On multiple run-ins with the fire department, an unconventionally magical Christmas, and the underrated virtue of “making a joyful noise unto the Lord” (vol. xxvii, no. 12)

Dear Family,

The morning of December 5th began the way most Tuesdays do. Crystal’s alarm went off at 5:00 and she immediately sprung out of bed while I lay there for a few moments with my eyes closed, trying to remember what day it was.

We usually arise together on Tuesdays. Crystal dons cycling gear, walks down two flights of stairs to the basement and hops on the Peloton while I pull on running clothes and jog the mile uphill to Northwood High School for my weekly track workout.

The thought of letting down my extraordinarily supportive little group of running friends if I don’t show up usually provides sufficient motivation to get me out of bed early on a dark December morning. But this day felt different, probably because I had just run a marathon 3 days earlier and was still in full recovery mode. Had I gone to the track, I likely would have just walked, and it’s hard to motivate myself out of bed at 5 a.m. for a walk.

This is long way of justifying why I was still luxuriating in bed at 5:20 a.m. when I received a disconcerting text from Crystal:

Where there’s smoke there’s fire, they say, but our case seemed to belie that aphorism. The smoke cleared when Crystal opened the basement windows and did not re-materialize. A strange odor lingered — somewhat more troubling than the odor associated with having animals live in our house for the past 12 years — an odor I have become more or less inured to — and so we decided to call the fire department’s non-emergency number. The house clearly (to us) was not on fire, but we were hoping they could send a guy over to help us get to the bottom of what had caused our basement to fill with smoke and where the suspicious odor was coming from.

The call to the non-emergency number did not last long. Crystal wasn’t able to get past “smoke in the basement” before the person instructed her to hang up, dial 911, and get everyone out of the house.

It was around this time that I noticed/remembered that we did not have a working smoke detector in our basement. Three wires dangling from the ceiling were evidence of where a hard-wired smoke detector once resided. I had torn it down in anger when it reached the end of its useful life and began that infernal chirping that all smoke alarms do when it’s time to change the backup battery (except in this case, even changing the battery didn’t stop the chirping — and few things can send me into a swearing, homicidal rage more effectively than a smoke alarm that won’t stop chirping).

The replacement smoke alarm I had purchased some months ago was sitting on the piano a few feet away. Not wanting to incur the wrath of the firemen, I decided now would be a good time to hook it up. Lacking the time (or patience) to figure out which circuit breaker the wires were attached to, I went ahead and did it with the wires hot — like a boss!

I was finishing up when Crystal shouted down the stairs to me, “the 911 lady wants me to confirm that everyone is out of the house.” I told her to tell her we were all out, while I screwed the final wire nut on, somehow managed to shove everything up into the ceiling without electrocuting myself and hurried up the basement stairs and through the sliding glass door into the backyard while no fewer than three full-sized firetrucks made their way down our dark, narrow street.

Two of the trucks somehow crammed into our tiny cul-de-sac while a third hooked into the hydrant a block away.

Watching the scene unfold, all I could think about was being told 12 years ago, when Ari was transitioning into the special education system, that they would need to walk a half-mile up the street to pick up their transportation because the bus driver didn’t think she could navigate up and around our little street. (And this was one of those little special ed buses, not even one of the full-size behemoths.)

With a little effort, I think the bus driver could have made it.

I lost track of how many firefighters responded and was a little embarrassed when one of them asked me, “So where’s the fire?”

They climbed up on the roof, went into the attic, searched every room, and basically did everything short of chopping down the walls with their axes (for which I was grateful). They had us close all the basement windows in the hope of re-creating the smokiness.

The smokiness did not recur, but the fireman who appeared to be in charge agreed with us about the odor, which he said was consistent with an electrical fire. He seemed perplexed that none of the circuit breakers had been tripped. (And I casually pointed out that the basement smoke detector, hard-wired into one of those many non-tripped circuits, was clearly functioning.)

The firemen eventually traced it back to the 20+ year-old dehumidifier we run to keep the basement from smelling musty (preferring instead that it smell of animals, like the rest of the house). The dehumidifier lived a good life, served us well, and now sits unceremoniously on the deck behind our house alongside a bunch of other junk I need to get rid of and for which I am just too lazy to contact the county and schedule the special trash pickup. (I don’t even have to take it anywhere — I just need to call the county and then lug it less than 50 feet from behind my house to my front curb, and I’m too lazy even to do that. Pretty much me in a nutshell.)

