The plumbing work in our basement is finished and the giant trenches have been refilled. The "only" thing left to do is the recarpeting/retiling. Well, that and cleanup. Everything in our basement has a thin layer of dust on it. It would have been nice to get a heads-up from the workers so that we could have put covers on some things (and it also would've been nice if they closed the doors to help confine it), but whatever. If they fixed the issue, it's all good. That's my one and only criterion on whether or not they did a good job. If never hear that gurgling sound, and if I never to clean up shit-water, again then they did fantastic work,* and I'll gladly de-dust the entire basement myself. (Okay, that's a lie, but I will pay somebody to do it.)
*According to the city inspector this company is "the best in the business." If he was trying to make me feel confident about their work, he did the exact opposite. He made me wonder if they were in cahoots.
One thing I was thinking while looking at the mounds of dirt in our basement: Why don't they put in access panels under the flooring to sewage lines? I'm sure it's a cost thing; everything's a cost thing. But it just seems so ridiculous to have to jackhammer through the foundation to fix something like this.
Oh, if you're wondering what the ultimate cause of this all was: roots. Whoever laid the pipe originally used an ill-fitting joint, and over time roots squeezed in there and clogged/destroyed a large section of the line. I really like trees, but their roots sure do fuck shit up sometimes.
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The kids' baseball seasons are over -- yay. Lil' S2's last game was a lot of fun, actually. It went by super quickly and the kids played really well. It's coach-pitch, so I lob them some balls, and if they miss five or six in a row we put the ball on a tee. This was the only game of the season in which we didn't use the tee at all. (For the not-so-good kids I have to aim at their bats, and I was really hitting my spots.) Lil' S2 hit the ball on the first pitch both times he was up, which is either a huge improvement or a total fluke. (He told me on the ride home "I didn't do it on purpose.") Either way I'll take it.
Lil' S1's last game, on the other hand, was kinda a disaster, mitigated only by the fact that it was a playoff loss, so the season is thankfully over. In this league it's machine pitch, and they have strikeouts, and Lil' S1 struck out his only two times up, including once with the bases loaded and two outs. (I was really counting on the kid who came up before him to make the third out of the inning, but he somehow made contact and got on base for the first time all year -- terrible timing.) He just looked so bad, anemic, halfhearted swings, and he wasn't even ready to bat -- he was lying under the bench and the coach had to holler at him to get him up.
I didn't say anything immediately after the game, but later I asked him how he thought the season went, and we had something like the following conversation.
Him: Pretty good. Except the last game we lost because of me. If I got a hit my last time up we would have won.
(I don't think that's actually true -- I think they lost by quite a bit
-- and I suspect he was more going for pity points than he was
genuinely sad about it.)
Me: Yeah, but it didn't look like you were even trying to get a hit. You just kinda waved the bat softly through the air.
Him: I was trying. I'm just not very good at hitting.
Me: That's because you never practice. You never ask me to play, you never play with your friends, and you don't really participate on your team. It seems like you don't really like playing baseball.
Him: I do like it.
Me: I don't think so. One of your teammates told me you said that you were losing on purpose. It's okay if you don't like it. You don't have to play next season.
Him: [On the verge of tears] I want to play! I like it! I want to play!
Me: Well, you'll be in a higher league next year, and it's even more competitive. So, you'll have to get better and you definitely have to put more effort into it. I'm not going to spend two hours every Saturday to watch you tepidly swing at baseballs.
Him: What does tepidly mean?
Me: It means, like, in a weak manner -- not very strongly.
Him: Oh... I don't do that. I am good!
Me: *Dissenting groaning noise.*
Him: Well, I want to play anyway!
Me: Alright, I'll make you a deal. If you'll hit baseballs or play catch with me once a week then I'll sign you up for next season. But you have to ask me. I'm not going to ask you to do it. At least once a week, deal?
Him: Deal!
That was about a week ago, and unsurprisingly he has yet to broach the subject. It's so weird to me that he's so insistent on playing when he clearly doesn't want to actually play. Maybe I just caught him in a weird mood, or maybe he just doesn't want to feel left out. I don't know. But it's going to be very strange if I have to compel my son to not play baseball.
Alright, it's 11:35pm. That's enough for now.
Until next time...
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