Lion Poop Two Years Later

“African Proverb - Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up and knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up and knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve.”

In August 2008, I was the AIG gazelle and got run over by the Lion in one fell swoop. August 19, 2008. Clearly my previously unrevealed personal destiny to be the next day's Lion poop was to be fulfilled.

But, the ability and need of the Lion to digest this particular gazelle was poorly calculated by the Lion. Nope, this particular gazelle is a thorny mess that refuses to go down quietly. This gazelle has short stubby legs instead of those long thin ones that are easy to swallow. And, there is also that kicking and screaming factor to consider. According to the nuns from grades 0-12, my parents, my grandparents, the neighbors, coworkers, friends, family, the butcher and the postman, I apparently get a score of 56.3 out of 10 in that area. Seems I'm like that bouncy clown toy we used to beat on in our basement. Without the undertone of malevolence, of course. You hit the thing, it bounces back. You hit it again, same result. He comes back. Still smiling. It happens again and again and again. And, after a while, you come to the realization that this is only one of the many reasons you hate clowns so you just pound on the thing. Clancy the Stress Relieving Clown gets his revenge, comes flying back at your face with equal force and with his plastic seam dead center and leaves the imprint of the unmistakeably bloody "Clown Attack" scratch on the side of your face with it. Of course, one does not admit to others that Clancy the Clearly Malevolent Stress Relieving Clown has scored again. Nope. If the public wants to think you rescued a small child from a rabid racoon attack, that will work. It's only polite to just smile and move on. Anything else would not be gazelle like.

So, after two years of unmitigated retching and dealing with a lot of clowns we the people elected and a few we didn't, the Lion gave up, hacked up a reasonably undamaged gazelle, paid the price and brought her back.

I must say that being Lion vomit just isn't that bad of a thing to be. In fact, it is rather nice.

What We Have Learned About Heaven

There is nothing positive about losing a parent. Nothing. Even knowing that he isn’t suffering with extreme pain anymore doesn’t quite do it. He still had to suffer. That was not right. We still miss him terribly and it seems to get lonelier every day. I need to know how many feet are in a mile and have to actually Google it when I used to be able to Dial-An-Expert for the personal touch. We live in this new world of grief which is a really, really weird one. We laugh and it makes us nervous. We cry and it makes sense. We laugh again and decide that we are just unhinged. The female parent on the team at a minimum.

But, my father’s death has at least given us plethora of opportunity to talk to the kids about God and Heaven in age appropriate language. I guess that has been a good thing in a grasping at straws kind of way. The son is getting it. The daughter, not so much. At least I thought this was the case based upon her line of questioning and suggestions around how I could see my Dad and she could visit her Grandpa. First, she didn’t understand why I didn’t call him or know his new phone number. I explained his number couldn’t be ported to the new place. Next, she suggested taking a big plane to see him since Heaven is far, far away. When told that wasn’t going to work out that well as there were no scheduled flights to Heaven and I was absolutely, unquestioningly unwilling to take one that had any of those “unscheduled water landings” to get there, she didn’t see why. After all, we were able to go to China in a big plane and that pretty much was proof that it was doable. She also asked if Heaven is in China, Peru or Ohio. Given I grew up in Ohio, that was the final sign I was failing and she just wasn’t getting it at all. Granted, Ohio is a friendly state with a big “Hi” in the middle. But, for gosh sake it does frequently freeze over which would clearly suggest it is on the opposite end of the Heaven spectrum.

And then, one evening, I assaulted her sense of personal dignity when I told her she could not go to sleep with a sharp pen in her hand as everyone knows that would put her eye out. After a bit of perfunctory screaming, she did seem to appreciate my care and concern. She gave it some very deep thought and told me that “she wanted me to go to heaven.” I was really moved considering the enormity of her goodwill toward me. I thanked her and told her how sweet she was and that I certainly wanted her to go to heaven as well.

It was the perfect Hallmark moment. I was so proud of my little girl and my parenting. She was appreciating my efforts to keep her safe and with two good eyes. Background music played in my mind as I met her gaze. She gazed intensely into my eyes, held her gaze for what seemed like many blessed minutes and then told me “NOW” in the slow voice she uses when she wants to make sure her listener fully understands both her annunication and the intent of her comments. Yep, it was her final word before rolling over to go to sleep.

