Category: Kitchen Sink

The kids

What can I say? Both my kids continue their run of academic stardom. It feels like a source of (partial) absolution for my personal failings, seeing my DNA has some value.

Beth continues to excel, outpacing all the other kids in her class. I just wish it brought her peace. While it was an asset when she was the oldest kid last year (her small school has mixed grade classrooms), there’s a different dynamic being the youngest.

She still finishes before everyone else, and she still wants to help the other students who are having trouble. However, unlike the younger students last year, the older kids don’t want help from the “little-smart kid.”

As you may know, Beth falls into the autism spectrum, so she can be a little oblivious to subtle reactions from her classmates. She doesn’t always read the resentment on the older kids’ faces. It came to the point where her teacher told her it might be best for her to sit quietly and leave the other kids alone, physically nudging her back to her desk.

Being the smart kid has gone from being the hero (she was always the first pick for teams in class games), to the little brat who can’t mind her own business.

While I’m proud of Beth’s mind and big heart, I find this a sad commentary on human nature. Ah, but they’re just kids right? Kids will be kids, after all. Childhood is supposed to be when we learn how to be adults. Childhood is supposed to be when we learn responsibility and civility – sometimes by trial and error. Beth just happens to be the subject of a little more than her share of errors. (By now your sarcasm detector should be working overtime.)

It hurts. The good news is it’s getting better – now that she doesn’t try to help anyone. What a crappy lesson to have to learn.

Adam has been another story. It seems everyone knows Adam at school – and not for bad reasons. Just being “Adam’s dad” feels like being a minor celebrity.

When his teacher called Cheryl in for a conference, she said he’s way out ahead of the other kids in kindergarten (not to mention some of the kids in first grade). She told Cheryl she’s been giving Adam extra work, so he stays stimulated.

So, while the other kids continue to work on their alphabet, Adam reads books and works on math word problems (and gets them all right). This weekend he started reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, by C. S. Lewis. Beth read it in fourth grade.

A few folks have asked when Adam will have an IQ test, to which I reply, “maybe never.” There’s no formal “gifted program” at Adam’s private school. They don’t need one. They just teach and give work according to what students are capable of, based on their performance in class. The supposedly good label of an exceptionally high IQ didn’t always serve Beth well, so I’m in no rush to force the same label on Adam.

And yet, it seems like Adam is one of those kids everyone likes. Everyone seems to take notice when he enters or leaves the room – accompanied by a chorus of friendly greetings or farewells. It’s a huge relief, after living through Beth’s problems.

I have hope things will continue to go smoothly from here on out.

A sighting of the silver lining

Last week I did a light workout. I’m not a newcomer when it comes to working out, so I’m pretty in tune with my body’s limits. When I’m starting up after a long period of sloth, I take those already low limits and move the decimal point over one place to the left.

At this point we’re basically talking five pound hand weights or the bar.

Did I mention I start out really slow?

Last Tuesday I did one of my beginner workouts and felt fine. I never push it. I start out with a set number of reps in mind so I don’t push it. My goal is to get my muscles used to working again without putting on a lot of strain.

This usually works great. When I slowly reintroduced my body to exercise three years ago after chemotherapy, I felt good.

Last week I felt really good too – until I woke up the next morning. I couldn’t move. Not to walk. Not to stand up. Not to sit up. Every muscle group felt like it took a few laps through a newspaper press. It’s nearly a week later and my body still isn’t right.

Five pound biceps curls. Five pound triceps extensions. Ten pushups. Five pound bent rows (bracing myself on the bench to keep the weight off my back). A five minute, light jog.

Now I’m going on one week of pain (caveat: I am a wimp). I’ve been eating NSAIDS like M&Ms. I’ve quietly wondered if it has anything to do with the leukemia. Cheryl’s wondering too, just not quietly.

Cheryl’s less quiet in general. I’m not sure I’ve told you this before. Maybe you’ve gathered as much already. Maybe I’ll get to my point sometime.

