too soon to go back to work?

How to make your dishwasher rule for under $5.

Sat, 6 Mar 2010 00:02:37 -0500

If you usually RSS this you’ll need to link over for the pics.

So a few weeks ago I really gave the kitchen a good cleaning. I don’t remember if there was any real impetus beyond how generally nasty things had gotten, but it turned into the kind of cleaning where stove eyelets are getting soaked and you begin to seek your reflection in the minor appliances.

As I was scrubby-dubbin’ away on the bottom panel of the dishwasher (that’s right, the one under the door) I knocked a piece of trim off of it. It’s a crummy old white Whirlpool. I guess it’s not ancient, but it has been well used. We’ve worked the two and a half years that we’ve lived here to update most of our 1930s house and this dishwasher (not from the 30s) has been a lingering eyesore in our kitchen. Britta painted the cabinets black and most of our appliances are black--the black stove purchased out of necessity when the previous residents decided not to leave theirs; the black side-by-side refrigerator gained in some deft maneuvering on Craigslist (again Britta) for a net cost of $25 in exchange for a tiny old freezer-on-top fridge-on-bottom that hurt my back every time I reached for the milk. So the dingy white dishwasher really stuck out.

When I knocked the trim piece off, I realized for the first time that the front of our dishwasher was simply a sheet of white-painted steel/aluminum/something. Eureka! I can replace the crappy white metal with something more attractive. My first thought was to replace the white with a bare stainless, because, well, some people have stainless appliances. But then I thought, “I wonder what’s on the back of the white?”

Voila! On the opposite side of the crummy/greasy/faded white was the most purely beautiful pristine showroom-new (do they have those?) shiny black. Sweet fancy Moses. A match for our other appliances right under our noses the whole time.

I’ll admit that I’m making way too much out of this and if you’d like to excuse yourself to read something else it’s fine by me. No, go ahead, we’ll wait.

Ok. So the only problem was that the top of the door (where the vent and controls are) plus all of the trim pieces are white. I knew that I could paint all of the parts, but the trick was going to be the panel with the control buttons. The way it was designed it would be impossible to only paint partially and I obviously couldn’t just paint the buttons.

If you’re using this as a how-to guide on how to upgrade your 15 year old dishwasher for less than five dollars (which would make you an idiot) I may lose you here, unless you also know the co-owner of a metal fabrication company. Named Doodle. Doodle, methinks, could make me a piece of brushed aluminum to cover up that panel and still leave the buttons in a usable way. And he did.

So, as you can see, a vast improvement. And a fairly significant visual difference in our humble remodel. I know one day black will be the new avocado (if it isn’t already) but it looks pretty sweet for now. My favorite part about it is that Britta has been home for 8 hours now, including preparing a meal and at least four personal openings of said dishwasher that I’ve observed and has yet to notice the change.

My work is that good. It looks so natural that the eye assumes it always looked that way.

Peace,
K

Two ways to ride a motorcycle.

Mon, 1 Mar 2010 17:36:35 -0500

No, I wasn’t taking pictures of my speedometer while riding; no, I wasn’t going that fast on a motorcycle. This is a picture of the speedometer from my father-in-law’s borrowed Honda (Again, no, not going that fast. Can I finish?), which is suffering from a soon to expire speedometer cable. The result of its pre-expiratory state is that your speed either registers at zero or at times appears to wind out of control, especially exciting if you’re headed into a sharp curve and happen to glance down. “Hmm, 110. Probably ought to begin alternating brake and gas a little. Probably going to need to brush up on counter-steering. Now.”

Anyway. It was the only picture I had on hand that indicated moto-anything. I’ve been using with great satisfaction this Lent the devotion provided by the Youthworker Movement. [pause, open new tab, www.youthworkermovement.org, join.] Because I am lousy at consistency, I’m doing it in blocks of two and three days at a time. This morning I was playing catch-up again and the question concluding the devotion from February 25 gave me pause: “How do you listen for God’s response in your prayer time?”

