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There’s No Place Like Home

I texted the Baby Bear this morning.

Don’t miss your plane.

I included that smiley face emoji with the hearts for eyes. It was mostly to annoy. Our children get very annoyed when us Olds use emojis. It’s best–regarding maximum annoyance–when I use them inappropriately, like using the pile of shit emoji as if it’s a beehive. But even appropriate emoji use is an affront. You know, parents trying to be hip. They hate that. So I do that for my amusement.

Seven hours later I texted him again.

You on a plane yet??

I wasn’t thinking that he was late, but there was no emoji.

We had to change busses on the way delayed us a bit. In security now.

Seemed on target.

Thirty-five minutes later my phone rings. Guess who was standing at his gate with the door to the jetway closed in front of him and no Southwest staff to be found? Yup. Our hero. As I was telling him to find an open counter, I switched from the primary conversation to talking to myself as he engaged a guy. It was like when you get butt-dialed from someone in a bar and all you hear is muffled words and clinks. Until the line goes dead.

I went online to see what was coming out of Denver into one of the three Washington airports tonite. Yeah, it’s good to have options. That said, it’s less good to be looking for afternoon options when you’re flying east.

Baby Bear swore that he left with enough time to get to the airport. He knows exactly how to miss a flight, and those hard lessons have prodded him to always take the earlier bus. I believe him. The problem was the early bus was driving into a blizzard.

Of course, the first snow in Boulder would occur as he’s trying to get to the airport. The roads were a mess and they were further delayed when they had to switch buses. The security lines were long at the airport and he was getting antsy. He texted.

Wish I could barge to the front

That’s where I lost contact. Adding insult to injury, when he finally made it to the security screening area, the puffer picked something up. He was moved to secondary screening. Mild panic was beginning to seep into the corners of the reptilian part of his brain. No reason to get huffy with TSA, though. That never goes well.

The Bear offered that he was pressed to make his flight as the burly man came up to him. The agent explained that he was in training and they needed to wait for his supervisor for the grope. Baby Bear was deflated and nearing distraught.

Can’t your boss just do it?

Of course not. The agent took off his blue gloves and pulled on a fresh pair. As he snapped one rubber glove on–latex free mind you–it broke. He removed that pair and walked over to get another pair. The clock in Bear’s head was ticking at greater and greater volume.

The agent pulled on another pair of gloves. He once again snapped the left glove on and broke that one, too.

C’mon, man!

Third time being the charm, he started the pat down.

Sir, I am going to put my hand along the top of your pants.

Fine!

Sir, I am going to touch the inside of your leg.

Really? The guy is going to insist on getting affirmation for each step in the process? YES! YES! YES! Said Baby Bear who simply wanted the guy to hurry up and pat his junk so he could make his flight.

Of course, his flight was in C. Translated that means the far end of the large airport. He hustled to his gate–risking breaking his swag–to that closed door. He could see the plane. So close. A man opened the door and told Baby Bear that he lost his seat ten minutes ago to standby.

But there is an empty seat on that plane!

There was indeed a seat on the plane. And, also indeed, the plane door was secured. They were not going to open it up. No way. No how. No matter the pleading of a young man who was just trying to get home. No matter that his solution was just beyond a closed door.

Sheesh.

Baby Bear pulled himself from the abyss of his disappointment that was flirting too closely with anger as he walked to the counter to see his options. He relayed his disastrous TSA delay to the airline staffer who nodded vehemently.

I don’t know what it is, but they’ve been really bad.

Baby Bear got rebooked through Nashville, which has the nonsense airport code BNA. He’ll be an hour later than originally scheduled, but, most excellently, he still comes into DCA versus IAD or BWI, two options much further from headquarters.

Call it National. We don’t call it Reagan in this house.

What a day of travel. Blizzards. Bad buses. Security delays. Poor customer service. And a door slammed in his face. I can’t wait to see him!

I’m thinking that Santa may put some TSA Pre-√  in somebody’s Christmas stocking.

Posted on by docthink 1

Bully Pulpit

A school playground that looks inviting. And fun.

