MindSpinner

Catapult Kid and Dark-haired Daughter were in an accident tonight. They will be OK, I think, though Catapult Kid was unconscious for a few minutes before he was revived and was able to walk away from the smoking, crumpled car. Dark-haired daughter says her leg is hurting, but she seems otherwise OK. She was able to call from the scene of the accident. Another car was involved. She was told that the woman driving it would be OK. I hope that’s right.

I have not seen them yet - they are still at the local hospital. I asked the Reverend Dr. Ex if I could ride with him to the hospital, having no other car, but the answer was “I will pick them up myself” and “They don’t need a lot of unnecessary tests.”

My kids are alive and not profoundly injured. That is a huge reprieve from potential tragedy. I won’t be mourning the car; I am too busy being grateful.

Catapult Kid is home again, his future with the Guard uncertain. Responsibility for the screw-up lies with a flawed recruitment process. Initially decked by a deep disappointment, he’s been recouping, re-adjusting, and re-envisioning his future.

On another front, my new name is No, No, Nanette, a sea change which means nothing much to anyone - and shouldn’t - except to me.

Life in 3D requires much of my time, mental energy, and emotional fortitude right now, so I’m giving notice that I’ll be ducking in to write a post when writing is a good to me or when something insists on being written down, but I won’t be trying to post just to be regular or consistent about it.

In the meantime, my best to all who stop by .

The orange tent out back
will come down today.
The blue cooler still partly filled
with ice and cans
of Coke and Ale 8
will be emptied.
Diverse sleeping bags
will be wrangled into rolls,
more or less,
and stashed away.

The boy who invited his
best buddies over for a rolicking
midnight Airsoft battle
(and when he was two
strode straight into the roiling surf
of his very first sea)
will be leaving
on Tuesday for eight
months of training.
His Special Forces unit
has already been calling
to see how long
’til he’s ready.
Military Intel people,
so it seems, are needed yesterday.

On the other hand,
last night’s 6mm plastic BBs
will be unearthed in my garden
for the next thousand years.
Green. Blue. White. Yellow.
I swept up the ones
strewn across the driveway
near the car and the wood pallet
stood on end for defense,
but I will not pick up
the ones fired and fallen in the garden
among the carrots and the onions,
the thyme and the slender
green blades of iris.
Not even one.

1) I checked the beans yesterday and have a bucketful, so I’m pulling out the canner. I have enough tomatoes to make a small batch of sauce, too. I am happiest in the garden and least happy bumping about by myself in the house, ordering aimlessness with a to-do list. Today, however, it is steamy hot out. I’ll save the outdoors for evening.

2) I had thought that cats were loners of the animal world, that they preferred their own territory. Certainly Bobby, our five-year-old cat, has never liked other cats; he tolerates dogs better because he is more accustomed to them. Presented with a neighbor’s Rhodesian Ridgeback puppy (a creature bred for lion hunting), he will chase it around in the spirit of fun. Presented with a new cat, he will hiss and spit. And so he did at first with the orange kitten who has come to stay. Orange Stripey Dude, for his part, unabashedly expected to be loved and played with and would have no demurring. So now they play, they bathe each other with their tongues, and they often curl up together for a nap. So much for cats being solitary creatures.

3) The new academic year planners do me good. They have “November 2008″ printed right in front of me on physical pages, promising that the next presidential election really will come, and George Bush really will have to leave office.

4) My fifth period sophomore class of about 25 students has at least one precocious student who performs at college level, three who read at fourth grade level and one who reads at first grade level. One expects a range of abilities, but this mix is unusually challenging.

Since I teach at a school that operates on a semi year-round schedule, summer break lasts, in practical terms, about six weeks. That six weeks has come to an end. With the first day of school just around the corner, I just want to tally and celebrate the best of summer.

• Taking four girls to see the mewithoutYou concert and inadvertently meeting one of the band members beforehand, a feat which, for one brief shining moment, made me a way-cool mom .
• Taking Dark-haired Daughter and Catapult Kid whitewater rafting. Hearing “No guide! No guide!” all the way down the country until we saw the river and then hearing “We’re going to die!” instead.
• Watching them paddle all over the lake at my mother’s home in our big canoe.
• Spending time with extended family, including my brother and his family. Helping my mother stake anasazi beans.
• Paying attention to the wild upstarts I’ve called weeds for years and years and learning what they actually are.
• Waking up to rain that ends a dry spell and waters everything at once.
• Driving down to see a not-so-far-away college to learn about its commitment to sustainable living and sustainable agriculture. Seeing how a straw bale house is built. Learning about permaculture techniques that make a lot of sense.
• Going to see Wild Hogs with Catapult Kid one night when his sister was working. (Catapult Kid is doing the inner work of leaving home and declaring his independence - rather overdoing it - which means that good mother-son time is a big deal when it happens.)
• Getting on the Interstate going south with Catapult Kid when we should have gone north. We ended up turning around one exit down and pulling into gas station/fast food joint where Catapult Kid bought food for a homeless guy who had almost the same last name and I bought a handmade basket from an Amish couple.
• Noting how many high school students showed up at Open House at school when they really don’t need to, just to see everybody and to say hello. It really will be OK for school to start next week - these are lovable kids.