-to-order sandwiches that she can fit on a cafeteria tray.  Meredith, our younger daughter who lives at home, had no say in the matter.

I’m hoping that this little exercise will help us understand the plight of the poor and that we will be able to empathize a bit more with them.  Too often, we hear about the stereotype of the lazy person on welfare, watching daytime television and stuffing their faces with bonbons.  Although the food stamp program in our country provides people with $4 a day, I doubt it’s enough to afford bonbons. 

Two dollars a day.  Sixty-seven cents a meal.   What can we eat for that?  Think about what you spend on food and drink.  A latte at Starbucks would wipe out two day’s worth of your budget.  A Monster Energy Drink would need to get you through almost a day-and-a-half.  The McDonald’s “Value Menu” would get you two items.  Can you imagine making a cheeseburger and fries get you through a twenty-four hour period?

No, of course fast-food restaurants and expensive energy drinks are out of the question, as would be much of the little treats many of us enjoy.  A half-cup of ice cream would be about twenty-five cents, but who can stop at half a cup?  Even a can of Coke, purchased on sale, would be out of my price range, especially when you consider it has less nutritional value than a Snicker’s Bar.  I’m especially concerned that my morning cup of coffee might be out of reach.  A glass of wine with dinner?  Don’t make me laugh.

For that matter, things we consider staples, like meat, and fresh fruits and vegetables might be too expensive for our new week-long budget.  I imagine we will be eating a lot of rice, potatoes and beans.³ Eggs, if purchased on sale, might be on the menu, but at nearly $4 a gallon, we’ll have to seriously consider whether we can afford milk.

To make the challenge more realistic, we are not allowing ourselves to use things that are already in our pantry.  For example, I was looking up a recipe for baked beans that called for, among other things, a half-cup of ketchup.  To have this as a meal, we would need to determine how much that ketchup would cost us, even though we already have a bottle in our fridge.  I’ve figured it out to be about thirty-two cents for that half-cup.  That’s quite a chunk of change when you’re trying to make a two-dollar meal for three people.

So, I’m worried about what I’m going to eat, but not in the way Jesus was thinking about.  I worry about whether or not the food will be delicious.  See, I know that once the workweek is over I can go back to a more relaxed budget. 

Unlike most of the world’s poor, I’m not concerned about whether I will have enough food to keep me healthy, or just alive.

I imagine it will be an interesting week.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

ENDNOTES 

¹ Right?

² But don’t be such a smartypants about your biblical knowledge.

³ I apologize in advance to those who will be forced to spend time with me in close quarters.

A Cool Billion

I recently fell into a billion dollars.

Of course I haven’t gotten it yet.  There are still a couple of hoops to jump through.  I expect I will need to do some paperwork and there will probably be a small ceremony.  That and I need to correctly pick the outcome of sixty-three basketball games, but that part should be pretty easy.

I was on a car trip from Phoenix back to the Bay Area yesterday, so I had a lot of time to think about what I was going to do with the money.  A billion dollars has the potential of changing a person, and I don’t really want that.  I don’t want to be the kind of guy who feels like he needs a bigger house, or lots of fancy cars, or a boat, or a jetpack just because I’ve gotten a few extra bucks.  I imagine it has the potential to affect your relationships as well…people expecting me to pick up the tab when we go to In-N-Out…that sort of thing.  Then of course I expect to be bombarded by requests from total strangers seeking help, or the mafia making "propositions."  It’s all too much.

So, I know you will think I’m crazy, but I’ve decided to give it all away.

OK, most of it.  I'll probably set up a trust fund for the girls.   Of course, it would be irresponsible of me to ignore any future children of theirs, so I’d better set one up for potential grandkids as well.  Maybe I’ll set some aside for our retirement.  I should buy my dad something nice.  He could probably use a decent car.  Still, even if I save just one percent of it for me and my family, I’ll have a lot left over to play with.

I know that Jenny will want to tithe on it…that is, give ten percent to the church.  I wonder how Pastor Craig will feel when he gets the check for one-hundred million dollars in the offering plate. The church's parking lot should be redone, but beyond that I think the bulk of it should go to helping the homeless, supporting the local schools, things like that.  Pastor Craig is the kind of guy you can trust to do the right thing with a hundred million.  I just hope they don’t decide they need a new building.  I certainly don’t want them to name anything after me.  Maybe I’d better give it anonymously, in small bills. 

