Scarlet Letters

I want you to meet David Black. I met David when I hired him to be my son's tutor. Ian was struggling with middle school, ADHD and generally being a teenager. He was very good at being late to class, ignoring his homework and not paying attention; he was very bad at passing the seventh grade. His teachers were giving up on him. I didn't have the luxury of giving up on my son, and David was our lifeline. Hired with the generous help of my folks, David was more like Ian's warden than his tutor. Every day after school, he picked up my son and took him to the library. They studied American government and English and fractions every afternoon, with an extra dose of study skills and work ethic. David had just graduated from the university with his teaching degree, but it was the recession, and he hadn't snagged a full-time job. So Ian became his classroom. He had worked extensively with special-education kids as a student teacher and came with glowing recommendations th...

Or is that redundant? The pre-con trip to Wal-mart is always exhausting. Partially because I'm allergic to Wal-mart, but cannot avoid it completely. Partially because I'm constantly trying to find ways to feed us on the road without breaking the bank, which is not easy when all three of us are traveling. Jimmy and I can subsist on one meal and a few add-ons a day; Boy requires vast quantities of food. And we are stony broke this week. First, household goods. A bike lock, a new flashlight, toothpaste and deodorant. Boy was nonspecific as to his deodorant needs, and lately he's been using Old Spice, which smells just as awful as you remember. But of course, he was home alone and therefore blaring music throughout the house, so he did not respond to multiple (and increasingly capslocked) texts requesting clarification of his demands. As usual, I had texted my Menfolk for their last-minute additions. Oh, I could be the hard-ass and insist they only get what they physicall...

This weekend, two friends of mine will marry. Technically, they've been married for a while... as long as it was legally permissible for them to do so. But this will be their formal ceremony in accordance with their faith and surrounded by their friends and family. And that is important. As much as people have told us, "Just elope, it's not worth the drama," we believe that the most important part of getting married is the presence of family and friends to support us and share in our happiness. If Jimmy and I had all the money in the world, Christ Church Cathedral could not hold all the people we would want at our wedding. Joy multiplies when shared. So we were honored and delighted to be invited to Selina and Lynn's wedding this weekend. And it's absolutely breaking my heart that we can't be there. We hemmed and hawed all the way up to this week, but finances being what they are, we just couldn't do it. Someone needs to invent a teleporter right...