Happy Birthday Again, Cheryl!

Surely there is nothing more fun than having a second birthday party!

OK, yesterday's wasn't really a birthday party exclusively for Cheryl.  It was really a delayed Christmas party. Which isn't fair to Cheryl, since her birthday is so close to Christmas (the day after!).  So we decided to surprise her with her very own birthday party. One day late. Which goes along with our family theme of "Procrastination Rules!".

I don't normally like surprises, but in this case, I made an exception.  Because it's fun to surprise someone with love and fun and joy every so often. Keeps things from getting boring. And - believe me - I can be the most boring person on the planet when I want to.

So with a lot of help from the family, I found a convenient excuse to get Cheryl out of the house (we went shopping down at the mall) until such a time as it was "safe" to come back, at which time we walked into the house and -

"Surprise!!"

Happy Birthday, Cheryl!

(Again)

Happy Birthday, Cheryl!

Today is Cheryl's birthday!  Let's celebrate by giving gifts! First, let's give a bunch of stuff to Kelly!
 

That was fun! Now let's give a bunch of flying videos to Shane!

(There were a bunch of other gifts given out, too, but I didn't get any good pictures of those...)

After all the gifts are given, it's time for fun & games ... and surfing the net.

Texas Trip - Part 3

Waking up in a strange house is usually a disconcerting experience, but in this case, it was heavenly.  The little (?) apartment above the shop was warm, quiet, cozy and comfortable.  It was a struggle to get out of that bed.  Which may explain why I was so late getting down for breakfast.

The kids slept in a bit.  Mostly.  Dad was up early, as usual.  After an hour or two - or three? - of puttering around with breakfast, we ended up around the table looking at something on the Internet.  That seems to be the modern way of things, these days.  Networking with the world through the laptops / iPods / iPads / i Phones. Not a lot of conversations, normally, but we made do.  As you can tell, we had a wonderful time.  What were we looking at?  (Probably cat videos.)

Not sure what Mary was talking about here, but she inserted her patented air-quotes to whatever it was. She's going to be a professor some day. Or a politician.  An honest politician, of course.

Shane asked me at one point if I wanted to go over to Dallas for a while to visit a flight simulator. He's applying for an FAA position and wanted to re-familiarize himself with a particular aircraft.  Sure. Twist my arm to see if I want to go to an airport and hang out near a simulator.  (Didn't take much twisting at all, as you can imagine.)

So we went.  Drove all the way from Abilene to Dallas, hung out at the FBO yakking with the instructors, then went outside to sit in a dual Cessna Citation to stare at the controls and pretend we were flying.  Then it was time to go back inside to the simulator where a real instructor took him through a simulated flight test to prepare for the real thing.

Then we drove all the way back to Abilene.

Then I got sick.

All night long.

Ick.

Texas Trip - Part 2

We made it to the Preston's on Saturday night after a not-quite-so-long day of driving. We had been hoping to get there early enough to enjoy some relaxation time, time for the cousins to hang out, time for the adults to recover.  And we did.  There was still light in the sky when we drove into town. The roads were a bit snowy, the driving a bit treacherous, the neighborhood road signs a bit cryptic. So there was a definite sense of relief when we saw Judy and Rebekah standing in the Preston driveway waving us in.

It was nice to sit and chat and eat and just hang out, catching up on all the life that has been going on over in Kansas since the last time we had a chance to see them. It was also nice to curl up with a good book from Shane and read quietly about glider pilots in World War 2 before my eyes got so heavy I couldn't keep them open.

The kids had fun with the cousins, there was good food and good books to read, and it was nice knowing we didn't have to rush off in the morning to spend hours and hours on the road.  Instead, we got up at a reasonable hour, had a bit of breakfast, then got all gussied up and went to church, then came home to have a nice lunch before rushing off in the afternoon to spend hours and hours on the (icy) road on the way to Grandma & Grandpa Meyer's house.

The road from Derby to Wichita Falls was icy. The vegetation on the side of the road was shimmering like diamonds, coated with ice. 

There were lots of cars and trucks along the side of the road, victims of the slippery conditions. We drove very carefully and didn't have any difficulty. The kids napped, listened to the audiobook we were (still) listening to, and sat quietly thinking deep thoughts.

