g
Fresh
The Girl’s first day on the job was yesterday, but she was just shadowing people. “I learned how to restock the ketchup! Thrilling!” she exclaimed with a hint of sarcasm.
Today, she worked on the cash register, which means she had multiple interactions with the public.
“Hi! Welcome to Culver’s! What can I get started fresh for you today?”
“Is that what you have to say? Those exact words?” I asked during our conversation after she returned.
“No, we just have to work ‘fresh’ into it somehow.”
“So you could say something like, ‘Hi! Welcome to Culver’s, home of freshity fresh-fresh freshness!’? Would that work?”
She rolled her eyes as a fourteen-year-old will do.
As for the picture, I had to sneak it.
At the Dentist
Probably the only thing about the dentist that the Boy enjoys is the fact that he can watch Cartoon Network the entire time.
The only thing I like about it? No cavities.
Hospital Stay
Dad’s been in the hospital since Friday. He was talking such nonsense that it was unbelievable, unable to calm himself, hyperventilating and rocking his head back and forth. In the midst of all that, he had (or was having) a stroke. So he’s been in the hospital four nights and four days. He’ll likely be discharged tomorrow, and we’re hoping he’ll land in NHC, where Mom was. Of course, she hated it there, but I don’t think he’ll be that bad off. He’s much more social, and he’s not suffering from shingles, so he’ll be able to go out into the common area (or be wheeled out there) and talk to people.
At any rate, we need the time to prepare. It’s a little like Nana: we don’t really know what we’re getting ourselves into because we don’t know what kind of mobility Dad is going to have. I’ve been fearing the worst, but I think perhaps my fears were a bit exaggerated? At any rate, we’re going to try to get a hospital bed in place and get some help lined up. We’re more confident about the former than the latter. We’re hoping to get Dad on hospice, but we don’t know if he’ll qualify.
Everything is up in the air.
Boys’ Lunch
After visiting with Papa this morning, E and I decided we needed a boys’ afternoon out for lunch. And when it’s a boys’ afternoon out for lunch, we always choose Mexican. And when we choose Mexican, the Boy always chooses the same thing: enchiladas.
The Girl couldn’t go with us because, well, it was a boys’ afternoon, but also because she had her first day at work. I got to see her in her Culver’s uniform, but I didn’t get to snap a picture. Not yet, at least.
Father’s Day 2021
With Papa in the hospital, the simplest gifts are the best: a visit from the kids made his day.
Saturday
I see in the time machine widget at the bottom of the page that it was ten years ago today that I set the four-by-four posts in concrete to make the supports for our raspberry canes.
The canes are no more; the posts are no more; the carport is no more. Ten years and so many changes.
One week and so many changes.
The Week Ends
We go from week to week without much thought most of the time. Monday comes, and we drag ourselves out of the bed and into work. Sometimes we’re lucky and have a job that we enjoy, and we’re eager to get to work. I’m fortunate that most Mondays, that’s how I feel. But no matter how much we love our job, the week grinds us down, and Friday evening brings a welcome release. We make the most of the weekend, try to recharge ourselves, and head out into the world the next week.
We go through these weeks week after week, again and again, and each week brings some progress to whatever our goals and adventures might be, but after a while, everything just seems to blend together. Week after week, no single week seems to be different than the one that preceded it, or the one that proceeded it. Weeks pass like days which pass like hours, which flow by like seconds, which make the steady stream we call reality.
But every now and then, we have weeks that change everything made up of days that are constant little shifts that are made up of hours that are utterly unpredictable. And the reality we start those weeks with is completely different than the reality that ends the week.
When Nana had a pulmonary embolism two and a half years ago, the week she spent in the hospital afterward was just such a week. She should not, according to the statistics, have survived that first night. But she did. And any time someone survives like that, the week that follows is a week that realigns the reality of everyone connected to the survivor.
This has been such a week for us, ending in a trip to the ER. We make it into a room at the ER but have to wait for a while: there is an arrest issue on the floor, the nurse explains, and I have to ask for clarification: cardiac or criminal? It is, of course, the former, and I feel immediately stupid for asking the question.
