Ode to Spring

In spite of multiple complications is was, in fact, a beautiful day.

For better and (only momentarily) for worse, I wound up spending several hours out and about with my son today. My spouse has the flu, and since he's also on his spring break right now, our daycare plans (and plans for taking the car to the shop) are a little uncertain. It evolved that I needed to choose this morning: leave my five year old home with his legitimately ill father (who has no patience at all when he's like this) to face a long day of not going outside and not being allowed to roughhouse with his dad; or, stay home myself, for a second day of tiptoeing around the house not getting anything done; or, take the kid to work with me, knowing he could at least spend some time in the park across the street and would perhaps let me get in a few hours of work while he watched cartoons and played with my typewriter. Option three obviously sounded best, and that's what we did. He watched a cartoon, he typed a little, he helped me a lot in the food shelf. He ate a muffin.

The dad came around at about Noon and offered to pick up HT, even saying he felt well enough with the additional rest to let me attend a 7pm meeting I'd been hoping not to miss. So I went home early and took HT to the park, then cooked supper. 45 minutes before my meeting, my spouse got up and went to bed. When queried about the wisdom of me leaving again, his response was one of utter incoherence. Since I'd promised organizers I'd attend after hearing the earlier assurances, I really felt on the hook. So, after HT took a stab or two at his dinner, we hit the road again -- this time for a meeting downtown at the Open Book center. 35 mostly older gals and one guy sitting around watching a film about Peter Beard, as it turns out -- I was there to exchange volumes with my Altered Book Round Robin compatriots, but had to wait interminably while Beard nattered on about himself, and then the group nattered about Beard. But my son was incredibly patient and well-behaved. He drew, he played for almost an hour with the giant magnetic poetry set on a fridge in the print lab, he let me take him on a tour of the press room. He whispered. He was very quiet and self-contained. Held out until the bitter end, nearly nine pm, when his self-control was just beginning to fray. I felt guilty, and proud. I let him stay up late and watch a show, with a glass of chocolate milk.

He's a great kid. I hope he'll be interested in some of my passions, as he grows older. And I hope I'll be able to find the resources he needs to feed his always-expanding intellect.

Did I mention how smashing was the weather?