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I was aware that this could happen because ten years ago, while I was working in Kathy Solterís kitchen , an electrician told me a similar story. And, I write knowing that shinydome will be sitting at his computer, shaking his head.

A condo owner up the street asked me to install two bathroom fans. One with an attic above, the other without. I began with the easy fan, the one I could install from above. First, I flipped the fan switch on, listened to it whir, flipped it off, and heard it stop. I then climbed into the attic through the ceiling panel near the bathroom door. I located the fan and pried it off the ceiling joists. I tried to disconnect the electrical wire that powered the fan – except it wouldnít budge. So what, I thought, Iíll cut through the wires with my snips. Iíve done it before, and I had, after all, turned off the electricity.

Let me pause and say, even without shinydomeís admonitions, Iím careful doing any kind of work that might put me on the other side of the grass. I shiver when I flashback to the live wires I cut through last winter. Thatís why after I flip a switch or even a circuit breaker, Iíll strip the black and white wires separately and then touch them together. No white flash means Iím safe to work.

While Iím struggling with this wire, dust mask on, sweating in the hot attic, I hear the home owner walk up the steps, peer in the bathroom, and then retreat back down to his study. I assumed he was checking on my progress.

I pulled out my wire cutters and because Iím the nervous nelly I claim to be, I clamped down slowly on the wire. Probably nothing would have happened : had I not been holding onto the blue steel body of the fan; had my wire cutters not been bare metal; had the condo owner not flipped the light and fan switch on as he peered into the bathroom.

When Matt was taking the MCAS tests last spring, he said they were so easy, he finished with hours to spare. Pencil down and up and out of the classroom. Diane and I looked at each other and back at Matt, and as fatherly as possible, I said, ìYou know, there is such a thing as checking your answers.î As he often does, he shrugged me off.

His test scores arrived today. The scores are ranked from Failing to Needs Improvement to Proficient to Advanced. He placed in the advanced category for both English Language Arts and Mathematics.

Poker at my house last night. Chris, have you played recently?

About a quarter of a mile from the Queijo’s house you’ll drive through a puddle. Mark includes that puddle when he gives out directions. Itís always there and it only varies in size. Stop at the puddle, look left and right, and youíll see vast stretches of water on either side of the road. If you put a canoe in the water there, and paddled down stream you’d eventually get to the hundred acre pond on which his house sits. Eventually I say, because you’d have to portage that canoe around the beaver dam.

The water that creates that puddle.
Mark is a doer. He never stops and probably canít. I could list all the things heís accomplished recently, like the construction of his deck, but I wonít. Because it doesnít matter. The point Iím making is that of all the building and chopping and creating he has done around his house, none of it impresses me as much as what he did near his house. He got rid of that puddle.

“Photo of pas des deux is from Le Corsaire – Semyon Troyanoff with Anna Liudmilla, c1927, Paris, costumes by Georges de Pogedaieff. ”

Semyon Troyanoff is Steven’s father’s stage name.

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Steven Varga-Golovcsenko’s parents – Semyon and Margit Varga-Golovcsenko
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Rakkity sent me this link . It’s one friendly American’s view of Germany, or more specifically, the Germans. Insightful and amusing, and if you read only one of the four pages he’s written, I’d start with the last : Tuesday, September 21, 2004.

“…Germans (or maybe Europeans, I’m not sure everyone here is a German) are not the most outgoing people in the world. In the village, no one looks you in the eyes as you pass on the narrow path. There are no quick smiles from young girls on bicycles that stir an older man’s imagination. There are no cheerful ìGuten Morgens!î among strangers waiting at a bus stop. To have a conversation you almost have to be in a business transaction with someone. “

The Full Story

I wake and the sky
Is there, intact
The paper is white
The ink is black
My charmed life
Harms no one–
No wife, no son

Samuel Menashe

As we plan this year’s fall camping trip… a look at the past, Allagash Lake, 1993.
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Matt and I are in a valley, at the base of a mountain, trying to decide where to camp. Itís an area similar to many in Colorado, with a small town nearby. Adams comes along, pulls out his map and says, ìWeíll begin at the top and camp at these lakes (pointing to his map as he talks) as we climb down. Weíll end our trip in this town, and eat here,î he says with a smile.

Two Photos from a wedding we stumbled on in Rhode Island.

The bride and friends.
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