The sunset was gorgeous!

We arrived in Abilene late in the evening. It was so nice to finally get there.

Texas Trip - Part 1

We had originally planned on leaving early on Saturday morning and driving all day to get to the Preston's house, but the weather forecast was calling for icy conditions so we jumped the gun and left Friday afternoon instead. Cheryl found us a nice motel about halfway along near Springfield, Illinois, which made for a pleasant, not-nearly-so-long-as-we-expected trip of only six or seven hours. Tolerable. Especially with a good audio book to listen to.

The kids went with Cheryl to the library at one point during the week and picked up several audio books; they chose "The Pathfinder" by Orson Scott Card to start with. Orson Scott Card used to be one of my favorite authors back when he wrote "Ender's Game" as a short story (mid 80's), but then when he lengthened it into a book and then a trilogy, with subsequent plot complications and philosophical mumbo-jumbo, I lost interest. I still look at his website occasionally, but only to get riled up at his pretentiousness. He fancies himself as a food and music connisseur, which he may be; but his tone rubs me the wrong way.

Anyway - we had a quiet, uneventful ride out and stopped at our lovely little motel which was out in the middle of nowhere and barely populated by any other guests. A nice Indian couple apparently run it. The weather is getting bad and the parking lot was icy, which doesn't bode well for travel tomorrow. Likely we'll run into a lot of ice on the road.

But for now, a little shut-eye and a bit of complimentary continental breakfast in the morning, and we'll be on our way again.

Post-Play Cleanup

As the set designer and prop builder for the middle school play (My Son Pinocchio), I spent a lot of time in my shop during the months of October and November trying out some prototype designs and generally making a mess of what had been (mostly) a neat, orderly room.

In the flurry of activity preceding dress rehearsal week, it was impossible to keep things neat and tidy because there was no time to put things away.

During the final two or three days preceding (and including) Opening Night, things got really crazy. Saws spinning, sawdust flying, fasteners tightened/un-tightened/discarded, paint fumes filling the air.

It was chaos.

Shop - Before

Bench - Before

But now that it is all over (whew!) it's time to clean up the shop.

First up, the floor has got to be cleared off. There's all this 'extra' lumber from the prototypes that were built (and subsequently un-built). There is no place to stack the lumber down here on the main floor, so it has to go up in the loft. That's my main lumber storage area.

Any of the pieces that are useful in their new form - the box frames, for example - will be left as they are. The others are just lumber (even though they have screw holes and pencil marks and paint on them) that can be stacked for the next project.

Next comes the bench, where most of the work was done. Lots of scrap pieces on there, along with a lot of sawdust. And tools. I can't really do much with the tools, yet, since there isn't a place to put them. Too many tools, not enough tool cabinets. So they can just sit there for awhile.

After the tools are moved out of the way, the little brush is used to sweep the sawdust into the bin where it will be stored for later use. (It works great as extra traction on snow.)

Shop - After

Bench - After

After it's all done, it's time to relax for all of five minutes -- because now we're off on our Texas Adventure!

Birds of Winter

The birds of winter are back.

The snow came earlier than I had expected this year, but we've had it easy these last few years and it is about time we got back to the normal Michigan winters where the snow comes in November and doesn't leave til April (or May).

Those first few years, we did a lot of shoveling in a vain attempt to keep some semblance of normality in our day-to-day travels. Keeping the driveway clear so we didn't slip and fall on our duffs.  Even bought one of those fancy-dancy "snow-blowers" (although technically it's a "snow-thrower") so we could keep up with the Joneses. But they aren't quite as useful as we had hoped.  For one, they're extremely loud. And the 2-cycle engines are horribly inefficient. And they put out horrid exhaust fumes. And they can only be used on fresh powdery snow at temperatures below freezing. You can try to use them on packed or wet snow, but you're just asking for trouble. They really aren't built for handling anything heavier (or firmer) than powder. Leastways our cheap Home Depot special isn't.