Fire truck encounter no. 2

Twelve days later, on Sunday, December 17th, I walked into our church meetinghouse at a little before 8:00 a.m. to practice the organ before sacrament meeting. I was greeted by a colder-than-usual chapel and at least a half-dozen hardworking space heaters. I also noticed an aroma in the air that I recently learned was consistent with an electrical fire, but I didn’t think too much of it. I figured it was probably one of the space heaters and as long as the room wasn’t filling with smoke, we were probably okay.

Not everyone shared my lack of concern. As I continued my prelude music, an increasing number of men set about scouring the sanctuary for the source of the smell. It was eventually discovered to be a red-hot electrical outlet underneath the organ pipes.

I continued to play the organ for another 5 or 10 minutes while virtually every other man on the premises¹ congregated around the offending outlet. A decision was made to cut the breaker to that outlet, which seemed logical enough. But doing so also cut the power to the organ console, and so I had to move over to the piano.

The fire department was called and the bishop announced from the pulpit that they were “calling an audible”² — second-hour meetings would be cancelled and sacrament meeting would consist only of the opening hymn and invocation, the sacrament, and the closing hymn and benediction. We left the building as the fleet of fire trucks arrived.

Three hymns, the sacrament, and no talks. Best. Service. Ever.

Choir, and more choir

I like church, but I would enjoy it more if there were fewer sermons and more singing.³ Fortunately, I had many opportunities to sing this month.

In addition to my two performances with the Washington DC Temple Choir (one in Virginia, one in Maryland), I also had the unusual opportunity to sing with an interfaith choir comprising members of our ward choir and the choir of the Colesville United Methodist Church, which meets up the street from us.

In contrast to the Washington DC Temple Choir (whose members are selected by audition), our ward choir is probably a lot like your ward choir — a “make a joyful noise” bunch that spends 90 percent of any given rehearsal hammering out individual parts and otherwise mostly just trying to make sure we’re all singing the right notes. This leaves precious little time for refining niceties like phrasing, pronunciation, tone, and dynamics. Our ward choir basically has three volume settings: “Kind of loud,” “Very loud” and “Shouting.” I sometimes allow this to irritate me more than it should, but I mostly enjoy it and it was fun (and enlightening) to be able sing with another church and hear them wrestle with many of the same challenges we do.

Our interfaith choir performed two concerts: first at the Colesville United Methodist Church and then at the Washington DC Temple Visitors’ Center. I had great fun doing it and am grateful to our talented choir leaders who had the vision to pull it all together.

Christmas in Florida

Eighteen Christmases ago (when Hannah was 9 and Grace was an infant) our family took its first trip to Disney World. (For extra credit, you can read about that seminal trip here. My letters were considerably shorter back then.) We have returned to Disney (and other Orlando area theme parks) five times in the intervening years — but always in January or February. I vowed after that first trip never to return at Christmas because the place basically transforms into one giant mosh pit. But Crystal’s new life as a school teacher limits our ability to vacation at off-peak times, and so we decided to give it another shot at Christmas for nostalgia’s sake.

Those acquainted with me are generally surprised to learn of my affinity for Disney World. Logically speaking, there‘s no accounting for it. I don’t like loud places. I don’t like crowded places. I get irritated waiting in line. (Does anyone enjoy waiting in line?) And, let’s face it, I have kind of a curmudgeonly bent.

But for whatever reason, I like going there. (Or at least I like going there once every three years. I can see how more often than that could get a little tiresome.)

This was our first Orlando excursion without Hannah, who spent Christmas in Utah being a nurse. But she went to Disneyland on Thanksgiving, so hopefully she got her fill then.

This was also our first Orlando excursion with no children in tow. The kids are all adults now! You might think watching all the other parents experience Disney with their young children would make me feel wistful for years gone by.

Hahahahahaha. I miss precisely nothing about those days. Unshackled from strollers, short-legged people, child-sized bladders, and bags of any kind,⁴ we were free to attack the parks with ruthless efficiency.

