Motorcycle Man
Published February 25, 2011 | It has been warm at Foolish Mansion, due to an influx of warm weather, or an egress of cold weather. I am not sure which.
I got to spend one day last week with John, who made me lunch and helped me load a stove onto the truck for one of our apartments. We own a four-plex in Rushville that we are in the process of rehabbing. As if we don’t have enough other stuff to do.
Last Christmas John opened his disk gun with a maniacal gleam
It was great to spend some time with John. I got to nag him about his haircut, his personal life, his motorcycle, etc. With John the possibilities are endless. And I can nag John guilt free because I know he won’t pay a bit of attention to any of it. Nagging is my way of showing John I care. Listening to the nagging in the first place, and being affectionate in spite of it, is his way of showing he cares back. After all, he is 28.
John and I have a weird relationship, at times, but it works. And I didn’t nag him year before last when he went with William to the West Bank for Christmas (I didn’t nag William either). I think he owes me for that one. I don’t interfere with his ability to do what he wants. He doesn’t interfere with my ability to offer my opinion when I want.
John has a car now. He got it for four hundred dollars from a friend. I was happy with this purchase. It was necessary after his motorcycle was stolen. I thought about how safe he was driving it, since he rarely gets a car above 90 mph. The same cannot be said for his motorcycle. I was really proud of him for not getting a ticket in the two months he has had the car. There was a time when he was wanted in three states….for speeding tickets.
What I did not know is that, until yesterday, John was driving his car with an un-transferred title and no license. I found this out when he lent his car to Frances, who freaked out and refused to drive it. She has a snow-white driving record and wants to preserve it in all its pristine purity.
John was obliged to drive from Indianapolis to Rushville this morning to pick up his car, where it sat, right where he left it when he “lent” it to Frances.
John on a short hair day
This morning John had what I call “stick up hair.” It stood out all over his head like a funky halo….which is probably the kind of halo John will eventually get……if he’s lucky.
I said, “Did you know, there’s a haircutting place just two blocks from here?”
“I have to go,” he said, ignoring my comment and giving me a hug good-bye. I’ve got to work on Robert’s bike.
John took Chris, and our truck, with him last Saturday to buy a motorcycle for Robert. Currently the bike is in pieces all over the Man Haven. Not that there was anything wrong with it when he bought it. In fact, it was in perfect shape. But John is an artist at heart, and never saw a motorcycle he didn’t want to re-design. He is in the process of making it into a “café racer”.
Robert's motorcycle pre-improvements
Café Racers look like old fashioned motor-cycles with artsy seats, gas tanks, etc. I have no clue what they are for. I just hope they are slow. He is working on one for Frances and one for Robert. Frances weighs about 110 pounds and Robert only has one eye. Not exactly motorcycle speed demon material, I hope. Robert is thrilled to death about his motorcycle. John bought it to supplement Robert’s car, an ancient Crown Victoria with over 350,000 miles on it and wobbly steering. Robert will repay “The First National Bank of John,” as the kids call it, after he gets on a fire team. In the meantime, if John gets short on cash, he can always turn to “The Second National Bank of William.”
I am glad John has a project to keep him busy. Maybe it will slow down his job hunt, and allow us to spend a little more time with him before he moves to wherever his new job is. And of course, it will give me time to nag him about getting a job.
For more ”Man Haven” or motorcycle pictures go to johnfriedl.com
Waiting…..Photos to come
Published February 22, 2011 | Written last week:
Frances recovering
This has been a stressful week here at Foolish Mansion. Frances has been ridiculously sick for the past six days. Fever, nausea, achey all over, and blowing her nose so much it’s a wonder it hasn’t blown off. She spent most of the week lying on the couch, surrounded by piles of used tissues, throw up bowl at the ready. She went to the doctor last Thursday and finally, the following Tuesday, she began to feel human again. Last night, while we were getting ready for dinner, I heard her laugh. I realized that it had been a week since I had heard her laugh, or even seen her smile. It was a welcome experience. Sometimes it’s the things you don’t hear and see that define your day, or your week.
Three of the older boys are all “on hold” in one way or another. John has still not heard from the medical school and he lost his job in New Orleans. The Navy ship he had been welding on is about to be launched. He is back in town now, looking for another job. Whatever job he finds will probably not be local.
Robert after Graduation at Purdue
Robert had two good interviews for wildfire-fighting jobs but has not heard anything definite. He is back home from Washington state, working on Cell Phone towers. He is waiting for a call that should come in about two weeks. Since fire season doesn’t start for a few months, even if he gets a job, he won’t leave right away. I am thankful for that. He hopes to spend one season on a regular fire crew and then get picked up by a wildfire fighting helicopter rappel team the next season.
