Category: beautiful ordinary

What is it about kids and cows? Of all the animals in Creation, each of my children have learned to speak cow first. Most recently, Baby Girl has added the standard “moo” to her vocabulary. Only for Baby Girl, it’s a husky, emphatic and insistent “moo.” It’s said with a gusto not found with the ho-hum “woof” and “meow.” There’s just something about cows, I guess.

I grew up around cows. Sort of. My grandfather and my father both kept cows on my grandparents’ farm kind of as a hobby. We visited there almost every weekend when I was a child–sometimes on Friday night through Sunday afternoon, sometimes just on Saturdays. I didn’t spend a lot of time with the cows. They were more of a continual presence. A background, so to speak, for lots of other tomboy activities. In a farm setting, I suppose that’s often the case. My mom grew up on that farm, and I know the cattle were a physical and metaphorical backdrop for her as well. I remember stories she told me of playing “church” in the neighboring cousin’s barn. From the make-shift pulpit, she expounded on scripture she learned at Sunday School… “be not like dumb driven cattle.” Cows. A continual presence.

Cows have an uncanny stare. I’ve been the recipient of it many times over the years, both from near and far. The stare is deep and thorough. But, it’s also a bit blank. You just know there’s not a whole lot going on in there. Still, I’ve always wondered what they’re really seeing with that unflinching gaze. The whole “dumb driven cattle” reference is quite appropriate. They tend to be followers, there’s no doubt. When one begins to gaze, you suddenly find yourself in the grip of the whole herd’s stare. And, if they’re familiar with you, they’ll adopt that stare from up close.

The cows in my dad’s herd learned every pick-up truck he ever had. They saw it every couple of days and with Pavlov’s nod, rightly associated it with feed sacks. When the cows in the front pasture saw it coming around the gravel bend toward the house on those Saturday mornings, they began the trek to the barn. Even if the dumping of the feed sacks wasn’t imminent, I suppose they wanted to be prepared, to make sure they were in the necessary position.

In the back pastures where there were no roads only worn down and less bumpy paths, the cows would gather around the pick-up. There were only select places in that area where feed troughs were stocked. Those cows relied on hay and grass for their sustenance. Still, the truck meant something. They gathered around as close as a bunch of 600 pound, fattened-up beasts could. My dad would roll down the truck window to touch their noses or their foreheads. He wanted them to be familiar, especially the bulls. Bulls are a whole other essay of the more ornery sort, but Dad made a special effort to forge communication with them. He would talk to them, “hey Big Man” and coax them into letting him touch their oversized foreheads. It pays to have a bull on your side.

When the truck was ready to move on, no amount of honking could encourage the cows on their way. Only a small shift in the gas pedal and a slight bump to one’s rear would sink in. From there, the whole group followed that one cow’s jump and bolt away from the vehicle. It was the same with “driving” them or losing them. All it ever took was one cow in some moment of independence wondering if that blade of grass on the other side of the fence would be more tasty, and before you knew it, the whole lot of them had lumbered through whatever sagging barbed wire structure was there to un-pen themselves. Likewise, usually just one wave of the hands and gruff shout from Dad (or whoever might be helping him) could frighten them down the gravel paths required to get them right back where they should be fenced. You would think it would be harder than that. After all, I mentioned the 600-pound quality. But, I guess none of the other cows stopped to wonder why all the fuss or the need for such quick movement. They simply reacted to the one ahead of them, who reacted to the one ahead of him.

Thinking about cows has me wondering. How many times in my business, my home keeping, my relationships or my faith are my actions simply reacting to the one ahead of me? How often do I respond simply out of habit the way that’s always been expected of me? And, how much of my experiences am I missing out of plain old numbness because of it? That “be not like dumb driven cattle,” spoken from a young farm girl’s play and gleaning of faith, is actually a pretty good admonishment. I don’t want to lumber through my experiences bound by the blank stare of simply following old habits because they are habits or following the ways everyone else is doing something because that’s just how it’s done. And, I don’t want to bump and boulder through life immune to the thought that comes from really seeing what I’m seeing. No, perhaps I want to adopt that one creature’s wild hare and be bold enough to step into something new, to push my full weight against the fences binding me until they finally give way.

