Brainstorming...

The long, lazy weekend has come to an unfortunate end.  Without a clock for
a master, the days were enjoyable, relaxed and unhurried. My family was
gracious in allowing me countless hours face-down in my beloved books.  I’ve
finished two more books in as many days…The Wednesday Letters, by Jason
Wright and The Assignment, by Mark Andrew Olsen, both of these, fiction.
Three good books in three great days helped make this a wonderful weekend.

Yesterday, we enjoyed a small-town craft fair just down the road. We took
Lily, our dog, and walked through the tents of vendors selling their wares.
All of us enjoy these outings and I, especially, enjoy meeting people and
hearing their stories. We met many fine people this weekend from all over
the valley and enjoyed spending quality time together as a family. After our
afternoon at the street fair, we decided to take an exhausted Lily home and
drive into town to catch a movie.
 
Heading down the mountain, my husband drove and Colton sat in the middle
between us. The three in the back seat were quietly reading and playing,
while we enjoyed random conversation up front. There are certain times, when
my husband is not totally engrossed in work, where his mind has the freedom
to think creatively. He likes to think out loud and expects feedback from me
as he “brainstorms.” I am only good with immediate feedback if I feel the
idea is either A) great or B) completely ridiculous. My husband does not
like it when I find his ideas to be completely ridiculous. Mostly, I am not
good at immediate feedback and prefer time to think through his ides, run
them through my internal filter and apply logic to my answers.
 
I admit, and he knows this, most of his brainstorming is way out there for
me. Such was the case on this particular trip. As we were headed into town,
he looked over at me and asked, (in complete seriousness) “Do you think a
cow would drink out of a koi pond?” I sat there and wanted to pretend I
didn’t hear, but he knew that I had. I also wished, oh, how I wished that he
wasn’t serious. I knew better.
 
The other part of my husband’s brainstorming that causes me stress, is that
it is always in tandem with a “project” or “idea” and his brainstorming is
a way to covertly get me on-board. I know immediately that I do not want a cow or a
koi pond in the back yard. How I answer these questions, that my husband
poses, is important because the outcome typically impacts my life in various
ways.
  
So, with this question, I responded instinctively. I laughed and said, “I
don’t even want to go there. Are you honestly thinking that you need a cow
and a koi pond?” Perhaps my response made him think about his question differently and he
laughed, too. Colton, sitting between us and taking it all in, was quick to
follow in his dad’s footsteps when he noticed a bird drop a present on the
windshield.
 
“Why do birds poop when they fly?  Why don’t they land first?" Colton asked. We could
tell that he was serious, as his dad had been about the cow and the koi
pond, so we offered our best explanations. With that, he said, “God should
really think about putting toilets in the sky for the birds.”
 
Obviously, this little apple did not fall far from the tree.