A weekly note

Hej! Hur mår du?

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The floodgates really do open once you hit publish. Clear the blocker, free sailing ahead.

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Does that work together: floodgates and free sailing? It doesn’t read like miter gates are actually “floodgates”, but that’d be the closest thing to free sailing. As in, you can exit the lock and go now. Maybe also if the flood gates are open then things are generally calm at sea anyway, so free sailing ahead?

Whatever. At least I now know what various parts of a lock are called.

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Two signs of I’m an old as I turn the corner toward 44:

I remember both my dad and grandfather buying newspapers from newspaper stands when we’d go out to breakfast at a place like Perkins or Village Inn or some other spot during a family reunion or other trip.

From this, I think I expected more interactions with newspaper stands in my 40s.

We have phones instead.

And second. Music was so easy to play in your car. Grab a CD from the case beside you, put it in the slot, music plays. Now you either need to rely on some version of “hey there computer” or connect your phone and apply a series of taps to find the album you’re looking for.

Again, we have phones instead.

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I’ve hit a 30 day streak in Duo Lingo! Oh, and I’ve started using Duo Lingo.

Michelle got me hooked and we’ve both been learning Swedish. It’s loads of fun and has been a much better use of time than other things I might use a phone for.

If you’re a Duo Lingo-er, you should add me as a friend?

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Min mobil är för stor, eller hur.

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A has taken to reading the paper some mornings. He’ll grab the comics and stand by the kitchen table laughing. It’s so great.

He’s a huge fan of Charlie Brown thanks to Pullman’s Charlie Brown water tower. And he’s disappointed when the day’s Peanuts is just several frames of Snoopy.

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He has also become a big fan of Winnie-ther-Pooh and the gang. We have a couple illustrated books he’s been digging for a bit. Then we started reading from the very text-heavy while still a bit illustrated but basically a chapter book, The World of Pooh, that I’ve had for some 40 years… and he loves it!

Totally absorbed with the text while we’re reading. It’s so much fun to watch.

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In the first Pooh story—you may remember: Pooh is trying to get honey from bees at the top of a very large tree. He uses Christopher Robin’s balloon to float to the top of the tree. Assorted things happen, including uh… Christopher Robin shoots him?

Anyhow. Later, when Pooh is sitting at home again his arms are stuck above his head and he can’t move them to shoo away flies so he gets rid of them with a quick burst of air by going…

“Pooh.”

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Which came in super handy when A blew out his (2!) birthday candles on Friday on the first try!

A+ A. A. Milne passing on how to blow out candle advice to toddlers all the way from 1926.

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Things that I told A on Friday because I’m a geek:

• Today is the only time your age will double in one day!
• This is the only year your dad will be 22 times as old as you.
• You’re 2/3 as old as you’ll be next year. Your relative knowledge and experience is growing at a phenomenal rate!

All of those things blew my mind.

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Once you’ve read Pooh a bunch over a few days, the power down melody on our Coway air purifier sounds like “Christopher Robin”. And now it always will.

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Our black walnut lost a very large limb in the middle of a sunny, not at all windy afternoon on Wednesday. Michelle was on the other side of the yard when it happened. A had been playing about 10 feet from the spot a few hours earlier. We’re very happy it all worked out the way it did, but ugh.

We now have a request in with an arborist to come out to prune and inspect. It will be nice to have a better understanding of our trees’ general health.

I really, really, really don’t want to take the black walnut down because it’s massive and gorgeous and provides such great shade in the summer.

But yeesh, don’t come for my family!

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I’ve been absolutely crashing after my 4pm coffee, which doesn’t seem good. Time to mix up the routine! I’m weird in that I have a loose set of coffee consumption rules and then less weird in that I let those rules change all the time.

New rules:

• Wait at least an hour before the first cup
• Have 3 or fewer cups before 12pm
• Have only one cup after 12pm
• Have the last cup before 2pm

I think this means brewing slightly less in our morning pot so that it’s not as easy to just keep pouring. Maybe I’ll plan on 7:30 and 8:30 cups from the pot, a 10am pour over, 1:30pm something and then see what happens.

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That was 3 days or so ago and I’m already liking the new structure.

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We’re like a month into Spinning Wheel being the go to teeth brushing song. A will complete many of the song’s lyrics from the first two verses at any given point.

This is both amazing and highlights how quite a bit of rock and roll is basically children’s songs.

We’re also still into Peaches and Lump. Mr. Bojangles is talked about, but has generally taken a back seat.

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There is at least one stand for our local paper outside the co-op, so the dream is alive.

Happy week.