Feline Evangelist [Eye Roll]

Want to know how to tell you're a crazy? When you start comparing yourself to other crazy people and you say to yourself you must be ok because at least you aren't like them.

I went to the grocery store today for 3 things. 3. Just a survival run. Milk, tea, and catfood. That's it. The first two took me about 2 minutes, so I go whipping my cart into the kitty section. I'm scanning for the biggest bag I can find, when this other guy in the aisle sees me perusing and says, "Hey, can I make a recommendation?" Sure, why not, and hopefully you're going to point out the stuff that's on sale.

So he points out the only Purina catfood flavor that's not made with animal byproducts. Ok, kinda interesting. He then describes what 'animal byproducts' actually are. Ooo-kay. Then he explains why beaks, claws and feathers are bad for a cat's digestive system. Fine, I got it. Then he proceeds to give me an anatomy lesson on feline kidneys, and the proper diet to care for them. Yeah, yeah, yeah... I look at his cart and it's FULL of cat food, but interestingly, not with the brand he recommended. He then goes into great detail about how the wet food he's buying is way better than the dry stuff he recommended. Glazing commences, no more eye contact. He tells me about how this particular wet food is produced at a fish cannery and not a catfood plant so it's higher quality. He says blah-blah tuna blah, when Chris calls me with a couple more items to pick up. Oh, I love that woman and her timing! I pull back. He leans in. The smell of dirty cat wafts toward me. I stand still, thanking God that my wife wouldn't put up with our house (or me) smelling like that. Then, I kid you not, he then starts to suggest milk alternatives for lactose intolerant cats. Now I'm trying to figure out an exit strategy. He then shows me the two bottles of Lact-Aid buried in his cart under the cat food. Leaving is no longer optional and is now paramount. He says that he learned all this because his other cat died of kidney problems and the vet explained all this to him. KTHXBYE! I leave without a bag catfood. Dude, I was just happy to get out of that aisle.

I came back later, but he had cornered some other woman. Sorry sister... he's sexually harmless, so you're on your own.

Here's the thing, I was looking for food for the outdoor cats. Feral cats have an average life expectancy of about 3 years, 5 max. And frankly, I suspect far more die from a Chevy overdose than renal failure. And I happen to know that they can survive -25 degree nights on whatever food is on sale. But there was no way I was going to pick up the 20 pound bag 'o dehydrated chicken eyeballs in front of that guy after that lecture.

Well, not there anyway...

Now, I'm not exactly an emotional cornerstone when it comes to the death of a pet, but seriously, at least I'm not that guy.

Fat Murray is not impressed with the outdoor buffet.
(Yes I stole this pic from Chris's blog. It's a great shot.)

It's Calculus, don't take it personally.

This post is for my Father, the humanitarian, who dedicated his career to humbling college students one semester of Calc at a time... (click to enlarge)
As a general rule I really try to only use my own stuff, but I saw this at the FailBlog today and snorted.
Love ya, Dad!

Memories of my childhood, as told through caffeine-goggles

So I'm sitting here at The 'Boo. You know, CariBOU Coffee. I've been here once before under similar circumstances so you know, we're, like, pals now so it's earned a nickname. Of course, I'm here by myself so there's no one else around who can appreciate my cleverness. That is, if shortening the name of a location down to one syllable constitutes clever... ala 'The L' or 'The Y.'

Chris is off knitting a couple blocks away at a friends house. I was invited to join them but I declined and opted to chill at the Boo. Admit it, it's growing on you. (I think what makes it so cool is that I'm sure I'm the first person in the world to think of it.) Anyway, yes, I said knitting. She is off cavorting with her knitting buddies, or as I like to call them "unsavory elements who refuse to put down their needles." And I'm stuck here at the Y. I mean the Boo. Whatever. I'm left to caffeinate myself slowly (or quickly if I prefer) and try to stay out of trouble until she calls and says she's on her way. Then I'll go wait outside until she pulls up and drives me home.

The only thing missing at this point is Ken. When it came to standing around waiting for parental units to arrive in vehicles, there was no one more often by my side than him. He was like my early teen equivalent of a foxhole buddy. We'd stand around with our coats unzipped in the parking lot of a church, or school, or community building, or wherever depending on what day of the week it was, avoiding eye contact and trying to find something to talk about that we hadn't already verbally smothered the life out of the night before. I don't know exactly when we learn the art of the rhetorical question, but I sure didn't have it back then. Some nights there would be grueling expanses of silence as we'd desperately try to think of something poignant to say. Something new... Something pertinent.

As an adult, I've lost that urgency.

When did stating the ridiculously obvious, or random words start counting as acceptable conversation? As a teen I never would have been caught saying something like, "Oh, looks like the radio's on" or "Man, this weather..." while tugging the strings of my gray hooded sweatshirt so tight that only my nose would stick out. And I certainly wouldn't have expected any kind of intellectual nod from Ken while he jerked his coat zipper back and forth loosely to the rhythm of some song by Queen. No wonder kids think adults are lame. If you didn't have something profound to bring up, you didn't say it because you didn't want to prove to everyone you were an idiot. You just stood there picking at the flapping sole of your tennis shoe until you thought of something. Of course, you have to define the word "profound" through an adolescent, blurt-prone filter, but still, if only for a second, you thought your insight was important. More often than not though, feeble attempts at conversation would ensue. Phrases like "My braces hurt" would come out completely unprovoked, but hey, at least it wasn't some comment about the existence of weather. And eventually, one of two things would happen, either a car would pull up and rescue us from the dusk of uncomfortability, or the conversation would somewhat begrudgingly get rolling again... and THEN a car would pull up.
Take the following example:

"I can see my sock through the hole in my shoe. (Pause) Did Andy get a BMX?"
"No, he got, like, a 12 speed or something."
"Did he ever get passed the third level of Lode Runner?"
"Yeah but I had to show him..." **Beep Beep**

Fortunately though, all this verbal fumbling eventually paid off and allowed us to land impressively wicked babes later in life. You know, High quality women who are thoughtful enough to drop us off at coffee shops while they go seek the council of other women with an unhealthy obsession for natural fibers.

True story. As I sit here, some guy (not me) sitting at the table next to me with brown hair, glasses, an oversized gray hoodie, a black watch, bracelets, faded jeans, and short white athletic socks with brown shoes (I said NOT me) just asked the girl behind the counter how much a walrus weighs.

The answer? "Enough to break the ice. Hi, my name is..." I didn't actually catch his name though because at that moment my brain somehow slapped my forehead from the inside. I tuned back in in time to catch him high five his buddy. Then he sat down and made a Thundercats reference thereby singlehandedly molesting my whole childhood. Nothing is sacred to this generation.

I've been totally scarred at the 'Boo.

Granted, 25 years ago, this guy would have been my total hero, but since he hasn't had as many years to hone his skills at conversational repartee as yours truly, I'm going to put this in the simplest terms I can:

You can put whipped cream on a turd, but it's still a turd.

BooYah!

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to pack my bag, put on my oversized winter coat, and stand around outside until my wife pulls up to drive me home.

