Gerb, 2011 - 2014

There was sadness in the house today: this morning we found that our second and last gerbil, Gerb, had passed away.

Gerb's sister Isabella had preceded her by almost seven months, but while Bella's passing had been a rather sudden affair, we could tell the end was coming for Gerb.  We brought them home from the pet store in late March 2011, so we figure she lived to be three--which is pretty darned old for a gerbil.  Since becoming alone in July, Gerb had taken to preferring to curl up in a ball in a big pile of shavings, her own little nest.  Gerb had never been one for the exercise wheel, but found her own ways to stay busy: since her sister's passing, Gerb managed to gnaw a hole in the back of the plastic gerbil cage.  Fortunately the cage sat within a larger tub, so despite gaining her freedom from the main cage, she was still confined ("Dammit!" I'm sure she exclaimed on getting free, only to find a second tub waiting for her).  Still, you have to admire the stick-to-it-iveness.  She also would consent occasionally to being picked up--moreso than when Bella was alive--and only a few weeks ago had a chance to get out and explore with me again.

Gerb l-o-v-e-d her pumpkin seeds.  We could offer her one through the metal bars of her cage, she would come over, seize it with her teeth, and begin to tug on it; if you held on, she would actually brace herself against the bars of the cage and tug harder.  Silly gerbil, always after her favorite snacks: her favorite season was early November, when the jack-o-lantern seeds were quite fresh.  We've now a bag of seeds with no one to munch them.

You could always get Gerb going with a paper towel tube.  Placed in her cage, it would soon be set upon by those gnawing teeth; sometimes, watching TV, we could hear the sound of her starting to work on a new one and it always brought a smile.

We knew something was wrong Sunday when a fresh paper towel tube got only halfway gnawed, then abandoned.  That had never happened before.  Monday, she was visibly weak: scarcely moving from her nest, and trembling.  She didn't try to run away when we would reach in to pet her softly--another thing without precedent.  But most troubling of all was, she wouldn't touch her pumpkin seeds.  Sarah succeeded in feeding her one, but she only half-nibbled at it, and let it lie.

This morning we learned she hadn't made it through the night, and is now at peace.  Tonight I broke through the frozen ground out back next to her sister.  We found a small box; Sarah, then David, took turns holding her one last time, then we gently laid her in.  Sarah and I put some of her bedding around her, like her nest, and a little strip of her paper towel tube.  David added a couple of her pumpkin seeds, and we closed the box.  David handled the honors out back, tamping down the soil firmly to protect his gerbil.  He confessed he had shed a tear at school that day for thinking of her.  She was a good pet.  As we said with her sister: Rest in peace, little gerbil, and thanks for the memories.

Bathroom Remodeling Kickoff

Almost exactly one year to the day after the Home and Remodeling Show where we first met with Ted Daniels of Daniels Design and Remodeling, work began today on what will become our new master bath!

I've chronicled before the torturous path it took to get us here: the process of finding a contractor, then setting up financing, then having the closets redone first…and then the planning, the drafting, the selecting of fixtures and tile and marble…it's all been a long time coming.

But this morning, Bobby and the crew were here just after 7am, and we took one last look around what had been the master bath at Overlake Manor for the last 25 years:

The shower, about to be expanded another couple feet;

The tub, no longer to occupy so…much…floor space!

 The too-low vanity, the soffit, and the Laura Ashleyesque stenciling, all to be gone…

The plain 4x4 tile, the carpet in the bathroom (!) and the to-be-relocated closet door…all to be changed!

Over the coming weeks we'll chronicle more about how this project is coming along, but at long last, the first sledgehammers have been swung, and the work has begun!

 This…is a puzzled Pums.  What happened to the room?

Everything old is…gone!

A Fergie By Any Other Name...

Fergie marks her first year with us next month, and in her first year with us, we've found a number of nicknames for her.  Our puppy-training instructor cautioned us to not wear out her name calling to her time and again, lest it lose its power.  We've certainly compensated with her nicknames:

• Puppums: (n)  I do remember Mom's cat got called Mr. Puddums for awhile, so I guess this just fit as the Fergie analogue.  It then led to…
• Pums: (n) the abbreviated form of "puppums."
• Flurfy: (adj) Some debate ensued as to whether she was "fluffy" or merely "furry."  Here's the compromise.  You have to say this in your best "Ehrmagherd!" voice: "Ehrmagherd! She's so flurfy!"
• Flurfy purpy: (adj + n) Her status as a flurfy young dog.  "Ehrmagherd! A flurfy purpy!"
• Happy puppy: (adj + n)Pretty self-evident when the full-body wag is on.
• Miss Pups:  (n) Rarer.  Used more when someone is bring snobby: "Oh, looks like Miss Pups is choosing to ignore her dinner tonight."
• Fergalicious: (adj) Of course this had to get used.  I don't favor it myself, but it has been used.  Sigh.

I'll keep adding to this as I think of others.

