Saturday, July 8, 2017

I can’t believe how fast the summer is zipping along. I have
been incredibly busy. Too busy to find writing time, yet alone birding or odenating
time. I wanted to stay busy in retirement but this is ridiculous.

For starters, there are some sad times at the Schools’
household. Not just because Little Hands, our national embarrassment, is still
the President. Sparky, our pet lizard with moderately more reasoning power than
the current president, died last Friday. Not sure why. There were no obvious
problems. She seemed healthy in the afternoon, was walking around and
exploring, went to sleep in her favorite corner, and was dead in the morning. So
when something like this happens you start questioning yourself. Was it
something we did, or didn’t, do? I thought we took care of her. She had food
and water, got out for exercise. We seem to be decent parents. Molly survived
childhood and seems to have turned out OK, so what happened here? Sometimes there
just aren’t any good answers. Bad things happen with no reasonable explanation.
Like the current administration.

I’ve been putting a ton of time into rehabbing the basement.
For some naïve reason I thought tearing out wet carpet and painting the floor
would be a fairly straightforward and simple job. Shouldn’t take too long, like
kicking the Talban out of Afghanistan. Overwhelming resources, a couple weeks’
time, and “Mission Accomplished.” Redoing a basement is right up there with a
land wat in Asia. Plan on being there for longer than you expect with no end in
sight.

Not that there hasn’t been some play time. Lise and I biked
up to see the Meridian Township July 4^th fireworks. Except that for
some reason Meridian Township decided to celebrate on July 1. And, drum roll
please,…..Lindsay has decided to get her driver’s license. She has her learner’s
permit and we go driving most days. It’s worked out surprising well. I haven’t
screamed at her too often and she hasn’t tried to slit my throat. And, we’re
still on speaking terms.