of our nature

I am tying to turn over a new leaf of sorts. I know this is true because I cleaned up around my desk at work today. (That is kind of a rarity.) I want to appriciate things more. I have learned a lesson through all of this. Some things are not worth the amount of brain that I give them. There has always been this "other" life that has taunted me. My life really isn't a high stress kind of life. I am an english teacher for god sakes. I should be able to hit some sort of nirvana-like state if I try.

It's funny. This desire is maybe the central most theme in all of my entries in this blog.... a blog that is coming to a close sometime soon by the way. I want to find peace. I think I might just know how to get there now. I think it comes from perspective. I am going to make serious strides into putting my attention in the right areas. I want to slow things down a bit, maybe take less time with the TV (I don't watch a ton now... but I do spend some time there) and more with my family. I want to see my job for what it is. It's important, but sometimes I think I blow my own value out of proportions... the world of student success is not completely resting on my shoulders. I need to let silence live in our house when its possible. I need to have unscheduled time with my kids, and with Jenny. I need to focus on what is truly important, breathe it in and let it take the position in my life that it deserves: the better angels of our nature.

I am ready for this.

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autolove

I woke up this morning to a love message from my car. I guess it is thankful for being fixed ;) XOX

Friendsgiving

We had a bunch of close friends over tonight for a late thanksgiving meal. My friend Sarah called it a Friendsgiving which is about that best thing I've ever heard. Jenny worked all day long to cook some seriously great food. Chief in my book among these is a new favorite of mine, oyster stuffing. I actually stayed at work for a couple of hours to catch up on some correcting. When I came home the house smelled like magic. So good. It was an evening of great friends and good food.

The winter holidays were invented to warm up what can be a long, cold time. I am happy to prolong the Thanksgiving festivites with such great friends.

let the magic begin

Christmas season is here folks... it bloomed all over our house today. Nora has been singing Christmas carols. They have been picking out toys to put on their list. We almost went and picked out a tree this weekend.  These Christmas' have been getting better and better as the years go by. This year is already winding up to be of epic proportions. We don't do a lot of gifts... enough to fill the tree adequately, but I like quality over quantity. The epicness of this Christmas lies solely in the excitement that is already building in Henry and Nora. 

Both kids are beginning to develop these beautiful personalities and a series of likes and dislikes based on them. Picking out gifts for Nora this year is going to be a world easier than last year. Henry is a dream to buy for. The trick is buying gifts that will benefit both of them, not just entertain them. Christmas is an opportunity to guide them within their interests and kind of push them toward things that we would like to see them do. It takes a lot of thought, but things like amazon help a great deal with that. I can just sit back and think about what would fit both my kids' interests and my own goals for them... punch in the idea online, and chances are it will exist somewhere. It is the total opposite of strolling the aisles in a store and reacting to what they have on the shelves. 

I still miss the mark sometimes, but more than not, Jenny and I put together a pretty great deal for both of our kids. 

Per what ins?

My life consists of hunting down things that Henry decides he would like to try. Not that I mind really... I do, after all, have some say about things. So today I bought persimmons. We have actually bought these previously, although they were a different type. When we take the kids grocery shopping, our kids get to pick out their "one thing." It can be anything they want in the grocery store. This has always been the rule for us and amazingly, I don't think either kid has ever picked some awful cookie or twinkie type of thing. I guess we can take credit for that.... we just don't buy those type of things. Nora, nearly always picks out either Goldfish, or some type of Fruit Snackish jellied fruit thing. Henry always picks out some sort of exotic fruit or little known food item. This is in perfect keeping with the way his mind works. He is out to categorize, compartmentalize, and to the degree that he is capable, experience the entire world. He pours over books of rare animals. He collects any type of card (disregarding any sport card of course) available. And he is slowly conquering the entire culinary world. 

