Working with the Dog
the girl
Family Sports
“Can we play some family sports tonight?” the Boy asked during dinner. He’s always interested in doing something as a family: a family bike ride, a family film, a game of family soccer. But our busy lives (busy even in this time of pandemic) being what they are, it’s rare that we get to play together. Tonight, for example, K had to write an offer on a house for one of her clients, and that takes a fair amount of time. So I went out with the kids and the dog and played some soccer and volleyball with them.
Tonight, the Boy learned a lesson during the game. He’d been bragging to L, insisting that he was a much better soccer player than she. Had the Boy developed fully the critical thinking skills a thirteen-year-old has, he would have looked at relative size, relative experience, and relative speed and thought, “It’s unlikely I’m much better than she.”
Then again, I’ve had plenty of thirteen-year-olds challenge me to chess, swear their going to beat me badly, and then ask as soon as the board is set up, “So, how do you play?” that a thirteen-year-old’s critical thinking skills can be less than ideal.
So they played. E lost. E fussed. I encouraged. And in the end, instead of giving up, he kept trying, kept attacking, and made some really good plays in the end.
Raven Cliff Falls
Today was the last Sunday before the school year starts, so we made the most of it with a hike that was supposed to be 5 miles total but ended up being 8. A lot packed into that sentence.
Starting school. What does that even mean this year? For weeks we’ve been wondering about what the year will look like. When our average daily new C-19 statewide case number was 100-200, we ended the school year in March and spent the rest of the year online babysitting for the most part. Now our daily numbers are 1,000+, and they have been for weeks. And we’re talking about going back to school? It seems like madness. But we’ve got a Republican governor and a staunch Trump supporter to boot, so science be damned — let’s send those kids back to school. (Our governor pointed out that there’s little risk in school-age children dying from this. When asked about the risks to teachers and their families, our fine governor said, “Well, they signed up for the job” — as if he were talking about police officers or infantry soldiers.)
As for the 8-mile-should-have-been-5-mile hike — what can we say? We used AllTrails.com to calculate the distance and didn’t realize it was only calculating the portion of the hike that was on the red trail, neglecting the portion of the blue and pink trails we had to go on to reach Raven Cliff Falls. One would think that “Raven Cliff Falls Trail” leads to — guess — RCF. But it only gets you so far — the rest is whatever the blue and pink portions were called.
But all the kids made it — with minimal complaining. Well, “minimal” is often so very relative…
Turtle
“Padre! Padre! Come here!” The Girl had discovered a new dilemma — I could hear it in her voice. (She’s taken to calling K and me “Madre” and “Padre” of late — I think it’s kind of cute.)
“What?”
“There’s a snapping turtle in our backyard, trapped by the fence, and Clover is going crazy with it.”
I put on some heavy gloves and went out for a turtle rescue, only to discover
that L doesn’t know what a snapping turtle looks like compared to a regular box turtle.
“Does that mean we can take it up and show everyone?”
“Of course.”
More Hearts
Papa won, hence the “heart attack.”
Hearts
K and I played a three-handed game of hearts with the Girl tonight. We wanted to watch a movie, but L was not in the mood. “She’ll play a card game,” I thought, and bounded up to her room to suggest it.
I like throwing down the queen of spades on unsuspecting players, and I usually keep her in my hand. L did poorly on the first hand, and so for the second hand, I wanted to make sure she didn’t get the queen. I almost ended up with it myself as a result.
But I did manage to do something that has crossed my mind a few times, but I never did: announce to everyone I had the queen. I began the hand with 7 spades; K gave me the ace, king, and queen of spades. But I had not a single diamond. At one point, I even lead with spades to get the hand to someone else, waiting for the first person to lead with diamonds. It was K. I laid it on her.
In the end, I gave her the queen probably four or five times. When we finished, she said, “Well, pack up your stuff to sleep on the couch.”
L thought it was uproariously amusing. And I think that was what it was all about. Next time, I’ll have to fall on the sword a number of times — it should amuse L even more, and K, too.
Saturday
The day began with a challenge: the Swamp Rabbit Trail. Our goal was to ride the whole distance (well, the main part of the trail) and back again — a total of 22 miles. For K and me, it was probably not that big a deal — we’ve ridden further, and faster. For the Girl, it was no big deal: she’s been cycling a lot lately, plus she’s just young and strong. But for the Boy? His longest ride to date was 16 miles, just over a year ago.
