Best Year of My Life?

Sooo... I hope I am wrong and it is not near October yet but is seems like this might be the best year yet.  I would like to think there is better ahead but...

We are about to celebrate the first birthday of Julia.  Julia has been a nightmare of fun.  I know I have repeated this to my friends throughout the year but I am kind of a negative person.  I tend to lower expectations for what is coming up and I often am pleasantly surprised.  I think this first grandchild is the only thing in my life that I expected to be great, and it is so much better.  Everyone told me that it was the greatest having a grandchild.  You can love them and then send them home.  You can spoil them with impunity.  They are not your responsibility, you just have to love them.  While there is truth to all that it is so much better.  The only way I can explain it is that whenever I see her, or see pictures of her, or talk about her, it just releases all these good brain chemicals.  I don't know it is dopamine or what, I really do not know how the brain works but it has really changed my brain chemistry I think.  I don't know if it is lasting but it something....

My stomach went south about 10 years ago.  Stress, bad diet, lots of alcohol and stress, did I mention stress.  Some things happened professionally that got on top of me.  I lost like 40 pounds over 6 months and people kept saying, "are you ok"?  I would go to see doctors (3 GI docs) and was diagnosed with:
Ulcerative Colitis
IBS
Celiac (total misdiagnosis)
I was gluten free for two years (no beer) before my last doc finally opened up that they have no idea what is wrong with me but I have a screwed up gut and he advised that I watch hat I eat and watch how I feel and adjust diet and lifestyle accordingly.  I held my own for the last several years but could not gain weight (I was not absorbing)... for years.  Made my wife crazy because I would eat whatever I wanted and never gain weight, and I did.  The course of events did allow me to get a lot of processed foods out of diet (still not perfect) but as I said, I was holding my own.  Recently, along with feeling better work/life/stress balance I was sold on a new set of supplements by Megan Kukla and and my wife called "Plexus".  I cannot credit my wight gain or vernal health solely to them but, I have put on between 20 and 30 pounds.  I am now having to consider what I am eating.  It will create other problems but... it is a welcome change.

I have been exercising semi regularly for a year.  Planet fitness.  No judgment.  I show up when i want.  Sit ups, lunges, treadmill, rowing, some weights...whatever.  Nothing big but something and it releases good brain chemicals too.  I am hoping to do more.

Morning devotional.  This little blurb is really prompted by the one year anniversary of me reading a morning devotional each morning (most mornings) for the last year.  I evidently did it for 222 days of the last year.  I know that because along with the devotional I read one verse of the Bible every morning.  The devotional is a great one called "Seize the Day" written by Charles Ringma and based on the writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  I cannot recommend it enough.  It takes maybe 3-4 minutes and then with a verse of the bible another 5-10 (tops).  I am only impressed because i don't think I have ever done anything for a year other than wake up.  222 verses of the Bible takes you solidly into Judges and like I said, i was feeling real proud until I realized the Bible has over 30,000 verses so at this pace I will finish when I am 156 or so.  I will see if I can step it up but I do think setting aside anytime during the day to be thoughtful, especially about God's roll in your life, can be a positive thing and I think it has been for me.

I have been failing to become a judge for the last 3 years (a little longer actually).  It is a process and it is political and I have never failed at something so totally.  That having been said a former Chief Judge gave me some counsel and a new direction and I have thrown myself back into the process and oddly, it feels pretty good.  I still don't know if I can make it but I have realized that I have made a lot of new friends from this process and new relationships that will continue to make my life better.

My law practice ambles along.  I am trying to morph it away from what I have been doing the last 8-9 years.  I recently completed mediation training and am also a receiver on a formerly large mortgage company.  I think I need to focus my practice on mediation and management and liquidation of assets in family disputes caused by poor estate planning and divorce.  Exciting shit, huh?  Anyway, it is a change and it is the stuff I am good at that does not take the mental toll of shepherding individuals through their financial nightmares.  We will see.  There is another financial downturn coming in the next 18-24 months.  You can only "stimulate" so long before a recovery loses steam and although slow... we are looking at a 10 year recovery and history has a heavy voice in predicting the future.  I could not be less excited even though I am counter cyclical.

