The Boy Flies Away

James flew away to Germany today. We're not sure when he'll be coming back.

We got up early this morning to get all the luggage in the car and load up the family and drive down to Chicago so James could catch his plane and we could all say farewell to him.

Naturally, the weather was not being cooperative. We hit a patch of icy road about an hour south, and the lack of grip on the road was unnerving. The car was fish-tailing, so we had to keep it slow for awhile. Sure missed the Subaru! But we managed to make it through.

Once we got past all the snow and ice, I was surprised how easy it was to get to O'Hare and how easy it was to drop off the family at the Departures entry and how easy it was to find a parking spot and how easy it was to then find them again at the ticket counter.

What I had not counted on, of course, was (1) we had misread the maximum weight on the luggage allotment, and were six pounds ($135) overweight; and (2) the difficulty we would experience with the Berlin Air computers when we tried to pay for the overweight luggage. The computers were down. And the baggage had already been sent to the plane. Which meant we had to wait over an hour at the ticket counter until they were able to accept our plastic money.

And we waited.

Thank God for Starbucks! A few cups of coffee and some snacky things kept us from going completely insane.

But we were tired and cranky and not in the mood to take the grand tour of Chicago after James had disappeared from view and it was time for us to leave the airport.

We drove back to the highway and down the road a bit to get our much-delayed lunch, staying in the vicinity of the airport in case something delayed or cancelled the flight. But the flight went off as scheduled, so once we knew he was on his way, we went on our way, too.

Back home. Such a relief to be back home.

Except for the fact that we were already missing James.

Fremdschämen

Today's word is fremdschämen.

Can you say that, children?  Sure you can.

It means feeling sad or upset that someone else has made a fool of themselves. To the point where you are extremely uncomfortable. And have to leave the room.

That happens to me all the time.

With fictional characters.

I cannot watch certain television shows, or certain scenes in movies I've seen a million times, because they make me so uncomfortable.

The character on the screen does something incredibly dumb, or there's a situation where a big confrontation is about to occur, and I have to leave.

And wait.

Til the scene is over.

Until this week, I didn't know there was a word for it.

But now I do!!

Just don't ask me to pronounce it. Because I will get very embarrassed. And I'll have to leave the room.

A Very Moving Van

It still bothers me, this dead-van thing. Why do some people get so attached to inanimate objects?

It took me a couple days to get the van into the correct spot in the driveway. James helped me push it out of the garage and onto the driveway, but it was cock-eyed and blocking traffic and there was snow on the ground and ice on the concrete and it was incredibly painful to try and move the carcass. It needed to be straight, lined up in the third bay, out of the way.

Meanwhile, it's still dripping transmission fluid.  Good grief! How much fluid is in a transmission, anyway?

Took me two days to get it done. On Saturday, James and I pushed it out, then I spent the rest of the day trying to remove the front bumper cover (the plastic part) so I could get access to the real (steel) bumper in order to have something to attach a cable to. Didn't actually get the plastic part off til late Saturday because the screws holding on the plastic were rusted or broken or jammed or tight or just ornery.

During rest breaks, I checked the pressure in the tires because it's been very cold lately and they all looked low. A couple of 'em were down to 10 psi!

Sunday, Deb and Mary took Ruby (the red Subaru) to the car wash to get the salt off, then stopped by the store to pick up some ice cream. Not sure why, but we didn't complain. Three hours later, after hooking up my all-purpose pulley system again, the van was finally in the right place. Whew! That was a lot harder than it needed to be.

Had to put a drip pan under the van because it's still dripping transmission fluid.

*  *

But I really wasn't going to talk about the van this time. I was going to mention this movie -- perhaps you've heard of it -- called Swiss Family Robinson. We watched it as a family this week. I thought the kids would remember it, since we watched it years ago when we lived back in Washington. But they didn't.

Sometimes I forget how young they were when we came out here. Mary was only 5! She barely remembers Washington at all.

I've always enjoyed that movie, but it is odd to find that I now identify much more with the father (John Mills, father of Hayley) than with the boys, as I once did. And I felt very uncomfortable when Fritz was kissing Bertie. Because they hadn't known each other nearly enough to take it to that level! Perhaps I should've put my hand over the screen so the girls couldn't see that part. Don't want them getting any ideas, y'know.

Guess that's what happens when you get older. And have daughters.

I did learn something this time, something I'd never picked up on before. The father's reason for fleeing to New Guinea is to keep his boys from being conscripted in the Napoleonic Wars (1804-1815). I hadn't realized it was set that early. I'd always thought it was mid-1800s.

