"Okay, boys, here's the deal..."

 Boys, I'm going to refinish the tub. It's going to be a stinky, messy, time-consuming, hard job. The only thing that you need to know is that for the next 48 hours no one is going to be able to take any baths or showers. Not that you guys bathe and shower every day any way, but I just want you to know that for THESE 48 hours no one is going to be able to get in there, okay?

Also, since this was the one 48-hour stretch in which we were not able to wash our children before bringing them out in public, this was the night that the Amerks chose to put some close up video of Felix dancing on the jumbotron at the hockey game. (And then awarded him a beanie, a t-shirt, and $25 of gift cards to a hamburger stand.)

Of COVID, Ceilings, and Harmonicas

 

I love the New Year. It’s a chance to take stock of life, think about big projects, and to re-read all of your favorite books that you already read the previous year but want to read again. When we found out that J had COVID, I thought that this would maybe even be helpful for getting the New Year off on the right foot.

I downloaded an audiobook of Pride and Prejudice and started work on masking up our living room and kitchen. A few years ago I installed recessed lighting in the living room (also during a slow January week) but never got around to repainting the scuffed ceiling after J’s Dad helped up finish up the drywall repairs.

The kitchen has needed a fresh coat of ceiling paint for years. We had a waste line leak repeatedly before Felix was born, and that meant an enormous drywall patch where the ceiling was leaking through the light. When we had COVID two years ago in March the ceiling was damaged further by a plumbing project of mine that went awry. (I tried to clean out the tub drain, broke it, and had to rebuild the whole thing.)

Actually painting over the repaired ceilings would be a final farewell to those long hours of cutting, cleaning, puzzling, driving to Lowe’s, and generally fretting about how to keep water from leaking from our ceilings.

While J convalesced in our room I put in my earbuds (rejoining the Bennet family in Meryton) and masked, scrubbed, sanded, primed, and painted.

I don’t love working on the house or fixing things for their own sake—it usually makes me freshly thankful for my cushy white collar job. But it was nice to see the ceiling cleaned up and shining as I peeled the tape off at the end. A job well done.

Yesterday morning, with J mostly on the mend, I took yet another COVID test. (A daily occurrence since “exposed” in order to be able to go into work.) And lo, there were two lines. I really feel fine—just a tickle in my throat and a slightly runny nose. My first thought was that I’d be able to finish Pride and Prejudice sooner than I thought.

“NOO!” yelled Owen, “my harmonica!!”

Owen has been begging for a harmonica ever since Christmas, and I’ve pulled out every trick in the book to defer him. He told me that he wanted a harmonica for Christmas, and I warned him that harmonicas aren’t something that you read, wear, or need.

Then he wanted to spend his Christmas cash on a harmonica, and I said that we weren’t going to go to the store today. No, I had never seen a harmonica on Amazon either. Maybe he should ask again later.

Maybe he should ask again in two weeks.

I pretended that the Amazon site was broken, then didn’t let him have my phone so that he could see if he could get it to work.

“Dad, I REALLY want a harmonica.”

“Yes, Owen…I know.”

Several years ago I wrote a six word story (modeled on the famous Hemmingway six word story: “For Sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.” My six word tragedy was: “Owen found the deliberately hidden harmonica.”

When I opened up my folder for the next Masterworks concert I saw that on the final page of some (dumb) contemporary piece I’m supposed to switch from trumpet to “Harmonica in C” and blow long chords. (Good thing I spent all that money on a conservatory education.)

“Owen,” I said, “if they give me a harmonica to play at my concert next week, you can have it when I’m done.”

And that’s why he was heartbroken when I got the news that I’d be staying home for another week.

J was far enough in her isolation and well enough yesterday to leave the house masked, and she walked up to the local craft store. As a reward for the boys for tolerating/surviving a week at home with sick parents and half of the house masked off for painting she brought them all some color by numbers and…two harmonicas. Owen and Felix were ecstatic.

“KHREEEK!”

“Thank you so much, Mommy!”

“KHREEEEEEK!”

“Aren’t we supposed to talk about these things before one of us just goes and—”

“KKKKKHREEEEEEEEKKKK!”

