Father's Day 2019

(How's that for a distinctive title?)

It's been somewhat of an Emotionally Weird Father's Day.

Let me explain.

It's been five years since I've had a truly Terrible Father's Day- that being the one that occurred right after the second miscarriage, and Nathan and Katie and I got lunch at Red Lobster and the clueless waitress said brightly to us (a trio of extremely quiet, mid-thirties people eating lunch at 2pm with no children in our midst), "Are you here celebrating Father's Day?"

(Read the room, lady.  Read the room.)

The 19 years preceding that, they'd run the gamut from "Crying most of the day," to "Hey who wants the day off because I will definitely take your shift and get some extra money out of this stupid made up holiday!"

But then TLG came along, and the game changed.  Suddenly it was a Happy Day again, with an actual reason to celebrate, and warm, tender feelings for my Lifemate in his role as Lifegiver.  It gives me great pleasure to be able to anticipate the made up holiday with joy and expectation, to be able to make it into a Special Day (or at least a day with Special Moments) for my mate.  The Specialness I had planned for today was helping TLG make a card for Nathan, taking him to the second service of church so he could see Daddy play, and then going out to eat wherever Nathan wanted (not Red Lobster...)  Nathan obviously left the house at his usual way-too-early time (since he plays for both services, and gets there early to run through things), so I was alone as TLG scarfed his breakfast downstairs and I ruminated my Costume Choices.

In the end I felt a very powerful call to wear an old shirt of my dad's leftover from his early Air Force days (Yep, a ~40 year old t-shirt.  It has exactly one tiny hole in it, the result of a too-enthusiastic cat.  They do not make things like they used to, that's for damn sure.)  I didn't put much thought into it, just "Yes, this is a good shirt to wear today, to remember my father in a non-painful way."

But then... someone actually asked me about the shirt.

"Okay, I have to know," says the kind substitute pastor gesturing to my back.  "Who is JP 13?"

"Oh," I blink, taken off guard by the question, and suddenly realizing it wasn't perhaps totally appropriate to wear a shirt that says, "The Hell We Can't" into my husband's church.  "JP was my dad.  And 13 was his..." I fumble for a way to translate into Civilian Terms.  "...class... thing."

"Class of 2013?"  The pastor eyes my obviously late-thirties-self with a smile.  "I don't think so,"

"No no,"  I wave my hands helplessly.  "Not the year.  Their class number.  Like a squadron.  It was from some training he did after he graduated from the Air Force Academy.  They... they got to design their own patches and..."  I stretch the front of the shirt out, as though somehow he hasn't already noticed, "They chose squeezing blood from a turnip.  Obviously.  And I, uh... I decided to wear it in remembrance of him today."  Sorry about the 'hell' thing, I add mentally.

"It's a wonderful remembrance," he says, and I like him that much more.

The conversation wrapped up pretty quickly thereafter, but the shock of it- of someone who doesn't know me asking, and me actually talking about my father- shifted my brain a bit.  So that rather than "Okay thought about Daddy for 30 seconds this morning now I can put all my focus onto Nathan," it became more of a balance between the two.  The bitter and the sweet.  And I'm not saying it's bad, or that I'm upset it happened.  But it added an emotional nuance to the day I wasn't expecting.  And I may or may not have teared up a bit at the end of service when Nathan was talking to the congregation about what it means to be a good father.

Anyway.

Overall it was an extremely good day.  We had (a very late) lunch at Thai Orchid, and then Nathan went to the guitar store for a few hours (because I firmly believe that Mother's and Father's Days ought to be about the parental figure in question doing something for themselves) while TLG and I hung out at home.  And now I'm going to bed, because I am of an age where Good Days include Early Bedtimes.

::sigh::

Aloha

"I think this Sunday would be a good day for your quarterly appearance."

That's what Nathan said to me earlier this week.  He backed it up by saying there would only be one service, and it was to be followed by a luau, and since I am a sucker for delicious food and honestly it has been a while since I showed my son off at church, I went ahead and accompanied my mate.

