The Nothing Box

Rising to the challenge

A man with no goal is a rudderless ship, subject to the whims of fickle Neptune's fathomless fancies...

No, wait, that's not right. (Well, it is right, but it's not going to get me to the point I want to make. Lemme start over.)

A man with no goal is a ship safe at port. He hath access to all he might need, but knoweth not how strong the stuff of his sails may be.

Stand by for actual example intended to double as allegory in 3... 2... 1:

Years ago almost everything I ate was bland. There was no garlic in my life. No curries. No peppers. It was, in part, a result of the company I kept but, in truth, I didn't even really aspire to spicy.

I had dabbled before and felt the heady rush of the flavorful fire. But mostly I played it safe. Nothing ventured, nothing lost, and I wasn't willing to risk the cost.

I won't go into what made my tastes change, but they did. And suddenly spicy sounded pretty damned good. Some peppers here, some salsa there. Shake a little Tabasco on that, wouldja? I bounced around, trying this and that, but eventually I had to admit I was getting nowhere. I decided I needed to test myself – to stretch my boundaries. I needed a plan. I needed a goal.

Now, let's be honest, spicy food goals are limited in St. Cloud, Minnesota. Thankfully, there is BW3. I set my sights on the Blazin' Challenge.

This was a worthy goal. It scared me (though I certainly wasn't going to let anyone know). There was going to be nothing comfortable about this zone.

Here's the thing you need to know about the Blazin' Challenge: The spiciness of the Blazin' sauce is no higher than third on your list of worries.

Problem number one is the temperature of the wings. See, the waitress brings your wings straight out from the kitchen, accompanied by a Wing Nazi. The Wing Nazi is equipped with a stopwatch. And when she hits that button, your six minutes start. Those wings are hot. That's problem number one.

Problem number two is more of a timed-release problem that I won't go into in this venue.

And yes, the Blazin' sauce is problem number three. It's pretty darned hot. And they slather a whole lot more of it onto your Blazin' Challenge order than they do when you place a regular ol' lunchtime order for a dozen Blazin' wings.

It made me sweat. It made me drool. It cut loose viscous strands of runny snot that issued forth from my nostrils in just about the least attractive way possible. But I did it. I did it in about four and a half minutes. I set the highest goal I could imagine and did what I needed to do to reach that goal.

That's what we should do more of, don't you think? I'm not very good at challenging myself, but I do pretty well at facing up to challenges when they're put before me. Corinne's awesome like that. She has a bold-but-delicate way of challenging me to try new things. To reach farther. To do something bigger and better. (No, she hasn't gotten me to write a book yet. But she'll never stop trying. Guess it's a goal of hers!)

I am one-eighth bohemian. Not nearly enough to be interesting.

My mother is half German, one quarter Swiss and one quarter Bohemian. And aside from a rampant, swarthy eyebrow, those crazy gypsy roots have given me... (sigh) Just about nothing.

For the most part, I'm okay with that. But every once in awhile, I really wish I had a little more of a bohemian edge to me. Just every once in awhile I'd like to be able to sit in a darkly lit coffee shop, sipping organic espresso, wearing something that looks truly ridiculous but is still cool (because it was hand-woven by the grandmother of an Ecuadoran freedom fighter who was executed by a death squad of jack-booted thugs and died in my arms, breathing out his last wish – that I take this poncho back to America so that some part of his grandmother could at least touch freedom), and opining in detached, world-weary tones about the collective works of Franz Kafka or David Sedaris or whoever it is that's really cool and not a phony.

But that will never be me. First off, I don't even like coffee. But it's more than that. I'll never be tragically hip because I'm too conservative in my politics, too aesthetically unaware in my fashion sense and too slothful in my reading habits.

I have a degree in government, and the closest I ever came to "politically active" in college was driving into town when Bob Dole came to the St. Cloud Holiday Inn. (Actually, I'm not even sure I drove. I think my car was broken down at the time.)

The only time I was ever "fashion-forward" was my senior year in high school. Moving from a big school to a small one, I was at the vanguard of the boxer rebellion. And I was the first to wear indoor soccer shoes to class.

