My Time Cometh

We are on the cusp of indulging in a little R&R, and I'm sick as a dog. Even though I was secretly hoping I would escape the pestilence, I knew I would get it, and sure enough, here I am, about to go on vacation, in the thick of having bubonic plague. How's that for timing. The only thing that could top this is seeing YKW at the airport, but I don't think that is going to happen.

Oh well, it could be worse. Better that I'm sick than the kids, who have had their share of malaise and are on the road to recovery, if they haven't arrived already.

I will say this, however. I can't buy any sympathy in this house. Actually, that's not completely true, A&N feel a little sorry for me, but R looks at me and shakes her head with quiet contempt for my dramatic overtures. I can't help it, I need to whine a little, though it doesn't bode too well for my real man training. A minor setback, however.

Until the next time, thanks for reading.

More Hurricane Vermont

Anyway, as I mentioned, we know the drill when it comes to power outages, and yet we still lost water. It's not the end of the world, you just have to go downstairs and prime the tank, which involves water and high voltage electricity, but no big deal, right?

Donning my wife's rubber gloves, I set about attempting to prime the darn thing, furiously trying to remember what MG had told me. As I mentioned, there is a trick to this beast, and requires some finesse, which is not always my forte since I tend to be the bull in a china shop, et al.

Anyway, being the big klutz that I am, I couldn't get the pressure up. The pressure in the tank needs to be at a minimum psi before the tank kicks in and runs on its own, and until you get there, the pressure fizzles out the minute you turn on the tap. I managed to get it to about 20 psi, which was too low, and then it wouldn't go any further. I needed at least 30-40 psi, but the thing was stuck at 20. Bummer.

I was ready to just live on rain water, but figured this had to be dealt with. It was Friday night, so it would have been hard to get a plumber out here until Monday, so I did what I normally do in these situations.

I called my Mentor.

And he was out of town. Waah! Since he was gone, I proceeded to call everyone I knew who might have a clue as to what to do, though I knew in the back of mind there were two people who could have helped me, no doubt. These would be the former owners of this house, MG and SG. The problem is, it's awkward talking to people about their former house that they wish they'd never sold and really want back.

So I called my karate teacher, real-man extraordinaire, who rubs dirt in his bullet wounds and eats deer meat raw, whose cousin also happens to be an experienced plumber. He called him, and his cousin called me, which was really cool.

By that time, however, I had broken down and called SG. I hated to do it, on a Friday night, no less, but he was really cool, and said it was never a problem. He gave me a few tips, and suddenly it all came back to me. The key to using this toggle switch is to gently push it up until it just catches, then the pressure will slowly leech into the tank, until it catches and the system is primed. What a pain, not to mention a less than ideal design. Whose idea was this, anyway?

Now we're back in business, we have water, and we now have a plumber. Life is good, until the next hurricane, that is.

Thanks for reading.

Hurricane Vermont

Two days ago we had this massive storm roll in, bringing with it what was described as 60 mph winds, and it was pretty amazing stuff, not necessarily in a good way. It felt like a hurricane, and I was expecting at least one or two the massive pines to come down, but they stood their ground. A testament to fine construction. While we didn't get any snow, it rained a lot and was kind of scary.

Of course, we lost electricity early in the AM while we were sleeping and carried over until daylight. It was to be expected, and something we've dealt with a lot in the past, so we know what to do. I.e., don't flush the toilets. The hardest part is the loss of water. With dishes piling up and the inability to use the bathroom (along with some of us needing to use it bad), we decided to hit the big city and spend the day in Hanover.

Our plan was to go the dump, have pizza in town, go to the Montshire, then to the library, then to meet mom at Boloco, our favorite eatery in town. Well, right before we had our foot out the door, the electricity went back on. Hallelujah! I ran into the bathroom and turned on the water, and you know what? Nothing.

Houston, we have a problem.

We knew better than to use the water because it depletes the pressure tank, thus rendering it idle. We learned the hard way the first year we moved here than you don't use the water in the event of a power outage. The first time we did this, MG walked us through the protocol, and it was not a simple process. There were little fine tuned considerations that were critical and if they weren't done, then the tank wouldn't prime properly.

Of course, I'd forgotten all of them. It was three years ago, after all, so I couldn't remember what to do. I was clearly doing something wrong, because it wasn't working, and we had to go. The kids were waiting in the car.

I decided that it would have to wait. I hopped in the car and we left, with the dilemma weighing heavily on my mind. How were we going to use the bathroom when we got home? How were going to shower? How were we going to make Ovaltine?

I never had a chance to research the problem on the web, and when we met mom for dinner, I told her the problem, thus ruining our collective meal. We sat and ate in somber silence, but weren't depressed enough to pass up on a trip the bookstore for cocoas and cake.

To be continued. Until then, thanks for reading, and thanks to Fred Green for the pic.

