Tag: grandchildren

Scooby Doo and the Heat Index

photog 2 Comments Current Events, Life in Dunwich, photog's Corner , , ,

I was informed by “AccuWeather” that today’s forecast high temperature would be 99 degrees Fahrenheit.  But it was further stated that it would feel like 114 degrees Fahrenheit!  Now I once spent a summer in California and we did several times reach 114 degrees.  And as far as I can remember this was nothing like that.  99 degrees at 100 percent humidity and 114 degrees with bone dry air feel nothing alike.  One is a blast furnace and the other is a steam room.  So, what is the sense of this scare temperature of 114?  The weather dweebs on my local cable provider were running in circles warning of impending climate catastrophe and exhorting me to shelter in place.  I was especially amused by New York’s Mamdani begging his citizens to protect themselves from the heat but also commanding them not to set their air conditioners below 78 degrees.  Apparently, the electrical grid in New York is experiencing brown outs and everything must be done to avoid a black out during Taylor Swift’s upcoming nuptials at Madison Square Garden.  Something tells me that the wedding party will be excused from obeying the 78-degree mandate.  Can’t have a middle aged pop diva sweating at her wedding.  Think of the poor groom!

So, I finished off the rest of the lawn this morning with my push mower and as soon as the gas tank emptied, I changed the oil on that little Briggs and Stratton powered trash mower.  This will buy me some time until the tubing for draining off the oil from my riding mower arrives from my friends at Amazon.com (tomorrow they say).  I had to suspend the mower upside down and at an angle to avoid something to do with the spark plug and I looked distinctly goofy holding it in that position.  But I only spilled a couple of drops and voila!  She sounds as good as new (sorta).

As I was watering the plants in the pool area, I saw a little frog jump in so I fished him out with the pool net and threw him into Camera Girl’s Pond.  Now this was slightly after her evening feeding frenzy so as soon as he fell in, there was a boiling, bubbling panic around him and he jumped straight out into the high grass behind the pond.  Well, he probably did the right thing.  If he wanders back into the swimming pool, he can take solace from the knowledge that being chlorinated to death is a quiet peaceful end compared to being hacked to bits by the Piranha Brothers.

Tomorrow we will have Princess Sack of Potatoes and her parents here to swim in the pool before all of the grandkids head off for a week by the seaside.  A little rest and relaxation for us is good but it will be a bit quiet without them.  This week I sat through several hours of Scooby Doo cartoons that I’ve already seen too many times and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 which I probably could have skipped too but with them there enjoying this ridiculous entertainment I kind of felt like part of the gang.  Which is pretty cool.

Bridging the Generations (Part 3)

photog Current Events, OCF, Reclaiming the Family , ,

Sorry I was missing from the site most of the day but today was a grandson visiting day here at the Compound.  Tertius (the third) is currently twelve years old.  And that works out because I can still keep up with him in a baseball catch and shooting pool without looking too feeble.  Against all odds (the recent weather forecast) the sun was out and it was about fifty degrees.  And after two half-hour catches, I can proudly say my right shoulder and elbow are both reasonably intact.

Camera Girl provided the requested bill of fare (spaghetti and meatballs, cookies and cream ice cream, lemonade) and I provided the requested cinematic presentation (extended version of “The Two Towers).  The conversation was limited to an in depth discussion of how Elrond and Aragorn could be related, his current progress in school band (baritone horn) and the trade-off between a lot of snow (which he likes) and not getting out of school until late June (which he is against).  I tried introducing the question of dark matter but I didn’t seem to spark his imagination with it.  Probably needs some background in physics first.  I guess seventh grade science isn’t that advanced.

I’m happy to find that we have maintained good relations and I recognize several of my traits in him (the poor kid) and am highly pleased that we both enjoy a baseball catch as a good way to pass time and get a little exercise.  Now, if he were sixteen, I’d probably be too old.  And come to think of it sixteen-year-olds have other interests than playing sports with old fogeys.   But currently I can throw it far enough and fast enough to keep him interested in the game.  And it’s actually good exercise for me too.

And at 6:30 pm I drove him home to his parents and told Camera Girl that all is right with the world and we must have done something right to have such nice grandkids.  To be honest, she probably did something right.  I’m just born lucky and hang around with the right people.

So, I checked the news to see what I missed today and so far, I don’t see anything new.  Trump, blah, blah, blah.  Musk, blah, blah, blah.  Resist, resist, resist.  Rinse, repeat.

I was glad to see there was a fair amount of interest in the Heinlein post.  I figure a lot of folks from our generation were fans back in the day of RAH.  I’ll say that reading his stories gave me an interest in space and when the time came to think of engineering as a profession, his stories made it seem more interesting than it might have without his influence.  Of course, he didn’t warn me enough about how stupid everyone in the executive suite would be.  But maybe it was a different time.

So now we have to prepare for our visit from Quartus (the fourth) in the next couple of weeks.  We have to nail down the menu.  I already know his choice in movies.  He’s going to demand at least a triple feature of Godzilla movies (Lord help me).  As far as sports it may be something esoteric.  Sometimes the kids have toys like tops or yo-yos or other less recognizable geegaws.  But now is the time to go through the research stage so that the actual event goes smoothly.  Who knows?  Maybe bowling or laser tag will be on the agenda.  Well, I better rest up.

A Sense of Wonder

photog Current Events, Life in Dunwich, photog's Corner, Reclaiming the Family, Science , , ,

My recent foray into Dunwichian power politics may have struck some of my readers as morose and unnecessarily pessimistic.  Possibly so, but I was trying to capture the essence of our current reality where an honest and transparent analysis of how our society works reveals enormous hypocrisy.  And the nature of our “democracy” reveals itself to be a process manipulated by the powerful who have no regard for the people.  But just to show you I haven’t despaired of life I was reminded today of what good can be achieved by getting involved with the young.

