…or this could happen to you.
Blink~The Graduate
I suppose I’ve been driving this route for some time now.
Ooooh-whoo. Seven fifteen a.m. every morning for the past one hundred years.
Perhaps I exaggerate just a tad–but you get the point.
I’ve taken this road in the pouring rain…
thick and spooky fog……
and slippery, blinding, icy snow.
Driven it before daylight savings time when it was so dark outside the streetlights were still on.
With all the windows down in the summer when the cooler wouldn’t work.
In the winter with blankets wrapped around our shoulders and heads and feet because the heater wouldn’t kick in.
Attended every football game, track event, and choir concert humanly possible.
Grumbled now and then about the caffeine-induced erratic drivers or teenage pedestrians with a “you-know-you-won’t-hit-me” death wish, and the ridiculous youngsters that really shouldn’t have a license in the first place—as we all converged here in this very parking lot—before any decent human being should even be out of bed.
Sat, crocheting in this holding space for hours at a time, doing that mama thing we call waiting, sometimes alone and sometimes while my beloved cargo spent some needed time…with their mom.
Sat, idling along with the car, staring at this tinted glass door–that far away one between the cars–looking for any sign of Daney boy, or the bald kid.
Oh, the laughing and talking and listening and teasing and heartbreaks and secrets and real earth life we’ve had at this place.
All to end up here. One. Very. Last. Time.
The bald kid thinks that I’ll be so glad to sleep in. He thinks that I’ll be relieved to save so much gas in the car. He’s sure I’m happy to see it all be finally–after 24 years and 5 kids—over.
I’m afraid he’s very…
very….
wrong.
And when that alarm clock doesn’t go off at 6:30 am any more, it won’t matter…
because I’ll already be awake…
wishing that it would…
just one more time.
Off to school—1996
Week 11 Food storage prompt:
10 lbs. sugar, 1 lb salt
Our Day in the Field
…track and field, that is.
We are—even the shortest of us–very good spectators…
…as long as there is decent entertainment to keep us awake…
…and of course, plenty of snacks on this perfectly warm, breezy spring day.
A good time to try out the new hats…
even if some aren’t quite finished yet…
and some may be a tiny bit too big. The main thing is that we are finally, finally all outside in the fresh air and we’re together—watching our guy throw that funny little disk around…
Oh, and to pick up…
his…
medal.
——————–
Week 8 Food Storage Prompt: 5 lbs. powdered milk
The Bald Kid and the Wheaties Box
I tell the bald kid that all he needs to do in this life is:
1- Throw shot-put at the Olympics
2- Get his face on a Wheaties box
3- Make a million dollars
4- Buy his mother a house…in Scotland
That’s it. No big deal.
Maybe I’m rushing the list a bit with my Wheaties box. I figured it would be fabulous inspiration. He does look great–doesn’t he?
Now, he’s 1/4 of the way there.
I’ll wait patiently for the rest…
I guess.
The Bald Kid’s Severed Hand…
Don’t be afraid. I’m not going to tell you a gruesome campfire story or anything. It’s like this…
Every year, my sister has a Halloween party on the Monday before trick or treats. Every year, before we leave the party she pulls out a huge basket with fun prizes and lets us choose from the basket. So you sort of want to pack up before all the good stuff is gone. I think that must be how she gets us all to go home. Ha.
ANYWAY… For my prize, I chose an adorable shelf-sitting witch with a green face and purple and pink hair. Lyndi chose some really cute, transparent skeleton stickers. Nate chose a jointed snake–not incredibly into snakes, but it was ok. So here comes Rhen. Yeah, he chooses a rubber, severed hand that you soak in water and it grows. I guess somebody didn’t think it was disgusting enough–and it needed to be BIGGER.
So this nasty piece of work is sitting on my kitchen counter…all day…all night…Feel free to gag.
I must admit that there are some parts of Halloween that I could do without…mostly severed body parts.
Blaugh!
