Uncommon Sense

Ten Reasons you should move to Peru: Reason 3

The River Walk.  That's the Wabash River to the left, the "walk" in the center, and "greenspace" to the right.  Yes, there's a half court there at the end of the fire station parking lot.

More impressive, there's a short mile of picnic areas, swings and slides, and areas open to countless pick up games of football, soccer, croquet, bocce ball or whatever strikes your fancy.

It is only a few blocks away from St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church.  So technically, you could walk there after Mass on nice days and have a picnic, listen to the "big game" on the radio while you're playing catch with the kids, and wind up refreshed and renewed.

I took this picture coming back from a 3.5 mile jog through Mac Park,  which contains one of the three nice golf courses within ten minutes of Peru.  Mac Park has lots of nice hills for sledding down in the winter, too.

There's no shortage of free recreation opportunity in Peru.  Precious few people here take advantage of it, so you and your family would have the run of the place.  Until I can get more families to move here, that is.

Projects

Its getting dangerously close to autumn, and that means "projects." This was one of those project weekends.

I started painting the shutters over a year ago. I got all of them done except for the back of the house, then I got, ahem, "called to Texas" for a few months.

Well, the last of the shutters are now wearing the latest in fashionable blue and Madame is very happy. Happy because I got off of my lazy butt and did some work on the house.

And oh, I did a lot of work on the house. In addition to the shutters, I replaced all the worn or otherwise hinky looking window screens, and even even got the front porch painted the rest of the way.

Yes, it too has been sitting there half painted for over a year. But ah! The neighbors have nothing to complain about anymore, except maybe for the fire pit we installed in the back yard over where I cut the cherry tree down.

I cannot tell a lie, I really did cut down the cherry tree. It had been a nuisance ever since "one of the kids" tried to climb it when when they both were small, and split the thing in two.

We tried to mend it but over the years the rend became more and more unsightly. Out I came with the ax and in a matter of a few well placed blows it fell to the ground with a creeking whoosh.

Not quite. It took me more like two hundred blows to fell the sucker which almost made me pass out, and when it did finally fall over it was because I pushed it. It didn't make any particularly cool sounds, either.

What is uncommon about the sense of this post? Learn from me my fellow counter-weighted, ring bearing bipeds...when the wife drops hints about the exterior of the house, she isn't suggesting hypotheticals, she's telling you to get off your butt and work on the house and yard.

Which we should do with relish anyway, shouldn't we? I think so.

The eldest's first day of college

My inaugural child got in his car this morning and drove to college.  If you don't know what that feels like yet, I envy you and pity you.  My emotions have been casting themselves across the landscape of my mind like weather across the Indiana sky. 

My understanding, the classical Western understanding, of time is that it is linear.  I get that.  As the cosmic clock keeps ticking, I'm getting older at the same rate as everything else.   There was a time before I was, and there will be a time after I die.

But we're talking about my kid here, come on.  Can't we just stop the ride for a few minutes every now and then so I can savor the moments? 

Thats why we have memories, I suppose.  Some people would hit the stop button and decide thats where they wanted to stay.  Have you ever had a perfect day like that, that stands out in your memory like the full strength noonday sun after a month of clouds and rain?  There are two pictures in this post.  Both are "noonday sun" moments.  They're glorious but you don't want to stare at them for too long with unsheilded eyes. 

It was just a car trip.  Twenty miles or so.  But it was more than that, because it was the first of many trips that will eventually lead him down roads he has never known, and Ican only pray he nagivates them well.

And I wonder how many highways will end up between us in the end.

Congratulations, Aaron.

Where's the Clarifying Document

07/07/07 came and went. It was a glorious day, a day that will go down in history as one of the sanest days of the young millennium. Then a bunch of uppity prelates got the idea to defy the pope and refuse to allow priests to celebrate the new-old Mass. BXVI responded that there would be a clarifying document on the way to help with the implementation of the motu proprio "Summorum Pontificum." Now, 08/08/08 has come and gone, and still no clarification. Is this thing dead in the water? I can tell you one thing. There are many, many prelates who are simply dragging their feet, hoping that BXVI will die before SP is fully implemented. I can't put it any more bluntly or clearly. They're hoping for a modernist successor to affably wave away all the stinky "Ratzingeresque" implementations, all the while chuckling about what a lovable, doddering old sentimentalist he was, and how, now that he's gone to his reward, the real agenda can be addressed. Far from me to be the first to bring it to your attention, but this IS the real agenda. This IS what the Holy Spirit is saying to the Church today. Are you up for it? Will you back up the Pope? Or will you, like the obnoxious foot dragging prelates, simply stand back and wait for another forty years in the desert?

