Making It Big

The Child and The Spouse are going to the Golden Dragon Ball tonight. What is that, you ask? It's the traditional Snow Ball except Student Council is, shall we say, less than ambitious and it took them a while to get their stuff together.

I'm going to stay home, eat a BBQ chicken pizza and watch "Atonement".

The Spouse will be home in time for "Battlestar Galactica". He was relieved about that. "It coulda been a deal-breaker, kid," he told The Child.

I have to show you how cute she looks today:

Her class is doing a unit on poetry and today they are going to create a coffee shop environment and read poetry to each other. She took our bongos so she can do a Shel Silverstein poem in the classic beat poet style. Snap snap snap. I also thinks her Gallic is showing.

Speaking of the French, today's song is. Except the chorus. This is quintessential power pop. It makes you want to bounce. I love it.

Superbus "Radio Song"

I Could Have Danced All Night

The evening began with a little coiffing in the kitchen.












Then Papa decided this would be a good night to bestow his late mom's mink stole. (We shall not discuss this further. The mink involved gave their lives long ago, before anyone was paying attention. I would never buy a mink now but this is one of the few artifacts we have from The Spouse's family of origin and it is therefore precious. Please keep your fake blood in the big Cabinet of Protest).



















And didn't he look handsome in his nice threads?



















Someone came home floating on a cloud. Someone else came home, probably with the hope of blowing up some stuff, to find The Neighbor and I watching "The Prize Winner of Defience, Ohio" (my new favorite movie ever, after "Annie Hall"). So that someone just went to bed. The other someone had to be hosed down before even thinking of going to sleep.














Her post-event effusions went something like this:

"Oh, and Mama, all the girls look soooooo pretty and oh, Mama, you should have seen Zoe's hair but oh, Mama, everyone just looooved my dress and I got to dance with Sam twice (wink wink) and he's the best dancer and oh, Mama, there was humbow and it was soooooo good and I had a Coke, you know, to keep me going and oh, Mama the room was soooo pretty and I danced with Sam twice...(yes, you told me)... oh, right (giggle). Do you want to see me tango?"

In short, she had a great time.

Shall We Dance?

Tonight The Child is attending the annual Snow Ball at school. She is very excited because it means she gets to wear the superfantastic dress from Seattle Coffee Girl's wedding. Her shoes and earrings are picked out and she knows how she wants to wear her hair. All I have to do is convince her to scrub all the inkmarks off her arm.

One is escorted to the Snow Ball by a parent, in this case, The Spouse. He has graciously agreed to escort not only his own child but also a classmate, an immigrant from Kenya, who doesn't have a father.

This really isn't The Spouse's sort of thing. I'm quite sure that spending 3 hours at a school dance is absolutely the last thing he wants to do of a Friday evening. Which is not to say that spending time with his child is ananthema to him. It's just that he's more of the adventure movie going/Museum of Flight attending/chess playing/science fair project assisting sort of dad. He likes dancing with her, too. They have a little routine to "Let's Dance" by David Bowie that they've been doing since she could stand. But a school dance, with a lot of standing around watching junior high boys and girls? Not so much.

I am quite sure that The Child has given absolutely no thought to the fact that her father is giving up a Friday evening to attend this function. She's thirteen and she's selfish. But I do know that someday she'll look back and understand how important it was that he took her. And that he attends her volleyball games and takes her to see Spiderman movies.

My dad, Sean Connery, was of another generation. He was the provider and disciplinarian. Dame Judi was the nurturer, the cheer leader. Sean also had careers (high school teacher/coach and then pastor) which necessarily had him more involved in the lives of other people's kids than his own. I don't fault him for his dedication to his students and parishioners. It's just a fact that he wasn't around for us that much. He came to our events when he could and I know he took pride in us, he just wasn't so much for showing it.

I particularly felt it, what with beig the oldest and therefore the "experimental" child. I was 30 before I figured out that he was proud of me. And that probably was a little long to wait. Although at least I figured it out and now he and I talk very comfortably about all manner of things, which is a blessing.

Does that sound like complaining? I don't mean to. I'm thankful I had a dad who loved us and provided for us. He built things for us. He wasn't the world's most patient father but he's mellowed with age. He is kind to our spouses and dotes on his grandkids. Still, I'm thankful that The Child is going to have a different story to tell because her papa is more engaged in her life. She doesn't realize yet what a gift this is, but I do.