music

She’s Actual Size

/ J. Thorp / 1 Comment

(Blogger’s Note: This post is written with the express permission of my wife, who is 8-1/2 months pregnant and as lovely as the winter is long. Her one caveat is that if we’re still talking about this in June, then she’s gonna be upset!)

Somewhere (or rather, somewhen) around March of 2004, when Jodi was about six months’ pregnant with Trevor and still chilled to the bone by the retreating winter, we stopped at the store to pick up a few things. Jodi walked in because the list was in her head; I stayed in the car and entertained the kids by demanding silence in a menacing voice, then napping. Due to my closed eyes and lethargic state, I did not realize that behind me, Gabe was getting nervous. Someone was approaching the van — closer and closer. A figure shuffled past his window and reached for the door on the van. The door opened.

Gabe exhaled his relief. “Whew,” he said. “I thought a great big fat man in a green coat was coming toward us, but it was just you, Mom!”

Nearly a decade later, Jodi has again dug out the coat, a thick, roomy, pale green affair that isn’t the prettiest, but remains to this day both warm and functional. This fall, a friend of ours offered her a barely worn black maternity coat, which Jodi eagerly accepted. Unfortunately, by the time winter rolled around, the coat could no longer be made to meet in the middle.

We found ourselves in the same pew as our friend last Sunday, and Jodi was self-conscious about not wearing the coat. She hoped to explain after church, but never had the chance. We joked that she should message our friend on Facebook: “Sorry I can’t wear the coat you gave me. Thank you for being the David Spade to my Chris Farley.”

We laughed — hard — together, but the truth is, this pregnancy has been difficult. Jodi’s feet swell painfully every day; she calls them monster feet, and the kids have a daily discussion about whether they look more goblinesque or trollish. (I helpfully observed they look like Chipotle burritos with toes, but no one else found that comparison appetizing.) Her hands swell, too, and she had to have her wedding ring cut off a couple weeks ago. The other day, when a friend of ours who will shoot our newborn photos told Jodi to be prepared to have her hands in the shots, my bride asked me, “Should I see if she can Photoshop them back to normal and add my ring in?”

I tell her she’s beautiful, and judging from the Facebook comments on the photo above, many of you agree — but she doesn’t feel beautiful. This morning, I greeted her with, “‘Morning, glory!” — and she immediately recalled that the kids watched Madagascar last night and assumed I had said, “‘Morning, Gloria!”

“Yes,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I called you a hippo.”

We do our best to keep things as light as possible, knowing we’re almost to the end. Three more weeks until the blessed bundle arrives…and although people gasp at the size of our previous children (9-9, 11-11, 9-5, and 12-2), I think Jodi hopes this one is a 30-pounder. After all, she says, beyond a certain size, it’s all just pain.

By the way, we’ve been humming this song all day. It’s a strange sort of love song, I think…

“She’s Actual Size” by They Might Be Giants
I’m not talking about the lady’s actual size
I’m talking about the lady who is actual size
Words fail
Buildings tumble
The ground opens wide
Light beams down from heaven
She stands before my eyes
She’s actual size, but she seems much bigger to me
Squares may look distant in her rear view mirror but they’re actual size
As she drives away
Big men
Often tremble
As they step aside
I thought I was big once
She changed my mind
She’s actual size, but she seems much bigger to me.
I’ve never known anybody like her, she’s actual size
Nationwide, believe
She’s got
All the money
Money couldn’t buy
She’s got something special
That someone left behind
She’s actual size, but she seems much bigger to me
Squares may look distant in her rear view mirror but they’re actual size
Actual size to her
Her face
Hangs in portrait
On the post office wall
She’s stuck in my heart now
Where my blood belongs
She’s actual size, but she seems much bigger to me
I’ve never known anybody like her, she’s actual size
Actual size, believe
She’s actual size, but she seems much bigger to me
Words fail
Buildings tumble
The ground opens wide
Light beams down from heaven
She stands before my eyes
She’s actual size, but she seems much bigger to me
Squares may look distant in her rear view mirror but they’re actual size
As she drives away
Big men
Often tremble
As they step aside
I thought I was big once
She changed my mind
She’s actual size, but she seems much bigger to me
I’ve never known anybody like her, she’s actual size
Nationwide, believe
You think she’s big, you think she’s larger than life
But if you open up your eyes you’ll see she’s actual size
Etc.

