Matching Tracksuits

fun in fours

around the house

Aggressive Visitor

Tuesday 07 July 2020

We had a raccoon visiting our property this afternoon. It was on the other side of the fence, but still technically on our property, and though Clover had no idea that that was the case, and though she is as much a guard dog as I am a potted plant, she raced down to the fence and confronted the raccoon.

The dog barked; the raccoon backed away, turning eventually and trotting along the creek upstream, toward the area where the Boy and I always explore. Suddenly, though, it turned back and came charging. It ran right up to the fence and began pushing against the fence, snarling and growling. Clover ran back to the raccoon, and soon they were running back and forth, the fence between them, Clover thinking it was a game, the raccoon furiously expressing its lack of amusement.

The raccoon became more and more aggressive, and I began wondering if there wasn’t something more going on. I decided it was time to un-welcome the little beast, so I took a great rock and heaved it toward the raccoon’s general vicinity. I didn’t want to hit it; just come close enough to frighten it.

It seemed to work: the raccoon darted into the stream and trotted away, but I know it will come back, and I worry about what might happen if it climbs the fence.

Visitor

Sunday 05 July 2020

Deck Plus

Saturday 27 June 2020

The deck is finished -- more or less.

The zucchinis, too.

A couple hid under leaves until they got ridiculously big.

Late June Wednesday

Wednesday 24 June 2020

If it’s late June and we’re in Poland, we might be celebrating Babcia’s birthday in one form or another. Probably not a lot of celebrating happening the day of it (at least not until later in the day) as Babcia, lacking any social media whatsoever, spends the day talking to people who phone her with birthday wishes.

As it is, we simply got everyone up early and phoned ourselves. It was hard to get through, though. Everyone loves Babcia.

If it’s late June and we’re not in Poland, I’ll probably be on the back deck, applying water sealant.

And of course, there’s the evening game of hearts.

Two nights in a row — how do I do it?

Helping

Monday 22 June 2020

In 3s

Wednesday 10 June 2020

Things go wrong in threes. That's what they say, right? So if that's the case, we're done. First, the roof. A leak. Fortunately, insurance wrote us a new roof.

Second, the lawnmower. Two hundred dollars to fix it. I could have bought a new lawnmower for that. Of course, it would have been a cheap piece of junk, but the fact stands.

A Maserati owner takes up four spaces in the parking lot... it just amused me.

Then the dishwasher. We paid a repairman $75 to tell us what I thought I knew: the main board was gone. So we went to a few places looking for a replacement, including a local appliance store that sells the crazy cabinet-depth $20,000 Sub-Zero refrigerators. You'd think that's the last place to find a deal, but we did indeed find a deal. The real deal: they had it in stock. Big-box stores didn't, and we'd still have to wait weeks for delivery.

So we got the dishwasher installed, ready to go. We're waiting on the roofing company to catch up with their work that's been thrown off schedule with all the rain. And I've already used the mower once. Are we past the threes? Who knows.

Visitor

Monday 08 June 2020

Day 76: Reality in the Shower

Saturday 30 May 2020

We are a pattern-seeking species. And where we find patterns, there we find meaning. Even if that meaning is nonexistent because the pattern itself is an accident of nature. Instead of seeing it like this, though, we often prefer to take these as omens.

I’ve found a few omens, then, in our shower.

There’s a Grateful Dead teddy bear on one tile. I wouldn’t have even noticed it if I hadn’t been such a Grateful Dead fan in high school (now, not so much — they’re okay, but I rarely listen to them).

There’s a bandit with a kerchief covering his mouth. His eyebrows are straight and determined: he’s surely about to commit a crime. Perhaps a home invasion is imminent for us. But our little town is really quite peaceful (we checked with the police department and did some research before buying here), so it’s unlikely.

There’s a fetal-size footprint. Surely this is a hint of things to come? A prophecy of another child on the way? No. It’s just a shape.

