Around here, in rural Pennsylvania. Quarantine often gets pronounced as “corn teen.” And that isn’t the only linguistic anomaly here in the part of the state often maligned by outsiders by using the term Pennsyltucky. We drop Gs at the end of words, say “red up” to mean clean up, and say yinz as the second person plural. Pennsyltucky is most of the state, everything except Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, and a couple smaller cities. I like Kentucky and Pennsyltucky, so they can call us whatever they want. My wife, Renee, is having a harder time than me. She works full time at Penn State, and has been doing that from home lately. She is a people person. She is such a people person, that she thinks everyone else must be too. One of the best things about corn teen is that I no longer have to blame the dogs for missing these play dates that she creates.
I have always been the kind of guy that can run dogs by myself and hunt rabbits by myself and be happy doing that. I have a few friends I hang out with once in a while, but I tend to find the social aspect of my vocation to be draining. For instance, hospital and nursing home visits are very much the intentional insertion of a pastor into the difficult situations that people are facing, in order to help out. When I go do a hospital visit, and see someone who is really sick, I find that to be a very draining process. Don’t hear me saying that I do not like doing it, or that I avoid it. No, I take this part of my job very seriously, but when it is done, I like to be able to retreat into my own solitude for renewal. Maybe just me and the dogs in the field, or a quiet supper at home with my wife.
Renee, by contrast, gains energy from being around people. She can float like a butterfly in and out of conversations at a large gathering. I will be in the corner talking to the other hunters and ignoring everyone else. In non covid-19 times, she likes to think I need new friends and schedules these “play dates” where she makes reservations with her friends and their husbands to meet at a restaurant and engage in small talk over food. Small talk isn’t my thing. I often blame the dogs for missing these meals.
“Sorry babe,” I call her on the phone when the dogs are chasing a rabbit right past me, so she can hear them. “These dogs are just pounding the rabbit. I lost track of time and now I am having trouble catching them. I will be late, but I will make the supper. What restaurant do I go to?” At his point, I hope the pack doesn’t lose the rabbit and end the hound music, which is a big part of my cover for the excuse I am fabricating.
“Are you showing up in coveralls again?” she seethes.
“I will put a shirt over top, so it looks like pants.”
I usually arrive just in time to eat an appetizer as they are finishing up their main course, the dogs snooze in the dog box in the bed of my truck, as I make enough small talk to get me through the encounter. It happens so much that her friends think I am some kind of professional trainer of beagles. HA!
In these corn teen times, I have been taking dogs afield twice per day, as doing visits is off limits. I have been saving gas money by avoiding the beagle clubs and training dogs at my local hunting spots. This also allows me to avoid the old timers who have been going to the beagle club a lot. The last thing I want to do is pass this bug to them. Restaurants have been closed, so we are eating at home all the time with no one else. While listening to hound dog music, I contemplate a faith based offering that I can put on Facebook each day and generate ideas for our online worship services. Hey, in some ways, this has been easy for me. I take care of pastoral care by making a few phone calls to people each day.
The other day the wind was howling and most of the state was under a tornado watch. Rather than take dogs afield, I decided to play some hymns on my mountain dulcimer and work from home. I did a little writing. Then, I decided to work on converting insight from academic commentaries and publications about a bible passage into a sermon—something a little less dry than a commentary. Some wit, a story or two to illustrate something intellectual, and a weekly research paper gets changed into a sermon. Maybe it isn’t much more interesting than the academic stuff, but hey, I try. When I am working on a passage from home, my wife thinks that I am not working.
“What are you doing?” Renee will ask.
“Working,” I answer.
“Ha! Looks to me like you are laying on the couch and listening to music.”
“I am thinking.”
“Yeah, well come watch me and see what work really looks like!”
Anyway, as the wind howled outside and the dogs were at attention anytime the screen door heaved against the doorknob latch, and the limbs from the trees in the yard shed twigs that were sent hurling into the house, I heard someone. It was this pleasant, jovial, affable, accommodating voice coming from the kitchen. She sounded so helpful. My first thought was that we are supposed to be practicing social distancing and no one should be in the house—why do we have company? My second thought was, how did this gal get into my house to see Renee without my beagle security system notifying me? They bark at car doors 100 yards from the house, and had been barking at the wind all day. How could this intruder get past them? So, I walked into the kitchen to see who had dropped by. It was Work Renee.
