Thunder of Wade

There is an uneasy truce in the house between the two dogs and three cats – a truce broken when either Thunder or Max encroaches on the personal space of the other.

Getting to this point has been pretty stressful for Thunder(cat) and he’s lost some weight – likely too because he’s not used to sharing his dry food. 

To get his weight back up, I’ve been giving him wet food – he can’t resist the seafood shreds. 

But, there’s a problem.  If I just leave the wet food out, one of two things will happen.  Either he’ll eat his fill for the sitting and then wander off – and the other cats will finish it for him.  Or, he’ll overeat to make sure they don’t get it – and then find a nice quiet corner to vomit it right back up. 

So, a few times through the day, I’ve been taking the can of cat food to the basement to feed him a reasonable portion.  And while this works, it created a new problem.  Whenever I move anywhere in the house, if my vector looks even slightly basement-ward, Thunder assumes that I’m going to feed him.  If I don’t and I’m doing something else, he gets irritated and takes it out on the dogs.  Or will deliberately not use his litter box in some ill-conceived performance art in the basement. 

To better regulate his behavior and expectations, I’ve decided to try and train my cat.

Let that sink in a moment.

Now, when I go to feed him, I will call his name (even if he’s right next to me) and ring a bell before heading downstairs with him.  Shades of Pavlov, you see. 

Unfortunately, this also alerts the other cats and they follow us to stake out positions in some kind of “triangle of barely concealed menace”.   So, I have to wait with Thunder until he’s done to keep the peace and prevent any intra-species conflict.

Is it working?

Well, he’s gaining some weight. And seems less annoyed when I don’t fall to his every feeding whim and desire. 

I have noticed that he gets calmly interested in me and somewhat affectionate right before it’s a regular feeding time.  This increases until it’s annoying for me and I go ahead and feed him. 

Which I think means that he’s really training me instead.  At least he can’t ring the bell on his own – we’d never get a moment’s peace. 

Shortly after Jim and I closed on our new house together, we met with a realtor to put our own houses on the market. Jim had been working on repairs and cleaning and I had been working on moving and cleaning.  Lots of cleaning. 

We signed the paperwork, gots signs in our yards, and had photos of the houses taken for the website.   And while we waited for a bite, we kept working on the houses – and kept working our regular jobs and working on the new house. 

It was exhausting, even without the added stress of the pandemic.

Jim had a lot of showings early on and I had a few, then they drizzled out.  We dropped the prices and got a flurry of new showings – and I got an offer. It was a little lower than my asking price, but still close and we moved forward. 

The buyer had an inspection done, found a ton of “issues” (a few real and many more that were kinda bogus), and came back with some unreasonable demands.  I countered with something a bit more reasonable and agreed to do some of the repairs they wanted.

1. Tape over the presumed asbestos tape on the ductwork in the basement
2. Have the basement walls scraped, dryloked, and painted. (I hired a guy)
3. Install 3 railings
4. Take the doorknob off the second story door and nail it shut. (terrible idea, but whatever)

The FHA appraiser was particularly torqued about the basement walls and wouldn’t sign off until those were done.    And even with my scraping the walls during his off hours, the painter took longer than expected.  I was starting to sweat that things wouldn’t get done in time, but the repairs wrapped up yesterday and I stopped by the house to pay the painter.  That was all I could do then – the paint was still wet.

So, today.  Today I went back over and did the rest of the clean-up, moved things back against the walls in the basement and swept the floors.  I left the keys along with some notes, cleared out all my tools and supplies, and locked the door behind me. 

I checked the mail one last time to pick up the junk with my name on it, and then borrowed a rake from the neighbor to give the yard one last go.  Seemed like the thing to do.

As I finished up in the yard and looked back at the house, I had a wave of memories hit me.

The night when I first moved in and my family came up to help in the light December snow.  Getting the keys, setting up my bed, and spending that first night alone – wondering/certain that I had made a huge mistake. 

And a couple months later, after Jeff had passed, feeling a passing presence and something like a goodbye.

A first date with Jim and the revelation that he lived only a few blocks away.

Adopting a cat and bringing a little Thunder into my home.

Lots of yardwork and craft projects over the years.

That hidden spot in my backyard where I could lay out in the sun naked. 

The little repairs and homeowner triumphs.

Sitting on my porch on a Ssunday morning with a book and some tea.

Fun conversations with my neighbors. 

Lonely times working from home during the early days of the pandemic. 

Stress of de-accumulating as I moved and making hard decisions about what to keep. 

And the long hours where it seemed like I would never be done.

And then… somewhere in there the house stopped feeling like mine.  Like it was just a place and full of tasks instead of… me.    It was still weird leaving the first house that I had owned, but I didn’t look back.  And when I got home, I deleted the entry – symbolically – from my GPS.  

