Back in the Saddle

I'm back in the saddle again

Out where a friend is a friend

Where the longhorn cattle feed

On the lowly gypsum weed

Back in the saddle again

This old Gene Autry song came to mind this morning as I took my customary place in the recliner to drink coffee and read the paper. I just returned from a quick trip to Indiana to see my mother and two of my brothers. Packing light as a practice run for our New Zealand escapade, I didn't take my MacBook along. I had a few moments where I regretted that decision, including a four-hour flight from Indianapolis to Salt Lake City on a plane that had free WiFi. Gosh, to think you missed out on the joy of reading what I was thinking while experiencing oxygen deprivation and leg cramps at 38,000 feet!

The trip went fine, but I'm really happy to be home.

Yahtzee

As I wrote a day or two ago, today is Megan's thirtieth birthday. Despite the evidence garnered from the activities of some religious groups, I'm not sure if "practice makes perfect" applies to childbirth. Labor is just that, and I have nothing but admiration for women who go through it, and especially those who do so again after the first time.

Practice really did help when it came to my being the expectant father. I think I was a helpful, supportive presence during Evan's birth. I even "labored" a bit to help usher Erin into the light, laying on the bed behind Sally after she tired, pushing her forward when she was supposed to push. It was hard work!

When Megan was born I didn't have a clear role, which meant that my unfettered anxiety led me in a variety of directions, mostly not so helpful, and all at the same time. It all started on Friday morning, November 2, 1979, when Sally first began having contractions. We joined the group of Evansville school bus drivers for breakfast that morning as we often did on Fridays. When Sally was asked "When are you going to have that baby?" for the umpteenth time, she replied that it would likely be soon, since she was already having contractions.

That was fun! Coffee cups clinked back onto their saucers all around the table, and Sis DeWeese put down the crisp slice of bacon she was eating. Perhaps some of our friends envisioned rushing Sally to the Emergency Room in a school bus. That would have been exciting, but it wasn't to be. Megan, it seems, was taking her sweet time.

We stayed in communication with the doctor throughout the day, timing contractions and otherwise going about our business. Everything was packed for Sally's trip to the hospital, and we had only to wait for the contractions to increase in strength and frequency. As evening came I brewed a pot of regular coffee to help me stay awake for the rigors to come. Though memory fails a bit, I think I even went out and bought the Yahtzee game that we ended up playing. Sally tired of Yahtzee after a few games, and, having not had an entire pot of coffee, decided to go to bed.

I remained vigilant, as people who have consumed an entire pot of coffee are likely to be. How vigilant? Between the coffee and the excitement of what was to come, I was really wired. I didn't even need to shake the dice... I just sorta held up the Yahtzee cup and let my caffeine induced tremors do the shaking for me until the cup fell from my hand, throwing the dice in the process.

We called the doctor at 5 in the morning to report that the contractions had neither subsided nor strengthened. He told us that, given the situation, we should come to the hospital anyway. Once Sally was admitted and hooked to an IV and monitors, pitocin was administered to enhance the contractions and induce labor. Even after the pitocin Megan was reluctant to make an appearance, and so the day dragged into another evening. I'm guessing Sally was tired, what with all that labor. I was totally wasted, my physiology wrecked on the rocky shoals of sleep deprivation and caffeine abuse.

Some of what transpired is now lost to memory. I do recall that Deaconess Hospital was incredibly regressive, despite having pioneered many of the ideas around birthing rooms under a previous administration. I remember the struggle for me to get admitted to the delivery room, and our friend Alice Kuhn sneaking into recovery under the pretense of being family. Alice was a dear friend who could not have looked less like a member of our family had she employed her Halloween costume. I remember the frustration of wanting to share our happy news with family, and not being able to get anyone, anywhere on the phone.

Megan was a beautiful baby, none the worse for the wear from the extended labor. Sally, after all her hard work, did that thing so many mothers do, recovering almost immediately, seemingly forgetting the two-day effort. Armed with knowledge from her own reading and the support of the La Leche League, she turned her energy to doing battle with the Nurse Ratcheds who insisted on providing Megan with supplemental sugar water.

It all turned out well. Megan is still our beautiful baby, joined over the next six years by Erin and Evan. Though I have no gold stars for giving birth to them, being their father has been and continues to be a privilege and a blessing. I still love drinking coffee, and remain too excitable at times. The only casualty in this whole episode? I really don't like playing Yahtzee.

Milepost

Sally ate breakfast this morning, packed her lunch, picked up a travel cup of coffee from the counter, and pulled the car out of the garage. So? She pulled the car out of the garage. That means the car was in the garage in the first place.

OK, it wasn't easy. Getting Evan's car into the garage required considerable moving and re-moving of sawhorses, wood trim, tools, and bikes, but it all fit, with room for the Civic's wide door to open fully.

It has been many months since the garage comprised enough open space to accommodate a car. As we began disassembling the old kitchen, the garage became the receptacle for cabinets not worth using in the basement or elsewhere.

And given that we were doing the kitchen ourselves, we cleared the garage out so that the new cabinets could be delivered and stored on one side, with our bikes on the other, until we got around to installing them. Next came supplies from Home Depot - bags of thinset mortar and boxes of ceramic tile - that we stacked on the opposite side of the garage. We filled the remaining aisle with sawhorses, the tile saw and stand, and then squeezed in the bikes. Thus the garage has remained. Over time, though, one pile after another has been reduced in size. We chipped away at the boxes of tile, unpacked cabinets, recycled cardboard containers and disposed of styrofoam packing materials. However, the remaining materials moved down to the floor, and spread out like pancake batter on a grill. Even though the volume of stuff had diminished, the area it covered had grown.