We are having friends over this Tuesday for a belated Thanksgiving meal, and Henry has requested Persimmon Pudding. Keep in mind, this is the old, English type of pudding... steamed. I am kind of excited for it myself, if it doesn't flop, or taste like what these persimmons look like: Tomoatoesque pudding does not peak my appetite. It is kind of fun being driven on these culinary adventures by Henry's curiosity. I know what dragon fruit tastes like, cactus pear, passion fruit, ugly fruit... my own horizons have broadened for having such a curious little guy. I guess that's the way it should be. I didn't have kids to raise little me's. God forbid. If nothing else, I have learned that having kids stretches you. If you don't have them, you can trust me on that fact. 

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At home

The three of us spent the day at home today. No Black Fridays for me. In fact, if I can get away with it, I won't venture into a single store at all this shopping season. I am so fine with buying everything online. There are so many outlets for cool gifts and not just the normal ones like walmart online, or amazon, things like Etsy have really individual and crafted gifts that are so much cooler than those typically found in the big chain stores, or malls. They arrive on my doorstep. Nothing better than that.

I had a ton of correcting to do today. I didn't finish... not even half-way done. But I did get quite a bit finished. The kids had a day of drawing and board games... some TV, but not overly much. I did go outside for a bit, and the kids played for quite a while out there. I took down the screens and refilled the bird feeders. It was a quiet, beautiful day. I need these every once in a while. Even the kids seemed to have needed it after the crazy family visits of yesterday. I love it when they are like this. I am officially a homebody.

Thanksgiving

I have a lot to be thankful for, this year especially. Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays... if not for the simple magic of Christmas, it would be my favorite. I love the food and the memories that come with it. My favorites are always the standards: squash, turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans... all the trimmings. These things are really more than just food, they are a connect-the-dots pathway back in time to my childhood. For this reason, I don't mess with Thanksgiving. No new recipes, no overly messed with recipes. Sure, brine the turkey, but don't completely overhaul the thing.

I love being around my family. I used to go to my grandmother's very regularly, close to every week at times. There would nearly always be aunts or uncles there as well. You know, just writing about this makes me miss those times, when I was young and would goof around endlessly with my cousins. A low hanging cloud of cigarette smoke would hover near the ceiling, the kitchen would be filled with people, Uncle Bruce in his chair by the sliding glass doors, the gold furniture in the living room, the glass bowl of candies on the counter and my grandparents would be sitting on either side of the little wooden table with fold-down sides in the kitchen. The house and surrounding hill and yard would be ours for games and exploration.

My wife's family is the total opposite of mine and the experience follows suit. It has actually mellowed out on both sides of the family schism. It used to be that I would go to my family and the alcohol would flow freely... Fun, craziness, incredibly loud and fun times would ensue. Actually, this does continue in some ways, the smoke is gone, but a couple years ago my cousin Brian did still set off fireworks in my aunt's back yard on Christmas eve (and yes the police were called).  We would then go to Jenny's family and it would be nearly silent. No craziness, no alcohol, no hype, but a serious sense of family would pervade through things. Both were great, just the opposite sides of the spectrum. Jenny's family has since gotten louder with the addition of little nieces and nephews as well as my own two noise makers. I love both of these families. Oh, and most importantly Jenny's family has a propensity for making pies. Oh, the pies... homemade crusts... pies of all types are scattered all around thanksgiving. This year's options were apple, chocolate, pecan, and a pumpkin roll with the addition of cherry (my absolute favorite that Jenny makes) pumpkin and another apple pie at my family's celebration.

I love Thanksgiving.

Men with guns

Well, we were shot at today. That, I think at least, is the first time that has happened. We were out in Rutland State Park, with full knowledge that there are hunters out. We had orange on, even a vest on Chauc. We were on the main roads, right by the river, when we heard two big bangs and a bunch of bird shot hitting the branches around us and splashing in the river behind us. An old hunter.... this guy...(click and look for the bit of orange near the center) was firing at only what I could imagine that he thought he heard, walking down the road. Needless to say, that was us, and we immediately turned around and headed back to the car.

On the way back, a couple of other hunters were cleaning some game that they had shot, pheasants, and offered to give us a couple. (I know that this means that they probably shot over their limit), but it was still a really nice, and generous gesture. I really wanted to take them. I have never had pheasant before, but I could imagine myself being knowledgeable enough, even with the Internet at hand, to clean and pluck the pheasants without completely destroying them in the process. I had to turn them down... so sad.

