Thanksgiving success / is measured by the lack of / pretty leftovers. [Source: file photo from / our two thousand eleven / meal to end all meals.]
Just because I can
Write a Thanksgiving haiku
Clearly means I should
Classic scene from Action Comics #775, March 2001: married couple Clark Kent and Lois Lane share concerns and burdens like a real married couple. Today this scene is against DC Comics law. (Written by Joe Kelly; pencils by Doug Mahnke.)
Odd timing brought a regrettable quote to my attention today, on Wife’s Birthday Eve of all days. DC Comics had already made headlines in recent months for the lack of married couples that survived the New 52 reboot intact and not annulled. Adding fuel to the fire at this weekend’s New York Comic Con, DC editor-in-chief Bob Harras responded to a question about their heroes’ current collective failure at matrimony:
…the New 52, we want surprises. We want things to happen that may be unexpected with romances, relationships. What we ask in general is that we don’t want any of our characters rushing into stable relationships. The only character we have married is Buddy Baker, Animal Man, and that was part and parcel of the character.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: in mid-August my son moved into his own apartment up at college, living alone for the first time. Naturally we underwent various bouts of grief, panic, pacing back and forth, imagined scenarios of endless possible disasters, and a sort of loving numbness that I wouldn’t necessarily call acceptance.
Last weekend my wife and I paid him a visit and took him out to lunch at a local joint recommended by people we trust. Thus we declared Saturday burger time at a local oxymoron named the Triple XXX Family Restaurant.
Three weeks ago on a milestone Monday, this was the scene in our driveway. Our morning was spent using our combined physical forces and my amazing Tetris powers to cram all my son’s possessions into a U-Haul truck for his big move up to college. (We also tossed in a few pieces of bonus ugly furniture for his meager quality-of-living peace of mind that we won’t miss anyway.)
Instead of the standard dorm experience that I’m told millions of Americans thrive on each year, his domicile of choice for the next four years or until catastrophe strikes will be a modest, off-campus apartment. This sort of drastic lifestyle change would require more than a few suitcases and tote bags.
July 9, 2013: dinner at the Gourmet Dumpling House in Boston’s Chinatown. Most likely my son’s final vacation with us.
[Tonight’s centerpiece is a previous MCC entry dated October 18, 2012. The photo, intro, and epilogue are new additions for follow-up purposes in light of upcoming major events.]
* * * * *
Taken out of context, this photo of a happily armed woman and some dork with a bowling ball could be misconstrued as a future submission to awkwardfamilyphotos.com with a caption questioning the decision to don summer wear in December.
At left in the 2012 Metropolis Superman Celebration T-shirt, my wife is holding a Red Ryder carbine-action 200-shot Range Model Air Rifle with a compass in the stock and this thing that tells time. At right in the hard-to-see shirt sporting the periodic-table block for adamantium, that’s me toting the bowling ball given to Ralphie’s old man for Christmas. The backdrop is the living room from the original A Christmas Story House in Cleveland, open year-round for visitors like us.
Some vacationers might spend their time off getting drunk and sunburned on an exotic beach. That’s not who we are.
We’ve known each other for nearly twenty-six years, but Wednesday marks our ninth wedding anniversary. When the one you love is willing to pose with you without a whit of hesitation, surrounded by this much pop-culture ephemera, confident in the knowledge that we agree on the most important things in life while sharing a variety of commonalities in the Department of Ultimately Unimportant Things, you realize you’re ridiculously blessed beyond what you deserve. You also thank the Lord that He’s in charge and not Joss Whedon, or else something tragic would’ve happened five minutes after the photo was taken.
Happy Anniversary, m’lady. Can’t wait to see our vacation photos at age 70. 🙂
Consider, if you will, the following case of orientation disorientation.
Tonight I found a glaring hole in my son’s education that all the high school diplomas in the world couldn’t cover.
At his recent graduation, a friend asked him to hold her school ID during the ceremony because neither her dress nor the graduation robe had pockets. As her friend and a lifelong pants-wearer, he obliged. When we arrived home hours later, he realized she failed to ask for it back and he forgot to return it. (Even though they’re both graduated and free, I think she still needs it to pick up her 2012-2013 yearbook when they’ve finally printed circa spring 2015.) Since their schedules haven’t quite synched up, he offered to mail it to her. She messaged her address to him.
I handed him a blank envelope. He gave me a blank look.
