Today was the last day of classes proper and now suddenly I have a child in grade twelve and one in grade ten. I don't know how that happened. They are still technically writing exams and a week and a half away from report cards and the official end of the school year though so I will save my momgobsmackishness for that day. Until then I will remain in denial because it's nicer here, isn't it? The good snacks are right where I left them, no one's taken all my money and I don't spend all my free time ferrying teenagers who don't even belong to me all over town.
Sigh.
I know, the next time I blink they'll be in their forties and jetting off somewhere exotic so for now I should enjoy the dirty jokes they can actually tell now at the dinner table without repercussion and the fact that they bring me an Internet digest each day with all the news I actually want and funniest bits so I can avoid the terrible parts. They suggest new sushi restaurants and movies we might like and teach me how to get places I can never remember how to go because I'm directionally useless and they have discretion the likes of which few people even understand, let alone possess. They are protective of the collective (We should have shirts made. I think I love that slogan) and I'm so proud of them that when I open my mouth and talk about them glitter and rainbows just fucking beam out everywhere.
But I don't do that on the Internet because PRIVACY.
***
Lochlan worked for a couple of hours this morning while PJ, Gage and I did heavy chores and then I met him at New Jake's borrowed bike for a freezing cold and rain-threatened drive up into the mountains and lunch at a found picnic table of expensive french food far too nice for an actual picnic table, though we both refused to admit we were frozen solid, leathers or not. We cut the trip short and came home and stripped down to swimsuits and then hit the sauna, something I rarely use because I am my own hot flash lately. Loch loves it because it keeps his bad arm from throbbing when it's about to rain, like on days similar to today. He cranked the heat right up and I lasted maybe seven or eight minutes before I felt like I couldn't breathe and had to leave, opting instead for the hot tub. I can do at least ten minutes in the hot tub but mostly I like to lie in the freezing cold air in one of the big double loungers beside the pool, wrapped in a damp towel like a forgotten wet burrito.
He was in the sauna for over an hour. I think that's like brain-damage duration levels. When he came out he looked at me wrapped up in my wet towel, feet sticking out the bottom and said we should have Mexican for dinner.
Definitely brain damage. Lochlan hates Mexican food, truth be told. But he was just happy that we were there together, just me and him for the afternoon, no one else to weigh in on what to do, where to go and what to eat. Compromise is hard enough with two, incredibly tough for three and virtually impossible with eight or more, usually seventeen on average.
We're not having Mexican for dinner tonight. I'm making grilled cheese sandwiches and chicken noodle soup.
