Category: Personal News

Dana’s Disconcerting Insight

Two days ago as Dana was help­ing me wash dish­es, she blurt­ed out “Robi have penis.”

I paused mid-scrub. “Real­ly?”

Robi is our two-year-old neigh­bor and Dana’s favorite play­mate. They see one anoth­er quite a bit, but evi­dent­ly they have also seen quite a bit of each oth­er. As I was con­tem­plat­ing this devel­op­ment, Dana expound­ed on her orig­i­nal the­sis.

“Yes. Change dia­per, Robi have penis.”

“Robi got his dia­per changed and you saw that he had a penis?”

“Yes. Penis in dia­per.”

“That was very per­cep­tive of you, Dana.”

She smiled wide­ly and con­tin­ued to help me wash­ing dish­es.

I choose not to be dis­turbed that my two-year-old daugh­ter was think­ing about the fas­ci­nat­ing anatom­i­cal dif­fer­ences between men and women on Valen­tine’s day.

Fore!

I don’t nor­mal­ly par­tic­i­pate in these meme things, but Scott Aught­mon tagged me pub­licly at lunch yes­ter­day and so I feel oblig­ed to throw my four cents in.

Four Jobs I’ve Had:
* Life­guard
* Police Offi­cer
* Com­put­er Ser­vices (in a hos­pi­tal)
* Min­is­ter

Four movies I can watch over and over:
* Mon­ty Python & the Holy Grail
* Rat Race
* The Princess Bride
* Arsenic and Old Lace

Four places I have lived:
* Lafayette, LA
* Natchi­toches, LA
* Spring­field, MO
* Palo Alto, CA

Four shows I like to watch:
* Myth­busters
* Inside the Actor’s Stu­dio
* Bat­tlestar Galac­ti­ca
* Whose Line Is It, Any­way?

Four foods that I like:
* Choco­late Chip Cook­ies
* Fried Rice
* BBQ Chick­en Piz­za
* Ham­burg­ers

Four web­sites I vis­it dai­ly:
* reddit.com
* getreligion.org
* Cool Tools
* The Web Com­ic List

Four things I want to do before I die:
* earn a doc­tor­ate
* learn a liv­ing lan­guage
* write a book
* see Dana suc­ceed in life

Four peo­ple I’m tag­ging: (Paula has been implic­it­ly tagged since this is GlenAnd­Paula.com)
* Lind­sey Haw­ley
* Earl Creps (he has­n’t ppst­ed late­ly and needs a kick to get him start­ed again)
* Will Phillips (dit­to)
* Greg Davis

Turning A Phrase

Our neigh­bor is apply­ing for a job as a pro­fes­sor and part of her job inter­view will involve lec­tur­ing to a class, so last night a bunch of us got togeth­er and lis­tened to her prac­tice her Salem Witch Hunt lec­ture (her exper­tise is in colo­nial his­to­ry). It was quite good. She’s got a lot of knowl­edge and presents it well.

At one point she men­tioned how the con­fess­ing witch­es described in lurid detail their covenant with the Dev­il which, along with sev­er­al oth­er intrigu­ing details, involved kiss­ing his butt. Lit­er­al­ly. To make a deal with the Evil One they believed you had to apply your lips to his pos­te­ri­or.

And they described this in lurid detail. Lurid.

Being a lover of words, I imme­di­ate­ly began to think of ways to allude to the act of kiss­ing demon tush that would fall short of lurid but would nonethe­less be evoca­tive. I came up with three:

  • giv­ing the Ene­my of All Flesh a hiney hick­ey
  • kiss­ing the heinous anus
  • smooching the sul­furous sphinc­ter (alter­nate end­ing: Satan­ic sphinc­ter)

Com­ing soon to a ser­mon near you…

update: my neigh­bor has blogged about the evening as well. With a pho­to. And yes, I am the one who remains name­less. Also, I edit­ed one of my word­plays because I felt a verb that I had cho­sen for vari­ety was stronger than I had intend­ed to be. There’s a dis­tinc­tion between humor and vul­gar­i­ty, and I think my orig­i­nal verb was too crass.

More Holiday Happenings

After I post­ed last night’s entry I was filled with even more mem­o­ries of the hol­i­days.