And on that note, I think my friend Ken said it best:

Zrippah-Zip, Zrippah-Zip, Zick-Zak!
That's his coat's zipper singing "We Will-We will-rock you," loser.

I said tree HUGGER, not MUGGER...

We moved out to this sleepy little community about 8 years ago to get away from the craziness of Big City life. You know, to start a family where life is a little more straight forward. Where there aren't as many bad influences like you have in the burbs. You know, like gangbangers, White Castles, and community colleges. That kind of crap. True story, I knew we were no longer in ChicagoLand when I saw an ad in one of the local papers advertising "A free shotgun with purchase of an ATV." Let me know when you can get that kind of deal at a Starbucks.

But somewhere along the line, everything changed. It's like we just got here and suddenly the schools were overcrowded, the Earth started warming up, and people were driving imports. It's like we were right back in suburbia. And I gotta tell ya, I'm feeling like some soccer mom just crammed me into back a minivan full of cleat-wearing, iPodded, stinky boys and took the beltline straight to Hell. I blame WalMart.

Well, the other night, it hit home. Literally. One of the things I've noticed about youth around here is that they really want to be all 'awesome' like the City kids. So, they do their best to mimic their antics. You know like cosmic bowling, or going to a private school, and my personal bane... littering. I cannot begin to tell you how many Twinkie wrappers and fastfood bags we've found in our front yard over the years. I don't know what it is about my lawn that says, "Don't worry, clearly these folks work for the department of sanitation" but apparently it whispers it to all the kids in the neighborhood. I found a full, upright cup of salsa once, still wrapped in tinfoil (I guess the burrito had enough flavor on it's own.) I also hit a ten dollar bill with the lawn mower last fall. For future reference, don't try to cash a shredded bill at a bank unless you can recover both serial numbers. Who knew?

Anyway, you're probably wondering why I'm grousing about litterbugs when it's 5 below outside. Well, the other night, I walked out the front door and found this laying on my sidewalk:

And my first thought was, "Why the hell would anyone break off a reflector and throw it at my house?" For whatever reason, my brain usually asks "Why" before "Who" or "How." It also takes things extremely personally. I've spent far more energy than I care to admit mulling over whether an errant Ho-Ho wrapper was a symbolic gesture or just windblown garbage. Anyway, upon further inspection, this reflector was not the only piece of vehicular debris in my front lawn. So, I followed the only logical course of action. I took a deep breath, trudged back into the house, and asked my wife point blank if there was anything she needed to talk to me about.

"Like what?" she responded, blinking twice. She caught onto my tone though and was taking me seriously. I could tell because she stopped knitting to make eye contact.

"Oh, I don't know..." I said with as much restrained judgment as I could muster up, "How's your car these days?"

"Why? WHAT? Did you hit my car again?" At this point, I *think* she actually set down one of her needles. But either way, I knew she didn't have anything to do with the situation out front.

"No, nothing, never mind. There's a bunch of green car parts in the snowbank that apparently are not off your Saturn."

"Really?" She went to the window, but at this point it was too dark to see anything.

The next morning, Chris took pictures from the other side of the sidewalk:What the picture doesn't show is that the gouge taken out of the tree is at least 3 and a half feet off the ground. And keep in mind that our house is in the middle of the block. I'm not saying it hasn't been slick out there, I'm just saying that it's not like some bloke just slid through an intersection, hopped the curb and clipped our tree. Someone was going pretty fast... and if that someone is you, I've got your bumper and I'd like a word with you.

It's a sad day when trees aren't even safe to line the streets anymore. What's this place coming to? Will the hatred ever end? I mean, if it was a Sugar Maple, I'd understand... But, dude. Won't someone think about the conifers?!?!!

All we are saying, is give trees a chance.

PS- Apparently our tree was the only victim and that whoever else was involved is ok. A police report was filled out, but we can't request records until business hours, so stay tuned for the next exciting episode of "Get Off My Lawn"

I shot a man in Reno HEE-HEE just to watch him die. BWA-HAAHAAHA!

Although I've been blogging consistently for a couple months now, I haven't done any song writing. I haven't really even gotten 'the bug' to do so. With blogging, I can start with, "What bonehead maneuver did I pull off today without getting myself killed?" and work from there. The beauty of this approach is that every day is filled with new material. Also, in the blog/journal format, if I write something that isn't terribly interesting, I can wait around until I do something else stupid and turn right around and type up another one. Which, depending on the day, could be less than an hour.

Song writing is different. Since I inevitably put way more time and effort into it than I initially intend, I feel like I need to make count. No gutter-balls, so to speak. It needs a 3 minute story arch. It needs to be clever, yet not esoteric. It needs to be catchy yet poignant. Blah blah blah... and thus songs don't get written. I heard a live session with Suzanne Vega the other day. Apparently, she has songs on her latest album that she started six years ago. !!! It shouldn't take longer than 5 minutes to decide if whether then next chord should be C or G. It's got to be one of the two... Six years? Come on Suzanne. I just don't have that kind of attention span. (Hmmm... that rhymes, may have to use it later...)

Anyway, Yes, I know, that's totally the wrong attitude for song writing. I need to just turn off the filter and do it. But even then you need a starting point, or an ending point. Either will do. Sometimes artsy types begin a journey and see where it leads, other times you set your sites on the horizon and try to figure out how to get there.

Well, finally I had two ideas that when combined could work their way into becoming a song. The first was the belief that, although one of my friends says he's over his Johnny Cash phase, I came to the convenient conclusion that he's just tired of all the JC songs he knows and not really sick of the genre. The other spark came from the fact that this same friend is about to be the father of his fourth son. We tease him on a fairly regular basis about being prejudice against little girls and so forth, so I imagined at some point, this would probably be discussed around some family meal as well. I envisioned teen aged boys poking their father. "Why don't we have a sister?" "Yeah, Dad, where's our sister?" And then I thought, what would be cooler than to say, "Oh, you used to have a sister...," whip out your guitar, start playing a boom-chucka-chucka-chucka rhythm, and sing some scandalous tragedy that ends in the terrible death of a girl?

Yes, that's certainly cool enough to write a song about and since I'd never tried writing a tragedy before, I thought I'd give it a go. Now I had a style and an ending. That was enough to get started, and soon I stumbled on the phrase, "Your sister, she won't be coming home." There's something about the 'sister, she' part... the reinforcement through redundancy, that I really liked, so I knew I had a good chunk for the chorus. For you math nerds who can't relate, this is like knowing two angles and the distance between them on a triangle. It's a slam dunk and only a matter of time before the whole thing fits together. (Just a little geometric proof illustration so you remember whose geeky blog you're reading...)

