A present for ourselves

Christmas was lots of fun with all the kids home. Our grandson was thrilled with every package he opened--probably because none of them contained underwear or socks.

Our big news this week is that we have a new car. We went to the Toyota dealer on Boxing Day and leased another Camry, but this time we decided to treat ourselves to the next level up. The interest rate was only 1.2%, and everyone assured us that prices would be going up after the New Year. So, for “only” thirty dollars more a month than we were paying for the last three years, we now have the following goodies:
-leather seats
-heated seats
-power moonroof
-fog lights!
-17” wheels
-six CD changer in the radio, with XM Radio free for three months
-slightly more powerful engine with supposedly better gas mileage
-steering wheel tilts and telescopes
-power seats on both driver and passenger sides.

I think those are the main differences between our old car and this one. These are all things we’ve never had on a car, but wished we did. Kathy was especially pleased with this package. We bought the one we test drove. Given that it was a frigid day outside, the heated seats were a big selling point. We may not need the CD changer, since we only go on short trips to work and back, and if I drive to NJ, I just plug in my iPod, and XM Radio is not something we necessarily care about.

The last time we had a sunroof was on the 1974 VW bus. It had a hand crank, and it opened the entire roof into a four foot square hole. Fog lights are exciting because we’ve only had the holes where they go in our other cars.

There is a history of landmarks, watersheds, benchmarks—whatever marks you care to use—a trail of “firsts”. For instance, we remember:
- the first car we got with air conditioning
- the first car with power windows
- the first one with remote control side mirrors
- the first car with a CD player
- the first one with a power seat on the driver’s side.

Maybe other people take these for granted, but we think they are pretty neat. For a long time we couldn’t afford air conditioning, though we would pay extra for the automatic transmission. Power anything seemed a long way off for us. Now that we are approaching our dotage, darn it—we deserve some creature comforts, especially those bun warmers.

The latest news

I am still here. The dog did not eat me, though he has eaten into my free time in a huge way. Once I get home and walk him, eat dinner, and try to read something, it’s time to go to bed. I have some time off from work now, so here I am.

Here’s what’s happening:

Our youngest has accepted a new job! He will be moving to Tacoma, Washington in a few days to begin work for the Tacoma Habitat for Humanity affiliate. He is pleased with his choice, and we are glad he can stick with Habitat, since he knows it so well. Of course, we are less pleased with the prospect of having him 2,422 miles away, but we kind of used to his peripatetic ways. He does have two sea kayaks as well as a snowboard, so recreationally speaking, he is well prepared for the region.

Max’s tonsillectomy worked out just fine. He had the usual discomfort, didn’t feel like doing much except watch movies and maybe play a video game. We saw him for a while on Saturday and he was a little subdued, but otherwise feeling fine. He helped decorate the tree, played a card game with his dad, and uncle and aunt.

Our daughter is in from Ireland for a couple of weeks, and she came with lots of goodies you can’t get over here. She hasn’t been home for Christmas since 2007, so Kathy is quite pleased. She has been visiting friends from high school and hanging out with her brothers, squeezing as much fun as possible into these weeks.

We seemed to do a lot of our Christmas shopping at the supermarket this year, since gift cards are so easy and people like them. Kathy and I missed our usual shopping day last weekend because I had to work at commencement, so this was a good way to get it done.

Last night the sermon was about how we’ve spent this Advent season: is Jesus any more present in our lives on this last Sunday of Advent than He was on the first Sunday? Uh oh. I better get crackin’.

Better late than never?

Last week we had a meeting up at church for all the “Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Eucharist” (not supposed to say “Eucharistic Minister”). Anyway, after we got the word on the choreography changes the bishop wants, we all left to go home. On the way across the parking lot, I wound up walking next to a guy I’ve seen in church for thirty-some years, but to whom I had never spoken. He is eminently recognizable, since he’s a big tall guy with a luxurious handlebar mustache. So I made my move, telling him that I’d seen him in church ever since 1976, but never introduced myself. So we did that, and he said, Oh I’m shy, but once you get me talking…And so we talked for a few minutes in the parking lot and then went our separate ways.

Later I realized that I had missed out on 33 years of knowing this man, all because I had never said anything to him in all that time. I think I'll get cracking on meeting more people.

What did you do with your extra hour?

I had to carve a frowny face in our pumpkin this year, since we did not see Max on Halloween. Fortunately, we did see his bat costume last weekend, so it wasn’t a total loss. He has been doing well in school, so we are glad about that.

