Gezelligheid

Both of the houses I grew up in had wood stoves. These are not to be mistaken for fireplaces, which are largely ornamental and which let most of the heat go right out the chimney. Wood stoves, on the other hand, are little wood-burning furnaces that feature prominently in the living room of the house. Once the fire is built, you decide how long it burns by measuring the air that goes into it. So our primary source of heat over the winter was this wood stove. It was also our primary source of gezelligheid.

I don't pretend to have anything but an intuitive sense of what the Dutch adjective gezellig, or the related noun gezelligheid, actually mean. I don't speak Dutch, and don't really know any Dutch people, except one second cousin and my now deceased maternal grandparents. All I know is that the fire made our house cozy, and warmed fingers plagued by poor circulation. Add a family, hot cocoa, some roasting pumpkin seeds, a fresh cut Christmas tree, a box of ornaments dating from the 70's to two days ago, and a schlocky Amy Grant album, and there you have it: gezelligheid. (now for mentioning The Season out of it's given time, I realize that I am now due for a shotgun execution from Santa Claus himself. Bring it, Saint Nick. Bring it.)

I strongly associate gezelligheid with the cold months, and I have racked up a total of 4.5 cold months over the 6.5 years I've been married, having lived in California and Florida for most of that period. Now that's not to say that you can't have a gezellig experience when it's sunny out; it's just hard to cultivate a particular sense of belonging when, within reason, you can belong anywhere in the great sunny outdoors (not a term typically used of the Los Angeles metroplex, but I have a habit of using denotative meanings sometimes, in this case, the outdoors being whatever is not the inside of your dwelling.) In other words, I want a cold snap, a rainstorm, or a dreary night to drive me indoors. I want to feel safe and warm under my blanket, with Virgie, some S'mores Pop-Tarts®, and a Godzilla movie on VHS, while the world rages outside with a barrage of pointy icicles and an icy glassfull of cholera to blow in my direction.

Not tonight, world!

post 2*31

Today I performed in a puppet show. The police officer on my left hand was Balthazar, and the construction worker on my right was Melchior. Virgie played Caspar, an anonymous Bethlehemite, a rich woman, a sheep, and Mary the Mother of God/Eternal Queen of Heaven. What a woman.

I wonder if we could help fill the pews by doing one of these every week. Damn, they're a lot of work, though. I wouldn't do it unless they agreed to pay us a percentage of the increase over the average offering for that time of year. Hmmm... I guess there's no way to ensure that Virge and I are really the ones to credit.

While we're on the subject of things, here's a recipe for sauerkraut with bananas: http://www.theonion.com/articles/shitty-graffiti-artist-captures-19yearold-girls-he,26859/. No, dammit! That's an Onion article. Here's the recipe: http://www.worldcook.net/Cooking/MainCourse/MC-FrysianSauerkraut.htm Altogether now...Yuck. Thank God the Frieslanders (my ancestors) are known for their horses and practically nothing else.

Well, time to clean up after Twelfth Night and get ready for my week in San Diego. Goodbye.

Post 61

Sixty-one is the 18th prime number--a twin prime with 59. My brother-in-law intends to teach his children to count to 1024 in binary on their fingers. I intend to waste my children's time by teaching them to count in prime factorizations: one, two, three, two squared, five, two times three, seven, two cubed, three squared, two times five (I love this!), eleven, two squared times three, thirteen, two times seven, three times five, two to the fourth, seventeen, two times three squared, nineteen, two squared times five (I just now decided to stop at thirty), three times seven, two times eleven, twenty three, two cubed times three, five squared, two times thirteen, three cubed, two squared times seven, twenty nine, two times three times five. Alright, that was fabulous. I just realized that thirty is the first number with three distinct prime factors. A good place to end. You see, this torture will give my children an intuition for the Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic, and an appreciation of the primes, which obviously are less work than the composites. Anyway, we'll wait to see if this actually happens.

I wanted to tell a joke about how this all relates to my retirement planning, since my genius child is certain to solve some long-outstanding problem regarding primes, one with at least a million-dollar prize for its solution. I think funding my 403(b) may be a better idea.