I remembered as a youngster being intrigued by astronomy.  Maybe it was because of the space program that was getting off the ground about the time I became aware of current events.  Maybe it was because my parents gave me access to books and other resources concerning science.  But however it happened, I was fascinated by the details of the solar system.  I was always reading statistics about the size, location and physical attributes of Saturn and Jupiter, Mercury and Mars.  And once I began reading science fiction, I became all the more absorbed by this extension of my world into the solar system.  And I suppose that my early interest in science is responsible for much of my orientation in school and afterwards.  Engineering was the logical conclusion for someone interested in the practical application of science to life.  I suppose that if NASA’s space program hadn’t petered out after the moon landings, I would have tried to get involved in an engineering program that had the potential of involving space travel but that was just a childhood fantasy.

But remembering how exciting and interesting it was to discover the larger universe, I decided to give Princess Sack of Potatoes her first astronomy lesson.  We looked at photos of the planets and I tried to explain some of the physical characteristics of the various worlds that circle our sun.  Mercury and Venus are too close to the Sun and therefore too hot.  Mars is too small and too far from the Sun and therefore lacking a useful atmosphere and too cold.  And I tried to explain why the gas giant worlds weren’t places where terrestrial life could exist because of their nightmarish temperatures and pressures and poisonous atmospheres.

So was my lesson successful.  I don’t really know.  She seemed interested enough and she enjoyed the colorful photos and pictures of the planets.  But will it inspire a deep curiosity about the universe.  Well, it’s much too soon to tell.  Maybe after we begin to discuss interstellar and intergalactic space I’ll see if she becomes bored with the subject.  But there was definitely one moment of planetary solidarity.  When we had finished with Neptune, she wanted to know what had happened to Pluto.  Full disclosure, I was very angry when the international astronomical societies stripped Pluto of its status as a planet.  I felt it to be an arbitrary and probably anti-American gesture.  So, this sympathy for Pluto by my granddaughter was a very welcome occurrence.  When I found out that this emotion was fostered because the planet has the same name as Mickey Mouse’s dog, I was a little less enthusiastic.  But still, when dealing with small children you take your victories where they come.

So, teaching children and inspiring curiosity about the wonders of science is something that we can do even in the world of Joe Biden and the American Security State.  One small step for a grandfather, one giant leap for mankind.

Guest Contributor – War Pig – 21JUL2024 – Grandparenting Right

photog Guest Contributors, Reclaiming the Family, War Pig , , ,

war pig

Me and my brother still remember things our grandparents did and talk about them often. Things we did that got us in trouble but they helped so we got off. Both of our grandpa’s were ornery and mischievous and liked to play tricks on us. Both grandma’s were loving and soothed our small injuries and fed us to stuffing. We even had one greatgrandmother who lived long enough for us to remember. She was an easy mooch and always had marshmallow peanuts, candy orange slices and soft peppermints. She was an amazing character, too. Smoked a clay pipe that got so hot I had to use tongs to touch it. Every morning she put liquid HEET on her hands to loosen up the arthritis. I got a drop of it on me and I had to run to the sink and use cold water to wash it off. Felt like molten glass had landed on me.

I’m gonna have to write all the stories down for my grandson.

Pay Back for Paying Forward

photog Current Events, OCF, Reclaiming the Family , , ,

Two thirds of July burned through.  But we got the sun and heat the calendar promised.  So, I can’t kick.

Swimming pools are an awful nuisance to the owner especially if he lives in the north.  The winter weather beats the hell out of the polymers that the liner and the filter loop are made out of.  In every practical sense they’re a bad deal.  A dead loss except for one very important aspect.  They attract grandchildren like no other power on Earth.  To paraphrase “Field of Dreams,” “If you fill it, they will come.”  Like a law of nature, a hot summer week, a swimming pool and youngsters react like iron filings to a magnet.

And that’s great.  Provide the pool, some burgers and lemonade and they’ll swim and dive and splash around until their fingers and toes become as wrinkled as prunes.  But why, you might ask, would anyone want to have a bunch of noisy, boisterous, unruly kids around when peace and quiet is so much easier?

Well, the answer is simple.  Grandchildren are the one and only, absolutely authentic, sure-fire fountain of youth that has ever been discovered by mankind.  When you steal away their children away from your children and spoil them rotten with bilious food and frivolous activities; like throwing around a baseball or letting them play a game of hide and seek in your yard, it’s as if you’ve stepped into a time machine.

When you referee their squabbles and join in their silly card games and argue with them about whether T-Rex is stronger than Spinosaurus or whether a dragon that breathes fire is more powerful than one that breathes ice or when they draw birthday cards for you with all the care and concentration that a five-year-old can muster you are transported to a different world.  A much, much better world.

Getting to spend time with your grandkids is the payoff for all the years of work and worry that goes into raising a family.  We try to spend as much time with our kids as we can but work consumes so much of our time.  And worrying about getting them launched into their adult lives steals away so much of the time you have when you’re in the prime of your life.

So having the chance to really experience the small joys of children at play in your later years is imbibing the quintessence of life.  And it makes the prospect of getting old acceptable.  Our mortality is THE fact of life.  We get a span of time on this giddy rock hurtling through space-time.  And sooner than any of us imagine, the sands start building up in the bottom of the hour-glass.  But if we see children and then grandchildren and maybe great-grandchildren; well then, we can feel as if we did our part to keep this crazy, confusing, hopelessly conflicted endeavor called the human race staggering down the road for at least another generation or two.  And if after we’re gone they think back on us and smile about something we said or did, well, that’s one kind of immortality.

And that has to be enough to make the whole thing worthwhile.  Because as far as I can tell, that’s about as good as it gets.  And that’s good enough for me.