Kyle was the biggest kid in the school. The school itself was small, with just three groups, pre-school, pre-k and kindergarten. Pre-school was in the front room with the guinea pig named Piggy. Pre-k and kindergarten learned together in the next classroom over, on the other side of the kitchen where the littlest kids opened the huge refrigerator door to store their lunches.

Kyle was the oldest. He may have waited an extra year before enrolling, as was the fashion for boys then. Their parents thought it would give their sons, especially the ones younger or less mature, a better start.

Kyle definitely took advantage of his advantages. He was taller and stronger than the other kids. He was more coordinated. He had more words. And he was more aware of the way the world worked, or at least the ways he could work the world.

His mom and dad were full professors at the university. They were old parents with graying thinning hair, knees that sometimes popped and less patience. Their short patience span was manifest in letting Kyle be Kyle. They saw no reason to fully resist him. He could regularly wear them down without too much effort, so why not skip the struggle and just let him be? They were happiest when he was happy. Whether that was an occasional ice cream bar for breakfast, watching more TV than was allowed or skipping his bath some nights, they’d go along to get along.

The school was focused on letting the kids be kids. It wasn’t a free for all. No, not at all. The teachers and their assistants were well in control. They let the children lead their learning via their activities. This worried some parents. They wanted worksheets and homework so that their offspring would be “ready” for big-kid school. The faculty resisted. They guided lessons through the curiosity of the kids. The success of their approach was evidenced by ten years’ of kindergartners leaving their tutelage reading books. And asking wonderful questions. And taking responsibility for their learning.

The kids would make up their own games, build forts under blankets hung from cubbies and publish their own books with stapled spines. Sometimes, when the teachers weren’t looking, Kyle would walk by a classmate and push off of them with his hand. Or, you could say, he’d walk by and shove a kid. If there was any resistance, he would claim that he was misunderstood. If it was an extremely egregious hit, he would sheepishly apologize. His physical outbursts weren’t frequent.

More frequent were his exclusions. His parents thought that he was a natural leader. He would provide value–usually his attention–to some of the kids in order to isolate another. This was a rotating position, the one of outsider. One day you’d be out and the next day you would be part of the group barring someone else. It was fair, in a weird way. Except if you were Kyle, because you were never out. Kyle was always in. Everyone loved him, despite the hitting and despite the emotional manipulations. Kyle was the oldest and the biggest and the best.

There was at least one mother who noticed the dynamic. She noticed even before the day her pre-k son, a year or maybe two, younger than Kyle came home sad that he was sidelined. When her boy told her that he couldn’t play the game around the tree and that he felt left out, she felt left out, too.

“What stopped you from playing the game around the tree?”

“Kyle said that I couldn’t play.”

He needed some tools. They role played and practiced. Sometimes she was Kyle and sometimes he pretended to be Kyle. They sometimes played out their script in the car. There were no further incidents.

The mother brought him into school late one morning, after snack and before lunch. He had a doctor’s appointment. The school was adamant about taking the kids outside everyday, rain or shine, hot or cold, snow or wind, but today the downpour was too much. Some kids were playing “fort” near the cubbies. There were blocks stacked to protect from intruders. Her boy approached the “entrance” to the fort so he could drop off his backpack and hang his wet jacket in his cubby.

“Stop!” It was Kyle who stepped out from the group huddled in their “fort.”

“You aren’t in the club. You can’t come in here.”

The mother drew in a breath and felt her hand tighten on the handles of her satchel.

“Kyle, you aren’t the boss over me,” said her son, just like they had practiced. And he stepped over a block to his cubby.

Kyle didn’t miss a beat as he stepped aside. “You can be in the club.”

The boy hung up his coat and stepped back out of the fort. “No, I’m going to paint over there with Emily and Christine.” This second part was a freestyle. Not bad.

The mother’s heart was beating faster. First, because she was afraid, and now because she didn’t need to be. Her lesson was to let him find his own way with her guidance. Perhaps the school was teaching her as much as they were teaching him. They both had a lot to learn.

Posted on by docthink 0

Boiling Points

A tea tin, filled with bags of tea. English breakfast.