Eighteen years of life, thirteen years of schooling, and countless evenings of coaching, admonishing, encouraging, lecturing, applauding, tolerating, and loving all led up to a single day that required tremendous coordination and patience to align all the pieces just right for the series finale. Though today felt about three hundred hours long, its unique centerpiece will seem fleeting when viewed in retrospect years from now.
Today was my son’s high school Graduation Day.
When you’re sitting at a ballpark or other sports stadium, the crowd is doing the Wave, and you see the crest heading straight for your section, do you rise and raise your arms in rhythm with your neighbors? Or do you scowl, remain in your seat, and lecture your friends about how the Wave is conformist tomfoolery?
When your coworkers decide they’re not in the mood for cafeteria food or the tiny Weight Watchers meals they brought in their lunch bags and decide to order pizza or Chinese takeout together, do you go with the flow and chip in a few bucks for a little something different for yourself? Or do you denounce their impulsive extravagance and consign yourself to the turkey sandwich you brought because it was slapped together with only the purest of motives?
When you need to buy drinks at the grocery, do you base your decision on advertising? Do you buy drinks regardless of their advertising? Or do you specifically boycott any drinks that have ever been advertised in any way because advertising is shallow and irritating and unholy, and instead limit yourself to buying only products that have never been advertised in any medium?
If you’re at the theater watching a movie that the other patrons seem to be enjoying a lot more than you are, do you leave them to their difference of opinion and count down the minutes till the travesty is over? Or do you castigate them for their life choices and demonstrate the superiority of your disdain by chasing them around the theater with a stun-gun?
Among the many commonalities my wife and I share, one of them is an Indianapolis childhood that saw precious few opportunities for traveling beyond Indiana state limits. My wife was part of a large family that would go broke quickly if they had to feed and accommodate every member on the road. My family could only afford vacations to other relatives’ houses. Like many adults, we vowed to do the opposite of what our parents did. We found reasons and means to get out of town. It’s rarely easy, but we’ve made it happen without carrying years’ worth of debt.
A few of our basic secrets to success:
1. Save up as much as possible in advance. For too many people, “save” is a four-letter word. In our household, “debt” is a much harsher four-letter word.
2. If the vacation savings weren’t enough, spend the autumn paying down the rest. Pay it down hard.
3. No expensive air travel. We don’t fly. Ever. I’ve never set foot in any plane that wasn’t docked in a museum. It’s not fear of flying; it’s fear of expenditure. I’m aware that ticket prices have dropped in recent years. They can keep right on dropping as far as I’m concerned. It would also help if there existed a single tale of post-9/11 air travel that was blessed with unhindered grade-A customer service at every single footstep through the process.
Hence our annual road trips. On a dare from the WordPress.com Weekly Writing Challenge, I present three maps outlining our life in road trips to date.
“Family Christmas Tree” side quest — status: Completed!
(I’m sure my wife’s to-do list is twice as long as mine, but she’ll be fine because she’s more magical than Santa.)
I’m shockingly ahead of schedule this year. My scorecard so far:
COMPLETED TASKS:
* Put up Christmas tree and indoor decorations. I refuse to retrieve our Christmas decorations from our attic until after Thanksgiving is over. That’s partly because I believe in celebrating a maximum of one (1) holiday at a time. That’s also partly because I hate going up in the attic. It’s cramped and uncomfortable and the door is hard to access and there are harmful pointy nails everywhere. I call it “the Danger Room”. But it has to be done within a week of Thanksgiving or else I suffer my wife’s adorable Christmas-loving wrath. The enclosed photo evidence confirms Christmas tree is go; we have themed wreaths and other Christmas knickknacks in place; and Christmas dinnerware is now in effect for extra credit.
I can haz turkee?
In accordance with Bloggers Union Local 151 holiday bylaws, the following memorandum constitutes official notice that I, your humble entertainer for the next three to 120 seconds, hereby wish you and yours a blessed, happy Thanksgiving with utmost sincerity. For those residing outside the authorized Thanksgiving celebration zone, please enjoy your Thursday anyway, with or without turkey.
