Week In Review - Too Much to Write About!

I came back from our Christmas trip to St. Louis with more blog ideas than I possibly had time to write about. My buddy Tim gave me a small notebook on our last day of school before Winter Break that read "Fill these pages with important words and thoughts." He might be disappointed because, instead, I filled it with superficial observations and smart ass comments from our Christmas trip.

The first came just a few hours into our drive as we passed into Georgia. One of the very first billboards I saw read:

Make your ONE call to...
1-800-CALL -KEN
Ken Nugent Legal Services

Really? I know that colonial Georgia was basically a roaming prison, serving as a spot for England to send its less desirables, but I would hope that after these hundreds of years things would have changed. I've been to both Alabama and Louisiana and I know for a fact that a good deal of those "less desirables'" descendants are now living throughout the south. So why would Georgia allow Ken Nugent to welcome travelers with such a sign? Are there THAT many people getting arrested? Is there really that much money to be had from these people?

The second blog idea came on our second day with Tricia's parents. I made my first visit to church in five years. I really do not like church. As a child I went as often as three times a week - Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday evening. There was also church league bowling, softball, and volleyball. And youth group, play practices, and countless lunches and dinners. It wasn't the amount of time spent at church that turned me off, though. I just grew to question the likelihood of all those stories and the reasonableness of all those beliefs.

Tricia's parents church is quite different from the smallish Baptist church I grew up attending. It seats more than a thousand people. has two big screen TVs mounted behind the pulpit, and hosts religious and social events most, if not every, night of the week. The service lasted a little over an hour but the sermon itself was ten to fifteen minutes tops. The sermon was all about "breaking down the walls that we build around ourselves." The walls were a metaphor for our need for a sense of comfort, safety, etc. There were very few mentions of God or Jesus so it went well enough. The other fifty minutes were spent singing songs and listening to announcements. My mom asked how it went. "It went okay. Maybe I'll go back in another five or six years," I said. But probably not.

The third blog idea came when Tricia and I went out for a date night. We went to one of our favorite restaurants in St. Louis - an Indian place in the Central West End called Rasoi. Afterward we headed over to the Chase to see True Grit. As always, parking in the Central West End was nearly impossible. We finally found a spot but had only fifty cents for the meter. As Tricia will attest, I always seem to think that we don't need to feed the meter. "You don't have to pay after 5:00" I might argue. Or, "It's free on Sundays." Or worse, "No one even checks these meters!" I'm generally very much a rule follower. Like Ainsley I think people should follow the rules no matter what. I'll sit through a two minute red light at 3am with no cars anywhere in sight because that's what I'm supposed to do. I often stand on the curb and wait for what seems like forever for the walk signal even though there's no traffic. But for some reason when it comes to paying the meter I find every reason not to adhere to my legal obligations.

As we pulled into our parking spot and Tricia found that we only had two quarters she asked what I thought we should do. The movie didn't start for another hour (we were planning to walk over to the library to browse before heading down the block to the theater) and the movie was an hour and half at the very least.

"It's after six," I said. "You don't have to pay the meter after six."

"You always say that," she pointed out. "You NEVER think we have to pay the meter!"

"But I'm always right!"

Tricia sighed and looked up the street.

"Look," she said. "There's the meter reader!"

She was right. Two cars in front of us was a meter reader writing a ticket. After placing it under a windshield wiper he made his way up to the next car.

"We definitely have to get some change or find a parking garage now," she argued.

"No we don't," I said. "Look, he just checked all the cars on this block. It's 6:07 now. What are the chances he gets back to our block tonight? Euclid is a l-o-n-g street with a lot of meters. If anything we're more safe than ever."

It was dark but I can only imagine Tricia rolled her eyes. I really am hard to live with at times.

"Okay," she said. "But if we get a ticket you have to pay for it out of your own money."


"Ha, as if such a thing exists," I laughed.


We climbed out of the car and, ignoring the meter, pulled our jackets up around our ears and huddled together to head up the street. We instantly saw that the meter reader's car was parked just four spaces in front of our van. More debate ensued but we forged ahead. Once we got into the library I went to the information desk to ask how late you had to pay the meters. The librarian told me that they stop checking them at 7:00. Whether this meant you still have to pay them I wasn't sure but I headed back over to Tricia to gloat none-the-less.


"Well, go out and put our fifty cents," she told me. " At least we'll be paid until a quarter 'til or so."