Moral of the story: Do not take Chauc and Henry to the state park during hunting season while over zealous hunters are roaming around.

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The best laid plans

Some things don't really work out the way you want them to. We went to Wreck it Ralph tonight. I thought it would be a good way to celebrate the beginning of Thanksgiving break. Both kids were excited, but as the time got closer, Nora started to say she was scared, mostly of the sound in the theater... which really is always too loud. Honestly, does it need to be that loud in there? She was also scared that there might be some sort of scary villain. Well, both ended up being true. About five minutes into the previews, I ended up having to take her out of the theater. She decided to give the movie another chance after about twenty minutes of "calm down" time. She had to leave again at the end when the villain got a bit scary.

And that's the way things go sometimes. I think we are going to be hard pressed trying to get her to go to another movie in the near future....

Fish and Gun

My car has returned. It was seriously disabled and there was talk of putting it down. But, several hundreds of dollars later and it is back in the land of the living. We took my parents' car back to them (they kindly let us borrow it for  a week) and while we were there, took Chaucer for a walk through the Templeton Fish and Gun, which is through the woods or down the street from my parents' house. This place is a direct link to my childhood.

I lived in Templeton, therefore, I played in the woods. There really wasn't much else to do, and the woods at my house were ripe for playing in. My dad and neighbor, together bought over fifty acres of woods across the street. A skidder had previously gone through and begun to deforest the woods there. It didn't actually make it very far in the process though. All it really did was to cut winding roads through the deep woods. These roads were ready access to the deep pine woods that sprawled endlessly across the street and were starting points for my exploration of them. I built so many tree forts, and camps across the street that I couldn't actually count them all. There was rivers and steep hills, odd clearings and inexplicably loose doberman pinchers. Bit by bit I mentally mapped out that land until I knew it so well that getting lost in it was almost impossible.


At the far end of the eastern corner was the very tip of the Templeton Fish and Gun. It's essentially a lake, Partridgeville Lake, that is surrounded by summer camps, a few winterized, and dirt roads. During the summer, my neighbor and best friend Jay and I  would fish or carry the various ubiquitous floaty, pool things down to the lake and swim. We even laid, mental if not physical, claim to one particular, unpopulated peninsula and called it our own. In the fall and winter, when everyone would vacate the camp, the entire place became ours. We brought our dogs, bikes, snowmobiles down and would endlessly trace the dirt roads that surround the lake.

I haven't been back there in a long time. Actually, the last time I was there was eight years ago when Jenny, after a "spontaneous" walk around the lake to a secluded picnic table next to the beach, proceeded to spin the entire world out of control by telling me that she was pregnant with our first kiddo. The Templeton Fish and Gun hasn't changed in many ways since I was ten. There are a few more camps, but the majority of them are the same ones that I blasted by with my snowmobile. Jenny and I walked with my Dad as well as Henry and Nora around the entire lake today. It was a bit of a mind trip to see Henry and Nora walking down those paths... my paths. Chaucer ran the same roads as my old dogs, Sadie and Josie. Although, Chauc is a little more appreciative of the water then they were. It was a nice day in the midst of the craziness of putting on the play.

The Play

This entry counts for a week worth of entries. It all feels like it could have happened in a day's worth of time, or a year. These things are amazing. The connections that are drawn between students and really between everyone involved, are pretty intense. My take on these things is kind of unique. I am not a theater kind of guy. I have no desire for stage time and completely dread any time spent in front of an audience. I do however love being a part of the process...  The fusion of people, that's what I love.

It is almost a miracle to me. My high school experience was isolating and really the total opposite of what these kids are experiencing. They love each other. I think it is the trauma of putting on a show like this that does it too. This week was a blur of emotion, just a whirlwind of stress and relief. It is almost addicting, the way it pulls you in and up and down.

I am not a theater guy, but I certainly know what legitimate human experience is. I certainly know what  is good, and building. What is good for my soul and existence. To know and be involved with people who also know these things, and to throw myself out and into the whirlwind with them, is something that I will continually seek out. It is all I could hope for Henry and Nora to become involved with kids like these.

