Kobayashi Maru

Soooo after a week with my family, we made a road trip up to the northern wing of Texas to do some holiday time with Ferf’s family – the inlaws…

There are a bunch of these folks, so let me introduce the cast of characters for your convenience and/or amusement. Ferf being an orphan, we go to the aunt and uncle’s house – Sizzy and Boo. Ferf has two siblings: Merf and ScottyBear (yeah, that’s him singing and he really is that damn good); plus two cuzins: Jono (yes he actually designed that bad boy!!) and Topher; Jono’s wife - the little red haired girl; 2 generations back we have the originator of the clan: MawMaw; and the newest addition (hopefully, assuming ScottyBear doesn’t piss us all off by screwing this up) ScottyBear’s significant other. She is exceptionally cool AND, as an added bonus, she is from Egypt - very exotic (or ethnic to white folks). For the purposes of this entry we’ll call her “Yoda”, but when you read it or say it aloud, you have to put your fists to the side of your head and wiggle your thumbs around. It will take me longer to write this entry because every time I type out Y-O-D-A I have to do the thumb wiggles like ears.

This is Yoda’s first trip to Texas. And to make her really understand the culture, the airlines pulled her out of the line to do a more in-depth document check. NOT because she is Egyptian, or because they couldn’t pronounce her name and had to spell it out when they called for her over the loud speaker (and you have to be patient with that because her name has a total of 4 letters to it and it’s pronounced phonetically – and really, who expects a professional who deals with clients from any number of nations to be culturally sensitive) or because she is in her words “a brownie”. Nope none of that. That would be profiling and that would be wrong. On the upside, ScottyBear loves traveling with her because they no longer pull him out of line on the assumption that he looks like he’s smuggling drugs. They pass right over him now – he’s a white guy with a WASP name, how dangerous could he really be?? Sure, his last name is Mallone and that sounds Irish and Lord knows that those guys have been blowing stuff up for freaking years – but not American stuff, so they’re ok. But Yoda (remember to do the ears) might be a terrorist. Seriously, no one is a terrorist until they terrorize someone, so she might be a terrorist. Like a single girl sleeper cell waiting to be activated and do her pre-programmed damage on ScottyBear. He’s a dead man walking and doesn’t know it – but by rechecking her documents they will sniff her out. However after another 30 seconds of intense scrutiny the exceptionally brilliant check-in counter girl made the call that she is in fact not a threat to national security nor to that particular plane. Thus, I guess that for the moment we have to believe the best and give her the benefit of the doubt…but we’re watching closely. (Not really, she even brought a couple of seasons of Will and Grace on DVD with her to Texas. That’s worth a lot of bonus points – even if ScottyBear is homophobic and hates the show. The rest of us find it funny. I explained to him that since I am a lesbian trapped inside a man’s body, I simply relate to the show well.)

But back to the story. The day before we arrived in the north of Texas, the aforementioned siblings and Yoda arrived via the aforementioned plane. They flew in from California and got in just in time for some dinner. Seeing as how Merf and ScottyBear used to live here, they wanted to introduce Yoda (HEY, do the ear thing!) to some good old fashioned eatin. So they went to Spring Creek BBQ. It’s an amazing little place where you can eat till you want to puke and then have some more rolls. They have roll people – guys and/or girls who carry around baskets of rolls and give them out when you ask. Well according to Sizzy who had a front row view of the entire proceedings the three of them ate like starving prisoners and all but molested the roll boy. When they left he was curled up in a fetal position under a nearby table sucking his thumb and whimpering about being violated by the “three man gang”.

By the time we got here, they had settled down into a semi-routine. Go to bed about 1am. Wake up about 1pm. Eat breakfast. Do a little jam on the guitar. Eat dinner. Drink voraciously (one of the reasons I love this family). Go back to bed. The first night here was a huge familypalooza fest. It was hysterical. These guys do know how to laugh I have to admit. We howled our way through our travel story, their airline spelling adventure, and the Spring Creek BBQ roll boy assault. Ferf called Yoda “My Favorite Terrorist” and we all bonded a bit more deeply through sarcasm and the corporate mocking of others. It’s not really a Christmas tradition for them, more of a year round sport that we all participate in whenever we get together – even in small groups.

The bonding went a little deeper this year when all the girls went to the grocery store and came back with matching Dallas Cowboys pajamas (pink long pants and white tops with the logo on the front in pink). They all ran in the door giggling like school girls and went straight to the bathroom together. Then they all paraded out at one time wooping it up. ScottyBear and I stood there stunned in the kitchen as Ferf, Merf and Yoda jumped around and made cheerleader motions. I started to give Merf crap about something and she spun on her heel looked me in the eye and said, “Look buddy, we just fulfilled at least a couple of fantasies you and ScottyBear have had, so back off!” ScottyBear and I looked at each other and kinda nodded at each other and said, “ummm…yeah…ok”. Believe me when I say that never have I more deeply held to my admiration and support of the Cowboys.