Anyway, so I hunched over my laptop and started filling in the gaps in my story like a crossword puzzle. This is kind of how my brain worked:

Ok, so this is a Johnny Cash like song... so, the singer should be singing from prison. Typa-typa-type. Aaaand, the song is about 'the sister' dying tragically. Ticka-ticka-tick. Add some religious undertones. Tappa-tick-tip. No wait, it's a case of mistaken identity, so it's is not about the sister, her death is the ironic twist. BackSpa-a-a-a-a-a-ace. So what would drive the singer to murder? Adultery! Typitty-type-type So why would the singer accidentally kill someone he doesn't know...? Wrong woman! Ticka-tappa-tick. Ok, and just to make sure the singer is really guilt-ridden, he's got to do something heinous like kill a priest too. Ticka-tick... tap... tap... Delete-delete-buhleet. Typa... Delete. Ticka-tap. Delete Delete. Crap. How do I kill a priest in an adulterous case of mistaken identity? Double crap. How about a Nun? It doesn't have to be a priest if it's easier to kill a Nun... Usher? Altar boy? Flower girl? Gah!

This is how your brain tells you it's time to walk away.

So I stopped for the evening figuring I'd find a way to put down the priest or whoever in the morning. Well I woke up thinking about it, and still couldn't find an even remotely plausible way to get a priest in bed with the wrong girl at the wrong time. I was stuck and so I did what the pro's do when they get caught in a rut... you ask an expert.

"Hey Brian, I need to kill a priest and an innocent woman, how do I do it?"

"Why are you killing an innocent woman?" (It's worth noting that I was not questioned about my motives for killing the priest, nor why I was trying to murder anyone at all at this point...)

"Because I need to kill someone else in a murderous rage, and the victim is a sympathetic plot point."

"Oh, then that's easy. You shoot the confessional and take them both out. You should watch more movies. "

"Thanks, Brian, I knew you'd know how to solve my dilemma."

"Sure, anytime you have need to off some clergy, just let me know. Wait... why do you...?"

"Oh, no reason. Thanks, bye!"

So I got home and continued typing. An overheard confession, 12 bullets, a case of mistaken identity, a dead priest, and a life sentence later, my Cash-esque tragedy was complete. Chris happened to walk in just after I finished it and so with wild anticipation I sang it for her. Afterwards, I looked at her expectantly. She just sighed... "If you're trying to be serious, don't smirk when you're killing people off. And if you could use your powers for good next time, that'd be great."

I guess she's right. You can write Cash lyrics and sing it Cash style, but Johnny Cash never giggled delightfully at his own cleverness in front of an audience. Ever.

I bet Edgar Allen Poe did, though.

Home Owner Aptitude Test 3: FAIL

Home Ownership Rule #143: You can lie to yourself, but you won't fool the house.

Earlier this week, I found water in my basement. As previously stated, our house is about 100 years old and water in the basement is, at this point, a fairly common occurrence. What makes this particular leak unique is that there's been subzero temperatures for about 7 days in a row. You would think this would have raised a red flag. But it didn't because my super genius brain rationalized it to me in such a way that although I didn't understand, it made sense. It told me that there simply couldn't be water down there in this weather, and that if there was, it must be from some unusual, one-time circumstance. So as I got out the mop, and muttered to myself, "It's freezing outside, there can't be water down here, it's freezing..." my brain wove these marvelous stories that hypothesized about massive furnace condensation, or strange winds blowing snow down the chimney, or about global warming causing the earth to superheat from the inside out. It could be anything. My brain also told me that there would never ever be water in my basement again in January, because it was freezing. And it made me repeat this over and over. They were charming tales and I believed them as I mopped. I believed them the second and the third day as well.
Eventually though, I casually mentioned to Chris that I had been cleaning up water that couldn't possibly exist in our basement.
But she spouted some gibberish phrases like, "Did that spigot on the side of the house freeze and break because you left the hose attached?" and, "You know, like you did at the last house" which in my heightened state of awareness barely sounded like English at all. "No, I took the hose off in the fall. And besides, that wouldn't cause water in the basement anyway. It's freezing outside." I responded logically.
Chris bowed to my supreme intellect.
So today after mopping more water that wasn't in my basement, I played a hunch and found conclusive evidence that my brain was right all along.

I went outside and found a 2 foot ice fountain had formed between the ground and the spigot.

See, clearly a case of furnace condensation.

(Follow up: Yes, the plumber is coming tomorrow morning...)

Home Owner Aptitude Test 2: D+

Bob is not a popular man in the Gardner household. He's the previous owner of our house, and basically, anything that goes, will go, or has gone wrong, I blame on Bob. If Bob had taken care of it right the first time, then I wouldn't be dealing with it now. Yes, I know. Our house is nearly 100 years old and he's only 65. Don't try to change the subject. It's all his fault.

For instance, I'm absolutely positive that Bob didn't update any of the electrical wiring. He added some more, but there's still plenty that's ridiculously old. The whole south half of our house is on one circuit. So I could be in the front with the vacuum, and Chris could be in the kitchen (three rooms away) with the coffee maker and we'll blow the fuse. There are 16 circuits in the electrical box. What exactly are the other 15 doing? I think they should quit loafing and help poor little 15amp #16 when the toaster oven kicks on.

Suffice it to say that 'Bob' is my three letter four letter word, and when I put on my Mr. Fixit hat, it gets a lot of mileage.

So today's exercise in frustration is courtesy of Bob. Because if Bob hadn't bought the cheapest bathroom faucet on the planet, I wouldn't have had to spend 5 hours replacing it. I know what you're thinking... "But Lee, the sign at Menards says that replacing a faucet usually takes 60 minutes or, at the most, 90 minutes if you're a hydrophobic, seven fingered monkey."

Here's the thing... This faucet has been bugging me for a while because it sprays water at weird angles, which is symptomatic of debris clogging the fixture. No biggie, you should just be able to remove the piece at the end of the nozzle, the aerator, at clear out any bits of gunk in the filter. However, when you buy the cheapest faucet on the planet with a permanent aerator, this is not an option and you have to truck your butt out to Lowes for a replacement once it gets clogged. Thank you Bob. So I run out to BigBox Store #1 and buy a nice $70 fixture (on sale for $45) only to get it home to find that it's aerator is also permanently attached. Apparently a $70 faucet is on the low end, and only suitable for people who think their pipes don't rust. Anyway, it was a deal breaker, so I return it and go to BigBox #2. Fortunately they have an equivalent faucet for the same price and it has my 'feature.' So I get home, gather a bucket o' tools, and mentally prepare myself for lying on my back on my bathroom floor for the next hour. I turn off the hot and cold water from under the sink and proceed to get hosed down. Again, normally when you turn a knob into the OFF position, it's reasonable to assume you won't get wet. But when Bob buys the cheapest Water Supply Valves in the world (probably some package deal with the faucet,) you should just expect them to break on contact. So I dump all my tools on the floor, wedge the bucket behind the sink, and run into the basement to find the main shut off valve. I crank the valve closed and walk back upstairs. Water is still pouring out. I run back downstairs and turn the valve more. Water is still coming out. I do this two more times, and I think the only reason the knob didn't break off in my hand is because my flailing little Tyrannosaurus arms barely touch fingers, let alone grip anything. Then, in a moment of shear enlightenment, I turn on the water for the laundry sink in the basement which effectively drains all the piping above it. And finally my bathroom sink stops running. Yay Gravity!

