Our Dumb Blog

1-4-97
Maybe the sun’s light will be dim
It won’t matter anyhow

I’ve taken my station at Boris’ keyboard again. The cat, tonight, is trying his best to attack my socks. Unfortunately, the socks are still on my feet.ww22222222222222223344444444
He makes his way up to the desk and onto the keyboard. Now he’s peering into the darkness outside my window, perhaps trying to figure out why the heat pump makes so much noise.

It’s funny how everything becomes a treasure when you have nothing.

We watched Dangerous Minds at Nathan and Andrew’s apartment tonight. The boys sent Emily, Steph, and me to Delchamps to rent one. We finally picked one we said we hadn’t seen. bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbnnn,kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkm (darn cat), guessing that neither of the boys had. Turns out Steph had watched it with BOTH of them already. Steph isn’t a good one to pick out movies. Of course, her personal favorites are G rated films about animals. Since Nathan had already seen it, he wasn’t a very good viewer, especially after the coffee and cookies. We joke about him not being able to last an hour through a movie before he starts talking and making noises and otherwise being obnoxious. This time it wasn’t even 30 minutes. He eventually went back into his bedroom, so Steph, of course, followed. Movies are a low priority on her list. Nathan started playing some REALLY loud 311 on his stereo or whatever he has that makes music back there. Andrew went back and closed the door. As he came back, I muttered, “I suppose it’s okay. They are engaged.”

“Actually, it’s kind of a relief that they are engaged now. They can do whatever they want, and I don’t care anymore. I’m not sure if I should have before. Am I caring? Or just anal? A fine line exists between the two, I suppose.u8y

Late at night is a good time to do some soul searching.
The dark night of the soul.
Or the long, dark tea-time.

The cat just knocked over my jar containing acorns. He seems bound and determined to roll it over the edge of my desk, shoving a pile of things onto the floor with it.

I’m taking Constitutional Law next semester.

I throw the cat to the ground. He was getting just a little disruptive among the chaos that is my desk top.

The movie was about caring. A woman that cared enough to enter the lives of her problem students. Why care? At the end, her smoker friend who also teaches there says in answer to the question why he keeps teaching, “Why do I smoke? Because I’m crazy, I guess.”

That cat is back up on my desk, trying desperately to get the acorns out of the jar. They say you can catch a monkey by putting a stone through a hole into an empty coconut. The monkey grabs hold of the stone, but his hand is now too large to pull back out. He’ll get caught rather than give up the stone. A worthless trifle, yet he’ll trade his freedom, his life, for it.

The cat is now in the process of eating my shoe. Fortunately, the shoe is not on my foot.

The content sheet of the tape I’m listening to lies upside down on top of my desk, among the other things strewn atop it. It’s probably the safest place for it.

Mom and I went shopping for a filing cabinet today. We found a nice, oak one at Oak Express, but it was 200 dollars. I guess I’ll just use cardboard boxes until I can find one cheaper than that. I mean, I could get a used, loud, flimsy metal one for 30 or so, but why?

I keep yawning, so I suppose I’ll go to bed. Maybe the cat will finally calm down.

1-5-97
Another Saturday night
And I ain’t got nobody…
How I wish I had some chick to talk to

Another night at Boris. A continuance of the dance of the cat on the top of my desk.

I actually watched some TV tonight. I was pretty bored. For some reason, I’m the most bored when I should be doing (or am doing) something I don’t particularly want to. All the other females except Steph were in the living room knitting or learning how to. Steph was with Nathan. Nathan’s brother Joshua was in the den crocheting rainbow yarn into a long chain. Mark and Andrew were off talking about whatever those two boys talk about for hours on end. Dad was up painting Steph’s new closet. And I was bored. But I didn’t want to be anti-social, so I switched on the tube2wwwwwwww344444444444 and flipped through the channels. Voyager was on UPN, so I left it there. Janeway and the black Vulcan, Tupoc or whatever, were doing a mind meld. Ben and Josh and I watched it till it was over. Then I went into the knitting bee, but by then, it was about time to eat, so I set up everything in the kitchen instead of joining them.

