Walnuts On My Windshield #26
March 25, 2005

I have seen some funny things lately.

So Many Books, So Little Time

Josiah tends to sleepwalk. It goes in spurts, and a few weeks ago we had a spurt where he was sleepwalking rather frequently. One night, he walked straight into my office at about 10:30, looked me in the eye as if I were totally stupid and said, "Mom, can't you think of ANYTHING???" I assured him that I could, sent him to the bathroom, and walked him back to bed.

Another night, he stumbled into our bedroom (without knocking!) as I was getting ready for bed. He was clearly asleep and seemed very troubled. Much experience has taught me that at times like this, he is usually subconsciously seeking a bathroom. I have also learned that it's very important to help him find it! I put my hands on his shoulders, propelled him in that direction, and gave him some basic instructions. People who are sleepwalking sometimes cannot remember how to do simple things. He looked at the toilet and loudly moaned, "Ohhhhhh, nooooooooo!" With tears forming, he quickly turned in circles several times (reminding me of a dog at bedtime), flipped some unknown mental switch and became a drill sergeant, pointed at the throne, and addressed it in a harsh voice: "Three, two, one, GO!"

All's well that ended well, but for several nights after that I checked on him at my bedtime, just to make sure there would be no nocturnal bathroom battles. One night I walked into his room at 10:30 and the reading light that's bolted to his bed frame was still turned on. It's not unusual for him to read late at night when he can't fall asleep. He was lying on his side, head on pillow, facing the 40 watt light, with a book open and his nose shoved in it. The funny thing was that he was sound asleep.

Business Casual

Andrew loves to dress up. He also seems to have an inordinate appreciation for "beautiful ladies," earrings, lipstick, and high heels. In an effort to encourage him in more manly pursuits, I decided to give him some obviously boy clothes for dress up.

Scott is a man who always likes to keep his options open till the last minute - sometimes past the last minute. Therefore, when he decides a shirt, jacket, or other item of clothing will no longer be worn, it goes one of three places: into a hermetically sealed bag under our bed, onto a small heap on our closet floor, or on the hanging bar in our office closet.

We also store off-season adult clothes in the office closet, and periodically the bar gets so full that we cannot access the office supplies (and, I'll admit it - my miscellaneous junk) that is stored on the shelves on the left closet wall. At those times, I have been known to try to reduce the closet clothing clutter gradually by discreetly removing one or two items at a time that I know Scott has not worn in three years and will never wear again. However, this gets me in trouble. Inevitably, a week after such removal, Scott says, "I want to give So-and-So that such-and-such shirt. I think it would fit him perfectly." Sigh.

Since I no longer try to cull Scott's non-wardrobe, we have PLENTY of male dress-up clothes for Andrew. I selected several shirts, a sweater, a couple of ties, and a pair of dress shoes, and with much fanfare presented them to Andrew as his approved dress-up clothes. We found an old laundry basket in which he could store his treasures. He then decided that he needed a hat, and because Scott is neither a cowboy (think Western hat) nor a good old boy (think ball cap), I didn't know how to oblige his request.

Andrew, the ever-resourceful one, informed me there was a lovely purple hat in the cellar. This is true. During one season in my life, I spent about five years leading children's church in a series of finer churches. Over time, I collected a great assortment of books, props, and costumes to facilitate that endeavor. The puppets are on loan to a local church's home group right now, and the books are on a shelf in our dining room, but the rest of the children's church stuff is stored in a number of large flip-top boxes in the cellar. One box contains many hats.

I told Andrew he could get a MAN'S hat out of the children's church hat box, but he would have to bring it to me for approval before he could wear it. He scurried off and hurried back with a black felt hat (think Hatfields and McCoys). I approved, and he retired to his room to construct his get-up. Picture this. Small brown boy wears his own navy sweat pants, no socks, and Dad's black lace-up dress shoes, untied. Dad's flannel shirt is plaid, in shades of dark brown, orange, red, and dark green. It comes to just above the shoes. The sleeves are rolled up to what would be Dad's elbows, and reach to Exhibit A's wrists. Hence, the cuffs are loose, to say the least! The top button is open, and a primarily pink tie is mounted around the young child's neck. Mom tied it, but thoughtfully left it loose enough to be taken off and put back on with ease. The black felt hat is positioned jauntily, sinking well past the ears and obscuring the child's eyebrows and all his curly hair. The lower two-thirds of a small brown face, including large brown eyes, peers out from beneath the brim. Andrew spreads his arms wide, and reverting back to a funny family phrase from his toddlerhood, says joyfully, "Hi, Mom! How my look?!?"

You don't have to have all the answers if you know where to go to find them.

