stinky

well. it’s certainly been a while since i’ve written here. this means, of course, that i’ve been busy with interesting things...or at least busy.

but no, it has been interesting. the weather has been relentlessly dreary of late, cold and wet, since last wednesday evening as i understand it although i was away at the time, in d.c., where it was fabulously sunny. so that was one of the things i was doing, spending a quick two days in washington, flying out at the last minute to get started helping the d.c. office with issues relating to the collection system model, some final calibration issues to iron out before proceeding with the modeling to support the long term control plan, which will include some ginormous tunnel or another, to accomplish the twin objectives (which, is should be mentioned, are not entirely compatible with each other) of alleviating the northeast flooding problems and keeping raw sewage out of the anacostia. this will require a very, very big tunnel some 200 feet below the ground. a tricky business, to be sure, so we ought to have confidence in the wet weather volumes we’re modeling. at this point it seems like the work they’ve done over there is pretty good, at least in comparison with the metering data which are not all that good, so how close do you want to be, anyway? well, we could be closer, and there will be a new and improved metering study this year so we’ll have better data to revisit the calibration at some point anyway. i tell you, modeling sewer systems is one of those things that just keeps on giving.

so the endless rain is wearing at me slightly. there is an odd smell about, some sort of mold or something, that i don’t recognize but i’m getting a little tired of. more on that in a moment. the weekend before, when i went to pictured rocks, turned out to be very pleasant, weather-wise, so much so that i regretted (a little) my decision not to go to lake superior provincial park in favor of a more familiar place. although it is as beautiful as ever, pictured rocks feels distinctly less remote to me now, probably mostly because i was never more than a two- or three-hour hike from my car, if i really wanted to go back there. and of course i was not alone, although i had the chapel campground to myself on thursday night. still, the cliffs, and the beech-maple woods just beginning to leaf out, the carpet of spring beauty and the bluffs over beaver lake, the loons and their freaky chatter, spray falls and chapel rock and grand portal and the sun dropping into the lake, walking on the beach and watching the waves work their way backwards from the lake up the edges of beaver creek, all those things were inspirational to say the least. there was really a lot of quiet during the day, which i’m trying to hold onto now. this fall will probably be algonquin.

saturday night i was struggling to find a way to assemble the brake levers from the schwinn breeze, a bicycle belonging to one of the older son’s friends, for whom the older boy volunteered his services for repair and refurbishment, and he has certainly been learning a thing or two, not only with what he is picking up on his job at the bike shop, but also what i have been suggesting when i’ve had a chance. the bike, which was really quite clean to begin with, is looking good, although it needs some more work. anyway i was cursing the fact that he removed those levers completely, given the rather crummy old-school way they were attached, and the number of pieces that you have to simultaneously sort of levitate to get it together, and i gave it up for the evening (i have since figured out a workable way of doing it, and they are back on the bike), and i turned out the light and went upstairs, and about a minute or two later i heard this distinctive, resonating “bonk” of something hitting the glass of the front door, and i went downstairs to see egg running down the glass and shadowy figures disappearing as i got to the door, and i ran out, into the rain, and took off in the direction they ran, not seeing them as they went around the curve of the neighbor’s front yard, and hearing then the wet grinding of tires spinning on wet, gritty pavement and the car gaining traction and heading off on a tear, too dark to make out a model and too far to get a license number, and my stocking feet completely soaked and sloshing my way back to the house, the carton of eggs dropped on the front lawn and five or six of them just sitting in the wet grass, unthrown.

we have been egged before, although it was six or maybe seven years ago. ms. cicadashell, the high school english teacher, readily believes it could be students (almost too readily, i tend to think), but beyond that we have no clues. what really got to me this time was realizing that i came very close to figuring out what was going on before actually getting downstairs to where i could be seen, and could have slipped around the back and gotten the drop on those clowns. and then what? well, what comes to mind first are the host of violent fantasies, the cumulative result of every chump or punkass who has gotten the best of me in one insignificant event or another, over the years. to be sure, there is a genuine feeling of violation here, and my discomfiture is justified to some extent. but then there is also the way the older boy looked at the event: completely lame. egging someone’s house? come on. there are better ways. but dig this: when i was sloshing around in the rain afterward, getting out the hose to blast off what i could see in the dark, i saw in the shadows that there was a two-drawer filing cabinet in the driveway, behind the honda, apparently dumped there so that if i hopped into my car to chase them, i’d back right into it with a bang and wouldn’t that be funny? that strikes me as almost clever, certainly too clever for someone whose idea of a good saturday night activity is to egg someone’s house.

anyway, that brought some emotion to bear. but you see there was this smell around the front door, not a rotten egg smell but some weird funky musty smell that i just figured had something to do with the eggs. until i smelled it this morning outside the younger son’s school, where there were no eggs (really: i checked). i’m thinking it’s just a funky musty smell that is hanging around with all this moisture, these days and days of rain, which are not letting up so far.