Neeps probably spent more time being passed around than being held by us, but he did get a chance to eat some pulled pork in our company.  And he must have liked it, because he definitely wore some of it like a hat:

Like any good parent, I didn't bother to point it out.  Just took a photo.  To his credit, Nathan did notice EVENTUALLY,

Evensong

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but Nathan does music at our church, which means he is there every Sunday for not one but two services.  I am decidedly not there every Sunday- once a quarter is more like it- but whenever I go I do enjoy it.

the slow creep of evening

There was a special Christmas Eve service tonight, all music and reading, which meant that Nathan was onstage for the entire time, and I sat contentedly alone in a pretty blue chair.  It was a lovely experience, both visually and aurally, although I always do feel distinctly out of place during Communion.

Afterwards we came home and, since we have no small children to teach discipline to, proceeded to open alllll our presents, and then drink up hot cocoa and hazelnut-infused rum.  Delicious!  Plus I am wearing my new, fleece-lined jeans and burgundy rabbit's fur collar, and feeling super cozy and contented with life.  And now we are watching Parks and Recs and Nathan is making me a pizza and life is so very good.  Plus I have a new nephew to meet next week, which brings the official nibling* count up to nine- count 'em, nine:

Quail
Toad
Eel
Grasshopper
Bee
Eaglet
Elk
Tiger
Mantis Shrimp

Now I'm sure you're looking at that list and thinking, "Mantis Shrimp?  Mantis Shrimp?  How did you come up with that code name?" and the answer to that, my friends, comes down to the fact that, at 7lb 10oz I declared him "shrimpy" compared to his brother, who was close to 11lbs at birth.  But shrimpy in a sizeable way.  Hence Mantis Shrimp.



(plus I am amused by the idea of a baby being the harbinger of blood-soaked rainbows.)




*(I have some unofficial niblings, too, including but not limited to Blue and Skully...)

Colors of the Night

Had a semi-late-night climbing session with the bros, and afterwards I came across this:

This church has the loveliest noontime bells.

The Best Treachery Yet

This is by far the closest-to-my-mental-image of Treachery I've drawn to date:

Nice scar.

And the second-best part of this is that today's sermon led me to some excellent passages to use as chapter headings!  Woo!

Illuminated Angel

Style change as a result of my trip to Ireland:

The little owl was because my father-in-law leaned over and asked me to draw one.

It came out with sort of an Asian-flavor, which was unintentional.  It's a bit too geometric for my tastes, but hey- it's early yet in the evolution.

Cattle, Caves, and Cats

Start: Strandhill

End: The Apparently Handicap-Accessible Room at Kinlay House in Galway, Co. Galway

We got up a bit early this morning because we were eager to get on the road.  This, of course, bit us in the behind, since our hostess didn’t get up until 0840, which meant we spent almost an hour cooling our heels in the dining room.  I know, I know- we should have arranged early checkout last night.  Except… we couldn’t find her last night.  And, as it turns out, she wasn’t around (so we “should have left a note”, apparently.  Now we know.).

At any rate we did get on the road before 0900, so it wasn’t so bad, but by the time we made it to the Cruachan Ai Heritage Center in Tulsk we were starving.  Therefore, we decided to have breakfast before we went on our tour, and since we were going to have breakfast we decided to do it up in style and have a Full Irish Breakfast.  Except that is a lot of food, so we each ordered a Half Irish Breakfast (only one of everything).  Gentle Readers, it was still a lot of food (egg, sausage, “bacon”, toast, boxty, black pudding, white pudding, tomato, onions) which I was able to eat thanks to the miracle of Glutenflam (oh man you guys- I’d forgotten how delicious buttered toast is!).  Yes, I even ate the puddings.  Which are actually more like really dry sausages, and I’m going on record here to say that white pudding is better than black.  So now you know, in case anyone ever asks you.

Neither one of us was able to eat the entire thing, but even so we didn’t get hungry again for almost eight hours.  That’s compared to the two hours that a “continental” breakfast (eaten to the point of feeling full) generally affords us.  Protein win.

