The Lutheran Zephyr

Happy Anniversary, My Love

Five years ago today (2.8 children ago) - October 12, 2002 - I made this vow:

In the name of God, I, Christopher, take you, Jessicah, to be my wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until we are parted by death.  This is my solemn vow.

Happy anniversary, babe.  I love you!

3 Great Innings of Baseball . . .

. . . followed by 6 lousy innings of baseball.

That summarizes the quality of play during the Phillies-Rockies game yesterday.  But the energy during those first three innings - before Kaz Matsui's 4th inning grand slam off reliever Kyle Lohse sucked the life out of the ballpark - was unlike any I had ever experienced.  Jimmy Rollins hit a leadoff home run, and the crowd was so loud I didn't even hear the fireworks or the ringing of the huge Liberty Bell.  And then his 3rd inning two-run triple . . . wow.  A baseball crowd unlike any I had ever experienced - even better than the Yankees-Red Sox game I attended at Yankee Stadium a year ago . . . Whodathunkit?  A great baseball crowd in Philadelphia?  Yes, it is possible.

This was my first ever Phillies playoff game, and it might be my last in a long time.  Despite the loss, it was a great day, one I'll remember for a long time.  My dad and I have been going to baseball games for as long as I can remember, and since high school it has been "our thing," our time to get together, to talk, to be together, to share in something together that connects generations - he wore his father's Phillies jacket when he came down to RFK two weeks ago to see the Phillies play the Nationals . . . Thanks Dad.  It was a great day.

And then to top it off, my best friend Josh met us for dinner following the game at Nifty-Fifties, our old high school hangout.  What memories we have together.  I might not be able to handle those spicy cheese chicken nuggets like I used to, but it was still awesome.  Thanks Josh for making the trek . . .

The Phillies didn't have a good day, but I did.  And that's all that really counts.

A week with my wife, our au pair, & my internship

The past week was witness to lots of change in the Zephyr household. 

• My wife finally came home from the Philadelphia area and we actually spent seven calendar days together for the first time in a month (however, because we made a quick trip to Philadelphia last weekend, we haven't yet spent seven consecutive nights in our new house together). 
• Our au pair, Catalina, arrived from Columbia and she has been wonderful!  However, having a 20 year-old complete stranger live with us and caring for our daughters for 40+ hours/week has been emotionally taxing.  She is an excellent, experienced, and confident caregiver, but we're first-timers at this au pair thing, and striking the balance between her work hours and her off hours, between her style of childcare vs. our style of childcare, and, during the time we're all at home, between our role as parents and her limited role as caregiver who nonetheless lives with us and is around our children all the time (not like there's much for her to walk to or do in our suburban enclave) . . . that balance has been difficult.  I know we'll find a balance, but until that happens we're see-sawing all over the place.
• My internship has been awesome.  I've only been in the office four days, and I'm only now beginning to wrap my head around this parish's various ministries and program, but the welcome I've received has been amazing and the dynamics between me and the existing church staff - so far, anyway - have been natural and easy.  I'm really excited.  Oh, and I met the Governor of Virginia yesterday at a discussion of his early childhood education initiative, with about 20 or 30 faith leaders.  Perhaps I'll have a blogpost about that at a later date.

That's it, for now.  I'm going to go join my girls for an afternoon nap.

Five Things My Children Should Know

I'm it!

David tagged me for the Five Things My Children Should Know meme.  This comes at a wonderful time - just as I finish up a summer of spending oodles of time with the kiddos.  So here it is - The Five Things My Children Should Know:

1. Nothing Can Separate Us From the Love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.  OK, this topped David's list, too, but it is my favorite verse in the Bible and just about covers everything we need to know about our relationship to God.  OK, maybe not everything, but the most important part - we can't get away from God.
2. Look left.  Look right.  Look left again.  These are the directions I give my daughter when she crosses the street on foot or on her new training-wheels-equipped bicycle.  I want my children to know how to be safe, how to watch out for danger, and how to cross the streets of life safely and confidently. 
3. Love and respect others.  We have so much to learn from other people.  I want my children to be interested in and respectful of other people and other cultures.  I want them to expect to learn something from their neighbor, their teacher, their friend, a complete stranger, a bum on the street . . . and to find something in that person that is admirable, loveable, even holy.
4. Yet at the same time, I want my children to know when to defiantly say "Screw 'em!"  Excuse the language, but I want my kids to know when it's time to buck the system and reject peer pressure or societal expectations or unhealthy family dynamics or anything else that will try to put them down or minimize their God-given gifts and opportunities.  I want them to be strong enough to go out on a limb for the sake of justice, integrity, honesty, truth, sanity or most any liberal cause.
5. The Infield Fly Rule; what a 6-4-3 Double Play is; and, the Designated Hitter is a Satanic Ploy.  OK, so I'm trying to fit alot into #5.  But I want my children to know about baseball and, more importantly, by seeing the fun my wife and I derive from our love of baseball I hope our children can develop their own hobbies, passions and interests.  As long those hobbies, passions and interests include green pastures, bats, balls and gloves.