Waiting for My Turn

Well, as luck would have it, a few days before our big sojourn to the tropical islands, and we are sick. Actually, three-fourths of us are sick, I've yet to get hit with the bug, yet I know it's inevitable. With this in mind, knowing that I have little say in this matter, but perhaps sooner would be better than later. The bright side to all this is that we are (at least 3/4 of us) are getting sick before the trip, so hopefully we'll (or should I say "they") will be healthy before we board the plane. It's looking like that will be a distinct possibility. Me, on the other hand, will simply have to suffer accordingly. Oh well, such is life.

It all started a few days ago, after our big swimming ordeal with YKW. Not that she had anything to do with it, but it's interesting to consider the timing of it all. Anyway, N started with a cough, which built up to a pretty good sized cold. He sounded rough, and was coughing a fair amount. Enough to worry mom and dad. After a few days, A caught it, as did mom. Fortunately I was well enough to hold down the fort, not that a SAHD has much choice. That's one of the big luxuries you lose when you become a parent, or at least one who gives a damn about their family, and that's self-indulgence. There's just no room for it, life goes on. For the record, there are plenty of parents I've met who are still shamelessly self-indulgent, but I won't get into that here.

We've had to cancel several activities and lessons all week long, but it's been nice just hanging out at home and not having to run around. We're usually on the other side of this equation, all dressed up and nowhere to go, or rather, no car to take us to where we want to go. Now that we have wheels, thanks to my Mentor, of course, we can go places and actually be somebody. I'll be sad when my Mentor takes that car back, but he'll have to unchain me from the steering wheel first... just kidding.

I think the kids are feeling much better, and I'm just waiting for my turn. It's looking more and more like I'll be sick on vacation, but that's okay. At least I'll have plenty of time to rest.

Until the next time, thanks for reading, and thanks to David Lat for the pic.

Perfect Storm

Now normally I'm a big fan of snow, and the more we get, the merrier. Sure, this will result in a bear of a mud season, and there's so much work to do when it snows, but hey, we love the stuff... sort of. You see, as much as I love the snow, we haven't gotten much this winter. It's been terrible for snow. We've managed to get a lot of skiing in, and personally, I would ski every day, but the kids are now done with it. I couldn't pay them to go skiing. Factor in the recent warm spell that we just had (you can see the ground on the driveway), and it pretty much culminated in a perfect storm of discontent over the recent snowfall we just had. I mean, come on already, I was ready for spring, and now this?

It must have dumped at least a foot overnight, which means that not only is winter holding on for dear life, but now I have to go out and shovel and rake the roof. I know I'm being a whiny baby, but I can't even go skiing because nobody will join me.

At least it was fun digging tunnels and making snow forts with N. After KB plowed (I kept thinking he was going to bring over YKW), there were massive snow drifts that are like Disneyland to Vermonters. We had a blast.

And I have to confess, it is pretty. There's something about winter in Vermont that you just have to love... most of the time. I'm just wondering where all this snow was in January, but then again, you can't have it all.

Until the next time, thanks for reading.

Thoughts On Our Upcoming Trip

We are planning our big vacation by doing what we always do, which is not planning. It seems as if we wait until the last minute to take care of everything, including where we're going to sleep and where we'll get a rental car. To some people, these are fairly important issues.

Anyway, we're off to the Islands, and looking forward to some time in the sand and surf. My understanding is that there is no internet on this island, it's fairly undeveloped and very pristine. This, of course, means that I can't blog, and for that matter, write content. This is a bummer, but looking at the bright side, I can work on other things that my blogging and content writing completely distract me from. Also, I've had a recent revelation about travel writing that I'm going to tweak during out trip.

Plus, we'll get to swim and cavort in the sand, and best of all, spend lots of quality time together, which is one of the aspects of travel that we love best. A family that adapts to travel together really comes together as one, you can't beat the experience. Sure, it can be painful at times, but so is childbirth (at least from what I'm told), and that doesn't stop moms from having babies. Besides, everyone is excited, and we just got loads of snow, but more on this later.

Until the next time, thanks for reading, and thanks to Ivan Prole for the pic.

New Eating Patterns

Dinner is usually our big family meal together, but we've recently switched over to more of a European model by eating small meals in the evening, figuring that we don't have to eat a big meal just to be together. The problem I have is that dinner is a good time to serve the big bolus of veggies that make us healthy and strong, but big dinners are not only a pain to prepare, but a pain to clean up, and a pain, sometimes, to eat. By eating a smaller dinner, everyone's life becomes easier. The key, In think, is just serving fewer things. We generally make a protein, a starch, and two veggies, one green, one red/orange. Talk about a chore.

Now we're simplifying, and even just having soup and bread for dinner, maybe a raw veggie with ranch dressing, which is another great way to get veggies. Eat 'em raw.

We'll see how long this lasts. I do feel better about not eating so much so late in the day, and again, it's less to prepare. A win-win situation.

Until the next time, thanks for reading, and thanks to ilker for the pic.