How much do you think my head weighs? February 4, 2011

 

As all my smarty-pants readers know, next Tuesday, February 8, is the day of reckoning. The day I will step on the scale and calculate just how productively I’ve been spending my time and talents.

What? No, not that. As if I would share my weight-loss efforts with you guys. No offense, but mind your own beeswax. I’m allowed to say that because I am a character in a Judy Blume young adult novel.

That right there — my widespread knowledge of “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret,” “Superfudge” and “Blubber” — is something I hope will help me on Tuesday when I log on to the Jeopardy website and take the online test to be considered for an audition to be a contestant on the only game show that matters.

For whatever reason, the rules are fairly convoluted. I can only take the online test on this day, and my results are not revealed to me. Then I wait. If I pass, then my name goes onto the pile with other smarties. If I get the call to go to an audition city, awesome. Either way, I wait for 18 months before I can take the test again.

I don’t want to wait 18 months, people. So obviously I’ve got some work to do. Not on potential subject matter; when it comes to Jeopardy! subjects, it’s like a standardized test. You either know it or you don’t. You win by strategy. You pick your categories and you crush your opponents by ringing in the fastest. In my case, that would be categories related to music, pop culture, television, movies, religion, podcasts (as if), literature, media, pregnancy and cooking.The secondary strategy is also important: If it’s not your best category but you know bits here and there, you read the end of the clue while Alex is reading the beginning of the clue, go with your gut, and ring in. For me this would include politics, U.S. presidents, world leaders, chemistry and those crazy word puzzle categories. If you flat-out stink on certain subjects, just sit quietly unless the answer jumps out at you, such as in opera, physics and math.

So, what I’m really working on are my stories. If I excel on the online test, and the stars align, and I do get called to an audition, then I’d better have my Calvinette charm, poise and confidence ready to go, and I’d better have some good stories. I expect that at the audition, they’re also testing a person’s on-screen presence and potentiality for a witty exchange with Alex. Actually, it doesn’t have to be the greatest story in the world, evidently. This week, one contestant told a “story” about how when she received her college diploma in the mail, she could not immediately figure out how to open it. I … um … that is … so interesting … of course you would pick … that story … to start your first game …

Based on the riveting diploma story, I think I’ve got at least a decent foundation to start with. I figure I’ll need to have at least three good ones in the bank. (Makes me wonder what Diploma Lady’s back-up stories were about … the time she went went shopping and found a good sale on canned peas … AND ALSO REALIZED SHE HAD A COUPON?! Or the time  she fell and hit her head and forgot about everything interesting that ever happened to her?)

Not that I’m terribly interesting, but I have to at least believe I am interesting to get noticed at an audition, right? So my first stab at it will be to go right for the Gross-Out: The time I got Canyon Toe from wearing the wrong socks while hiking the Grand Canyon, and lost five of my toenails. Story No. 2 (the Suck-Up): The first time I felt Little Dude kick inside the womb was while watching Jeopardy. Story No. 3: (the Mishap) The time I started a kitchen fire while trying to make tortilla chips. If I need additional stories, like, in case I win more than two games in a row (you may stop laughing … now), I’ve got some more backups, including the tale of how I acquired my dimple by crashing into a barstool (I was 3, and no, not drunk); and finally, an explanation of what I plan to do with all my winnings, which is to give ten percent to our church’s deficient budget and then use the rest to help pay off the mortgage on our house in Texas, and then, if possible, donate the house and the land to someone deserving.

The other thing I’m working on is my husband. He’s supposed to be building me a little buzzer to help me practice my thumb speed, but he’s as yet to get started on that. In the meantime, I suppose I’ll just have to poke him in the shoulder with my speedy little thumb every time I have an answer for anything.

“Jenn, where’s the big scissors?” Poke. “Where you left it.”

“Have you seen my iPod?” Poke. “Yes, it’s very pretty.”

“Jenn, where are the baby’s socks.” Poke. “Top drawer.” Poke-poke-poke. “That’s for the next three times you ask me.”

Answer: “The number of thumb pokes it will take before the Husband makes me a practice buzzer.” Question. “What is 17, or until I decide to raid the toolbox and make one myself.”

Wish me luck!

Resolutions for you January 3, 2011

Moo-Moo Bossy Cow is here to tell you how to live your life. She doesn’t emerge too often, but she’s been watching this blog from the sidelines for some time now, and she is currently pushing me out of my Ikea office chair to put in her two cents. She says she can’t take it anymore. And so, I give you, Moo-Moo Bossy Cow. Let’s hope the Ikea chair made for skinny Swedes can withstand her bovine butt:

1. You people who don’t watch TV? Nobody cares. If you’ve never heard of Dexter or The Bachelor or The Office or even Sesame Street, we’d all like you to shut up about it. In 2011, you should resolve to just keep quiet when the Losties are pining for more Shirtless Sawyer, because nobody is interested in steering the conversation around to your not having/watching television.

2. By the same token, you people watching every permutation of Law & Order, CSI and NCIS? You are screwing up the ratings system. Also, those of you watching Two and a Half Men? Stop it. Stop it right now. It’s because of you that delightful people like Julia Louis-Dreyfuss get their shows cancelled and untalented abusers get rewarded with the biggest paychecks in sitcom history. Resolve to have better taste.

