Michael isn’t much of a reader yet.

Years ago, his mom and I held out high hopes. At the age of two he knew all of his letters and their sounds, and was spelling out words he saw: EXIT, STOP, OFF, WALK, etc. We assumed he was going be reading Dostoevsky and Joyce in no time.

But despite my efforts, reading to him on a daily basis and providing him a substantial library of early reader books, Michael hasn’t willingly ventured into the realm of reading.

Quite the opposite, in fact. Trying to cajole him into reading his books is like trying to get the cat to take a bath. He drags his feet hard enough to carve grooves in the floorboards.

And he likes TV. Way too much. He is skilled – nay, he is a virtuoso – at wearing down parental will, such that an otherwise sensible and firmly resolved parent can quickly be reduced to a slathering, gnashing primate capable only of acting upon the basest instincts of survival, such as biting and clawing his or her way through the couch cushions in order to find the remote and tune in Nick Jr. or Sprout to quell the dreaded, unending whine of “mommy? mommy? mommy? mommy? mommy? mommy? mommy? mommy?”

This is a fact of which I am very much not proud.

His mom and I have decided we owe it to him to be better than this. So last night, when Michael requested TV time, his mom told him that he must first read two simple books.

This triggered his response of whining, begging, pleading and tantrum-ing as we had expected it would. But his mom stood her ground, and with each outburst she added another book to the total, which made it up to five before he gave in.

She sat down with him and opened up the first book he’d selected, which was a SpongeBob phonics book. This one highlighted the long “I” sound, and explored use of the silent “e”. And as we have done with every attempt at helping him read, we insisted that he sound out the words.

To him, this was some form of excruciating torture. I watched from the kitchen as he twisted and squirmed and nearly hyperventilated trying to compile the sounds that comprise the word “him”. He struggled. He stammered. He whined, wiggled, wobbled and tore at his clothes as his mom slowly and painfully urged him to sound out each letter and then string those sounds together into the one word.

“I don’t remember what the word is!” he protested repeatedly.

“There’s no need to remember. Just sound it out,” his mom said repeatedly.

From the kitchen I witnessed this embroilment as his mom fought valiantly to prod him into figuring out the sounds himself and as he strained to do anything to get out of doing so.

From time to time she’d say “I think maybe your daddy had better help you with this, instead of me.” This is a phrase she pulls out whenever she wants to shock Michael into proper behavior. It usually works.

I couldn’t help but think that maybe she wanted a bit of a break herself.

“Okay,” I said. “Here I come.”

“Nooooooo!” protested Michael, from the floor.

“Yup. I’m going to read with you, and mommy is going to finish making dinner.”

My wife looked up at me with pleading, defeated eyes. I smiled and held out my hand. She ascended from the couch with the grateful expression of a soul redeemed, plucked from the seventh circle of The Inferno.

“All right, sport. Sit up here,” I said.

He didn’t move. I reached down and drew his boneless body into my lap and molded him into an upright position. “Come on. Sit up straight. We’re going to get through this.”

I was determined that we would make it through without fighting. I would give him space, I would give him leeway, I would give him latitude. I would not press, I would not become impatient, I would assist him and help him see that he can do this.

I was determined.

“All right, now. Let’s look at the page. What’s Plankton doing here?”

He relaxed immediately and described what Plankton was doing.

“And what’s SpongeBob holding?”

“A magnifying glass,” he said. “And these are cans of lima beans,” he offered, brightening.

“Right! How did you know they were lima beans?”

“It says so.” He pointed out the words.

“Well that’s great. Okay, since you know this, let’s read the words. Ready? Here we go. What’s this word?”

“I don’t know…”

“Okay, what’s this letter?”

“Y”

“And what sound does it make?”

“Yuh”

“Right. What’s the next letter?”

And so it went. Letter by letter, millimeter by millimeter, we went through each letter of each word, very slowly but no less surely covering each word and then repeating each sentence to reinforce. He became more confident with each word. The sounds and the comprehension came easier to him with each page, all the way up to the last one. Slowly and surely.