Now we take it as it comes. Manually. Shoveling a bit here and a bit here, throwing sand out to give us some extra traction. Avoiding salt if we can (because of the rapid oxidation of car metal in the presence of salts). Wearing good boots. And avoiding unnecessary travel.

So we spend our days mostly sitting in the nice warm family room and looking through the windows at the birds out in the trees as they try to locate something to eat in the desolate landscape. The trees still have a lot of fruit on them from the autumn. But that won't last long. Another couple of weeks and the squirrels and birds will have the trees emptied of nearly everything. Then the deer will come along and nibble on the lower branches.

Fridge Repair Made Easy

Just for the sake of argument, let's say you have a fridge. You know, one of those cold boxes where you put things you want to keep around for awhile. Like sandwiches. And mayonnaise. And milk, if you have the stomach for it.

So you're happy with your little cold box because it keeps things nice and cold, including the double-chocolate fudge ice cream you bought at the store even though you couldn't really afford it (and if your kids find out, it's going to be vanish in an instant). It's a nice box. White. Cold. Boxy.

Then one day, it starts leaking down inside the not-quite-so-cold section (the section beneath the very-cold-section). And you are afraid that something has gone drastically wrong with your fridge. Something bad. Something fatal. After all, dripping usually means that something is melting. And melting usually indicates that something is not quite as cold as it is supposed to be (unless it is Spring outside, and the melting something is the icecicles which go from your roof to your driveway, in which case you really want them to melt).

You put little glass bowls in the not-quite-so-cold section to catch the drips of water, but this pathetic attempt at 'fixing' is nothing more than a band-aid, a patch, a delaying action. It won't work for long (unless you like puddles in your fridge). So now you have to get serious. It's time for Fridge Repair!

And I'll show you how to make it very easy.

In the Very-Cold Section, Before

First, take everything out of your fridge and put it in your teenaged son's room. This will guarantee that nothing goes bad, because the fridge will need to be turned off for awhile and it will not be able to keep things cool. If you happen to have a second fridge lying around, you could put all the stuff in the other fridge, but why go to all the trouble of plugging it in and putting all the stuff in it when your teenaged son could take care of it for you? Besides, once he's done with it, you'll have a good excuse to go out to the grocery store and buy newer, fresher stuff. You didn't really want to eat all those leftovers anyway, did you? (Stop fussing about the ice cream already! You can always buy more.)

Once all the clutter is out, pull the fridge out away from the wall and unplug it. You don't want to be taking things apart inside the fridge with the power on. Really.

Oh! You'll need some tools, too. Get a good socket set. Better yet, get one of those 1/4-inch hand sockets. You know, the one that looks like a screwdriver except it has a socket on the end instead of a flat blade or Phillips cross. Most fridges use socket screws to hold the paneling on. Yours is probably not an exception.

Tray Removed

Open the top fridge door, the one in front of the very-cold (or was a minute ago) section. Take out the tray in the middle. (You won't need the socket to do that.) It might be a bit tricky because you can't just pull it straight out. You have to pull up on one side - the one opposite the ice tray - and kind of angle it up as you pull it out. Don't force it. It's not rocket science.

Ice Maker Removed

Now take out the ice maker. (You'll need the socket for that.) There are three screws holding the ice maker in place: two above and one below. You may have to stick your head inside the fridge to see where they are. Do NOT get your head stuck in the fridge. That would be very embarrassing.

Note that you'll also have to un-plug the electric cable which goes from the back of the fridge to the ice maker. This may be tricky, as you have to press something on the connector to get it to release. I can't help you there. I don't know what kind of connect you might have, exactly. Do I look like a mind-reader to you?

Bottom Plate Removed

Now you can remove the bottom plate. There are (typically) four socket screws which are holding the bottom plate down. Use the socket drive to get 'em out. Then the bottom plate should come right up after this. You may have to wiggle it a bit. Or not. Depends on how much ice cream has managed to find its way between the bottom plate and the section footer. Or ice. The bottom plate is metal, though, so it should be relatively easy to wiggle it free.

Don't whap it with a hammer to loosen it. You might damage something. Note that I didn't list 'Hammer' in the list of tools.

