Excuses, excuses…
It\’s late and an impending Spanish test has kept me from writing tonight. But alas, excuses make for poor reading. So, leaving only seven words between the offense and the retraction, I commence, with apologies for having apologized.
Updates: I just realized (to my horror) that my brother Grisha is at camp. And he has been at camp for almost two weeks now. There\’s nothing intrinsically horrible about that – at least, I hope there isn\’t – beside the fact that everyone in my family is missing him horribly, but that\’s another post.
The problem is, like I said, he\’s been gone for weeks. Which means poor I.F.S has been – how can I put this gently? – unmolested… for that same amount of time. When Grisha left, he extracted promises from my mom and I that we\’d feed little Fish Station a few pellets every two or three days. I have the distinct impression that fewer pellets have been dispensed than was required.
Ack. Must…go…feed…fish.
Also: The huge tree in the back yard which so easily surrendered to the gusty winds of May (sounds like a line from a romance novel) is now being investigated by professional tree trimmers. They are in negotiations with the old, 100-foot-tall elm about cutting it down. That\’s like a prisoner on the gallows trying to haggle with the noose: I\’ll die quicker if you choke less?
Yeagh. Why so gruesome tonight, Microsoft Word? Too much more of this and I\’m going to have to take over your writing duties.
Anyway, there\’s a big, fist-sized crack in the trunk of the tree, and I\’m pretty sure the warranty on that thing has expired. I mentioned this to insurance, suggesting to them that if the crack were to worsen, the thousand pounds of wood and leaves that would fall on my garage would constitute a serious insurance claim, and why not pay to get it cut down now?
After the giggling stopped, they informed me that a crack in a tree is my problem, not theirs. And what\’s more, if I don\’t do anything about it, and the tree does fall on something (my garage, my car, my neighbors), that will be my problem too. Stupid insurance.
Lastly: My mom\’s house is nearing completion, by which I mean it is beginning to commence approaching the start of the final phase of construction. They stopped working for two months there in the spring; don\’t know why. But as you can imagine, not working for two months will really throw the construction schedule off course…by about, well, TWO MONTHS.
It\’s cool, though. We\’re hoping to have everything done by fall, a full year after work began. This week they sheet-rocked (or as my mom pronounces it, \”shit-rocked\”) the interior walls, leaving a fine layer of white dust on just about everything in the house, including any exposed eating utensils. My orange juice tasted very mineral-rich. Fortified, you might say.
And lastly (again): My grandma and grandpa (Baba and Zeide) are coming from Argentina on Friday. Rare Argentine delicacies (dulce de leche, alfajores, torta de chocolinas) will emerge from suitcases, marching. Last year she brought more food, but the matambre (a kind of salami) was mistaken for, um, something else by the TSA agents in Miami. They detained my grandparents for hours and caused them to miss their flight. This year, just sweets.
Baba brings these things every year. She used to bring me pajamas too (to match the identical ones she\’d already given to the other 16 grandkids in Argentina), but I think she\’s abandoned that practice. Maybe the TSA people gave her a hard time about it.