All Together Now

It doesn't happen very often, but when it does, we take note of it. There is hope for the future.

Children, especially those of the teen-aged persuasion, often have difficulty tolerating the presence of their younger siblings. Children with completely different personalities often suffer from the same malady. As the children have aged, their ability to remain in the presence of each other has seriously declined, often to the point that dinnertime and Bible reading time are the only periods during the day where it might be possible to see them all gathered in the same room at the same time.Except ... lately, they've been gathering around the living room table playing this card game. You know the one; the cards contain little plastic ships which must be popped out of the card and put together in a kind of 3-D effect, then the ships 'sail' around, blowing each other up while transporting gold from one island to another. The 'sea' is the table top.


I never took much to the game due to the fact that there are too many of those "special" rules which must be remembered. That's probably true of most games, which is also why I'm not much into games in general. I don't like remembering rules. OK, I admit it: my memory is so bad, I can barely remember the rules for checkers. And it is certainly not high on my list of joyous things to be constantly reminded of the rules by those whose brains seem to be built for that sort of thing.

But it's nice to see the kids playing together, even though sometimes there are some rather heated discussions regarding things like ... rules. It's a mark of their maturity that they can actually see the games all the way through to the end, even when the don't necessarily agree with all the rules as they play out.

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Meanwhile, Cheryl sits over on the other couch, reading her favorite blogs and enjoying the sound of the children playing, and every once in a while, she'll start laughing about something; and then she has to bring over her laptop to show us what she's found. It's a nice bit of entertainment while the kids are playing.

The Anniversary Flood

What a way to celebrate an anniversary.

Picture this: You're at Home Depot, trying to remember the size of the air filters you need for your central air conditioning system. You call up your spouse on the phone. "Dear, can you run downstairs and check the size of the filter we need? I've forgotten." (Don't worry about the memory problem. It's all part of my Altzheimer's plan.)

Klunk-klunk-klunk-klunk as she goes down the stairs to the basement. The sound of metal scraping as she pulls the cover off, cardboard sliding as she pulls out the old filter. A pause. Then ...

"There's water on the floor."

Those are words I don't like to hear. At all. Not after spending so many hours putting down the subfloor. It was only a few weeks ago that the sump pump failed and we had water attempting to flood the basement. Luckily we caught it in time. But this time ... too late! There was already water all over the place!

This is the reason we put in the 'floating' subfloor. One-quarter inch of corrugated vinyl base with half an inch of particle board (or chip-board or whatever you call it) flooring on top, so the air can circulate beneath the floor and (hopefully) keep mildew from forming. 2' by 2' panels which snap together like so many Legos. So even if there is water underneath the floor, it won't destroy everything in its path.

It would've worked, too, if the depth of the water hadn't been such that it wicked up between some of the edges of the panels, causing the wood to swell up. I'll assume from this fact that the water was at least a quarter-inch deep, if not deeper in places.

At least it was easy to tell which panels were damaged. Had to rip 'em out, apply the Wet-Vac to the floor, suck up all the water I could find, then put the fans on and leave 'em on for a few days. They're still on, as a matter of fact.

What bothers me, almost as much as how they build houses around here which depend on electrical sump pumps to keep their basements from flooding, is that the central air unit wasn't put on a piece of sloping concrete so any leaks would roll on down to the sump instead of heading the other direction towards the office. Whassup with that? You figure there's this massive evaporator coil which drips water all summer long down this drain pipe, and if this drain pipe should happen to get blocked up, it's gonna back up to the spill point and then overrun down the side of the unit, and that will end up on the floor, right? So, just like people put their water heaters next to the sump, with a slight slope in that direction, why not do the same with the a/c?

Nope, guess that makes too much sense.

Took a couple days to get all the water pulled up, and, like I said, the fans are still on. I'm gonna hafta pull down some walls to remove some of the damaged panels, 'cause there are interior walls sitting on 'em. Looks like it's gonna be a fun weekend.

Oh, yeah, the anniversary.