Work Renee looks exactly like my wife. Except she is kind, gracious, and always willing to help. I have seen her be as patient as you can imagine when helping some tenured professor do something to convert a traditional classroom course into an online project. Work Renee oozes compassion, and will explain the same thing four, five, even six times to a coworker. What do you think happens to me if I cannot hear something she says and ask her to repeat it once? I get the growl from Wife Renee, a very different person than Work Renee.
Lately, during covid-19, Work Renee has been on the phone and the computer, working from home. Her workload has doubled. She expends this great burst of gracious, gregarious helpfulness, and when all civility has been drained from her at the end of her day, she transforms into my wife. She has no sympathy then, when I can’t do very difficult things like find a particular pair of boots, locate something in the refrigerator, or remember the password to the internet.
So, the best thing for me to do is get out of her way. I wake her up in the morning, and make coffee. Then, I load up hounds, and go to the woods. I work on some little things that I can share with the congregation while we are not meeting, and return home. I hear the pleasantness as she works, and then, around supper time, the transformation. When her computer is turned off, her voice hardens. Her vocabulary diminishes. She breaks out a few words with just four letters.
“Hey!” she yelled at me a few weeks into the corn teen, after supper.
“Yes, sweetie?” I answered.
“Is it just me, or are you wearing pajamas and bib coveralls and that is it?” Renee asked, in a tone that meant she was not happy.
“Well,” I scratched my chin, “I think th--”
“Stop touching your face!!”
“Sorry,” I put my hands on my lap, “It isn’t pajamas or bibs. It is either pajamas or bibs over pajamas.”
“You’ve had the same pajamas on for days.”
“Well, I am changing underwear and socks.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“Hey,” I said, “You put on a fancy shirt every day and do your makeup and hair, but you are totally in pajama bottoms for those online meetings that you are attending.”
“They are different pajamas each day,” she sneered in that way she does to point out the obvious.
“Prove it,” I said, “You have 20 pairs of grey yoga pants.” Just then, her phone rang.
“This is work!” she growled, “What do they want at this hour?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
She held her index finger up to me, indicating that I should be silent. “This is Renee,” she answered with kindness oozing from her voice. The transformation is faster than when Bruce Banner becomes The Hulk. I pulled some bibs over my jammies, pulled my boots on, and loaded a few dogs to go to the field. Did the dogs I left at home get loud when they saw me break out the tracking collars and take a couple dogs out to the truck? Oh, yeah. Renee had to go into the back yard, on the phone, as I took dogs out the front door just so no one heard the protests of the older hounds I didn’t take. Old dogs run morning, youngsters in the evening. Stay socially distant and spiritually connected during this time of corn teen.
I have always been the kind of guy that can run dogs by myself and hunt rabbits by myself and be happy doing that. I have a few friends I hang out with once in a while, but I tend to find the social aspect of my vocation to be draining. For instance, hospital and nursing home visits are very much the intentional insertion of a pastor into the difficult situations that people are facing, in order to help out. When I go do a hospital visit, and see someone who is really sick, I find that to be a very draining process. Don’t hear me saying that I do not like doing it, or that I avoid it. No, I take this part of my job very seriously, but when it is done, I like to be able to retreat into my own solitude for renewal. Maybe just me and the dogs in the field, or a quiet supper at home with my wife.
Renee, by contrast, gains energy from being around people. She can float like a butterfly in and out of conversations at a large gathering. I will be in the corner talking to the other hunters and ignoring everyone else. In non covid-19 times, she likes to think I need new friends and schedules these “play dates” where she makes reservations with her friends and their husbands to meet at a restaurant and engage in small talk over food. Small talk isn’t my thing. I often blame the dogs for missing these meals.
“Sorry babe,” I call her on the phone when the dogs are chasing a rabbit right past me, so she can hear them. “These dogs are just pounding the rabbit. I lost track of time and now I am having trouble catching them. I will be late, but I will make the supper. What restaurant do I go to?” At his point, I hope the pack doesn’t lose the rabbit and end the hound music, which is a big part of my cover for the excuse I am fabricating.
“Are you showing up in coveralls again?” she seethes.
“I will put a shirt over top, so it looks like pants.”
I usually arrive just in time to eat an appetizer as they are finishing up their main course, the dogs snooze in the dog box in the bed of my truck, as I make enough small talk to get me through the encounter. It happens so much that her friends think I am some kind of professional trainer of beagles. HA!