While I’m throwing around a hundred million, I might as well give the same amount to some of my favorite charities. World Vision does good work with the poor around the globe.  One dollar feeds one child for one day, so I could feed a hundred million children for a day, or a million children for a hundred days, or one child for a hundred million days.

Eden Reforestation plants trees at a cost of only ten cents per tree.  The guys who founded it had a goal to plant a million trees in their lifetime, but ten years after Eden’s inception they have reached sixty-million and counting. Their organization fights poverty, slavery, and global warming all at once.  One hundred million dollars will plant a billion trees.  I hope there will be room left on the planet for people.

By the way, just because I’m laying out a hundred mil on these charities doesn’t mean you can now stop supporting them.  Even poor folk like you can still have a great impact.  Remember the widow’s mite.

I still have a lot of money left.  Maybe I’ll buy the Youth Theatre Company a new theater.  State of the art.  Green technology.  I imagine ten million would be plenty.  I don’t want them to name it after me or anything.  Perhaps a small plaque, but that's all.

Maybe I’ll buy a youth camp…fix it up real nice.  What would a camp cost?  Fifteen million?  Twenty?  Chump change.  I could hire my friends Steve and Karen to run it.  I wouldn’t name it after me or anything, but I could have them set aside a cabin for me and my family.  We’d pay to use it of course.  It’s not like cash would be a problem. 

But now I’m starting to worry.  Is ten million for my family too much?  I don’t want this money to change us.

As we motored up I-5 through California’s Central Valley, I laid out my plans to Jenny.  She was quiet for a moment.

Then she said, “Tell me again why we don’t need a bigger house.”

See what I mean?

Dudes' Ride

I was the one who called for the “Dudes' Ride.”

You see, when you take a group of theater students on a competition trip that includes a visit to Disneyland, you have to carve out time for the guys to ride at least one time together.  Youth Theatre Company’s Teen Theatre has only three boys this year, surrounded by sixteen girls.  There are four boys if you include me, their musical director, but then you would have to also include Rachel and Chelsea who make up the rest of the staff, so adding me to the count only deepens the boy deficit.  Also, I am rapidly approaching fifty years old, so it must be pointed out that I am, technically, not a boy. 

Andy started it.  Just days before our trip, our lanky, blonde-haired crooner (who has been occasionally compared to a young Frank Sinatra) posted on the YTC Facebook page the following poignant (and somewhat flirtatious) request:  “Andy has never been on California Screaming (roller coaster).  Andy would like to go on California Screaming.  Andy needs someone to go on it with him.  If you think you are a worthy competitor, please sign your name below.  Thank you.”  

This of course set off a torrent of replies from the girls.  As the tsunami of messages and comments inundated my Facebook feed, I felt overwhelmed, like a driver of a VW bug unwittingly trapped in a flash flood.  I rolled down the window of opportunity, desperately typed “I call a Dude’s Ride” and leaped for higher ground.

And yet, during the waning hours of the second (and last) day in the park, the Dude’s Ride had not yet materialized.   This is to be expected, due to the low supply of guys coupled with high demand that was only exacerbated by our smoldering good looks and Clooney-esque wittiness.  I think with all the Disneyland excitement, the idea had  slipped my mind, and since we were all scattered around the park, it looked like it just might not happen.  

I say it slipped my mind, but that’s not exactly accurate.  I hadn’t forgotten it, but because I am (technically) not a boy, this means that I carry certain responsibilities.  My thoughts kept darting back to the Bay Area; to my family at home, and to chores that needed to be done, and to work from my small business that remained unfinished.  Even though most of these were almost four-hundred miles away, they were real, just as real as the backpack slung over my right shoulder.  They still had the power to crowd out things like Dudes’ Rides and make them seem less important than they really are.

But then, by some miracle, every one of the students and staff were together, wending our way through the maze that is the line to the Indiana Jones Adventure ride.  Tate, a freshman (who has been occasionally compared to a young Rob Lowe) turned to me, with a look of dawning realization on his face.  “We still have to do the Dudes’ Ride!” he exclaimed.