Ice Maker Cable Protector Removed

There's this little piece of plastic up there by the hole where the ice maker cable comes through. The "Ice Maker Cable Protector", I call it. (I have no idea what the manufacturer calls it.) You should probably remove it now. Why didn't I have you remove it before the bottom plate? I don't know. It just didn't occur to me.

When you remove it, notice that there is a wire clip attached to the metal of the rear protective cover. That provides a ground connection to the rear protective cover so that anything connected to it is also grounded. You'll need to remove it in order to remove the Rear Protective Cover. Don't ask questions! Just do it!

Rear Protective Cover Removed

Now you'll need to remove all the screws holding the Rear Protective Cover on. There's only two of 'em. Not that difficult.

Once you've removed the screws, the Rear Protective Cover can be finagled off. Carefully. You don't want to bend any of the condensor coils!

Now you can see it all, the machinery behind the madness. Er, coolness. The evaporator coils, which fill with freezing liquid; the fan which blows the air through the coils, the catch plate below the coils where the water drips during the defrost cycle and then drains out. The weirdly-shaped styrofoam blocks which seem to be plugging up the air vents.

Oh, good grief! Take those silly things out. But don't break 'em. You'll need to put them back in later.

Where did the styrofoam things go?

You might see now that there are two little screws holding the evaporator coils to the back of the fridge. You'll need to finagle the socket driver back between the coils (carefully!) to loosen 'em up. That will free up the coils to move forward, because you'll need to get it out of the way (slightly) in order to proceed to the next step. But be VERY CAREFUL with those coils. The fins are very thin and you don't want to bend 'em because that will block the airflow and cause a local cold spot which may result in a block of ice forming on the coils. Bad, bad, bad. Also, don't break any of the coils! You'll lose all the refrigerant and have to buy a new fridge. Or worse, file an EPA statement.

Once the coils have been moved SLIGHTLY out of the way, you can remove the metal drain pan -- the metal liner thingie underneath the coils. That's the drain pan.  You might notice that it's covered in ice - or very cold water. You might need to blow hot air in there. After all, that's the problem, isn't it? Something isn't draining down the back tube, instead filling up the bottom plate and dripping down into the not-quite-so-cold section. I suspect the drain hole is clogged.

Drain Pan Removed, Ready to Clear Drain!

Grab your handy-dandy hair dryer now and blast the used-to-be-freezing section with hot air. Melt all the ice. Does it drain out? No? Well, you've found the problem. The main drain hole - which goes down into a tube that runs from the used-to-be-freezing section to the bottom of the fridge where the hot evaporator coils can dry up all the water - is clogged. Hmmm... clogged with what, though? Do you notice a lot of debris that is floating around on the catch plate? That's probably it. See, it only takes a little bit of debris to clog up the hole -- just enough to cause a minor obstruction, back up the water a tad, and then freeze. Kind of a stupid design, if you think about it. The defrost heater is the long tube wired in underneath the coils. Since it can't heat down inside the drain tube, any obstruction will cause problems.

But if you use the hot air to melt the ice, then heat up the resulting water so that it drains down the tube, it will generally drive all the debris all the way to the bottom of the fridge, and then you're home free.

If you are able to mop up most of the debris-filled ice/water beforehand, all the better. You really don't want the debris to go down the drain tube if you can help it, because that might clog things up later on. You're better off to catch it in a paper towel or something and toss it in the garbage.

VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: Do not under any circumstances hold the hot air blower near any plastic surface on the fridge. The trim panels on the side are plastic and will deform under the heat of a blow dryer. ANY PLASTIC SURFACE WILL DEFORM IF HEATED TOO MUCH. So focus the hot air on the metal surface of the bottom of the very-cold section of the fridge. FOCUS FOCUS FOCUS!

(Unfortunately, I speak from experience...)

Once the clogged drain hole has been un-clogged of ice and debris, it should flow easily and you can then put everything back the way it was. Just go in reverse order. And don't forget the styrofoam tubes! They're there for a reason.

Thanksgiving 2013

The snow is so quiet lying on the ground like a picnic blanket. Since it's Thanksgiving, though, we're not going to eat outside.  Too cold!

Instead, we're going to sit inside where the air is warm, the food is delicious, the conversation is fresh and interesting, and our friends are just arriving.