So I'm off to LocalHardwareStore #1 for a new set of valves. LHS#1 is closed because I guess only idiots don't finish their "60 minute" weekend projects before noon on Saturday, so drive on to LHS#2 that's a little more forgiving... they give you until 6pm. As I peruse the plumbing repair aisle, I can now see why someone would skimp on valve quality. You can save about 19 cents per valve, and you do have to get one for hot AND for cold. So that's like, what... give me a minute... let me do the math on this one. But I'm not bitter. I'm just walking around a hardware store with wet pants because some guy wanted to save 38 cents 10 years ago. My cold drippy butt can get behind that.

Anyway, I was kind of in a hurry and forgot that pipes as well as valves come in multiple sizes. So I bought valves (the good ones) of both sizes for a grand total of $9.75 and trucked back home. Now, what I really should have known was that the world's cheapest faucet would be connected to the world's cheapest water valve with... you guess it, the world's cheapest, and now crustiest and not-so-flexible, tubing. That miscalculation would cost me trip #2 to LHS#2. For those of you keeping count that's 2 trips to BB1, 1 trip to BB2, 1 trip to closed LHS, and 2 trips to LHS#2. This project has now cost me 5 hours, $50 in parts, and roughly $120 in gas. So at this point I call my wife and ask her some thinly veiled questions like, "You won't be home any time soon, right?" to make sure I've still got a buffer of time.

The good news, and the reason I gave myself a passing grade on this Home Aptitude Test, is that the faucet is now installed and almost completely leak free! As a bonus, the aerator is not only removable, but will shoot water square at your crotch if you don't put it back on correctly. Now that's a feature the next owner of this house is sure to appreciate!

I hope they blame Bob too.

The Past: Overrated

So today I decided to try and make good on one of my goals/resolutions. Chris and I cleaned house yesterday so I figured I'd try to take a bite size chunk out of one of my perma-projects. And actually I nibbled at two.

I mentioned earlier that it's been 'stupid-cold' lately, and it reminded me of a project that's been half finished for, um... two years now. I put insulation up in the ceiling of the basement throughout about 3/4 of the house, and on days like this, when I walk around in socks I can tell exactly where I left off. The worst part is that there are 3 full bundles of insulation unopened and a 4 foot pile of scraps just sitting there, waiting to either be installed or eventually get wet and ruined. There's something extra stupid about being cold and yet literally sitting on a stack of insulation. Anyway, the odd and end pieces are now up and performing as designed and I can at least chalk that off my list.

Another one of my back projects is to sort through the boxes of notes, letters, and cards that I've got stashed in the basement from years gone by. Basking in the glow of successfully warmifying my house (and calculating all the pennies I'll now be saving) I grabbed a shoebox from the storage room and started picking through envelopes and little folded notes. Turns out it was the 1990 through 1993 box, which can pretty much be summed up as "Ugh." See, back in the days before there was text messaging and cameraphones, we would use this thing called a 'pencil' and apply one end gently to a piece of paper, creating a pattern of symbols. It was pretty primitive. It took the full use of your hand, so like, you couldn't send a text, play tetris, and listen to MP3's at the same time unless, of course, you had a typewriter, a Nintendo (there was only one choice...,) a time machine and two friends. And the language we used is what you now call 'Job Interview English' except we used it all the time and not just on term papers. Texting hadn't been invented yet because we still had 10 fingers and we hadn't evolved to the point of only needing our thumbs to communicate with each other. So for an example, the Olde English phrase, "I cannot believe that Susan asked William to TurnAbout" would roughly translate to "SRLY?" As you can see, text messaging is far more efficient and eloquent.


Anyway...
This shoebox was chock full of letters, mostly from girls I had treated badly, and a couple from ones I had treated really badly. There are a few problems with rediscovering old notes from old girlfriends. For starters, they really don't tell you much about you. They're mostly about them. Honestly, now that it's been 15 years, I'm really more interested in how *I* did on my Spanish final than how they did. But not much more. I also think there should be some kind of ritual at the end of a relationship where you give each other back all your correspondence. At least if you got your own sappy letters back then you'd know how your day was and what a dope you were. Can you imagine some relative of said ExSig coming up to you years later asking about what their mother was like in high school? The correct answer is, "I don't know," not "Sure, here's a box with 150 letters of her expressing her unyielding love for me. Woo-Hoo, what a horndog! I've been keeping them just in case someone like you came by." Or maybe a burning ceremony for any notes folded more than once down the middle. That would be acceptable.

Romeo, Juliet, now you listen to me.

On a slightly more serious note, this Sunday I'm singing a song called "I'm Not Who I Was" which pretty much describes how I felt after getting back in touch with some high school folks through MySpace. No really, I'm cooler now. Just ask me. I've been practicing in the mirror for years now...

Come on brain, don't fail me now...

Chris and I were talking in the car about tidbits and factoids that had come up throughout our day when the conversation meandered into this:

C: Hey, someone told me today that they've developed a drug that inhibits recalling bad memories. I don't know how that would really work, but the idea scares me.
L: Um, yeah, isn't that what 'Eternal Sunshine for the Spotless Mind' was all about? Realizing that bad memories shape your character? What does that title mean anyway? Isn't it the long way of saying 'ignorance is bliss?'
C: Yeah I think so. Which is what makes the title ironic.
L: Hey speaking of things forgotten, I read the other day that they've found a drug that reverses the effects of that disease... the big one...
C: *blink-blink*
L: ... the one where you... forget... things... (realizing I'm doomed)
C: Altzheimers.
L: That's it. I was stuck on Parkinsons, but I knew that wasn't right.
C: Maybe you should look into that.
L: Why?

You're laughing WITH me, right?

Did you say Dork-Boxing or Kick-Borking?

Sorry JC, next time stay out of roundhouse range.

So I put my body through another exercise in pain yesterday. Actually, I blame Chris. She caught me at a weak moment and decided to exploit the opportunity. We were at the gym last night and I had been going pretty strong on the treadmill for 20 minutes when she taps me on the shoulder. "Your presence is requested in the other room," she says. Now, mind you, we're at the gym. There's only one other room and that's the aerobic studio. So I'm thinking that like the CD player is on the top shelf and she can't reach it or something, but she's smiling at me so I know something ain't right. I walk in there looking for the big hairy cockroach that needs crushing or whatever and the door slams behind me. At this point I realize I have just been abducted and metaphorically thrown in the trunk of Chris's Jazzersize class. Ok, ok, I think she said it was "Cardio Kickboxing" but what I heard was "Pain in Spandex, twelve o'clock!" Keep in mind that I've already run close to 2 miles, which I made abundantly clear to the instructor.

"Good" she says, "Then you're warmed up."

???

Dude, I was thinking more cool down at that point... Anyway, you know all those things people say about aerobics instructors? About how they're masochistic little women who need the sweat of others to survive? Yeah, well they're all true. Sure they look all nice and smiley, but that's just to lure you into the room. My sister used to be an aerobics instructor and boy howdy, she can be pure evil. She actually advanced to Yoga instruction, which is like aerobics but you have to convince people to strain themselves slowly instead of working them into a frenzy. It's far more sinister, but I digress...

