Today I’m grateful that somebody thought to invent space heaters, a very small one of which I just purchased and which I expect to arrive Tuesday. I’m getting chilblains on most of my fingers with it being winter and me working in the basement. I mean, some of my fingers look deformed.
I’m grateful for the Peters, whom we visited tonight on my whim. (OK, we had to go to the South Hills for milk from Meyer Dairy.) The long time that passes between when I see them outside a church context means conversation is always a little stilted at first. We just don’t know what to ask each other about. But they’re always welcoming, and once you get going, it’s always so warm. The kids still love going, too—although I’m not sure why: There aren’t many kiddo-friendly things to do there. But give Sullivan and Éa an elliptical machine and then a long sofa with crawlspace behind it, and they’re set for at least one evening.
Finally, I’m grateful for the confidence I feel having just finished Colossians that Paul both wrote it and doesn’t contradicts Jesus much.
Janet’s example inspires me to conceive of a scheme in which we proactively pursue a relationship with next-door neighbors at all times. So, for example, the next time Dave’s birthday rolls around, we give him a gift.
I am grateful for a possibly newfound ability to mourn, which I did with Carla tonight when she got a call from Carole saying that the doctors at Geisinger don’t expect Janet to live through the night. It felt good to cry. Faced with death, don’t attempt to console. Simply mourn alongside people. And then when they lose someone, as Janet’s family is about to, help a lot.
Alright, enough Scott-resolution and navel gazing. I am grateful for Janet. She brought gifts for our kids (and sometimes for us) almost every conceivable holiday. She joked a lot. She showed us the value of being friends with your neighbors.
That’s all I want to journal about tonight. Janet’s imminent death overshadows everything else.
Father, thank You for all good things: the College Township Bikeway, a family that enjoys walks, the Rookes, the rest of church, a healthy family, enjoyable music, good food, travel plans, gratitude, and so on, and so forth.
Father, please restore Janet’s health that she may live out the remainder of her days happy and well-related to her family, friends, and neighbors. Please hear Éa’s prayer at dinner today that our neighbor might come home from the hospital.
I am grateful for the opportunity to help Janet in her time of need. But I want need not to be! Carla has visited a few times over the past several days because Janet has been loopy because of some medication she is one in connection with her perma-asthma that set in this winter like last. Apparently, MRIs at the hospital today may have revealed lymphoma.
I am grateful for the resilience and emotional maturity Éa displayed upon getting her ears pierced at Ikonic Ink downtown today. It hurt, but she displayed (and was multiply congratulated by onlookers for) stoicism while Miranda the “piercing artist” was doing her work. When it was done, she cried honest, quite-but-unashamed tears in Mommy’s arms. May all my children know what to do with their sadness and pain.
And may more families make family outings at tattoo and piercing parlors?
I am grateful for a Father in heaven who doesn’t blink an eye when I return to attending to Him in prayer after almost completely ignoring Him over the holiday period.
I am grateful that last night just after midnight, Josh and Sarah tossed red table grapes into each other’s mouths unbidden after we had agreed that we didn’t need to do it because Carla and Josh were both feeling sick. I feel loved when people enact tradition with me—especially traditions I create. Also included: an energetic indoor snowball fight that revived us for the eleven-o’clock hour. Funny part: We turned on the radio just as the announcer was starting the ten-second countdown to midnight.
I am grateful that Ethan feels comfortable enough in his friendship with us that he walked his two daughters and Andy and Robbie all the way to our house in the cold unannounced. We enjoyed impromptu conversation, crackers, lingonberry jelly, herring, gjetost, and Ethan’s new quadcopter.
Since I have decided to concentrate my life so locally, my locality matters. It’s Houserville for now, but I can envision wanting to live in a neighborhood that isn’t in a place that’s already called ‘Happy Valley.’
I got chills thinking that while driving to Giant this evening on my way to buying a pink hedgehog Beanie Baby for Éa and a big-eyed monkey Beanie Baby for James.
I am grateful for our good friends the Potters, with whom we shared a dinner and an evening today. (I told Josh about my pollo-pesce-venatarian tonight.) I am grateful for our good friends the Rookes, the Matt of which I raced and competed on pull-ups with today. I am grateful for the rest of our good friends at church, with whom we shared a park walk today. I am grateful for our good friends the Wendles, who gave us two deer worth of meat today after we butchered them.
I am grateful for the loving effort Carla is putting forth these past few days into making Christmas cheery for us all by overcoming her distaste for shopping and spending the better part of today and yesterday shopping. We had decided after last Christmas that we would do 100% of our Christmas shopping locally. We probably won’t end up doing 100%, but the decision does mean Carla has been all over town: Jo-Ann Fabrics, Goodwill, Ross, and Target, to name a few.
