Pig Roast '01

It was my first summer away from my parents and my roommate and I were determined to make it a good one. We had the idea to have a house party for the Fourth of July. The Fourth was a work day that year so we had to plan some prep beforehand. I woke up early the day before (I think it was a Thursday) and headed to the Clemson University Swine and Bovine Department where I met the man who would sell me my first pig. I drove a 1983 Toyota Corolla wagon back then and just planned on transporting the pig back to the house in the back of it. I threw some dirty laundry in the back and covered that with plastic bags so the pig wouldn't get my car dirty. I wasn't aware of the gross anatomy of the pig. It turns out that the pig's "pocket" (see the post about BOGO's pocket to understand that reference) is directly under the tail and it's contents exits horizontally before falling. All this meant that as I was driving down the highway to drop the pig off at the house before going to work, the pig was backing against the inside of my car smearing it's excrement all over the place. It smelled so bad that I remember passing a dead skunk and sticking my head out the window thinking, "Ah, fresh air!"

We killed the pig, put it on a spit, and roasted it all day and had a great Great GREAT house party.

Fast forward about 2 months.

Remember all those clothes I put in the back of my car under the plastic bags for the pig to have a comfy ride? I didn't. I forgot all about them after I got the pig home and bagged the clothes and put the bags in the shed. I noticed that some of my clothes were missing and even asked my roommate if he had borrowed them because I hadn't seen them in a while. He said he didn't know about them and then I remembered - they were in a big trash bag in the shed because they had pig poop on them. The next day I went to the shed to get my clothes and take them to the laundromat. I slowly opened the bag and took a hesitant whiff and, to my surprise, it wasn't too bad. It was still pig poop, but it wasn't fresh and that meant it wasn't too bad. I deemed it safe to take to a laundromat and headed down the street with my bag of clothes and box of detergent. Arriving at the laundromat at the same time was a couple of girls. Yes, they were cute and flirty looking and although I had zero interest in asking either of them out, I didn't want to look like a goober in front of cute girls. With that in mind, I grabbed the bottom of the trash bag my pig poop clothes were in and I quickly jerked it out and up thus inverting the pile of clothes and pulling off the bag in one move. Bad idea! Apparently in the 2 months that the clothes were in the bag in the shed, a crust had formed over the top which sealed the stench and by inverting the pile I had unleashed upon this laundromat the most foul, fermented pig poop, moldy dirty laundry smell imaginable. The smell was so strong that it filled the entire building immediately. There was no escape. The girls gagged, giggled, and ran out and I barely got my clothes loaded into the washers without barfing myself. It's impossible to be cool when your clothes smell like that.

Clean up, aisle 3

I had a hard time adjusting to having two kids. Not because she was a girl or because it meant twice as many diapers to change or even because that meant we would have to buy another set of baby accoutrement since Abigail was still young enough to need her crib, dresser, etc. No, I had a hard time adjusting because every time I held her she would barf on me. That's not an exaggeration. Ask around. My friends will vouch for me. Suzi would feed her and even hold her upright for a while before handing her to me, but as soon as I got Elise, she'd yack all over me. I got tired of smelling like sour milk so I even went a little while without even holding her. I'd play with her and talk to her while someone else was holding her. It's not like I wear cologne or deodorant that would irritate her gag reflux. I don't usually wear cologne and my deodorant is unscented because I don't even like the smell of most deodorants. Suzi holding her - fine. Me holding her - vomit fountain. Anyway, she grew out of it and every now and then while I'm cuddling with her I whisper in her ear, "Thank you for not puking on me in a long time." She tells me I'm welcome and smiles up at me. Sweet moment.

Then she goes and does something like this:

It was time to brush the dogs. I sat on the floor and was giving Nanuk a good brushing. He was enjoying all the attention as I brushed and the girls talked to him. It took a while since he has so much thick fur and I was trying to do a really good job. I don't know how long we were sitting on the floor, but it must have been longer than a little girl bladder can hold its water. Did I mention the girls had their diapers off due to an ongoing potty training seminar? All of the sudden I see Elise take a step toward me and I felt her touching my leg. "That's sweet," I thought. "She's happy and wants to touch me." Then I felt something that sort of felt warm and wet at the same time. That was odd. I looked at what could be making me feel that sensation and then I saw it. She's not touching me; she's peeing on me. I was in such shock that I didn't know what to do but to sit in shock for a second longer. Then Elise had the audacity to start to turn to walk away when she was done as if to say, "Ok. Thanks. Now I feel better." At least she doesn't hurl on me anymore.

