DON aka “DAD”

For this year’s Christmas card, I want to deviate a bit from the norm. This year I think I’ll tell you stories that might paint me in a non-flattering light so that you get a different side of Don Wedding. I’m also not going to embellish as much as I might. So the stories might suffer a bit. 

Let’s start with the JUBMO-TRON. The Jumbo Tron is that giant TV screen that they have in the football stadiums and often times they have some college kid with a video camera working for minimum wage walking through the crowd. They look for cute children, engaged fans, or an endearing family that fell out of a Norman Rockwell painting. Then they take pictures of them and put them on the Jumbo Tron for all to see. 

So anyways, at the end of October the family decided to surprise Donald and drive down to see him on “Family Weekend”. Donald is in the Louisville Marching Band and they were playing Wake Forest that weekend. We didn’t tell him we were coming to watch him march around the field. It was a surprise. The initial plan was to walk up to him after the game and say “surprise!” Well, that was the plan at any rate. Then I saw the kid with the camera (who shall from this point on, be known as the Jumbo Tron Monkey). So I see the Jumbo Tron Monkey and I had a brilliant idea. I thought Donald would love to look up at the Jumbo Tron and see his Dad’s giant 4 story sized head screaming … “we love you Donald!” What son wouldn’t want to see that? So I asked the Jumbo Tron Monkey (JTM) to put me up there for all to see. Normally, I wouldn’t do this because I don’t like being the center of attention. But doggone it … this was too important. At first JTM refused because I was not cute, a fan, or look like an All American Dad. But I was able to formulate a win/win arrangement. It turns out that when you are 18 years old and work for Minimum Wage, you are hurting for money. So I offered JTM a $20 bill and sweetened the deal by letting him have the rest of my half drunken, room temperature, beer. Like I said, the kid was 18. I was going to embellish the story and say I found the glass on the ground in the empty seat next to me. But that would have been untrue … and gross. So I’ll keep it accurate. Now here’s the part you won’t believe. Donald did not appreciate looking up at the Jumbo Tron and seeing my big, ugly face screaming DONALD! DONALD! DONALD! Probably because he was worried that I felt uncomfortable doing that … since I hate being the center of attention. We also went back to Louisville for Thanksgiving weekend for the UL/UK game. An in case you are wondering the answer is YES…I WAS ON THE JUMBO TRON FOR A SECOND TIME! Want to know how? Same approach as before sans the half full glass of beer! Don’t judge me. I’m famous! What have you done with your life???

I have another story related to Gumbo that’s pretty good. It basically involves my frequent business trips to Kansas. I would walk over to the Sheraton next door and eat Gumbo soup twice a day every day for a year. I kept trying to get the recipe, but the chef wouldn’t give it to me. I was eventually able to get the recipe. I won’t go into how I did it, but it involved being persistent … a waitress working for minimum wage … and a technique similar to the Jumbo Tron Monkey. I brought the recipe home to Cleveland hoping to recreate the Gumbo that I have come to love. The problem was that the recipe from the Sheraton feeds 200. I needed to scale it back. The problem was that this recipe didn’t use any of the metric measurements that I learned in engineering school. But I’m an engineer. I solve problems and I’m good at math. Sit back and watch me work, Grasshopper. So I spent the better part of a week trying to figure out how many pecks were in a bushel, how many cubits were in a span, and how many reams were in a cord. Finally I decoded the hieroglyphics and scaled it back to something reasonable. Two small problems: First, in all my eagerness to convert and scale, I accidentally divided by 10. So I was about to feed 20 people with my soup. That can easily fill 2 jumbo size trash cans. Second, and most important, I completely overlooked scaling the spices back. So I cooked for 20 and put hot spicy seasoning in for 200. It was so spicy and we all got nauseous after the first spoon full. Nobody wanted to eat it ever again. The sad thing is that to this day, the thought of Gumbo makes me queasy. So I declared it a total loss and Kathryn and the kids had to drag my 2 jumbo size trash cans down to the street for the garbage man to pick up. Lucky I made too much. It made disposal so much easier.

