Author: Andy Smallman

Long story short. We had a plumbing issue at PSCS today. Michael, seen in today’s picture, was the plumber who made things right. I thoroughly enjoyed chatting with him and asked if he might pose next to the site of his fine work (yeah, he replaced a valve in the urinal) and give me permission to post the photo and a short story on the Internet.

You see, Michael is a natural teacher who just so happens to be a plumber. More importantly, he is a thoughtful human being who cares about quality. He asked me about the school to gain insight into the work he does with apprentice plumbers. He listened carefully and asked insightful questions.

The whole experience got me thinking how often I take for granted the people who come to my house or to my place of work to provide a service. Do I see “the plumber” or do I see a person?

Today I met Michael, a person.

Today’s Question: What’s the name of the person who delivers your mail?

The adorable child in today’s picture is none other than Melinda (remember, click on a photo to see it enlarged). I found it while looking through our boxes of stored photographs. I don’t recall ever having seen it before and, in a word, I think it’s fantastic. It should be framed and put up in our house.

That being said, Melinda sometimes accuses me of wanting to turn our house into a museum. I like museums. I wouldn’t mind living in one. And if I did live in a museum I WOULD fill the walls with pictures like this one. Others, too, like those my great-grandfather took of his son, my maternal grandfather, when he was a little boy. And I’ve got my collection of vintage Ravenna Park postcards and…

Hmmm… Maybe I should put those postcards on CraigsList.

Today’s Question: What is the oldest item on display in your house?

Today’s photo is hot off the scanner. That’s Melinda and me, you bet. And the animal with us is a horse. Our horse. A 3 year-old filly by Table Run fresh off the racetrack. Yup, way back in 1991 we rented a farm on the Sammamish plateau and bought a horse. Melinda named her Sasha.

My horse trainer friend Tom, who brokered Sasha’s purchase for us, said a couple of funny things the day he delivered the horse. The first was said with a little more serious tone than the second. He told me that he hoped our friendship survived him bringing us a horse.

The second thing he said, punctuated by his big booming laugh, is something I’ve heard in reference to other purchases, like cars and boats. About the horse Tom said, “You can never tell your favorite day as a horse owner. The day you buy the horse or the day you sell it.”

Today’s Question: Have you ever made a purchase like that?

I’m a self-proclaimed nostalgia sap. I love looking at old photos and reminiscing about the past. As such, I have a strong desire to get all of our old photos digitized. We have thousands, literally. And I’d like to get them into our iPhoto library, next to all the digital photos we have from the more recent past.

Scanning them all, one by one, takes a lot of time. For instance, it took me about 3 minutes to scan in today’s photo, which was taken in Olympia, WA on January 1, 1991, the day after Melinda and I were married. We went to Olympia to announce to some close friends that we had gotten married (a surprise to everyone but Melinda and me). I’m very pleased to have a digital version of this picture. Like I said, it took me about 3 minutes to get it.

But thousands of pictures at 3 minutes each is thousands of minutes of my time. I could pay $200 to have 1000 pictures digitized and put on a DVD.

Should I do that?

Today’s Question: What are things you know how to do but pay to have someone else do them for you?

For this unexpected “no school” day, I accompanied Melinda and Ella on what would have taken place for the two of them today if school had been in session, a trip to Alpental for a day of skiing. That’s right, Ella & Melinda go skiing every Friday. Ella does it as part of the independent study program provided to students at PSCS. And Melinda does it because she has Fridays off. Normally, Melinda’s parents go with them but they had another event. Home from school, I decided to tag along.

Today’s picture is of Ella up on the slopes just before her first run of the day. I took this picture and a couple of others before retiring to the lodge with a book (“The Virtue Driven Life,” if you’re interested). It was a tad chilly up there and I’m not a skier. I blame the latter on my Nebraskan roots although I’m sure it’s either far more complicated or much simpler than that.

Today’s Question: What sports do members of your family play but you don’t?

For the second of what I’ve learned will be three snow days this week (yes, school has been cancelled for tomorrow) I present this photo of Brayden, son of PSCS teaching staff member, Scobie. Scobie managed to swing by today for a visit and told us about his epic day sledding with Brayden at Gasworks Park, from where this picture was taken.

Now to understand Scobie you have to know that he is a design genius. When he realized that they didn’t have a suitable sled, what did he do? He made one. In his shop. In 20 minutes. And it was so much the best one on the hill that others asked where they could buy one.

Yeah, that’s Scobie.

Today’s Question: What is something you made for your child or a parent made for you?

As a kid, that’s a priceless phrase. Snow day. Not only does it mean no school, it means getting to play in the snow! Such is the experience we had in Seattle today, a snow day. And as it turns out, due to concern for icy road conditions in the morning, we’ll be having another one tomorrow. Wow!

This got me thinking about other phrases that bring smiles to the faces of kids. Help me out by answering today’s question, okay? Meanwhile, enjoy this photo of Chloe from a snow day of a year gone by (click on it to enlarge it). Speaking of Chloe, she just emailed me from college, commenting that Seattle is pretty wimpy compared to our Canadian neighbors. She’s got 6 inches of snow and a negative wind chill factor and is busy writing a paper.

No snow days in college, I guess.

Today’s Question: What phrase or word makes kids smile?

I like to joke with the students at PSCS about the REAL graduation requirements of the school. Our handbooks and school literature all say something about attendance and senior projects and stuff like that, etc, etc. But the real deal is much simpler.

To graduate, the students have to take a “Kurt Vonnegut” class (facilitated by ME) and their parents have to appreciate the music of Tom Waits (I explain that I just can’t expect teens to appreciate Tom Waits, but their parents, now that’s another story).

I got to thinking about this today as I found this picture of Chloe from 1993. Way back then I was trying to get her to appreciate Elvis Costello and shared with her this magazine article over graham crackers and juice, the afternoon snack. I put on his latest CD, “Brutal Youth” (an apt title if ever there was one for a baby with a father like me) and we got busy.

Today’s Question: What’s important to you that you want your kids (or someone else’s kids) to know about?

On this holiday Monday I spent several hours organizing family photos for a couple of scrapbooks I keep, one for each of the girls. Each book has 12 photos from each year of the girls’ lives. I’m a little behind, having last updated the books for 2007. And with the plethora of photos from France last year, this takes some work.

I’m also monitoring the weather (if looking out the window and wondering if it will snow tonight counts as monitoring). I just heard that the Seattle School District has delayed their start by two hours. That means nothing for PSCS. We don’t operate on a delayed basis. We are either opened or closed and we base our decision on whether or not the SSD is closed. So as of right now, PSCS is planning to be open regular hours tomorrow.

So with scrapbooks and a snow forecast in the forefront of my mind, I present this photo of Melinda and me from last July in our backyard pool in Nantes. Good times. Warm weather.

Today’s Question: What is your reaction to the expression “snow day?”

I was working on the first entry this afternoon for my a blog I’ve been asked to write for Ode Magazine. The topic of my post is the significance of holding hands and in my “research” I came across a story about a couple in Iowa who had been married for 72 years. Last fall they were involved in a car accident, sadly, and in the emergency room it became clear they would not survive their injuries. They were placed side by side and held hands. The husband died an hour before his wife. After he died, her heartbeat registered on his heart monitor, apparently through their holding hands.

Their son commented, “Dad used to say that a woman is always worth waiting for. He waited an hour for her and held the door for her.”

Today’s photo is another old one, this one of my dad walking with Ella and Olivia. I chose it, of course, because they are holding hands.

Today’s Question: With whom have you held hands so far this year?