Post-Valentine's Day

Cheryl sent me a link to a site apropos of Valentine's Day which lists "Eight Ways to Stay in Love". They are all very good ideas, but my brain cannot handle a big number like "8", so I trimmed it down to 5 essentials:

1. Have fun together.

Cheryl is very good at coming up with fun things to do. We used to go on picnics and hikes a lot when we were dating; we also cooked dinner together (she taught me to love salmon!)

When the kids came along, she researched lots of fun places to take the kids - museums, pumpkin patches, simple hikes, train rides. She also taught the kids how to throw marshmallows at each other. And she taught them really bad puns (but we blame Grandpa Green for that, because we think she got that from him!). Even now, as I type, she is plotting something fun ... or opening another bag of marshmallows.

2. Focus on the positives.

I am a natural pessimist and complainer (one would almost say gifted). Cheryl likes to look on the bright side of things. I am quick to find fault with everything (and everyone). She is always looking for ways to help people improve. I am always quick to point out where people have failed. She is (usually) patient. I am only patient with dogs and small children.

Her biggest frustration is lazy procrastinators (like her husband). But she manages to always have a kind and thoughtful word in almost every situation. Even when people are slow to take her advice. Or just slow. Like me.

3. Forgive flaws, failures and foibles.

We are all human, we all make mistakes. Some of us tend to dwell on those mistakes. Mostly our own. Cheryl is quick to forgive, quick to forget (or at least never bring it up again). But I think she gets a lot of amusement from the foibles of her husband. Who can't remember where he put the tape measure. Again.

She loves to laugh at silliness, at stupid mistakes. She is still trying to get me to drop the ego and laugh at my own mistakes. It's a bit of an uphill battle, but I'd like to think I've made progress over the last 23 years.

Why, just the other day, I came this close to laughing at myself.

If only the cat hadn't been watching.

4. Share the load.

Cheryl loves for us to work together on projects. She is always asking me if I need help. Sadly, my brain is so random (as is my method of accomplishing tasks) that, most of the time, I'm at a loss to know how she can help. Because that would require me to know what I'm doing in the first place.

I don't plan well. She is a top-notch planner.

Her favorite thing in the whole world is getting people together to work on something. Dinner, cleaning, painting - you name it, she'll get people together to work on it. She is really good at arranging get-togethers, celebrations, Bible studies, and even painting parties. She revels in the joy of gathering groups of people to accomplish something beneficial, especially if it involves lots of delicious food or making the house more beautiful or functional. Even better if it involves both.

I'm still trying to remember where I put that tape measure.

5. Grow together.

I'd like to think that we've grown a lot over the last couple of decades. (I'd also like to think that I've grown vertically, but that really hasn't happened.)

We've survived some very interesting challenges: births, deaths, accidents, disasters, tax season (or is that redundant?).

We've had some excellent discussions about philosophy, theology, psychology, history, politics, child-rearing, financial planning, and house repair.

We've managed to mostly agree on everything (except child-rearing, because my plan all along has been to spoil my children rotten, and she keeps wanting them to "mature" -- whatever that means).

Even though we are different people with different ideas and motivations and emotional baggage and childhood experiences/influences, we've tried to remember that our goal is to grow in the same direction, towards each other rather than elsewhere.

It hasn't been easy. Our hobbies don't intersect. For some reason, she just isn't interested in the inner workings of a 2.5-liter Subaru engine. And for some other reason, I just can't wrap my mind around the concept of twirling yarn around to create hats and scarves and blankets.

But we've found common ground. We share the joy of great literature, wholesome movies, classical music, beautiful gardens, our wonderful children, and God. We like to travel, but we also enjoy sitting at home and watching Jane Austen movies or Monty Python sketches or episodes of Morse. We enjoy working together, playing together, singing together, and just being together.

We both feel very blessed to have each other.

Summary

Staying "in love" takes a lot of work. There are days when I'm very unloveable. OK, weeks. But that doesn't seem to daunt Cheryl. She always seems to find something to love.

There are some days (OK, weeks) where she doesn't like me very much, but it is important to note that "like" has very little to do with "love". One is an emotional response to a personality or a character, while the other is a decision made in spite of a personality or character.

I'm glad she decided all those years ago to love me. Life with her has been a wonderful adventure. I can't wait to get to the next phase, where we discover what it's like to have the house all to ourselves again!

St. Valentine's Day

Saint Valentine.

No one can agree on the identity of this early Christian martyr. The name is not unique; it is derived from the Latin 'valens' which means worthy, strong, or powerful.