Finally, Kathryn asked me to mention my new hobby: buying used 3 Gallon Flush toilets. OK, maybe not appropriate for a Christmas letter. But I think that this is a good venue for a political commentary. Basically, our Government wants to conserve water. I mean, it does make sense. After all, in only covers 70% of the earth. It falls out of the sky in such quantities that I need to insure my house against it filling up my basement. Heck, restaurants give it away for free. So the EPA has decided it is their business to decide how much water should be in my toilet. I find that vexing. So the toilets that you can get at Home Depot are unusable. That really frosts me. To make things worse, Kathryn and I want to build a new house in a few years and I want a good old fashioned 3 gallon flush toilet. Does that make me a bad person? So I found a guy in Kansas who goes into condemned buildings and quickly salvages old 3 gallon flush toilets a few minutes before the dynamite takes down the building. Sadly, he is getting too old for this type of work and is going to retire soon. So I decided to get a life time supply of 3 gallon flush toilets an save them in a storage bin until we start construction on our new house. So I now have 11 of these 3 gallon flush toilets stored in an undisclosed location under a pseudonym so that the EPA will never know. The obvious question is, “why on earth would Don need 11 big flush toilets?” I’ll pause while you all fill in your own punch line to that joke. And “yes”, you may keep the silver platter which that straight line came on. In full candor, that story is not actually true. In reality I only have 8 toilets. I said 11 toilets because 11 sounds funnier than 8. Also, if I said that I had 11 used toilets in a storage locker, it would make me seem crazy and the story would be funnier. 

Actually, so as not to trigger any problems with our benevolent EPA, I would just like to say that the previous story was completely false. I respect our government and all their work to conserve natural resources and keeping the planet safe. God Bless them all … every one! But in case anybody is interested, and shares my Les Misrables Cause Celebre against government over reach and for a 3 gallon flush, then give me a call. I might know a guy who can help. Just saying.

Kathryn    : Where is your plate?
Don        : I’m only eating a sandwich. I don’t need a plate.
Kathryn    : I wish I had a husband with manners.
Don        : Hey! I have manners! I just don’t have a plate!

I thought of something that sounds crude but isn’t: “Moby Dick is a titular character”. Get it?

KATHRYN aka Mom

Kathryn continues to run the house in her usual militarily efficient, yet loving manner. She still is working part time as a decorator for Cookie Art and does freelance art projects. She drives the kids all over Cleveland, and does everything around the house. And because this isn’t enough of a challenge, Kathryn volunteered our family to take in foreign exchange student from Brazil. So for two weeks, we had a delightful little 13 year old girl named Talicia as our guest. She instantly bonded with our family and we were so sad to see her go! But Kathryn was able to chase after another member in our the family heard of cats that we call our “children”!

On another note, we built a gazebo on our back patio. It is beautiful and keeps us comfortable in the shade on sunny days. There’s only one problem, it is a bird magnet! Every species of bird from sparrow to finch to crow to ostrich to eagle is nesting in our gazebo.

They were driving us nuts! First off, birds are filthy, gross, messy things. And this is coming from parents of teenage children! Second of all, they make a lot of noise! If you sat in our gazebo, you would swear you stepped into an Alfred Hitchcock movie!

So while I was shopping for 3 gallon flush toilets, Kathryn had her own little Les Misrables Cause Celebre: Get rid of the birds! She started off buying copper brillo pads. Those were supposed to work like a charm, at least Amazon said so. You know, cuz birds hate copper! Well not in Cleveland they don’t. Our birds just considered it ideal nesting material. Then Kathryn bought some large ceramic owls to scare the birds away. But the birds just use our owl statues as perches. What the heck? Finally, we bought a battery powered noise maker that would randomly send out loud noises like a fog horn. So as we watch TV, we get to hear at random intervals …. HARRRR-OOOOO-GAAAA!!!! HARRRR-OOOOO-GAAAA!!!!…. (best guess at how a fog horn sounds). That sort of worked. But then the neighbors complained. The guy next door said the only thing more obnoxious than Kathryn’s random fog horn would be if a neighbor would be so inconsiderate as to set off their burglar alarm all the time for no reason. But thankfully, he was counting his blessings that he didn’t live next door to anybody who was THAT inconsiderate. Note to reader: I’m using a literary device called “fore-shadowing”. Wanna guess what’s coming up later in this write up? Foreshadowing like this is the mark of fine literature. That’s a tip, kids! Write that one down!

So Kathryn’s fog horn sort of works. But as soon as we turn it off, then the birds come flocking back. They are driving us nuts. If anybody has a solution, send us an email. If it works, I will add you to next year’s Christmas card write up! Just think! You’ll be famous!!!!  