“Yeah!  When should we do it?” I asked.

“Let’s do it now!” he answered.  He turned to Andy and Soly.  “Hey guys, let’s make this the Dudes’ Ride!”

“DUDES’ RIDE!” bellowed Soly (who has been occasionally compared to a real-life version of “Aladdin” from the Disney animated film).  “DUDES’ RIDE!” Andy and Tate and I echoed, our fists in the air.  We exchanged high fives and wiped off the testosterone that had beaded up on our brows.

For the benefit of those of you who have never ridden it, the Indiana Jones Adventure ride is basically a full-sized version of the slot cars kids used to race back in the 70's.  People board what the designers of the ride have dubbed an “Enhanced Motion Vehicle,” a twelve-passenger cart that looks like a convertible Humvee troop-carrier with the top down, pulled along a slotted track.  Motion simulation technology gives the rider a jerky journey through a cavernous room designed to resemble a primitive subterranean temple as the "car" lurches past projected and animatronic perils.  

I (who have been occasionally compared to a middle-aged Abraham Lincoln) folded myself into one of the middle seats of the back row, stuffed my backpack beneath it, and buckled myself in between Soly and Tate.  Eight girls from our group occupied the remaining two rows, but our focus was not on them.  This was the Dudes' Ride.

We were only fifteen seconds into our journey when all hell broke loose.  Despite repeated warnings all along the ride’s queue, somebody looked into the eyes of the huge idol guarding the temple gates, if you can imagine someone doing such a thing.  I have no idea who did it.  I don’t want to know.  I can assure you that it wasn’t one of the Dudes.

“Foolish mortals,” a recorded voice scolded, “you looked into my eyes!  Your path now leads to the Gates of Doom!”  Lights inside the idol’s eyes flickered.

“Why?!  Why did you look?!” we shouted to the girls, but they just ignored us.  Obviously, they felt guilty.

The cart veered suddenly through a set-piece designed to resemble a crumbling corridor.  We paused beside an Indiana Jones mannequin, propped up to look like he was trying to hold the “Gates of Doom” closed while some great “evil” pressed from the other side.  A recording of Harrison Ford barked some orders at us and the mannequin waved its plastic hand toward a staircase.  

The vehicle rumbled forward, hydraulics in its suspension making it feel like we were bouncing up the stairs.  We then barreled through a corridor lined with impaled fake skeletons.  A projection gave the illusion that our headlights shined on walls that were writhing with thousands of beetles.  The car lingered for a moment.  Obviously the ride’s creators wanted to give us time to take in the grossness of it before we sped forward.

Then we found ourselves on a rickety bridge spanning a huge lava-filled chasm.  To one side, the idol’s face loomed, green light shooting from its eyes toward the span.  The cart’s hydraulic system rocked us back and forth.

“Hit the gas!” shouted the Dudes.  “HIT THE GAS!”

And suddenly, I am no longer a forty-eight year old musical director with a small business and a mortgage and a family.  No longer a father or husband; no longer the son of an ailing mother; no longer sharing the responsibility of taking care of group of high school theatre students.  

I’m seven years old.  

I’m the same boy who would crouch behind a neighbor’s low fence with my friends as we fought off hordes of robbers or Nazis or pirates or (God forgive us) Apache warriors.  The same boy who would swing at a tennis ball with a beat-up wooden bat and imagine hitting the home run that sends the Oakland A’s to the World Series; the same boy who could be Speed Racer even if his Mach Five was a just beat up yellow bike with a banana seat; the same boy who would make a map that lead to buried treasure in the backyard, even if the treasure was just a dime in a cardboard box.

And I am no longer on a ride at Disneyland, and this is no “Enhanced Motion Vehicle.”  I am careering through the Temple of the Forbidden Eye in an all-terrain troop transport.

The car lurches forward over the bridge, just in time.  But we aren’t safe.  My skin crawls at the sight before us.  A giant cobra, at least a hundred feet long and wider than a car tire, looms up to our right, threatening to devour Tate and me in one gulp.  We scream and duck down as the car speeds forward, just as the snake strikes.

