Life... Playing Dodgeball with the Universe

I was recalling days past and the game of Dodgeball in gym; I hated being a target and knowing the goal was to smack me as hard as possible from multiple directions and put me out. The way life's going, I realized this is a bit like the Universe, lobbing balls at folks and everyone trying to dodge 'em as best they can... And knowing full well one day "we'll all be out".

You're knowing what I'm talking about, I bet. Start feeling a little good about where you are in life, even if it's a bit patched up with hot dogs and beans, and then "never saw that one coming - whack!" Sometimes they're just small fluffy balls and don't sting too much, sometimes it's like a rubber-coated bowling ball plowing into you. Usually they're just 'life balls' one deals with, like suddenly discovering a piece of glass on the ground when you're barefoot.

Sometimes it seems you've attracted the attention of the Universe, and in Dodgeball, this is really not a good thing! As a kid, I'd try to keep a low profile in the back, but as fewer players were left standing, I knew I was going to attract attention -- really now, I had no desire to get hit!

Some would say, "It's just a game" referring to gym class, yet others would say the same thing about Life. From my perspective, all I saw were balls comin' at me.

A few unexpected balls landed lately, from a vet ER on Saturday and dog with a shunt in her leg for infection to Sera's car 'kind of requiring immediate mechanical attention'. Luckily a few 'happy balls' landed and made it possible to slog our way through a house-loan refinance (I won't mention daughter lost track of a few payments and went into a spiral catching up to appease the bank). Whappity-whappity-whappity-whap. Three Big Ones mostly targeting her, and she had the dubious honor of assisting the vet while the dog was being cut, cleaned, and stitched.

I caught the balls labeled "so the roof hasn't leaked until now, but with the really heavy rain, pieces of the bathroom ceiling will be plopping down" and "brake caliper time" and "strange lights on the dash". Truth of it, strange lights in the sky don't bother me as much as the ones on the dash do - luckily, this one was self-healing, car was just 'having a moment'.

So... 4500 miles spun in two months, two tires replaced and rotated to resolve a 60-mile an hour wobble, and The Day of the Corn. Oh, yes - that day. We'd finally switched the kitchen counters out, had the 'new-used' on the porch since December; we all know the fun of old copper water lines and moving sinks, I think. This did entail a bit of kitchen rearranging and building a 'jar shelf' while tearing out a cupboard, but that's... how it fit. Needed a new faucet, anyway, so did this while we were at it.

Everyone thinks I'm nuts when I bring home 10 dozen ears of corn to freeze up, but I've noticed they enjoy eating it (actually, Val's been eating it already 'as a snack' and I'm not too fond of this - she didn't help, and it's 'for winter'). Straight from the farmer's garden to the house, shuck it, blanch it, cut it, freeze it. That was the plan. Except there was a major puddle under the sink where a connection had got bent and failed.

Of course the kids were gone, unless one counts a 12-year old as a potential assistant, which made it My Problem. Unloading under-sink stuff, mopping, shutting off water to the house and flipping off the pump switch, finding various wrenches, towels, light source, plumber's tape; twisting into a pretzel to fit under the sink mildly cussing and filled with trepidation. Been there, haven't you? There's always the thought that you might really screw something up and the ensuing flood waters will engulf your house like quicksand.

The whole time I was mucking with this, I knew I had 10 dozen ears of corn waiting to be processed. Good news is, a few hours later I was able to get back to the corn, which took me into the later hours of the day.

While back on the roof... a family friend - also a carpenter - had the time right now to take on 'a real fix', so he's working with Dennis to build a proper slant over half of the house, i.e. the half that has all the fittings coming out over the bathroom. His way will also create a slant over the addition I'm in, taking the snow-weight off the shoddy flat roof (2x4 construction with 2-foot spacing) and adding an air gap. He'll frame it up, and we can take it from there, meaning once this is done, I can get on with the bathroom repairs and get the other tub in that's been sitting in the yard for a year.

See - 'living' is the stuff you do between balls, 'Life' is how you handle them. "That's life" - right, easier to say when it's not you behind the ball, hmm?

Oh, yeah, I also found out, while pulling the dryer and washer and wall out to get to the water heater for the vent pipe, that there is a faint whiff of foul stench, reminiscent of Decaying Rodent. This is quite possible, but it's one of those things if you ignore it long enough, it goes away; the only other option is to squiggle under the crawl space and try to locate the culprit, which is its own nightmare. We all know that smell, too, don't we?

Now then, hope the balls heading at you are all fluffy happy ones. :)