Jodi and I are at my folks’ place today. The wee ones are fishing with Busia and Dziadzi (wish ’em luck!), while we chill, blog, do laundry, and assorted other everyday chores, kid-free.
We plan to have a kid-free visit with a couple of old friends, a kid-free lunch with another friend, maybe do some kid-free napping, then enjoy a kid-free supper with some couple-friends who, completely coinicidentally, are also kid-free.
I hope Bren catches a fish. Beyond that, I’m soaking the quiet.
Last night the kids wanted to watch a movie. It’s sometimes a challenge to get them to agree on a single flick – but our DVD player downstairs isn’t working, so we’re limited to the older movies we have on VHS.
Still they were going back and forth, so I said, “How about The Wizard of Oz?” Why, you ask? I dunno – maybe because Jacqui had been blogging about it …
“Yeah!” said Emma.
“Yeah!” said Gabe.
“Um – no!” said Trevor.
“You haven’t even seen The Wizard of Oz, Trevor!” I said, although Jodi’s eyes warned me otherwise.
“Uh-HUUUH!” insisted Trevor.
“Really. What did you see?”
“There were monkeys, and even they could fly!” he said, a big smile breaking across his face.
“Flying monkeys?! That sounds pretty cool! What else?”
“And there was a lion!”
“Was it a mean lion?”
“No, he was a nice lion – even there was a scarecrow!”
“A scarecrow, too? Was he scary?”
“No, and even there was a dog!”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “The Wizard of Oz has flying monkeys, a lion, a scarecrow and a dog? This sounds like a pretty good movie!”
Trevor, by this point was grinning ear to ear, and nodding along with his description.
“And even there’s a collection!”
“A collec … a what?”
“There’s a collection, and even he can move!”
“A collection that moves?” I asked.
“Even the collection has an ax, and even the ax can break wood!”
But of course: the Tin Man, a collection! “Well, Trevvy – that sounds like about the best movie ever!” I said. “Wanna watch it?”
“Yeah – let’s watch it!” he cheered.
Jodi doesn’t like bats much. I, on the other hand, find them fascinating (and totally appreciate their insectivorous appetites).
Some folks freak out when our little neighborhood bats flit about at sundown, but tonight, I found them strangely meditative. A couple of things had gone wrong – not big things, just particular things that really shouldn’t have happened, and that I specifically issued instructions to avoid – and I was at the end of my leash, growling, barking, snapping and slobbering.
I knew I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to deal with the young’ns, so Jodi took over and I stepped out on the deck. I could hear the cicadas and frogs in the grass, and strange sonic clicks in the air all around. I sat very still. Generally after a few moments, the bats are darting here and there overhead, and you can only catch quick glimpses of them against the darkening sky.
Tonight, however, I saw just one, flying almost casually in a light, looping pattern along a more-or-less straight line, so I could track him until he disappeared past the neighbor’s old oak tree. His path seemed to write in cursive a pointed question to me: Sooooo?
The loopy little devil was right. It wasn’t that big a deal …
Brought Gabe to work with me today, and thought I’d share a few of the highlights and authentic Gabeisms:
1. This being the U’s off-season, lots of rental properties around campus have “For Rent” signs posted – in windows, on the doors, on the lawn. We passed one such property and Gabe said, “That’s the second tree for rent I’ve seen today!” He laughed and laughed, then explained that the “For Rent” sign was stuck to the tree, but it was for the house …
2. In a colleague’s office, given full freedom of a white board, he drew three bowling pins and a bowling ball dropping from the sky – black outlines, red stripes on the pins. In order to use every color white board marker available, he signed the picture by: Gabe!
3. In a meeting immediately following the drawing, he sat quietly and recreated the drawing in his notebook. Then he drew another, with the ball actually striking the pins. Each of these he labeled “ARIGNL” — then made smaller version of each on a single sheet of paper, labeling those “COPY” and inviting me to hang them in my office.
4. In the same meeting, as people were filing in, he tapped me on the shoulder and asked, “How many boys will be in this meeting?” I replied, “Just us, I think.” (Most of my coworkers are women, and he seemed to be getting nervous – they all kept talking to him and trying to give him stuff …)
5. I was sitting at my desk watching the boy at the computer I set up for him, and got the warm, fuzzy, proud-papa feeling. “Gabe,” I said, “I think I’ll keep ya.”
“Fine by me,” he said.
Brendan, our oldest, came to work with me today. On the way in, we talked about all sorts of stuff – not typical 10-year-old stuff, but grown-up things, like whether people who don’t believe the same as you should still respect your beliefs. Super cool!
Then The Current spun “War!” – “Ughn! Good God, y’all! What is it good for? Absolutely nothin’! Say it again!” – and the boy began to philosophize:
“I wish we could find a better way to deal with problems that wars or the death penalty and stuff. … I wish that there wasn’t all the really bad stuff in the world – but not perfect, because nothing would be funny. If everything were perfect, there would be no laughter. … I wouldn’t want it to be perfect, and I would change the things I’ve done wrong that have gotten me in trouble because how would I learn about right and wrong? … And if we were all perfect, what would we laugh about?”
O wise child! Thy father loves thee!
Archangel Stomp 