Suddenly the car stalls at the end of a dark corridor lined by stone warriors.  “Oh no,” murmurs Soly.  Then he shouts “Get down!  GET DOWN!”  The snake is somewhere behind us, so the car sputters forward, its tires tripping stone triggers on the floor.  I press my forehead against my knees and cover my head with my arms.  Poison darts ruffle my hair as they whiz past.  I can hear other darts smack against the side of our transport.  We arrive at the other side.

“Is everyone all right?” I ask.  Nobody answers, but they are all moving.  I take that as a good sign.

Then we see him.  Indiana Jones.  THE Indiana Jones!  He clings to a vine, dangling directly over our truck.  “Indy!” we shout to him.  Of course, out there, in the real world topside of the Temple, we would call him “Dr. Jones,” but the immediate danger has brought us closer, and he feels like a friend.

“Let go!” we shout, “We’ll catch you!”  We reach to him.  He will drop down amongst us and we will all speed to safety.

But it’s not to be.  Behind him, the dim light reveals a massive boulder, carved perfectly round, rolling towards us.  We’ve all been the victim of a trap.  There’s no hope.  All of us…Indiana Jones, the car, the girls, the Dudes…are about to be flattened like a ladybug beneath a bowling ball.

But then the floor beneath the wheels of our transport shudders, then gives way.  We scream as we drop to our fate…only to find ourselves in a deeper level of the cave system.  We can only assume that the boulder has harmlessly and miraculously rolled over the channel that we just fell through. 

But Indy?  Where’s Indy?

We careen around a corner as the tunnel winds around itself in a tight coil and there he is, standing beside the giant boulder, his whip coiled in his hand.  He’s bathed in tree-diffused sunlight pouring through a massive whole in the cavern’s roof.  “Next time,” he moans, “you’re on your own.”

And then it’s over.  The famous “Indy’s March” from the movies blares triumphantly as the vehicle rolls to a stop.

Seven-year-old Kevin exchanges high-fives with the Dudes.  Andy takes a quick selfie of all of us.  We are warriors, survivors, comrades-at-arms.

Somewhere in the exit tunnel, sauntering along with my backpack bouncing against my spine, I realized I was myself again.  At some point, I had shrugged the burdens of my forty-eight-year-old life back onto my shoulders…husband, father, son, brother, employee, business owner, and most immediately, chaperon to a gaggle of energetic theater students.  Burdens, yes, but they felt good and right.  I wouldn’t trade them for anything in the world. 

Yet I was tempted to look back, to see if the seven-year-old me was there, tagging behind.  I didn’t of course. 

But it’s good to know that he’s still around, just in case I need him.

The Dudes: Tate (top with blue shirt), Me, Soly (far right), and Andy (bottom).  (And that's Leah in the white shirt.  I didn't include her in the blog...yet.)

Matterhorn

They’ve changed the Matterhorn.

No, I’m not talking about the one in the Alps.  I’m speaking of the more famous one, the one in Disneyland.

There’s a good chance you might not notice, even if you are old enough to remember.  The mountain still dominates the skyline of the park.  Bobsleds still race through it, jostling and jarring passengers.  Riders are still startled by sudden appearances of the "Abdominal" Snowman, named for his envy-inducing six-pack. 

But the bobsleds themselves are not the same.  Each passenger gets his or her own seat.  It used to be, back in the olden days, you would straddle a bench.   The person in the rear of the sled had a backrest to lean on, but another rider sharing the cart had to nestle themselves between the rear passenger’s knees. There used to be signage that encouraged larger riders to sit in back, because the forces of acceleration and gravity would drive the forward rider snugly against the body of the rear rider.  This was a serious problem if, say, you were placed on the ride with a stranger who prioritized getting into the park early over showering.

On the other hand, it was an excellent ride if you were sharing the Disney experience with someone you didn’t mind getting close to.  This was the situation I found myself in a little over twenty-five years ago.  She wore no make-up, but she was so beautiful, with her gorgeous green eyes shining and her brown hair falling in loose curls.  As we strolled from ride to ride, she would smile or laugh with her pretty little mouth, and my heart would skip a beat.  There were half-a-dozen reasons I could never pursue a relationship with her, not the least of which being that I didn’t know if she even liked me. 