I took a lot of pictures throughout the week. Here is a nice little selection so you can see just a tiny piece of what I mean.

opening night crowds!!

Back stage on the props table

This is stage crew... :)

what its like around here

Well... day three of recovery and I am bored out of my mind. I have all sorts of correcting to keep me company... a cold companion, but other than that, well, there is Chaucer. When Nora goes to school, it is really quiet in our house. Today the kids went to a play-date after school, and that left me completely alone for most of the day, including for supper (Jenny is working). It is very very quiet here. I have watched all of the shows that a human could possibly take. I am walking around pretty well now, but I don't have a car here. Oh yeah, the black car is temporarily out of service... nice timing right? So I am stuck here.

Chaucer makes good use of the day by finding a sunny spot, flipping on his back and sleeping for hours on end. I tried it... not as comfortable as it would seem to be. It is weird to be this out of service... I kind of can't wait to slowly wade back into the thick of things. I have a serious play being put on in one week. I know that next week is going to be incredibly hectic... I am just going to have to take it slow and steady and let the thing go where it may. No possibility of being a control freak for now. Well... tomorrow is Saturday. Our whole family is home (thank god) and maybe, just maybe, I can drive a car somewhere and get a haircut.

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recovery

I know its kind of cliche', but things have taken on kind of a new sheen after surgery. I am sore... yup. But I am getting better. Things are a looking up around here. I sit back sometimes and think about our kids and their futures and my part in them and things are looking really nice. I can even picture not having WPW sometimes. I won't have to worry about it going off anywhere. It is nice. Also, people have been bringing meals. Henry and Nora seem to love this little bit of my recovery more than the rest. Today Nora said that we had "ordered" food from the Wagner's and that they were bringing it to our house. They bounce around all excited about what we are going to be eating, like its take out. It has been good though. Jenny has been working so it is really nice to not have to get up and cook.

I am thankful for this new snow... this new start... and good friends and family.

First Snow

It is the first snow of the winter. Henry and Nora both went outside and danced around in it after their homework was finished. First snows are magical... moreso when one owns a snow blower and hasn't recently had heart surgery. But still, the magic is there. The ground is slowly erased, covered in a blank canvas of white. The first sanders just went by. Tomorrow the world will be white, and new. The winter is here.
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on the other side

I don't have Wolff Parkinson White Syndrome anymore. I made it through. To say I was nervous would be a massive understatement. My blood pressure and pulse were through the roof. I was a nervous wreck. The hospital staff were pretty great, but the emotional turmoil of this thing nearly did me in. I am not going to give a hit by hit account of this surgery. I don't know why, maybe because I don't really want to relive it at this point. Instead, let me just give a couple of large impressions.

 I was very very nervous leading into it... however, there were times when that nervousness would disappear without explanation. I would be sitting there and my nervousness would fade into relative calm. This is so mysterious to me. I don't know if it was a result of people praying for me, or what it was, but I am thankful for those moments. Leading into the actual operation, I was very nervous until they hit me with some sort of drug that was amazing... not woozy...not weird feeling, just not nervous. I loved that medication. But it was only in me for about fifteen minutes, right before the operation itself. They put a mask on me, tilted my head back, and asked me to breathe deep. Three breaths later I was out. The next thing I remember is waking up. I was dreaming I was on the beach...umbrella, blue sky, white sands... and I realized that I was in the hospital. I opened my eyes and was in the recovery room. I tried to focus on some round light above me, but my eyes wouldn't stop moving. My mom was there, Jenny was there, and the doctor told me the operation was a success. Beautiful news that I am still not trusting to be true. I am telling myself to believe it... but I still listen for my heart to do weird things.

I stayed a long time in the recovery room. I was so dehydrated (from not being able to eat or drink the day before because of nerves) that I had to stay extra long so they could rehydrate me with IV fluid. Jenny stayed with me the whole time. My good friends came to support me, I am more grateful than I realized I would be that they came. David Gentleman came and sat with me before the operation. My mom came and Jenny came. There were others too, Ramani Fernando came and sat in the waiting room.   I even felt supported by those I work with. I don't really rely on others very often... actually not much at all. Throughout this, one of the biggest things I have learned is what that can feel like, and the comfort it can bring. I don't have a big crowd of friends, and I am truly thankful for those that I do have.