There is a truly eclectic mix of people, personalities and activities here. On Christmas Eve, we did an Advent thing early in the evening before dinner (historically they do it later, after dinner), but they thought it was semi-sacrilegious to go straight from Advent to the big poker game we had planned. So far we have only played poker here and so there have been no lap dances or cross-dressing like at my family’s Christmas there at my brother’s house. (Go figure on that. We are traditionally Southern Baptist and these guys are more Vineyard in theology – and independent 3^rd party observer would have assumed that they would be more predisposed to strange behaviors as they could attribute it some weird never, before seen, but totally valid manifestation of the Spirit.) On a completely separate, but very important tangent, I should note that Ferf and I closed out the first major poker tournament here with the inlaws. Ferf came in second. I accepted the monies from each of them with gratitude. The holidays have been a good run of poker winnings for me and I am appropriately thankful.

The truly amazing thing about this trip has been the ridiculous number of gifts that have been showered on the Muppet. Gifts have come in from all over North America and in all shapes and sizes. MiMi and Papa loaded her up including the penultimate gift that meets the need of every 2 year old girl: a Coach purse. Yes, that’s right – the Muppet now has her own Coach hand bag. In fact she had a black coach purse before Ferf did. And I can tell you that this fact did not go over well with Ferf, believe you me. Thankfully Ferf kept that to herself, unknown to anyone except me who saw it ever so briefly in her eyes as the idea of stealing it from the Muppet when we got home flashed across them. They also loaded her down with everything Dora. If it has Dora on it, if it is Dora related, if it even looks like something Dora would want, the Muppet now owns it. In fact, I was given an Spanish-English dictionary so I could better understand what my daughter was saying as she learns more and more how to speak from Dora. Having moved north, the avalanche of gifts continued to flow down on our heads. While everyone oooohs and aaaaahs over the gifts, I keep thinking the standard Christmas though, “how the hell are we going to get all this stuff home!?” I am embracing the true spirit of the holidays, I know. Up here the gift de résistance was a black hooded down jacket with gold inlay, a fur trimmed hood and G-Unit embroidered on the front. Now the Muppet can officially “roll with it” in the Canadian ‘hood. She’s down with it hommme.

For those interested, Ferf got me a Citizen Eco-Drive watch. I am loving it!! I haven’t had a working watch in over a year and now I have an uber-cool watch. Go me.

I must admit that I am still amazed to me every time we come here to hang with the extended inlaw fam. I have to remind myself that it wasn’t that many years ago that this was not something any of us looked forward to. I was the antichrist to them. And now, after years of working through all of our issues (of which there were many) they like me…they really, really like me! Hell, they love me. I kid you not. They buy me presents and everything. I know it’s true because they aren’t that good of actors (I can attest to this ‘cause I whipped their butts in poker).

I was out buying last minute gifts on Christmas Eve with Auntie Sizzy (along with every other man in the greater DFW area evidently) and I told her that this is now the family that I hoped I was marrying into 8 years ago. And I can say with integrity that it was worth the wait. I wouldn’t want to go through all the crap again, but having come out the other side, it was all worth it. This is what everyone hopes Christmas with the inlaws will be like. 5 kids (I know, it’s siblings and cousins making 5, but 3 of them get to play the orphan card and so they’re all one family and they might as well be brothers and sisters) plus spouses and the next generation running around underfoot and everyone getting along well and loving on one another. ‘Tis Christmas I tell you. It ‘tis.

So have a Merry Christmas everyone. Thanks for spending part of your holidays here with us on the Maru. Don’t forget to tip your waitresses and bartenders – they’re working hard for you and it’s Christmas.

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So here we are in Texas celebrating the holiday seasons and the Muppet is currently walking across the back of a lounger in the living room saying over and over again, “Merry Christmas to YOU Mommy!” Somewhere in there she’s wishing it to me as well. Heck, I think in this instance she really means everyone. So from the Muppet, here’s a Merry Christmas to YOU!