Eric, Carolyn and her sister Katherine had been over earlier. We had planned to have a bonfireand roast brauts. I broke and chopped off long sticks to cook them with while Mark and Ben sharpened them and Eric, Nathan, and Joshua shot their SKS’s into the hill on the other side of the lake. Chinese assault rifles are loud. Then I heard Steph yell at Nathan to stop for whatever reason. Mom came around back a bit later and said that our neighbors through the woods and on the other side of the power lines said that bullets were shooting up their trailers. Evidently, two big rednecks drove up and, really upset, swore, one of them almost on the verge of tears.

“That’s okay,” I said to mom, when she expressed concern at their presence, “We have three SKS.” They said that the daughter of whatever family lives over there had a guy looking at her car when bullets started whizzing by. The two of them hit the ground and had to stay there, the bullets kept coming so fast. Dad went over there and assured them that if there was any damage, we’d take care of it. It was too dark to see if anything had been hit. Nathan was very upset. When the sheriff showed up, Andrew and Mark joked about the Kompound being under attack. I was fixing beans, but I heard Nathan’s voice coming through the door as the sheriff prepared to drive away, “I’m really sorry!
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So, Eric, Carolyn and company left early, and we cooked the brauts over the grill. Afterward, the knitting crew went back to knitting and everyone else disappeared again, so I cleaned up thekitchen. Denise suggested we all go out for ice cream, so we went to Cream ‘n Bean. Emily, Jef, Denise and I stopped by WallyWorld first to get yarn. I commented how it must look funny, four chicks in flannel shirts walking in to buy yarn. I got bored when they took too long to make up their minds on what flavor to purchase, so I told them I’d be out in the car listening to the radio and sharpening my knife I’m wearing on my belt. I used it to try to cut branches earlier, but it was too dull. It’s getting better now, but I’m not too good at sharpening knives. I’ve never really been taught how.

We finally got to the coffee place by the time everyone else had finished theirs. We got ours to go and headed over to the apartment. I looked through Andrew’s Entertainment magazine’s special on the X-files while we watched MAD TV. There was a very clever piece on black slang, but the rest of the skits went downhill from there.

I tied the cat’s mouse on a string to a nob on the pulled out top drawer of my dresser, and he’s been happily batting at it for the past half hour. I should have done that a lot earlier.

I think Mom is going to take Emily back to Columbus tomorrow after church. She’s thinking about staying for quite a while, like several days. This means that I’ll have to be responsible for taking care of my grandmother and meals and stuff. Oh well, it might be nice to have Mom out of the house again.

Maybe I’ll go to Morocco next fall.

I’m thinking if anything happened today, but not much did. Ben and Dad are working up in Steph’s room, making one of her closets into a walk-in like mine and walling off the other. That one will become Ben’s closet from the dormer room. His old room, the one that my grandmother stayed in till we finished the addition, the same one that my grandfather stayed in till he died, is now the computer room, where I’m sitting now. There’s a fold out couch and my grandfather’s old desk in here. This is where Emily, our guest, will stay. Normally, she would have bunked in with Steph, since she has two single bunkbeds, that aren’t bunked at the moment, but Steph’s room is a disaster since the guys are doing construction up there.

Dad wanted Nathan and Steph and me to clear some over in Paradise Land, but Nathan wasn’t dressed for it. Steph and I moved some of the cut brush over to the pile in the adjacent field, but we weren’t really sure what else to do. Mom said not to cut any live oaks because Dad wanted to replant them, but EVERYTHING was oak over there. There’s a ceder tree growing right in the middle of everything, so they dug around it to dig it up.
It would appear someone is here.

Nope, no one is. The dogs have been barking for no reason, it seems. Dad and Ben havebeen making a racket all day and for the past few days hammering stuff up in the attic making closets.

I cleaned up my room today some. Which means it looks worse than before. Whenever I get something in the mail or whatever that I’m not really sure what to do with, I leave it lying around. Then when I have to clean up my room, I take all the things that are lying around and put them in a pile on my desk. Then I forget about everything in there.Every so often, like today, I go through that pile and throw away a bunch of stuff. Other things, I look at and put back in the pile because I’m still not sure what to do with them.