We waddled out of that place and back over to the info center, where we were first sent to sit in the dark and watch a film strip.  It was a collection of shorter films run on a loop, and some of them had quite laughably poor animation.  One of the less-poorly-animated ones seemed to be missing the soundtrack, however, so we watched in silence as a bunch of soldier silhouettes marched back and forth, and then a pair of bull silhouettes ran around until one killed the other and then… exploded.

“Why… why did the bull explode?” I asked Nathan.  Nathan, who had thus far been relying on me for Irish-myth-related things, shook his head.  “I don’t know, but it was pretty awesome.”

So we went back out into the main area and asked the lady who was to give us our tour, “Why did the bull explode?” and this is how I discovered that although I know a thing or two about Irish Fairy Tales, I know nothing about their legends.

(Long story short: the bull didn’t explode, his heart did, and it was from the stress of a full year’s worth of running around the whole of Ireland with a second bull caught on his horns.  And they weren’t bulls as we know them, but aurochs.  It’s complicated.  And that's just the tip of it.)

Yes that is totally a C.

The guide was super enthusiastic and we got a lot of asides that weren’t really tour-related but were fun nonetheless, and then she pointed me towards a book to read if I wanted to get a handle on the extremely complex cannon of Irish mythology (it’s now in my bag) and sent us on our way to tromp around looking at more rocks in fields.  Which we did.  And then we went to investigate Oweynagat, aka the Cave of Cats, aka entrance to the Otherworld (as opposed to Underworld- they are different).  I was very excited about this, although we had a devil of a time actually finding the place.  Once we did it rapidly became apparent that there was no way Nathan was going to be able to get in with his pack on his back (or possibly at all), so I volunteered to go in first and have him hand things to me.

I wriggled my way in past the initial entryway, to where things opened up just a smidge (still couldn’t sit up straight), and used the cell phone as a torch to looked deeper around the bend.

"Oh this is not happening,” I said.  The tunnel sloped downward into pitch darkness, and remained too small for anything but a crawl.  And I, Gentle Readers, I have a problem with small enclosed places, especially underground.  Especially in the dark.  Especially if my escape route is blocked by my much-larger-than-me husband, and there is no room to turn around.  I got panicky just thinking about it, so as much as a part of me was deriding the rest of me for a coward, I satisfied myself with taking a few photos and then handed the phones back to Nathan so I could crawl back out.  The Otherworld will just have to wait until I am braver.  (Seriously my throat is closing up just a little as I think about it.  Stupid irrational phobias.)

As we started back for the car I heard a tiny maybe-cat-noise, so I stopped where I was and echoed it while Nathan continued on.  The cry came again, so I made mine again, and then I heard a rustling in the hedge.  I moved around a little to see what I could see, and there was a flash of white- and then a true kitten-cry, and a little white-and-black kitten came trotting out to me, pleased as she could be!

“Oh you wee little thing!” I said (yes, I’ve officially been in Ireland long enough that I said “wee” in an unironic manner) and my mind immediately wondered how difficult it would be to smuggle a kitten back to the state.  She demanded to be picked up, and I obliged, and generally felt great comfort that whatever spirit watches over the Cave of Cats wanted me to know that they approve of me in spite of my cowardice.

The kitten was entirely too clean and sweet-smelling (and unafraid of humans) to actually be available for kitten-napping back to the states, so I let her go back into the hedge, and Nathan and I continued on our merry way to Galway.

Right from the get-go Galway had a better feel to it than Dublin, and the next few hours only cemented that feeling in us.  After dropping my pack off at Kinlay House (and marveling over the hugeness of the shower- complete with chair for sitting!) we headed over to the cathedral.  When I’d first brought the cathedral up to Nathan as a potential place of interest he’d discovered it had been built in the 1960s and sneered.  But then he did a little more research and discovered that it was all done by craftsmen, and decided it was worth a look.

Was it ever.

It was definitely one of the most beautiful cathedrals I’ve ever been in.  Maybe not the most impressive in terms of size or ornamentation, but really, really beautiful.  It helps, I’m sure, that we got there as the sun was slanting through the western stained glass windows and turning the eastern wall into a rainbow of light-smears.  The rose windows were especially gorgeous, and I wished with all my little daughter heart that my mom could be there to see it.  Ah well, perhaps next time.