But then we rode the Matterhorn.

I sat in the back, and she sat in front.  The bobsled clickety-clacked up the first incline and gravity pressed her against my chest.  Her hair smelled sweet.  We plunged downhill and then up again, laughing and whooping, the wind bringing tears to our eyes.  We screamed when the Abominable Snowman leapt out at us, and then we laughed again.  Suddenly, it was over.  The bobsled came back to where we’d begun and shuddered to a halt. 

It was then that she did it. 

She reached her right hand across her body, gently gripped my left forearm, and squeezed.

It was twenty-five years ago, but any time I want I can relive that moment as if it happened yesterday; my heart racing, the thrill crackling through my soul like a Midwestern electrical storm.  And I also remember the sudden feeling of dismay when the Half-a-Dozen Reasons reminded me of their presence, frowning down at me like angry giants.

But hope still flickered.  There weren’t a half-a-dozen reasons.  There now was one less.

I knew.

Commercially Zoned

Lately I have been in the market for a cheese press.

Just to be clear, I do not want to buy a cheese press, nor do I want to own a cheese press.  I’m not exactly sure what a cheese press does or why someone would even want a cheese press, except for maybe the people at Tillamook, and they probably already have one.  Nevertheless, I have been shopping for cheese presses for several months.

I started this little project after ordering a pair of shoes online.  Afterwards, I went to check out my Facebook page and there on the right-hand column was an advertisement for the shoes I just bought.  Instead of dwelling on how creepy it was to have someone or something peering over my virtual shoulder while I surfed the web, I decided to make a little game for myself.  My goal is to have an advertisement pop up offering me a sale on something ridiculous, something absurd, something nobody in their right mind would ever want to own.  I chose a cheese press.  (I apologize to any closet cheese-making friends that I have.  Cheese-making is a wonderful hobby and I hope it brings joy and fulfillment to you and your family for generations to come).  I’ve done Google searches on “cheese press” and priced them on Amazon.  It was a banner day (December 20^th, 2013) when I got an advertisement for a cheese making kit on my Facebook page.  It’s not the same thing as a cheese press, but I’m making progress.

Although the cheese press ad still eludes me, I am a little disturbed by the advertisements that I do find on my Facebook page.  Obviously, something convinced them that I am in need of some sort of hormone supplement that will balloon my muscles to the size of bean-bag chairs.  Perhaps someone is secretly observing my physique through my laptop camera.  Nevertheless, it’s always so much worse when I see an ad for something I that I have been  browsing for.  It happened again this Christmas as I was shopping for a camera for Jenny.  There it was, a Canon Rebel, practically begging me to click on it.  I know the advertisers expected me to feel pleased that they were sensitive to my needs. Instead, the hairs on the back of my neck went up.  I felt like I was a character in a horror movie.

I don’t like the idea that advertisers are stalking me like a lioness creeping up behind a baby zebra.  I find the old-fashioned advertising annoying enough, like when I’m in my car listening to the radio.  There’s one that starts out with

“When opportunity knocks, you sit up and take notice.  When opportunity knocks again, you get on the phone and make the call!”

I can’t remember the rest of the commercial because I’m always thinking Really?  That’s what we do when someone knocks?

DISPATCHER:  911 emergency, how may I help you?

ME:  (whispering frantically) There’s someone knocking at my door.  I think it’s                                  opportunity.

DISPATCHER:  Have they knocked more than once?

ME:  Yes.  That’s why I got on the phone and made the call.

DISPATCHER:  Stay calm.  What did you do the first time they knocked?

ME:  I sat up and took notice.

DISPATCHER:  We’ll send somebody out right away.

