Jenmenke

Road Warrior

Babble

Another Christmas Retrospective

Christmas Cards Years 2000 – 2005. AKA, the Psycho Years

Yeah, I was pretty psychotic during those years…

And that was actually before menopause. At least now I have a culturally acceptable reason for it.

We start off with the photo from 2000. It might look like we are having fun in this photo, but actually I think Dave was in the process of tossing Charlie into the swamp.

He wasn’t cooperating. Also not sure about those eyebrows of Dave’s. They look kinda scary…

I believe that this might have been the first year Dave and I had an all-out fight about the Christmas letter.

That, too, was to become an 11 year tradition. When I re-read this particular year I don’t even find anything objectionable. I wonder what he didn’t like… It must have been the sarcasm. He worries incessantly that people will think I’m serious. I don’t know how to tell him that I am being serious…

Strangely, this year there was no argument about our letter. Hmmm. I hadn’t really thought about that until now. Could it be the Holy Spirit is also working on DAVE? To accept that I am more wonderful than he previously realized?

Yeah, no, I don’t really think that’s it. I think it’s that my card must actually be pretty boring this year.

That is sort of upsetting.

Anyway, 2001 is probably my overall ugliest card. Well, except for 2006 when I looked more like Axl Rose than my beautiful self.

As you can imagine, we had some strong words about this letter, as well. But you know what? Everyone. And I mean everyone, can relate on at least some tiny level.

Can’t they?

Please say yes.

2002 brought our private, marital Christmas card battle public.

Things came to an explosive head and after a particularly big fight about the letter. I drafted a new one in anger and haste.

Dave wasn’t much happier about the second one than the first.

If you can’t read it, I basically lay out the fact that we had a big fight about the letter and that instead of sending it I was taking a poll. If the receiver LIKED my sarcastic cards they were to respond, via email, with a “yes” vote. For their efforts, they would receive the originally drafted letter that had been edited to be approved by Dave.

I received over 50 “yeses” and one “no.” The no-voter was a Dave brown-nosing woman (she knows who she is) and I didn’t mind. It made the survey more believable.

The annotated and approved letter was much funnier before the additions required by Dave for public consumption. It was the identical letter without all the stupid (TRUE) and (FALSE) indicators.

I still laugh about that one. So much fun, these stupid letters have given me!

2003 was the start of a short-lived phase where I re-wrote the words to Christmas songs. I also liked this card because it’s a good family picture. Well, except for Dave. And I liked the photo so much of me and the kids and wanted to use it so badly (it’s true, I’m that vain) that I found a good picture of him from the same day and photoshopped his head over the bad one. And I think made it too big.

If I hadn’t told you that, you’d never notice. But now that I have told you, he will start to look freakish. We call this one “Big Head Dave and the Monsters”

It was a good letter though.

2004 was hilariously hideous. I don’t think very many recipients actually realized we took that photo in December in the freezing snow. Note the strategic placement of children to cover Fatty’s rolls…

I was amazed at how many people remembered this card the following year saying they couldn’t wait for the naked card in 2005. I feel they need to seriously get a life.

2005 was the best song ever. It has become a much-loved Christmas carol sung by moms everywhere.

Go ahead, sing it out loud (to Jingle Bells). I just did. It’s catchy!

See you tomorrow! It’s Christmas Eve!

A Menke Christmas Retrospective

Christmas Cards, Years 1995 – 1999 aka, the baby years…

So, unto me, a child was born. It took me about, oh… 4 or 5 years, but I finally learned what God had set out to teach me. And that was/is: Jennie is not the most important person on this Earth.

I continue to fight that lesson. I mean really. I *am* important. But no one seems to understand that except for me. I try and try and try to convey this crucial information to my family.

It falls on deaf ears. I ask for foot rubs and back rubs. I ask for…

Well, that is all I really ask for.

Honestly. Would it be that hard?

OK, OK. I digress. I know it. But my neck is killing me and there is no one to complain to except for you.

I may joke about my kids and family, but it really was a special time.

Cute little baby Morgan.

It was awesome.

Until she started talking, anyway.

I had obviously gotten sick of plain black laser cards by then and used paint for color and glued a photo to the inside. Wasn’t she so cute? (Morgan, I mean. We’ve already established that I am cute.)

