The Continuing Adventures of Dr Dzoe

The gods of entropy have been having much play with the Dzikiewicz family of late. Within the last month, we’ve had breakdowns of a washing machine, car, and AC unit. Today I’m dealing with the biggest issue yet.

Julie got a call last night from one of the neighbors at the beach. Apparently water was streaming out of our house. That could be something relatively minor, or something relatively major. So we got her father to stop by the house to report further.

Alas, it was something relatively minor that has relatively major consequences. The toilets here have a habit of clogging up. The last time we were here, apparently we left the upstairs toilet clogged, and the flapper not completely closed. Had someone been here, the result would have been that we would have heard the toilet running in an annoying manner, someone would have noticed it, and we would have fixed things. But we were not here, not for the past two weeks. So the toilet overflowed and water continually dripped out, onto the floor, into the floor, onto the floor below, into the floor below, and onto the carport below that.

So, a relatively minor issue, but we’ve now got sopping carpets on two floors, water stains on a ceiling, and buckled hardwood floors in one section of the house. Which is particularly annoying because those hardwoods were just replaced about a month ago.

And here I am, sitting here in the beach house, having come down to meet the plumber and now waiting for the water-clean-up people. And cursing the gods of entropy – let them hover over someone else’s house for a while!

This has been a season of great changes. But this weekend was probably the greatest. Julie and I packed the van and drove one bed, four chairs, seven cartons of miscellaneous items, and our son Andy to Charlottesville, where he is working this summer.

This is not Andy’s first summer working in Charlottesville. He has, in fact, worked there for the past three. But this time, he is doing it as a college graduate, and he is not planning on returning to our home as a resident. Our little bird has left the nest.

I have mixed feelings about this. There’s the obvious fact that I’ll miss Andy a great deal. He has grown to be a fine young man, with a lovely dry wit and a wide range of interests and talents, and I always enjoy his company. His absence certainly makes our home a poorer place.

But I have always viewed this as the end goal of parenting: to bring a new adult to the point where he is ready to face the world on his own, capable enough to take care of himself and others, and decent enough to make the world a better place by his presence. In this, Julie and I have succeeded, and I feel a great deal of pride.

After a long day of heavy lifting, Andy took Julie and me out to dinner. It’s an old tradition amongst our circle: when your friends help you move, you treat them to a meal afterwards. Andy’s been on enough moves to know the drill. And it was a fine moment to see him step up into that responsibility, to treat us to this last meal together before he goes off to make his place in the world. A little funny, to be the one treated. But a joy to be the guest of such a good guy.

I’m actually fairly remiss here. Last weekend, Andy, my oldest son, graduated from U.Va. And somehow, I never posted. Congratulations Andy! Needless to say, we’re very proud. Also needless to say, it seems a bit strange to have my oldest no longer in college.

We had arranged for Andy and Kate (both of whom were students at UVA this past semester) to extend their stays in their dorm rooms through the graduation. As a result, Kate and Diana stayed in her dorm room, while Julie and I stayed with Andy in his. Andy’s room was not as cramped as you might think, as he had one bedroom in a suite of two rooms. Julie slept on the couch in the living room of the suite, while I slept in the other bedroom.

In order to show that though graduated he can still worry his parents, on Friday night Andy told us that he was heading over to the psychology department to work on some things that he’s going to be doing there over the summer. (Andy’s lined up a summer job at the university, one that shows promise of being extended into a full-time job past the summer.) He told us not to wait up for him.

At around five AM, I woke up. Andy was not in his room. Julie and I conferred, and around 6:00 AM I wandered over to Gilmer Hall, home of the psych department. The doors were locked, but I must have looked suspicious, trying to get into Gilmer, as the university police soon showed up. I explained that I was looking for my soon-to-graduate son, and that he was working all night before graduating in Gilmer Hall. (Yeah, right, I could see them thinking.) So the three of us wandered through Gilmer’s halls, looking for Andy. And all the while, I entertained a series of questions that left me with the realization of how little Andy tells us.

“Who is he working for?””Someone in the psych department.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know.”

“What office?”

“I don’t know.”

“Does he drink?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Does he have a girlfriend?”

“I don’t know.”

We never did find Andy. (Later, he claimed that he had been behind a locked door working in an office. I suppose I’ll have to trust him on this.)

Anyway, he’s graduated now, with a BS double-majoring in Computer Science and Psychology. Go enjoy some pictures of the occasion, on the web at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jdzik/

You can recognize Andy easily. He’s the graduate wearing jeans and a t-shirt under his gown.