A few weeks ago, tbV and our two housemates Aaron and Sarah went for a meal and games-playing evening [yes, Settlers of Catan] to our friends from church, Mike and Leah.
Aaron and Mike have at least one thing in common in that they both work in what must be one of the best jobs in the world – teaching young children engineering concepts through Lego [or Legos if you’re Americanese!].
So before we went to visit we came up with a plan to legonap some of Mike’s lego people and hold them hostage for a bit of fun.
Sadly, when we got to their house his Lego men were all safely hidden away and so our plan seemed thwarted.
Until i had to make a restroom call and met these friendly creatures:
The wedding ducks were perched on the top of the Smiths toilet and so i secretly pocketed them and let the others know as we drove home that the mission had not been completely compromised.
We then got to work with TYPING [of course] a ransom letter and taking pics of their ducks being guarded by Aaron’s Ninja Lego men:
Sent it to them. Great laugh. And you’d think the story would end there, right?
Well it was until Val and Aaron and i went to play games at our friend Bruce’s house. Great evening of games, amazing snacks, and good company and all going relatively routinely, until i happened to need the bathroom and when i went i happened to spot these guys [as part of a larger group of five on a rack in the shower]:
Pretty familiar-looking right… that is until you see this other picture taken with my phone for scale appreciation:
Wait, What? Did i step into Inception here? No you did not. Turns out Bruce and his family have a set of 5 ducks, including two very similiar wedding ducks, but of the little tiny baby duck-sized variety…
So naturally i pocketed them [for a guy big on honesty, i don’t seem to have too many qualms for stealing it seems…] and took them home and we came up with plan B.
Which involved another coincidental dinner party at Mike and Leah’s where i left the two tiny wedded ducks on their toilet…
And then another regular games night at Bruce’s where i ‘SNUCK’ the two giant ducks into the throng:
Yeah, they just fit right in there, huh?
I’m not sure if the moral to this story is ‘Don’t invite Brett and Val to your house for games’ or maybe just that you should look a little better after your toys and play companions when you do.
All i am suggesting is that life is too short not to ‘kidnap a set of plastic ducks from your friends while playing board games at their house and creating a ransom note from letters cut from magazines and typing the envelope address and then kidnapping a different set of smaller ducks from your other friend’s house while playing board games and switching both sets of ducks and replacing them at the opposite plastic duck house’… or something…
Do you have any similiar stories involving friends’ figurines, stuffed animals or works of art? i would love to hear them…
my wife tbV [aka the beautiful Val] and myself have been living in Americaland and working with two different non-profits [The Simple Way and Common Change] for over three years now and are in the process of heading home.
to Africa [the continent]… and more specifically to South Africa.
and what i’ve been telling people of late to sum up the feeling is that i am really looking forward to being back home, but not so much to leaving.
the leaving part is almost completely people related [and maybe icing/frosting in a can cos come on South Africa!] and especially the church community at Re:Gen and some of the friendships we have made there as well as opportunities to preach and run youth and teach Improv classes [oh and also the field hockey with the Eagles – Caw! – i have really enjoyed that, although there will hopefully be hockey back home too].
but the whole leaving and transition thing has felt a LOTtle bit like a rollercoaster, and from two months ago already…
and when i say rollercoaster… i am not so much talking about this:
as much as i mean this:
it has been a wild fast crazy ride which included among other things, speaking on a week long houseboat camp on Lake Shasta, a three day visit from my parentals, taking part in a Sikh field hockey tournament and a three week preaching stint at Re:Gen plus work, figuring out packing and trying to set up some things for back home [sorted: place to stay and phone, still needed: transportation, work for me]
so back to this blog and the hoarseness thereof [a word i played in Words with Friends last night although to be fair i just added a ‘T’ onto the ‘Hereof’ someone else had played… HEREOF? Yes, he is one of those…] it feels like for the longest time i have been sharing other peoples thoughts [on relationships and race-related things] as well as Pearls before Swine cartoon stripsthat i enjoy and i am REALLY LOOKING FORWARD TO returning to the blog properly and writing some heart stuff and i imagine that will only really happen properly when i get home and have settled in a little bit [although i do have some exciting thoughts from other people to share in the meantime so that is good] but just wanted to send a shout out to all my readers and if anyone had noticed this trend and was hoping for some more me-thought it. is. on. the. way.
so hang in there and enjoy what delicacies i have in store for you over here in the meantime – but know that i have a post on ‘white privilege’ that is long overdue and probably [finally] some musings on our time at the Simply Way [that might get hot!] and in Americaland in general.