I was expecting to be humiliated by my, shall we say, "limited range of motion." I even figured weird things were going to hurt the next day. But I was not expecting to have to learn a new language. Sure, it kinda starts out sounding like English, but then words are more barked than spoken and they don't really make sense to anyone with an education anyway. Most of the class was a blur (literally from the sweat in my eyes) but I remember it going something like this:

"Ok, we're going to stretch our arms now so raise your hands over your head, palms facing up, and reach toward the ceiling."

I'm thinking to myself, "Alright, I can handle this..."

"Now roll your shoulders forward keeping your back straight. You should feel it in your lats and delts. Keep your core tight."

Wait, what? Something hurts, is that my lat? How did I lose my Court-ite, already???

(Music starts: Booka-booka-booka-booka...)

"Ok right tiger paw left, front knee down, and PUNCH and up, and PUNCH and up... Watch your face! Punch like you mean it! Your knee doesn't touch! Don't hyperextend! Guard up! I said PUNCH LIKE YOU MEAN IT!"

Whoa whoa whoa... Lady, you lost me at 'tiger paw.'

"And 8 more... HUH... 6 more... HUH-HUH-and 4... 3,... HUH, 2... 1 and AGAIN!"

Ummm, is 'huh' supposed to be a number because you're kinda using it like it's a number, but either way, your counting isn't consistent. I'm just saying that it's hard to follow someone counting backwards in some non-uniform numbering system...

"Time for front kicks. Alright, aim for groin height but if you can't get there, aim for the knee. And 8! ..."

Groin height? At this point, I'm barely reaching ankle height, lady. How about a viscious foot stomp? I could probably manage a couple of those.

"Ok, now lie face down. Center yourself, and bring your belly to your backbone."

Whatdoesthatevenmean???

Well, since I'm writing this, you can tell I survived. I did what any man would do when faced with an impossible situation, I flailed around like a squirrel on acid for about an hour then dropped to my knees begging for mercy. You know.

Chris looked over at me and said, "Wait till you find out what hurts tomorrow. You've been using muscles you never even knew you had." At that point I tried giving her the finger but since I couldn't feel anything past my elbow, I'm really not sure if I was successful or not.


On a completely different note, for those of you that need a little more VanDammage, have some Wallpaper from some guy with wa-haaay too much time on his hands.

Advanced Parenting: How to outlive your children

A while back, Chris decided to scrapbook my childhood. So a couple weeks ago, she and my sister were digging through the 'Lee box' they got from my mom. Needless to say there were some gems in there, some of which I've put into a slideshow in the sidebar. But then we came across this picture from 1976:That would be my Grandma with my sister and my Dad holding me in his arm. I'm such a narcissistic little dope that initially this picture went into the pile for my sister to sort through, because lets face it, it's not a particularly noteworthy picture of me. But I here's the thing, in general, I see myself as being built like my father. In this picture he is one year younger than I am currently... and it's pretty clear to me that genetically, I have not been invited to the Gardner Gun show.

As the possibility of parenthood becomes more likely, I've been trying to come to grips with some of my adulthood realities, one of which is that I tend to tell people what I want to say, not necessarily what they need to hear. If you watch Scrubs, Dr. Cox is my antithesis. But sometimes you need to tell people things so they'll do the right thing, whether it's the absolute truth or not. That's not a skill I've got fine tuned.

Dad, however, figured it out. Here are two examples from my childhood...
One of the things that my father told me was that real math started at Calculus, and it was just expected in the Gardner house that you would learn Algebra, Trig, etc so that you would have a solid foundation when you got up to real math. Most people live their lives just fine without Calculus, but in this case, I am my father's son. Calculus lets you figure out things that don't go in a straight line. And since the world isn't flat, that's pretty much everything. When someone brings up having difficulty with high school level math, I still fight the urge to say, "Wait till you get to Calc," as if it's a requirement.

The other example is that I was told that Running (cross country or track) is a sport where a person without a lot of innate athletic ability can still be very successful through a lot of hard work. Mind you, this is coming from a guy who could still wear a tanktop in public into his mid-thirties... So I believed through most of high school that if I just kept pushing on, I would eventually obtain this success that has been set aside for those of us who persevere. The point is, although I don't personally believe that "anybody can run if you have the heart" anymore, I was told what I needed to hear at the time. I do, however, have tremendous respect for the sport, and maybe that was ultimately the lesson I was supposed to learn.

This picture has in some ways re-motivated me to at least try to get in some kind of shape. I found out that there's a rock climbing wall on the cruise ship we'll be taking over Christmas. Oh, did I mention we're going on a cruise? ;-) So my immediate goal is to get in good enough physical condition to not feel like a total fool when I try rock climbing. I've never done it before, on real rocks or otherwise, and frankly I suspect I'll hate it. But that's not the point. I want to know for sure.

So to that end I've been doing a lot of upper body stuff at the gym lately. Well, a lot for me anyway and let me tell you ladies, I am super sexy dangling and quivering from the chin-up bar. But I'm reminded of what I like to call "The sticky-lid factor." You can be in great shape and still get owned by a new jar of mayonnaise. I think there's something about my center of gravity, or my natural arm strength (which I apparently got from my mother...) or cosmic justice or whatnot that I will just never get to the point where pullups are easy.

The insult to injury (or my unopenable jar of mayo, if you will) is the fact that even most of my geeky friends have the upper hand when it comes to PE. Granted, I hang out with a 6 foot Korean and an ex-football player, but one of my other friends has a benchpress in his basement and I thought I'd be cool and casually sit down and do a couple reps one night at a LAN party. For the record, when I die, I do not want, "It didn't LOOK that heavy" on my tombstone. But suffice it to say that it took pretty much everything I had plus public humiliation to heave that barbell back on the rack and not just let it drop into my chest cavity. You know, those things would be easier to lift iff'n you just removed some of them weights. I'm just saying...

Stay tuned next time for my latest attempt at killing myself through self-improvement.

Why I don't cook

Here's a little recipe I cooked up that's sure to make you popular at your next family gathering:

Prep time: About 3 hours
Ingredients:
-1 pint of Ben and Jerry's
-1 serving of an alcoholic beverage, your choice
-2 high fiber granola bars
Directions: 3 hours prior to engagement, consume all ingredients. Add alcohol to taste. 'Brew' for 2+ hours or until you explode. Revel in your impending infamy.
Caution: Do NOT share this recipe with other family members! Do NOT share the glory.

Also great for family vacations or long road trips!

Now, I tried this out the day before all the festivities this year, but I can assure you that had I indulged in this concoction and then headed out for a full day with the extended family, the results would have been... legendary. Bon Apetite!

Et tu, iPod?

I know people have various opinions about Apple and it's relationship with good and/or evil, but I'm here to tell you that my iPod nearly killed me this week. No, not because I had it too loud as I walked blissfully ignorant across railroad tracks, or because a sudden gust of wind just happened to try strangling me with the cord of the earbud. Oh, no... this was chillingly premeditated. Below I've reconstructed the steps and how it nearly got away with murder.