I also realized again the bond that I have with Jenny. It is so strong, one that can truly be relied on. I am now on the recovery part of this operation. My best hopes were realized, I am done with WPW. I have survived this whole deal and am surrounded by people that are meaningfully involved in my life. Life is good, and the future is bright.

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Love

Here is a list of the things I love.

1. When Henry gets excited and I can see it in his eyes.

2. When I pretend to be a zombie and Nora immediatly twirls around and rushes me, attempting to punch me in the stomach.  This is the remnant of when she was really little and would pretend to be the hulk....

3. Being up and outside early enough to be up before the birds, and walking in the silence before sunrise. 

4. Being with Jenny in the rare moments where she loses herself in what's happening around her. 

5. The smell of late fall when it gets really cold.

6. Christmas mornings.

7. Feeling my burdens roll off of me that first week of summer vacation.

8. Sitting in high backed chairs.

9. Sitting in high backed chairs in front of lit fireplaces. 

10. Getting past my nerves and feeling the power of the song I am playing.

11. The fact that my kids still sleep in the same room together.

12. The smell of melting snow in early spring.

13. When Henry spontaneously walks over, sits on my lap, and curls his head into me.

14. When Nora comes down stairs, shows me her "outfit" and purposefully waits for me to tell her how beautiful she is.

15. Being up when the rest of the house is asleep.

16. Pipe smoke

17. Winning over students that have been hurt by school...reengaging them and seeing them come back to life.

18. Ticonderoga pencils

19. Sweaters and scarves in the fall.

20. Soup in the winter

21. Haunting acoustic guitar.

22. When I first get into bed with newly washed new cotton sheets

23. The Homestead Trail on Prince Edward Island.

24. The sunlight filtering through summer leaves and that bright green that results.

25. Family on Thanksgiving

26. Being in the woods in the silence of the winter.

27. This audio recording I have of Henry when he was three and talking about swords and ske-le-tons.

28. Old wooden desks.

29. Mysterious boxes.

30. C. S. lewis'  The Magician's Nephew 

Love

The Day Before the day before

This is Puppy. It's actually Puppy II. The first Puppy was gnawed to death by infant Nora. Puppy II is identical to Puppy on all accounts, except in Henry's mind. Puppy II will never live up to Puppy. Despite my amazing luck and effort to find an identical puppy lamp when Henry was 5, Henry will never accept him as legitimate. He loves him, but in the way one loves a vacation in New Hampshire after returning from Disney. Good, but not as good. 

It is the day before the day before my surgery. I go to school tomorrow. I am nervous, but not sickeningly nervous. I am taking comfort in the fact that I over worry and I know it. Also, that this procedure is somewhat commonplace, and that mine isn't for some sort of crazy unheard of condition. I work with someone who underwent the same exact surgery. I have had students with the same condition. I am still thinking about the events of my surgery.. the IV's etc. But I am starting to see beyond that as well. 

I think everything will be ok. I think I outworried myself. I have imagined my death and the wake and all that stuff.  (I know so dramatic) In all honesty though, I have. It's not a great mental journey... Actually, I thought about some comforting things. My wife has good friends, friends that would help. I think they would even help long term. That is kind of amazing to me. Jenny, herself, is a good mother. She may not be the most patient person in the world, but she is determined and devoted. She is also dead determined to live for our kids. There really isn't anything beyond that in importance in my mind. She truly loves them more than herself. It would be bad, but ok, for me to not come back. (yup... dramatic). 

I am sure I will be coming back though. I do worry that they won't be able to cure me in the procedure. (This isn't really so dramatic.) It's happened once before remember. 5% of cases are unsuccessful. That's me. That's why I am going back. I hope this one is easy, and that I don't remember anything, and that my recovery is easy. I hope it works. I told the kids today. They barely responded... yeah.. operation... ok. It made me happy to know that that is they way they see things. Dad's going to the hospital and he's going to be sore for a little while afterward. That is the way I need to be seeing things too. 