Bill at the Air Force Academy
William is preparing for Combat Rescue Officer “Selection” for the Air Force. It starts on his birthday and ends five days later. Since he has wanted to be in Para Rescue forever, Selection is the focal point of all of his dreams and ambitions. A Combat Rescue Officer is an officer on a Para Rescue, or PJ team. PJ’s are one of the two branches of Air Force Special Forces. They do search and rescue in hazardous situations.
Even my brother and sister-in-law both fell on the ice on Friday and had to postpone a birthday celebration.
So, is there good news? Of course there is.
The older kids are back in town, at least most of them.
They are having a party this Saturday night to celebrate the return of a friend, Isaac, from mission work in Thailand. Joseph is coming home for the weekend in order to attend the party.
The party is taking place at “The Man Haven”, a house owned by Isaac, a son of former neighbors who grew up with all of our kids. All of our boys live there whenever they are in town. The house is divided into two zones. The female zone, for Isaac’s sister, is a re-finished attic with all the amenities. It is feminine and cozy and very normal. I think the boys figure that the more comfortable she is up there, the less time she will spend in the man zone, downstairs.
When you walk in the front door, there is a hand made kayak skeleton hanging from the living room ceiling. The couch is made of cushions that rest on ropes woven into a homemade wood frame. A motorcycle-in-progress sits just inside the living room. Beyond the motorcycle is a welding station . This where John welds motorcycle parts and makes things like Frances’ giant metal spider. (For those who would like an inside view of the Man Haven, go to www.johnfriedl.com .)
Frances’ spider is about a foot tall and a foot and a half in diameter. It has eight legs are made of forged chain links. The body of the spider is a steel box, with a hinged lid. The eyes are huge, thick bolts. They have curved metal eyelids that tilt in a “pet me” sort of way. It’s barely even creepy.
John made the spider as a box to store Frances’ journal. Almost all of the kids keep one, so their value is recognized by all.
Outside the Man Haven there is no garage. The driveway, of course, is frequently used for working on cars. Now that John is back in town, everyone’s car is getting fixed: Crystal’s, Robert’s and, hopefully, mine.
The upcoming Man Haven party is an “Ugly Sweater Party”. I don’t know who thought up this theme, but I can think of many worse ones. I guess it would be a bit incongruous to throw a post mission-work frat party.
It’s a shame that I just “donated” that hot pink sweater with the enormous buttons and big embroidered yellow and orange flowers. I bought it in a moment of sartorial insanity and wore it maybe twice. It would have been perfect. Somewhere there is probably a bag lady wearing that sweater and feeling very grand.
Frances’ move was begun on Sunday. Due to her illness, however, it is a work in progress. Or perhaps regress.
On the way home from moving her into the apartment, Patrick said, “Mother, tomorrow I’m going to visit Frances right after school, so please don’t interfere.”
I was a bit taken aback. “Interfere how?” I asked.
“By giving me a job when I get home so that I can’t come visit.”
“Of course,” I replied, trying to keep a straight face.
Patrick has become quite droll. The other night I sent him to the car to bring in something I had forgotten. He muttered to himself, “ I don’t know why I ever submitted to this family.”
I think he imagines himself up in Heaven, before he was born, filling out family request applications, and taking some bad advice from St Peter .
Mary Elizabeth is now on the track team and they started regular practices on Monday. She is loving it. She has been jogging five miles every other day or so, since William left at Christmas. She is up to almost 100 miles for the year so far
Jennifer has made it onto the staff of her school paper. She is thrilled. She probably imagines herself in charge of the editorial page by next fall.
Patrick has just issued another rare edition of “The Friedl Weekly”. It is a riot, as usual, complete with drawings by Mary Elizabeth. Patrick calls her his “photographer”, since her drawings are the “photographs”. Frances wrote a poem for the paper. Patrick told me, “I have one staff member and , what do you call those people who write for a paper but don’t work for it?”
“Freelancers?” I asked.
“Yes”, he said. “I have one staff member (him) and two freelancers.”
He printed off 8 copies so far, on our printer. He is charging us a dollar a copy. I think he has been talking to Christopher about entrepreneurship. On our phone bill. I have only been charging the older kids for being on our phone plan ( we have six family cell phones). Maybe it’s time to charge Patrick, or at least ask for a communications/printing discount on the next issue of “The Friedl Weekly”.