In all that time I’d spent with Michael, my wife completed dinner, dessert, an amuse bouche, mastered the five mother sauces, knitted two sweaters and built a replica of the Eiffel Tower from toothpicks. Okay, so I exaggerate. It was only a model of Sutter’s Fort.

But in this time, while he grew in his ability to read, I had grown in my patience. He and I both had our victories.

Tom yawns and he sets the last button on his jammies. He stretches and climbs aboard the Sleepytime Express, ready for a good night’s trip through Slumbertown.

CRASH!

The wall transforms into a six-year-old boy.

“Mommy? I’m all sweaty!” Michael cries as his mom and I reluctantly haul ourselves out of bed and into active service.

It had been such a nice trip. Maybe tonight we’ll make it through.

In all fairness, it was sister S’s alarm clock that woke him up. I have yet to understand why she’d have it set to go off then. But there’s precedent, so it doesn’t surprise me much.

Yesterday Michael, his mom and I drove up a short way into Washington to retrieve sister S, who’d spent a week with her dad.

Her first grand announcement as we pulled back onto the freeway headed for home:

“I’m a vegan now!”

“Good luck with that,” I replied.

See, this is a girl who only recently has maintained that she will one day be owning a combined Hot Topic / Taco Bell store. She loves steak, chicken and ice cream. She never met a piece of bacon that she didn’t like. The thought of her going one day without consuming an animal product in some form or another is by all rights absurd.

On the trip back, we prodded a little bit for more on the how, why, when and what of it.

“Who got you interested in being a vegan?”

“Mr. Sparklepants.” (Note: this is not his actual name. However, the name we were given is not any more believable.)

“And how old is Mr. Sparklepants?”

“He’s in seventh grade.”

A sterling credential if ever there was one.

“And is he a dietician?”

“No, but he knows what he’s talking about.”

“Give me an example.”

“Well, you can get all your Omega 3s and protein by eating walnuts.”

“Okay…”

“So that’s what I’ll do.”

“Just walnuts?”

“And Ramen.”

Sounds to me like she has the plan all worked out. She explained it to us with such confidence, we figure she must have notes:

“Where are you going to get your calcium?” her mom asked, after a brief pause.

“And your vitamin B?” I asked, immediately afterward.

“And your vitamin D?” her mom asked before I’d finished my question.

“I don’t know… I’ll figure it out.”

This is where we let it drop. My wife and I know when to step up for battle and when to stand down.

While we certainly support lofty goals and noble causes such as protecting animal rights, it is our job as parents to ensure that our children understand every aspect of what they’re getting themselves in to. Knowing sister S, we’re pretty sure she’s missing quite a big chunk of the picture. She latched onto one facet of the vegan lifestyle and a couple of tips and figures she’s ready to run with it.

I give it a week.

Sunday was a heck of a day. Not sure what his deal was, but Michael was in rare form, breaking previous records of impishness-per-minute.

I was very much looking forward to my favorite part of the day, the time when I can tuck Michael in bed and basically be done with him.

Bedtime rolled around at last, and after tooth brushing and goodnight kisses, Michael made a plaintive request that his mother join us for story and prayer time. She acquiesced and rose from the comfy couch to make the trek upstairs to Michael’s room.

During these infrequent and thus highly sought-after visits, mommy’s job is to snuggle up to Michael and be a partner in his play while he “listens” to a story.

We read the story about Stone Soup. Not necessarily one of his favorites, but I like it and it gives me a chance to practice different voices. Michael played with his mom’s arm, raising and lowering it and allowing her hand to smack him in the face. He knows it annoys me that he doesn’t really listen to story time.

So I stopped reading.

“Michael, should we just be done with this? You’re not listening.”

“I am listening! Keep reading!”

“I don’t know… you’re playing and giggling and I don’t feel like you’re enjoying the story,” I said.

“No! Please don’t quit. I’ll be good,” he pleads.

I continue reading, pushing through the words quickly, hoping to reach the end before his mischievous antics reach the boil-over point.