I think the biggest part of my problem is plain old apathy. It takes work to be quirky. And I just don't have enough want-to in me. There are just these passing whims. That's not, however, to say that I am and will always be a blind conformist. (That takes work too. Keeping up with all the trends I'm supposed to follow? Come on. That's not me either.)

I guess I'll just be who I am. I'll embrace the eighth of myself that actually IS bohemian. And I'll sleep well in the knowledge that, while my percentage isn't high enough to get me free tickets to the poetry slam, it IS high enough to get me a cut if they ever open up a casino in Greenwich Village.

Listen up, everyone. Listen to Greg.

Sixth grade should have been a radical year for me.

• 1978-79 was an awesome time to be in Napa, California.
• Sixth grade was one of a very few years where I wasn't starting out in a new school. (I went to 10 different schools, K-12.)
• Northwood Elementary was a K-6 school, so I was regally perched atop the food chain.
• I was not only a member of the elite, paramilitary Northwood Elementary School Patrol – I was a sergeant.*

That year should have been a stone groove. But there was one snag. Ms. Lenzi.

From an educational standpoint, Ms. Lenzi was probably one of the best teachers I ever had. I learned a lot and I learned some lessons about knuckling down and actually working hard. So the 44-year-old version of me can call her a straightforward, no-nonsense educator. The 11-year-old version of me still calls her a bitch (or whatever variation on that term 11-year-old Greg might have employed in 1978).

It was because of Ms. Lenzi that I had to learn the phrase "personality conflict" before I was old enough to have to learn the phrase "nocturnal emission."

In Ms. Lenzi's defense, I was a pretty insufferably pretentious kid at the beginning of sixth grade. I was just coming down from the high of fifth grade with Miss Hunter – who loved me almost as much as she loved Prince Charles. She was an angel. And I was a teacher's pet.

So in my mind, teachers and I were simpatico. We were on the same side – fighting against the ignorance of the rabble. My mission was to offer an encouraging glimmer of brilliance in order to bolster my teacher and give her confidence that, yes, the youth of today can be taught.

Evidently no one clued Ms. Lenzi in to that script.

So there we were in our first week together. Ms. Lenzi, staring out at 29 new potential troublemakers. Me, staring back at what I could only assume was the next adult to be smitten by my precocious charms.

"Pretest" I heard her say. I was old enough to know that these were checks on what we'd already been taught and, therefore, easy. Geography? Okay, I've got this one. Hurry up and pass them out. Hurry. Hurry!

Finally, there it was. But wait. Name the four oceans? Name the seven continents? Name the capital of California? This was no good – it was too easy. She was never going to be able to tell from this pathetic half-sheet of paper just how much better I was about to make her life.

And then it hit me. It was simple. It was subtle. And it was Bogart-smooth. Casually, my hand rose into the air. "Yes?" she asked, grudgingly.

"Missus Lenzi," I began earnestly, "for Europe and Asia, is it okay if we just put 'Eurasia'?"

I put down my hand and smiled expectantly. See, the beauty of this plan was that it was not only going to demonstrate that I was an exceptionally knowledgeable and well-read student. It was also going to demonstrate my visionary potential. Check this out, I just increased efficiency by 14 percent! Serenely, I waited for that familiar look of surprise and respect to wash over her.

That's when she hit me with one of the most traumatic lines of my youth. "Did everyone catch that? Listen up, everyone. Listen to Greg. Congratulations Greg, you've just given away two of the continents. Do you have any other answers you want to give away?"

Um...no.

I melted into my desk, suddenly sweating much more than even an un-air conditioned classroom in California deserved. Eventually I got a grip on myself and learned to co-exist with Ms. Lenzi. But not that day. That day I biked home crying like a little bitch.

 

*I've gotta remember to do a post on that someday soon.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Don't forget to Play and Win Valuable Prizes.

 

Play and win valuable prizes!

Corinne and I are playing another of our little games. (No, this one does NOT involve a Catholic school girl costume. I'm NEVER putting that thing on again.)

Here's the way this one's going to work: Corinne's going to give me random topics and I'm going to have two days to work that topic into a blog post. So today it might be nihilism. Friday it might be purple unicorns. I don't know what she's going to give me.

