Sunday at Home
the girl
Lake Tillery 2022
Saturday, Late August
It's late August -- the time of year when cooler autumnal temperatures approach, but sometimes not quite fast enough. Daytime temperatures can still get up into the mid-90s, and summer's humidity still lingers, making it feel even warmer.
That's all fine and good if your HVAC system is working well. Sure, it might work a bit more than you would hope. The heavy heat of July is a thing of the past, and although it can be hot, late August usually brings a bit of a break for one's HVAC system and one's power bill compared to mid-July. Not much -- just a bit.
Still, we have a relatively high-efficiency system, and the difference I guess is no big savings. Five or ten bucks perhaps.
But then the system starts stalling, starts leaking coolant, and the indoor temperature climbs despite the temperature outside. Specialists arrive, investigate, diagnose, and give a $2,200 quote for fixing the system or $800 for a temporary bandaid.
"How long will it last?"
"A few months to a few years."
Cheap is expensive; lack of information leads to poor decisions. It lasts less than 24 hours. $800 for 20 hours of cooling.
More specialists arrive. They'll do the fix for about 75% of the other company's quote. We go for it. The system works for a couple of weeks, still showing some strain and problems but keeping the house comfortable.
And then the whole thing shuts down. Completely. When temperatures return to the mid-90s. And the company we've been working with doesn't work on the weekend, so we're stuck until Monday. And so you start researching things like this.
Our Games
The Boy's first games with his new soccer team took place today. It was a tough start to the season: 0-4 and 0-5 losses. I was expecting him to be terribly disappointed about it, but he was surprisingly stoic: "We have some things we need to fix, but we could be good."
The Girl's high school varsity team, for which L plays middle, won their first tournament today.
A day of contrasts.
First Day 2022
The Boy had a rough day of it: he's been in a multi-age classroom for four years, meaning he's been with the same group of people (mostly) for those four years. Fifth grade, though, doesn't have a multi-age program, so he's back out in the general population -- and none too thrilled about it. All his closest friends from the last four years -- all of them -- ended up in different classes. A few of them got grouped together, but none of them are in E's class. Which makes him less than thrilled about school after this first day.
We tried to help the Boy see things from a different perspective, but for the longest time, he just wasn't interested. It was going to be a disastrous year, he was sure of it. There was no way it could get better -- he was convinced. He might as well just switch to homeschool.
After some time in the pool and a lot of reassurance, he informed us on the way home that "all of Mama's speeches" had made him a little more excited about tomorrow.
As for the Girl, she sat down in the car after volleyball practice, looked at me, and said, "Guess what we have in English class?" I raised my eyebrows in anticipation. "Articles of the week!"
I've been giving my students an article of the week for almost ten years now. It's one of the most effective tools I use.
"Do you know what this is?" one of the Girl's friends asked her.
"Yes," she whispered back. "I've been grading them for years." Which is dramatic sounding, and it probably got a laugh, but it's not quite true. I've had her checking multiple choice questions, adding up the points, and using my scale to determine and write the grade on the paper, but that's not really grading them.
"Same difference!" L playfully huffed when I pointed this out.
Final Full Day
Today was the last full day K and L will be here. Tomorrow afternoon we head to K's brother's house for a grill and a short nap before taking the girls to the airport at the ungodly hour of 4:00 am.
Today, we went to Spytkowice to visit with a few people we hadn't seen at all or had seen only shortly.
And of course, there was the lovely drive home.
But the highlight of the day came at the start of the day, so to speak -- before taking Babcia out for a final lunch, we had a short photo session.
The Boy took a picture.
I took a picture of the three generations of ladies.
But the picture of the day, in some ways the picture of the whole trip thus far, was a quick, informal portrait session with Babcia.
Babia Gora
I lived at the base of Babia Gora for seven years and only once tried to reach the summit. Shortly after that, I injured my knee while hiking in the Tatra Mountains. Some time after that, when my knee had healed, I injured the other knee. And so I never made it to the top of Babia. Until today.
Here's some video showing just how windy it was at the top.
Pyzowka
I keep repeating myself: X is always a highlight of our time in Polska. When you come here only every few years, I guess everything becomes a highlight. Still, going to Pyzowka to visit K’s dearest friend D and her family has to count as a highlight no matter how you define it.
D is the type of friend you have that, no matter how much time has passed since your last visit, the years disappear in an instant and except for the topics of conversation, your relationship feels little different than it did when you were in high school together. These days, you might talk about the cost of your child applying to college versus the cost of your child going to college if you lived in the states. You might talk about friends that only one of you has seen in the last twenty years and how they’ve changed or not changed. You might talk about the cost of heating your house this year as opposed to last year. These are discussions your parents would have had years ago, but now you have them.
Before you know it, your children will be having them as well. But for now, your children are happy jumping on the trampoline and playing with a puppy. The cost of heating is as distant to them as it was to you when you were their age. They hear your discussions, but they don’t pay much attention to them.
Then again, neither did you.
Bowling and Cards
Traveling always risks bad weather; coming to Poland, for us it seems, just about guarantees it. After several lovely days (how many? four? five?), it's supposed to rain. Every day. For the rest of K's and L's stay in Poland.
Still, we make the most of what we've got, like using leftover meat from rosol to make pierogi for lunch, or using the rainy weather to chop a little wood for Babcia.
After lunch we met with K's brother's family for some more bowling. This time, we took two lanes, and the adults played as well. That was a mistake: my long-injured finger began aching again, and I made it through two frames before I decided that it might be less painful to have my finger in a vice than roll even the lightest bowling ball available.
Afterward, we all headed back to Babcia's for games and conversation. Hearing the cousins laugh and argue and joke together is a lovely bit of chaos.
And finally, I talked the girls into the first of several photo recreations. The original image is from 2008, when L was a year and a half old and S was a year older. They barely fit into the tub together now.
Wypasiona Dolina Plus
There was so much more -- so much more -- today that, at 11:59, I don't care to cover. But this was the most insignificant event of the day.