1) It lulled me into a false sense of security. Seriously, I didn't see it coming at all. It's been extremely reliable and 'the perfect companion' since it was purchased.
2) It gained my trust. No battery problems or accidental music library blow outs... it's been great. I pretty much exclusively listen on random, because whatever pattern it uses, I haven't figured it out (which my last 2 MP3 players were much more annoyingly predictable)
3) It tactically pinpointed my weaknesses. It learned that I'm most vulnerable to it's influence while driving or in the gym.
4) It waited for an opportune moment... at the bench press.
5) It went for the kill. After 2 sets, my iPod "Randomly" went from an upbeat Violent Femmes tune to "All out of Love" by AirSupply.

I have no idea where that song came from. Actually... I know where it came from, I just don't know how it got on my iPod. It was put on a mixCD I got as a joke, but that's a lesser point. Anyway, by the grace of God I was able to wrestle the whole 18 pounds I was lifting back onto the bar rest before my will to live was completely sucked dry.

Curse you bad-bad iPod and your evil, back-stabbing ways.

For your bad behavior, you have to wear an ugly sweater until you can play nice.

On the Drink of Disaster

True story.
The problem with doing karaoke in a bar, is that generally you're expected to order something. Now, contrary to popular belief, I'm not much of a drinker. Steady yourself. I know, gentle reader, the shocking truth is that most of the stupid stuff I do, I do completely sober. So when I do go to a bar, I try to surround myself with other light-weight girly men for camouflage. But eventually, like zebras pacing the watering hole, one of us has to go up and order something. Last time, there were only two of us and it was my turn to test the waters for crocodiles. My buddy says, "Get me a Miller Lite." Great. No hiding out on the savanna. So I go up to the bar and order a manly Miller Lite and an equally masculine Mike's HARD lemonade. Oh yeah, feel that testosterone pumping. The bartender has obviously been trained well and remains stoic, but my spindly legs are poised and ready to bolt at as soon as the glass hits the counter. That's when one of the local lions lifted his large head and groggily starts to shake off his stupor. His eyes scan the surroundings and his nose goes up. He smells fear nearby, but he hasn't honed in on it yet. The bartender comes around with my drinks which tell every predator around that I won't put up much of a fight, and just as he reaches me, the lion's pupils widen and snap into focus.

"Excuse me..." he says with lazy calm. "Don't take this the wrong way, but one of those drinks is for a girl, right?"
"No," I say, exposing myself as the prey that I am. It's not like I can run at this point anyway.
"Oh, Jeez dude, I'm sorry. I just read somewhere that Mike's is one of the most popular drinks among women." The lion recklessly and effectively swats his large paws in my direction.
"That's mine." I look back at my herd longingly as this guy verbally chews my limbs off.
"Really? No offense man, really. I just assumed that one of those HAD to be for a girl." His head goes back down. The kill complete. I drag my bloodied carcass back to our table and explain to my friend how it was his stupid Miller Lite that made me look like a lady.
We did get the last laugh though. The lion was really bad at karaoke, but we told him he was good. Take THAT! You may be King of the jungle, but your roar sounds like crap.

Meanwhile, from the 'Becoming what you detest' department:
Up until last Saturday, I had been in a Starbucks exactly once in my life. I was carpooling and was not the driver. I had no choice, I don't even remember if I ordered anything. But in the last week, I have gone to Starbucks *4* times. What's wrong with me? I feel dirty. And on top of it all, I liked it. That's right, you heard me. I LIKED IT! I'm a Chai tea chump and apparently will pay over 3 dollars for a 'tall.' I hate myself.

And as a total non-sequitor, let me tell you why I think this seemingly innocuous picture makes me laugh. It's a shot from our living room, and granted not one of the most flattering. Study it carefully. Note the pile of dirty dishes and half finished knitting project. This my friends, is exactly what my living room would look like if my wife were suddenly vaporized. Well, except the lid wouldn't be on the peanut butter, but otherwise it's dead on. Don't worry folks, it's just a simulation. Chris is JUST FINE.

The True Spirit of Halloween

(This is not my cat, but I wish I had thought of it...)

Let me tell you why I like Halloween. It's a purely sadistic reason. Chris doesn't *think* she likes Halloween so I take it upon myself every year to convince her otherwise. We have our own Halloween ritual that goes something like this...

"I hate Halloween, gah..."
"I know honey... I'm not really excited about it either. Should I get some candy anyway?"
"Ugh. Why? So a bunch of teenagers who don't even bother to put on a costume can pander at our house? You can if you want, but you have to watch the door."
"Ok... I'll take care of it."

(four bags of candy later)

BING BONG
"Murf urf turf"

"Whoa aren't you spooky! Here's some candy."
"Why is that kid dressed in the Scream mask? He can't be older than seven. Did his mother actually let him watch that movie? What's wrong with these people?"
"I don't know baby. That movie's older than he is, I suspect those masks are cheap these days."
"This holiday is ridiculous."

BING BONG
"Twick or tweet"

"Aw... Here ya go little ninja. Hey Chris, you just missed the cutest little assassin."
"Sigh... you're just perpetuating the problem. If we don't feed them, they'll quit coming."
"Then I wouldn't get to watch this tiny unicorn with baggy legs wobble around!"
"Really?"
"Yeah, if you hurry you can see her try to climb our stairs"
"Oh! Hee-hee! Look! Here comes a little bumblebee!"

That's when I know I've got her. At least for a little while.

But also, just as importantly, if we hadn't been giving out candy, we wouldn't have met our neighbors right across the street (who we've just been watching with a condescending eye from behind our curtains for the last 6 months.) With one of the kids dressed in a Star Trek uniform, we probably should have known that we had things in common. Then the mom says, "Have you guys seen Babylon5? My husband loves that show," and it was like the heavens opened up for my wife. "I'm watching it right now in the other room!" Chris replied.

So yeah, if it turns out she knits, I'll probably never see my wife again, but at least I'll know where to find her.

I'll take "Things I don't want to discuss in the dentist chair" for $100, Alex.

Last week I found myself being talked at by the new girl at the dentist's office. I'm not exactly sure what her position is, or what she's aspiring to be, but I do know that it was too early for me to discuss much of anything with anybody. So I'm sitting in the chair, she's fiddling with things that are supposed to be sterile, and she starts making conversation.

"Is it hot out there yet?"
"No, it's still pretty cool" (it's 8:15 in the morning)
"Did you see gas prices today?"
"No, I bought gas yesterday"
"How much was it then?"
"3.25"
"That's what it is today! It's rediculous."
"yeah."
"I hear it's going up to 3.50"
"Hmm," I muttered as I start looking around the room for something I can shove in my mouth so I can just grunt non-committal responses for the rest of this discussion.
Now, you've probably read the above conversation one of two ways. Either you're thinking that it's pleasant and superficial, or you're saying to yourself that after I made two "No..." statements, she should have figured out that small talk was not a service I required. I fall into the latter category because I'm sure I didn't accidentally say no... twice.
I hear some drawers open and close behind me while I try to settle into the chair. And then the talking picks up again.
"You know the holocaust? Are you familiar with that term?"

???

"Uh-huh" I choke out, trying not to sound as shocked and horrified as I really was.
"Ever since I was a kid, I thought that I would live to see another one."

