September 17, 2012

On this date in 1787, the Constitutional Convention approved the final draft of the U.S. Constitution. For an excellent educational tool on the Constitution -- and it's the duty of every citizen, in my opinion, to know and understand this fundamental document -- I recommend The Heritage Guide to the Constitution.

There's snow in the air

It's about damned time. We'll likely get little more than a dusting today, a far cry from the way last winter began here in central Ohio. Still, it'll amount to the most we've seen so far this season.


Snow or no snow, though, this is a red-letter day in the KintlaLake household -- today marks one year since Scout came home with us. She is, in my opinion, the most perfect dog ever to walk this earth, a great addition to our family.

This afternoon we'll take down our Christmas tree and other holiday decor, probably while keeping tabs on Ohio State and Florida in the Gator Bowl. Win or lose it'll be a bittersweet end to a tumultuous year for my Buckeyes and, thanks to NCAA sanctions, the last time we'll go bowling 'til after the 2013 season.

Bring on the Urban Meyer era -- please.

Tomorrow it's back to work for the missus and me. That simple assertion -- back to work -- brings me more satisfaction than I can put into words. The job continues to be rewarding, too, due in large part to my wife's commitment to making her shop the best in the biz.

She's smart, confident and open to improving the way we do things. Hell, she even takes suggestions from a short-time shipper like me.

The third of January also will feature something else I'm watching closely -- Iowa Republicans will meet in 1,800 precinct caucuses to register their preferences for the party's presidential nominee. I'm no fan of partisan circuses, but I don't envy anyone who must choose a favorite from this year's GOP field.

Our nation desperately needs change, revolutionary change, and this is the best Republicans can offer? It's pathetic.

As for what 2012 holds for KintlaLake Blog, that's not too hard to predict. Commentary on the presidential campaign? Sure. More posts about urban resources, simple tools and sharps? Naturally.

In fact, my impressions of two new folding knives -- a Spyderco Para-Military2 and a Zero Tolerance 0350 -- should appear here in the coming weeks. Stay tuned, and Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas (or equivalent)

How our garden grows

Ok, so it's been a while. I've been busy.

Well, that's not quite accurate. Although there's been lots happening around the KintlaLake household, more than once over the last six weeks I made a conscious decision to walk past my computer in favor of doing something productive. Often I went two or three days without logging on.

A much-anticipated visit from out-of-town family over the July 4th weekend never materialized, but we spent the months of May and June throwing ourselves into getting our place ready -- light fixtures to landscaping, painting interior walls to preparing the tiny guest room. It was all-consuming and ultimately, visitors or not, rewarding.

When it comes to greenery, my wife is in charge of ornamentals. I manage the edibles, and my carefully tended vegetable garden has started to offer its bounty.


This morning's "harvest" was eight cucumbers, a pepper and a bowl of peas. That does it for our first crop of peas; likewise, the early-summer radishes are in. Carrots will be next to mature, I think.

My plum-tomato plants have grown to over five feet tall and the "garden salsa" peppers -- I swear, I thought they were jalapeños -- are producing nicely. The habanero plants, as usual, are making me cranky, but I remain optimistic about a late-summer harvest. All of our herbs are ridiculously healthy, save one dill plant lost to parsley worms. And after picking cukes today, I counted fifty more blossoms.

Either I need to come up with more cucumber recipes, or we're gonna have enough refrigerator pickles to last us 'til next Christmas.

A week ago we celebrated Independence Day, perhaps my favorite holiday. As is my custom, I began this Fourth of July by reading the Declaration of Independence -- aloud, alone -- to remind myself of my great good fortune to have been born an American. Later my family and I, along with a half-dozen friends, set up folding chairs along the curb in front of our house for the village parade.

For us, this parade is much more than a procession. We take the opportunity to shout our gratitude to each and every firefighter, law-enforcement officer and military veteran who passes by. Last Monday we stepped into the street to shake hands with the county sheriff, and we personally thanked our state senator for sponsoring pro-Second Amendment legislation recently signed into law by Ohio's governor.

Afterward the group returned to the patio for a cookout -- pot luck, good eats -- and as darkness fell we carted our chairs to the edge of our back yard to enjoy the traditional fireworks display.

Unlike thousands of revelers who pack the village's festival grounds for the show, we have a front-row seat. See, the shells launch from the city park behind our house, so we pull our chairs right up to the line of yellow police tape marking the edge of the safety zone and watch the fireworks explode almost directly over our heads.

I mean, it's like having our very own personal show.

When this year's display was over -- it was absolutely spectacular, by the way -- we cheered, brushed ash from our hair and, smiling out loud, walked back to the house. We love our humble home, but we love it most on Independence Day.