Finally done, I put the book down and turn off the light.

“Okay, sport. Let’s get you tucked in here so I can say prayers.”

He snuggles up next to his mom, who is only too happy to remain horizontal at this point, after a grueling day of yard work under a hot sun.

Before I can begin saying prayers, though, I heave a sigh, shaking my head at Michael’s phenomenally difficult behavior during the day.

“Lord, please let this boy learn how to behave.”

In almost no time, I hear that still, small voice respond:

“He is learning. He learns every day. You teach him.”

I’m taken aback, because this isn’t what I want to hear. I want God to fix him, not chide me.

“But Lord, why must he behave this way?”

“He is who he is, and exactly who I made him to be.”

“Then please give me the patience I need to deal with him!”

“I am teaching you patience by providing you the lessons.”

“What, are you in cahoots with my wife or something? Why are you saying the same things she says?”

I hear no comment back from this, but my wife is giggling audibly now, having heard only my side of the conversation but no doubt knowing exactly what God must be saying to me.

“Is God not saying what you want to hear?” she asks me, finally.

“No! And He’s speaking with your voice.”

She reaches her palm straight up and says to the Almighty: “High five.”

Michael and his sisters and cousin are back from vacation at Grandma’s.

I drove 173 miles to pick them up, 3+ hours of driving along the mighty Columbia river through alternately verdant and barren countryside, to reach a small town whose main claim to fame is being home to one of the few remaining coal-fired power plants in the state of Oregon. It’s also a convenient midway point between our house and Grandma’s house. It has a big park, where Michael can burn off some pent-up energy and stretch his little legs before getting strapped in for the second half of his journey home.

It had been a grand week.

Michael, two sisters and a cousin were all in eastern Oregon, enjoying the relaxed pace and small-town atmosphere of the Wallowa Lake area, along with the diversions afforded by its rugged mountain features and glacier-forged landscape. One of Michael’s favorite activities was to chase crickets, of which there are plenty. His other favorite activities apparently centered around keeping his sisters in a state of high annoyance, at least by their account. With the low horizon and clear skies, his days began at the very crack of dawn, as the crimson sunrise flooded the loft room where he and his sisters bunked.

His grandmother made sure to keep him well occupied, providing trips to the lake and trips to town, adventures in the parks and up the mountains and of course plenty of busy-work to keep his little hands engaged and out of mischief. His sisters and cousins pitched in, taking shifts to ensure that grandma didn’t get overwhelmed. The daily reports his mom and I got back were quite colorful; text messages from the girls, phone conversations from Michael and his grandmother.

to wit: “Why is it that michael always wakes up at 5 AM and then chooses the LOUDEST toy in the room to play with? X(” (this from sister L)

And from his grandmother, a report about Michael at the lake: “He told me he had to go to the bathroom really bad, but said he couldn’t make it back up the hill to the potty so I told him he’d just have to use the lake. So he comes out of the water, stands up on the shore and starts pulling down his shorts…”

Meanwhile, at home, Michael’s mom and I spent a week in a quiet house. The only noise came from the cat, who was VERY CONCERNED that all of her people were disappearing, and wanted to BE SURE WE UNDERSTOOD HER CONCERN. Repeatedly, every ten minutes or so.

We did a whole lot of nothing, which was wonderful. We didn’t paint anyone’s room, we didn’t re-work the garden or re-decorate the house, and we didn’t travel.

Well… not much. We did go to the beach for one day, spending the night at a bed-and-breakfast inn along the coast. This place was magical on all counts, and we’ll be back one day. For one thing, they had a guests-only wine social the afternoon we checked in. They handed us a couple of glasses of wine and pointed out a couple of forest trails behind the inn, encouraging us to explore, which we did. Never before had either of us hiked through the forest holding a glass of wine.

The dinner we had that night was truly amazing. Neither of us had ever had an “amuse bouche” before either, the sort of pre-appetizer course they served. To say dinner was good would be to say the ocean is deep.