(Yes, we put sand on the sidewalk so no one would slip!)

Family Games

Gathering family together is always an adventure, especially when it has been so long since we were all in one place at the same time. The Whiteads traveled a far distance to spend time with us, to enjoy our Michigan weather, our dramatic children, some good food, and a few hilarious games around the dining room table.

Scattergories is always a fun game for a large group. Even more so when the group is able to laugh at/with one another, in humility, love and understanding of our limitations. Those of the older set understand when those of the younger set don't get the references, and those of the younger set understand (mostly) when those of the older set can't remember that word that's right on the tip of their tongue.

Then a rousing session of Apples to Apples gets everyone laughing (and arguing) over the sheer nonsense that comes out when people try to put disparate ideas together in order to make sense out of it all.

Everyone is in good fun, and there is lots of good food (desserts!) to sweeten even the most sour of defeats.

The Princess Bride - Final Performance

It isn't often that we'll attend a play for more than one performance, but when one of the lead actors is our son, we'll make an exception.

And it helps that his aunt, uncle and cousin are in town.

So we all came out to see the final performance of the show tonight. The Whiteads were going to be seeing it for the first time, so they had the advantage of not knowing what it was going to be like (except for the rather large hints we dropped about the parts we especially liked). We were looking forward to seeing the differences in the performances, to see what had been changed between Thursday's and Saturday's shows, especially when we had noticed one or two things that hadn't gone as planned.

James's performance was nearly the same; that is, there was nothing to change, as he had already nailed the character on the first night, so the only detectable changes were those due to his environment: slight differences in timing of the dialogue, placement of the set pieces, actions of other characters.

The set didn't fall apart this time, so Wesley and Inigo didn't have to rebuild it on the fly during their epic swordfight on the cliff.

The Whiteads enjoyed the performance, and then we all went home and enjoyed some dessert. Except James, who had to attend the Cast Party.Which is, after all, the most important part of the play for those who participate.

One wonders, perhaps, if he was thinking of the festivities afterward as he posed so nonchalantly against the castle wall, or if he was pondering his next line. He made it look so easy! I'm persuaded to believe that he had the part down so well that he was able to think of other things even while in character.

The Princess Bride - Opening Night

It is still a mystery. What drives a perfectly sane person to become involved in Theater Arts?

James has always been a stable person, devoted to music and art and drawing and animation and jazz. Nice, normal activities which are well-grounded in mathematics and logic.

Then comes this play, and suddenly he's all dressed up in Elizabethan garb, spouting ridiculous lines like, "If you haven't got your health, you haven't got anything."

Really!

His mother and I hold ourselves responsible for this bizarre behavior; after all, our wedding theme was The Princess Bride (although we didn't dress up in Elizabethan garb or carry swords around). We've forced our children to watch the movie countless times. We quote it endlessly, at the most inopportune (and random) times. It is no wonder that our children's minds have become infected by it.

Still - does that explain our second-eldest's desire to participate in the Fall Play as a dramatis personae, something which he has only done before in front of a camera, not before a live audience? Does he not realize the risks? The opportunities for making a fool of one's self? The possibilities of (gulp!) forgetting one's lines?  And having to (double-gulp!) improvise?

I suppose he does. Opening night was a complete success (other than the moment when part of the set fell apart - but the brave actors merely shrugged and put it back together without breaking stride). We were all impressed with young James's interpretation of the villainous Count Rugen. He had the character captured perfectly.

We were all so very relieved to see him get his just desserts.

Speaking of which, anyone for ice cream after the show?

Senior Night

Senior Night is the Friday night at the football game when the seniors on the football team and in the Marching Band are honored by having their pictures taken with their parents and presenting their mothers with roses and then forcing them to stand out in front of everyone so the audience can clap and yell "Hooray!" and remember how many years it's been since they were Seniors, on the cusp of the "real world", ready to leave High School and move on to bigger and better things.

