What really matters…

So tomorrow is the big day – the dreaded knee surgery is upon me.  Two months ago, while shepherding both of my kids and my sister’s oldest across an icy parking lot, I slipped and fell and landed squarely on both knees.  Imagine a hockey goalie trying to make a save in the “5-hole.”  That was pretty much me.

In the weeks immediately following the fall, I noticed an increasing sensitivity in my right knee.  As it turns out, my father was not entirely correct when he said all injuries far from our heart can be cured by “rubbing some dirt on them” and “shaking them off.”  So, I limped around for about a month while my wife reminded me frequently that I should get it checked out.

I had no desire to get it checked it out, for a couple of reasons.  1)  The doctor I see is in cahoots with some unknown person from my past who has reason to want me dead.  Why?  I don’t know.  But I know I have survived three or four earnest attempts by my present doctor to kill me so I really don’t have much faith in him.  2)  It didn’t hurt that bad, it just always hurt.  So I figured I would just “shake it off” and “rub some dirt on it.” And 3) the doctor’s office is where the scale lives – and the scale is to me what fire was to Frankenstein’s monster.  “Aaaaaagghhhhh!  Bad!”  I am no fan of the scale.

So it was that at a family dinner in March, I was descending the staircase when my right knee decided it had had just about enough of my nonsense and decided to basically pull the old “exploding pain and popping sensations in the knee” trick.  Down I went – unable to put any weight on it at all and then there was the pain.  There was not enough dirt in all of Clinton County to rub the pain out of this injury.

The Emergency room diagnosed it, with a straight face mind you, as a “mild sprain.”  I was hopeful and incredulous all at the same time.  I have sprained my ankle before – and yes – it was very painful.  No, the onset of that sprain did not have me re-enacting Raymond Burr’s silhouette from the opening credits of “Ironside” as I did with this injury.  So, my incredulity was based on the fact that I was surrounded by doctors and nurses and orderlies and they said “mild sprain.”  Turns out, there was nothing neither mild nor “sprainy” about it.

Torn meniscus was the diagnosis.  Painful but common injury to the knee.  Could have been much worse – fix it with arthroscopic outpatient surgery, take it easy and should be right as rain (with the attendant certainty that I will develop arthritis in that knee some time in the future).

So in all the poking, prodding, examining, imaging and testing that goes into moving this injury from a mild sprain to a torn meniscus and the eventual surgical repair, they tell me to go and have a pre-op EKG so they can make sure the ticker is still registering all moments great and small in its proper fashion.

I won’t bore you with the details – but I did have the EKG and there was an irregularity that was later chalked up to the human sweater vest I wear under my tee-shirt.  The lovely woolen number from the Robin Williams collection seems to have interfered with one of the EKG leads and, after figuring that out, everything else tested out just fine.

While at the heart doctor’s office, they gave me a stress test.  This was funny to me because I take one of these every day at my home when I open the evening mail. Apparently the doctor wanted something more scientific and observable than me opening the statement from the student loan people, so he ordered a test.

Because of the knee injury, I couldn’t do the six million dollar man treadmill test, so they gave me a chemical test.  Basically you lie there on your side and they inject you with a drug that makes you feel like you are having a heart attack.  I’m sure that’s not its purpose, but the feeling that there was an army of hobbits trying to kick their way out of my chest cavity did nothing to help calm my nerves laying there on the doctor’s table.

The sensation was terrifying.  My dad died from complications of a heart attack.  As I lay there, heart pounding wildly out of control, I thought of him and was profoundly impacted.  The chemical stress test is deceiving in that your heart is racing but you aren’t breathing hard or working out or having any accompanying physical exertion.  You just lay there, heart racing like the engine of a parked car with a brick on the accelerator.

In that moment I thought “this is what it must feel like to die of a heart attack.”  Now I will be the first to admit that I have a real gift for the dramatic. And I am sure I was never in any danger at all – and if your doctor tells you to go and have a stress test; go and have the stress test.  Knowing what is going on in there is better than not knowing. 

But laying there as I was, heart racing, the reptilian genes whose genetic legacy is the maintenance of bare instinct and raw survival emotions slowly came to life and went to work slowing my heart even when the techs were telling me to get my heart beating faster.

