bits and pieces

It’s a Friday night. I’m sitting sideways in our large, brown chair. It’s 10:15, and I’m the only one foolish enough to be awake in the house. Kate took Sydney upstairs to put her to sleep and has clearly succumbed herself, and Piper’s been down for two hours, now.  I will soon head to sleep, but despite several loops around the News/Blogs/Facebook/Email/IRC circuit with nothing really intriguing, I am not quite ready to shut my laptop yet. Because I am dumb.

Friday night: we did a low-key dinner in our backyard with our usual Shabbos gang. Quakers as we are, we still managed to muster some tea light candles (which immediately blew out), wine to sing over, and enough seats for everyone despite the overabundance of flies. The younger kids ran around annoying each other, and the adults filled each other in about our respective summer travels.

The front walk of our house is partially shaded by a large tree; we think it’s a Box Elder, though that may simply be because of the mind boggling number of Box Elder Beetles  doing their moseying walk on, over and (ugh) inside our house.  The bugs are utterly harmless to humans, plants and pets, but after a while, one gets weary of interacting with those who won’t stop moseying, and wearier still of having to flick them away from

  * the chair on which one wants to sit
  * one's pillow
  * the door you're about to pass through
  * the front walk

Piper found them deeply upsetting last year and demanded to be carried over them.  This year the population seems to have doubled  but P now finds them intriguing, crouching to nudge them and pointing out those that have been squashed on the sidewalk.  “This one’s dead!", she calls out, unconcerned.

P speaks of death only as opportunity just now, rather than loss. “When our cats die, maybe we could get … another pet?", she asked me the other day in a tone that seemed practiced but attempting to sound nonchalant. And then, as if the idea were only just now occurring to her: “A hamster, maybe?”

No coda, just some head-cracking yawns and anticipation of a kid-filled week to come. Time for bed.