Archive for September, 2007
Oil like pee
The other day, my three year old daughter and I changed the oil in my motorcycle. I had rocked it back and onto its centre stand in the barn after moving the tractor out of the way and into the field.
Well, first we forgot the right wrench in the basement to remove the bolt to drain the oil from the underside of the engine. We trooped back into the house for that. Then we forgot some rags to clean up the certain mess. Back in to get those. Then I couldn’t find a socket sized to the bolt that we needed to remove. So we got in the car and drove into town to Rona to buy what we needed (…CAD$56 later…).
On the way back to the barn, Finney piped up that she “couldn’t really do this all the time, Dada”. I quite agreed and we set to work in earnest getting that bolt off the bike. It was fastened on so tightly that attempting to turn it felt like it might manoevre the bike off its centre stand. This was horrific to imagine, despite her standing well back when I did this. What would it be like for her to watch her father being crushed beneath 500 lbs of motorcycle? Ulp. But I did loosen it without endangering my life and promptly shoved a triangular oil pan under the bike as the full stream of 4 litres of oil came streaming straight out the bottom of the bike.
Finney was by this time squatted beside me and peering under the bike with her head nearly upside down and her hair trailing on the barn floor.
“It looks like me, peeing.”
After shaking the bike while astride it later, to try and shake out the last bits of oil from internal mechanisms, I re-attached the bolt and Finn and I went ’round the other side of the bike and removed the oil input plug with a pair of pliers. It certainly shouldn’t need them, but the plug is aluminum, just like the engine block and when two pieces of aluminum are in tight contact for long periods of time, they tend to bind to each other. So I always have to use a pair of pliers to open the Oil input plug. This required some explanation to Finney, who was wondering about it, but entailed some glazing over of the eyes from her as I tried to sort my way through the explanation to a three-year-old. Note to self: Identify ways to export information from the brain using as few words as possible instead of couched in as many as possible.
I had her hold the funnel as I added the oil to the engine. It took a good 30-40 seconds for each litre to go in, and by the third of four she turned to me – keeping the funnel in the exact same position, and said ” Well you know I can’t keep doing this all day, Dada,” which cracked me up and caused me to spill some oil on the engine block. “Why did you do that, Dada?”
The bike started with a good and loud Varum! and I ran it hot for a minute or so to cycle all the internal properly with the new oil.
Finney was very pleased.
Love
Owen’s question to me tonight as I put him to bed:
“Dada, what is love?”
He was so sleepy that the question kind of slipped out of his mouth as we lay in the dark, foreheads touching and me drifting off myself. I had just sung him Per Spelman:
Per Spelman, han hadde ei einaste ku
Per Spelman, han hadde ei einaste ku
Han byrte bort kua, fekk fela igjen
Han byrte bort kua, fekk fela igjen
“Du gode, du gamle, fiolin, du fiolin, du fela mi”
Per Spelman, han spele og fela hu let
Per Spelman, han spele og fela hu let
Gutene danse og jentene gret
Gutene danse og jentene gret
“Du gode, du gamle, fiolin, du fiolin, du fela mi”
Å…, om eg vaert gammel som stein under bru
Å…, om eg vaert gammel som stein under bru
Så aldri eg byrter bort fela for ku
Så aldri eg byrter bort fela for ku
“Du gode, du gamle, fiolin, du fiolin, du fela mi”
Its a silly little Norwegian country song about a farmer (Per Spelman) who had one cow, which he sold to buy a violin. And he played his violin so beautifully that the boys danced and the girls cried. “And if ever,” Per Spelman asks, he becomes as “old as the stones under the bridge”, he’ll never trade his violin back for a cow.
My father sang this to me as a child and I can hear him singing it still in my memory. I remember the pitch and throw of his intonation and rising tones. Either I was hearing his accent coming through on some words (which I cannot discern, even when trying hard), or he was enjoying the words to effect. He once told me he was very interested in pursuing Linguistics as a career (studies I started out on lo’ these many years ago, before falling into photography), and so I know he loves language; the sound and feel and breath of it.
I talked to Owen about what love feels like; the warmth in your chest when your are physically close to another person, like us as his parents, or his sister, or grandparents. But I added, too, that he could very well feel love for objects and animals and ideas. He certainly loves his Lego catalog (sleeps with it, actually), and I mentioned he might feel love for our three cats, our land and the sky and clouds above it – and even love being a boy, or love being himself. His sister, it was pointed out, would feel love very similarly of course. It was probable, I concluded that he might love colours too.
He roused slightly as I arose from beside him (so reluctantly, because it was warm and cosy next to him), and mumbled a goodnight as I kissed him on the forehead.
Life just doesn’t get much better than that.