Hot Tub! or, Reenacting "The Titanic"

It being Christmas and all, Mr. Ether's siblings are all gathered in town. It being Sunday and all, the Green Bay Packers ("the only Socialist team in the league," as Mr. Ether is fond of saying) played today. Me being me and all, I avoided the game like the plague. Everyone else gathered at my brother-in-law's house to watch the game. I was lured over by the promise of a dip in my brother-in-law's hot tub, and I carefully timed my visit to coincide with the end of the game.

As it turned out, the rest of the sibs being prodded by restless teens, they all left to go back to Grandma's. No prob, all the more room in the hot tub, eh? I waited until Mr. Ether had removed the lid of the tub, and clad only in my swimsuit and mukluks, made a dash across the frigid deck (temperature around 20˚F today) for the steaming hot tub. Not forgetting to remove my mukluks, I jumped in and -- "Oh. It's not very warm is it?" Mr. Ether checks the thermometer. "98˚. Body temperature." Five minutes later, "97˚." Crap. "Bill, your hot tub isn't very warm!"

My brother-in-law Bill, wonderful guy that he is -- fantastic artist, talented musician, best uncle in the world according to my children -- is not particularly handy. He comes out, mumbling about it working yesterday and knowing there was a "reset heater" button somewhere, but he couldn't remember where. Back he goes into the house to search for the owner's manual.

"96˚," says Mr. Ether. We're not quite ready to believe that we aren't going to have our wonderful hot tub experience. I wonder if it's possible for my nose to get frostbite while the rest of my body is submerged in warm water. "Hey," I say to Mr. Ether. "Let's reenact that scene from the end of The Titanic (which I've never seen, but never mind that) where everyone is floating, dead in the frigid sea." We barely have time to assume our poses before Bill is back again. He's put on some slippers and a sweater. He doesn't notice us as he's poking around. Darn.

We finally give up the hot tub ghost and head into the house to get into dry clothes and warm up. Then Mr. Ether -- who on top of everything else that is wonderful about him is also handy -- goes back out to the tub and finds the proper combination of buttons to push and contacts to connect, comes back in and says, "It's working!"

By this time there is a dog to walk and feed waiting at home, so we cheerfully head out into the night. Maybe we'll get to hot tub another time.

Gives a whole new meaning to "toiletries".

I first noticed this last week as we drove back to town from cutting a Christmas tree ("Hey, I think we just passed a Christmas tree made out of toilets!"), but alas, didn't have my camera. Yesterday we drove out again to photograph it. Residents of Dane County (Wisconsin) -- you can find it on highway 14 between Middleton and Cross Plains.

Secret Santa?

I woke up this morning to find the tiny corpse of a mouse lying in our upstairs hallway, right outside the bedrooms. A few feet away was one of the cats, wearing a "Who, me?" look. The other cat appeared shortly after I had picked up the deceased in a body baggie to carry outside. She went right to the bag and sniffed it, then went to the place where the victim was first found and gave that a sniff as well. With a shrug of her kitty shoulders (or so I imagined), she too gave me a look of innocence. I see how it is; neither one will admit to being the murderer.

The thing is, I cannot imagine either of these pampered, clutzy, indoor cats having the wherewithal to catch, much less kill a mouse. Perhaps all of those hours sitting on the back of the couch watching "birdie TV" out the window are paying off. They have honed their skills, like an armchair big game hunter watching Marlon Perkins every Sunday evening.

I hope this isn't a harbinger of things to come, because I walk around barefoot in the dark most mornings. I might be in for some nasty surprises.

Now bring in the figgy pudding!

Photo by Ed Feeny

Best wishes to everyone this Christmas morning. The stockings are hung by the chimney (but actually by the windows because we don't have a fireplace) with care, and just waiting for the [not-so-small] humans to wake up. The Hogfather needed hip-waders to get here last night instead of a sleigh. Rain, rain, rain. It looks like sledding is not on the horizon for today. (And my first ever annual Christmas Eve wienie roast in the backyard was rained out too.) The dog has been up, out, fed, and has gone back to bed -- probably curled up in my spot with her head on my pillow. I am making cinnamon rolls for breakfast in a fit of Martha Stewartage, but I fear my yeasty-beasties may be too old as the dough doesn't seem to be rising very fast. Determined to be cheerful today if not happy, come what may.

Merry Christmas!

Life …

When you are a new parent and holding that sweet, beautiful child for the first time, that's all there is … and that's a good thing, a wonderful thing. But you are not prepared for the many small heartbreaks that come later: the hurt feelings, the pulling away, the arguments, the first time leaving home, and now, witnessing my beautiful daughter's heartbreak. I want to protect her from everything, just like I did when she was a baby, and I know that I can't, and furthermore, that I shouldn't. All I can do is all we really have the power to do ever, which is to love her.