I’m great at “multi-tasking”. I can make dinner and still tell everybody what they should be doing.
Don        : So do you still think I’m a good husband?
Kathryn    : I wouldn’t trade you for anybody.
Don        : Really?
Kathryn    : Ya, I would just sell you and keep the money.
I gave up Red Wine and Sweets for Lent. I started smoking.
Stop eating so much salt! If you die of a heart attack, I’m going to be really angry because I won’t be able to say “I told you so!”
After a day in front of your computer, I don’t want to kiss you because your breath smells like coffee and meat.
Kathryn    : I brought you some pie and ice cream, I forgot to pack utensils. Just use your hands.
Don        : I don’t want to do that. It’s gross.
Kathryn    : I’m sure you used your fingers for worse things.

​

DONALD (Age 18)

Donald has spent the last four months at college. He’s at the University of Louisville studying the Computer Engineering. His Grandfather, Donald Keith Wedding, Sr. (my Dad) graduated from Louisville in 1957 with a degree in Chemical Engineering. Fortunately, after 6 decades, people have long since forgotten about the explosion in the chemistry lab. But one thing that Donald noticed is that the UofL student body has a phrase: “I just pulled a Don Wedding”. They say that any time something explodes or catches fire. Donald won’t be pledging Triangle Engineering Fraternity any time soon. Back in circa 1954, his grandfather accidentally got the entire Triangle Fraternity arrested. True story. Really. Mabye in next year’s Christmas card. Anyways, Donald has again stated his wish to do his own write up. So here goes.

A Simple Board Game Club, Now with Accidental Politics
Written by Donald Wedding III … guest writer
    
The story you’re about to hear is true (mostly). The names have been changed to protect the innocent (mostly me).

I swear I didn’t mean for this to happen. I just wanted to sit around and play Dungeons and Dragons.

Here’s some backstory for those of you who haven’t been stalking me for the past few months: I joined Table Top Board Game Club (TC) in order to play board games (obviously) and D&D. As it is a club, TC has a club president and a council of Vice President, Treasurer, and Secretary, all of whom are graduating. That means elections are about to happen and people are running campaigns to try to get elected. 

While many of club, myself included thought, “this is a board game club, why are people trying to get elected?” Two people decided they really needed to run in order to “Make Table Top Board Game Club Great Again.” One of them, who I will refer to as Nicky, wanted to help the club prosper and help advertise. The other, who I will call Shawn, decided that our constitution (because we apparently had one before) was flawed and needed to be rewritten from the ground up, complete with new titles such as ‘Chancellor’ and paid memberships. Nicky begs for people to run for other positions in case she doesn’t win, and I jokingly tell her I’ll run for treasurer. At least, I thought I was joking.

Voting day comes. There are two lists: a blue one for voters and a red one for candidates. I write my name on the blue sheet and sit down, ready to watch the chaos ensue. Speeches are made. Hand raise - a tie. Nicky and Shawn were both elected co-presidents. The voting moves on, to vice president and secretary. Finally, treasurer is voted on. The old treasurer begins calling up people to make speeches, in alphabetical order. 

“Anna!” The first person stands up and quickly gives her speech. She was her high school student council treasurer, she’s great at math, and has helped run a few bake sales. Overall, a qualified candidate.

“Bobby” He is an accounting major. He started his own online business from his dorm room, that has been so successful that he is able to self-finance his own tuition as well as those of several impoverished foreign exchange students who hail from a countries run by tyrannical despots.
 
“Calvin.” The next person stands up. He’s the son of a Federal Reserve Chairman. He learned economics from Alan Greenspan (“Uncle Al”). He started his own hedge fund that is outperforming the market by a respectable 72%. His wristwatch (made from gold melted off scarabs found in King Tut’s tomb) is the least expensive article of clothing he is currently wearing.

I quietly laugh to myself. Whichever sucker has to run next is screwed compared to the competition.

“Donald”

The room goes quiet as everyone stares at me while I snicker at the thought of the idiot who is going up against these future Nobel Prize Winners. 

Oh wait.

I later learned that the blue sheet was not for voters, but instead for candidates, and that I had put my name on the top of the treasurer section.

I walk to the front of the room, wondering to myself what I’m going to do. I could just say I’m not running, that there was an accident. It would be so easy. That’s what I’ll do. No problem. I make it to the front. I begin to speak.

