Tired out

School is starting a bit sooner than usual this year, and this past weekend had to double up and be both the last relaxing weekend of summer and the last chance to get everything done before school starts.

I planned for it in the usual way — by making a list so I could check off my tasks if I ever when I actually got them done. What made the weekend a bit unusual is that I had several things I wanted to sit down and watch: the race, the qualifying session, and the free practice sessions for the Belgian Grand Prix; the rebroadcast of the Hungarian Grand Prix, which I missed while I was travelling; the last two “What If…?” episodes, and the Netflix series “The Chair.”

Of course, this was just the list of what I wanted to sit down and watch. I wasn’t even planning to knit along — this was just dead time, purely focused video time, which isn’t what I normally do with my weekends. You can also add: laundry, dishes, cleaning, daily reading and journal entries, prepping two packages for shipping, shopping for school supplies, shopping for any needed school clothes, and clearing out SecondBorn’s bedroom, now to be used even less frequently now that they are moving into a dorm this week for their first year of college. (Does anyone want to buy a very sturdy loft bed, 2 years old, maybe used a dozen times?) Allow for a fishing trip for Lastborn on Saturday afternoon, and add to this list anything that came up in the course of the weekend.

Laundry and dishes went on in the background, proceeding without a hitch. I was able to watch the free practices for the Belgian Grand Prix when nobody else was up, so those were removed from the DVR right away.

Nothing really went sideways (for my British readers, please substitute ‘pear-shaped’) until Saturday afternoon, when MiddleSon and I were preparing a UPS shipment that he’d been nagging me about for several weeks. Today was the day, and we confirmed that the UPS Store would be open until 5 pm. We had purchased the right-sized shipping box last weekend, and he had packed the goods halfway up. I found more packing materials to add to the top of the box. He taped everything shut and contacted the recipient to obtain their mailing address and phone number…only to find that they didn’t want the items until later in the year. We took a moment, then he asked if he could just store the box in the attic until we really needed to ship it. Bingo! One less task on the list for Saturday.

That was a Good Thing™ because we had previously determined that it was better to focus on in-house priorities on Saturday so we could do any travel on Sunday. So the dishes continued and the laundry continued, until Lastborn was picked up for his fishing trip and we could concentrate on some specialty vacuuming (cobwebs! ick!) of the TV room. Unfortunately, I had promised Lastborn that I would get a fish fry dinner for him on Saturday, and I was planning to do this while returning from the trip to the UPS Store that had just been cancelled.

Stay flexible! After Lastborn was home again I realized that I needed to make a trip to the grocery store and I could combine that with a trip to [REDACTED], which on occasion makes a pretty good fish fry dinner. Off we went to get some cartons of Classic Coke and just a few other things. Then we stopped at [REDACTED] and went inside to place our carry-out order. We didn’t pick up on the store’s vibe right away, but after a while it became apparent that while the location was quick to take orders, they were for some reason slow to deliver them. After I had been waiting for about ten minutes, parked drive-through customers started coming into the store to find out when they would get their dinners, having placed their orders twenty minutes ago. The customers themselves were quite patient and reasonable, but the manager had completely lost the narrative. By the time he realized I was waiting for a to-go order he was apologizing and saying that he didn’t know where it was. He was getting ready to throw a stack of coupons at me, when he suddenly realized that the order was up and I could take it. We were in the car (after advising a family, complete with dog, that had just parked their car in the lot that perhaps this was not where they could receive their dinner anytime soon on this particular evening) when Lastborn looked at his order and sighed upon sight of a slice of unanticipated American cheese. We were able to get him a whopper of a substitution at another fast food establishment that was on our way home. I ate his order and saved my salad for another day, and culinary harmony was restored.

I’ll have to admit that that was pretty much it for Saturday. Daily reading, one glass of wine, journal entry, time for bed. But I did watch two free practice sessions for the Grand Prix, plus the first episode of “The Chair,” sometime during the morning, afternoon, and evening. Check, check, check.

Sunday Sunday Sunday! I woke before the boys did, and I was able to Netflix-binge the rest of “The Chair” (or almost the rest of it) before anybody else needed me for anything else. I have a lot of thoughts about “The Chair.” If you work for a university or, particularly, an English department, you will see a lot of resonance. I suspect that legal concerns ought to prevent me from making further comment on the content.

