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A Saturday

The cat is walking around in circles, waiting for her dinner to drop from the automatic feeder. It is just after 5 so it will come soon and somehow she knows it. Looking out the glass door to the backyard I see the sun is still up, but it’s gray out and the deck is wet. It must have rained in the last couple of hours since we got home from our lunch outing. A dead mosquito plant is still sitting there in its large pot, droopy and brown. I meant to get rid of last fall before the snow fell, but I guess I didn’t get to it. That’s what spring is for—finishing up the stuff that didn’t get done in the fall.

The boys are playing video games in the next room. They are speaking cheerfully to each other, for once. The last few weeks, maybe a couple of months now, have been rough between the two of them. The rivalry, the petty arguing, the roughhousing. It’s all been getting to me. I don’t love video-game time, but it is an interest that they share and it keeps the peace on a low-key Saturday.

I am waiting for butter and eggs to come to room temperature so I can make chocolate-chip cookies. R is going to a friend’s house tonight to sleep over and I want to send cookies. They invite him over often, a lot more often than we reciprocate, and it’s kind of embarrassing. So I like to send goodies when I get the chance to bake before we drop him off. The last time M made the cookies and they received rave reviews (they were awfully good). I am the baker in the house so I hope mine turn out as well. (Spoiler alert—they did not. I mixed them too quickly or something and they came out looking like skeksis from the Dark Crystal. They taste good, though, so we’ll keep them.)

W is jealous because R got invited to a sleepover so we’re heading toward a potential disaster. We have dinner reservations at a nice Asian restaurant for tonight because R doesn’t like Asian food, but W does. I told W he could invite a friend to sleep over after dinner, which I know is sort of weird. Why couldn’t we invite the friend to dinner? Well, a couple of reasons. One, this is a nice restaurant in a popular town and we have reservations already. Two, we invited friends to go with us, a childless couple, and I don’t think it’s the right time to bring a new kid along that nobody knows all that well. Three, I don’t want dinner to be awkward for the kid. So, if he’s okay with being picked up late, at like 9, then he can sleep over. So far no word back. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that my offer of the overnight invitation is enough to ward off a pre-teen tantrum later on.

Today I binge watched the first season of Atypical on Netflix. Loved it. The mom is a disaster and super annoying but otherwise the characters are perfectly charming. And don’t get me wrong, I see where the mom is coming from. She’s had it rough the last 18 years. She does a lot for her family with little recognition. There’s also the thing about her husband having abandoned the family for close to a year in 2004. Now she’s having an affair of her own, which I don’t condone, but I sort of see the temptation. But, please. Her behavior with that bartender is embarrassing to watch. Really not my kind of personality. But her kids are awesome, even if the girl is moody and downright nasty to her mom at times. I love how supportive the family is of the kids’ romantic relationships (once they get over what seeemed like a fairly brief getting-used-to-the-idea period). I never felt, ever, like I could have any sort of romantic relationship living under my parents’ roof. And I’m not even talking anything physical. I think I’d be made fun of or my feelings minimized if I had even brought up having romantic feelings toward another human being. I could be wrong about that but it’s far too late to know now! Anyway, depending on how long dinner goes (and perhaps how much wine I drink over dinner) I may treat myself to the first episode or two of the second season tonight. I don’t often allow this type of indulgence but I’m feeling it this weekend. 


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