Arrow of Light
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Evening Shooting
The renovation project is nearing its end. The final exterior painting was completed today, but K decided she wanted to change one color -- the trim around the new windows will soon match the color of our newly-painted shutters.
The brown shutters seem to tone everything else down. Those old, peeling, white shutters just made the house look unplanned and neglected. With freshly-washed brick and newly-painted shutters, the house doesn't really look like it's from the late sixties -- except for the architecture, that is.
In the evening, some shooting.
Seventh Birthday
Babcia called while I was taking the Boy to school; Ciocia M, who is E's godmother and virtual aunt, called in the afternoon; everyone else wished the Boy well throughout the day. Today, the little man turns seven.
Yesterday I was explaining to him that, technically, he turns seven at about one in the morning.
"Do you want me to wake you up then to wish you happy birthday?" I asked. The response was predictable.
Birthdays deserve to be filled with special little treats, and so the Boy had a chocolate croissant and a doughnut (both from Lidl, the only chain supermarket with actual baked goods that could be called "baked goods"). He took a batch of cookies to his class to celebrate his birthday with everyone. He got the cake of his choice after the dinner of his choice. Treats everywhere.
And he finally got a BB gun...
Papa was eager to give lessons on safety and handling.
Almost
Almost is a word that has so much wiggle room that it is almost meaningless. It can mean anything from "nowhere near" to "just moments from."
"How are you doing with that project?" I ask a student.
"I'm almost done," he replies, and depending on the student and what he's taught me to expect, I understand that to mean "not even started" to "doing final proofreading."
"How are you doing with that project?" K asks me.
"I'm almost done," I reply, and that means nearly done or no where near done, but most often it means, "This is taking me a lot longer than I had anticipated or planned for."
Seven years ago, the Boy was almost here. It was just after we'd gone to bed on a Sunday night that K woke me with, "My water broke." By about half past eleven that Sunday (Mother's Day), we were at the hospital. By one in the morning, we were holding E.
For the last few weeks, we've felt like we're almost done with this renovation, almost ready to move Nana and Papa into their little apartment as they've taken to calling it. The floors are done everywhere; the power is on; the lights are hooked up; the washer and drier are installed; the sink is almost ready. Yet so much remaining. The bed for Papa sits in parts in our living room, with the headboard and footboard set to arrive later this week. The toilet sits in its box, ready for installation. The shower needs to be completed, and the exterior needs painting. There's still so much to do, and so little to do.
Tonight, with a little help from the Boy, I got a little more done: the drainage system is 99% complete. We need a new downspout for the back corner, and as such, I've yet to make the final cuts on the PVC for the drainage outlet there.
I stuck some PVC in to keep dirt from getting into the system while I filled in the gravel and dirt, but ti' about 24 inches too tall at least.
It's relatively smooth, relatively done. Almost -- just like every other almost.
What They Deserve
Six years ago today, it was Mother’s Day, and we went to Conestee Park, probably our favorite park in the area. L was six, the same age as E now. As E and I do so often now, L and I were riding out bikes during this particular visit.
L is now twelve and snarky. Part of that is the age and part of it is environment: she comes by her sarcasm honestly. I teach her through example, when I’m sarcastic with her, when I’m sarcastic with K, when I’m sarcastic with drivers who can’t even hear me and wouldn’t care what I have to say even if they could. It’s one of those areas in parenting that I think I could have done a lot better.
The Boy is six and not snarky, but he tries on a bit of bravado every now and then because he learns it from his sister, who learns it from me.
Through it all, K has remained the steadfast example of patient and sarcasm-less parenting. Of the two of us, she’s the one I’d rather my children emulate. Of the two of us, she’s the one doing less to screw them up; in fact, she’s doing all she can to balance out what I’ve messed up. She is the wife I most often feel I don’t deserve and the mother I feel my kids most deserve.