Can you imagine how many people of the Latin persuasion named their kids Valentine (or Valentina, if a girl)? I would guess a very large number.

They wanted their children to be worthy, strong, powerful. Certainly if those children were willing to give up their lives to live as 'followers of the Christ', they qualified.

Seems kind of weird to associate that kind of deep, abiding agape love with the notion of romantic love.

What is romantic love, anyway? What kind of love brings two people together and bonds them so strongly that they are willing to forsake all other possible partners?

Certainly more than the eros love portrayed by the media, the lust for physical perfection, the pleasure of visual or emotional satisfaction, the fulfillment of the passionate desires of mind and body. That kind of love is vapid, short-lived, and subject to the whims of feelings, moments, and environmental changes.

My criteria for true romantic love is the same as that defined by agape love: a willingness to put aside all one's personal, selfish desires for the sake of another. To please, protect, and preserve another to the exclusion of all other concerns. To have such a deep and abiding affection for someone else so as to be wiling to give up one's own life.

The image that always comes to mind, the scenario which I present to my children when they are contemplating the question of whether they are 'in love' or not, is this:

Imagine that that wonderful person for whom you have fallen head-over-heels is involved in a terrible accident. They are paralyzed from the neck down, and there is no hope that they will ever recover. If you truly love this person, you will spend the rest of your life taking care of their every need, foregoing all other selfish pursuits.

Is that something you can handle?

If not, you are not really in love.

Because love, True Love, is a choice, not a feeling.

End of an Era

This is the View from Underneath the Dodge Caravan. Do you see the big hole in the middle of all that metal? That is what happens when the thick steel of an automobile muffler meets the cast aluminum of a transmission block.

The muffler was sitting in the middle of the turn lane on the street adjoining our neighborhood. It fell off some unknown car prior to my daughter's approach, no doubt due to the corrosion caused by the overabundance of salt on the road.

Salt is strewn all over the roads in the winter because it lowers the melting point of water and because it provides some amount of traction when the roads provide none. But salt is also highly corrosive when it couches bare steel. Cars - even the cars of today - have lots of bare steel. Rocks, gravel, salt crystals - they all chip away at the paint which protects the bare steel from the ravages of corrosion. And there are lots of parts on the underside of a car which have no protection at all due to the fact that they operate at temperatures far beyond the capacity of paint to protect them.

Like exhaust systems. Where mufflers live.

This particular muffler finally achieved corrosion nirvana and dropped off the underside of the car from whence it came, coming to rest in the path of my daughter's car as she was on her way home from school.  My daughter, whether through an inability to see the obstacle in time or a knowledge that attempting to swerve around it was more dangerous, drove over it.

She could tell right away that something bad had happened. Immediately, she said, "the car sounded funny" and "it wouldn't move anymore".

Cars always sound funny when all the transmission fluid leaks out of them. They have a tendency not to move when the fluid which turns the gears is lying on the ground beneath the car instead of inside the transmission case.

Being the smart girl that she is, she called Mom & Dad for assistance, so we came and got the girls and took them back home, and then called a tow truck to bring the van back home. I had neither the tools nor the inclination to try and tow the car myself, and it was obvious that it could not be repaired where it was.

Unfortunately, all the tow truck drivers were busy pulling people out of ditches and helping dis-entangle metal pretzels caused by people who failed physics in high school, so it took several hours before they got around to our piddly little problem.

Meanwhile, a very nice man stopped to help push the van off the main road and onto a side street where the probability of our being killed by unobservant drivers was drastically lowered.  Thank you, nice man! You forgot to tell me your name so I could give you a shout-out, but I'm shouting anyway.

Three hours later, the two truck driver arrived. He was very nice, or so I've been told. I couldn't stick around to supervise the operation; I had to be at church to teach a class, so Cheryl and James helped him find the house, and they said he was very nice. He even managed to get the van into the garage where I could work on it, instead of leaving it in the driveway where I expected.

Thanks, Mr Tow Truck driver!

It's been very busy lately so I didn't have a chance to even look at the van. It's been in the garage since last Wednesday (when the 'accident' occurred) waiting for me to find some spare time.

So today I looked at it. And found that big, gaping hole.

And I am so grateful that this happened close to home instead of miles away.

I had hoped to keep the car a while longer, until the girls got out of school, but that is not to be. The car is too old to waste time and money fixing it. We're going to (finally) get rid of it, but we probably won't be replacing it. With James going off to Germany, there are plenty of cars to go around.

I'm sad, though. I enjoyed that van through all the years we had it. It was the family car. Lots of miles, lots of family trips, lots of memories.

Now just craigslist fodder.