3. Resolve to scoop the cat litter. Every day. You know who you are.

4. Congratulations on buying a new shower curtain. Now, please resolve to leave the shower curtain closed after showering. By opening it, you are trapping moisture inside the folds of the vinyl curtain, and that is what is causing the mold and mildew to build up.

5. RSVP. RSVP. RSVP. Say it with me, people. R-S-V-P. You can do it. You were all raised better than that. I know this is true because I know all of your mothers.

6. Resolve to not damage the psyche of kids. A card that reads “I didn’t know what to buy you for Christmas because I don’t know what your interests are,” is NOT GOOD ENOUGH for a 13-year-old boy. You know who you are. Shame, blisters, and mysterious itching be upon you until you get your head out from betwixt your buttcheeks and figure your shit out.

7. Resolve to make your life suck less by not cutting off your loved ones just because they don’t live up to your exacting yet unspecified standards.

8. Resolve to laugh at your own religion once in a while. It will make you a nicer person to be around. And make you less likely to be, you know, a terrorist. That goes for Christians, too.

9. Not to get too New Age-y, but with everything you choose this year, ask yourself how it makes your life better. Ask, “Does this purchase/chocolate bar/third glass of wine/bit of gossip/nail color/phone call/blog post/tweet/Facebook status update help me reach my goals or help someone else reach their goals in life?”

10. Resolve to edit. Nobody wants to know exactly what your adorable kid is doing every second of every day. Well, that’s not true. Somebody does want to know, but those are the people who really should NOT know. If you know what I mean.

Back to you, Too Many.

– OK, thanks for that. I think. If I had known you were going to take dead aim like that I might not have invited you to guest blog, Moo-Moo. Then again, cows cannot be counted on for subtlety.

Americans don’t know jack about religion … unless they knew ‘Mr. B’ September 28, 2010

Sitting in Mr. B’s religion class for the first time, we all knew what was coming. We’d all heard the rumors. The man had been teaching at my parochial high school for decades, and every tenth grade class that had ever cycled through Illiana Christian had experienced the classic Mr. B moment. It was going to happen sooner or later, we just didn’t know exactly when.

Then one day, the moment came. Mr. B demonstrated the power of Jesus’ righteous anger at the temple’s crooked money-changers by hurling a desk across the front of the room, yanking off his belt to wield as a whip, and spewing insults at the pretend crooks. Impressive? Yes. Burned into my brain for all time? Certainly.

The remainder of my high school career spent in Mr. B’s religion classes bore out his eccentric teaching style, including a recitation of the book of James in full biblical costume. Another time, during a discussion of pre-marital sex, he opined, “Once you’re married, there’s nothing like a good roll in the hay.” Most of my classmates were horrified and disturbed to think of anyone over the age of 30 having sex, but I was highly amused and delighted to have such a straight-talking teacher at an evangelical school.

However, I quickly discovered he was much more than theatrics and sound bytes. He was a broad thinker. Junior year, we learned the tenants of most of the world’s major religions, including our own form of Calvinist-based Protestantism. Since Kindergarten, we’d all had the story of Martin Luther hammered into our brains like so many copies of the 95 thesis on the church door, and we all had sort-of memorized most of the questions and answers of our Heidelberg Catechism. Mr. B strayed from the textbooks, however, and made us ask ourselves real questions about why we believed what we believed. More than anything, he made me realize that to be a true believer meant to treat with respect all people, whether religious or human secularists. How else can society function unless we rational Christians seek out common ground with atheists? Doesn’t it make sense for Christians and secular humanists to work together to care for the environment, because despite our motivations, we all want what’s best?

I am thinking of Mr. B today because the Associated Press just published an article on the results of a Pew Research study that shows most Americans don’t know much about the world’s major religions, including their own. Half of us Protestants don’t know who Martin Luther is. I’m sad, but not surprised by this. Even worse, most Americans can’t tell you what belief system the Dalai Lama belongs to, or who worships the god Shiva. I am hopeful that most of my fellow graduates of Illiana Christian can successfully answer questions like this. They can if they were paying even marginal attention in Mr. B’s classes.

Still, another part of me says, so what? So what if your average Protestant doesn’t know that Luther inspired the Protestant Reformation? So what if the average Catholic does not realize his church teaches that the communion bread and wine literally, miraculously become the body and blood of Christ? What really matters is that believers are good people and know how to do justice and love kindness and to be humble, as we girls were taught in Calvinettes.

But really it does matter. Education is important in becoming a person of substance, whether that means a college education, or just educating yourself about the needs and experiences of others in the world. Mr. B might not have realized it, and I regret that I never got to tell him this before he died a few years ago, but he played a huge part in helping me recognize injustice and harnessing my own righteous anger. No, it wasn’t because of the money changers demonstration. Perhaps the most influential single act I witnessed in high school had nothing — and also everything — to do with religion class. Senior year, my class with Mr. B was all girls, and so Mr. B engaged us in many discussions that, let’s face it, most high school boys were not mature enough to handle. One day we told him, offhandedly in the middle of a discussion about womanly issues, that none of the doors in the girls’ bathroom had working latches. Mr. B was stunned by this news. Then he got the look. That look of righteous anger … and he was out the door. We girls all looked at each other and wondered where on earth Mr. B had gone to. Someone popped out of her seat and peaked outside. “He’s in the office,” she said. When Mr. B came back a few minutes later, he still looked indignant. “Ladies,” he said, “Your restroom will have functional doors by today’s end.”

