Matching Tracksuits

There’s often a sense that gratitude and Monday are incompatible. There’s a whole network of memes all suggesting the same thing: there’s nothing positive about Monday. It’s built, I suppose, on the assumption that, with the weekend complete, the best part of the week is behind us, and we have little to look forward to. But that assumption is, in turn, based on another assumption: that the fun weekend is superior to the business week day, and that Monday is the worst possible of the five workdays because it’s waking up from the dream that was the weekend and returning us to the daily reality that seems to have less choice and more obligation. After all, one can choose to sleep in or to get up early on a Saturday morning; a Monday morning lacks the former and demands the latter. So what is there to be grateful for on a Monday?

I went to work, which means I have a job and can provide for my family. That’s certainly something to be grateful for. My kids are (relatively) safe at school during the day: certainly not all parents have that same assurance. I woke up in a bed and will return to it: not everyone has that simple privilege. I get to work with some amazingly sweet (though predictably chatty — middle schoolers are the same everywhere) students. The list could go on and on. We can literally find things all around us to be grateful for.

And I’m especially grateful that I don’t have to write any more. It’s not a job, not an obligation, and so I can tumble off to bed at 9:16.

Sometimes I wonder if anyone ever goes more than a few days without something somewhere breaking. Usually it’s small things that we can almost ignore, I think, but the medium and large issues seem to cluster up and hit all at once.

K’s car required some work (issue 1), so yesterday I drove it to our Polish friend who’s also a mechanic. He lives in the north of the county, right off the rails-to-trail project that runs through the county, so I usually drive the car up there and ride my bike back.

But issues never come alone: they always bring company. On the way back, I got a flat (issue 2). In the same tire that I’d just repaired. Or didn’t repair — what’s the difference?

But issues never come alone: they always bring company. The ramp to Papa’s room (it will always be “Papa’s room”) needs to be repainted (issue 3), which means it needs to be cleaned, which E remedied this morning. Upon returning home from Lowe’s with the appropriate paint, I noticed a bit of wood sticking up from one of the knot holes. I bent down and dug it out with my finger only to discover that the entire knot hole had somehow rotted out.

Which meant I had to get a new 1×6 to replace it. Which meant a trip to Lowe’s. Which is where we had just been.

Fixing the board was one of those projects for which the prep and cleanup took longer than the actual project.

But issues never come alone: they always bring company. While I working on this, L returned and informed me that her car stalled three times while driving home.

“And there’s a weird emoji on the dash,” she said.

“Probably the ‘check engine’ light,” I thought.

I checked; indeed, I was right. I cranked the car. It started stalling immediately. It was as if it weren’t getting enough fuel. Fuel pump? Clogged fuel filter? Not sure — and of course I couldn’t find the error reader that would have given me a little more information on the nebulous “check engine” light.

There are some projects that just seem to grow as you get into them.

Our kitchen remodel almost ten years ago (has it been that long?) was just such a project. We unexpectedly had to rebuild an entire part of the exterior wall when we discovered the door header stopped midway through the door. We had to build two supports in the crawlspace to deal with a sagging floor in the dining area. It just grew and grew and grew.

Our latest landscaping adventure was not such a project. I knew just how much work would be involved. I knew there would likely be no real surprises. But I also knew just how much backache-producing work it would involve. First, we had to get rid of those holly bushes. That took a good long time: hollies very aggressively cling to their perch on life, and they will resprout from the slightest bit of root left behind. So getting rid of the main holly trunks was only part of the process: E and I also spent a day digging out roots. And we didn’t even get them all. Several large roots went so deep into the ground that we knew we could never get them out, so we made fresh cuts, drilled holes into them, and slathered root killer on them. All that was step one.

Step two: build a new landscaping border around the area. This took a couple of days and a couple of trips to Home Depot, but today, we finished it.

Tonight, we went back to get the components for part three — at least some of them.