typical breakfast

So I’m sitting with Joe at the breakfast table, eating our requisite oatmeal, and he’s playing songs for me, hoping I like them.  Today we hear off his iPod the “On My Way” song by Rusted Root, and he says that he really likes it and that it would work for Stone Age Rally, a computer game.  I say so would AC/DC be fitting, and he laughs.  The glass window is open, and it’s slightly cold outside, and we talk about the trees and the light that will come in now that I’ve cut some down.  I go over my plan to get gas, and how the ones we cut took only one tank of gas, and he asked if that’s good, eager to know how these things work.  I say yes, feeling a little avuncular.  I love sitting here with him, this bright and growing boy.  We see a red-headed woodpecker, the little ones with the little yamuka of red on their head, and it twitches down the trunk of the lovely Japenese maple, probing for bugs.  I can understand its thrill at that.  As Joe is talking, a big clot of cottonwood fluff falls down behind his head; I can see it in the window.  We talk for a while about when the cottonwood releases its seeds, and I say twice, and he says he’s not sure about that.  He was mad at me for waking him up late, but took a thirteen-minute shower and feels better now.  I blow on my coffee and the plume rolls over the table and fogs my glasses.  I have to laugh: I feel like I’m unfurling a lot of years, looking back over a lot of time.  It’s an odd and histrionic moment.

            When we get in the car, Joe realizes as we’re driving that he forgot to brush his teeth, a big deal.  He’s so angry with himself.  He says, “I don’t know why I can’t remember anything.  I can’t remember anything.  I go into the house to get something, and I take off my hoodie and then I can’t find it.  I take off my shoes and then I can’t find them.  I can’t remember anything.” This sounds very familiar, and it’s clear he is suffering from the same mental virus that I am.  I tell him that I try to put things back in the same place every time (he says he won’t remember to do that), but I say you can train yourself to do it.  And you can take a minute out as you’re heading out the door to reflect and go over things so you can remember them.  Joe points out the logical contradiction of remembering to remember, and I tacitly agree.  But then it occurs to me there is a problem with premise (that he has a bad memory).  I tell him that he actually remembers really well most things.  He has a great memory.  He really does.  And is a very insightful watcher of movies and reader.  I don't say those things then, but only now.  They are true, but its easy to sound saccharine.  And when we’re heading out the door, 99% of the time he has everything, and it’s just those few times when he forget that stand out so large in his thinking. He’s actually very good at remembering. 

            And this seems to help, and we drive to school.

            Then the noises begin.  I drive them to school, need gas, got to plan for graduation, can’t find my own papers to grade, can’t find my own phone, the wave of chores about SVWP is crashing over me, and I’m swamped.  Typical day.  

Eli's 13th Birthday

It's Monday and about to rain. Back to work: meetings with Matt, Vicki, Bonnie, Shannon, and others scattered over the day. Emails to send and to check. I have a small box of papers that I put aside to read "soon" and now I can't exactly remember what's in the box. 

It was the weekend of Eli's birthday, and a joy.  The day before, I pulled him aside.  "Eli," I said with utmost gravitas, "I did not give you permission."  He was concerned, protesting, confused. "I did not give you permission to become a teenager." He was confirmed, amused, embarrassed.   

All Eli really wanted was to have Jackson and Drew, my S.O.'s kids, come up and have squirtgun wars AND an Allman  Brothers t-shirt, both to be opened at the party in the evening.  But to get there, we spend the day working.  All four boys helped me cut up wood with the bow saw, and all four helped me haul it to the street.  One log was so amazingly heavy that it took all five of us, working as hard as we could, to lift and move it.  But we did, feeling slightly superhuman.  

And then more work: Joe had his paper route to do, his first real job, and out of the blue Jacqueline suggested we help him finish it.  So we did!  We drove in the still-new Taurus to ground zero of his route, divvied up the papers, and set off with elaborate instructions (that Dad had a small fit about someone not bringing the printed instructions was so minor no one noticed and will not be mentioned here).  We set off on this lovely, lovely spring day to an orderly ramble through Buckingham, Westcott, Kensington, all those old English names and their young, trim American houses.  Saw a one-armed man building a wall with great purpose and calm; saw a woman scraping leaves off a roof.  It's an odd feeling to walk up to people's doors and stand around in their personal space.  It's a weird threshold of the public and private. I have to remind myself that I have a right to be there, and yet I feel I'm violating someone's privacy somehow.

But the real joy was how grateful Joe was for the help.  It took us about an hour or less all told. He was stunned and amazed, thankful and effusive about how much better that was. Furthermore, we all had fun.  It was a joy to wander the lovely neighborhood, and it was a joy to help Joe.

Such an easy day.  We sat around the table before the Deals arrived and told stories, old stories that we have told 1.7 million times before, about Eli when he was a baby, the one about pronouncing "sausage," the one about "no, my name if 'Fuffy'," stuff like that.  It was delightful. They are delightful.

The night before, we celebrated by watching Survivor, which I actually enjoyed, and The Bourne Supremacy, which I completely enjoyed.  

And so now I have two teenage boys in the house.  Good ones, too.