My kids are all doing well, at least to my eyes.  This is likely the greatest piece of luck a 56 year old father of three can have.  And believe me, it is luck and it could all go south in a minute so I am trying to drink it in...gulp it in, while it is good and hope I am strong enough for what the future holds. How will I deal with their loss and their disappointment?  Poorly would be my guess but who knows.

Sandy and I are as always working on our marriage.  It is good.  We are lucky.  It is a lot of paying attention but between, hiking, music, gran parenting and of course eating and church, there seems to be more common ground than ever.

Church.... we are still at The Gathering and it continues to feed us and give us a place to serve.  The Church continues to grow and the new Mc Causland site is about to open and that is pretty cool.  We have stopped doing Junior High (Student) ministry on Sunday mornings so we have more time to worship on different places and that is nice.  It is still intriguing to see where it goes. We do miss liturgical worship and I am hoping we can perhaps spend one Sunday a month at Trinity Soulard.  A cool church with a cool ministry and a new pastor.  Could be a good mix.

Watching my mom age is hard.  We celebrated 90 years.  She is ready to go but we are not ready to let her.  She still gets around and takes care of herself and even drives but she is tired and it hurts and it is hard to watch her hurt.  I will be a wreck when God takes her home but I know she is ready for a time without pain.  So that part sucks.  No one ever prepares you to watch your parents age.  I guess they can't. Anyway...

So, it is a year.  I turn 57 in October.  I gotta keep myself from gaining too much weight because that makes aging even harder.  Maybe I drink less.  Who knows?

All of the above remains possible because all the nice people in my life who listen to me, tolerate me, humor me, correct me, shame me with their good intentions and actions and keep me moving forward... always forward.

Kitchen Konfidential

Soooo... I would like to make apologies for my long absence but I really would not mean it.  Much has been going on in the world, Europe verging on collapse, Roberts making a poorly reasoned ruling and avoiding type, Syria... but who really cares?

I am in Michigan on the first real vacation of the year and it is pretty cool.  Weather has been in the low 80’s at the heat of the day and I just thrilled to not be in the Lou.  I know i will return to a dead lawn, garden and (more importantly) blackberry bush and a badly torn up kitchen.  I have for Polish men working in my kitchen under the guidance of a woman who is the charicature of EVERY kitchen designer, supervisor you could ever imagine.  She is like the principal’s secretary in Ferris Bueller with this big smile and bright sing song voice.  

I don’t know how the kitchen thing got started.   In the end I likely have to blame my daughter.  She was home for Christmas break and we were getting ready to go out for our Christmas Eve Day lunch with the family to Blueberry Hill and she set her massive 103 pounds on the kitchen table to put on her shoes (because of course why would you sit on a chair) and the nice kitchen table snapped and buckled.  We cobbled the table back together but in retrospect it was that event which planted the germ of change into my wifes eye. I had held it off for several years with our families abject poverty combined with mentioning anytime it would come up that “my marriage is not strong enough to survive a kitchen remodel.”  I was and I remain pretty certain that it is true but my wife this time basically said that it was a chance she was willing to take.  So much for true love and 29ish years of marriage.

I don’t have any real opinions (or options) in regard to this.  I liked the old kitchen.  I am a Lutheran at heart.  We do not like change.  That too has likely  kept me married for 29ish years and you would think my wife would be more appreciative, respectful,  but... not this time.  It started with her asking me to go “look at” someone else’s kitchen that had just been remodeled.  When we went over the husband was naturally absent (likely having already been banished from the house with the restraining order in the post remodel divorce) and all I could say was, “this is nice”.  They gushed about caninets and sinks and stoves and floors and I said “It just seems like 15 or 20 thousand is a lot to spend on a kitchen.”

