This Post is My Revenge

When he was younger, his curls were golden brown.  When asked to identify the parts of his head, he'd point to "my eyes, my nose, my ears, and my beautiful" as he got to his hair. Now, he's sitting on Douglas, twirling a few strands over and over just above his left ear.

My dad did the same thing.  I'd sit in the back seat behind my father, watching as his hands gesticulated and pointed and twirled and did everything but guide the car.  It drove me crazy.

Now my son, my nearly-a-lawyer, grins his fiendish grin as his father dodges the mister fan the kid has unearthed from beneath my bathroom sink.

It must be generational.  We are bred to make one another nutty.

He will sit beside his sister, his finger a millimeter away from her arm, declaring with that fiendish grin that he's not touching her.  Think about it - is it possible not to flinch when someone is telling you that he is not touching you?  I don't think so.

Yet his joy is so pure, his delight so genuine, it is simply impossible to be angry with him for long. We know that he won't hurt us while we assume that he will continue to annoy us.  It's frustratingly delightful.

He and I play Guillotine at the round glass-topped kitchen table.  As we drove to lunch today, I listened as he regaled his father with tales of how giving me -2 or -3 point cards always results in my losing track of everything except getting rid of those cards because they upset me so much for no real reason.  I stop playing well, I have no strategy beyond making them go away.  I always lose those games, he reminded me, giggling madly.

My prose was just interrupted as he asked if I'd seen HP7b.  "HP7b???" I queried.  Through an inordinately large smile he nodded as he expanded it.... Harry Potter ... the 7th movie ... the second part.

I ask you, denizens, how was I supposed to know that?

I remember the hike I took with my girlfriends the first time our kids were home from college.  We all had the same reaction

It's great to have them home.  I love having them home.

When are they leaving?????