I'm not sure they're all reading at this late juncture in the summer, but I'd love to read what Derek, LutherPunk, RevHRod, my lovely wife, and Nathan want their kids to know . . .

That's Why Pastors Wear Funny Robes!

Tali plays peek-a-boo underneath The Rev. Mommy's surplice on Sunday morning.

Photo credit goes to my brother-in-law's girlfriend, Aunt Bethany.  Thank you!

Hand-to-Ant Combat

You let one ant stand up to us, then they all might stand up! Those puny little ants outnumber us a hundred to one and if they ever figure that out there goes our way of life! It's not about food, it's about keeping those ants in line. - Hopper, from A Bug's Life

One thing I love not-so-much about the new abode is the bug situation.  It's a bit buggy here in Virginia, or at least, in my part of Virginia.  For the first few weeks I found myself killing a few ants here, a spider there.  This is to be expected, I thought.  In the Philadelphia area we had lived in a house that was built just three years before we moved in, and it had no bug issues.  But this townhouse in Virginia is a little bit older - about 25-30 years old - and naturally one could expect a higher level of vermin infestation.

It took them a few weeks, but the resident ants have finally figured out that we have a one-year old who likes to drop food on the floor.  We mistakenly left a piece of banana on the kitchen floor for several hours, only to find a line of ants streaming from the baseboards to the banana in fairly orderly fashion.  I wiped up the banana, smooshed a bunch of ants, and moped the entire kitchen floor.  That'll git 'em, I thought.  Get rid of the scent and the food, keep the floor nice and clean, and they'll have no reason to stick around.

Well, the little (bad word deleted) were back in force a day later.  There wasn't really anything on the floor to attract them, but they were running all along the baseboards and scurrying onto the floor, searching for food or simply licking up whatever residue they could find.  Lacking any ant poison (which is not a good idea, anyway, considering I have a crawling kid in the house), I sprayed some Fantastic cleaning spray directly onto the bugs and their chosen floor quadrant, wiped up the nasty ant carcases, chased down any ants trying to flee my attack, and scrubbed the floor pretty good.  I take no prisoners.  The ants have gone now for about eight hours.  This is a temporary victory, for sure, but it feels good.

I can't keep spraying Fantastic on the damn critters.  Thanks to Google, I found a website with several natural, child-safe home remedies to keep the ants away.  I will try a few of these and let you know what works.  In the meantime, it's just me and my paper towels, shoes, and bare hands vs. those stinkin' ants.

- - - - -

Above picture of Flick from the Disney animated film, A Bugs Life.  Pic found here.

Future Astronaut

We live ten minutes from the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, where hundreds of aircraft, models, test vehicles and other air and space artifacts are on display in two huge hangars.

I don't know diddly about such things, but I find airplanes, space craft and related paraphernalia to be simply fascinating.  Years ago the military took the B2 Stealth Bomber on tour and my dad took me to see it at the Willow Grove Naval Air Station north of Philadelphia.  It looked like something out of Star Wars (the movie, not the silly Reagan-era satellite warfare project).  So stinkin' cool.

Well, that was nothing compared to seeing a Space Shuttle, orbiters, jets and propeller planes of all eras and varieties, and all kinds of other flying stuff.  My daughter got into it, too, saying that she could be a pilot or astronaut when she grows up (she's pictured above in front of the Space Shuttle Enterprise).  "But Daddy, I don't want to go in that plane all by myself.  Can you and Mommy come with me?"

We'd be glad to, dear.

Geckos

We aren't in Pennsylvania any more.

Geckos roam on and around our new townhouse with impunity.  Perhaps these creatures roam Penn's Woods, too, but I never encountered them during my 32 years of living in the great Commonwealth of PA.  But now that we've relocated to the slightly warmer climes of the great Commonwealth of VA, we seem to be in gecko country.