 

It is also the night when the Seniors get a chance to look back on the year so far and realize that it won't be very long before all this fun and games with the instrument playing and marching and wearing slick uniforms and going to competitions is going to come to a dramatic end because they're going to have to come up with a real career and a real life that won't involve dressing up in fancy outfits every Friday evening and going to a stadium full of screaming football fans and trying to avoid being run over by three hundred pound fullbacks who don't care that it's supposed to be the band's turn out on the field.

It's also the night when little sisters (although not quite so little anymore) realize that it won't be very long before her big brother will be moving on and moving out, getting a life and getting a career that will not involve dressing up in a fancy uniform and marching around a little faux-grass field, while she still has two more years of this very interesting activity to go.

No wonder she doesn't look pleased.

Stairway to Heaven

One day, I got a really odd idea in my head. Winter was on the way, and I realized that we'd have to move all those lovely plants off the back deck, where they were elegantly draped across the railings (in these really cool planter boxes Cheryl had found at the store which are designed to straddle 2x4s). I wanted to keep the plants alive, if possible, but the only way to do that, was to bring them indoors and put them in a place with lots of sunshine.

There aren't a lot of windows on the southern side of the house, and none with any kind of mounting platform which the planter boxes could straddle.

But there was this big blank spot in the kitchen where the kitchen table used to be, right in front of the sliding glass door.  Perfect!

So all I needed was a structure which could hold all the planters in a kind of vertical stack in front of the sliding glass door.  Some kind of stair-step structure, so that one plant wouldn't cast shadows on the ones behind it.

Something like ... a ladder!

So that's what I created, over the course of an afternoon. A plant ladder. It isn't yet "done" yet. Since it's going to get water spilled on it occasionally, it will need some kind of water-proofing. And I'd like to set up some kind of auto-watering / auto-draining pump on it so it won't require a lot of attention. 

But it's a start.

The Drum Major

It is difficult to fully embrace the thought that my son, James, is a Drum Major. This is due to the fact that I possess a full set of memories which go back to the time when he was a mischievous little boy with a sly smile who was always up to something.

We only caught him at it a few times, but we know he was always up to something.

Now he marches in a white uniform with a beard and highway patrolman sunglasses and looks oh so grown-up and polished and responsible and confident. And he directs a large group of his peers as they march and strut and gambol around the football field, wielding their instruments in a performance that brings the crowd to their feet.

How is this possible? When did he suddenly become this Drum Major person?

He does have a presence when he marches onto the field, a sense of Being There that commands attention, that focuses their eyes on the motion of his arms as they swing up and down, to and fro, keeping the beat, keeping the time, keeping them all in step, in sync, in rhythm.

The sight of it brings a thrill to my heart. It is nothing that I would ever dared dream for myself in my long-lost days of high school, though I craved the pleasure of the crowd and the sound of applause in my own way. And it is an odd feeling to look out on the field and see someone you know, someone whose life has been witnessed by you in such detail from tiny infant to nearly-adult, seemingly cast in a role that is so remote from your own experience.  Realizing yet again that they are a completely different human being at the beginning of their own journey, and who knows where they will go?

So I sit back and watch the show.

Serenity II

I saw her on craigslist on a Friday morning and my heart started beating faster, so fast I could feel it against my chest. It was Serenity, or as near to Serenity as I had seen in a long time.  But I knew this could not be true; my Serenity was still in the garage, patiently awaiting her heart transplant, covered in dust and regret.  And this, her twin, was obviously hale and hearty - or, at least, mobile.

Cheryl and I had talked about it, this need to get something running quickly. The boys had their cars, Cheryl had her van, and I had only my sad little Serenity. Without something to drive myself, it would be necessary to catch a ride with someone else. Not outside the realm of possibilities, but terribly inconvenient and out of everyone's way. So she needed to be fixed. Or sold.

It had been my intention to take my car into the shop and see how much it was going to cost to get her running; I suspected a great deal more than I could afford. The engine was ready to drop in, but would still need a complete check-out before attempting to ignite the cylinders.  The brakes had been cannibalized for the red car.  The exhaust system was piled in a corner of the garage awaiting the acquisition of a welder. Little things here and there add up to a lot of money at $100/hr.

But this car, this twin, was already running. And available.  It was possible to go right over to the seller and lay down money and drive away. Instantly.  It was just a matter of money.

