• As the mind wanders…

    This is not a sad story.

    Saying it up front kind of puts into question though, doesn’t it? Sows a little doubt maybe?

    This is a story about home. It could be about your home or a friends home, but only you could write that post, or your friend. This is about scratches in the hardwood floors of a house in eastern Massachusetts, in a mysterious spiral pattern. It’s about a patch of wallpaper* where a younger you practiced writing your name. It’s about the front step and the proper angle of attack on the pile of snow from shoveling the walk. It’s about the tree you climbed high enough to look down on your two story house, before you learned your multiplication tables – and thus calculate the number of bones you could break if the potential energy became another kind of energy.

    It’s about a plaster patch in the back of a closet, about the size of child’s foot. Or the industrial grade swingset in the backyard that may out live you. Or the broken cement roof tiles you’d swear would handle the force of a football, kicked from 25 carefully measured yards away.

    It’s about projects large and small, like the new floors installed in the living room and all the bedrooms – and the back pain that came with it, free of charge. Or the small work of tinfoil art crafted to deflect the light of a fixture directly in front of a television. Or the pictures you hung in the family room, in places picked by the previous owners – no matter how well it fit your arrangement of stuff. It’s about the odd mirror you hung in an odd corner, the one your mother gave you shortly after you were married, before she lost her mind.

    It’s about all the little memories hiding in all the little nooks, corners or cracks.

    It’s about the feeling you get when you first think about leaving them all behind, to move to another place where memories are waiting to be made.

    – – –

    * Ten or fifteen years after we moved, my sisters visited the old neighborhood and asked to have a look around the old house. The current owners (at the time) showed them a room almost completely free of wallpaper, save for a small square hidden by a dresser, where someone had practiced writing their name many years ago.

  • I was an amateur plumber

    I was tired of sinks and drains backing up. I was ready to replace two inefficient faucets that started to leak. I wasn’t ready to pay a plumber two bills for a twenty dollar faucet and a quick clog job on two partially blocked drains. So I went to Home Depot.

    I didn’t find what I wanted.

    So I went to Lowes. I picked up a couple faucets and a drain snake/auger. I would’ve picked up a stronger stomach too, but they were on back order. The faucets went in without too much trouble, but the shower drain was more of a challenge. It wasn’t a technical challenge. It was a holding my cookies as I pulled the goo out of the drain kind of challenge. I was completely unprepared for its makeup and consistency. If you don’t think you can stomach a description, please read no further.

    I was expecting soupy. You know, something having a relatively high water content. Instead, it was more like a renewable resource for road repair. It was thick, black and greasy, held together by a matted matrix of hair. I was expecting the hair, but black tar? Then there was the smell. Should I tell you about the smell? Could I tell you about the smell? Could I possibly put it into words? It kind of smelled the way I’d imagine a sewer would smell – if I’d ever smelled a sewer. Crawling around in a sewer is one experience I’ve thus far been denied.

    Poor me.

    This was worse. It was like I’d bathed in it, the smell surrounding me in a swirl of moldy, rotting filth.

    Whatever the remains of our seemingly harmless showers became, it took ten minutes to wash off my hands. Two applications of Tilex and scrubbing would not remove it completely from the shower floor. When I say it was a God awful mess, I mean it like no other mess I’ve encountered, and remember – I have two kids.

    This weekend I’m going to clear out the sink in the kids’ bathroom.

    Pray for me.

  • Summer’s end

    Beth starts school on Monday, and you know what’s crazy – besides the fact that we’re only half way through August and school’s already starting – I didn’t know.

    That’s right, I’m such a lousy father I didn’t know when school started.

    Well, today I’m feeling charitable. I like to think I’m just forgetful. Forgetful parents aren’t necessarily lousy, are they?

    Anyhoo, I’m of a mind to see this as a great step forward for Beth. Not that her father didn’t know, but that I wasn’t worrying about it coming. Dreading is actually a better word.

    You see, when most parents are rejoicing in school’s return, I’ve always dreaded it. School was a time of suffering for Beth, and I suffered with her. Asperger’s made Beth different, and school kids eat different for lunch. Of course, this was before we knew Beth had Asperger’s. For a couple years we just thought she was eccentric. We thought it came in the package with a high IQ. It took a while for us to realize how different. She was our only child, and she was cursed with shy parents (me anyway). I don’t do well with people myself, so I lacked another point of reference.

    Then we went through years of therapists, doctor’s of varying specialties, and finally a psychiatrist or two.

    It wasn’t until someone got us in to see the department head of psychiatry at the children’s hospital in St Pete, a year and a half ago, that we learned a form of autism was the likely candidate. It wasn’t until we lucked into a study with the local university that we saw any therapy that made a difference. It wasn’t until the psychiatrist recommended a small, private school we’d never heard of, which had success with high functioning autism kids, that Beth found respite from the bully squads of public school.

    She was among her own, and she was as happy as I’ve ever seen her.

    The neighborhood kids can be no better than the ones from school. Their parents seem to worry Beth’s quirks will rub off on their kids, so they don’t let her inside to play. It’s only at school that she’s among friends.

    So you see, the school year isn’t just good for Beth – it’s a blessing.

    So I think I get a pass for forgetting the first day of school. Now it’s just another day.