If there's one thing the Justin Collings family loves it is a party, so while the rest of America squirrels away to beat that looming April 15th, 16th Amendment deadline, we'll join the fun by tapping away at our keyboard, rummaging through our family files, and racking our brains as to what exactly happened the last month of our lives.
It actually shouldn't be that difficult, the occasions were so momentous. Item of business number one: we celebrated Eli's 9th birthday. Justin wrote a poem to commemorate the day.
Eli, Age 9
Of all harp-string plucking Menschen
With great powers of invention
(or of Latinate declension)
She ranks first.
When her splendid bright brown eyes,
With their infinite surmise,
Send fierce comets 'cross the skies
Planets burst.
She'll set up a mighty wailin'
And use words sesquipedalian
To express her anguished ailin'
If she's mad.
But she'll craft artistic treasures
And rich literary pleasures
In great fanciful endeavors
If she's glad.
If she gets a secret itchin'
For some hurly-burly witchin'
Then she'll bamp the Dora kitchen
And go WILD!
But she's otherwise a sweetly,
Softly, reverently, neatly,
Kindly, cuddly, and discreetly
Perfect child.
More details on the birthday dinner. Justin received a $25 gift card to Papa John's from a friend as thanks for a small favor. With the birthday girl proclaiming pizza as her favorite food and finances in a precarious position (more on that later), we decided Papa John's was just about the best pizza around for a birthday. We ordered a large online, later added a medium by phone, and stopped by to pick them up on the way to viewing the NCAA Basketball Championship game at Grandma and Grandpa's. Anticipating that there might be some trouble between paying with a gift card, ordering online and then changing the order, I volunteered to go in and pick them up. (I didn't want anyone handing over a debit card at the first eyebrow raise from the cashier--a habit, er, Abdiel sometimes has.) As it turned out, the fifty year old woman posted at the register was of sufficient timidity to have handed over the entire till if anyone had so much as lowered two eyebrows at her. Still, I did have to do a little convincing, so I came out with an exaggerated swagger in my step, cracking my knuckles, and doing that weird shirt adjustment teenage boys and jocks seem to think is cool. "The cashier tried to give me some trouble," I boasted, "but I just put her in a headlock." Justin pretended to be impressed, congratulated me on my accomplishments, and started to throw the Bullet into gear when he noticed a kindly woman tapping on his window. "Oh, excuse me, I'm so sorry," my timid cashier began, "I just thought that the tip you left might not work unless we, um, could you maybe, do you possibly still have the gift card with you?" she concluded, abashed. I handed it over, she gratefully accepted, and flitted away like a young maiden in a meadow. Justin swung his head toward me, eyebrows raised in skeptical bemusement. "You put her in a headlock?"
The rest of Spring Break was mostly a build-up to the highlight, namely, a trip to Goblin Valley. Lucky for the girls that they didn't complain at all the entire 3 1/2 hour car ride to middle-of-nowhere Utah because they loved Goblin Valley so much they would have had a lot of apologizing to do! They're pretty super dooper Silver Bullet troopers.
Julia had her first violin recital, a small affair that lasted all of 30 minutes. Julia performed beautifully and looked beautiful. I couldn't stop smiling, I was so proud.
My parents came up both to hear Julia's recital and to celebrate my and Eli's birthdays. The kids always love when they come to town; Abdiel literally does not stop bouncing for the first ten minutes they arrive, even when said arrival happens an hour past bedtime. In addition to listening to Julia play, we went to our favorite park and played a few games of tennis (if "game" and "tennis" what we did could be called) and then met up with the rest of the Suttner clan at Bucca di Beppo for dinner.
Crawling back into the far recesses of the memories of the last month, we are happy to report that the big present of my birthday was the restoration of both our heat and hot water, two luxuries, nay, commodities, without which we had endured for a week before they were reinstated. We were showering at the neighbors; we were showering at the in-laws; we were boiling water on the stove. We were passing the same cold virus germs round and round to one another because our dishwasher was running with cold water. We were watching the laundry mountain climb and the electric bill from our space heaters along with it. We were despairing of anything ever being done about it because subcontractors are the most unfeeling, unsympathetic individuals ever to walk the earth. But finally, something was done about it, and since the first estimate that came back was that it could not be done for less than $20,000, we're just thanking our lucky stars it was not so uncomfortable as all that. I will never feel spoiled by a hot shower again.
Crawling back toward this end of the memory tunnel, we can report that Gwyndelin turned 9 months old, that Justin flew off to Ithaca, NY to eat a lamb burger and give a little lecture with the big title "Values Fundamentalism, Constitutional Patriotism, and the Future of Europe", and that today, April 14th, it snowed. The closest I ever come to gambling is to plant my tomatoes before that Mother's Day safe day in mid-May. Good thing I'm so risk averse. Despite the 60 degree weeks in February and March, the old-timers are right. There's always a snow storm come May.
The rest of Spring Break was mostly a build-up to the highlight, namely, a trip to Goblin Valley. Lucky for the girls that they didn't complain at all the entire 3 1/2 hour car ride to middle-of-nowhere Utah because they loved Goblin Valley so much they would have had a lot of apologizing to do! They're pretty super dooper Silver Bullet troopers.
Julia had her first violin recital, a small affair that lasted all of 30 minutes. Julia performed beautifully and looked beautiful. I couldn't stop smiling, I was so proud.
My parents came up both to hear Julia's recital and to celebrate my and Eli's birthdays. The kids always love when they come to town; Abdiel literally does not stop bouncing for the first ten minutes they arrive, even when said arrival happens an hour past bedtime. In addition to listening to Julia play, we went to our favorite park and played a few games of tennis (if "game" and "tennis" what we did could be called) and then met up with the rest of the Suttner clan at Bucca di Beppo for dinner.
Crawling back into the far recesses of the memories of the last month, we are happy to report that the big present of my birthday was the restoration of both our heat and hot water, two luxuries, nay, commodities, without which we had endured for a week before they were reinstated. We were showering at the neighbors; we were showering at the in-laws; we were boiling water on the stove. We were passing the same cold virus germs round and round to one another because our dishwasher was running with cold water. We were watching the laundry mountain climb and the electric bill from our space heaters along with it. We were despairing of anything ever being done about it because subcontractors are the most unfeeling, unsympathetic individuals ever to walk the earth. But finally, something was done about it, and since the first estimate that came back was that it could not be done for less than $20,000, we're just thanking our lucky stars it was not so uncomfortable as all that. I will never feel spoiled by a hot shower again.
Crawling back toward this end of the memory tunnel, we can report that Gwyndelin turned 9 months old, that Justin flew off to Ithaca, NY to eat a lamb burger and give a little lecture with the big title "Values Fundamentalism, Constitutional Patriotism, and the Future of Europe", and that today, April 14th, it snowed. The closest I ever come to gambling is to plant my tomatoes before that Mother's Day safe day in mid-May. Good thing I'm so risk averse. Despite the 60 degree weeks in February and March, the old-timers are right. There's always a snow storm come May.
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