The mystery one street over tonight: why are two police cars parked by the side of the road, lights flashing, tromping about in the woods?
Flashing Lights
around the house
Rainy Day
Spring Monday
The Boy and I have been listening to Josh Clark’s The End of the World podcast, and it opens with a discussion of the Fermi Paradox, which the Boy tried to explain to his friend on the way to the pool this evening.
“See, the universe is millions of years old and…” he began when his friend cut him off: “No, it’s only a few thousand years old.”
“No,” argued the Boy. “It’s millions of years old.”
“No!” his friend insisted. “It’s only a few thousand years old. It’s in the Bible.”
At this point, I intervened: “Boys, stop arguing — talk about something else.”
On the way home, after dropping off his friend, I explained to the Boy what had happened, giving him a primer on young Earth creationism.
“But it’s science!” he insisted incredulously. “There’s evidence.”
“But they don’t accept that evidence,” I explained, and he had a hard time understanding how someone doesn’t accept evidence. I do too, truth be told. “It’s just not worth arguing about because you won’t change anyone’s mind who thinks that way.”
I went ahead and corrected his numbers while I was at it: “The Earth is, in fact, about 4.5 billion years old, and the universe is somewhere in the area of 13 billion years old — much older than the couple million years you were insisting upon. I didn’t correct you then because that would have meant correcting your friend, and I’m not sure how his parents would react to that.”
My parents were young Earthers, too (at least for a while), but I’m not sure how they would have reacted to me coming home and announcing that one of my friend’s father said indirectly that I was wrong and that the Earth is in fact much older than what they taught me. I don’t imagine they would have prevented me from seeing the kid again, but if it had happened again, they might have. And certainly, very fundamentalist Christians would likely make such a move, and the Boy’s relationship with his friend is much more valuable to me than what he’s been taught about the universe.
The Boy, then, experienced something like what I experience regularly: that sense when among more literalist Christians that we view the world in a completely different way.
New Couch
The new couch no longer was — in fact, it was ancient. So ancient I’d stopped thinking of it as “the new couch” years ago. (For reference, I still think of albums bands released 10 years ago as their new album, so…)
Moon
Sunday in the Yard
We mowed again today: yesterday’s mowing was not sufficient because the height of the grass required us to mow at the mower’s highest setting yesterday. And since we don’t have the sharpest blade in the world, it just pushed some of the grass over and cut the rest.
Today we mowed again. And pulled weeds. A lot of weeds. And put down fertilizer.
Saturday
Games and Sorting
More Uszki
Smoking for the Holidays
Yard Work
The street in front of our yard was continually wet even days after rainfall. Turns out, our supply line was leaking, so the water company repaired it today.
Which means we went without water for about an hour. And our lovely grass got destroyed in part.
“No water! Thanks Greenville Water!” the Boy exclaimed. K and I reminded him of the millions in Ukraine (and all over the world, to be honest) who have no water. “Oh, yeah,” came his solemn reply.
First world problems.
Around the House and More
Yard Renovation
Collateral Damage
One advantage for our neighbors: all this wind has blown down the excessive Halloween decorations of one of our friendly neighbors.
Before the Storm
Evening Walk
We’ve overseeded our front yard and seeded our backyard. Not “overseeded” because after we started having our yard sprayed for weeks regularly, everything in the backyard died. Because it was all weeds.
This means, though, that our dear Clover is an inside dog for the next month or so as everything takes root and grows. So we take her on a lot more walks, which means we get to see lovely fall scenes like this.
Sunday at Home
Jam and Fan
Three Lawns
Emil and I mowed three lawns today (ours and two neighbors’ yards), and then I dethatched our front yard.
Everything hurts.
Of course, we’ve done this before…
Perspective
It’s 9:36 in the evening, and our current indoor temperature is 82°. We’ve done the best we could to keep the temperature from rising in our air-conditioner-less house, but though the temperature is falling outside (the real kicker is that it’s currently 77° outside), it’s not falling in our house.
During my evening walk, I developed a theory about this: I think it’s because the temperature in the attic is still undoubtedly very high. Warm air rises. And if it’s got a column of warm air above it, despite the insulation between the two, it’s just going to sit there. Yeah, I know — it doesn’t make sense, but neither does an 82° house at half-past nine in the evening.
Yet thinking about it, one realizes it’s truly a first-world problem. Most of the people living in the hottest regions of the world have never had air-conditioning in their homes, and their homes are materially vastly inferior to ours.
Puts things in perspective. But we’re still tired of being sweaty…