He filled up the electric kettle with water to the half-mark. No reason to waste energy on boiling extra water. It doesn’t stay hot.

The kettle was a very good addition to the ridiculously small and poorly laid out kitchen. There was a general dislike of kitchen appliances. Among some. Okay, among one. He minded less than she. There was paltry counter space for starters. The kettle, however, was used at least once each day, and very frequently two or three times. It earned its real estate. Its place was in plain site.

They used to have a stovetop whistling tea kettle. That took over a burner for the first part of their marriage. They went through four or five. A few burned out. One wore out. Most lost their ability to whistle during their tenures.

While traveling, he stayed in an apartment with an electric kettle. It reminded him of an old girlfriend’s mother. She emigrated from England and brought her love for tea and the efficiency of her electric tea kettle. He missed the mother much more than the daughter. It’s like that when you get older. Old girlfriends hold less meaning than their families who embraced you as one of theirs. He saw the kettle and was immediately attracted to it. He thought about the flaky crust of the fruit pies that the mother used to make.

The following Christmas–as they did before, one year when they exchanged toasters and another with pillows–they bought each other an electric kettle. They both did research and came up with two different models. He either took one to work or returned it to the store. She didn’t remember, but was happy that they did not have two additional small kitchen appliances. One was likely too much, anyway. Except it wasn’t.

The kettle was remarkably fast. Much faster than the whistling stovetop type. Even the direct flame from the gas burner could not compete with the magical kettle. You would think that the warming up of the carafe would take a long time, but just 60 seconds after flipping the switch the water starts to hiss. The hiss drops a few octaves before hitting a silent lull while it gathers enough energy to burst through the surface of the water and burp the first gurgle of the boil. Click. It automatically shuts itself off. Perfect safety for a flaky family.

After the 4.5 minutes of boiling, there is 5 minutes of steeping.

There is a small, well-curated selections of tea. The herbal choices include pure chamomile, pure peppermint and usually one lemon mint or lemon hibiscus or some hippie flavor mix. The black teas normally included English and Irish breakfast teas–the English is richer and the Irish more flavorful. There might be loose Earl Gray and Darjeeling. And a jasmine green tea. He can’t drink tea that might keep him up at night. Caffeine has no power over her.

She likes her after dinner black tea with a little milk and a little sweetener. He drinks his herbal brew straight or, occasionally, with honey. Sometimes she nods off before she finishes her tea, with her fingers resting on the keyboard, neglecting her writing. And sometimes he nudges her to finish up, brush her teeth and come up to bed.

Posted on by docthink 0

Behind the Mask

Filters of the Doc's 2016 pumpkin.

There was a welcome dearth of that cartoon princess with the icy blue dress and the long blond braid this year. I think we only had one. And she was a zombie version.

Not surprisingly, there was a new group of Harry Potters. What did surprise me was the number of girls dressed as Harry. The only Hermione I saw was a girl who said she was a “grown up Hermione,” since she was regular Hermione last year. Holtzman from Ghostbusters did show up, though.

There were plenty of superheroes–at least four Captain Americas. One had a shield I was very ready to poach. Just one Iron Man. I guess we know whose Civil War side was favored. [Full disclosure: Doc was Team Cap, too.]

I misidentified a trick-or-treater as Batman. He was wearing one of those costumes with the built in pillow pecs, and I was working my line about how he must lift. It always cracks me up. And I called him Batman. He very politely–almost apologetically–corrected me. While his mask had the same ears of the hordes of costumed Batmen trick or treating my porch, this guy was actually Black Panther. In recognition of his boss-dom and my error, I noted that he was much stronger than Batman and much more wealthy than Tony Stark. His dad, who was hanging a bit back, piped in, “See? They know!” The Dad was also dressed as a Black Panther. I recognized his black beret sporting a panther patch. I tossed a candy his way. He totally caught it, despite the dark.

The push and pull of family relations are told through some costumes. The parents who apologize for YAP (yet another princess), the kids who turn to their folks to ask “who am I, again?” and the occasional fusion when the child wanted to be a banana and the mom totally nailed the outfit. You can tell because that team is full of some wicked pride.