The room went silent.  Our host smiled and my wife looked at me like I had just taken a shit in the corner.  Then they both looked at each other and laughed and went on talking like I was not there.  As a great fictional character once said, “so it goes.”
There was about a month of stressed out selections for my wife.  She is...decision impaired.  She would call for my opinion and then be frustrated by my lack of one.  What type of marble, what type of wood floors, what type of counter, what type of oven/range?  Frankly my dear, I did not and do not give a damn.  So we have Aamish cabinets being made in rural Illinois.  Granite from who knows where and wooden floors made of....wood... but what type of wood and what color should they be stained? I did not know and did not care but I had no idea what I was being led into.  I understood it intellectually but did not, could not understand the amount of decisions that were required and the money required and as I stated, we now live with 4 Polish men.  During their brief tenure at our house our kitchen has been de-nuded of it’s former glory and everything else.  New floors have been laid, and stained.  Sconces (I did not know what a sconce was) have been ripped out to expand cabinet area, only to find that they were shielding plumbing, electricity stuff (wires and what not) and other surprises which would have to be relocated.  Ib the process we have lost plumbing, air conditioning and everything is covered with a fine sheen of drywall dust and sawdust.  Awesome.

They had been at it three weeks as of the time we left again for Michigan.  It was originally supposed to only take 3 weeks but do to difficulties which were evidently unforseeable it appears it will continue another 3 weeks.  We will be going home with our two sadly mentally retarded dogs and hopefully the Polish men will be kind to them.  In light of the recent developments and their tenure in my home I am reasonably concerned that I might need to provide them with health care.  Please pray for me. My kitchen will eventually not look like...this.

The Christmas Letter 2012

Preamble: I put this up because not everyone gets the hard copy. I do not know how you get on the mailing list but there seem to be 2 factors that allow it to happen.
1. Be in our 20 year old, fraying, address book which was inputted in computer; or
2. Send us a Christmas card.
Each year we are too busy to get the letter together. Between, writing it, picking the background paper, printing it, getting a family photo, ordering it and picking it up from Walgreens and then getting labels printed (neither Sandy or I really understand a mail merge) and then folding, stuffing and labeling 180 letters, combined with my wife's former need to write personal notes on some, make the process a nightmare. So every year it ends up being a hassle. While out letter was likely an amusing change of pace 7 years ago, now it even seems a little trite to me but, with no further apologies, The Becker Christmas Letter 2012!

Soooo...Christmas 2011. Last year Jon wrote the letter. It was too nice. As always with the Becker family...life is good and life is...funny. Sandy and I are finding our way being empty nesters. We miss our odd children. Both of our jobs are going surprisingly well and we continue to be blessed. We both do work relating to Banks... we don’t talk about work much. As is my habit, I come not to inform you of our blessings but to speak poorly of my children.

Jon is plowing away at BoomReactive.com with his partner Shawn Hautly. They make the web safe for social media marketing, web hosting, web design and digital media. I don’t know what any of that means but he has moved out of our house and followed my dreams back to live in St. Louis Hills. He is engaged to the beautiful and tolerant Lydia and all eyes will be on Michigan next September when we are all planning on a wedding. Lydia is mentoring for Lutheran Family and Children’s Services. They are very cute together and seem crazy about one another and we now have a “grandcat” named Henry David Thoreau. Historically we Beckers are not cat people. This must be love. Sometimes they play board games with us.

Pat is a senior at Truman and looks to graduate in 4 years with his degree in Psychology. Not even Abnormal Psych. He plans on going to grad school to get his Masters in Social Work. We cannot believe how well he has done at Truman. Apparently it is a really good school. Pat waited until senior year before starting to act again but has been in a few productions where in my opinion he has been brilliant and he has had a very good time. Pat still comes home, sits in the basement, watches anime and if I were to guess is still contemplating whether being a pirate or a ninja would be the best choice. Pat makes me laugh.

Laura...Miss Laura Becker is a Freshman at Valparasio who started out as an “Exploratory” ($30,000 a year) major and now will follow family tradition and major in communications and minor in business to be an “Event Planner”. Once again I don’t know what that means. She LOVES college, her friends, parties and apparently her classes where she tells us she is doing very well. Apparently it is none of our business. She has a room mate who cries a lot and has stinky feet. So far the boys have seemed to come and go. Once they get interested in her.... her interest...wanes. Laura lights up a room every time she comes in and now that she is gone I cannot bring myself to watch COPS anymore. Laura came home for Christmas, sat on our kitchen table... it broke. There is a reasonable chance Laura will take over the world. Be afraid.