Concerning communion

Is my quest for answers to my questions leading me down the same road along with the Pharisees? They wanted to know about murder, adultery, divorce...and Jesus essentially told them that they were asking the wrong questions. They should have been concerned with simply loving each other. I don't deny that learning what participating in the act of communion is about or what it means is important. What I have learned is that the nit-picky questions I have been asking, while valid, miss the mark. I'm dwelling on what kind of bread to eat and when/how often to eat it and all the while Jesus is saying, "Remember me." How do I remember Jesus and what is it that I remember about him?
I eat the bread and drink the juice and remember that death is not the end of the story.

I eat and drink and remember that the blood of Jesus is multilingual.

I eat and drink and remember that Jesus "went there" and "did that" and came out the other side absolutely perfect.

I remember Jesus by welcoming people to my inner circle without noticing their clothes or social status.

I remember Jesus by sharing stories of his life with my family.

I remember Jesus by blurring the line that separates family from friends.

God's gender

These are my thoughts. I'm not the final authority. Read this and work out your own answers. There, that's my disclaimer. Happy reading.

If God is everything, then does that mean that he is both genders as well? If he is both genders, then why do we mainly refer to him as a him? If God is female, does that change what I've been taught about women leading? These are all valid questions. I would have to do a ton more research to answer those questions with any semblance of authority. For now I will only concentrate on supporting evidence for God being both male and female. There seems to be a shift in gender between the testaments. He takes on feminine attributes in the Old Testament while in the New Testament he takes on more masculine attributes.

This is not to say that God is exclusively feminine in the Old Testament. We see several instances in the Old Testament of God's masculinity: God is "strong and mighty" (Ps. 24:7ff), God is a "punisher of the wicked" (Gen. 18:25). We also see, however, that there are many instances in the Old Testament where God is given feminine attributes. The writers describe God as a seamstress in Genesis (he made clothes for Adam and Eve); a mother in Isaiah 46:3 ("you have been borne by Me from birth"); a mother in Deuteronomy 32:18 ("...and forgot the God who gave you birth"); compared to a nursing woman in Isaiah 49:15 (as a woman forget her nursing child..."); compared to a mother bear in Hosea 13:6-8 ("...like a bear robbed of her cubs"). The bonus would be Matthew 23:37 where Jesus likens himself to a mother hen gathering her chicks.

In contrast to this feminine theme in the Old Testament, in the New Testament we see what appears to be a stark shift in gender assignment when referring to God. One of the first (and perhaps the most noticeable) difference we see is that God is rarely referred to alone or directly. Most of the time we read about Jesus rather than God. Jesus repeatedly refers to God as "father" (John 16:28- "I came from the Father...", John 6:57 - "...Father sent me...", Matthew 6:9 - "Our Father who is in heaven..."); Jesus is the son of God (1 John 5:10, 2 Corinthians 1:19, Mark 5:7). From my research (not exhaustive by any means) it seems that the hundreds of masculine pronouns used to describe God are meant to employ the secondary definition in much the same way as "man" or "mankind" can be used to refer to all of humanity and not just the males.

We are created in God's image. Understanding that God is not physical, what does this mean? Certainly we are not tiny carbon copies of God. God doesn't have a penis nor a vagina. What it means is that in the same way that God is a spiritual being, so too are we with the exception that our spirits are clothed with physical bodies crafted from the dust of the earth (Genesis 2:7). God's gender doesn't change the basis of my salvation. I file this topic in the category of "interesting but not crucial to understand." I hope this has been at least slightly interesting to you. You asked me a question and I wanted to be sure to answer with due diligence. Thanks for asking me and reading this far.

It's in their DNA.

Have you ever been in the car with your mother/girlfriend/wife and feel the urge to pull over and let her drive since she insists on telling you how to do what you're doing? It's ok, me too. Don't be too hard on her - she can't help it.

Exhibit 1: I was driving to St. Louis to meet up with some family for the occasion of my grandfather's funeral. Suzi had to work so she stayed home and I took the girls on the 6 hour drive by myself. We arrived in town after dark and were supposed to meet up with people at my father's aunt's house. I had never met this woman let alone been to her house so I called my father to get directions once I got close. It was dark, the windshield was fogged over, and I was in a town I knew nothing about. I got directions and was working on navigating through town repeating the directions aloud over and over so I wouldn't forget, and what do I hear from the backseat but, "No, no! Wrong way!" What? Is it? Wait, how would they know? "It's ok, girls. I know where I'm going. This is the right way." Wait, is it the right way? I quit repeating the directions when I got distracted by the backseat drivers.

