T.N.M. - Tuesday Night Mansions

Holly and I continued our tour of American mansions last night.  We bought ourselves a small treat on a whim and then toured the stately residences along the Hudson river.  First, we toured Jay Gould's Gothic  castle-looking country residence.  Then, we saw Fredrick William Vanderbilt's mansion in Hyde Park.  Last, we looked at John Rockefeller mansion and its changes through the original Rockefeller, his son, and his grandson.  We felt the grandson did the worst to the property by peppering it with gaudy modern art pieces, but hey, what do we know about the finer things in life except that they sometimes look dumb.

Lyndhurst, Jay Gould's Gothic mansion in Tarrytown, NY

Of course  we understand that looking at these stately places through our big flat screen is not the same as visiting them.  But we could visit them someday.  They are historic sites now and it would be a good weekend trip sometime.  It's interesting; When we watched our first episode on my birthday, we saw southern plantation mansions that seems so over the top.  After seeing some of these places that were built in the Gilded Age, those southern manors seem downright charming and homey.  Holly and I would both prefer the southern plantation style to the Hudson river hideaways any day.

Kyuit, the mansion of the Rockefeller family

Of course, while both of us would love to own such places out of their sheer grandeur and monetary value, we would be terrified to live there.

William Vanderbilt's mansion in Hyde Park

There are too many open rooms, hidden nooks, and wide spaces.  Just imagine, you could have sixty ax murderers hiding in a place like that and you wouldn't even know it.  And if you did know it and foolishly decided to go looking for them, all sixty could shuffle around the rooms while you looked for them and you wouldn't be any better off.  Of course, the same structural layout could work to your advantage by giving you plenty of places to hide should they decide to attack, but lets not split hairs.  The point is we would need to have lots of servants to keep track of the place and I know nothing about getting servants to do what I ask.  I can barely get my kids to do what I ask.  At the end of the day, Holly and I do have a healthy dose of real estate envy.  But not enough to shoot for the top.  No, give us a bigger house with fewer drafts, more closets, lots of shelves and storage, a wide finished basement, a pool and hot tub, a big, warm, wide, kitchen, two fire places (one for the living space, one aesthetic one of the master bedroom) a deep, green yard, a chess nook, a breakfast nook, a craft nook, and a few other minor bells and whistles and we will be happy.  No, we are not high maintenance at all.  At least, not high maintenance when compared to the three homesteads above.

Monday, Monday

After school today, Parker and I walked to the car and discovered it was covered in ice.  I set to work clearing it off, but Parker wanted to help.  So he did.

Later for Family Home Evening, Daisy came over with Nate and Annabelle.  We had chicken tacos and a lesson on baptism   Then, we rolled out pretzel dough to make homemade pretzels.  They turned out swell and tasted delicious.

Anderson and Carter

Anderson went into nursery for the first time in church today!  That and Carter went missing during sacrament meeting, but was later found going potty in the wrong restroom, after saying he was just going to get a drink.  No cries from Anderson in nursery, no screams from the ladies on Carter's mistake.

Chicken Bacon Ranch

We were going to have grilled cheese and tomato soup today.  Then the missionaries called and wanted to come over for dinner.  They wanted Marks pizza.  (I can understand that!)  We said we would get the Mark's if they brought some 2 liter sodas.  They wanted Chicken Bacon Ranch pizza, one we had never tried before.  So we got it for them.  It is mine and Holly's new favorite.  We will be getting it for the Superbowl.

Chicken Bacon Ranch is now where it is at!

Parker and Carter came down from bed twice to have some.

The Big 30

Holly's Power of Veto

I turned thirty yesterday.  After we put the kids to bed, Holly made an offer to let me pick dinner. This is a big deal because while she says this often, it usually comes intertwined with a veto power she mysteriously holds.  This time she promised not to veto anything.  So I picked Mark's pizza. (Some of my students made some good suggestions earlier in the day, but I wanted pizza and Mark's is my favorite.)  I also wanted it delivered so I wouldn't have to go out in the 7 degree cold spell.  That's what I would normally have to do because Holly doesn't like driving in the snow.  We settled on a Buffalo Chicken pizza with boneless chicken wings.

If this wasn't nice enough, Holly even decided to let me pick ANYTHING to watch on Netflix, again, without her ever-present power of veto.  At first, I considered an action movie with lots of car crashes, explosions, and heroic rescues.  But I knew Holly would just pretend to like it and then disappear into her laptop.  That's no fun.  Then I considered watching The Artist, the silent movie that won the Academy Award for best picture.  I knew Holly would like it once she got into it, but I wanted to be able to eat pizza and talk, not get overly engrossed in fine film.



The Artist, A fine film rejected on the premise there wouldn't be
ample opportunity to make colorful commentary with Holly.

