What I love about Thursday Grab Bag is no rules! Nothing is too random or inconsequential! Let’s get started.
[Tuesday night, dinnertime. Scene opens on the kitchen table where Number Two is sitting in high chair and emitting loud shrieks, Child Harbat is sitting in her chair eating a sandwich.]
Number Two: Shriek! Screech!
CH: Stop that. STOP THAT!
Number Two: [Throws up a little, then throws up seemingly everything he has had to eat or drink in the past week. Vomit is all over his tray table, shirt, pants, chair, floor.] Ehhh?
CH: [Sitting two feet away, still eating sandwich.] Babbo, he threw up.
Me: Thank you for that. [to Number Two] No, NO, don’t put your hands in it. Oh God.
[end scene]
Last night I dreamed I was walking with two childhood friends through the basement level of some school and came to a large tiled boy’s restroom with incredible acoustics. I began to sing to sing some harmony and melody parts from Bach’s Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desire just to hear the space. I woke up with more Bach in my head, a pleasant way to start the day. I found CH snuggling on the couch with her blanket telling me she dreamed she had a friend named Molly who was a doll who was actually real, but when she woke up she was gone. She seemed sad so I made her three pieces of toast instead of the usual two. I don’t know how a child can grow on buttered toast but she’s doing a good job. She also informed me, as one might make an aside to the waiter, that I’d put too much vanilla in her yogurt, but “that’s okay, we all make mistakes, I’ll eat it anyway.” I think Molly is having a positive effect on her attitude.
Finally, I am having a serious tailoring emergency. It seems the sleeves on my shirt are slightly long, and the sleeves on my suit jacket are slightly short, so I either have to tuck the extra sleeve fabric up by my shoulders and keep my neck hunched like Quasimodo, or hold down my suit sleeves like a child ready to wipe his snotty nose on his forearm. What’s that you say? Take off the jacket. NEVER! This is my tan summer suit and I won’t have wardrobe malfunctions detract from the ensemble. Though it isn’t quite an ensemble since I forgot to wear pants. Never mind that, I wonder if I can use paper clips to fold up the sleeves accordion-style inside my jacket sleeve and walk with stiff arms all day…
Writer, architect, father, husband.