Beautiful Ordinary 1, 2, 3

1. Compared to yesterday,  today's headcount was easier 😊.*

2. Pandemic realization #87654: I've always loved our big, communal family study, but it's a challenge when the foreseeable future holds a lot of overlapping meeting schedules.

3. I was SO proud of bestie KB at our final meeting today as she worked, spoke up, and fought for everyone's wellbeing. We voted on an important resolution that will hopefully make it a bit easier for people to work online without jumping through HR-related hoops.

* A note on how much I love these four and how much I love to see them hanging out together and how blessed I am that At (21) and Nu (12) will find things and shows and games to share across the generational and gender gaps. 

But as a reminder of the real here--the togetherness of this week is brought to you by Big A confiscating the kids' phones into next Tuesday.

How can we know?

Normal is long ago in the past and faraway in the future, but today I was indoors all day with rain and meetings.

Every now and then I could hear my babies and had to trust that there were two human and two puppy kids in the tangle and that they were all kinda doing ok. 

Anti-Capitalist Walk-Talk

It was At's turn to walk with me today, and we ended up in hammocks after 20 or so mins, because it had gotten quite hot again. Our resident socialist was discussing the cultural theorist Mark Fisher, whose chapter titles are whimsical and full of possibility: "What if you held a protest and everyone came?" "It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism."  But I guess I didn't know the jarring reason why Fisher's writing stopped.

And also, I'll confess--my darling boy's Jesus of the Naxalites mien charms and alarms me in almost equal measure and for different reasons.

On the outskirts of the ordinary

In case you can't tell, Nu got really dressed up... to go on a walk... with me... down our own driveway...

For a few minutes this morning, singing along to Lizzo (Juice) and rigging a bath lighting fixture out of things we already had like X-mas ornament hangers(!), I was blissfully happy--until the enormity of everything else stomped through my chest.

Big A has tummy pains that are terrifying in their intensity--I jumped out of the bath yesterday thinking I'd have to take him to the E.R. right away, but he won't go and he won't do alternative remedies like cumin-turmeric water, and he won't make an appointment with his doc. I don't know what to do, frankly.

At has been in a haze--some of it is allergies and allergy meds, but my sweet child has seemed sad, faraway, and unapproachable all day.

Scout has been acting like a puppy, playing tag extra hard and doing puppy things like he hasn't for years--chewing on pillows and running away with people's slippers.

Hucky? Hucky is always just Hucky. My Hucky bear never cares.

Be Loved

Slept fitfully--fairly standard for me when Big A works nights--and when I checked my phone once--we sometimes have chat fests in the middle of the night--I noted that Twitter had deemed it necessary to notify me at 3 am that Kelly Preston had died of breast cancer. A nice reminder that all our other health dangers persist and it made me very, very conscious of not trying to think of my own delayed checkups and treatments and trying not to prod my problem areas again. Ugh. I guess I was a bit anxious about Big A as well--he's had persistent stomach pains, chest pains, and vision problems since his Covid. 

Anyway, I know who Kelly Preston is, but I've never seen her in a movie, I don't think. But once upon a time, I loved this song--way back in 2002! Because Jane magazine had recommended the Songs about Jane album then. When "She Will be Loved" became popular a few years later and got a video, I loved the surprise of how Kelly Preston's character completely transforms it--she was the perfectly overblown, problematic beauty it needed.

Summer is still magical

But why do so many things make me cry?

Paddling/Pedaling in Place

Early morning ramble with R and L and from a distance, I quite like these geese on the Red Cedar River. I didn't at all like having to pick my way through their leavings and I kind of lost my courage and my hike pals when they crossed the trail en masse. But away in the water, I can forget their meanness and marvel at their grace.

I've added into this weekend all the social structure I mourned at the beginning of the week--a distant visit with CF, a group call with cousins, a movie with EM after dinner, and I've checked in with a handful of students and friends who live by themselves. 

Oh. And after years of mocking Big A and his "Pedalton," I took a Peloton ride today, and kinda liked it... It was right before I left to meet CF, and it got me rather sweaty in just over 20 minutes. Nu, At, and I all wear the same shoe size (and I know it sounds gross), so we're sharing the one pair until we feel committed. A ridiculously privileged version of Children of Heaven.