But time marched onward, and she and I both had to get back to our normal occupations.

Thus on Sunday, while she was at work, I drove alone to the middle of Oregon to pick up children.

After transferring bags and blankets and assorted gear from Grandma’s car to ours, and a few hugs goodbye, we were on our way back to Portland.

And even though I’d had a week to recuperate, any vestige of parental patience I’d gained was quite deftly erased after fifteen minutes in the car.

I can’t wait for school to start.

Michael is now employing the “truth hurts so I’ll lie” method to handling new and different foods.

He says “I love it,” meaning “that was vile, but I get in trouble for being brutally honest about how disgusting certain foods are so I’ll say what I think you want to hear so you’ll leave me alone.”

For instance, last week his mom picked up some rice bread for him to try. This was the only bread she could find that didn’t have milk and/or soy in it.

After lovingly crafting a PB&J sandwich from this new bread, she handed it to Michael, who took an exploratory bite.

He made that face: the one that looks like he just licked something he thought was chocolate but it turned out to be a moray eel, but he’s too cool to allow a genuine emotion to spread across his visage.

“Well?” his mom asked, expectantly. “How is it?”

“I love it,” he said, on his fiftieth chew of the one bite, his nose wrinkled ever so slightly while he strained to hold his breath and to keep his tongue from actually contacting the masticated wad, lest he taste it.

“Great!” his mom said. “Finish that up then and we can go on our errands.”

“Uh, I’m done with it. I’ll just save it for later,” he said, putting it down. The “later” of which he speaks is no doubt coincident with the end of the Mayan calendar.

For several weeks now Michael had been pestering me to get Brussels sprouts for him to try. He happily eats broccoli and many other vegetables, so this wasn’t outside the realm of possibility. It’s just that Brussels sprouts are infamous as the nemesis of children’s palettes everywhere, throughout all recorded history. Legends have sprung up over tales of stubborn children sitting for days, staring at their plate of uneaten Brussels sprouts until their parents finally cave in or grow too old to fight.

So for him to actually request them was nothing short of a miracle in my mind. And I couldn’t help but be a little proud, since I actually like them myself.

However, I resisted the first few requests, having previous experience with children and their unusual culinary requests (miniature bananas, edible flowers, Mexican hot chocolate, etc.) that ended up shoved to the back of the refrigerator to become fungal substrates.

On his continued insistence, I eventually broke down and bought some.

I made eight of them. A simple recipe: clean them, boil them in salt water, serve warm.

He was so delighted to pack into this “little cabbage” the way he chows down on the “little trees” of broccoli.

I knew things weren’t going well when I saw him take an exploratory nibble and make that staring-straight-ahead, corners-of-the-mouth-curled-down-slightly sort of chewing face.

“Hmm… not so much?” I said.

“It’s good,” he said, unconvincingly.

“I don’t believe you,” I said, unconvinced.

“I love it,” he said, still chewing the microgram of Brussels sprout he had in his mouth.

“Michael, you don’t need to lie to me. If you love it, eat it all and have more.”

He cut the sprout in half and forked half into his mouth.

He chewed on it for the better part of 45 minutes.

“Well? Do you still love it?”

“Yes,” he said, finally swallowing. “But I’m full.”

“Mmmkay. I’ll eat the other seven,” I said.

“Okay. They’re really good.”

“Maybe we can get more tomorrow!” I said, brightly.

“No, that’s okay,” he said. “We can try something else.”

“But you love it, right?”

“Oh, yes. I love it. Can I have a treat now?”

“I thought you said you were full.”

“Well I am full of Brussels sprouts, but…”

“Yeah. Eat your dinner.”

If nothing else, I do admire his adherence to the maxim: “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothin’ at all.”

My wife and I have noticed recently that Michael has taken to questioning our driving abilities.

Just about anywhere we go, seconds after we’ve left our neighborhood, Michael will begin loudly casting doubts upon our course:
“Are you sure you know where you’re going?”
“I don’t think this is the right way.”
“We’re getting lost.”
“You’re definitely going the wrong way.”

