Chatting in the Kitchen
Month: May 2024
The Deck
It’s a job I tackle every other year, a job that takes days and days to complete because of the simple fact that I can only work a few hours each day.
This year, I have the added area of the lattice that encloses the lower deck. Today’s accomplishment: all the exterior portions of the upper deck and all the lattice.
At least two more days of this await, maybe more.
Wednesday Work
Deck Work, Day 1
Memorial Day Get Together
Anniversary
It’s been five years now since Nana passed. E is the same age now that L was then, and now L is only a few short months from being a legal adult.
A common theme in my writing is the suddenness and recurrence of my realization o f just how much time has passed since a certain event, and using that realization to project into the future with the realization that it will come just as quickly as this moment has arrived. Almost thirty years ago, for example, I left for Poland for the first time; project those same nearly-thirty years into the future, and I’m almost eighty, the age Papa died two years after Nana, now three years ago. See? I just did it again: created a loop of time.
In those five years since Nana’s passing, the GIrl has grown almost an entire foot; the Boy has reached a point that we just barely have to look down while talking to him. In those dunce years since Nana’s passing, the Girl has become a volleyball star and broken then re-broken high school track and field records; the Boy has picked up guitar and trombone as well as becoming a confident soccer player.
In another five years, the Girl will be finishing up college, lining up graduate school (with her interests, she will likely end up getting a doctorate straight away), and firmly established in a life of her own, a life without (to some degree) K and me. In another five years, the Boy will be almost done with high school, thinking about college, and probably still playing trombone and Fortnite. I’ll be creeping ever-nearer my sixties; K will be in her fifties.
With all this in my head, we go to Polish mass in the afternoon, and while everyone is getting the pot luck afterward read, the Boy heads out to the playground and it’s clear how much he’s changed…
Visiting Aunt D
Kiczory Chapel
A picture from almost 30 years ago when I was exploring the area of southern Poland where I’d just moved…
I found a whole batch pictures from that period that I had forgotten I’d scanned.
New Bike
We finally got K a mountain bike so she can actually ride with E and me on trails. It took a while to get the seat just right…
Final Day 2024
We started the day (as in right after roll) with a final fire drill. All the eighth-grade students went to the area by the basketball courts and lined up as always. Almost. The difference was immediately visible: only about a third of the students were there today.
After spending a little time outside, I had kids help me pack up all my books, which I have to do every single year, which is really a pain.
And we also said goodbye to a kid who changed everyone’s life on the eight-grade hall for the better.
Sunday’s Birthday Party
Signing Yearbooks
Birthday Party Snippet
Pictures from State
Band Competition
The Boy’s school band went to a local amusement park (outside Charlotte — I guess “local” is relative) for a band competition. All three bands (sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade bands) got superior ratings.
Eighth-Grade Day
The whole grade has taken him under their wing, to use the cliche. Everyone loves H. Everyone gives him high-fives. Everyone cheers for him.
And today, everyone was eager to get him in the circle to dance.
Field Trip
Most of the eighth-grade students went on a field trip today to Dollywood in Tennessee. I was one of the teachers who stayed back to watch the kids who didn’t go. On our team, which usually has 110 students, only 14 were there today. We had a social-emotional learning session (we watched Inside Out), had a nice lunch, and spent some time outside.
One of our students, who just moved to the States this year, came to me with an American football and gestured (he doesn’t know much English yet) that he wants to learn how to throw it.
We worked on it a while — I hadn’t realized how many things go into throwing a football, little motions and rotations that I never even thought of. He struggled a bit, but it was all laughs and high-fives.
It was a good day.
Twelve
The Boy is twelve today. He’s nearing K’s height, and he’s losing the last vestiges of little-boy-ness that we’ve all grown so accustomed to. He’s not a little boy; he’s a little man. Almost.
We celebrated his birthday in a modest way today: the party is Sunday, and the Girl wasn’t even able to participate because she was at volleyball practice. But we made him a good dinner, bought him a small Key Lime birthday pie, and the K took him shopping.
What he bought is telling: no more toys, not even anything guitar-related. He wanted new shoes and new clothes. He’s changed his hairstyle (his choice), and he thinks about his appearance these days. No longer a little boy.
Awards and a Screwed Freezer
Sunday Here and There