Other than being younger and not as strong, he has another disadvantage: a smaller bike that cannot possibly go nearly as fast. Yet he soldiered through.
In the afternoon, he and I finished our summer project. French drain completed and completely hidden.
Tuesday Around the House
We’ve had problems for years with water standing here and there on our property, but our massive flooding in February convinced me that it’s time to take the next step and start implementing a system to pull the water away from the house. The larger challenge: dealing with the front yard. This will involve massive amounts of digging, the installation of a fairly stout French drain system, and it will all begin with the removal of the shrubs in front of the two-story portion of our house. In other words, it will cost a lot in time and money, and we don’t have a lot of either now.
The manageable concern is the backyard. The water tends to gather in certain places due to poor drainage, which I’m fairly certain I’ve exacerbated over the years. Still, it’s not a major issue. Or so I thought. But when the lower part of the deck stairs began wobbling back and forth, I realized there was a problem. The wood of that part of the staircase has rotted completely, leaving nothing in contact with the ground. I fixed that last week. Now it’s time to deal with the water problem because it’s also beginning to rot the exposed portion of the support posts.
The Boy and I took care of that today.
Well, we began taking care of it. We still have a lot of work to do, but at the very least, we have uncovered the posts to the concrete (why would you then shovel four inches of dirt on top of the concrete? don’t you know that just hastens rot?) and removed the outer eighth-inch of rotted wood.
While we worked on all of this, K did some repainting: she’s got a few doors done and some trim. It makes the rooms look new.
L did her share of work but stayed out of camera view. Until the evening, when she was watching an episode of one of her shows.
The Boy, by then, was sound asleep.
Sunday Orthography, Bugs, and Monopoly
The Trick
The Girl comes running in where I am working and asks, “Hey Dad, what does ‘t-w-a’ spell?”
“It stand for ‘Trans World Airlines,'” I reply.
“Really?”
“Yes.”
She shakes off mild frustration and fascination and continues, “But if it were a word, what would it spell? How would you say it?”
“Twa.”
“What does ‘t-w-e’ spell?”
“Nothing.”
“What would it spell?”
“Twe.”
“Say it three times.”
“No.”
“Come on.”
“Twe. Twe. Twe.”
“And ‘t-w-a’?”
“Twa.”
“And ‘t-w-e’?”
“Twe.”
“And ‘t-w-o’?”
I don’t fall for it. She gets frustrated.
Tuesday Adventures
We all woke up at seven this morning. For K, that was sleeping in half an hour; for me, that was my normal wake up time; for E, well, it depends; for L, it was definitely early. Our plan: a morning bike ride on a route that we repeat regularly to check for improvement. After mapping out a route, we headed out. I stuck with the Girl because I knew she would be zooming ahead; K stuck with the Boy because he just doesn’t have the stamina a thirteen-year-old possesses. L and I made the 7 km ride in 24 minutes, which means an average speed of 16 km/h. Not too bad for a then-fussy girl who didn’t even want to get out of bed to begin with.
After breakfast, the Boy and I set up his wooden train set to take some pictures: he wants to sell it (eBay? Facebook Marketplace? Craig’s List?) since he doesn’t play with it anymore.
Then we did the same with his Duplo blocks. “I haven’t touched those in years!” he proudly informed me. But after we just display them, we have to make something out of them.
One last time.
The afternoon passes with a lot of reading.
The Girl reads Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in its entirety for the second time. It’s the HP book I’ve agreed to read, so she wanted to get through it quickly so I could read it. I struggled through the end of Barnes’s Flaubert’s Parrot — a book I had high hopes for but which ultimately left me disappointed.
In the evening, the Girl played a game of chess with K while E and I went on another bike ride:
And throughout the day, I popped downstairs for the next lesson in the series on Photoshop compositing and ended this evening with this creation:
Next step — apply those newly-learned skills to pictures of my own kids…
Stay-cation
We were supposed to be leaving tomorrow for a small vacation with the family. It seems like a crazy idea to go out during a pandemic, but we were just going to the beach — easy enough to stay away from everyone, and since we were Airbnb-ing it, we wouldn’t even have to go inside restaurants or stores.
Then we realized K and I have chickenpox. How is it possible to have chickenpox during a pandemic that is forcing us to isolate ourselves? Well, we go to the store; K occasionally works with real estate clients; we have been going for hikes. During all of this, we take the appropriate CDC-recommended precautions.
