The Ballad of The Shower Handles

For a while, I toyed with the idea of setting the following tale to song, or maybe even iambic pentameter (verily, forsooth, etc.). Back in the early 90's, I gained quite a reputation as a wit by doing that sort of thing (among others) which my boss would post on his office door. Eventually, I was expected to crank stuff out at birthdays, going-away parties and the like. I was the poet laureate of the department. Ah, those were the days…

But I digress. Get yourself a drink, this is a long one.

Late last week I finally put the period to a saga that had been running, off and on, for months. Four months, in fact (or nine, if you want to count the VERY beginning. More, much more anon). I was at last able to make my shower handles stop when shutting the water off. You might think this was a fairly basic thing, here in the 21st century, a problem easily diagnosed and simple to rectify. You would be wrong.

Back when we were determining the things we wanted to change in this, our new-current home, one thing I decided I wanted was water faucets that used levers to control the flow of water instead of knobs. You see, just before we closed on the house, we went to LA on vacation, and while there we spent several days at Disneyland. The bathrooms at the Disneyland Grand Californian Hotel were equipped with levers, and I fell in love with them instantly. I realized I was really tired of knobs that you had to grab and twist to use, often when your hands were slippery with soap or raw chicken or mud or whatever. And then you had to grab them again to turn them off, getting whatever you had just washed off back onto your hand. I'm no germaphobe, but this still struck as not a good thing, especially the raw meat part.

So when we returned I spent a lot of time in Lowes, Home Depot, and plumbing supply stores until I found the right levered faucets for the shower, tub, lavatories, and kitchen sink. And eventually, just before we moved in, they were all installed. It was only while we were moving in that I stumbled across an odd problem with the controls to the shower.

It is easy to show but harder to describe. I shall persevere as best I can. Okay. The handle starts in the "off" position. You then move it away from off, water proceeds to flow. The farther you get from off, the faster the water comes, until the handle comes to a stop. You cannot turn it any farther and the water can't come any faster. Only my shower didn't do that.

I turned the knob, the water flowed, only there was no stopping point. It just kept on going around until it came back to where it started, and the water ceased. It moved through a full 360 degrees. I spun it round several times, watching the water ebb and flow like a bad cosine function until I found "off" and hollered for my contractor.

He "hummed" and went for the plumber. The plumber sort of hummed but said that was the way those controls were. I asked him to check further, to see what might be done, but I later decided he didn't really care. The controls were in, he was done, and he was not terribly interested in mysteries. Despite several attempts on our part, he never really did anything, and we had more pressing issues. The controls did work, after all, and despite lacking a stopping point it was not hard to find the "off" spot.

But it continued to bug me. It was possible to leave the thing dripping until the lever was moved another half-inch into the "off zone". I also didn't want Jacob to scald the heck out of himself by accidentally spinning the lever all the way through "off" and back into "full blast". And I got tired of having to place the levers just so.

Eventually, I had reason to call out another plumber, and I had him look at the shower while here. He said that without knowing the model and type of valve he couldn't do much. But he did say that changing the handle might be sufficient. This was possibly good news, since when we got the handles we had also gotten new valves (the anti-scald kind, which makes the yelping noises you used to hear while flushing a toilet during someone's shower a thing of the past), and it meant that I might be able to handle this myself.

Some weeks later I dug around and found the receipts for the valves and handles. I went to the plumbing supply shop where we'd gotten them and told the woman at the desk the troubles I was having with my PP03-61XA's and my PP07-81BC's. But she was only a salesperson type and said I should talk to this one guy who apparently was the only person there who knew anything about actual plumbing. But said guy was busy at the moment. I hung around for a bit, but he didn’t get unbusy, so I went to lunch. When I returned, he was at lunch. I ground my teeth and left my phone number with an explanation of the problem.

Later, a message was left on the answering machine from the plumbing supply place suggesting I call the faucet maker's 800 support number. I confess I found the idea of a faucet company having an 800 support line pretty funny ("Your faucet is stuck? Have you tried re-booting it?"). Anyway, a few days later I called them. I got a very nice fellow who sounded like he was from India but for all I know was in Topeka, KS. I explained the issue with the PP03-61XA's and the PP07-81BC's and he said he would send out a new set of PP03-61XA's to take care of it. No muss no fuss, no charge. They didn't even try anything to confirm that I'd actually bought the things before. It struck me that unscrupulous plumbers could garner quite a few free supplies this way before they caught on. Still, it had been much easier than I had thought, so I was pleased enough.

About 10 days later, the package arrived. In it were two six-inch long brass valves (PP03-61XA's), wrapped in heavy protective plastic. I confess I despaired a bit when I saw them. Was I going to have to summon another plumber? A handle I could…err…handle. The valves worried me. I might be a Tool Man, but some areas I left to the pros, and plumbing was generally one of them. The hard plastic covering was a bit confusing too. Was that stuff supposed to remain on? I finally decided it was not.

I set aside some time, and a another few days later took the stuff into the shower, where I removed the handles (PP07-81BC) and stared hard at the exposed bit of valve (PP03-61XA). A small flange was exposed at the end, perhaps three-quarters of an inch long. It rather looked to me like the end points of the flange coincided strongly with an "off" position and a "fully open" position. I took another look at the valves I had been sent. Fitted neatly over the end of each was a small piece of white plastic, rectangular in shape and maybe a half-inch long. Also at the end of each valve was a flange identical to the one already installed.