very much looking forward to this space sounding like my voice again. hope some of you are still around when it does. thankx for being patient.
if you stopped reading after the ‘b’ this becomes a completely different post… so don’t.
the beautiful Val, in case you didn’t know, and yes only i get to call her that and really mean it in the way i do. [you can of course refer to her as ‘tbV’ th0ugh, and i love it when other people do, but it has also been fun to me through the years how so many of you have mistakenly changed it to ‘the lovely Val’ – which is also true]
we are on the way to having being married for 5 years and in that time we have transitioned three times [if you leave out the time Val left family, friends, home, church to some degree to move out to Stellenbosch when we got married – a huge ask!] from Stellenbosch to Philadelphia to Oakland [if you exclude lengthy stays at Che Houston in Kenilworth] which may not seem a lot [especially when you compare it to how many times her parentals moved in their first 20 plus years of marriage] it has been a whole lot for us. ‘
New place to stay, new country, new friends, new church, new food, no mayonnaise [to speak of] and so on.
So it has not all been easy and has definitely put strain on us as a couple of intense, seize-life-by-the-throat-of-its-balls, passionate people. But it has been an adventure and there is much more of that to come. Especially as we know that another transition looms ahead [with Americaland specifically asking us to be out by early August] and are not too sure of the specifics thereof. Or therein. Or therein of? Something.
And there have been so many, and i don’t have pictures of them all [which to some extent i am completely stoked about – some adventures we capture, some we just live] but i just wanted to take a moment to celebrate my beautiful lady. i love being married to you Val and these pictures are just a glimpse of some of the memories we have put together…um together… and looking ahead to many more.
i love and celebrate you, tbV:
hold my hand… walk with me…
Awkward ‘Family’ photo wedding pic with adopted son Dreadlocked Kev
Love this lady. tbV
As i have said before and will no doubt say again, being married to the right person is one of the greatest things in the world [and discovering more and more that you become the right people as you continue in your commitment of marriage to each other] and because i have such a heart for those in marriage doing it well, i have created a lot of space on my blog to focus on doing just that and so lots of amazing marriage resources, compiled by a whole big bunch of amazing people, are waiting for you over here.
and i, i took the one less valuable to us… and that has made all of the difference.
also it was a city square, more than a wood.
# The Date: February 14th, Valentine’s Day 2014
# The Venue: Justin Herman Plaza, San Francisco
# The Event: Great San Francisco Pillow Fight 2014
GETTING THERE
i saw a link on Twitter the night before to Free events happening in the city for Valentine’s Day and was immediately drawn to the idea of a giant pillow fight.
hearing that Aaron, our current housemate, had been part of it a year before added some fuel to the fire and when it turned out Sarah his wife [who had come off a 24 hour shift at the hospital the day before] was going to be up for it, it was plan made.
and so after Aaron came home from his Lego job [that’s right, the man works with Lego – best job in the world?] we grabbed pillows and headed down to the train station and made the journey towards the Plaza knowing that we were cutting it fine in terms of time [the invitation said 5.45pm but we were assured it would only start at 6]
THE ACTION
it actually did start just before we got there and so we cautiously entered the fray trying to figure out the rules and the vibe as we got right into the thick of it.
i started off by sticking near Aaron, the experienced veteran and a bit of a giant of a man, but was soon off on my own foray into the action.
what made it interesting was that there were psycho overadrenalin’d guys [and some psycho overadrenalin’d girls], gentle pillow-tapping girls, costumed crazies [a unicorn, a pikachu, two polar bears, a power ranger] and enthusiastic young children [one overenthusiastic young guy who held on to Aaron while he smashed away at him and eventually had to be subdued by the police] and so strategy was a mix of trying to nail the heavies, medium hit the more girlie girls, avoid smashing cameras that were being wandered through the crowds all over the place and not killing any of the children.
but in the shell of a nut, BEST VALENTINE’S DAY EVER!
fairly early on my dread bandana was in danger of coming off and never being seen again and so i just took it off and put it in my pocket and let me dreads hang low [let them wiggle to and fro] and had two gears – slow wander through the crowd and wait for a moment and then scream a viking yell and start spinning in a circle with my pillow [and later two pillows when someone abandoned theirs] spinning in a robot fashion in my hand and just mad frenzy for a while.
THE PREJUDICE
For the record, the Great San Francisco Pillow Fight is a lesson in conformity.
At one point, the last thing i remember hearing was, ‘Go for the dreads.’ Followed by pain. As twenty people [or more] attacked me at once. [i fought back valiantly!]