The doctor comes in and asks Papa some questions. He sits behind me and talks to me about what’s been going on. I show him some videos I shot. He’s suddenly as concerned as I am. He orders some tests and tells me he’s going to try to get the presiding hospital doctor to come in to see Papa.
While we wait, we hear a child outside crying as his mother tries to explain something he ate while crying at the same time. No one can really get the words out, but in the midst of it all, the mother is trying to comfort her son, calm herself, and talk to the doctor at the same time.
A nurse comes in and wheels out Papa as I reflect on the role reversal that’s been building over the last two years. I recall an ER visit when I was in second grade and got busted in the face with a football helmet face mask because the coach was letting me run the workout with the other players even though I didn’t yet have a uniform. Blood gushing everywhere, I required several stitches that evening. That was a week that changed a few things, but not everything: I refused to give up football even though my ability to practice was hampered. Curtailed even.
When Papa comes back in, he asks me where we are. I take his hand and tell him, giving his hand a squeeze and assuring him that we’ll all be alright.
It reminds me immediately of what I used to say to L when we were nearing an argument over some petty triffle: “Don’t worry, honey, you won’t be thirteen forever.”
“You always say that!”
“I’m not just saying that for your sake…”
Coming full circle in so many ways.
Mid-June Thursday
Taxi service today: E to scout camp at 8:00. L to volleyball conditioning at 9:00. Pick her up at 10:00.
I had just enough time to pick the first blueberries (or second I guess — we did pick some yesterday) and to mow the neighbor’s yard afterward before heading off to take L to sand volleyball practice (including going to pick up her partner). On the way home, a few errands. Then off to pick up the Boy from scout day camp. Back home to get ready for the swim meet.
He dropped his time from 36 seconds to 31 seconds. Great job! A victory regardless of how he stacked up to the competition.
And then a glance at the “Time Machine” widget at the bottom of MTS: a reminder that four years ago today was just as hectic, but it was in Warsaw:
Evening Visitor
I heard it as I went out for my run, heading out at 10:00 this evening rather than 9:00 because everything has been off today. I couldn’t locate it when heading out, but when I returned, there she was, perched on the powerline that supplies lines to our house and the neighbors’ house.
Tuesday
The morning — I am the taxi driver. E has to go to scout camp. L has to go to volleyball conditioning. Then L has to come home to get ready for orientation. (She got the job.) Then she has to go to that orientation. Driving, driving, driving.
After lunch, I head out and do some weeding.
I’ve no idea how many sweet gum saplings I’ve pulled up this year. I’d guess I’m nearing 300 or so. They’re everywhere. All of the sweet gum trees we have are in backyard, in the corner, where no one really cares about them. For whatever reason, the seed pods from them result in very few saplings. However, the pods from our neighbors’ trees — they’re particularly virulent, I suppose.
In the evening, it’s back to taxi service. L is participating in a summer league. In a city that’s about 40 minutes away from us when we leave for said league because the games start at six. Which means we’re driving in rush hour traffic. Which means the 20-mile trip can take up to 40 minutes…
Kitchen
An image from the late 1990s — the kitchen I had in my first apartment in Lipnica. That mug on the right — I still have it upstairs. The writing is just about gone, and if I were as sentimental as I used to be, that would upset me greatly as this particular mug was an unexpected birthday gift from a sophomore class of students. This means the kids who gave me that mug are now in their mid- to late- thirties, likely with kids as old or older than my current students.
The significance of this? Same as always…
The Flip
Wall Climbing
New Pet
L got a new pet — a frog of some sort.
We were all happy and excited for her, eager to see the new beast.
She’s been dreaming about this for some time, and she finally got it today.
If, of course, you can see the little stinker.
First Swim Meet
E had his first swim meet today. The team’s first meet was last week, but in classic E fashion, he wanted to go check one out before participating. For today’s meet, he agreed to swim one event: 25 freestyle. “I hate backstroke, and I really don’t know how to do breaststroke,” he reasoned. “And butterfly…” His voice trailed off to indicate it was a fantasy.
Since I’m finally able to find a little time with him at the pool, we spent a little time there these last two mornings working on improving his stroke. His kick was just knee action, which resulted in a lot of splash and very little propulsion. He sunk his chin into his chest, creating a large surface to plow through the water. He wiggled his upper body from side to side to compensate for his stroke rather than rotating his shoulders along his verticle (when standing of course) axis. All this combined resulted in a very inefficient stroke, so we worked to improve that a bit.