But some commercials go beyond annoying, pushing the envelope to the point where I feel like ripping my ears off.    If you have listened to radio at all, you probably have heard some.  I am about to discuss one of them, so to those of you who are radio listeners, please heed the following:

WARNING

I AM ABOUT TO PROVIDE THE LYRICS TO THE MOST ANNOYING COMMERCIAL JINGLE IN THE WORLD.  THIS SONG HAS BEEN KNOWN TO RAISE THE SUICIDE RATE OF LABORATORY RATS AND IS CONSIDERED TO BE “WEAPONS GRADE” BY THE U.S. MILITARY.  JUST READING THE LYRICS WILL CAUSE IT TO EMBED ITSELF IN YOUR BRAIN AND YOU WILL HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO ATTEMPT TO DRIVE IT AWAY BY LISTENING TO ANOTHER SONG BUT THIS WILL NOT WORK UNLESS THE NEW SONG IS EQUALLY ANNOYING, LIKE “MANIC MONDAY” BY THE BANGLES.  WE ADVISE YOU TO STOP READING THIS BLOG IMMEDIATELY AND NAVIGATE TO THIS VIDEO OF A BABY ATTEMPTING TO WALK ON ICE FOR THE FIRST TIME:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Eg5-4Pn444

THANK YOU.

There’s this one commercial for a charity organization called KARS-4-KIDS.  It starts with a high-hat cymbal being played with a country swing….tsss-t-t-tsss-t-t-…followed by a guitar.  Then a child’s voice begins to bleat out the melody:

One-eight-seven-seven Kars-4-Kids!

K-A-R-S Kars-4-Kids!

One-eight-seven-seven Kars-4-Kids!

Do-NATE your car today!

Then a man’s voice sings the same thing.  Then the man and the child begin to sing together.  Perhaps other things happen later in the commercial, like the man and the child singing alternate words in the song, or singing the song in Spanish.  I don’t know, because I’ve never made it to the end of the commercial.  I always turn the radio off before then.

It’s gotten to the point where I can have the radio silenced by the second tsss on the high-hat.  My hand darts off the steering wheel almost of its own accord with the quickness and agility of a striking cobra.  I like to think that this represents a tiny evolutionary advancement that will ensure the survival of my offspring long into the future, much like fish who developed lungs and legs so they could live on land and escape whatever toxicity that lurked in the water, quite likely some prehistoric version of a Kars-4-Kids commercial.

I understand that advertising brings in revenue, and that the amount that companies pay corresponds to how many people are listening or watching or browsing.  So I wonder how the program managers at radio stations would feel to know that when certain radio commercials come on I actually turn off the radio.  Perhaps if I told them that, they would stop playing those commercials.  Of course, they would then want to find out what kind of things I might actually buy.

If they ask, I plan to tell them I’m shopping for a cheese press.

(Update:  Today, January 27, 2014, the day I finished this blog, I found a cheese-press ad on my Facebook page.  My life is complete.)

Never Fails

My mom hated the holidays and loved them. 

She hated the stress.  If Mom had been a Super Hero, her Super Power would have been “worry.”  There was no problem so big that she could not train her anxiety onto it with laser-like intensity, and fret it into submission.  Of course, nothing she worried about ever happened, which only proved how effective her worry was.  She didn’t like to worry, or even choose to worry.  In some ways, she had no control over it, in the same way that Bruce Banner has no control over the anger which transforms him into the Hulk. 

So, even though every year she promised that “this holiday would be different” and that she was going to relax and “give everything to the Lord,” she would still, never fail, worry about everything…would people be happy with their presents?  Would the food taste good?  Would the decorations be up in time?  Would all the Christmas cookies get baked?

But she loved the holidays too.  One of the things she loved most was having us all together.  It doesn’t happen often anymore, now that my sister Diane lives in Phoenix with her husband Dale, and my brother Brian and his wife Maria have settled down in Orlando with their dental practice.   So during the holidays, Mom treasured having us all under the same roof again, sitting around a dining room table that had been expanded thanks to an entire sheet of plywood.  She loved cuddling or playing board games or making puzzles with her eight grandchildren.  She loved having Diane make her famous frosted sugar cookies.  She loved reminiscing over the scrapbooks that Jenny creates.  She loved having my brother Todd and his wife Tami bring in a big pot of soup so she wouldn’t have to cook, or better yet, suggest that we order out for Chinese food from her favorite restaurant.  Her eyes would light up and she would grin.  “Gooooood i-DEE-ah!” she would say in a silly voice that mimicked a character in some movie she had enjoyed but I hadn’t seen.   

And more than anything, she loved the time after the evening meal was done and the dishes were cleared away and we played a Rummy-style card game we call “Tick.”   As we dealt hand after hand we would recall funny stories and laugh.  She won more than any of us.