And, originally, I thought I'd just keep it quiet to see if I could weave these random topics into posts that make sense out of context.

But then I thought, what the hell – let's make a game out of it!

Check out the stuff I post, starting with yesterday's Mud Run post and ending when I tell you I'm done. (Except this one. Ignore this one. Well, don't IGNORE this one, because I'm trying to tell you something here. But don't waste a whole lot of time searching for a hidden topic or theme in this post.)

If you think you've figured out my assigned topic for a post, go ahead and comment on it. If you're right...um...I'll give you some kind of valuable prize [to be determined]. Could be a $5 iTunes gift card (but probably not), could be a 50 cent coupon on Hot Pockets, could be an autographed picture of Brady Borkoski dressed as Burt Reynolds. Whatever. The joy comes in winning, you greedy little monkeys.

That being said, go back and check out yesterday's post, then keep an eye on what's coming next. (To get you started – and I hope I'm not making this too obvious – yesterday's headline was a clue.)

Have fun!

Skoog

She's my little rock and roll

 

On Saturday, Corinne and I did the MS Mud Run - Twin Cities. (Tell me again, exactly which city is Dresser, Wisconsin's twin?) It was a fantastically kick-ass time, with a ton of great stories to tell. For shorthand versions of some of those, see below.* The thing I want to talk about though is the positively equalizing effect of thick, full-coverage mud.

We live in a world wracked with body image issues and flagging self esteem. Fortunately, what was true in Akron in 1938 is just as true today. Everyone looks great when they're covered head-to-toe in mud. There's something undeniably sexy about a woman willing to sabotage her manicure to support MS research.

Slathered on, monochromatic mud, obtained in the charitable pursuit of a goal, just does something that highlighted streaks and smoky eye-shadow never could.

Complete mud immersion therapy can balance out imagined flaws. Insecure a-cup girls? I'm going to guess you could pack on at least a cup size worth of muck after crawling through 6+ miles of it. And c-cup girls? Oh, who the hell am I kidding? You all looked great right from the start.

I want to be perfectly clear that my point isn't anything lurid or crude. Seriously. (I climbed a lot of steep hills on Saturday with my face mere feet away from Rachel's or Jodi's ass [or Justin's ass, too, I suppose]. And, since both Isaac and Chad could swiftly and easily beat me senseless [as, I suppose, could both Corinne and Reba], I want the record straight that my mind was always exactly where it belonged – on the searing pain in my left calf and the jabbing rocks in my right boot.

I'm talking about the pure, wholesome beauty that every person possesses when glistening in the glorious filth of human kindness. And that's straight-up hot.

 

*Shorthand versions of Mud Run stories

• We signed up two teams. My Curmudgeons ran in the competitive-coed-teams-of-five division. Corinne's Angels With Dirty Faces ran in the DGAP division. (Don't Give a Poop. No, seriously. That's what they call it.)

• After much shuffling and more who's in / who's out than an MLB all-star game, the rosters that lined up to face the starting gun were:

Curmudgeons
    • Justin Gauerke
    • Jodi Rohe
    • Rachel Watkins
    • Rachel's fellow-phy-ed-teacher buddy, Mark (a.k.a., Grambo)
    • Me
Angels With Dirty Faces
    • The always angelic Corinne
    • Corinne's sister, Annette (who must have some angel in her, genetically speaking, given Corinne's angelic status)
    • The must-be-angelic-because-everyone-seems-to-like-her Gina Nacey
    • Honorary angel and much better sport than he gets credit for, Eric Nacey

• Gina had a plane to catch that evening, but she wanted to get all the way to the end of that course, just to jump off the tower into the 7-foot "mud pool".

So she and Eric sprinted off from the beginning (they ended up running a faster time than our competitive team) and left Corinne and Annette to spend some quality bonding time that they don't get much of. I think that was really cool. There's a gap in age between Corinne and Annette. I'm not going to get into how big a gap it is, but suffice it to say that Corinne's Barbie clothes were out of style by the time they got handed down to Annette. This was one of very few times that they've gotten to spend a few hours together without kids or spouses or anyone, just working together toward a goal. Worth the price of admission, right there.

