Play by Play

I usually don’t give play by play blogs, but it feel somehow right tonight.

I finished my final final paper on Friday. I am done with my master’s work. It was a big accomplishment. Not because the paper was really good or the last one, but because of the process through which I went to write it. For one, I submitted it at like 2:15, hours before I had to turn it in. That’s a personal record. There were no late late nights or early early mornings involved in writing my paper. When I finished I didn’t have to panic because I had to regroup for a whole week to get the rest of my life back in order. And best of all, this paper pulled a whole bunch of parts of my life together. The paper’s about my work at Sumner’s school. I pulled references I had used in almost every big paper I’ve written to use in the paper and they dovetailed together nicely. What a learned each semester built on the semester before it. My writing has A LONG way to go, I realize that, but I am developing a way of going about doing it. I am looking forward to being totally in charge of my own learning.

I also had a gloriously slow weekend. Phil was gone and that was a bummer, but the kids and I had a lovely time—only a couple meltdowns. We went swimming on Friday afternoon and then out to eat to a place I wanted to go. We shared some edamane, Sumner ate pork dumplings and rice, Ramona had chicken on a couple of sticks and rice, and I had sashimi. We got the table by the fish tank and we played “Guess What?” while we ate. I only had to ask Sumner twice to sit up and Ramona to turn down the volume of her voice about half a dozen times. Sumner asked to try the sashimi and I gave him a bit of raw tuna. He loved it.

I said, “Yeah, it tastes great. It’s just that it feels a little different.”

He did a typical Sumner-ponder and came back with, “Yeah, it does feel a little like a slug,” and asked for another taste.

They also ate their whole meal with chopsticks. We don’t eat out very often and usually it’s for pizza or brunch or pizza or pizza. Yet when I offered a fork they refused and actually somehow figured out how to use the chopsticks.

I put them to bed and watched “Annie Hall” for the first time ever. I brewed and enjoyed a perfect cup of tea and ate some chocolate.

Then I watched some bad TV and went to bed.

The weekend has followed a similarly slow pattern and I like it. I’m off for a bath with Joan Didion and then some more TV. Life’s not really going to slow. I can just be more in charge of my own time for a few months. That means more blogs...