To comply with the aforementioned bylaws, this writer wishes to acknowledge the following with heartfelt thankfulness, probably in the wrong order:
* God, His son, and the Holy Spirit
* My amazing wife and my impressive son
* All other family members who communicate with me in any fashion outside holiday gatherings
* Whatever forces secretly keep America running without collapsing
* The creator of the four-day weekend
* Our dog (pictured), the most loving and amusing nonhuman in our household
* The manufacturers of this computer; the real inventors of the Internet; our current, ever-improving ISP; and the benevolent folks at WordPress.com
* My employers, more often than not
* My friends and compatriots in my various online communities, past and present
Particularly near and dear to me this year are those who have read, followed, and actively supported me in my endeavors regarding my writing in general and this site in particular, now seven months old and not yet crashed or burnt. Any forms of feedback, from the simplicity of clicks to the extreme generosity of comments, have meant the world to me as I continue this process of exploration, experimentation, and indulgent navel-gazing. While the value of such input into my process is sometimes hard to quantify, the WordPress.com sensors insist that earlier this week marked MCC’s crossing of the 1000-Like threshold. I had no idea they tracked such statistics to that extent. I can’t believe they even have a dashboard icon for it (pictured). The longtime high-traffic bloggers among you probably enjoy this response level as a twice-weekly event, but a small fry like me is in no position to take any forms of encouragement for granted. Obviously I try not to rely on Likes as the foundation for my self-image, but I can’t deny that it’s nice to have some kind of measuring tool (no matter how unscientific) to confirm that I’m not necessarily applying this particular skill set on a daily basis entirely in vain.
Even if I am, at least my wife still thinks I’m cool. That’ll do.
Thanks for reading, supporting, and humoring me. Enjoy the day!
Saturday the 10th was my first day spent with a wheelchair. I tried to imagine the day beforehand, to anticipate the drawbacks and plan for every single troubleshooting scenario. I’m surprised I nailed most of them, but it was still a learning experience full of ups and downs. The day could have been much more painful and full of recriminations, had I not been blessed with a very patient, very grateful passenger.
One of the highlights each year for my wife’s grandmother is when the three of us spend a November Saturday together at the Indianapolis Christmas Gift and Hobby Show, a cavalcade of Christmas arts, Christmas crafts, Christmas edibles, and non-Christmas small businesses and hucksters held at the Indiana State Fairgrounds in one of their cavernous pavilions. It usually takes us a few hours to traverse the length of the pavilion several times to see all the booths, marvel at the decorations, overspend on a few choice items, and — always number one on Mamaw’s to-do list — have her watch batteries replaced at a specific jeweler’s booth. No one in all Creation is allowed to change her watch batteries except that one jeweler. Everyone else ever born will do it wrong.
Last summer, this once-hyperkinetic eightysomething dynamo took a nasty spill that left her wounded for a good while and reset her normal energy levels at a much lower bar. She’s having much more trouble getting around than she used to, and takes a little longer to perform her chores the way she wants them. Though she weighs under one hundred pounds, she still doesn’t have quite the endurance for supporting that frame around extensive distances. Excessive walking now leaves her winded and ready to call it a day. As her beloved Christmas Gift and Hobby Show drew near, she seriously doubted she could manage the day-long stroll that would entail, and had resigned herself to skipping the show, despite how many she’s attended, despite how much she looks forward to it every year. She feared attempting such a feat now would be the death of her.
Enter: the wheelchair.
Of all our household’s rules and guidelines that aren’t Scripture quotes, one of the simplest and most scrupulously enforced in our family is four simple words: Wednesday is Guy Night. What we call “Guy Night”, normal people call “father/son quality time”. Then again, normal people rarely use the word “enforce” in that conversation.
This rule was instituted in spring 2003 after a blessed but stunning turn of events that resulted in my obtaining custody of my son from my ex-wife. This unbelievable, unpredicted, somewhat intimidating lifestyle change occurred after six years of liberal non-custodial visitation, thousands of literal miles of two-way ferrying, and countless little reminders from society and the media that, in 105% of all divorce situations, the mother is good and the father is evil. The short, impersonal summation of our situation is that it had become necessary in the opinion of the majority of those affected, and thus it was written.
I believe Guy Night was my best friend’s idea. I trust her as usual to correct me gently if I’m misremembering. When he moved back in with me full-time and was no longer a beloved privileged visitor, we decided it was important to establish as soon as possible after the big move that — whatever else might be done with my week, with his schooling, or with other family and friends — he and I needed a regular block of time carved out that we could dedicate to spending with each other. When she and I married in 2004 and merged households, this became more important than ever with the closer quarters and the advent of the prefix “step-” into numerous aspects of our new living phase.
2011 file photo. Author not responsible for the photo editing.
And now for something completely different.
In honor of my wife’s birthday, I present high art. Wait, no, scratch that — just haiku. And not the great kind with birds or flowers or natural waterways. Sorry.]
Midlife Crisis Crossover! 