• No one got seriously hurt. That's a legitimate concern here. I'm not sure how we managed to get 9 of us through that course with nothing more than some truly nasty looking blisters. I think I was the most wounded of anyone and my greatest injury occurred when I pulled a muscle making the always-dangerous parking lot run from the gas station to the ATM before we even left Sartell.

• Chad Gertken has the patience of a saint. He showed up with us, waited through the Angels' wave, then continued waiting while the Curmudgeons ran, and never complained at all. Not even an eye roll. Chad – and I say this in the most reverent tone possible – you are the consummate bag bitch.

• Sure, just about everyone enjoyed the post-race beer. But how many racers were as dedicated to their hops as Justin and I were with our pre-race beer? Suck on that, spaghetti feed.

 

 

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Well, that's not MY dad

Just a little over a week ago was Father's Day. (Seriously? Then why the hell is my Hai Karate jug still on empty?)

And this Father's Day, as most Father's Days, I found myself questioning my adequacy as a father.

I went to church and it didn't get any better. Pastor Doug spoke pretty passionately about all the things a good father is and all the things a good father does. He quoted scripture and he wove in some great anecdotes and, with every word, I was more convinced that I have completely missed the boat on this fatherhood thing.

Then they played this video. 

Now I know Trevor a little bit and he's a wonderful guy. I really respect him. So, if you believe me when I tell you what a good guy Trevor is today, and you know the frame of mind I was in (see paragraphs above), then you would assume that this video would have sent me over the edge and left me wallowing in a depressing soup of guilt and parental inadequacy.

Actually though, I went a different direction with it. I'm not sure how or when during this video I shifted my point of view, but at some point I quit thinking about myself as a father and started thinking about my own father.

Every point Trevor would make, I would tick off on a mental tally sheet. "Nope. That doesn't sound like my dad." Pretty soon, that mental tally sheet was looking pretty messy.

And that's what made me feel better. See, Trevor has his criteria for what constitutes a great dad. And Doug has his. And the Bible has its take as well.

But none of them know my dad. My dad's grumpy. And he used profanity when I was young. And sometimes he would get frustrated (with Mom, or Christine, or the dog, or whatever) and raise his voice. He's pretty smart, but he certainly doesn't know everything (though you really can't tell him that). He wasn't always absolutely consistent in his discipline.

And through it all, he's been awesome. He had prepackaged little bits of wisdom that I never thought were applicable. He would try and tell stories from "when he was my age" and I never related to any of them in the least. But through all my eye rolling, I totally loved him (even at the time) for trying. I loved that he was in there swinging and doing his best.

Those are the things I catch myself doing. And those are the eye rolls I get. So maybe, just maybe, I'm not doing so badly after all?

What a weekend should be

I just had the kind of weekend that picks up your brutal, beat-down of a week, shakes it by its scrawny neck, and hollers "Suck it, bitch!"

It was the kind of weekend that God sends on rare occasions to some of His most weary and downtrodden little creations. The kind where the veils of stress and frustration flutter and part in a passing breeze of chance.

My weekend kicked ass.

Now, in order to truly grasp the scope of this weekend's awesomeness, you need to get your head around the profound suckfest that was "last week." Stuff was breaking, funds were dwindling, kids were crabbing, schedules were bursting...and I'm not even going to get into work (because anything honest I wrote would probably get me fired...and this blog doesn't pay ANY bills).

So Corinne and I limped into Friday evening. Fortunately, Molly and Claudia were both out of town for the early evening marching in a parade, because it gave us the last couple of hours it took to finish putting together the zebra room.

It's a consistent challenge, fitting six kids into a three-bedroom house. It's gotten a little easier as they get older -- Josie's more out than in (though her stuff still occupies what will one day be my workout room), and Erin doesn't sleep over anymore. But it's still crowded, and it leaves Molly with a family room as her bedroom.

