Better late than never?

Last week we had a meeting up at church for all the “Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Eucharist” (not supposed to say “Eucharistic Minister”). Anyway, after we got the word on the choreography changes the bishop wants, we all left to go home. On the way across the parking lot, I wound up walking next to a guy I’ve seen in church for thirty-some years, but to whom I had never spoken. He is eminently recognizable, since he’s a big tall guy with a luxurious handlebar mustache. So I made my move, telling him that I’d seen him in church ever since 1976, but never introduced myself. So we did that, and he said, Oh I’m shy, but once you get me talking…And so we talked for a few minutes in the parking lot and then went our separate ways.

Later I realized that I had missed out on 33 years of knowing this man, all because I had never said anything to him in all that time. I think I'll get cracking on meeting more people.

What did you do with your extra hour?

I had to carve a frowny face in our pumpkin this year, since we did not see Max on Halloween. Fortunately, we did see his bat costume last weekend, so it wasn’t a total loss. He has been doing well in school, so we are glad about that.

Halloween 2009 was a cool blustery one. We had 53 kids this year, before we packed it in at 7:15pm. Trick or treating runs from 6-8pm, but things got very quiet so there was no point in sitting out there any longer. We had the requisite Ninjas, Scream guy, demons and even a tiny Yoda. We also had a little fireman in flannel, a shark, a Gene Simmons girl, a cow, two butterflies, a bloody princess and a banana. One enterprising character walked up with a cardboard box wrapped in foil on his shoulders and two squares sticking out of it. It wasn’t until he had walked away that I realized he was a toaster.

The strangest incident was watching a new neighbor back out of her driveway from two houses down, park carefully in front of our house and have her daughter come up to me for a treat, then drive off.

Kathy’s office participated in a trick or treat event for the neighborhood kids at the hospital. Over a hundred came over and walked around the cafeteria, stopping at tables that various departments and offices had set up. Kathy wore a little witch’s hat decorated with marabou feathers. She recently got her hair cut so it’s much shorter than it was, and sometimes it looks a little poufie. All this to say that one little girl remarked to Kathy, “I like your hat” and the little boy behind her added, “And I like your wig.”

I love the Sunday when we “fall back.” I just luxuriate in all the extra time. It’s not even 10am yet and I’ve already done a wash, defrosted the basement refrigerator, gone to breakfast with Kathy straightened up the house and finished this letter. Now I’m going outside to finish winterizing the yard. Too bad no one needs a house painted or something.

Trooper Day

If you had been on Cleveland State’s campus this past Wednesday, you would have seen dozens of state troopers, the SWAT van, mobile crime labs, the canine unit and the mounted unit all up and down East 18th Street. If you thought we were under siege by a deranged gunperson, no one could blame you. But wait—all is well. It was “Trooper Day”, with the Ohio State Highway Patrol and the Pennsylvania State Police coming to recruit students. Many students did think something was wrong and were afraid to come over to that side of campus. We had to go over and convince them that everything was OK.

The PA State Police landed a helicopter on the soccer field, and that was a big hit. I have a photo of our director standing by the helo with the pilot and a couple of troopers. I told him the caption should be “Governor Klein arrives in the state helicopter”. The troopers were happy with the number of applicants they had and they want to do it again next year. We have some ideas on how to make it more welcoming: balloons, a DJ, and a popcorn machine. We also want to do it earlier, since we stood in a freezing cold, rainy wind all day. And the helicopter? Turns out he landed on the wrong field. He should have been on the practice field—they had to chase him off because there was a game scheduled that same day.

Silly Season

We are gearing up for elections in November here. There are several seats on the school board, another school tax issue and miscellaneous judges running. I called and asked for a sign for our front yard urging passage of the school tax, and it arrived the other day. Even though we don’t have any kids in public schools and only one of ours ever did attend public school here, the high school art program was very important for Shane years ago. Besides, good schools should help property values.

On Saturday afternoon, a little old lady came to the door and asked Kathy if she could put a sign in our yard supporting one of the school board candidates. Kathy said, oh sure, and the little old lady stuck the sign in the ground and went on down the street. I missed all this action so I looked up her web site and discovered she was a Republican! The horror! But she was also an art teacher for many years, a school principal, and has worked in almost every school in the district. Who else could know the issues as well? I showed Kathy the photo on the site and she said—how about that—it was the candidate herself. So the sign stays. Hey—she’s 73—I don’t believe she’s the next Sarah Palin.

A new guy at work

We had a new guy start this week at work—the one I mentioned who is from Nigeria. Hi supervisor and I took him out to lunch on Tuesday, and had an interesting conversation. It was my fault. I asked him about Nigeria, and he stretched out his arm on a vacant chair next to him, stopped eating, and began an expansive discourse on the major tribes of Nigeria, the regions in which they live and the relative political power of each. While it was a remarkable presentation, I broke in to relate some tidbit of my own in order to give him a chance to eat, since, after all, we did eventually have to get back to the office. He politely sat and listened to me, but he didn’t start eating again. I had to indicate that it was OK to eat while I talked.

I am so glad he does not report to me. His supervisor was run ragged all week taking him to meetings and events. I just had to sit with him for about an hour to explain our database system to him, and he understood it easily, since he has an IT background.

One of the coordinators who does report to me was out sick a couple of days this past week. She sounded awful on the phone. The director’s secretary had also been sick, so I hope whatever it is is not marching through the office. When the coordinator returned to work on Friday, I hung a biohazard symbol on her door. She didn’t think it was all that funny. I got a kick out of myself, though.

The 216 Hour Report

Tank has been settling in this past week. We’ve been walking a mile and a half at 5am and another two miles at 5pm and one of us should be in pretty good shape soon. On Saturday of the Labor Day weekend, our extended family met at the same park we had had breakfast in back on the Fourth of July. Tank was the big attraction since most people had not met him yet.

Shane’s girlfriend, the tri-athlete, took him for a run back and forth in a big field; a nephew's girlfriend took him for a walk in the woods, then my brother and sister in law took him for another spin on the trail. By the time we got home, he was exhausted. This is significant because we’d never seen him like that. He had always seemed ready to go. In any case, everyone was suitably impressed with him. He was, of course, a perfect gentleman. Oh. Except for the crotch thing, but hey—he’s a dog.

Kathy and I went out to breakfast on Sunday, did a little PetSmart shopping and then came home to give Tank his first bath with us. We did it outside since it was so warm. He did very well, but Kathy did not. You see, Tank took out my good knee during the Saturday outing. He swung his head at just the right angle and that was it. She was afraid he was going to take me down during the bath, but he behaved quite well.

The 24 Hour Report

We have been dog owners again for twenty-four hours, and here is our report.

Tank is very well mannered and has lived up to his former owners’ glowing description. They dropped him off last night with all his equipment: two beds, feeding bowls, toys, leashes, food and food container. Kathy slept downstairs so he wouldn’t feel lonely, but it turns out he spent most of the night out in the living room.

I took him out for an early walk at 5:30am this morning, as he excitedly explored the neighborhood. Apparently he is not as interested in marking his territory as our former dog Kodiak was, since Tank just pees until he is done, all in one spot. Later in the afternoon, we went for our first mile walk and he did not even stop to sniff anything but just walked briskly down the sidewalk watching everything.

He knows many commands and is very easy to direct both inside and outside. They warned us he does not like the rain, and I found that out tonight when it started to sprinkle during our evening constitutional. He shook himself every few steps, though it wasn’t even raining very hard, and he plunged ahead trying to hurry us along, as if he were about to melt.

He really is a great dog and it’s wonderful to have such a beast in the house once again.