A weekend of very low Lows and very high Highs, but taken all for all, a good weekend.

Friday night/Saturday morning, about 1:45, Katie became very sick. It hit her so sudden that she didn't have time to make it to the bathroom for the initial heave, so in addition to seeing to her comfort we had a mess to clean up in her room as well. It was shockingly sudden: she was fine when she went to bed, no symptoms or warning. She ran through a new round of vomiting every forty-five minutes or so until mid-morning, so none of us - except for Jami - got a lot of sleep. The rest of Saturday, day, was relatively quiet. She's fine now, bouncing back. Even rode her bike some yesterday (Sunday).

Saturday night, my usual first-of-the-month performance at Stone Bridge. My God, what a terrific night that was.

( The rest of the story... )

We were watching the Olympics. The ski jump was on, and they showed the slow-motion replay of a jump from a low angle. You could see the breeze ruffling the fabric of the athlete's jumpsuit, the wobbling of his skis, the minute changes in body position as he fought to gain one more inch of airborne.

I thought about the distance and speed of travel, the terrible physics at work, and saw a vision in my head of my broken body smashed against the compacted snow at the bottom and I said, sotto vocé, "You couldn't pay me enough."

A few seconds went by. His score came up and he waved to the crowd. Then Katie's voice whispered in my ear...

"I'll give you five bucks."

I made pancakes this morning, as I often do on Saturday mornings. The kids wanted "cookie cutter" pancakes: Katie chose a butterfly, Jami chose a Christmas tree. They sat together at the dining table, chattering and giggling.

"I'm going to eat my Christmas tree from the bottom to the top," Jami announced.

"Good idea," agreed Katie. "The bottom is more juicy."

Posted to The Road Less Ordinary

When you're eight and possessed of a shopping list of mental issues that tend, among other things, to suppress your awareness of social niceties, you are granted the freedom to make observations that, generally speaking, the rest of us would not.

When it's just us, our home is, by and large, "clothing optional." We have all seen each other naked - usually daily - and until someone expresses discomfort at the idea, that is how it will remain, as far as I'm concerned. (This is quite a change over how I was raised: I saw my father less than fully clothed only once, by accident, and he was mortified.)

That there's what we call exposition. Now the real story.

I'm on my way to my evening shower. I'm dressed for the activity, which is to say: not, and on the way, I step into Katie's room to turn on her bedside lamp. She's reading by the overhead light, which I don't like to leave on. As I'm walking out I glance her way and she's looking - rather pointedly - at me. Or, that is to say, Me. Or rather, him. You know.

"Dad," she says, "I hate to break it to you, but your penis is shaking."

"Yeah, it'll do that."

"...when you walk.  Why does it do that? I mean, it's right out there and everything..."

Hoo boy. Not The Big Question, but still a little awkward. I can handle awkward. With Katie for a daughter, I'm used to it.

"Because it's just skin and muscle. It's not like my arm, with a bone in it or anything." (Stop that right now.)

Her face brightens in comprehension. Apparently, being home schooled includes some anatomy.

"So," she exclaims, "boy's penises shake. And girls, when they get older, their boobies shake. And that's the difference between boys and girls."

"Sure," I say, heading for the door. "That'll do for now."

"Okay," back to her books. "You can go get your shower, now."