The Second Third, Week 10: The Big Payback

/ J. Thorp / 2 Comments

Blogger’s Note: The whole idea behind these “Second Third” posts can be found here.

When I left home for Yale, my folks left a cushion of money in my checking account. I’m thinking there was $150 of their money, hidden beneath the zero balance, in case I ever was in trouble and needed to come home. I never counted it as mine, so there was always $150 difference between my balance and the bank’s. My folks trusted me not to piddle it away, and I didn’t let them down.

Instead, I collected my suitemates’ empties and turned them in for the deposit, cleaned our bathroom (shared by seven of us) in exchange for pizza at Yorkside, and worked 20 hours a week to pay my bills. When one of my suitemates ran out of spending money and called his mother to yell at her, I was shocked. And when my roommate bought a new stereo, I set my little Sony dual cassette player aside and listened to his music. Even synthpop and show tunes.

I think it was my sophomore year that I “graduated” to a Visa with a strict credit limit — $500, I think, just for emergencies, my folks said. Again, I walked the line: at Thanksgiving, I got a hand-me-down Apple IIsi computer from my sister, and when I needed to crank up the Soundgarden, I could always go next door to our common room. The rest of the time, the little Sony would suffice.

Junior year, however, I roomed with two new guys, both fairly private, with no common room and no common stereo. They were out a lot, and I wasn’t…so the stereo bug bit. I’d been listening to the same little Sony since the Christmas after Ghostbusters II came out — I remember because I got the boombox (I use the term loosely) and Bobby Brown’s Dance!…Ya Know It on cassette, together, as it were. (And as everybody knows, that cassette had remixes of, among other things, the GBII soundtrack single “All On Our Own”…) I had worn out two Soundgarden Badmotorfinger cassettes, and couldn’t get enough volume to startle the squirrels outside my window.

It was an audio emergency. I needed a stereo. I deserved a stereo. And I’d totally pay it off in a matter of a couple of months. J&R Audio catalog and a Visa. Done deal.

I loved that stereo. I still have it, actually — it serves as a makeshift “theater” system in our basement family room. Did I pay it off in a couple months? Probably. Did I demote the Visa back to emergency-only duties? Nope.

The love bug bit next. I met Jodi at Wall Drug one summer, and decided to get engaged the next. Did I have money the ring? Nope. Did I have money for a down payment? A little…

I drove the length of the state to Sioux Falls to buy the ring I knew she liked — and they looked sideways at the fact that I had no permanent address (a student P.O. Box in Connecticut or Wall Drug?) and only seasonal employment. Finally they relented and said they would finance, but I’d need to put more money down.

This was my one shot. I called Citibank. They bumped my credit limit. I left with the ring.

We may still be paying for that ring. We’ve been in debt of some form or another ever since, and although we’re slowly digging out, it’s hard. Our furnace is dying, and it makes sense to replace the A/C at the same time — but that’s a few thousand dollars we don’t have in hand, plus my car’s acting up. What to do, what to do…

When I bought my first car from my dad, I got a loan. It wasn’t a big loan, but it was big enough for me at the time. I remember Dad saying, “They’ll make it easy for you. They want to loan you the money — it’s how they make money. And they want to loan as much as you can possibly pay back, even if it takes awhile.”

Especially if it takes awhile.

We’re trying to be smarter, and we keep chip-chip-chipping away at our debt. I’m looking forward to the big payback here in my Second Third: eliminating bills, saving our money, paying cash whenever possible as we move forward, and letting the kids know in no uncertain terms that there is no such thing as an audio emergency…even if your roommate is rocking to Erasure.

They Call the Trina Bina

/ J. Thorp / Leave a comment
So we went through a windy spell a few weeks back, and I made some comment about Mariah singing me to sleep. Then I googled the song, and found the video below. (I hadn’t known where the song came from.)

Then my good friend, Laura of Laura the Crazy Mama fame, commented how much she loves that song, and that her eldest daughter’s middle name is Mariah…which was funny, because everyone calls her eldest daughter Trina Bina. (That’s Treena Beena, in case it’s not clear.) Jodi said as much — “I thought her middle name was Bina” — and, since just a week or so prior (in a beer-weakened moment) Laura’s husband had spilled his guts about how he and Laura met, well, the makings of a song just percolated up real natural-like. With any luck, a super-creative and somewhat musical family like Laura’s brood will record this — maybe even post a video on YouTube.