I removed the bit of plastic from the valve I had been sent, and placed it onto the valve there in the shower. It went on smoothly enough once I found there was only one way it could go on. I reattached the handle, and turned it part way. The water came on. I turned it the other way. The water stopped -- and so did the lever. I turned the handle as far as it could go, noting that now there was a point that was as far as it could go. The water came out full blast. I turned the handle back again. The water stopped again. So did the handle.

I repeated the process for the other handle, and tested it. It worked like a charm.

So, there it finally ended. Nine months from inspiration to planning to implementation to correction, who knows how much time actually spent in the project, and it all came down to a half-inch bit of plastic that might have cost a nickel. There's a moral in there, somewhere.

I decided to keep the rest of the valve. Who knows? I might need it someday.

This Old Wrench

It can be very hard sometimes, as a SAHD, to feel masculine. And no matter how role models eventually come to adjust themselves, I feel that most men are never going to feel all that comfortable squinting at the "feminine hygiene products" trying to recall if their wives wanted maxis, minis, wings, wing-tips, or "turbo".

Nevertheless, one unexpected benefit of this sort of thing is a surprisingly enhanced ability to get to play with tools, the most masculine activity there is short of killing a wild animal and roasting it over a fire.

I certainly can't speak for every guy, but for the first several years after college about all I did with tools was hammer in a nail for hanging my pictures. I also unscrewed the case of my computer now and then. Woo.

But to be honest, as a single guy living in an apartment, I didn't have much need of tools. To really need tools, you have to live in a house (or be the sort who reassembles your radiator for fun on the weekend, which I'm not). Houses give you lots of opportunities to use tools. That is, if you try to take advantage of them. For the first few years of married in a house life, I didn't truly take advantage of the chance to work with tools.

Partially this was a function of time. We were very quickly new parents in addition to everything else, and projects of greater scope than assembling a crib were just not high on our lists.

But I realize now that a huge part of it was just not having the right tools. Any home improvement task will suck if you are trying to use a pair of needle-nose pliers to insert a wood screw (no, I never actually did that. I used a speed-wrench). Gradually, I came to realize this problem. The first step was a useful but not quite Nirvana inducing set of boxed-end wrenches and what my Dad always referred to as a "socket set" (i.e., a Snap-On tools style ratchet set).

Then, a couple of years ago I finally requested a cordless drill and screwdriver for Christmas. Wow, was that a big change. For ages I have been hand-forcing screws into the walls. I wasn't even pre-drilling the holes with the heavy drill I did have. But now I could just zing! zing! screws into wall studs all I wanted. I wouldn't have survived this last move without those cordless guys, and I really do wonder why I waited so long to get them.

I have since used my heavy drill's special masonry setting to bore holes into the bricks of our house so I could make a gate work better. Later I also used it to attach hose reels. I rescued a set of punches and chisels from my Dad's old workbench five years ago, and they say gathering dust until last month, when I used them to break paving stones in half to fill in gaps of a short walk I laid. I've put up shelves in Jacob's room, Trish's closet, and the hall closet. I've added a valve to my shower and fitted it with a detachable showerhead. I replaced a bad tire on the wheelbarrow, sharpened a lawn mower blade…

Okay, once in a while being more self-reliant is a waste of time. A couple of years ago, the lawn mower started acting up. It would run for a while and then die. If you waited a few minutes, it would restart, only to die again. I replaced the spark plug and air filter. No help. Then I took the carburetor out, took it apart and cleaned it. Still nothing. I gave up and took it to a small engine repair place. Turned out the gas cap had gone bad, and the thing was getting a vaccum lock after a while. So I wasted some time on that one, but if it had been something else, I could have fixed it myself. I am tool-man, hear me roar!

Trish talked me into getting an electric hedge clipper. I used it the other day, and it cuts through half-inch branches like butter. Yeah, baby!

I got a worktable for my birthday, and hope to eventually mount a vise with an anvil surface on it. I confess, I haven’t really had a need for a heavy vise yet, but it will be good to have one all the same. You never know.

And all this is without going on about how my tools helped rescue a little girl whose foot got caught in a bicycle wheel.

I Am SoccerDad

So, I am a Soccer Dad. Jake decided he wanted in on soccer this year, so we asked around and joined one of the local leagues. So far its been good. One practice and one game a week, and everyone seems pretty laid back. Oh, we want our kids to win of course, but no-one seems to be slipping steroids into the apple juice, and I have yet to see a gun pulled on a ref who made a bad call [ed. note, I wrote this before the most recent game. Still mostly true, but see below]. I will confess to occasionally being a tad overzealous in my encouragement.

Our team strikes me as decent, with a record 1-1-2, though the order of one win, one tie, and two losses strikes me as a bad trend.

Except for Jacob, this particular team is all girls. He doesn't seem to be too put out by this, which is what you might expect from an eight-year old. Trish noted this sort of thing is wasted on him now. In a few more years he'd kill to be the only boy on that soccer team.

