04-JUN-A-2
May 28—
If I can make myself be heard over
the “Voice of the Cicadas” I am in Derwood, alone, on the holiday weekend, amid
the din of the forest chorus.
I have got up early to go to the attic, hoping to do
some serious cleanout while the dumpster is still here, and although full, it
will not return once it is emptied on this next time. So, I struggled through the boxes and dusty
stuff, throwing out curtain rods, old rugs, and boxes, a few of which I did not
open, since I did not want to find anything I might want to save. I could only get so far into the attic from
the mess the construction folk had made by simply plowing all the boxes and
stacked papers over, scrambling them instantly into meaninglessness, while I
tried to unscramble only a few of the important parts like the chapters of the
travelogs and re-ordering them as best I could with gaps, despite a compulsive
completeness of what was stored here when I was not living here. I found some amazing things including
pictures of the kids when they were babies and I when I was wandering the world
as a visiting professor everywhere.
And, now for the Good News! Joe got the call last night, and he is
officially representing the
I ran around the mall on Friday when
I found almost no one at work in the afternoon.
I started at the
MEMORIAL DAY
MIRRORS LAST
FOURTH OF JULY
IN REVERSE!
It was hot on the last Fourth of
July as I packed boxes and stashed away everything I would not be able to find
for the next year of my life. I had
wrapped up all dishware and stashed away birthday presents, so well hidden from
me as to escape a full year of the births they were meant to commemorate. On
this Memorial Day the dumpster is still here behind the house, even if full,
and I should go up to the attic each morning to see before the heat of the day
comes on whether I can get another box or two consigned to the dumpster before
it disappears, unlikely to return.
So, I have been doing little nitty
gritty items in settling, putting fragile things in the illuminated dining room
hutch, despite the absence of a dining room table and chairs. I have set out about half of my carvings and
souvenirs, and brought down all the silk and carpet wall hangings, and the
pictures among which we will choose on Thursday at 9:00 AM when Sandy Shelar
the Interior Designer comes over to go through the finishing touches. I turned on the hot tub after a run to see if
it could function and found that one of the jets does not work, The punch out list keeps adding items which
we will get to, but the dishwasher is functioning at last after a new plug was
made for it, and it is remarkably quiet.
The dryer was connected t a vent to the outside under the deck, so a
laundry can be done, although the old unused vent is still protruding through
the bricks fate unknown. The little
touches in the Game Room are being filled in, although we await major
decorating items like the wall covering and window treatments of a number of
the rooms such as powder room and foyer for which they have been awaited. I have emptied the master bedroom of all but
the bureau and slide file cases, which will go to the little office in the
future when I can get it ready.
I logged in a run at Lake Needwood
amid a swarm of red-eyed cicadas, and found the running log which had stopped
in July of 2003 when it was packed up in the Alaska hunt material. I will just restart it this year without
totaling the runs I had missed last year.
I have found a few of the items I had been missing, and will continue to
expect more as the boxes are further reduced in numbers and density. It has not been as hot as it was putting
things into boxes, but I feel and hear the same crunchy noises coming out of my
lumbar spine when I reverse the process.
The leaves are close overhead and no other structure can be seen from
Derwood. But the leaves overhead are
filled with noise and these red eyed dragons are dense as can be.
Under The tire swing, the hard
packed ground appears to have been riddled with .38 caliber gunfire. There are as many as thirty holes within a
half meter square. The estimate on the
density of these large red eyed super bugs is over one hundred per square yard,
which means that my property holds over a million of them. What I thought I heard as rain on the
skylights turned out to be the bodies of cicadas dropping on them. I actually slipped on the drifts of the big
bodies of these insects in the car seventeen years ago, and I had arrived here
in Washington in 1970, two cycles ago, so I am feeling as though these aliens
are welcoming me again, the second time.
A
SERENDIPITOUS HOUSEWARMING CELEBRATION
WITH THE WHOLE
MONSMA/VANDER TUIG CLAN—
ANOTHER FIRST
EVENT!
MAY 30, 2004
I went to church and saw the
farewell for Marie Schaap and the salute to two WW II veterans in the
congregation, one Glenwood, who looks thirty years older in the last year. As a spontaneous gesture, Dennis Vander Tuig
came over to me and asked “How is your house coming along?” And I said—“Come on over and see!” If we were to schedule this event with six
month’s notice, we could never find a suitable time for it, but his family was
visiting, as Irene Monsma and granddaughter Dina and daughter Ruth were at a
wedding of a Jamaican with a very African theme downtown, and George Monsma and
his wife were visiting from Grand Rapids and Calvin, having been in Mali for
three years beginning over a decade ago.
So, with everyone on base, and the weather threatening rain, he said
they would shop for stuff to eat, and I would prepare an indoor or outdoor picnic
in a glorious cool cloudy day. All
right!
I
had received a return call from Huda Ayas of the International Medicine office
at GWU and had tried to get from her the books I had been ordered to read and
report on by June 4, after the three day visit that will be booked every moment
in the interval so I need to read and report instantly before Virginia arrives
tomorrow afternoon. Huda’s Cohort is
meeting all week to go through their mock proposal presentations in a week long
residence, while I follow the next week.
One of the people in her Cohort is Linda, who lives in Singapore and
wants me to stop to visit and lecture there if and when I come to the Orient
the next time. So, I will try to arrange
that meeting while she is here to present her proposal to the ELDP as they are
in the final phase of the program I am about to begin.