  • Home cook­ing. Home Cajun cook­ing.
  • Eat­ing at the Steam­boat for our anniver­sary. Tasty beyond belief.
  • Teach­ing my nephew Rick why you should nev­er lose at Tic-Tac-Toe. Also, reduc­ing niece Rebec­ca to whin­ing because I would­n’t “go easy on her” while demon­strat­ing my mad Tic-Tac-Toe skil­lz to a suit­ably impressed Rick.
  • Read­ing Sol­dier, Ask Not as an adult and real­iz­ing the hero is some­one oth­er than I thought it was when I first read it as a kid.
  • Being a mis­sion­ary table host for the stu­dents from FSU Chi Alpha when the assigned dis­cus­sion top­ic was sex­u­al puri­ty. There was so much bois­ter­ous laugh­ter at our table that we got a dirty look from one table and a snide com­ment from anoth­er, “Do you see how that table is laugh­ing over there? They don’t take sex seri­ous­ly.” To which my reply was, “I find humor in every­thing I val­ue greatly–laughter is one way of delight­ing in some­thing pre­cious. Besides, if you can’t laugh at some­thing as ridicu­lous as sex you are seri­ous­ly humor-chal­lenged.” In the oth­er table’s defense, how­ev­er, we were hav­ing a dis­rup­tive­ly good time.
  • Find­ing out that many of my for­mer RUi stu­dents real­ly enjoyed my ses­sions and remem­bered them in sur­pris­ing detail.
  • See­ing how many Chi Alphas are spread­ing into the elite schools. One cou­ple I helped dis­ci­ple is head­ing to estab­lish a min­istry at Cor­nell and I met anoth­er chap head­ing to Brown (his bril­liant sup­port-rais­ing mot­to: “What can you do for Brown?”). Of Amer­i­ca’s extreme­ly pres­ti­gious schools, that makes staff-sup­port­ed chap­ters at Stan­ford, George­town, MIT, Brown, Yale and Cor­nell. We’re mak­ing major progress on that front.
  • Chat­ting with Gene Bre­it­en­bach about the recent intel­li­gent design court case (he’s a huge fan of the way the case was decid­ed).
  • Real­iz­ing how stark the imbal­ance is between Chi Alpha Xan­ga users and the more enlight­ened Chi Alpha Word­Press crowd. I may have to post an arti­cle on that some­day (but only if I want to endure a good-natured web fight, espe­cial­ly since my wife is a Xan­gan).
  • Dana scream­ing “Home!” with delight when we stepped back through the door of our apart­ment.

Holiday Highlights

As always, we spent Christ­mas in Lou­siana. In addi­tion, I got to spend around 14 hours in a car dri­ving from Lafayette, LA to Louisville, KY for The World Mis­sions Sum­mit. Near­ly 4,000 col­lege stu­dents from Chi Alpha groups across Amer­i­ca gath­ered to con­sid­er their role in God’s glob­al plan. And then I got to spend 14 hours dri­ving back again.
Some high­lights from the trip:

  • Get­ting loot for Christ­mas, includ­ing Munchkin.
  • Hav­ing Dana decide that dad­dy was her favorite for a lit­tle while.
  • Watch­ing my par­ents final­ly get broad­band inter­net ser­vice. Also, fix­ing com­put­ers for both my par­ents and my in-laws.
  • Dis­cov­er­ing that Steve Barke has a snore that would cause a dead per­son to search for ear plugs. Also, pur­chas­ing ear plugs.
  • Lis­ten­ing to J. Rufus Fears talk about Win­ston Churchill for 12 hours. I’ve long admired Churchill based on what lit­tle I knew about him–now that I know more I’m astound­ed. He was among the great­est of all time.
  • Hang­ing out with Greg for 14 hours in a car.
  • Dis­cov­er­ing that there are whole stretch­es of road in the South which only receive coun­try and/or rap sta­tions.
  • Chat­ting with Lind­sey and Nic­ho­lette about their upcom­ing moves to join us. They’re both such great people–Paula and I can’t wait for them to be here!
  • Meet­ing Will Phillips. He was every bit as enter­tain­ing in per­son as I had hoped he would be. For some rea­son he thinks he out-geeks me. Some­day I may have to dis­abuse him of that notion (I con­tribute to Wikipedia, for cry­ing out loud).
  • See­ing my old bud Randy Jumper again. We were class­mates at AGTS and have kept in touch dig­i­tal­ly since. Nice to have a face-to-face again.
  • Dis­cov­er­ing that Stan­ford frosh John Sill­cox can focus out of each eye sep­a­rate­ly. Freaky.
  • Way cool wor­ship in the morn­ing. In an odd turn of events, the morn­ing ser­vices were con­sis­tent­ly 5 to 7 times bet­ter than the evening ser­vices.
  • See­ing over 650 stu­dents make a one-year com­mitt­ment to mis­sions with the option for a life­time exten­sion. Woohoo! And they weren’t just sign­ing up for the easy places, either. A lot of closed coun­tries are in for a big sur­prise.
  • Watch­ing the amaz­ing lev­el of panache with which the Ascent (a Chi Alpha staff event) was pulled off. Know­ing that Belkas Lehmann and I had planned the whole thing made it extra-spe­cial.
  • Get­ting a free copy of Full Gospel, Frac­tured Minds. I’m enjoy­ing it so far, and I’ll post a review when I’m done. Big thanks to Jer­ry Gib­son for hook­ing me up.
  • Ran­dom­ly walk­ing around Louisville at dark look­ing for food (which I final­ly dis­cov­ered at a gas sta­tion).
  • Final­ly watch­ing The Mag­nif­i­cent Sev­en.
  • Watch­ing The Fan­tas­tic Four and final­ly real­iz­ing that they’re the four ele­ments.
  • Hav­ing Dana behave on both flights.