With four games and about as many practices under his belt, I have to say that I think he's one of the two best players on the team. I know I'm a proud parent and all, but this is an easy call. After Jake and his partner in talent (actually, the gal might be better than he is -- I know she was better when the season started) you have an interesting trail downwards that would fit into almost any sports movie (the one with talent but not a lot of interest, the one who tries hard but isn't real good, the stolid plodders, etc.).

The biggest problem the team faces is a lack of aggression or assertiveness on the field. They do a bit too much of watching to see what will happen, as opposed to making something happen. Or at least that's what I think. We are trying to provide Jake with a few tips with that in mind, like always run fast etc, but I am doing my best not to try and say a word to the other players or to the coach. It ain't my place, and odds are she already knows. There are other suggestions I might be minded to make, but I'm not sure they would truly help or not.

On the other hand, they are starting to struggle against the 6 year olds practicing on the field next to them. I know the kids would like to win. I suppose I could start standing near our coach and make "innocent" observations like "You know, that pseudo-goalie thing seems to really help the other team" or "Y'know, when the other team gets the ball they always initially kick it hard and that keeps the ball down on our side all the time."

Or maybe I should just keep my mouth shut and let the team handle it. I dunno. I want to help, and I presume the kids want to win in order to have more fun playing, but I also don't want to get my ego involved. Take our last game. We had an unpleasant incident in which a boy from the opposing team threw the ball too hard after an out-of-bounds and painfully jammed one of our player's fingers. I didn't see it happen, so I don't know if the kid was overexcited or being mean or just frustrated, but they both took to crying, and both were out of the game. Then, we had a granddad of the hurt girl hassling the other kid's coach over the incident (the game did have a high incidence of hand-checking and stuff before this -- soccer is a rougher sport than most people think), well within earshot of the offending kid. The coach responded very defensively and not well at all. The boy's parents eventually took him over to the girl and he apologized, which I think was totally appropriate and good for both of the kids.

Anyway, the point is, I want the kids to do well, but I don't want to be either of those guys.

Gross Dog Tales

The following post should not be read by people with particularly weak stomachs, right before a meal, right after a heavy meal, expectant or nursing mothers, or those with immune disorders.

So I'm starting to think our middle dog, George, (75lbs) is a bit accident-prone. We hadn't had him six months when, on his first trip to the ranch, he cut a neat hole in his hind leg on a barber-wire fence. Last year, you may recall, he managed to get a bump on his face (possibly from a scorpion sting) and was forced to wear a cone. This also resulted in my having to get a new keyboard.

Late one afternoon about two weeks ago now, Jacob was on his trampoline and Trish and I were inside the study when we heard a God-awful series of doggie yelps. We rushed outside to find George dashing about with a BIG gash in his side. Skin, muscle, fat layers…no bones showing, fortunately. Eight inches long, I'd guess. Straight to the vet we went, where he got stitched up and had to stay overnight.

First day or two back went okay, but then he nibbled a stick or three loose and I had to take him back. Well, it was okay aside from the fact he had a big tube stuck in him to help drain the gunk out of the wound. Gunk which was dripping out on the floor, and the dog beds, and what-not. Most of the floors are tile, so, no big deal. It wasn't all that much, anyway.

So I took him back for the new stitches. While there, they removed the drain tube. So of course, he swelled up around his wound. Lotsa fluid. A few days later I took him back, fearing an abcess and an infection. While I held him, the vet made a small incision and drained a big pile of bloody gunk out. But the good news was that it was clean gunk. No infections. A few days later, though, we had to do it again.

This next paragraph is going to be particularly gross.

The doc seemed pleasantly surprised that I could stand there while this was going on. As I explained to him, I spent a lot of time on a ranch. While I didn't go into detail with him, what that meant was the following: Dad used to notch the ears of cattle we vaccinated with his pocketknife. I used to wield the syringe with the vaccine. We gutted birds with our bare hands, and I got to see deer guts, smashed snakes, etc. up close and personal. This latter stood me in good stead when Trish had to have a c-section and I looked over the curtain after the birth and saw the docs almost literally pouring her guts back into place. So dealing with a dog who had bloody serum squirting out of his side under controlled conditions was no big thing.

A few days later he lost some more stitches. I think it was an accident of some kind, and it happened on a walk. Yes, I took the dogs on a walk despite George's stitches. They all needed the exercise or they were going to tear up something, perhaps each other. So anyway, this opened a new hole, and we got more drainage. It never really stopped draining, this hole, so after another day I took him in again. The vet looked pleased, cleaned him up, and said he was doing fine. We'd just leave the stitches out there in order to allow the draining to continue.

This draining was a lot worse than the prior stuff with the tube (I hope I can get the stains off of the stuff he has been laying on). Thursday we went back for a scheduled visit. This time, the vet removed most of the stitches on purpose, but left a few in just to be safe. Still with the cone, still with the draining hole. Tuesday (tomorrow) is another scheduled visit, probably to remove the last stitches. I'm, betting he won't, but I wish he would plug that dang hole. I can put up with some fairly gross stuff; that doesn't mean I like it.

Brief Reading Comment

There are days (many of them) when Jacob's reading habits strike me as, well, totally weird. Maybe it's just because its him, as opposed to me, but one day he'll be reading Harry Potter, or The Lord of the Rings (yes, really), or Summerland (highly recommended) or Sherlock Holmes (yes, really), or some other book really written with the teenage audience (or older) in mind, and the next he's reading Horrible Harry, or Geronimo Stilton, or something written for, well, eight-year olds. For some reason, I expect him to keep reading the more mature stuff, instead of bouncing back and forth. I don't know why, he is only eight.

