Who needs sleep anyway?

 

I

The Walkathon in an earlier year.

t happens once a year. Today was the day. I was awakened at seven o’clock by the sounds of a marching band, complete with drum rolls. The high school marching band was tuning up or whatever they call it directly across the street from our house. We live across from Lily B. Clayton Elementary School, a historic school with an enthusiastic parent support program. The occasion today was the annual Lily B. Walkathon where all students who are able march a mile through the neighborhood, along with teachers, parents and friends. Neighbors sit on their porches or front lawns to wave and encourage the walkers. The parade is led by mounted police officers, the marching band, and often a city official in the requisite convertible. It’s really a terrific neighborhood occasion. And a fundraiser for the school. This year the kids raised $58,000 by getting people to support them in the walk.

But seven o’clock is awfully early, at least for me. I did doze, and then when they marched away, I fell sound asleep until I heard the drums returning at about nine o’clock. As I lay there listening to them, it occurred to me that it was like having an MRI, where you lie there and try to make sense or a pattern out of the sounds the machine is making. Only in this case there was a pattern. Those high school kids are pretty darn good.

To make it worse, four Amber Alerts about five o’clock in the morning brought me straight up in bed and alarmed Sophie who ran around the cottage barking at an enemy she couldn’t see. I’m not savvy enough on my iPhone that I could find out what child is missing, but I pray safety for them. Jacob tells me I missed a national alert last weekend over the Hamas attack on Israel. Perhaps what I missed this morning was a warning about the predicted Day of Rage. We are all grateful it doesn’t seem to have materialized, though when is at this point always leery of complacency.

All this on Friday the thirteenth. I don’t know about you, but I have never been particularly superstitious. In fact, I think it’s kind of silly that tall buildings never label thirteenth floor. No matter what they call it, that fourteenth floor is really number thirteen. But I read an interesting column this morning. Triskaidekaphobia is the name for extreme superstition of fear of the number thirteen. Writer Kait Carson (Scuba diving mysteries, the newest mystery of which is Deep Dive) points out that you never seat thirteen at a dining table (awkward anyway) and the number 13 is the death card in Tarot. She claims some writers refuse to advertise the thirteenth in a mystery series—how would you get around that?

But according to Kait, in eastern cultures the number is considered lucky, and she herself has had some lucky Fridays the thirteenth. Maybe it’s all in the way you look at it. Me? I think I’ll consider it neutral, just like any other day—almost. Then again maybe that marching band was trying to tell me something. How about you? Are you superstitious?

Meantime, I’m just going to try to learn to pronounce Triskaidekaphobia—I can’t even break it down into component parts that make any sense.

 

 

Family matters

 

This was supposed to post last night, but I could not get a WiFi connection all evening—so frustrating.

Same group plus
2014
Kegan front right

Any mother reading this knows how special it is when one of your “away” kids comes to visit, however briefly. I am blessed to live with one of my children, and I wouldn’t for a moment diminish the very special relationship that Jordan and I have. But when one of her siblings is here, it’s a different kind of joy.

Colin David, my oldest, and his family stopped in Fort Worth at lunchtime on their way to Colorado for a week of skiing. Wait! It wasn’t his whole family. Almost fifteen-year-old Kegan was with Colin and Lisa, but Morgan, my sixteen-year-old granddaughter, was on a band ski trip to DisneyWorld. First ski trip one of them has missed in all the many years they’ve been going on this annual spring break trip. Morgan is no doubt excited and not missing the slopes all that much—her boyfriend is also in band, so they are getting the trip together.

Morgan at
DisneyWorld

We were also missing Christian and Jacob. Jacob had to play eighteen holes this weekend—I gather it was coach’s orders—and his tee time was right at lunch time. Christian went to caddy and drive the cart, though I guess since Jacob has a learner’s permit, he could now legally drive it. But he and his dad talk about his game and share other good stuff. It’s a great guys’ outing for them, though we did miss them, and Christian mourned for one particular sandwich he wanted.

My family laughed at me. I ordered a half a tongue sandwich if the tongue was fresh and not frozen. I wasn’t sure but what Lisa would ask me to take my tongue to the next table. The report came back: no tongue. So I had split pea soup. It was, again, part of my program of eating what my family won’t when I am out. Still I took a bit of joking about my menu choices. And about the fact that I forgot my brain and referred to Jordan’s SUV as a van—in my day, it was a van. Jacob would have been mortified if he’d heard that. Even Kegan said quizzically, “Van?”

Colin is almost fifty-three, and he has been eating at Carshon’s Deli in Fort Worth for all the years of his life. We took him there as an infant, and frequent visits, sometimes weekly, followed all the years he lived at home. Now living in Tomball, he does not come to Fort Worth for his mom’s cooking but for a Rebecca sandwich at Carshon’s. I sometimes wonder: If Carshon’s closed, would I ever see him again? He declares the Rebecca (corned beef, turkey, cream cheese, and I’m not sure what else) the best sandwich in the world. Kegan, who has made frequent trips to the deli following his father, usually orders matzoh ball soup, but today he had a Rebecca. “I want to try something different,” he said. But it stymied him, and he left maybe a quarter of the sandwich. Colin scooped it up in a to-go box, and I wonder which one of them ate it on down the road.

It was an exceptionally good visit. Jordan and Lisa were on my right, where my hearing aid has gone out of battery and the new one hasn’t arrived, so I can’t tell for sure what they were talking about. But it had lots to do with calendars. We may all go to Tomball in July, and there is much planning for who will stay with me in August when the Burtons go to Mexico to celebrate Christian’s decade-changing birthday (I won’t say which one, but I bet you can guess). I am self-sufficient alone, but since I can’t drive, it can get lonely, and the kids are good about taking Jordan’s place.

It was a good food day. Jean came for dinner tonight, and I fixed cod with a buttery crumb topping (Ritz crackers make it really buttery) and sauteed cabbage. The family loves the cod, won’t touch the cabbage, so that was another indulgence on my part. Jean and I thought it was delicious. We had a good visit over dinner, bemoaning the state of the world but also catching up on each other’s doings and what’s going on with good friends.

A nice day, with maybe some signs of spring. You think?