Exhibit 2: We drive the same way to the church building each time we go so the girls have learned the route. They've started to recognize where we are and which way we need to go so when they notice us getting close, they shout out directions like, "Turn this way, Papi" or "Go that way." They think that because they tell me where to turn on Sundays and Wednesdays that I'll automatically turn where/when they tell me to every other day of the week. I don't. It's hard not to get frustrated when I get my driving critiqued by toddlers, but I guess it's ok. They can't help it. It's in their DNA.

Girls and hardware stores.

I enjoy DIY projects. I enjoy hardware stores. I enjoy wandering through aisles of tools comparing product specs and dreaming up projects that I could do with that tool so that I could be justified in buying it. Since I enjoy these things so much, when we made the decision for me to be the one to stay home with the kids, I thought it would make my life easier if I taught the kids to like the same things as I do. Starting with hardware stores.

It doesn’t really matter which hardware store. Lowe’s, Home Depot, Ace, Sutherlands, Atwood’s – they’re all good for wandering around to kill time and think about home projects. Even the AAA Rental Office is good for a quick fix. Knowing now how much I like hardware stores, it should be no surprise when I say that I take the girls to one almost on a daily basis. When it rains we don’t go to the mall, we go to Lowe’s. When it’s too hot in the summer we don’t go to a water park, we go to Home Depot. When it’s too cold to play outside in the winter we don’t park in front of the tv with sippy cups of hot chocolate, we go to Ace. And so on.

We go to Lowe’s and Home Depot so much, in fact, that the girls recognize the stores from the car. They say things like, “I want to go to that Blue Store (Lowe’s)” or “Let’s fix the house with the Orange Store (Home Depot).”

“Fix the house.” That’s what I tell them I’m doing when I work on a project at home. Replacing the kitchen faucet became “fixing Mami’s water” and replacing the broken bricks on the outside steps became “building [Abigail’s] steps”. But in general, working on a house project is “fixing the house.” That can be anything from tearing out and rebuilding the sunroom to hanging a picture.

My girls like boobies.

It’s funny when kids start to talk because that’s when you finally get to find out what you sound like when you talk. It’s like looking in a mirror for the first time. People can describe what you look like and you can see other people, but until you see the mirror you don’t really know what you look like. Consider kids a verbal mirror.

Friday is movie day at our house. We watch limited tv during the week and try to keep active as much as possible so as a reward we watch a movie on Friday afternoons after nap time. (Ah, nap time. I’ll get to that later.) One Friday, the girls came running down the hall to the living room ready for their movie and yelled some garbled baby gibberish that only parents understand. What they said translates to “I want to watch boobies!” Just as I was thinking, “Really? Hmm, yeah me too…” it hit me that they meant movies. They meant movies but said boobies.

Funny when kids mispronounce words but the word that they wind up saying is actually a word. Like just a few weeks ago in Bible study one of the girls said something about needing a shirt, except that she left off the all-important “r” sound. Suzi was quick to assure everyone that she meant “shirt” as I was too busy laughing.

Not all fingerpaint is paint.

Before Abigail was born I worked at a long term care facility for the profoundly retarded. This was a facility for housing people who, because they required 24/7 care for all their needs, their families couldn’t take care of them anymore. My job title boiled down to professional peon. I bathed, changed diapers, fed, dressed, and shaved the clients I was assigned to and if there was time left over in my eight hour day of doing that, I played with them. There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t get bitten, spat on, barfed on, peed on, pooped on, sometimes bled on, or any combination of the above. You would think that would have prepared me for my own kids. How bad could kids be afterall?

The girls share a room and really like being with each other. Since Abigail is older, we decided to graduate her from a crib to a toddler bed. She was still too young to have free reign of the room when we weren’t in there so we surrounded her bed plus a little extra floor space with a baby fence (the same manufacturer also sells this fence at PetCo for pets – even uses the same picture on the package) so she couldn’t run around and do things she shouldn’t. Elise stayed in her crib just fine. That was right around the time that Abigail started taking off her clothes to sleep. I think it’s more comfortable that way, don’t you? Anyway, she’d take off her clothes and lay down in bed. One day I went down the hall to get the girls up from their nap and smelled something a little off. I opened their bedroom door and there’s Abigail with a big smile on her face telling me that she painted. She pointed to the brown wall by her bed and was showing me what she had been working on. There are a few problems with her brown wall: #1 Her wall is supposed to be blue; #2 Her wall was brown because, wait…WHAT?! There’s poop on the wall?! Which brings me to #3 How did she get poop on the wall? You’ve got to be kidding me. With her fingers? It’s not as easy as you might think to scrape poop off a wall and not throw up.

