August 12, 2023

August 12, 2023

Our 16th anniversary. The porcelain anniversary. No, it’s not on anyone’s list of official gifts and we wouldn’t know about or follow it if it were. This was just the year that our gift to each other was a replacement toilet in the main downstairs half bath that everyone in the house, including visitors, tended to use most.

Finding out that the semi-constant wet spot on the floor wasn’t one of our kids’ lack of aim, or worse, hubby’s, was both a blessing and an expensive curse. If only cursing paid so well. The most I ever got was a childhood mouth full of soap. I should have been a plumber. Sorry honey. I didn’t think it was you, honest.

As humorous as that was, we were also visited that day by a juvenile Cooper’s hawk. It landed in the middle of our pool cover and watched us through the window for a good five minutes. It flew away when I tried to sneak out the back to get a picture. I got to hear the whistle of its cry as it made it clear I had disturbed its purpose, hunting or bath or people staring, whatever it was.

I googled Cooper's Hawk sounds and images just to be sure. The juvenile Cooper’s has a whistle while the adult has a very different sound. Poor thing. That must be a hell of a crack in the gullet. Hawk prom must be fun, ‘No Todd, put that nest stick down, I heard you whistling at Grace! Come back when you can kreek like a proper hawkman!’. ‘aww shucks Tracy, it was only a little whistle, I kreek most of the time!’.

Back to human reality though.

Our anniversary was always interesting and special. Not just for the usual reasons. When we got married, Dad and I picked up the license. We didn’t notice the notation on the back to wait three days before using it. We used it in two. I noticed it a few years after when I was packing important papers for a move. But our marriage was still marked in the county records by a judge, so I think we are good. Either that or the nursing home is going to be really pissed at me for sneaking into my man's room. Shhh. Don't tell.

August 12 was also just a day convenient for our family to gather at my aunt’s house. We didn’t find out until later that it happened to be one of the night’s of the Perseids meteor shower every year. Ironically, we didn’t get to see the stars fall nearly as often as we’d have liked even though it happened on that night, every single year. But the fact it happened every year added to the special feel for us. Only a few dates on the calendar can say the stars fall for them. Every. Year. Makes you feel like a big deal. Or very small. Sometimes at the same time. Welcome to our happy insanity.

Before we got married, during the drive out for our parents to meet each other, we saw two eagles in a mating dive. Something I had never seen before, and I haven’t seen in person since. As omen’s go, that one felt truly amazing. If you don’t know anything about Eagles procreation except that they lay eggs, you are in for a fascinating trip to google. It’s worth it. They do a death defying spiral with each other that is breathtaking, gorgeous to watch and yes, they have to do it right or they might die in the process.

Because of that first bird omen, seeing the Cooper hawk on our 16th anniversary seemed like an omen too. Which was a good thing. After Covid and everything else that had so recently happened, we needed the hawkish encouragement.

To add to our toilet troubles, we had in that same week replaced two of the tires on my car after the first flat I had in seven years. Some might say the timing of this was like an act of Creator. Others might say we should have kept better tread measurements on our motor vehicle rubbers.

Our oldest son, 22 years old at the time, and attending college in another state, was home for a month-long visit, (not just to wash his laundry). Because of Covid, we had not seen him in three years, so the long stay was therapeutic for all of us. He was going to be leaving the next day, so we ignored warnings about an oncoming storm. We planned to beat its arrival to get to a restaurant, eat and then return home after the storm passed.

We didn’t make it. I don’t know if we already had the flat and didn’t notice until we heard and felt the thunka thunka squeee, or if the squee caused the thunka thunka with a sliiide to the left. It was either that or my Buick had taken up electric dj dancing and didn’t tell me. Either way, we pulled into a gas station to see why we slid at the light and then heard obvious ’tire in distress’ sounds.

Luckily, once we discovered the tire in complete dereliction of its duties, we were able to take it a block and a half further in the cats and dogs’ downpour to a dealership. Not the one for my Buick, no, but the one for my husband’s Chevy. They recognized him and were kind enough to take us in. Of course, they did not have tires for my vehicle, but they gave us a ride back to the house as the rain tried harder to drown us. They kept my car for an overnight stay and tire replacement, and we waved a soggy goodbye. Seriously, the rain had upgraded to elephants and whales.

The same person who gave us the ride home later picked me up when all the work was done and he said after he left us, hail started to fall before he got back to the dealership. Those elephants were playing golf and marbles with the whales and we still don’t know who won. He also said that the hail fell on one side of the dealer service center, but not the other. Nice to see them taking turns so sweetly in their Elephant vs. Whale hail games.

Now wait a minute, Erin, why was the hawk on your pool cover? You said it was August? So very glad you noticed. One problem at a time, one story at a time, it's the only way to live. To call the thing a cover was generous. Two years before it had developed holes overnight, as if someone had shot off fireworks and just let the sparks fly willy-nilly wherever. Or maybe a bunch of really fat frogs had tried really hard to have a pool party in the middle of winter.

I don’t know what it was, except that I heard a helicopter overhead, possible gunshots, and it was very strange. The holes, not the helicopter. We lived near a hospital so there were times we would hear and see Life Flight in the midst of their duties. But the gunshots and the holes in our cover were still a mystery. It took us a long time to replace that cover.

A half year before the holes, the pool itself developed a crack. It had been there before and had some kind of pool cement that started to come out in chunks. We tried to repair it ourselves and kept it going as much as we could, but in the end we closed the pool and it just remained closed until we had the extra money to deal with it (that took a while too). By the porcelain anniversary, that had not yet happened. So the Cooper’s hawk had landed in what likely looked to it like a lovely green pond. How dare that human for invading its peaceful space!

On the upside, two years of no chemical treatments, lots of rain water, hopefully its bath was healthier than it would otherwise have been.

Sadly, as things come in threes, the crack wasn’t one. It had been around too long to be counted in that Murphy law bubble. No, the third hit came when the UV bulb in our air conditioning system needed to be replaced. Sounds fancy doesn’t it?

It was, but with good reason. The bulb was part of the system that killed germs in the house and kept our youngest, safe (He was about 14 at this point). With his Cystic Fibrosis and one lung, the year that we had to replace the heating and cooling system, we went with one that killed germs as it recycled the air.

It seemed entirely natural for the plumber to come up and tell me that the filter also needed changing. Happens all the time, right? The shock came when he said the filter was five hundred some odd dollars. Had after pandemic inflation hit them up that much? What was going on? Call your plumber to change a light bulb and filter and whoa, good to be a plumber! That mouthsoap thing was looking better and better right?

Apparently there was more than one kind of filter in the system. There was the kind we changed every month (those were about 20 each, maybe 25, the good keep allergens out of your house kind.) and then the five hundred to six hundred dollar costing one that is the more mechanical in nature kind and takes an expert to install. Ok, so I picked my jaw up off the floor and started to recover my insides. It was a who’s on first, what’s on second, I don’t know’s on third, situation.

We were glad Murphy had the decency to stop counting at three.

Normally, we do an expensive dinner for our anniversary. August 12, 2023 was the year we replaced broken things. But that’s ok. We had more than enough love to laugh a little and that was the part that mattered.