Dear Reader,
The leading Democratic presidential candidates have recently conducted a debate sponsored by CNN and YouTube. We are told that among the questioners were a snowman concerned about global warming and a rifle-cradling Midwesterner (“my baby,” he called it) concerned about the Second Amendment. O brave new world that has such people in it. Meanwhile, we continue to strive to pretend that most of the twentieth century never happened and that the twenty-first century has never arrived. And it is thus in our deliberate obscurantism that we keep the noiseless tenor of our way—though we try to atone for our backwardness by recording the details in this most modern of media: an illustrious blog.
Monday (23 July): A long, gloomy, drizzly day marked by periodic cataracts of torrential rain (Justin, against the authority of a spousal warning, took no umbrella with him to work). The ladies, unsurprisingly, stayed inside for much of the day. Lia did laundry in the basement, though Eli wondered aloud why her mother didn’t simply take advantage of the excess rain outside to wash the clothes instead of wasting all those quarters. Justin had another session with Guido after work, during which the wise judge told a series of remarkable and interesting stories about what happened to his relatives who remained in Italy during the German occupation of the north after September 1943. We had a family home evening lesson about the priesthood, during most of which Julia danced gracefully around the house and Eli giggled mischievously for unapparent reasons. Justin learned that he earned a worse grade than hoped for in his criminal law class—an unmistakable sign that fate frowns upon the prospect of his ever becoming a lawyer. After renouncing all his soaring dreams as vain ambition,
he determined to settle somewhere as a bumpkin attorney and thereafter dwindle out his days in lucrative obscurity. Lia prodded him to rally, and as of this post his vanity stands vaulted as ever, his ego bloodied but unbowed. This cycle of rueful renunciation followed by renewed resolve has become a familiar, almost a daily, pattern, as Lia will unsmilingly attest.
Tuesday (24 July): Perhaps in response to an oft-repeated but enigmatic prayer that the Almighty will “help [her] to get better,” Julia had her staples removed this morning. She was very brave, the reward for courage in medical institution being a small array of Disney Princess stickers. Julia expressed an interest in having more staples removed next week. The female trio of our family went to playgroup today at Lighthouse Point beach. Eli’s ardor in plunging
headlong into the wild and wasteful ocean was matched only by Julia’s tenacity in clinging to the calm and placid shore. We celebrated Pioneer Day by expressing gratitude for our forebears rather than by driving in air-conditioned cars to some trail or another for the purpose of making a well-provisioned hike under the mad illusion that we were somehow repeating the pioneer experience and thereby obtaining a deepened appreciation thereof. The wandering souls who join Medieval clubs everywhere to participate in recreated battles are at least under no illusions; they are only crazy.
Wednesday (25 July): While a weeping world continued to adjust to the phenomenon those in the know are now calling LAP (life after Potter), we passed a quiet lazy day during which absolutely nothing of note took place. Actually, the ladies all stayed home and prayed for Lia’s mom who was undergoing an (ultimately successful) operation.
Thursday (26 July): Lia and the girls babysat Eli Kleinman again in the morning.
In the evening, Lia went to a scrap-booking party and discovered a new and efficient instrument for the ridding ourselves of excess money. We shall likely feel the effects of this night’s adventures for some time to come.
Friday (27 July): The girls joined the Sevy clan (sans Travis, of course) for a trip to the local YMCA where Lia and Lindsay took in a round of Strengthening and Sculpting while the kids made havoc at the club nursery. Then the entire gang headed to the pool for a swim. The entire gang? Yes, even Julia entered the water after thirty minutes of premature promises and false alarms. At length, she took the plunge—and she loved it. Eli, adorable in her little armband floaties, loved it too, though at the slightest perception of a loosening of Lia’s maternal grip provoked an anguished cry for “Mo-MEE!” By all counts the adventure was a success. In the evening we watched Alice and Wonderland as a family. That is, Justin, Julia, and Eli watched it while Lia indulged her newly discovered passion for scrap-booking.
Saturday (28 July): This morning Justin took Julia on a daddy/daughter date to the ward primary activity. No, Julia is not in the primary yet, but Justin smuggled her into the activity under the banner of bishopric immunity.