Images from my extremely ordinary life began to flood my mind. All of sudden there was the summer day my best friend and I spent with a couple of girls we had crushes on, circling the lake in a speedboat, vivid memories of talking with my daughter about very ordinary things and realizing she is anything but ordinary. Next I saw my wife – this person with whom I have shared the last 25 years – at the hospital on the day both kids were born and equally vivid were the images of Michael; his impossible good humor and infectious laughter.  Finally, my heart slowing back to its normal 75 beats per minute, there were hazy moments from when I played little league baseball. All of my family was there – dad in that orange, Banlon short-sleeved shirt, mom in her lawn chair, and both brothers leaning up against a fence hollering at me. There too was my sister, 9 years younger than me, running around in a sun dress.

I guess the point of all of it is this – as I lay there, heart pounding, feeling like the only thing I could control was what thoughts went through my mind – the images that came to me weren’t of work, or money, or possessions.  I did not recall a single time I won an argument, told someone off, or vanquished some rival.  What came to me were friendly faces, warm memories, time with my family. That’s what matters. What came to me was a reminder that it’s the good stuff – a smile, a joke, 10 hugs and kisses to the 4 year old before you can get out the door for work in the morning – that’s what matters.

So listen, thanks for stopping by my blog today. It’s been a while since I posted and I appreciate your continued support.  Wherever you are or whoever you are with today; I hope you find yourself in the company of people the memories of whom will act to comfort and secure you some time in the future. That is what really matters.

Dennis

smalltowndad@hotmail.com

   

Chili and all the fixins...

So it's Friday night and, for the first time since about the end of May, we don't have anything going this weekend.  Michael has a birthday party tomorrow; one of those great buddies who is as welcome at our home as a second son is turning 10.  Really a terrific kid - very happy for him and glad Michael is cultivating a solid friendship there.

And Kristin is taking this term off from ballet, scouts has no obligations and the Spartans' football and men's basketball teams don't play - so I am thinking I'll have some time on my hands.  Jeanine will likely have some running around to do and there are a million things around the house I can do...but what I really want to do is make a huge pot of chili.

It has been a staple in my home since I was a kid.  As the kitchen-rat of two working parents who frequently helped out in getting dinners ready, it is a dish I learned very early on how to cook.  Over the many years the recipe has changed significantly but, end product not withstanding, cooking up a big pot of "the red" is always a fine way to get out of almost any list of chores.

For posterity's sake, I thought I might record that secret, hahahahaha, recipe here.

I start with equal portions of hamburger, the leaner the better because by the end of it we'll want it to crumble into the smallest parts possible, and hot breakfast sausage and enough olive oil to just coat the bottom of a large stainless steel pot.  I spray down the pot first with non-stick cooking spray and then throw in the oil and meat.

While it is cooking, I dice three large onions and three peppers - sometimes all green and sometimes one each of green, red and yellow - whatever is the better value when I am shopping.  Toss in the onions and peppers while the meat is cooking and crumble it all up with whatever you got.  I use a pampered chef thing-a-ma-bob Jeanine bought me for my birthday a couple of years ago.  Really cool device specifically for crumbling meat.

That's pretty much the hardest part, slicing and dicing all the onions and peppers - but if you do it right, if you can get the pieces whittled down to as small as you possibly can, that is the best for chili.  Personally I hate it unless i have some problem I am trying to untangle.  Then, when I have some thorny problem at work, or am writing a brief in my mind, I get lost in the preparation stage and just try to do some serious cypherin'.  Not the case this weekend. Nothing on the horizon for a couple of weeks so tomorrow I will be chopping and thinking exactly how much I hate chopping.

Next I mix in one large can of Brooks' Chili Hot beans, and three small cans of kidney beans (drained).  I add to that three cans of whatever zesty kind of stewed or diced tomatoes I can find at Meijer - for tomorrow's chili I think I bought diced with jalapeno.  Should be pretty good.

Between the liquid in all of the peppers and onions, and the juice from all the canned goods, that's all the liquid I put into it.  When I was at home and making this for my mom and dad, I used to use a big can of V-8 but have since found that the chili is much much better with the stewed/diced tomatoes as the primary source of liquid for the base of the chili.