Mr. B showed us he was not just respectful to others because of a white liberal male guilt thing. He walked the path of true righteousness, in speaking up for people who had no power. You don’t always have to throw a desk to make an impression.

The pregnancy excuse January 7, 2010

One of the oldest, most weary, running jokes in my family is just barely more than a one-liner. “I didn’t see you at church on Sunday. What’s wrong? Got swollen feet?”

The story goes back to when my mom was pregnant with me, way back during the Nixon administration. Somewhere in her third trimester, Mom woke up one late winter/early spring Sunday morning to discover her church shoes didn’t fit. Her feet were too swollen to fit into them. So she stayed home from church. What’s a 22-year-old girl to do, after all? Wear galoshes with her polyester maternity mini-dress? I think not.

So dad went off to church by himself, and Mom gratefully peeled off the pantyhose, chucked off the ugly maternity dress, unpinned the beehive hairpiece thingy, and got back into her jammies. Probably made some tea and put her feet up. Enjoyed a little peace and quiet without my well-meaning fuss-budget Dad harping on and on about pregnancy weight gain. Relished a few hours away from church people advising her on everything from baby names to breastfeeding. Blocked out the echoes of her gruff and crotchety obstetrician, accusing her of sneaking sweets. I picture her just having Me Time, before they called it Me Time.

These days, it’s not such a big deal. If preggo lady wants to stay home, she stays home. She doesn’t need an excuse. She’s got a portable, basketball-sized excuse with her at all times. Heck, with the way my own hormones are raging, nobody would say boo if I decided to angrily march out in the middle of a sermon. Which I wouldn’t do. Episcopalian sermons don’t give much cause for walking out in protest.

But in the days I was safely tucked away in the womb, already dutifully learning the Heidelberg catechism as part of my Dutch Calvinist heritage, it was a big deal to miss church. You just didn’t skip. You had to be actively engaged in technicolor bouts of vomiting, or in the hospital having your guts surgically prodded, for people not to judge you for missing our Sunday morning obligation.

So when my mom missed church because her shoes didn’t fit … oh dear. By the reaction of her brothers and sisters, you would have thought Mom had given an excuse equivalent to “the dog ate my homework.” I could almost hear all those adults’ sarcastic snorts from inside the uterus. I know this because, as a young child, the swollen feet joke was one of the first references I understood as having to do with expecting a baby. In fact, I’m pretty sure it was the idea of swollen feet that made me start asking about where babies came from.

Stories like this make me feel two things. I feel sorry for Mom and for a lot of other pregnant women who had babies in the 1970s or earlier. Second, I feel immensely grateful that I’m pregnant in the age of enlightenment. If I want to eat a grilled cheese sandwich with five slices, nobody’s going to judge me. If I want to sit on the sofa with my feet up and watch re-runs of The Office all night long, I’m practically encouraged to do just that. If I want to wear my new Christmas cardigan (thanks Mom) so many days in a row that it starts to sprout legs to ambulate itself into the washing machine, so be it. And finally, if I want to stay home from church and knit booties, by golly, that’s what I’m going to do. Pregnancy in 2010 is a beautiful thing — a judgment free zone. Now get out of my way, blog, I’ve got some knitting to do.

Wine for your Weekend: Gato Negro 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon September 11, 2009

It was late afternoon. The house was clean, the dog tuckered out from the sun, I’d finished all my writing for the day, and I’d clocked an entire hour on the Wii Fit. The Husband was on his way home to get ready for our date night (dinner and then the animated movie “9″), and then I looked at that bottle of Chilean red that had been patiently waiting for me to notice it. I picked it up and looked closer. A screw cap. Even better. Yes, I was indeed meant to have a glass for the first time in what seemed like months.

I’ve been holding back on these wine posts lately, for several reasons. One being a very boring explanation about how much money it’s costing me to burn through a bottle a week.

The other involves me realizing I might be indulging in too much of a good thing. There’s nothing quite like cold hard facts, in the form of worrying triglyceride numbers and a call from the doctor.

I know what you’re thinking. Red wine is supposed to be good for the heart. It is. I’m no expert, but I have a hunch that when said glass(es) of red wine shows up as superfluous calories at the end of every day, you end up with a lot of extra simple sugars, and the heart-healthy effects become sort of a wash. Or worse.

So, about a month ago, the Husband and I embarked on a new journey together. We made a pact not to eat or drink any extra calories after 7 p.m. After one week of that, we agreed to enhance our new lifestyle with lots of water. Just doing those two things alone had a staggering result on my wine intake. Dealing with the urge to micturate all day long and having to interrupt every task to run to the bathroom because of all that water drinking really makes a girl not even want to look at any liquid beverage after 7 p.m.

One thing I know for sure is I’ve been sleeping a whole lot deeper by letting my metabolism shut down from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. Another thing I know is I’m feeling better. Not that I felt noticeably bad before that post-blood-test phone call from the doc.  It’s just that now, I feel like I’m back on a vitamin regimen, even though I’m not. (Yeah, that’s another boring story about money.)