Several months of silence

Tempus fugit. 

Time does seem to have wings.  You blink and the day is gone.  In the interim since my last post, I've taken on a new career as a field agent for Knights of Columbus insurance.  I knew, once the whole "Lets Move to Texas" ordeal blew up in my face that I'd have to reconcile myself to staying in Indiana for awhile, perhaps (sigh) forever.

Not, as it turns out, a bad thing.  As much as I love the rugged beauty of the Texas hill country, I do savor the idiosyncrasies of the midwest's four seasons.  I love the tender pastel blooming of spring, the lushness of the greenery in summer and the firey-colored leaves of the autumn hardwood forests as pumpkins ripen and fireplace smoke scents the cold air. I'm not particularly fond of winter, and I'm less fond of winter heating bills.

It is a trade off.

But now that I'm through my new agent training and life is returning a bit to normal, I'm glad of where I am.  I love working for an organization closely aligned with the Catholic Church.  I love working from home.  And I'm peacefully resigned to be where I am. 

In other words, "I'm back!"

presidents' day postscript

All right, the day isn't over by a long shot, but I took some time off to roast a batch of Mexican Coatepec, and took it just into second crack, so it should turn out to be just shy of "full city roast." 

Picture of the vacuum cleaner looking item on my counter top is my "baby" drum coffee roaster (check out my reflection in the chrome).  She can handle half a pound at a time, thereby making her a toy to folks who roast for a living, but the cup profile rivals that of a $12,000 Probat or Diedrich shop model.

The Coatepec has been a versatile bean in our house.  It is a switch from the Kenya AA and Sumatra Mandheling I usually enjoy for their individual characteristics.  The Kenyan is bright and sassy, a swift ass-kick to get the morning rolling, and the Sumatra is good for mid-day lag while brooding over the morning's paragraphs. 

Coatepec is good all day long, like a well crafted story that sticks you right into the action so that you forget you're reading. 

Now that the house is filled with the burnt toast aroma of roasted coffee, its time to get back to work.  I finished a poem this morning for a contest submission, and the task for this afternoon is children's fantasy.  Don't ask, and I won't tell you.  A couple of snippets for Boys Life magazine after dinner, and I can curl up again with a Jack Lewis' biography. 

A man could have a worse day than this.

The books to the right are a conglom of my current obsessions, researches and constant companions.

hear hear!

Sometimes my job is too easy. I was early to drop the younger kids off at school on Valentine's Day.  Not a big deal, they like to play on the playground with their friends for a few minutes before going in.  I drove around a bit before going back for Mass, and ran across this.  You can see the sun coming up behind the Spiece sign in the picture.  That is a good thing, because it gave me the opportunity to capture this shot in all of its defiant glory.  Tom S. has never had qualms about speaking his mind. 

Just take it as a reminder that no matter what hardship comes into one's life, nothing, but nothing, should be able to move him off of his land.  Taxing the family home is one of the most bone-headed moves ever undertaken by supposedly rational beings.  Eliminate property tax! 

Tree is up, wall is down

We started the day with a nice pot of fresh roasted Kenya AA coffee, packing the kids off to school and settling back into the kitchen for the rare, leisurely morning breakfast of taters O'Brien, sausage links and eggs.  Today is the day when the tree went up, and it is a big tree.  When you own a house with ten foot ceilings, anything less looks like a toy.  This one is a hand-me-down from the in-laws.  They didn't know what they were thinking when they rescued it from the Big and Tall Tree Store, because they don't have high ceilings, they have modern ceilings, and they were put up with economy in mind.  I don't like to be reminded that I'm in a house when I'm in a house, necessarily.  I could paint clouds on my ceiling and feel like I'm outdoors.  That's partly because I keep the thermostat down in the sixties because...I have high ceilings.

Madame got the Christmas boxes down from storage and began sorting and hanging lights and ornaments, calling for me when she couldn't climb any higher and needed the assistance of my height.  Madame is my code word for my bride.  People ask me why I call her that, and I tell them it is because she is madame wife.  If she's near, she usually pipes up and says, "yep, and he's my has been."  Anyway, I was more than happy to oblige with the light and ornament hanging, as the job I was supposed to be doing upstairs included hauling down broken pieces of gypsum and framing timbers from the wall I knocked out on Tuesday to make the laundry room twice as big.  What I was doing instead was writing, and taking work breaks.  Whenever I heard her approaching footsteps, I'd run back upstairs and bring down more debris and stack it by the trash can crib.  I think she knew what I was doing the whole time.

I finally got this update knocked out because she went to haul the kids back home from school.  I think she's back.  More later...

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