Our dogs Lily and Lola refuse to die or run away though they do enjoy barking incessantly and acting sad.

So what are we to do? Really all we can do is marvel at all of our blessings as a family and give a lot of thanks as we look around at the kindness, tolerance and beuaty of our family and friends who support us through all this wonderful craziness. Whenever we are all together the whole seems greater than the sum of it’s parts. We close this year again with thanks for all of you. God is good. All the time. Have an awesome 2012. Our door is always open.

The Zen Of Bacon

As part of this spaces continuous, ongoing, relentless praise of bacon I am compelled to say a few a words regarding the Zen of bacon. Obviously there are a lot of aspects to bacon that are by definition "zen". This morning however I was cooking bacon for Laura, Pat and I (because only three of us I deemed 1 lb to be the correct amount. I was using a large, deep, rounf teflon skillet. Teflon is the simplest way to cook, though obviously iron has more Zen like characteristics. On the other hand iron sticks (even if well seasoned" and should never (ever) go in a conventional dish washer.

Thus I immediately sacrificed Zen.

I like to cook on a medium heat. Which is the second way that I sacrifice Zen because as we all know, the only true way to cook anything, especially bacon, is over a pure natural gas flame.

Secondary sacrifice of Zen.

I lay out about 7 strips across and then on across the top. As the skillet heats and you begin to get that Zen like sizzle then i begin to assess the heat distribution across the skllet because depending on quality of pan and quality of burner and of course positioning of said skillet... heat distribution can vary. As the bacon cooks you move the pieces from one side to another. This is orderly... and feels...Zen-Like.

But what is Zen you might ask.
One way to think of zen is this: a total state of focus that incorporates a total togetherness of body and mind. Zen is a way of being. It also is a state of mind. Zen involves dropping illusion and seeing things without distortion created by your own thoughts.

I enter this fugue state as the pieces being to get fully cooked. Many prefer their bacon limp which is...so un-Zen. Unforgivably so. So as the bacon crisps up i am always disappointed with the few first strips. There is never quite enough grease in the skillet. This leads to burning of the first few pieces where after you get them going you have a nice even layer of frying bacon fat. This is where I truly become at one with the skillet.

At this point.... the bacon basically cooks itself. Then we are left with a fully cooked pound of bacon...minus two or three slices which is the Zen cooking fee. Look it up.

Related Post: The Bacon Pigs http://stldinerreview.blogspot.com/2009/05/truth-about-bacon.html

The Christmas Letter

Because not all of you are on the Christmas card list (wife does not like you... don't believe in Jesus...I don't like you... I am too lazy to find your address etc...) I thought I would take the liberty of publishing the Becker family Christmas letter for 07 in all of it's glory. The Davidsons are still not invited over for Christmas Eve.

Christmas Letter 07
Since wrestling this job away from a grateful wife last year I have been struggling with how best to handle this years letter. Nothing has changed. Everything has changed. The family Becker rolls on into 2008. 2007 was, family wise pretty cool. We spent some time at Arcadia with friends, we went on a family trip over Thanksgiving to California, we got together with a couple of nieces one night a week to help fill up the table. We have adjusted to being a smaller family each night (that we actually eat together) and are wondering how next year will go when we have another spot to fill.

Sandy has returned to the paid workforce and regained her CPA license and we are extremely proud of her. She is working at Cummings and Ristow, some old Peat Marwick guys and is working on bank audits and perhaps bank taxation. She has always been the smarter, harder working one so it is with some pleasure and relief that I deliver her back to the U.S. economy. I hope it treats her well. The kids have handled the adjustment as we ask her to do everything she did before and now this too. She continues to have some kind of coordinating job is Community Bible Study and in an act of self destruction has also signed on as Church Treasurer as we try and figure out how to pay for the building we bought. She has also repopulated our second family by finding a sister for our dog Lily named Lola, 2 year old stray with no home, now has one. Lily is still queen of the castle but Lola is bigger and slowly starting to assert herself. Sandy spends an inordinate amount of time and money assuring that the dogs have no needs left unfulfilled. They generally seem happier and more grateful then our children.