For some reason, I think she is starting to get it.

My Father's Eulogy. The Hardest Thing I Have Ever Written.

In Praise and Thanksgiving for Dick Gries

I’m Joan Gries, Dick’s proud daughter and I’d like to share with you a little bit about my father. I’m the oldest of his four kids and although I have three younger brothers who are arguably better writers and speakers than I am, I did have the blessing of knowing my father for just a little bit longer than they did so I asked for this honor.

There are guides for writing a eulogy but I ignored them in favor of thinking long and hard about what my Dad would have told me if I asked his advice about what to say and how to say it today. I am certain he would have laughed a short laugh and then told me that he just couldn’t see any reason for me to be up talking about him at all considering he was just an ordinary guy with an ordinary life which is just about as far from the truth as could be.

Rather, my father was an absolutely extraordinary man who lived an extraordinary life.

There was so much about my Dad that made him the man he was.

He was an accomplished engineer but that definitely didn’t define him although it could be quite fun when his engineering personality and our family life intersected. I remember one year when we brought home a Christmas tree that was terribly sparse in the middle. Dad decided it just wasn’t quite good enough for his family. He cut the center of that tree out and stuck the two ends together to make it look perfect. Granted, it took hours but that was who he was – a man who was driven to absolutely and unconditionally love his family and serve God and to deliver his best no matter what it took.

My father had a fabulous sense of humor and a quick wit. He could easily laugh at himself as well as laugh with others. And, although he would laugh at himself, he never laughed at any of his children’s or wife’s endeavors or dreams, no matter how goofy they may have been. Rather, he was always supportive without exception.

My father saw all people as children of God and didn’t have a bigoted bone in his body nor was he judgmental. A quick look at our international family shows just how well he passed this truth on to his children.

My Dad adored my mother and without question she was the light of his life. Their marriage was truly sacramental and the epitome of Paul’s 1st letter to the Corinthians, beginning at verse 13. Their love was patient & kind and genuinely reflected all of the qualities that Paul mentioned.

In the past months, my father told me how blessed his life had been because he never had to deal with any of the hard problems that so many others face. But, in reality, he absolutely had many difficult challenges in his life. He worked for a company that went bankrupt and he lost his job, one of his daughters gave him a run for his money when she was a teenager and he had a cancer scare with a son when the son was little. He had a serious heart attack and fought brutal cancer three times. He also buried his parents.

But, he didn’t view any of these things as hard problems. They were just bumps in the road of his life. Recently, he told me that his last five years were his greatest gift in life, albeit a pretty weird one but a gift nonetheless. He said that the challenges reinforced what he already sincerely knew to be true – God was either going to fix it the issue or God was going to give him the strength to get through it.

For me and many others, how he lived his last five years was the strongest witness of Christian faith in action that I have ever seen. Of course he was my hero from when I was a little girl, but recently others also described him that way due to how he walked his journey with abundant humor, grace, quiet dignity and with no complaints. He was sincerely confused on why so many people would think he was doing something special. In fact, he would laugh and then point out that it wasn’t like he had volunteered for this duty. I’m sure we would all agree that it didn’t matter whether he volunteered or not, he was chosen to show us how to live according to the Gospels. He did that well.

Someone once told me that we are all in the departure lounge but none of us have any idea what flight we are on or when it leaves. My Dad boarded his flight without fear, anger, depression or regrets. He knew there would be extreme turbulence on the way and still said “Bring it on.” Knowing my Dad, his faith and his life, I have absolutely no doubt that his flight was a direct one and made a safe landing in Paradise where he was welcomed at the gate by our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

My father was dearly loved and we will miss him.

If My Grandson Wants to Hold a Rooster, Just Let Her Know

Could have gone a whole lifetime without hearing that one. Really. Especially with the son's grandparents standing next to me laughing their butts off.

Free Range Parenting At Its Best

So the husband made the decision to go missing one weekend. Although I do not recall his precise location, I do believe golf of some nature was involved. In any event, he sadly missed out on the full and amazing demonstration of one of my best and highly recommended parenting techniques - free-range parenting. Now, had he seen it, I'm sure his amazement level would have risen all the way up to having "no earthly idea who that woman is" which is just one notch above his "I will now be going to wait in the car" rank but still one below "I am in the car and leaving without you" level.