Another blog pose

Inkeeping with my new tradition of retaining typos in blog post titles, the title of this post says "pose" instead of "post." I will leave it to you to interpret that Freudian slip of the fingers.

Blogger won't let me post here from the library. I can save things fine, but it won't do anything when I click "publish post." Computers are the devil anyway.

Looking down at my shitty wallet I'm reminded of all the people who have told me to replace it. I'll take it out to pay for something in my standard business casual work clothes and they say "man, you need a new wallet." I won't believe them until one of my cards actually falls out of the huge hole in the side of it. This duct-tape constructed wallet was given to me by my father-in-law for Christmas... um, 2006 I think. Younger folks think it's cool, and it serves its purpose. It's staying.

Perhaps someday I'll be able to post this boring-ass entry. Not today.

This clog still exists

I just wanted to make it clear that I sometimes intend to post to this blog, so it "is still a going concern" as John Cleese did not say of the parrot. I have made a halfhearted commitment to post every time I visit the Fuller Library, so maybe I'll stick to that.

I mistyped the word "blog" as "clog" in the title. I like that word "clog" so much that I kept the title as-is even though it doesn't make sense. Make no mistake, folks: I want wooden shoes. Comfy ones with something soft inside, but still very traditional-looking. I want to do lots of damage if I'm ever called upon to kick somebody with them. Oh, and they need to have wings so I can fly.

Christmas is bearing down on us like a shotgun full of cheer. Goddamn motherfucking son of a holiday. I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate Christmas. You have to go to stores and spend money on people and talk to people and travel and smile and stuff. Horrible. Anyway, here's my eggnog recipe:

Separate two eggs. Mix about 1/3 cup cream, 2 tbsp sugar, a drop of vanilla, and some fresh-ground nutmeg (that's what the funny teeth on the cheese grater are for) and your booze (I use rum, Bourbon is popular) with the yolks. Whisk until smooth. Beat the whites to the desired stiffness. You have a decision to make: the stiffer you make them the less viscous the drink will be (good) but the less they will want to mix with the yolk mixture (bad.) This, at least, is my experience. Now you have to mix it all together. I prefer to add some of the yolk mixture to the whites, whisk until combined, then add gradually larger amounts. Other recipes suggest that you fold the whites into the yolks, but I think my way is a better way for avoiding clumps. I haven't figured out how to make the mixture truly uniform: the top of the glass is usually airier. So I recommend serving it with a stirring spoon. The result should be something that tastes "light," in a sense. When you realize 35 minutes later how much protein, fat, sugar and liquor you've consumed, you can sleep Yuletide away.

Worried

I snuck into the Fuller library again. They don't want me here since I'm a spouse and for some reason they seem to expect seminary couples to have the money for in-house internet. We don't, so here I am. I keep thinking one of the library staff is going to see me on Facebook and ask, "Are you a student here?"
"No, I'm the husband of a student. We do actually exist."
"The library is actually only for Fuller students and members of the theological community, from which spouses are excluded. Don't you guys know that it's *men* who are called to professional ministry?"
"I do know that--that's why I helped put on a puppet show for the kids at church a couple months ago."
"For the kids...you pussy. That's woman's work. What do you do for a living, macho man?"
"I'm a credit counselor."
"Sheesh. You ever break a sweat doing that?"
"Sometimes"
"If you're gonna let the misses wear the theological pants in the relationship, the least you could do is have a respectable career and make more money than her."
"Right now I do."
"Uh huh. And how much more?"
"$12 an hour more, except when she's TAing. She's full time, at least until she finishes in the Spring. And I'm wearing boxers, by the way."
"Why are your nails so long?"
"Huh? Oh. Before I answer that, I'll confuse you further. Look at the other hand"
"Fine then--why so long on the right and so short on the left? Is this some kind of fag fetish? Where did you *get* that ring, anyway? I suppose you've only been emasculated on the one side, is that it? That must be how you defend the puppetee--"
"I play guitar. I play country blues and ragtime."
"Maybe you have a Y chromosome after all. Legitimate seminary purposes only, sir. Please leave."