AWOL

Fear not, Loyal Reader (seriously, there's just one of you), I am alive, as are Husband and The Brood. I have some very good reasons for being quiet this summer. If you want to maintain the tiny bit of respect you have for me, I suggest you stop reading after reason #4. If you want to test your love and respect in the face of reality, read through.

Reason #1: Boy was accepted into a number of therapeutic programs at once. For the past month, he's had some activity or another every week day (swimming, behavioral group therapy, sensory integration camp). Yes, that last one is a thing, and it was fantastic. This week we have only group and the start of pre-school doctors appointments. First up, 5 year well-child, followed by eyes and teeth.

Reason #2: YES I SAID FIVE. Good Lord. He's five. Lots of celebrating, coming on the heels of my 32nd birthday, which involved lots of adult time and fun for me over several days. So no blogging.

Reason #3: I had a visitor. An honest-to-goodness visitor! Aunt C, blogger extraordinaire, Godmother The Most, College Roomie The First, graced Denver for a few days. It was lovely to have her and I'm sure all y'all would enjoy a visit too, so get on it.

Reason #4: My mom et al moved to Denver.

Reason #5: Candy Crush.

Reason #6: The batteries in the mouse died, and I considered waiting until Husband is home in September so he could remedy the situation. Can't blog comfortably on an iPad and even if I wanted to, please see Reason #5.

Summer is summer is summer. Lots of sweaty days. A few mad dashes to the ice cream truck while dogs escape and coins fly from my wallet, trying to appease the two children who seem not to hear me when I speak to them from two feet away, but who can detect an ice cream truck if it rings its bell in Kansas. PS--an ice cream sandwich is now $3.50; no $0.25 packs of candy cigarettes. My childhood weeps.

One trek to my cousin's wedding several hours from here, across the mountains. There were unironic cowboy hats. Everything is ironic on the East Coast, so this was very exciting for me.

One bid list. Zero ideas. For the past seven years, my mind wandered over the possibilities of Burundi or Beijing, wondering if the consular high of a post like CJ was worth the stress. Yes, over the past seven, even when it wasn't our bidding season. Now it all seems oppressive. We aren't ready. Boy isn't ready. We won't know anything until he's settled into school and an IEP is in place, so overseas is out. DC is always a possibility, but if this school year doesn't go well--or if it goes very well--we'd hate to move and both be back at work full-time, managing the many services our son needs with a Washington cost of living and a Washington work day. Hawaii is a possibility for Husband, but not me, but it's too expensive to do on one salary. Kansas could happen for Husband with a commute to Denver on the weekends, and for me--who knows? More LWOP? What I want is a magical little 03 or 02 job at Aurora. I've inquired about such things, but I haven't heard anything. It's a stretch, a potshot, a chance to stay in a career I've dreamed of since I was 16. It's a job that--so far--doesn't exist.

Possibly an 81 mile commute to NORAD for Husband. We'd take it, though, and figure out the rest later.

So: summer. There is something romantic about the long hot days of summer. Of ice cream trucks and sweat and sidewalk chalk. Of bidding and lobbying and dreaming of far-off places. Though there was a chill one day--one rare rainy day--and I immediately longed for a DC autumn, for brilliant trees and morning frost and hot cider.

Opportunity costs.

Point of View

Amber Dusick, the force behind the always brilliant PARENTING Illustrated with Crappy Pictures, challenged her readers to have their kids interview them, because kids are hilariously wackadoo and have no idea what's going on.

Here are my results:

Q: What is my favorite food?
Boy: Everything
Girl: Ice cream

Okay, maybe they know exactly what's going on.

Q: What do I do for fun?
Boy: Reading
Girl: Ice cream

Girl wins.

Q: What's my favorite TV show?
Boy: Grown up TVs [sic]
Girl: Diego

Boy wins.

Q: What do I drink?
Boy: Wine
Girl: Water

Both of these are accurate. Had they added "coffee," they would have captured 99% of my fluid intake.

Q: What do I do with my friends?
Boy: Play
Girl: [A blank stare indicating, "You have friends?"]

Q: What do I wear?
Boy: (rolls eyes) A dress, silly!
Girl: Clothes

Thank you, Girl.

Q: Who is my best friend?
Boy: Trainer
Girl: Trainer!

Okay, I love Trainer, but I like to think my best friend is someone I have known for more than three months. He is the only adult I regularly see, though, so I can see why they might come to that conclusion.

Q: What do I do after you go to bed at night?
Boy: Clean
Girl: Clean
Boy: We're both right!

"Fall asleep on the couch" would have been the most accurate answer, but I'll accept clean. Not because that is what I am doing, but because that's what I tell them I have to do after they go to bed. At least they're listening.

Metro Revisited

I sat in the handicapped seats, suitcase between my knees, trying to remain out of everyone's way and keep a continuous scan going in case someone with a legitimate need for the handicapped seats showed up. The metro was filled with metro sounds--on a June Saturday that's usually kids and their parents, the sounds of fanny packs planning outings to the Smithsonian. The first stop after I got on was National Airport, and my neighbors glanced first expectantly and then in confusion at my suitcase as I remain seated. I stayed there, headphones in, picking up the ambient noise in between songs on my playlist. I was hunched over, hand cautiously on the suitcase, arm tattooed, nose ring in. No wedding ring on. It occurred to me in that moment that people might make certain assumptions about me: probably that I was younger than I am (thanks, Muse Salon), that I was aimless. I wanted to hold a sign announcing that I am a mother, a diplomat, that this is my one chance to have headphones in, and that on another Saturday two years ago I would have brought my own roiling cacophony onto the train, also headed to the Smithsonian while wondering why my day off felt like so much work. No fanny pack, though. No tattoos yet.

I paid inordinate attention to the landscape in front and then below us when the plane took off from Denver. The front range stretched before me, snow marking the famous fourteeners. The dips and marks of the ground stayed within view for several thousands of feet. God's own country, no doubt. I felt in awe and thankful that--for now, anyway--I can call this place home.

Coming in over the Potomac pulled a different string. Washington always was and always will be my true north. I saw the neat rows of headstones in Arlington and the glittering water and placed a tick mark in the D.C.'s pro column. I stepped into an immediate soup of humidity--not bad by local standards but brutal after a few months in Colorado. One tick in the con.

Friends, acquaintances, classmates, alums wanted to know where my brood was, and I answer that they were in Denver. I'd loved to have shown them off, but I was relieved to have my headphones in, to process the whats and the what nexts on my own. We video-chatted in the middle of a reunion event, Girl blowing raspberries and Boy inserting "poop" between words. I bought a new Georgetown shirt. I lamented the removal of the my favorite tree, the one that I would climb instead of attending Western Civ. I wondered if I would ever step foot in FSI again, if I would ever write another EER, if I would ever keep up with the amazingly talented people I know and love from college. I wondered if I wanted to keep up.

And then No Diggity came on, and I danced. A lot. Class of 2003: Word.