So with a shout-out to Mamaloco and Trina the Crazy Big Sis (and with apologies to Butch):

They Call the Trina Bina
In Albertville, they’ve got nicknames
For Nielsen sons and daughters.
The Nick is “Bock”; the Lise is “Weez”–
And they call the Trina “Bina”…

Katreenaaaah! Katreenaaaah!
They call Katrina “Bina”…

Ol’ Butch he sat at home that night
When came a knock at his door
Up jumped his friend, and he let in
His girlfriend, yes, and one moooore…

They played at cards, then watched a film,
When out they should be goin’.
He wanted then to punch his friend
But inside love was growin’…

Katreenaaaah! Katreenaaaah!
They call Katrina “Bina”…

He watched her in the mirror and she
Pretended not to mind him.
Her hair she tossed, and he was lost,
Where only God could find him.

From that day on, a family man
Butch was, and a provider
He worked away, and all the day
He dreamt he was beside her.

Katreenaaaah! Katreenaaaah!
They call Katrina “Bina”…

A lovely mama Laura made
But loco as a ferret.
She homeschools, blogs, and often jogs
And Butch must grin and bear it.

They’ve rolled a lucky seven since
Three boys, four lovely ladies—
And nicknames all they always call
From teens right down to babies.

So Matt is Matty; Nicker’s Bock;
There’s Mari and there’s Lina
Tommy’s easy; that one’s Weezy!
And they call the Trina Bina…

Katreenaaaah! Katreenaaaah!
They call Katrina “Bina”…

Katrina! Katreenaaaaaaaaaah!…
Oh, lend some saniteeeeeeee!

Summer Vacation, Day 78: On Writing

/ J. Thorp / 1 Comment

Blogger’s Note: I’m cheating a bit on this one, because technically it’s taken almost entirely from a comment I left on a post in Jacqui’s Room entitled “A Room of One’s Own.”

I have no space of my own. To get in the mood, I tell the kids I need to write; set up a card table in the bedroom; get Trevor a drink and ask him why he never wants anything to do with me until I need to write; fire up my laptop; ask Jodi if she’ll remind the kids that when Puck barks, it means he wants to come in; pull up a chair; calmly remind the kids I need to write; answer a few emails; write a lame Facebook status update; visit Jacqui’s Room and Hubba’s House (see Friends and Good People, at right) for half an hour; bark at the kids that, although I’ve yet to write anything, I am write-ING, and they need to play downstairs or outside if they are going to be loud; complain to myself that it’s too quiet; build a custom playlist for the day’s fiction; open a beer; and press play. Later I counteract the beer with a cup of green tea or black coffee.

Music is critical. For the kung-fu screenplay, it was indie hip-hop (like current local fave Doomtree) and traditional Chinese music on shuffle. For the fantasy novel, country/folky/bluesy stuff seems to work – She & Him, Neko Case, Carla Bruni (yes, the supermodel first lady of France sings), etc. …

Trevvy Logic

/ J. Thorp / 4 Comments

I could hide out under there
I just made you say underwear …
– Barenaked Ladies, “Pinch”

Our youngest, three-year-old Trevor, applies a certain, consistent logic to the new words he’s learning in order to figure out what they mean. For example, out of the blue he will proudly announce, “Mom, I know why we say toothbrush – because we clean our teeth with it, and because it’s a brush … toothbrush!”

He applies this equally to simple and compound words, so that the results are often unintentionally nonsensical and funny, e.g. “I know why they’re called suckers … because you suck on them, and because they’re ers!”

So last night we’re enjoying a small dish of ice cream, and he begins: “I know why we say ice cream … because it’s really cold, and because it’s cream – ice cream!”

“That’s right, Trevvy!” says Jodi, and I ask, “Trevor, why do they call it chewing gum?”

“Because you chew it, and because it’s gum!” he says proudly.

“And why,” I ask, “do we call it underwear?”

He stumbles a moment, working it through in his head.

“Because it goes under your pants,” he says, “and then it’s like it’s gone!”

* * * * *

Blogger’s Note: If you aren’t laughing, don’t worry – it took us a moment, too. Homophones are great fun, aren’t they?

Additional Note: On a mostly unrelated note, this morning, Trevor approached Emma, placed his palm on top of his head, and said, “Emma, this is how tall I am. I’m this tall!”