There’s the number 12 — certainly, that is not an accident but, like Jesus burned into toast and the Virgin Mary on an underpass, a message from the heavens, some reference to the disciples.

Yes, this is a little something I wrote long ago and just tucked away for just such an occasion: I’m still working on pictures from the Mass I shot (a paying gig this time!) and won’t be done any time soon…

Day 72: Reflection and Time Together with a Tripod

Tuesday 26 May 2020

Reflection

I titled the post “Heading Out.” It comprised one single picture:

The Boy and I were going out for a Sunday-morning ride. We rode about our neighborhood, the neighboring neighborhood, up to his school, back — a typical ride for us. If there were any puddles I would have had to tell him not to ride through them.

We got back sweaty and satisfied, and after a shower, we had lunch with Nana and Papa and then I headed out to photograph a special ordination Mass for a deacon in our parish, Deacon Richard — now Father Richard.

At some point during the afternoon — I don’t remember because I wasn’t there — Nana went to sleep. K must have texted me about it because I remember thinking, “Well, we gave her an opioid — she always goes to sleep after that.” The Mass ended and the reception began, and after an hour and a half of the reception, K texted me that I should probably come home. “It doesn’t look good,” she texted.

Still, I wasn’t worried. “She’s just asleep. The opioid’s effect will wear off and tomorrow morning she’ll be just as good as new.”

That was May 26, 2019. She passed away sometime in the early hours of May 27. We’re not exactly sure when even though the death certificate has the time the hospice nurse came and checked: 7:30.

“Tomorrow morning she’ll be as good as new.”

I’m not sure how I could have been so blind other than to suggest it was self-deception out of a sense of self-protection. A lot of “self” in that.

“Can we have some time together?”

The Boy asks me every day, “Can we have some time together?” On the one hand, that makes it sound like I don’t spend a lot of time with him. “Poor kid — has to ask his father to spend time with him.” It sounds positively Dickensian. On the other hand, that shows how conscientious he is about spending time with me: he wants to make sure the day doesn’t slip by without us doing something together, and that has happened.

Today, I had some work to do, though, after I completed my school responsibilities (only three more days) and before I could play. The Boy is always eager to learn how to do something, so I invited him along.

Spraying for pests suits him, I think.But then again, you do have to be somewhat systematic — follow a pattern, a plan, a path. You can just spray here, spray there. You have to make sure you have even coverage over the whole area you’re hoping to affect. Much like with mowing, then, I let him work but often took back the equipment to hit a spot he’d missed.

After the work (“Is this our time together?” the Boy asked, concerned), we went back to our favorite spot in the creek and discovered, much to our surprise, that the island we use to assist in crossing the creek was gone. The last flood must have washed it out completely.

We also started planning our next fort. We might get a little less primitive this time. We might even use some 2x4s.

Tripod

I took the camera and tripod out with us today and set the camera to take a picture every minute.

Why didn’t I do that before? I don’t have many pictures with the Boy when we go on these adventures. It’s a simple way to solve that problem.

One can also reverse-mount the tripod and take some pictures otherwise impossible: three-second exposures at water level. That type of thing.

Day 66: Morning Ignorance of the Below and Above

Wednesday 20 May 2020

Morning

The morning, post-breakfast ritual during this time of lockdown and isolation:

The Boy works on his schoolwork. We try to pace it: whatever’s going to be more challenging for the day we tackle first. Lately, things have been fairly balanced: everything has been much easier, in short. Still, old habits persist, and he’ll start fussing if he gets the slightest bit frustrated some mornings.

Today, we made it through everything fairly quickly with minimal fussing.

Papa often takes a nap. He doesn’t necessarily intend to take a nap — he’s just comfortable, full, content, watching television or listening to a book, and what else is there to do?

K works on emails for her real estate clients. She’s trying to work two jobs now. We all tell her that she needs to focus on one or the other. We know which one she’d like to focus on. We also know that that job doesn’t have a set pay schedule.

I am usually either helping the Boy or working on my own school work downstairs. Or as in this case, taking pictures.