There’s just something about cows.

Makes you wanna cuss. And, I don’t mean “curse” in that polite and grammatically correct way. I mean cuss. In the vernacular.

The other night (seriously) I made “cheesy dogs,” the quintessential kid-friendly dinner composed of hot dogs stuffed with cheddar cheese and wrapped in crescent rolls. The parts are out of their respective packages and on the table with presto combined deliciousness in under 20 minutes flat. The pervasive opinion of the preschoolers in my house is that they are best accompanied by tator tots. No, preparing them probably doesn’t actually constitute cooking, and they don’t have much true nutritional value. But, they’re popular, and they can be a Mommy’s salvation after a long day of work.

So, last Friday I took full advantage of my own need for a quick fix at the end of a busy week. I made cheesy dogs. Eight of them. They were fresh out of the oven, and I was prying them from the pan with a spatula in my usual “grip with the pot-holder and scrape with all you’ve got” method. They always stick for some reason. The first one is the hardest to remove from the cookie sheet because of the close quarters produced by eight wrapped hot dogs arranged on about 180 square inches. Plus, the melting cheese always eliminates any space left between them.

I was holding with the pot-holder. I was scraping with the spatula in the upside-down position that almost always works. Almost. Before I could say “beefy jumbos,” cheesy dog #1 flew off the pan and onto the tile floor.

I told you. Makes you wanna cuss.

Don’t you just love the best laid plans? The table was set. Little Drummer Boy and Bug were in the living room announcing “I’m hungry!” I don’t remember, but I’m sure Baby Girl was on top of the coffee table. The week of a thousand heart-filled preschool parties was finally over. Tator Tots were on the table and ice in the glasses.

Just to recap: Cheesy dog #1 was ON THE FLOOR. And no one else was in the kitchen. So, what did I do? NATURALLY, I picked up #1 from the tile, blew it off and gave it a prominent location on the yellow serving plate. I popped those other seven suckers off the cookie sheet in short order, and “Dinner is served.” (Please send Martha Stewart Living subscriptions. Quick. And, Mama, just forget you read this.)

The bad news: Sometimes things just don’t work out the way you planned. The good news: No one has ever keeled over from a little grit on their cheesy dog. Honest.

Life isn’t perfect. In fact, perfection is an overrated and hopelessly flawed pursuit. And although I hate to play the role of the realist, realistically, a life lived in whatever moment of perfection I might enjoy is perhaps a life spent waiting for the other shoe to drop (or the other cheesy dog, as the case may be.) Perfection just can’t be maintained. And, TRYING to maintain it can be a nerve-racking, tension-filled, white-knuckle attempt. It’s simply not sustainable.

Sustainable perfection implies that the people achieving it are perfect. It assumes that those folks will always make wise choices, that they will always take into account and avoid the pitfalls (and clumsy spatulas) of life. It means they will never make mistakes, or at the least, they will always learn from their all-too-brief mistakes immediately and completely. Funny, I don’t see that person when I look in the mirror. I don’t know ANY people like that. In fact, the reality of those traits is pretty much universally disproved by the popularity of Wiley Coyote, don’t you think? Yeah, or at least by flying cheesy dogs.

Now, if you’ve never experienced your own cheesy dog epiphany, let me assure you that it’s coming. It’s a fact, and there is no fruit in denying it. The lesson learned from my own cheesy dog experience was that I can really shift my body a little to the left to block that whole flying off the pan thing, and this: Real life happens in the grit.

Thank God for the grit. It’s the stuff that lets us know we’re human just like everybody else, bound in a commonality of error. It’s the dust that reminds us of our own inherent needs, our own blessed short-comings. It’s the crunch that protects us from the trap of arrogant assumptions and exclusive palates. It’s the road-worthy flavor that ensures we are flexible and patient and willing to change and aware of the unexpected and able to embrace a surprising life.

Sure, plans are better made. They’re better laid with the best of intentions and wisdom and effort. They’re worth thinking about and following. But, from the poster child of plan Bs, let me just say that into every life a little cheesy dog must fall.

Blow it off and bon appetit!