Getting down to Texas was a serious bi-atch for me. With all due respect to those folks stranded in Denver - cause it seriously sucks to be you - my travel plans did not go exactly as I laid them out back in the summer when I bought the stinking ticket. Back then it was hot outside and Christmas was barely on the radar screen…but Ferf was certain that she could do really well with her business in the sexually repressed, Southern Baptist dominated, buckle of the Bible belt where people have sex (they do reproduce after all) but they spend most of the time pretending that they don’t think about the fact that everyone there has had sex - even if they didn’t really enjoy it. I mean sure, there can be utilitarian purposes for sex - none that come to mind right now - but I’m sure they exist.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, my trip down to Texas…it was hellish. My flight out of town was delayed twice at the local “international” airport. I suppose it is international in the sense that one can fly 20 minutes across the border into the States, but it’s more an exercise in self-aggrandizement. After the second delay I started getting antsy. So I wandered over to the window only to discover that there was an almost total white out going on outside. That was my first clue that this would not be your normal flight delay. But since I was traveling alone, I decided that this would be my day to be patient. So I did the math and realized that the flight from Seattle should have been arriving at that very moment so they could unload, clean up, and allow me on board for the return flight. With the conditions outside being what they were, I sauntered (yes, I know how to saunter as I am somewhat of a Renaissance man thank you very much) over to the counter and politely asked if the incoming flight was going to be diverted or what. To which she responded that it had gone back to Seattle and our flight was about to be cancelled, and we would all need to go back out front to the ticket counter so they could rebook us and hopefully get us on the next flight out in 45 minutes.

So I stayed right there until the announcement was made and then was first in line for the re-booking. There I discovered that they would not be able to get me on my connection in Seattle to DFW. But I there was a “later” flight - 6 hours later…but wait, it was fully booked. So for the next 10 minutes she tried every convoluted gyration she could think of to get me to DFW (Dallas-Ft. Worth to the uninitiated). But it was all to no avail, because Seattle, at that same time, was being hit with what some weather guy was calling an “ice hurricane”. The best she could do (according to her and the computer) was to get me into DFW on Sunday – keeping in mind that this was Friday. Needless to say I gently explained that this dog would not hunt. I tried to communicate to her the size and severity of the international incident that would be unleashed upon us all by my mother if I made the call and told her that I would not be making the scheduled appearance in Texas until Sunday. She seemed nonplussed by this information, and I actually laughed out loud at her naivety. (Aww the ignorance of youth and lack of experience with a southern mamma. It was almost sweet if it weren’t so stupid…)

I realized that it might behoove me to offer alternative solutions to the dear girl and so I informed her that Texas is a sizable state and that there was the possibility of flying me into a different city – something separate yet equal (a historical reference that was completely lost on her). She seemed intrigued and I told her that I knew for a fact that there were direct flights into Houston from Calgary as I had taken that route before. She gave me a depreciating smile and reminded me that only Air Canada did that and her airline was not a partner with Air Canada.

At this point I knew that I had to take some matters into my own hands. I thought about the fact that 40 other people were waiting behind me to be re-booked and that the next flight was quickly approaching its boarding time. Right about then I put on my trademarked grin and leaned into her and said, “Ma’am, I want you to know that my mother raised me right. I will not raise my voice. I will not cause a scene. I will not call you names or use foul language. I will be as patient as necessary to get myself to Texas today. However, the longer this takes, the more difficult that mob of people behind me will be for you to handle. If they start missing the next flight because you are still trying to work with me (and make no mistake, you will be working with me until I get satisfied) I would bet that they will not make the same promises to you. In fact, they could get down right nasty to you after I leave. Then I ended the conspiratorial conversation we were having and looked back at the people directly behind me and rolled my eyes and shrugged. When I turned back to the lady, she told me to hang on. 5 minutes later she returned with a boarding pass for the next flight to Calgary and one for the flight to Houston on Air Canada. See…sometimes you don’t have to be rude. It’s all about coming to a reasonable understanding of the facts at hand.

So I finally arrived in Houston sometime late Friday night, or early Saturday morning – depending on your perspective or time zone preference. I slept for a couple of minutes and then we got in the car and drove to the casa de mi hermano for the first of 3 Christmases that we would be having. In our car there was Mimi, Papa, me, the Muppet and Cheddar (my nephew). That’s a lot of 2 year olds in a car. (Let it be written that I have a new found respect for parents of twins. God bless you all.)

We picked up Ferf in Waco (for those of you who are current on Texas geography trivia will realize that this is not on the way from Houston to Austin which is where we were going) and so feel free to insert a Branch Dividian joke here because I have family in Waco. Believe me I have heard or told them all, and that is so last Millennium to me.

We finally arrived in Circular Stone, Texas where Marvin and Twig live and unloaded ourselves into there home – their new home I might add. There we watched a little TV on Marvin’s freaking huge flat screen HD TV. They had TiVo’d a show starring the Amazing Jonathan, and I admit it was worth saving because I laughed out loud at this guy. I wouldn’t watch him with my kids mind you, but he’s worth seeing.