Morning reading session
What’s more frustrating about it is that I’ve had them before. When my best friend came down with chickenpox our senior year, I was one of the friends who would drop by every day and tell him what he’d missed in school. I brought over R.E.M.’s newest release at the time (Out of Time). and we listened to it together.
Perhaps it was for the best, though — perhaps we were being idiots even for thinking about it. At any rate, the Airbnb host agreed to let us change the date and agreed to be very flexible about that new date, so we’ve theoretically lost nothing. Perhaps we gained more than we thought, though.
Composite play
Morning Hike
We’ve been doing more hiking lately. Three hikes in three weeks. Last week’s hike was a grueling seven-mile hike that included a fair amount of climbing. Today’s hike, in theory, seemed like it would be easier: 5.5 miles with only 1,000 feet of elevation gain.
In actuality, it was easier than even we anticipated. Much of the beginning of the hike was downhill, and then a substantial, flat portion around a lake.
Once we were halfway around the lake, we stopped for lunch and to let the dog romp about in the water and cool off.
And then the heat got to everyone. And the elevation got to E especially.
And the kids were just ready for the whole thing to be over.
Jones Gap
We’ve been trying for some time to make it to Jones Gap. The last time we tried, we were turned away because the park was already full. We made it today, though.
Just barely: 7 miles (the Fitbit died before we finished) and something like 1,300 feet of climbing. The kids loved it. Mostly.
K even took a few pics on her phone.
Graveyard Fields
We hiked Graveyard Fields off the Blue Ridge Parkway twice within six months thirteen years ago:
Graveyard Fields
Repeating Ourselves
K and I are certain we went a third time — though we think it was actually our first time. There’s no mention of it on MTS; I can’t find any pictures of that trip. Still, K and I are certain we went.
This morning, we went for the first time in about thirteen years. The last time we went, L looked like this
Today, when we made it to the same location, I had the Girl stand roughly in the same spot to take a picture:
Where did that little girl go? We’ll be asking the for the rest of our lives, I realize, but every time I ask that question again, I’m surprised again.
Mount Mitchell
K took the kids to meet with their Polish/American “cousins” to spend some time hiking in the Blue Ridge Mountains, specifically hiking up Mount Mitchell, the highest peak east of the Mississippi.
Late June Wednesday
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?
A Perfect Day
In the morning, a bike ride. The kids don’t really want to go, but it’s supposed to rain on and off throughout the day, and they need exercise, so I all but force them. L fusses about one thing; E has a wreck (due to his own carelessness) and ends up fussy for some time; I fuss about their fussing. It’s easy to get caught up in the negative and let it chart the day’s course for you if you’re not careful. Not deliberate.
So I try to make things a little more careful, a little more deliberate. We get back and spend a fair amount of time, just the three of us, working on our bikes’ brakes. They’re all squeaking and squawking like feral hogs tied to deranged cats. For each bike, we loosen everything — cables, brake pads, centering screws — and recalibrate everything. As we’re working, I like to think that the kids are enjoying learning something, but I’m not sure. In fact, I rather doubt it. But there’s still some value in this, even if it’s just spending time together solving a problem.
After dinner, the Girl decides she wants to play Hearts with Papa, K, and me. E is across the street playing with neighbors, and he’s not able to follow a game with tricks and trumps just yet, so we play just the four of us.
We play eight hands, and in a surprise — I never win at games — I destroy everyone. L is the nearest to me, and she has almost double the points I have.
After the Boy comes in, he suggests War — he’s just learned it, and he likes it. One of two card games (Uno being the other one) that he enjoys.
I take the opportunity to take a few pictures. In the end, I can’t decide between three action shots, so I include them all. And the other two shots? They’re winning hands the Boy is particularly proud of. In the first one, the Girl gives him rabbit ears; in the second, he’s wised up.
Once I put the Boy to bed, I grab L and take her down to watch a movie. It’s the second night we’ve done this. Last night, I showed her The Help. It’s a good sign when she wants the movie paused when she leaves to get a snack; last night, she paused it herself. Tonight we watch a quirky British romantic comedy, About Time. It’s about making the most of life by looking at each day as a treasure. We all need to be reminded of that from time to time, especially a thirteen-year-old and her cranky father.
A Fire
Croft and Berries
A little bike ride to start summer adventures:
And some blueberries.