1996 was short and sweet

Maybe I was shell shocked by the time it took to hand cut the cards with an Exacto knife and use — I can’t even remember — some type of scrapbooking , heat activated, glitter powder for “Merry Christmas.” The trapezoid effect on the photo was unintentional and highlights my lack of Exacto skills.

Charlie enters the scene (loudly) in 1997 and life has never been the same

Initially we thought he was colicky. After about three years, we sort of accepted the idea that that was his personality. He doesn’t cry anymore (he’s 13), so we are thankful for that. He just asks a lot of questions.

But even that takes its toll.

1998 was when I started to figure it all out and realized that passive aggressive sarcasm had a place in my life. It was also the first year I used a swear word in our Christmas card, which was to become an 11-year tradition until being unintentionally broken in 2010. I think it’s the Holy Spirit finally, finally getting some work done on me. (It’s been a tough road for him.)

I do have a typo in the version I kept for myself. He isn’t a “Bond Angel” as in the 007 variety, but a “blond angel” as in haircolor.

1999 must have been a slow year for me since I appear to have printed the card on one paper, our photo on photo paper, cut out a frame with a wavy wheel cutter, glued them together and used foam tape to give it some dimension.

Seriously. It makes me sort of sick to my stomach to picture myself in the office making 130 or so of those little masterpieces of insanity.

And now I’m picturing “A Christmas Carol” with the ghost of Christmas Past taking me back to that year to show me all the precious time in my life I have wasted…

I CAN CHANGE! I CAN CHANGE!

Anyway, here it is

I have become very upset. What if, in ten years, I look back on this blog and think the very same thing?

The more I think of it, the more I think it isn’t a matter “if” but a “when!”

So sad!

But what else can Fatty do in her office with the space heater at her feet and a plate of cookies next to her that is so fun?

See you tomorrow!

The Five Days of Christmas

Of course, it was supposed to be the TWELVE days of Christmas, but… You know how it goes.

I DIDN’T GET AROUND TO IT, OKAY? I’d love to detail all the goings-on in the Menke house, but

  1. your eyes would roll back into your head and you might never come back here.
  2. you don’t care.
  3. you can probably top my list.
  4. I don’t have time.

So here was the plan:

I would display our Christmas cards from the past twelve years and end with my current card on Christmas day. Brilliant!

Before you tell me you don’t give a rat’s ass about my Christmas cards, and particularly the ones from year’s ago, let me say this:

  1. My cards give a unique perspective into the devolution of a soul. That is to say, Jennie becoming a parent. For better or worse, and often against her will.
  2. Yes, I was just speaking of myself in the third person.
  3. No, I don’t know why. It just sounded better that way. Maybe by disassociating myself with the horrible things I say about my family makes it somehow better.
  4. Anyway, my cards are funny. In some ways, they are my best work. (Which is pretty sad, if you think about it…)
  5. Plus, I’m busy. And I don’t have time to think up anything else to write about this week.

Due to the time constraints — there being only FIVE days until Christmas instead of TWELVE — I will be ganging them up. Such a bummer, but it is what it is. The only real dilemma I face is whether to include the boring ones from before kids.

And since this is about the devolution of a personality, I think I will. It will help to get, you know, the whole picture.

Now remember, the first… oh, eight or nine years are pretty boring. I’m mostly including them so that if I ever lose my hardcopies, there will be a place they exist so that I can poor over them and confirm how witty I am when I’m feeling low.

Consider this stupid blog my off-site back-up of essential memories.

What’s crazy when you look back this far in time, is how far we’ve come. Not as people, but in technology! Back in 1990 we couldn’t even fix red-eyes.

Or photoshop new heads on to our bodies, which I believe I did to Dave in 2003…

So 1990 was the beginning of it all. Marital bliss with my beloved Dave.

Would you just look at those shoulder pads on that dress? (Don’t look at the youthful face inside of it. I’m much prettier now.)

Then we got a puppy. Which I refer to as our “first born” because we fought more about parenting that stupid dog than we ever did our kids… Casey is the middle one.

Look how happy we look in 1992…

…Maybe it was the Red Stripe beer.

…Or the Jamaican sunset.

…Or the fact that we didn’t have kids or volunteer anywhere or have mean roosters yet.

1993 was clearly the year I finally got a laser printer. I remember it well: An Apple Personal LaserWriter NT. My parents bought if for me as a surprise and very generous gift (it cost more than the Mac II I had back then) and I turned a corner. I would make every card from that year on. The beginning of the end.

