Blinders

It was our birthday today.  Notice the plural tense that I continue to use and even though I celebrate our birthday sixteen hours before my brother and sister, it's still ours.  I had a great day today reveling in the still strange opportunity to celebrate my birthday (notice the singular).  No one in Australia (from where I live now) has met either one of my same womb siblings, so I celebrate as a singular - and it's fun.  The presents that I receive aren't opened in hurried isolation; I don't have to worry about peering over my brother's working hands to know what my present is.  I can open each present with relish.


It's funny how I can write 'relish' because here, in Australia, relish is often eaten with cheese.  As the school at Faith knows: I am a kaseaholic.  In other words, a cheese addict.  I can eat almost every kind of cheese except vomitcheese - blue cheese (which tastes like a mixture of stomach acid, bile and nineteen-day-old eggs) - and I can eat it heartily.  The only real side effect is that I start to sweat a little bit when I eat it.  It's strange: when I grab a piece of cheddar I might as well grab a handkerchief to wipe my brow.  So, this year for my birthday, I weighed the amount of cheese that I was given.  Two kilograms - four point four pounds.  That's a lot of cheese and a lot of sweat.


The reason I'm given so much cheese is the fact that at a worship service I mentioned my penchance for that fine dairy product.  It happened almost fifteen years ago...


Elsa was still little and Josephine was still a baby.  I was finding that I was gaining a little weight while living in the north country.  During the winter, I was putting on pounds while at the same time pounding down loads of cheese.  Especially string cheese.  When Christine would go to the Red Owl grocery store, I would always ask for her to stock up on string cheese.  I don't know why that suits my fancy so much; probably it seems like if you can peel the cheese apart it doesn't have as many calories.


So, being the wonderful wife that she is, she bought me string cheese by the eight pack. Sixteen ounces worth.  A whole pound of delightful stringy cheese, easy to be consumed in small, snack sizes.


But as I found that I was gaining weight, Christine said this:


"You know, if you just cut down on your cheese intake, you'll probably be able to lose some weight."


I stared at her with vacant wide eyes, looking at her as if she'd asked me to cut out my spleen with a butter knife. 


"I can't do that, dear.  That's not in my make up.  Cheese is life.  It even rhymes with Jesus."


Christine rolled her eyes.  "That's your problem.  You take everything to the extreme.  Just cut back a little bit.  Instead of having cheese on everything - you don't really need to put cheese on your cereal - just have cheese every once in a while.  Slowly but surely you'll be able to not only cut back on your intake, but also shed a few cheesepounds."


Fear.  When the thought of losing something registers in your brain you can fight it in one of three ways:  1. Embrace the challenge that your wife sets before you. 2. Ignore every intelligent idea that she speaks about cheese because the thought of leaving cheese in the fridge is akin to leaving her.  3.  Just go cold turkey.  I don't know why they call it 'cold turkey.'  It should be called 'cold cheese.'


In this circumstance, I thought I would prove to my beautiful wife that I was indeed, not addicted.  Like every good addict, I denied the fact that it ruled my life; that when I woke up in the morning, the first thing I thought about was cheese on my French Toast; when I made my lunch - Peanut Butter and cheese; dinner - you guessed it - roast beef with melted cheddar. 


Okay, so maybe I exaggerate a little, but I reaaaaallly like cheese.  But I decided to go cold cheese.


After a week, things got bleak.  I saw cheese in everything - the sun a wonderful shade of cheddar; I heard cheese in every sermon - Pharisees became Pharicheese.  I felt a comfortable cottage cheese in my pillow at night.  I smelled the absence of cheese in every meal that we ate and I became morose, listlessly eating my meals as if they contained no source of joy.


After that week, Christine, Elsa and Josephine wanted to go for a walk and I had to stay behind to do something; nobody cares who that something is anymore, but all I remember is the fact that there were seven lonesome cheese sticks in the refrigerator that seemed to be singing to me every time I opened the door.  I ushered Christine out of the house as quickly as I could - tucking Josephine into the pram surrounded by pounds of blankets as it was still cold outside - helped Elsa put on her snow boots and carried the pram down the front steps with one hand.  Christine could sense that I was jumpy and as we later reflected, she wondered if there was something wrong with me.


There was.  I was in withdrawal.  The minute she left the house, I walked to the fridge as nonchalantly as I could, but soon the door was open, I had blinders on - only one thought in my mind - and within seconds I had the package of cheese sticks open; seven cheese sticks were making their way down my gullet.  The sweat was already starting and as I was munching away in dairy heaven, I heard the door open.  Christine had forgotten something. 


She found me sitting in the kitchen with the remnants of four cheese sticks sticking out of my mouth.  Busted.  No more going cold cheese.


I wish I could have taken the blinders off, those things that horses wear so that they don't notice anything outside their vision.  Australians call them blinkers which doesn't make any sense because horses don't need to signal which way they are turning.  They blind their peripheral, not blink them - but that's an argument that I'm sure Australians would like to debate with me because that's their national sport.  Forget cricket - it's arguing.  They like nothing better than a good argument.  It doesn't even matter if they believe what they are talking about as long as they can have a few good broadsides of their opponent...


Anyway, blinders are imperative for a horse.  They keep it directed, goal oriented. 


On our trip, we had the opportunity to be taken out in a one horse open carriage.  We wanted it to be a sleigh, to head out across the fields feeling the snow flitting against our faces, but unfortunately, Old Man Winter was taking a nap during much of the time we were in the States.  But my Uncle Dale took us out in the carriage, the one he uses for various weddings throughout the area.  As he assembled the carriage, I noticed the looks of my daughters, who have seen enough Disney movies to make them truly believe that a knight, or an ogre, or a bumbling idiot is going to chase them over the countryside, is really going to happen.  Maybe it will. 


But I'll be there with my clerical collar and a shotgun.


So, with my Uncle Dale driving the veritable stallion (in all honesty, I've never seen a tamer horse.  He was like a forty-two year old dog - oh wait, that's me today) and we sat enjoying the view of rural Iowa.  Cars passed us on the road; people waved at the princesses in the carriage and I sat with Christine, holding hands underneath the blanket.


My Uncle Dale and his wife, Barb, are some of the most amazing people on the planet, but what is special about my Uncle Dale is he was also a sponsor at my baptism.  For some people, being a sponsor is just a figurehead job - the vows they take are symbolic. 


My Uncle Dale is not like that.  In fact, as I think back over all the significant events of my life, he has always been there, not just birthdays, sporting events or graduations, but he was at my wedding - even though all the way on the other side of the planet - when I was in college, he was always available to be the ear I needed.  We sometimes stayed at his bachelor pad at Christmas; I was in awe that he was so old - thirty-something - and didn't have a wife telling him how he should be cleaning the house. 


My Uncle Dale is the most intelligent, down-to-earth person I know.  His ability to make people feel comfortable is unparalleled.  His awe-shucksness is legendary, but it's not debilitating for him.  He's just a genuinely awesome man. 


We stayed with Dale and Barb for a night, played some cards, had a meal with my cousin Ward, and through it all, it just felt like a full circle, from birth to adulthood - he did his job with aplomb.  He was the perfect sponsor.  He had the ability to help raise me but not overwhelm me.  He was cool enough to take me squirrel hunting, but knew enough to let me learn from my mistakes.


He had blinders when it came to me.  One goal.  To work with my parents to make an adult Reid.


It worked.


I think.