In these corn teen times, I have been taking dogs afield twice per day, as doing visits is off limits. I have been saving gas money by avoiding the beagle clubs and training dogs at my local hunting spots. This also allows me to avoid the old timers who have been going to the beagle club a lot. The last thing I want to do is pass this bug to them. Restaurants have been closed, so we are eating at home all the time with no one else. While listening to hound dog music, I contemplate a faith based offering that I can put on Facebook each day and generate ideas for our online worship services. Hey, in some ways, this has been easy for me. I take care of pastoral care by making a few phone calls to people each day.
The other day the wind was howling and most of the state was under a tornado watch. Rather than take dogs afield, I decided to play some hymns on my mountain dulcimer and work from home. I did a little writing. Then, I decided to work on converting insight from academic commentaries and publications about a bible passage into a sermon—something a little less dry than a commentary. Some wit, a story or two to illustrate something intellectual, and a weekly research paper gets changed into a sermon. Maybe it isn’t much more interesting than the academic stuff, but hey, I try. When I am working on a passage from home, my wife thinks that I am not working.
“What are you doing?” Renee will ask.
“Working,” I answer.
“Ha! Looks to me like you are laying on the couch and listening to music.”
“I am thinking.”
“Yeah, well come watch me and see what work really looks like!”
Anyway, as the wind howled outside and the dogs were at attention anytime the screen door heaved against the doorknob latch, and the limbs from the trees in the yard shed twigs that were sent hurling into the house, I heard someone. It was this pleasant, jovial, affable, accommodating voice coming from the kitchen. She sounded so helpful. My first thought was that we are supposed to be practicing social distancing and no one should be in the house—why do we have company? My second thought was, how did this gal get into my house to see Renee without my beagle security system notifying me? They bark at car doors 100 yards from the house, and had been barking at the wind all day. How could this intruder get past them? So, I walked into the kitchen to see who had dropped by. It was Work Renee.
Work Renee looks exactly like my wife. Except she is kind, gracious, and always willing to help. I have seen her be as patient as you can imagine when helping some tenured professor do something to convert a traditional classroom course into an online project. Work Renee oozes compassion, and will explain the same thing four, five, even six times to a coworker. What do you think happens to me if I cannot hear something she says and ask her to repeat it once? I get the growl from Wife Renee, a very different person than Work Renee.
Lately, during covid-19, Work Renee has been on the phone and the computer, working from home. Her workload has doubled. She expends this great burst of gracious, gregarious helpfulness, and when all civility has been drained from her at the end of her day, she transforms into my wife. She has no sympathy then, when I can’t do very difficult things like find a particular pair of boots, locate something in the refrigerator, or remember the password to the internet.
So, the best thing for me to do is get out of her way. I wake her up in the morning, and make coffee. Then, I load up hounds, and go to the woods. I work on some little things that I can share with the congregation while we are not meeting, and return home. I hear the pleasantness as she works, and then, around supper time, the transformation. When her computer is turned off, her voice hardens. Her vocabulary diminishes. She breaks out a few words with just four letters.
“Hey!” she yelled at me a few weeks into the corn teen, after supper.
“Yes, sweetie?” I answered.
“Is it just me, or are you wearing pajamas and bib coveralls and that is it?” Renee asked, in a tone that meant she was not happy.
“Well,” I scratched my chin, “I think th--”
“Stop touching your face!!”
“Sorry,” I put my hands on my lap, “It isn’t pajamas or bibs. It is either pajamas or bibs over pajamas.”
“You’ve had the same pajamas on for days.”
“Well, I am changing underwear and socks.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“Hey,” I said, “You put on a fancy shirt every day and do your makeup and hair, but you are totally in pajama bottoms for those online meetings that you are attending.”
“They are different pajamas each day,” she sneered in that way she does to point out the obvious.
“Prove it,” I said, “You have 20 pairs of grey yoga pants.” Just then, her phone rang.
“This is work!” she growled, “What do they want at this hour?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
She held her index finger up to me, indicating that I should be silent. “This is Renee,” she answered with kindness oozing from her voice. The transformation is faster than when Bruce Banner becomes The Hulk. I pulled some bibs over my jammies, pulled my boots on, and loaded a few dogs to go to the field. Did the dogs I left at home get loud when they saw me break out the tracking collars and take a couple dogs out to the truck? Oh, yeah. Renee had to go into the back yard, on the phone, as I took dogs out the front door just so no one heard the protests of the older hounds I didn’t take. Old dogs run morning, youngsters in the evening. Stay socially distant and spiritually connected during this time of corn teen.
RSS Feed