The Doctor is in.

June 2020

Reuben Rocks!

Reuben looked skeptical when we visited down south mid-month. We took a laser printer, groceries, and birthday presents for Jonathan down to Nathanael and Cynthia. But Jonathan (who turned two on the 3rd) was napping and Nancy social distanced, staying in the van. So Reuben got to be the center of my attention, which he would have been anyway.

Then on the 23rd, the Auburn Sleight's came up for a late Father's Day visit. We finally got to hold our third grandbaby (as Dr. Jackie Miller calls them), three months and one day after he was born one week into the start of the COVID-19 stay-at-home season.

He looks bright and beautiful, and has his mother's (and grandfather's!) dark hair. Every grimace, yawn, and smile made his visit extra special.

For Charis, Reuben is both a treasure and a stand-in for her pending sibling. It's great to see how she reacts to her new cousin.

A flurry of yard work with the shredder and chainsaw earlier in the week made a way through the south yard to the old swing set for a new generation of kids.

Jonathan also showed off his "bicycle." I'll call it his balance bike. It has no pedals, but its two wheels let him learn to balance as he walks about on his bike. I'm not sure his hand is big enough to use the hand-break. When Shadow joined the play, she gave Jonathan someone to chase.

The Disher's are Coming!

The expected June move to the Big Blue House has been pushed off to July, but once school ended for Annie with SCS, her family was here working on their new bedroom.

The move-in date may have been pushed back, but the move has already begun, with boxes coming almost daily from Redmond to Bellevue.

Annie finished building her window seat. And I was delighted to see Charis not only using the whole-house vacuum cleaner, but also assembling its parts before she did so. The upright dresser and the queen-sized bed made the precarious trip from the attic to the new second floor green bedroom. I'll need a new name for the light green bedroom Jean has now officially turned over to Charis.

Farewell to Dr. Jackie Miller

I had not been watching for the 30-day notice given by my friend and coworker Jackqueline Miller. But on our many bus rides together from the University of Washington to Seattle Pacific University in the mornings, Jackie would share her opinion of any number of issues that impacted her work. I would ask her if they planned to return to Philadelphia and she would answer with how much they liked San Diego. Her last day will be July 10th. But in this "stay home, stay healthy" season, parting is awkward. They plan to stay in Kirkland for now.

Her son Michael graduated this month with his double major in Political Science and Communication. This month's Black Lives Matter world-wide unrest further heightened his interest in social justice issues. He was especially inspired by his Political Science professor Dr. Reed Davis. I had expected his graduation to trigger the departure of this single mother. Only the rapidity of their announcement surprised me.

Perhaps because we were rare teammates, older staff with doctorates, we became friends. Jackie holds an Ed.D. from Seattle University. Her email to me said in part, "I will miss you most of all! I am proud to call you my friend."

It's my fault that, while I have many acquaintances, I have very few friends.

The COVID-19 Pandemic Rolls On

The State of Washington has been slowly opening up, county by county, just as many states are reversing course and closing down. Numbers of people testing positive for the COVID-19 virus has been on the rise toward the end of June, especially in warm weather states like Florida, Texas, Arizona, and California. So far, over half-a-million people worldwide have died of this; nearly 130,000 in the United States.

I continue to work from home on a reduced 60% schedule which will continue through July, and likely further. I've begun doing half of my weekly 24 hours on 12-hour Wednesdays at my McKenna Hall office. Otherwise, I am home in Bellevue and rarely leave the house and yard. Nancy does not even go out to COSTCO or the grocery store. Those are my trips.

I am so thankful for the many functional and comfortable masks Cynthia sewed for all of us.
As of June 26th, masks became required in public by order of the Governor.

How Did My Garden Grow in June?

On the 18th, I counted over 40 tomato plants in the yard and in pots on the deck. The last leggy ones on the living room granite bench/hutch (right) replaced a few that didn't make the indoor to outdoor transition. Over 45 bean plants are also growing, although those in the old north garden are not doing well in their competition with pests. I harvest green onions whenever I make a salad for Nancy.

The catnip is finally up, and I'm training Charis to give it to Shadow. It may help improve Shadow's attitude toward her two-and-a-half year-old nemesis.

These pole beans (right) have found their poles and have started to climb.

The parsley is up in four small and one large pot. The early Marigolds are beginning to bloom and the later ones have come up, and I have planted even more in the small pots where pumpkin seeds did not germinate.

