Scarlet Letters

I am angry with my spawn and frustrated with spinning more than the usual number of plates, some of which I can't talk about in public, was publicly humiliated today for reasons beyond my control and I'm snapping at everyone. In short, it's another Friday. Spawn. Oh spawn o' mine, I haven't strangled you yet. Boy got in trouble earlier this week, when he stayed after school for baseball workouts and forgot that he was supposed to have a violin lesson at 5:15. That is, he received a reminder text from me at 3:45 p.m. that he was to be in front of the high school with his violin at 4:45 p.m. for Jimmy to pick him up. He acknowledged... then forgot and got on the bus anyway. He got home at 5:20, without the violin. So he was not only late to his lesson, he didn't have his instrument. Cue the Mom-rant, up one side and down the other, about wasting his teacher's time, wasting Jimmy's time (as he sat in front of the high school for him) and my time (knock...

--> The church stood at the end of a long road, partially hidden from view by stands of trees that had stood for a hundred years. Its walls were blood-dark brick, crumbling in places where shadows lived. The roof cast its long shadow over playground equipment, incongruously bright and cheerful.  The small garden would have seemed cheerful and quaintly English beside any other building, a place for tea and triangular sandwiches and the light conversation of bright voices. To me, it cried out like the wind whipping across a bleak English moor, dark and full of silent screams. The shadow of St. Augustine’s fell across the parking lot in the strange gray light, and the shape of the skeleton cross at the summit of the roof lay directly in my path, upside-down.   There were two cars in the parking lot. The front door stood open, neither inviting nor forbidding. All beyond was darkness.

Friday night has been Writing Night for a very long time. My tradition was to drop off Boy at the skate center, then go to the only coffeehouse in town that stayed open late and did not have internet service. It's a vegetarian coffeehouse, so I frequently came out screaming for bacon. Nothing against vegetarian food, per se, except I'm a solid carnivore and veggie food always seems to leave me craving meat. But it's right downtown, it has marvelous atmosphere and reasonable prices, and it didn't have internet. Well, then it did. Once my coffeehouse acquired wifi, I had to rely on my own powers of self-control to keep writing. You can guess how well that went. I am, after all, the woman who installed productivity software on her laptop that actually shuts down the internet access for specific periods of time so that I could focus on writing. But I kept Friday nights sacred, even after Jimmy came into my life. For one thing, he's been working night shifts almos...

...it got really cold. No, seriously. The last time St. Louis got below -5 degrees was on Jan. 5, 1999. Or so I read, right before the snowpocalypse hit us between the eyes. This was highly amusing to me, since 10 a.m. on Jan. 5, 1999 is when I went into labor with my awesome, exhausting, eternally hungry little boy. Of course, he wasn't born until 3:30 p.m. on Jan. 6, but that's because he's just that frigging stubborn. Twenty-nine hours until his head broke my tailbone from the inside and we went for the emergency C-section, folks. I earned that kid. Ever since, he's been the delight of my life, my partner in crime, and the source of ninety percent of my grey hair. Life with Ian is a rollercoaster, and I never know what's coming next. From the adorable little baby into the sweet, mischievous child to ... we shall skip junior high ... to the smart, wiseass young man he is becoming. I've had to get used to wagging my finger upward and buying six gallons of...