Personally, I like giving away candy and watching the show. I do not miss the costume scramble. Not at all.

The Big Guy dressed as The Joker for his Halloween haunting. To work the Joker makeup, he needed to be clean shaven. I saw his boy’s face that had been hidden for years under his beard. I asked him if the bar asked for his proof of age. He said his former co-worker didn’t recognize him.

When I looked at him, though, I knew exactly who he was. And, I felt like I was ten years younger. Definitely trick.

Posted on by docthink 2

Throwing in the Towel

Pink bath towel set.

It was a simple task. Maybe it wasn’t really that simple since there was already a task in the queue. She would call them “errands.” She had no idea what he would call them.

The goal was a simple wedding, and, as far as weddings go it was. The time frame between “will you marry me” through “I do” was a week shy of three months. They conned a priest into marrying them in a church and selected the #2 readings with full mass. Honestly the only criteria for the service was to avoid the “submit to thy husband” reading. Any of the other Old or New Testament love readings would be fine. A box checked.

There was a maid of honor and a best man, no additional maids or bearers. She told the maid to pick out a dress that would be appropriate to the best man’s tuxedo. And any color. Except white. There were many compliments to the bride over the maid’s sartorial selection.

She bought her own dress off the rack from the fancier department store. It was left over from prom. She had a choice among four or five white or near white frocks. She was very happy with the one she bought. And it was on sale, too.

The reception would be in his huge group house where there had been many large parties with multiple keg runs. He had a roommate who had access to wholesale booze, and they found a caterer that would bring food and a cake and wouldn’t charge for the champagne flutes even though they were only pouring and not supplying the bubbles.

Her sole requirement for the catering was that they show up. She didn’t care what the food tasted like as long as it was there before the guests. When the caterer mentioned a bakery he worked with, she enthusiastically said “Yes!” even before he could sell her on the the airy, buttery cake with raspberries spread between the layers. Her only request was that the bride and groom at the top of the cake was a man and a woman. Done and done!

The week of the wedding was pretty busy. There was family and friends coming from across the country–at least one, and perhaps as many as six, said that they had to witness him say, “I do.” There was a house that they closed on two days before the wedding. And there were two separate households to move into the freshly mortgaged cottage.

He and his best man were heading off to pick up the three tuxedos, one for the father of the bride, too. This is where the simple task came in. She realized that there were no decent finger towels for the bathroom.

“When you guys are out, can you pick up some hand towels for the bathroom? Pink, please. And if they don’t have pink, white would be fine.”

The time to the rehearsal began to close in like the trash compactor in Star Wars. There were amazing wedding elves moving furniture about, sweeping and mopping, and artfully hanging these ridiculous white paper bells and twists of gray and pink crepe paper, but the list of things to do was still daunting. She was becoming overwhelmed. He knew. She didn’t know, so much.

She needed to get her clothes and check into the hotel, then change, then to the church for rehearsal, then the dinner, then back to the hotel. She kept going over her list around and around like that stupid zipper ride at the fair. The one where you go up one side and down the other in these cars that swing around and upside down and the people riding throw up. The elves checked in and she distributed more tasks.

The soon-to-be groom and his best man came back with the tuxedos. He handed her dad’s suit to her so she could bring it to the hotel. He wasn’t going to the hotel.

She looked at him.

“Did you forget the towels?” Her voice went sharp and a half octave higher from the strain of being calm. She was approaching the peak of the zipper ride.

“We got them. We didn’t know where to go so we went to the drugstore. They didn’t have many towels but we found these.” His brother showed a shopping bag. He pulled out four towels. They were more like kitchen towels, which would be okay, but they were not pink. They were orange.

She did not handle the color substitution well. Her disappointment was of volume. It was such that the women who would be her sisters-in-law the next day flanked her, grabbed her by the elbows and led her out of the house to work through her zipper list. She wasn’t sure, but it seemed that everyone who remained in the house was relieved when the squad removed the ticking bomb.