This last year, 2013, we had fifteen of us at the house for one of our celebrations (due to complicated schedules we celebrated two Christmases.)  Fifteen of us at the house, but we only set the table for fourteen.  Mom can’t sit at the table anymore.  She takes her meals in her recliner, my dad holding a cup to her lips and coaxing her to drink.  It had been a good day for her.  She had taken in all of her breakfast smoothie and most of her lunch one. 

When someone you love has Alzheimer’s disease, you are constantly adjusting your definition of a “good day.”

It used to be a good day when she could get through an entire game of Tick, even though she never won anymore.  Then it was a good day if I could convince her that, yes, this was the house she had lived in for the past fifty years and not a new one.  Then, a good day meant that we had gone on a walk or taken a drive together as she clung to my hand.  Eventually, a good day meant that she had remembered my name, and then it meant that she had strung some words together in a coherent sentence.  About a year ago, it was a good day when I would kiss her wrinkled cheek, then press my cheek against her lips and receive a kiss in return.  A few months ago, a good day meant I was able to meet her gaze and get her to smile, recognizing that there was a friendly face in front of her, even if she had no idea who that face belonged to. 

We don’t have any of those kinds of “good days” anymore.

We sat at the table, waiting to start the meal.  The food smelled delicious, and the dining room was crackling with conversation and laughter and memories.  My dad’s chair was still vacant, which meant that he was tending her, and we wouldn’t start without him.  I rose from my seat and walked down the dark hallway to see if I could offer some assistance…not because he needed it, but because it might allow us to start the meal sooner.  Other than someone to sit with her while he runs an errand every few days, Dad doesn’t need any help.  We’ve talked about it several times, but he has always insisted on taking care of her his way.  An engineer’s way.  So he keeps his schedules and meticulously records her intake and output.  He’s built ramps so he can wheel her to any part of the house.  He carefully checks for bedsores.  He records her weight.  Anyone else—anyone less heroic—would have had her in a home by now.

I knock lightly on the door to the bedroom.  “We’re almost ready!” he calls.   I push the door open.  She sits perched on the edge of her hospital bed, staring blankly, her arms curled up against her chest.  He’s put socks on her hands to keep her warm.  Mittens are too hard to get on and off.  “I just need to get her into her wheelchair,” says Dad.  He’s wearing a special weight belt he designed and built to keep his back in alignment as he does any heavy lifting.   He got the idea while taking care of Mom.

He bends down and embraces her, getting ready to begin the maneuver that will get her from the bed to the wheelchair.  But before he lifts her, he pauses, his arms wrapped around her as her head rests against his shoulder.  “This is when I get my hug,” he says.  I don’t say anything.

“It always reminds me of the first time I hugged her,” he continues, rubbing her hunched back.  “We were in Milwaukee, helping out with some youth group dinner.  Everyone had left the hall, but she stayed behind to clean up and I offered to help.  After we were done she thanked me by giving me a hug.”

Then he lifts her to her feet, smoothly pivots her around and gently places her in the chair. “I was too tall for her, so she stood on the tips of my steel-toed shoes.  Of course, I was seeing another girl at the time…”

He removes his weight belt.  “Then there was another time a couple weeks later when we had a Halloween party, and some guy in a hobo costume kept bumping into me.  After about the third time I’m thinking ‘who the heck is this guy?’ and I look down…and it’s her!”  He chuckles.  “She had on her dad’s old clothes and one of his stogies in her mouth.”  He starts wheeling her toward the door.

I had never heard those stories before.  As she rolls past me, I am filled with a strange sense of awe.  Even now, as I write this, I still feel it, as I think about how those silly flirtations and that stolen hug grew into a family crowded around a massive holiday table.

I hate Alzheimer’s.  I hate the way it relentlessly sucks away life and personality and dignity. 

But in the midst of it, I am also grateful.  I am grateful for these glimpses within our Valley of the Shadow that allow me to see that the ancient words are true:

Love never fails. 

The three of us move from the dim, quiet bedroom, down the dark hallway toward a dining room filled with noise and light and laughter.  Love never fails.  This is no wishful greeting-card sentiment, but a solid rock on which someone can build—and has built—a life, a marriage, a family.  In these brief moments of darkness and drought, it shines all the brighter and flows all the sweeter. 