Yesterday afternoon our four year-old looked at the lowered blinds on her window and said, calmly, "Look daddy, a lizard!"  Sure enough, the afternoon sun cast a crisp silhouette of a gecko onto the cheap venetian blinds.  I pulled the blinds to find the several-inch lizard clinging to the screen of my daughter's window.  After eliciting several playful laughs from my daughter, the gecko (who, I'm sad to report, did not bear much resemblance to the Geico gecko, above) climbed away onto our roof.  No indoor gecko sightings yet, though according to Wikipedia we should welcome any geckos guests who might take up residence with us because they eat insects.

In other gecko news, our Geico car insurance is less expensive in Virginia than it was in Pennsylvania.  However, I fear the pending slew of fees and taxes involved in transferring my license and vehicles to Virginia will wipe out any savings we have reaped.

Finally, I hear from a reliable source that the Geico Gecko and the Aflac Duck have been wed.  Congratulations to the happy couple!

Life Update

We're moved in.  Nearly all of the moving boxes are unpacked, and I can find most of our stuff (though it took me a [expletive deleted] hour to find my iron last evening - I didn't want to show up for worship at my internship congregation in a wrinkled clergy shirt).  The girls have done an amazing job adapting to a new home, new neighborhood, new routine. 

I can't thank the folks from my internship congregation enough for the amazing assistance and outpouring of support they've given us.  From the gifts of food, paper products and wine (10 bottles!), to the crew of 10 people at the house who unpacked boxes, played with my baby, and re-engineered an IKEA cabinet to fit in our house, they people of my new church have been a Godsend.  I continue to get calls almost daily from the chair of the Welcome Vicar Chris committee to see how we're doing (I'm not kidding - they formed an ad hoc Welcome Vicar Chris committee, distinct from the internship committee that will work with me throughout the year!).  We have truly been blessed.  If not for them, we'd still be swimming in boxes, tripping over junk, and struggling to keep our sanity.

The girls and I are living here in Northern Virginia, whereas my wife continues to work at her church in the Philadelphia area for the next three weeks.  Through the end of the month she will be up north Sunday - Thursday, and then drive to Virginia and spend Fridays and Saturdays at home.  It's a schedule that is not easy on any of us. 

When Tali made a toy out of a large moving box, coloring it and decorating it with stickers, it was a reflection of the lack of attention she had received last week from her parents and a testament to her amazing ability to adapt to crazy and changing circumstances.  Now that we're mostly moved in and settled into our new house, I am dedicating this week to doing fun stuff with the kids - including a trip to see some dinosaur bones at the Smithsonian and a morning at a really cool park.  My vow - no more playing with boxes!

I don't yet have an internet connection - I am currently hijacking a neighbor's weak wireless internet signal that goes in and out with regularity.  The Verizon FiOS guy comes on Friday to install high-speed internet to our house.  We also don't get great television reception in our basement - where our lone rabbit ears-equipped television is housed.  Thus I get my news the old fashioned way - from the newspaper and radio.  No Google News, no Nightline, no local news, no Jay Leno. 

(One consequence of my current low-tech status is that I must be the only avid baseball fan in the world who has not seen a replay of Barry Bonds' record-breaking home run - not on tv, not online, not anywhere.  I read about it in the Washington Post, and heard the radio call and commentary on NPR, but I have not yet seen the home run with my own eyes.  And that's ok with me.)

As alluded to above, I worshiped today at my new internship congregation even though I won't begin to work there until September 1.  I had extremely mixed feelings about wearing the clerical collar today, reminding me that my pastoral identity questions are creeping up on me quickly.  This is something that I explored as a hospital chaplain and something that I'll continue to explore as a vicar at this congregation.

In other news, I keep getting comment spam on an old post, Details of Caring for a Sick Child (and I keep deleting it, of course).  What's the trigger?

I'll write more by week's end.  Have a good week!

The Move is Here

Tomorrow the movers come to our house to begin a two day pack of all our worldly possessions.  On Friday the aforementioned possessions will be loaded onto a truck, and then unloaded at our new townhouse in Northern Virginia on Monday morning. 

It'll be a crazy week or so as we live in transition, as our daughters' schedules go to heck in a handbasket, and as we all experience heightened anxiety and a guarded, cross-our-fingers-hope-it-all-goes-well excitement about what awaits us in the Washington DC area.

The blog now officially returns to hiatus status (a status first declared ten posts ago - I can't keep quiet!) until further notice.