Yesterday morning, noting the thick covering of frost on the car windshields, I decided that, for Sally's sake, it was time to reclaim the garage's original purpose. After all, going to work at 6 a.m. is hard enough without having to scrape a windshield before shivering all the way downtown. So the car spent the night in the garage.

It might not seem like much of a milepost, but we have found through this process that there are lots of things we take for granted until we lose access to them. Sinks. Faucets. Clean countertops. And yes, garages for cars. Now that we have room to park one car inside, we'll start plotting how to get the other in as well. We'll be warmer in the morning, and doubtless the envy of all our neighbors who park their cars outside year 'round because of the treadmills, Bowflexes, lawn mowers, and trampolines they store in theirs.

Simplify, America! Or at least stack more efficiently, OK?

Quick Trip

Sally and I took a quick trip to Kennewick today to have a birthday brunch with Megan, who turns 30 on Tuesday (time flies, etc.). Driving in the abundant sunshine felt luxurious after the few days of cold, dark and wet we've just come through. The brunch was quite nice, and the afternoon visit was as well. The only fly in the ointment was a light kit for a Hunter ceiling fan that we tried to install. We wired and rewired it three times, but to no avail. Finally we wired parts from another lamp to the fan to see if we could achieve light. No luck. I'll bet Lowe's doesn't often have items returned so quickly.

However, our initial trip to the home store wasn't wasted, as Sally and I bought a replacement for a flickering under-cabinet light, and the new transformer works perfectly. It was the easiest fix possible.

So, a quick 330 miles, lots of sunshine, time with Megan, and a safe return. A nice introduction to November.

Under-Cabinet Lighting

In accepting the nomination for the Presidency in 1960, John F. Kennedy said, "We are not here to curse the darkness, but to light the candle that can guide us through the darkness to a safe and sane future." Like millions of other Americans, I was deeply moved by those words. Sadly, the most I have personally been able to do in response is to mount lights under the cabinets in our remodeled kitchen, but it is a start.

Sally said last night that she wanted to bake plum cake today, and I just couldn't let another day go by without some progress. She agreed to help me with the lighting before continuing her baking. It's 7:30 p.m., the cakes are in the oven, and where there was once deep darkness, lights now shine.

OK, OK, enough of the irreverence. We're really happy to have gotten this done.

Morning Darkness

This isn't the latest sunrise of the year, it just feels like it.

We've reached the time of the year when the length of sunlight is changing by 3 or 4 minutes per day. This morning's sunrise came at 7:30 PDT, and Saturday morning's will come at 7:33. We then will receive a momentary respite in the form of the end of Daylight Savings Time, which will offer us an additional hour of morning light... for a few days... with a commensurate loss of afternoon light. But like light, hope is fleeting during this time of year. By the end of December sunrise will not occur until 7:38, despite being off of Daylight Savings Time.

What's the big deal? We have electricity.

My body knows. I feel the changing sunlight in my obsessive desire for carbohydrates. I feel it in my sluggishness, and desire to roll over and pull the covers over my head. Mostly I feel it in my fading, flagging spirits. My brain knows that the light will return, but it's a hard sell to my body.

Strange and wonderful creatures, we are. Of course, we aren't alone in this. The trees, the bees, the birds, and even Mr. Cat sense that it's time to slow down, hunker down, cling to what warmth we can find, and await the return of the light.

It's About Numbers

This represents my 100th blog post. I must say that I have really enjoyed the process of writing. Perhaps the biggest challenge in all of this is the lack of feedback. In public speaking and preaching I avoid notes and lecterns specifically so as to make strong visual connections with the audience or congregation. In blogging, though I may think about how my eventual readers might respond to something I've written, I'm never really sure anyone is out there. At best the feedback I receive comes hours or days after I've posted. Looks like I'm finally having to embrace delayed gratification.

We clearly pay more attention to some numbers than others. I guess it's the result of being in a base-10 system that 10th, 20th, 30th etc. get our attention. 25th makes sense because of being a quarter of a century. Other milestones? I remember St. Matthew's Church in Evansville planning a big celebration for their 65th anniversary. I thought it was weird. In retrospect, perhaps the members there were all focused on retirement.

Anyway, since this is my 100th post, I'd like to share some numbers and their importance to me:

1 - Sally's the one for me.

2- dogs

3- great kids

3.14159265- Yes, I want punch and pi

4- seasons; Brett Favre of the Packers, Jets, Vikings, and _________

5- Paul Hornung of the Packers

7- always a favorite digit. Lloyd Ruby drove car #7 in the Indy 500

9- lives of a cat. Taj is probably on #5 or #6

12- first home address

13- # of great power associated with women and the moon

15- Bart Starr of the Packers

16- driver's license

18- voting age

21- drinking age

24- high school football #; age when Sally and I got married

25- Lloyd Ruby's other car number

31- Jim Taylor of the Packers

44- Hank Aaron

52- a good year

57- a good age

63- year my family moved to Indianapolis

66- Ray Nitschke of the Packers

79- Megan's birth

83- Erin's birth

86- Evan's birth

98- Parnelli Jones at the Indy 500; year we moved to Washington

98.6- seems normal

195- work at keeping the weight off

820- miles I rode my bike this year

1700- miles I rode my bike in 2008

2012- The Mayan calendar says what? Give me a.... break.

23,000- dollars we saved by doing the kitchen ourselves, at least!

4.5 billion- years of Earth history

14 billion years- since the Big Bang. Approximately. Who's counting?

101- my next blog post. It's been fun, but let's keep our eyes on the future, at least until 2012...