Poem: Mining in Tandem

I didn't write this poem in response to Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner's marriage and divorce.  Punditry about their divorce, which is either (charitably) hair-splitting or (more viscerally) asinine, did inspire me to post it now, though.


Mining in Tandem
an original poem by Jeff Forster

In the wedding cards of
family and friends,
we write,
"Welcome to the institution." Ha!
and
"Marriage is fun."
We don't write,
"Work like hell."
But we probably should.

It's hard to picture one of those
not-believably-rustic Pottery Barn plaques
with the slogan printed in
some harmless font:
"Fall in love.  Stick together.
Work like hell."

There's a lot to overcome
deep down in any one of us.
When we put two down deeps
together, why wouldn't we
guess that it would be a ton of work?

It's like mining in tandem.
Holding onto one another while chipping
away at all that lies down deep.
Holding the line.  Shining a light on
each other.
Working.  Like hell.

The reward for all this work is not
some pile of gold or jewels
or even coal.
The reward is discovering
that it is possible
to bring each other out of the dark.

Media Review Doubleheader: If This is 40, Bring on 50

Armed with a free RedBox rental coupon from the grocery store courtesy of Kellogg's (wha huh?), we sought out a movie the other weekend.  Having read the quite enjoyable 2012 comedy issue of Vanity Fair - edited by Judd Apatow and heavy on his sensibility - and having enjoyed Paul Rudd just about every time we've seen him, we chose Apatow's This is 40.

It may be that they shortened the title from This is a Version of 40 That is so Bleak and Depressing we Can't Remember Why we Made a Movie About It or Where we Left our Souls.  Or they should have.  The trailer features the laugh-y parts, but in reality, this sort-of-sequel to Knocked Up portrays depressing people completely incapable of being honest with themselves or others.  The first twenty five minutes were so bleak that we paused it and asked each other if we should go on.  There would indeed be something to laugh at every five minutes or so.  We told each other that if the characters could make real changes deep inside themselves that the movie would be a good redemption story.  Spoiler alert: it doesn't happen.  They blame everything and everyone else for their problems.  They're horrendous parents.  At the end, my competent wife asked "Do you think Judd Apatow really hates his life?"  Casting his wife as a horrible person married to a horrible person makes this a very viable question.

On the other hand, we've bored everyone we could raving about an obscure drama/comedy that lived a too-short two seasons and is now on DVD.  Men of a Certain Age, an original hour-long show from TNT (yup, that TNT) stars Ray Romano, Scott Bakula and my long-term man crush Andre Braugher.  I know!  Ray Romano!  Whodathunkit?  They portray three guys nearing 50 who went to college together and are still friends.  One's going through a separation, one's married, one is single and, um, busy romantically.  One has little kids, one has teenagers and one has no kids.  One has big daddy issues, one battles an addiction and one has to confront the knife edge of following creative dreams versus having enough to live on.  The show portrays real male friendship featuring real give-and-take and accountability.  They call each other on their sugar honey iced tea.  It's dramatic but also deeply funny.  We got attached to the characters and plot very quickly.

If you think you know Romano from Everybody Loves Raymond, Andre Braugher from Homicide or Scott Bakula from Quantum Leap, think again.  Spend 26 hours with these episodes and you'll see whole different sides of all three actors.  Despite all of the good TV out there, there's still not enough real, moving drama on television.  Do yourself a solid and check out these two seasons.

  

Overheard 2011 Runners up Volume 1

It's that time of year again.  We've sent out our Christmas letter with the best of the best funny or surprising boy quotes in it.  As in past years, there was more there than we could fit.  Here are some that were nearly good enough to make the cut.

Explaining that his belly stopped hurting:

T: It said, “Oh!  I guess the kid doesn’t like this.”  And it turned back easy.

When the subject of marriage came up (extended version, longer than in the Christmas letter)

T: I’m probably going to live with some dudes when I grow up.

J: Which dudes?

C: Probably Rowan.

T: Rowan has a cut-off toe.

On a schedule conflict between a friend’s birthday party and the Harvard-Yale game:

P: I think a friend’s party is more important than a football game.

C: But this isn’t just a football game.  It’s a traditional Ivy League rivalry.  It’s been going on since the beginning of college football, and this is like the 143^rd time.

Sweet Sixteen

Today, Paige and I celebrate 16 years of marital bliss.  I feel like the occasion calls for something other than a list, but for some reason, the list keeps coming back into my mind.  

In 16 years, we've had four cars:
A 1986 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera (Brougham Package), given to us by George & Martha Smith, God rest their generous souls.
A 1984 Volvo 240 DL wagon (aka the Blue Goose), given to us by Dave & Anne Hennessey, God bless their generous souls.
A 1990 Honda Accord (aka the Golden Dragon), purchased in 2000 from Marshall & Lottie Bracewell (age 80) of Tonowanda, New York
A 1997 Honda Accord (aka the Blue Car), purchased in 2004 at Frenchy's Auto, "The Home of Affordable Transportation"

We've lived in three apartments and two houses:
Our first apartment was a barely-insulated, converted one-bedroom attic in Bellevue, PA.  Our ratio of money to time was such that we occasionally shopped the specials at all three grocery stores in that little borough in the same week.  We liked walking to the dentist and the barber shop.  We loved never paying more than $5 for a large pizza due to the intense competition in Bellevue and its adjacent municipalities.  We roasted in the summer and froze in the winter.  We felt the cold especially in the claw foot tub with a wand shower head in the slanted-ceiling bathroom.  When we hosted dinner, we'd extend our kitchen table with an end table.  Seated at the table, one could reach the stove, microwave and sink.  Rent: $325/mo. utilities included.

