Letters to Holly

Thursday, May 24

Exploring Possibilities

Your Sister is considering applying for another job at the school, a job with less classroom time. She'd still have an AP class, and she'd oversee the school paper, which is now an online-exclusive publication. But she'd also act as a gifted-student guidance counselor. She likes that in theory, but I noted it would mean dealing with parents petitioning for specific class placement, a headache she already despises in her current classes. This new position would see that annoyance magnified. That's all the job would involve. I suggested she ask the previous counselor what the job entailed. I understand why it sounds like a good package deal, but she needs to do her homework on this before moving into a job that sounds much more expendable if another budget crunch occurs.

In preparation for graduation, she took in her robe. A lot. 

The deputy can now name colors, and he discovered how to jump. He delivered a beaut of a head cold to the house, and I'll gladly suffer it now than a month from now in Charlotte.

Picture of the Day
She's ready for school to be over any minute now.


 

Monday, May 21

So This Needs to Be Cranked up Again Properly.

As the daycare was closed Friday, I stayed at home with the deputy. It was the rare weekday when we two are home and everything in town is open. The previous weekend, he visited the car dealership for a child safety event. Fingerprints were taken for us to hold onto to. He also registered for a raffle for an age-appropriate scooter, and he won. We picked it up Friday, and the dealership ladies cooed over him, and we both strolled the lot to stare at trucks. By happenstance they service center was working on two ambulances, and he was hyp-mo-tized.

We strolled downtown, and I took him to the fire station again. I discovered they had a chunk of I-beam from the WTC, and that gave me pause. The plaque dedicated the piece to firefighters, as one would expect at a firehouse. But that doesn't sit right with me. 9/11 resonates so strongly because it hit every demographic and profession. Firemen, EMTs, police, the full range of office professionals, government employees, military staff, airline employees, you name it. To claim the day and it's solemnity for one group of folks turns the memento into a trophy. If our town is gonna have this remnant (and that's shocking in itself), it should be in a public square, a venue representative of the full range of people taken away. Even the library would be nice. Might encourage visitors to read about the world beyond their gardens and hunting nests.

And all that flashed in my brains as I was also debating whether the boy could last another half hour in that diaper. I also found sweet potato vines at the hardware store a few doors down the street from the firehouse.

Later in the day, we hiked the forest, and I encouraged his obsession with throwing rocks into the river. He yells out "splash" just as he did at the beach. After Your Sister got off work, we visited the neighbors and talked about their garden. They spread hay over their unused soil, and that reminded me that we had hay bales left over from the Halloween party. The next morning, I planted the sweet potatoes along with leftover yellow potatoes to go where the first round of potatoes failed to sprout, and I spread those bales over the garden.  I forgot that my grandfather did the same thing for his garden to control weeds.Your Sister and Nephew visited Your Parents that morning while I was in the garden.

I took the kid downtown again later in the day, and we once more hit the gelato shop. I like having a spot that just he and I hit. Guy time.

The next morning I finally made my Power Jam shirt for the roller girls. I used the iron-on packet I bought to make your shirts. I can't use the same image for the local shirt shop because they can't print white ink. That's limiting, but I can make line art of the image and submit that. I did want one shirt that was a photo for the jam jar and label because I had used a similar image for a MetreoBEAT cover years ago. When I had my shift with the boy, we visited the buses at the school and did another tour of the grocery store in a cart car.

Last night, I took the teen neighbor comic-movie buddy to see Avengers. It works better on a second viewing, and I picked up a lot of little details I missed the first time. The DVD comes out in September.

I wish the weather was a little cooler so I could wear that OBGYN UPS shirt ...

Picture of the Day
But it's too darn hot.