Then we got around to the part we all love about Christmas – no not presents you materialistic bastard! You should be ashamed of yourself. I mean dinner of course. Twig made the dinner – all of it. I know this because Marvin is not a cook. He knows his limits and lives within them. We had all the standard fare for a holiday dinner: Turkey, dressing (yes, dressing not stuffing. Stuffing is bread crumbs and can be purchased in a box and made in 3 minutes – hardly what one would call a special item, with all due respect to Stove Top – while dressing is corn bread based and actually requires work to make and is more than tasty!) though her dressing was extra special because it was her grandmother’s recipe and had little bits of turkey in it (yummy) , and she also made this broccoli and cheese casserole that was the best I have ever had. I am one of those who believe that originally cheese grew out of the ground right next to broccoli in the Garden of Eden because God intended us to eat them together, but part of the punishment for the original sin was that cheese had to be made and it would be many years before man would realize the fullness of the potential of broccoli and cheese – and do believe that Twig has achieved that fullness.

On a side, but culinarily related, note, the second Chirstmas dinner we had was at MiMi’s house and my Aunt RJ made this freaking amazing mac and cheese casserole. This was unbelievable. Now, keep in mind that one of the first disagreements that Ferf and I had in our marriage was about food. She believed (wrongly I might add) that mac and cheese was a main course for dinner, as opposed to a side dish as God intended it to be. It took a bit, but she realized the error of her ways and has crossed over to the light on this issue. I say all that to say that RJ’s Mac and Cheese Casserole is , and I say this without hesitation, a MAIN DISH. Screw the rest of the stuff – dinner was all about that stuff. I kid you not.

After dinner we put the kiddos to bed and Marvin pulled out the new game they had, it was called “would you rather”. I have to admit that it started out as a fun little game, if not somewhat disturbing. One of the questions was “would you rather: bite into a cake you bought from a bakery and find inside, a bloody gauze bandage or a broken hypodermic needle?” That alone should give you an idea of the nature of this game. But to move from one level on the board to another you have to complete a challenge. (some would call it the dare portion of this adaptation of truth or dare). I know that this is what you had to do because I watched everyone else do some type of challenge. I personally never had the opportunity to do a challenge because my dice rolling skills left me that night and I stayed stuck on the first level ALL FREAKING NIGHT!! But that was actually okay for me because the challenges proved to be as disturbing as the questions.

Anyway, we played round after round of this game and learned individual preferences with regards to important questions like “would you rather fall off a car traveling at 100mph or fall from a hot air balloon 500 yards up in the air?” (for the morbidly curious readers out there – I chose falling from the balloon, but feel free to post your own preference and why). And at one point my step dad T-Rex found himself on a challenge spot. He had a litany of unsettling actions from which to choose. But he liked the idea of wearing a woman’s brassiere for a turn best. (I am loathe to even comment of why he would desire to participate in such an activity, but nonetheless, it was his choice. That alone would have been blog worthy in some circles. However, how he announced his decision was by reading it aloud, putting the card back on the table, turning to his right and looking at my mother and saying “take your bra off.”

Allow me to interject that this is not what one ever imagines being said to his mother. I realize that my folks have consummated their marriage. I am not naïve – we talk about sex in my family – at least in concept if not in detail. But having a man (even if that man is married to her) tell my mother to take her bra off in front of me does not even rank in the pantheon of “WTF?” moments because I would have never, in my wildest dreams, have expected it. But even more unexpected was the unhesitating compliance on my mothers part. And EVEN MORE UNEXPECTED was the speed and ease with which she completed the action in what seemed like one smoothly polished and highly practiced motion. She had that thing off like a dress on prom night. And she was wearing a shirt over it. Not some sweat shirt like the chick on flash dance who showed me that it could be done when I was a child and learning about the wonders of HBO. But a real, normal shirt. It was awe inspiring and deeply troubling all at the same time.

And yet it did not even compare to what was to come. Next my wife landed on the challenge square. And she read off the list of potential actions for her to complete. To be fair the list was not, in any way shape or form, compiled from things that a normal person would consider doing. I get that. But Ferf reads them off and the last one is: perform a lap dance for a person of the same sex at the table. And my wife chose (oops, sorry while thinking of it I threw up in my mouth a little bit) she chose to give said lap dance to my mother. I SWEAR TO GOD – SHE CONSCIOUSLY AND INTENTIONALLY CHOSE TO GIVE MY MOTHER A LAP DANCE IN FRONT OF EVERYONE, INCLUDING MY BROTHER AND I. And I have decided that this action is not included in the original 10 Commandments only because Moses could not imagine someone doing it. Because, believe me, it was wrong. Just wrong. Plain wrong.