Overwhelming Generosity

Paula and I loved our first microwave. It had this awe­some dial that did every­thing. You did­n’t need to punch a number–you just turned the dial and mag­ic hap­pened.

One sad day our microwave died. Food stopped warm­ing yet the microwave kept churn­ing, lead­ing us to sur­mise that radi­a­tion was seep­ing into our chro­mo­somes.

So we got a replace­ment microwave from a friend. It was great, but the light did­n’t work and the food did­n’t rotate. And we often sus­pect­ed that radi­a­tion was still seep­ing into our chro­mo­somes (but only half of them owing to the lack of rota­tion).

And that’s just one rea­son we’re so grate­ful for last night: many of the Assem­blies of God church­es in the South Bay threw a Christ­mas par­ty to cel­e­brate AG US Mis­sion­ar­ies. We and the Har­lows were the recip­i­ents of out­ra­geous gen­eros­i­ty. Dana got books, stuffed ani­mals, a play tea set, a stroller, some garb, and an enor­mous lady­bug pil­low (with match­ing sheets and cov­er).

And we got a ful­ly func­tion­al microwave. No more radi­a­tion-steeped DNA, no more inex­plic­a­ble tans, just hot tasty food on demand.

And the icing on the cake? Not too long ago an alum­nus of our min­istry gave me a PSP (a com­plete­ly unex­pect­ed and much appre­ci­at­ed gift).

We are blessed beyond mea­sure. Say what you will about the hier­ar­chy of the Assem­blies of God, the tremen­dous gen­eros­i­ty of our laypeo­ple is unmatched.

The Genius of McDonald’s

I am shocked at the stag­ger­ing suc­cess that is McDon­ald’s mar­ket­ing.

Dana does­n’t watch tele­vi­sion yet. To my knowl­edge, she’s nev­er seen a McDon­ald’s com­mer­cial on tele­vi­sion.

We’ve been pre­cise­ly three times.

Once at a dri­ve-through. Dana got some french fries. She loved them.

Last week after church we took her to a play land with the pas­tor’s kids. She kept yelling, “french fries!” all the way over.

Last week on a rainy day Paula men­tioned that per­haps we should take Dana to McDon­ald’s to play since the ground was moist. Dana bolt­ed from her seat and yelled, “McDon­ald’s!”

I think they put hero­in in the ketchup.

So Dana Is Using Two Word Sentences…

Dana has start­ed using two word sen­tences occas­sion­al­ly.

Usu­al­ly it’s just a stock phrase, like “get down” (please put me on the ground) or “all done” or “thank you” or “hold you” (I’d like a hug, please) or even “wuv you.”

Every once in a while, though, she’ll come up with an orig­i­nal sen­tence. Like “wipe fluffles” (my stuffed lamb has gone poop and needs a dia­per change) or “goose honk.”

But a few days ago she came up with a zinger. I was being my usu­al goofy self and she looked me straight in the eye and said, “Dad­dy sil­ly.”

Ouch. So young and yet so per­cep­tive.

Our Dog Died

I’ve held off on post­ing this for a few days because I’ve been on the busy side. As my broth­er men­tioned, our fam­i­ly dog died last week back in Louisiana. Her name was Mis­sy, and she was one of the best dogs ever.

She was a pret­ty fun­ny dog. For instance, she used to try to herd my par­ents as though they were sheep. Quite com­i­cal.

It sounds as though she died very peace­ful­ly, but I know it’s a hard blow to my par­ents. They both loved her very much. I did, too, but I’ve been liv­ing a few thou­sand miles away from her and so it less­ened the blow.

My dad says he does­n’t want anoth­er dog, but he’s a big soft­ie. Some pathet­ic look­ing ani­mal will turn up on his doorstep soon­er or lat­er, and he’ll adopt it.

But it will nev­er replace Mis­sy.

With Visions of Wild Geese Honking in Her Head

Dana is a source of une­nend­ing amaze­ment to me. This morn­ing when she woke up we had the fol­low­ing con­ver­sa­tion:

Me: “Dana, did you have any dreams last night?”
Dana (in a lit­tle 19-month-old just-woke-up voice): “Dream?”
Me: “Dreams are the pic­tures you see when you’re sleep­ing and your eyes are closed.”
Dana: “Goose.”
Me: “You had a dream about a goose?”
Dana: “Ya.”
Me: “What did the goose do in your dream?”
Dana: “Honk honk.”

I was melt­ing.

I had been try­ing to get her to under­stand the con­cept of dreams off and on for a few weeks now, and while she’s always seemed inter­est­ed she’s nev­er actu­al­ly answered my ques­tion with any­thing oth­er than “ya”.

In case you’re skep­ti­cal, I’m pret­ty sure she under­stood my ques­tion and did actu­al­ly have a dream about a goose. She has­n’t seen a goose in weeks (not even in her pic­ture books). If one was on her mind it arrived there some­how oth­er than a recent real-world expe­ri­ence.

Besides which, she told mom­my the same sto­ry, “Dream. Goose. Honk honk.” when we went to get mom­my up a few min­utes lat­er.