Justin and Julia made a poster of an anonymous and unguarded stripling of vacant expression who was made to don the whole armor of God. Julia’s contribution was to dash off a blue scribble on the shield of faith, to inscribe a purple blotch on the sword of the spirit, and to insure that the fellow’s feet were shod with a gob of glue as well as the gospel of peace. She then scampered off to play with Mayah Sevy and Jonah Kingery (a lad bearing the aspect of a miniature of the already diminutive Bonaparte), while Justin was left to perform the balance of cutting and pasting, humming all the while the heroic melody of a relevant seminary classic (“With helmet in faith, with sword in hand / With the shield of faith we are worthy to stand; / With the gospel of peace our feet are shod, / We have on the armor of God!”). Father and daughter had a good time—but not as good a time as Mother, who stayed home and read Will Durant while Eli napped.
The evening was a time of high adventure. Shortly after Lia and Eli returned from the grocery store, the windows of heaven burst open and New Haven was inundated by cataracts and sheets of unprecedented rain. Justin turned out the lights and watched from our window as the skies flashed with streaking lightning and the walls rumbled with crashing thunder. When there was a moment’s interruption in the fury, Lia suggested that now would be a good time to drive the thirty minutes or so it takes to get to Shelton, CT, where she was to purchase a stereo that she had won on Craig’s list for $40 (Won? Yes, Reader, one of our editors insists upon thus abusing the lexical understanding of the term). “Shall we go get it?” Lia asked Justin. When her husband gave no response but a doubtful look, Lia continued dryly, “You don’t have to go. You can stay here and read while the girls and I go.” At this point, there raced through Justin’s mind an epigram of the inestimable Dr. Johnson: “A prudent man stays indoors during a hurricane, but only a craven man allows wife and children to sally into the storm unaccompanied and unprotected.” So Justin, knowing inwardly he should not consent, consented.
When we had traversed about a tenth of the distance between our apartment and our car, the storm commenced anew with mounting ferocity and power. Julia wept; Eli giggled. Soon, though, we had successfully mounted the indomitable bull and were on our way, trudging out of New Haven and onto what Lia praises as the “scenic route 34.” And scenic it usually is, at least when those who travel thereon are favored with the blessing of vision. But amid the relentless wrath of the storm in all its mighty crescendo, we were denied this blessing. When at last as dutiful buyers (“winners,” Lia insists) we arrived at the home of our seller, we parked outside and waited for the storm to relent (we had brought no umbrella, you see). We waited quite some time, during the whole of which the deafening clamor of the storm was rivaled only by the wail of sirens as ambulance after ambulance raced past to the rescue of some other foolhardy motorist. Finally, Justin tired of waiting, dashed through the celestial waterfall to the buyer’s door, and secured the stereo in exchange for two twenty-dollar bills—the paltry price of victory. Our seller even had the good grace to wrap the equipment in plastic bags, which we apparently won free of charge.
On the way home things got really interesting, as at some places the water rose almost to the level of the top (okay, the middle) of our tires. The downpour continued to mount in scope and intensity and we very often couldn’t see anything. Eli’s undaunted spirit was roused by the perilous affair, and she soon declaimed in all her Shakespearian fervor:
“Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage, blow
You cataracts and hurricanes, spout
Till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the cocks!
You sulph’rous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers of oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head; and thou all-shaking thunder,
Smite flat the thick rotundity of the world,
Crack nature’s mould, all germens spill at once
That make ingrateful man.”
Julia, with less cultural ambition, invoked the hazardous plight of Prince Eric’s ship in The Little Mermaid, and pointed out that that gentleman still survived to marry Disney’s most vacuous princess. “Of course,” she then added, “there are probably no mermaids on Route 34 to save us.” Lia tried to remind Justin that the acquisition of this stereo meant that he could now listen to Beethoven and Puccini without having to contest with “Mary Poppins” and “Follow Your Heart: A Disney Princess Medley” for use of the CD player. Ignoring her, Justin fired off successive prayers with the assiduity of a dying nun.
In the end, we survived, and even as we write the revivified air of our living room is enriched by the sweet tones of Beethoven’s Seventh—tones only slightly marred by the jangling murmur of “A Spoonful of Sugar” emanating from the girls’ room.