Love never fails.  It inexorably expands and advances in depth and breadth…

…gently, joyfully, powerfully, defiantly, triumphantly unstoppable.

MLK

I wish there was no such thing as Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

For that matter, I wish there was no Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial in Washington DC, and I wish there were no Martin Luther King, Jr.  Boulevards or Avenues or Streets throughout America.

Don’t get me wrong.  I believe it is appropriate to honor Dr. King in all those ways, and more.  I can think of no other American from the late 20^th Century more deserving.  I would not be surprised if someday his likeness appeared on our national currency. 

The problem is that we as a nation, or perhaps more accurately, as a human race, tend to appreciate our heroes only after they have been martyred.  So, in spite of all his accomplishments during his brief life, I wonder what more he would have done if he could have been with us another forty-five years. 

What would he have said in the wake of the Rodney King trial, verdict, and riots?  How would he have responded to Trayvon Martin’s slaying?  What would he be saying about the disproportionate number of African Americans sitting in our prisons?

We can only imagine.

I like to think, though, that we would have listened.  I like to think that we would have been better because we had listened.  And while I think he would have celebrated the progress that has been made, I’m certain he would have continued to challenge and confront the bigotry and racism that can lurk in even the purest of hearts.

So happy birthday, Dr. King.  I wish we didn’t have this holiday to remember you.

I wish you were here with us instead.

Lost Goodbye

September 9, 2010

I lost my mom to Alzheimer's.

That sounds melodramatic, since as I type this, she is sleeping peacefully in a recliner not ten feet from me, occasionally stirring and muttering some gibberish.  She lives still, eating her breakfast, sleeping in her chair, walking with slow, shuffling steps.  But most of what made her who she was is gone now.

I've heard Alzheimer's disease referred to as "The Long Goodbye."  I don't think this is true. There are no final goodbyes with Alzheimer's.  When the disease is first diagnosed, saying goodbye seems ridiculous.  After all, she's still there, right in front of me, almost the same as she always was.  Perhaps she can't find her way home from Bible Study any more, or repeatedly lays the plates on the table no matter how many times you remind her that we are not ready to do that, but she's still Mom.  She adds to conversations and plays cards and swims with her grandkids.  Why would I say goodbye forever to someone whom I will see the next day, and the next week, and the week after that?

As the disease progresses and she needs to be reminded of her grandchildren's names and starts believing that there are several men (all of them named Larry, like my father) living at her house, she remains interested in the lives of friends and family.  Yet as I patiently explain to her (for the fourth time in an hour) that she can't go see her granddaughter's play tonight because it won't open for another two weeks, and even though she pouts like a small child over this, goodbye still seems very far away.

And even as she forgets the names of her sons and daughter, her face still lights up when I greet her as I come through the front door, so that for a moment I can pretend that she is whole and well.  "Well hello!" she cries, her eyes brightening with the joy that comes from seeing someone dearly loved.  The moment passes quickly as confusion clouds her eyes.  Sentences are left half-finished, the thoughts behind them abandon her like a mischievous ghost.

Leaving the house is hard.  She doesn't want me to go. 

"When will you come back?" she asks, almost in tears. 

"Soon," I say. 

"When's that?" she asks. 

"A couple days," I reply. 

"A couple days," she repeats, holding her fingers to her mouth, intertwined, prayer-like.  "A couple days," she says again. "OK." 

Perhaps this is the time for a last goodbye, but goodbye's are hard enough as they are. 

I see her several times a week now.  There are no more gasps of delight as I walk through the door.  No more spark in the eyes.  A few months ago, on good days, she would sometimes ask, puzzlement creasing her brow "Who are you?"  She doesn't even ask anymore.  And when I leave, after giving her a hug and a kiss on the head, she might simply say "Thank you," but more often than not she just gives me a bemused look.  She doesn't say goodbye. 

The opportunity for goodbye has long passed, evaporating before our eyes, without us even realizing that it, like my Mom, was fading away.

Author's note:  Thank you for reading to the end of this post.  Mom is still with us.  I wrote this three years ago and finally worked up the courage to share it.