Over the past few years, my husband and I have had a regular Friday night fight. The source of the friction is a standing Friday night poker game. I’ve tried, but I just don’t like it. Too much drinking, too much focus on poker, just not my thing. I’ve never really liked playing organized card or board games with people. I always lose interest about 60% of the way through and feel very trapped through the last 40%. Dave loves it–the people, the poker, the whole scene. So, each Friday I’d somehow hope he’d want to spend it with me instead of smoking cigars and hanging with the poker crew. Each Friday I’d feel let down and left out. Some Fridays, I’d organize an alternative for the both of us, but if I wasn’t proactive, the default plan was for him to go to poker and me to feel cross.
Author: Dunrie
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Black walnut bounty
Black walnuts that were “squirreled” away in our garage. Today is a beautiful fall day, clear blue skies, high 70s, warm sun. I decided it was time to rake the leaves in the backyard. We have a big, beautiful black walnut tree back there. It has lovely, feathery leaves, and when we fly over our neighborhood, I think it is the biggest tree on our block.
Every fall, it drops its leaves, its leaf rachises, and its fruit. The fruit is about 1.5-2 inches in diameter, with a green skin, and they drop with a bang onto the roof of our garage.
This year, the neigborhood squirrels seem to have been especially active. They salted away so many nuts in the planter for my dwarf orange tree that they eventually completely uprooted it, killing it. Today, when I went into our garage to get the rake and the lawn & leaf bags, I saw that the squirrels have decided to take a new tack. They have been piling up black walnut fruits onto a work surface in the garage–they have filled Dave’s old ski boots, filled some ceramic pots, and even started to place black walnuts along the groove in our ski rack.
After seven years of living here, this is the first time we’ve seen anything like this. Either our squirrels have learned a new skill, have forgotten what they know about burying nuts, or are preparing for a very long winter.
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Almost stranded
We flew up north this weekend and stopped to clear Canadian customs in Sarnia. After a brief stop, the engine of our Cessna-182 had uncharacteristic trouble starting. We got it started, and continued up the coast of Lake Huron to Tobermory.
On our return, the cold start at Tobermory airport was easy, but we had worse trouble hot starting the engine after clearing US customs. The engine simply wouldn’t turn over, and Dave tried a few times before he became concerned about running down the battery. It was mid-Sunday afternoon, sunny and beautiful, and the phone number we had for the local FBO (fixed base operator, the folks who service planes at airports) didn’t work, the airport manager wasn’t in his/her office, and the airport was quiet. Dave and Guy wandered around, looking for open hangars and helpful people. (more…)
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Mind-eraser
Sometimes my body, especially my left knee, which I injured in college playing rugby, feels as if someone took me apart at the joints and put me back together wrong, twisted. Sometimes a massage therapist puts me back together perfectly. And sometimes a massage sends me to another planet.
I had one of those mind-eraser massages tonight, the kind where I’m out cold on the table, and when it ends I have to work to recall how to use my body to get up and dress, and when conversation is even more of a strain than usual, and when I’m glad I’ve pre-written the check so I don’t have to remember how to use a pen or how to spell my name, and when it takes some extra concentration to walk out of the room and to find my way home. When I feel absolutely still and quiet and gentle and I want to make the stillness last.
Kelly Clark – Two Hands for Massage
Ann Arbor, MI 48103
tel: 734.623.8551 -
“Baby” photos reveal threads of our future selves
Friends of ours had a baby shower today. A few days ago, the mom-to-be asked if we would bring baby photos for a game they were playing. I didn’t think I had any baby photos, so I emailed my mom and Dave’s mom to see if they could locate and scan a photo to share. We then brought them to the party where they were put on a bulletin board and folks had to guess who was who.
Well, my mom was at my sister’s in Atlanta, helping to herd my sister’s little ones, so she was far away from “the historical documents” and unable to find a true baby photo. But they searched and did find one from when I was 4. Dave’s mom found a great one of him when they were visiting his grandparents who were living in Africa. Maybe I’m projecting, but what strikes me about each of these photos is how much of our adult personality is already apparent.
In mine, I’m intent on the photographer, seeking to engage (playing rock, paper, scissors?), but also overwhelmed and attempting to hide behind my hair.There’s something magical about Dave’s. To my eye, there is very little resemblance between his adult self and the tot in the photo – he’s no longer blonde, his Roman nose isn’t there yet…and still there’s something very Dave-like in the attitude/the glance. It’s a kind of intent absorption, a “don’t bother me, I’m busy here”, and of course an engineer’s interest in things with moving parts. Sheila recognized the photo instantly as one of him because of his expression.
Note – I realized this morning that this is entirely circular. I’m guessing the reason these photos charmed our moms enough to have them select them from whatever else they had was particularly this thread. From the set of all photographs, our moms picked the ones that most captured us. 9/16/2007
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Bathroom Renovation
Our big news is that we had our bathroom gutted this summer. On August 6, they came in and knocked our old bathroom out, tossing it in pieces out the little window, down a chute, and into a skip in the driveway. It came apart quickly. It has come back together a bit more slowly.
My husband put his engineering degree to use in rigging up a shower in the basement out of 2 garden hoses, a submersible sump pump, an inflatable kiddy pool, and an outdoor shower setup. I was completely skeptical and imagined trekking to the Ann Arbor Y for showers, but it’s been absolutely fine.
When they first ripped out the old fixtures, plaster, and floor, I was shocked at how tiny the room looked. And, I wondered why we’d bothered writing that very big check to destroy this very small room. It seemed impossibly small when it was empty.
It’s starting to look like a real bathroom now, and the design decisions we made are starting to twinkle out at me, reminding me that I really did dislike cozying up to the toilet just so I could wash my hands in the sink. The big improvement was a pocket door, by freeing up the space for the door swinging into the room, we got to give the toilet and sink some distance from each other.
It’s not done yet, but we’re seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.
Folks who contributed include:
- Angelini & Associates Architects and
- Sean Smith Custom Carpentry.