Nap Time

Dear J-

The next time someone tells you any sure-fire ways to knock kids down for the night, remember that even if they can’t swim, an hour in the pool will render them unconscious in a matter of moments. Perhaps it’s a genetic thing; we spent whole summers in our neighbor’s pool and I never remembered much after 10PM. Today we went to visit theVet’s sister and family, who were spending a last week off before figgy’s cousin goes off to kindergarten on Thursday.

As Labor Days go this was pretty much what we needed — low-key, no schedules, and dreams fulfilled; one of the thoughts I always had was the cosy feeling of a baby sleeping my chest and today between the pool and restaurant, figgy was lured into my trap. I got half an hour out of it; I spent half an hour picking ineffectually at my food — meaning everything within reach I could graze on — with a figgy making my left arm steadily numb and a steady smile in my mind.

Mike

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O-O-L

Dear J-

Guy digs a pool in his backyard and, to celebrate its completion, invites friends and neighbors over for a party.  Everyone’s having a great time, splashing, laughing; beverages are flowing, barbecue’s sending out wicked good smoke, the sun is keeping everyone warm.  His friend pulls him aside.

“Er, look, I don’t know how to say this –”

“Yes, isn’t the pool lovely?”

“Well, see, that’s the point.  Your sign says ‘Welcome to the ool’.  There’s a typo, there:  there’s no p in your pool.”

“No, that’s the intent!”

“It’s O-O-L, there’s no P in your POOL.”

“Precisely.  Let’s keep it that way.”

Mike

Preschool

More stuff from days of yore (all right, 1998, but that was infant-web).

*****

I grew up in the rural northwest. I lived in a small town until I graduated from high school, like Clark Kent, except that I don’t have a super alter-ego like he did. I daydreamed (still do, sometimes) that I would get bitten by a radioactive thing, that I came from a different planet, that I had a terrible, burning desire for revenge, that in short my life wasn’t so drearily normal.