It doesn’t matter that in every instance we actually arrive where we intended to.

It doesn’t matter that we take the same routes to the same place, every time, and that the landmarks don’t change.

It doesn’t matter that he himself still struggles with getting his shoes on the right feet.

In his mind, we’re all clueless.

And aside from the gloom report, he’s started to become a nagging alarm as well:

“Don’t hit that dog!” (when passing a dog that is thirty yards away, on the other side of a concrete barrier)
“Watch out for that cone!” (while slowly negotiating a turn around an orange pylon that is a good ten feet from the side of the car)
“You’re too close to the edge of the road!” (from the middle lane)
“Don’t forget to stop at the light.” (because Lord knows I love running them)
“You can go now. What are you waiting for?” (light just turned green, but there are twelve cars ahead of me)

I’m not sure where this comes from, aside from perhaps his listening to my own tirades against other drivers, or maybe even as the result of some experience he had while we were in the car in which I got us lost (which, to my memory, has never happened).

In any case, I’ve decided that since I cannot stop it, I’ll bend like a reed in the wind and just play along:

Michael: “Are you going the right way?”
Me: “No. I’m just driving around aimlessly.”

or

and

Michael: “Are you sure this is the right direction?”
Me: “Hmmm… I don’t know. Do you know which way is the right direction?”
Michael: “No…”
Me: “Then I guess it doesn’t matter which way we go.”

He doesn’t like it much, but it makes me feel better.

What I’m really looking forward to is when his older sisters start learning to drive. If they give me any trouble I’ll just threaten to make them drive with Michael behind them.

Same stepdaughter in an exchange with her mom:

Mom: “So what’s your schedule tomorrow?”

S: “I dunno.”

Mom: “Aren’t you going to the movies with your friends?”

S: “No, I’m not!” (delivered with the sort of derisive tone only a teen girl can properly construct)

Mom: “But didn’t you tell me yesterday you were going to see a movie on Monday?”

S: “I’m going to see The Last Airbender on Monday.”

Mom: “I just said that!”

S: “No, you asked if I was going with friends.”

Sister S has been a world-champion hair-splitter since she was very young. We believe she has a future as a prosecuting attorney.

Not too long ago, I recounted the tale of a difficult weekend.

On Monday I was breathing a sigh of relief to be shut of it.

Little did I know what level of Dante’s Inferno I’d be touring the very next weekend.

I think it began when I announced plans for a family excursion to see the annual Starlight Parade in Portland. These words, upon leaving my lips, passed through the aether and began to resonate deep in the interstices of time and space, where it then created a focused beam of adversity aimed directly at the most critical spot in our home’s plumbing system.

Before I go on, I must remind you that I hate plumbing problems. I don’t mind electrical wiring problems, structural problems or heating/air conditioning problems. Those are easy to deal with.

Plumbing is different. Plumbing is a way of routing water under pressure, and if not dealt with quickly and correctly will cause loss of resources, great amounts of wetness, pervasive and very expensive wood damage and significant reduction in dignity. This is why in every corner of our house there currently thrives some minor plumbing annoyance, from running toilets to an intermittent refrigerator water dispenser, a completely inoperable hot water tap and a defunct hot tub.

So, this one Saturday morning, I brought Michael outside to do some bike riding. It was time to take off his training wheels and see what he could do on two wheels. He actually got four seconds of riding time without my holding on to him! Pretty cool. On the way down the driveway, he asked me why the sidewalk was all wet.

“Probably the neighbors watering,” I said, and gave it no further thought.

Later, when my wife came home from errands, she asked me why the sidewalk was wet, and whether it was coming from our yard.

This time I went outside to give it a good look.

Sure enough, the water that was saturating the sidewalk was merrily bubbling up from our yard. Specifically, from the water meter. I pulled up the cover and saw a murky brown ocean.

No problem, I thought, call the water department.

They sent a guy around in under twenty minutes. He pumped out the meter well and took a look around.

“Yeah, it’s the fitting on the street elbow,” he said.

