Beer and Oreos?

Dear Blog Reader: 

I hope this finds you doing well. It leaves my keyboard in the absence of the lovely Beverly. That’s right. I tried to hold my breath to convince her to not go to Ghana. In her wisdom, she went on and followed through and I started to breath again after I passed out; such parenting skills.  The flight went well. She has experienced her first trotro and it was as bad as advertised. If you haven't read any of Grace's blogs, a trotro is a short bus built for 20 that usually had 30 people on it; no air-conditioning, and close quarters. Things are going well though.

I am doing fine also. On the morning of Bev’s departure, a friend messaged me; asking what was I going to do with Bev gone. I responded the same way that I have always responded when commenting on Bev’s absences for the past 17 years. "I am going to drink beer and eat Oreos until I am eating beer and drinking Oreos.' I wish that I had coined the phrase, but that honor goes to Tim Gennett, my boss and mentor while I was working at Purdue. In addition to this sage advice on the appropriate menu during your better half’s periodic absences, he once told me that the best reason to apply for a promotion was that with every promotion you could reassign one or two distasteful tasks to your new underlings.

The question, of what are you going to do when your wife is gone to the ______, (you fill in the blank) is a recurring one. It is especially prevalent in Christian Circles, where the women go on retreat once or twice a year leaving the men alone with the children and having really low expectations of their husband's coping skills. But year after year everything turns out okay. The kids are fed and dressed. No one dies and very few are maimed. As I mentioned, 17 years ago I had my watershed year. Grace turned three and was finally able to get herself out of bed, and dressed. That was the year that she was able to start queuing up the Barney videos. It was also the year that Ben turned five. By five years of age, he was able to setup the griddle, mix up a little batter and make a passable pancake. Yep, 17 years ago, I started eating beer and drinking Oreos when Bev left for a day or three.

Supper: Make sure you don't ruin your appetite with salad. 

Of course the men handle things a little differently than their wives. Men and women are different. Who hasn’t heard of the defining book on the subject, “Women are from Mars and Men have a Penis”?  Relationships are important for women and blah, and blah, and blah, and blah. Men on the other hand want to keep it simple. “Nice big screen. Gotta beer? Sure I’ll take some Oreos. I’m starved.”

You say tomato, and I say tomato (I sometimes with that I could read my blogs to you; more nuanced.) We both go about our tasks in different ways but get to the same place.

Here are some of the things that I have learned during Bev’s short time in Ghana.

When Bev is here, I can’t eat in bed. She doesn’t like to lie on crumbs. But when she’s gone . . .

She doesn’t have to sleep on the crumbs now. I’m sleeping single in a double bed. The ants are a bit bothersome though.

I must say, the laundry was a little daunting . . .

Problem solved. . .

So as they say absence makes the heart grow fonder, it also goes to show that every once in a while beer and Oreos really help when I miss Bev.

Take care

Roger

Thank you for your Support?

Dear Blog Reader:

I hope this finds you doing well. I am fine. The weather is still great. Thanks to all of you who are heeding the warnings of your ancestors and leaving the flannel sheets on your beds until May. Your words of encouragement were very touching. For those of you who are leaving your flannel sheets on and turning on the air conditioning, remember you are doing the Lord’s work during these unprecedented times, and it’s not ridiculous. For goodness sakes, don’t let the objections and ridicule of your spouses, significant others, friends, and enemies dissuade you from this important work. You are the lynch pins that are holding our fragile world together. Without you there will be a freeze. Fruit and vegetable prices will skyrocket. Shortages, famines, riots; we have been forewarned.

I am sorry to say that the Sharritt household has abandoned the cause. Bev accepted the responsibilities of possible mass starvation and changed the sheets. Know this; I remained strong and refused to help remove those comfortable flannels that provided so many protections and replace them with those easy breezy cotton pretenders that may see us through the summer. However, they won’t protect us from the early spring freeze.

Alas, I wrote those prophetic words on Saturday. Today, Monday, we have a freeze warning; more importantly, a freeze warning for areas North and East of Indianapolis, which is where we live. My grandmother undoubtedly is raising her arms in solemn victory. She told us so. And we did not heed her advice.

If you don’t know what I am talking about, you can gain insight and understanding by reading last week’s blog “The Affects of Global Warming?”