Well, it wasn't one of the most romantic kind of anniversaries we've ever had, but we take these things in stride. Eighteen years of putting up with me, with four kids to show for it, you figure Cheryl's used to this kind of thing. I guess the first house, which was almost as old as me, was enough of an experience that she figured it out. I thank God every day for her understanding and patience.

After I get a few things back under control, I'm gonna take a day off and we're going to go someplace, just the two of us, and have a real celebration. With chocolate.

Behold the Bug

I think it's a Queen, but I'm not sure. It's big, that's all I know. Hornet? Wasp? Who knows?

Strange, the things that get caught up in a window screen when there's a little tear in it. Wasps, bees, mosquitoes ... and this monstrosity. Enough to give a kid nightmares.

Can you tell the scale of the thing? It's nearly the size of my little finger. About as long, nearly as fat. And that stinger! Yikes! I tapped on the glass a couple times, just to see what she'd do. She raised her little stinger up in the air, ready to strike. That's one time I was glad to have a sheet of glass between me and Bugland.

I hope James doesn't name it and try to keep it as a pet.

Iowa

We had a wonderful time in Iowa. It was hot, humid, and a very long drive to get there, but Sandra's house was roomy and comfortable, there was plenty to keep the kids busy (trampoline + video games), and it was pleasant to just sit around for a couple of days.

If only there wasn't the nagging in the back of my head for all the work I wasn't getting done.

And I'm not talking the work I wanted to do around the house; I'm talking the work back at the office which should never have entered into my consciousness while "on vacation". There's some major flaw in my brain that won't allow me to relax while there's things left to do at work. The problem is, once you run out of things to do at work, you get laid off. And that's bad.

I spent a few hours working on office-related things, updating some documents and sending emails, but most of the time was spent looking around at my niece and nephew and wondering, "Where did all the time go?" They've gotten so big now. They're nearly grown-ups.

OK, except for some of the facial expressions. That's not so grown-up. Which is good, because I'm not ready for them to be grown up yet.

It was fun watching the girls on the trampoline, just on the other side of the fence from the dogs (who were barking it up and having a blast watching them, too).

It was fun playing baseball with the kids in the hot Iowa summer sun.Although even in the high grass where we searched for the missing baseballs, I never found a tick like I'd hoped. (Ah, memories of elementary school recess in Harrison, Arkansas, where we had tick races on our desks after racing through the woods.)

It was fun bowling with both families.

It was fun watching the boys climb up and down the rock wall at the activity center, although I was doing well just to make it up six or seven feet. The boys actually did the rope stuff.

And it was fun watching them all play cards in the evening, listening to the sound of silly laughter and good, old-fashioned round-the-table fun.

That's the best part of vacation, just listening to the family chatter and the laughter and enjoying each other's company. Can't wait til the next time!

Having Fun in Iowa

Waking up on the first day of "vacation" is always a bit odd, thinking that there is really nothing to do, nothing on the schedule; that it is actually possible to sit around the house and do nothing if nothing is what you intend to do. I was hoping to get a few things done, but nothing absolutely critical to the success of the Universe. Maybe spend some time working on the laptop, maybe some time watching television.

Maybe spend some time playing baseball with the kids.

Iowa

We didn't go to Yellowstone this year because there just wasn't enough money in the till, after adding in the gas and lodging and food and entertainments (you can't escape the Gift Shop without the Plushy Bison, you know). But there seemed to be enough to push through a trip to Iowa to visit sister Sandra, so off we went!

At six o'clock in the morning.

(We were up and packing the car by five. Thanks for the example, Dad!)

One day of very hot driving later, we arrived in Sioux City. It was h-h-h-h-hot. And h-h-h-h-humid. Difficult to breathe.

We found Sandra's new place, way out in the country, with no trouble at all. Pretty little place, back in the hill country. Nice country house. Got inside, let the cousins start playing together, then sitting around eating dinner. Taking it easy.

Ah, it's nice to just sit around out here and think and write. Might actually get around to completing something this weekend while the girls go out on a Day Out and the boys go out and do whatever it is they are going to do. I'm going to sit here and veg.