While he was gone, the kids and I made the decision that we had to go to the mall to buy a specific Webkin for the son's birthday. Now, we are very committed to joyfully celebrate this birthday event somewhere between January 3rd, which happens to match the date on his birth certificate, and February 28th which happens to match the official end of the post-holiday sales, so we were all very, very excited. Now, it should be pointed out that the son enthusiastically committed to this movable celebration years ago because the son is a clever boy who has wisely bought in to his mother's theory that birthdays should be celebrated when birthdays presents are cheap, cheap, cheap, versus celebrating the same on some rigidly pre-arranged date that may inconveniently fall during the work week, when it is raining, or when a test is scheduled. Nope, it is obviously better to celebrate when one can score a lot of presents bought at a deep discount.

So its off to the mall where we park the car right outside Dillard's. Now, I don't quite get the Webkin, a stuffed toy that also has a virtual family that lives on the internet for precisely one year at which point a Webkin master swoops down and wipes them all out. It's lights out for all the little buddies. Now, if that isn't a heart warming toy, I don't know what is. Then again, I do have to admit prior ownership of a pet rock. But at least it wasn't one of those store bought ones. Nope, it came from the wild, otherwise known as the neighbor's landscape display. Much more valuable that way.

But back to the Webkin. We venture within the store and spot this lovely Webkin display close to the door. I highly, energetically and enthusiastically recommend quickly buying one of them as they meet two critical requirements - 1. they are on sale and are 2. within 200 yards of where I parked the car. And since I didn't bring the stroller or any other restraining device for the daughter, this ranks these particular Webkins as a "Best Buy" for me in the category of "Stuffed Toys That Have Some Sort of a Onine Life."

The son strongly disagrees and points out that the Webkins in question all happen to be shaped as fuzzy pink unicorns and are not, as I insist, the Chinese "Year of the Horse" commemorative Webkin edition. Even the "made in China" tag didn't help my normally awesome persuasive technique. Nope, just not suitable. We must go forth and conquer the mall in search of the Webkin he saw at some store that he doesn't know the name of but can find if we walk the entire place twice with me carrying the daughter who has decided that she no longer will walk even with me dangling cinnamon stick pretzels from Aunt Annie's in front of her as an incentive.

Nope, he has recall and he knows what he wants. He spots the store, lets out a whoop as if he has found the Holy Grail and tells me that the Webkin in question is deep inside this place near the cash register. How he know this, I do not know as the store is apparently for little girl tweens and sells such niceties as headbands, glitter nail polish, midriff tops, hair clips, lip gloss, shoes and on and on and on. A veritable cornucopia of what the daughter thinks she not only needs but is entitled to. This presents an obvious problem. How do we retrieve the Webkin without all hell breaking loose?

Now, the son and I have worked on a pretty good routine for getting the daughter and buggy by any Ballerina/Disney Princess/Barbie displays in stores we frequently visit and have become more than adept at executing the same. In fact, our method rises to the level of community theater or performance art at a bare minimum. After a quick glace at the offending merchandise, a nudge of the elbow, brief eye contact and a quick command by the son of "you be the clown" or "I'll be the clown" we effortlessly swing into action. As one of us hurriedly pushes the shopping buggy as fast as it can go, the other begins performing a song and dance routine that we affectionately call "Hey Mia, Look At This" on the side of the buggy facing away from the desirable goods. She looks, we dance and sing and then we are in housewares. Works every time. But alas, this time we find ourselves facing an entire emporium of goodies without a houseware in site.

I send the son on a reconnaissance mission to determine if the Webkin in question is still residing in the store while I point out the shoes on passersby to Mia. If there is anything she likes better than glitter nail polish, it's shoes so that works well. After getting a positive report and directions as to which Webkin I am to purchase, I instruct the son to stand at the entrance of the store with the daughter, to stand within my view, and for him to point out and hold forth a discussion on the desirability index of the shoes of passersby, unless they turn to come into the store at which point he is to redirect Mia's attention. He gets it and in I go. I grab the toy, run to the register and get in the line with only two folks in front of me figuring I have 3 minutes tops until I get out of the store. Not so. Now, I'm sure the girl working the register was truly a nice person but for crikes sake I have never seen anyone so confused and confounded by a cash register. Ever. A one handed monkey smoking ganga would have been a significant improvement. Really. So I continue to stand and engage in communal eye rolling with the other folks in line while whipping my head around every 15 seconds to make certain I don't need to go kill someone for bothering my children.