Anyone who was different became a target for the frenzy moments – tall people, people on shoulders, the unicorn costumed guy [a lot!], Pikachu, pig costume, Power Ranger and of course ‘guy with dreads’ [which happened a few times].
At one point when everyone was hitting me there was a brief lull and so i shouted, ‘HIT THE ONE WITHOUT DREADS’ and just started windmilling it in a frenzy.
In our very own Avengers Assemble moment, Aaron, tbV and i ended up in the middle of a circle back to back to back dealing out ‘damage’ to the crowd around us.
Another fun moment [and let’s be honest, a lot of my action happened to coincidentally happen near the bigger cameras] was when i was in the middle of a fight and i was fighting in ultra-slow motion and another dude saw me and we ended up doing what felt like a choreographed fight sequence as people looked on in slow motion and i ended up lying on the floor, head on my pillow, sucking my thumb and pretending to sleep.
YOU ACTUALLY HAD TO BE THERE
i will attach a video clip below to give you an idea of how it went down, but you really have to times that by 1000 and then just be sad for a second and realise that doesn’t catch it at all – it will give you a glimpse into the mayhem and fun but it was just a classic once in a lifetime [well, til we organise one in Cape Town when we get back] moment of absolute bliss and energy and silly fun.
THE LESSON
when we arrived it reminded me of the Flash Mob i attended back in Cape Town years ago. so many people on the periphery who were super amped to get involved and be a part of it, but too nervous to actually follow through. so we had to push through a crowd of onlookers and camera people and onlooked with cameras who were people.
and that was pretty much how the crowd was divided. i would say more than a thousand people watching and more than a thousand people pillow-fighting [and then some really brave camera people who made their way through the crowds and the fighting with their cameras on long poles or held above their heads]
which is like church and a lot of life i guess. a lot of people watching because they like the idea of the thing, but not so amped to get involved in the actual doing of the thing.
because let’s face it – it can be dangerous getting in there – you could get hurt – there is a definite cost [the likelihood of your pillow being used again is minimal and many pillows were sacrificed completely in the name of fun, but i imagine some people woke up bruised and maybe even bleeding a little from some accidental pillow or elbow action] and it requires a lot more effort and commitment.
and if you watch, you can say you were there and you can feel like you were there and you might even have camera footage proving you were there. which is all cool and well and all.
but you weren’t really there!
not really. you weren’t IN the pillow fight. you were next to it or around it or close by to it, but you were not a participant.
so you were maybe one step closer than those who watched it on tv or read about it on the internet [hi!] but you were so close and still did not get to experience everything that it was.
with a giant pillow fight that is not so much of a big deal – maybe watching it was enough and all of the fun that you needed.
but with life and with church, it is tragic if you end up being a bystander or an onlooker when the invitation was to jump in and go for it and dominate and really live.
since tbV and i have been in Americaland we have taken part in a colour run [slash walk] getting powder paint thrown at us every km, an electric run [slash walk] wearing crazy neon flashing things and now this giant crazy mayhemmed pillow fight [and pretty soon we will be staying in a Yurtwith Aaron and Sarah for the weekend – look it up] – we try and live with a ‘Yes, lets’ mentality that allows us to try new things and experience some once-in-a-lifetime opportunities and i can highly recommend it.
HOW TO FOLLOW UP A GIANT PILLOW FIGHT
well, there was only one way to end that evening – we rehydrated ourselves and grabbed some drinks and headed off through the city to the movie theatre to go and watch The Lego Movie which was such a completely fun experience [especially watching it with Mr Lego who got so excited when they put the numbers of the lego pieces on the screen because he knows and works with them – that was a treat!] and i highly recommend it for everyone – just a lot of crazy family fun.
and a LOT more fun than standing in the cinema lobby looking at the poster of The Lego Movie.
2013 was a fun year for me on the blog – decided to stop my Weekly Mash blog so i could be more focused on this one which is titled ‘Irresistibly Fish’ and there have been a decent bunch of new subscribers in 2013 [welcome!] as well as those who regularly pop in to take in some of what i write and share over here.
so brief intro to me if you are new – my name is Brett Fish [nickname] Anderson and i am married to the beautiful Val [tbV] and am from the country [#cough Americaland #cough] of South Africa where i have spent most of my life, except for the last 3 years where i have been in Americaland…
working as a resident of the simple way in Philly in 2011 and 2012 and after a visit home [to the still country of South Africa] moving to Oakland to work with the same boss but different non-profit known as Common Changewhich isgreat and you should totally find a group of friends who want to join you in a collaborative giving experiment and adventure and sign up, join a group and start helping meet needs of people you know.