I'm absolutely speechless. So I do the only thing I can. I wait to see if that was a definitive statement or if she's expecting me to somehow respond. The awkwardness doesn't last long, she breaks the silence with, "Yeah, it's getting so bad, it won't be long before people can't afford bread anymore."

Ok, So here's what I figured out...
1) She was still talking about gas prices
2) I AM familiar with The Holocaust. I am also familiar with The Depression.
3) If there's a chance you might confuse the two, don't bring either of them up in conversation. Frankly, it's offensive.

I've never been so happy to see the Dentist walk through the door in all my life.

Welcome to Michigan, We're too damn big!

Ok, so Chris and I spent Memorial Day weekend visiting her side of the family in the Traverse City area. Let me start by saying that yes, Michigan is absolutely beautiful, pretty much any time of the year. This weekend everything was green green green. I think for the 36 hours we were up, the lens cap was on Chris's camera for about 6 seconds. A good time was had by all, so let me make it clear that I have no argument with the asthetic value of Michigan. What I have a problem with, is that it's a deceptively flippin huge state. I swear we somehow spend about 6 hours more in the car than I'm expecting, and this trip was no exception. I've noticed this on our yearly trips to Grand Rapids, and I have a theory about that... Here's a couple of simple math problems to illustrate what I like to call "Michigan Time Dilation Theory": If Chris's parents live in Grand Rapids, and her Aunt and Uncle live in Grand Rapids, how long does it take to get from her parents to her uncle's house? Those of us in the Chicago area would probably say something like "20 minutes in bad traffic" to get from one side of a suburb to another, but the correct Michigan answer is 45 minutes. So take a second to wrap your mind around that. If your brain drew a picture of a city and put Chris's parent's in one extreme corner, and her uncle's house in the other, you'd be correct. So, just to see how city-mouse savvy you are answer this, "What is the fastest way to get from one house to the other, taking the bypass around Grand Rapids, or cutting straight through the center of town?" If you answered "Neither, they both take 45 minutes" you'd be correct. Now somehow, that makes sense to me if the houses are in opposite corners, but I just thought I'd point that out. So lets add another variable, Question: "Chris's cousin also lives in Grand Rapids. How long does it take to get from Chris's parents house to her cousins?" Solution: 45 minutes. Fine, so logically the cousins house is somewhere in the vacinity of her uncle's, right?. So given that answer, deduce how long it take to get from Chris's Uncle's house to her cousins house?" 5 minutes? 15 minutes max? Wrong. 45 minutes. With the introduction of the cousin's house, it basically proves that a random point between her parents and her uncles house will also take the same amount of time to reach. Now I know what you're thinking... you're saying to yourself, "You're full of crap. I took geometry, if points A, B, and C are equidistant, it's not a conspiracy, it's a flippin triangle." And you might think that, until you look at a map of Grand Rapids. It's roughly square, and as you can see, this is about where normal Euclidian arithmetic starts to break down. We've already shown that taking the bypass around town takes the same amount of time as cutting diagonally through it, so apparently Pythagoras and that theorem of his never made it this far north. Taking that one step further, any point on a path between two end points will take the same amount of time to reach as it would to go straight from A to B. What do you call that? I'd call it a rip in the fabric of the time-space continuum. You might call it Grand Rapids, Michigan.
I've witnessed this phenomena around Grand Rapids many times. Sometimes it's amusing, often, it's just frustrating. Think about it, what if everytime you got in the car, it was going to take you 45 minutes to reach your destination? How do people live there? What I didn't realize is that apparently similiar anomalies happen throughout the state. Take for instance this weekend. Chris and I drove up through Wisconsin up to Manitowoc (just south of GreenBay) and took the ferry directly across Lake Michigan to Luddington, MI. On the map, Traverse City is "just north" of Luddington, so how long did it take us to get from Luddington to Traverse City? 2 hours. How long would it have taken us to go from Manitowoc "just north" to GreenBay? 45 minutes. Fine, and here's the other kicker. Our actual destination was Mancelona, which is "just outside" Traverse City. And THAT took another hour. I'm no cartographer, but I suspect that no matter which direction Mancelona is from Traverse City, it would have taken us an additional hour to get there. So I submit to you two things: The farther north you go in Michigan, the further apart everything is, and this continues indefinitely. Also, my wife has told me on several occasions, Grand Rapids is indeed the center of the universe. I don't know if that's true, but I can prove that it certainly doesn't play by the same rules as the rest of us.

I am tourist, hear me whine

I can't believe it's been nearly a year since I really blogged...
Well, right now I'm on a 3 hour flight to Salt Lake City with the better part of a laptop battery and a fully charged iPod, and nuthin to do but get a little caught up... So here I am and you're my captive audience.
This is my first solo flight. I'm usually the brave one left to guard the homestead, not the one boldly going. Catching the bus was simple, and getting through security was a dream, once the MAN confiscated my Dr. Pepper. (Guess I forgot that a 12oz can is greater than 3oz...) Anyway, I'm sure it goes without saying that my flight was at gate 17 out of 18 and therefore at the far end of the terminal. What surprised me though, is that Gate 17 is actually FARTHER than 18. Thank you OHare. Anyway, I digress... So their I am, at my gate, a solid hour before boarding, and then I have to start making decisions. Flight is at 6pm which means there's no meal. I can deal with that. But now I have to decide which cleverly disguised 'restaurant' at the airport has food with the least amount of evil in it. You can pretty much kiss any actual nutrients goodbye. I've accepted that too. But that doesn't mean that I can't make an intelligent choice. After all, I have close to an hour, I should be able to find something so I start looking, full baggage en tow, because you know, I wouldn't want some loon to load up my carry-on with c4 while I'm not looking. First up, Starbucks. I asked myself one question, Do I want to have to pee in the next 3 hours? No Starbucks, QED. Next, McDonalds. Again, Do I want the runs while belted into an airplane seat? Then, after passing about 4 'bookstores' (i.e really expensive magazine racks) I came to pretty much the gates of nutrition hell, the OHare concourse food court. I believe Obi Wan said it best when he said, "No where in the galaxy will you find a more whetched hive of scum and villany than at an airport food court." So this is kind of like your average mall food court except it's totally evil. They know that if you're there, you're desperate. I'm pretty much convinced that their intention is not to feed, but to mock. Why else would you have a chinese fast food joint at the gateway of flight? Oh please, let ME sit next to the guy that's all MSG'ed up and quivering. That'd be fantastic. Otherwise you can pretty much choose from sugar, fat, or fatty sugar. And then I see Satan wrapped in a tortilla. Burritoville. Now come ON! Only the devil himself would offer a weary traveller a burrito before catching a connecting flight.
So at this point I panic, which is exactly what they want. They want you to rely on your fallback foods... so I step up to the counter of some Pseudo-Americana Grill, which btw, "Grill" is pronounced "boiled" at OHare. And before I realize what I've done, I've ordered the CornBeef. Yes, I wanted a meal that wouldn't leave me gassy, bloated, or uncomfortable for my flight so deftly avoided the burritos only to land face first into a Reuben. I've become what I detest.
So far though, my seatmates haven't keeled over, but I'll keep you posted as the situation "develops."

