2026: Saturday September 12: Science

Science is weird, or, as my plumber put it, "different metals don't like to touch." I googled his exact phrase and after I scrolled past a lot of the crap that passes for results these days, I found a metal fabricator's site that explained galvanic corrosion, which is what has been happening quietly in the wall behind my bathroom sink for the past 50 years or so as a steel drain pipe nestled snuggly next to a copper supply pipe until making their antagonistic relationship known to us via the water pouring down through our kitchen light fixtures that I showed you last week. 

The plumber was very happy to pause so I could take photos to send to the insurance company. I think he liked that I was interested. 

Insurance won't pay for the plumbing work, but we are expecting they'll pay to fix most of the holes the plumber (Derek) had to make to find and fix the issue. There's all this smashed tile behind the vanity, and a ragged gaping maw in the kitchen ceiling down below, where Derek began his search for the offending pipe. He felt better about smashing tile when I said I thought the previous owners had kept a box of the tile and he followed me out to the garage to make sure, and yes, twenty three years after we moved in and I never threw it out, so we have a couple of dozen replacements that will do nicely. (And also a box of the kitchen floor tiles and the downstairs bathroom tiles. Never tidy the garage, people, it's a treasure trove in there). 

Ella did politely ask if that 1990s decor was what we still wanted to live with, and sure, if this was our forever house, this would be the time to remodel the entire bathroom into something way cooler. But I don't have it in me right now to pick out a new color scheme and decide how wide of a bathtub we'd like and monitor the quality of the work. Some people love that stuff, but I just want it all put back tidy and functional so we can move on with our lives. 

God knows what it must be like to have a real disaster hit your house. The bureaucracy alone would do me in. 

Now I'm off to buy a new clothes dryer because the old one has stopped working since it is gas-powered, we're just going to replace it with electric rather than get it fixed. 

2026: Saturday September 5: Things break.

It's a privilege to own things but that doesn't make it any less of a pain when they break. Some valve in the car's transmission that means I'm without a car for a long weekend? A pipe in the upstairs bathroom that will require tearing out the kitchen ceiling and force me to project manage four different tradespeople and the insurance company? None of it is the end of the world, but it takes up time, emotions, decision-making-energy, interacting-with-other-people-energy, not to mention money, all of which I'd rather be spending elsewhere. 

Alfie was also rather put out by the kitchen situation.

It is nice, though, when the co-owner of the plumbing company remembers that I taught her daughter and we have a nice chat about how Emily is teaching elementary school down in Delaware and just got moved from a first grade classroom to third grade, and that might not seem like much of a difference, but first graders and third graders are in fact very different animals. 

Honestly, it just feels like it's been an odd few weeks all round. Here is our street during a torrential downpour on Wednesday. Michael was on a bus on his way to campus at this exact moment, and live-texted his situation to me, including the drama of residents a few streets up from us who stood in the street blocking the bus because they thought its wake as it pushed through the water would flood into their houses. 

2026: Sunday August 30: Lightning.

I don't really remember lightning growing up. Plenty of misty damp rain and cool sunshine and cutting breezes off the southern oceans. But none of the drama of a thunderstorm pushing in from the west, built up from a days worth of continental weather pressures. Lightning was one of the exciting things about moving to New York State, even if the storms it came from forced me to become a morning exerciser. (That, and the muggy heat).

We had a massive storm on Thursday night. Lightning so close and thunder so loud it shook the house and woke us up. And then something hit the pole across the street and sparks literally flew everywhere and then it all went dark, and I reported our outage to the utility and they came at about 4 in the morning in loud bright trucks and fixed it all and who know how any of it works, it's a miracle of electrons and organizational communications. 

This might not look like much but at midnight it was pretty dramatic. 

Then I went for a walk the next morning like usual, and was surprised there wasn't more tree carnage. But what carnage I did find was pretty dramatic. 

Tree down in the park, next to the statue of George F. Johnson. Not visible is the guy with the off leash and very loud beagle who is in the park every morning and is honestly the reason I tend to avoid it. 

2026: Monday August 24: Someone is eating my tomatoes

Yesterday there was a half eaten tomato by my front steps, which answered a lot of questions about why my tomatoes weren't producing as well as they should. It isn't just the oddly cooler-than-usual summer, it's also the critters. Probably the squirrels, since the tomatoes are too big for a chipmunk to lug around to the front of the house.

