I'm in the auditorium at Rockville High School, waiting for the senior parents meeting to begin. The PowerPoint presentation is ready to go, with a title slide that reads "Class of 2019: Congratulations."
(Auto-suggest: Really? When I type "con," your first suggestion is "Congolese?" And when I add the letter "g," you helpfully offer to complete the word "Congresses?" Plural? Really?)
But I digress. Back to the PowerPoint slide, which should read "Your firstborn child is leaving you soon, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it."
*****
(Auto-suggest: Really? When I type "con," your first suggestion is "Congolese?" And when I add the letter "g," you helpfully offer to complete the word "Congresses?" Plural? Really?)
But I digress. Back to the PowerPoint slide, which should read "Your firstborn child is leaving you soon, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it."
*****
The auditorium is filling up and the principal is on stage now so I'll have to stop writing soon. I sat in one interminable meeting after another today, so my patience is strained and I'm praying that no one will feel inspired to stand and ask a question just for the sake of asking a question. There are about 300 seniors in this class and about 100 parents here already; and in my meeting experience (extensive), about 10 percent of meeting attendees really really really love to prolong meetings by asking really sharp, insightful, good questions, so this might be too much to ask. But hope springs eternal.
*****
It's Friday now. Of course people asked questions, but not many, and only one that I would have characterized as an unnecessary show question. And it did snow, but not enough to close school. I worked from home. It was a stressful day for some reason. I almost sent an angry email reply to someone who I thought was scolding me unfairly. Then I thought better of it, and it turned out that the scolding had been meant for someone else, so I'm glad I didn't send the reply. No good comes of angry emailing.
Meanwhile, now that I have all of the graduation details sorted out, I can just relax and dread the part where my son leaves high school and then leaves home.
*****
Saturday afternoon. My 14-year-old son has a Confirmation retreat this weekend, and I dropped him off this morning. I hate even a single-night sleepover, so the idea of shipping one of my sons off to college is causing me some anxiety. He is actually considering spending a year or two at the local community college before transferring to a four-year university, and I would be very happy if he did that, but I don't want to tell him that, because I don't want him to make this decision based on what he thinks will make me happy. So I'm going to proceed on the assumption that he's going away, and prepare accordingly.
*****
Sunday morning. More snow to come. We had a brief thaw yesterday. Most of the previous day's snow melted, and the sun fought its way through the clouds, and you could just start to sense the promise of spring. Thinking that it might be the last decent weather day for a while, I went for a run in the afternoon. My older son was out with friends, driving around in his car. When I heard the sirens, I texted him immediately. He was fine; the sirens were for something else--I still don't know what. (Everyone in my neighborhood texts or emails me when they hear sirens, thinking that the wife of a police officer must necessarily be the best source of insider information. But I'm always the last to know.)
With the sirens off my mind, I noticed the buzzards. Or vultures. I think those words can be used interchangeably, but I'm not going check. I trust my vast reading public to look it up, and to correct me if necessary. Anyway, buzzards were circling; more than half a dozen of the icky ragged-feathered things swooping and swirling and waiting for something to die. I was walking, and I started running again, hoping to get away from whatever it was that was dying so that I could avoid witnessing the disgusting feast.
I'm a terrible runner, as I've mentioned before. Really really terrible. Slow, awkward, extremely limited stamina--only when it comes to running, though. I can walk or swim or work all day long and into the night, but I can only run for a couple of blocks before I'm winded to the point at which a casual observer would guess that I'm having a heart attack.
Gasping for air and cursing the day I was born, I ran down the street wondering what unfortunate creature was on death's door and about to become a buzzard gang's late lunch.
And then I realized that me running is not the most lively looking thing. And I looked up, and I swear that one of the buzzards looked back at me, in a rather pointed way. And I realized that a person should not ask for whom the buzzard swoops. It swoops for thee.
*****
So it's Monday now, and I survived the run, obviously. I don't know if the buzzards went home disappointed, or if some suburban woodland creature expired in time for the buzzard dinner bell. It's not my problem, is what I figure. When it comes to buzzards overhead, it's every creature for itself, and if a rabbit or a squirrel or a chipmunk is still working its way through some buzzard's digestive tract, then I can't waste time crying about it.
The brief thaw has ended and the cold has returned. But it's still broad daylight at 5:50 PM. The sky outside my window is clear, cold blue-gray warmed just a tiny bit by the soon-to-set sun. Both of my children are under my roof and will be for the next few months. And there's not a buzzard in sight.
*****
Saturday afternoon. My 14-year-old son has a Confirmation retreat this weekend, and I dropped him off this morning. I hate even a single-night sleepover, so the idea of shipping one of my sons off to college is causing me some anxiety. He is actually considering spending a year or two at the local community college before transferring to a four-year university, and I would be very happy if he did that, but I don't want to tell him that, because I don't want him to make this decision based on what he thinks will make me happy. So I'm going to proceed on the assumption that he's going away, and prepare accordingly.
*****
Sunday morning. More snow to come. We had a brief thaw yesterday. Most of the previous day's snow melted, and the sun fought its way through the clouds, and you could just start to sense the promise of spring. Thinking that it might be the last decent weather day for a while, I went for a run in the afternoon. My older son was out with friends, driving around in his car. When I heard the sirens, I texted him immediately. He was fine; the sirens were for something else--I still don't know what. (Everyone in my neighborhood texts or emails me when they hear sirens, thinking that the wife of a police officer must necessarily be the best source of insider information. But I'm always the last to know.)
With the sirens off my mind, I noticed the buzzards. Or vultures. I think those words can be used interchangeably, but I'm not going check. I trust my vast reading public to look it up, and to correct me if necessary. Anyway, buzzards were circling; more than half a dozen of the icky ragged-feathered things swooping and swirling and waiting for something to die. I was walking, and I started running again, hoping to get away from whatever it was that was dying so that I could avoid witnessing the disgusting feast.
I'm a terrible runner, as I've mentioned before. Really really terrible. Slow, awkward, extremely limited stamina--only when it comes to running, though. I can walk or swim or work all day long and into the night, but I can only run for a couple of blocks before I'm winded to the point at which a casual observer would guess that I'm having a heart attack.
Gasping for air and cursing the day I was born, I ran down the street wondering what unfortunate creature was on death's door and about to become a buzzard gang's late lunch.
And then I realized that me running is not the most lively looking thing. And I looked up, and I swear that one of the buzzards looked back at me, in a rather pointed way. And I realized that a person should not ask for whom the buzzard swoops. It swoops for thee.
*****
So it's Monday now, and I survived the run, obviously. I don't know if the buzzards went home disappointed, or if some suburban woodland creature expired in time for the buzzard dinner bell. It's not my problem, is what I figure. When it comes to buzzards overhead, it's every creature for itself, and if a rabbit or a squirrel or a chipmunk is still working its way through some buzzard's digestive tract, then I can't waste time crying about it.
The brief thaw has ended and the cold has returned. But it's still broad daylight at 5:50 PM. The sky outside my window is clear, cold blue-gray warmed just a tiny bit by the soon-to-set sun. Both of my children are under my roof and will be for the next few months. And there's not a buzzard in sight.
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