And even after repeatedly washing my eyes out with a mixture of ammonia, bleach and dog urine I still cannot get the image off of my retinas. It’s burned onto them like a poorly designed brand on the ass of a cow. I keep awaking during the night with cold sweats and shivers praying that it was a bad, drug induced dream like one would have if they accidentally mixed lithium and radiator coolant into a aperitif and drank it like a dying man crawling through the Mohave Desert already having sucked the moisture out of his loincloth. It just won’t get out of my head. I look out the window hoping to see a miniature sleigh and 8 tiny reindeer and all I see is Ferf’s arse wagging in front of my mother’s face….

For the love of God and all that’s holy…all I want for Christmas is a different mental image!!!!

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Words from my childhood. Words you would hear anytime a Yankee showed up in Texas and was follish enough to open his mouth and utter any words at all. We could tell. We can tell when y’all ain’t from here. You talk funny. It’s intuitively obvious even to the most casual listener eavsdropping on you from across the Dairy Queen as you order a “dip cone”.

Well, for the first time in my life those words were spoken to me by an amused woman who had not heard me talk at all. I wasn’t wearing some ten gallon hat. No to the boots and Wranglers too. Crap, I was covered from head to toe in warm winter gear because it was minus whatever outside. For all intents and purposes, I LOOKED CANADIAN! I had the Muppet with me because when it snowed all she wanted to do was go outside and play in the snow and “build a little snowman daddy?” Who was I to say no to that? So we layered up and went out to brave the elements and build a little snowman. There was, it seemed to me, plenty of snow for it. (and I think it was even the “right” snow for building little snowmen. I have no idea. It was not until I moved to Canada that I realized there were types of snow. The Inuits up here have like 30 something words for snow. I realize that some people think there are like 400 native words for snow, but as part of my on-going initiation into Candian culture, it has been explained to me that this is nothing more than an urban legend perpetuated by Americans who also think we eat whale blubber while engaged in the Annual Great Saskatchewan Seal Hunt.) So, back to my story which has nothing to do with Inuits or Saskatchewan seals…

I am outside with the Muppet who is frolicking around in the snow, happy as a Muppet can be. We are making a little snowman. I know enough to know that one begins the process by rolling snow into a ball large enough to use as a base. I am not stoopid. My problem began with trying to put a second, smaller yet to scale, ball o’ snow on top of the first. I actually had two problems occur concurrently. First, making a snowball to scale is not as easy as it sounds.

Before I get inundated with comments about my manual dexterity or eye to hand coordination by all you Canadians who grew up eating freakin whale blubber and shoveling your driveways into multi-leved snow forts while your family watched the propane gas in your BBQ freeze and become some weird viscous jello-like material (not that I have ever gotten that many comments on here - but I continue on in the hopes that one day people will do more than lurk in the long shadows cast by the Maru), let me remind you that in south Texas, we did not build snowmen. We had a white Chirstmas whenever we went to Wal-Mart and bought a fake flocked tree. The closest we got to snow was watching Frosty the Snowman on TV - and that was traumatic because he melted every single year - talk about not learning from experience: IT’S A MAGIC FREAKING HAT!!! I bet he melts this year too…My point is simply this. I was in the snow with my 2 year old daughter as a snowman building virgin. Simply put - I had never done it before. SO, before you start casting the proverbial first stone (or snowball) let me remind you that you sucked at it too when you were a kid. Don’t make me kneel down and start writing in the snow - cause I’ll do it!!

Anyways, I was finally able to construct a second, slightly smaller, scale model of the first which I placed ever so gently on top of the “base snowball”, only to run into the second of my problems occuring. The Muppet found it greatly amusing to knock it over whenever I was able to stack two of them together. Forget a third level. As quickly as I could place one on (which we have established was not that quick) she would kick it off and fall over in gales of laughter eerily reminicent of 1980’s horror movies that were set in abandonded psych hospitals, but still somehow inhabited by the crazy folks from years back. Whatever, I was never that scared in 80’s horror movies anyways (though if she had stood up and had her eyes glaze over and said, “come play with us…forever”, I would have been halfway to Texas before the axe wielding guy could show up.

