11January2008
Posted by nate under: family.
I’m not a clothes shopper. A little over a year ago I went to Fleet Farm and bought a flannel shirt, striped overalls and some long work pants. Since then I bought a pair of corduroys at Savers for 6 bucks. These are my clothing purchases of the last 18 months. Oh, and my father in law slipped me a Benjamin to buy a nice suit coat for special occasions. I got one at Target on clearance for 12 dollars. I’ve been meaning to give him the change.
Other than a couple sweatshirts and the overalls all my clothes fit in my dresser, and still every time we go to Goodwill I’ve got a pile of clothes to give away. I don’t get it either. But, as is so often the case, I have a couple theories.
#1 €“ Spontaneous Cotton Mass Reproduction. (SCMR) Sure it sounds crazy, but nobody believed me when I said Kenny Rogers would make a come back either. This morning he was on Fox News. ‘Nuff said.
#2 €“ Burglars. But not the kind that steal stuff, the kind that give stuff. Benevolent burglars. Benevolgurs. Burglarvents. Benevulgerlervents. You get the idea.
#3 €“ Father in law. He’s already set a precedent by slipping me the Benjamin. But I think I would notice if he had given me more money and told me to buy other articles of clothing. Unless he’s a master hypnotist and has hypnotized everyone in the family so that they don’t know he’s a hypnotist so they haven’t been able to warn me about his hypnotic powers. The other reason I think it might be his fault is that the majority of my clothing has Walhalla ND written on it. And he’s from Walhalla ND. You put two and two together and that’s what you get, Walhalla ND. 2+2=Walhalla ND.
Now I love Walhalla ND as much as the next guy, probably even a little more. But would I go out and buy Walhalla ND wear on my own? Not unless I was under someone’s hypnotic spell. And, no, we haven’t ruled that out. What I have noticed is that folks up here are into ‘logo wear.’ Although with the lack of graphic artists in the area (by area I mean ND) most of the logo wear relies a bit more heavily on the power of the written word. And as pastor’s like to point out whenever they read John 1, logos is Greek for word, so maybe it would be more appropriate to refer to the clothing here as ‘logos wear’ and not ‘logo wear.’ Either way, one of the most popular words to include in their logos wear is the word Walhalla. See where I’m going with this? Stay with me I’m about to bring it all home.
People make logos wear to share logos wear. All be it out of character for farmers, when it comes to quantity of logos wear to be manufactured, the farmers get possessed with a previously unidentified personality trait that we’ll call optimism. And this optimism takes control of their bodies just long enough for their mouthes to utter numbers like ‘five hundred’ or ‘one thousand.’ A week later a farmer living in a town of 700 receives a box with one thousand sweatshirts, hats, or t-shirts promoting his farm. In fact, about 100 farmers receive these boxes that they vaguely remember ordering in that fog of… what did we call it again? Oh yes, optimism. Now when they see their friend on the street or in the field they say, €œCome over to my pickup, I’ve got something for you.€ And then they give their unsuspecting friend a t-shirt. And then slide them five more for the family. Or if they see your truck by the bakery they may just slip a few onto the passenger’s seat. What a nice little surprise. It’s quite possibly the most compelling reason to lock your vehicle while within the city limits of Walhalla ND.
This is where I come in. I am that family member that hasn’t figured it out yet. Until now. As likely as SCMR and burglavenerbles are I’m going with choice #3, Father-in-law. And no, I don’t think he’s a hypnotist. I’m a victim of logos wear. And just a heads up here €“ next time you come to visit me, lock your car. Let’s stop the vicious cycle.
29December2007
Posted by nate under: family.
Like most folks I know, and probably a few I don’t, I really enjoy The Office. Jodi and I missed the third season, and so every now and then we pick up another disc from The Blockbuster. Jodi’s pointed out that my life has been mirroring a bit of Season Three Disc Three era Michael Scott. First with my boots that were manufactured by a women’s boot manufacturer, and secondly as the only adult male in the Christmas program at our church. It feels kind of like Michael going to magic camp. Some people think Christmas programs are only for kids, which is probably why there were so many kids in it. Self fulfilling prophecy.
How did I become the sole adult male in the program? I blame Elsa.
Lydia, with the rest of the little girls in Sunday School, was an angel. Elsa, in her attempt to one up her big sister, took the role of the Savior of the Nations, The Messiah, Emmanuel, or as Mary sang towards the end of her third trimester, Long Expected Jesus. So Elsa is Jesus, which makes Jodi Mary, and yours truly either the Holy Spirit or Joseph. Survey says… Joseph. For one morning, and one morning only, we were the Holy family.
The program was great. Simple and to the point €“ a total non-stresser which is in my book a formula for success. In fact it was so simple we didn’t make it to any of the rehearsals and we were still able to figure out our part. It didn’t hurt being familiar with the story.