then just recently i started working as the youth leadery type person at Re: Generation church near Lake Merritt and so am a little bit of the bivocational at the moment, but have LOVED the opportunity to be preaching again [once a month] and just connecting with some rad people who love Jesus [and enough of whom love cool games like Settlers of Catan, Bang, Puerto Rico and Dixit]
i also own the world’s most famous stuffed dolphin named No_bob [i was going to call him ‘bob’ but he doesn’t!] and hate raiSINs with a different absolute passion and do not find it surprising at all that the word SIN is hidden in the word raiSIN – in fact i have written and recorded two songs about my dislike of all things squishy fruit and it is high time i did a third.
otherwise i have a deep appreciation for humour and so whether it is sharing the brilliance of other people or else just being completely silly myself and aiming for laughs as my alter ego, Brad Fish, with his Dangerous Things You Can Least Expect [DTYCLE] series or trying out some Jack Handeyesque deep thoughts as Brett Andythat is bound to be part of my posting in 2014 and one of my quests is to write [on occasion] some funnier blog posts…
so if you are continuing to journey with me in 2014 i am hoping that we will see some more incredible stories in the Taboo Topics series[which has seen a whole lot of other people sharing some intensely deep and personal stories about areas we don’t often hear much about such as Singleness, Infertility, Losing a child or being a parent of one when it’s not all that easy and so much more], I hope to continue to try and speak life into Relationshipsand i have an exciting series in mind capturing advice and stories from people who have been married for differing numbers of years as well as inviting some of my single friends to share their insights in a particular area.
i am very much looking forward to going home for a visit in just about a week and also for the chance to do some fun-making on the improvised comedy stage with my old team of TheatreSporters, i am hoping to figure out a better eating/exercise plan when i get back so i can be more fit for field hockey which i have loved being part of [go Eagles!], i hope to do more slacklining with my friend Todd and the gang at Lake Merritt and to have some more amazingly fun evenings of games with friends we have made and also with the friendly folks at the games store on Wed nights.
and maybe, just maybe, i will finally get around to self-publishing the book i finished writing two years ago, titled ‘I kissed hating [the church] goodbye’ cos that would be very nice.
oh and the FISH stands for Faithful In Serving Him if you didn’t know, which is an Irresistible proposition to aim at in life… loving God, loving people and looking out for those who are considered by many to be ‘the least of these’…
lastly i do hope to find a way to engage more in the comments section with those who do read my blog so not sure if that means i must get more controversial or hilariously funny or some kind of differently creative, but hopefully a feature of 2014 will be more of you coming and saying “hi” in the comments, or that you think that i’m the biggest jerk you know or you would like the United Nations to raise a statue in my honour on Mars or something like that – just come and play, people…
and have a most excellent 2014 – let’s suck the marrow out of this life thing together!
One of the evolutions I would like to see happen in my life in 2014 is a move towards taking greater responsibility for my actions (or at times, lack thereof).
Charles Finney once said, ‘It seems to be a law of human nature that when a person is accused of wrong, either by the conscience of any other agent, he must either confess or justify.’
We have become masters of justification, right? One of the biggest conflict causers in the first year of my marriage to the beautiful Val (tbV) was games. We love playing games, but we are both fairly competitive, and so often the end of a game would translate to one of us, or both perhaps, being in a bit of a mood (like a tsunami is ‘a bit of a wave’, you know). I would generally be in a great mood if I won, because I like winning games. But often Val would be in a bad mood if she won. And it was always my fault. Because I used to be a very bad loser.
And it was not usually overtly bad violent angry throwing-my-toys losing. No, it was much more subtle than that, and really not intended maliciously from me. From my perspective, i like to understand why I lost – if it was a strategy thing, I want to be able to figure out why it went wrong, so I play differently the next time. So it generally came from the place of me trying to analyze my game and figure things out. But to Valerie, the message was very clearly ‘Well, you couldn’t have won because you played better, it must have been luck or a bad move on my part of something I don’t understand yet.’ And so my response to losing – to justify instead of confess – took everything away from her winning. In essence I was robbing my wife of everything I liked to experience when I win a game. Not cool, Mister Fish! (and 10000 apologies, lovely wife!)
That is such a great illustration for how so many people do life, don’t you think?
Politicians… Sports stars… Movie producers after a box office bomb… Young children… me?
But not you, right? Of is some of this starting to ring some alarm bells?