This week I got a little reminder to be kind to my body and my spirit, even while I’m in the midst of this get-healthy boot camp lifestyle. This reminder came in the form of me. Well, not exactly me. Someone who could be my long lost twin. She’s shorter than I am, and of a different nationality. But we have the same complexion, hairstyle, face shape, affinity for fitted black tee shirts and — whoa — the same body type. The difference is, she loves her little roly-poly belly. And I do not love mine. She can do amazing, wonderful, mesmerizing things with that belly, not the least of which is comfortably exposing it to a class of 50 strange women.

She is my belly dancing instructor, and she is me in a parallel universe. This is the universe where I’m not raised by Calvinists to be embarrassed and overly modest about my curves; where I don’t make apologies for my astonishing cup size; where my hips and the “junk in my trunk” are free to move on their own, separately from the rest of my body; where I do not get indoctrinated by well-meaning but overheated Southern belles on the necessity of wearing tummy-controlling garments under tee shirts in the summer; where I do not bother to ask the Husband or anybody “does this outfit look OK?” or “does this shirt cling too much on the muffin top?”; where I’ve never even heard the term “muffin top,” for that matter; where my saintly mother’s agonizing self-consciousness does not rub off on me; where I’ve told every man or woman who ever uttered an unsolicited comment on my or another woman’s weight to eff off.

This Woman, this Parallel Me, actually had me and the 50 other strangers lifting up our shirts and touching our own bellies this week. In two different places. And then, she made us pooch them out as far as they could go. This is not something we nice Calvinist women like to do. We would rather forget we have these things called bellies, and instead get our exercise by abusing our bodies with running, power-walking, cold-hard machinery at the gym, and then get back to tending the tomato plants. A good dose of guilt and repression also helps burn off calories the rest of the day. We certainly are not interested in isolating the different muscles underneath our bellies. Nor do we like to think about strengthening those muscles in order to rhythmically shake a jingly-jangly scarf. After all, that could lead to sensuality, which we all know is a gateway to a whole lot of other extremely fun things we’d only feel guilty about later.

At the end of class, Parallel Me reminded us to spend the week practicing our moves, taking in a bit more potassium to support our muscles, drink lots of water, but most importantly, to be good to ourselves. Relax. Take naps. Have a glass of wine.

So I did. A nice, fruity, medium-bodied dry red. Just one glass. To clean the pipes, and to be good to me. All before 7 p.m.

Discomforting thoughts in church August 9, 2009

It’s pretty stinking humid and downright uncomfortable all of a sudden. July sneaked in and out without so much as a sunburn, and then August came and grabbed us by the throat here in the muggy Midwest.

So muggy I actually wore a sleeveless dress to church this morning. To my church with the many tiny Episcopalian women who can carry off a sleeveless dress like it’s totally no big. These women who, unlike the majority of the strong-built Calvinist women I grew up with, never had any problem saying no to a windmill cookie. You know it’s hot when I officially stop caring how my upper arms compare to those of my church friends.

Anyhoo, so there I am. I’m shifting around in my pew and deciding it’s too hot to stay kneeling for the entire eucharistic prayer business, so I’m half-kneeling, that thing the older people do (knees on the kneeler and butt on the pew). I do like to kneel, though, as it’s surprising how focused it makes you on everything going on at the front of church. And at our church, there’s always a bunch of stuff going on up there. Bells, candles, robes, crosses, banners, people swooping in and out with the polished silver communion things. So I’m staring straight ahead, empathizing with old Saint Alban up there on the banner, in his heavy, clang-y Roman centurion uniform. Actually he’s not old at all. If the felt fabric representation is accurate, Alban is actually quite young, and handsome in a sort of Ben-Hur “third centurion on the left” sort of way. One might even go so far as to say “foxy,” if one were not afraid to think such thoughts in church whilst sitting next to one’s appropriately-kneeling husband. (And please don’t mention to Father D. the fact that I called Saint Alban “foxy” because that’s just embarrassing — you know who you are.) ANYWAY … I’m thinking, Alban looks uncomfortable in all that armor and whatnot. Lots of metal bits reflecting the sun back up in his face. Not to mention that noseguard thing. I can just imagine the sweat pouring out of that helmet. At least chain mail appears to be a breathable garment, so there’s that.

Pretty soon the communion is over and our guest priest for the day, Father H., sends us out with this startling little gem.

“May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths and superficial relationships

So that you will live deeply and from the heart.

May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression and the exploitation of people

So that you will work for justice, freedom and peace.

May God bless you with tears to shed for those who mourn

So that you will reach out your hand to them and turn their mourning into joy.

And may God Bless you with just enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world

So that you will do those things that others say cannot be done.

Amen”

Amen indeed. During the singing of “A Thousand Tongues” I lean over to the husband and whisper “Best. Blessing. EVER.”

After the service, I ask Father H. where it came from, and he mentions Saint Francis. I scoured and scoured the internet today, but it seems the people on the Internet tubes are mostly interested in what Saint Francis had to say about pets, the environment and poverty. All wonderful things, but anything he might have said about discomfort and foolishness is not very popular, according to Google. My search through our prayer reference books at home came up with nada. Finally I did a word search about discomfort and foolishness, and there it was.

