Karma and the sense of contentment

This morning was so lovely—sunny, a slight breeze, and a temperature of mid-70s—that I put the top down on my car and went sailing along to Central Market to buy a few delicacies. And I do mean delicacies—do you realize three slices of thick-cut bacon cost $6? And two chocolate bars with toffee and sea water salt were $5 for both. Well, I deserve.

But as I drove along, I was thinking about how good life is. Here I was driving with the wind in my hair on a perfect morning. I have a perfect family, a good (no, not quite perfect) career, a perfect house for me, an almost perfect dog. What more could I want? And then that puritanical thought crept it: “Careful, Judith. Don’t get smug because that’s when karma smacks you.”

And it did. I got to the market to find my favorite parking spot gone, so I took the next handicapped spot. But between the post by the car and the carts, there’s a five-foot gap. And I had one of my frozen moments. Couldn’t make myself cross that distance. Finally a nice man came along and at my request, brought me a cart. He kindly asked if he could be of more help, and I assured him once I had the cart I was fine. I know that was yet another incident where anticipation got the best of me—probably not for the last time. I’m learning to be philosophical about it, but that frozen moment followed me home in the back of my mind.

There followed a day I enjoyed; got a neighborhood newsletter almost done, caught up on odds and ends. And then, about 7:30 Jordan, Christian and Jacob brought tacos from
Fuzzy’s. Dinnertime turned into hilarity. Jacob said to his father, “You were going to tell me where babies come from.” Christian replied he would be he wanted to do a little more research. Research? For pity’s sake, he fathered that child.

Jacob treated us to his version, First we had to convince him babies did not grow in the vagina but the uterus. That tickled him because he thought of the planet Uranus and then envisioned walking along the street asking a casual passerby, “How’s Uranus?” Bad joke, Jacob.

Then we got to when the baby is big enough it moves up to the momma’s belly, and the belly button attaches—well, I’m not sure what. But he called it the belly-long. Christian said, “Umbilical cord,” and he said, “Umbilibelly-long.” It seems the child thinks all babies are born by C-section, and when I started to say something, he was quick with, “You don’t know. You never had any babies.” He’s right. As the adoptive mother of four, I never had a baby.

The hardest part was that he thought until he was born, he was dead inside his mom. We worked on that but I’m not sure how far we got.

One of the most interesting dinnertime discussions I’ve had in a long time.