I knew when to play nice and headed toward the front door. On the way I debated whether I should actually head out into the cold for what was certain to be a wasted effort (and wasted money) or if I should just hang out in the vestibule area for a few minutes and then head back in. Half an hour later, as we were heading out for the theater, Tricia, knowing me all too well, asked whether I had actually paid the meter or just pretended to. True to form I refused to say.


My fourth blog idea came a few nights later when attending "Christmas Eve" with Tricia's extended family. Due to busy schedules this party is never really on Christmas Eve but it's close enough. We haven't been able to attend this party the past few years so this was the first time we had seen these families in quite a while. Even when we lived in St. Louis we saw most of them only once a year, at this very party. They were like sometimes relatives.


I'm not much good at small talk and at no other time is this more evident than at this party. Tricia tried to coach me on the way.


"Talk to my Uncle Dennis about the food dehydrator you got from your kids at school," she suggested. "He used to have one too and talked about it all the time."


She's worse at small talk than I am and I wasn't too sure why she felt a need to offer help given that the one person at that party that I was usually pretty good at talking to was her Uncle Dennis. We generally talked about vacation plans and running. It was perhaps the only two things we really had in common but we could talk endlessly about both topics.


As we walked into the party the room fell silent and all those strange faces turned to stare at us making our entrance. Only five seconds in and it was already awkward. This would prove to the be the high water mark for the night as things only went downhill from there. I started by seeking out Dennis. I figured I should start strong and move on to the others from there. Unfortunately our conversation didn't go as planned. Someone else I didn't know too well was part of the conversation too and I didn't feel comfortable talking about running for fear of leaving him out. I wanted to talk about vacations but they were just finishing up a conversation on this topic as I made my way over. I was baffled. What to do?


"So," I said. "I got a dehydrator from my kids at school for Christmas!"


"A what?" he said.


"A dehydrator," I repeated.


"What's that?" the other guy asked.


"You mean a dehumidifier?" Dennis asked.


I stammered.


"It dries your food out," I explained. "You know, it takes all the water out."


"Why would you want to do that?" the other guy asked. It wasn't the type of question that made you feel as though he really wanted to learn more about the subject but, rather, that he wondered what in the hell was wrong with you. As if you making this all up.


"It's to help preserve the food for hiking and backpacking," I explained. "You dehydrate it, pack it up, and then rehydrate it on the trail."


"Oh," they both said, simultaneously. They both looked around uncomfortably and walked away.


I stood there for a moment playing with the food on my snack plate. Tricia and her parents were talking with someone else across the room. I was tempted to join them and take comfort in numbers. Around this time Tricia's cousin Michael walked by to freshen up the snack table. He and I have had just a handful of conversations over the past fourteen or fifteen years. We have little in common and he's not all that talkative anyway. Still, I felt I needed to try. I had to prove to myself that I was capable of this simple social skill.

"Hey Mike," I said.  

Doh, I thought. He goes by Michael you idiot!
 
I saw that there was a book on his television titled The Elf on the Shelf. I knew of this book from school and had a funny antecdote concerning a conversation I had with my kids about it. I shared it with him and he said nothing. He didn't even offer up a chuckle. It was a good antecdote too. But still he didn't smirk.


"Yeah, well...I oughta be finding Tricia I guess," I said.


"Alright," he answered and turned away to return to the kitchen.


I was 0 for 2. My ability to make small talk didn't much improve from there. I later found myself in conversation with another teacher but we had an entire discussion where I don't think either of us really understood what the other was trying to say. Later I talked with a lady who took great interest in everything I had to say. She's known for this. In fact, she takes so much interest in what you have to say that you almost feel uncomfortable. She leans in real close, has a perpetual smile, and never breaks eye contact. Ever.

She really liked that the kids had spent time backpacking last summer.


"Now they will know how to fend for themselves and find food if they're ever lost in the woods," she commented.


She was serious. I didn't break it to her that backpacking was more about high tech cook pots and fuel canisters than berry gathering or squirrel hunting. She wanted to know about the bears, too. I may have disappointed her when letting on that we hadn't seen any bears but we had seen a  lot of snails.

"Tons of them!" I assured her.


The only highlight of my ability to make small talk was when I later told of our encounter with the parking meter for Tricia's sister and brother-in-law. They laughed and laughed. I suddenly felt like a bad poker player. The one who stays in to the bitter end of every hand and only to lose nine times out of ten. Why, then, does he stay in so often? Because he remembers that ONE TIME when he pulled the perfect card and won. Tricia's sister and brother-in-law are my perfect cards. They keep me wanting to try again.


So there it is. More stories than I could ever write about.