Now, I'll lift the veil on the secret ingredient.  I would love to reveal that I have some heretofore unknown combination of cumin, chili powder, Sea salt and Worcestershire black pepper (yes, they actually make such a thing, it is fantastic), but Carroll Shelby (yeah, him, the car guy) has already  worked all that calculus out.  So I actually buy, in the spice aisle, a thing called "Carroll Shelby's six gun chili fixins."

Lots of chili powder, cumin, onion powder, and God only knows whatever else, and also just the right proportion of crushed red pepper and salt to make it zing. Add to that the packet of Masa flour in the kit for those of you who prefer thicker chili, and you have a first rate meal.  I have tried the flour and do not prefer it, but give it a try for yourself and let me know what you think.

The finishing touch is one inspired by our good friend, and Kristin's terrific God-Mother.  She and her husband are the kinds of friends that, when we visit them we always pack the kids' pajamas.  The type of friends who your kids call Aunt and Uncle almost as if it was a wish rather than a courtesy.

So we had chili at their home once and they put brown sugar in it.  Skeptical as I was, I admit that I ate it for three reasons:  1) Kristin's God mother is not only a fearless cook; she is a great cook and anything we've ever had at her house is really really good, 2) it would have been rude to say "Uh...you put what into the chili? No, just no", and 3) it was dinner time, I was hungry, and someone else was cooking.  So you see I had three compelling reasons to chow down but I now confess, I had grave, grave doubts about that brown sugar.

Chili, the way I was raised, was meant to peel the paint, hector the senses, and harass the digestive system.  Eating good chili was like pulling off a good dare - there's supposed to be something of a thrill in just making it to the bottom of that bowl.

So I accepted the brown sugar chili (which I suspect but cannot confirm probably had turkey or chicken or something else healthy (insert air quotes here) in it) and politely ate it suspecting that brown sugar would be to chili what Tears for Fears was to music.  Just something I had to endure because of the women in my life. Unlike, however, that chinless, spineless, "dullard's opus" brand of music (Tears for Fears), I was amazed to discover the sweet with the hot in a pot of chili was a fantastic development.

So in finishing off the mix now bubbling at a rolling boil in any chili pot in my kitchen, it is always with the warmest memories of our good friends and their hospitality that I mix in 3/4 of a cup of brown sugar.  It's just so good that way.

After the boil, the whole thing simmers on low for a couple of hours and then you serve it with saltines and a cold beverage.  Some people embellish their chili with sour cream or cheddar cheese, which I suppose is fine for them.  Some people I know also finish off their mixed drinks with a paper umbrella, cuff their jeans and wear boatshoes without socks, so who am I to judge if they want to putt from the rough?

But for me, it's saltines and, if you need something to take the edge off the heat, then bake some bread and serve it with butter - that - and any generous amount of cold beverage and good friends are all you'll really need.

So around dinner time tomorrow I figure on throwing a big pot of chili on the table for whoever is here. Wherever you are, whoever you are with, I hope you find yourself breaking bread with good friends and family in the calm of what is perhaps this last slow Saturday before the usual end of the year mayhem.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today!  I love that you came by.

Dennis
smallowndad@hotmail.com

Waving just makes me smile...

I love waving.  It's part of me - whether it is a big, dopey, "hale fellow well met" kind of wave; or the more subtle thumbs up I give my son, or even just the subtle nod of the head I give to a stranger at the four-way stop sign by my home, I am a waving/gesturing kind of guy.

When I think of waving, I always think of my good friend, Amy. Years ago I bumped into her walking down the street in a busy metropolitan area.  Really I should say she saw me and then I heard her before I saw her.

"Dennis!  DENNIS!" she yelled and, hearing my name called with such urgency, I turned and saw this buddy of mine walking fast, both hands over her head, seemingly waving with her entire body as she walked quickly over to say "hi."  It was such a great moment then and is still today a warm and happy memory - I think of it often when I am waving "hi" or "bye" to someone.

My mom is one of the best wavers I have ever met.  She waves as if there is nothing more important at that particular moment than you realizing that she sees you being wonderful, and she wants you to see that she sees you.  She waves and calls out "Hello you!  Do you see me seeing you!"  I see her do it with the kids and I can tell it makes a difference with them as well.  Even as a grown man it makes me feel like I am about 10 feet taller than I actually am.