This is Pat’s year to be number 1. He is a senior at Lutheran South. He makes great grades. He is filled with anxiety and and concerns about everything and everyone. Although he rarely leaves our basement where he watches Anime on various stations and works in origame he did see daylight enough to occasionally take a part in a Random theatre production. He performed in the Muny this last summer in “Les Miserables”. He is looking forward to a trip to Spain this Spring with his Spanish class and at this point in time is contemplating going to Truman University where he tells me has gotten a scholarship. he is enjoying his Senior year at Lutheran South and it should make for a nice graduation party. Pat continues his roll as the greatest blessing and the greatest challenge. Man plans... God laughs. Pat’s current Facebook status is “single”.

Laura is a Freshman at Lutheran South this year and has transitioned well from grade school to high school. She is on student counsel and played varsity tennis and generally had a good time and made good grades which are always a nice surprise. the majority of her time is spent at home in the basement with Pat (Beckers are all adverse to natural light and exercise of any kind) watching her brother watch TV and communicating with friends on Facebook. She continues to spend most of her communication time planning her next summer at camp, keeping up on camp gossip and inviting friends over to eat pizza in our basement and watch Pat watch TV. She is claiming an interest in ultimate frisbee but since it is in the nature of physical activity and she has a disinclination to run we will call that interest somewhat “sketchy” at this point. At last check on Facebook Laura was currently “single”. Stay tuned.

Jon... now relegated to the the number three spot in the family pecking order since his untimely exodus for college appears to be doing well. I say “appears” because we only see him if we can lure him away with gifts, vacations and occasionally a suitcase full of cash. he spent the summer working at Camp Arcadia in the kitchen and as a server and that combined with his rigorous academic schedule (I laugh even as I type the words) kept him away from home. Against all odds he joined a fraternity (Sigma Phi Epsilon) and is living in the house this year. He has a radio show on WVUR that can be streamed through iTunes, writes a weekly column (Becker’s Banter) for the student newspaper and generally seems to be loving life. We miss having him around, he seems thrilled to be out of town and happy to be missed. As of this writing Jonathon’s Facebook status....”single”.

I continue to muddle along job to job like an errant hobo. Life keeps providing me with opportunities and I continue to squander them. Still, when I look at the squandering it seems to have worked out really well and I am much blessed. I am currently (this week) a partner at the law firm of Hepler Broom and my partners have been very kind in allowing me to stay. I spent the last year and a half on “the never ending call committee” for a new principal at Lutheran South which finally concluded successfully. I did the camp counselor thing again this year and feel pushed to keep doing more in that direction but we will see what the future brings. Despite apparent setbacks, an over all osur disposition and a personality which veers towards lethargy, when I look at my family it is still pretty great to be me.

Outside of our faith our families biggest blessing continues to be our extended family and friends. Without all of you and your love and support being a Becker would truly suck. At every turn, each of us can look around and see all the great people God has thrown in our life to nourish and care for us and for this we are not nearly grateful enough. that having been said, for this one time in a year let us say from our family to you and yours MERRY CHRISTMAS and God’s best Blessings in 2008.
*For those of you who are keeping track my Facebook Status is “in a relationship”. I am trying to keep it that way and I think so is she as we get ready to celebrate 25 years together in 2008. We are richly blessed.

VACATION I

Family Vacations








With my son Jon now in his second year of college and him working all summer in Michigan my wife realized that we had indeed lost him. Once that became apparent she announced that as long as he would go with us we would now be going on family vacations. Our family vacations for the past 10 years had been up at a family camp in northern Michigan which has been an awesome place for our family. Still, other then a few trips to Florida to stay in the in-laws condo and go to Disney World (I believe all theme parks to be stationed in the 6th ring of hell) we do not “travel” as a family. Jon and I have taken trips to see concerts out of town and Sandy has taken Pat to NYC to see plays but no family stuff or at least not much.
Originally we were going to go to Mexico because that is where I wanted to go. My parents used to take me there on a an annual basis and I thought a little shift in culture would be a good parenting thing to do but as the planning progressed and the motives were thunk out a little more it became clear that my only agenda was going to the ocean and that Mexico would just be a hassle for my closeted midwestern kids. That having been said my wife rented us a condo in Oceanside north of San Diego. We are doing this during Jon’s Thanksgiving break and I am going to be out of town for the first Thanksgiving of my adult life.

