Beauty

As the parent of a teenage daughter, I can get bogged down with daily details of school, schedules, footwear, laundry, phone use, clothes on the floor, lunches, and retainers.

But now and again I see the radiant young lady who dazzles me in practically every way, and I can hardly believe that I get to be her Dad:

Just when I thought it was safe…

For a while it looked like I might be able to climb down from my high horse on matters related to federal bailouts of the automobile and financial services industries.  But no.  I’m back in that saddle.

On April 22, The Washington Post reported:  “Top recipients of federal bailout money spent more than $10 million on political lobbying in the first three months of this year.”

Lobbying?  LOBBYING?

“…aggressive efforts aimed at blocking executive pay limits and tougher financial regulations, according to newly filed disclosure records.”

If you or I give money to an organization that’s even minimally involved in lobbying, can we deduct it as a contribution on our tax returns?  No sir.  But these guys can take stacks of the money you and I have paid in taxes, for which they pleaded and begged and sobbed and whined because they were on the verge of bankruptcy or collapse, and they can use it to try and influence (read “block”) legislation they don’t like.  More specifically, they are lobbying to limit Congress’ ability to correct the abusive practices that pushed these businesses right up to – and maybe over – the brink of ruin.  “Major bailout recipients have spent more than $22 million on lobbying in the six months since the government began doling out rescue funds, Senate disclosure records show.” That includes General Motors (spending $1 million a month) and Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase (proud new owner of WaMu) leading the pack among financial institutions.

Be still, my heart.  Come down, my blood pressure.

Sure, $22 million is a pittance to our friends in Congress and in corporate boardrooms.  But for the overwhelming majority of us on Planet Earth, it is a lot of money.

What else do we need to do to convince our elected officials to cut off the flow of any additional taxpayer money to prop up these monumental monuments to avarice, arrogance, corruption, and incompetence?

Water: What’s the big deal?

• Sitting on all the drinking fountains at our church are plastic water bottles filled with cloudy, dirty brown water.
• 5-gallon jugs full of water are placed in various locations around the church building to give us a sense of how difficult it is to carry water.
• Yesterday our family checked out an empty 5-gallon jug, took it over to Green Lake, filled it up at a beach, and took turns lugging it less than a half mile on the path around the lake.  It was hard.

These are some of the ways that we’re learning to pay more attention to the fact that far too many people do not have access to clean drinking water.  In the 50 days following Easter, we’re looking at small steps we can take to better appreciate this precious resource.  Each household in the church is being asked to consider how to use water more carefully and to give up a few things so we can put that money into a project drilling and repairing wells in Uganda.

A couple of facts:

• More people die each year from drinking dirty water than from the world’s hurricanes, floods, tsunamis, and earthquakes combined.
• Households in Uganda spend an average of 660 hours a year collecting water.  This represents two full months of labor, with attendant opportunity costs for child care, education, and income generation.
• It’s estimated that $10 billion a year would solve the world water crisis.  It sounds like a lot, but Americans spend $18 billion a year on makeup, and last year spent more than $400 billion on Christmas gifts.

I need help to think about big problems in small ways.  Here’s a good story:

“Would you give a million dollars to the poor?” a Sunday school teacher asked her students.

“Yes!” the children shouted in unison.

“Would you give a thousand dollars to the poor?”

“Yes!”

“Would you give one dollar to the poor?”

The room fell silent.  “What’s the difference?” the teacher asked.

One honest student got it:  “The difference is that I have one dollar!”

In the unlikely event of family conflict: The Meeting

When the kids were about 4 or 5 we came up with some simple steps to help them (and us, as it turned out) work through conflict.  We’d convene a Meeting, which is:

• Offered or required when it becomes apparent (yelling, tears, blood) that the kids could not resolve a matter by themselves.
• Intentionally formal and time-consuming, providing some incentive for the kids to work things out on their own:

Do we need to have a Meeting?
No!  We can take care of this by ourselves!

• A good tool to help all of us better internalize ways to resolve conflict. We’ve found these steps useful in the workplace, too.

The moderator (usually the one who convened the Meeting) sits between the parties in conflict, preferably with an arm around each one.  The setup goes something like this:

Welcome to our Meeting.  Here are the reasons that we’re doing this:  1)  we want to make sure everyone has a chance to say what they need to say; 2) we want to make sure we hear what others are saying; and 3) we want to find a way to figure things out.