BOGO has a button. Or is it a pocket?

We have three dogs. Since they were puppies I worked on training them to be good with kids. I’d poke their paws between their pads, pull their ears, pull their tails, and pet them extra hard. I did all that to desensitize them to the way kids are with pets. It’s a good thing too.

BOGO (named after the Payless commercial) is our Jack Russell. He’s the favorite and best behaved/trained. He loves the girls and they love him. We were finishing our lesson on belly buttons when BOGO walked in. That’s just bad timing on his part. Of course the girls were curious about his belly button. Suzi and I told the girls that he does have a belly button and left it at that. We didn’t think they’d want to see it. Our bad. We saw them examining BOGO and finally Elise found it. She found his button. *poke* I’ve never seen a tail tuck under as fast as BOGO tucked his under. He whipped around and was ready to attack whatever it was that had just touched his, ahem, “button”, when he realized it was one of the girls. I was proud of how he played it off and just licked her instead. He went from teeth to tongue in the time it took him to turn around. Even though he’s great with the kids, we didn’t think we should tempt fate too much. Scrambling to come up with another word for “butthole”, the girls found a solution for us. It’s not a “button”, it’s a “pocket.” And we don’t touch BOGO’s pocket.

Focus, Jennemann!

I know that it’s in the Man Code that every man should have at least one coffee can of spare screws. I don’t drink coffee. I don’t usually have spare parts left over after putting something together. I don’t have spare screws. Abigail, however, does. She walked over to me holding out a handful of machine screws and nuts. When the kids do something goofy like that we calm down and treat them like wild animals – no loud noises or sudden movements. Any effort on our part to quickly take away the glass full of juice could result in the kid freaking out and dropping the glass thus shattering the glass and spilling the juice. So when Abigail showed me her handful of screws, I calmly asked her:

“Where’d you get the screws?”

“Um, I don’t know.”

“Ok, where were you when you found them?”

“Um, I don’t know.”

(getting frustrated, but still maintaining my cool)

“Ok, that’s ok. What were you doing when you found the screws?”

“Um, I don’t know. Look! I have knees.”

(more frustrated)

“I see your knees. They’re pretty knees. Now, where did you find the srews?”

“Um, I don’t know.”

(not even hiding my frustration)

“Focus, Jennemann! Where’d you get these screws? Think! They had to have come from somewhere. What were you doing? Where were you when you found them? Where did they come from? Give me something here.”

“Um, I don’t know.”

I looked all over for any possible source for the screws and nuts and didn’t find anything. Everything seems to be holding together well so far. I have absolutely no idea where these screws came from. I guess we’ll just have to wait til something falls apart.

I have a tail.

Sometimes I feel on display. On display to my friends because most of them don't have kids and are watching to see what having kids is like. But also on display to my own family. The following is a story from last week that illustrates just how on display I am.

We were at the mall with Suzi's mom, sister, and the girls. Christina (Suzi's sister) was tired and wanted to sit down. Suzi and her mom wanted to look at clothes. I had to pee. We all split up - Christina sat on a bench; Suzi, her mom, and Elise went to a store; and I took Abigail with me to the bathroom. We get to the bathroom and thankfully the handicap stall is available. There's enough room in there for kids to stand if you need to go with a kid (that'll be Dad Tip #37). Great! I walk in and tell Abigail to "stand right there" and point to a spot on the floor just behind and to the right of me so that I could keep an eye on her in my peripheral vision. *Zzzzip* *Pee* Ahhhhh. So far all's going according to plan. We've done this before. So there I am standing there enjoying my moment of relief when, out of the corner of my eye I see a little head. She looks up at me and says:

"Papi, are you peepeeing in the potty?"

"Yes, sweetie, I'm peepeeing in the potty."

*pause*

"Papi, is that your tail?"

*pause*
*pause*

(stifling my laughter)
"Yeah, that's my tail."

And then came the chuckle from the next stall over.