Here We Are
Days that start with nightmares are never promising. Also, days where you run out of time for breakfast are not so spectacular. “Is that a termite?” the Bear asked casually as we backed out of the driveway.
Oh, yes.
This was going to be another winner.
I realize any singular one of my 10,083 days could have been astronomically worse than they actually are. But days like sand under your fingernails that won’t come out — those days deserve a label that isn’t as kind as many others. Even if they’ve dubbed themselves that way for 999 tiny reasons that all lock together into a fine, impossible web of irritation that can’t be properly explained on paper.
Today was one of those days.
“Did you see me play terrible?” the Bear asked as we joined him following the 1.75 hour double-header in the park. Actually, I hadn’t. Not much, anyway. Puck found it necessary to remain near “the facilities” for the morning. And of course I can hear his voice shouting a mountain above the rest of any other kids his size or larger on the jungle of metal.
With the first glimpse of the giant blue dumpster sitting in the Silverspoon driveway, Puck exclaimed a predictable “Oh!” followed by the Bear’s immediate response of, “That is not a play pen, Puck.” Gloria had the grilled meat and fish and fresh vegetables with dip ready for consumption. “Are we eating in the dark because we like being romantic?” Theodore asking, flipping the switch as he joined the lunch table. And Puck was a sweaty-headed mess dragging around a laundry hamper and orange-cream-cicle while the losing-game clicked on after noon. He also “helped” Theodore by sitting in a cabinet with a flashlight to aid in breaking down the kitchen. Theodore and the boys carted a piano around the house to Puck’s cries of – “We can’t just let it drag down the stairs! It’s too expensive and too delicate!” And Gloria dragged out coffee makers, springform pans, etc., to transfer. “I think diphtheria was in here,” she muttered over the underside of a newly-met-daylight apparatus. “Maybe bubonic…” By the way, if Gloria has diphtheria in her appliances, I have anthrax. There are often things best left to corners unexplored. I felt a charlie-horse threaten as the Bear opened up a full afternoon of building websites and organizing Sunday School lessons. Land that with another headache around four, and it was all just about right.
I wasn’t even really interested in watching the Olympics.
It was just that kind of day.
But my eye didn’t twitch in that annoying way it has all summer; so… that’s a plus.
I’ll really try to stretch-Armstrong out some optimism tomorrow. Can’t beat the fact that “the sours” are in my blood. Most of the time I really try to work against that tide. But let’s just put it this way – I’m not my mom. And the world is probably not a better place because of it.
More Optimistic Thought of the Day
My family is… well…
The Walton’s – good and bad.
Taffy-twisted with Mayberry, North Carolina, and… a dash of Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood. There’s really no other way to describe it. How else can I explain the fact that still, after nearly 30 years, there will always be someone — if not an avid cluster — waving you off the front porch even if you’re just hustling up to Walgreen’s for seven minutes of a dozen eggs. Hail, sleet, snow, or rain — there will always be someone there to send you off. Even if it was just the loyal golden retriever, the late Troubadour (aka “Trooper”). I never thought it was that bizarre, really, until newly acquired family friends began mentioning (“laughing”) at it. Joe still ends every phone conversation to every family member with an All-American Hardy Boys, “Love ya!”
The connections between 1950’s U.S.A. sensibility/family life with my own experience stepping-stoning the waters of the 80’s and 90’s, is… uncanny.
Five siblings.
Home schooled.
Banned from Barbies.
Strawberry-print short-overalls matched with frilly white Victorian blouses and pink jelly sandals (remember those?) with socks…
I didn’t have a lot going for me in the piranha-stocked lake of the vicious grade school social elite. Strangely, though, I was never bullied. Not once. I attribute part of that to the fact that almost every other ten year-old in North America was arraigned in triple-large neon block-sweaters, ballooned nurses pants, untied sneakers, and frizzy scalps. So — thank God — my non-sense of fashion actually was fashion.
My family attended a prestigious Presbyterian church in West County through 1999. Only one other family amongst hundreds home-schooled their kids. That other family had nine mirror images sitting perfectly silent in statuesque rows of ribboned pigtails and crew cuts every Sunday morning at eight o’clock. I can’t say our pew was quite as holy. However, not one of those other thirty-something students in my Sunday School class ever shamed me for anything. Not even the jelly sandals. In fact… They envied me. Yes, the shy girl with the plastic hair bows stuffed with candy Easter eggs. Not once. Carrie-Bri got it a little worse. Volcano tempers, Mz. Frizzle dinosaur print sundresses, and toothy grins don’t spell completely righteous reactions from eight year-old boys intending half-crush half-bully exhibitions on Sunday mornings. But even then, they envied her too. “Aw! You’re so lucky! I wish I could sit around all day and do school in my pajamas too!”
I don’t really remember if I corrected them on this point or not. I could only push my good fortune so far. After all, when all the other kids started bringing assigned Sunday morning junior high snack contributions in the form of cupcakes, muffins, and pastries from high-end bakeries and grocery stores, and I brought a bag of apples… well, you know. It probably didn’t help that Carrie-Bri’s fifth grade teachers presented her in front of half the class with the small statue of a cherub-y angel one fateful Sunday morning because she was — yes — “their little angel”… but somehow we still got away with those kinds of murder without pulled pigtails or targeted by spitballs.
Of course we’re not perfect. But what can I say? We’re just that John-Boy-Opie-Daniel-Striped-Tiger tribe, I guess.