At the Rodeo

We went to the Benton County Rodeo and Fair last Saturday night. Zeke called a ro-dee-ro, but we call it a rodeo. It was a great time. Saw a camel and some tractors. Zeke rode the Merry-Go-Round with Papa. We ate nut-covered carmel apples and Gyros.

TED: The power of vulnerability

New Year, New Adventure

Happy New Year! We've been a little behind in our blogging lately because we've been super busy. You might be wondering what we've been busy with... Well, it's our newest adventure- we're moving to Arkansas! Yes, the Lewandowskis are heading south!

When Tom's contracted writing job ended in December, we were hoping to find the perfect job opportunity here in Omaha. Everyone knows that times are tough and the economy isn't providing a lot of opportunities for job seekers. Our prayers were answered, and Tom received a job offer we couldn't pass up.

We'll be moving to the northwest corner of Arkansas in the Bentonville, Rogers, and Fayetteville area. Tom has already started working for Nelson Counseling and will be assisting my parents in their counseling business. He will also start graduate school to obtain his masters degree in Social Work.

We spent almost 2 weeks in early January down in Rogers, Arkansas. Tom worked and I child-reared. In the afternoons and evenings, we met with a realtor and visited homes. We did put an offer on a great house, and the offer was accepted! So, if all goes as planned, (it's a short sale, so we're keeping fingers crossed) we will be in our very own house by mid- February!

Our new house???

Just Kidding! We're hoping this is the one!

Of course, we're sad to leave Omaha and especially Grandma Jean, but we are excited about the new adventure. Nana and Papa are thrilled to have their grandchildren closer (and us grownups too, I'm sure). We're excited to get to know a new area of the country.

We took a 6 hour Sunday drive last weekend and spent some time enjoying the beauty of the Ozarks, right in our new backyard!

We are back in Omaha right now, tying up loose ends, packing our stuff (again), and loading up a POD. We'll be here through the next week, and then we're off to begin the next chapter of our lives. We'll post more soon about all the great things in Northwest Arkansas. I'm sure there's a lot of things people don't know about this undiscovered gem of a state!

Most Photographed Everything in America

I think maybe there are a lot of things in our USA-style American culture that are sort of like the most photographed barn in America. There are so many voices screaming so loudly from our televisions everyday, telling us what is important. Oprah, Dr. Phil, those ladies on the View, everyone seems to be freaking out about something all the time. Let's freak out about Tom Cruise. Let's freak out about Tom Cruise freaking out. Let's freak out about the new movie with the -- you're not going to believe this --vampires.

Why are these people on TV? Because everyone is watching. Why is everyone watching? Because they're the people on TV. The funny thing is that a lot of what people talk about on TV has to do with being on TV. I think that's funny.

The Most Photographed Barn in America

Don DeLillo wrote a great novel called White Noise. It deals with, among other things, our people's wacky inability to confront, grapple with, and finally accept the reality that death comes to us all, eventually. It's a theme, I think, that deserves wider investigation. Maybe the Bachelor could do like a special episode where the real people on the show honestly confront their own mortality, visit the terminally ill or something.

But what I want to examine is something different. What I want to examine here is the most photographed barn in America.


In the novel: So these two over-educated culture junkies drive out to visit the barn. They are circling the barn, taking pictures of the people taking pictures, and they start riffing on what it means to be the most photographed barn in America. Like, why is this barn the most photographed? Because it's famous for being the most photographed and everyone wants a picture of that barn. Who wants a picture of just a barn when you can have a picture of the most photographed barn in America, probably the world?

Except you can't take pictures of the most photographed barn -- you can only take pictures of people taking pictures. There are simply too many photographers stalking the barn for any one of them to get a clean shot of just the barn. But then since the most photographed barn in America is something you can't really take a picture of, does that mean that the most photographed barn in America is in fact not the most photographed barn in America? In which case, what are all those people doing out there with their cameras?

Karine and Tom Buy Minivan, Win Big!!!

I mentioned in an earlier post that something funny happened after we bought our minivan in Omaha last week. This is the funny thing that happened.

We won $2,500!!!

We'll post of picture of our billboard when it goes up. Seriously.

One Great Thing About Nebraska: Spontaneous Patriotism

This act of spontaneous patriotism occurred at Captain Jack's Bar in Lincoln, Nebraska on June 23rd, 2010. The US national soccer team does something extraordinary in the ninety-first minute of a do-or-die World Cup match. These Nebraskans are very proud.

Americans and America, ctd.

If you do find yourself in the company of North and South American Others (Canadians, Uruguayans, Chileans, ect.), and we certainly hope you do, there is a word you can use to describe yourself which will not offend and will probably make your new friend feel all warm and fuzzy inside. It's a Spanish word, so it won't help you too much with Canadians or Brazilians. But there are literally millions of people who would be simply charmed to hear you refer to yourself as estadounidense.

Eh-Stad-oh-u-knee-DEN-se

Unfortunately, it's not an easy word to pronounce. But it is useful.

I would like to add, to be perfectly clear, that we fully support use of the words America and American. We also support America and Americans whenever and however we can.

Americans and America

Like I said, our North and South American brothers and sisters are not mad at us for calling ourselves Americans, they just think it's sort of typical of us, with our our giant vehicles and multinational corporations and cowboy military-industrial ethos, to name ourselves using like the biggest possible name. Well, almost the biggest, I guess we could call ourselves Earthlings or Western Hemispherians. But that just wouldn't sing the same way.

Our All-American Baby

We call ourselves Americans. The term becomes problematic once you leave the confines of the nifty-fifty. It certainly has for us. We are proud to be from the United States. The problem with what we call ourselves here has more to do with nomenclature than love of country. America is a name shared by two continents. Nine-hundred million people live in the Americas. Only people from the United States call themselves Americans. The other Americans (Chileans, Mexicans, Brazilians) forgive us this curious bit of narcissism because we Americans are generally an engaging and friendly people. Also, because we share our heavy-metal, Coca-Cola, and Hannah Montana with the rest of the Americas.

I've been thinking about this sort of thing because our son is going to be born any day now. He'll be a citizen of Honduras. Karine and I are technically resident aliens. He’ll also be a citizen of the United States. This, I guess, makes him a Honduran-American or an American-Honduran. But those terms don’t really make sense outside of the United States. Here, all Hondurans are American, because Honduras is part of America.

Or is Honduran-American a classification of race rather than nationality? Is he in fact a Polish-Irish-French-English-Swedish-Norwegian Honduran-American? It’s enough to make your head spin. Well, to his parents I guess he will just be Bonsai Tree. Or Thelonious. Or Trike Obama.