Unlike past years, when we have crammed every possible moment of every day with parky goodness, we were more chill this time, opting for only three days of Disney and skipping Universal entirely. We relaxed on the other days (went to church, hung out by the pool, went to Cocoa Beach, etc.).

We took countless photos (mostly selfies) and even though there’s nothing most people enjoy more than sifting through hundreds of photos of someone else’s vacation,⁵ I won’t put all of them here. But here are a few

Is that enough pictures? I have a lot more if you want to see them. Let me know 🙂

Marathon no. 15

As alluded to about 40 paragraphs (and 25 pictures) ago, I kicked off December by running the Rehoboth Seashore Marathon, my 15th marathon overall and my second in eight weeks. My primary goal was to run a “negative split,” i.e., to run the second half faster than the first half. Secondarily, while I did not have a particular time goal in mind, I was nevertheless hoping to finish in no worse than 4 hours.

I accomplished my negative split goal by doing something I’d never done before (and that many marathoners never do) — by actually starting out too slowly. I ran the first half in 2 hours and 2 minutes and the second half in 1 hour and 58 minutes — officially crossing the finish line in 4:00:02 (4 hours and 2 seconds).

Notwithstanding my disappointment at not being able to find 3 seconds somewhere on a 26.2-mile course, I took solace in the fact that it was my fastest marathon in nearly 5 years (my fastest post-Covid marathon by more than 5 minutes), my first mile was my slowest, and my 26th mile was my fastest,⁶ and I actually enjoyed it. (I usually stop enjoying marathons with about 9 miles to go.) So I suppose I succeeded in what I set out to do, even if what I set out to do was not all that hard in hindsight.

I don’t know whether it’s actually true, but I recall reading somewhere that smiling releases endorphins. Maybe it’s all in my head (actually, there’s no question it’s all in my head, but to paraphrase Albus Dumbledore, that doesn’t mean it isn’t real) but I have discovered running to be less painful when I can find a way to smile. This is particularly useful after mile 20 of a marathon, when, to one degree or another, every step hurts.

Nowhere was my winning smile captured better than in this picture taken by Crystal a half-mile from the finish line.

Fortunately, Crystal was not the only person taking pictures. The race had a few professional photographers on the course and at the finish line.

Try to smile more in the coming year. You might look like a dork (see me above) but it’s okay because you might just wind up as happy as you’re pretending to be.

Love,
Tim

1. The outlet inspectors included the stake president (my brother) and the Area Seventy, who also happens to be a member of our ward. It occurred to me while I was playing one the hymns during the meeting that, even in the presence of all these church leaders, I was still the oldest person on the stand. And it’s only going to get worse. Although the newest apostle, Elder Patrick Kearon, still has a solid decade on me, he nevertheless was a member of the young single adult ward that Crystal attended while on study abroad in London nearly 35 years ago. He wound up marrying one of her classmates. I seem to recall Crystal’s reaction to seeing him speak in General Conference for the first time. “I’ve seen that guy in a kilt!” is how I believe she put it.
2. Note to my children, who are not football fans: “Calling an audible” is an American football term for when the quarterback changes the play at the last moment by barking out signals to his teammates after everyone has already lined up for the play (as opposed to in the huddle) — usually upon confronting a defensive configuration or other situation he was not expecting. The bishop’s metaphor was apt under the circumstances.
3. I’m not sure why we seem to think that listening to somebody talk is necessarily the best use of time in a worship service. Personally, when there’s time left over at the end of sacrament meeting, I’d almost always prefer a period of silent reflection over our current, longstanding practice of having whoever’s in charge filibuster out the surplus minutes, but I’m probably in the minority on that. Maybe I’d fit in better with the Quakers.
4. Pro tip: Never, never, never bring a bag (or purse or anything like unto it) to a theme park if you can avoid it. Two kinds of people wreck any group’s theme park efficiency: 1) Little kids, and 2) People with bags. Do yourself a favor: wear pants with pockets and leave your bag at home. You don’t need all that crap anyway.
5. Confession: You know those Facebook posts where three photos are visible and then in the bottom-right corner there’s a box that says “+46” (or “+85” or plus-some other absurd number of photos)? I never click on that box.
6. My five fastest miles (from fastest to fifth fastest) were miles 26, 24, 20, 19 and 22. My five slowest miles (from slowest to fifth slowest) were miles 1, 3, 2, 6 and 8.