“Sorry folks. There was a misunderstanding” … I THOUGHT
“Friends, Romans, Countrymen” … I SAY

“I put my name on the wrong list” … I THOUGHT
“It’s time we drain the swamp of the vile corruption and self-serving political vermin” … I SAY

“I don’t want to be the treasurer” … I THOUGHT
“If I get elected, I promise a chicken in every pot plus 40 acres and a mule!”… I SAY

“Don’t vote for me! My checking account is so over drawn that the bank is siphoning money from other people’s accounts just to stay solvent” … I THOUGHT
“I feel your pain! Read my lips, no new membership dues! Are you better off now than you were 4 years ago? Today Louisville, tomorrow zee VERLD!!!!”…I SAY

Ruh-roh.

I got a little carried away. I’m not sure what I said or what I had promised. But all I know is that I whipped my fellow gamers into such an exuberant frenzy and vitriolic hatred for my opponents that I won in a landslide. Even my opponents voted for me! Unfortunately, I apparently had made some campaign promises relating to my opponents. As a result, Anna is now facing an IRS audit looking back to her 2nd Grade bake sale. A special counsel is investigating the business dealings of Bobby, while Calvin is looking at 17 consecutive life sentences. I felt sorry for my opponents. I couldn’t shake the feeling that their misfortunes weren’t somehow my fault. So anyways, I thanked the voters, shook hands with the competition, and sat down. Then I asked myself a question: What in God’s name possessed me to do that? Maybe if I’m lucky, it will have something to do with my being a sociopath or a serial killer. Ahhhh, who am I kidding? I’m not that lucky! It’s more likely that I take after my Dad and crave attention!

Now, I am an elected official of a board game club. First, I need to follow orders given by two co-presidents who detest each other. I have to figure out generate revenue for the club, even though the only way I know how to bring money in is to call my parents. And finally, I need to manage the club’s funds, even though I don’t know how to balance a check book. Basically, I have no idea what I’m doing. This should make for a great Christmas card write up next year.

​

EMILY (Age 15)

Now that Donald is at college, there is nobody to be the first person to wake up and do all the necessary morning rituals … oh, like turning the burglar alarm off. So every morning, Emily wakes up and walks down the steps in a hypnotic trance to get her caffeine infusion. Notice that I didn’t say she turned off the alarm system? Yup. Every day Emily sets off the house alarm and the family, neighbors, and entire cul de sac gets to wake up to the sound of WOOP! WOOP! WOOP! Of course, Emily’s first reaction is to panic. So she doesn’t turn the alarm off. Then when the alarm company calls, she can’t remember the secret “safe word”. So then that’s when things start to get interesting.

So try to guess how many days in a row Emily did this. Do you have a guess? HIGHER! 

It got so bad, that Don put up some police crime scene tape at the top of the stairs. The police left some for us after about the tenth trip out to our house. Emily just walks right through the tape like a zombie from “Walking Dead”. 

But don’t worry too much. Things are starting to improve. First, the neighbors are now able to rush over to our house, grab the phone away from Emily, and scream “Potato” into the phone when the alarm company asks for the secret word. We found it so much more simple to leave the front door unlocked and keep our password written on a three by five card taped to the door. This is probably overkill. At this point, the police have stopped responding to our alarm. The alarm company has stopped calling us to see if everything is all right. We should probably just disable the alarm system and save the money, but the neighbors have begun to rely on us for their morning wake up call.

In case you are wondering, we stopped worrying about getting our house robbed. Even the neighborhood cat burglar is leaving our house alone. He doesn’t rob us. It’s his version of a professional courtesy to the police department. Also, I think he has qualms about robbing a family that is so obviously defenseless. Breaking into a house like this would be indecent. Sort of like laughing at cripples.  Ironically, we have become the safest house on the block!

Aside from pissing off the neighborhood, Emily is going on a mission trip to Brazil for two weeks next month. Emily will roam through the Brazilian Rain Forest with a Pith helmet and a machete. The plan is for her to hang out with a bunch of savages who have bones stuck through their noses and refer to Tarzan as “Bwana”. We have some sort of uneasy feeling that the natives are going to toss Emily into one of those giant steel pots full of boiling water. But then we realized that serving Emily up for dinner with a side of teenage “attitude and sarcasm” would only leave a very bad taste in mouth of the cannibals. She’s safe. 

So the real question is whether or not hanging around with a third world people will be beneficial. We hope so. But who are we kidding? There’s no chance that the manners and culture of this stone age people are going to rub off on Emily and have a civilizing effect on her. Chances are that she’ll come home the same feral creature as the one that left!