Halloween 2009 was a cool blustery one. We had 53 kids this year, before we packed it in at 7:15pm. Trick or treating runs from 6-8pm, but things got very quiet so there was no point in sitting out there any longer. We had the requisite Ninjas, Scream guy, demons and even a tiny Yoda. We also had a little fireman in flannel, a shark, a Gene Simmons girl, a cow, two butterflies, a bloody princess and a banana. One enterprising character walked up with a cardboard box wrapped in foil on his shoulders and two squares sticking out of it. It wasn’t until he had walked away that I realized he was a toaster.

The strangest incident was watching a new neighbor back out of her driveway from two houses down, park carefully in front of our house and have her daughter come up to me for a treat, then drive off.

Kathy’s office participated in a trick or treat event for the neighborhood kids at the hospital. Over a hundred came over and walked around the cafeteria, stopping at tables that various departments and offices had set up. Kathy wore a little witch’s hat decorated with marabou feathers. She recently got her hair cut so it’s much shorter than it was, and sometimes it looks a little poufie. All this to say that one little girl remarked to Kathy, “I like your hat” and the little boy behind her added, “And I like your wig.”

I love the Sunday when we “fall back.” I just luxuriate in all the extra time. It’s not even 10am yet and I’ve already done a wash, defrosted the basement refrigerator, gone to breakfast with Kathy straightened up the house and finished this letter. Now I’m going outside to finish winterizing the yard. Too bad no one needs a house painted or something.

Trooper Day

If you had been on Cleveland State’s campus this past Wednesday, you would have seen dozens of state troopers, the SWAT van, mobile crime labs, the canine unit and the mounted unit all up and down East 18th Street. If you thought we were under siege by a deranged gunperson, no one could blame you. But wait—all is well. It was “Trooper Day”, with the Ohio State Highway Patrol and the Pennsylvania State Police coming to recruit students. Many students did think something was wrong and were afraid to come over to that side of campus. We had to go over and convince them that everything was OK.

The PA State Police landed a helicopter on the soccer field, and that was a big hit. I have a photo of our director standing by the helo with the pilot and a couple of troopers. I told him the caption should be “Governor Klein arrives in the state helicopter”. The troopers were happy with the number of applicants they had and they want to do it again next year. We have some ideas on how to make it more welcoming: balloons, a DJ, and a popcorn machine. We also want to do it earlier, since we stood in a freezing cold, rainy wind all day. And the helicopter? Turns out he landed on the wrong field. He should have been on the practice field—they had to chase him off because there was a game scheduled that same day.

Silly Season

We are gearing up for elections in November here. There are several seats on the school board, another school tax issue and miscellaneous judges running. I called and asked for a sign for our front yard urging passage of the school tax, and it arrived the other day. Even though we don’t have any kids in public schools and only one of ours ever did attend public school here, the high school art program was very important for Shane years ago. Besides, good schools should help property values.

On Saturday afternoon, a little old lady came to the door and asked Kathy if she could put a sign in our yard supporting one of the school board candidates. Kathy said, oh sure, and the little old lady stuck the sign in the ground and went on down the street. I missed all this action so I looked up her web site and discovered she was a Republican! The horror! But she was also an art teacher for many years, a school principal, and has worked in almost every school in the district. Who else could know the issues as well? I showed Kathy the photo on the site and she said—how about that—it was the candidate herself. So the sign stays. Hey—she’s 73—I don’t believe she’s the next Sarah Palin.

A new guy at work

We had a new guy start this week at work—the one I mentioned who is from Nigeria. Hi supervisor and I took him out to lunch on Tuesday, and had an interesting conversation. It was my fault. I asked him about Nigeria, and he stretched out his arm on a vacant chair next to him, stopped eating, and began an expansive discourse on the major tribes of Nigeria, the regions in which they live and the relative political power of each. While it was a remarkable presentation, I broke in to relate some tidbit of my own in order to give him a chance to eat, since, after all, we did eventually have to get back to the office. He politely sat and listened to me, but he didn’t start eating again. I had to indicate that it was OK to eat while I talked.

I am so glad he does not report to me. His supervisor was run ragged all week taking him to meetings and events. I just had to sit with him for about an hour to explain our database system to him, and he understood it easily, since he has an IT background.

One of the coordinators who does report to me was out sick a couple of days this past week. She sounded awful on the phone. The director’s secretary had also been sick, so I hope whatever it is is not marching through the office. When the coordinator returned to work on Friday, I hung a biohazard symbol on her door. She didn’t think it was all that funny. I got a kick out of myself, though.