Remembering winter

It snowed several times this winter - starting in December and then increasingly frequently and heavily in January and February. Stpehanie's school district had about a week's worth of snow days. These are various similar pictures of our home in the snow, but taken after different snowstorms.

Here's a picture of a snowplow at work down the street from us. We live in a suburb with some excellent services, including plowing of side streets like ours relatively early on. Our street is also quite wide for an old side street, which may make it easier to salt and plow.

We share a driveway with our next-door neighbor Diane. I often plowed first, but on her days off especially Stephanie got into the act, using our snow shovel and a broom to clear off the driveway. Below Diane and Stephanie join forces.

(Diane is our neighbor who knew the woman who lived in our house for 50 years before we did. When lights go on up in Vincent's room without anyone touching them - or occasionally other odd things - we say that Martha (or Mrs. Loran) is at it again. Stephanie - and to a lesser extent I - have stripped out much of the paint and wallpaper that this family had on the first floor. We still occasionally get mail for her. Diane tells us that she fell and went to a nursing home, but then came back and lived on a hospital bed in what is now our dining room before dying at home.)

This winter I actually liked shoveling. We didn't have any super heavy snows, and I always went out before it had turned to ice. Also, I sometimes shoveled after waking the dog or when I was dressed as if I was walking the dog. Either way, I would not be very cold (except for maybe my extremities). In fact, shoveling is hard work/good exercise, and so I might actually get hot pretty fast. With relatively light snow and not a huge area to shovel, I could get my part done in 20-30 minutes. Stephanie might shovel our walk and driveway much more thoroughly later. It took some of our neighbors much longer to shovel the sidewalk in front of their houses. The house, neighborhood, and area could be quite pretty snow, at least until it started melting - especially before other people had really started shoveling/plowing. One more set of winter pictures later.

-- Perry

Car accident

A little more than a week after being at Bobby’s service, we’ve been to a couple of visitations in the past weekend. More harrowing, even, was visiting one of Stephanie’s English as a new language colleagues at the same downtown hospital rehab center where I visited another church member a month after he’d had a stroke. Stephanie has been to several conferences around Indiana with her colleagues – mainly from other schools – and then last July she and one of the middle school ENL teachers, Laura, went to the READ 180 conference in Nashville together, roomed together, and went on the ghost tour together. Practically the same month, Laura had gotten married to a man she’d known less than year and moved with him and her kids out to the country. During one of the snowstorms in February, she drove off the road and suffered a head injury (also in the car was her won, who turned out to be OK). It took four hours to get her to the hospital in Louisville and she was in coma or unconscious for a couple of weeks.

We visited her Sunday afternoon. Her brother and nephew had just flown in, but her new husband – who’s been there a lot – told us most what was going on. When we got there, Laura was taking her first shower. After she came out and sat in a wheel chair, she mainly stared into space or interacted with her husband. But she did smile at a joke Stephanie made and looked over at her (although I never heard her speak). I had never met her before. (I’ve visited one other person in the hospital after she suffered a head injury, but Laura’s injury seemed even more severe . . . ) She’s obviously made a lot of progress, but Stephanie said it’s hard to imagine she’d be ready to go back in the classroom. She and her husband are obviously very religious – in an upbeat way – but – even with the progress – it’s hard not to be sad too. Laura is probably going to come out a different person, for better or worse. Laura’s husband talked about some logistical issues too – like car registration, bank accounts, power of attorney. It makes you think – puts current challenges in perspective, make you wonder how things would go if we were in their shoes.

Say a prayer for Laura and her family.

-- Perry

Unusual events

Several unusual things happened Monday and Tuesday:We got our first snow (see above) and Stephanie got to stay home two extra hours: two-hour delay, thanks to the school buses having trouble up in the Knobs. With the delay, Stephanie got a light day at work – until Monday afternoon, when her next to last Culture Club produced a Fairmont Elementary first: a call home to a parent because of the behavior of a child (a non-English as a new language Culture Club participant, no less).

Tuesday brought other unusual occurrences: This fall some of Stephanie’s Fairmont colleagues have once or twice a week been gathering together for a workout with a Hip Hop Abs video that they play on a wide screen TV in the school. Tuesday after school Stephanie joined them for the first time. Monday – nine days after we’d dropped off Vincent’s phone for repair – Stephanie’s mother and grandmother dropped the phone off at Vincent's apartment complex (thanks, Nancy!) and his father’s apartment complex. And so Tuesday Stephanie called Vincent as she left work and talked with him for 22 minutes (first time we’d called him when he wasn’t asleep or home with his father).

