V-Day Eve
Dad was driving all of us out into the country – small towns someplace south – late in the afternoon, mostly gray, some sun. A huge farmhouse with a dark green tin roof and drawers of herbs in the kitchen. This is the first dream I ever had – to my memory – where I experienced multiple déjà vus throughout all dream sequences. Carrie-Bri thinks I should take up lucid dreaming.
The way things worked out, we celebrated Valentine’s one day early when Mom offered to keep the boys for a few hours. So after Oxbear wrapped up taxes with Swanson – which took about three hours because of all the adoption paperwork this time – we hit the road.
Our date started off with a drive to the Galleria to repair Oxbear’s phone, which had decided to break for no reason Friday night. As we circled the packed parking lots and garage for 40 minutes, Oxbear was becoming increasingly frustrated. This guy doesn’t frustrate too easily, so I figured after awhile it wasn’t worth the trouble. Finally, though, he found an empty spot. So I waited in the car next to a Korean man talking on his phone outside his car he had clearly locked himself out of. About ten minutes later, Oxbear returned only to say that it was a two and a half hour wait to even inquire about his phone.
So … Five Star Burgers: Clayton. Occasionally I check in with Oxbear just to make sure he’s not embarrassed that whenever he goes out and orders a beer and two pounds of meat, I get a grilled cheese and a fruit juice. Because I’m five. He doesn’t seem bothered. This time I graduated to about 2nd Grade and got a blueberry soda.
As we drove further into the city, we took advantage of not having two atomic-bomb-loud boys in the back seat to discuss important things like…
“So what do you want me to finish before I die?” Oxbear asked me.
“Well, when do you plan on giving up the ghost?”
“Oh, is that what it’s called? Giving up the ghost? That makes so much more sense. I always thought it was giving up the goat.”
We wrapped up our evening by driving by the last remaining Indian mound in the entire city now owned by the Osage Nation, right above the river. Looked like someone had cut right into the middle of it and built a house there about sixty years ago. Where once there were hundreds of earthworks here, now there was one. So sad.
When we got back to the Big House about 6:45, both boys had behaved themselves and eaten lots of food, as predicted.
And that is how we spent Valentine’s Day Eve, 2016.