Wait for it…
This was a great weekend. It was dry and cool in the mornings and evenings. I got use out of the front porch for the first time since April. I got in some quality down time for the first time in… well… a few weeks (since we got back from vacation).

Put it like that and it doesn’t sound deserved. I haven’t worked hard enough for another few days off.

I’ll grant you I haven’t quite earned it at work, but I’ve been worked over by life the last few weeks. So it was nice to have another quiet weekend, even if I couldn’t get up… without a few minutes head start.

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Nostalgia

The monkey cup

A long time ago, in a place far, far away…

I was a small child growing up in our first house. I knew what I liked and I knew where to find it. A kitchen chair was all I needed to make it to the next step: the kitchen counter. From there I could stand up and reach the top cabinets. That’s where the Pepto-Bismol was hiding.

With my favorite cup in hand, I poured myself a generous serving of the only one that coats.

Oh that was good.

Then one of my parents found my favorite cup, my activities betrayed by…

… the only one that coats.

Unbeknownst to me, a phone call to poison control was taking place while one of my parents tended to me and my favorite cup. Soon after I learned more than I wanted to know about induced vomiting.

The episode cemented the monkey cup in the Legend of John.

Caveat: John may have mixed his meds this morning.

My father had surgery yesterday. It was nothing serious: hernia surgery. However, even though my father was ambulatory* after the surgery, my mother can’t be left alone and my father was still not one hundred percent. So I came over to stay the night. It’s not like it’s out of the way, or a tremendous burden. The second house I did my growing up in is just a mile or two up the street.

One of my endearing qualities is I always go rooting around the house looking for memories when I come over. That’s how I came across the long lost monkey cup, hiding in the bottom of the china cabinet.

Now you can know and love the monkey cup as much as I do.

*The word my sister the nurse used – I’m clearly not that smart

The muse and me

Lately I’ve been doing a bit of work on my web site. There was no reason. I just had to tinker with it. Have you ever had that feeling? Maybe you thought it was just right, or maybe you didn’t, but there was a little itch, right behind your starter switch, and you were driven to play around. Sometimes you played trial and error. Sometimes you played with a purpose, something new you wanted to try. But it was always something.

I’ve never been satisfied with my site. It’s likely due to a terminal case of creativity deficiency. I wonder if there’s a supplement for it? If your cholesterol is too high you can start popping niacin tablets like M&Ms (though it doesn’t always work). So what do I take for creativity? Some use alcohol to lubricate the ‘ole neurons. I can’t drink, but it’s probably just as well. I look at some of the melancholy crap I wrote in college after a drink or six and I wince so hard I fear one day my face might get stuck like that. For others it’s drugs – but that’s out of the question, for reasons I shouldn’t have to explain.

For me, on those occasions when I’ve really felt in a groove and the juices were flowing, sometimes I think it was mental illness. I’ve wondered if there was a touch of bi-polar to my depression, like my highs might be a touch too high. Medication has me on a more even keel lately… if not a little skewed towards the downward slope. The muse has been conspicuously absent. I can understand why some people don’t like taking their medication.

Back when I was doing caffeine – before my doctor told me to stop – I noticed bursts of output… or I do now, in hindsight. It’s as close to an artificial high I’ve achieved, and my fingers could really move on them keys baby!

Now I’m just tired. All the time. Sleep disorders will do that to you. Red blood cell counts on the downward slope will do it too, from what I hear (fucking leukemia).

Still, my web site is something I can fool around with on the side, something that doesn’t require the “long term” commitment of writing. I can fire up my editor, tweak a stylesheet, sling some tags, and drop it at any time… changes saved or not, on a whim. Sometimes I like what I see. Trial and error has it’s moments. More than ever it’s like making something from nothing – not even inspiration – unless it can hide deep in the subconscious mind.

This explains the somewhat ugly appearance of my genealogy pages these days. Although the software I use has very limited options for web output, it does allow changes to the convoluted stylesheets. (I’ve got virtually no control over the HTML.)

Thus the ugly colors and the top border gradient I’m sure you’ve never seen on the web before.

