SEP-B-10
THE END OF SEPTEMBER BRINGS
PROGRESS TO THE DERWOOD
CONSTRUCTION,
AND A RAPID SWIRL OF OFFICE,
HOME AND PACKING ACTIVITY FOR THE PENDING START OF SIKKIM-03
September 29--30, 2003
On returning from Iowa, I retrieved the (mostly junk) mail form Derwood and noted, in the dark of a rainy night, that the bricklayers completed the garage and storage room walls of the basement component of the addition. When I walked into the deserted cave, redolent of sawn two-by-fours, I saw that the master bedroom had been completely framed in with respect to the new alignment of the walk-in closet and master bathroom expansion, and, even more remarkably, all new windows installed. These appear to be (I think) Anderson windows, with a crank that allows them to open, set in white vinyl casings. The whole of the total window replacement is alleged to bring greater heating efficiency to the renovated Derwood. There should probably be remarkable progress upon my return form Sikkim for which I leave on Saturday, October 4th, the day after Michael’s 34th birthday.
Leaving a building project like Derwood, or a demolition project like the GWU Hospital, for a period of weeks is a lot like not seeing small kids for a similar interval. I know that will be true for the twins who were just toddling around at Christmas when last I saw them and able to make their feelings known with few spoken words at that time, and now should be diagramming sentences and parsing out vocabularies in several languages. For that reason, one of the next domestic trips to be planned is the rendezvous with them the weekend before the Thanksgiving holiday, so that I can see what has become of the twins and their progress, and what is happening in Michael and Judy’s lives in the long interval since last we were visiting together. Between now and then, I will be doing two marathons, one long international trip, and whatever I can accomplish in the ELDP program in which I am not even woefully behind—it would be more honest to say I have not yet begun! But, I am going to have to chose right now what has highest priority, and after mailing a package to Michael and stomping on abundant overdue brush fires, I will try to go out for a mid-day run to get a few longer miles on me before departure to India—which will extend my too-long taper before the Marine Corps Marathon upon my return.