Hideous Ruin and Combustion

Dear Reader,

How shall we excuse ourselves for our late neglect of this illustrious blog? By sparing you the cumbersome formality of a turgid introduction and proceeding forthwith with the latest installment of the Week in Review:

Monday (12/11): It is a truth universally acknowledged that an offer of free pizza is never to be refused. So, before FHE, we marched in rhythmic cadence down to the Whitehall community room and, together with our neighbors, raised a monument to penury by devouring unseemly quantities of cheap pizza and sending the bill to Yale Graduate Student Housing. For FHE we helped Justin fulfill his duties as ward executive secretary by stuffing, stamping, and sealing the 200 or so envelopes that will carry the bishopric’s Christmas greetings to the members of the New Haven First Ward.

Tuesday (12/12): Tracy, the kindly physical therapist who periodically drops in to check on Eli’s progress, stopped by and managed, Eli’s mighty resistance and Julia’s disruptive showboating notwithstanding, to see enough of Eli to make a modestly positive assessment. In the mail there arrived, from Grandpa Jerry and Grandma JoAnn Suttner, a wonderful Hickory Farms holiday package. Justin and Julia rejoiced at this bounty of the postal gods, but drew a sharp rebuke from Lia when she caught them squirting the contents of the various cheese packages down their throats like so much Cheese-wiz ®.

Wednesday (12/13): Having been informed that our local Institute receives funding from the CES empire commensurate to the number of students who enroll each semester, Lia, girls in tow, went to the final session of the year, got her name on the roll, and taught her fellow institutarians a thing or two about Emma Smith. Julia, immediately noting the presence of other little kids, became fairly rhapsodic and romped and laughed blissfully through the institutional hour. This evening marked one of those rare yet glorious occasions when Lia gets out of the house by herself. She went to enrichment while Julia tended Justin and Eli. As the saying goes, when the cat’s away the mice will wreak untrammeled destruction, and the three persons last named did their merry best to bring the house down in Lia’s absence. They failed, but not by much. Lia came home before the enrichment program began in earnest, but stayed long enough to enjoy an hour of richly deserved solitude.

Thursday (12/14): It was a beautiful day, so Lia and the girls embraced the rare chance to play outside. Julia, who like most toddlers thrives on solar power (and most other energy sources), fell into a gleeful delirium as she trotted again 'neath vaulted skies and again surrendered as the blustering wind made havoc of her hair. It was a happy day. After the girls went to bed Justin headed to the church to practice with a men’s quintet a number to be sung in Sunday's meeting (mistaking volubility for virtuosity, a number of well-meaning people have taken to asking Justin to sing). Justin was asked to sing the melody in the hopeful, but alas mistaken, belief that he couldn’t possibly get that wrong. He did; repeatedly. Anon he waxed respectable, but not until he had roundly disabused the minds of those who thought he understood the Polyhymnian mysteries.

Friday (12/15): Julia had her first doctor’s check-up since our move to New Haven. After perusing the medical malpractice opinions in her father’s casebook on the law of torts and after being party to the thunderous invectives of her Uncle Samuel, Julia has developed a chilly diffidence toward the medical profession—a diffidence which manifested itself in the lack of warmth that marked her brief interview with Doctor Burger. But in the end Julia was won over by the offering of a pair of stickers (featuring figures no less than Curious George and Cinderella) and pronounced as healthy as the proverbial horse.
In the evening we were favored with a visit from Travis, Lindsay, Mayah (2) and Asher (7 mos.) Sevy. We had home-made pizza which, pace Lia’s preemptive protestations that her home-made pizzas made for guests never turn out, were really quite good. So good, in fact, that the combined efforts of Justin and Travis were enough to dispose of the stuff altogether. Julia and Mayah, as is their wont, alternately embraced one another and fought tooth-and-nail for the supreme proprietorship of whatever toy happened to become the subject of controversy at any given moment. When Mayah wasn’t extending friendly hugs or shaking menacing fists she was inhaling stale and aged gingerbread cookies, surreptitiously pilfered from our Christmas tree. Eli and Asher both made their way up and down and across and around our living room rug, the former rolling and the latter crawling, generally passing one another like ships in the night. A grand time, needless to say, was had by all.