I'd swear when I was a kid my reading progression was a lot more linear (and with a lot more Richie Rich comic books).

NOW I remember Why I Quit Doing That...

Since moving I've felt I haven't got as much walking in. Two things have changed. Jake rode the bus to his previous school, and I'd wait at the stop with him and the dogs. After the bus left I would walk the beasts (they would get very excited when they saw the bus coming. They knew what was next). But Jake's "new" (we've been going there since last August) school pulls from such a tight area that it has no bus service. So I drive him in every morning. The second change is that very close by is an off-leash dog park. So, most mornings I put Jake and the dogs in the Highlander, drop him off, swing by the park, and let them run around like lunatics while I pace out the "Y" shaped pathway and try to decide what 4 things out of the 25 I have to do might get done that day.

Now, there isn't really anything stopping me from coming back to the house, leashing up the hounds and then walking down to the park, unleashing them, walk through it, re-leash, and come home. We actually did that a few times shortly after school got going again. That is a substantial morning walk. But for some reason, despite my occasional feelings of disquiet regarding the amount of aerobic exercise I've been getting, I've not felt strongly motivated to do it.

Well, if you read the Spring Break Report, you know that George tangled with a trampoline and lost. He's got a big line of stitches that should not get exposed to the icky run-off water that can usually be found in the park area. The beasties still need a chance to work off some energy, but the park is obviously out. So I've been putting on the leashes and taking them on a short circuit of the neighborhood.

Now I remember why I quit walking them down to the park. They yank. They pull. Hubert cuts in front of me or will stop dead to sniff something (and when 120 pounds of Great Dane stops or cuts you off, you notice). Usually at the same time, the other two decide to try and charge forward to sniff something, leaving me feeling distinctly like a wishbone getting pulled crosswise. And they always try and pass behind me, instead of alongside, forcing me to hop over the leashes like a demented ballet dancer in order to avoid getting clotheslined at the knee.

All this yanking around might be good for me in some awful fashion, but in order to avoid strangling the hounds and to keep my acid reflux down, I think the absurdity of driving them somewhere to go on a walk is the lesser of two evils.

Spring Break For The Family Man

Well, Spring Break was interesting this year. We really started on Friday, when some really good shit I had asked for came in.[1] We both got supremely buzzed off it multiple times, and were truly wiped when we finished[1.5].

Later, when that ran out, we dropped a few more c-notes on our other shared vice.[2]

Still, I was pretty grumpy when Trish threw me over and spent the whole week sleeping with another, younger guy[3]. What I was left with were real dogs, even if I often got to have two with me at once[4].

But to prove that its not a really good party unless someone gets in a fight, George managed to get himself pretty badly torn up (like, needing stitches tore up) close to the end of the week.[5] And naturally the big lunk wouldn't keep still like he was supposed to, and opened some of them up again, forcing us to take him back to the doc a couple of days ago.[6]

All in all, quite a time was had by all.[7]


[1] We bought 3.5 cubic yards of cow manure compost, which we spread out over the yard.
[1.5] We were stung by bees from the house next door.
[2] We went to Book People and bought a LOT of books
[3] The weather was mild, so our son Jacob and Trish slept out on the patio.
[4] I preferred the bed. The dogs came and joined me periodically.
[5] George the dog got himself caught on an exposed trampoline bolt. Ick.
[6] He nibbled on them.
[7] I'm not sure how to work in the brick pathway I started on.

The Incredible Sameness of Being

Or, Where Jim Once Again Realizes Something Most Women Learnt In The Fifties. Or Earlier

I recognize the irony of this posting, coming as it does on the heels of this one, but it was what I felt.

I was doing something I had done a thousand times before. Unloading the dishwasher I think, but it could have been any one of a myriad of tasks. You know the kind. The sorts of things that have to be done, if not every day, then at least more than twice a week.

So I was doing this task, whatever it was, and I had this thought enter my head: "Gad, how many times have I had to do this? And how many more times will I do it in the future? I'm really sick of it, but tomorrow I'll do it again. And the next day, and the next day. Bleah."

It might not have been in so many words. It may or may not have had actual words at all, it might have been just a sort of feeling of incohate dread. This is your life now, pally, it seemed to say. Can you dig the drag it is?

Well. I'm sufficiently self-aware that when something like that happens, I can stop, pull the shrink-wrap off and look it over a bit more closely. My first thought was something along the lines of "Ah, so this is what those housewives were talking about back in the day." And that was true enough. But later I had more thoughts. After all, almost everyone has patterns, set tasks and so forth. In my former life as a computer programmer I followed the same pattern that got me to my desk every day. My specific task might vary, but it was all about setting up IF…THEN blocks and DO…UNTIL loops. Certainly my job had more variety than that of an assembly-line worker (how much change to they get now, anyway? Do you screw in spark plugs for thirty years, or do you rotate every week or two? Anyone?), but any programmer who has user support in their job description can tell you that every week you're virtually certain to get the same sort of help calls for the same sort of mistake. And there were days in front of the computer screen where I just shook my head and said to myself, "Cripes, this thing again?"