This week I must say that I am a bit afflicted. Bev leaves for Ghana in two days. That’s right: on Wednesday morning she will board a plane, it will rise into the air and fly (as far as I’m concerned) to the ends of the earth. She is visiting our lovely daughter Grace in Ghana. I have not written much about Grace’s excursions. I am heavily influenced by the same voices I wrote about last week. Somehow my mind has convinced me that if I ignore the situation everything will turn out okay. The situation? The situation is that my 20 year old daughter has gone to the third world for 10 months to participate in their “educational” system. (My quotes). Eight months into the excursion and my supportive fatherly instincts are starting to flag. It is the dog days of fatherly support.

“Sounds like things are going well.”

“Yeah, it’s been four weeks since you have fallen into an open sewer. Things are going well.”

“That’s a shame that the electricity has been out for so long that you can’t work on your computer. Those electrons are slippery things.”

“Don’t worry. The professors will show up eventually. It is a University after all.”

“No. Africans yelling,  “Umbruni!” whenever they see a white person would have no parallel to behavior exhibited in the deep South during our formative years as a nation.”

Yes, it the dog days of fatherly support. What do you do when your enthusiasm is waning? You double down. You tell your wife that it is okay with you if she goes to Ghana for 10 days to visit your daughter; one’s fatherly support bolstered by being a supportive husband.

You hold on tight

to being enlightened,
to not letting fear rule your life,
to everything will be okay,
to don’t sweat the small stuff,
to the great adventure,
to do we have any Tylenol pm?,
to let go and let God,
to living in the moment,
to you can’t run their lives,
to you worry too much,
to it will be okay won’t it?

Take care,

Roger

Effects of Global Warming?

Dear Blog reader:

I hope this finds you doing well.  I am fine.

Couple of weather related notes: Punxsutawney Phil is a liar, hoax, and a fraud. On February 2, he boldly proclaimed "six more weeks of winter" in a year when we had had  two days  of winter, and now 42 days later, we are experiencing summer gas prices and getting ready for the first lawn mowing of the season. So if you want to go to Punxsutawney in the late winter to try to catch a glimpse of Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell as they live out their blessed days fine. So be it! But if you want to see the oracle of all things weather for the late winter and early spring, you have been forewarned. To be forewarned is to be forearmed and I figure that to be forearmed is a good thing; because the bullies at school would just tease you and call you stumpy if you weren’t. . . forearmed, I mean.

Speaking of summer gas prices; is it me or do summer gas prices get put out in the stores earlier and earlier?  I remember when we didn't see them before Mother's day (love you ma! Don't worry. The flannels are still on the bed.) Now, it’s St. Patrick’s Day and gas prices have been going up for the summer driving season for 2 weeks.

I am managing to find a way to suffer through the effects of global warming. What with sleeping with the windows open and the ceiling fan on and trying to ignore the blaring ancestral warnings about the proper time to remove the flannel sheets playing in my head, I have not found the last week to be a restful one.

"I'm hot."

"Look at the calendar boy! If you're not careful, the weather will change, and you'll catch your death.”

“I’m hot.”

“Your death will be on your hands then. I wash my hands of any responsibility, if you won’t listen to reason. Every fool knows that you leave your flannies on the bed and keep your jacket zipped up until after Easter. You can unzip the jacket at Easter but leave it on until Memorial Day.”

“But Easter happens on a random day each year. It can be as early as March 23^rd or as late as April 23^rd. So shouldn’t we just decide to unzip our jackets when we get hot.”

“Don’t sass me boy. You’re great uncle Tony; God rest his soul, sassed momma in 19 and 30 and look what it got him.”

“What are you talking about? I don’t have a great uncle Tony.”

“Exactly my point. You don't have one now, but you had one; a long time ago. It just brings the family so much pain that we rarely talk about it. In 19 and 30, Tony told momma that it was too hot to wear a coat. It was the middle of March and while on our 5 mile uphill walk to school, a cold front blew through. Tony was freezing. He begged me for one of my extra sweaters. I just scoffed and told him that it served him right for sassin momma like that. Not listenin to her. Not doin what he was told. Well, about that time, the Timmons’ kid came by in his old Ford. Stopping and rolling down the window, he told Tony that he sure looked cold and that he was heading our way any how. He would give us a ride. Tony hopped in. I of course was warm as toast and was too good to get in any car with a Timmons; so off they went in a cloud of dust. Up around the curve in the road a duck was moving her brood across the road, the car swerved, rolled down into a ditch and Tony, your great uncle, was lost to the angels. He caught his death because he didn't have his coat.”