It kills me knowing I have to go to work tomorrow with ugly pages attributed to me, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

Well that’s not exactly true. I could delete the whole thing.

No, I suppose couldn’t kill all of it, but maybe I could just delete those damn stylesheets. I could leave the pages a styleless mess, but is chaos better than imperfect?

This post is kind of like my web site. It’s trial and error. No particular inspiration, I just wasn’t satisfied with where the blog left off.

Maybe I’ll delete it.

Maybe I won’t.

Maybe I’ll do it again.

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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.

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Use

Anyone who knows me won’t have any trouble believing I like new gadgets. We have a semi-regular upgrade cycle on our Macs. I have feelings for my iPhone that probably aren’t healthy. The letters “TV” are synonymous with “DVR” in our house. Wi-Fi and bluetooth aren’t just wireless technologies, they are a way of life.

But here’s something you may not know about me. There are times I like my old stuff better than newer alternatives. I’ve been carrying around the same umbrella since college. The material that’s exposed when it’s folded is so uniformly dirty it looks like part of the design when it’s open. I’ve carried only one bag to work, slung over my shoulder, it’s weathered leather exterior originally a graduation gift for Cheryl, which she eventually decided she didn’t need. So it’s filled another. I like to think of it as a reflection of myself: a little beaten up, but still solid and unbroken.

And then there’s my bike, an old aluminum framed model aptly branded: Trek. I know folks have older rides, but it seems inconceivable I’ve had it this long… twenty years and thousands of miles. I only wish I had the opportunity to bring it with me to more places. As it is, it’s brought me more peace and wonder than any thing I’ve owned. What little travel I’ve done, I’ve often had my bike with me. I’ve been up and down parts of both coasts of Florida, past long stretches of mangroves bursting at the seams with life – enclosing small inlets of calm, the sky so blue reflected on it’s surface, that even the simple contrast of two colors: blue and green, make you want to stop and hold your breath, lest the noise disturb something so peaceful – so right. The hypnotic whir of chain and gear, of rubber on road, accompanied me on the deserted sunrise roads of island parks and nature preserves, past the infant like dunes of the Gulf coast, seas of oats dancing together in the wind nearly obscuring another, more vast sea beyond.

I’ve explored some of the little history we have on the southeastern coast, my bike making me feel like a sponge dripping full with the essence of a place. I’ve squeezed through the tight spaces of places like St Augustine, imagining long dead Spaniards building the coquina structures that stand today, much as they did more than 400 years ago. I rode the pre-Katrina streets of New Orleans, from the sometimes unpleasant smells of the old town, atop the levies overlooking downtown, to the sometimes bone jarring streets of the garden district, looping down around Audubon Park and its hardwood canopy filtering the glow of the departing sun.

When my mind drifts from chores or monotonous tasks at work, it often takes me back to my bike, but to places yet to be experienced on two wheels. I imagine exploring the country roads of my ancestors, places like central Pennsylvania, northern Vermont, and the small towns of Massachusetts near the New Hampshire border. I imagine a slow pedal along the far northeastern coast, where the Gulf Stream no longer warms the waters, and cool wind catches a naturalized southerner unprepared blowing inland. I imagine just getting on and going, finding towns as I arrive, not knowing the names until my wheels cross the borders marked by signs.

Maybe I’m a sentimental fool, but I can’t imagine replacing these things. They’ve come to feel like appendages, no more replaceable than a hand or a leg.

Or a heart.

A phone’s life In my hands

Brick
– verb
To strip a smartphone of all its useful features. To make it as useful as –

I performed my first open case surgery on the iPhone to replace its failing battery last weekend.

Pop quiz:

Do you spend $15 to do it yourself or give $80+ to Apple, plus suffer through a week without your phone while it ships back and forth to God knows where?

What do you do?

WHAT DO YOU DO?!?

I’m not trying to sound arrogant. In fact, think I have a pretty solid track record of modesty.

But in this case I do have skills.

See that? That’s me being optimistic. Damn, you never have a camera when you need it. Skills or not though, I do have the right tools.

I had my grounding strap to avoid frying the whole thing with a small static charge, a suction cup to pull off the glass touch screen, a magnifying glass to help see/disconnect really small ribbon cables, and my trusty small tools kit to get at a few small screws to pull the motherboard. I got that stuff out of the way and suddenly the battery was right there, waiting to be plucked from the bottom of the case like a sleeping baby in a basket.

It only took two hours – and the removal of almost every component in the phone.

It was touch and go for a while. There was a “Do Not Remove” sticker I had to peel back to get at one of the screws holding down the motherboard. It didn’t want to peel back. Considering the unambiguous language, I figured it was best not to shred it. It took a good ten minutes by itself, but I’m happy to report the sticker survived.

If you thought my favorite part of this exercise was putting the last piece back in place, you’re way off the mark. The closer I got to finishing, the more nervous I got. You see, that’s when you find out if you screwed something up – if you broke it.

I was anticipating three possible outcomes when I turned it on.

One: I’d have an iPhone with a new battery.

Two: I’d have an iPod touch with a new battery.

Three: I’d have a light, pleasing to the eye, plastic and glass desk ornament – with a new battery.

Despite what you might think, with the iPhone 4 just around the corner (and being eligible for upgrade pricing), I was not rooting for two or three. No matter the cost, replacement money won’t be seen in the Kauffman coffers for a while.

Which really begs the question: why the hell did I go off and pull apart my iPhone by myself, instead of putting up the extra money for a trained technician to do it? With money tight, I must be a crazy person, right?

I’ve never taken one apart.

Which really begs the question: do you really know me at all?

Oh, yeah. The phone works. Was there ever really any doubt?

Go ahead, answer that. I dare yah.

Or not. No pressure.

An interesting day

Hearings kept me crazy busy yesterday and the medication let me forget about the headache. It was actually a fun morning.

I thrive on days where I can lose myself in work, where time loses meaning. I love working with the Judge assigned to us, an old retired Colonel from the Marines. I enjoy talking to one of the attorneys I work with – a guy who worked as an enviromental engineer with the State Department of Enviromental Protection – before he went to law school.

Late yesterday afternoon, we got a chance to talk to someone enlisted in the Coast Guard stationed in Louisiana, taking part in the Gulf oil clean-up (only here under our special circumstances).

It was a terribly fascinating, and disturbing personal story.

My days often turn on me like that.

What a terrible mess we’ve made. I wonder if we’ll know the full reach of it in my lifetime.

– – –

Later that evening I was trying on a pair of sneakers at the mall, when the salesman hesitated.

“Man, you look down. You look like you could use a break. Let me tell you something. (In a near whisper) Down stairs, they’ve got the next model up from this one and it’s five bucks cheaper. Plus, it’s not quite as flashy looking, and I can tell you’re looking for something a little more understated.”

Turns out I did like the other pair better, but if I find out the same company owns both stores I’m not gonna take it well.

Maybe it’s best if I don’t check, because it felt good knowing everyone isn’t always out to screw you for the quick buck.

It was a nice, if small, contrast to my afternoon – which was a bad and big contrast to my morning.

Happy peaks and valleys to you!

The ah ha moment

This is one of those posts that sounded profound and original one night at 3am… and a little less so as time passed – that, and less coherent.

– – –

People told me what to expect before, but I always humored them. I’m not stupid. I’d see this thing coming way before it happened to me. I wouldn’t be so easily fooled.

Then a few nights ago it happened to me. We were sitting in a restaurant, me and Adam on one side of the table, Beth and Cheryl on the other. As I looked across the table I was struck dumb by what I saw – two heads – one level.

One minute I’m thinking: yeah, she’s in middle school, but I’ve got plenty of time. She’s still a tiny thing. Then in the blink of an eye:

Insta-funk.

There are five years left of what society deems “childhood.” Am I foolish enough to think she’ll disappear in a ball of smoke at the stroke of midnight on that last day? Well, no. But I also realize my child is already gone. In her place is this awkward, child/adult hybrid.

Parents tell stories about events in their childs’ lives and we automatically say, “oh, I can’t imagine.” On some, abstract level we know we can’t. The fun is in learning we really can’t – or couldn’t.

I realized parenthood isn’t just an exclusive club. You know how we are: “you can never imagine what it’s like to have a child until you do.” But we have cliques too. The empty nesters. The multi-birthers (some prefer the hormonaly challenged). The all girl team. The all boy team. The uni-child. The zip code. The pre-teeners. The teeners. The post-teeners (also known as the lingerers). The mix-teeners.

And so on.

Then the larger, simpler truth hit me. It was right there all along, looking me in the face. Why is it the simple truths sometimes seem harder to grasp? Is it just me? What am I getting at? What is the saying about walking a mile in someone’s shoes?

Sometimes it’s hard to understand someone’s life until you’ve lived it. Parenthood happens to be a good tool for bringing a lot of people together. A lot of people share the general experience. But as we put on one pair of shoes, when our first child is born, and we take another off, do our paths irreversibly diverge from the herd?

Do we know less than we think we do about both lives: the one we left behind as well as the one we joined – in the way I took for granted Beth’s growing up? Are we no better authority of the lifestyle of the childless, at our age, than those without kids can be of ours? I’ll wager they’re not the same shoes we wore ten or twenty years ago. They changed – just like parenting changes as our kids grow, maybe with as many “cliques” (or more) as we merry parents.

Now I wonder if/how this “toe in the shoe” phenomenon plays out in the wider human experience.

Was it present when that asshole was smoking behind Cheryl at a Gator game (many moons, two kids, and one wedding ago), prompting a mild asthma attack.

“Ah… I’ve coughed before. It can’t be that bad.”

Perhaps that’s an extreme example – with a lot of willful ignorance, and more than a touch of jack-assery thrown in.

But I wonder how often this kind of thing leads us to draw the wrong conclusions about life.

– – –

I’m sorry. This post probably wouldn’t have happened if I’d talked it out with someone. I should try that sometime.

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All hail the beekeeper!

Beard of BeesIt turns out the bees won’t be treated so humanely after all.

Back to that in a moment. First, I want to waste your time with a little narrative of this morning’s events.

The wildlife expert/beekeeper came out, took a look at the bees, said, “yep, there’s a lot of bees for ya,” and went back to his truck to don his beekeeper suit. Meanwhile I ran inside to grab my camera to snap some pictures before the bees got angry.

If there’s one thing I don’t like it’s angry bees. It turns out it was a good thing I didn’t try one of my infamous, half-baked, DIY, home fixer-upers the day before. While I was inside doing a little work, nursing my mucous back to good color, the beekeeper was making a discovery. My bees weren’t just any old bees. No sir! They were them aggressive types, those africanized bees.

Yes! I knew it! I knew I was special… somehow! How many of YOU can say you’ve got killer bees in your laundry room?

HAH! I didn’t think so.

It turns out they don’t tolerate the air conditioning well and die overnight, so they were pretty well contained to the laundry room – and a couple that found their way into the family room. Our family room is a converted garage, so the door is big, heavy, insulated, and tight fitting – or in this case: bee proof.

So now I just have to wait the 48 to 72 hours for the beekeeper’s magic dust to do its trick and make the bees go away. I’ll be home alone while Cheryl and the kids go to Orlando, nursing my cold – a lone sentinel against the insect threat.

Maybe I’ll go over to my parent’s house to do some laundry… for old time’s sake.

By the way, did you know it only costs $289 (flat rate) to have a licensed, insured, wildlife expert come out and relocate your honeybees, and treat point of entry/exit with a non-toxic substance which will discourage the bees from settling there again?

Did you know that they charge the same amount for exterminating africanized bees that I think our exterminator should do for no additional charge, under their existing contract?

Did you know that someone will be reading contracts and possibly making phone calls this weekend?