And then it happens. The son starts gesturing in a manic manner and I ask the gal in front of me to hold my place in line as if the line was really going to move and dash to the entrance to slay anyone who might be causing the difficulty. The son indignantly informs me that no one is bothering them but that the daughter had touched the bottom corner of a poster after he told her to stop. More than three times. Now, the son knows the rules, so I commend him on his attentive watchfulness but spy a manager with a decoder ring coming to help out at the register. I need to dash back in so that Webkin could be his. We agree and off I go.

I pay for the toy and begin walking out victorious when I notice that the humongous window display seems a bit odd. Aiming for simplicity or just being cheap, the store has gone for the minimalist look and has hung one huge 10' by 20' sign saying CLEARANCE! in each window. And, the sign on the right side of the store, which was hung on the horizontal now seems to be hung diagonally, a fact that begins to cause a bit of cognitive dissonance for me. Sign? Poster? What is the difference really?

I approach slowly to see an glowering employee pulling out a ladder to fix the sign which somehow has been lifted up on one side and fallen off the hook it was hung on while the son just kept shaking his head. Doing what any parent in my situation would do if given the advantage of being several shades lighter than the kids, I quietly walked right by them and whispered for them to meet me next door using the Webkin as bait.

After rendezvousing two doors down, I learned that the daughter had decided that being part of a window display was a bit more interesting than shoes after she watched them for the first 10 minutes or so. Now, although I certainly can't condone her behavior, I do appreciate the creativity of thought and do wonder how many people jumped when she moved and they realized she wasn't a mannequin. Would have been fun to see.

So I Finally Let Them Watch "The Christmas Story"

Good thing I didn't let them watch it when it was the dead of winter now isn't it?

When an Airbag Hits You Up Side the Head

Well, I found out what happens when you total your car and an airbag hits you upside the head. One becomes just a tad surprised and a wee bit disoriented what with the car crumpling into you and all. As you sit there wondering how you will get out of the vehicle which has locked you in place via seat belt, you marvel that you chose a Range Rover over all other options to whack with a car that isn't really yours - it's your employers. Or, more accurately, it was. And, given that a Range Rover weighs approximately 17.23 tons and a Chrysler Sebring doesn't, you are glad that you didn't hurt anyone in the Rover which, not surprisingly, just got a bit teed off and allowed it's bumper to dent. A little.

And, as one would certainly expect, I managed to pull this little stunt in front of 12-20 paparazzi. Those fun folks who also go by the name of teenagers and who were waiting for their school bus in a little shelter. Couldn't have planned it better - I nailed a Rover right in front of a reviewing stand. Don't know how many people can say that. Gave me the sensation that I was the star in some perverse North Korean weapons day review for gosh sake. And, apparently due to the regulation that all teenagers are required to carry some type of cell or I-phones for just this type of event, I had my picture snapped over and over while I was being extracted from the car by kind folks wearing those paramedic uniforms. And then I was photographed again and again while being strapped to some board like the one used to restrain Hannibal Lecter all the while yelling "but I'm not dead yet" in my best Pythonesque imitation of a British accident. Alas, the reference was lost on the paparazzi who were at least 25 years away from being a twinkle in their parents' eyes when Monty Python and The Search for The Holy Grail came out. Fortunately, this reference was also lost on the nice EMS folks who restrained themselves from whacking me over the head. And, of course, telling me "now you are."

So, after being awarded the Miss Crash Test Dummy title complete with a seat belt bruise sash for a couple of days and the inability to actually use my arms neck and back for a bit, life is good. And I even learned a few things. 1. They will not turn the siren on for one's amusement even if it is rush hour traffic 2. Crumple zones work 3. My purse apparently weighs enough to fool a car into thinking it is a passenger as it got and nailed with an airbag too and 4. Some things are better learned from other's experience.

All The Christmas News You Don't Need and More - 2009

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from our family to yours! We hope this finds you and your family happy and healthy. God has again been unbelievably good to us this year and we are grateful. We hope that he has been good to you and your family as well but we keep all those suffering through these times in our thoughts and prayers just in case it has been difficult for you. We know that this year has certainly gifted our family with a renewed sense of how interconnected we all truly are and that we really are here to help one another as Christ’s servants.