“And now you’re going to tell me it’s an easy fix and it won’t be expensive, right?” I asked, optimistically.

“Oh, yeah. It’s a simple job. All you have to do is-“

I sort of hung on that phrase there: “all you have to do is”

And by “you” he meant the poor shmuck who owns the house, who hates plumbing, and who had plans that day.

I asked him to repeat himself, so he described again the “very simple” process of removing the street elbow, cutting the reducer coupling off of the main line and replacing it with PVC adapters.

“It’ll take you half an hour and cost three bucks.”

My wife and I looked at each other, knowing full well both figures were way off.

As the water department dude drove off, she went and got the camera while I went to fetch the shovel.
My eldest daughter, having discovered that there was no water pressure in the house, came out to investigate. She wanted a shower, and said she was willing to work for it.

Yes, she has no qualms against performing manual labor barefoot and in pajamas.

And of course it’s necessary to dig out the concrete box surrounding the meter just to get to the pipes.

I’ll be needing a manicure after this.

Say a prayer. I’m cutting the water main.

Here’s the culprit. A leaky street elbow and reducer coupling.

So off to Home Depot I went, taking eldest daughter with me. She was gracious enough to put on some daytime attire before we left.

Okay – I got parts and teflon plumber’s tape. And a water pump. And a new PVC cutter. And some PVC cement. Let’s see… so far we’re up to $42.51. So much for the cheery estimate I got from the water company rep.

Now, I know how to cut PVC, and I know how to apply PVC cement. And I know that once you put the cement-coated pieces together, they ain’t coming apart: no way, no how. So it’s important to get it done right the first time.

Missed it by that much. Okay, okay, so I blew it the first time. I can get more connectors, they’re not too expensive.

Off to Home Depot I went, for the second time. Running total is now up to $48.69.

This time, I dry-fit the pieces and make SURE they’re the right length before I cemented them together. No more crude eyeball measurements.

Yeah.

Interesting fact: when you coat PVC with cement, the pieces fit together a lot closer than when you dry fit them, making it really easy to misjudge (again) how long your connector assembly is. I have learned something. Something I’ll only need to recall when I am forced to do plumbing work. Something I’ll no doubt forget long before the time I need to recall it.

I had made two attempts to get our home’s water main reconnected and had blown them both.

At this point, I had a hyperventilating, mouth-frothing panic attack became somewhat discouraged. I wasn’t sure if I could actually make this work. It was critical that our house has water, and my repeated screw-ups were causing us to run out of workable pipe length. Pretty soon I’d have to call in a back hoe and/or a fleet of professionals.

My wife, the soul of support, offered a suggestion:

“You need a beer.”

“It’s only noon,” I said, in mild protest. “Besides, I have to go get more parts.”

“I’ll go get them,” she said. “You need to relax.” She took the first connector set with her and sped off to the hardware store.

I hate plumbing.

Soon my wife was back, handing me the new parts. She bought two sets. Smart woman.

“Did you drink that beer?” she asked me.

“No…”

She heaved a sigh and marched into the house to get one.

After she came back out and forced me to relax, she offered a suggestion:

“You know, inside that coupling there’s a little ridge that lets you know how far the pipe goes in. How about you measure how far inside that ridge is, and use that to figure out how long the connecting pipe should be?”

“That’s a really smart idea,” I said.

With that in mind, I carefully measured all the distances and lengths involved in the connection from the water main to the meter.

I made the cuts, cemented the pieces and fit them together.

Not exactly perfect, but serviceable and solid.

Time to apply water pressure.

No leaks. Hallelujah!

Back goes the box, dirt and surrounding rocks.

After five hours and fifty-three some odd dollars, the problem was resolved. Don’t mistake this pose for relaxation. What you’re seeing is exhaustion.

And even after two weeks, I still have nightmares.

I hate plumbing.

note: the pictures you didn’t get to see were the ones where wife and daughter took their turns fitting and tightening the connectors. There were threats involved.

So how was your weekend?