Waiting is never easy, whether waiting to get well, or waiting on the gatekeepers of a path you want to enter upon. This has been a week of waiting, and we will all be glad when the waiting is over.
Speaking of waiting, I am waiting for Chris to get home tonight and show me how to load pictures to accompany this post. Stay tuned for tomorrow and the illustrated version.
And Another One’s Gone…..Almost
Published February 10, 2011 | Frances is getting ready to move out on her own. At 23, she is ready to own her own ice cream scoop, hang her own curtains and cook (when she cooks) for one instead of six. Today we are supposed to go couch shopping. She is thrilled to be getting out on her own. And I would be thrilled for her, if I were not so un-thrilled for me.
After Frances leaves, I will only have three children left at home. This may not sound like a big deal to people who only had one or two in the first place. There are a lot of empty nesters my age (52, I’m not shy, not happy about it, but not shy). Some empty nesters have eagerly awaited their “freedom”, and others have dreaded it. I am definitely in the “dreading it” camp. I like my kids. A lot. And they are usually fun to be with. Frances is a LOT of fun. At least until she isn’t.
Having only three kids out of nine at home represents a decline of 66.6%
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want my children living at home forever. If they were that dependent on us, Chris and I would have totally failed as parents. Without independence there is no freedom. And we definitely want our kids to have freedom. But the older kids have taken it to a bit of an extreme, from the point of view of parents who miss them. They crave adventure and they go far afield to find it.
Robert is in Washington this week, looking for a job. One of his lifetime goals is to live “out west”, permanently. William will be living wherever the Air Force sends him. Christopher, who turns 30 next week, married a Texas girl and will never be moving back to the Midwest. Etc., etc., etc..
I can understand this in my children. I am sure that Chris and I contributed to it. You can’t teach a kid that life is an adventure, limited only by his vision, his God-given talents and the path God leads him down, without expecting him to take a different path from your own. We just didn’t realize that their paths would be quite so far away, geographically speaking. Or quite so far away vocationally speaking.
Christopher, Julia and Pucci (our grandson)
We never expected to have a soldier in the family (William), or an Alaskan salmon fisher/actor wannna be/welder/aspiring medical student (John) , or an entrepreneur (Christopher) whose wife (Julia) is both an economist and a stay at home mother.
And I certainly never anticipated having a wildfire fighter in the family. My first question when Robert mentioned this ambition to me was, “What’s a wildfire fighter?”
These vocations are not a problem. The locations are.
Every night at family prayers we pray for the success of the dreams of our children. And then, when we are alone, Chris and I talk about how much we miss the ones who are not here and how grateful we are to have the ones still left at home.
Chris and I have our own dreams of adventure, of course. The apples didn’t fall that far from the tree. But even if we do buy a sailboat and sail around the world dodging pirates, or buy a houseboat and travel the “Great Loop”, or retire to Mexico after the kids are gone….. this life, right now, will have been our grandest adventure. And it is coming to a close.
This is all natural. And it all makes sense. Parents have kids. Kids grow up. Kids move away. Parents adjust.
Lifelong DINKS ( Double Income No Kids), on the other hand, make no sense at all to me. These are the people who don’t want children. Who never want children.
I always imagine DINKS vacationing in exotic places in their twenties, building up 401K’s in their thirties, getting divorced in their forties (if not before) and spending their fifties re-inventing themselves with not quite new spouses or live in lovers. Which probably works better for the men than it does for the women.
Men may die sooner but they can prowl longer.
Eventually, I suspect, old age takes the fun out of being childless.
I don’t wish to imply that having children is a panacea. Some kids turn out rotten. Lots of marriages with kids turn out rotten.
However…
One day when the older kids were little, I was running an errand with a car full of kids in Cincinnati. We passed a bill board advertising an upcoming museum exhibit for a collection of the works of Mary Cassatt, the great American impressionist. On the billboard was a giant print of one of her paintings. The picture was beautiful, as is all her work. Its subject was a small child.
The kids were probably driving me crazy that day. It’s a safe assumption. But as I looked at the billboard, it occurred to me that there are a lot of people in the world who would value that painting more than they would value the real life child who was its model. The irony resonated with me. Chris and I couldn’t afford to go to the exhibit, and even if we had we would probably have spent the afternoon chasing the kids around. But I had the real thing in the back of my car. And they were all beautiful.
