Flow

Posted on by pmarmaba

Finally had a few days off to do… nothing. So I decided to tackle the leaking bathroom faucet that I’d been putting off.

I shut off the water, removed the old cartridges from the handles and got replacements at a plumbing supply place. Maybe an hour. Easy-peasey.

Replaced the cartridges and turned the water back on. Maybe 30 minutes.

But the faucet wouldn’t stop running. On, off; didn’t matter. The only thing that changed was the amount of flow.

I shut off the water, then went to take the girl to the orthodontist. Made lunch and thought about why the faucet didn’t work.

Futzed some more. Reinstalled. Shut water off and on. Over and over. Hours pass. Kris comes home from work. We’re going to need running water soon.

No hints or clues from the interwebs or YouTube. I even looked up the patron saint of plumbers. (St. Vincent Ferrer, if you’re curious.)

Exasperated, I finally read the packaging:

“Important! … For lever handle faucets, both stops point toward right.”

Exhibit A: Important thing I decided wasn’t important enough to read*.

I’d glossed over the whole “Important” part and gone straight to what I “knew” was right.

The fix took all of 10 minutes, tops. Turned the water back on. Faucet worked. Open, shut; flow, no flow. No leaks.

Mission accomplished in my typical fashion.

After 25 years of home ownership — and longer as a tinkerer for mom and dad — I’ve learned my limits not just in ability but in temperament.

I’m too ADHD to be bothered with “reading” and “the obvious.” It also keeps me focused on time-consuming minutiae and not the big picture, so projects drag and become frustrating.

I recognize now that time and mental/emotional energy are finite quantities and there’s only so much I have for a day.

So I set achievable goals and manage my own expectations. I know I’m never going to do a whole-house makeover but there is a real bit of satisfaction being able to fix something involving a channel-lock wrench and needle-nose pliers.

The brass stem of the replacement faucet cartridge kinda pops here, right?

So I can kick myself for careless reading and laugh ruefully at a familiar pattern.

But you know what? I’m enjoying the smooth turn and sure stop of the handles. I’m happy not seeing any droplets. I’m pleased not hearing any drips. I feel like I did something.

I fixed a leaky faucet.

* The last line from the A.B. Guthrie short story, “Bargain,” immediately came to mind when I finally recognized the solution: “Is good to know to read.”

Went Mac and didn’t look back

Posted on by pmarmaba

Write about your first computer.

My first real, usable computer was a Macintosh Classic II, which was based on the SE30.

(Our family had an Epson word processor and my younger brother had an early IBM with a dual disk drive but much less useful to me than a regular typewriter.)

The computer lab I was put in charge of as a grad assistant at the P.I. Reed School of Journalism at West Virginia University had just installed a bank of Macintosh SEs when I enrolled. They ran WordPerfect and Aldus PageMaker programs.

Additionally, the graphic design sequence at the College of Creative Arts used the more powerful SE30s to run Aldus Freehand and Adobe Photoshop.

They were so intuitively easy to use and created such amazing print graphics that I couldn’t imagine working on any other platform. So when graduation time rolled around, my folks blessed me with the Classic.

While all my work PCs in the years since have been Windows-based — and easier to use since the 1980s — I’ve remained loyal to Mac products at home for 30-some years.

Apple Macintosh Classic II (© HomeComputerMuseum / Dylan van Voorthuijsen)

Last known sighting

Posted on by pmarmaba

The creation story tells of Adam and Eve taking a bite of the apple, then suddenly realizing they were naked. Paradise was lost.

In a similar way, the veil has been lifted for the kids this year in their observations of their peers and the world at large. They became more knowing and arch even before they both officially became teenagers.

Well, once the holidays arrived, their cleverness extended to their regard of Santa Claus and particularly of his designated elfin spy, Ginger.

The poor lackey was subjected to heretofore unprecedented levels of handling, snark and general disregard by his intended surveillance subjects.

I suppose what followed should have been expected when the year-end report from Santa did not accompany the delivery of gifts. For the first time in probably a decade, there was no Christmas morning reading by Mama of the big man’s summation the kids’ progress. It was always one of my highlights of the day.

Now, the day after Christmas, Ginger remains in our house, ignored, rather than having taken flight ahead of St. Nick’s Christmas Eve arrival.