The leading Democratic presidential candidates have recently conducted a debate sponsored by CNN and YouTube. We are told that among the questioners were a snowman concerned about global warming and a rifle-cradling Midwesterner (“my baby,” he called it) concerned about the Second Amendment. O brave new world that has such people in it. Meanwhile, we continue to strive to pretend that most of the twentieth century never happened and that the twenty-first century has never arrived. And it is thus in our deliberate obscurantism that we keep the noiseless tenor of our way—though we try to atone for our backwardness by recording the details in this most modern of media: an illustrious blog.
Monday (23 July): A long, gloomy, drizzly day marked by periodic cataracts of torrential rain (Justin, against the authority of a spousal warning, took no umbrella with him to work). The ladies, unsurprisingly, stayed inside for much of the day. Lia did laundry in the basement, though Eli wondered aloud why her mother didn’t simply take advantage of the excess rain outside to wash the clothes instead of wasting all those quarters. Justin had another session with Guido after work, during which the wise judge told a series of remarkable and interesting stories about what happened to his relatives who remained in Italy during the German occupation of the north after September 1943. We had a family home evening lesson about the priesthood, during most of which Julia danced gracefully around the house and Eli giggled mischievously for unapparent reasons. Justin learned that he earned a worse grade than hoped for in his criminal law class—an unmistakable sign that fate frowns upon the prospect of his ever becoming a lawyer. After renouncing all his soaring dreams as vain ambition,
he determined to settle somewhere as a bumpkin attorney and thereafter dwindle out his days in lucrative obscurity. Lia prodded him to rally, and as of this post his vanity stands vaulted as ever, his ego bloodied but unbowed. This cycle of rueful renunciation followed by renewed resolve has become a familiar, almost a daily, pattern, as Lia will unsmilingly attest.Tuesday (24 July): Perhaps in response to an oft-repeated but enigmatic prayer that the Almighty will “help [her] to get better,” Julia had her staples removed this morning. She was very brave, the reward for courage in medical institution being a small array of Disney Princess stickers. Julia expressed an interest in having more staples removed next week. The female trio of our family went to playgroup today at Lighthouse Point beach. Eli’s ardor in plunging
headlong into the wild and wasteful ocean was matched only by Julia’s tenacity in clinging to the calm and placid shore. We celebrated Pioneer Day by expressing gratitude for our forebears rather than by driving in air-conditioned cars to some trail or another for the purpose of making a well-provisioned hike under the mad illusion that we were somehow repeating the pioneer experience and thereby obtaining a deepened appreciation thereof. The wandering souls who join Medieval clubs everywhere to participate in recreated battles are at least under no illusions; they are only crazy.Wednesday (25 July): While a weeping world continued to adjust to the phenomenon those in the know are now calling LAP (life after Potter), we passed a quiet lazy day during which absolutely nothing of note took place. Actually, the ladies all stayed home and prayed for Lia’s mom who was undergoing an (ultimately successful) operation.
Thursday (26 July): Lia and the girls babysat Eli Kleinman again in the morning.
In the evening, Lia went to a scrap-booking party and discovered a new and efficient instrument for the ridding ourselves of excess money. We shall likely feel the effects of this night’s adventures for some time to come.Friday (27 July): The girls joined the Sevy clan (sans Travis, of course) for a trip to the local YMCA where Lia and Lindsay took in a round of Strengthening and Sculpting while the kids made havoc at the club nursery. Then the entire gang headed to the pool for a swim. The entire gang? Yes, even Julia entered the water after thirty minutes of premature promises and false alarms. At length, she took the plunge—and she loved it. Eli, adorable in her little armband floaties, loved it too, though at the slightest perception of a loosening of Lia’s maternal grip provoked an anguished cry for “Mo-MEE!” By all counts the adventure was a success. In the evening we watched Alice and Wonderland as a family. That is, Justin, Julia, and Eli watched it while Lia indulged her newly discovered passion for scrap-booking.
Saturday (28 July): This morning Justin took Julia on a daddy/daughter date to the ward primary activity. No, Julia is not in the primary yet, but Justin smuggled her into the activity under the banner of bishopric immunity.
