Monday, April 4

[gottawonder]

Today I am grateful for:

Continued mild weather and melting.

I still don't have the septic tank sorted out, whether or not anything is "wrong" or I'm just not getting the floats set correctly. I called a service, and they'll come look at it hopefully tomorrow.

I went to town for pottery, and picked up some groceries first. Once again, I am seeing the recent price hikes on just about everything I buy. I am grateful to be able to afford groceries, and I feel genuinely sad that this will be so hard on so many people.

I went to pottery, and talked with Diane before she left. Of course, everyone else was already gone. She talked about the possibility of us doing some sculpting together (she has done a fair bit of this), and we'll see. People are kind in offering, but when are we ever even in the studio at the same time? It was nice to see her.

I finished the decorating on a vase I started painting last week. I did some steps towards reclaiming some old clay (you can re-use clay, but it takes work to get it the right consistency again), and I threw one vase. Clean up didn't feel too awful today.

I learned that Earnest Hemingway, who seemed to have a lot of injuries from skiing and car crashes, shrapnel from WWI, several concussions and so on, also survived two plane crashes, one literally the day after the first one.

In 1954, while in Africa, Hemingway was almost fatally injured in two successive plane crashes. He chartered a sightseeing flight over the Belgian Congo as a Christmas present to Mary. On their way to photograph Murchison Falls from the air, the plane struck an abandoned utility pole and "crash landed in heavy brush". Hemingway's injuries included a head wound, while Mary broke two ribs.[122] The next day, attempting to reach medical care in Entebbe, they boarded a second plane that exploded at take-off, with Hemingway suffering burns and another concussion, this one serious enough to cause leaking of cerebral fluid.[123]

From Wikipedia.

Seriously, this guy had a lot of injuries.

Also, while I knew he had been a war journalist, I didn't realize that he served in WWI, and then was a journalist for the Spanish Civil War, and WW II, and the events in Cuba.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Hemingway#Cuba_and_the_Nobel_Prize

Comments

[sherlockishere]

Yeah, I read an article about Hemingway recently, and learned about those aspects of his life then. Unfortunately, it didn't help me appreciate his writing.

[arrctic]

So sorry about the ongoing septic issues and having to deal with them on your supposed night out. We've had to deal with the same before both at home and for my husband, at his work. never any fun. DH used to work at a lodge that continually had septic issues and he was invariably the one to have to fix it for them because no one else knew anything about it and the lodge was quite remote. Needless to say that partnership did not last. I hope your issue gets sorted soon.

I was recommending a book to Sherlock recently about Hemingway's time as a journalist during the Spanish Civil War and WWII, and you might like it too: Love and Ruin by Paula McClain. It's actually primarily about a female journalist, Martha Gellhorn, who happened to also be a love interest of Hemingway's, but who accomplished many noteworthy feats during the war in her own right and went on to have a famed career as one of the first female and finest war correspondents.

McClain has followed a similar pattern in her other books, writing about remarkable women who have been somewhat overlooked or overshadowed. Another of her books (The Paris Wife) is coincidentally (or not) about another of Hemingway's wives, Hadley Richardson, set during the Beat period in 1920's Paris. Also worth a look if it's of interest.

The other book of hers I'd recommend is about the aviator, Beryl Markham (who was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic), as she grew up in east Africa, titled Circling the Sun. It's also an alternate perspective on Out of Africa.

[gottawonder]

I am tired of the septic stuff. We've had stretches of time with no issues too, but I don't know if we can ever trust it enough to finish the basement, because we keep getting grey water backing up into the pipe that is meant for the toilet one day (in the basement).

My husband says that once the toilet is installed, it shouldn't flood, but...why wouldn't it? If the toilet is below the level of the grey water tank (which gets high if the pump or the float fail), the presence of a toilet wouldn't stop the water from over flowing.

I asked him why there is no valve that prevents the grey water from flowing into the basement, and my husband says the plumber says it isn't what you do with a system like ours. Hmmm.

I'm wondering if we shouldn't just forget about having a bathroom in the basement and cap off those pipes and be done with it. I don't feel like we can ever trust the system well enough to put furniture and drywall down there if this is always going to be a risk.

Your book recommendations sound interesting. Thank you.