Instead of resting comfortably with his cloak-and-dagger comrades after reporting out in the North Pole, he lies curled up in his last observation post — his spirit, I suspect, having left us.

Probably the last earnest inquiry regarding our home’s ersatz elfin spy, dated 13 December 2023.

There’s a lovely, melancholy Christmas song recorded by Leon Redbone that describes the mystical, magical Toyland. While you dwell within it, he sings, you are ever happy there.

It concludes with the elegiac line, “Once you cross its borders, you can never return again.”

There remains much of the world that our children remain innocent of, but, damn, it’s all bearing down upon them quickly.

While I’d like to hope they can linger in childhood for a little while longer, I know they’re already close to the border and it won’t be long before they leave it behind.

Scenes from a run on bottled water

Posted on by pmarmaba

EDITOR’S NOTE: Jan. 9 marked 10 years since the Water Crisis of 2014, when more than 10,000 gallons of coal-cleaning chemical contaminated the water supply of 300,000 in West Virginia’s Kanawha Valley. I wrote this in the days after my son and I went on a search for bottled water in the hours after the spill.

(This is the final draft I submitted for review. The actual published version is presently unavailable because of the apparent deletion of the entire Charleston Newspapers archive.)

That column appeared in the Life section of the Charleston Daily Mail on Monday, 13 January 2014.

I try to stay away from grocery stores just ahead of bad weather because I don’t want to get caught up in the panic buying of milk, bread and toilet paper.

I figure we’ve usually got enough of what we need in the house to get by for a few days. (Having a lactose-intolerant kid can make things seem a little dicey, though.)

My feeling’s always been, as long as we’ve got gas and water, we’re in good shape. Making it through the Derecho and Superstorm Sandy in 2012 on hot showers and French-pressed coffee — and about half a dozen bags of ice — pretty well confirmed it. I counted myself blessed and lucky.

Well, Thursday’s Elk River chemical spill knocked out half my dynamic duo of utilities needed for urban survival. It was time to hit the panic button. 

So I joined the early evening swarm in search of supplies. (I missed the official word to refrain from rushing out for water purchases. Not so sure I would have heeded it. I am not a role model.)

My boy had been cooped up all day and his mom and I figured he needed to get out of the house for a bit. 

As I buckled him into his carseat, I tried to sell him on the idea that he and I were going on an adventure. As a fan of undersea explorers and emergency rescue teams, he went all in on our “mission.”

Of course, like Disney World, I just wanted him to experience the perception of urgency; I had no desire to live out any drama in real life. 

If shopping during the holidays had taught me nothing, it was to stay away from the chokepoints along Corridor G if I wanted to keep the stress down, so I headed west. (Charleston’s West Side, that is. I was prepared to go as far as Cross Lanes if I had to, though.)

There didn’t appear to be any sort of frenzy at the Kmart parking lot, so in we went.

There was no flurry of carts loaded down with cases of water to greet us at the entrance. Good. And there were still plenty of carts – also a good sign. Into the buggy the boy went.

Saw a gentleman with a couple of cases of water, so we went opposite of his direction until we came upon a small crowd near a soft drink display. Paydirt.

There was a pallet full of bottled Aquafina, but it was going fast. I tried to get cute and went to the other side of the gathering and wound up having to reach over a display stand to pick up a case.

Of course, I knocked the stand and its entire contents of tiny, little water flavoring bottles over. Panic buy foul.

But before I had to face the ignominy of getting down on my hands and knees to pick up the multi-colored profusion of berry, lemon, lime and whatnot, an angel of grace swooped in.

“I can help you,” said young Jacey Crisp, of Charleston.

The two of us immediately set to work to pick up my mess, as her grandmother chatted with my little boy.

She helped me place the little flasks into their racks, which then went into a big display.

I learned during the effort that she had just cleaned up a mess her dog had made that afternoon, which told me that even at age 9 she knew what responsibility was.

I thanked her profusely and told her grandmother and mom that I would have to recognize her for her kindness. I hope this mention will do her justice.

I headed for the cashier with another case of Aquafina and two of the last four gallons of baby water.