Tuesday we also completed our first week splitting a Community Supported Agriculture basket of winter vegetables, eggs, and milk with my colleague Gail. We both paid in advance and for 10 weeks split the produce (plus chicken we bought and cheese Gail bought) from local farmers. Stephanie cooked the last of the mushrooms and tatsoi (plus some more of the turkey Pape Larry brought us at Thanksgiving) for dinner Tuesday.

After dinner Tuesday, to get ready for a church officer potluck Wednesday, I did something I hadn’t done much lately – or ever. With some help from Stephanie, I made a fruit salad for the event (pictured below) (and I haven’t really cooked for months – and I’ve never made a fruit salad).

-- Perry

Still cool

Kentuckiana's arctic summer continued this weekend with temperatures in the 50s at night. We went to an annual Kentucky Seminole Club pool party Sunday, where it was too cold for all but hte kids to swim. Late Friday night after the Heart/Journey concert at the Kentucky State Fair it was almost chilly at the midway as we watched Vincent ride a couple of rides. Stephanie spent several hours this weekend not only in typical outdoor summer chores - mowing, trimming, hedging - but also some typical early fall tasks: sweeping up acorns and berries. Last week's relatively warm summer weather helped motivate to get Frisco this weekend - somewhat belatedly (since the last one was in May) - a short summer haircut, and, instead, while he was watching Stephanie rake Sunday afternoon, he started shivering. Front yard looks great, sweetie! Hope you can stay warm, pooh!

-- Perry

Claudette approaches

The road along Alligator Point - a couple of miles away from where I used to live - prepared itself for Claudette (on Sunday). As it turns out, St. George Island got hit with some flooding but apparently the tropical storm - which landed near Fort Walton Beach early this morning - spared much of North Florida from any terrible calamity.

-- Perry

Weekend news

Vincent actually did some laundry and mowed the lawn. Vincent and Jessi had a sort of first date at the St. Matthews Mall, but Stephanie and I were also there. While we were talking with our new church friends Johanna and Laura, we noticed a new Halloween store going up there and pointed out a Help wanted sign to Vincent. Five minutes later he came back with a job starting at 10 a.m. (until 6 p.m.?) Monday, for $7.25 an hour, though November 1, if it works out. He’ll have to take a 9:40 a.m. bus and bring copies of his ID and social security card. Initially, he’ll be doing stock work, as they set up. Our friends said they’d been praying for him, and apparently that worked out.

Jessi and Vincent came by the house afterwards and we ended up playing Kill Dr. Lucky, a board game that inverts the board game Clue (you’re supposed to kill Dr. Lucky). I don’t know if there was any romantic part of their date. Remember Vincent is on house arrest until he finishes his two on-line classes. We’ll see how he does if he’s working eight hours a day. He’s going to have to reschedule counseling appointments.

Stephanie proposed a schedule to her principal that took her most of the week to think of. It involves her not seeing some of more English skilled students (but having her colleague Lourdes dropping in with them) and asking one classroom teacher to change her schedule. Stephanie will be prepared to implement the new Scholastic reading program with that schedule, but she doesn’t have the materials or the final training yet, and so that will wait. She may see students for the first time Monday.

I finished another version of a report for the Cincinnati presbytery that’s due Monday afternoon. Hopefully my colleagues won’t make too too many suggestions. I need to get back to Presbyterian Panel related projects. In some ways, the Cincinnati project is a holdover from my previous position.

After making a presentation about ACT scores this past week, my mother is slated to make a presentation to colleagues about SAT scores. Usually, she has much more time to get ready for all of this. Mom skipped church Sunday morning. But when she got in to work, she discovered that a tropical storm was headed towards Tallahassee. They’d been watching to storms in the Atlantic, but suddenly Sunday morning Claudette was in the Gulf, with Weather Channel reports from our favorite beach, St. George Island, and from Apalachicola (where Stephanie’s principal and her family were on vacation last month). They mainly expect a lot of rain, which we in Louisville know something about. Hopefully, there will not be too much flooding, and there will be no storm surge and no bad damage to the dunes that protect the island. Apalachicola was one of the towns that appeared in the movie “Ulee’s Gold.”

