And it's not always so nice.
Plus Guest Writer Michelle pens a paen to generators.
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A Personality Shows Itself
Kaitlyn was scheduled to spend a few days with her favorite "Mom-Mom" and I looked forward to the visit.
By May of 2007 and the weekend of this upcoming visit Kaitlyn had grown into a pretty and articulate three and a half year old. Of course she's my granddaughter, ahem, so consider my prejudice.
Kaitlyn was, however, developing a personality of her own, as we all do. The main difference being this is the first time I've had the leisure or even the opportunity to watch a personality blossom and grow.
Which is not to say that Kaitlyn's personality wasn't still a dynamic thing, with certain personality elements looming large one day to fade the next. Such was the case with Kaitlyn and the insects. I was aware of the problem the day that Kaitlyn came screaming hysterically that there were bugs in my back yard. Why I was just flabberghasted. No, not that I had bugs in my back yard, but that Kaitlyn was suddenly so terrified by them. A little later Kaitlyn flatly refused to go out into the backyard, crying profusely about the bugs.
"Kaitlyn you've never shown much concern about insects before," I told her impatiently. Indeed I often had to tell Kaitlyn to stay away from the bees and wasps and to leave all worm-like creatures in the ground. Suddenly the child carried on as if she needed an exorcist should so much as a fly cross her backyard path. I pondered just how large a problem this sudden fear of bugs would cause me.
The following day Kaitlyn was busy digging in the dirt, an activity that the child loves. I was sitting nearby on the deck, thumbing through a magazine. Suddenly the child dumps a pile of dirt from her little shovel on the deck table. Inside of the dirt was a very ugly grub.
Gardeners hate grubs, go with me here. Grubs in and of themselves are harmless things but anyone whose ever tilled the soil know those curled up worm-like things are really baby beetles, usually the Japanese kind. Of course Kaitlyn didn't know all of this and I'm sure she had no idea the mess the things make of a handsome lawn. Just yesterday the child had been carrying on bejeesus over a bumblebee flying by but now she was giving her beloved grandmother ugly grubs. It would not do for Mom-Mom to pick up the disgusting grub and throw it clear across the yard whilst in a state of gardener hysteria. I was cautious with the grub although I was ready to lose my cool at the sight of the thing.
"It's just a baby worm," Kaitlyn patiently explained.
Well I knew it was more than a baby worm but since she wasn't carrying on like a lunatic over a bug I certainly didn't want to send her back down that road. So far as I know, beyond being disgusting to gardeners, grubs pose no mortal danger to humans. I nodded affirmation to her "baby worm" statement then carefully picked the grub up off of my deck table and threw it back in the garden. I'd have loved to squash the thing to eternity under my shoe but it seemed a good time to go easy on bugs in front of Kaitlyn.
So the bug-phobia didn't last very long and thus I have learned that at age three it's best not to assume that a displayed personality trait, desireable or undesireable, is not necessarily a trait that will hang around forever. Kaitlyn's fastidiousness, however, appears to be a personality trait that is here to stay.
Okay, so how many 3-year-olds, raise your hand, refuse to pee in the frigging ocean? I'm not making this up. For all of eternity, whales, fish of all sorts, humans and other sea life, have used the ocean as their own bathroom, we all know it. But not Kaitlyn Mae. Oh no. For the child will swim in the Atlantic Ocean with gay abandon and the sand, of course, gives her the joy of endless digging. But should the child have to pee go to hell, she will NOT pee in the ocean and don't her adult caretakers have to take the child clear across the beach to a bathroom on the boardwalk or a porta-potty somewhere?
Forget all the jokes about peeing in the swimming pool, know now that should yon reader invite Kaitlyn Mae to a swimfest one would never have to worry that the child will urinate in the pool.
Indeed. A dubious source of pride.
In fact, the child will get herself out of a warm tub filled with water and toys in order to pee in the toilet. That bit about refusing to pee in the Atlantic ocean is but a variation of this. Hauling the child across a beach filled with people, over hot sand and bathing bodies, gets real old. Yet any soft suggestion that she should just release her urine in the same ocean as the animals of the planet have used since the beginning of time only elicits a sturdy refusal to do so plus some loud and embarrassing aspersions on your sensibilities from the toddler child whose urine will never mingle with that of the fish.
Kaitlyn Mae does not wet the bed and has not done so since she's been one year old. Kaitlyn Mae insists that the toilet be flushed after each urination and she doesn't buy into Mom-Mom's septic-tank driven motto "if it's brown, flush it down; if it's yellow, let it mellow".
Yes, she's a clean and fastidious child and I just don't know if this is a good or a bad thing.
During this past visit I discovered that her fastidious now extends to her food. For Kaitlyn refuses to eat from what she calls a "yucky" plate.
Food, as it is being consumed, is not necessarily a pretty thing. Mashed potatoes with gravy leave arcs of white potatoes decorated with brown gravy as the fork sweeps it up. Food that is wet tends to leave puddles of wetness hither and yon and other sorts of food leaves dribs and drabs on a plate that is, well, perfectly normal.
Except Kaitlyn doesn't like it when her plate looks what she describes as "yucky" and the child will simply refuse to continue eating off the plate. Kaitlyn will, if Mom-Mom is so inclined, continue to eat her food if a new plate is obtained, one not contaminated with the contrails of consumed food.