The reason why I was doing this, was because I used up my last check in my check book (a month or two ago) and I was looking for the rest of my checks. I know I have them. I ordered a bunch last spring, and I was only on the first bunch. I looked everywhere andcouldn’t find them. I have a few unnumbered ones left from ….
gotta help dad…

They’re putting up dry wall now. Dry wall? Sheet rock? Hmm… They needed me to help put it in.

Anyway, I have a few unnumbered checks left from when I first opened my savings account. I figure, if I only use my VISA to pay for things and then use the checks to pay for the VISA bill, I’ll be okay. Man, I gotta find those checks. I found the box they came in. I found the box my first set came in. Maybe I should just order some more. ARGH. I took a set up to VA with me this summer, but I can’t find those either. Or, maybe that’s the set I just used. I don’t know.

Sounds like Steph is home. Nathan and Eric and Carolyn went to see Beavis and Butthead tonight, I think. Steph refused to go. She had to babysit tonight anyway. She babysits every Tues and Thurs down the road at her old riding instructor’s house. One day, Becky told Steph she couldn’t teach her anymore, so Steph stopped taking riding lessons and started giving them.

We sent out about 200 Christmas letters and cards to our closest friends, not including those in Mobile.
Jonah

MERRY CHRISTMAS from the Brenners! e-mail edition. . .
(our snail-mail address is: 51 Eliza Jordan Rd., Mobile, AL 36608)

1996. It’s been quite a year…we added a major addition on our home for Dottie (Sarah’s mom), Benjamin spent 3 1/2 months in Singapore, Joanna worked the summer in Virginia, Stephanie and Nathan have been negotiating with Robert and Sarah, we gained a new sister, and Jim (Robert’s dad) died in our home. Our Lord has been in the midst of it all, but you see what I mean. IT’S BEEN QUITE A YEAR! But. . don’t we say that every year?

DOTTIE’S ADDITION
When Sarah’s mom came to live with us following her stroke, we began planning a special living place for her. With the help of a great architect and an excellent builder, an 800 square foot addition was completed in March. Dorothea now has her own furniture in her own lovely apartment. She celebrated her 81st birthday with us June 11, and except for the effects of the stroke, her health is good.

SINGAPORE
Our good friends in Singapore asked if we would consider letting Benjamin, 14, come to help their son Daniel learn how to home school. So Ben began an incredible adventure on July 10th. Singapore is exceptionally modern and safe, thank goodness, because one evening Ben and Daniel missed the last train from the airport and walked home–arriving around 3 AM! A side trip to Malaysia and Thailand with his hosts completed his adventure. Benjamin returned home just in time to study for his learner’s driving permit. Oh, no! The roads will be unsafe! (Oh, that’s right: they already are!) Otherwise, he is continually updating his own web page,
and would love for you to visit him in cyberspace at http://www.maf.mobile.al.us/~maf00264. He is also continually growing, even though now that he is the tallest one in the family you’d think he’d be satisfied and stop.

MARS HILL
It was a place that the Apostle Paul preached in the first century. Now it is the name of a company that distributes a bimonthly audio magazine of interviews with people on cultural issues in an NPR format. Joanna moved to Virginia for the summer and interned for Ken Myers, founder of Mars Hill Audio. She entered his extensive card catalog into a computer database, organized his library, and performed other tasks while enjoying the inspiring philosophical environment and,of course, making some money. As a senior at the University of Mobile with a 4.0 average, she is trying to figure out what she wants to be when she (ugh) grows up – or at least what to do when she graduates. Her only real desire at this point is to TRAVEL! Any suggestions or donations will be appreciated. Visit her WEB site at http://rivendel.com/~jonah

NEGOTIATIONS
Stephanie is 19 and a sophomore at UM. Unlike Benjamin, she stopped growing several years ago and remains short and sweet. We always thought that our daughters would finish college before they married. Joanna will probably finish graduate school. But Stephanie and Nathan, who is 6′ 5″ and still growing, think that sooner is better, so we are negotiating. First it was understood that Nathan would finish college and get a job. But then he got a job (a good one too) and is also finishing school. So who knows what next year’s Christmas letter will tell you about Steph (we parents also remember what it was like to be 19 and 21!). In June, Stephanie helped with Wings Like Eagles in Monument, Colorado for the seventh year running, and at home she continues to ride, care for all our animals, excel in her classes, and keep us somewhat organized. (Sarah’s note: those of you aware of my housekeeping skills can appreciate that!)