I hope I do not have any DINKS among my children. But then I don’t own them, as has been made abundantly clear by almost thirty years of parenting. So all I can do it pray…. and nag. Not that nagging works very well, or at all, actually. But it helps keeps me sane.
Back to Frances’ move.
The irony of Frances’ move, in particular, is that she cannot wait to have her brothers and sisters over to visit after she moves. She and Mary Elizabeth are always making plans, heads bent together, whispering about sleep overs and food fests. Aren’t Frances’ siblings the same people she is trying to move away from? But no, since she hasn’t mentioned having me or Chris over, perhaps her siblings are not the issue.
I personally think it is hard to feel independent when you are in the same room as the people who changed your diapers, taught you to drive and nagged at you to make your bed (which is not to say that I have ever, consistently, made my own). When new-found independence is the issue, Chris and I are clearly flies in the ointment, or will be, after we have helped her move in.
Her move in/out date has yet to be determined. But as the pile of “apartment” stuff accumulates, the event is looming large.
Chris and I are approaching it with mixed feelings. It was a mutual idea, so we can’t claim to have had nothing to do with it. At 23, Frances needs to be out on her own. But I, for one, will worry, as I tend to do. And Chris will silently mourn, as he does every time another one of our children moves out.
Foolish Progress
Published February 7, 2011 | It’s been way too long since I have written about events here at Foolish Mansion. I am proud to announce that this winter the washing machine has not frozen with a full tub of dirty water and even dirtier clothes forming one giant ice donut. In fact, we have been able to keep the temperature at a decent 62 degrees for most of the time, as long as the relatively unheated bedrooms are not taken into account.
The corn stoves have been much more cooperative this winter, now that the price of corn has prompted us to switch from corn to pellets. The plants and even the turtle have been kept warm enough to survive the winter. We did put bubble wrap on most of the old windows, and that helped quite a bit. The old windows are four feet wide and eight feet tall. The cheapest way to buy bubble wrap that would fit over these dimensions was to purchase a two hundred and fifty foot roll. It was about four feet in diameter before we used it and it is still enormous.
If there is ever a murder here we have plenty of bubble wrap for concealing the body. Or, if a horde of toddlers ever descends, they can stay busy popping bubbles for years to come. Truth to tell, I am sure I would prefer dealing with a dead body.
Toddlers are wonderful, as long as they are A) Someone else’s and B) only stay for five minutes. This does not, of course, include my grandchildren. They are welcome to stay for ten minutes, unless accompanied by their parents. In which case they are welcome to stay for a week. Maybe.
It’s not that I don’t like toddlers. I just hate “toddler hazards”. “Toddler hazards” are everywhere. Toddlers are like little homing pigeons for disaster: steps they could fall down, brightly colored cleaning fluids they could drink, cars they could run out in front of, strangers they could take candy from, bathwater they could drown in, etc. They make me a nervous wreck.
So how did I survive having nine of them?
I spent a lot of years being a nervous wreck.
Now that it is all over and my children are too old to attract most of the above-mentioned disasters. I can finally relax…….as long as I don’t think about the hazards of motorcycles, air force deployments, stupid life-altering decisions, etc. Not that any of this has happened yet, any more than any of my toddlers were hit by a car or drowned or poisoned or kidnapped.
Did I mention I’m a worrier?
For some reason, however, I only worry about the mundane. I rarely worry about rapelling, rock climbing, wildfire fighting, sky diving, cave diving or even train jumping. Go figure. I suspect that I really only worry about the things I think I should be able to control or influence. When John (28) hitchhiked across Jordan last winter, or Robert (25) went to Guyana for jungle survival training last summer, I really wasn’t that worried. I thought John was being an idiot. Even the soldiers at the Iraqi border agreed with me, according to John. I knew Robert would be fine, and even if he weren’t, we could send William(21) to get him.
Speaking of William, I confess I was not happy when he ran with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain last summer. And I did try to talk him out of it, with absolutely no hope of success. But did I worry? Not really. Compared to what he plans on doing in the Air Force, running with the bulls is not that bad. After his training is over, then I’ll worry.
However, I have digressed from house topics.
Bill working on Kitchen Floor
The kitchen floor is, at long last, tiled, thanks to John, who started the job with Chris, William and Joseph (18), just 24 hours before catching the flu and leaving the bulk of the work to his brothers. John’s comment was, “My goal was to get the floor to a point where it had to be finished.” He did not add, “by somebody else.”