First, each of you will have a turn to tell your story while the others listen carefully without interrupting you.  Then each of you will have a chance to say something else if you want to.  I will probably offer some comments about what’s been said and ask for your ideas about how things could have been done differently or better.

Then, if apologies are needed, we will make them and receive them, and we will end with a gesture of goodwill.

Any questions?  Who would like to go first?

It’s often tempting for one party to jump in while the other is telling his/her story, so a simple reminder may be needed that only one person at a time gets to talk, and there will be an opportunity for more comments:

Lauren, it’s Zack’s turn to talk and our turn to listen.  We’ll make sure that you can say what you need to after he’s finished.

Apologies at our house require three things:   1) steady eye contact to reduce the risk of eye rolling; 2) using the other person’s name; and 3) specifically naming the action for which the apology is offered:

Lauren, I’m sorry that I ripped that page out of your book.

It does not require that we feel like apologizing.  An apology is a choice and we do it whether we feel like it or not.

Accepting apologies at our house requires two steps:   1) steady eye contact; and 2) receiving the apology:

I accept your apology and I forgive you.

Again, feelings are not required – this is a choice.  That said, we do pay attention to tone of voice.  An apology that sounds mocking or insincere must be repeated until the moderator is satisfied that it meets or exceeds minimal standards for sincerity.

The question, “Zack, is there anything else you need to say to Lauren or need to hear from her?” (and the same question to Lauren) can ensure that all known issues are addressed.

We always end our Meetings with a “gesture of goodwill” between the parties.  This can be a high five, a handshake, or a hug.

Repeat as often as necessary!

* * * * * * * * * *

One of the things we like most about a Meeting is that it takes us through all the steps needed to get an issue resolved.  Air grievances, listen, take responsibility for our contributions, receive counsel, offer and accept apologies, make a good faith effort to restore the relationship.  Variations on these themes?  Sure – but the essential ingredients are there.

* * * * * * * * * *

There have been occasions when Susan or I have needed some help to untangle our own conflict with one of the kids.  The other adult has had to sit us down and walk us through a Meeting.  It takes only a small dose of humility to fall back on the familiar steps to work things out.  More importantly, it is a powerful statement to the kids that we hold ourselves to the same standards we are trying to teach them.  There hasn’t [yet] been a situation in which either Lauren or Zack convened a Meeting when Susan and I were in conflict with each other, but I believe they could do it.

* * * * * * * * * *

When Susan and I presented The Meeting at a parenting workshop at our church,  we asked a couple of parents to take the part of their kids and role play a Meeting with me.  They really got into it.  The two moms interrupted and accused each other out of turn, reached across me to hit each other, and one ran away and hid under a table!  I had to concentrate less on what I was presenting in order to get firm with them, suggesting we cancel our ‘trip to the zoo’ unless they showed a little more cooperation.  Seemed to us that they had no difficulty imagining themselves in their own Meetings with family members!

SWAT team right down the street

My neighbor and I were en route to the dump this afternoon when we passed a SWAT team van with lights going.  Don’t see that every day.  We joked about getting out just in time.

Coming back home we were surprised to discover that the van was in our neighborhood, accompanied by about 20 police cruisers.  Apparently a man with a gun has been holed up in an apartment for a couple of hours in a standoff situation.

I just heard something like firecrackers, then several louder explosions.  Rather than walk over to the scene, we’ll continue to follow the story on the West Seattle Blog, our best source for local news.

LATER THAT EVENING…

Situation ended with man taken into custody after about five hours.  No hostages, no injuries.  Whew.

Space between the ears

Zack (13) and I were in the kitchen when I noticed him reaching into the bottle of vitamins – again.

“Didn’t you just have some of those a few minutes ago?” I asked.

“Oh yeah,” Zack replied, replacing the top on the bottle.  He flashed me a slightly sheepish grin.

“Won’t it be nice when your brain starts working again?”

“Yep.”

“Do you miss it?” I wondered.

“Nope.”

ka-BOOM!