Primrose window, amiright?

Afterwards we just sort of wandered, taking in the sights (and picking up a genuine Irish woolen hat for Nathan) until the sun set, and then we headed back to the hostel for the previously-promised live music (which I enjoyed but Nathan declared unimpressive).

We both agree that next time we’ll spend more than half a day in Galway.

I've Seen the Book

Start: A wonderful little room in Avalon House, Dublin

End: A crappy little room in Avalon House, Dublin

Dublin, or at least the part of it we’ve been wandering around, is pretty generically City.  And Nathan and I- we are not so much City people.  Especially since we’re not big drinkers, and I’m in no condition to go dancing (although I went sans brace today and was fine, so yay improvement!).  Certain cities are exceptions to this- for instance we are both utterly in love with Edinburgh- but for the most part cities are just cities, and oftentimes depressingly similar to one another (especially when it comes to that special blended fragrance of beer and urine).  Perhaps we will feel differently once we’ve had a chance to explore other parts of Dublin, but for the moment it is a city I am feeling no melancholy over leaving.

We got up relatively early this morning and made our way up and over to Trinity College, which in spite of the above paragraph was absolutely lovely- except for their strange neurosis about not letting anyone on the lawns.  I felt deeply sorry for the students, deprived of the age-old right of sunning themselves on the quad on the first fine day of spring.  But perhaps the students and Trinity are too Serious for such?

Click to embiggen the details

At any rate, the reason we got up so early was to go see the Book of Kells before the queue got ridiculous (yes, I am back in a land where that word is appropriate, and I am re-embracing the hell out of it).  As it was we got there before the exhibition opened, and still had to wait a good twenty-thirty minutes to get in.  Crazy pants.  (And on our way out the queue had grown to be literally three times as long!  Nathan turned to me and said “Thank you for making us come early.”)

Do you know what else is crazy pants?  The incredible frickin’ skill of the monks who wrote and illuminated those Books.  It was… absolutely mind-blowing, the precision and tiny, intricate details.  I was filled with awe and envy and a sudden desire to add even more abstract design elements to my angels.  (And, possibly, All the Things.)  From that exhibition we moved into the Long Room of the Old Library, where I was so overwhelmed with by the number and presence of  Old Books that I was near brought to tears.  Let me tell you, Gentle Readers who are also Bibliophiles- you may think you know the smell of Old Books, but I assure you there is still another, deeper layer to that Scent which you cannot know until you have been surrounded by books that are not just decades but centuries old.  It is... humbling.  And probably marks me out as the nerd I am.  I just sat there for a good ten minutes, beaming and wishing I could be allowed to touch them...

By the time we left Trinity it was about 1230, or, in other words, the perfect time to go to the Guinness Storehouse and get our grub on.  We’d had a rather disappointing pair of breakfasts (bland bland bland- it’s like the Irish decided to take over the disproven English stereotype), so we were, once again, ravenous.

Guinness was really more Nathan’s thing than mine- I don’t drink beer, and I’ve been on brewery tours before and let’s face it, once you know how beer is made you know how beer is made.  All that aside, however, it was a good time- the building itself was a marvel of people-shuffling-engineering, not to mention beautiful in a thoroughly modern way.  And it was fun to watch my husband learn to pull a perfect pint of Guinness, and to chat it up with a couple from the other Vancouver.

We ended up getting lunch there, settling on the special: Guinness stew* topped with mash.  It.  Was.  Delicious.  It was exactly the sort of thing I’d expected to be able to get in Ireland!  Not to mention there was a live trad band playing, to really make the atmosphere.  (We comfort ourselves that there will be no shortage of good, traditional Irish food in the smaller areas we're going to visit- it's just that the City feels the need to prove how Modern it is...)