 

They camped out in a fort last downstairs last night, so when I came down at 6 to have coffee and read I could already hear the very soft, barely whispered “khreeeeeks” coming out of the tent that they had made while I tried to concentrate on my book.

After breakfast I decided that it might be more restful anywhere else other than the inside the house, so I volunteered to shovel the driveway, reasoning that I wasn’t technically breaking isolation rules if I stayed on my own property. I pulled on snowpants and big boots, then put in my noise cancelling earbuds and hit play on Pride and Prejudice.

I’d only been out for five minutes or so when I looked up and saw J waving from the front step. I paused Pride and Prejudice and took out the earbud.

“There’s water leaking into the kitchen from the ceiling.”

I thought for a moment that she was kidding. The ceiling I’d just finally put the last touch of repair on? The ceiling that leaked the last time that I had COVID?

I came inside, and sure enough:

Drip—drip—drip---drip,

“KHREEEEEK!!”

It wasn’t coming from the spot under the tub. It was coming from light fixture that had also leaked when the waste line had leaked. The waste line that we had FIXED!

I went upstairs through a storm of blasting harmonicas and inspected the supply lines in James’ closet. And then I walked into the bathroom and figured out what had happened. It wasn’t a plumbing issue. It was a James issue.

James, like a true pre-teen, had taken a long shower. And he had done it with the shower curtain and the liner both tucked outside the tub, thus ensuring a minor flood in the bathroom.

I started to take apart the fixture to see how bad the flooding was.

“KHKREEEK! KHREEEK!”

A puddle of urine-smelling brown water that had pooled in the glass of the fixture spilled out all over me, dribbling onto the kitchen floor.

“KHREEEK! KHREEK!”

I hunted through the basement until I found the right circuit and cut the power to the kitchen. Then I found screws in the fixture base and disconnected it from the ceiling, sloshing more of the gritty waste water onto the freshly painted ceiling in the process.

“KHREEEEK! “KHREEEEK!”

After wiping everything dry and ensuring that nothing more was going to leak through, I wrestled with the fixture over my head (“KHREEEEEEK!”) blindly for several minutes before giving up and retrieving a ladder from the garage so that I could feel my way back onto the bracket.

“KHREEEEEEEK!”

I have a new six word story:

For sale.

Two harmonicas.

Harmonicists included.

The Incredible Disappearing Six Year Old

 Felix has a superpower. He can make himself invisible.

It is 5:30 on a Friday, and he's finally just finished his school for the week. (Both of his brothers were done by yesterday.) It's because he went invisible for the last few mornings of school.

I should start by saying that Felix's first grade workload is still pretty light. He can be done with all of his school for the day in thirty or forty minutes if he applies himself. But he is not the sort of child to get the unpleasant part of the day over with.

He is a child who does whatever he wants, whenever he wants.

And most mornings he does not want to do school.

Owen is always our first child to appear. I think he needs someone to talk to, so he makes an appearance as soon as he hears noise downstairs. James, who prefers to do everything with precise regularity, sets an alarm on his watch to wake up at 7:30. It bothers him when he misses the alarm. (This is happening more frequently as he transitions into a teenager.) He then wants to come downstairs and eat exactly what he is expecting to eat for breakfast. (Pancakes and waffles on every other Friday, a bowl of granola on other days.)

Felix may or may not ever appear. It's perfectly normal for him to wait until noon to make an appearance at all. I know that he's hungry up there, but by the time anyone has noticed that he isn't around we are already deep into Logic or Science experiments or correcting math homework, and everyone has a question all the time. Working with even just the older two feels like teaching twenty different kids. I don't know how real teachers do it.

Sometimes, though, Felix IS hungry. He'll come down the stairs slowly and assess the situation by peeking into the living room before making his move. If someone openly acknowledges his presence I think he just sits down on the staircase where no one can see him and waits until we forget that he's there, then slinks back up to his room.

But other mornings he'll come down and ask for some breakfast. I'll make him something while trying to simultaneously give a spelling test or a dictation exercise and then tell him sternly that, "As soon as you finish that granola we're going to get going on your school for the day!"

