L’s First Day at the Pool
Month: July 2019
L’s Return
E and I had a chat about L’s return. He was so very excited — and not even once in those conversations did he ever talk about what she was bringing him. “I hope we don’t start fussing again,” he said.
“Well, that really depends on you,” I explained.
When we got home, the Girl went pretty much straight to bed. Played with Clover, played with Elsa, then went to bed.
Diving
Friday with the Boys Again
Climbing
Growing up, I did a lot of bike riding. It was very safe in our neighborhood, for there was only one way in and out — no thru-traffic. There were a couple of hills in our neighborhood that were awfully fun to ride down but not terribly fun to ride up.
Of these two, Lynnwood Drive was the most easily conquered. There was nothing too terribly steep, and with some patience and determination, I could make it up the street.
Going one way. Going the other was more challenging. The hill was shorter but steeper. Having a single-gear bike, I found my legs burning and barely moving by the time I made it to the top.
But Norwood — Norwood was unthinkable. It was unimaginable to ride up Norwood; one had to stop push. To a kid of seven or eight with a single-speed bike, it looked like the Alpe d’Huez without the switch-backs: just one, steep climb that felt like at least a 37% slope.
Our own street, Lamont, was the easiest of the three — just a stead, upward grind
I imagine this is much the same way E views some of the short climbs in our neighborhood. After all, all the above thoughts were based on my perception as a kid of about E’s age.
E could take all these hills without a problem. So far this summer, he’s ridden 180 miles with me…
Interruption
One of the things I miss about living in Boston is walking down a street or emerging from a subway car to hear someone busking. Granted, there were enough buskers with little enough talent to make them a nuisance more than anything else, but every now and then, someone would make me stop, take a little time out of my day, and immerse myself in their world.
These guys, who sadly play in NYC and never ventured into Boston’s subway system (and probably didn’t even exist when I lived there — the sax player would probably have been a toddler then), have perfected busking: ten-minute sets filled with energy, dynamism, and a touch of humor.
It makes me wish that our family lived in a place with more of this type of thing going on.
Back into the Photos
I’ve been spending a little time in the evening delving back into the photos I’ve scanned. It’s frustrating: I have small images, and they don’t create a lot of data for Lightroom to manipulate. Still, I’ve got a workflow for them now, and I’m more and more pleased with the results.
Some fixes are easy; some are tedious.
Uncle Dinky (never once did I call him by anything other than the nickname he’d had for most of his life) looks a lot better with a little work. Had to correct some colors a bit, but not much. I focused on getting his face bright and clear.
I’m most pleased with the tricks I’ve learned for the old red photographs that are so ubiquitous.
Look at that tone curve for reds: everything is in the mid-ranges. No red in the shadows; no red in the highlights. The same is always true for blue and green. I’m not sure how that all combines to give a red tint to everything, but I’ve found a solution: recalibrate the tone curve for each color and voila! It’s a semi-decent picture. Unfortunately, though, each picture’s tone curve skew is different, so creating a preset to do the work with the click of a button isn’t an option. I have to correct each color of each photograph manually.
Big Monday
The first order of the day: get the front end alignment done on the Paddy Wagon (or minivan as others might call it). The Boy, learning that I was going to take the car and ride my bike back, insisted on going with me.
Second, later in the day, a playdate with D, his best friend in kindergarten who changed schools for first grade. D’s mother, R, was a Spanish teacher at my school, and it just so happened that our boys were in the same class, and it just so happened that they became great friends, independent of any intervention from parents. The playdate included almost everything the Boy loves, namely Legos and swimming.
Later, eat an enormous dinner: salmon, potatoes, and one of his absolute favorites, asparagus. (How many seven-year-olds love asparagus, mushrooms, and blood sausage?)
Clean Plate
Finally, after a little rest to let the food settle, go on a seven-mile bike ride.
Any wonder he went to sleep almost immediately?
Taking Mama Out For a Ride
We took K out for a ride — the ride that we almost always go on — and it was interesting: the Boy was out-riding K on some of the climbs, climbs that just a few months ago he couldn’t make without stopping. Today, he took a couple of those climbs two, three times.
“We’ve got a strong little cyclist,” I said.
“Yes, we do.”
Reading
“You probably need to take the Boy: he’s getting fussy about it,” said K as we were making plans for the busy day ahead. Who would take the Boy to his summer reading academy and who would take Papa to meet with the estate liquidator? Originally, I was going to do the former, but K’s comment made me realize she was right.
The program, developed by Clemson University, has bounced around conversations with various mothers, and it comes highly recommended. E’s not a bad reader, we thought, but he’s still a developing reader: there’s always room for improvement.
The Boy had his own opinion about it. He did not want to go. “I’m a terrible reader!” he lamented during the drive over to the university center. “I read so slowly. And A, he’s reading XYZ” (can’t remember the book, but I’m reading it to the Boy now) “all by himself!”
“You don’t need to compare yourself to A; just compare yourself to E.”
“But there’s no other E. How can I compare myself to E when I’m the only E I know?” He’s at the age that I’m not quite sure whether he’s joking or not. Sometimes I get it wrong, and he gets mildly frustrated that I didn’t catch on and play along.