I’m scheduled to close on Monday, though it may be delayed a bit based on the title company.

But, at least for me, this part of my life is done.  Jim and I have moved into a castle and are making new memories here.

So, goodbye to 435 Cypress Ave.  May your new owner enjoy you as much as I did – please keep them safe and warm as you did for me and help them make memories there too.

I had a dream that I was working on my prior house – scraping 20 layers of paint off of the basement floor to get it ready to sell.  It was slow going but the paint was coming off in big chunks and I was making progress. 

The buyers showed up and wanted to see the attic and I told them that I would take them up there, but that it wasn’t part of the orginal inspection and they couldn’t hold it against me.

I opened a door in the basement that I’d never seen before but somehow knew was there and took them up one flight of stairs to the attic.  In this attic, above where the attic would normally have been, was a warehouse sized space full of boxes and old furniture. 

And a fully functional lazy-river water park.  The water looked clean, considering no one had done any maintenance on it in years, but the pool that was up there was in bad shape.  We went through the greenhouse, waved at the neighbors on the other side of the glass then went across the roof and in through another door back inside.

The door opened onto a landing and there were short steps down in several directions to tiny rooms – just big enough for a single bed and maybe a tiny dresser.  In each room, the carpet, the bedspread and the drapes all matched and were done in lurid colors – blood red, radioactive green, or – I dunno – “internal organ purple”.  At the foot of each neatly made bed was either an old and torn up stuffed animal of indeterminate species or a creepy china doll with eyes that followed you.  

The tiny rooms had more doors leading to more steps and to more landings with more tiny rooms.  Having lost the buyers, I went from room to room to room – getting more creeped out the further I went. 

The space finally opened up again into an industrial kitchen done in white and metal.  Running down through the center of the room were cots – each containing a large, and very alive, sea lion.  

Were they guests or food?  How did they get up there?  I didn’t know, but one of them tried to grab me as I went past.  I got out of the kitchen and found myself back in the maze of tiny rooms and stairs.

This time, the rooms were all the same.  Red carpet and drapes, but the bed and all the fixtures were black.  And all the beds had dolls on them.  

I picked up speed trying to find an ending and a way out – and realized that the rooms now had tiny black votive candles burning.  

I stopped for a moment.  Those candles don’t burn for that long so whoever lit them…was likely still there.

What panic I had under control up to that point exploded in my mind and all I could think about over and over as I started to run again was:

“Who lit the candles?”

“Who lit the candles?”

“WHO LIT THE CANDLES?”

I could hear my parents talking.  Somewhere in the house, but out of reach.  I shouted for them, over and over, but they couldn’t hear me.

And then I couldn’t hear them anymore.

And whoever, or whatever, lit all those tiny black candles – was closing in on me. 

And then I woke up.

• 

• 

• 

• 

COVID-19 hit The University of Akron’s enrollment hard and the administration decided that cuts to staffing were necessary.

It was deep and brutal and ugly. And while it was not my decision, I had to be the one to fire one of my colleagues. He took it better than anyone could have expected, but it was a rough day for everyone.

And right at the end of the day, another of my colleagues from another department called me in a panic from the parking lot of his building.

He had been fired. And he found out when they came into his office to force him to log off his computer. He was freaking out and no one had talked to him yet or given him any information. He was done and as far as he knew, that was it.

The nature of our jobs sometimes put us at odds over the years, but we both saw the bigger picture and while “friends” might have been pushing it at times, we were respected colleagues.

As soon as he could get out what was happening, I asked for his non-UA email address. And when he gave it to me, I emailed him right away so that he would have mine. A connection, in case the rest got lost.

We talked for a few minutes and I tried to help him process what had happened. He ended the call abruptly and I was left with an empty line.

I considered for a few minutes on what to do, the tracked down another colleague in the same building and told him what was going on – and asked that they check on him in the parking lot.

Later on I found out that the abrupt temination of the call was prompted by his supervisor looking for him to have the meeting – the one that should have taken place before his access was dropped.

I sent him an email a few days later to check on him. And I was humbled that of all the people that he worked with on campus, I was the one he reached out to when everything fell apart. It had been really important to him that he let me know how much he appreciated working with me. I wished him the best and told him to keep in touch.

And last week – months after everything happened – I emailed him again to see how he was doing.

He called me within a few minutes, grateful that I had reached out. We talked for a while about his job prospects and he told me that no one else – not anyone in his department that he had worked with for decades – had checked on him.

I was glad that I had done so – and deeply sad and disappointed that I was the only one that had.