That means we need to find ways to make it a dual-use space. It needs to be a functioning family room for 12 days...and then it needs to make Molly feel welcome and at home for two days. So we built a 5x8 foot platform at 4.5 feet high. The couch goes under that, and Molly's bed goes on top of that - on her own little mezzanine level. It came out awesome. And Corinne took Molly's request for a  "zebra-colored theme with bright-blue accents" and ran with it.

Molly loved it. We actually got an, "It's more than I dreamed of" out of a 13-year-old. THAT is a statement.

So the weekend was off and running.

Claudia got to go spend the weekend at her friend's cabin, goofing around and tubing. Big, happy win there.

Josh got to sleep over at his friend's house on Saturday night. Win for him. (And Luke's parents are good about making them get some actual sleep. Win for us.)

After a few days of terror and panic induced by her new invisible-fence collar,

Bijou finally got the hang of it and started discovering the joys of running around the yard without a chain. Huge, unfettered win there.

 

I took down some branches off the maple tree out front and managed to burn them on the same night -- so they didn't add to the unsightly brush pile on Ty's side of our house. Nice little win for Ty there.

On Saturday, we managed to remove an imminent lawsuit from our backyard and replace it with a mere probable lawsuit. We tore down the 10-year-old trampoline and replaced it with a brand-new, much springier, much nettier trampoline. Very big win for all there.

 

I got a great little Sunday-morning ride in with my wife. (On bikes, you pervs.) And Corinne accomplished the geometric impossibility of charting a looped route that pretty much avoided wind for its entirety. Take THAT, south-easterly breeze.

Quinn got to go to the fly-in breakfast with his Grandpa Lloyd and catch pancakes from across the hanger. Good-time win for him.

Molly and Anngel got to make a trip to the mall on Sunday afternoon and waste a whole lot of time (though not a lot of money). Jasmine got to take a trip to the beauty salon and, since she's so fat and happy, didn't have to get shaved down all the way bald. Quinn, Josh, Ben, Tommy and I all got to go catch a Sunday matinee of Green Lantern. Win for us.

And while all THAT was going on, Corinne was home making serrano-infused homemade salsa, marinating chicken in a fantastic green curry sauce, and cooking up a double batch of cheesy potatoes. Gigantic-sized win and a great way to wrap up the weekend.

Wow.

Weekends should all be like that.

(And I'm already in need of another one, because today kicked off Suck Week, Part Deux.)

Worth every penny

That bright-yellow behemoth in the front of this photo is sort of a summer project of mine.

I found it last fall at a house down the street, sitting forelornly at the end of a driveway with a hand-scrawled "free" sign hanging from the top tube. I gave it a thorough, cautious, up-close look and, since I'm an idiot who has no idea what he's looking for/at, it looked salvageable to me.

It's a Browning. As in the firearms manufacturer. I didn't even know they'd ever made bikes. (Though I don't know why I'm surprised, since my mother-in-law gave me a Browning barbecue tong set not so long ago.) But, evidently, for a few years in the '70s, they dabbled.

I did a whole lot of scrubbing and a fair bit of lubing. I had Eric run some new cables and a couple of other things. I went and found the crazy-old tire/tube sizes and threw on some new grip tape. That's about the extent of the repairs I did before flippantly determining this thing (I haven't yet settled on a nickname for it. Given the shotgun angle to it, I'm leaning toward Ol' Betsy.) "road worthy."

Corinne and I went out for a ride. Aside from the fact that, no matter what gear I put it in, it's going to find its way back to its "favorite", it went pretty well. So a few days later, we tried it again. Nothing ambitious, just a 9-mile loop.

Beautiful night. Glorious, relaxing ride (as illustrated by the rolling, action photo above). Until...

Crap. Flat tire. And, of course, if you were to geometrically bisect our 9-mile loop, that tire blew at the exact mid-way point. So Corinne took off to finish the ride and come back with the truck to pick me up. Here she is taking her phone and stuffing it into her sports bra. (That jersey's hot, and I don't care that it doesn't have pockets.) Lucky phone.

Away she went. And there I was. Hoofin' it.

Oh well. It was a perfect evening and I got to take a nice, peaceful walk (until Corinne caught back up to me). Can't complain about that! Yep, that bike's worth every penny I paid for it.