So I picked a documentary on America's Mansions.  Holly said it looked interesting and I thought so too.  We watched two episodes with our pizza and toured through our television grand antebellum mansions in the South, and sprawling, lavish industrialist estates on Long Island.  We each picked our favorite.  I opted for Longwood, an unfinished Southern Mansion they say has a ghost haunting the unfinished upper floors.  The Civil War broke out during it's construction and the Northern workmen literally dropped their tools where they were standing and walked off once they heard.  Scaffolding was left in place, and lunch pails where left open.  The war wasn't kind.  The father grew depressed, walked the unfinished halls and died, leaving the widow to raise her family in near poverty in the finished basement of the mansion until she got a settlement from the US government for property damage after the war.



Longwood Mansion, in Mississippi, Brian's choice with it's
spooky stories and unfinished rooms to make his own.

Holly liked this French-names mansion lined with 300 year old oak trees.  It's a a big, white box of a house with a huge wrap around porch on both levels.  What we both didn't like was this gaudy Vanderbilt place on Long Island called "The Eagle's Nest."
So that was our birthday...eating pizza while admiring and mocking the real estate glass ceiling we will never hit.




The Morning After...
Anderson enjoying the leftovers of Dad's birthday dinner.



The Morning After II...
Anderson exploring the couch while Carter tries to
decide if he likes Buffalo Chicken pizza or not.

Moby Dick

Dad says read.  Someday.  You gotta.

So I had a dream last night.  I dreamed I was in front of a healthy class of community college kids and I was teaching a class.  The class was on Moby Dick.  That's it.  One novel for the whole semester.  The big times.  After being introduced by one of my former graduate advisers,  I started teaching and asked the class the BIG question.  Why Moby Dick?  I then started to pontificate on the importance of Moby Dick.  I don't recall what I said, but I was on a roll, saying really brilliant stuff.  Then I woke up. Moby Dick has been on my mind ever since. 

Moby Dick, the Big Whale, with long time pal Ahab, teaching us all valuable life lessons.

It's a brilliant novel.  My favorite novel, really.  Read it in community college myself.  First English class.  American literature to 1865.  Professor Baumann.  Great man.  Amazing novel.  My sons need to read it.  Can't read it yet.  Too young, for now.  But I want to share it with them.  So here, on the Steffen family blog, I intend to share a little Moby Dick with them to read someday.  Chapter by chapter, one day at a time.  So here we go.

Moby Dick Chapter 1:

My sons,
"Call me Ishmael " the novel opens.  Parker, we never actually know that this guy's name is Ishmael   It could be Bob for all we know.  Or it could be Parker, Carter, or Anderson. (Sometimes I like to think that.)  "Ishmael" is just saying that this name is as good as any, so let's use it.  So we do. It's a good name because Ishmael wanders the ocean in Moby Dick, which is what the Biblical Ishmael did a lot of, albeit on land.  Melville was probably unaware of it, but Ishmael is in the Book of Mormon too, who wanders away from Jerusalem with Lehi and his family to ultimately sail to the Americas across the waters.  Again, appropriate for our Moby Dick narrator.  Who spends his wandering on the waters. Boys, all you need to know is that Ishmael has a habit of getting to sea whenever he life begins to feel unsatisfying.  Unsatisfying in the sense that he finds himself "pausing in front of coffin shops" and using all his patient to keep himself from "knocking the hats off of passer-bys" just because he can.  So he decides to go.

Our man Ishmael (Biblically)

Here is what else you need to know: You need to get to sea yourself someday.  Not the real sea, although it could be.  But you need that escape that is yours for when life gets a little bit too much.  For your father that escape is teaching, reading, writing, running, and a good dose of chess.  For your mother, It's helping people (she is better than me) as well as crafting, and doulaing.  These activities are more than hobbies, my boys. Instead, they are tickets to high personal adventure as you seek to explore and perfect these interests.  So call yourself Ishmael and go wander into them.  Your mother and I don't want you living in our basement in twenty years.  We want you out and about.  And not just out and about because it is the "right" thing to do, but we want you out and about because if you weren't, you'd go crazy.  As President Hinckley said in General Conference before you were born, it's not just enough to be good, but to be good for something.  Make that happen. -Dad.

No E Needed

Parker playing Jenga, a few weeks before he charms
his father  by  writing Anderson without the E.

While I coached at chess club, today Parker wrote out a letter to his family. He wrote, "I love you mom and dad."  He wrote, "I love you Carter."  Then, he wrote, "I love you," and he stopped.  "Dad?" he asked.  "How do you spell Anderson?"  "Stretch it out," I said.  Well he did.  He wrote, "I love you Andrson."  No E needed.

Parker's 1st Love Letter

Afterwards, while I was making a phone call, Parker started running laps around the classroom.  I mean, he was moving fast.  Really booking it.  Even fell down a couple of times, brushed himself off, got back up, and continued his athletics.   I asked him what he was doing.  "Exercising," he said.  "So I can get big."  "I don't know if that's going to help you get big," I said.  Good old Parker just kept running.  "Get healthy, then," he said.  "Like you dad.  You run and you are healthy.  Just like you."  Aw, shucks, kid.  Yup, sport.  Just like me.