This is not a
Christmas letter, even a late one.
Rather, it is a brief window into the chaos that is our lives in the
past year or so.
Hundredth Day
The
boy’s school has a yearly event they call Hundredth Day – to celebrate the
one-hundredth day of class of the school year, they generally have some sort of
commemorative festivities. This year,
the students were encouraged to dress up as old people. Huh? I
can only assume that the boys would wear white beards or something. After some coaxing and threatening, we
convinced him to don the following ensemble:
- T-shirt
- Unbuttoned flannel overshirt
- Grey sweatpants, pulled up high at
the waist
- Black socks with sandals, and
- Baseball cap
I
thought he looked awesome. He was less
than thrilled. When we insisted on
taking his picture, he wouldn’t smile.
After some unsuccessful coaxing and joking, I finally said “Okay then, just look like all your dreams
have been crushed and you didn’t turn out to be quite the man you thought you’d
be.” So that’s pretty much what he
did. All day.
Later
that evening, Rowan came down five minutes before bedtime, asking for cake
which had been promised but forgotten.
Cue parental difference of opinion as to whether cake was still
appropriate. In a rare concession, after
an initial show of opposition, Jan did not object when I got the daughter the
cake. She was eating, and we were
talking about the Hundredth Day outfit, when she started laughing about the
“all your dreams have been crushed” line and inhaled some of the cake. This of course triggered a coughing fit,
while still laughing. When the
choking/coughing/laughing eventually resolved, Jan, without even bothering to
look back, said “That’s why you don’t eat
cake right before you go to bed.”
Still Life with 8
year-old Boy
Part I.
So one of Connor’s friends had a
birthday party at the movie theater – meet for the movie and snack, followed by
pizza and cake – a pretty nice setup. I
drop him off and arrive to pick him up a couple of hours later. I’m a little early, so I sit down and wait
for them.
All of the boys are clustered around a
few tables, eating their pizza. There is
a flatscreen above their heads, showing a loop of trailers and
commercials. One of the commercials has
a guy in a shaving commercial on TV, who, failing to spot his target audience
in front of him, steps out of the TV into real life, wearing only a towel, and
goes in search of him. During his brief
quest, a sprinkler system soaks him.
When he drops his towel to wring it out, twelve eight year-old boys
simultaneously throw their arms up in the air and yell “WOO HOO! NAKED GUY!
“ As it was on a loop, they did this every five minutes or so – it never got
any less entertaining.
Part II.
Nutcracker season began this year with
auditions in April. Despite having
previously been in four Nutcrackers, including a stint as a co-Fritz, Connor
has never has to audition. Why? He’s a
boy. Boys do not usually volunteer for
Nutcracker – they are more or less shanghaied, then bribed and threatened to
get them through the rehearsals and performances. There has probably never been a Nutcracker
party boy whose older sister was not dancing a role.
This year, however, they actually have
a handful of boys who not only dance, but are probably getting a little bored
with just being party boys. So, although
it’s anybody’s guess what they’re planning to do with them, they tell the boys
they have to audition – show up in dance attire, with a headshot. After dutifully getting suited and booted,
Connor disappears into the studio with the other boys, then comes out a while
later.
“So
Connor, what did they have you do?”
“Well, they had us do
some combinations, then we had to freestyle for an eight count”
“So
what did you do for your freestyle?”
“Coffeegrinders. Then I spun on my back.”
Yep
– the boy breakdanced at a ballet audition.
The company may be rethinking that whole “boys dancing in the
Nutcracker” idea.
Twelve Little Girls in Two Straight Lines, or how I was Ms. Foldetta’d into
submission
This
year, Rowan transitioned from dancing with Lone Star Jazz to dancing with the
McCullough Jr. High School drill team.
No, strike that, it doesn’t entirely capture it – this year Rowan became
a Highland Girl. There is practice and
tradition and little sister gifts and metric tons of candy. Somehow it goes beyond high-kicking and high
ponytails, and extends to such areas as posture, etiquette, relations with the
opposite gender, world political and cultural affairs, and Newtonian physics.
Actually, I’m a little fuzzy on those last two, but suffice it to say that I’m
pretty sure that the cross-country team has never been lectured, as they
stretched, on table manners and exactly which fork to use when. Or maybe they have – maybe there is now an
entire generation of female junior high school athletes who could throw on a
dress after practice and head to a formal dinner without breaking a sweat, and
knowing exactly which fork to use once they got there – but I somehow doubt it
– I think that the Highland Girls are unique in that and other regards. I would have loved to have been on the street
downtown when 75 girls paraded from Zilkha Hall after seeing The Nutcracker
to the Aquarium for lunch, each with their umbrellas, high ponytails, ribbons,
smiles, and perfect bearing – it must have been quite a sight.
Twelve little
girls in two straight lines – a Mouse Army marching into the future. I find it all rather enchanting, which is
probably totally the wrong response, if you asked any of them.
The Difference Between Boys and Girls II
As I write
this, everybody but me is playing some form of Animal Crossing, an odd little
game that we have on at least three platforms.
Rowan is exclaiming “Oh my gosh – I just made a dandelion wish on
Animal Crossing” as her character picks and blows a dandelion on the DS
screen. In contrast, Jan is presently
fussing at Connor for running through all the flowers onscreen. This has been an ongoing issue here. He doesn’t really seem to care much, perhaps
realizing that they are just pixels on a screen. He also doesn’t bounce.
I have come to
believe that bouncing is endemic to 12-19 year old girls. And squeaking at the slightest provocation.
And planning endlessly for the smallest of things. I have actually threatened
to get matching T-shirts for Rowan and a friend of hers – “Rowan and Sarah
–making simple things really, really complicated since 2007.”
THE STORM
Due to the
sheer magnitude of the event, I feel that I would be remiss if I did not at
least mention Hurricane Ike in passing, so here is a brief description:
I came from the hills with a tear in my eye
The winter closed in and the crows filled the sky
The houses were burning the flames gold and red
The people were running with eyes filled with dread
Ah aaaaaaahh…
They didn't have to do this
We chased them for miles I had hate in my eyes
Through forest and moors as the clouds filled the skies
The storm broke upon us with fury and flame
Both hunters and hunted washed out in the rain
The winter closed in and the crows filled the sky
The houses were burning the flames gold and red
The people were running with eyes filled with dread
Ah aaaaaaahh…
They didn't have to do this
We chased them for miles I had hate in my eyes
Through forest and moors as the clouds filled the skies
The storm broke upon us with fury and flame
Both hunters and hunted washed out in the rain
Oh wait –
that’s not me – that’s a Big Country song.
The truth for me is that I missed most of it, except for the disruption
to Indiana and the Chicago suburbs.
Oops. As such, I will attempt to
report the highlights as per Jan – Sarah G. asking if they had to go over to
the Chaves’s for dinner, weren’t we having fajitas?, the Monopoly game on the
living room floor, Kaitlyn’s mother eventually calling her and saying “you have
to come home – your father misses you,” and the mouse buffet the grey cat was
presented with as many, many mice completed the transition from homelessness to
snack.
As usual, rock
on.
J.