I am grateful for our tenant Apoo’s eagerness to share Indian dishes with us. We had her, her husband Vijay, and her father Raju up for dinner this evening so we could meet her father. We shared garden vegetable quiche; she shared chicken biryani. Carla and I overate because everything was so tasty.
I am grateful for the culturally show of fatherly tenderness Raju made by touching Éa’s face when she caught her hand in the globe while fighting Sullivan over it. Perhaps it is purely cultural and doesn’t carry the same meaning in Telegu India as it does in Pennsylvania. But his willingness to touch a child he had just met simply because she was a child who was in pain was touching. At the same time, I wonder if it babies children too much. Nevertheless, I think there is something to learn there.
Here is a list of things from today that were gratifying, and which, therefore, because by some strange extension You are the giver of all good things, I thank You, God:
tapas dinner with the Wendles at Barrel 21,
deer hunting scouting time on the far bank of Spring Creek,
agreeing with Ethan to meet him tomorrow morning at 5:45 to make use of said deer hunting scouting time,
my beautiful wife who sat next to me at Barrel 21,
my inventive Sullivan who made some Legos light up today at the Wendles’ house (while being babysat by Jeff and Denise), and
If, when I’m old, you were to ask me to tell you one thing about my life as it was today, I predict I’d tell you it was a day all four of us attended Clearwater Conservancy’s annual meeting at Good Shepherd Catholic Church in Gray’s Woods. Pure Cane Sugar provided background music. We enjoyed grilled shrimp, baked squash, couscous, apple cider, and more. Betsy Whitman got to know me and vice versa a little after the business part of the meeting was done. But I pick this gathering as my thing to share from today because I came home feeling a shade lonely and jealous of Carla.
Why? Because our lives are structured in a way that facilitates her enjoying hours of leisure.
To be clear, I’m not saying she doesn’t pull her weight around the house. I’m really just saying she gets to be more social—both in a pure sense and in a project- or cause-oriented sense—than I, by a long shot. I’ve spent the whole week without having really touched or talked with anyone other than my three favorites.
If, when I’m old, you were to ask me to tell you one thing about my life as it was today, I predict I’d tell you that Carla was reelected today. I’m glad for her and proud of her.
If, when I’m old, you were to ask me to tell you one thing about my life as it was today, I predict I’d tell you we had our 72-year-old next-door neighbor Janet Donald over for leftover Stilson rotini dinner, homemade quick bread, a thirteen-year-old shiraz Janet had donated to us a month prior for Carla’s birthday, and some after-dinner Dixit at the kids’ prompting, all while piano jazz played on Spotify and the thermostat was set to a balmy 67°F.
I told her I love having her over.
Did I say it because I love the feeling of moral pride it gives me to know I have my aged next-door neighbor over for dinner and counter her as a friend? In part, yes. But I also said it because I really do like her.
If, in my old age, you asked me to tell you one thing about my life as it was today, I predict I’d tell you it was the day I metaphorically threw my hands up in the air about whether I have a principled reason for supporting Friends & Farmers Food Co-op: I don’t. I support the co-op because I enjoy hanging out with those kinds of people at the kinds of functions they hold.
I could go into my reasons for suspecting that “buy local” is a slogan with slippery ethical foundations (hint: for a start, it smacks of egogeocentrism), but I think I’ll leave it at this: I buy local for the pleasure of it. That’s all. It is a luxury. It makes my community a smilier, more human place.
If, in my old age, you asked me to tell you one thing about my life as it was today, I predict I’d tell you it was a day I had intended to go hear Paul McCartney play at the Bryce Jordan Center—his first and probably last concert in State College, PA—but had neither found someone to go buy scalped tickets with (Carla was at a Council meeting) nor communicated well with the babysitter, Molly Hunter, who wasn’t going to have a ride home. Top that off with a $475 bicycle maintenance bill earlier that day, and you get me canceling with the babysitter at 6:30 p.m. It helps that I’ve never cared much for arena concerts and that the babysitter had four big exams happening all the next day.
Such is life when you prioritize: Some things go neglected. And very often they are the things that should go neglected.
If you asked me in my old age to tell you one thing about my life as it was today, I’d tell you that it was the day when Matt Rooke and Carla began work on widening the doorway between our living room and kitchen by doing some demolition and moving the electrical. I mention it because it was the beginning of something Carla had been looking forward to doing for a few years now, having been unable to resist opening the famous “hole in the wall” (to be fair, she did ask permission from me) in a lull of home improvement spending between when we sprang for our first 4K of solar panels and when we had Envinity install new windows. She was getting itchy back then, and it was my dad who suggested that if she wanted to widen the doorway, the first step would be to open an exploratory hole to discern where the electrical wires went.
It was our first foster care home study, which was to happen on February 2, that prompted us get beyond the hole-in-the-wall stage moving on this project now. You can’t have exposed electrical when you have strange children in your house.
