US family life
American middle age male squash like me, vacation their pants off, but we don’t know how to relax. Buster Brown, our 4 year-old, is obsessed with organized sports in to games, at summer soccer matches baseball games and flag football scrimmages I was the spectator—sometimes and their mother too, almost every day of infinite number and interminable length. To judge by the confusions about time, place and personnel, with the rules of play made up on the spot and many players whose role was apparently to stand around looking like they had to go to the bathroom, Buster himself often times did the organizing of these organized sports.
Sweet Pea, our 5-year-old, loves horseback riding. She arranged for the "half-lease" of a pony at a local stable. I never fully grasped the concept. But, since Kibbles-'N-Bits didn't inform her of his candidacy for president, I gather she was leasing the front half.
We have no idea what our 6 year-old is interested in. Muffin spent the summer with her face plunged into her laptop, her ears plugged into her iPod and her fingers thrust into the buttons of her smart phone. Mrs. O. is afraid that Muffin is being sucked down the trash chute of popular culture. I'm afraid she's trading derivatives. She's going to wake up one morning (afternoon, actually) and inform me that her venture-capital fund has effected a hostile takeover, new senior management is being brought in, and I'm fired. Muffin did not, as far as I could tell, leave her bedroom this summer. And yet somehow I was still always driving to pick her up, usually at Abercrombie & Fitch. Alarming photographs appear on their shopping bags.
Our 10-year-old loves horseback riding. She arranged for the "half-lease" of a pony at a local stable. I never fully grasped the concept. But, since Kibbles-'N-Bits didn't inform her of his candidacy for president, I gather she was leasing the front half.
We have no idea what our 8 year-old is interested in. Muffin spent the summer with her face plunged into her laptop, her ears plugged into her iPod and her fingers thrust into the buttons of her smart phone. Mrs. O. is afraid that Muffin is being sucked down the trash chute of popular culture. I'm afraid she's trading derivatives. She's going to wake up one morning (afternoon, actually) and inform me that her venture-capital fund has effected a hostile takeover, new senior management is being brought in, and I'm fired.
We might have had, nonetheless, some relaxation this summer if we hadn't ruined travel and leisure by deciding to combine the two. It started well. We took the kids to south Texas, where we have friends with a place on a lake. The ferocious June heat was ideal. Our Utah bred children for whom summer at home is the season when they wear just one layer of fleece.
To be continued...
KARL WALLACE
To read more Karl Wallace stories go to: karlwallaceblog.blogspot.com