So all's well here. And after an unannounced hiatus, KintlaLake Blog is back. Stay tuned.

I'm not Catholic.

I'm not Irish, either.

Wintry

An early January Thaw, accompanied by three days of rain around New Year's, took away our wonderland. Now it's back -- we're seeing our third straight day of light snow.

Winter, with all of its quietude and gentle beauty, has returned to our village.

Scout doesn't much like the snow, at least not yet. She doesn't tolerate the cold well, either -- as an early-winter pound puppy, she didn't have a chance to develop a thick undercoat when the seasons changed. So when we take her outside for her "business trips," one of us usually ends up stuffing a shivering black furball inside a parka.

I'm itching to head down to the woods today, but that'll have to wait 'til tomorrow -- this wintry Saturday is for taking down holiday decorations and running errands.

Still, wherever I am these days, this season is precious to me. Cold and snow aren't for everyone, I know, but I love what winter does to the landscape and its inhabitants. No sun-splashed tropical beach could bring my soul the peace I feel right now.

Boxing Day

I skipped posting here yesterday, choosing to preserve a wonderfully peaceful Christmas Day in the KintlaLake household.

Our holiday revelry began on Thursday, actually, when my wife and I marked her birthday with a trip to Cementos for an evening of good friends and great music. The John Schwab Party Band, a subset of McGuffey Lane, provided the perfect soundtrack to our celebration.

Thanks to Christmas spirit, perhaps, the crowd was in a playfully festive mood. And thanks to the Italian restaurant next door, the all-you-can-eat buffet was free -- no cover.

Cementos, as it often does, hosted a high communion of local musicians. Gifted guitarist Mike Nugen guested throughout the gig. The five-piece band was joined at various times by an aging Kid Rock impersonator, a silver-haired fellow who played a mean harp -- sans harmonica -- and a vocalist known for his Zydeco stylings.

A light dusting of snow Friday night fulfilled our dream of a white Christmas. We drew close 'round our tree, exchanged gifts and embraced a life not imagined a year ago.

Although each day in this place is special, the last few weeks have presented us with sparkling reminders of our good fortune -- this holiday season seems to have gathered our blessings. Yesterday we shared our Christmas Day meal, mindful of the road that brought us here.

As Thoreau might say, these days we advance confidently in the direction of our dreams. It's all good.

Now, if you'll permit me, I want to thank Mrs. KintlaLake and the younger spawn for my holiday haul: an Everest Designs hat and a Leatherman MUT.

The fleece-lined wool hat, hand-knit in Nepal, is a welcome addition to my cold-weather kit. The practical-tactical MUT is rather specialized compared to my trusty Wave, fitted with gadgets designed to aid in servicing the AR-15/M-16 rifle platform. It appears to be well made, as I've come to expect of Leatherman, and very thoughtfully conceived. I'm especially impressed that a number of its normal-wear items are replaceable.

It's a safe bet that I'll have more to say later about the MUT.

Today we've escaped the Nor'easter battering the East Coast. The Lake Erie Snow Machine gave us another dusting anyway, enough to lure a few sledders to the hill behind our house but not enough to shovel.

The woods are laced in white, the landscape quiet save chattering chickadees and barking squirrels. It's a cold cap to a warm holiday weekend.

Christmas Eve

Whatever you celebrate this holiday season, remember to celebrate home, love, family and freedom.

Give thanks for life's blessings, great or meager, and know that there are others who have less.

Find those people and serve them -- and then don't tell a soul.

Give more than you get. Pay forward.

Watch children. See this night unfold through their eyes.

Christmas Eve is special, no matter how you hold it in your heart. So keep it, embrace it and make a memory to recall as long as you live.

Don't lick the pump handle

Saturday night's soaking rain gave way to honest-to-god snowfall late yesterday morning. By noon there was a brief break in the weather and the season's first sledders began to appear on the village's best hill, which happens to be just beyond our back door.

We watched the scene through our living-room window as we trimmed our Christmas tree. A boom-box, tuned to a local radio station playing holiday music, was fitting accompaniment for both.

Snow resumed later in the day and temps headed for the deep-freeze overnight. This morning we awoke to a few more inches of fluffy white stuff, whipped into drifts by winds gusting to 40mph.

It's beautiful, bitter and perfect. Strolling outside on this frigid day I could find nothing worth complaining about -- and it struck me that somehow every moment here seems like a gathering of perfect things.

The absolute rightness of these days is, for me, inescapable.

As my family and I decorated a tree for the first time in two years, I couldn't help but think back to where we were last December, living in a toxic atmosphere of alcoholism and hate. We pooled our humble human grace and persevered through collective force of human will. We survived to greet this tree, a glimmering symbol of holiday memories and joy surpassing anything we imagined.