A NEW SISTER
In November we all traveled to Atlanta to attend a wonderful wedding. Sarah’s brother Bill Staples married Jan Glover, and it’s a superb match! We were privileged to watch a tender courtship during the past year and are thrilled to have a very special new sister/aunt. The unique ceremony during the regular Sunday morning worship at Central Presbyterian Church was a deeply felt reminder of the constant benefit of the community of faith.

JIM BRENNER WITH JESUS
He just left us. He was here, and then he was gone. We learned early this year that Robert’s dad’s just-diagnosed cancer was spreading. In June we celebrated his 80th birthday here. Then in August, we decided to bring him to live with us in Mobile. What a wonderful time! On October 16, Jim talked with the doctor, decided to stop treatment, came home, and called his friends at his church. He told them he would die the next week and needed to plan his funeral service. Robert’s brother David came down for the weekend, Robert arrived back from Colorado on Monday, and we got Ben on a plane from Singapore. Monday night some friends came and we worshipped around Dad’s bed. Tuesday night we did the same. After our friends left, Robert sang hymns to him until 3 AM. On Wednesday morning, Sarah and Robert went to the airport to pick up Ben and left Joannaholding her Popie’s hand. As we drove back into the driveway, he took his last breath. The funeral in Macon was an incredible celebration. At the grave side, we put helium balloons on the casket, worshipped, then let the balloons fly into the sky. The church service was packed and it was a true

CELEBRATION.
Dad’s death taught us that the only investment that pays eternal dividends is the investment we make in others. Jim invested heavily there and reaped HUGE dividends. We miss him so. But we rejoice.

PARENTS ARE PEOPLE, TOO!
Robert continues to work at Integrity and loves the business/ministry. He still cherishes his time mowing our 14 acres on his 1951 Ford tractor, and often our Sunday morning’s home church times are enriched by his conversations with Jesus in our fields. Robert’s recreation usually takes the form of building something, so we now have a terrific new screen porch, although he wisely left the main house-addition construction to the professionals.

Sarah has spent much of this year as a nurse to our parents, although she has also found time for the piano again. She was accepted by audition into the Mobile Piano Ensemble and would have played in the annual concert had it not beenfor Jim’s memorial services in Georgia. Next year we may be able to give you
performance news.

With all that has happened this year, we remember anew the importance of family. We’ve always thought Christmas was a time for giving. But much more importantly, it is a time for LOVING–loving others and remembering our heavenly Father’s love for us. God willing, we will continue to pile up stones so that we will always REMEMBER….

Blessings to each of you,
Robert, Sarah, Joanna, Stephanie, and Benjamin

My brother is in the living room, listening to early 80’s Michael W. Smith and knitting.

I have this habit of sticking my head into his room and asking him what he’s listening to if I’m not familiar with it. It may bug him, I don’t know, me checking on him like that. Sometimes I’ll just poke my head in to see what he’s doing, even if his door is closed. I know it would drive me crazy if he did that to me. Today he was listening to some full orchestral work. “Guess,” he said when I asked him. “It’s not classical,” I said, “It sounds like a movie soundtrack.” “How can you tell it’s not classical?” he asked, puzzled. So we spent the next hour or so listening to music and classifying it as Baroque, Classical, Romantic, or otherwise. I opened up the three disc set Downey gave me for Christmas and made him put on Bach. “Hear the harpsichord?” I said, “Dead give away it’s Baroque.” There were other composers I wasn’t as familiar with. We put on Mendelson and tried to classify him. I went down and got the time line of world history and skimmed the music section of each year from the 1700s to 1950s. “Now put on that crap you were listening to again,” I said, after skipping through numerous CDs. “Can you tell now?” He nodded, took it off, and put on some Yanni. Sigh.