At that moment they heard from behind them a loud noise – a great cracking, deafening noise as if a giant had broken a giant’s plate.  “What’s that?” said Lucy, clutching Susan’s arm…

The Stone Table was broken into two pieces by a great crack that ran down it from end to end; and there was no Aslan…

They looked round.  There, shining in the sunrise, larger than they had seen him before, shaking his mane (for it had apparently grown again) stood Aslan himself.  “Oh, Aslan!” cried both the children, staring up at him, almost as much frightened as they were glad.  “Aren’t you dead then, dear Aslan?” said Lucy.

“Not now,” said Aslan.

from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
by C.S. Lewis

Sometimes I amaze myself

For years we* have made half-hearted attempts to come up with a free-standing system to allow our pea vines to grow up on a string trellis.  Seems simple enough, but we always ended up with something that was inadequate or ugly or both.

* Susan’s done the lion’s share of work in the garden

Last year we decided to plant the peas in a different part of the garden and take advantage of a large beam extending out over that paht of the yahd.  I tacked a bunch of little finishing brads into the beam and into a 2×3 (I’m calling it a footer) that lay on the ground.  Loop the string around the nails, and there’s our trellis.  On a nice angle, too, to keep the vines off of the house.

All was fine and dandy until the peas got going and put some weight on the strings.  Rocks and bricks didn’t keep the footer in place, strings came off the little nails – all hell was breaking loose on the string trellis!  If I pounded rebar into the ground to anchor that blasted footer, we might put our eyes out or rip open our legs when we later forgot that the rebar lay hidden there in some weeds.  I’d have to think of something different next year.

And I did.

First of all,  no more little nails barely visible to the naked eye.  We’ve got a row of screw eyes in the footer:

eyelets spaced about 5" apart on the ground...

... and on the beam.

McLendon Hardware stocks solutions to almost every problem.  Even if you don’t find exactly the solution you’re looking for, you may very well find needed inspiration there.  Mine came in the form of a gizmo for securing a leash:

I removed the swiveling collars, drilled a big hole in each end of my footer, and twisted them into the ground.  If you can open a bottle of wine, you can do this:

The corkscrew anchors were $1.89 each.  That footer is going nowhere, strings stay taut, and when the peas are done we’ll just cut the twine, unscrew the footer, and put the assembly away until next year.  How’s that for a simple, elegant solution?

A thing of beauty.

Behold, my son the foodie

The kids’ youth group is doing a 30-hour ‘famine’ this weekend as an opportunity to experience a little bit of what it’s like to go without food, and to raise money to help feed some hungry kids.  Both Lauren and Zack have been very interested in being a part of this event.  When Zack was hit by the flu that ravaged our household this week, his first response was disappointment that he might have to miss ‘the fast.’  I love that in a 13 year-old.

* * * * * * * * * *

While he was sick (and I was recuperating), Zack spent a fair amount of the day tucked into bed upstairs and I was working on stuff downstairs.  We were keeping in touch via text messaging.  Here’s one of the threads:

Z:  Hot Cheetos sound good to you right now?

(I went up to his room and he asked if I would make him a grilled cheese sandwich.  I said I would.)

Z:  Thanketh thou.

Me:  Thou art welcome!

Me:  Behold, I perceive that thy health improveth somewhat.  But be not deceived into thinking that thou art well enough to attend The Fast, even though thy heart yearns mightily to do so.  Thy grilled cheese sandwich shall be with thee presently.

Z:  Thanketh thou…  I do not feel well enough to attend the fast.

Me:  Verily, thou hast spoken wisely, my son.

Z:  I accept thy praise, father.

Z:  When is Easter?

Me:  April 12.

Z:  OK – so like in 2 weeks?

Z:  Honey-glazed prawns.  Hong Kong crispy noodles and roasted duck from Lee’s Asian Restaurant.  My friend recommended them to me.

Me:  Mr Chow Hound!

Z:  I always end  up talking about food… it’s funny.

Z:  They also recommended that place Cactus on Alki.

Z:  Excellent sandwich!

Me:  OK Bubba – I have to get some work done.  You are too much!

Where was this when we needed it?

It’s been a long wait, but Baby Boomers can finally get the help we needed to understand Joe Cocker when we  – at least in our hearts – attended Woodstock. (Thanks again, Steve.)