Thursday, July 13, 2006

    Kids day at the fair

    Kids' day at the fair.

    The discount on armbands is only three dollars, but the lure works.  Kids' day was packed with over half of the public pool's swim class, swarming the rides with doting, sweating parents in tow.  Pookie was no different.  

    However, as we made our way down the midway, the chicken box dinner sitting rather heavy, it wasn't the stifling heat that got me, nor the flashbacks to adolescent, small-town desperation, but that living in this town was absolutely, resolutely Lovely Wife and my own decision.  And I am extremely happy in that.

    I am not happy that my "career" has stalled.  I am not happy that I have had to scramble for pidly adjunct jobs that dry up each new semester, or that my corporate consulting takes me away from house and home, or that combined the bills continue to win their guerilla war.  

    No, I am happy that Pookie has a confidence I have not seen before.  In Boston, for our one-year stint there, she was much shier and less confident.  Granted she was much younger as well, but I have to believe that she has grown more confident as she has integrated into a stable life.  Instead of fears of other dogs attacking ours on thrice-daily walks around the apartment complex, she goes to Papa's property and runs around an acre-sized garden.  Instead of sitting through a 45 minute, one-way commute, we can walk to school.  

    Walking through the fair, Pookie met up with 5 of her school-pool mates.  She also saw her grandparent's neighbors, friends of Lovely Wife's, or Grandma's or Papa's—all of whom stopped and talked with her.  In short, she met with and celebrated the fair with her own community.  Perhaps we would have created that in Boston as well, but not nearly so quickly and not nearly so deeply.  

    Would you like me to read this to you? Listen