back to school

The kids have gone back to school.  A started 6th grade (middle school!) and B and C are in 3rd and 1st grade, respectively.  This means, for me, several hours of time alone each day.  It also means the much-needed return to some semblance of a normal routine.  I am SHOCKED at how much longer the day seems when everyone is up and active by 7 am, rather than 9, 9:30, or 10, depending on the day.  It's only 10:30 and I've already done loads of laundry, made a nice, long to-do list, made several much-needed phone calls (someone to fix our flooding problem, someone to get rid of the animal who has made his home inside our front steps).  If it weren't for all this rain, I'd be really productive.

Irrespective of the rain, something about the promise of fall is exciting.  I find it more energizing than spring, which mostly makes me want to lounge around in the sunshine reading books.  Maybe because the school year starts in the fall, it just feels like such a nice clean slate.  Time to clear away last year and start something new.  When I actually finish some projects around here, rather than just writing them on a sheet of paper and taping it to the wall, I'll post some before/after shots.

labor day

Hopefully, everyone received an actual day off yesterday - not just a Biglaw day off, which means you still work, only without a secretary or cafeteria.

I spent the long weekend on Fire Island with Kathy and the kids, closing up our cottage and visiting a few houses which could be options for next year, should we be able to continue to have a summer place there.  I spent a lot of time thinking about my own labor, on this day devoted to the contributions of laborers, and what short- and long-term work-related plans might look like. 

(the Cherry Grove ferry dock)

the "vacation" ends - part V

I'm happy to say that the horror of our "vacation" ends with part IV.  By some miracle, things just stopped going wrong.  The following morning, the plumber came and snaked the tree roots out of our sewer line.  Then the disinfectant clean up guy came and sprayed everything with some kind of germ-destroyer.  We washed 1,000 loads of laundry, loaded the car, and headed off to Fire Island with our friends, where, I am happy to report, none of the predicted rain actually materialized. 

But you can see why, in the aftermath of all that, coming home was a little bit stressful.  I originally wrote a list of all the clean-up related chores I've been doing, but that was boring, so I deleted it.  Instead, I will say that I am grateful that somehow, in the midst of all that chaos and bad luck, we were able to have fun -- a fact which shocks me. 

I think the vacation series has gone on long enough, so I will leave this post at that, and let you know soon what else we've been up to around here.

the "vacation," part IV

(read part I, part II, part III)

When we got into town, we called our friends, and found out that the clean-up crew recommended calling a plumber as soon as possible, since what was leaking into our basement was actually sewage.  Which explained why the water level was going down so slowly.  The sewer pipe was blocked.  So the water would get pumped out by the sump pump, dumped into the laundry tub, and then flow directly back into the blocked sewer pipe, then back into our basement, in some kind of circle of death.  Resourceful things that we are, we booked the plumber for 9 am the next morning, scheduled the clean-up crew to come back after he was done, and went to the county fair.  Bam.

The county fair was one of the most fun things I have ever done in my life.  Here are some things you should know if you find yourself at one:

1. The Gravitron will make you want to throw up, even if you could go on it 10 times in a row when you were a kid.
2. If you ask whether there are any animals at a county fair, the people will look at you like you are a mutant.  Of course there are animals.  It's a county fair.
3. You don't actually need to tell the woman letting you pet her baby bull that you are from New York City. She already knows that.  By how you want to pet her bull, and how you are afraid of its tongue.
4. There is a relatively large market for handmade potholders, and wooden signs specifying that coffee is 5 cents.
5. In a tractor race, the tractors just go one at a time and then try to beat the time of the other tractors.  So watching is kind of boring.

(we are all actually as afraid as we look)

After a full day at the county fair, our happy, sweaty, countrified selves piled into the car and started to drive back home, listening to country music and eating Slim Jims.  

When we were about halfway home, it started to rain a little.  Which would have been fine, except that I had pulled the fuse on the windshield wipers, remember?  So Kathy pulled over and started to get out.  "STOP!!!" I screamed.  "My dad says you should never open your door on the side of the freeway!! What are you thinking?  I will have to just put it back in with you sitting there."  Kathy disagreed, and said she should just get out of my way, but I won.  The fuse box on our car is underneath the dashboard on the driver's side.  Which means that I had to lean across the car, put my head in Kathy's lap, and rummage around under the dark dashboard, to try to put the fuse back in.  

the "vacation," part III

(read parts I and II here and here)

We did not encounter a bear on our hike.  This is a really good thing, considering that B and C had decided that they could totally handle the bear: they would throw a rock at his head, which would either hit him in the eye, damage his brain, and kill him instantly, or would miss his eye but still hit his head and knock him unconscious so we could make our great escape.

When we arrived back at our campsite, we were in high spirits, but soaked.  The rain had lasted long enough to drench the knee-length grass we were walking through, so our socks, shoes, and pants were saturated.  When I walked over to the clothesline, though, I was relieved to find that the towels and sheets hanging there were barely damp, and would probably be completely dry in an hour or so.

We stripped off our soggy shoes and socks and draped them over the cement edges of our fire pit to dry.  The fire pit was basically shaped like a C, with one side open so that you could add wood without lifting up the grill grate on top.  When we had a good fire going, we settled in around the picnic table, which was no longer shoved under a sagging tarp, and played Apples to Apples Junior while we ate snacks.  As Kathy was required to continue to slam her her hand on the top of her beer to open it, we realized we hadn't bought a can opener while we were in town (although we did pick up milk and sugar!).  When it was time to cook the dinner, we pulled out two cans of beans we could not open.

We settled on a group of bikers to ask for a can opener.  I walked down the hill to their site with a can of beans in each hand, while Kathy added another log to the fire.  After a while, kind of out of nowhere, a log rolled out of the open side of the fire pit and headed toward our picnic table.  PANIC!  Kathy tried to use a stick to pick up the flaming log and shove it back into the fire, while I stomped on smoldering bits of ash that were scattered around the ground.  At least it was wet.  When Kathy had the log almost back in, A screamed, "Your pants are on fire!"  Although we had been diligently moving our stuff away from the fire as it dried so that it would not catch on fire, we were distracted by the flaming log rolling toward us, and didn't notice when the bottom hem of one of my favorite pairs of pants went up in flames.  I used a shoe to smack the flames on the smoldering hem of my pants, then noticed that A's shoes (canvas converse high tops) had also caught on fire.  Also, a sock.

(fire damage, after being washed.  I am thinking they would make cute shorts?)