Saturday (12/16): This evening we attended a lovely Christmas party at the home of John (our elders quorum president) and Kim Thompson. Nearly the whole of Julia's circle of acquaintance was present; she was in heaven. Lia was in heaven too, though a trifle embarrassed when the LaDukes arrived and Justin cornered Cameron in the doorway and engaged him in ponderous conversation for the duration of the evening. Lia was also a bit disheartened when she offered Julia some of the kettle-corn she had prepared for the occasion and was rebuffed with a bland: "No, those are yuck." Not "yucky" reader, just "yuck." But it was a very rich evening all the same (no pun on the nature of the refreshments intended). Julia and Callie spent much of the evening looking for one another and, upon finding the sought for companion, each would laugh and race off in a different direction before beginning the process anew. Eli rolled around the floor in search of stray cookie crumbs.

And now, Reader, as a special bonus—and as some consolation for whatever emotional trauma the successive nonposts of the past two weeks may have caused you—we present you with previously unpublished material chronicling our activities of Monday, Tuesday, and Saturday of the week before the week just ended.

Monday (12/4): For Family Home Evening we piled into the Bull and drove the thirty-seven feet that separate our apartment from the capacious abode of Cameron, Addie, and Callie to join the LaDukes in the festive industry of gingerbread house construction. Julia, deprived at home of her constitutional right to inanition (a right, like many others now judicially acknowledged, spun whole cloth by the late Justice William O. Douglas), made haste to the master bedroom where she plopped herself in front of their television (but only after pocketing substantial quantities of candy, or “gingerbread house construction materials” as Lia doggedly insisted on calling them). Eli refused to be seated, so Justin had the honor of standing and holding her throughout the evening. This was all the excuse Justin needed to do no work on the houses, so he passed the time exchanging grand thoughts with Cameron. Lia and Addie, meanwhile, did all the work, rewarding themselves with occasional pinches from the construction material and lavish mutual congratulation, each protesting that the other was by a far cry the better frosting window designer.

Tuesday (12/5): In the evening we were invited to a party for Justin’s legal procedure class at the home of Professor Judith Resnik. Wanting at least partially to enjoy the evening, Lia arranged for Julia to be toddler-sat by some friends in the ward. The party was to begin at 7; Julia’s would-be babysitters had to put their kids to bed at 8. But it really happened like this: Justin and Eli were both a ridiculously long time about getting their hair ready for the evening, so it was well past seven by the time we left the house. Upon alighting the Bull we noticed that, pursuant to Lia’s possession of a charter subscription to the Suttner family credo of never-fuel-up-unless-the-light-is-on-and-you-hear-sputtering, we were out of gas. The only gas station within a mile of our apartment is prohibitively expensive, so we drove all the way out to Dixwell Ave. for a fill-up. By now it was too late for the toddler-sitting to be worth it, so we kindly thanked the sitters that might have been and took both kids to the party. They were quite a hit. That is, until Julia caught sight of Professor Resnik’s Doberman pincer (or was it a frizzy little poodle?) and shrieked with terror. She insisted on being held high above the canine’s ranging snout for the remainder of the evening, usually with her head buried in her mother’s shoulder. Needless to say, it was for Lia an enchanted evening. Eli kept many of Justin’s classmates—who apparently see babies as often as they see Martians—entertained by the mere expedient of squawking from time to time.

Saturday (12/9): Tonight was our ward Christmas party. Lia and Justin sang a duet of “What Child is This?” with Lia strumming the guitar with magnificent dexterity while Justin’s Mediterranean bravado made the chapel rumble and sway. Then we both got showed up by a guy who independently chose to sing the same song and play the same instrument, excelling us on both counts. We consoled ourselves at the refreshment table and sent Julia on an abortive mission to sabotage the number. She got distracted and chased a giggling Shad Turner into the corner by the organ, where we lost sight of them. Justin also sang, “Silent Night” with a quintet organized by our elders quorum president. At the climax of the evening, the party was crashed by everyone’s favorite bishop-of-4th-century-Myra-become-secular/commercial-holiday-icon, whom Julia approached a bit timidly but from whom she avariciously snatched a pair of candy canes before getting in line to do it over again.