He'll nod resignedly as if the game is up and he knows he won't be getting away this morning. I'll look over and he'll have a few bites left. Then I'll try to explain that "erat" isn't a form of "erro," and when I look back his place at the table is empty.

It's as if he never even existed.

"Felix? Felix? Where are you?"

No answer.

I'll go upstairs and poke my head in his room. 

"I'll be down in just a minute." 

"I need you to come down now." 

"Okay."

I shouldn't have walked back downstairs without him. It's been another hour already.

"FELIX! COME DOWN AND DO SOME SCHOOL!"

No answer.

Sometimes he's under his bed. (Going up the stairs is a noisy signal for him to hide.) I've found him hiding in James' room or mine as well. He's having a blast, doing whatever it is that he's doing. Playing a football game, drawing, reorganizing stuffed animals, listening to a podcast on his google. Playing foosball against himself, looking through comic books, organizing football cards.

Anything except school.

He's a master at fading away at the very moment that you turn away your attention. And, as neglectful as this all sounds, I remind you that the entire time this has been going on both of the older two have been yelling out questions and asking for help on their school.

Finally, when we start to approach screen time, or when he gets so hungry that he has to come down and eat something, he'll appear. And then he'll do his school. It takes him about a half an hour. 

But he really does make you work for it.

2023 Reading

 January

Terrapin (Wendell Berry)

Daffodil Hill (Jake Keiser)

The Clone Army Attacketh (Ian Doescher)

The Healing Power of the Breath (Richard Brown/Patricia Gerbarg)

The Billionaire's Vinegar (Benjamin Wallace)

Adorning the Dark (Andrew Peterson)

Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)

In Vino Duplicitas (Peter Hellman)

Thoughts in Solitude (Thomas Merton)

Metamorphoses book VII (Ovid) in Latin

The Wolf of Wall Street (Jordan Belfort)

Desolation Island (Patrick O'Brian)

Where the Deer and the Antelope Play (Nick Offerman)

Verbatim (Erin McKean)

Sharpe's Rifles (Bernard Cornwell)

The Ink Black Heart (Robert Galbraith)

Sharpe's Havoc (Bernard Cornwell)

The Fortune of War (Patrick O'Brian)

February

My Family and Other Animals (Gerald Durrell)

The Tragedy of the Sith's Revenge (Ian Doescher)

Watership Down (Richard Adams)

The Sorrows of Young Werther (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

The Martian (Andy Weir)

Sketches by Boz (Charles Dickens)

Climbing Parnassus (Tracy Lee Simmons)

S. (John Updike)

Jude the Obscure (Thomas Hardy)

Aeneid IX (Virgil) in Latin

Agamemnon (Aeschylus) in Greek

An Outcast of the Islands (Joseph Conrad)

Sharpe's Eagle (Bernard Cornwell)

Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy)

Birds, Beasts, and Relatives (Gerald Durrell)

The Garden of the Gods (Gerald Durrell)

March

Remarkably Bright Creatures (Shelby Van Pelt)

The Surgeon's Mate (Patrick O'Brian)

Rob Roy (Sir Walter Scott)

How Not to Die Alone (Richard Roeper)

Search (Michelle Hunever)

Sharpe's Gold (Bernard Cornwell)

All Creatures Great and Small (James Herriot)

Inspired (Rachel Held Evans)

The Mind of the Maker (Dorothy Sayers)

The Soloist (Steve Lopez)

Metamorphoses Book VIII (Ovid) in Latin

The Ionian Mission (Patrick O'Brian)

Lessons in Chemistry (Bonnie Garmus)

Richardson's First Case (Basil Thomson)

All Things Wise and Wonderful (James Herriot)

H is for Hawk (Helen Macdonald)

The Winter Soldier (Daniel Mason)

Goodbye, Mr. Chips (James Hilton)

Latin for Gardeners (Lorraine Harrison)

Lost Horizon (James Hilton)

Twelfth Night (William Shakespeare)

A Boy's Will (Robert Frost)

Is He Popenjoy? (Anthony Trollope)

