German Ivy

Plants have been calling to me lately. Every time I leave the house I return with a green leafed member of our biosphere, much to the consternation of my wife who notes the containers full of dirt and scraggly plants popping up around the house. Seeds seem to be demanding a go at life, too. I have several seeds from Avocados to Almonds thinking about sprouting, or at least I'm thinking about them sprouting even though they appear to just be molding. At least they had their chance.

I had been really wanting to get an ivy (a strange thing to be wanting, I know), and I randomly came across this little plant called German Ivy, and I thought, "It's German. I'm German. Maybe we can have some kind of understanding and camaraderie between us." I do not know what makes it German Ivy. It doesn't seem to respond to sour Kraut, require continual refreshments of Beer, or acknowledge Polka music in the slightest. Definitely not your typical German Plant. It makes me think that it has not spent that much time out of the wild. I like to think that it hales from the Black Forest, and that there is something mysterious bound up in its roots that time will reveal.

In other news, since I've done such an amazing job of keeping up with this blog, I thought I would start another blog, but I won't tell you anymore about it right now. I want to focus my content more plus shift out of this blog anyway since the name is based on our old address. More news later.

Seussical

Operation "Make-High-Schoolers-Build-Seussical" has now commenced. It promises to be a ton of work. Hopefully the highschoolers of Lakeville South leap to the challenge, and while leaping, somehow build this set.

To the right is a squished, sideways, preliminary sketch of what we are shooting for. I just spent a long time trying to rotate that picture. Computers sure save me loads of time.

The last set I designed and built for them was for their one act competition, and that was a paper-mache mess that turned into quite a beautiful, disassembleable tree. There is still a film of glue covering the whole scene shop reminding us of past wars fought in the name of art. There promises to be Florescent paint in the underwater bellet, Secret hatches, Slide, Firemen pole, maybe spandex. What more could an audience ask for?

In other news, I've been thinking about starting a new blog or so at a new address. Maybe one more focused on a particular theme. Take the survey on the right. Let me know what you might be interested in hearing more about.

Go, Dogs, Go!

We are still unpacking into our house. I think one finally reaches the nirvana of successful moving by finding the best and most aesthetic ways to hide everything. Somethings you want to hide in the open: chairs, tables, tvs, pictures, art, gifts people expect to see; other things you just want out of the public eye: extra jugs of car anti-freeze, dirty underwear, box of things you don't know where to put, but you don't want to throw away, guns, clean underwear, paint cans, top-secret files; and then there is the things you will most likely never need: extra doorknobs, random pieces of wood, broken lamp you intend (but not really) to fix, pieces to that thing that you don't even know what it is but should keep all the same just in case it turns up. Yesterday I realized that the middle of our kitchen was still filled with boxes, jars, Gladware, cellophane, etc., and that most of our cabinets and drawers were still empty. One makes a split second decision (I'm going to put the measuring spoons . . . here), and it will probably be that way for many a year.


I am rifling through the packed books today and I find a bag in which resides merely three books. Two of them are about the fattest tomes I own: 1,589 pages of “The Bible Knowledge Commentary: Old Testament” and 1,290 pages of “Systematic Theology.” However, Sandwiched inbetween those two monsters is the paltry 64, one to two sentence, pages of P. D. Eastman's “Go, Dog. Go!” I do not know why they are packed together. Except that it possibly means to me that somewhere between understanding the Old Testament and having an overview of theology, one must understand the simple truths of “Do you like my hat?” / “I do not like that hat.” , “A green dog on a yellow tree. . . . A yellow dog under a tree. . . . Look at those dogs go. Go, Dogs. Go!”

Squirrel Nostril Size

I noticed a squirrel pilfering through our compost pile today. What a city squirrel could possibly want out of pile of eggshells, yam peels, tea bags, orange peels, apple cores, bannana peels, and egg cartons is, to me, mysterious. He is probably just studying what kind of lifestyle we lead, analyzing our threat level since we are newer on the block than he is, and reporting back to squirrel HQ where, I'm sure, they keep a neighborhood diagram with pinned-up bits of food and dog intellegence.


I kind of want a squirrel-sized landmine, but I'm sure to get a neighbors cat or child or granny or something. Rebekah told me that her boss puts cracked corn out to glut the squirrels on so they don't eat the rest of her garden. Though that may be wise, it doesn't sound like my immediate line of thinking at all. “Hey, I hate what you do to my garden. Here's some cracked corn instead.”