A good way to get my attention is to give me permission to be uncomfortable, and to encourage me in my foolishness. He probably wasn’t talking about my discomfort over my sleeveless dress or life-sucking humidity. But it does give me some perspective on what I SHOULD be complaining about vs. what I DO complain about currently. Foolishness, I’ve got that one handled. I’ll do just about anything that conventional wisdom says is a bad idea, and if conventional wisdom says I should do something, I will usually do the opposite, because the more popular thing to do is so overdone.

That’s sort of what Saint Alban did. According to church history, he was the first British martyr, around the third century A.D. While serving in the Roman army, in England, he was converted to Christianity by a fugitive priest, whom he was hiding in his house. When the bad guys came looking for the priest, Alban exchanged his clunky, sweaty army gear for the priest’s garb, and was martyred in place of the priest.

I’d say that’s a pretty good example of the right amount of discomfort at easy answers, when he could have easily given up the fugitive and probably been promoted in the army; not to mention a healthy dose of anger at injustice. Foolishness is a little harder to judge. Certainly in the eyes of his peers, he had the foolishness to go against the flow, even to the point of pulling on an ill-fitting priestly robe, only to die in it.

So, here’s to figuring out my own proper amount of foolishness and applying it properly. Hopefully while wearing comfortable clothes, so all that fussing about my arms won’t get in the way.

Movie Review Badge Project #2: I “Doubt” I inherited mom’s movie sleuthing skills … May 13, 2009

There’s this thing about nuns. I’ve always had a weird fascination with them. I don’t know why, but perhaps it is the same reason that some Christian novelists have a fascination with the Amish.

The first time I ever met a nun, I was in Wichita with a group of my fellow college newspaper writers, attending a Christian writers conference. During the keynote and luncheon, I was seated at a table with about seven nuns. I realized then that I’d only ever seen nuns depicted by Julie Andrews and Audrey Hepburn and Sally Field. While I attended Highland Christian School, there was a Catholic School just across the main square from us, and it was a mysterious place where we thought kids had to worship statues while nuns floated around, watching. Because in my imagination, they floated (thank you, Gidget). The nuns at the writers conference were not floating, or wearing wimples or brandishing rulers at naughty little children, or displaying any of the stereotypes you might imagine about nuns. And, they were kind of hilarious. I was a little disappointed that they weren’t more critical of my table manners, but nun criticism would come soon enough.

A few years later I was working at a newspaper in the small town in Iowa, where there happened to be a Catholic church and school, St. Patrick’s. At least once a week, Sister Virginia would call me up to discuss all the typos and misspellings in the paper. Well, I have to say, this was a much more satisfying nun experience for me. And, after telling me about all my mistakes, she would once again remind me that our newspaper should switch our style of referring to sources on second reference from just last name to title and last name. For example, when quoting John Smith, it is traditional for newspapers to refer to him on second references as just “Smith.” Sister Virginia thought this was disrespectful. She informed me that even the NEW YORK TIMES was now referring to people by their titles on second reference, as in “Mr. Smith.” I happened to agree with her, and I would sometimes bring up the idea to editors throughout my career, but what Sister Virginia didn’t know was that reporters, as soon as they are promoted to editor, get their listening chip removed. Or maybe she did know that, which is why she always asked to speak to me.

Anyway, after all THAT, Sister Virginia would THEN go on to ask us to come to her school to do a story about something wonderful the little children were doing for the community, or for other wonderful little children in Africa. Someday, I myself hope to have the huevos to precede a request with criticism and nagging. I think that comes with age. Sister Virginia had age and a wimple on her side. She saw me coming a mile away; she knew I couldn’t say no to a nun, no matter how much I swing Protestant.

So, what was I writing about today? Oh yeah, “Doubt.” I have been wanting to see this ever since I saw the trailers last year. Weirdly, every time I tried to find a showing at a theater in my area, it turned up no results. Based on the trailers alone, I was pulling for Meryl Streep to win the Oscar for best actress. Unfortunately Kate Winslet won because she got naked and played a horrible Nazi. Or something. I’m not sure. I didn’t see The Reader because, I don’t know, I’m not really interested in watching a love story involving a NAZI.

Thanks to the miracle of Netflix, the movie finally popped into my mailbox last week, and I insisted on a mid-week movie night. I was not disappointed, despite all that build up. I put it right up there next to Slumdog as best picture of the year.

First of all, let me just say how much I appreciate a film, play, TV show or any kind of drama that has a singular story line. Don’t get me wrong, I love all the side stories and flashbacks of LOST as much as anybody else, but there is something to be said for simplicity. “Doubt” is as simple and and singular as it gets.

That is not to say it is simplistic. It is a single story that can be taken many different ways. Much like watching classic Hitchcock, my opinion and suspicions wavered from minute to minute about what all the characters were really up to. Less than ten minutes in, when the young miscreant named London first shirked away from the hand of Father Flynn, played utterly close to the chest by Philip Seymour-Hoffman, I was 100 percent convinced that this priest had sinister intentions with the young boys at St. Nicholas School. By the end of the movie, I believed he had only become aware of an unmentionable nature in himself, leaving us to guess at whether or not he ever DID anything.