As a side note, Theresa's Bizarro twin is on this flight. Pretty much T's features, all just a little more pronounced and angular. She even has lighter hair layered over dark, which I believe is opposite Theresa's. Like I said, Bizzaro. But lest you think I only have eyes for T, I've seen about 45 guys that all match my general desciption. Brown short hair, meduim build, glasses... your basic throughbread Midwestern geek archtype. Yeah, this plane is full of us. It's like we're all going to the same convention or something. I swear, someday I'm going to rob a bank and make the police question about 75% of the Mississippi Valley, just to prove my point... there's too many nerdy white guys around here. Somebody's going to figure that out one of these days and start thinning our herd. How hard would it be to put up a sign that says "Magic: the Gathering tournament This Way" in front of a bear trap? Seriously, most of us are either too nearsighted to focus in on a large pointy object at our feet, or we would be too engrossed in tweaking our Decks to notice. Open season, dog. Open season.

Farewell to thee Mine Cheetos, I shall miss thee most of all.

So, I made the mistake a couple weeks ago of sitting down at one of those blood pressure machines for the first time since high school. You know the one's I'm talking about, that machine innocently sitting in front of a pharmacy that calls to you and says, "Hey big boy, let me sqeeze your arm for a minute... unless you aren't man enough." Bear in mind that in high school, I ran crosscountry and could get my heart rate down to 48 bpm. So I did what any real man would do when taunted by a chair, I took the bait and insisted my wife check her blood pressure. "I'm always low," she says rolling up her sleave. "Yeah, me too." I said casually, not to be outdone, because you know, 15 years ago I was... So 45 seconds later, happy little green numbers popup and Chris is putting on her coat. "See, I'm always low." she quips. So now it's my turn, and I ever so smoothly do a little circular dance as I try to get my left arm out of my coat. Then I somehow manage to wedge into the seat with my winter coat lodged somewhere between my right arm and my spine. While trying to convince myself that I'm comfortable in the happy white chair suddenly, the life is getting wrung out of me one limb at a time I realize the absurdity of the situation. I have now willingly shackled myself to a chair in a public setting in the hopes of somehow out-bloodpressuring my wife. I know full well, that the trick to getting a good score is to relax. So while all the blood that wants to be in my arm stays in my torso, and my vision goes purple, I'm trying to tell myself that this is perfectly normal. Finally the deathgrip releases and my pale left arm flushes red, I open my eyes and see alarmed orange numbers BLINKING on high alert. As if to say, "By the gods man! Orange is one step away from RED!" Or more accurately, "I WILL CONTINUE TO BLINK THESE NUMBERS UNTIL YOUR WIFE COMMENTS."

"Borderline Hypertension, huh? Didn't see that coming" she says.

The chair smirks and with satisfaction, stops blinking.

So I've pretty much decided that knowing you have high bloodpressure is the worst thing possible for ever trying to lower it. So I do what all geeks do when they panic, I hightail it to the internet. For those of you who have never had the pleasure of looking for medical advice on the worlds largest hypochodriac network, let me tell you... Theories about hypertension range from "totally expected as individuals get older" to "You will be dead by the time you finish reading this senten... GAK!" Would you care to guess what the perscribed remedy is? Yep, you got it, diet, exercise, and keep your sodium intake in check. I'm pretty sure that's clinic-ese for "It's your own damn fault, deal with it" but whatever, I'll play your sick little game, stupid chair. So I did some more research. Do you have any idea how many things have soduim in them? Holy crap it's everywhere! I'm pretty sure if my iPod had nutitional information listed, it'd show soduim content. Finding out that all of my favorite foods cause hypertension was NOT helping the cause. But the kicker was Cheetos. The little 1 oz bags that are pretty much what you suck off your fingers when you polish off a real bag, contain 25% of your daily Sodium allowance. That means you could literally inhale a quarter of your days sodium just by walking next to someone with an open bag. Unbelieveable. It's like secondhand Sodium. Next time remind me how much I enjoy staying ignorant and tense.

Random Quote of the day from Brainshare, "If you fantasize about putting users in a blender, Get help. They're heavy."

Beware of Good Lasagna

I wrote up a devotional for Church and since it's the only thing I've written in 6 months I thought I'd post it.
-Lee

If you were asked to freely associate the word "Holiday" what is the first word that comes to mind? Personally, I would blurt back "Food". Food means Cooking, and Cooking is a tradition that is loosely translated as, "Opportunity for failure" in the Gardner household. My mother is a gifted and loving woman, but I am reasonably certain that she was afflicted with a childhood disease that has permanently altered her perception of temperature and flavor. With my mother, meals were always hit or miss and holidays usually doubly so. My sister and I had a game called "Burnt or Frozen?" which was kind of like betting on red or black in roulette. The gambling analogy continues in that there was the possibility that dinner could "land on green" and be both. This was usually due to some unsuspecting bag of peas, happily minding its own business in the back of the freezer, getting called into active duty at the last second. Which leads us to the next critical flaw in my mother's cooking philosophy, creativity does not equal edibility. There are people who can improvise with ingredients, but my mother is not one of them. I'm just saying, just because you CAN combine leftover chicken and strawberry jello, doesn't mean you should.

Anyway, what I..m getting at is that when my mom said, ..Your sister will be here for lunch. Why don't you come over too, I'll make lasagna," there's just cause for suspicion. Actually even when she says, "I'll make grilled cheese," you should proceed with caution. But as it turns out, on this day, the lasagna was good. Initially cold, but good. Really good. Too good. I was suspicious.

Now, my mother won't outright lie about her dark art mealtime techniques, but you do have to ask the right questions. So instead of brutishly saying, "The lasagna is really good, what's wrong with it?" I waited and gathered more information. You probably should know that my parents are retired and now spend a lot of time volunteering for various community projects. So when the conversation shifted toward the local food bank and the pattern of giving around the holidays, I started to put things together. "This lasagna is really good. Did you take it from homeless people?" I asked sensitively. This is the point at which I believe my sister snorted a still frozen pea out her nose, but don't quote me on that. "I think it's from Market Day," she replied providing an answer yet completely dodging the question. Now I knew I was on the right track so I continued to poke at my mother. "Don't the homeless like lasagna too? This IS really good lasagna." Cornered, all she came back with, "They were full." Huh? Laughable yes, but this logic clearly required further needling. "So.. you're saying we're eating some homeless person's leftovers?" I said as innocently as I could muster, but by this time she had formulated a better argument.

"Listen" she said, "Today we are dining in unity with our brethren, the homeless."
I was trumped and I knew it. "If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for you." She added. "And if you don't like it, maybe you should do something about it," which was a completely unnecessary thing to add. I had gotten the picture at the word "Unity."

It's my understanding that generally food banks and other public services have little problem with getting donations between Thanksgiving and New Years when people are still in "the spirit of giving." Reflect on Ephesians 2:4-7 and commit yourself to an act of kindness in the off season.

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions..it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
(Ephesians 2:4-7)