When something goes wrong, the tendency is to explain it away, to cover over the seriousness of it, to justify and make excuses as to why it was not our fault.
i imagine that often it might be a combination of factors, and so perhaps a great question to start with might be, ‘What responsibility do I have in this situation?’ of perhaps, ‘How much of this do I need to own or own up to?’ Starting at that place instead perhaps ending up there after working through all the possible excuses, may be a great place to start in terms of growing character and even seeing more success happen. Because those questions, if asked honestly, can really result in much growth.
Well, for me, as I think about 2014 just being a few days away, this is something I want to be working on. And sticking it on here is the biggest form of accountability I could think of… take a month of two and all me how it’s going (and let’s hope I don’t justify!)
Starting in my game playing seems to be a more easy-to-track area… but then in my marriage, and in my friendships, and in the workplace and youth ministry, I need to learn towards confessing being my go-to place. Asking the hard questions honestly, keeping an eye on procrastination and distraction tendencies and having people check in on me.
That feels like a great and healthy evolution to see taking place in my life in 2014.
My wife, the beautiful Val [tbV] left for a week’s conference in Atlanta today.
As is my tradition when i am away from her i wrote her a letter to remind her that she is much loved and thought of while she is away. And i googled ‘inspirational wife quote’ to try and find an uplifting quote to give her.
Over 40 pages of quotes appeared on a site called Brainyquote and one of the first ones i saw was this one, which i used:
‘Happy is the man who finds a true friend, and far happier is he who finds that true friend in his wife.’ [Franz Schubert]
As i finished my letter to tbV i thought, ‘Let me find her another cool quote’ and that’s where it began…
Three pages later I had given up the search as quote after quote was of the following theme:
‘A good marriage would be between a blind wife and a deaf husband.’ [Michel de Montaigne]
‘Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same thing.’ [Oscar Wilde]
‘I haven’t spoken to my wife in years. I didn’t want to interrupt her.’ [Rodney Dangerfield]
‘When a man steals your wife, there is no better revenge than to let him keep her.’ [Sacha Guitry]
And on and on they went. I do realise that a number of the sources quoted are stand-up comedians, but that just goes to show the kind of thing we use to get laughs.
It is a subtle erosion of marriage and it is a message that happens all around us all of the time.
I get particularly annoyed when ministers make jokes about marriage at a wedding. It feels like sending the couple off on a lifelong journey with a negative message ringing in their ears. Phrases like “ball and chain” and lines like “marriage is like a phone call in the middle of the night – you get a ring and then you wake up” will get laughs, but they will also add a silent barb to those married people who may not be finding marriage that easy at the moment and it’s like a public confirmation that you might be right in thinking or feeling the way you are.
It would be marginally better if a search for ‘inspirational wife quotes’ had even produced a list where half of the quotes were lifting women and wives up as something good and worth celebrating. Instead i would say that 70% or even more of the quotes had the wife [or husband] as the butt of some joke, with many of them promoting adultery and mistresses as a normal expected part of the conversation.
In our experience, marriage has not always been the easiest thing. Especially when two strong personalities come together, there are a lot of lessons to be learnt, a lot of grace and Love to be chosen. Forgiveness to be asked for and freely given. We desperately need people cheering us on and holding up the idea of a working marriage, not throwing stones or tossing subtly camouflauged barbs ‘in the name of jest’ – it just isn’t helpful.
Let me agree with Franz that I am a happy man because I have found a true friend in my wife. I love Val very much and I cheer her on as she journeys through life on a path that often intersects with mine and sometimes doesn’t. I want her to feel lifted up by my words and actions [a feat i certainly don’t always get right] and never want something i say in jest to be something that causes her pain or mistrust or creates a space for even the smallest crack to start emerging.
i don’t think anyone just decided to commit adultery or give up on their marriage. It is a combination of a whole lot of smaller things that are left undealt with. A bunch of small, individual cracks that eventually become visible, often when it is too late.
i imagine there will be a bunch of people who think i am overreacting with this whole thing. But the marriage stats speak for themselves. Marriage does not have the greatest track record at the moment. It is in desperate need of people who will champion it, who will speak life into it and cheer it on from the sides [as other married couples and as single or dating people] – we need all the help we can get.
How about you? Can you identify with any of this notion of less-than-affirming-message-towards-marriage? When last did you hear someone speak about their husband or wife in joking fashion that really caused you to pause for a moment and raise an eyebrow? If you are married, how do others hear you speak about your spouse?
Yeah, they just fit right in there, huh?
Irresistibly Fish 