The kitchen floor is now tiled in matte black with a narrow, shiny, black granite border. This matches the black of the window trim, which was Chris’ choice. And a brave but fortunate choice it was. We even have white lace kitchen curtains up, just two and a half years after our purchase of Foolish Mansion. Once we get the trim up, a couple of cabinet doors hung and a giant vent hood installed over the commercial style range, the kitchen will be finished.
In the meantime it is very well suited to cooking, which was the point all along. Jennifer (14), has been experimenting with desserts and homemade macaroni and cheese. Patrick (12) has added meat loaf to his previously limited repertoire of lemon roasted chicken. Jennifer and I have recently made chicken marsala, olive oil dipping sauce and a ricotta cheese cake. All of our recipes came from the book, “The Trouble with Mary”.
I just love those novels of impossible Italian romances that thoughtfully provide the recipes, so you can get at least a taste of the reality they are describing. There was, unfortunately, no “hot Italian hunk” recipe included. It’s just as well. Chris would not have appreciated this and might have retaliated with a “hot Italian babe” recipe of his own. Some things in life are better left untasted.
Mary Elizabeth is now unhappily painting half of the living room, or maybe two fifths. The room is 42 feet long with a fireplace at each end and a huge “hallway” without walls in the middle. Mary Elizabeth is working on one fireplace end. Some of the trim is a foot wide. The ceilings are 11 feet tall. The sheer volume of trim is driving Mary Elizabeth crazy. Not to mention the scraping, sanding and priming that preceded the painting. I started it all, of course. But like John, I got the flu twenty-four hours into the job and guess who got to take up the slack? Come to think of it, flu season is a really propitious time to start a job, as long as you are the one who catches it and it does not hang on too long after the job is finished.
The trim in this house is a nightmare, with shreds of it constantly dripping down on our heads. Some person, prior to our arrival, evidently painted a water base paint over an oil base semi-gloss and wound up with miles of constantly shedding trim. We have redone the kitchen, dining room, sunroom and master bedroom. We only have about 10 rooms to go, more or less. If Mary Elizabeth is smart she will go to college in Alaska.
Wall behind where the sink goes
Chris is tiling the walls of the upstairs bathroom. The floor was tiled over Christmas by William and Joseph. It looks great. The walls are looking even better. I can’t wait until it is done.
Patrick also has a few improvements in his room. He has a new ceiling fan (where previously there was no ceiling light at all), a closet light and new wiring and plug ins in his room. Patrick is thrilled and so am I, to a point. It is now easier to avoid the lego landmines he has strewn all over his floor. It is also much easier to see the dust and the crumbling plaster on his back wall, not to mention the ever flaking trim.
Chris plans on re-framing inside Patrick’s walls and installing insulation, since Patrick has two exterior walls and his room is always cold. I do not know when this plan will be activated. Hopefully when William, John and Joseph are all home. About 24 hours before Chris gets the flu.
And now to less glamorous tasks:
Jenny and Patrick wrestle with the auger
Last week the sewage line in the basement clogged up again. On Saturday, Chris went to Shelbyville to rent the giant augur for about the fourth time since we moved here. There must be some glitch in the piping in the basement . The augur machine itself isn’t that big but the ten foot lengths of coils that attach to it come rolled up in huge tires that are fat and stinky. Thus the truck is required to pick them up. After Chris returned with the machine, he and the kids rolled the machine and the tires into the house to the top of the north basement stairs.
Fortunately, last time Chris rented the auger, he took the opportunity to teach Jenny (14) and Patrick (12), how to use it. Yesterday afternoon, Patrick and Jenny put on enormous work gloves, ratty clothes and even rattier shoes, and descended the basement stairs, girded for biohazard duty.
Chris and I stood at the top of the stairs spying on them, listening to their conversation as Jennifer and Patrick gave each other orders, ignored one another’s orders and yet somehow managed to work together. They conferred on how to attach the augur coils, who would handle what, etc. Chris snuck down to take a picture of them as they worked. It was hilarious, big machine, very small workers. They looked like a couple of humanoid moles, toiling away, undaunted and unperturbed by the relative enormity of their task. We were so proud of them. After using over 80 feet of coils they finally punched through the obstruction.
After the job was done Jennifer came upstairs, demanding “hazard pay”. For all our sakes, Chris sent her and Patrick scrambling for the showers. Afterwards, he took them and a paint splattered Mary Elizabeth, to the movies. They saw “Megamind” and loved it. This morning Chris returned the augur to the rental place and now all is well. The toilet is flushing quite nicely, The garbage man will never know why one of the trash bags he picks up tomorrow morning smells so strongly of bleach.