By this time, there was a line leading to the checkout that stretched past the store entrance and just about every cart was loaded with water. The boy and I had arrived just ahead of the wave.

Got lucky enough to get into a short line. The mood of my fellow customers was fairly relaxed and jovial, likely because we got ours and the pressure was off.

One fellow was in line with some auto supplies wondering why everyone was buying water. 

Another guy, Jamaar Jackson, 31, of Rand, was in the store for something else, too. He said the sight of all the loaded carts made him think it was being given away. He wound up leaving with eight cases.

There was talk of what had spilled into the river and the other West Side retailers that were already out of water.

My son went on to regale whoever would listen about our mission and side trips for additional rescues. His captive audience was indulgent and kind.

We picked up a couple of frozen pizzas at the nearby Healthy Life Market and headed home. (My wife was chagrined to throw out an entire pan of curried chicken and a whole pot of rice once the “Do not drink” advisory went out.)

I know we were most fortunate to get ahead of the rush that evening — and even more so to have families that live outside the affected area but within driving distance to help us out.

Through this, we will remember the helpers. I’ve been impressed with the generosity and efficiency of private companies and public agencies to help everyone who hadn’t been as lucky as us. I’m also pleased to hear that despite a handful of incidents, our residents have borne this latest crisis with the can-do attitude and bonhomie that West Virginians are known for.

Thanks to people like young Jacey and the many helpers in the valley and beyond, life during a difficult period has been made bearable.

In time, the threat will pass. Fines will be levied and paid. Lawsuits will be filed and settled. And all of us affected will have a renewed sense of value for the resource that makes modern living, indeed, life itself possible.

One door closes; another opens

Posted on by pmarmaba

The boy’s bedroom door, 3 Nov 2019.

In the hurly-burly of life, things change on a whim, right under your nose, and move on.

My son’s bedroom became his domicile and his fortress. But I suppose because of the care with which he decorated and personalized it, I figured I’d always have time to document his choices and how they reflected his stage in life.

Well, he threw out a big bag of trash this weekend — and with it, the stuff of marking his childhood.

Comic book covers that served as wall art. Caution tape and printed “keep out” signs that demarcated entrance to his room. A “Harry Potter” poster.

The organized chaos that first announced the likes and loves and singular personhood of a grade schooler expressing himself gone in an afternoon of remaking himself in the image of a rising high school freshman.

This is the blink of an eye that I was warned about where you’re picking up your child one minute then you’re standing and looking at each other eye to eye.

But like his person, the room change came gradually. The door. The walls. I probably noticed things disappearing but its significance didn’t register. Not until the work was complete and the artifacts of his previous life were in a trash bag.

I’ll tell you, a part of me mourned the little boy being left in the past, no longer in the room festooned with caution tape and comic book covers.

He’s almost taller than his mama now and his voice may be imperceptibly changing. He’s already experienced infatuation and heartbreak. He’s passing milestones just about every day.

I can’t keep him a little boy forever and I know he’s not supposed to be. I’ve told him and his sister not to be afraid to grow up, that ships aren’t built to stay in harbors.

As with everything in my life, I have to learn to let go. It’s coming. I just want to hold on to this for a little bit longer.

the girl, the mom, the dad and the boy, age 10, new year’s eve 2020.

Corporate architecture’s last (hamburger) stand?

Posted on by pmarmaba

The Patrick Street McDonald’s here in Charleston, W.Va., is closing its doors for good at 11 today after serving breakfast.

Can’t seem to find any info on when this particular location opened but it seems like it’s been here at least as long as I have, so maybe 25 years minimum?

Anyway, I’m bummed that it’s closing mostly because it was fun to look at. I mean, who builds a fast food franchise joint that harkens back to its roots from the 1950s?

You know who? No one. At least not anyone committing resources to own and operate part of a multinational enterprise. Not in this risk-averse day and age.

Nope. Why be creative and whimsical with a commercial structure when you can follow the trend of making easily interchangeable and disposable boxes?

Of course, I understand that the area’s demographic is past the peak that could support a McDonald’s on the city’s West Side.

Maybe what I’m also mourning is the loss of an economy that merited a specially constructed flagship-style restaurant building — that our town was exemplary enough to carry a cultural banner, corporate though it may have been.

