The Gift of a Day

Okay, so it’s been two-thousand and six degrees outside all week. Except today. Today it was…

Gorgeous, beautiful, 90 degrees maybe…

And I’m thinking, the Goddess loves me. She really really loves me. Why, you ask?

Because today was recital day. Chicken takes dance lessons and Cave Troll takes gymnastics from the same lady–JoAnna–whose Kids’R’It franchise pretty much corners the market in low income, see your kid in a tu-tu and love it opportunities here in Sacramento. Seriously, she charges PEANUTS per month, really loves kids, and her kids love her so much that many of her graduates hang out and teach their way through school. Kewyn gets twisted like a pretzel around the gym mat by the same two guys I watched grow through the last 10 years, broken arms, acne, long hair and all. And every year she has a GI-FREAKIN-NORMOUS recital in the Grant theatre. For those of you who don’t know the area, Grant High School is not in a great area–and the theatre is so damned old you feel a little leery sitting underneath the balcony. The air conditioning was installed five years ago to EVERYBODY’S intense relief, because recital day is always perilously near or on my wedding anniversary–June 17th–and the odds of it being eleventythirteen that day are considerable.

It was eleventythirteen yesterday. It will be eleventyten tomorrow.

Today, the day we were packed like salmon in that humid, sticky theatre with the overwhelmed air-conditioning, swapping Ladybug’s limp, exhausted, confused little person between us as she broke a nap every time we broke into applause, today of all uncomfortable, zany, I have five-thousand things to do including dropping T off at a family reunion and getting flowers and recital gifts and hauling Ladybug where she didn’t want to go and standing in line in the un-airconditioned allway, today of all days…it was 90 degrees outside, and liveable inside, and the Goddess does love me, sometimes, she really really does.

Tomorrow I will stress about my computer (which may not be as dire as first suspected), and the fact that I’ve got a class I haven’t even OPENED and the fact that I need to see a printer about bookmarks and the fact that I’ve been plagiarized when I’m not even famous (not that this is a bad thing…in fact, I”m sort of tripping out on it!) and on a thousand of other things, because we all know that’s what I do.

Today was gorgeous. Chicken actually forgot she hated the world for putting her on that goddamned stage and she DANCED…(no smile, but there was music in her movements and I was PROUD). The Cave Troll provided serious entertainment because he was made first in line because when he’s in the middle he tends to skivv off until he’s last. Brother, was he confused to be first–you had to see him…the spotters change position for the first person in line–they go from the position for, say, spotting a front roll to the position for spotting a head stand, and with the little ones, they’re all kneeling or sitting on the floor. Cave Troll walked up to his spotter as the guy was changing position, and having know idea what he was supposed to do, he lay on his back with his hands by his ears (back roll) and his knees in the air (front roll) and looked at the kid for help until the poor guy picked him up, moved him like an action figure, and stood him on his head with his feet waving around the guys ears. I was in hysterics, and Mate wasn’t far behind me.

And Ladybug, despite the discomfort, didn’t cry once.

So let’s hear it for summer days that aren’t eleventythirteen, and for kids who work with their hearts in their feet and music in their muscles, and for babies who sleep with their eyes open because the stage is the best tv ever, and for teenagers who go to family reunions so that all of your relatives can tell you what wonderful children you have.

Sometimes, the Goddess really does smile.