-- Perry

Bone dry

Friday afternoon I finally got to check our storage space - located about a mile from my office between the office and my old apartment. During the week it had gradually occurred to me that - even though our space is up on a hill overlooking the Ohio River - the flash flood rains Tuesday morning could have overwhelmed the storage space complex drainage system and still flooded the insides. Among other things the boxes with all of the files for the research for my dissertation - which I had hoped vaguely to turn into a book still - were there. I belatedly wondered if we should have checked to find out if the pallet factory located next to Stephanie's school sold the pallets. I got more nervous Friday morning when I couldn't reach the staff. But when I stopped there at lunchtime one of the staffpeople said she had heard no complaints - even though the street approaching the complex had flooded Tuesday and she couldn't get in to work there until 1 p.m. When I opened the space, everything looked dry and the same as usual (if dusty) - although I noticed a sewage smell throughout the whole complex. So it seemed that we had escaped the great flash floods of August more or less unscathed. Not so some of our friends. The basement of the church friends' house where we had all had dinner after coming back from Guatemala in Aptil had flooded. A friend from work - like me 10 years before - had driven her car into the flood, between our church and the office. Not only had the flood totaled her car, it had ruined a bunch of work and personal files she had carried in her car trunk (also sounds familiar, in general). For the third week in a row, it rained heavily again this Tuesday in Kentuckiana, where flooding threatened downtown New Albany again. We probably need to lay off the rain for a while.

Incidentally, pictured above is one of TWO storage spaces we currently maintain, the other - larger - in Tallahassee. Storage spaces for me goes back to Albany, NY, and I've also had - or we've had - and I've even hung out a little - at spaces in Westerville (OH), Sarasota, Bradenton, and Woodbury (MN). Among recent places to live, only in Macomb (IL) - where rents were cheap and I lived in a two-bedroom apartment by myself - and, briefly, in Louisville - in a ditto situation - did I not have a space. Love those storage spaces.

-- Perry

More water

With 20,000 already without electric power, raw sewage flooding into creeks and streets, manhole covers askew and manholes open waiting to blow out tires, most bus routes out, the Main Library basement flooded with at least $1 million damage (including thousands of books – I was there checking out books for Vincent just last week - and where an anime event that Vincent has twice attended was slated to take place this week), and more rain coming down, the church has already authorized people who need to go home, carefully. Our pastor canceled a lunch appointment with me, and other meetings scheduled may fall by the wayside. Above is a picture one of my colleague's tween son's friend's took on the Louisville West Side. Below are pictures outside and inside the library. Perhaps the community and insurance will finally raise money to repair and renovate the Main Library.

-- Perry

Watery week

On Monday Vincent finished and turned in his English critical essay. We’ll see if he has to do any revising. After that it’s more math and a bigger research paper for which we already got him some books about comic books and the post-war period. We hope to get him out eventually – to the gym? Movie? – as staying at home all of the time is probably interfering with his sleep (and will cause weight gain).

Stephanie is enjoying her final week of summer vacation, while she keeps up with housework and helps supervise Vincent. We’ll see how much school work he gets done when both of us are working full-time. Hopefully he’ll finish his two classes soon. Believe it or not, he will also get bored without Stephanie at home. At least he has the dog.

From afar we learn that this week Stephanie’s and my mothers are both in the middle of some home renovation/repair (Nancy’s more drastic than mother’s). My sister and family returned Saturday from a month in France. One of the last places they went was a family home in the French Alps which Mom and I have also visited, which the family is now already in the process of selling. No more free Alpine visits! Uncle Don and Aunt Sandy will return home to Marysville from Camp Sychar Tuesday evening (tonight). We talked briefly last night with Brenda, one of Grandpa’s caretakers, whom we met the weekend before last. Aunt June, her throat cancer in remission, was adventurous this weekend and went to the Ohio State Fair (in its first weekend) with Diana and her family. Grandpa’s sister, Mildred, returned from the Cleveland Clinic with liver cancer and shifted to the nursing home part of the Mt. Vernon, Ohio facility in which she has lived for several years.