I don’t get it. I just simply don’t understand what had happened or why it happened or how someone could just be tossed aside.

But none of that mattered. What mattered was that someone tried to connect, tried to share a little hope.

I wish him and all the rest of my colleagues well. These are strange and difficult times and all we have are each other. And maybe that will be enough.

I got a doozy of a webmaster@uakron.edu email recently. The sole text consisted of these words that I unfortunatly quote:

“Do you happen too have a retard level?”

The page they had been on referenced a “fundamentals of…” program – so, roughly translated they were likely looking for an even more remedial approach to the subject.

I’m a fast thinker and a fast typist, but this one took me a while.

In the end, I ignored the horrible and crude language and just did my damn job. I assumed they didn’t know any better and responded by asking them to clarify what they were looking for so that I could route them to the appropiate department or resources.

They never got back to me and I’m hoping that maybe they did realize that what they said was offensive – to basically every decent human being – and didn’t expect that a real human would be behind that form.

But there was one there. And he did his job, even if it broke him a little.

I am tired of the willful ignorance and the cruelty.

It started for me the night of a tornado. When I was in high school, I was a “tornado watcher” and stood outside in threatening weather to help alert the school. Never did figure out why my parents signed that permission slip – but while I had a healthy respect for them, I wasn’t really afraid of tornados. I knew that with a little awareness and a plan, a person could get to shelter and survive – and that rescue would be on the way.

When the pandemic of 2020 turned into a real thing, I started working from home. I didn’t go out except to get groceries and even in my lonely home I was prepared to shelter in place as long as it took – even if the illness seemed like a distant threat. And then one night, there was a tornado.

And I was scared. Really scared. It wasn’t the tornado itself – it was the fear that if the worst happened help might not come right away and that a hospital wouldn’t be a safe place to recover. The framework of civilization was in question and I felt very much on my own.

I got through the tornado unscathed and tried to find a new version of normal – like so many people did. And then Jim got COVID-19 and my fear for him and fear for myself went through the roof. Nothing I could do to help him – except to promise to look after his pets if he went into the hospital.

I dropped off gatorade on his porch and went back home to worry.

He recovered, thankfully. Again, I searched for normal and thought I had it – and then my job was in jeopardy. I survived with a pay cut and a benefits cost increase, but many of my colleagues were not so lucky. I feared for myself and for them – it remains the worst time to lose a job.

I feared for my rights as a new supreme court emerged. I feared for my county as a hateful retoric found new and louder voices.

And I became exausted of simply being afraid.

So, somewhere in all, I found a way to deal.

My grocery shopping trips became carefully planned surgical strikes. My work from home made me appreciate my connections with my colleagues even more and made me grateful for the job I had. My facemask became my secret identify and my pandemic beard was epic.

And the fear of losing Jim to an illness, the worry that we couldn’t be there for each other, prompted us to start looking for a house together. And with work and stuggle, we found a damn castle for us.

The supreme court? Well, it’s a lot harder to take something away from someone than it is to prevent them from having it in the first place. So, in our delightfully practical way, Jim and I sort of proposed to each other and in a few days, with a simple ceremory, we’ll be married.

I’m not 100% and I haven’t found that “new normal”. And I get overwhelmed all the time and sometimes I just lose it. And that okay – it’s normal to lose it and be overwhelmed sometimes. And it’s okay to be afraid – it’s a scary time right now.

The key, I think, is to try and make thing better. Write poems, check in on people you care about, and keep hoping.

I’m still heading to the basement if a tornado warning goes off – I’m not stupid – but while I’m down there waiting for the storm to pass, I’m taking heart in the good things in my life and the fortune that favors me.

We’ll get through this. And the fear won’t be the end of us.

I visited family this weekend for Father’s Day and on the drive between here and there, I noted a fair number of pro-Trump signs and flags. No Confederate flags this time, so that’s something.

One yard had a number of wooden signs up on posts – a whole garden of messages. There was a MAGA sign, a Trump-Pence 2020 sign, a few I didn’t catch, COIVD-19 Hoax, a Women For Trump (in bright pink, naturally). And then the most eye catching and strange one:

L G B T

Except, the letters had picograms above them to try and create a new meaning. It is pride month, after all.

Above the L was the Statue of Liberty. So, L for Liberty – though I’m pretty sure that the statue itself is supportive of immigration. You know, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…”. Perhaps it only applies to immigrants from the non-shithole countries – I dunno.

Above the G, a handgun. Sigh, of course.

Above the B was a rectangle with rounded corners. On my first trip past I couldn’t tell what it was – maybe a Bible?

Above the T was a not-very-flattering-but-recognizable cartoon side view of Trump himself.

So, Liberty, Guns, Bible(?), Trump.