North of Boston (Robert Frost)

Fatal Journey (Peter Mancall)

Sharpe's Escape (Bernard Cornwell)

The Northern Lights (Lucy Jago)

April

Les Jeux Sont Faits (Jean-Paul Sartre) in French

Treason's Harbour (Patrick O'Brian)

Mansfield Park (Jane Austen)

No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (Alexander McCall Smith)

Mountain Interval (Robert Frost)

The Road to Samarcand (Patrick O'Brian)

Goodbye to Clocks Ticking (Joseph Monninger)

Tears of the Giraffe (Alexander McCall Smith)

Casino Royale (Ian Fleming)

Vesper Flights (Helen MacDonald)

Morality for Beautiful Girls (Alexander McCall Smith)

All Things Bright and Beautiful (James Herriot)

Sharpe's Fury (Bernard Cornwell)

Kalahari Typing School for Men (Alexander McCall Smith)

The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)

The Lord God Made Them All (James Herriot)

Leave it to Psmith (P.G. Wodehouse)

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (John LeCarre)

The Far Side of the World (Patrick O'Brian)

May

The Latinist (Mark Prins)

Never Panic Early (Fred Haise)

Every Living Thing (James Herriot)

Sharpe's Battle (Bernard Cornwell)

The Shell Collector (Anthony Doerr)

The Full Cupboard of Life (Alexander McCall Smith)

In the Company of Cheerful Ladies (Alexander McCall Smith)

The Looking-Glass War (John LeCarre)

Neptune's Inferno (James D. Hornfischer)

Blue Shoes and Happiness (Alexander McCall Smith)

Kon-Tiki (Thor Heyerdahl)

The Good Husband of Zebra Drive (Alexander McCall Smith)

The Relic Master (Christopher Buckley)

Fallen Astronauts (Colin Burgess)

The Miracle at Speedy Motors (Alexander McCall Smith)

The Honourable Schoolboy (John LeCarre)

Tea Time for the Traditionally Built (Alexander McCall Smith)

The Reverse of the Medal (Patrick O'Brian)

Smiley's People (John LeCarre)

Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)

June

Metamorphoses Book IX (Ovid) in Latin

The Double Comfort Safari Club (Alexander McCall Smith)

Burning Down George Orwell's House (Andrew Erwin)

In the Land of White Death (Valerian Albanov)

Agent M. (Henry Hemming)

The Wind in the Willows (Kenneth Grahame)

The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party (Alexander McCall Smith)

Sharpe's Company (Bernard Cornwell)

Enter Jeeves (P.D. Wodehouse)

The Edible Exile (Carl Hiaasen)

Theogonia (Hesiod) in Greek

The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)

The Letter of Marque (Patrick O'Brian)

A Walk in the Woods (Bill Bryson)

The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection (Alexander McCall Smith)

The Thirteen Gun Salute (Patrick O'Brian)

The Wet and the Dry (Lawrence Osborne)

Friendship: An Expose (Joseph Epstein)

The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon (Alexander McCall Smith)

By the Smoke and the Smell (Thad Vogler)

The Cuckoo's Calling (Robert Galbraith)

Metamorphoses Book X (Ovid) in Latin

The Nutmeg of Consolation (Patrick O'Brian)

The Handsome Man's Deluxe Cafe (Alexander McCall Smith)

Sharpe's Sword (Bernard Cornwell)

July

The Silkworm (Robert Galbraith)

Medicus (Ruth Downie)

The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine (Alexander McCall Smith)

Sharpe's Enemy (Bernard Cornwell)

Terra Incognita (Ruth Downie)

The Truelove (Patrick O'Brian)

The Wine-Dark Sea (Patrick O'Brian)

The Shadow-Line (Joseph Conrad)

I'm Sorry...Love, Your Husband (Clint Edwards)

The Commodore (Patrick O'Brian)

Bootstrapped (Alissa Quart)

The Second Worst Restaurant in France (Alexander McCall Smith)

Game of Edges (Bruce Shoenfeld)

Sharpe's Honour (Bernard Cornwell)

Lobscouse and Spotted Dog (Anne Grossman and Lisa Thomas)

