What DO the Neighbors Think?

It concerns me just a little bit that when you start typing "the neighbors think we're normal" into Google search the first thing that pops up is "the neighbors think we're selling dope."

I think it might be some kind of popular rap song, or something.  I haven't felt led to explore it.

But it led me to wonder, what do the neighbors think?  And what do we think about them?

We live in a pretty little area, hilly and wooded, with maybe forty houses or so on our road and the two small lanes that branch off of it.  I'd say there are six neighboring households we know well, and two or three more we know a little.  Everybody else we're on a nodding and waving acquaintance with.

We have some dog walkers, and we'll smile and wave to them and they'll wave back.  I know a few of them by their first names.  We have some families with cute small children, and the kids are out playing in their yards when the weather's good.  Graphics Magician goes to school with some of the neighbor kids, and he knows them without knowing their families much.  My next door neighbors have children and grandchildren in on holidays, and the fellow on the other side doesn't get out much.  There are a few houses up the hill from us that are summer homes--when the weather gets cold the residents head for Florida.

....It's not a lot to know about a place for having lived there eight years.  I should make more of an effort.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Apologizing to Graphics Magician

I was in the wrong the other night, and Graphics Magician called me on it, and I had to apologize to him.

My mistake--my BIG mistake--was expecting him to be able to handle things like a grownup.  I really, really, really have to watch that.

He'd been called down for disrespectful conduct.  And that part his mother and I actually handled pretty well; he was in the wrong and we told him, calmly and patiently enough, that his behavior was unacceptable.  But by that point he was angry and abashed and uncomfortable and just wanted to leave the room to go process things and simmer down.

And I should have just let him go, and caught back up with him later when he'd had a chance to settle.  But I insisted that he remain there and face up to his actions, which was a serious blunder on my part.  Adolescence is tricky, and I wasn't taking into account the fact that his brain is a swirling thunderstorm of hormones and rampaging emotions and cognitive confusion, and I was being really, really unreasonable in expecting him to be able to calmly and maturely stay and discuss things.

I need to remember that he's thirteen.

In his room later he still couldn't coherently frame his thoughts but he told me that he didn't know what to say or do at that point and he was afraid that anything he DID say would only get him in more trouble (which was probably true) and he just wanted to leave.  And I should have just let him, and I was in the wrong, and I apologized.  It wasn't a bad moment.

Maybe I'll do better next time.  I need to remember to be the grownup.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Heading for Wedding

Basement Artist turns twenty-four in a few weeks.

In a few months she'll be getting married, to a really nice guy from Montreal, and then moving to Canada with him.

That's a bittersweet thing for me, but that's the way it's supposed to work.  We don't own our children; we just keep them in stewardship for awhile, and I'm very blessed to have had her nearby as long as I have.  She had a rough start and they weren't sure for awhile if she was going to make it past infancy, so, you know, we're doing pretty well here.

She and her mom are having a lot of fun planning the wedding.  When she's not stressing out, that is.

I'm going to miss her something fierce, but that's okay.  I'm going to have to come up with a new blog name for her when she moves out of my basement, though.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Consumed by Problems

I was a small-church pastor some years back and I regularly visited an elderly shut in, about whom I'm going to use the word "pathetic."  It's a condescending word, and not one I use lightly.  She was in a truly pitiful condition.

She was severely visually impaired, almost totally blind.  But that wasn't what made her case so sad.

What made her pathetic was that she was absolutely consumed by her blindness.  It was all she wanted to talk about, all she wanted to pray about, the only thing on her mind.  How unjust God was for making her blind, how hard it was to do anything because she was blind, how fortunate people were who weren't blind, how much time and effort she spent trying to get doctors to help her alleviate in some way her blindness.

I don't mean to belittle her impairment--I treasure my eyesight and consider myself very blessed to be able to see to take care of myself and enjoy the beauties of the world.  But there are lots of other people much worse off than she was who are having a much more enjoyable life.  She was in a comfortable assisted living facility with a husband who loved her and took care of her, she had a roof over her head and three meals a day, she had people to talk to and activities she could have participated in and all the music and radio access she could possibly have wanted.  Other than the eyesight her health was reasonably good--she was mobile, had a good appetite, and decent strength and endurance.  She had a lot to be thankful for.

I would even have been happy to have her as an active part of our church's prayer ministry, and on more than one occasion I tried to direct her attention to some need in the church or community that I would have appreciated her praying about.

She would have none of it.  Her vision problems dominated the conversation, and she would talk about nothing else.  I grew weary of visiting her, because I knew the visits would be a litany of complaints about one subject.  I would make efforts to redirect the conversation, even directly (and hopefully lovingly) rebuking her a few times for her attitude, but to no avail.  She was miserable and determined to stay miserable.