And both of my kids are ardent wavers.  Kristin, the four year old, stands in the window every time I leave the house and waves furiously until I am out of sight.  In return, I wave as if I am trying to swim through the air to get back to her - alternating between waving like a lunatic and blowing a million tiny kisses in her direction. And Michael - the cool 10 year old - well secretly he is a crazy waver too.  He and Kristin fit right in - never, ever do they forget to kiss good night, or hello, or to wave to loved ones arriving or departing.  I love the idea of one of the grandmas or grandpa leaving for the long drive back to the city, and the last thing they see at my home is their grandkids waving from the porch like they just saw their granny or grandpa score a touchdown and spike the ball.

For many years I worked at a University here in Michigan.  I can honestly say that my favorite days were either the days the moms and dads dropped their kids off for the first time; or graduation days.  On the drop off days when I was working in the dorms, I got to see the kid side of the equation - kids and parents hanging on, standing in the lobby, giving hugs and kisses, then watching the moms fuss and worry.  Before long the parents would walk reluctantly to their car and slowly drive off, honking horns, flashing brights, waving out the windows as if to say "make sure you see me, please don't forget all we taught you, be good, wave, remember I see you and please see me seeing you!'  Such a gift to be a regular eyewitness to that wonderful view of humanity. 

The kids, for their part, would generally return the wave in earnest until the parents were gone and then immediately have some plan; food, girls, athletics - rarely, if ever - did the kid get dropped off for the first time and then retire quietly to the comfort of his room and study his Latin.  That part was fun to watch too,

But for me, graduation days were the absolute best.  The kids walking in with all the pomp and circumstance, energy pouring out of every person in the room.  And here and there parents standing up, on tip toe, craning their necks urgently to see their kid, the kid they taught to ride a bike, tie a shoe, use a spoon - that kid - walking through the door in cap and gown.  Invariably there was crazy waving - "...do you see me seeing you be wonderful? I love for you to see me seeing you!"  And the kids would wave back, happy, excited, perhaps a bit embarrassed "yes, I see you mom, but DO YOU SEE ME?!  Check me out!  Look here, I see you but are you seeing me? Can you believe this?!"

That gesture of waving, under the happiest of circumstances, is so golden, so precious.  It is perhaps unchanged in all of humanity.  A precious gift, to wave and see someone waving back as if it really mattered. I think it does really matter 

Today, don't squander those opportunities to wave like you mean it, wave like a dirty little kid for whom the mere sight of his parents is the vision of home, and happiness, and security.  Wave like a proud parent searching the crowd for that beloved familiar face, so you can say "I see you!  Do you see me seeing you?!"

See the one you love and run like a wild person, arms over your head, and tell them how happy you are to see them; and let them know how happy it will be for you to see that they see you being happy to see them.  It's not hard - little kids do it all the time.  If it was that hard how could they do it? It just might make you feel happy, beloved, charmed.  You'll never know until you try it.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today and for sharing the blog and passing along all the wonderful comments and emails.  Each one of them is as welcome to me as is the wave from a dear friend on a busy street.  I am so glad to have the chance to visit with you (and yes, I do see you being awesome, and I am sure that you see me seeing you be awesome, too).

Dennis
smalltowndad@hotmail.com

Small Town Mompetitions

Recently I was reminded of the nature of competition.  The exact details aren't really important.  An old friend (female) was having some issues with a circle of women involved in a civic project.  One said the wrong thing to another, the other took offense thinking that her child, about whom the comment had been made, was slighted and it was on - the brawl to end it all, the war to settle the score - the Mompetition.

It's the same all over, isn't it? A group of moms is thrown together under whatever circumstances and it won't be long until it is obvious that one parent favors her child over another for some arbitrary reason. Maybe she seeks an advantage for her child over something pointless or perhaps says the wrong thing to another parent that betrays a previously closely held view of the world that, once aired publicly, changes things permanently,

"Mompetition" is a word that maybe you haven't heard of before.  I hadn't heard of it until an internet video making the rounds last week made me laugh out loud. The Urban Dictionary (a favorite site) defines mompetition as:

The one-up rivalry that moms play making their child seem better, smarter, and/ or more advanced than yours. May involve two or more moms and any number of children, even full-grown.

