Halloween 2021
the girl
Time Machine
One of the things I like most about this site is the Time Machine widget at the bottom that serves up links every day from the past. What were we doing three years ago? Five? Ten?
But it’s the unpredictable things that bring long-forgotten memories that are the most enjoyable — like finding your fourteen-year-old daughter’s glasses that she wore when she was five.
Tuesday Unknowns
Unknown 1
We had an online meeting tonight with a company that helps student-athletes navigate the challenge of getting an academic scholarship. It’s something that I have absolutely no firsthand knowledge and little to no general knowledge about. The question is, given the cost of the service (it’s not cheap by any stretch), just how much will this provide us in the long run. Its cost would certainly be justified if we ended up with major savings to L’s college costs through a scholarship to play volleyball. Yet if we just get nothing for it — no real offer, no real scholarship, no real hope — then it was obviously money poorly spent.
Unknown 2
We had a teacher workday today, and the day concluded with a presentation from a therapist about trauma and its effects on learning. It basically boiled down to, “Don’t be a dick and compound these at-risk kids’ issues by taking everything personally and letting that trigger you into a power struggle that damages the relationship.” That’s laudable, and certainly a very basic best practice for classroom management, but it got me thinking about how much we never know about our students in a given moment: what taught a kid to react this way to this stimulus, what’s going on in the kid’s head at the moment, how we’re contributing to it, what other social forces, unseen and unknown, are contributing at that moment due to peer pressure and the idea of lost face — the whole miasmic mess we find ourselves in when an at-risk student is in full panic mode. Not an excuse for disregarding the processes we went over today. Far from it — a full admission to their basic necessity. Yet it still leaves me feeling a bit like Sisyphus.
Unknown 3
One of our final renovations on our house will begin tomorrow: the guest bathroom will get a complete makeover.
Heaven knows it needs it. In a lot of ways, it was always the room most in need of renovation. Ugly subway tiles on the counter, some god-awful trim around the sink, old toilet — it was all awful.
Was?! It is awful. It has been awful for years. And tomorrow, we start renovating it all. Well, we’re not doing anything — we’re hiring our Polish friend who’s done so much already in our home.
This last unknown is finally known: when will we ever get that bathroom done…
Biltmore Fall 2021
It has been a very long time since we were last in Biltmore. We went with my folks in 2006 with my parents (before the Girl was born)
Biltmore
and again in 2007 when Babcia was here from Poland.
Biltmore II
Of course, the Girl was too young to remember anything and the Boy wasn’t even a thought when we last went there, so today being a teacher workday that I took as a personal day, we took the kids for a day at the largest house in America.
The house has looked like this for over a hundred years now,
but there was one significant change this time around, though. It was nothing in the gardens: they looked just like they did 14 years ago.
(Click on images for larger view, as always.)
The exterior really wasn’t any different — the limestone facade is just stunning and overwhelming.
What was different was that photos are now allowed on the interior. I guess in the 14 years since we last went there, the administrators realized with the advent of the smartphone that keeping people from taking photos was going to be impossible. Plus, why not get the free publicity that comes with social media posts.
As we strolled through the house, I kept thinking how “house” is such a poor word for what this is. It’s more like a palace. I believe it’s officially called a chateau. It’s hard to imagine anyone building a structure like that for himself. Vanderbilt was still single when he began building the 170,000 square-foot home, and he and his wife only had the one daughter Cornelia. They took up three of the thirty-five bedrooms. What’s the point of something like that other than to do it?
It’s all so foreign and almost obscene to modern sensibilities. It would take 65 of our homes to equal the area of that house. What does anyone need with that? Nothing — that’s the honest answer. But why would they want something like that?
Yet it’s a piece of art in and of itself.
Since we got year passes, we’re planning on heading back in December for the Christmas decorations (which are already going up).
Working Sunday
More planting in the yard,
a new bookshelf for the Girl,
some re-decoration of the Boy’s room —
not our typical Sunday.
Volleyball and Scouts
Saturday Night
Friday Evening, Early Autumn
Homecoming 2021
Last night was homecoming. Instead of a date, she took her best friend.