The next task was to serve as sous chef for prepping a slow-cooker beef stew before Firstborn and I sat down to watch a recording of the Belgian Grand Prix (race time plus two extra hours of recording, just in case it rained). As it happened, it rained quite a lot in Belgium this weekend. We were determined not to be spoiled on the race results via social media, so it was about 5:30 pm before our recording ended and we were aware of all the outcomes (no spoilers here!).

On Sunday afternoon, the rest of the task list went kaflooie (British friends, what comes after ‘pear-shaped’?) when MiddleSon and I loaded the car to go make Goodwill donations and pick up school supplies. I started the car and turned on the air conditioning. Then we brought forth our cell phones to check the hours of OfficeMax and Goodwill. Both were already closed. Hmm.

We thought it over, and we decided to go to the nearest gas station since I was down to 1/4 of a tank. While I was filling up, another motorist spoke the fateful words: “Hey, you have a flat tire.” I checked, and he was right; in the past few days I had driven over a screw or a bolt that was firmly embedded in my left rear tire. That explained the squirrely handling I had noticed in the last few days. MiddleSon and I put air in the punctured tire and limped home, where Firstborn was prepared to change the tire to the full-sized spare. (I supervised.) We tested the spare by driving to the same gas station and putting in a bit more air.

No school supplies. No new clothes for school. One call to the mechanic to check prices on a new set of tires.

Recalculating….

School year’s eve

At the moment I’m in the middle of preparations for what feels like several new years, all beginning within days or weeks of each other.

At work I’m helping my department prepare for a new school year that starts on September 2. Yes, everyone, that’s BEFORE Labor Day. We’ll kick off the academic year with a two-day week, follow it up with a four-day week, and finally get into the five-day weeks. (This means that the Tuesday/Thursday classes will meet twice before the Monday/Wednesday classes meet at all, so people who teach the same course on both of those schedules will have some juggling to do to keep the sections aligned.) I’m also helping three newly hired department members get set up for classes and feel confident on campus.

Secondborn is starting their first year of college, but not on my campus. That means move-ins and a night-before-the-first-day-of-classes concert for Secondborn and Eldest, and we’re going to need to figure out those logistics soon, as Eldest does not, at the moment, drive. (Even if he did, there might not be a car to use for him that day.) Go Panthers!

MiddleSon is beginning his senior year of high school and already looking forward to the terrifying exciting future of schooling and work that lies ahead of him. Go Eagles Class of 2022!

Youngest has already started an athletic season (fall soccer) and is preparing to adjust his sleep schedule (I hope) to accommodate in-person classes for his sophomore year of high school. Here’s hoping that he — and everyone else — can stay in person and healthy for as long as possible. Go Eagles!

At a personal level, I’m preparing (or thinking that I really ought to be preparing) for the Jewish new year, which involves everything from soul-searching and prayer to digging out my recipes for challah and apple cake. It’s quite intense all by itself, but I would like to acknowledge the UW System for once again ignoring the Jewish calendar while planning the academic calendars for their campuses. The campuses that managed to register a protest got their calendars adjusted; the rest of us may now be misaligned with them. We’ll also be wondering which faculty and staff will be working on the High Holy Days and which ones will be at services (in-person or virtual) all day while they fast. That might be a way for some instructors to align their course sections….

This is a good point at which to remind myself that I like new years. I like having a chance to start over, especially if it means that I get to have to buy new notebooks and pens. I like having the opportunity to take stock, reflect, and make a plan before starting again.

Maybe there should be a New Year’s Eve for the start of the school year. A School Year’s Eve, if you will. A time to celebrate that the school supplies have all been purchased and delivered to the school. A time to rejoice that the schedule is complete and all of the textbooks have been acquired. A time to enjoy some final family time before that chaotic first morning of managing the logistics of morning showers and breakfasts before the arrival of the bus. A time to think, How did we do this two years ago when everything was normative?

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Knitwise, there has been no knitting. But I’ve been doing more reading than usual. I have finished a long nonfiction book (Tombstone) and started a long fiction book (The Weight of Ink). I have picked up books that I had started and set aside (The Book of Aron), and I’m making progress. As we get closer to the start of the school year I’ll be better able to determine my new schedules for working, reading, and picking up Youngest from soccer practice (or soccer games).

Was the game on Tuesday or Thursday?

Writing? Other than the blogging, I have been thinking about my fiction and nonfiction and wondering when I might sneak away for some sort of writing retreat. A friend gave me a gift certificate that will partially cover the cost of a weekend stay at a nearby bed and breakfast, and I’m thinking about how to turn that into a marathon writing session during the winter break. How much could I do if I didn’t have to worry about anything else? It would be interesting to find out.