Costumes. Lydia got a cool white and gold get up €“ she was a little bummed there were no wings, but all in all looked every bit the part of the heavenly host. Jodi had a blue cape thing that she put on to make her look like Mary. Or super church goer. Elsa didn’t really have a costume, but Jodi had put her in a bright pink dress, so obviously she was Jesus. And I got a kind of small for me striped pull it over the head robe and a piece of cloth and rope to tie around my head. It didn’t really cover my blue plaid western shirt, and probably my brown engineer boots weren’t typical turn of the millennium footwear, but other than that I looked a lot like the 4th grade shepherds and wise men. Except three times their weight and twice their height.
The program was in lieu of the sermon so after the gospel reading up we went, Myself, Mary, and 20 kids barely tall enough to make it into the Ikea ball pit. The only prop was a wooden manger filled with hay that Mary stood behind and I stood wedged between that and the pulpit. A couple of the 4 year old cows really took a liking to the hay so about 2 minutes into the program I had to move baby Jesus’ bed. Then it was time for everyone to sit down. And everybody did. Including one of the angels who sat right in my spot next to Mary. So I remained standing. As if I didn’t stand out enough already.
Then we were up again. Then we were down again. This time I slipped into a spot next to the aforementioned cows. Still not exactly blending in, but a step in the right direction. Though they could no longer reach the manger, they had pilfered enough hay early on to keep them busy for the entire 20 minutes. In fact, while reaching for some of this hay the cow next to me took a nose dive down the four steps leading up to the altar. And who saved him? Not the lady with the cape. Joseph. At this point I decided I was no longer the remedial adult who wiggled his way into the children’s Christmas program, but rather my role had switched to being an embedded peace keeper. An embedded peace keeper that also helped the kids sing a little louder.
And so the program continued, Mary held pink-girl Jesus, Angel Lydia hung out with the angels, and I sat with the cows and kept them from throwing hay in the air. Later during the passing of the peace I got about 12 heartfelt congratulations from folks on a job well done. To which I replied, €œThanks, it took 30 years but I finally got the part.€
On the way home Lydia’s comment on the whole thing was, €œThat’s not how I thought it would be. I thought you’d lay Elsa in the hay and I’d stand behind you and say, ‘glory to God in the highest and peace to God’s people on earth.’€
Maybe next year kid.
23December2007
Posted by nate under: technology; travel.
In the last 4 months since moving back to St. Paul I’ve averaged less than 2 hours a week online. Tonight we’re staying at a hotel with wi-fi and it’s the first chance I’ve had to do anything like update my flickr site or do any little stuff to this site like add my cousin Cyndee to the blogroll – something I’ve been meaning to do for about a year. Micah recently updated my version of wordpress and gave things a facelift and for this we can all be thankful. And now as I lay in a phat king size bed (seriously – the bed is the size of our entire bedroom at home) I’m thinking about how technology is ever so nice and how utterly time sucking and annoying it remains.
Ever so nice – I get to read blogs, see pictures of tall bikes, learn how to speed up open office, get booking info for tours that never happen, and send e-mail to my brother in China and my parents in Kenya.
Utterly time sucking and annoying – There’s alway more to do. For example I could’ve taken the time to put a link with each of the above examples. It wouldn’t have taken me long to do it, but then you’d be off day dreaming about tall bikes, or wondering how it is my brother blogs in Chinese, or maybe even what it’d be like to book me. (I can answer that one – it’s expensive and emotionally draining – but deeply rewarding all the same). Even my lame blathering about technology is evidence of it’s suckyness. And proof of my annoyance.
You know what else is annoying? Apparently my Sportos are. 12 years ago when I moved to MN I bought a pair of winter boots. Having lived in CA and West Africa most of my life with brief stints in MO and NE and even briefer stints in OK, TX, and OH, I had never owned winter boots before and I thought they were kind of geeky. In the last 5+ years I’ve put function over fashion in most areas of my life, including footwear. And now, after nearly 8 years of wedded bliss my bride has decided it’s time to reveal her true feelings concerning my cold weather friends. How bad is it? She won’t even let me wear them to church anymore. And I quote, “Nate, wearing your sporto’s to Christmas Eve Service is tacky.” Though I appreciate her referring to them by their full name, ’sporto’s’ I’m appalled that she finds them tacky and unfit for a service ending in candle light, lighting in which no one will be able to identify my feet in the first place. And anyways, shouldn’t we all be focusing on a certain baby in a manger, not our neighbor’s footwear? I was about to go to the trouble of linking to Sporto’s homepage to prove to my billions of readers out there how legitimately cool my dear sportsters are but alas, in the last 12 years apparently Sporto has switched over to only making women’s boots.
That’s even more annoying than technology. Although, if I didn’t spend the time googling the brand of my boots I would’ve avoided all this. Instead I took you down with me! Sucka! Merry Christmas all the same. If you’re lucky (and a girl) maybe Santa will bring you some Sporto’s.