So, being the creative guy that I am, I improvised, adapted and overcame. I created a seemless snowman. Less like snowballs stacked together and more like a sleek, tapered snowman. More like a metrosexual snowman who was confident enough in his manhood that he could look different from the others and still find a way to fit in, even if they older snowmen made fun of him (that’s just a sign that they like him anyways). WHATEVER, the little snowman was being built as requested. That is all that mattered. I was even finding was to melt the snow as I put it on the “body” so that it would soften and get smooth and then freeze again. I thought I was doing well. The Muppet was happy, I was engaged in an industrious endeavor that would stand in the yeard like a sentinel showing the world that I too could make a snowman and proving to a little girl that there truly was nothing that her daddy could not do. Cementing in her mind that I am indeed a Super Hero that she could be proud of!

When all of the sudden this lady from across the way, who had obviously been watching our work and I can only assume fulfilling some kind of voyueristic tendency that she has probably struggled with her entire life and hidden from her husband and family and engaged in only when she knew she was alone and hidden from sight. Some weird behavioural addiction that she had fought with internally for years, only to finally succomb to its insistent onslaught on that very day. So this lady walks up and initiates social interaction (the one vestige of civility we have left to us in this cruel and twisted world of political correctness and gun registries) by saying the words, “you didn’t grow up up here did you?”

With feigned horror and indignation, I glanced at the Muppet and thought to myself “damn straight lady”, and then looked back broke into my best smile (the one my mother refers to, with affection, as a “shit-eating grin”, which now that I am older and I think about such things in a denotative sense, I am left to wonder why my sweet mother would use such a foul reference to her baby boy’s smile). Believe it or not, all of that and more went through my head in that moment, but what I said was, “why do you say that?” And I even thought about saying it with the Southern Illinois, mid-west, no accent speech that my debate coach hammered into me in college. Instead I reached down to the lowest, reachable levels of my soul and said it in the thickest, southern, twang laden, slowest enunciation I could (heck, even I thought I was channeling the spirit of some long dead Georgia boy - without the racist overtones of course). To which she replied, with no hesitation or even the slightest non-verbal cue that she was about to deliver such a demoralizing blow to my newly burgeoning snow sculpting ego, “Becuase you are building a huge snow nipple.”

So, I laughed - the socially polite laugh that one does in awkward social settings, like when one is invited to dinner at the home of an only recently acquired business acquaintance, and after being sat next to the grossly overweight 9 year old boy, must somehow respond after said jolly tub-o-goo farts loudly and with much gusto while lifting the butt cheek corresponding to your seating position realitive to his arse. Seriously, I was at a loss. I pride myself on being able to respond well in difficult situations. My mother taught me to be kind no matter what. Once when I was really little we were going to some of our parent’s friends house for dinner. It was near Christmas I think, and my mother being the concerned parent she was, instructed me (within an inch of my life) that I would be excited and pleased with whatever “gift” these people gave me.

Now, again, in retrospect, I do not know if:

a) she thought that I would show my disappointment if they gave me some crappy present

b) she thought that they would give me a crappy present, so she thought it prudent to prepare me, OR

c) she knew for a fact that they were indeed giving me crap and that I most certainly would, at that age, respond on par with the relative worth of the gift (in the mind of a young boy)

Whatever the case, forewarned is forearmed, and so I entered the exchange with a big bag of surprise, wonder and excitment in my soul - just waiting to let it all go. The present was wrapped like a cylinder. I didn’t even know what a cylinder was at that point, so I was still clueless when I opened it and unrolled it. Now, just so you don’t get too excited, it turns out that it was a placemat with the Houston Oilers on it - not really a horrible choice for a boy growing up in Houston. But when I unrolled it, the graphic was on the side facing away from me. So what I saw was an approximately 11″ X 17″ rectangle with some weird orange tartan pattern on it (because really, who cares what the underside of a placemat has on it). When I unrolled this giant plastic feeling orange patterned thing I did exactly as instructed and shouted with everything that I had been saving up in me for that exact moment, “COOL! It’s wallpaper!”

My point, is this: This was my adult “wallpaper” moment. So I smiled at her and said with as much entusiasm as I could and without cracking a smile - “well, I’ll get to the rest of her eventually…”

And after she walked back across the street deeply puzzled and somewhat concerned, I stood up, called the Muppet over and promptly helped her kick the offending structure over before my landlords came home and I had to explain to them why there was a giant snow nipple in their yard. Then we went inside to make Play-Doh snowmen because they don’t melt anyway…

Later that night I wished that I hadn’t kicked it over, because I realized that I could have taken tinfoil and made a sweet piercing for it.