Happy School Year’s Eve!

Working with my brain

Every time I think that I have myself figured out, I throw myself a curveball. You might think that by this time I would have figured out how to read my own pitches, but apparently I can be as much of a mystery to myself as I am to everyone else. So my batting average against myself isn’t particularly impressive.

Recently I have given myself permission to organize and perform my personal work in a way that is facilitated by the way my brain is, or seems to be, naturally wired. In other words, I’m trying to work the way my brain works, in the hopes of getting better results than constantly working at cross purposes. Saying I will get up at 5 am every day when no one else is awake and put in a good hour of writing before anyone else needs me is all fine and dandy to say, but I think it’s obvious that that plan won’t work for everyone. It might not work for anyone besides Ernest Hemingway, and he’s dead.

Saying Every day at 2 pm I shall do thus-and-so doesn’t work for me, either; things “come up” at work, Saturdays might depend on someone else’s schedule over which I have no control, and Sundays… well, maybe I will feel like cleaning the bathroom at 2 pm on a Sunday. If I do, I had better clean the bathroom before the urge passes. I can surely find another time to do thus-and-so if it’s so important.

But that’s something anyone could figure out and work with. What I’m doing — not claiming that I’m special by any means — is realizing that I need to work with my own particular ebb and flow of energy and interest. Every so often I’ll have a weekend where everything comes together, and between 10 and 2 on Saturday I will be incredibly productive at whatever my mind sets itself to do. When that happens I stop trying to do what I have planned for the day, and I just GO DO and then write down everything I did. Am I sanitizing my to-do list or just recording what actually happened? I’m not sure, but I realize now that I would rather accomplish Set B of Ten Things than beat myself up all weekend about not having done Set A of Five Things.

So I’ve stopped beating myself up. And I’ve started paying attention to the increased energy I get when I discover a new rabbit-hole of an interest. Guess what, I’m going to go down the rabbit hole now and see everything that’s in there. I’ll bring back what I bring back. It might be of temporary interest or lasting interest, but how do I know which one it is unless I go down the hole?

I’ve noticed another “tell” I have that a new special interest is on the horizon; I go into denial about spending time with it. I explain that I’m checking out all these library books for later because I’m just too busy right now, I can’t take on anything else right now, I don’t have time for this right now.

But if it’s interesting enough, I’ll make the time. I’ll reschedule. I’ll find a way to get the new book on my reading schedule. Because if it sparks an interest that looks like it will persist and lead to other things, I’ll follow. I must follow. Because if I don’t follow it, it will go on without me, someone else will take it up, the urge will pass, the energy will ebb. When I go back to it later, it won’t be the same. — the ship has sailed, without me.

That’s all right. Ships sail all the time (that’s what ships do, after all) and there will be another ship. I’ll try to catch the next one when I have the energy boost. Where I’ll go, I’m not sure. But it will be interesting.

The Olympic Shadow

I’ve just finished watching a time-delayed broadcast of the closing ceremonies for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games. This time around, it was the only part of the Games I have watched, except by accident or when a viral video or photograph came across my news feed — so yes, I know about Simone Biles and Tom Daly.

Ever since I watched my first Olympic Games — in 1976, unless my parents plunked me in front of the TV for the games in Munich, which I doubt — I have made the time to watch as much of the Games as I possibly could. After the 1984 Games in Los Angeles, my brother and I were so excited after the cycling events that we jumped on our own bikes and rode them around in the yard for while — in the dark, because we were three time zones to the east and it was late.

In recent years, as my Facebook memories have been reminding me for the past several days, I have made it our tradition to watch the Opening Ceremonies with my kids and share my their comments with my friends on social media. (That will be a gift that keeps on giving, to be sure.)

But this year, I was focused on a vacation trip that covered some significant family milestones, and I neglected to record the Opening Ceremony. And when we were all traveling, we didn’t watch the Games. We just had so many other things to do, and other people with whom to spend our time. I was almost surprised one night, when I was getting a beer with an old friend, to look at the TV screens in the pub and see Olympic events being played out. (“Oh, that was tonight?”)

At a certain point I must have thought, it’s impossible to catch up, so just let it go this time. Truthfully, the severe storms that passed through the area while I was away knocked out both the cable and the power for several hours, so I might have lost any recording that I would have set up.