It rained here. My wife tells me it rains here every year at this time, and I just don’t seem to remember that. I don’t remember a lot of stuff.

Every Memorial Day weekend I attempt to smoke a large hunk of meat for dinner. That is, I haul out an electric smokehouse and set a beef brisket inside it and let it smoke for the better part of the day. It’s something I’m trying to establish as a tradition, just so my kids will have something to laugh about amongst themselves and share to their children and grandchildren later on in their lives. So far, so good; I’ve provided plenty of fodder for laughter.

Last Thursday my wife was diagnosed with pneumonia. She’s pretty much been coughing non-stop for two weeks now, the poor thing.

But this of course means she’s out of action, and I am left alone with only a lethargic older sister to help care for Michael, who was beyond wild for the last three days.

I’m not sure what’s in his rice milk, but the kind of energy he’d been sporting could easily allow him to leap into a low Earth orbit if he so desired. He’s been up at around 6:30 every day, rarin’ to go and making demands.

In an effort to help curb her coughing, Sunday night my wife tried sleeping on the couch so she could sit upright. The cat did her level best to ensure that sleep was not to be had, coming in from outside and applying her damp fur to our faces and tromping around on our midsections every thirty minutes. And of course she ignored the very active and loud mouse that was scurrying around under the stove (we think she figures she’s made her quota of critter control by bringing two birds into the house last week, so she should be exempt from mouse duty). And as kitty and mouse settle down to relax after a hard night of keeping the people awake, Michael clocks in at around 5:45 AM and begins his shift, climbing up on his mom’s face and demanding Reese’s Puffs.

Yesterday I’d had enough of his tearing around like a Jack Russel Terrier on his fourth espresso and bribed his sister into taking him to the park for a little while. The clouds had been spotty at best and it was dry all morning, with very little wind.

I drove them to the park and told his sister to call me when they were ready to be picked up. Then I headed home in peace. The first peace I’d had for days.

As I pulled into the driveway, the clouds burst forth in a torrent.

“It’ll pass,” I told myself. “It can’t last long.”

I had barely gotten into the house when the call came: Michael says it’s too wet to play, and he wants to come home.

Sigh.

To add to the fun, my wireless router upped and died on me, forcing me to buy a new one. I had a Linksys router before, a real solid system that just plain worked from the time I first plugged it in until the time it sputtered its last packet. It was easy to set up, easy to use, and came with a nice interface that stayed out of my way until I needed it.

Then I bought this Belkin “Play” router, and was taken in by the hype of “just plug it in and you’re ready to go!”

Not so much.

The bottom line is, the Belkin wireless router is a diva. It demands constant attention, and will spontaneously go into sulk mode and drop the internet connection if it becomes offended for any reason. You have to gently, carefully coax it back into service. It also has a feature in which it automatically restarts, on schedule. I think it’s the equivalent of a “spa day”, because it’s out of commission for forty-five minutes during this time, and it’s going to happen whether you like it or not. Trying to set up a wireless connection was impossible. I know, it’s a wireless router and all, but there’s obviously more to it than just having another wireless system nearby and using the same security protocol and all that. No, there’s a pin involved, and timeouts, and security checks, and registrars, and handshaking, and synchronization, and antidisestablishmentarianism… anyway, like a true paranoid-schizophrenic, this Belkin wireless router would refuse to acknowledge any such capability as routing things wirelessly.

This morning I have carefully sealed the Belkin Play router back into it’s snug little box along with the cables, disk and power supply for its return to Costco. It went without a fight, but I believe it must have angered the modem during its two-day tenure, as the modem now refuses to connect to the internet.

By this morning, I can report that Michael’s mom is recovering, thank God, since she’s scheduled to be at work tomorrow. She got some new cough medicine and actually slept all night long last night, in our room, away from creatures. And Michael didn’t get up until after I’d gotten dressed and was ready for him.

So… I’m glad the weekend is over. Thank God for the men and women who’ve given their lives for their country, so we can be free. I don’t think we observed this fact much this weekend. I had my own battles at home to deal with.