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Drooling on the Pillow

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Yammerings 

When you start geezering up after the age of forty you begin to adjust your memories of youth so that they're more serviceable for whatever you're feeling cranky about.

And I'll tell you this. We never got days off from school. We went all day every day and they stuck our heads out of the window for five minutes and called it summer vacation.

Different story these days. Teacher conferences, spring break, winter break, Croatian Trans-gender Appreciation Week break. I get a break on those rare occasions when they actually go to school.

Okay, oddly, that didn't make me feel any better. The truth is that Gracie works much harder in school than I ever did and her curriculum, although modern it its approach, is far more rigorous than I remember in grade school. Hell, in third grade they were just getting the last of the finger paints out of our ears. My only problem with her curriculum is that they don't memorize enough.

No, what's really bothering me is that when the school takes a week-long break the Goddess and the Child decamp for her mother's house in the city and I'm left to amuse myself in our suddenly very unamusing house.

Bah.

There's only one advantage to this arrangement that I can think of and that's getting Netflix to send me movies that the female element in the house is either ineligible or disinclined to watch. So tonight I'm going to have an adult beverage and watch 12 Monkeys.

Since I have absolutely nothing else, I'll let you in on the excitement for the past week. Grace is a wizard ball player, but in the Roberto Clemente league the boys can't play with the girls after the age of 9. Girls have to play softball. She's okay with that, but the problem is that there aren't enough girls so the age spread is too wide. She's nine playing with thirteen year olds, some of whom are bigger than me. If you've met me you know we're talking little Ted Kluzuskis. And they've been playing for four or five years and they can really hit. Despite being much the smallest kid on the team she's one of the two best fielders so she plays third.

So. Her first game last Thursday. Just after one of her opponents hit one out another one comes up and hits Grace right on the chin with a line drive. Tooth goes flying. Split lip, gallons of blood. The goddess comes completely unglued. I'm on my way home from work and I get a call that sounds like Gilbert Gottfried on crack. I get the gist, though, and I head for the hospital.

Here's the lucky part. The opposing coach was a dental technician and had the materials and expertise to preserve the tooth properly. The nearest trauma center was half a mile away and they had an oral surgeon on hand. The tooth was popped back in about forty-five minutes after it was dislodged. They think there is an excellent chance of preserving the (adult) tooth.

So she's on the DL for at least a month, and when she comes back she's going to second or even the outfield. She's going to be a terrific third baseman. Next year. This year she has a mouth full of metal wires and a nasty looking lip to show off to her classmates. Huge status lift. She's as pleased as punch.

Me, I'm just glad we weren't in Canada or England. We'd still be waiting.
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