Senior Patrol Leader

When I was in Boy Scouts, back when dinosaurs roamed the savannah plains, I was awkward, not beloved, and so never even got elected to Patrol Leader; I remember being upset at not being named an Assistant Patrol Leader even.  The Senior Patrol Leader, the SPL, the chief Scout--that, I knew, was never to be me.  More likely John Hagen or one of the other really good Scouts.  I'm sure that fed into my decision to step out of Scouting as a freshman, having made only First Class.

Last Monday, when picking up David (the Life Scout) from his Troop meeting, he announced he'd thrown his name into contention to be SPL for his Troop at their elections.  He was one of four candidates, including his best-friend John; the top vote getter this week would be SPL, and the #s 2 and 3 would be Assistant SPLs; the fourth-place finisher was out of a job.  I remember being a little cautious: after all, his attendance over the fall hadn't been stellar, would folks want to elect him if his commitment wasn't there?

This week, he climbed into the car and said he had one of the jobs, but didn't know which yet.  They announced one boy had lost, but since the Scoutmaster himself wasn't there, they were going to let Mr Sciacca announce the name when he returned.  I was relieved; at least he wasn't fourth.  On the strength of that alone, we got Dairy Queen for the family on the way home, to celebrate.

Tuesday morning came the e-mail from Mr Sciacca: David had won.  He will be responsible for leading his Troop of 90-some Scouts, including welcoming this year's crop of Brownseas as the new boys rise from Cub Scouts in the later winter.  His pride was palpable last night.  When I came home, he came upstairs without being called, to show me the message from Mr Sciacca.  We hugged and I told him how happy I was and proud I was.

He immediately started settling into his new role.  Mr Sciacca said there were two boys who needed staff jobs; David jumped right in and gave them each a call to offer them the job.  He's started thinking of meetings he can have, and activities to do, and how he wants to go to each of the Cub Scout crossing-over ceremonies to welcome his new Scouts personally.  If he can keep up this level of commitment, I think he'll do a great job.

I'm beginning to see a theme for the year--the meaning of adolescence, the one-foot-in-one-foot-out aspect of this stage of life.  Here he is, honored and elected and chosen by his Troop as the one they want to see him as a leader for the next six months; here I am awash in pride for what he's been able to earn, in terms of respect and trust, over the past nearly five years in the Troop.  And in the next minute, as we try to salvage the wreckage of homework and prepare for the Geometry midterm today (oy…), we see the, um, still-developing nature of his maturity.  I suppose I had my own similar stage.  I suppose his sister will have hers, in her own unique way.

Today, though, is all about David and the honor he's achieved.  This coming Monday he goes to a merit badge day to earn two more of the last badges he needs for Eagle; at the winter court of honor he could earn as many as four of them, leaving only two to go (one of which he's in the middle of).  This could be a truly great year for him; I hope and pray the one-foot-in nature prevails.

Learning to Drive: Making the Leap

The process by which David will begin to join the 210 million licensed drivers in the United States began this Wednesday night, an evening that was almost a perfect illustration of the concept of "adolescence."

Virginia mandates that parents and their teens must attend a 90-minute briefing before the teen can be licensed.  The doors to the auditorium locked promptly at 7, and for the next 90 minutes the hair-raising ride began.  David's PE teachers double as the driver's ed teachers, and they alternated with a FCPD officer in providing lectures and videos about driver's ed.  Some of it was helpful, like how the licensure process works in the Commonwealth.  Some of it was scary, such as the statistics about accident rates among male drivers aged 18-19.  And some of it was absolutely heart-rending, such as the video about texting and driving, which related three stories of lives cut down or torn apart.  

I have always had a nightmare in which we open our front door to find a FCPD officer standing there to bring our world crashing down.  I now have to face that over the next few months we will be equipping David to deal with the lunacy of traffic and driving in NoVA, and pray we will do well enough to keep that wolf from our door.  More than once in the evening I felt guilt, over not being an ideal role model for him to copy from; and wistfulness, as the boy whose birth I remember as being just a couple of days ago is now shaving and getting ready to pilot a two-ton vehicle at highway speeds.

It's hard to say what his reaction was to the night: he didn't betray much at the videos.  He hasn't seemed in a rush to study his driver's manual, or indeed to get started on this process.  But in his own way--trying desperately to hide it beneath that teen boy mask of cool--I sensed anticipation, anxiousness to get started, and yes, a respectable amount of intimidation at the prospect of what he's about to undertake and how incredibly bad things can break if they go wrong.  If I read him right, then, I think that's a pretty constructive place to start.

An evening that began with one foot cautiously edging into deeply adult waters--conversations and videos all about responsibilities and consequences--changed when we got home and David wanted to power-down before heading to bed.  His vehicle for doing so? Old reruns of The Kids Next Door.  How very much like a teen: one moment on the verge of adulthood, the next, retreating into the familiar warm confines of childhood.  I had to smile.  We'll have our challenges, getting ready for the next few months and the driving tests still ahead.  But he's still my little boy after all, for one more night.