So maybe there’s some grief mixed in with my nostalgia and fascination with our post-World War II might and optimism.

Regardless, I’ll be sad when it gets torn down because it was fun and smart and pretty.

The girl and me at the Patrick Street McDonald’s, Sept. 29, 2033, the day before it was set to close for good.

Memorial Day honors the dead

Posted on by pmarmaba

Note: This began life as my contribution to our office’s Memorial Day messaging. Writing these holiday remembrances is an ongoing assignment I share with Amanda, one of my External Affairs colleagues at our regional office in Philadelphia; she’s amazing in providing the vision to our work. She came up with idea of talking to our staff members who had served in the armed forces, which made all the difference in the world in how I wrote this. It underwent a few revisions on its way to being released. I’m sharing my section with some edits/revisions of my own.

Like many of you, I’m looking forward to a long Memorial Day Weekend for some rest, a pause from our busy schedules, and, yes, probably a cookout as we unofficially usher in summer.

But amid the family time, the self-care, and even the parades, I hope you’ll keep this thought in mind: Memorial Day honors those who died in the service of our country.

Moreover, these are not the long bygone dead or people who have statues erected in their honor. These are our contemporaries: family members, childhood friends, and, for some, comrades in arms.

Our country is only a couple of years removed from the end of its war in Afghanistan, a 20-year engagement that claimed the lives of nearly 2,500 U.S. service members.

So you don’t have to look far in our agency or even our region to encounter a young veteran whose memories are haunted by the taste, smell, and sound of combat, where friends fell, far from home.

For them, and for those of us protected under the aegis our armed services, Memorial Day is a solemn remembrance but it can also be a celebration of life.

Whether on the front lines or in support roles, our veterans know the value of service and, as members of our team and their communities, each day offers an opportunity to serve – an opportunity worth celebrating.

So if you could, perhaps in that pause while you check your car’s rearview mirror before your road trip or gaze into the growing flame in your grill, I hope you’ll find a moment to consider those who J.R.R. Tolkien lauded as “the victorious dead.”

Thanks to all who served in bearing arms, as well as those who served in waiting. May you all have a restful, peaceful Memorial Day Weekend.

‘You’re listening to W.O.R.K.’

Posted on by pmarmaba

Hopped into the office vehicle for a visit to beautiful Lincoln County, W.Va., on Friday for an interview.

It was my first work visit out that way since I joined the agency — and that was with a veteran external affairs specialist, Lloyd.

So I was a little nervous heading out on a solo trip and not entirely sure what to expect.

Once I reviewed and punched in the directions, I pulled up some tunes (“Moving Pictures” by Rush), then hit the road.

My last solo road trip was to Philadelphia at the end of last year. I listened to “Panorama” by The Cars.

A few months earlier, I drove to Pittsburgh; also listened to “Panorama.”

The common denominator of these and other tunes from my travels are that they were albums I listened to in high school.

I don’t plan out my playlists for these road trips; they’re usually just what I feel like hearing once I hit the highway.

But maybe I kick off with them because they’re familiar and pleasant and put me at ease while I’m heading to the great, work-related unknown.

The lid came off the pot

Posted on by pmarmaba

I keep an anonymous blog, which has become a dark, root-strewn wood with occasional clearings where the sun peeks through.

It took its turn off the marked trail sometime during the pandemic and has meandered the forest of my mind ever since.

Long story short, what I’d written off as personal weaknesses, like laziness or daydreaming, I realized were characteristics of what’s been called a neurodivergent mind and opened my eyes to my own mental health.

While many that I follow on social media openly shared stories and resources regarding mental issues, it took a mention at a work team meeting about a change of medications to help me see that not only people I know but in positions of authority need some help to keep things together.

I spoke with him privately afterward to thank him for his candor. I told him his discussion made me weep and made me feel less alone.

I told him that my whole life I was able to keep a lid on struggles I didn’t even know I was having and that took the pandemic to blow the lid off.

So here I am, more cognizant of this electrochemical stewpot in my skull, keeping a closer eye on the burner, stirring and seasoning as needed.

Not sure if this namby-pamby blog entry will help anyone. But if you’re reading and having a time, you’re not alone. Hope you find the help and support you need.