My mind instantly replied, “Like I’m riding a motorcycle.” There are two ways to ride a motorcycle. You can ride for pure pleasure, slowly, stopping at every new view, with leisure. Or you can ride for a purpose, as a conveyance, a means of transportation. In either case, extreme vigilance is required. 100% safety on your part has no bearing on the idiot on a cell phone running the stop sign or on the deer down the country road that is unfamiliar with right-of-way laws. So when you ride, you’re always watching. 14 glances at every car in an approaching intersection. If you intend to return over the same roads, you watch for potential obstructions in the other lane as well.

I almost never ride for pure pleasure, apart from the pleasure that the ride itself provides. I’m a year-round rider, which means I pretty well ride in cold, rain, whatever. I came out of a store one time headed back to my bike and had a Korean War POW stop me to tell me how hardcore he thought I was for riding in the rain that was coming down (that was pretty cool). If there’s a way to combine beauty with purpose, I’m all for it; one of my favorite rides was from a youthworker training retreat in Dahlonega over to a vacation outside of Gatlinburg. I hit the Smoky Mountain National Park as the sun began to set; absolutely a moving experience. But I did not stop.

The devotion referenced 1 Kings 19, where Elijah waits in a cave for the Lord to pass by. After a lot of racket, God appears in silence. I realized that I’ve taught myself to watch for God the way I watch for beauty or danger on a motorcycle; in passing. As I move, I recognize conditions that are likely to reveal God. I appreciate them, but I do not stop. If I know I’m likely to repeat a spiritual exercise, I may be extra-vigilant so that I’m prepared to see God when I pass that way again.

My prayer following this devotion was that I relearn the value of sitting and waiting for God. The truth is I’ve fallen out of the habit of listening; I’m a watcher. I glean. I’m guilty of not conversing. I’m ready to change.

Peace,
K

Paging Dr. Penner...

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 23:25:36 -0500

Sometimes when I come home from work (or sometimes when I just want to lay down) Dr. Penner will come and give me a checkup. Though today he was very insistent on “Dr. Penner Thomas.” The checkup usually consists of listening for my heart in my stomach, then a quick peek at both ears. Next the armpit either gets a shot or has its temperature taken, then quickly the knee receives the opposite treatment.

If it happens that it’s Dr. Penner’s day off, or is acting as assistant, I find Dr. Grey’s checkup to be roughly similar in diagnostic elements, though he often adds a very thorough check for splinters in my feet and hair--I was pleased to find this covered by insurance.

Today’s checkup concluded with being awarded a sticker, presumably for being so brave. I was told by Dr. Grey (assistant to Dr. Penner today) that I could have any sticker I wanted, but upon choosing the largest Lightning McQueen on the sheet, I was informed that, “You can’t have the Lightning McQueen, because some of the other patients will want it, so... we have to save it for them. But you can have this other one, which is actually really cool.” Which is a bunch of crap. Everybody knows that the car on that sticker was barely in the movie. I don’t care if it’s got shark fins on the back, I know when I’ve been taken for a ride.

We’re almost done in the studio; tiny new baby interruption almost complete. Mom and child happy and healthy. Not my baby, if you’re new here.

Everybody go check out “You and Yourn,” a band I’ve just happened upon. They’re from Illinois, and they’re so nice.

Peace, K

I know, where did I go?

Mon, 1 Feb 2010 21:57:58 -0500

Got all misty-eyed half a month ago about a 30 year old truck then drifted off into nothingness. Can’t a boy be busy for a minute?

We’re back in the studio, taking too long to track songs as simple as what we’re writing these days. But we’re very excited about them, because there’s nice things at the end of 1, 3, and 5 and the bridge of 2 is quite enjoyable and number 4 is a stomper. We’ve branched out from one-word song titles. This batch of songs came about more naturally, which if not always good is at least always true. In short, they’re better.

Apart from that, life has just been busy. I’ve been on one retreat and canceled another. My eldest turned 5. Parts of my truck have rattled back to life quite nicely while others have just begun to rattle. A good friend is due a child while another good friend has lost a father. Life.

I’ll be around more. Promise.

K

Old-timey trucks and the way it all used to be.

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 15:35:31 -0500

I’ve just purchased a new truck. New to me. It’s a 1977 Ford F-150 Custom. It’s not going to win any trophies, but it’s in good shape for a older truck. It’s got a new motor and a rebuilt transmission and carburetor, the tires are good and the wheels are shiny and it’s got good aftermarket touches with sliding rear glass, a CD player, and a Tanneau bed cover with a toolbox under it.

