Rates And Ratings

69:5

John and Cheryl Nilsen from Bethany Lutheran Church celebrate their forty-second wedding anniversary today. And that's not even the Answer to the Ultimate Question -- sorry that broke in, I'm rereading Eoin Colfer's sequel to Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, And Another Thing ... (ISBN 9781401323585) and I'm not aware so far of any references to the Answer (42) but it seems Arthur, Ford, and company refer to just about everything else through the series.


Anyway, Martha and I have our fourteenth wedding anniversary coming up three weeks from tomorrow, so it's another twenty-eight years before we get as far as John and Cheryl have (July 12, 2045, or as I'll likely express it in my journal should I still be writing it when I'm seventy-four, 14507.12 -- twenty-first century, forty-fifth year, seventh month, twelfth day) but I'm learning not to ask couples married that long to each other "What's your secret?" for I get much the same response.


This Saturday was my last day in a challenging book for me, Ed Strauss' Bible Prayers for Fathers (ISBN 9781630586294), and I too appreciate the irony it was the day before Father's Day. And of the seventy-five devotionals in this leather-bound book (nice touch) followed by an ideal prayer for you -- well, for ME as a father -- along with questions for further thought, some drove me crazy while others helped me look at fatherhood as ... not as much of a drag as it has been.


Heck, I thought Martha and the kids would forget it was Father's Day not because our culture often ingrains fathers as the weaker parents so much as I'm not the ideal one, and I am constantly reminded of it. But they did get me a Best Dad Ever balloon and each Father's Day cards as well as a bag of Flamin' Hot Cheetos and a four-pack of soda from Dollar Tree. And after church we went to lunch at Trinity's cafeteria, where I too will have a name badge in a few weeks!


I know Jeffrey didn't mean to push me away when he said "you can leave now" after I went upstairs before work to see what he, Jeffrey, Josceline, and their aunt Mary were doing in her room at my in-laws' house, but I reflect as I type this that I miss him asking me to play with him. He still does but not as much, and I haven't pushed him away as much on what keeps me busy, but every time I do feels it reflects bad on me. And getting a hug from Sarah ... that's pulling teeth.


Today the kids go swimming at Roosevelt Park's swimming pool, and I know they look forward to that! Especially when the weather is great and nowhere near the heat wave of the Southwest. The kids are not fun when they're peeling, and now I'm reading a figure from the Canadian Cancer Society that 1 in 2 people will get cancer and 1 in 4 will die from it. You'd think with all the charities, researches, and pleas by now it and every other disease would be cured! Not treated, CURED.


Pesky 100% mortality rate,


David