I recall when my summer job was unloading watermelons I would occasionally get the "unloading dream", where I would be working in my sleep. And when I woke up, I was exhausted because I felt like I had been pitching melons all night. Which I had, they were just in my head. You try moving watermelons from 10AM until 10PM (with lunch and dinner breaks) for days on end and see how easily you can get them out of your dreams!

Still later it came to me that the issue is not so much one of variety. Sure variety can help, but if your tasks go from pitching watermelons to washing dishes to shoveling manure or screwing in spark plugs, how much help are you going to be getting from that change, really? What really helps keep you from feeling oppressed is how much you enjoy what you are doing.

No job is perfect. There are always going to be aspects of your job that you could do without. In my case, I came to see that at least a part of what I enjoyed about being a SAHD was not that I got a charge out of doing the dishes (I don't) or sweeping the floor (that either), but because of the things it did allow me to do. Like write this blog. Or be in a movie. Or take acting class. And time of course. Time to do all those things and still be certain we have enough milk. And printer ink. Some things do change, I guess. I think this was stuff that many women once did in a search for a change, when what they really needed was to get to choose things they wanted.

[Side note -- When I started this post I really was trying to actively avoid anything that smacked of having an answer/solution. But then I had the following thoughts. So deal with it]

So I think we have to give ourselves permission to be sick of the dishes (or the laundry, or the vaccuuming, or whatever), and not worry about it. We don't have to like everything about this job in order to like it as a whole.

And one more thing: Maybe you don't actually enjoy this gig. That's okay too. Choose something else. Easier said than done, I know. But we have to allow ourselves freedom to make choices. Often its not someone else holding us back, but our own inhibitions. Go for it.

And if by chance you really like doing dishes, or laundry, drop me a line. I have a way to increase your happiness.

The Last Roundup

Everyone's life has some odd things in that make for interesting stories. Mine does too, although unlike most people's it often gives me more than just some old stories. Like what, you say? Well, I'm glad you asked…

We own a ranch. Actually, wilderness preserve would be more accurate nowadays, but once upon a time the around 1300 acres were an actual working ranch, with cattle and everything. During the last drought, we kicked the person who held the lease off of it and continued the process of letting it go wild, aside from a few efforts to keep things from becoming completely overrun with mesquite.

Almost a year ago now, the two fellows who own the hunting lease reported seeing three cows wandering around. Trish and I even saw them for ourselves once. The dogs saw them too, and chased them off into the brush barking like mad.

After some false starts, I eventually got around to contacting the local sheriff, and had him ask around to see if anyone had some cattle missing. It turns out that at least one ranch thought they had. And then things got a little weird…

The sheriff gave me some phone numbers to contact the ranch owner (who I'll call M) in question. Only problem was that he was dead.

Yep, right around the time I finally began to try and deal with the mysterious mini-herd, the person suddenly took ill and died. I was only vaguely aware of this at the time I began trying to make my phone calls. I had three numbers from the sheriff. Two were non-working numbers, and the third never answered, no matter how long I let it ring.

Soon after, the three cows dropped out of sight. I presumed they had wandered back home via whatever hole in the fence they had wandered in through and let the matter drop.

Spring gave way to summer, and summer to fall. Hints appeared to suggest that the cattle had not left, or if they had, it had been just long enough to get a tall latte (or perhaps a moocha) and bagel before returning. So I tried the numbers again, with no luck. I called the sheriff again, and discussed matters with him. He said those were the contact numbers he had, and if after sufficient time had passed, I could simply have the cattle removed and sold, the proceeds to be divided up between my self and the owner.

I was hesitant about just doing that sort of thing, but my exasperation level was high. Finally, (and if memory serves, at Trish's suggestion) I got a mailing address from the tax office and sent a registered letter explaining that these animals were on my land and if I didn't hear from "To Whom It Might Concern" soon, I was going to have them removed and sold.

A few days later I got a phone call. It turned out to be from the widow of M. She (we'll call her S) had been very upset by my letter, appearing (it seemed) out of the blue, and she had fired a testy one back at me. But, she had thought about it, and decided to call before the letter arrived (I had included our phone number, of course) to see if things could be handled in a more amicable fashion. And since we were both agreeable folk that was accomplished.

Soon enough we had reached a modus vivendi, agreeing to split whatever proceeds there were from the sale of the cattle 50-50, and in the process I got a tale of family skullduggery and small-town snippiness that left my head spinning. As part of the whole discussion I arranged to send her a map I had made that showed who was paying taxes on different plots of land (and thereby probably owned it).

So then I had to call the sheriff again to get the name of someone who could help me round up the cattle. He gave me one, and it turned out to be a man who used to help my dad and me work cattle years ago, when Dad still ran the place himself. So that was cool, but he wanted me to come down and show him around and hopefully spot the animals in question. Lets call him J.

This happened right before we moved. I let the matter drop and concentrated on getting the heck out of Dodge, planning to pick up the thread sometime after we had gotten settled in the new place. Weeks later, with most of the boxes unpacked and something vaguely resembling normality returning to our lives, I made arrangements to head for the ranch and see the guy. By a happy coincidence, S was going to be in the area the same day.

