Every other Tuesday

Recycling day is a big deal at our house these days. This morning dawned cool and rainy, Henry couldn't wait to get his clothes on. He didn't want to miss a minute.

The anticipation.

Overwhelmed by delight: The truck driver honked at Henry.

Unrelatedly, Henry uses a coffee pot to clean his sinuses. In the background, a giraffe takes a bath.

 

James doesn't give a damn about the recycling, but he does love to watch his brother carrying on.

Things

I didn't realize until yesterday that another passenger had returned with Mom from Kansas City: Carolina.

Oh, Carolina. Doll of my dreams. Desideratum of my 10-year-old self. There is certainly something mournful about receiving your heart's desire when your heart no longer cares. I'm not sure I can adequately express the heaven it would have been 30 years ago for her to be in my house. She was everything I loved: pretty, old-fashioned, genuinely old, and above all, a doll! As a child I longed for her so fiercely, I couldn't believe someone wouldn't do something about it. I never asked for her, though. Children really are impenetrably private about their deepest feelings.

Carolina's been through the wars. She's a German doll who was bought by my great-grandmother at a steep discount during World War I, when German things weren't selling. She belonged to my grandmother, whose hair was used to make her wig. Mom rescued her from her stepmother's purge of the first wife's possessions, and she landed at Aunt Virginia's house, where she's been for the last half century and more.

Now, Aunt Virginia's breaking up housekeeping & sending her lovely things on to the next set of temporary homes.The persistence of things, when their makers & owners are so transitory, is disconcerting. As William said of Dad's wine, it can feel like a phantom limb.

Made by dollmakers Simon & Halbig.

Passing through

Mom arrived back in town this morning with Hope & Aunt Virginia, after an all-night drive from Kansas City. Mom admitted to having snoozed a little in the car; otherwise, she might have pulled off the second all-nighter of her life, scant months after what she claims was her first, which she spent cleaning her office.

We left them alone for a few hours to snooze before heading over for the afternoon.

Charles Darwin never wanted to be out of petting distance from Aunt Virginia.

James napped on the living room floor.

Henry napped on his cousin's lap.

Just before we left, I kissed Aunt Virginia goodbye. "I'm 81," she said, "going on 82. I know I can't live much longer. And I really want to see the people who are coming after me. I'm proud of you."

By now--assuming they've found all their toothbrushes, pillows, keys, and the cat--she and Hope should be on the road heading east in another all-nighter in their pickup truck.

My lemon sorbet sweater

I made this:

A Russian boyfriend who had spent time in Siberia (not in the gulag or anything, but still!) and thus had some credibility when it came to unhappiness advised me during a difficult period of my life to think of one thing, however small, that could be counted on to give me pleasure, however meager. All I could come up with was lemon sorbet. “That’s perfect,” he said. “Now, whenever you feel anxious or sad, buy yourself some lemon sorbet, or put it on your shopping list, and you will at least be happier than you were before.”
In that spirit, I bought this yarn in the happiest color I could conceive of, sometime at the end of January.

James at four months

Weight: 14 lbs, 14 oz. (50th percentile)
Height: 25.25 inches (75th percentile)
Head size: 42.8 cm. (75th percentile)

The doctor said he's an A+ baby.

Our literary visitor

For several weeks now, Henry has been talking about a ghost who visits our house. The first time it made an appearance, Henry explained that he had summoned it by knocking on the bedroom wall, causing it to apparate through the heating vent in the floor. Just lately, the ghost has taken up a sort of otherworldly Bookmobile service. It floats overhead and tosses books down to Henry, who picks them up and hands them to me, telling me the important themes therein. Nine times out of ten, these books are about puppies and boys playing on a playground. Sometimes there are snacks. Sometimes brothers. Once in a while it all gets kind of meta with the introduction into the book of a ghost.

At first I was intimidated by the pressure of telling one extemporaneous bedtime story after another. After all, isn't that how Winnie the Pooh came into being? Indelible characters, loving insight into the child mind, perfect mastery of the language, and generous lashings of Anglo-whimsey... it's all a bit much to pull out of oneself at bedtime on an ordinary Thursday evening. But really, all Henry wants to hear is that a boy went to the playground, slid down the slide, swung on a swing, threw a stick or a sweet gum ball into a puddle, and gave some snacks to his two puppies. Anything beyond that is gilding the lily.

The original Two Puppies: coincidental presents from two dads, Henry's & mine.

Sharks bite

A few years ago, in our courting days, Peter & I visited Chicago, where we museumed up a storm: The Art Institute, Science & Industry, Natural History, the planetarium AND the Shedd Aquarium. I remembered being charmed during a high-school trip to the aquarium by how the sharks seemed to press up against the glass in their huge central tank gawping at the people with the same touristic interest as the people displayed in them. When Peter and I were there, it was just the same, except maybe the sharks had grown a little jaded since 1987. 
A six-or-so-year-old boy was one of the crowd. After a bit, he said to his mother, his voice quavering with intensity, "Mommy, I want to be a hammerhead shark." She offered some generic motherly response. "Mommy," he reiterated. "I really want to be a hammerhead shark. I really want to be a hammerhead shark." It was obvious that he thought if he could just make her understand the seriousness of his desire, she would do something about it.
That little boy popped into my head this morning--Dad's 68th birthday--when I was talking to Mom on the phone. "I miss Dad," I told her. And then I heard the little boy talking: "Mom, I really miss him."

Dressed to the nines for the Children's Corner Daddy Party

On Porquerolles for Jabotte's 80th birthday party

I really do.