From there it was a leisurely stroll back to the hostel, which we broke up with a stop for gourmet hand-made ice cream; I tried redbean-and-chocolate, bacon-and-maple**, and blueberry-elderberry, but settled on the comparatively tame lemon meringue, which they topped with real bits of meringue!  Nathan had a scoop of Guinness ice cream and said it was very yeasty and good.  We also made a visit to a random cathedral: St. Augustine & St. John’s.  It was, to my mind, a great deal more impressive than Christchurch, and I felt vaguely resentful that it wasn’t even mentioned in the near-useless travel book (which I suppose is why we are so adamant about our aimless wandering).  We popped into St. Audoen's, as well, just because it was there, and learned about church guilds.

"Blandening": now a word.

And then we were back at the hostel, and getting the key to our new room (apparently the Nice Room was only available for the one night?), and then in the new room and I was tired enough that I could not help but feel bitterly disappointed what a step down in quality it was (bunk beds and no accessible outlet, for starters).  Especially since the windows weren’t open, so it was hot and stuffy.  I may have whined.  A lot.  But after some rest (and an airing out) I’m feeling better about the world, and looking forward to tomorrow’s adventure: driving.

*(And thanks to my Glutenflam, I was able to enjoy it with minimal discomfort later on)

**(Keeping in mind that ‘bacon’ in the UK and Ireland is closer to what we think of as Canadian bacon, aka ham.  The flavor was too off from my norm for me to be able to enjoy it…)

It's Biblical!

Call me a 12-year-old boy, but I was super stoked to learn about the following bible passage during today's sermon:

Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth: a lovely deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love.   (Proverbs 5:18-19)

Good 'ol Solomon.

Yes that is right: my husband is commanded to be delighted by my breasts at all times.  I am 100% okay with this.  Next time he starts to get irritated with me for being quarrelsome and driving him to the roof I'ma point meaningfully and be all "Hey!  Let's get some delight up in here!"

(In other news, I've decided my angels need hair as stylized as the wing and halos I give them.  And I toyed with the idea of giving them flaming eyes but right now I'm not digging it...)

Hoppy Easter (YES I WENT THERE)

I was sad that I didn't have an Easter basket.  Apparently I made the bunny's Naughty List this year.  ::sigh::  But hey, not too naughty, or I would have gotten a shoe full of pellets.  That's how this holiday works, right?  Right.

Also part of this holiday was going to church, and listening to my husband get his Music on.  Behold:

He is very good, my man.  Anyway he did his thing for three services, but I ducked out after the first one to go home and a) let the dog out for Potty Times and b) scramble to get caught up Interwebs Related Items (such as blog entries and emails).

I need more time in my week.  More not-"real job"-time.  ::sigh::

Kink's Not Dead (and Other Rambling Brain Dumps)

So it turns out that Kink's woes are nothing more serious than a LUTI, which is a great relief all around.  I know he's ten and all, but I'm just so not ready to deal with his mortality yet.  Nor, I think, is Nathan ready to deal with me having to deal with it.  And so I've been cheerfully squirting (I kid you not) banana-flavored amoxicillin down the cat's throat twice a day and paying way more attention to his litter habits than I might prefer.

I spent a chunk of time working in "the studio" today (AKA "David's Room", because that's where we've put all the stuff we hauled up for him) getting it to the point where you can see the floor.  It's not really "done", per se, but then again neither is anywhere else in the apartment.  The painting continues (Nate's actually adding a second coat of "whisper yellow" to a living-room wall as I type), and I'm thinking we may make an effort to get up some art in the hallway this week.  Lofty goals, I know...  anyway it's almost to the point where I wouldn't be desperately ashamed to have people over, so maybe I'll put together a little dinner party for next month...  we shall see.

I get the feeling I will be spending a great many weekends over the next few months "tweaking".  As I mentioned to Nathan today, I've never in my life put so much effort into my dwelling.  ("Yeah, but it really needs it," he replied, narrowing his eyes at the hideous expanse of "cool khaki".)  And it's true that I no longer cringe when I look around from my perch on the couch, so that's something- not having to cringe while in your own home, I mean.