Anyway, The Spouse brought up those orange towels today. “Well at least it’s not as bad as when I got those pink towels!” (Yes, he still clings to his improper claim that they were pink. I kept the evidence for about twelve years.)

Why bring it up? It’s been decades of errands and lists and stress and explosions and near misses since that day. I guess the towels are an expression of something the priest read at our supersized wedding:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

—1 Corinthians* 13:4-8

So when he reminded me of his abject towel failure, I asked him why with a crooked grin then a chuckle and then a belly laugh. Because I know exactly why he said it.

* for those keeping track at home, that’s pronounced First Corinthians.

Posted on by docthink 2

Old Road is Rapidly Ageing

OMG! Is that Diana Ross singing

It was an enormous party. It was part celebration and part catharsis. Ingredients for a good soiree. After twelve years wandering, wondering and wallowing, they had won.

I sat there on the heavy blanket, one of the carpets leftover from The Spouse’s single days when a housemate tried to conjure rent money by selling the junk blankets from his ancestral home to yuppies in the upscale markets. He did alright. 

The blanket was a critical barrier against the cold January sod. It was both a tablecloth and a canvas to arrange the Cheerios in my pocket–and those in my bag and in the sandwich bag and in the other pockets–in different puzzles to keep the bitty boy entertained. And snacked up. A full child is a content child. 

We were surrounded by hippies that hadn’t quite aged out. Okay, they aged out, but Baby Boomers would never admit to that. For evidence note that they still sing the self-hating anthem in which they “hope to die before they got old.” They are old. They’re not jumping on ice flows. Seems like some cognitive dissonance on fleek. 

Why don’t you all fffffffffffffff-ade away?

I think that that stutter was for a very different eff-word. But I digress. Back to the show.

The stage was the Lincoln Memorial. An oversized stone-faced icon sat staid, unmoved and unmovable behind the performers. The disciples that had come out of the desert lined the ledges of the reflecting pool and fanned out to the hinter roads.

Some had been there the day that Dr. King exhorted us to be our best selves. Many others wished that they had been, but were grown and prosperous enough to make sure they didn’t miss out this time. That cohort was checking off an item on their political-moral-ceremonial bucket list. Only the left would do this, the privileged left that benefitted from education and draft deferments. And then without any apparent irony sang that they wished they were dead. Baby boomers. Ugh. 

Of course there was a brave left that were once peaceniks, activists and, some, hippies. Then there was the more populous faction who wished that they were hippies–and even had imagineered stories to support that narrative. But the reality was that at the time they were worried about their futures. No tattoos, no extra piercings, no inhaling, no arrests. People who wanted nothing on their permanent record. Go ask Alice, when she was just small.

Michael Bolton sang his blue-eyed soul, and Kenny G blew his little soulless whistle. The crowd went wild over those curly coiffed stars of that time. Me? I rearranged the Cheerios for another round of war. I was waiting for something better and had a bitty boy to entertain. Then it happened.

It was the Queen. The Queen of Soul, Aretha, entered stage left and saved the day. As she does. She brought her authentic self. I stood up with the bitty boy in my arms and taught him to spell. R-E-S-P-E-C-T. She sang from my hometown, from Motown. She brought church and people of color and working people to the Mall. And it was good. I could have gone home then.

It was chilly and I snuggled up next to the bitty boy. He snuggled back and I pulled out the secret sandwiches. Rule one of successful parenting at an event or trip? Hold back some surprises. Hold them back so tightly that you sometimes bring them home. Keep your powder dry until you are on the precipice of too late. 

Then they all rose, as one. As if at church. And I covered my ears with my hands as a reedy phlegmatic voice pierced the January afternoon. I turned to the standing Spouse. “Who’s that?” He looked at me incredulous. It was Dylan.

I stayed seated on our blanket, divvying out a quarter of a PPJ on wheat bread and a small handful of goldfish crackers to the bitty boy. I punctured the top of a juice box. The Spouse may have been a bit embarrassed at my nonchalance, but I didn’t care about that artist. He was not from my time. 

But the crowd was awed to take in his poetry and mouth harp. I didn’t know his music, except when Jimmy covered it, so I don’t know what he sang. But me and the bitty boy didn’t spell have anything to spell. 