We got to the university center and found probably a dozen kids waiting with a parent or two. He nestled into me as we stood there, which is common when he’s in an unfamiliar situation, and I was beginning to worry anew about how it would be when I tried to leave. After all, it was a nearly-two-hour course, and I didn’t want to sit there with him when I had so many other things to do. But those worries were for naught: he settled into the classroom easily, and when the teacher dismissed the parents after the various, expected preliminaries, he was completely calm when I walked over to him, hugged him, and said, “Have fun.”
I knew what he was thinking: “I won’t have fun! I don’t like reading!” We’d had this conversation in the car, too.
“I think that’s just because you’re not so confident about your reading.”
“Maybe,” he conceded.
“This class is designed to help you build your confidence by giving you new tricks for reading,” I explained.
So when I went to hug him goodbye, I was expecting a bit of panic, a bit of frustration, a bit of reluctance that just wasn’t there, which made it all the easier to leave and do the various chores around Nana’s and Papa’s place (at what point do I stop call it “Nana’s and Papa’s place” and just “Papa’s place?” Probably never, because it will always be “Nana’s and Papa’s place”) like replacing a couple of broken door knobs and sundry repairs to get it ready for selling.
I got back to the class with five minutes to spare, just as the teacher began making final announcements: “And I would like to the parents of K, W, R, and E before you leave, please.” The short version: she’d done preliminary testing on everyone today and felt that our kids would be better served in the rising-third-grader class.
As we walked out, I asked E, “She was taking quickly; did you understand everything?”
“Yes.”
When we got back to Nana’s and Papa’s, E burst in and told K immediately.
The Boy so often suffers from his lack of confidence in some things. He realizes he’s just not as fast as many of his friends; in soccer, he sees that he doesn’t play nearly as well as some of his teammates; and reading — well, he’s never felt great about that.
Maybe now, he does.
Friday with the Boys
Fossil Hunting
The Boy watched a documentary with Papa about the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event. His verdict: “I think I want to be a paleontologist now.” He thought about it a moment before amending it: “Well, I have just been thinking about it since yesterday, so that might change.”
Still, this evening after dinner, he was keen on going fossil hunting. After I told him he couldn’t just randomly dig holes in the backyard — “We have a dog to do that; we don’t need more.” — I suggested we look in the creek. We found nothing, as I expected, but it didn’t dampen his enthusiasm. “After all, we found some really cool rocks.”
That we did.
Stone Ax
The Boy, like all children, imitates what he sees. When the folks on his favorite YouTube show, The Axel Show, tried using a stone as an ax, he did the same thing.
“I’ve been making spears,” he explained. “I think I’ll sell some of them on Ebay.”
He’s come up with his own design as well — the two-ended spear. By “own design,” of course, I mean something he’s never seen. “This way, I can attack like this and like this,” he explained, waving the strick around furiously.
The Dog has her own interest in sticks.
Sunday on the Trail
This weekend, we went back home — back to the southwest Virginia/northeast Tennessee area in which I grew up. Dear family friends invited us to spend the weekend with them for a few reasons, but most important was to give Papa a chance to meet with people who had been unable to attend Nana’s funeral. That was what Saturday was all about — spending time with folks who’d been like family to us. Most of the people I’d known since I was E’s age. It was just what Papa needed, and in fact, the laughter that generally filled the house that day was a balm for us all.
Sunday was for our immediate family: a bike ride down the Virginia Creeper Trail, a 34-mile multi-purpose trail built on the old railroad line that ran through the area.
We went along the first half, from Abingdon to Damascus. The longest the Boy had ridden to that point was about ten miles; this was to be about seventeen.
But seventeen miles through probably the most beautiful route any of us have ever ridden through, over fourteen railroad tressels, some of which towered probably 200-250 feet, some of which were surprisingly long.
The Boy powered through it like a champ. All our riding this summer has sculpted a seven-year-old with more endurance than I had at his age, and he pushed through the ride at a fairly impressive speed of 6.8 mph (according to my Fitbit).
At one point toward the end, he began complaining that he couldn’t make it. “I’m too tired!” he fussed, but we took about a ten-minute break and he was willing to push through the final miles.
During the last two miles, we got a challenge: a pair of riders called “on your left” and passed us. They looked to be in their sixties but dressed in cycling gear and riding fairly expensive-looking gravel bikes, they were experienced. They encouraged the Boy as they rode by us, and then as they pulled away, I suggested, “Why don’t we try to catch them?” I anticipated a laugh that the suggestion was ridiculous, but E clicked into a higher gear, stood up from the saddle, and powered ahead. “On our left!” we called out as we passed to the gentlemen’s cheers. “But can we keep this speed?” I thought. At one point, we slowed, and the riders neared. The Boy stood again, pedaled as fast as he could, and pushed through the last half mile or so to our stopping point. Our competition caught us, congratulated him, and gave him enthusiastic high-fives. “I guess you showed us, young man!” one said.
On the way home, though, there was only one thing to do…
Visiting the Old Country
New Set
Thee Pictures for Sunday
Oconee Afternoon
Hatchet
It’s all the Boy has been talking about for the last few weeks.
“Daddy, can we get a hatchet?”
He was thinking about buying it with his own money; he was thinking about splitting the cost with us; he was thinking about it, talking about it, probably dreaming about it.
Today, we finally got it. He wanted to make sure that he wasn’t going to pay any of his money for it because he’s got his eye on another Lego set, but when, after buying nails, concrete screws, pegboard hooks, and other things on the list, we finally headed over to the gardening section, his excitement brought a smile to both K and me.
The highlight of the afternoon, then, was teaching him how to use it.
Independence Day 2019