I sat and thought about it for several minutes before my emotions completely overwhelmed my intellect, and I called Cheryl on the phone and told her what I had found. She agreed that it was a reasonable solution (and a reasonable price). So I called the seller. It was still for sale. I told him I would come to see it. He said there were other interested parties. I told him I would come to see it right away. Then I called Cheryl again, and she got the financial wheels rolling (so to speak) so that we could pay for it that very afternoon (she's a miracle-worker, if you didn't already know that). And she arranged to leave early from her office to come pick me up so that we could go up and see the car.

We went. The car had the usual rust spots, but it was very clean overall. We took it for a test drive - all the way to the credit union, where we obtained the money necessary to make the sale. We drove it back. We went into the seller's little office. (It turns out he was a dealer, although the craigslist item was in the owner-only section. I didn't make a fuss about that.) We handed him our money. He handed us the paperwork to sign. Several signatures later, we had our third Subaru.

While we were in the office, two other families stopped by to ask about the Subaru. Apparently the seller had been telling the truth. They were all greatly disappointed to find out that the car had already been sold. I still feel kind of guilty about that, especially for the families with young kids who have never experienced the joy of owning a Subaru. But ... first come, first served.

The best part was being able to drive a stick shift again. All the other cars are automatic; this one is a 5-speed.  Oh, the feel of a clutch on my feet again! And my hand gripping a shifter! The utter sense of control! Pure bliss.

I had to pop the hood again when we got home, just to look at the engine compartment (my favorite place). It isn't the EJ25 like in Serenity.  This one is Serenity's smaller cousin, the EJ22.  More durable, better mileage, or so I've been told. Not as much power, but who needs all that power when all I'm doing is driving a few miles to work? It's not like I'm doing any off-road racing.

Yet.

Pearfectly Delicious!

One of the wonderful characteristics of my wife - and there are many of them! - is that she is willing to do some things the old-fashioned way.  She comes of good pioneer stock, you know.  Not afraid to do a bit of hard work to accomplish her goals, even when it might be easier to take shortcuts.

Home canning is one of those things that's good to know how to do, and one of those life skills that are important to pass down from generation to generation. It isn't really necessary for us suburban folks who can quickly drive over to the store when the pantry gets low or we just get a hankerin' for some fruit on the table at dinnertime; but like all the rest of those skills that could one day mean the difference between living and dying, it's always good to know the basics.

Cheryl has always wanted to have or own fruit trees on the property so she could run the process from beginning to end; but the soil around here -- and the infestation of Asian beetles and every other kind of bizarre bug that tries to eat the bark and leaves off the trees -- precludes that. So we do the next best thing. We have friends at church who have trees in their yards (or orchards) and they let us know when we can come over and pick 'em.

So last week when a friend from church let us know that the pears from her trees were ready for picking, Cheryl and the kids went out and picked four boxes full of the yummy fruit.  And then spent several days peeling and cutting them and plopping them into jars and popping lids on them and heating them on the stove and watching them seal up and then cooling them down so they could be taken down to the basement where they will be stored for the next couple of years until they are called upon to come back and grace our table.

Besides canning pears, she also made pear butter, which is a particular favorite of mine for my morning peanut-butter toast.

We were in a bit of a race doing all the peeling and cutting and plopping, though.  The pears were nearly ripe when they were picked (some were ripe, actually) and the relative heat of the household air only accelerated the ripening process, so we had to move quickly.  Some of them, unfortunately, ripened a bit too quickly and were unusable.  But most of them did.

Most of the pears didn't look like the picture-perfect fruit one might find in the produce section of the grocery store. They were smaller than what is typically found in the commercial varieties, and weirdly shaped. Some had odd little dimples scattered all over them. Some even looked like faces!

Being a geeky engineer, I had to look on the Internet to try and figure out what caused those weird dimples.  Some sources said it was due to insects biting into the fruit and sucking out the juice, leaving these little hard areas that didn't re-fill; others said it was some kind of fruit virus.  Either way, they were like little pits and had to be cut out.  Some had so many dimples that there was hardly any fruit left by the time all the pits were removed!

