The Good Stuff

I forgot what good listenin' country music is. 

I’m talking about the older stuff, say around the time we still listened to the radio in West Virginia—usually driving home in “Big Red” with our luggage wrapped in black garbage bags to keep it from the possibility of getting wet. 
True hillbilly style.

 Good stuff. 

We were married in 2002, so around the time Kenny Chesney was throwing out hits.

 

I recently heard a song that we used to listen to called, “The Good Stuff,” by Kenny Chesney. 

A newlywed man got into a big fight with his wife and headed to the bar for some good stuff—whiskey.

The bar tender told him that he couldn’t find it there. 

Falling in love, getting married, and, “…Eating burnt suppers the whole first year—asking for seconds to keep her from tearin’ up…that’s the good stuff.” 

I’ll spare you most of the details of our sticky-sweet love story, (and to keep anyone from throwing up in their mouth) but I think if we could have snorted each other up that short courtship, we would have. 

Getting married, being together in a tiny apartment, sleeping in a full-sized bed with a 315lb lineman—that’s the good stuff.  

I wish that this life could be filled with ONLY the good stuff.

It's what much of my talk to God is about.

Thank you for the good stuff.

And keep it coming.

The bar keep goes on to speak about his wife, “.. .I spent five years in the bar when the cancer took her from me.”

Definitely not good.

Tearing tendons, dealing with career disappointments, miscarrying, sicknesses, lost jobs—bad stuff.

Overwhelming at worst.

Manageable at best.

 

While there is an array of bad stuff, 

in my life it has generally served a few different purposes.

One of those being to give clearer perspective on just how good our everyday happenings REALLY are. 

 

Drinking coffee in the mornings with Tim.

Hugging and kissing the kids throughout the day.

Nursing the baby.

Teaching the kids about life through ours.

Watching the kids interact with their grandparents, cousins, and friends throughout the week.

And making love with my husband.

Good stuff.

   The bar keeper recounts his memories over a glass of milk with the young man and tells him that he’s,

“Been sober for three years now because the one thing stronger than the whiskey was the sight of her holding my baby girl—the way she adored that string of pearls I gave her the day that our youngest boy, Earl, married his high school love. And it's a new tee-shirt saying: 'I'm a Grandpa'. Being right there as our time got small. And holding her hand, when the Good Lord called her up.
Yeah, man, 

that's the good stuff."

Hopefully the good stuff is there and you can identify it too.  
Whatever is good, think on these things.

Meat Sweats

It started with 3 racks of smoked ribs crusted with BBQ sauce.   

You heard me.
T-H-R-E-E.  

This was part of what Tim ate in celebration of Independence Day about a month back.  By all accounts, he should weigh 450lbs, but he doesn’t.  He's 235.  He works hard to stay around there.

His physique is more like that of a tight end, due largely in part to his obsession with extreme physical activity. 

Three racks of ribs wasn’t a big deal for him to eat—we were used to his high caloric intake, and most of those calories once had parents.  Delicious parents.
Let me clarify here.  I am not describing overeating—it's honest hunger, like back in his college football days when he would eat a few appetizers, two entrees, and still not be satisfied as others looked on mortified at the amount he could consume.
It was simple supply and demand in his case—and still is.
Mothers and wives of linemen won’t pass judgment on this story too harshly because this too is their familiar life—waiting for the feeds to be over.

Needless to say, Tim felt sick that Fourth of July.  Recounting that day, he said it was somewhere between the 2^nd and 3^rd racks of ribs.  And he SHOULD HAVE felt sick—common sense tells us that no one should consume that much pig in one sitting.  His belly gurgles fell on deaf ears.   

His family lovingly dubbed it, “The Meat Sweats.”  A few others began diagnosing themselves with this faux disease as well, and it was left at that.
"You got 'The Meat Sweats."
Plain and simple.

Weeks later, “The Meat Sweats” was still rearing its ugly head.  A voice of reason (Aunt Carol Brown--a registered nurse) stated that perhaps this fake diagnosis was no longer a good reason to ignore what was looking like a real problem.
Never trust a diagnosis from the Van Nordstrom Clinic (Seinfeld reference).
The cause of his symptoms ranges from gastritis all the way to stomach cancer (probable, but highly unlikely).

Here are a few phrases that I have NEVER EVER heard Tim say in all our years of marriage:

--“Do you want the rest of this bagel?  There’s no way I can finish it.”

--“This oatmeal is soo good with soy milk!” 

--“I’m so full from those veggies.”

--“I’ll have the vegetarian burrito—as plain as it comes.”

--“Can I have a take home box for the rest of this meal?”

--"Spread that peanut butter REAL t-h-i-n."
--"Make sure there's no meat in it."

This IS serious.   

I guess it’s just what happens when you reach your thirties.
And have a baby--your fourth.
And lose your job--in the same week.

You’re more susceptible to stress and the consequences of nutritional dysfunction.
And most importantly, you can’t finish your bagel.

Here’s praying that his EGD (Esophagogastroduodenoscopy) turns up a case of the “Meat Sweats.”