Honeysuckle
Out Sick
Reading All-Stars
Today was the Reading All-Stars game for the local minor league team. The Boy qualified -- I don't even remember the parameters -- and I got a free ticket as well because several of my students participated. As we watched the game, I realized how little E understands about baseball. That's not surprising: we never really watch it at home. Still, I found myself explaining things that I feel like I just always knew about baseball. I didn't watch a lot of it growing up, and I don't really have any memories of my father teaching me about it (though he must have), but I remember playing baseball with kids in the neighborhood. I was always the worst player, but that must have been how I picked things up.
We stayed through the fifth inning. Our hometown heroes were down 7-1 when we left. I just checked the score: it's 12-4 in the bottom of the ninth. But no matter: the Boy had fun and is eager to go again.
Digging, Mowing, Sealing
We put the new bed in a year ago -- exactly a year ago today.
End of Spring 2018 Soccer
It's tempting to fall into the obvious reflection: the "so much has changed in a year" cliché. A lot has changed in a year, but the majority of it has changed in the last five months, all starting December 4 with a phone call at around 9:30 in the evening while I was out walking the dog. "Nana is going to the hospital." And from that moment, it all changed. No one knew just how much it would change, of course. No one has any real clairvoyance in medical emergencies. But here I am, a day past five months after it all started, exactly a year after we put them in, taking out the last vestiges of a garden.
It doesn't happen often, but every now and then, Saturday work spills into Sunday. We try to keep Sunday as a day for the family, but with the last five months begin what they have, that in itself is a challenge.
Today's job was simple but critical: deal with the recently created drainage issue at the front corner downspout.
Visions of it seeping through the brick into the now newly created concrete-slab crawl that would offer no outlet at all haunted me, and when the rain woke me at three in the morning, I went to check and found the hack I'd created didn't work either and set about digging, in a downpour in my underwear and Crocs at three in the morning, a quick trench to direct the water away from the house.
Today, then, was the day to solve the problem once and for all. The first task: dig up the Crepe Myrtle at the corner of the house. That took a couple of hours. Then, the trenching, including a trench under the newly built ramp. Why not do it before they built the ramp? Simply -- I didn't know it would be necessary.
For now, everything is simply laid out and pushed together. I'm far from done and not even sure how I'll terminate it for effective discharge.
Next, after several hours of digging, I turned my attention back to the yard and the hedges three-quarters trimmed. I'd cut my power cord yesterday and decided to put it off until Sunday -- and the torrents of rain that were by then falling didn't do much to avoid said procrastination.
The Boy for his part was upset and thrilled about it all. Digging is one of his favorite things, and he was disappointed that he missed out on so much of it. Mowing, though, is equally enjoyable for him, and he reached a milestone today: he can now start the mower himself. He ran over the trimmings that remained around the yard, always looking for a reason to turn the mower's engine off so he could turn it back on.
(The hard rain really did a number on our plants -- they're beaten into submission.)
The final task was indoors: sealing up the entry to the new room. The floor guys are going to be here tomorrow, and the thought of sawdust throughout the kitchen and living room was none too appealing.
Finally, dinner without the girls: leftover soup and a salad. The Boy, being the wonderfully odd eater than he is, was disappointed with the soup (he's grown tired of all soups, I think) and thrilled about the salad.
Borders, 2013 — Part 1
Random memory from the past, brought about by Lightroom playing…
Living in the south of Poland for several years, I had occasion to cross the border into Slovakia countless times. Theoretically, could have walked out of the teachers’ housing where I lived and walked across the border behind the complex in less than an hour. That would have likely been a bad idea: had I been caught…well, better not to think about it.
The nearest border crossing was down the road in Chyzne. It was a border crossing that looked like something out of a film — gray, concrete, depressing.
By the time I went back to Poland in 2001, it was all but free-passage. Border crossing took only a few minutes as opposed to over an hour if there was a long-enough line.
By the time we were living in the States and visiting only every two years, it had been torn down. All that remained was, well, nothing.