Futility Now

Last weekend was the Mighty River Classic, where I gave out the trophies mentioned here, and even got one of my own, although it was for 3rd place, which isn’t exactly what I was hoping for.

Both of these are of my first bout. Between them, the guy had to sort of sit and recover from the rib kick that he would have avoided if people had only noticed that I had already knocked him in the head with my fist.

This was my loss. I was trying to circle out and punch him, when I should have been circling in and away and kicking him. Sad emoticon.

This was the 3rd/4th bout, which I also won.

On Sunday I engaged in another incredibly manly activity: plumbing! I have been putting off fixing the pipes under my kitchen sink and flush with, umm, defeat that wasn’t as sound as it could have been I finally convinced myself to get around to it.

Just to round things out, here’s Yoshi demonstrating his civic pride by posing as the Jantzen girl.

Here is Yoshi staring balefully out of the bathroom window at me.

Here is a raccoon that was asleep in our yard this morning.

Here is Yoshi staring balefully out of the bathroom window at the raccoon.

Here are some pictures. The first two are the three of us getting some snacks at the Doug Fir before anything exciting happened, and the second is a picture of whatever it is ladies use to put foundation on next to a purse whose decorations managed to mark it. Hazel and I thought it was pretty cool.

Because of my hilariously rural upbringing, I had never mowed a lawn until yesterday. Nevertheless, nothing important was damaged, and I think that I got close enough to the margins that it’s no longer the single most hilarious thing about the yard. That is now the fact that everything is totally choked and overgrown.

Naturally, we’ve been trying to get to that too. Yesterday we managed to fill up our entire yard-waste bin, which isn’t nothing, but it’s not very close to done either. I think Hazel took some pictures. Hopefully she’ll put them up here, because I have to admit that discussing the yard without photos comes off a little sterile.

Home is so Sad -- Philip Larkin

Home is so sad. It stays as it was left,
Shaped to the comfort of the last to go
As if to win them back. Instead, bereft
Of anyone to please, it withers so,
Having no heart to put aside the theft

And turn again to what it started as,
A joyous shot at how things ought to be,
Long fallen wide. You can see how it was:
Look at the pictures and the cutlery.
The music in the piano stool. That vase.

Tomorrow is our last day as renters.  While we won’t get our keys until the 1st, our loan is scheduled to fund Friday and we will officially own our disarming grandmother of a cottage. This is occasion for celebration, certainly (and they are in the works boy howdy), but I’ve been thinking about this last year and a half and what all has transpired in this particular apartment during that time.  How zia & I got the keys a week or so before jmags arrived from Brooklyn.  How his last flight here arrived early and I was still reading Poetry magazine in the bar in my black wrap coat. The expression on my face when the boxes with his books arrived (we’re going to need a bigger bookcase). How he & I kept the mattress downstairs in the living room in front of the fireplace for days after he  arrived.

Pretending to be Pyramus & Thisbe.

All the cooking & hijinks & sci-fi.  When, after too many days of being snowed in together, we put a pancake on zia’s head during breakfast. When I went rollerskating in the living room. The sugar ants on the ceiling.

I know we will look back on this as such a defining time.  jmags & I are very close to our 3 year anniversary — half spent long distance and half in this apartment, figuring out all of the things that you can’t figure out on gmail chat.

When we all dyed our hair together.

zia & I have lived in a total of 14 apartments together, some for very good reasons and others not so great.  So this feels like the end of a way of life. As we rush rush rush toward it arms outstretched, I didn’t want to forget to say goodbye.

zia & I, Jan. 15, 2007