Nathan's man-date went well: each proved to the other that he doesn't suck with a guitar, and it's looking like Nathan may start playing regularly during service.  Which, I suppose, is how one tumbles into a church (you must understand it's my first adult experience with it.)  I'm really glad- I wanted very much to find a community for Nathan outside "my friends", and this is definitely a good way to do that.  Of course, I'm also a little nervous- I kind of  feel like I'm there under false pretenses, not being Christian and all.  I can't help but feel like I'm walking around in a giant Lie of Omission by not blurting it out to everyone I meet:

"Hello perfectly nice Christian person I'm shaking hands with!  My husband is one of Your Kind and is currently playing up there on the stage.   But although I am blending quite well I am not actually Your Kind!  I am a filthy, filthy heathen!  Coffee?"

On the one hand I feel like it doesn't really matter- I'm not there as an Angry Atheist or anything; I'm there as a wife supporting her husband in something very important to him (and something he has made it clear is in no way mandatory for me).  I'm interested in theology, and in gaining a better understanding of my husband's religion, so a church seems like a pretty practical way to further my knowledge of both.  But on the other hand... it does kind of feel like a big deal to be sitting around in my imitation sheep's clothing without letting them know that my teeth are actually quite pointed- regardless of whether or not I plan on using said teeth.  Religion is a very casual thing for many of my friends, but not so much, I think, for these people- and it somehow seems wrong to not correct any false impressions they might have.

Of course, I also think that maybe I can do my part as "non-jerk-non-Christian".  You know, just be me and have people like me for me and then when they find out I'm not Christian they have a nice little example of how not all secular people are hateful... much as several of my friends did their part as "non-jerk-Christians" for me back in the day.  Yeah, it really wasn't all that long ago that I was still being shocked that self-described Christians could actually be kind, loving people...



(...let's face it- the world could use more instances of "non-jerks", regardless of theological affiliation- or lack thereof...)

Starting Grounds

So we went to church this morning at a place we're considering making "our place", and somehow or another I ended up behind their bar (::cough cough Mama Fishie cough::) facing down a semi-automatic espresso machine (none of that super-automatic SBC business) the likes of which I had not been faced with since college.

It was really quite shocking how it all came back to me.  Ask me how much I remember from, say, my art history classes and I'll give you an embarrassingly short answer.  But apparently once one learns how to adjust a grind and/or tamp to compensate for short shot, one never forgets.  I actually ended up giving a mini-lecture on the subject of what a proper shot looks like.  And then another one on foam.  Lord help the very nice young woman I had cornered... the Teacher in me, it seems she has a hard time keeping quiet...  so anyway it's possible that I may take up a little volunteer barista-ing in my spare time, which suits me fine, because I always did love being a barista- just not so much trying to live on the wages it provided.  And I do so love the craft involved in turning out a truly lovely specialty beverage...  ::happy sigh::

While I was re-acquainting myself with the joys of portafilters, Nathan was busy making friends with a music ministry guy, and they have a man-date to play guitar together tomorrow night, a situation I find Entirely Pleasing.  It brings me great joy when my husband indulges in his music, and I'm hoping having someone to play with (pun only semi-intended) will encourage him in it.  It did not hurt matters that later on we went to Beacock Music and he played with an eight-string baritone that had a gorgeous, gorgeous sound.  The sales guy let us use his office so we could hear it without a bunch of Stairway to Heaven going on around us (you know exactly what I'm talking about!), so we took advantage of the privacy to sing a little... and it worked quite well with both of our vocal ranges.  I dearly wish I could just outright buy it as a gift for Nathan, but alas- it comes with a price-tag that says we must scrimp and save if we want to go beyond just staring at it longingly...

In less thrilling news, I'm a little concerned about Kink.  I noticed today that he doesn't seem to be able to urinate (yes, I know you totally come on here to read about my cat's litter-box habits), a state which Teh Interwebz declares An Emergency.  But given that he's been acting totally normal, and that he doesn't have any hardness in his abdomen (or any reluctance to me touching it) I've decided that while it may be time for a visit to the vet, it's not such an emergency that it cannot wait until morning.  So in the morning we'll take him in (heck, we may just take both of them in- they were due for their shots back in March, anyway) and see what's what.