Suppers, Steaks, Spiders, and So Forth

Last night our church's school board invited school staff members to a staff appreciation supper. This event took place without me. Being a staff member on Sabbatical is in this way exactly like not being a staff member.

But Joel, also not a staff member, attended as the guest of Hilda, his girlfriend, who, unlike me and Joel, is a school staff member this year.

Does this seem fair? Joel goes and I don't.

(Actually, although Joel had told me ahead of time what he would be doing, I completely forgot where he was and what he was doing till he got home and reminded me. So you see I really wasn't obsessing about it at all. Just fussing for fun. . . .)

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Hiromi spent the day today fixing a nasty plumbing problem. Just outside the basement, (or perhaps inside the basement wall itself) the main waterline to the house sprang a leak and water had been finding its way into the basement through a crack in the basement wall.

So Hiromi dug down to the pipe and decided how to fix it. Shane, who was in town, brought the parts Hiromi ordered, but they weren't right after all. So Hiromi made a run in to town himself. More work on the problem. More fittings needed. Another run to town.

Now, at 10:15, we've got water, and baths and showers can commence. It's too late for the laundry, and the dishes have been accumulating all day, but at least the basement can start drying out.

The snakes and frogs will be denied entry over the weekend by the rags stuffed all around the hole where the pipe comes through the wall. Next week Hiromi can replace some more fittings in the outdoor pipe and fix the hole around the pipe right.

Hiromi always begins a job like this by saying "I'm no plumber." And this morning he said, "This is not my house, and I have three boys and a bad back, and I'm the one that's going to have to dig out that bad pipe to fix it." Later, as he prepared to hurry off to town, he said, "A plumber would have spare parts like this on hand, but I don't." (Ollie didn't have them either.)

As is always the case, however, his handyman skills came to the rescue and we are all taken care of.

He's better at lots of things than he lets on. While we know this phenomenon as false Anabaptist humility, in Japanese, the word is keison.

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Because Hiromi was occupied, I grilled the steaks for supper tonight. And now Hiromi informs me that the valve on the grill's propane tank must be turned off--not only the burners. I don't want to go out there to turn off that valve, but I do understand that he should not have to leave his 10:45 supper to go do it himself.

"Take the flashlight and go out the front door so you don't fall in the hole."

I thought he was being overly cautious as usual, because I knew I could go out the back door and never pass by the hole, with plenty of light from the porch to see the valve on the grill. However, as I headed toward the back door, he added, "There's a big spider web outside the back door."

Reverse directions. Do not challenge the large spider by the back door. Hiromi is not only better at things than he lets on, he also knows more than he lets on.

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I'm teaching a Sunday School class again tomorrow.

You see I'm not really paranoid. They really are out to get me--that is, to fill up my time with offers I can't refuse.

(The regular teacher, Suzie, is still in Ohio where she has gone to be with her dying great aunt, only she is rallying instead of dying, and Suzie has been detained much longer than she thought she would be.)