On a more serious note, Emily continues to play the flute at the Aurora School of Music, marches in the marching band, and is currently looking at colleges. She is leaning towards studying Marketing and Psychology. Emily also continues with Roller Derby (were you expecting her to be in a normal sport?). Also, she is continuing working on creative writing and has some great story ideas. We are all looking forward to them.

I’m so busy today that I don’t even have enough time to procrastinate.
School has taught me that if life is just a bunch of multiple choice questions, then I will do just fine.

KATELYN (Age 13)

Katelyn continues to be our dainty little princess. She loves pretty clothes, loves baking, and loves decorating the house. Her hope is to one day be a stay home mom like Kathryn and raise and nurture a loving family. Of course, the other three kids hate her. And why shouldn’t they? We say “say your prayers”, she says her prayers. We say “do your homework”, she does her homework. We say “brush your teeth”, she brushes her teeth. We say “clean your room and do the dishes”, she cleans her room and does the dishes“. So that’s why her siblings hate her. She’s a non-conformist.

For fun, Katelyn plays on her school soccer team. She plays goalie and occasionally on defense. She even did some time on offense and scored a goal! (still waiting on the paternity test results). Katelyn also takes after her Don’s maternal Grandfather and plays the Trumpet in the school orchestra. We are hoping that she goes out for the Marching Band with her sister next year when she starts high school.

Our other adventure with Katelyn was when she invited her entire 8th grade soccer team over for a slumber party. We only agreed after her coach pinky promised that she would stay over and help keep the girls in line and not throw us to the wolves. So we agreed. After all, the coach PINKY PROMISED! OK, so I think we all know where this one is headed. The coach bailed on us and we had a dozen plus three shrieking girls dancing to bubble gum rock music, wolfing down junk food, and playing truth or dare until 7 in the morning. It was so loud that the neighbor called us up and said “hey, is your burglar alarm going off?” I said , “no, it’s a pre-teen girl slumber party”. He said, “Oh. Umm, would you mind setting off your burglar alarm siren so I can get some sleep?”
The basement smells like sweaty teenage boys. I’m not sure if I find that disgusting or intriguing. 
Today in History class I learned that “Guerrilla Warfare” does not involve “apes”.
If I eat “GUMBO” … will it take 7 years to digest?

​

DAVID (Age 9)

David continues to love being at Heritage Classical Academy. There’s a lot to be said to a classical education! We highly recommend it! Heritage really appeals towards David’s eclectic mix of interests. He is playing the violin, solving Rubik’s cubes, competes in the running club, is playing chess, and has become a master of the Duncan Yoyo.

Along these lines, David received a yoyo for his birthday and spent the next three months learning every possible trick. He can rock the baby, shoot the moon, go around the world like 10 or 15 times before making the yoyo come back. Pretty impressive stuff. The only problem is that David has no concept of spatial reasoning. So let’s step back and imagine a 9 year old with a large rock like object made of hardened plastic attached to a 3 foot string. Now let’s put him in a living room with priceless family heirlooms made of glass and porcelain. 

This is similar to the theoretical situation where you have an infinite number of monkeys with type-writers in a room. Given a large amount of time, they will eventually write Shakespeare. However, in this case, we have one little boy with the energy and common sense of a monkey. Put him in a room of valuables and give him a projectile. Given an infinite amount of time, there might come a day where he doesn’t break something. But that day has yet to arrive, so it’s still theoretical. 

David’s other hobby is playing a new game that he invented called “land mine”. Here’s how you play it. First you go around the house and scatter small, sharp Lego blocks at random location. Put them in the most unsuspecting places so that mom and dad will step on them in bare feet while carrying a pizza or a can of house paint. Sit back and watch the fun! So after you step on a Lego, spill your can of house paint, sprain your ankle, and cry out in pain then you are ready for the BONUS ROUND. What’s that? That’s when you hop around on one foot while shouting obscenities that would offend a sailor. While hopping around, you try NOT to step on the $1500 violin that you rented for David’s violin lessons. Sure, it’s easy enough to put it back lovingly in its case after practice. But where’s the fun in that? No. David likes to leave it on the bathroom floor, the kitchen sink, or under a sofa cushion. How do you win this game? You don’t. As with a real land mine, all you can do is hope to survive!
David            : I don’t want to go to “ComiCon”
Mom            : If you have an ounce of fun, you owe me $10
David            : You don’t measure fun in ounces!

David            : I have a “non-responsive” yoyo
Mom            : Me too.