Volleyball versus Former Teammates
The Girl Fourteen Years Ago
Monday Night Moon
After desert, when K pretended she was about to eat E’s while he ran inside for a moment, we went to the front yard to get a little family exercise. L, having stayed home today because of sinus issues, passed the volleyball to me. Later, the Boy and I worked on his defensive skills in soccer.
As the Girl and I played, I noticed that, over her shoulder, the waxing moon was almost a half-moon. A waxing moon in the autumn was always a harbinger of the greatest week of the year, hands down, year after year. It was in the fall that our heterodox sect took a week off of work and school to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles in a strange attempt to follow the pattern of Old Testament holy days that we were taught were still required.
When I was L’s age, the sight of such a moon in September would edge me toward near-giddiness as I thought about all the adventures that awaited after the obligatory, daily, and often boring church service (yes, daily church — a two-hour service, no less, with a sermon that lasted anywhere from sixty to ninety ass- and mind-numbing minutes). Surely I’d meet new friends. Maybe we’d see some great attractions. But most enticing was the promise of what everyone called a feast-fling: a week-long adolescent romance that ended with addresses and phone numbers exchanged along with promises and more promises, a romance that was lucky to reach Christmas break. “Maybe we’ll go to the same feast site next year!” was the excitement.
It never worked, of course, because adolescent romances are just that — flings. But that excitement along with the excitement of all the other amazing experiences we’d certainly have hung in the glow around waxing autumnal moons.
My children know none of these things. The specifics of my religious upbringing are a complete mystery to them. I’m content to let them assume what they will. I’ve hesitated to tell them anything about it because it doesn’t seem all that relevant to their lives, and quite honestly, I didn’t want to shade how they saw Nana and Papa. That of course assumes that it would color how they see them, which is likely a projection: through almost all of my adult life, I have looked at the beliefs they inculcated into me, beliefs they held with complete conviction but were without a shred of logic even within a strictly Christian theological context, and wondered how in the world they could have fallen for such silliness. I know they came to view their own beliefs similarly, returning eventually to a more orthodox Protestant faith, but somehow I still hesitated.
“I hesitated,” I say as if it’s something that’s occupied a large part of my conscious thoughts. In truth, it has, but only in a theoretical, theological sense. My thoughts have only turned to that theology while mowing or having a cigar and scotch on a Saturday night. Unless I happen to see a waxing autumnal moon…
Lake Tillery 2021
Sunday Relax
Family Outing
Our first family outing in some time. We took the kids for some Afghan cuisine and ice cream — something new, something loved.
Closure
When we put Nana’s ashes in the memorial bench, I had one thought lingering in the back of my mind the entire time: soon enough, we’ll be doing this for Papa as well.
So today brought a certain closure to it all. My parents are in their final resting place. Their urns are touching, together again.
During the short service, led by Nana’s and Papa’s pastor, there was talk of the hope we have in Jesus, the hope of eternal life together with God. I sat staring at Papa’s urn, hoping the topic wouldn’t come up in the after-service chat. I always feel awkward in those moments because I play along, agree with whoever is talking, and even say things that I don’t even mean or believe. Our neighbor, for example, was talking to me the other day about Papa’s passing.
“Well, he’s with Omi now, and they’re probably still hugging,” she said.
“No,” I laughed, “she probably isn’t done fussing at him yet.”
I don’t believe that, but I felt it was something that would give our neighbor a smile, and having lost her husband only this spring, I thought laughs are probably all too uncommon in her life these days.
In the evening, some family Uno, three-hand cribbage, and of course, our family favorite, badminton.
First Day 2021
It was yesterday, but I only got the pictures from K today. First day 2021. The Girl starts high school.
The Boy, now in fourth grade, is nearing the end of his elementary schooling.
These are big kids. How did that happen?
Other Years
Spykowice and Cribbage
Flowers for Papa
I was at the store and decided L needed something a little not-everyday, so I brought her some flowers.
Later in the evening, I realized she’d put some in a vase for Papa.
Volleyball End
The Girl finished her summer volleyball season tonight by winning the grass championship for her age group. Her partner was a young lady she met while playing club ball this summer and with whom she immediately bonded. Birds of a feather and all that.
She was also my student last year, which made for some amusing situations.
“What are you doing, M?” I might ask when the team was taking a break between games.
“Studying for your test, Mr. Scott.”