I love Thanksgiving. It is friends and family and food, the three f’s (there is a fourth but it is inappropriate.) I really like being in my town. Sitting in the house Wednesday night and knowing tomorrow will be a day of a little leaf raking and a lot of food. Two turkey dinners with all the trimmings is always the goal and I like to have either my wife or mother cook at least one of them because... that is the way I like it. I have become somewhat of a nazi regarding these rituals and can tell from the looks of my siblings, their spouses, my parents and others that I have stepped over the line from eccentric to extremely annoying. Sorry I guess but I really am not. I like Thanksgiving and I like the ritual.

We plan on having dinner at our friends the Tiemann’s. Since they were nice enough to let us invite ourselves I have taken the liberty of inviting everyone else I know on the west coast. That only amount to 5 or 6 people but two of them are showing up. They are friends from Michigan and it will be sweet to see them. Out host Tim has promised me a tofu turkey and has said he will shape at least a piece of it into a drumstick. It sounds hideous. I hope he does it, not so I can eat it but just so I have something to feed my fevered nightmares regarding what NOT to do at Thanksgiving.

On the night prior to our leaving my son arrived home from college at about 8 and we had pizza. despite just seeing him a few weeks ago my heart stops momentarily as I see him and even as I cooly say hello in a nonchalant manor and take one of his traveling companions home my heart aches for the boy and I am so happy to have him close at hand that even I cannot believe it. We scarf the pizza down and are briefly, if loudly and stupidly a family again. Then we scatter about the house to pack and organize, my wife beginning a controlled nervous breakdown timed to get the myriad of things involved with us leaving town all miraculously. mysteriously and unappreciated by her family completed at the exact moment we will walk out the door in the morning. I lay some clothes out, respond to some emails on Facebook, shower, read and go to bed.

My children amaze me. three teenagers they all get up at 5:30 and are all showered, fed something and ready to go by 6 and we trundle out the door, throw the bags in the mini-van and head for the airport. We hit the Southwest terminal and get through security, get some Starbucks and wait. I always insist on arriving at least an hour early. I have never missed a flight but I wait a lot. But soon they board us. Southwest, the Greyhound of the air has a new boarding policy and because my wife remembered to check us in the night before we are all in the first 35 people and have our pick of the sits. I head for the exit row where I know I have more leg room explaining to the stewardess that we have 5 people and it will be perfect. She admonishes me that if any are under 15 we cannot sit there and when she asks my daughter if she is fifteen I nod making eye contact for her to lie and heartbreakingly she tells the truth. As they move and I start to sit down she tells me that if i am a parent of anyone under 15 on the flight I cannot sit there either. I grudgingly move this manifest injustice ruining my entire life.

Flying is no fun anymore for me. It all seems stressful. The kids are jovial though and that makes it better. Our flight to Burbank goes the Albuquerque and Las Vegas so we have two annoying stops to sit on the plane. My daughter explains that we need to “upgrade” our seats which means moving to the front. Once again grudgingly I follow. It seems to take a long time to unload and load and Sandy points out that we will be on this plane for 6 hours and suddenly it becomes hard for me to breathe. No one cares.

We hit Burbank and got the bags. That was the first start for L.A. traffic. Seriously... how do people live here. We need to go about 30 miles to Valencia and it takes 45 minutes. Over the course of our time in California I would drive about 600 miles. Normally that would take me about 10 hours since it was all on Interstate Highways but not in California and especially L.A. where at 7:00 on a Sunday you can spend an hour to go 10 miles for no reason anyone can see. It is sixth ring of hell type stuff.