Justin and Julia made a poster of an anonymous and unguarded stripling of vacant expression who was made to don the whole armor of God. Julia’s contribution was to dash off a blue scribble on the shield of faith, to inscribe a purple blotch on the sword of the spirit, and to insure that the fellow’s feet were shod with a gob of glue as well as the gospel of peace. She then scampered off to play with Mayah Sevy and Jonah Kingery (a lad bearing the aspect of a miniature of the already diminutive Bonaparte), while Justin was left to perform the balance of cutting and pasting, humming all the while the heroic melody of a relevant seminary classic (“With helmet in faith, with sword in hand / With the shield of faith we are worthy to stand; / With the gospel of peace our feet are shod, / We have on the armor of God!”). Father and daughter had a good time—but not as good a time as Mother, who stayed home and read Will Durant while Eli napped.The evening was a time of high adventure. Shortly after Lia and Eli returned from the grocery store, the windows of heaven burst open and New Haven was inundated by cataracts and sheets of unprecedented rain. Justin turned out the lights and watched from our window as the skies flashed with streaking lightning and the walls rumbled with crashing thunder. When there was a moment’s interruption in the fury, Lia suggested that now would be a good time to drive the thirty minutes or so it takes to get to Shelton, CT, where she was to purchase a stereo that she had won on Craig’s list for $40 (Won? Yes, Reader, one of our editors insists upon thus abusing the lexical understanding of the term). “Shall we go get it?” Lia asked Justin. When her husband gave no response but a doubtful look, Lia continued dryly, “You don’t have to go. You can stay here and read while the girls and I go.” At this point, there raced through Justin’s mind an epigram of the inestimable Dr. Johnson: “A prudent man stays indoors during a hurricane, but only a craven man allows wife and children to sally into the storm unaccompanied and unprotected.” So Justin, knowing inwardly he should not consent, consented.
When we had traversed about a tenth of the distance between our apartment and our car, the storm commenced anew with mounting ferocity and power. Julia wept; Eli giggled. Soon, though, we had successfully mounted the indomitable bull and were on our way, trudging out of New Haven and onto what Lia praises as the “scenic route 34.” And scenic it usually is, at least when those who travel thereon are favored with the blessing of vision. But amid the relentless wrath of the storm in all its mighty crescendo, we were denied this blessing. When at last as dutiful buyers (“winners,” Lia insists) we arrived at the home of our seller, we parked outside and waited for the storm to relent (we had brought no umbrella, you see). We waited quite some time, during the whole of which the deafening clamor of the storm was rivaled only by the wail of sirens as ambulance after ambulance raced past to the rescue of some other foolhardy motorist. Finally, Justin tired of waiting, dashed through the celestial waterfall to the buyer’s door, and secured the stereo in exchange for two twenty-dollar bills—the paltry price of victory. Our seller even had the good grace to wrap the equipment in plastic bags, which we apparently won free of charge.
On the way home things got really interesting, as at some places the water rose almost to the level of the top (okay, the middle) of our tires. The downpour continued to mount in scope and intensity and we very often couldn’t see anything. Eli’s undaunted spirit was roused by the perilous affair, and she soon declaimed in all her Shakespearian fervor:
“Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage, blow
You cataracts and hurricanes, spout
Till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the cocks!
You sulph’rous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers of oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head; and thou all-shaking thunder,
Smite flat the thick rotundity of the world,
Crack nature’s mould, all germens spill at once
That make ingrateful man.”
Julia, with less cultural ambition, invoked the hazardous plight of Prince Eric’s ship in The Little Mermaid, and pointed out that that gentleman still survived to marry Disney’s most vacuous princess. “Of course,” she then added, “there are probably no mermaids on Route 34 to save us.” Lia tried to remind Justin that the acquisition of this stereo meant that he could now listen to Beethoven and Puccini without having to contest with “Mary Poppins” and “Follow Your Heart: A Disney Princess Medley” for use of the CD player. Ignoring her, Justin fired off successive prayers with the assiduity of a dying nun.
In the end, we survived, and even as we write the revivified air of our living room is enriched by the sweet tones of Beethoven’s Seventh—tones only slightly marred by the jangling murmur of “A Spoonful of Sugar” emanating from the girls’ room.
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3 comments:
I'm glad that you all survived your wild ride. (And incidentally, I'm also pleased to see how cute Eli looks in some of those dresses I sent! Unfortunately, since I'm leaving the land of the good yard sales, there may not be many to follow . . .)
Don't you just love a good summer storm?
Where is the ark of Noah when you need it?
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