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So Ferf and the Muppet are in Texas. They flew out about a week ago because Ferf had a lot of business opportunities down there. So she went early and I will be following down in a couple of weeks. Hence I am bach-ing it for almost 3 weeks. I remember being a bachelor for most of my life. I remember being single. I remember living alone. And if my memory serves me right – I was pretty good at it. I have some fairly swell memories of it actually – many of which I think about often and many that would probably be inappropriate for me to post here. But overall, it was good time in my life, even in retrospect.

But now, turns out I am not such a fan of it. I’ve been married since ’98. I have been not single for closing in on a decade. Somewhere along the way I seem to have forgotten how this whole thing works. I mean, sure I get up in the morning and go to work. I do my job all day long, and usually stay later than normal, cause – why not? Then at some point I get in my car and drive home. I go to an empty house and turn on the TV or the CD player (so there is some background noise) because the place is empty. I walk into the Muppet’s room and sit in the rocking chair and look at her empty bed. Sometimes I even pick up one of her favorite books and read it, like I would read it to her – with different voices and everything (because books are way better when each character has a different voice). A couple of times I have turned on Dora the Explorer and watched it (the baseball episode of course) because that is one of the Muppet’s favorite things to watch. It just seems weird not to, you know? That’s what I’ve been doing every day for a couple of years.

This situation reminds me of when I was a kid. See, my dad lost his parents when he was pretty young and he was raised (to a certain extent) by his aunt Arda. My great aunt Arda was the closest thing to a grandmother (on my dad’s side) that I had as a kid. She lived in Oklahoma and we used to go visit her quite often as young kids (it wasn’t until we were much older that we came to realize that Oklahoma sucks). Anyway, she used to write letters to our family (long before email, or computers for that matter). I remember my mother telling me that one time Aunt Arda wrote us a letter after we had spent a bit of time with her. In the letter she talked about how quiet the house was after we left, and she said in the letter that “the silence was deafening.” I used to think that was a strange thing to say and that my dear great Aunt was going a bit senile, but now I know exactly what she meant, and in fact the silence in my place is deafening too.

So this “single” life just ain’t all that anymore. I like being crammed into a place with my wife and daughter (though the stretching out across the bed can be nice while I’m asleep I must admit). Besides, I don’t cook well for one anymore. Last time Ferf and the Muppet went down to Texas there were 2 distinct differences. One – I was much more on the ball with soliciting dinner invitations from others. I don’t think I ate dinner at home once that time. And Two – the Muppet was not old enough to really talk on the phone. Now she is, and so everyday I call and she gets on the phone and says the same thing “Daddy, you come to dinner with us tonight?” And I break down a bit, choke up and say “soon baby girl, soon.” Yesterday she got on the phone and says “here daddy” and then I hear these weird noises like she’s licking the phone. Finally I hear that she’s blowing me kisses. Then she gets back on the phone and says, “your turn daddy.” So being the good daddy that I am, I blow her a kiss. At which point in time she drops the phone and falls to the floor and cackles as loud as her mother does. And I hear her yell over and over, “that tickles daddy, that tickles!!” And finally I hang up the phone and realize how loud the silence is once again.

Now I should note here that I miss the hell out of Ferf too – not just the Muppet. Having the wifey around is just something that I have become accustomed to. Not having her around all the time is simply wrong. This is me NOT being a fan. It is true that “it is not good for man to be alone.” I know, some of you are thinking, “Tex my friend, you are starting to sound co-dependent.” And I can only respond, “damn straight!” But if you knew Ferf and the Muppet, you would be totally understanding. In fact, if you were me, you would be to. And you would be just as happy to be as I am.

On the upside, I seem to be writing more posts recently because I have time to type when Ferf isn’t sexually molesting me over and over again, night after night after night… God I miss my wife…

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The Muppet’s favorite movie right now is The Lion King. I have now seen it so many times that I can quite literally quote the whole freakin thing. I mean I liked the movies when it came out in the theaters. But never did I suspect that I would one day be able to quote from it libearlly and accurately. Anyway, there is a line in the movie that really hits me when I hear it. Simba has run away from home and lived away from Pride Rock for a long time. And one day a series of events conspires to make him think about returning home. While in this pensive mood, Simba hears the voice of his father chastize him saying. “YOU ARE MORE THAN YOU HAVE BECOME.” That is such a powerful line. And it probably applies to all of us in some areas of our lives. God intended us to be so much more than we have become. I have often wondered where I would be and what I would be doing if I had fully lived in the plans that God had for me. It’s awe inspiring as well as deeply heart wrenching all at the same time. (though, I am fairly confident that either way I would have married Ferf and we would have the Muppet - I nailed those if nothing else in the “plan”.)

