now fortified with impotent fury!risperdal

As a child, High Holidays were at first wonderful, and then horrible. Wonderful when we lived out west, and there was a JCC and I had friends at school who shared my faith. Horrible when we moved east, to an area where, let’s say, the KKK had a not tentative foothold and I was, for a long while, the only Jew in 3 grades worth of school. I got barbie dolls hung in effigy in my locker after high holidays. The less tolerant children would take note of which of us were in the attendance office the morning after RH and YK, and dole out the beatings later.

So this year, the issue of do we send Sean to school on YK arose. Needless to say, I was not gung ho on keeping him out of school. At first, I was planning to take the day off and spend it in some contemplative manner. But if I kept Sean out, maybe we could use it in together time and focusing on some morals lessons. Then I had a 3 hour meeting thrown on my calendar, then a 2 hour, and another 1 hour, and. So my thoughts of holding Sean out of school today to spend time in doing good works for others and also getting our own mental houses in order went out the window.

At one pm- still unshowered, 4 meetings into the day, stressed out beyond all possible belief- my call waiting beeped. I bailed out of meeting #5 to take the call from a number which wasn’t immediately familiar but hey I know that prefix oh shit it’s school.

Come get him. He’s running a fever. And so I put aside everything else- meetings that ‘couldn’t wait, and memos that ‘had’ to go out, and whitepapers that were ‘vital’- and went and picked up a sad little boy. Act #1 was snuggling. Act #2 was kissing, act #3 was stroking his hair back from his fevered brow and whispering that we’d get him home and into pjs and feeling better soon.

Thanks, Big G. I know what next year’s game plan is. Hopefully it will not take 102F to remind me of what’s important.

We stumbled over rocks and ruts, our path illuminated only by the luminarias on the gravel and the few stars the clouds allowed to peek out, our bellies and hearts brimful, mind’s eye full of images from the hours before.

Butter the yellow of dandelions and bread with a tang so pronounced it puckered your lips; lucent figs dripping in syrup and kissed with the unexpected bite of basil, swirling against the pale yellow of mustard and the bracing, salty, unctuousness of lamb rillette; the rush of heat to the face with the first puff of steam under the crust of a crock of shepherd’s pie. Boisterous conversation, and rounds of wine, and the not so far-off bleat of sheep. The doors of the restored barn thrown wide open to the drowsy last warmth of the late summer sun, and then the barely cool dark of night. The bulging muscles of a man’s arm, dappled with inky-blue-black stars, as he held aloft the trifle dish like a trophy, the jewel hue of huckleberries glinting in the light of oil lamps and candles.

And then over like it had been a mirage, the magic carpet of candles in paper bags leading us back to mundane life. Except, except, for two tiny green pinpricks in the dark grass, the last of summer hiding from fall.

Joe DiMaggio?

Wow has it been a month? Jesus, I suck.

Um.

Happy New Year?

(Real content this weekend. Have you ever gotten overwhelmed with stuff? I rather don’t know where to begin. Sean’s adventures in first grade? My 30 hour psycho trip back to where I used to live? My urge to bake every recipe I see?)