I’ve really taken to a new way of buying cars with my last few vehicles. My last three cars have meant a lot to their previous owners. I had a ’94 Astro van that was actually given to me by a family in our last church. It was very tired and eventually life was too much for it. Through separate circumstances I became good friends during that time with the oldest daughter in that family and she told me one day, “It really weirds me out a little to see you driving around in the vehicle from every family trip memory of my life.”

After the van died, it happened that our across-the-street neighbor in Cartersville officially retired from driving and was selling her beloved 1984 Buick LeSabre Limited, the nicest car Buick made in 1984. She had purchased the car new. It was 2006, but the car had only seen 62,000 miles--I would wager none above 45 mph. We had become friends with these neighbors and with fortuitous timing I was able to buy the car. The day we came over to pay for it, we sat with Jack and Betty in their living room and they told us that they’d just learned that Jack had an aneurism on his brain and they weren’t sure if surgery was going to be possible. After that conversation talk eventually returned to the car. She said she felt as though she was selling us a family member. When she signed the bill of sale, it was with tears running down her cheeks. I kidded Jack about her tears for the car while she’d not batted an eye about his aneurism and he said, “I know where I stand.”

Jack did die this year, the day before his birthday. We called Betty to check in and I offered to sell her car back to her. “Nah, I wouldn’t have it,” she said. “It’s used.”

My new truck has the same feel. It took a few visits to make the purchase and each conversation made me feel that we weren’t discussing a car but a family member. This was “daddy’s truck” for sure. I could tell early on that dad had passed, but they way they spoke of him I honestly thought it had been more recently than the nearly ten years ago it turned out to be. Daddy had refused to sell it while Mom was still alive, then she outlived him. I think while Mom was still with them keeping the truck kept Dad alive in a way. Mom passed last year and with some sadness I think the truck was becoming a truck again and letting it sit there was a worse memorial than letting it go completely. He never said it, but I got the sense that he was handing me the keys to the living memory of his father.

I’m relating all of this to lament the passing of something wonderful--the idea that what you have is worth keeping. That maintenance and careful ownership can be more rewarding than having something new. That not everything need be disposable. If everything is replaceable, then why bother with good stewardship? Or social justice? Or faithfulness? Our culture is quickly being driven to EXPECT things to break, wear out, or be outmoded. Your $200 cell phone won’t last two years. You can’t work on your computerized car yourself, but it doesn’t matter because you’ll just trade that car payment in for a different car payment in few years. Why would we expect any more than 49% of first marriages to succeed? We’ve been taught to replace rather than repair.

I’m more and more driven to seek out the things that can be made to last and to pass that way of thinking along to my own children. I want my kids to one day stand with their hand on the hood of daddy’s truck, rolling through memories of learning how to change the oil and the importance of the star pattern when changing a tire. I want them to not want to let go because they’re not sure if the goon that’s come to buy daddy’s truck gets how much life has flowed through the way their family has taken care of it.

Because if they can understand that, there’s a chance they’ll grab onto an understanding of a steadfast and loving God that cannot be replaced.

The video below is Craig Ferguson expressing a sort of similar sentiment in a much funnier way.

Peace,
K

Adventagious, take 2

Mon, 7 Dec 2009 16:13:01 -0500

I meant for “adventagious” to be a clever play on Advent. But I got distracted with a concert recap and wasted a poor pun.

When I was a kid, I loved Advent because I knew the math. I knew that from when they lit that first candle on the Advent wreath, it was only that many more candles until Christmas. As an adult, I’ve come to love Advent because it helps me to prepare my heart for the coming of Christ. And it keeps me from hating Christmas altogether.

Christmas is a lose/lose. If you already hate the commercial nature of every single aspect our culture (like me), then you likely sigh a bit when the first wind of Christmas blows in. One giant crank on the marketing wheel and we’re off to the races. What do you want for Christmas? What about the kids? What do you mean you’re not doing Santa? Aren’t you worried that they’ll “ruin” Christmas for everyone else’s kids? No. kinda hoping actually. Nothing ruins Christmas like a little truth. Britta mentioned a few years back that it would probably be easier to just tell people that we’d become Jewish.