In the meantime, Apple and NBC did their best to push Olympic stories to my phone and clamor for my attention. But I didn’t even think about turning on the television until this morning. I was emailing a friend who asked, “Are you watching the Closing Ceremonies?” And I replied, “…I’m not sure when they are.” I pressed a few more buttons on my phone and discovered that the events were taking place at that moment and were already underway. Oh, well, I thought, too late.

My friend emailed me later in the day: They are rebroadcasting them this evening. I set up a recording right away, and I settled in to watch the “one hour” recap of Olympic moments before the Closing Ceremonies began.

That’s a LOT of flags.

Once they began I was reminded right away of why I love the Olympics and why I’m frustrated with Olympic coverage on broadcast TV. The emotionally moving moments of achievement, friendship, solidarity, and unity that transcend the world’s tensions and differences are chopped up into pieces so we can sell mobile phones and cars. I want to watch everything that happens, not just the American part. But I couldn’t buy a better seat for the events if I took three weeks of vacation and flew to Tokyo even if they had allowed spectators, so there’s that. And actually, I don’t know how much of the Tokyo spectacular the athletes were able to see from where they were on the main floor. I hope somebody let them sit down in some of those empty seats with the nice view.

Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra!

I appreciate the formal structure of the transition between the Olympic host cities. The Olympic flag flew while the Japanese flag was brought in and raised. Them the Olympic flag was lowered. At some point the Greek flag was raised, recognizing that the first Olympics were held in Greece. (I didn’t see this, so they must have done it during a commercial.) Then the French flag was raised, and the focus turned to videos, performances, and events being held in Paris that assured the world that the games would go on.

I think they might have a pretty good venue for tennis. And can you just imagine how the cycling events might end? ‘Nuff said! The Games have concluded; long live the Games. After I turned off the TV, I wanted to get my bike out of the basement and ride around in the yard.

Action at a distance

Right now I seem to be doing most of my tasks via remote control. We will have two or three new academic staff members in my department this academic year, and at the moment my tasks for them consist of initiating processes that other people will complete, communicating via email and social media, and making connections that will be useful in about a month of so. Personally I’m texting, forwarding links, sharing pictures, and electronically brainstorming to help with some future family events. I’m also scheduling potential meetups a week in advance and using map apps to check for road construction two and three states away.

All of this virtual work has become so commonplace that I’m almost shocked when my dog lies down and stretches himself across my foot, or when Youngest approaches with the clear intention of hugging me and rubbing my back. Suddenly it’s all so…close.

A couple of weeks ago I was outside to give the dog his Last Walk of the Day when I noticed how unexpectedly cloudy the night sky was. The temperatures had been consistently topping out in the 80s and 90s and the “lows” were usually in the 60s, so I was surprised to see only the moon and one reddish star with clarity. Everything else was covered up. Then I chuckled at the fact that “all I could see” besides the moon was, in fact, the planet Mars, which was more than 200 million miles away at the time.

Last summer, when things that influenced us from far away were so far out of our control, many of us focused on what was close at hand — mostly what was inside the house. Now that we’re more able to be out and about again, though, I think we’ve become more comfortable with keeping things at arm’s length. It’s easier now to ask for space, to let someone else go first, to wait a bit before moving forward. A bit of hesitation is…safe. There’s no need to rush.

I just bumped my foot into my dog’s side and was reminded, when he startled, that he is a rescue dog. I adopted him from a home that not only gave him up but had, apparently, either traumatized him or exposed him to traumatic events until his reactive behavior became too much to handle. I can never be completely sure of what happened in his first home; I see his reactions to certain events and I can guess.

Doggo can relax now, and profoundly so. But it took him almost a year to be able to let his guard down in my house. He’s going on nine years old and he knows his new name, but he still won’t came when he’s called. He’s not disobedient; he’s wary, looking out cautiously for what might be waiting for him. He’s not fond of surprises or sudden noises, and fireworks and stray gunshots turn my bold terrier into a quivering mass. He’s also beginning to show his age, and not hear or see things as clearly as he used to. More events are going to look like surprises, and he’s probably going to become more defensive as he gets older.

This Welsh Terrier snuggled in a blanket was the closest thing I could find to a picture of a Welshie hiding from ANYTHING.

So there’s no need to rush him, either. We’re all learning to go easy, despite our troubles and traumas. We’ll get there when we get there, and we’ll all feel better if we’re accompanied by happy dogs — whether they’re lying at our feet or romping through the fields barely within sight.