Oh, and when I woke up this morning, the cat was sleeping in the sink... here's proof. 

Rose32

Jenny decided she wanted to go to Rose32 this morning. OH MY GOD!!! This may be the best bread/danishish type of things that I have ever eaten. We saw a segment on the place on Chronicle on channel 5. The owner moved here from San Fransisco where he had won all of these awards for bread baking. He had a major business out there, shipping all over the country, and then for some reason decided that he wanted a simpler life and moved to Hardwick. He opened this little shop that uses locally farmed and produced materials for his bread and pastries. I had high hopes for the place, and I must say, I was blown over with how good it was. It's a small shop, and most of the seating is outside. I had to sit on a bench while the rest of my family huddled around a tiny little round table.... and none of that mattered even slightly when I actually began eating the "Fresh Lemon Danish" that I had ordered. This didn't even resemble those things that pass for danishes, with the lemon yellow jelly in the middle. I couldn't actually even see jelly.... I don't think there was any. It was fresh and flaky and so very very good. Jenny had a cinnamon roll that knocked her off her feet. She said, and I totally agree, normally the gooey cinnamon/jellyish/sweet part of the pastry is the big event, but with these, the actual bread itself was amazing... the sweets were a nice afterthought. Jenny also had some sort of coffee that she said was very good... you know, if you're into coffee (not me). We took home a Baguette, and a Moroccan Olive loaf... very very good as well.

It was busy, but not overwhelming. Their hours are short... Wed through Sunday, mornings and lunch. They are less than half an hour away from here, and I will be going back. On the way home Jenny was saying how she was already planning her next trip. Those of you who know Jen will understand how good this place is by Jen's showing of enthusiasm. Jen... enthusiasm.... understand? Go to Rose32, and if I am around, take me with you.

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Trick or Treat

Tonight was trick or treat. It was postponed a couple of nights because of the hurricane. I love Halloween. We go trick or treating at Vista Circle. We park right in the beginning and then walk the huge looping neighborhoods. Henry told me that one of his favorite parts is the view. At one point, near the end of the circle, there is a great view, over the valley. All of the houses on the other side are lit up... it is really nice. I like it too.

I think that Charles Schultz really captured something of the spirit of Halloween in his classic, "Its the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown." There is something so warming about being out at night and seeing those groups of kids walking around in costume.

Henry was a jellyfish this year. His costume was a hit, and it got better as the night grew darker. (It also grew more difficult to take a decent picture of him.) I am kind of proud of making the thing. It glows blue, from about 2o glow sticks all stuck up around it. Even the halter thing I had to make took a significant amount of thinking. ( my camera strap, bag and couple of Henry's belts, coupled with a couple bar-locks.) Nora was Tinkerbell. She put up a little fight about wearing winter clothes under her outfit (Lets all hope this is not a foreshadowing of what is to come.) I had to work on her costume a bit too... just to shore up her wings a bit from drooping. She was so brave. So into the candy! It's funny the roles that they are taking on now. Henry relies on her now without even really realizing it. She is the one to ring the doorbells. He gladly walks behind her as she chooses the house to go up to....different roles.

Both kids raked in a lot of candy! We took it all out and put it into groups (one of my favorite things to do when I was a kid). They were pretty happy with their take.

"cards"

Henry has been really getting into trading cards. He has all sorts... Pokemon, Bakugon, Chaotic on and on. I think his love of these is really kind of research and categorization type of thing. The more the better.... his knowledge of mythical creatures is actually kind of staggering at this point. He is the same way with the natural world as well. He can tell you all about the many attributes of sea cucumbers and those things that are related to them. He loves to know, and to categorize. Lately we have been taking to making our own cards.

Henry loves it. I love that he loves it, and I guess I love it too, if I am honest. We are trying to fill in creatures by element. I love to see him expand like this, not only to know, but to create, let his own mind wander and see what he comes out with. There are few things as great as sitting down with Henry on a Sunday afternoon and drawing "cards."

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