spynotes ::
  December 29, 2006
Slouching toward Bethlehem

I�m sitting in my last morning of AJ�s basketball camp watching him alternately shoot basket after basket and try to fit the basketball under his regulation t-shirt. He is, afterall, five. The basketball camp has been eye-opening for him I think. He�s learned a lot about basketball and has finally mastered the fine art of dribbling. He�s also been introduced to his first Mohawk, the hairstyle of choice for one of his fellow kindergartners. (�What�s wrong with his hair, Mommy?�)

Mr. Spy had to go downtown yesterday, so AJ wrote about his morning at camp in his journal (with accompanying illustrations):

I had really fun at basketball camp and I alomost won at Hot Ball! (original spelling preserved. Hot Ball is the basketball equivalent of Hot Potato. The kids stood in a circle passing balls around. When the whistle blew, anyone with a ball got a chance to take a shot. If they made it, they got to go back in the circle. If they missed, they were out. AJ was in the final round of three, but missed his last shot.

Yesterday afternoon, my friend B. stopped by. B. and I have known each other for more than a decade. We met when we were both studying at a conservatory in France. Miraculously, I have not managed to turn him against me yet, although I might have this time, because I feel very bad about not being able to offer him a place to stay. It�s not that there was no room at the inn. It�s just that compared to our guest room at the moment, a stay in a manger is looking pretty good. You see, sometime in the last week or so, it became apparent that we had no heat in the guest room, which most of the time serves as Mr. Spy�s office. Mr. Spy was probably the first to notice the problem, although he didn�t say anything. It wasn�t until I walked in to ask him a question and discovered that he was typing in a parka with his ski hat pulled down over his ears that I suggested he might want to work elsewhere.

Then came the ants.

Hundreds of ants. Thousands of ants. Millions and billions and trillions of ants (with apologies to Wanda Gag). They�ve been trickling in since we replaced the carpet in the family room. But two days ago, I walked into the bathroom and discovered a virtual ant hill decimating a bar of glycerin soap left innocently lying in the soap dish.

We�re buying stock in Raid this year. Also, there are no exterminators to be found during the holidays. Bummer.

They are, at least, not carpenter ants, but the teeny tiny ones that used to plague one of the kitchens of my childhood in the heat of the summer. But they are still not the ideal houseguests.

As I put it to B., staying in our guestroom is, at the moment, rather like all the worst parts of camping without any of the benefits. Sad, but true. Maybe we�d do better if we left the windows open and just let the wildlife take over altogether. I wonder what they�d do with the computer?

But B agreed to come by for a visit and AJ and I took him out to lunch at a place he calls the Fox Restaurant thanks to its hunting lodge d�cor. It was great to see him and catch up. AJ obligingly spent most of lunch playing with his new Spongebob travel games and left B. and I to talk shop and compare notes on job searches. Later he left to explore what AJ calls �The Big City� and AJ and I were left to our own devices, which meant playing Pac-Man and starting work on a giant puzzle the family got for Christmas.

Later I recovered from ant battle fatigue with yoga class, followed by drinks with the lovely fairlywell (alas, a Lass stood us up once again this year (I�m not sure if she wishes to be linked, so I won�t. It looks like fairly and I will have to fly to Austin to buy her drinks.), who kindly waited when I was held up by an endless freight train.

We had a lovely evening (fortunately karaoke free, although it looked for a moment like there was going to be singing), although I woke this morning with Kathleen Turner voice syndrome, the result of too much smoke and yelling in the bar last night followed by not enough water when I got home.

I invited fairly and her boyfriend to our New Year�s Day party (although they have been warned that it might be totally lame). If they come, it will be the first time anyone I met via blogging has met any of my real life friends and family. I feel about it kind of like I�m introducing, say, Jo March to Lizzie Bennett. I like them both very much and I suspect they�d get along, but they live in two different books. Frankly, though, I�ve always wanted to get Jo and Lizzie in the same room. That would be a novel worth reading.

3 people said it like they meant it

 
:: last :: next :: random :: newest :: archives ::
:: :: profile :: notes :: g-book :: email ::
::rings/links :: 100 things :: design :: host ::

(c) 2003-2007 harri3tspy

<< chicago blogs >>