Mompetitions can transcend issues involving kids too - who has the nicest house, who is part of the "in crowd," vacations, husbands, money - all of the really toxic things that can ruin friendships.  But it's when  the kids get involved that things get especially tough.  Is there anything that makes us feel more vulnerable than our kids? Which kids made the team, made the grades, got the preferred teacher, etc.  That all goes hand-in-glove with the dreaded mompetition.

It's natural for us as people to want to cheer, and who better to cheer for than our own kids?  But, sometimes I wonder at what expense comes the mompetition or if the collective expectations about these competitions are reasonable.

I am not a mom, so I don't pretend to be an expert on these issues. My most relevant experience in understanding the dynamics here comes from my background in employment mediation.  In mediation, to solve a problem or quiet a controversy, you try and pry away the personal hard feelings central to a dispute and look at whose expectations are at least justified, then determine from those justified expectations which are at least reasonable and which ones aren't.  Most times if you take this patient approach and then look hard enough you can find a win/win scenario. 


In applying this rationale to the Alpha Mom in full bloom, you have to try and understand what she is competing with.  If the Alpha Mompetitor could step back and refine her understanding of competition to see that the competition is no less keen or compelling when it is focused inward, then the interpersonal relationships affecting that mom will be stronger, more enduring.

We all like winning, and I am no different when it comes to my kid winning. It's just that I believe in teaching the kids to compete against their own expectations and beliefs - to achieve at a level higher than they previously believed they could achieve. I also believe in teaching the kids to help others along the way.  It's been my experience that that is the hallmark of every great leader I have known - that they bring others along with them - get them to achieve more not by dominating them, but by teaching them, helping them.

If you always give your best, then the outcomes will take care of themselves. Achievements aren't diluted in the least if they don't come at the expense of another; but are instead leveraged on previous performance.

I get it; we all need to feel good about something - our jobs, our kids, our homes.  We all want some magic barometer that tells us that what we are getting out of life is somehow on par with what we are putting into it. And the easiest way to do that is to measure ourselves against someone in our similar situation.  Moms with kids in the same class; breast-feeding versus non-breast feeding moms, moms who vaccinate, etc.

But when competition is applied to the interpersonal relationships of the fairer sex, well there is a lurking danger with this kind of thinking. From where I sit, there is just something different about the way women communicate that turbo-charges this issue.

It is probably true, in general terms, that men practice friendliness and women practice friendships.  And there is some research that actually support this.  Men, in their general bucolic stupor, are quite capable of suffering the clumsy interpersonal affronts normal to relationships with far less intensity than are women. The empty-headed comment is made and then forgotten just as fast.

Disclaimer: I am saying "I think" here because I don't want to get in trouble at home or with my female relatives or friends. but secretly, I feel like I know this to be true.  As a man, I am just that dense - most times when someone is being insulting, or gossipy, mean-spirited or judgmental, I am clueless.  Generally speaking, it has been my experience in mediating conflicts that women are far more intuitive, more adept at seeing into the many layers of relationships and communications to pick up subtle things. I believe there are many circumstances where this intuition is a strength.  But, it also makes them far more susceptible to the harmful long term effects from the mompetitions.

So, despite having just learned the word, I can say with certainty that I don't much like the mompetitions

These mompetitions leave people wondering "what was won here?"  In many cases it is glaringly obvious what was lost:  trust, friendship, important affiliations and support networks.  Esteem.  It is certain that the mompetitions don't warm anyone's life and that the victories they bring to the mompetitors are transient at best.

In considering this issue, I am reminded of the Chinese proverb:

The tree long remembers what the axe soon forgets.

The axe thinks "no big deal, I am an axe.  I'm just doing my axe thing...."  But of the tree; I just wonder how long the tree will bear the mark of the axe just doing "its axe thing."

So that's what's rattling around in my head today.  Thanks for stopping by my blog.  Remember, whether you are the Tyrannosaurus Alpha Mompetitor, or you are the "Oil on Troubled Waters" type, I am glad you came by and shared some time with me.   And, don't forget, the tree long remembers what the axe soon forgets.

Dennis