For now I have no "solution" to the problem. It's not something I have to deal with on a regular basis and I figure her mother, my daughter, will either pull her hair out appealing to Kaitlyn's sensibilities, or Kaitlyn will get real. I've also no idea where Kaitlyn might have gotten her fastidiousness. It isn't as if myself, her mother or her father, are particularly fastidious people. Heck I'll pee in the ocean with no compunction whatsoever. And while I don't like my food thrown on the wall, I don't recall getting anal about a mashed potato trail on my plate.
I'm not convinced it's a hereditary or even an environmental trait is what I'm saying here.
I must assume that the development of our personalities is a seriously individual thing based on God knows what factors. In fact, our personality traits likely lead us to certain careers or life's ambitions. I've no idea where the refusal to pee in the ocean might lead Kaitlyn but I will be watching to see where this takes her.
More Kaitlyn posts HERE
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Electric Fanatic
Part of our whole-house makeover was a large generator. After we'd put so much money into the glorified fish tank (our 125-gallon reef aquarium), we hated to see a prolonged power outage destroy it, and the power does go out here quite often. Usually only for a couple of hours, but once for twelve, and a blackout like that would kill all our coral, and possibly our fish.
I was skeptical, but if Harry wanted a generator, sure, we'd get one. My only question was whether it would run my computer. :-)
So Harry got us a generator. (For you electronic nuts, it's a Briggs & Stratton 10KW unit, about four feet by five feet in size.) Some nice man came and hooked it up to power and gas (if the electricity and natural gas are both out, we're out of luck, but at least we don't have to buy diesel) and set it to do it's weekly cycle on Sunday morning.
Weekly cycle? My generator lessons had begun: the generator, once a week, kicks itself into gear for about half an hour (sounds like me on the weekend). It runs and then shuts itself down. Making sure it still works, I guess.
We went along that way for a good, long while. Then the time changed, and I thought maybe the generator ran too early in the morning on Sunday. It's not a really noisy unit, but it does make noise. I asked Harry to reset the time on the weekly cycle, and he set it for Thursdays at 5pm. I wrote in my planner to check the next Thursday to see if it ran.
The next Thursday I got home, brought in the mail, let the dog out, marveled over the blue lights on the aquarium (the "dawn" cycle starts at 3pm), got my email, sorted through all the paper mail, and did assorted other chores. Soon the dog wanted out a second time (his routine) and this time I waited at the back door for him. As I was leaning there, I heard a monotonous hum. Puzzled, I tracked it down to the (you guessed it) generator. I checked the time.
3:36pm
I checked my planner. Yep, "check the generator at 5." Why was the generator running at 3:30? I scratched my head and wondered about it for a minute, then decided maybe we'd not got the time right. I let the dog back in and went back to the things I needed to do. Then I realized I was hungry, and went to nuke some frozen food. Standing at the microwave, I again noticed a monotonous hum. Incredulous, I looked outside, and sure enough, the generator was still merrily thrumming along. The time was 4:45pm.
With an absent look on my face, I closed the outside door and went back inside. "Ding!" The microwave proclaimed my food ready-to-eat. I shook my head. Why would the generator be running? It was well past the time the weekly cycle should have been over, if the thing started between 3 and 3:30, like I thought, and not the 5 we'd expected.
Unless...
I ran to the Green Room window and looked out. The bar, however, is gone, so I couldn't check whether I had power by noting their neon Budweiser sign. Looking around, I realized I couldn't see any lights at all which would tell me if my section of the world had power. The sun still shone, so the house way over there across two streets wasn't lit up yet. I dug out my electric bill and called the number of my electric company.
After pushing several numeric choices, I was treated to a recording which stated they were aware of my power outage. The power had been off since 3:06pm.
I marveled. I laughed. I kicked up my heels and danced around the house. I went and visited every piece of equipment I'd used since I came home: house lights, aquarium lights, computer, trash compactor, microwave. I visited the ones we never think about, which are always there: aquarium pumps, refrigerator, beer dispenser.
Each and every one worked just fine.
I reveled in the feeling of control and power, and I delighted in the knowledge that *my* house - alaHouse, the house with something extra - had electrical power when every other house on my block was dark. I microwaved my food again, to reheat it, and ate.
At 5:36pm, there was a minor flicker in the lights. I wondered what had happened and went to check on the generator. I looked out and there it was, humming along. So what was the flicker? As I stood watching, the generator gave out a couple of chortles and powered down. Apparently, the flicker was my wonderful generator giving control back to the electric company. I was once again just like everyone else on the block.
But inside, I knew I was special. Inside, I knew alaHouse was special, and all the work we'd done throughout the last year was special, too.
I laughed and went back inside.
Soon I found out it wasn't a fluke, either. One day at about 4:45pm, the power went out. A huge thunderstorm massaged our valley with lightning, and one of the bolts found an electrical substation. Three towns were plunged into relative darkness.
Inside alaHouse, Harry and I paused and began to count. At 30, the generator rumbled to life. At 60, the lights came back on. For nearly three hours, we played pool, ate dinner, and watched television, while the rest of the area went out to eat or wondered what to do.
The generator at alaHouse rocks.
Michelle
The Desk Drawer writer's exercise list
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