“That is terrible. But isn’t that a cautionary tale to promote the use of seatbelts and defensive driving not the advocacy of wearing winter clothing until mid-summer?”

“Don’t sass me boy.”

Take care, and don’t catch a chill

Roger

March Madness?

Dear Blog Reader;

I hope that this latest installment finds you doing well. I am fine. I find myself stuck in the house. I am a bit bitter that during the work week last week; 55 degree sunny days simply begging to be enjoyed with a bike ride were abundant. Now, the weekend is here and the high will be 35 with snow flurries. I know that I sound like a churlish brat. Didn’t I enjoy all of the warm weather in January, or the 16 days that I road outside in February? Of course I did, but I want it all. And I want it now. Now; and I’ll take mine without 200 mph tornados. Thank you very much.

I feel like the warm weather will never come. It feels like April showers and May flowers are but classic bait and switch scams which we will grab for, ignoring the admonitions of our grand parents, and jamb our fingers against the cold, gray, ice encrusted, March doldrums. No wonder the Romans have their ides. Mrs. Caesar; “Beware, I’d rather it be any month than March.” No wonder the Irish have their green beer; anything to get some color into this gray landscape that we have endured since last November. I  . . . have . . .    had . . . enough!

Daylight savings time next Sunday night: make sure you get your receipt from Uncle Sam for that hour of sleep that will be taken away. The more sensitive of us will go around looking for it until November; always wondering why we never feel rested. I have a standing order for my family. If I die during the months of daylight savings time, my funeral is to be postponed until November. That hour of sleep is precious. Isn’t it just like the government to go around saving things for us? Then if we check out at the wrong time, they just give it to someone else (Think Social Security). Besides, I refuse to start eternity with a sleep deficit.

Indiana’s Attorney General is going to look into people’s complaints that they were not able to rent their house for $10,000 during the Super Bowl. Really People? The following are the great myths of our time; Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and $10,000 rent for your home for 5 days. They aren’t real. They are simply made up things to renew your hope that you have a chance in the next round of life’s lottery. “Step right up and get your ticket.” The following is a rule to live by; if you see a promise on a small sign in a median, it isn’t true. It could say, “work from home”, “Super Bowl House rentals $10,000”, or “Four More Years”, and it would be the same horse hooey. Get over it. Please.

I spent a wonderful day yesterday celebrating Bonnie’s 80^th birthday. Bonnie, my lovely wife Beverly’s mother, is the matriarch of a great brood of son, and daughters, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and five Purdue outlaw sons-in-law. What a great time. As you can imagine, taking time off for recovery between children, the age spread of the grand children is wide but follows you basic bell curve. In a rite of passage that is becoming more rare, Austin one of the younger cousins moved on to the “older” cousin table. Very cool.

I have had a rule of thumb regarding all of my nieces and nephews. None of them are interesting until they reach high school. Oh sure they have interesting moments but really those moments are few and far between and make it hard to gauge how interesting the person will become once they shed the gnarly chrysalis of adolescence. Then something happens as they reach high school, they suddenly are able to string more and more interesting moments together until by the time they matriculate to college they are the kind of people you want to set down and have a conversation with.

Since Austin moved to the big table, my seat was taken. So I moved down to the young cousin table. I had the privilege of sitting with Max. I like Max. Of all of the uninteresting nieces and nephews, he shows a great deal of promise. For instance last night, he played Sonic on a Touch all through supper. Isn’t that the greatest? After 21 grandkids, the hyper vigilance has gone away. If you don’t want to eat and want to play video games, fine. What do the adults care? As far as Uncle Roger is concerned, that leaves more cake for me. That alone adds a sense of interest. So, Max plays this game all through supper. He isn’t sure what is going on. This would never happen at home. Supper time is supper time. Put away the game and come to the kitchen. The game is put away and the boy trudges to the supper table.

This is different. This is special. All of the rules have been suspended. Max gets to feast on an electronic hedge hog. And the best part? After the video game playing part of his primordial brain is sated, he gets hungry. He gets a plate, fills it up, and sits down to eat.

Don’t we all need that kind of space to get through March? Interesting.

Take care,

Roger