I would always end the visit asking how I could pray for her, and the answer was always the same, to pray that God might restore her vision.

Sad, very, very sad. 

Ah, well.

Hope all's going okay out there, friends, and God bless.

Talking About Inessential Things

In the household we need to talk about schedules and calendars and school and insurance and bills and taxes and jobs and rides and shopping and the wedding and relationships and coordinating vehicles and chores and rent and doctor visits and all manner of things.  There's all manner of things that need to be discussed and planned and settled.

But you can't build a relationship on the necessary things.  You can build a partnership, sure.  You can build a business, yes.  But to build a family you have to spend some time talking about the inessential things.

So with Adored Wife I talk about Marvel superheroes and funny things little kids say and do and history and philosophy and linguistics.

With Basement Artist I talk about alternate worlds and time travel and the stories of Ray Bradbury and poetry and politics and pirates.

With Social Hurricane I talk about sunrises and Fablehaven and Captain America and cosplaying and anime.

With Graphics Magician I talk about.....oh, where to start......girls and sports and middle school and government and math and the future and bullies and fights and pranks and friends and animal behavior and the nature of the universe and trees and weather and wishes.  (I kind of let him direct the conversation and his mind goes everywhere.)

And then, sometimes, with the family, we have to talk about the necessary things that let you keep the household going.  But you can't live there--that's not living, it's just existing.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Adored Wife Gets Stuck

Adored Wife tells a funny story on herself:

AW and Graphics Magician were alone in the house.  GM hadn't been feeling well and she was checking on him in his bunk bed.  He has a set of steps leading up to it and she stepped wrong on the first step and broke it, stranding herself on the second step.  Because of her balance and other neurological issues, she had absolutely no way to safely get down.

This has woken up GM, and he becomes aware of his mother's precarious position.  Half asleep he says "don't move" and goes in search of a step stool.  The first one he brings is too low to the ground so, still groggy, he goes down to the very cold garage and manages to find the larger one.

His mother relates that she is standing there feeling like an idiot the whole time stuck two feet off the ground, but she was quite relieved when GM came back with the "good" step stool and she was able to navigate safely back to the floor.

And she did manage to check on Graphics Magician, so it's all good.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Caught at Karaoke!

For reasons of my own I prefer that my eldest daughter doesn't drive the ailing Jeep home from work late at night. For other reasons, it's sometimes preferable that she drives the Jeep to work.  Long story short, I will occasionally drop off at the bar & grill where she serves capably as a prep cook to trade vehicles with her.  She doesn't know when I'm going to do this, only that it's sometime during her shift.  I'll usually catch her dishwashing or making sandwiches or cutting chicken or something, you know, kitcheny.  I'll say "hi" and drop the keys off, and then head off in the Jeep.  (I keep a spare set for the Jeep, so I don't have to get keys from her.)

The other night I parked in the back of the restaurant and walked in the kitchen entrance.  I'm friends with the owner and my daughter of course works there, so I'm comfortable enough doing this.

There was no one in the kitchen, which is unprecedented for me.  I follow the sounds through to the dining room.  They'd hit a slow period--there were numerous people eating but nobody had ordered anything recently and so the kitchen staff took a break and came out to get something to drink and chill out for a bit.

And Basement Artist was singing Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight" at the karaoke machine.  Now, her voice is very soft owing to some laryngeal damage in her infancy, and she doesn't have much in the way of volume.  But she had a microphone.  And she has a pleasant contralto and she was carrying the tune very capably.  I was impressed.

She was a little abashed to be caught in the act.  She finished the song and came over to give me a hug.

"Hi, Papa.  I wasn't expecting you."

"Clearly."

I handed over the keys and, grinning, took my leave and let her get back to it.  She's NEVER going to live this down.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Adulting

We have a twenty-three year old and a twenty-one year old living at home, but the situation is not at all permanent.

Basement Artist is a young adult woman and has grown up living with an extreme case of introversion, shyness, a permanently quiet voice from early damage, and fundamental insecurity.

Social Hurricane is a young adult woman dealing with anxiety issues, humongous dyslexia, and full-blown bipolar disorder.

They're both adulting.  I suppose there are people for whom adulting comes easily.  It never did for me, and it hasn't for my daughters.

They're both paying bills, holding down jobs, managing insurance and medical stuff and looking to the future.  BA is planning a wedding and then a move to Canada from North Carolina and SH is looking at further education and figuring out what she wants to do and where she wants to go when she flies the nest, which she's expecting will be within the year.

There's a lot of uncertainty, a few mistakes here and there, and an awful lot of "we're making this up as we go along."  We've had lots of long talks, and we've provided a lot of hints here and there.  But we can't do this for them.  I've love to have them blog about their own experiences, but so far, no luck.

But I wish them the best with it.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.