I’ve realized recently that a big part of my frustration is knowing that “the true meaning of Christmas” isn’t really Jesus anyway. Technically, Santa wins this one. The True Meaning of Christmas holds Christmas Day as Jesus’ birthday, which it isn’t. I mean it might be, be we don’t know that. If this is news to you, we can pause for reflection. You might also want to know that Jesus wasn’t born at Zero and didn’t invent the Julian calendar. Scholars best guess Jesus to have been born between 4-6 (6-4?) BCE, clearly with an unknown dd/mm.

It wasn’t until many years after Christ when Constantine made Christianity the state religion that we got Christmas. Constantine was smart enough to know that killing a good party would be poorly received, so the existing annual debauch on December 25 was repurposed for Jesus’ birthday. So really, it was never about Jesus. It was always about the party.

So, if everyone’s up for it, I’m all for celebrating Jesus birth and moving on with it this year. I’d be perfectly happy to observe the coming of our Lord. It’s all the Christmas I need.

Peace,
K

Adventagious.

Mon, 7 Dec 2009 16:02:59 -0500

No, that’s not us. How would I take a picture of myself from a balcony? That’s Son Volt. If you know about Son Volt, you’re all, “man I love those guys!” and if you don’t, you won’t care who they are or about their place in music and how they are the other half of the musical divorce that also gave us Wilco. As you might imagine (if you were in the former), the show was great. Really, heartwarmingly great.

Unless you were one of the four people directly in front of Jay Farrar, then you were hammered drunk the whole time and wasted your money on your ticket. There’s no way you remember this show. In fact, I might wager you still believe you’re going to get to go to it. From where we sat we watched you the whole show, wondering why on earth you’d bothered to come. In an odd twist, I later discovered that one of you is a school teacher. Nice.

Anyway. Check out their new album; they’ve returned to the musical values of “Trace.” It’s great.

I was going to go on for a minute about Christmas, but I didn’t count on prattling on about the tipsies from Son Volt. I’ll try again in a minute.

Peace,
K

Sleepy-times stories.

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 08:11:45 -0500

I have said before that I often have very detailed dreams. Last night this was the case.

I was with a friend who remained unseen for the duration of the dream. We were “downtown,” though I’m uncertain of the city. At some point in the dream I realized that Second Ave, a cross street to the one we were on, had once been Hoagie Ave, apparently in honor of a hoagie diner some three blocks away. I’ve dreamed about the diner a couple of times before, but always in a similar side-story, passing fashion.

So my friend and I were walking past the old theater in town. Through the glass front wall of the lobby, there was man with a gun. Crouched policemen were yelling at him, so we hurried by. Just as we got past the theater there was a commotion and voices escalated, so we ducked into the corner shop.

As it turned out, the shop was owned by friends, Tina and Eric Pinkston. The store was called “TreeHouse” and served as a base for Pathways, their guiding company. It was really cool in there. Think thrift store meets Rock Creek Outfitters meets local artist collective. They had worked out an agreement with Converse for the clothing, but like nothing you’ve ever seen. There was the usual array of Chuck Taylors, but all of the clothing was labeled Converse as well. I’m aware that they sell Converse clothing at Target; finish reading before you get all judgmental. What they had worked out with Converse was that Converse would provide the basic design of each garment, then local artists in the community made the clothing using their own materials and creativity within the original design.

A royalty was paid to Converse and the rest of the money went to TreeHouse and the creating artist. The model worked pretty well; the Converse name had good curb appeal and gave the clothing lines consistency while the local artists’ work gave each item one-of-a-kind credibility. In addition to the “regular” clothing there was a full line of outdoor gear made in the same fashion. It was surprisingly high quality; it reminded me of North Face gear before they sold out and started making clothing for teens surviving brisk fall walks across suburban mall parking lots.

Next to the dressing rooms there where a few “picks” shelves, where Tina and Eric had each set up a collection of favorites on a shelf with their name on it. Tina asked me if I’d set up a shelf with my picks on it. I agreed, but spent the balance of my time in the shop trying on four hats in a mirror, trying to decide which one I wanted to buy and which I wanted to “pick” for the shelf that now had my name on it. Several times I thought, “I should just pick one to leave and buy the other three,” but even asleep I realized that this was impractical. At some point between hats I realized that I was dreaming, so I woke up abruptly to end the nonsensical hat-swapping.

