The low down at my house this weekend:
Lots of baseball, despite a sidelining injury.
A weekend of close games.
Finishing touches on the chicken coop.
Momma Carrie’s time is drawing near.
How exciting!
Present Tense
(PAST IMPERFECT)
Author Archives: Tim Elhajj
Urban Chicken Farming
It started about three or four years ago: Holly suggested we raise chickens. I scoffed. But in the last year or so, Holly got Kennedy on board and now here we are with a chicken coop in the backyard.
When we first got the chicks at Easter, they were mighty cute. They were just two days old and would wander around in the tank under the heat lamp, occasionally nodding off and tilting over, like little junkies in the park.
Now they’ve more than quadrupled in size. Holly says some of them might get twice as big as they are now. The tank we’ve been keeping them in is too small. They squawk and whistle and battle one another.
Holly says they need the heat lamp for eight weeks—early June. Despite this, I built the coop over the last two weekends, and we’ve been putting them inside it during the day. I’m waiting for the material for the coop roof to be delivered, so for now there is no roof on the coop.
You have to hope a hawk doesn’t swoop down and grab one the peeps.
More pictures on flickr.
Mirror, Mirror On the Wall, Who’s the Nicest One of All?
Tonight I find a Word file on my desktop named, “Kennedys the nicest.doc.” Sometimes the kids forget and log on to my desktop. No big deal.
I open the file and find the following pie chart that graphs the niceness quotient of my family:
If you can’t read the key, all you really need to know is that Kennedy is the big green piece. It’s an active pie chart, which I’m not even sure I know how to make.
If you look at the stats that drive the chart, Kennedy is a 2000 on the niceness scale, while Holly is a respectably close 1999. Aaron and I fared much worse.
Under the chart, the text reads:
“As you can see here, I am the nicest person here.”
I love that girl.
Orchestra Night
I love the scroll and pegbox of the cello next to Kennedy’s hair. More photos on flickr.
Star Trek
I loved the original Star Trek. The spin offs in the 90s and more recently have been great to okay, but nothing comes close to the nostalgia I feel for the original.
Although the new movie is very faithful to the spirit of the original, there’s a nice tension and complexity between Kirk and Spock that wasn’t in the TV series. I love the new depth breathed into the old characters. I enjoyed some of the visual salutes, especially Captain Pike and his wheelchair at the end. It was just a great movie night all around.
All the old incantations were spoken:
- I’m a doctor, not a…
- She can’t take it…
- Fascinating…
Old School
Ever since we got back from Miami, I have been enjoying Cuban coffee. For camping we have a little French press, and it makes a tasty little pot of Bustelo. Two scoops of sugar in every cup.
I have to get some of those tiny expresso cups.
A New BM2 in the House
Tim was recently promoted to boatswains mate petty officer second class, otherwise known as BM2. This is the new patch he will wear on his sleeve (if it’s not on his sleeve already).
With the baby on the way, this couldn’t have come at a better time. When Holly and I were down in Florida last month, we visited Tim and Carrie’s apartment. All of us were hanging out in the freshly painted nursery, and I heard Tim refer to Carrie as the CO. I laughed.
This is how I feel about Holly, too.
Meet the Navarros
Here is Tim with Carrie, his new wife, and the Navarros, his in-laws. I am so proud of him. None of the older Navarros speak English, but that didn’t stop Tim from dancing and kissing all the women and hanging out and talking trash with all the men. I could have never done that in my twenties.
This I Believe
The This I Believe website claims their project is an attempt to engage “people in writing, sharing, and discussing the core values that guide their daily lives.” Based on a popular 1950s radio series hosted by Edward R. Murrow, the series has been back now in various forms for a few years.
Perhaps because of my interest in narrative nonfiction, I wanted to see what I could do with this format. Writing it was an interesting experience. It didn’t really come together until I was able to acknowledge that I have struggled with faith. From there it turned into a little testimony to Mom, which pleases me to no end.
My humble offering to the ongoing discussion, I hope you like it…
Piggyback Belief
I have always lacked faith, believing instead in life’s shrewd certainties. When I went to the Bronx for in-patient drug treatment, I felt my chances were slim. I had been using heroin for ten years in my small hometown in Pennsylvania, and New York City seemed like exactly the wrong place to kick a heroin habit. But I found a challenge and urgency in the Bronx that pulled me through treatment.
Despite my success, I didn’t think I would last long outside treatment. I didn’t want to feel ambivalent, but I was trying to be realistic: I had no family ties to New York City, no job skills, and no education.
I got assigned an AA sponsor, who I eventually went to meet at a busy downtown diner in Manhattan. I told him what I was thinking. Wiping fried chicken from his fingers and mouth, he leaned forward. “Do you believe that I believe you can stay sober?” As soon as he said it, he waved his hand in my face and added, “Now listen here! I’m not asking if you believe any of this. I’m asking, if you believe that I believe it.” He jerked his thumb into his chest.
Present Tense 