AJ had his first swimming lesson this morning and I was delighted to discover that Ben Franklin Boy was in his class. I think, unfortunately, he will be moving up to a more advanced class, but he and AJ had a chance to bond over Schoolhouse Rock. After class, the two of them shuffled down the stairs from the pool in their bare feet and towels singing, �I�m just a bill, I am only a bill��

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Father�s Day was a quiet event. My husband had an early Sunday morning interview, so AJ and I had a chance to put things in order. AJ, who has been absorbed in Mad-Libs lately, which appear both to his tendency toward taxonomy (parts of speech are right up his alley) and also toward silliness. He wrote a Mad Lib for and about his father. Here it is with the parts of speech replaced by his original words (in parentheses):

My dad is so (silly). He likes to play a (game) where he tries to (scare) me. I like it when he takes me to play (mini) golf. He takes me out for (ice cream) sometimes. I sometimes share my (ice cream) with him. I like it when he takes me (bowling). One time I got a (strike) and he (cheered). I love it when we go to (baseball) games. He buys me a (snack). It�s exciting when someone hits a (home run). I just (love) my dad!

We also gave him the complete DVD of the 2005 World Series, which the two of them have been watching in bits and pieces for the last couple of days.

We had plans for a picnic and mini-golf, but the rain wouldn�t stop, so we settled for mini-golf in the rain, which turned out to be great fun and very silly. AJ hit a hole in one on hole 13 and did a victory dance.

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AJ is upstairs with his babysitter who is helping us out for these two weeks that he doesn�t have summer camp. I am in my office feeling the pressure to work. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of picking up the mail and got the double whammy of my alumnae magazine, full of the accomplishments of other women, and a letter from one of the jobs I�d applied to last fall informing me that they�d hired the one person I�ve met in my life that I�ve ever not been able to stand for pretty much no reason at all. There are a number of reasons why I find myself being thrown together with this person over and over again, but we have never got along for a variety of reasons, but mostly because I don�t feel I can trust the person any farther than the person can be thrown (hmm. This gender avoidance is unwieldy. My apologies.) But my other friends who know this person all think of us as people who should actually be friends with one another. I think the problem is that we are very similar in some ways but have very different values. But the news was aggravating. On the one hand, the fact that this person was hired tells me that they were looking for someone with a very different skill set than myself, which was something I�d suspected and I was glad to have my instincts validated. On the other hand, I have always felt a rivalry with this person, so the fact that it was this person who got the job is something I find annoying, in part because this person is doing what I think I should be doing by now and I�m feeling that I can�t seem to catch up.

Beating myself up about the things I haven�t done is a waste of time, I know this. It would be much better to just get them done. I don�t want an arch-rival, but somehow I seem to have created one for myself. I need to dust off my ego and get past it.

[Yesterday's entry was made late in the day; click back for a rememberance of rooms past.]

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