So I got up at 5AM and drove two and a half hours to the south. I met the cowboy and we drove in. One of my hunters was there and we stopped to talk to him for a while. He had seen the cattle that very morning. I drove around with J and while we didn't see the animals we could see where they had been spending a lot of time. He said he would come back later in the week when his brother could help him. We settled on a price for the rounding up and hauling, and I split.

I managed to catch up to S in town. She thanked me for my trouble and regaled me with a tale of woe and small-town family skullduggery that left me dizzy. Thing is, I could well believe it. I was also as certain as I could be that I wanted no part of any of it.

At any rate, I eventually returned home, very tired.

A day or two later J called me up to say he had successfully retrieved the cattle and taken them to the auction barn. Great, I thought. I left a message on S's cell phone with the news and the dollar amount to send to him once we received our checks from the auction. A day or two later she called me up and said she thought J's price was too high. She had asked around. So I asked around a bit myself. I decided that it was high, but not overcharge high, and I told her so. She decided to go along with me.

Finally, I thought. It took forever, but the cattle were gone and all was settled.

Well, until today when I got a phone call from S. She hasn't received her money yet. She's convinced something underhanded is underfoot and…maybe she's right. How the heck would I know? Anyway, I found the check stub I had received and gave her the number of the auction barn plus some other information that might help.

This is the sort of thing I do in between loads of laundry.

The End of The Tunnel

Moving sucks rocks. Still, a month and a half from the beginning of this madness we have pretty much gotten ourselves settled in. The back yard no longer resembles a cardboard box graveyard. Our books may not be neatly arranged everywhere on the book shelves, but they are at least stacked near their eventual alphabetical position.

I've gotten used to new living space several times now, but this one is very different from all of the others. We had months to wander through, getting to know every nook and cranny. We spent lots of time thinking about where things should go and how best to arrange them. While Trish spent a lot of time thinking about where the furniture should go, I thought about how to arrange things in cabinets and closets. As a result, thing are far less haphazardly arranged here than they were at our prior houses. We're actually organized. It does help that the house is blessed with a surprising amount of storage space for something from the 1960's (my stereotype is that big closets and such came in the late 70's). The kitchen in particular has lots of cabinet spaces and drawers. Heck, we have two kitchen drawers and two bathroom drawers sitting completely empty at the moment and vague plans for only one of them.

We did need a storage shed to make up for the garage we turned into a study. That enabled us to clear off the covered back patio and make it pleasantly livable. I was getting pretty tired of staring at random boxes and the handle of the lawnmower while eating dinner.

There are of course, areas of chaos which remain. My tools are sitting in a large box until I can get a proper peg board in place for them. Two closets have stuff kind of just stuck in them until we can do some re-arranging. I need to put up some shelves in Jake's room (which will help empty one of those closets). A lot of paint left here by the previous owner needs to be hauled off to the hazardous waste dump. But all in all, things have progressed in a very satisfying way.

Still Alive At Christmas

Just a quick note. We did manage to move, though it was not a terribly edifying experience, complete with taking longer and breaking things and not being real happy with the movers, who are hiding behind a claimed Federal Law against their giving a refund. WTF? I have actually contacted our congressperson about that one.

The kitchen countertop still isn't done, but its done enought to cook and use the sink. Its gonna look real good when done. The master bedroom window has been replaced after the dogs knocked it out trying to attack someone walking their dog along Shoal Creek Blvd. No damage from that but the stitches from Marquis' run-in with construction debris and Hubert's wrassling with George (the second set of stitches. The first set from 10 days ago had healed and been out for about 45 minutes before he got a new set of gashes. The dogs really need to get walked) do seem to be healing nicely. We may have stumbled onto a good vet via that misadventure.

All five of the window blinds I bought at Lowes were the wrong size (too short), but they were awfully decent about refunding everything and getting me a new set. But they couldn't do anything about the special order I had placed being delayed by the factory until after Christmas despite the factory saying the blinds had shipped already.

Aside from Jake and Trish, I'm terribly off on my Christmas shopping. But I think people know our situation and will understand.

On the plus side, the cable internet has been installed and is working fine so far. Woo-Hoo!

Commence Silent Running...

Next week we move in to our new house (sans a kitchen countertop, at least for a few days -- that's a long story). So that means I am and will be very very busy. Then comes Christmas. Which is all a way of saying that I will not be posting much the next couple of weeks. Wish us luck, and have a Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Good Kwanza, Pleasant Yule, Spiffy Winter Solstice, etc.

Or you can do the moving for us. That way, we will have time to deal with the Appendicitis Scare, the Wrong Grout Color Issue, the Shed Conundrum, Finding Food, Trish Going to A Conference Right After Christmas for Days, Getting High-Speed Internet, and Miscellaneous Crap.

I may be a little stressed right now. But compared to the last move, this one should be a piece of cake. At least if we forget something we don't have to drive a thousand miles to retrieve it.

Santa

Jacob is 7 3/4 (I think he might insist on the distinction). He believes quite strongly in Santa Claus, and we haven't done anything to disabuse him of that notion. We (perhaps I should say I -- Trish has always been determined not to lie to Jake on these matters, and rightly so I think) have temporized from time to time ("Santa is as real as we want him to be").