I finally finished another book!

When I went to hear Wendell Berry back in October, he read a short story entitled Making It Home from a collection of short stories. That Distant Land is the title of that collection. It spans nearly 100 years in the lives of the inhabitants of the fictional town of Port William, Kentucky. If you are at all familiar with Berry's fiction, you will find many characters that you recognize in this collection: Jayber Crow, the Coulters, Feltners, Rowanberrys, and Catletts -- all part of what Burley Coulter referred to as "the membership" of Port William who farmed the area going back 200 or more years.

Although the fact that it took me 6 weeks to finish this book of short stories might signify that I didn't find them compelling, that was not the case. I thoroughly enjoyed it. One of the things that I really appreciate about Berry's fiction is that in Port William he has created an entire world much like Terry Pratchett has in Discworld -- a world that the reader can return to again and again. Furthermore, Port William's citizens -- at least the ones that Berry allows us to get to know -- are just decent people, who hold to an ethic to which I also aspire: stewardship of the land, care for the people around you. It is pretty simple and very profound at the same time.

One of the last stories in the book is called Fidelity, an old-fashioned notion that I submit is the overarching theme of this group of stories. We may talk about loyalty, but fidelity involves so much more -- responsibility, faith, love.

If you have not read any of Wendell Berry's work, this may not necessarily be the book to start with. You might end up feeling like you're an outsider at someone else's family reunion. Once you've read other of his books, by all means give this one a try. You will get the back stories, side stories and the endings to some of the stories that started in other books.

Battered and Bruised

(Warning: I am about to ramble a little.)

Well, emotionally anyway. Yesterday one of my Facebook friends (a "friend" only on Facebook, but that's OK -- he seems a decent enough guy) posted a link to an article about the recovery of the Bush White House emails. I made a comment about having little faith that the Obama White House will prosecute, and was berated by another commenter for having "low expectations." He ended by saying, "Who did you vote for? John or Ron?" and he said I was no different than the teabaggers. I responded that I did indeed vote for Obama, and that, while I was aware I was not voting for a progressive, I have been disappointed in things like the escalation of the war in Afghanistan. The same commenter belittled that, saying that Obama is NOT escalating the war in Afghanistan. When I replied that I thought sending in 30,000 additional troops did amount to escalation, and as a Quaker I am opposed to all war, he called my opinions "uninformed". He also said that if I am going to comment in a public forum, I am open to insults and criticism. At that point, another commenter jumped in saying that if I am a Quaker I shouldn't have voted for Obama because he said he would escalate the war in Afghanistan. I responded (should have stopped there, but oh well) that a) many Quakers voted for Obama for many reasons, and b) just because he said he was going to do it doesn't mean I have to like that it is happening. Anyway, 2nd commenter got the final word when he wrote, "Oh just take your bat and ball and go home! If you're going to comment then grow a thicker skin!"

O-kaaaay. I'm just going to say that I felt like I was in an old boys' club and these two guys were hell-bent on proving that they were right and I was wrong. They were going to belittle me until I ran home to my mommy. The crux of it seemed to be that I said I was disappointed in Obama so far. During the Bush years, some wags in the blogosphere coined the term "sheeple" for the people who mindlessly followed Bush just because he was the president. Is it any different to mindlessly follow Obama? I find it alarming that so many people seem to think so.

Commenter One told me that my ideals were unrealistic. He said I was a "fringe element." If people like me (and I think I'm in very good company with folks like Howard Zinn, Amy Goodman, Dennis Kucinich and so many more) are painted as extreme in our ideals, then the center is pushed farther to the right and the so-called "centrists" look an awful lot like Republicans. Like Bill Clinton. Or Barack Obama.

For the record, I have to agree with Ralph Nader, who said that it wasn't Obama's intelligence he questioned; there is no doubt that he is a smart man. It is his integrity. He is not a progressive president. I knew that when I voted for him, but it still saddens and disappoints me. I wish I could really and truly vote for a peace president. I wish I could have voted for Dennis Kucinich. I wish there were viable parties outside of the big 2. (Or as Gore Vidal said, there is one political party in the U.S. with 2 right wings.)

I'll bounce back. I spent the night thinking of many people who have taken a stand and been berated and worse for it. It's part of standing up for what you believe in. However, I wish that people in the relatively anonymous world of the internets didn't feel like they had to be insulting in order to get their point across.