His event had three heats today, and he was in the last heat. I could tell as heat two prepared to go that he was nervous, having serious second thoughts about the whole project.
I’m fairly certain that if I’d walked over then and asked if he wanted just to ditch the whole thing, he would have enthusiastically agreed.
I thought he might be worried about the crowd. “I don’t like the idea of doing something I’m not very good at in front of so many people,” he confided in me this morning.
I thought he might be worried about coming in dead last. I feared he would: he really doesn’t have much swimming experience other than playing around, and some of those kids his age have clearly been swimming competitively for years.
I thought he might be worried about the starting blocks: I didn’t know how many times he’s used them, and to my knowledge, he hadn’t used them at all this summer.
It turns out, though, that he was most worried about being disqualified. “A and O told me that if you pull your head straight out of the water to get a breath instead of turning to the side, you’ll get DQ’ed,” he explained. “I really didn’t want to get DQ’ed.”
I assured him that was not the case even though it could very well be the case. “Whatever the case,” I thought to myself, “we’ll never know if he gets DQ’ed unless he’s a contender for one of the higher places.” In the end, he got second place in his heat. Granted, there were only two swimmers, but we laughed about that. “I’m just proud of you for conquering this fear,” I told him.
“Thank you,” he smiled, hugging me and telling me probably for the 100th time today, “I love you, Daddy.”
Jobs
My first real job was as a lifeguard at the pool in my high school. During the evenings, from 6:30 to 8:30, it was open for public swimming, and those hours were extended in the summer to include morning and afternoon swimming. Those hours on the lifeguard stand seemed endless, making the evening shift seem more than double its actual time. At times, I had to tell myself, to force myself, not to look at the clock, to resist the urge for as long as possible because I knew that, despite being sure fifteen or twenty minutes had passed, I knew I would look up and see that only five minutes had dragged by. After everyone had left, I had to clean the pool deck, clean the bathrooms, and once every few days vacuum the pool.
“Being a lifeguard is not as glamorous as it seems,” my boss (who was also my swim coach) warned us when we all began taking the requisite courses to become certified. “Being a lifeguard is, in reality, nothing more than being a glorified janitor.” He’d forgotten to mention the utter boredom.
Many teens start their working lives in fast food, and so the second job I got was at a Wendy’s franchise one summer. Tired of being a glorified janitor, I applied for the job on the advice of a friend who also worked there. It was a little better than being a lifeguard: there was at least some variety. One day I might be working on the grill; the next day I might be serving up fries. I never got to work the register, though, because I quit after a month: the manager was scheduling me to work so little that I was sure I could find a better way to spend my time — at least looking for a job with more hours.
One summer in high school, I worked mornings with a man who did landscaping. It was tiring work, and it was frustrating as well: he often didn’t explain things terribly well and then fussed at me when I didn’t do things the way he’d intended.
Today, E and I dropped off L at a local ice cream franchise for her to apply for her first job. Her friend S applied for and got a job there, and she was to start her first shift just after L’s interview.
“I’d have to work the register,” she explained on the way there, “because I can’t use any of the equipment. S said she can’t even touch the microwave.”
“How old do you have to be for that?” I asked.
“Sixteen.” So by the time she’s allowed to make milkshakes for people rather than just taking orders for them, she’ll also be old enough to drive herself to work. And that’s all in just two short years.
Going through some photos while taking an afternoon coffee today, I noticed some pictures I hadn’t remembered: the kids, out with Babcia and K during their Polska 2015 visit. The children are both vastly different in these images than they are now, with E currently just about the same age as L in the image. And the same old thoughts and realizations came back yet again…
Endings and Circles
Today was the last day of the 2020/2021 school year: we had a faculty breakfast, acknowledged and expressed our appreciation for the faculty members who will not be returning to the school next year, and packed away the last of our materials, closing up our room for the summer.
Endings used to bother me as a kid because I never could be sure that what came after would be as good as what I’d just experienced. That’s no longer the case because I realized as I grew older that, as long as no disaster strikes, there’s no better or worse — just different.
Flood
Jacksonville — Vacation Day