The Girl — well, she does what a teenager does best.

Below

Ever since we had our first flood in the basement several years ago, a heavy rainfall makes me just a bit nervous. I look at the puddles forming in the backyard. I check the weather. I duck into the crawl space to look in the sump pump basin. I repeat the cycle. I worry, worry, worry. Until our big flood in February, I’d gotten to the point, though, that I really fretted very little. It had gotten a little wet but it hadn’t flooded flooded. Still, I’m always probably going to be a little worried about water coming up from below, the hydrostatic pressure building to the point that it forces water through the smallest of cracks and starts filling our basement again. It will happen. And though I have taken steps to remediate the situation, there are no more steps I can take that don’t involve massive work and a sizeable fiscal commitment.

Option 1

Our neighbor up the street had a drainage system put in his basement recently: around the entire parameter of the basement, workers busted up the concrete and the applied perforated drain pipes that lead to a central sump pump. It was a five-figure job.

That might be the next step if the basement continues flooding. It’s the type of job that, having the summer off every year, I’d be keen on tackling myself. At the very least, I could rent a jackhammer and bust up the concrete and dig down to the footer, cutting the cost significantly, I would think. Or at least hope.

Option 2

The other option: when we pull out the landscaping front of the kids’ bedrooms, I could dig down to the footer there and re-seal the foundation, perhaps installing a French drain system there while everything is dug up.

And Above

I was playing pool with a friend in the basement probably almost decade ago when water started pouring onto the pool table. It turned out that the shower pan in the master bathroom had failed.

Count Me Out, In

We ended up renovating the whole bathroom as a result.

There was one other time when the water came from above instead of below: somehow, the water came in between the upstairs deck and the door sill and started dripping from the top of the door in the basement. I never figured out what caused that, but I caulked well around the door and it never happened again.

But most of our experience with water entering the house comes from below.

But tonight, the Boy was getting ready for his bath when he looked up and asked, “Daddy, is that a leak?”

Shit.

I went to get a chair so I could reach up and feel the dampness I knew would be there. Still, as I walked to the Boy’s room and returned with the chair, I found myself thinking, “Please, oh please just be a dark spot on the ceiling that I’ve never noticed though we’ve lived here almost thirteen years.”

I looked carefully at where the stain was and realized quickly what had likely happened: the roof vent flashing had somehow failed. Perhaps it had gotten cracked. Perhaps it was torn. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

“Maybe it’s just running down the sewer vent,” I thought.

I climbed on the roof to see if anything was amiss. “Perhaps the hail we had a few days ago damaged something and insurance will pay for an entire re-roofing job,” I thought both hopefully and sickeningly. Examining the flashing, I couldn’t see any sign of compromise. We covered it with some plastic and hoped for the best.

Still, I needed to check in the attic to see just how bad the problem was.

I don’t really know if that’s bad or not. Part of me says, “That’s horrible: it’s bad enough that it’s saturated the ceiling sheetrock enough to make a stain.” And yet, I really don’t know.

So tomorrow we’ll call the insurance adjuster and a roofer to see what they say.

When I got back down and talked to K about what I found, the Boy discovered my boots and couldn’t resist.

Later in the evening, K thought the spot is damper than it was earlier. We decided to go all out: we brought out the two tarps we use for camping, overlapping one with the other so that water can run under the tarp, weighing the whole thing down with bricks and cinder blocks. And doing all this in a light rain. At 10:30.

Lightroom Revisit

In August 2003, K and I rode our bikes south through Slovakia to Hungary to spend a week in Budapest. When we returned, we rode to Sturovo, a town in southern Slovakia, where we caught a train to Zilina, where we waited for another train to Trstena, just across the border from where we lived in southern Poland. We had to wait in the Zilina train station for most of the night to catch the 5:00 a.m. train to Trstena. This guy was waiting for a train, too.

This is one I’m particularly pleased with the Lightroom reworking. The before-and-after shows how much of a difference it makes to do selective editing: