what I do.

Ok. So I am plodding along at my 4th book--this one about a kid mixed up in the world of corporate research tampering, and....sheesh. Well, yeah, that sounds pretty ponderous, I have to admit, but plow on I must in hopes of injecting enough froth that it will make soufflé.

Meanwhile, I’ve realized with definity (is that a word? no. but it should be.) that I absolutely cannot write after 7pm. Hence this blog dross. Because it doesn’t count. I did not click the link for you, now did I?

Olivia is eating apple pie out of the pan. I would not let Jeff do that. In fact, I would try to prevent his cutting the pie with a spoon, which is his preferred style. Cut (well, dig,) with a spoon and plop it in a coffee cup. If anyone ever wonders why I didn’t turn out to be a traditional kitchen mom, well...here is but one clue. Some ducks line up in a row. Some don’t.

Gabe is watching anime cartoons. The computer, running XP, had its regularly scheduled conniption yesterday, refusing to play videos. I asked it to please forget everything it had learned after October 1, and it worked again. I reset the PC while helping Jeff get logged onto Investors Business Daily on the Mac so he could agonize over a recent Lululemon/Athletica stock acquisition. Periodically I utter the following line: One moment please...another customer filed a complaint ahead of you...

But, most happily, I got roughly 2 paragraphs completed on the work of great ponderosity today. It does move like a slug, sometimes not even leaving something as interesting as a trail of shimmering slime behind, but I know from experience that even at such a pace, a book gets written.

Oktobersmalltalking

It’s a great Oktoberfest. Our neighbors, 3 doors down, host it every couple of years, and do a phenomenal job of it at that. Yesterday I felt more than ever like I was reconnecting with people whom I’d almost completely lost contact with as our children have grown and done their own things--no more swim team, no scouts, no school activity gatherings--and we’re missing the socializing that such regimented schedules forced us into.

One person-whom-I-never-see characterized this time in our lives as “weird.” Things begin, more than before, to change in ways that we knew might be coming but didn’t really have to think about before.

And this is what I noticed--that there’s much that goes unsaid at a social gathering of this sort. Maybe, 10 years before, most of what impacted our lives in turning-point ways were things that were easy to throw out in casual conversation--I’m expecting my 3rd kid, Frank got a new job, we’re buying a house in Round Bay. Now, a lot of it isn’t that banterable. I wondered just how many people are holding secrets that they won’t so casually toss around. One long-time acquaintance is expecting a 10th child. (I know...wow.) It wasn’t until I saw her interacting with a friend who knows her better that I began to suspect that maybe something about this pregnancy is not as expected. Maybe something you wouldn’t just toss out there at an Oktoberfest. I can’t be the only one presenting a pretty, but slightly inaccurate, picture.

Much of what we talked about went like this: Person to Jeff: “How’s the hardware business?” Jeff: “Actually I’m out. I sold my half to my brother.” Person: “Retired? You lucky dog. Let me shake your hand.” I suppose it’s fortunate that that’s as far as Jeff tends to think of it these days. Sometimes I think that, as far as he can recall, that is all there is to the story. Certainly I would be unlikely to volunteer more. “What’s new with us? You mean besides the degenerative neurocognitive disorder? Not much!” Hardly peppy Oktoberfest banter, and I’m sure that anyone else whose lives hold darker aspects--not known by all--would probably, smile and nod along with the assumption that retirement was a lark and a luxury as I do.

Where slasher directors get their inspiration...

It was our typical circuit--down the sylvan lane to the bog...through the bog-hemmed nature trail (a frequent spot for bunny sitings, and yesterday a snake...) and today, a brief stopover on one of the beach benches. (One assembled by myself, no less.)

It was one-third of the way up the heavily wooded beach road that something went plop five feet in front of us. And a rather heavy and sudden plop it was, from the treetops high above to the road at our feet. Freddi the hound took an instant interest though I instinctively pulled her back from that which had plopped.

It was breakfast. Not for us, and (sadly for her) not for Freddi, but that which lay sprawled before us was the scrawny legs and the carcass, roughly from the wings down, of a bird, stripped of feathers and skin.

I am not among those who like to examine such things too closely and diligently, but Jeff and I speculated as to what might have dropped a carcass on what would have been, five seconds later, our heads.

A further clue emerged another 15 feet up the hill. Bunches of white and gray feathers, pulled out in tufts, and a major wing bone still attached to a few. Clearly, much of the early damage had occurred here before the winner--it had to be a bird of prey--had flown the remainder into the treetops before deliberately or accidentally dropping half in our path. Sharing, I guess. We declined, with gratitude, but never caught a glimpse of the raptor.

please pass me the burnt sienna...

I liked when my kids were little. Sometimes, the only thing to do was color in coloring books with them. (I do like crayons. Really.) Sometimes the only thing to do was work on a block stacking project.

Those times do change. Soon you get to the crazy years of school events, sports, birthday parties--a schedule that can drive the most energetic of us utterly wacko.

And now, in that way life has of giving you another appetizer when you thought it was time for dessert, I’m back to coloring books. Well, not exactly. But I am back to having a helper at the grocery store, gearing my plans toward being there to help someone else with the basics, and just sitting around--not quite coloring, but we might as well be--because we’re back to a season of someone else’s agenda being hitched to my own, regardless of who’s the pony and who’s the cart.

There is an upside: This type of phase shoehorns me into putting serious effort into my writing projects, and that is good. At least there’s sure no point in arguing with it.

katzenjammered plumbing.

Project #1 du jour: Get a 2 x 4 for the cat. No, we’re not going to swing it at her, though sometimes something needs to be done, and that’s where the 2 x 4 comes in.

Hazel likes to prick at window mouldings, and she (being a standard issue cat) loves to claw. Her favorite house construction phase was before all the oak trim went up and there was plenty of exposed pine to sink her nails into.

It is likely that the 2 x 4 segments we are about to affix to the corner by the basement door, and to a wall accessible from Jeff’s dresser would not be everyone’s idea of cutting edge decor, but I’d prefer that Hazel never have to decide that hardwood is better than nothing.

Meanwhile, the new laundry tub, of pristine poly, has acquired its first layer of sewer-line back up sediment--an unidentifiable collection of black crunchy stuff which washes in with the water the drain line has rejected, and settles evenly across the tub’s surface. Somewhere below the tub, in the fittings I mucked around with in installing it, is a connection that is allowing some of that rejected water to squish its way through and form geographic patterns on the basement concrete. Fortunately (I guess) the crunch is filtered out by the pvc and makes it to the tub. I have tightened the connections as much as I can by hand, but I’m afraid the time has come to replace the 60 year old cast iron with pvc so that, henceforth, we can try to blame all ensuing back-ups on the county. We are awaiting a quote and a commitment from the plumbing guy.