Except that I was still asleep. I had done one of my favorite dream moves--I dreamt that I woke up. So immediately I went to find Tina and Eric. I could only find Tina and relayed all that I had dreamed. As I talked she began to get all misty-eyed, because (of course) the shop had always been a private wish within their larger vision for Pathways. As our conversation progressed, I suggested, “Well, why don’t we go look at it?” So the three of us (Eric had appeared) walked downtown to the shop. It was closed, because Tina and Eric were with me. As we walked up to the back steps, I saw that they were thematically decorated in the way that Tina might decorate steps. The focal point of her design was two old-school foot scooters, pushed handlebar to handlebar, clearly representing Tina and Eric. Awww. As we got closer, you could see that there were even masking tape name tags on the base of each scooter. Awww. But as I stepped over the scooters I looked down and realized that both scooters were labeled, “Eric.” Hmm.

To get into the store, you had to go through outer doors into a small space then a second set of doors into the store. Within the small space there was a security keypad to disarm the store alarm. I left Eric to turn off the alarm and went back outside to get something. I returned to find him standing staring at the keypad, alarm loudly sounding. He looked at me and said, “I don’t know the code. I didn’t even know I owned the store until a few minutes ago.”

And then I woke up.

Peace,
K

Offseason

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:17:20 -0500

They say that your children usually end up being a perfect blend of the parents, sometimes more like one or the other, but plenty of each of you in each child. And it’s so true; just look at them. “Asleep and awake” nearly perfectly sums me up.

November and December always feel like the offseason to me in youth ministry. The school year is rolling along just fine, I’ve made it through fall retreat, the holidays are about to start stealing program nights--I just breathe easier during these months. Add to that a recently completed writing deadline and I may as well be on vacation for the peace of mind that I’m living in. “In which I’m living,” if you prefer to not conclude your thought with a pronoun.

It’s always a reflective time for me. It’s only our second fall as Purrington; we’ve been enjoying some writing practices and are looking forward to playing out a bit again. Personally I’m reinvesting my energy in a deeper knowledge of Wesleyan thought and I think it’s going to feed this next batch of songs. Or at least I hope so.

Peace to you all and Happy Thanksgiving,

K

Beautiful forgotten places.

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:27:00 -0500

I’ve been meaning to walk through the train station in Chattanooga for a long time. It’s free to walk through. I’ve got a friend that lives across the street, so I wouldn’t have to pay to park. There’s a free electric shuttle that runs between in and the aquarium across town where we’re members. A hundred reasons to go to that place, but it wasn’t until this past Saturday, Britta’s birthday, that we actually went.

Mostly we went so that the boys could ride on a bus, because boys love buses. Our plan had been to park by the aquarium and take the shuttle to the Choo-Choo (as the station has been forever memorialized in song). But there was a regatta at the river, which had everything within two blocks of the aquarium completely jammed up and expensive. So we parked at the Choo-Choo and took the shuttle, round-trip, to the Choo-Choo. I was struck as usual by the beauty-beyond-reasonable expense of old architecture. The station is beautiful inside and a sort of stately outside. There are gardens in the train yard with converted railcars where you can dine expensively or sleep more expensively. Old architecture continues to say to me, “Someone designed this.”

I’m continuing to wrestle with what worship is meant to be and should look like. For an act that is meant to have an interaction between God and an individual at its heart, there seems to be an awful lot of presentation, statistical analysis, and end-user demographic concern going into it. What songs are popular? We’ll do those. We only engaged four of the seven learning methods in that last session, we need to step it up next time. We’re counter-cultural, regressive-liturgical alternative here; so screw all of that, we’re doing hymns. Worship is the product and the gathered, intended to be the performers for the audience of the divine, have become the consumers.

At the end of the day, it has a “give a man a fish” feel to it. Give a man a fish, he eats for a day; teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for the rest of his life. Does our worship teach people how to worship or does it just skillfully and calculatedly “make” them worship? I think worship can unintentionally become a beautiful, forgotten place. It’s right there; there are a hundred reasons to go to it.

Peace,
K