My over-the-back neighbor trimmed some of her bushes and now my hosta is getting too much sun. Oh well.

This dude isn't helping the situation the way I'd expect. We're calling him Ginger, and he's been a regular backyard visitor since early summer. He looks like he's hunting, but he's clearly not worrying whoever is taking my tomatoes too much. 

2026: Sunday August 16: Time! Marches on! (Again).

It is only August 16, but my summer is essentially over. Next week I start teaching - two courses in the Masters in Teaching program at Binghamton. I'm also taking a class myself, for the novel writing certificate I'm doing, plus I've volunteered to be a submissions reader for the literary journal that some of the people in my writing group run. This is all more than I've committed to in several years, so goodbye to leisurely breakfasts and taking days off whenever I feel like it. I knew all this was coming, it's all stuff I agreed to, and I've sort of been planning for it (syllabi are done and I've finished a very rough draft of my 1890 Binghamton story (100,000 words!)). 

What I did not agree to was having a root canal fail. If you've been following along for any length of time, you'll know my teeth are a whole saga. Sigh. Brush and floss, children! Don't be like me. Thankfully, my dentist had recently been to a continuing education course on root canals and recommended a new endodontist (I always want to leave out that extra "do" syllable") who was doing some fancy micro-surgical techniques and so on Tuesday I drove an hour (each way) to Scranton, Pennsylvania, of all places, to have my root canal re-cleaned and re-filled and honestly, the endodontist was great and explained what was going on in my tooth in a way that made root canals seem almost interesting. I am confident this work both needed doing and was done well. But now I have to go back to my regular dentist to restore the crown and blah blah blah, it never ends. But that is life. Well, it will end. But there is no moment of stasis where you're like, ah, now I am fixed. 

A photo of my tooth would not be that interesting or aesthetically pleasing, so enjoy instead these two pictures taken nine years apart of Ella and two of her cousins - Michael's nieces Lexi and Bella, who are awesome women who I love very much.

Looking south from near Carmel, California, Easter 2017, when Ella and I were doing a tour of west coast colleges

Encinitas, California, Summer 2026, after an extended family dinner at an oceanside restaurant. 

2026: Sunday August 9: California

Got back from California in the wee hours of this morning and spent the day accomplishing nothing but going to the grocery store and here it is bedtime already. 

We were a little north of San Diego with Michael's dad's family. 

We got up every morning before everyone else and took a long walk up and down the beach. 

Keeping an eye out for pelicans. 

Then we'd go get coffee and donuts made fresh to order. 

Probably saying something about the sorry state of the world, that or wondering at the business-speak of all the morning meetings going on around us. 

Then we'd head back to the house to do things with the family. 

Michael's step-brother Christian has rented a large van the last couple of years, all the better to haul the folks around. This is about half the crew.

Then we'd have dinner and hang out watching the sunset over the ocean. 

Somehow there are a million versions of this photo and in none of them are we all looking at the camera. 

Bird count: Lots of pelicans, a shore bird called a Hobsonian Whimbril, three types of gull (Western, California, and Heermann's), black phoebes, the tiny but loud Swinhoe's White-eye that I'd never heard of but which was everywhere, Allan's hummingbirds, osprey, a great egret that caught and ate three fish while we watched, ravens that a custodian in the school where they roosted told us said "Hey" because they'd learned it from him. A common loon fishing in the surf that honestly looked drowned until it popped up and said "Hey." What we think might have been a juvenile Yellow Crested Night Heron, except it was dark (they're nocturnal) and they're not regular to the region. 

And now there's a week until the semester starts and I'm not ready. (I'm teaching two classes this fall, I'll tell you all about it later.) 

2026: Friday July 31: Ink

I was planning this whole thing where I'd blog from my phone to make sure I could do it because I won't have my computer this weekend but here it is Friday night and I'd rather go to bed on time than try to remember passwords and type only with my thumbs.

So just dropping this in here. We got matching tattoos last month!!!! It's about as out of character as it is possible for me to get. I like mine a lot more than I expected. I was really nervous about "permanent" (I can barely decide on a haircut or an outfit). But it's just there on my leg, and every time I look at it I think about how cool the Great Lakes are and how much fun I've had on them with these people. 

Steve, Michael, Shaun, Me. Lucky Rabbit Studio, Alpena, Michigan. 

I could tell you all about the tattoo artist and the studio etc, but like I said, I'd like to get to bed on time.