Our second one-bedroom apartment was on the first floor of a rather similar house across town.  We consolidated our work, social and church lives in the East End.  A garage on the alley seriously upgraded our car storage over the steep driveway on a blind curve in Bellevue.  Some of the stained glass windows remained there, in the living room (the original dining room) and our bedroom (an original parlor).  One human fit in the bathroom, barely.  We loved giving directions to that apartment by telling people that they'd know the place on our street because of the golden dragons over the door.  That's why we named our first Honda the Golden Dragon, actually.

In our third apartment, we upgraded to two bedrooms in a top & bottom duplex.  We liked having a dining room, a sunroom and lovely arts & crafts details.  It was a lot easier to entertain there.  We missed the garage and the dishwasher, but enjoyed the space and charm we traded for them.  We found that apartment under miraculous circumstances, needing a new place in February in Pittsburgh because the House of the Golden Dragons had sold to new owners that wanted to convert it back into a single family home.  I happened to look online on the first day the ad went online at the dawn of the time when people put ads online.  We signed a lease that day. Then we moved just two blocks to our new place.

The third apartment positioned us to buy the first house.  Our across-the-street neighbor asked if a car parked in front of her house was ours.  She was trying to make space for the moving truck.  Moving truck?  We were just towing into house-buying territory.  We got an agent on the double, went to the open house on Sunday, the first time anyone had seen the house.  We walked back across the street, wrote up an offer and delivered it at the end of the open house at 4.  We had a verbal agreement that night at 10.  We crammed so much stuff and experience into 10 years in those three bedrooms.  We stripped wallpaper from every wall and some ceilings.  We could put guests in an actual bed, given to us (possibly by generous accident) by Paige's aunt & uncle.

Then, of course, 10 years later, we moved back across the street to our current house.  It didn't take long to feel like home, and we keep piling up the experiences, even as we try to shed stuff.  A guest room rocks.  A coat closet rocks harder.  Two bathrooms changed our entire existence.  Commodious attic & basement playspaces revolutionized having children.

Speaking of which, we've made two children in these 16 years of marriage:
We had a nice long start by ourselves.  The fact that it was slightly longer than we wanted feels like a distant memory now, but we had some time there when it was all we thought and felt about.  Both of our boys are as extroverted and sports-minded as their daddy and as precise as their mommy.  Charlie is sweet and encyclopedic and dreams big dreams.  Teddy hurls energy wherever he goes and has a great imagination and makes definite plans.  They both brought into our lives, individually and as a couple, a kind of love we'd never known before.  At the same time, we've pursued a shared goal to maintain our relationship as husband and wife as the one from which those lives sprung.  We don't really believe in being so kid-focuses that we don't look across the table at each other anymore.

That was really the climax of the post.   We've also in this marriage earned two professional degrees with very little debt (a massive blessing), baked over 800 loaves of bread, thrown some really fun parties, visited Canada, Hong Kong, Thailand, England, France, Vietnam and Cambodia.  Not to mention California, which feels like a foreign country for Pennsylvanians.  We've endured the deaths of four grandparents and an uncle.  We've also gotten to aunt and uncle five cool nieces and nephews.

Gosh, this post got long, but we're just blessed like crazy.  It's good every once in a while to use an occasion like an anniversary to pause and recognize that.  We usually write in people's wedding cards "Marriage is fun!"  We believe that.  Marriage gets a bad rap today, but the real thing - not the sitcom thing, played for laughs - is mostly awesome.  Paige doesn't have a blog, so you're getting my side here.  We've had our hard times, certainly, and we've had to work on this relationship, but that work has paid off.  Today is A happy anniversary indeed. 

A Prayer for my Sons' Wives

For some reason, one of the things I think about often when I stop into the boys' room after they're asleep is who they'll marry when they get older.  Sometimes I pray something like this for each of them:

Dear Lord,
One day, this boy is (hopefully) going to marry someone.
Please make her smart.
Please help him love her because she makes him a better person.
It will really help if she knows and follows you, Lord.
For everyone's sake, please make sure she has a sense of humor.
Please give her a generous spirit and patience.
Please make her practical and ready to work hard.
I know he'll think she's cute, so I don't need to ask for that.
Please give her a long life and good health.
Please let them agree on how they spend, save and donate money.
This may be selfish, Lord, but please make him choose for life someone with cool, well-adjusted parents.
Please make her the kind who will call him on his [bleep]. Gently.
Please forgive my language.
Finally, Lord, it's a lot to ask in this crazy, mixed up world, but:
Please make her like baseball.
Amen

Chart: Celebrity Marriages

Sources:
King, Taylor, Davis - Wikipedia
Woman at the Well - Jesus