There were worms in some of them, too. I hadn't realized before how the worms get into 'em, but apparently the blossom at the end of the pear is kind of like a natural tunnel into the interior; so sometimes we'd cut into a pear and find the middle all eaten away and a happy little worm sitting in there with a big, fat grin on his face, like he'd just won the lottery. Poor worm! He did win the lottery, but not quite the one he was thinking of.  More like the Shirley Jackson lottery. I don't mind a little extra protein now and then, but ... ick!

It took us more days than we had imagined to get all the pears done.  Four good-sized boxes full of pears, each requiring extra care and handling to cut around the pits and dimples and worms and weird shapes resulted in long hours at the table, our fingers stained brown by whatever chemical it is that turns the insides of the fruit brown when exposed to the air too long.  (We used Vitamin C in the soaking juice to keep the canned pears nice and pear-colored, but our hands had no such protection.)

Now the pears are resting quietly in the basement (except for the ones we decided to keep handy for immediate use!) and our fingers are recovering nicely from the staining and cramping ('cause it ain't easy to grip a paring knife for a long time) and the floor is recovering from being coated with a thin layer of pear-juice (which tends to make it sticky) and the compost is beginning the slow process of reducing all the peelings and pits into fertile soil again.

So ... pears are done.  Whaddya wanna can next?

First Day of School - Fall 2013

It's traditional on the first day of school to get a picture of the kids on their way out the door, but this year, I goofed up.  They were too fast or I was too slow or it was just one of those things that get lost in the shuffle of the busy-ness of life; either way, they got out the door before I was quite ready and the opportunity was nearly missed.

You can tell it wasn't posed or anything.  It's more like me standing on the porch yelling at them to "hold still!" while trying to get the camera turned on and focused.  And they're giving me that look that says, "Really? Do we have to do this?  We're not in elementary school anymore, Dad.  We're practically grown up!"

And they are.  Nearly grown up.  Just a few more years and they'll be heading out the door for good, off on their own life adventure, carrying with them all the knowledge and wisdom and practical facts we've been able to stuff into their heads.  Hoping it's enough to get them through.  Enough to keep them on the straight and narrow regardless of what the world has to throw at them.

It's odd having having them all nearly grown up now.  High school and college aged. Driving themselves around. Looking but not necessarily acting mature.  Tugging on the those apron strings, eager to get out into the world and be their own persons.

I grabbed a couple pictures of the girls as they were heading out to catch the bus. The first one looked very dark because the flash was on; the early morning sky wasn't really that dark, but the flash made it that way.  The second one had the right background light, but their faces were out of focus because I turned off the flash.  Maybe if you glance from one to the other really quick, back and forth, you'll get the idea of what it really looked like.

James was still fixing his lunch when I had to leave for work, so this is a picture of him making his famous peanut-butter-and-Nutella sandwhich.  It does taste pretty good.  Probably gives him a good protein boost for the day, too.

I didn't even think about getting a picture of Adam before he drove off to college.  Probably because his first class doesn't start til after ten which means he doesn't get up til nine, and I'm off to work by seven.  And I wasn't going to wake him up just to get a picture of him lying in bed trying to get a few more precious moments of sleep before his alarm went off.  Or wait around til he got up and breakfasted and showered and packed his stuff and headed out to his car to begin his day.  He's in college.  He's a sophomore. He should be able to handle himself by now.  And we tend to think of him as already gone anyway, since last year he was living on campus and not home until Sunday afternoon.  Even though he's living at home and commuting, but we've still got that he's-at-school-full-time mentality.

Cheryl has her first day of school today, too.  And she seems to be eager to get back into the swing of things, working with those very nice people in the music department at school.  It's a joy to be able to share some of those moments with her, getting together with the music directors and band leaders and other stafff members who work so hard to create a first-class musical program for the kids.  As it is a joy to have children who are very musically-inclined, who benefit directly from our involvement.

Hard to believe it's all started again. School.  Marching Band.  Jazz Band.  Musicals. Where did my summer go?  It's gone.  Vanished.  Disappeared like a vapor while I was at work.  That's so frustrating!  But nothing to do about it now.  Just gotta keep moving on.