I have been thinking lately about Christmas - what with it being December and there being nothing else to really think upon since Halloween up here in Canada. (that whole Thanksgiving before Halloween thing really screws with my internal calendar up here). Anyway, since I consider the Christmas season to officially start the day after American Thanksgiving, I am now fully justified in playing Chirstmas music. I am not one to openly induldge in the droning that can be traditional carols played like elevator music and cranked over every public sound system in North America. I am a fan of more non-traditional Christmas music like the modern stuff put out by rock musicians. But my all time favorite are the songs from the rock operas done by Trans Siberian Orchestra. Those guys truly get it. I know the term rock opera might throw some of you off. You have weird visions of excessively large women dressed like Vikings singing in glass (if not eardrum) shattering ranges in Latin while they are musically accompanied by Slash from Guns and Roses. And while that would be interesting in the commonly used (I have nothing good to say about this subject) way, it is NOT what TSO means by the term.
Not to digress to far, I was listening to Trans Siberian Orchestra the other day - because they do my favorite Christmas music and stories. They have done 3 rock operas about Christmas and all of them make me openly weep like a 12 year old girl (which is seriously un-Texan like). What I noticed about them is that they tend to have two things in common: First, they are all set on Christmas Eve (like so many Christmas stories are); and second, they all take place in bars, or abandoned hotels where the homeless live, or the like.
And here is where I recently had my epiphany (I do SO love double entendres). I do not think that TSO is overtly Christian. I don’t know if they are covertly Christian. None-the-less, I guess what struck me is that I think they have hit on something sprirtually extraordinary. According to Scrpiture, when Jesus first came to earth, on the first Christmas, he came not to a church, but to a lowly barn. The first folks to see him were not middle to upper class businessmen and well to do families. They were shepherds. Shepherds that were on watch at night - like the graveyard shift at the factory. These were the guys who made minimum wage and could have been appropriatly termed “the working poor.” That is WHERE God chose to show up and that is WHO he chose to see him first.

I think what these guys are pointing out is that nothing has changed. Afterall, God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. On Christmas, if you want to “see the baby Jesus”, if you want to understand the significance of that first Christmas gift, then a Christmas Eve service in your local church is not where you are most likely to see it. I believe that just like the first Christmas, on Christmas you will find God at your local rescue mission, or the food bank, in a low lit city bar where the lonely who have nowhere else to be go, or in an African vilage where children are dying of preventable diseases, and war orphans cannot sleep through the night because of the violent terrifyng dreams that haunt them.
THAT is where the light of Chirst chooses to pierce the darkness on Christmas - that is where we must (to quote the prophets Bruce Cockburn) continue to “kick at the darnkness till it bleeds daylight”! Or to quote TSO “if you want to arrange it, this world you can change it, if we could somehow make this Christmas thing last. By helping a neighbor or even a stranger - and to know who needs help, you need only just ask.”

Why do we keep looking for Christmas in malls, and department stores, and gift catalogues, and carols, and rum infused eggnog (wait, strike that last one cause there might be something to it). We have culturally engaged in a huge real life version of Where’s Waldo except we seem to be searching for the meaning of Christmas. And the worst, I MEAN THE ABSOLUTE WORST, thing we have done is implied, inferred, set by example or just come right out and stated that the place to go to find it is a church on Christmas Eve!! All do respect to churches…but you gotta figure that the Church today is not better than it was 200 2000 years ago, and God didn’t chose to go there on the first Christmas, and I am fairly certain that He’s happy with how that one turned out. Maybe, just maybe, that is HIS Christmas tradition. If you’re looking and not finding…it’s entirely possible that you are looking in the wrong places. Why not try taking the family down to serve meals to the homeless and working poor ON CHRISTMAS EVE. Or better yet, why not take your family and go down and eat with the folks at the Mission ON CHRISTMAS EVE. That actually requires more of you than serving the meal does. You can distance yourself if you are serving. Hell, you can feel good about yourself for doing that - and it is simply not about you!

By sitting next to those who must be there, you have to interact on a personal level. You have to talk to them like they are on the same level as you. You have to act like you understand what the Bible means when it says to consider others as if they are better than you. People find that one especially hard to do. And don’t give me some crap about how you don’t want to take food away from those who really need it. Rescue Missions are open 365 days a year. No one will starve to death if you and your family eat a meal there. But something extraordinary will happen. You will begin (on the smallest scale imaginable) to better understand what this Chirstmas thing is actually about, to start to see a true Christmas miracle, to see others as simply human beings with stories that you simply haven’t met yet. Then for the rest of the year, you will be changed. And isn’t that the real point to all of this? Jesus came to change things - to change you. Because as Simba learned out on the African expanses - “you have forgotten who you are - you are more than you have become.”

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