Halloween 2018
Month: October 2018
Monday Evening Walk
Our schedule has calmed down significantly: no longer do we have something each and every evening. Soccer — done. Volleyball — done. We’ve decided, as a result of having so much free time (relatively speaking), to make Monday evenings (and possibly Tuesday nights, but not this week — that frantic pace has ripples that spill over to this week) family walk evenings. So today, after dinner, we took the dog and headed to Conestee Park, our favorite local park.
E and I rode our bikes there yesterday, almost achieving our goal of riding on every bit of trail and/or road (a total of 10.2 km), and we discovered a couple of new trails that we thought we’d introduce the girls to.
The kids took turns with the dog, each handling her for a quarter of a mile (thanks, Fitbit).
And we got a chance to get a family portrait, albeit divided into two stages: the Boy wanted the camera and decided we didn’t have enough pictures of me, so he made me pose.
Finally, he wanted one of K and me. “You need to stand there and kiss.”
Autumnal Sunday
Catholic Camporee
Last Games of the Season
The Boy had his final soccer game of the season. It was bitter-sweet: his team finished undefeated, but it was the last season they will train under Coach Kevin, who accepted a position coaching a high school girls’ team.
The Girl’s team got what it dished out the other everning — a 3-0 defeat. She was upset about it, but only until we got home.
Halloween Bash
Volleyball
As a parent watching my daughter play volleyball, I always have some mixed emotions. During the last season, her team struggled mightily: they didn’t win a single match, if memory serves, and they only won a handful of sets. It was rough. Lots of frustration in the car after games.
“We won’t ever win.”
In several matches, they were swept, three sets to nothing. There was nothing immediately redeemable about that. I said what any parent would say: “You’re getting stronger.” “This is building character.” “This shows how tough you are, that you keep at it despite the challenges.”
This year has been different. They’ve won many more than they’ve lost, and they’ve handed out a couple of 3-0 sweeps themselves. It’s great to see the Girl so happy, so excited about what’s going on.
But I sometimes secretly cheer for the other team.
Tonight, they faced a team that they had already demolished once this year. I’m sure the coach has the best intentions, but from what I saw of the girls’ play, he doesn’t have the most experience with volleyball: his girls made basic mistakes in fundamental skills, mistakes that could easily be corrected. Mistakes that our coach has corrected. So these girls are losing through no fault of their own: they just don’t have someone to teach them how to pass and to serve properly.
The first game this evening began unevenly, and it became clear that our girls would win fairly easily, which they did, 25-15. Their opponents came out on the court excited, and they never lost hope, but as I watched them, I really didn’t think they had a chance that game because our girls were out-scoring them 2-1 through most of the game. It was impressive, those girls’ enthusiasm. I found myself thinking, “They might not have won a match all year, might have won only a few sets, but they keep playing and smiling and encouraging each other.”
The second game began like the first and coincidentally ended with the same score.
The third game started, and I wished only one thing: for those sweet, energetic girls to win one. And they came so close. They clawed back from a 14-8 deficit to tie it at 14. That’s six consecutive game points. They were so excited. They were so ready to win.
The score went back and forth, back and forth, but in the end, our best server came up and nailed the final point: 18-16.
Our girls were thrilled. I was happy for L and everyone on her team. But for that third game, I was a total, secret fan of that other team.
Autumn
Last night at Bethel Bash, I wore a long-sleeve tee-shirt for the first time, and by the time the sun had set completely, I was a little chilly.
Which means that autumn, finally, is on its way.
Bethel Bash 2018
Michael Arrives
K and I woke at three in the morning to the sound of the most torrential rainfall we’ve ever heard here. It was as if an enormous tap had been situated above our house and turned on fully. Assuming it was the first rains of Hurricane Michael. “I guess this will be what we go through for the next several hours,” I thought.
I began imagining what that might mean. “Our sump pump will get its first real test,” I thought.
At six, I woke. The Boy had woken and shuffled down the hall toward the kitchen. K guided him to our bed. “Go back to see, E,” she instructed, “you don’t have school today.”
The wind, the rain — the school board (or whoever makes the decision) decided it was too much of a risk. K told us when she got back from work that it was indeed a wise choice: “There were just sheets of rain, with no visibility.”
As for the rain of three in the morning — it never really re-materialized. It rained, quite heavily at times, but only until about eleven. Once it calmed a bit, the Boy and I headed out for inspection. And a bit of play.
In the afternoon, muffins.
As part of a literacy project from school, the Boy had to read and follow a recipe with a little help from me.
Wednesday Evening Vignettes
In a flash, the cherry tomatoes were rolling across the concrete floor like greased bearings — E had been unloading the shopping cart when, in a moment of slightly careless abandon, the container of tomatoes crashed into the side of the buggy as he was lifting them out, then crashed to the floor.
“It was an accident!” he said, looking up at me.
“Well, clean up the accident, then.”
He began picking up the tomatoes and hustling them to a garbage can. Behind us, a mother and her daughter, probably around four, stood watching. When E returned for another load, the little girl walked over and began picking up tomatoes with him.
When we returned home, K and L were in the midst of figuring out a new board game. Well, not quite a board game — there’s no board to speak of. Still, a game. An exceedingly complicated game. With multiple decks of cards. And two different sets of tokens. And so many rules to remember that it seemed impossible that a human could keep that many exceptions in her mind at once.
Of course, I started making silly comments.
L, very much wanting to play, naturally got a little irritated with my silliness.
E, content to entertain himself, worked with Legos as all this went on.
And K, determined to make it through all the instructions — a multi-page book, mind you, not just a few short paragraphs on the underside of the box — kept explaining the game to us.
“We have fifteen minutes before it’s E’s bedtime,” K said. “We have a little time to play.” Between all the complicated rules and steps, everyone got a single turn in those fifteen minutes.
Yellow
It’s been a couple of years since we’ve had a yellow jacket infestation. For a few years, we had one or two nests just about every summer, and taking care of them became a simple process: a few gallons of boiling water around ten in the evening, when they’re all bedded down in their nest, and no more problem.
This year, though, one hive made its home under the slab that supports our heat pump. If it were a concrete slab, I might consider the water method again, but it’s some strange concrete/foam “slab” that is just a little bigger than the unit itself. The thought of pouring water into that area, possibly destabilizing the whole unit — not a good thought. The other hive has made its home within a bush: it’s impossible to pour the water through the bush to make a good clean shot.
So today, I went by a DIY pest control place, bought some Talstar and Evergreen Pyrethrum Dust and let them have it.
I hit the nest under the heat pump while it was still daylight: I turned the nozzle on my sprayer so it was a fast, fat stream, stood back about ten feet, and sprayed into the opening for a good ten to fifteen seconds. I went back ten minutes later and did it again. After ten more minutes, I hit them a third time. Then a fourth time.
By then, there were yellowjackets everywhere, all rolling around on the ground, all struggling through their last moments.
It’s a strange moment: on the one hand, I feel a little bad for the guys. There they are, just doing what instinct has trained them to do. They’re breeding, raising young, defending them when necessary. On the other hand, they’re assholes. It doesn’t take much to get them riled up, and with two kids, two cats, and a dog around, it’s not a chance I’m willing to take.
Still, I can’t help but feel a little like Ender…
Dinner
