matching tracksuits

fun in threes, sometimes fours

around the house

May Afternoon Walk

Wednesday 08 May 2013 | 0 Comments

The Boy, the Girl, and I went out for a walk this afternoon, to see what we could see.

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We saw all our lovely neighbors:

  • the ones with the sweet but somewhat kitschy flower bed in their front yard, the bed that includes an old screen door leaning against a tree with “Welcome” painted on it;
  • the ones that are installing a new driveway on the far side of their house, providing their domicile with twin entrances;
  • the ones who work hard to keep the subdivision name sign clean and the planter in front of it planted;
  • the ones who seem to have enough people for four houses living under one roof;
  • the ones with the lovely ivy growing up their house;
  • the ones who have the cute variety of flowers growing along the driveway.

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And the ones, busted just today, who were cooking meth in their garage.

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These fine folks were taking up the slack caused when our other neighbors (and I use this term loosely, for they all live several, several houses from us, but in the same neighborhood) got slack and were busted just before Thanksgiving 2010.

Caught

Tuesday 07 May 2013 | 0 Comments

The Boy is sick -- trapped in the house, in short. Two ears, both infected. Talk of tubes. Worries about effects. We're all caught, I guess. Home from the doctor this morning, though, there was only one thing catching E: sleep.

After a fitful night, I was surprised at how long he lasted before the fists began digging in the eyes, before the fussing began, before the first yawn. When he's sick and fussy, the first morning nap is always a blessing: some coffee, a bit of news on the internet, a chance to catch a moment of calm. But the calm never lasts: I look around and see what a mess a little boy can make in only a couple of hours, and I begin cleaning.

Soon, I'm interrupted: a terrible squawking and fluttering just outside the kitchen door tells me that we have our first victim of the season in our raspberry bush netting. No matter how carefully I hang the netting, with such deliberate overlaps that I then secure with various extemporaneous methods, it never fails: the birds somehow get in and then, unable to get back out, just about destroy the netting in their panic.

Last year, I tried various methods, including going into the netting myself with a tennis racket and herding the bird down to a corner where I can then pick it up and carry it out. (I quit doing that soon after an unexpected turn from a bird resulting in a fluttering pile of feathers beneath the berry vines. I suppose I didn't think things through all that carefully with that method.)

Eventually, this one finds its way out.

Not unlike the Boy's dreams: he is desperate to head out after so much time inside. At dinner, he sees his jacket I left hanging on the back of a chair when we returned from the doctor's office. He grabs it, smiles at us, and begins waving bye-bye.

Rainy Sunday

Sunday 28 April 2013 | 0 Comments

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All day. All day. All day. All day.

Developing Spring

Thursday 25 April 2013 | 0 Comments

“Daddy! Daddy!” come the cries of excitement from the front of the house. “Daddy, you have to see this!”

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The zinnias are sprouting. “Unless they’re weeds,” she says stoically as we head back to the front yard.

“It’s entirely possible,” I mumble to myself. But they’re coming up just in the center of the pot, almost certainly zinnias. How would I know? I couldn’t recognize them in full bloom let alone when they’re just sprouting.

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More squeals from the backyard moments later: “You have to see this!” The snap dragons’ blooms are opening.

“Are they everything you expected?” I ask as I head up the stairs to inspect them.

“Well, no,” she says with her sly grin. “I was hoping they would snap!”

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Spring Morning Sky

Saturday 13 April 2013 | 0 Comments

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Gathering Clouds

Thursday 11 April 2013 | 0 Comments

We’ve had a mysterious leak in our basement every time we’ve had significant rainfall. It can be a torrential downpour or a simple three-day gentle drenching: the results are the same. Well, that makes it sound like it’s happened several times. It’s only happened twice. We think it’s coming from the deck flashing: I suspect it’s like so many other things in the house: poorly installed.

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With forecasters saying a huge — absolutely mind-blowingly large — storm is on the way, duct tape appears and we compromise on a quick fix. Or rather a quick temporary fix.

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The storm clouds build, darken, and spit a little rain, but nothing terribly significant. Perhaps it was all in vain?

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I hope not — a good shower to wash the pollen from everything would be just about perfect.

Cinderella Around the House

Friday 05 April 2013 | 0 Comments

I got my book to clean. I got the laundry and put it in the washing machine. It got me stressed out because it was hard. I did a lot of work to do it.

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I cleaned the toilet after I read the page in my book. It told me to get the cleaner, and I got the brush and cleaned the toilet.

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I read the page of my book and it said to scrub the mirror, scrub the floors, and mop the floor.

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While I was cleaning, my stepmother was resting, playing a game of chess on the computer, and taking a nap. She was eating and telling me chore after chore.

Sweet and Sour

Wednesday 01 August 2012 | 0 Comments

Summer is sweet and sour. It is vines of filled with tomatoes turning a gentle orange before shifting to deep, sweet red. We pick them and smell the perfume that lingers on our hands. Romas provide consistency; Better Boys provide juice.

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Then there's the sour: weeds. They grow in the now-composted mulch that's supposed to be keeping them out.

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But there's the sweetest of all: a boy who will wait patiently while mom tugs at the weeds.

August Morning

From Dawn to Dusk

Friday 27 July 2012 | 2 Comments

Breakfast

Breakfast should have been a hint of the day to come. While at Aldi yesterday, we found a real deal on small fillets, so we had steak (one fillet shared between the two of us) and eggs for breakfast.

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The Girl entertained the Boy while we finished up breakfast, and I joked, “This is the kind of breakfast that sticks with you until dinner.”

Little did we know how busy we would be

  1. Applying another coat of Thompson’s on the deck (it didn’t make sense to leave a touch in one can) while K took care of the kids and did laundry;
  2. Mowing in 95 degree pure sun as K took care of the kids and cooked barszcz;
  3. Cleaning the house while K took care of the kids and did more laundry (The Boy goes through so much laundry that it’s a miracle there’s still water left in the county);
  4. Taking the Girl for a promised swim as K took care of the Boy;

It looks like such a short, innocuous list, but between steps three and four, K and I fell asleep while the Girl watched an episode of Martha Speaks and the Boy took a post-meal snooze.

And nature provided the first test of four mornings’ of waterproofing

Resistance

You’d think

Thursday 26 July 2012 | 0 Comments

that after spending the last three mornings/early afternoons spreading a liberal coat of water sealant on our deck that I could get by with a post-wash, pre-treatment picture from 2008, when I last did such a thorough job.

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After all, I’m just trying to post this thing so I can get back to my cigar and YouTube snooker…