And yes, it clearly appears I used to spend a lot of time hunting and fishing. Oh, those were the days!

Heh heh heh.

1994 was a multi-paged tome. You might remember that Martha Stewart was a big name during this time and I did my best to keep up.

In this Christmas booklet (what was I THINKING?!) you may notice I was PREGNANT in the first photo. Things were about to change for Jennie…

See you tomorrow!

It Smells Like Worms

It’s raining (again). It’s been raining for day upon endless day in Minnesota. Well, except for last weekend. We had a nice weekend.

Before today I was at 6+ inches for the month. I emptied about 1″ out of my rain gauge this morning and there is no end in sight

So, is it my imagination, or can I really smell the worms? Even when I walk outside, there is this humid wormlike smell to the air. I swear to Heaven above that I am accurate in my olfactory. It is the worms I smell.

To further prove my point, I have driven my car two times today. I try to avoid the thousands of outstretched bodies on the road. I swerve like a maniac trying to avoid their helplessness, all the while thinking of that movie where Brad Pitt is in some Buddhist village trying to build a shrine (or something) and the workers can’t do the work because they can’t kill any worms.

What in Buddha’s name would a Buddhist do on a day like today? Driving in a car? Driving over thousands of worms?

It would truly be a moral dilemma.

After all, it’s a dilemma even for me. And I’m just a gardener.

And then I park my car in my garage and go inside.

Then I go back in my garage to get in my car and I almost keel over. It’s that same smell as outside, only ten times stronger:

Worms!

And I imagine I am smelling all the worm guts in the tire treads and thrown up on the undercarriage and spewn all over the exterior of the car. (I know that’s gross, but it makes sense, doesn’t it?)

It’s worms I smell.

The Garden is a Mirror of the Soul

And Mine Ain’t Pretty.

Not my garden or my soul.

And somehow, I find that fitting.

I’m not saying that I am OK with the state of affairs, mind you. Just that it is fitting.

In my mind, summer should be a hazy, lazy bucolic event. Where I herd the kids off to an event or two in the morning and spend the afternoons and evenings puttering around the garden, reading, walking, cooking, entertaining.

Sound good to me. I’d like a do-over please.

Because in reality, summer was a stressful, unpleasant blur. There was hazy, but no lazy. To say I am happy that it’s over would be an understatement. Isn’t that sad? Again, I’m requesting a do-over.

And I find myself asking, “What is wrong with my life?” What needs to change? And for all the pissing and moaning I seem to do, I can’t really answer that question. I think I am doing what I am supposed to be doing. I can extend that even further: I think I am doing what I want to be doing.

Or am I? How can I say that summer was an unpleasant blur if I am truly doing what I want to be doing?

Is this the season of life I am in? A consequence of raising kids that turn into teenagers and suck the life out of us?

No. I seriously don’t thing that is it. I just wanted to say it for the millionth time because it is fun.

If I had to put a name to it, I would settle for this:

OBLIGATION.

**And on that note, I must leave now for yet another volunteer commitment. I say that, because I think it is both sad and funny. But I will return. **

(It is now hours later. Aside from a burst of productivity to keep paying clients off my back, my mind-set is the same.)

Obligation.

Some would call it guilt. But is it really guilt? I don’t think so. Maybe obligation isn’t even the right word. I’ll try to explain.

I want to volunteer at Freedomfarm. I want to design cool marketing pieces for my son’s struggling school. I want my kids to be able to play soccer here, close to home (I really didn’t want to run the whole program, but it seems that was the only way it would happen…), I want to help friends with their Christmas cards…, and the list goes on.

And yet, all those things add up to a full-time job. A non-paying, full-time, often-stressful job. Never mind the paying clients, few though they may be. They are often put on the back-burner to some emergency volunteer thing that needs to get taken care of  — adding to the stress. These things have a way of taking over my life, much as my cucumber vines took over my garden this year.

The one thing I do for myself is write these posts. And yet, that is often stressful, too. Because what happens when a paying client sees that I took the time to write, instead of get their logo revisions done?

That’s a problem.

Yes it is.

You would think gardening is also something I “do for myself.” But it, too, is an obligation much like the volunteer stuff I do. Yes, I want to have the garden. I enjoy being in the garden. And I certainly enjoy the bounty from the garden. But knowing it’s out there (looking like crap, I might add), is a huge burden. The work involved in honoring the fruits of the labor are immense.