On the return trip, I got a closer look at the B and realized it wasn’t a Bible, it was a Beer stein.

Liberty, Guns, Beer, Trump

Somehow, this now made even less sense. I didn’t realize that Beer was something one would either be for or against. Is there some Anti-beer movement that I don’t know about that this was protesting? If you aren’t Pro-beer, are you un-American? Hmmm…might have just answered that one.

When I got home, I risked polluting my search history and tried to look this up. Sure enough, you can buy t-shirts, posters, and flags with the same message. Liberty, Guns, Beer, Trump. Or, to my surprise, Bible is a “valid” substitution for B in the message as well.

I could have been angry. Especially this month when pride and LGBT is a thing to be celebrated. How dare they take those letters and try to co-opt their meaning?

But, I didn’t feel anger. Just this wave of sadness. How much of this amazing country are they missing out on by willfully excluding everyone who don’t think, look, or act like them? And for all of the effort put into building that wall of signs, what do they get in return? Just a poisonous swamp of hate.

So, I felt sad for them as I drove past their strange collection of signs. I hope they find a reason to take down some of them one day and maybe make some new friends.

Who knows? Maybe one of their kids will come out of the closet as Beer.

When it comes to paper-folding, my two favorite things are sharing what I make and teaching other people. So, when the director for The University of Akron’s Women in Engineering program asked if I would be the ‘keynote’ speaker for the Kids’s Career Day and teach some origami, I was on-board.

Then I found out that it was on a Saturday at 7:45 am. Hmmmm…okay, doable.

And then I found out it was 200 girls, age 1st-6th grade. And I had 45 minutes. And they would be coming in randomly after breakfast. And it was going be in the student union theater with no desks.

I’ve taught lots of people – one at a time. And I’ve taught a group once of about 15 kids at one time.

But this. This was a whole new level.

I was given plenty of time to plan this and it all culminated this morning.

The theater seating doesn’t have fold-out desks, so I had cardboard boxes cut down to make temporary folding desks. 200 worth. I also had several reams of paper – collated into sets for the projects. I had signs made up and giveaways of origami in bulk.

The biggest challenge was how to teach 200 kids at once. With one or two people, it’s easy to help if something goes wrong. But in a theater full of people, there’s no way to correct if things go awry.

So, I had talked to one of my colleagues about rigging up a video camera to project my hands and the paper onto the big screen. He came through and we were larger than life 15 minutes before the first kid came in.

The coordinator for the event introduced me and then I was on.

We started with the butterfly, then did a boat, and then a duck.

It was a different experience than when I’d taught before. I had to go slower, repeat the steps, and keep everyone engaged.

And, it worked.

The video camera worked perfectly. The kids stayed on track. And everyone, including me, had fun. I got compliments and thanks from the parents that were there and I think the kids were impressed with the tiny cranes and boxes I gave away.

When it was done, I packed up my gear and headed home – exhausted, but happy with the results and my new personal record.

Even when the university of akron is closed for break, I still keep up with some of the email that comes into the webmaster@uakron.edu account since not everyone that tries to contact us would realize we’re closed.  Most of this is pretty routine but the day after break started, we got a note from the Chinese Domain Registrar.

A domain is a collection of internet addresses – like uakron.edu or yahoo.com – that are managed by a central governing body.  So, if you type in www.uakron.edu your browser knows where to go on the internet.  

The note said that a company in China was trying to register uakron.cn, uakron.com.cn and several variations on that  – along with the internet keyword of “uakron”. The registrar noted that UA existed and decided to check in with us to see if this was legit before setting it up.

Since this wasn’t close to being legit, I quickly responded with a polite but firm negation – and carboned our legal department.  I included the dates we were going to be closed for break and a note that the lawyers would be back in touch with a more official response.

And then I waited and hoped it was enough.

If this actually goes through, then anyone in China – particularly prospective students – that searched on “uakron” would end up at this company’s site instead of at our site.

Shady.

When we got back from break, I updated my boss and a co-worker that oversees the UA brand.  One of the lawyers emailed me back and said that he would look into it. The next day, I got a note from the Chinese company that basically said:

“Yeah, the registrar said we should pick a different name, but we really want to use this one so we will anyway,”

So, I replied to this as well – politely, but firmly – that “no” they were not authorized to do that.  I carboned everyone on that note – including the Chinese Registrar guy (who’s my hero at this point for trying to do the right thing).

And now we wait again.

I’m glad I was keeping an eye on things and I’m hoping we can really get this stopped before it gets implemented – much easier than trying to undo it.

Think I need to update my business cards to add “Defender of the Internet”.  Or at least, “Designated Internet Panic Response Coordinator”.