Life's difficulties, like today's icy wind, challenge the peace that lives with us in this place. No matter -- our spirit thrives.

Acclimation

Just before dawn today, the thermometer hanging on our ash tree read 9°F. Six feet to the right, the temperature was a wind-chilled -5°F.

'Tis the season for learning again how to conserve warmth, taking longer perform tasks with gloved hands and other such inconveniences. This is no time for machismo -- I, for one, don't care what my bundled-up appearance says about my manhood. It's about staying warm and dry.

Snow has been falling (technically) for several days here, squalling and flurrying and not amounting to much. We're well beyond the reach of lake-effect snowfall that's been slamming northeastern Ohio.

The KintlaLake household devoted some of last weekend to holiday decor. Our first task was to strike our harvest display and haul corn shocks, gourds and pumpkins around back for their appointment with my machete.

I scattered ears of feed corn, along with chopped-up pumpkins, out by the tree line as a treat for wintering critters. Cornstalks got tossed onto the garden plot and hacked to bits.

We then unpacked boxes labeled "XMAS" and lovingly placed decades of memories around the house. Since I'm still not up to par here, a cheerful Mrs. KintlaLake managed the ritual, indoors and out.

So now there's a wreath on our front door and another on the garden shed. A candle glows in every window. Hundreds of tiny white lights twinkle from the porch at passers-by. A fir from North Carolina leans against the back wall of the house, awaiting its place in the living room. We'll bring it inside and trim it later this week.

Cold as it is outside, we're wrapped in the warmth of the holiday season, our first in these new digs. It feels good.

Two more numbers

It's Christmas Day

The KintlaLake family opened presents last night, as is our holiday tradition, and unstocked stockings this morning. I'll spare readers a rundown of our modest booty -- there's way too much of that sort of thing going around.

I will say, though, that the missus and I are grateful for gifts of thermal underwear and wool socks.

We breakfasted today on sausage-and-egg casserole, another tradition. Right now I'm finishing a 24-hour batch of KintlaLake's Slow-Cooker Chili, which I'll serve tomorrow to my co-workers at the shop. My mother-in-law is preparing this evening's dinner.

On this Christmas Day, a tumultuous year for my family and me is drawing to a close. It finds us well, safe and together. As ever, our spirit thrives.

I wish the same for you and those you hold dear.

It's Christmas Eve

Whatever you celebrate this holiday season, remember to celebrate home, love, family and freedom.

Give thanks for life's blessings, great or meager, and know that there are others who have less.

Find those people. Serve them -- and then don't tell a soul.

Give more than you get. Don't give back -- pay forward.

Watch children. See this night unfold through their eyes.

Christmas Eve is special, no matter how you hold it in your heart. So keep it, embrace it and make a memory to recall as long as you live.

Holiday break

With Christmas and New Year's falling on Fridays, and since our shop closes Wednesdays and Sundays anyway, these two weeks were bound to be strange and, since I punch a clock, less lucrative.

'Tis the season, of course, so it's all good.

Making this week another day shorter, the shop's owner encouraged my parts-counter colleague and me to trade "eves" -- he's taking off New Year's Eve and I (because I'm "a family man") get Christmas Eve to myself.

After 30 months without a regular job -- and arguably all the time in the world -- seven weeks into this one I have three straight days off. I'm not sure why that seems like such a windfall, but it does.

Light snow fell on the gritty little village throughout the day, adding holiday ambiance but little accumulation. Walking across the street midday to refill my coffee, even trudging outside after dark to fetch an oddball part, there was a feeling of peace.

Maybe it was the falling snow. Maybe it's the time of year. More likely, the sense came from within.

I think I'll carry that feeling through the next few days.

Sighting

Sitting idly in my truck before work this morning, I watched the comings and goings across the street.

At one point a Cadillac XLR, dark red with a black ragtop, rumbled past me and turned into the post office. An elderly man climbed out of the low-slung roadster, walked over to the mailbox, deposited a stack of envelopes and got back into his car. He performed an impressive burnout as he left.

Oh, by the way -- this gentleman was dressed in a red warmup suit, black boots and black gloves. On his head was a distinctive red-velvet hat, trimmed in white fur. He had a large snow-white beard.

Santa drives a hot Caddy -- who knew?

Christmas Day

It's bright, clear and cold. There's no snow, either on the ground or in the air.

Our perfect tree stands in the corner of the living room and Christmas music echoes through the house.

Santa brought a bicycle to our younger spawn. Christmas is always better when a bicycle is involved.

This morning we enjoyed a delicious breakfast casserole, my wife's labor of love and a family tradition.

Warmth, love and light. It's Christmas Day.