If you asked me in my old age to tell you one thing about my life as it was today, I’d tell you that Matt and Lara were good friends of ours, and they proved it yet again by coming over this evening and Matt helping Carla figure out what to do about the hole she had made in the kitchen wall two years prior in hopes of someday widening the doorway putting a pocket door or barn door in. We needed to get moving on something because having a hole in the wall with exposed electrical wires was a no-no for folks wanting to get into foster parenting. Lara did the dishes and prepared one of the two pizzas we scarfed for dinner (along with some beer from Otto’s—a rare sighting in the Stilson house). The Rookes also proved good neighbors in general: Matt helped me shovel out neighbor Janet’s driveway when her snowblower wouldn’t start.
If you asked me in my old age to tell you one thing about my life as it was today, I’d tell you it was a day we had our 71-year-old neighbor Janet Donald join us for chicken pot pie dinner. It wasn’t the first time we’d had her over for dinner; it was probably about the twelfth. But this time, as we enjoyed her company, I thought once or twice about how she, being seventy-one years old, will likely die while Sullivan and Éa, how she’d probably beat Carol, Sully, and my dad to death’s door and thus be the closest person yet to our kids to die when that time comes.
What benefit, these thoughts? Not much. Except to say I hope to fill our days in part with loving Janet well in her twilight years.
If you asked me in my old age to tell you one thing about my life as it was today, I’d tell you about three things that happened while dining at Luna II Woodgrill this evening with Carla, Sullivan, Éa, and the Doroshes:
Sullivan learned about such Marvel characters as Mr. Fantastic, Thing, Thor, Lizard, Wolverine, and Black Cat via a coloring book the waitstaff had provided and via my answering his questions about them as he leafed through. It was strange to help him be introduced to characters. I don’t want Sullivan to open comic books and fall in like I feel like I did as a youth, but at the same time, I don’t want to make a big deal out of it. So I didn’t. I did wonder, though, what effect his seeing the buxom Black Cat will have on his perception of normal busts in women as he hits adolescence.
In talking with the Doroshes and Carla, I learned that if you learn of a funeral and you know the deceased or the deceased is someone very close to someone you know, you should go. How well you know the deceased isn’t a factor in the decision because (1) your presence will add comfort the grieving, (2) it is an opportunity to bond with fellow humans, and (3) you will be reminded of your own mortality, which for me, at least, is always a healthful, inspiring thing. I missed out on this evening’s effective Antioch International Church reunion because I stayed home to tend Sullivan and Éa instead of attending Justin Carr’s funeral.
I decided to start calling the Doroshes Uncle Pete and Aunt Betsy. Éa and especially Sullivan are always eager to see Pete, and both kids were very liberal and energetic with their hugging of them both. Incidentally, I also let Pete violate my pet rule for who pays when dining out with out-of-town guests. It should be the hosts (us), but I let him pay because Carla had already accepted his offer and because, well, he insisted so nicely.
If you asked me in my old age to tell you one thing about my life as it was today, I’d tell you that it was the day we visited our Bellefusian friends the Lundins for the first time this calendar year. We joined them at their house for a dinner comprising their leftover vegetable soup and our homemade dessert-pretzels, and for a discussion of their recent roller coaster ride in shopping for houses in State College. I’ll say that the reason I choose this as the one thing I’d tell you about is that when Rebecca recommended Nature and the Human Soul by Bill Plotkin, I shivered in my soul at the thought of there being a coherent alternative morality that is superior to the Christian morality. The prospect—yet unfounded, but still—the prospect that a secular philosophy might be capable of making not just good people, but better people on average than Christian philosophy, rattled me a little this evening.
If you asked me in my old age to tell you one thing about my life as it was today, I would tell you that one motif was its concern for use of space:
I spoke with Molly Hetrick, the Recreation Supervisor at Millbrook Marsh, about coming to discuss discounting their space rental rates for Houserville Social Club. Upon further conversation with Carla, it became apparent that what I really need to talk with them about is modeling their rate schedule after that of State College Area School District, which has rates that are not only considerably lower, but also segmented according to type of group.
I spoke with Dory, a staff member at the State College Area School District, about how Houserville Social Club would be classified on their space rental form, as I am considering gathering the Club in the All-Purpose Room at Houserville Elementary School. She replied that we would be considered a non-profit organization and thus qualify for the lowest rate.
Houserville Social Club met at Houserville United Methodist Church this evening.
Carla’s and my thoughts about where to move my office operations, having decided the day before that we would turn what is now my office into a full-time guest bedroom for the sake of our guests, our foster children, and, eventually, one of our biological children.
The Lundins are considering buying a large house on South Pugh Street from other friends of theirs. Rebecca wants input from us on the ethics of buying more space than one needs and how to best put that space to use. Carla and I are eager for the discussion.