Kyle and Rebekah thinking: “Hey, I hate what you do to our garden. Climb in this trap so I can skin you, roast your body, and wear your pelts as a warning to your brood.”

Actually, as much as I want my thinking to be just that, I don't have a garden, it's the middle of winter, and he sure looks cute. He can have all the compost he wants as long as he doesn't spread it around or come knocking on the door asking for seconds. It's going to be another story come Summer and he's stealing my strawberries though.

I do think that he is stealing berries out of the loose-leaf tea I bought Rebekah. There are whole, whole I tell you, craisins in her tea. Who puts whole berries in their tea mix? You can eat it like a bag of granola mix. Actually, it's really good but still?

Rebekah's and my conversation about supplying the squirrels with cracked corn devolved into just supplying them with straight Crack, forget the corn, which, of course, lead to a conversation about squirrel nostril size. Now, the more I think about the words squirrel and nostril together, the funnier I think it is. Please enjoy those two words together at least a dozen time today.

About a week in the new house. I can't believe that we have lived here that long already. This house is almost eerily quite and dark—no neighbors playing Halo on the other side of the wall, no people clomping through the hall laughing at full force, no street lights shining through the window, no omnipresent spouse always together in that two hundred sixty square foot box (even though we still seem to always be in the same room anyway. We must like each other).


I realized that I can't watch horror movies here—kind of a strange realization, I suppose. Not one I expected. It must be the oldness, the darkness, the silence, the dilapidated bits (a combination of all that). I almost watched a horror flick the other night, but I would be jittery now if I had. At least I have the shotgun right here. Maybe I should find some bullets to go with it. Of course a shotgun probably wouldn't work on a paranormal apparition manifested out of the morass of my disturbed mind. In the moment it would probably seem like a very good idea to try anyway. Shooting a shotgun in the house is every young mans dream, isn't it? I should probably start taking it with me when I go into the basement/crawlspace (whatever you want to call it). There is a pair of shoes lying awry down there in the shadows. That's spooky, right? There is something about empty shoes and misshapen wads of clothes that could probably use one or two rounds of clay-pigeon shot, just in case there is something even slightly amiss.

I'm not used to this much space. I've lived in a shoebox with Rebekah so long that now I am lost in the woods in this new house. We don't even use the upstairs yet, even though there is tons of space up there. Ultimately that will probably be our bedroom, but penultimately our bed is in the front downstairs room and will probably be there for awhile.

My brother Kurt asked if we had problems with ice dams, and my immediate reaction is to think, “I don't have problems with ice dams,” as if he'd asked me if I suffered from indigestion or something. But once he explained it, I realized that our roof is covered in ice dams. I'm sure it is mostly because our gutters are screwed up. Just another thing to discover in the great home ownership adventure.

New House

We moved into our new house on Friday. One would think after all this trouble obtaining it, that there would be an angel chorus when we came in, but it was just an empty, ratty, old—awesome—house. We were excited though. We did our own angel chorus including swing dancing in all the space, watching a movie, cooking an onion sausage combo with sliced tomatoes. Very delicious.

All our stuff is mountained in one room of the house except for a few tendrils of various things vining into other rooms: toothbrushes to the bathroom, cookware to the kitchen, a trail of bedding to the futon, and me to my nook. I have chosen, at least for the present, in what room my writing nook is going to be and I am sitting behind its closed door right now with only the laptop, a chair and pillow, and a cup of tea. This tiny room alone feels cavernous. It is about half the size of our studio apartment by itself, but it is empty save for me and my most fundamental writing tools.

This house has some great quirky things going on for it. Being built in the year 1900, it can't help but be a little strange. If I were made in 1900, I, too, would definitely have made sure to be strange by now.

I love looking at walls and thinking, “I could tear that down if I wanted—'cause it's mine! ha ha.” But I calm down once I realize that my hammer is buried in stuff-mountain someplace and that would mean that I have to get up and then I'd get whiny and the pounding and manic laughter would wake Rebekah—it would just be horrible. Better to sit and stare at the wall, drink my tea, and realize that both tea and wall are under my dominion. Daunting, eh?