Christmas Eve

Whatever you celebrate this holiday season, remember to celebrate home, love, family and freedom.

Give thanks for life's blessings, great or meager, and know that there are others who have less.

Find those people and serve them -- and then don't tell a soul.

Give more than you get. Pay forward.

Watch children. See this night unfold through their eyes.

Christmas Eve is special, no matter how you hold it in your heart. So keep it, embrace it and make a memory to recall as long as you live.

Seasonal salutations

Happy Holidays!

Why not Merry Christmas? That's easy -- because when I offer you my greetings, it's an expression of respect and good wishes for what you celebrate, not an imposition of what I celebrate.

Maybe you celebrate Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa, or some ancient ritual involving a burning log. Maybe you don't celebrate anything at all, or maybe you're in it for the gifts. I don't know -- and because I don't know, I won't presume. So...

Happy Holidays!

But if you do mark the religious version of December 25th, then by all means, have yourself a merry little Christmas -- just don't demand that everyone adopt the particular significance that you ascribe to the holidays.

And please don't hand me the "reason for the season" line -- people were throwing big pagan parties this time of year long before mangers and virgins got into the act.

Don't get me wrong here -- I have no problem with true believers "putting the Christ in Christmas" and celebrating accordingly, nor do I object to Merry Christmas as a generic greeting. When I'm told, however, that Merry Christmas is the only proper way to express holiday wishes, well, that's where I get off the train.

This isn't about political correctness. It's about respect.

Suppose that on my next birthday I ran around wishing everyone a Happy Birthday, knowing that it doesn't hold the same meaning for anyone else, if it holds any meaning at all. That'd be patently silly, of course, as well as arrogant -- and no different from insisting that all of us embrace the Christian version of Christmas.

I love this time of year. I have a half-century of cherished memories, and the season holds special meaning for me. I promise that I won't impose my meaning on you and, with respect, I ask that you not impose yours on me. So, from my heart...

Happy Holidays! (inclusive)

Decoration day

In the KintlaLake household, this will be a different kind of Christmas. It already is.

Yesterday we liberated our decorations from storage, dozens of boxes that spent the last eleven months stacked in the barn or crammed into a corner of the basement. In years past, that would've been followed by driving to a local tree farm, trudging through the woods and choosing the perfect tree.

There will be no live tree for us this year, no bright smell of fresh-cut pine wafting through the house. In the corner of our living room will stand a conical, pre-wired, steel-and-plastic faux fir, the one that usually greets holiday visitors to our front porch.

This will be my first artificial-tree Christmas. Just thinking about that saddens me, but our family makes compromises these days. Not spending money on a real tree this year is but a small one.

What I'm missing most of all, more than the live tree itself, is the ritual of choosing it. Whether it happens in a parking lot or on a snowy hillside, I've always looked forward to picking out the tree, always imperfect in some way but absolutely perfect, the one tree that's like no other in the world.

It's a sentimental journey that'll have to wait 'til next year, at least. Today my family and I will celebrate the home that lives in this oddly wonderful house, drawing holiday traditions from our hearts and fond memories from the boxes now piled around the tree.

We'll put sticks of cinnamon into a pot on the stove and play holiday music on the stereo. We'll take great care in handling fragile ornaments once hung by our grandparents and, with a smile and a tear or two, we'll linger over decorations made by our spawns in grade school. When all the boxes are empty, we'll step back and admire the twinkling trove.

In that moment, it won't matter that it's an artificial tree behind the glitter. It's still our Christmas tree.

What's more, we'll acknowledge that we're not stuck in some faraway sandbox, cradling a rifle in one hand and choking down MREs with the other. Neither finances nor fire has driven us from our house. There's food in our pantry, a glow in the furnace and love in our home.

We're a fortunate bunch, we four -- and that, I think, will be the spirit that fills our holidays.

* * *
6:05pm: We just finished our "decoration day." It was full of emotions, for many reasons, especially for my wife and me.

The tree looks great.

Out on the porch sits a wooden child's wagon, missing its staked sides, that's as old as I am -- and I know that for a fact, because it was mine when I was a kid. Today, as is our holiday tradition, our spawns filled it with large colored ornaments and draped it in evergreen garland. I gathered an armload of cones that had fallen from the red pines out in the side yard and added them to the wagon display.

The simplest of pleasures.

Right now Mrs. KintlaLake is preparing dinner -- hollowed-out loaves of Italian bread layered with fresh basil, garlic, and plum tomatoes, plus slices of Provolone, pastrami, turkey and ham, dressed with olive oil and Balsamic vinegar and warmed in the over 'til the cheese melts and the flavors marry. This family-favorite "comfort food" will be shared this evening with our recently displaced young friend.

Another good day in this life. Our spirit thrives.