That’s my Bob Dylan story. I remembered it because he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature and doesn’t have enough manners to return the awards Committee’s invitation. 

You know, Aretha would. 

Later on we walked into one of the many entertainment tents erected on the field on the mall. The tempo was up and the guitars were prodigious. In the center, surrounded by the mariachi band was a woman circled by colorful rings down to the floor on her traditional skirt. It was Linda Rondstat, who had found herself after a career of starvation and exploitation that brought her fame and financial success. This afternoon she was singing most beautifully. She channeled memories of music from her childhood. And it was authentic. And it was good.

She would be polite, too. 

Dylan’s biggest sin wasn’t going electric. It was going full hubris. It’s not cool to be rude. Especially if someone is giving you snaps. 

But ultimately, I didn’t care then and I don’t really care now. And I’m going to find Rondstat’s catalog for streaming. Respect. 

Posted on by docthink 1

What Time Is It?

Part of a clock. An older clock. With Roman numerals.

Today is the birthday of The Beast, which means that it’s eight weeks until Christmas. I know this because he was eight weeks old when we got him, that date of arrival being the day after Christmas. It’s not complex math, but it is math nonetheless.

Birthdays are markers of time. What is it that makes an anniversary important? That one-year mark? Why do we track them? And celebrate them? Or, in the case of sad anniversaries, sometimes we simply note them. But we’re just acknowledging another rotation of the earth around the sun. And something that happened on that exact day in a prior rotation. Put that way, I’m like, “Why do I care?”

I’m not so good with time. I can only remember the year my father passed away based on the fact that I broke my foot at the end of that year. And I only know the year I broke my foot because I walked for two and a half miles to go see then Senator Obama’s speech at American University. It was the day that Ted Kennedy endorsed him. That was for 2008 election. I remember because my physical therapist said that I was cured after he found out I walked that far. It was slow, but I did it.

So time for me is related to events, and how those events relate to something else I can pin a date to. I need to do some kind of backwards, inside out calculations. With an abacus. I only know how old I am only because I know how old the Big Guy is, and then I add thirty. As soon as I lose track of his age, I won’t know how old I am.

It took me about fourteen years before I could remember the year we were married. It was amusing at first, but then became embarrassing. So I had to work really hard to remember the actual numbers–without backing into it. Sometimes I still forget.

I am amazed and impressed that ancient peoples created calendars to mark the comings and goings of time. They figured it out and made events and myths about the named epochs–which we call years. Maybe they were driven by preparations for different seasons. But that story only makes sense if you live in a part of the world with seasons. I bet I could study this.

Anyway, they say that a dog year is equivalent to seven human years. And that is DEFINITELY a ridiculous concept of time. I still got The Beast a special treat. And I sang him happy birthday and told him he was a good dog. He didn’t really care about the date. But he ate the treat. Woof!

Posted on by docthink 0

Motion, less

The Beast looks outside through the window with a bouquet and vase next to him.

What is still?

The Beast poked his head out the open window. There was no glass. There was no screen. There was only a frame for him to rest his head and stick his snout out into the world. There was no barrier between him and the outside.

He sniffed left and right without moving his big, block head. He raised his nostrils one and then the other from the tip of his scent-hound muzzle. He investigated that which was happening downwind, but, the concentration of smells rode the jetstream of air from the north. There was some mowed grass and a hint of the shampoo from the damp hair of the mom jogging by and pushing a massive three wheeled stroller. He was able to also pick out her warmed deodorant.

There was the delicious aroma of whatever was happening in the compost bin. There was some funk and some sweet and some sharp and some fire. It had rained most of the weekend and there was some leftover dampness–wet dirt, wet grass and those mushrooms that just appeared out of nowhere.

The rose bush was blooming one more time, but the sweet fresh fragrance was overshadowed by the base muskiness of the mums that were brought home to brighten the front yard. He smelled both, though.

The flies buzzed around his head and out the open window into the cool air. One or two tried to fly back into the warm house, but were caught in the heat-cold exchange and pushed back out.