Now, given our over inflated sense of importance, we wanted to let you know about some of the phenomenal things that occurred in the Anchaya-Pepper household in 2009.

But first, we want to firmly emphasize that we again made it through an entire year without any legal action being taken against anyone in our little clan. Amazing but true.

As a family, we heard the quote, “This year has been unique, unequaled and unparalleled” used precisely 16.73 gazillion times by the press. Of course, this statement clearly begs the question – how many extra points do reporters and writers get if they use three adjectives all together in the same sentence that not only start with the same letter but mean exactly the same thing? From our perspective, the year was certainly distinct, dissimilar, divergent and different from any we had experienced before but we didn’t need even one of the 16.73 gazillion reminders. We were already quite aware of this being an unique year as four out of four of us managed to personally attain an age we had never experienced before. And this was without incident. Well, except for the one who is getting old. And, surely there is some research that says crying and gnashing of teeth really isn’t all that bad.

As you would expect, Mia and Aidan accomplished the most superlative things again his year. Mia set the world record for the length of time one can jump up and down while screaming. We attempted to get her into the Guinness book of World Records but they apparently couldn’t hear us over the din each time we called them to suggest the same. However, we are still hopeful. Mia also learned to distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate attire for a young girl by using her own guidelines of “princess dress or tutu” and “not princess dress or tutu” and then emphatically communicated the same when her guidelines were not met. She is willing to suffer for her art and the rest of us generally just suffer. Mia is ever vigilant against being inappropriately dressed and quickly removes anything that she arbitrarily deems not befitting of a princess. Like socks. Pajamas. Or a jacket. This is an amazing skill to watch, especially when it is performed while she is in her five-point-restraint car seat. We would like to emphasize that we only use this seat when we are going somewhere in the car despite the obvious attraction of using it all the time.

Aidan is again at the front of his class. Thanks to the amazing foresight of his parents, he is alphabetically superior. Other than naming him A. Aidan Anchaya, we couldn’t have done a heck of a lot better. He has also joined the Boy Scouts where he has spent a copious amount of time learning how to blow things up. The Scouting Expo also taught him how to make a stove that burns with a totally invisible flame that can melt steel in less than one minute which is a skill every first grader certainly needs. He hasn’t put his eye out yet, but we believe he will have that opportunity again at next year’s Expo.

Now, in 2008, we went an awesome vacation with my folks to Yosemite and you know we always try to top ourselves. So, this year, we went on two excursions, an almost free trip to Sea World and then another one with the Boy Scouts despite my concerns of somehow being blown up or incinerated by invisible flames. For the first trip, we agreed to tour a property for sale in exchange for free housing and cheap tickets to see Shamu. Oddly, when all four of us arrived for our tour in our “We love Primitive Camping!” shirts which we thoughtfully purchased especially for the occasion, they didn’t even show us around the property for sale. They even kindly set a timer to let us know the very second they could hastily escort us off the premises. Really.

Our second vacation was even more exciting. We went on something inaccurately billed as “camping.” Actually, it was one of those extreme Survivor stunts where we had to live and sleep in a cold pond as record rains filled up our tent. Now, it could be strongly suggested that we didn’t bring the right gear but for marital harmony, I don’t think I’ll point out that the husband insisted he loaded the car with “all that we needed”. In a very exciting Déjà vu moment, I was rescued by two kind Scouts who escorted me out of the woods in a blinding downpour by using their flashlights which were remarkably similar to the flashlight carried by the Ranger who hauled me out of the woods in Yosemite last year. Oddly, it was also remarkably similar to those flashlights in our home that the car packer decided did not fit the category of “something we needed”. During the year we also had the good fortune to attend my youngest brother’s wedding. It was a blast and it gave us the opportunity to perfect the art of taking family pictures while looking in any direction but that of the camera.

We are sorry to report that we did somehow miss dress-like-a-cow day this year at Chic-Filet. Robert so clearly enjoyed it last year. The mystery of how the day was marked incorrectly on his social calendar remains unsolved.

We would love to hear what is going on in your life unless you want to tell us all about how much fun dress-like-a-cow day was for you. Can’t have two of us gnashing our teeth. We would also appreciate prayers for both of our fathers as they both fight cancer with incredible grace and upbeat spirits.

May the peace of our Lord be with you and your family this year.

Joan, Robert, Adian and Mia