I've learned how to salvage bulb onions that have sprouted (left), and my indoor starts (right) now include Marigolds, parsley, pumpkin, and green bell peppers. At the end of the month, I am sculpting Fort Mountain in the south yard and will make it the home of this year's pumpkin patch. (See item under Bits and Pieces below.)

I have drilled drain holes in five of my 20 5-gallon black buckets. Four of these are waiting for peppers. Unlike tomatoes, peppers are perennials.

The tomato plants in the garden are flourishing. Those on the deck will produce fruit later in the harvest season. Rule one with tomatoes: Plant in stages to ensure a long harvest season.

On the garden table are lettuce, flowers, and lots of rose cuttings.	The bush beans at the east end of the main tomato garden are doing well.	Green ("Spring") onions and re-planted bulb onions are doing great next to the deck door.

This "third" group of tomatoes line the deck stairs. These are three of my six blue "Father's Day" pots.	The main tomato patch is now putting out flowers.	Beans and tomatoes on the deck. Marigolds, catnip, and parsley on the deck railing.

The Unofficial Announcement: My Retirement is One Year Away

My retirement next summer is all but official. I've encouraged my dean to begin to plan for reimagining my position with his associate deans. I am ready to go. This coming autumn will decide the matter. At SPU, I will teach the final year of BUS 1700 before it changes back from a P/NC graded course to one with letter grades. At home, I'll see how having the Disher's, and especially Charis, with us changes things.

I had earlier chosen summer 2024 to retire, but feel (at least this month), that any month between June and September next summer may be my last at SPU.

These stay-at-home months have given me a fair taste of retirement. I can now imagine it. Gardening, reading from my large long-abandoned library, making the house the haven we had dreamed it could become, visiting with and planning for visits from my children and grandchildren, paying attention to my investments, perhaps service at Bellevue Presbyterian Church, summer Bible teaching, and whatever else God has planned.

Bits and Pieces

Easy come easy go. I should have followed the old investing adage, "Sell in May and go away." I had about 75% of my Charles Schwab account in the market when it took a one-day dive in the Dow of over 1,800 points. Then it tanked another 730 points on Friday, June 26th. I'd placed limit sell orders on all my stocks in early June. Now it will just be a longer wait to see the return which I'd expected.

There will be no lessons on Acts 20-28 delivered at the Emerald Heights Retirement Community this summer. I've learned that they are not allowing guests into the facility in July. A wise COVID-19 precaution. I've already been invited to return in summer 2021.

My Dean and Associate Dean both strongly pressured me to adopt a specific online study text/tool by McGraw Hill called SIMnet. Its tagline is, "Keep IT simple!" Well, I reviewed the product and found it a weak and error-ridden product. I refused to use it to help in online teaching this coming year. I made it clear that if they insisted upon its use, it would mean finding a different instructor.

Steve White's brother passed away this month. This is also the month that Steve retired from Boeing. So he is away and will not join us for the 4th of July. His wife Sheri, a nurse at Harborview, is having to stay home due to contact with a COVID-19 patient.

It was a race between preparing the planting location and the spouting of my pumpkin seeds. I attacked Fort Mountain and reshaped its south slope for pumpkins. I think I'll now call it Pumpkin Hill. My new tomato garden is on the north side of the hill. I added steps and a raised area so the grandkids could climb up the little hill. There were only12 seeds the packet, and only four sprouted. So I put all four in a well-prepared mound (indicated in red), and the vines can be encouraged to grow down the south slope. The "Calabaza" Jack O'Lantern pumpkins are not expected to be large, but as a novice gardener, I wanted to try something that I could invite the grandkids to visit. Maybe as my green thumb brightens, and the grandkids grow, so too will my future pumpkins grow larger.

My Quotes from June

Garden as though you will live forever.

— William Kent

When the world wearies and society fails to satisfy, there is always the garden.

— Minnie Aumonier

Life begins the day you start a garden.

— Chinese proverb

“Weather means more when you have a garden. There’s nothing like listening to a shower and thinking how it is soaking in around your green beans.”

— Marcelene Cox

A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.

— Greek proverb

“No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture
comparable to that of the garden. ”

— Thomas Jefferson

“The more help a person has in his garden, the less it belongs to him.“

— W. H. Davies

“Remember that children, marriages, and flower gardens reflect the kind of care they get.”

— H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

God Almighty first planted a garden.
And indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures.

— Francis Bacon

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