The Beast’s head rested on the windowsill next to a vase of fading flowers. It was a beautiful still life, colored by the late morning sun streaming into the dining room. But this was no inanimate subject matter. There was hundreds of small movements happening, all at once.

Posted on by docthink 0

Splice of Life

A almost collapsed cake with four lit birthday candles. The cake is greenish. With some chocolate cake poking through the frosting. What a mess. We didn't eat this. It's just a picture from the Internet.

Our neighbors moved a few months back. It’s only a few blocks from here, and they really needed more space. Their new house is terrific. The people who moved into their old house are very nice.

But it’s just not the same. It’s like there is a hunk of film spliced out of the reel. Something is missing.

My dog misses their dog. He’s gone up to their porch to check if his pupster uncle is there. He never is. He doesn’t live there anymore. Or maybe The Beast is just waiting for the door to open. One day they were having a party and he pushed into the house and beelined to the brie wheel on the table which he proceeded to eat in a single gulp. The kids were amazed by his audacity. It might have been their favorite story, ever. I know this because they have told it to me more than once. So maybe the dog’s standing on the porch because he wants more cheese.

I miss watching the kids running to the car in the morning on the their way to school. Sometimes they were in a big hurry and there would be backpacks flying and open jackets and someone carrying their coffee in their almost free hand. Sometimes it would be less frenetic and we would have a short visit. The kids would all ask to come across the street to pet the dog. Even though they had one of their own that they didn’t actively pet.  It was always a charming part of the morning. Sometimes I would bitch about The Spouse. Sometimes she would bitch about hers. Always in a loving way. That’s what neighbors do. Listen to each other bitch about loved ones.

I miss the extended family. Grandma’s and sisters and nephews and cousins. After a while, they all knew me. And I knew them, too. I’d get called over for a glass of wine at the tail of a family party. One day The Spouse brought over the leftover ginger ice cream I made. It was Christmas Day. Another day we were all snowed in and they saw that someone made me a fancy mojito. IN THE WINTER. You know how Facebook makes you jealous of your friends? So I sent the Big Guy over with a summer drink to make them feel less envious. The flow of goods and services frequently criss-crossed the street.

My friend and former neighbor had a birthday party. There was cake. There was dancing to favorite music–Hall and Oats and Skee-lo and some 80s music that I must have slept through but that everyone else knew.  And there was love. My neighbors are spliced out of the daily reel, but still have important scenes. I miss seeing them every day. But am glad I still see them.

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The Pit of Despair

Olives for snacking. Different kinds. All pitted. We hope.

Got a text from The Spouse who has been pulling in long days for a grand opening. Another late evening. Another late dinner.

I got home and was so hungry. Like so hungry. So hungry that all I can think of is my stomach. Every song coming through this 90s channel has a secret message about food. Green Day? Singing messages about vegetables, and maybe pesto. Mmmm, pesto. Semi-charmed Life? Yeah, I want something else, or at least something. I Like Big Butts? Definitely about ham. I hear the drum intro from Smells Like Teen Spirit and I substitute my own nonsense lyrics–“Here we are now, gotta feed us! A potato. Alfredo. A burrito. Cappuccino, yeah.”

Well, I guess I could easily just fend for myself and grab some cheese and crackers and a glass of wine. Or warm up the leftover pasta from yesterday–there’s not enough to share. There is enough fendable grub for two. I could take the high road and leave the best of the odds and ends for the straggler.

I know that someone will be tired and even hungrier than me when they drag themselves in the house.  I also know that someone worked hard all day–and yesterday and yesterday’s yesterday and tomorrow and tomorrow’s tomorrow, too. Someone who has stuff to share and would like some company.

I pulled out the grilled chicken from Saturday and cooked up some quinoa. I brought the heirloom tomato salad to room temperature and blanched some green beans. I’ll assemble a warm bowl on top of the arugula and drizzle it with the sauciness from the tomatoes. I’ll pour two glasses of that fizzy wine and have dinner with The Spouse. That’s what we do. We take care of each other.

I’ll have a few olives to tide me over. It’s not the pit of despair. It’s twoo love.

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