I
drove down town, getting gas in DC for a dime less than advertised in
Maryland. My “check engine light” is—for
this merciful moment—off, but I am still supposed to stop back at Liberty
Redland and get the plugs replaced. I
skirted the edge of “Rolling Thunder” the traditional Memorial Day weekend
congregation of big Harleys’ which this year gets even presidential
attention. As I drove back with the
books to be read in hand, I got a call from Dennis VanderTuig, saying they were
scattered but picking up items and would be heading in several vehicles to
Derwood. They bought all the fixings,
and I had prepared for their Grand House Warming Party—complete with a bottle
of Maryland Champagne—the last bottle to be produced, since they are converting
the vineyard to Chardonnay.
It
was a wonderful spontaneous gathering, with an assortment of chairs gathered
around the added leaf in the new Breakfast Room table, and an assortment of
folk filling them. We made the house tour in series, and they all were taken
with the Game Room (the expectation is to find a pool table and electronic
pinball—but when I say “Great Room” it sounds so pretentious!) The kitchen gets rave reviews from most who
have any culinary instincts, but what they wound up appreciating most were a
few randomly pulled photo albums of recent trips to Somaliland and
Ethiopia. We never did get to the
Taiwan and Amazon trips which I have stacked up in four incomplete photo albums
on which I have tried to work in anticipation of getting the Kuhn book to get
started on reports.
The first overnight guests were my
sisters who worked hard to set up what we used in kitchen and living
space. The next, equally serendipitous
overnight guests were the Schaefers, who are well over due to get the full
turnaround in my numbers of visits in their directions. The next housewarming party came with the
whole Monsma/VanderTug clan from church, and the official turnover has happened
as appropriate on the holiday, as we have rendezvoused on every holiday, with
the Aukwards. Now, tomorrow, comes the
critical homecoming, Mark Naylor already
in residence, with a visit to Margeaux, and a potential opening dinner for
Virginia’s aunt and uncle-ex-in-law who had arranged for her the cottage in
France for her month of vacation in which to write here dissertation.
Thereafter, I should be hearing from
the Gainesville Geelhoeds about a new grandchild, and then will come a July
visit by the San Antonio Geelhoeds with an introduction of the twins to the new
Grandkids Room. So this official start
of the summer season is on its way with the new digs open for business, ready
or not!
BOOKING FOR
THE BEGINNING OF THE DOCTORAL GRADUATE COURSE, TO START ALL OVER IN READINGS,
AND REQUIRED
WRITINGS ON DEADLINES FOR THE COMING
“BOOT CAMP”
RESIDENCY PERIOD IN JUNE
May 31, 2004
Speaking of not being ready, I am
now starting to read the several books due for my ELDP doctoral course
“residence.” Even as I waited for the
Monsma clan and for the Aukwards to show up in the light drizzle, I was
standing under a recessed light and reading the Kuhn text which will be my
first required paper, to be sent in on Tuesday after the holiday—ready or not.
This has been one of several passes
through Kuhn, most recently in the Philosophy of Medicine course, so I know the
content, but need to send back by email a report of some new insight—a delivery
of some perspective on demand that I may have to do rather repeatedly during
the course of the eight plus years that this final doctoral degree program of mine will entail.
HOUSEWARMING
INDOOR PICNIC WITH THE AUKWARD FAMILY ON THIS MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND,
FOLLOWING THE
“HOUSE COOLING” PARTY LAST JULY 4,
WITH THE
AUKWARD FAMILY AND MARK
May 31, 2004
Joe and family arrived after the
cool cloudy morning had tuned to a drizzle.
I had worked on the readings and put away the fifth photo album of the
year, ending the packs of pictures from my Taiwan tour, not yet having touched
the three volumes that follow from the Amazon photo extravaganza nor following
events. If I do not keep up with the
records of the photo barrage, I could get overwhelmed by a backlog, and this is
only of the last two months!
Joe had pulled his hamstring again,
and had iced it with the thoughts that we should not go for our long early run.
But the kids especially were eager to see the new Derwood and the whole group
was on its way for the indoor or outdoor picnic that might offer them a chance
to see and “do” Derwood. And “do it’
they did, with squeals of delight and wonder, they ran through the Game Room
fondling everything and playing on the deck and all the new furniture. Michelle especially went wild with the
excitement, and could not keep her hands off the attractions—not just the taxidermy,
but also the swinging doors and windows, with which I have been now retracing
steps and handprints with Windex. They
had a good time and enjoyed the indoor picnic despite the plans made for the
outdoor spread. The Breakfast Room is
quite capable of absorbing a lot of different functions and again I had
collected mis-matched chairs from attic and basement and other sources not of
concern to kids who have not yet overdosed on Designer catalogs.
We went out to the tire swing and
had the sequence of turns swinging over the hard ground riddled with cicada
holes. We then went to Lake Needwood
where we were going to go for a run, but Joe could not get his hamstring to
cooperate, and will make an appointment to see my colleague Steve Haas next
week. He has nothing now to compete for
since he is on the team and will be going to Athens without doubt, so now would
be a good time to focus on damage limitations.
I had talked with him along our twenty minute walk, and even
photographed him with cicadas making a free rider association with him. We packed up and returned, and now I must
return to the real work of the world and hit the books, as a new summer is
starting, and a new graduate program with it.