He has just finished re-watching The Polar Express and re-reading Berke Breathed's The Red Ranger Came Calling, both of which deal with the issue of belief (and disbelief) in the fellow in red explicitly. They both come down pretty hard on the side of real, so despite the fact he generally knows the difference between true things and make believe things I think they might have strengthened his convictions despite acknowledging there are people who don't believe. Of course, why grown-ups wouldn't believe in Santa despite the appearance of toys they did not buy under the tree is a subtle detail he hasn't caught yet.

As I recall, I was around eight or nine when I realized that there was no actual Santa. I was old enough to recognize that things did not quite add up, and finding the stash of Christmas toys in a closet (I was an infamous poker into places I did not belong) was the kicker.

Trish and I have better hiding places, but Jacob is smarter than I was at that age (he might be smarter than am right now), despite sometimes missing important details. At some point, we won't be able to sidestep the problem, and I really wonder how the heck to handle it. Do I sit him down and have "The Talk About Santa"? Or will he come to the conclusion himself and say "Dad, there's not really a Santa Claus, is there?" Will he be angry? Tearful? Matter-of-fact?

I think I'm more worried about this than trying to teach him how (and how not) to deal with girls.

Ultimatum

As you may recall, we are working on a house. We have been working on it since the first week of September. The people doing the work are good, but often no one has been there doing much of anything. Finally, we decided we were going to have to be ugly about things, and have simply set a move-in date. December 13. 2005, mind you, not 2006. We told our guy that was the date. Get things finished. Or else.

Now, of course, having done this, everyone is saying "oh yeah, that's what you have to do." Well hell, couldn't they have said that oh, maybe a month ago? Sheesh.

So now a crash program is developing. I'm interested in seeing what can be accomplished once they stop using us to fill in the gaps between bigger jobs.

Post-Thanksgiving Short Takes

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. We did.

When it comes to traditions like the last posting talked about, I do have a couple of personal ones for the holidays, which I hope to add to in the years to come. The week before Halloween, I like to read Roger Zelazny's A Night in the Lonesome October. Then, sometime in December I like to pop in my tape of Patrick Stewart's brilliant one-man performance of A Christmas Carol.

The dishwasher finally got fixed last Wednesday. I won't bore you with the details, but it was quite an adventure. Two different guys said it was a bad pump, but the third guy said it was the electronic controller. Fortunately he had one in his truck. Whee! A dishwasher! I almost ran it every time I dirtied a glass, I was so thrilled. I'm not joking.

It's damn hard to leave Lowe's without dropping well over $100. Especially when getting a new house ready.

I had an interesting idea for a long post, but wasn't anywhere I could make a note of it. Now, of course, I have forgotten. I hate that…

Ritual

As we approach the time known as the holiday season, I, as most years, think back to a simpler time -- 1975, or thereabouts. What, you don’t recall the '75 as being particularly pleasant or simple? Okay, it wasn't, really, but I was only about 8 years old and it seemed tranquil compared to, say, my years in high school.

As an aside, I think that is why many people seem to think "life was simpler then" -- they were kids and life was simpler -- for them.

Anyhow, in those golden days of Watergate, gas lines and the fall of Saigon, and on through the pleasant era of inflation, hostage crises and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, my family had an established and welcome pattern to its holidays.

July 4 was for a time spent at my Aunt Audrey and Uncle Bill's house. Bill ran a trucking company which shipped cattle all over the country. They therefore had a huge caliche rock drive and parking area, perfect for fireworks. My parent's home town was so small that not only was there no ordinance banning fireworks in the city limits, the fireworks stand itself was across the street from the county court house and next to the waterworks.

Thanksgiving was spent at our (my grandfather's old) house there. Mom got the dressing (stuffing) started early and one or two older cousins of mine would come over to taste test it before she put it in the oven. Mom's dressing was justifiably famous in the family. Later more and more people would show up and eventually we would stuff ourselves silly, scattered all over the kitchen, living room, and back porch while the Dallas Cowboys played some sacrificial lamb on TV.

Christmas was spent at Aunt Hasey and Uncle John's place, which was just across the road from Audrey and Bill's. We would gather there Christmas Eve. Mom was invariably the last to arrive. Finally (after what seemed hours to us kids) Hasey would plant herself under the tree and hand us presents, telling us little ones to whom they were to be delivered. These gifts were from family members to other family members. Eventually, all the gifts would be distributed and we could rush back to our own piles to rip the paper off and see what goodies we got. At some point, carolers would wander by. Then we went to bed at our various places to await Christmas Day and Santa's goodies. It was a good time to be a kid.

If we lack for anything these days, it is that sense of family ritual at the holiday season. I realize now that there were tensions and cross-currents I knew nothing about, and what I really want is something I can't have without being 8 again. Still and all, I wish we could do the Big Family Holiday Thing.

Historical Reality

When I was in college I developed a habit of doing all the dishes I used as soon as I was done with them. This was partially in self-defense. I knew that arguments over cleaning the kitchen would develop, and I wanted to stay out of them. This was mostly successful, though I think my roomies resented having to acknowledge the mess in the sink wasn't mine. Or maybe they resented my forcefullly observing the mess wasn't mine. Over and over. Nah.

