Under the Weather

When I woke Wednesday morning, my voice was all but gone. A touch of the old laryngitis. In a light head fog, I gathered everything together to walk out the door to school. But not before Yali decided to help Oxbear with the dishes by loading library books into the dish washer.

The morning skies were still a little weepy, mid-way. When we pulled back up our driveway, Yali was sobbing in the backseat because he couldn’t stuff his entire red superhero cape into his sock, while he was still wearing it. There are only so many emotional crises I can address while driving 65 mph down the highway.

And with another wave of rain in a green neighborhood, Oxbear – working from home to give me a hand – took an hour out of his morning to discuss Yali’s speech therapy future in yet another preliminary meeting in our living room.

By 12:30 I felt bad enough to crash on the king-size next to Yali and actually take a short nap. I don’t remember the last time I took a nap. Probably three and a half years ago when I had the stomach flu. At least it seemed to restore most of my voice. Late spring head colds can be just as vicious as dead-of-winter colds.

About half an hour later I let Yali watch a little “Garfield” in our room. Apparently he was happy with that decision because the little sucker fist pumped and exclaimed, “YES!”, clear as day. Well, clear as day with a lisp anyway.

After Puck flew out of the gym during carpool, and an already cranky Yali decided to scream at Heidi for no apparent reason, we hit the road back home just in time for Oxbear to drive Puck to his 9 year-old check-up. They returned with sacks of Chick-Fil-A and very satisfactory growth percentages for Puck: 73% on weight; 78% on height. He’s pretty anxious to keep those numbers as high as possible.

Conversation at the dinner table centered mostly on beards.

“How old were you when you could start growing a beard?” I asked Oxbear.

“Oh, about 16.”

“You’re getting close,” I told Puck.

He grinned.

“If your hair stays light, you might not be able to grow one so well,” Oxbear added. “Blonde beards are rare.”

“Well, if I grow a beard, then I will be a billionaire,” Puck reasoned. “Because all the blonde beards in the world are billionaires.”

Early evening – gold-green – warm breezes, young frogs, white honeysuckle on the back fence. Summer felt close again.