I Fondly Remember Those Carefree Days when My Biggest Problem was an Old-timey Push Mower (Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Mold)

So... In a nutshell... Some aspect of the ventilation system in our home has been quietly leaking water, which, in turn, has done serious damage to some dry wall, carpet, floorboards, etc. The icing: there's a lot of mold. Some of the mold is actually in the ventilation system, which means we really shouldn't run the A/C until the consultants get it figured out and eliminated. As it is in most parts of the world right now, it is August here in Phoenix. Seem to vaguely remember something our Allstate agent told us when we got our policies last year, about not covering... was it mold? The consultants mentioned today that after they get everything dried out, they'll start ripping out all the impacted walls until they're sure they've removed all the water-damaged and mold-ridden portions of the house. Nice. We'll use the Lincoln Logs and Bristle Blocks to rebuild.

We have the technology, if nothing else.

Mower Update

Many readers have written in to ask how things are going with the old timey push mower we bought last spring. (See entry dated April 23, 2005.) It's fair to say that purchase did not turn out to be the sort of purchase that put a problem "to bed." The mower works OK, but it does tend to jam up in certain parts of the yard, even when we have not let the grass go too long without being cut. That, plus the blisters on the thumbs, plus the sheer misery of pushing it around when the temps are north of 100 degrees, have made me regret taking the old timey push mower approach to our lawn care. I threw up my hands, to some extent, several weeks ago. Not wanting me to cave in and buy a "real" mower or hire a service, my wife has taken the initiative to mow the lawn herself. This makes me feel like a bit of a chump. The past few weeks, especially, I kept telling her I would do it the next time, but then she always went ahead and did it.

This morning, I woke up as usual a couple hours before wife and daughter. I rolled right out of bed to start on the lawn before they woke up and before it got too hot. Right away, the mower started to jam up. I persevered for a while (not a very long while), and then said to myself, "[Gosh Darn] it, I'm going to buy a proper mower and put this grief to rest."

I zipped off to Lowe's, unshowered, teeth not brushed, etc. Scoped out the power mowers. Identified winning choice. Got husband feet and decided I should not make the purchase without obtaining wife's consent. Slumped shoulders in something like defeat, and slinked off to locate hedge trimmers.

Just then, I spotted a friend I know from my professional life. We compared notes and related the details of the homefront maladies that had us both at Lowe's at 8:00 a.m. She was rushing to a meeting but hoping to buy a coffee maker. She offered to give me her power mower, which she said she didn't need at her new house. I offered to pitch in toward the cost of a super-deluxe coffee maker to make the mower transaction a little less one-sided. She said of course not. She ultimately couldn't settle on a coffee maker so she made a call to her home telling them to expect me, gave me her address, and zipped off to her meeting.

I felt I had to do something to even the score a bit. After all, the mower she was giving me was worth somewhere around $200, as far as I could guess. So, I doubled back to Lowe's and bought her the super-deluxe coffee maker. (As super-deluxe as they carry at Lowe's, anyway.) I sped off to her house, delivered the coffee maker to them as if she had asked me to just run it home for her, and collected the mower.

I think the point of this story is that (a) my friend is very nice, and (b) I have no idea what I am doing with my life if this is the most exciting thing I have to blog about.

I Just Don't Get It

We've slid into the tail end of August catching our breath and taking it easy after a stream of family visitors in July and August. The visitors were great. Mom and Dad came in July. Two brothers came in August. Work was busier than was ideal for fully taking advantage of their presence, but we had good fun and made some nice memories. Now, as we laze our way into late summer and eventually fall, we've been planning travel for things like Thanksgiving and Christmas. The bottom line? We entertain guests when the heat here is worst, and we're headed into various destinations in the frigid north just as soon as they get things below freezing up there. Perhaps this could be rethought.

This blog, and the Shadeland comic, and Fishbath, are heavily neglected at the moment, in part due to more important work and family demands, but also partially due to another discretionary project. I've been slowly winding my way through many old VHS tapes of family home movies, transferring them to DVD and making copies for Mom and Dad and the many siblings. I've gotten through just three VHS tapes so far, and these have provided content for eight DVDs of thirty to forty-five minutes each. This has been fun, though it is slow-going.