A Terra Cotta Sail Undoes Me

Yesterday I was working, boys sleeping, dog destroying something somewhere in the house I’m sure. Then the maids arrived – they come biweekly on a Tuesday morning and every time, it’s a surprise to me. Ted Lasso would be proud – I’m definitely a goldfish.

Also the bug man came an hour early, so he showed up around the same time. I pulled the dog and the teens onto the back porch to stay out of everyone’s way, but we were absolutely baking in the sun. It was “feels like” 120 degrees out there. We own a triangle sail that gets rigged up and serves as a backyard sun shade, we used it much more during the pandemic but took it down around Hurricane Ida and have never pulled it out again. I dug it out of the shed – the Prof had packaged it nicely and it was PRISTINE. I was so afraid I’d be unfurling a horrible mold factory.

You’d think it would be relatively simple to tie up the points of an equilateral triangle to three different mounted rings around the backyard – but lo, it was not. A ladder is needed in order to reach two of the three points, and I kept tying the ropes too tight and not tight enough so that the third point of the triangle wouldn’t reach, or it would reach but it was so droopy we would not be able to stand underneath. I remind you that it was “feels like” 120 degrees out there (actual degrees were 100, and humidity was basically a million percent, as many percents as it can be without the air actually becoming a pool of water). I nearly died and nearly gave up but I can be a stubborn son of a B when I get my hands around a project.

(Lest you think my children are assholes, I did most of this finagling with this sail before the bug guy came, so they were inside for most of this withering outdoor activity.)

Anyhow I got it up, and it is droopy but also shady, and that is good enough for me.

I appreciated the comments on my post the other day about rebuilding stronger in-person relationships. I am 100% with Bailey’s comment, that having two parents working full time leaves no one available with the energy or free time to build community. Some (distant, non-local) parents friends of ours once said that they wished they could each work 30 hours a week and have that be full time with benefits. That would leave them with enough mental capacity leftover to do house chores and community service but also still have some spoons left for socializing. How great would that be! Instead we all work almost twice that, with almost no vacation/breaks, and just stagger through the weekend shoving laundry along and trying not to collapse. As for Joy, you are right that if I can get over myself and just ask people, eventually I will convert some folks into the type of friends who will run over for an impromptu dinner or even perhaps run errands around town one Sunday afternoon. I have daydreams of moving to a town near one of my sisters/sisters-in-law so I could just call them – but that isn’t happening and would likely lead to further isolation as then I wouldn’t even TRY calling anybody else, so basically I need to grow a pair of ovaries and just text some friends and recognize that the worst that can happen is a “no.”

Speaking of community service, I thought I’d mention here that my sweet boys have done quite a bit of it this summer. I wrote to our church offering their services and boy did the church deliver. These boys have helped elderly folks move house, served meals to the homeless, gardened at a shelter, and are on tap to read to/play games with dementia patients. As the start time for each activity approaches I get a small amount of pushback, but it’s only an hour or two every other day so the boys are still getting lots of rest. And I think deep down they also appreciate getting out of the house and interacting with people, because their complaints are very half-hearted and when it comes time to roust out of the house and go, they just do without fuss. Listen, I don’t mean to brag, except I guess I do mean to brag – these boys are superstars. We are done watching Arcane together at night and have moved on to Barry, which is the most charming and inventive show!

Speaking of shows – while the Prof and Craig are out of town I have been watching shows that aren’t murder mysteries! I binged both seasons of The White Lotus and it was just as good as everyone says it was. Now I’m watching Handmaid’s Tale and Severance – two bummers, so I’m thinking of throwing Last Man on Earth in the mix for something a little lighter. Until I get community built and a spouse back in town and the temperature outside comes down to “compatible with human life,” I can get behind catching up on Must See TV.