Meanwhile, I could go on an on about how Meryl Streep was born to play the withering, severe, No-B.S. school principal Sister Aloycius. And about how Amy Adams was the perfect young nun, with a Julie Andrews optimism but not enough life experience to charm a group of rowdy eighth-graders into behaving properly. Or about how despite her satisfaction at being terrifying to the students of St. Nicholas, Sister Aloycius had a good heart, and did what she did to protect the students of the school, whether it be from imaginary child predators or real ones; and to keep the children from growing up into disrespectful hooligans. One of the more powerful moments of the film for me was how Sister Aloycius watched over one of her aging, blind-as-a-bat sisters: at the dinner table, the poor old nun was grasping around for her fork. Sister Aloycius reached over and guided the old woman’s hand to her fork, and gave her a tiny little pat. That was all of the affection we got to see from Sister Aloycius, but it told me that it was real.

On Saturday night, we watched the film again, this time with my parents. It is really intriguing how watching a film with someone who has not seen it before can make you see things differently. Maybe it’s because I’m one of those annoying people who are constantly looking over at you to see if you caught the same joke or expression, to gauge if you are sharing my same level of appreciation for a movie. Whatever it was, this time, I wasn’t so sure of anything. By the end, I was not so ready to hang Father Flynn out to twist in the wind.

SPOILER ALERT

My mom has always had this scary ability to suss out the subtext of movies. Mystery movies and books and TV shows are a total no-brainer for Herbie. She’s got the killer, the weapon, the room and the motivation in the palm of her hand about 15 minutes in. I don’t know how she does it. She is also very good at math, so maybe that has something to do with it. As the credits rolled, Dad commented that Meryl Streep’s character had no proof at all that anything had happened. Mom piped up, “Father Flynn left to protect the boy.”

Me: “What?”

Mom: “He decided to leave instead of causing a scandal that would make the boy the center of attention.”

Me: “Oh, because the boy might be gay?”

Mom: “Yes. Remember, the mother said the boy’s father didn’t like him?”

Me: “And that’s why his father beat him?”

Mom (getting an extreme “duh” tone to her voice at my denseness): “YES.”

Me: “Oh, so if he fought Meryl Streep it would be even worse for the boy.”

Mom: “Exactly.”

Me: “So … he probably didn’t even do anything wrong.”

Mom: “Probably not.”

Me: “So, it was more likely he’d been singling out the boy for counseling.”

Mom: “Probably.”

WHOA. I could have watched that movie ten more times and not have come up with that theory. But she’s totally right.

Perhaps I was too distracted by all the nuns.

Music: the Protestant pressure valve April 27, 2009

Last night I thought I heard angels singing. The dog heard it first.

We’re here at my folks’ house in Saint John, for my Grandma’s 85th birthday. Not the dog, just me. The dog’s here mostly to eat and sleep and express her need to go outside. In her usual restless way that she fights off sleep when she’s in an unusual environment, she gets attuned to every unfamiliar sight and sound and feels the need to whine and bark about it, forcing us to close the windows on a beautiful spring night to get her barking under control.

Just before bed, I realized what she was seeing out there in the dark. The neighbors in the house behind my parents’ evidently had friends over. Along with their 27 children, the dog was watching an enormous crowd of people milling around inside this huge illuminated house. I guess all the activity back there got her all excited. So I step outside to let the Lily dog pee, grateful for the darkness because after 9 p.m. I am NOT changing out of my pajama pants into anything more formal. The moment I stepped outside, the singing took my breath away. Fortunately the dog realized it was only singing and decided to keep quiet.

Here’s all I know about these people: they go to the Protestant Reformed Church, an even more restrictive denomination than the one in which I was brought up. They have an enormous fenced in backyard, perfect for a dog. Instead the backyard is the primary play area for all these kids, and sadly, no dog. I also know that when I’m visiting my parents on Sundays, I don’t hear a peep out of that backyard, because, as a Protestant Reformed family, the kids stay inside. That’s right. All day long, it’s 80 degrees outside and all they do is get up, go to church, come home, eat lunch and stay inside. I suppose that, to them, honoring the Lord’s Day means not playing in the yard. Peculiar? Yes, but it’s not hurting anyone, except maybe the sanity of that mother, I suspect.

I admit I’ve had my prejudices about the Protestant Reformed. In high school, the P.R. girls were either insufferable goody-goodies, or totally out of control. I had my prejudices challenged when my best friend in college, Teresa, turned out to be P.R., and somehow awesome. She is still one of my favorite people. After college, she and I lived together and I even went to her tiny church in Doon, Iowa, on some Sundays. Mainly it was because I loved her whole family, and it made Sundays away from my own family a little easier. On those church visits, I was surprised to find that I didn’t recognize many of the songs we sang. Teresa explained that the P.R.s only sing psalms, not hymns, because psalms come directly from the text of the Bible. Hymns are an interpretation. On the surface, the psalm book was pretty boring, but those people sang out like you wouldn’t believe.

When Teresa’s mom died a few years ago, I drove up to Iowa from Texas to go to the funeral. Once again I sat in that tiny country church, and listened for the umpteenth time to their young preacher talk about predestination and being a member of “the elect” and all the other things about Protestantism that make me squirm. I was already upset that the flowers I had ordered through an online service had shown up looking nothing like the photo, no doubt because the order came through the tiny Rock Valley florist and they were doing the best they could with what they had. Halfway through the sermon, however, I became more and more upset when I realized that nobody was going to give a eulogy for Teresa’s mother. In fact the preacher barely said her name. Nobody got up and talked about what a great mother and grandmother she was. Or how she loved her cats, and her dog, Buddy. Nobody mentioned all her years of volunteering at the P.R. school, or how she liked to watch the birds out her kitchen window, or that she was a huge fan of the Chicago Bulls. They didn’t mention her biting sense of humor, or the breathtaking way she could put people in their place. Nobody mentioned how she grew up attending school in a one-room schoolhouse, or that she first met her husband when he literally rode his horse inside a local restaurant, and she made it pretty clear she was not impressed. To have mentioned all these things in the form of a eulogy at the front of church, in the mind of the P.R., would have been glorifying the human, and detracting from the glory of God. Somehow I already knew that, but it still upset me as I sat there in the pew for the next hour and a half, next to a woman with a toddler whose diaper desperately needed changing. Then they started singing.