When I got my own apartment, I continued the habit. I didn't enjoy doing dishes, but I also didn't have enough dishes to fill a dishwasher before running out of stuff to eat on and with. A little silly, I suppose; who cares of the washer is truly full before running it? But it seemed wasteful. So I did 'em myself after every meal. It wasn't until I got married that the generation of soiled dishes outstripped my ability to keep up and I had enough to fill the thing before needing to use large banana leaves to put my cereal on. If memory serves, Trish had a hand in convincing me the dishwasher was an actual labor-saving device, and used less water to boot.

Anyway, last week the dishwasher had a problem. The water wouldn't drain out, so I've been thrown back to hand-washing for the better part of a week. Washing all dishes by hand for one person for 1.5 meals a day is a minor pain. Doing so for three while also cooking etc. is a royal pain. I can’t even just stuff things into the washer for later cleaning. They sit on the counter or in the sink taking up space I need for other things.

Okay, so its not hauling all the water needed for drinking, cooking and cleaning two miles from the community well. Sue me, I find it a serious hassle. And it certainly serves as a forceful reminder about all those history lessons that mentioned the introduction of labor-saving devices for the home back when. For the (mostly) women of those eras, it must have been like…having a stay-at-home-parent. Or something like that.

Baby on Board

A while back Slate ran an article about choosing a baby stroller. Strollers aren't really something we need much of these days, but I've often considered a series of posts for new parents or parents to be on what our experiences were with various baby gizmos.

Most people who write about this grumble (with justification) at the below the belt nature of much of the marketing for baby stuff. For most people, the struggle is not to get too much stuff, including fripperies like the baby wipe warmer. In our case, for quite some time it was almost the opposite.

As I recall, despite the morning sickness and the fact that her stomach was out to here, Trish and I were in a vague sort of denial about Jacob's impending birth. With only a week or two left before the big day, we only had the stuff we had received as part of the baby shower. I felt a vague sort of unease about this, but nothing strong enough to make me say "You're getting in the car and we're going to Babies 'R Us. Now."

It took a friend of ours to give us a good kick in the rear and get moving. She had actually come up to visit and help us move the last of Trish's stuff from her old apartment in Columbia (three hours away) over to our house. That is a story in itself, but she was scandalized at our lack of baby prep.

"I can't believe you guys!" she said. "Come with me, we're going shopping." And so we did.

Fortunately our friend was something of a country girl, so we were not steered towards things like Tommy Hilfinger diapers or what-have-you. We did get a bunch of things that we were later to make much use of, and certainly saved us from many, many trips to get some thing we needed direly post birth. If memory serves, we got such basic items as a crib, a diaper pail, a changing table, wipes, more diapers, a monitor, some functional baby clothes, blankets, bottles, and an extraordinarily useful "baby bag" (where you stuff all the spare diapers, medicines, wipes, chewie things, etc whenever you leave the house, hopefully not forgetting the baby in all the packing). I'm sure there were some failures in that pile of things as well, like the baby backpack thing that Jacob never seemed to fit in right, a musical mobile, and others.

But, thanks to her, we were as prepared with stuff as we reasonably could be.

Sick and Tired

I was sick this past weekend. Nothing bad, just a low fever and a general feeling of tiredness. It was the sort of illness you could almost forget about as long as you kept still. Anyway, I think it gave me an insight.

When I was a kid there a sense that moms didn't get sick. Granted, in the cultural milieu where I grew up, moms tended to stay home as well, so who knows to what degree this was universal, but at any rate, moms did not get sick. Kids got sick all the time. Dads got sick, too. Rarely, but it happened. Mothers, however, seemed invulnerable.

This, of course, was bunk. Moms got sick just like everyone else; they just didn't acknowledge it. There was too much to do. Intellectually, I knew that. But this weekend, as I was able to pretty much take it easy while getting better, I think I came to understand how they kept going.

Guilt. Yes, guilt (and me not even Catholic!). I think it was the first time I ever felt truly guilty over an illness. No doubt the mildness of the episode played a part. But still, there it was, and it hit me then that my mom, and surely other people's parents as well, had felt as down as I did plenty of times, and yet went on. Playing with pain, they call it in the sports world. You're not 100%, but the team needs you, and so you go in anyway. You could refuse; you could say no, but you feel you would be letting people down.

Yeah, it's an imperfect metaphor. They all are, sue me. And no doubt many people ignored illness because they had to work and needed the money. But I'm thinking more about stay-at-home parents, here, and I think there's something to it.

Kiss the Cook

I've never regarded myself as a cook, with the exception of working a smoker to create barbecue. Otherwise, while I could cook, I wasn't a cook, if you get my drift.

This semester (a consequence of working for a university for three years after college and then marrying a university professor is you define your life by semesters) Trish has been teaching a late class, and since we haven't gotten to move in to our new house yet, I've had to do most of the preparing of the family meals.

In the past, this sort of thing was pretty much restricted to one meal a week. I've managed to make the adjustment, but it's still hard for me. While I do get a sense of accomplishment those nights I manage to pull it off it, it feels like work in odd ways that folding laundry does not.

Last week, I felt like I really outdid myself. I made a cheesy potato soup with salmon for Monday, a nice white bean soup Tuesday, slow-cooked pork with stir-fried veggies for Thursday, plus various combos for leftovers on the other weekdays. Everyone liked them, they were fairly easy with not a huge amount of cleanup, a huge success.

Problem is, that was last week. Now I have to do it all again.