On the Calendar

There are some days you can’t catch your breath between 6:30AM and 6:30PM.

“I made a mistake,” Oxbear mumbled, stumbling into the light of the kitchen half-awake while I scrambled breakfast eggs. “I forgot I have a 7:30 meeting. Can you take Puck to school?”

Half an hour later we were thrown into the car, stuck in random bites of traffic on a cold sunshine-filled August morning half-hour drive. Puck was more irritated with the unexpected traffic than I was. He has an aversion to tardies.

“TRAFFIC!” he bellowed in frustration to Mr. V’s second grade class in the gym as we passed them on our way to the third grade.

Second graders are just still too naïve to understand the magnitude of traffic patterns on school mornings.

When Yali and I finally returned home at 9:45 after a stop for the week’s groceries – Yali had been fascinated with the workers refinishing the parking lot with fresh tar – I barely had time to unpack the bags before my cell rang the usual Matt Holliday ring tone from the kitchen table.

Cardinal Glennon had a slew of appointments assigned for me to schedule. About an hour of phone calls later between physical therapy, surgery, cardiology, genetics, and insurance, etc., Yali had competely plastered himself in about two tablespoons of peanut butter. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but that stuff smears well. Caked all over his black hair and brown cheeks, grinning like he had just received the Pulitzer Prize.

With that collection of medical calls checked off my list, Yali dunked under the sink to remove the peanut butter and down for a 90-minute nap, and Cardgals Episode 65 edited and in the books, it was time to pick Puck up from school.

Late that afternoon the kitchen was a bomb of fish tacos and pork steaks prepared two ways while my boys attacked dinner with very much gusto. Yali also decided it would be a prime time of the day to begin screeching at the top of his lungs – “MAA! MAA! MAA!” – while I tried to talk on the phone.

Things finally began to wind down around ten that night. Never mind that I had a 9:10 game in Phoenix – darn Pacific Time starts – and that I had an eight o’clock appointment for Yali at the physical therapist the next morning. Baseball called when baseball called.