I think I mentioned our washing machine saga. It drains very quickly, our plumbing can't handle it, and the kitchen sinks fill up with yucky water. This is particularly gross when one is washing dishes. Our friend Jay the plumber dropped by one day to survey the scene - gratis! He told us that there were a couple of things we could do that would enable the washing machine to drain without flooding the kitchen sinks. The main problem is that our 91-year-old house's drain pipe from the kitchen is only 2" in diameter. Today's standard is a 4" pipe, and that is what our new washer is designed for. Our to-do is to dig up the yard from the house to the point that the 2" pipe connects with the 4" gray-water line pipe. Then we are to call Jay and he will come back and replace that section of pipe with a 4" one. Jay thinks we probably need to dig up 10 to 20 feet of yard, God only knows how deep. Well, I can tell you that Scott's NOT going to do that, Josiah probably can't, and with April 15 looming on the horizon, we are not about to hire it done.

The other option had to do with a TV antenna. Jay noticed that there was a TV antenna shoved into the top of the vent pipe for the kitchen drain. The vent pipe runs up from the drain pipe all the way up to and through the roof, just a foot or so from its edge. We had never noticed the TV antenna up there (boy, don't we feel dumb!), and in fact that particular antenna is not even connected to anything. It's just been sitting up there in the vent pipe at a rakish angle for lo these nine plus years. Jay suggested that if we removed the antenna, we might get more air pressure in the vent pipe, which might help the washing-machine-backing-up-into-the-kitchen-sink situation.

One Saturday, Scott decided to conquer the antenna. It's a long story, and I won't bore you with all the details, but it did require several assault attempts from different directions - kind of like approaching Everest from Nepal or Tibet. The concern was that our roof is fairly steep, and Scott is the sole breadwinner. When he addressed the offending antenna from the ladder side, he could not get enough leverage to pull it out. Evidently some previous owner (or his handyman) had shoved a metal rod down the pipe next to the antenna to fill the gap and stabilize the beast. The rod had rusted firmly in place.

Scott realized that the extrication would require him to position himself on the roof, on the uphill side of the pipe. For some reason he decided that this would be best accomplished by coming down from the peak. He took some rope up with him, intending to tie himself to an old chimney. This chimney is not the big stone one on the end of the house that serves the fireplace, but a small brick one in the center of the roof that serves the propane furnace and water heater. I offered some minimal advice from my secure position on Terra Firma, but we all know that that was not such a smart thing to do. I took a few pictures and a little video, in case we needed something recent to display at a memorial service, then went into the house. Sometimes, it's better for me not to watch.

A few minutes later, Josiah tore into the house, thumped up the stairs to his room, hollered something about getting something for Dad, and raced back down and outside. I could not for the life of me figure out what the man on the roof could possibly need from his son's bedroom. I went back outside.

Scott was sitting near the vent pipe at the very edge of the roof. He had obviously trekked (slid?) from the peak down to the edge of the roof, but he wasn't tied to the chimney or anything else. He had a length of rope in one hand and Josiah's Cub Scout book in the other. WHY was my husband sitting on the roof, attached to absolutely nothing, reading a Cub Scout book??? I thought he was up there to remove an antenna and I had been praying for his safety. Couldn't he do his personal reading at another time or place?!?!? Very sweetly, I asked him what he was doing. He replied, "I'm trying to figure out how to tie a certain kind of knot, so I can tie myself to the chimney, so I don't fall!" To that, there was really nothing I could say, but I found that whole line of reasoning - and the sight of Scott reading on the roof - to be quite funny.

Maybe next time, I will share some funny things I've seen related to the females in the family!

Until then,
Patty

From My Bookshelf:

Life is So Good by George Dawson, rank 7. Mr. Dawson is a black man who grew up in rural Texas. He dictated this book in 1998-99 when he was 101 years old. He learned to read at 98, and at the time of the book, was attending school five days a week to get his GED! His tales of life and race problems throughout many years are amazing. He has a very positive outlook, despite many unimaginable hardships.

The Lives of a Cell by Lewis Thomas, rank 9. I listened to this book, and I'm not sure I could have stayed with the print version. It's a fairly cranial book, written by a biologist-turned-philosopher/humorist. He talks about cells and their various parts. He branches out to organisms of all kinds, including humans and their societies. He eventually gets to the universe, a fairly all-encompassing topic! His treatment of language was intriguing. As I listened, I found myself remembering that I had thought about some of these same issues when I was in school. I never developed my thoughts as far or as well he did his, but it was as if he picked up on some elementary ideas I had had and expanded them to their full potential. He is also very funny, but the humor is hidden and requires attention and thought. This was a fascinating book.

Quote of the Week:

A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary. ~ Thomas Carruthers

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