This uptight crowd of stubborn Dutch farmers, teachers, cops and housewives, suddenly opened up their mouths and uttered the comforting and heart-breaking words of “When Peace Like a River” with perfect harmony. And it was loud. It may have been the loudest I have ever heard that sung. I don’t know exactly why they were allowed to sing this; perhaps there is an exception for hymns made at funerals. Whatever the case, it blew my mind.

I discussed this amazing singing later with my cousin Stephanie. She said, “Maybe they sing really well and loud because it’s their only outlet.” I think this is true, in a way.

I once heard a Garrison Keillor story describing the old, stubborn German Lutherans of Minnesota as “indehissant,” an analogy to plants that don’t release their juices. (Forgive me, a botanist I am not.) I certainly think there’s something to be said about that.

Which brings me back to my parents’ neighbors, and now it makes perfect sense. They have no other way to let it out, but they have to release the pressure somehow. They’ve spent all day cooped up in their house with their kids on a gorgeous spring day, with the birds and the flowers and the grass practically calling out for people to come outside and enjoy life – crack open a cold one, take off your shoes, get wet, laugh out loud, eat your lunch on the grass, get a little sunburn on your nose. These people resist these urges because they believe it’s the right thing to do.

But at night, they invite their friends over, they open up all the windows, and they sing in perfect harmony. The tension is released, the build-up of pressure is gradually, ceremoniously leaked out with beautiful, joyful noises floating out into the night. So lovely, even the dog gets quiet.

I gave up on predestination long ago, however … April 24, 2009

Sometimes the universe gives you signs that you are doing exactly what you are meant to be doing.

Earlier this week I was having a near mental breakdown about my book. I was tired of looking at the words, sick of thinking and re-thinking and over-thinking it. I was worried that I had not changed the names appropriately. I was concerned that I had included too many personal details about me, certain family members. I fretted over what my family would think, and whether these stories were any good at all.

On Wednesday, the proof copy of my book came in the mail, and everything shifted. I scurried off to my favorite coffee shop and sat perfectly still for three hours, scouring every last word of the proof for typos, grammatical errors, unclear sentences and general unnecessary language mayhem. I cleaned it up, and along the way, I realized it was pretty good. Maybe it won’t set the world on fire, but it does justice to my memories, and it makes me smile here and there.

The real difference in my attitude didn’t come from holding the book in my hands, though that helped. A lot. What really kicked my sad sack butt out of the doldrums was one of my Texas lifelines. I phoned my friend Tammy, my former partner in slack at our tiny rural town newspaper. I told her the title of the book, “Stories of Clean Living, the Dutch-American Way,” and I told her about the general idea of the essays I had written, and about how my awesome tech support guy/husband had designed this gorgeous sepia-tone cover with a photo of me from the fourth grade in my Dutch girl costume. Then Tammy opened her mouth and my head exploded.

“You know,” she said, “This is going to sound crazy but that reminds me of something you would see on the Bonnie Hunt Show.”

After I picked myself up off the ground, I said, “Well, this is going to sound extra crazy, but I was thinking of sending a copy to the show. AND, we’re donating 10 percent of the cover price to cancer research, the SAME research facility which Bonnie donates to and talks about all the time on the show – the Robert Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center at Northwestern. Not because of Bonnie Hunt, but because after a full day of researching and asking questions of different charities, I settled on that one. It’s also the same hospital where my late cousin was treated.”

Tammy: “Jennifer, I think this is your destiny.”

Tammy and I used to talk a lot about The Secret, about putting positive energy out into the universe and receiving it back, and about whether or not this Law of Attraction business is just a bunch of hokum. Sometimes I think it is. Most of the time I just think things come together at certain points in your life and you just gotta grab on and go for it, whether or not it’s something you created or it’s something God is telling you to do. I like to think that Tammy has a bit of the psychic in her – she has the kind of perception that can scare a person sometimes. Before I moved away from Texas, she was my barometer for good and bad ideas. When she gets a good feeling about something, I listen.

If I hadn’t called Tammy, I suppose I would have been just fine doing what I needed to do with the book, and just found the confidence somehow in myself to take the next step. But I also suppose it sometimes helps a girl avoid a mental breakdown with a little pixie dust from a friend.

In the meantime, here’s where you can look at a synopsis of the book: https://www.createspace.com/3380992

Movie Badge Project #1: Prince Caspian. (As a former Calvinette, I suppose I am supposed to like this.) April 11, 2009

My people love C.S. Lewis. Of all the people in the world who conveniently overlook Lewis’s own caveat that the books were not intended to be specifically allegorical, my people are the most guilty of that.

