On Parental Sacrifices and Growing Older

Last Thursday night found me sitting in our car in a Walgreen's parking lot on the south side of Chicago for two and a half hours. While I ate lukewarm beans and rice, mushy carrots, and week-old sheet cake with chocolate icing, Dylan and Zachary were living the good life in a White Sox box suite replete with ribs, wings, sandwiches, salad, sodas, beer (which they reported they had none of), ice cream, cheese cake, and a baller view of home plate. While I read a dissertation from the 1930s on Fresh Air exchange programs, the boys cheered the Sox on to a rousing ninth-inning victory over the team from Cleveland (I refuse to use their racist name). And while I flipped my way through a cheesey novel written in the 1980s that also featured Fresh Air children, Dylan and Zachary were already plotting how to get back to another game in a catered box suite. By the time I picked them up around 9:45, they were both high from caffeine, sugar, and a glimpse at how the wealthy live. Of course, given that I'm not only a sacrificial parent but also an aging sacrificial one, they were able to drop off into immediate slumber the minute they flopped into their lofts whereas I was awake for another hour. I finally went to sleep pondering how a history of the Fresh Air children and the White Sox could bring me tenure.

Speaking of aging, I had another reminder that I am growing older on Saturday this week. Cheryl and I had attended the graduation of one of our pastors, Cyneatha Millsaps, from Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Indiana. On our way home we stopped to fill up the car with relatively inexpensive Indiana diesel ($4.59/gallon as opposed to $5.05/gallon here in Evanston). I pulled out my wallet to give the cashier my credit card and she happened to glance at Cheryl's and my graduation photo. "Is that you?" she asked incredulously as she looked back and forth between my mid-1980s head of hair and my late 2000's lack thereof. I nodded, closed my wallet and signed the receipt. "At least you still have the picture," she added as if to say - can you believe that anyone has any artifact from those bygone days?

I think she wasn't even thought of when our picture was taken of, let alone conceived.

So I walked back to the car, told Cheryl of my encounter, and just felt grateful to have enough of my wits about me that I was able to drive the rest of the way home safely. I think the cashier would have been surprised to discover that I can still wrestle both my sons to the ground. As long as that still happens, I'm not yet ready for the retirement home.

So it's been awhile.   I could say I was sick, but that was only last week.  

 Here's what's happening tonight.  I just got home from having dinner at Devon's, a new seafood restaurant at Chicago and Wabash,  paid for by 2 pharmaceutical companies.  It was especially nice because it was just the nurses at our office and we didn't have to listen to a long "educational" spiel about cholesterol.  We could just eat - lobster bisque, grilled tilapia, asparagus, mashed potatoes and fresh fruit. It was lovely.  

Dylan and Zachary were invited to a White Sox games in one of the boxes behind home plate by their youth group leader.  Last I heard it was tied in the 8th. 

Tobin was a good father and drove Dylan to the game after play practice so he wouldn't have to miss either one.  "Dylan is playing 2 roles in A MidSummer Nights Dream.  Neither role has any lines but he is on stage a lot.  He plays attendant to the king and attendant to the fairy king.  Performances are June 5,6 and 7 if anyone is interested."

We've been stimulating the economy lately in our moving preparation. Tobin has rented an apartment in Missoula for next year. It's in the basement of a house and has red carpeting. He's bought a new bike.  We all have new phones because we had to switch our coverage to Verizon. (all the same numbers, though).  Dylan's retainer broke and has to be replaced. Tobin's pen scanner broke which makes him heartbroken.  Does it need to be replaced?  Zach and I haven't been spending any money at all.   

I've been trying to make pots in my beginners pottery class but that's not going very well.  The wheel is a lot more difficult than it looks.  The first 2 I tried just completely collapsed.  The next 2 are short and have lopsided walls.  I'll start again in 2 weeks.  

Zachary tried out for the orchestra/band for the falls Yamo production at the high-school.  This as a show that is student written, directed and performed.  He thinks he did ok after some initial jitters.  And he nailed the joke telling portion of the tryout.  

Dylan is trying out for the acting troupe tomorrow.

Enough from me. I'll get the others to write something soon.