Wednesday, January 16, 2019

Everything is Not Okay

It will soon be a month I have been working without pay.  We have kept new purchases to a minimum, but did spring for a new needle for the record player which arrived in the mail on Sunday. 

We spent the rest of the evening listening to my old records from high school and college.  Sam has taken an affinity to They Might Be Giants, and it strikes me as more than a little ironic in this day and age, the kids may have memories of listening to old records instead of playing Fortnight on the XBox.

We set up a craft table in the corner of the living room, an inexpensive Ikea table we bought in D.C. when we didn't have any furniture and needed a dining room table.  We decided to bring it with us to Jordan, and I'm glad we did. Peter and Clementine dressed mermaids and faeries in stickers and colored quietly while Sam played DJ, moving effortlessly from the Housemartins to Tom Petty to the Dire Straits.  Peter would admit the next morning at breakfast he wished he had a mermaid's tail.  Elise and I sat on the couch, absorbed in the scene, she drinking a glass a wine, myself with a beer.   

The next evening, Peter would read us a book about sloths.  He has recently taken a penchant for sloths since Santa brought him a stuffed sloth he named Sovie for Christmas.  He is also diligently practicing his recorder.  He brought home a book "Recorder Karate"; each time he learns a new song on the recorder, he receives a different color belt as though he were working his way up to Bruce Lee black belt proficiency on the recorder.  He recently received his yellow belt for learning "Hot Cross Buns".

This morning, Sam was practicing a song on the keyboard. The house has become quite musical the last few days. All three of the kids are interested in taking formal music lessons, and I have reached out to a local guitar teacher, but the lessons do not come cheap and I am hesitating signing the kids up until I have reconciled their attestations they will practice between weekly lessons with the probable reality. 

Last night when I got home from work, the kids were splayed out in front of the TV watching reruns of "Full House" on Netflix.  Though 40 years separates their childhood from mine (or 30 years from Elise's) they are surprisingly more alike than they are different.  When the TV went off, roasted sweet potatoes came out of the oven, and four NY strips went into a frying pan with butter and thyme.  Elise openly questioned if we would really eat four NY strip steaks, but a half hour later, the only thing that remained on five plates were four slabs of inedible gristle and sweet potato skins. 

Today, the weather promises more wind and cold.  The app on my phone teases snow around dinner time, continuing into the overnight hours.  January will soon give way to February, then, eventually, some day, spring.  Inshallah. Did I say everything is not okay?  Sorry that was a typo. Everything is just fine. 

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