Local news has predominated this morning, as heavy rains that started in Louisville (where it's been super cool for weeks) at 8 a.m. kept several of my colleagues away from work and have stranded motorists and flooded homes (including a little of our basement, which Stephanie intercepted and we’re calling our landlord about). I managed to get to work close to on time and managed to avoid repeating what I did to the Camry 10 years ago this month. Had I been coming in a few minutes later, I might have gotten stuck. (Pictured above is a motorist being rescued just three blocks or so from my old apartment and about a mile from my office).

-- Perry

Summertime evening

Wednesday night Stephanie and I enjoyed a full evening together - sans meetings, movies, other outings, or Vincent - and enjoyed some moderate summertime weather. Stephanie has been working hard on the yard for the past couple of weeks and that may be evident in these pictures (although the yard behind me is our neighbor's yard - in the background of the picture above is that now controversial carport).



Stephanie has been training this vine/flower to winds its way up.



Stephanie made taco salad (even though Vincent wasn't there - one of his favorite dishes).

And some amazing (if not that Weight Watcher-y) homemade lemon gelato. Yum!!

-- Perry

Stunning view (May 13)

I've told others that this - the Westin Diplomat and Convention Center at Hollywood/Hallandale Beach (FL) on the Atlantic - was the fanciest hotel I've ever stayed in. I grew up going to the Atlantic Ocean up the beach at Crescent Beach in St. Augustine. Still - these views of the Atlantic Ocean - from the balcony (?!) of my 26th (?) floor Westin hotel room- were stupendous.

-- Perry

Summertime scenes

This week we got a respite from last week's blazing 90 degrees plus heat. I've been out during several lunchtimes - when I don't have to go home to walk the dog - on the Waterfront between my office building and the Ohio River. There's a new Subway on that walk. Stephanie has been able to grill. Tuesday night she grilled some huge chicken breasts and also cooked corn on the cob. Not pictured is the yummy homemade ice cream she made with nectarines she got at a farmers' market Saturday. Yum!

-- Perry

Over for dinner

We rarely have anyone for dinner (except for during the past three Octobers of Danish exchange students). But this past week we unexpectedly had two groups of people over for dinner. On Tuesday Vincent's prom date from last year, Jessi (pictured below), was visiting the area and stopped by our house and had dinner of chicken and other yummy items (pictured above) Stephanie made in lieu of going to Weight Watchers meeting from me. Vincent had been over to her family's house for dinner several days before.

Thursday we had planned to go to see KY Shakespeare Festival's performance of "Macbeth" in Old Louisville's Central Park with our friend Saran and her new friend Dean, who had once worked at the Presbyterian Center and who had started coming to Crescent Hill church. But a terrible rainstorm struck Louisville early Thursday afternoon, and we decided it might be too wet for the play so we shifted our pre-play picnic dinner to our house and Stephanie cooked some more. A salad/chicken/Latino dish (below) found favor with Sarah (also below) .

We enjoyed getting to know Dean (below) a little better.

Stephanie (below) enjoyed hosting a real little dinner party.

As good as the salad and other parts of the dinner were, the TWO desserts - an apple dish (below) that was much better than it looks (really - no mayonnaise) . . .

. . . and a blueberry dish that several folks (including Vincent - who was sleeping - but ended up having a lot of it - some variants of "murdered Smurfs" - unfamiliar with Smurfs, I was clueless).

Since the weather forecasts had turned out to be wrong and the violent storms had ended by early afternoon - and not returned - I had been pushing us to still go to "Macbeth." But - by the time we finished some of the two desserts - it was already 8:30, and the play had already started. We ended up going on a long walk with the dog - probably longer than 1 1/2 miles - we went though four municipalities (not counting Metro Louisville-Jefferson County). The walk took us down St. Matthews Avenue, across Napanee into Druid Hills, and back on busy Chenoweth Lane, where the estate between Napanee and Leland had a tree downed by the storm that jutted out into the sidewalk. (The storm had knocked the electricity out at a couple of my colleagues' houses.)

It was a great walk, after a big meal. It was supposed to be warm that night, but the storms had cooled things down a little. It started to get dark as we finished. Sarah was gung ho about seeing "Macbeth" the next week. But - as we checked upon returning - the play - like "StrangersExtranjeras" - would finish its run during the weekend coming up - and she and Dean would not be able to see it. It also meant we would have to see it sans them the next night . . .

-- Perry