The Muse: August 2020

You know what they say. What can go wrong, will go wrong.

Boy have the past few weeks ever been the epitome of that statement.

Last month, Aria Luna and I had the idea of surprising Dad with a homemade cake for his birthday. I called my mom for the recipe, and spent 2 hours in the kitchen with strict orders to my husband not to enter. (It's a Czech specialty called "bublanina," which loosely translated means "that which bubbles.") When the cake was finally done, I couldn't wait to put the candles in. So I didn't. Wait, that is. When they started leaning over I thought, hmm how strange, why aren't they standing straight? Then I realized they were melting, because... umm... the cake was still hot. The laws of physics don't give a hoot how urgently you need to celebrate a birthday. When you pit wax against heat, heat always wins.

It had been a while since I baked a cake, what can I say.

But Mr. Murphy the lawmaker wasn't quite done with me yet. Just as I picked up the cake to carry it into the living room, my husband called out, "I know what it is! The bublanina!"

Surprise ruined. My mom had emailed him, happily asking how he liked his surprise birthday cake. It was 10pm our time, and she thought by then surely we would have celebrated... Facepalm.

Little did we know that was just the start to a parade of "things that can go wrong, that did."

Just before his birthday my husband had started to feel some pain in his back. Not too long after that, our kitchen sink backed up. Oh, must be the garbage disposal, we thought. Nope. Maybe just some extra "stuff" a bit further down the pipe? Nope. Two days of backbreaking labor and we find ourselves in a major archaeological dig, discovering what our predecessors cooked for dinners centuries ago. We washed our dishes in the bathroom sink for three days because major plumbing issues always happen on Friday evenings.

The plumbing adventure certainly didn't help my husband's back pain. It got worse, and he was flat out of commission, barely able to walk. Luckily we found a wonderful chiropractor willing to do a housecall (with proper PPE for all of us), and he began the long journey to recovery.

Meanwhile...

My gorgeous Madagascar jasmine, which we had carefully brought to a glorious full bloom after the winter, suddenly got sick and dried up, invaded by a swarm of millipedes in the soil. Milipedes love to munch on plant roots. Despite multiple treatments of neem oil and oregano, we couldn't save the new vines. What was a gorgeous, vibrant flowering bush, is now dried up and withered.

A few days later our refrigerator stopped cooling and freezing. Yep, in the middle of summer.

Not to be outdone of course, our A/C unit decided it, too, should quit, of course in the midst of a rolling 90-100-degree heatwave—when we have a deadline for a video we're supposed to shoot with Aria.

When multiple problems stack up one on top of the other like this, I don't get mad. I get philosophical. There's a quote that hangs in mycalendar office that says "LIFE DOES NOT PUT THINGS IN FRONT OF YOU THAT YOU ARE UNABLE TO HANDLE."

The author of that quote in unknown. In principle, of course, I'd beg to differ. Many people face challenges they're not able to handle, for one reason or another.

These problems, after all, are not earth-shattering—with the exception of my husband's back pain, which really was debilitating. Refrigerators and plumbing can be fixed—and within a few days, they were. The A/C unit will get fixed as well. My jasmine has gone through near-death experiences before, and it will live again. And Dada is back on his feet, lifting weights again.

But here's the thing. I'd never have written about something as mundane as kitchen plumbing if it hadn't failed, or even if that were the only thing to go wrong. It's the convergence of so many things breaking down within a short timeframe that makes you sit up and take notice, and try to imprint rhyme and reason onto it. It's what we humans do.

Focusing on things breaking down is a luxury—because it means your undercurrent of basic daily reality is functioning, and the things that break or fail do so only occasionally. Perhaps we should pay a little more attention to the things that continue to function, quietly, without calling attention to themselves.

You know what they say. What can go right, will go right.

          ~ Birgitte

We're late with this month's newsletter because we're working on an exciting new project... related to Hispanic Heritage Month, which takes place September 15 through October 15. That's all we can say for now! More in September's issue!

It's back to school today and Aria is busy extracting every last bit of summer's lazy days. But she did write a few lines:

Hello peoples!

August wasn't that abundant in activity. Mostly what I did this month is sleep in, watch movies and YouTube, play Minecraft and Roblox, have awesome breakfasts, and paint and draw and write. Oh and text with my friends. Usual stuff we kids do.

Oh and I helped a lot when my Dada was not feeling good. :(

That's basically it, I'm sorry if it was so short. I hope you stay safe and happy! •w• 

~ Aria  

Mama's note: Notice how there is not a single mention of the plumbing, refrigeration, or the A/C issues I highlight above, in Aria's take on August. I wish I could be a kid again.