You don’t just go grab beans for dinner. You spend 30 minutes picking them. Then washing them. Then snapping them. And don’t even get me started on lettuce. Washing and drying garden lettuce? I hate it! Not that lettuce is even relevant: after the first spring planting, no more would germinate. It was a problem I would have the remainder of the summer with many of the seed-grown plants.

Soon, the first frost will be upon me and with it comes an insane amount of scrambling. Digging out tender herbs, harvesting peppers, tomatoes, cukes, and everything else that is vulnerable. After that comes the first hard freeze and another wave of work: apples, kale, squash, pumpkins and more.

“Did you pick the raspberries?” “Have you picked the raspberries?” “Has anyone picked raspberries?”

(that’s Dave talking.)

“NO I HAVEN’T PICKED THE FRICKEN’ RASPBERRIES! TELL ME EXACTLY WHEN I WOULD HAVE TWO HOURS TO GO PICK RASPBERRIES!”

(that is me talking.)

First, I have to pick my lovely tomatoes. Not red one among them, I might add.

I ask you: what do you do with this many sickly, yellow tomatoes? Have you ever seen yellow tomato sauce? Yellow salsa?

I have. I’ve even made it before. And it looks exactly — exactly — like vomit. And I have better things to do with my time than make vomit colored sauce.

Like pick the raspberries.

Bye!

Dog Days of Summer

All Activity Suspended Due to Heat

I do know that — traditionally at least — the Dog Days are in August. When I was a kid, I thought “Dog Days” literally translated to: “When the scum on the lake grows so thick you can no longer swim.”

Seriously. I really did think that.

It isn’t is it?

Maybe I shouldn’t act like I know it all…

But I do know it all. So let’s stop pretending I don’t, shall we?

Anyway. I declare that the Dog Days of Summer are NOW. Why? Because in Minnesota where I live, it is currently 93 degrees and something like 83% humidity. Maybe it’s more. I don’t know. I don’t care. What I care about is the fact that my air conditioning at home does not work.

No, it’s not stressed or taxed or anything like that. It got hit by lightning. Actually the chimney got hit by lightning and various amenities inside the house are suffering the consequences. Things like my oven. And more sadly, my air conditioning.

I can’t complain too much though, since I hardly EVER use it. Hardly, hardly ever. But when I do? You know it’s bad out. And right now, it’s bad out.

And in:

Yep. That’s the temp in my living/dining/kitchen area. The basement thermostat reads 81 degrees and — get this — 83% humidity. I didn’t even know that was possible.

Charlie is at tennis and I’m cooling my heels at Caribou with a hot latte. Seriously. I forgot to say “iced” and the lady behind the counter actually believed that I was dumb enough to want a hot latte. Needless to say, I poured it over ice.

I know I haven’t written in a while. Apologizing for not writing regularly is something I swore I would never do. And I won’t. But complaining about my life? That’s fair isn’t it?

This is the time in my year when I just about dig my own grave and hop in willingly. Anything sounding better than walking through my days. It shouldn’t be this way. Especially in summer, amid beautiful friends and weather — bugs be damned. Have I told you about the bugs we have this year?

It’s not that I’m sorry to be involved with the stuff I am involved in. I want to do the stuff I do. And by “stuff” I mean volunteer stuff. But is it too much to ask them to move their events around a bit so that I’m not so overloaded every year?

Basically I’ve just been buried amid the quagmire of life. And while I love, love, love to write, sometimes it becomes just another stress in the dark recess that is my mind. And the guilt… Have I told you about the guilt issues I have?

So instead of writing, I will call Heating and Cooling 2 for the third time in as many weeks. I will re-call the electrician who missed yet another bad GFI outlet. I will call the security system people who left saying it worked fine and not 30 minutes later it started beeping at me and driving me mad. I will drive my kids to the ends of the earth for no reason at all. I will occasionally sweep the myriad of cat hair that is swirling under the bar stools. I will apologize (again) for not making dinner. I will package up and send back the “new” replacement ipod speaker that was ruined in the lightning strike that was sent all scratched up with a used cord. I will smile when people make constructive suggestions about soccer and say “Wow! What a GREAT idea! Now, who do you think might be willing to actually RUN that little project besides ME?”

And, when I get the chance, I will come back here and start writing fun stuff again.

I want to be a cat.

Even though I don’t particularly like cats all that much.