Them kids is smart

Huge kudos to Erin – the second of our collective brood and my first biological offspring to graduate high school.

(SIDETRACK: That "huge kudos" intro was totally my subconscious mind crying out. I just finished lunch, my sweet tooth is screaming at me, and all I have in my desk drawer is a couple of those tiny little 100 calorie Kudos bars. Tasty, but not nearly substantial enough. Evidently, somewhere in the uncharted recesses of my brain, there's a part of me that would like to mush about 8 of those things together into a huge Kudos bar. Yum.)

Erin's graduation party was this past Saturday. And, as we celebrated Erin's maturation and her educational accomplishments, it was only fitting that Erin, in her own way, managed to teach the grownups a lesson.

See, Erin's mom and I both care deeply about making sure the kids are loved, valued and cared for. Great goal. Problem is we don't exactly travel the same roads to get there. And the result is that I don't think either of us ends up doing as good a job as we'd like.

The kids are aware of the tension, and it shows – to the point where they get visibly agitated when they're faced with a situation that they know is going to bring the two of us face to face. (And God forbid we throw in any circumstances that might bring their mom face to face with their step-mom.)

So this winter I started asking Erin what she wanted to do for a graduation party. My first thought was to spare her (and, yes, spare myself) that face-to-face tension.

Did Erin want to have two separate grad parties? That's what Josie did two years ago (for totally different reasons). At first Erin said yes, but then rethought. That sounded like a hassle.

How about a party at a neutral, third-party site? We rented a park pavilion. Surely both families could coexist peacefully when no one was defending turf, right? At first Erin said yes, but then rethought.

She just wanted to have the party celebrating her graduation in the home she's lived in since kindergarten.

We were going to have to be mature.

And, leading up to The Event, there were some touch-and-go moments. Erin's mom didn't trust that I wouldn't steal or defile her photo albums. I didn't trust her enough to agree to go halvsies on the budget.

I admit it. Leading up to this Saturday, I was scared shitless – to the point where I was probably feeling more sorry for myself than I was feeling excited for Erin. So I did what I needed to do to brace myself (demanded that my parents attend and stay for the whole event, begged my sister and a couple of good friends to make appearances...) and I forcibly realigned my perspective. I was doing this for Erin.

(NOTE: It should be pointed out that the true icon of selflessness in this scenario was Corinne. She did NOT sign up for this degree of BS, but she was there – for Erin and for me – helping out and enduring the death stare with patience and understanding. Heroic performance. No question.)

And it went wonderfully well. Erin floated between camps graciously. Her mom (and, probably just as accurately, her brother) did a great job getting the garage and the lawn all cleaned up and ready for a party. And everyone was, at the very least, civil! I won't say it was without awkwardness (Corinne being stalked on her way to the bathroom – presumably to make sure she didn't steal the silverware?), but everyone came. And everyone came for Erin.

It was her day. Her achievement. Her party. And the rest of us can just grow up.

Little Duplex on the Prairie

Settle the hell down, breath deeply, and take comfort in this simple fact: there's someone lazier than you. There's always someone lazier than you.

I coasted through school based on that knowledge. I finish races fueled by that knowledge. And, occasionally, I sit comfortably on my back patio with a beer – at peace in the glow of that knowledge.

I'm aware that I will never win an award at any lawn and garden show. In fact, in your neighborhood, I'd probably be that guy. The guy you shake your head and grumble about at the annual block party. The next-door neighbor whose weeds make you take that extra pass along the border with the weed 'n' feed. The guy you not-so-secretly wish would join the circus, move out, and sell the house to a nice young assistant greenskeeper from Kentucky. (Those are some of the many reasons I don't live in your neighborhood.)

In my neighborhood we've got the guy who lives behind me. Terrible, disastrous lawn. Ridiculous. Hideous. Birds won't crap on it. Makes you wonder how, as a homeowner, he can find inner peace enough to even enjoy his Harley.

You wanna know how? Re-examine paragraph 1.

See, the guy who lives behind me – with his rock-hard, dandelion-strewn, post-apocalyptic wasteland of a lawn can relax and take comfort. Because two blocks down the street, we've got this guy:

See. There's always someone lazier than you.