The cartoon version of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, the Bill Melendez version from 1979, was an honored tradition at Highland Christian School. Every year on the day before the start of Christmas break, Mr. Bouma would assemble us all into the gymnasium for the complete viewing of it. Picture 200 elementary age kids forced to sit on a gym floor for approximately two hours and pay attention to a story when they were already antsy to bolt out the door for the winter holiday. You’d think we’d all be climbing the Huskies’ basketball nets. But you’d be wrong. Rapt attention would be an understatement. To my recollection you could hear the drop of an icicle off the frozen tush of the White Witch in that gym. As for me, I was utterly charmed. To this day, that old version can still choke me up. Not because it’s amazing animation, but because it really conveyed the emotion and angst of a little misunderstood girl, and the frustration and struggles of a little boy who just wants attention.

As far as I’m concerned, the 2005 live action version of TLTW&TW got it right. It’s a story that is begging for a big, bombastic Hollywood treatment. You’ve got all the iconic images that are totally theatrical: a mysterious wardrobe, the lamppost, the faun and his parcels, the frightening White Witch, and an appearance by none other than the classical version of Father Christmas, who, for whatever reason, makes me well up every single time.

Which brings me to last night’s viewing of Prince Caspian, the most recent installment in the Walden Media productions of The Chronicles of Narnia. This is a very different story. You don’t have the same recognizable icons, and there is no Mr. Tumnus to lull us into the fantasy with a nice cup of tea. In the book, there is a lot of action, a lot of strategizing, a lot of walking, and a lot of doubt about the existence of Aslan. This film version is fairly consistent with the book, but that might be part of the problem. We C.S. Lewis fans can allow our dear author to plod along at times, because he’s really good at developing the characters, making you feel how hungry everybody is, and rewarding you with delicious little descriptions of a satisfying meal by the side of the road after a very long, hard day. (these stories leave no doubt in my mind that Lewis was a foodie before there was such a thing).

The movie doesn’t take the time during its slow moments, however, to really let us become attached to the characters. Prince Caspian’s beloved professor seems tacked on only to serve as an agent to send his charge away to safety in the dark of night. And when the King Miraz confronts the professor about his treachery, all we see is a book with a picture of the “legend” of the four Children of Adam, but as viewers we don’t really have enough emotion invested in the professor to care. In fact, during most scenes set among the Telmarines, I kept staring at the king’s preposterously pointy beard and making fun of everyone’s ridiculous Spanish accents. I was half-hoping for Inigo Montoya to show up and demonstrate to everyone how to have a proper sword fight on film.

One of the most interesting characters in the book is the mighty Reepicheep, the fiercely loyal mouse who turns out to be invaluable as a battle strategist. Most of the time during the film, Reepicheep’s lines serve to hit us over the head with the irony of him being a mouse. Yes. We get it. You’re a mouse. Yet you’re mighty. Now shut up. The character himself seems to sum up my feelings about his portrayal when he encounters a Telmarine soldier who says, “You’re a mouse!” and Reepicheep says, “You people have no imagination.” Um, there’s your irony right there.

I suppose it’s not very nice of me to keep badgering the creative minds behind this mess, but then I’m not a very nice person. My last point regards the casting. Of course they had to cast the same four actors to play Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. As these four actors age, especially those playing Peter and Susan, we’re finding out that when they’re not surrounded by the mind-blowing imagery of the first movie, they are not really great at the whole acting thing. Edmund and Lucy hold their own, I suppose, but Peter comes off as a complete git and Susan — from the very opening scene where she acts unnecessarily bitchy to a sweet, unassuming and may I say suitable-for-her young man by telling him her name is Phyllis — acts like a boring little snob.

But not as boring as the most important character of the film. That would be Prince Caspian himself, who I would have expected to be a larger-than-life swashbuckler who steals every scene. Instead, his acting is flat, and his hair looks like M’Lynn from Steel Magnolias got hung out to dry in a tornado.

The real crime of miscasting lies with this story’s Big Bad, King Miraz. Aside from his aforementioned beard and accent, there wasn’t much about him that upset me on any visceral level. He is more like an obnoxious twit usurper than an imposing villian and evil king. Annoying? Yes. Scary? Not at all. The only time I ever got a chill (pardon the pun) was when they brought back the amazing Tilda Swinton for about three minutes as The White Witch. Now SHE’S a villian. Evil plan? Check. Motivation? Check. Something to lose? Check. Insane wardrobe? Check. Crazy eyes? check. Strangely and spookily likeable in some way? Definitely check.

I could not wait for the movie to end, if for nothing else than to see if Susan had somehow grown and changed, and if she might decide to give the nice nerdy boy the time of day back in London. But, as if to put just one more unsatisfying punctuation mark on the end of this film, the nice nerdy boy shouts to her from the train, “Are you coming, Phyllis?” Without even a hint of sarcasm, or even a recollection that he KNOWS her real name is Susan because he HEARD Lucy call her name at the beginning of the movie, when he’d first realized that Susan is a rude little snot. And he doesn’t even call her on it! He’s not even a little bit put out! He’s a dog that’s been kicked and he’s coming back for more! And then we see Susan, still ignoring the nice nerdy boy, laughing it off in her own self-centered way, sharing some kind of an inside joke with Lucy. Ugh. Whatever. I give up. Susan and nice nerdy boy deserve each other.