Career of Evil (Robert Galbraith)

Precious and Grace (Alexander McCall Smith)

The Yellow Admiral (Patrick O'Brian)

Persona Non Grata (Ruth Downie)

August

Lethal White (Robert Galbraith)

Petite Histoire de France (Jaques Bainville) in French

The Hundred Days (Patrick O'Brian)

The House of Unexpected Sisters (Alexander McCall Smith)

The Man Who Organized Nature (Gunnar Broberg)

Troubled Blood (Robert Galbraith)

The Evangelical Imagination (Karen Swallow Prior)

Losing Our Religion (Russell Moore)

The Nazi Conspiracy (Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch)

The Liberation of Paris (Jean Edward Smith)

Sharpe's Regiment (Bernard Cornwell)

The Man Who Would Be King (Rudyard Kipling)

Why We Sleep (Matthew Walker)

The Ink Black Heart (Robert Galbraith)

Sharpe's Siege (Bernard Cornwell) 

September

Blue at the Mizzen (Patrick O'Brian)

Master and Commander (Patrick O'Brian)

Sharpe's Revenge (Bernard Cornwell)

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow (Gabrielle Zevin)

Young Jane Young (Gabrielle Zevin)

1984 (George Orwell)

The Color of All the Cattle (Alexander McCall Smith)

The Fellowship of the Ring (J.R.R. Tolkien)

Great Expectations (Charles Dickens)

Dune (Frank Herbert)

Billionaire's Row (Katherine Clarke)

The Two Towers (J.R.R. Tolkien)

The Running Grave (Robert Galbraith)

The Return of the King (J.R.R. Tolkien)

Caveat Emptor (Ruth Downie)

La's Orchestra Saves the World (Alexander McCall Smith)

Beijing Rules (Bethany Allen)

October

La Dame Aux Camelias (Alexandre Dumas)

A Perfect Spy (John LeCarre)

Candide (Voltaire)

How Far to the Promised Land? (Esau McCaulley)

Animal Farm (George Orwell)

To the Land of Long Lost Friends (Alexander McCall Smith)

Semper Fidelis (Ruth Downie)

Swamp Story (Dave Barry)

His Majesty's Airship (S.C. Gwynne)

Tabula Rasa (Ruth Downie)

How to Raise an Elephant (Alexander McCall Smith)

Vita Brevis (Ruth Downie)

November

Eight Hundred Grapes (Laura Dave)

The Firm (John Grisham)

44 Scotland Street (Alexander McCall Smith)

Scarcity Brain (Michael Easter)

The Armor of Light (Ken Follett)

The Joy and Light Bus Company (Alexander McCall Smith)

Life Sentence (Mark Bowden)

Whose Body? (Dorothy Sayers)

Out of My Life and Thoughts (Albert Schweitzer)

The Woman They Could Not Silence (Kate Moore)

New Hampshire (Robert Frost)

Memento Mori (Ruth Downie)

Henry V (William Shakespeare)

Clouds of Witnesses (Dorothy Sayers)

A Song of Comfortable Chairs (Alexander McCall Smith)

December

Sharpe's Waterloo (Bernard Cornwell)

West-Running Brook (Robert Frost)

Prima Fracie (Ruth Downie)

Unnatural Death (Dorothy Sayers)

Sharpe's Devil (Bernard Cornwell)

A Further Range (Robert Frost)

The Mystery Guest (Nita Prose)

Death on the Downbeat (Sebastian Farr)

A Witness Tree (Robert Frost)

Krakatoa (Simon Winchester)

The Sea of Grass (Conrad Richter)

Cry, the Beloved Country (Alan Paton)

Sharpe's Assassin (Bernard Cornwell)

Lord Peter Views the Body (Dorothy Sayers)

The Sicilian (Mario Puzo)

The Steeple Bush (Robert Frost)

The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club (Dorothy Sayers)

A Wreath for the Enemy (Pamela Frankau)

Espresso Tales (Alexander McCall Smith)

In the Clearing (Robert Frost)

Love Over Scotland (Alexander McCall Smith)