jumpingfish

1. At the campground

We were celebrating my birthday. Camping at Pedernales Falls. The days were warm and sunny. The evenings were cool. And there was no burn ban, so we were able to sit late into the night staring into the glowing embers of a campfire.

One night as we were watching Orion and Sirius and Castor and Pollux arc across the sky, I saw a dot moving steadily across the sky. No blinking slights. Just a small, bright dot traveling up from the south to the northeast.

“Look,” I said. “It’s the space station!”

Trudy looked up. “Cool!”

And then it passed behind the trees.

2. Coming back from the soccer fields

The dog always reminds us lest we forget. This night was no exception. And so the three of us, Guinness, Trudy and I, were out at the soccer fields taking a stroll. It was just after sunset, and the sky in the west was a dark pink as we left the house.

The bright lights of the soccer field were behind us as we returned. And a piece of the western sky, now mostly black with a hint of deep blue on the horizon, rose before us between the trees that line the street.

And in that slice of sky, we saw two evening stars: Venus a bright white star that we all have seen in the evening or in the morning and Mercury a small, dimmer, pinkish star down and to the right, closer to the sun.

Connecting the dots, you could almost see the plane of the ecliptic spreading across the sky.

It was lunch time, and my stomach was reminding me that I only had a protein shake for breakfast, and it complained about the smell of BBQ that was coming in thru the open window on the breeze.

BBQ in the afternoon? Whatever. Ron is at home on Tuesdays; maybe it’s him. He likes to make fires. Sure is an interesting spice, though. But whatever. Time for lunch.

I turn off the lights and pull the patio door shut. I say goodbye to the dog. I lock the door. And I walk out the the car. … What’s that smoke over there?

I walk over to the side of the house and peer around the corner. The smoke is gone now, but there at my feet the landscape timbers along the foundation of Alex’s house are on fire. No flames leaping into the air, but they have been burning long and hot enough that they are white with orange glowing embers that flare up when the breeze kicks up. And today is a windy day, and the embers light up, traveling down the timber fast enough that I can watch. And there are dry pine needles for mulch inches (no, millimeters) from the bright orange at the margins of the fire.

I grab the bucket, fill it with water, pour it on the fire which hisses and sputters just like a campfire. I do this three or four times, because the timers are rotting and the fire is burning inside the wood. I kick the timber apart and pour on more water, and the fire hisses at me again. I do this until I can put my hand against all the wood.

Good thing I work at home, because otherwise there likely wouldn’t have been one when I got back.

I really need to go out and run with the dog — go out now before it’s too late and the 100-degree temperatures set upon us again. But first I need to tell you a short story…

“Do you think people walking by notice our flowers?” Trudy asked the other day.

People walk by sometimes, not as much as you would might think would be normal for a healthy neighborhood (everyone being shut up with their home theater systems and all), but I digress. People do walk by sometimes, and so we wonder if they notice our yard-gone-wild.

We’ve taken most of the grass is the front out of production, replacing it with bark that will demand less water. We’ve expanded the stone and log-lined bed with xeric plants that do well in the heat. And unlike the last few years, the springtime rains have been kind and the temperatures are lingering in the 80s, and so those native plants have begun blooming in abundance.

Blooming in abundance. There are white Lilies and Blackfoot Daisies. There are orange/red/purple Lilies. There are yellow Four Nerve Daisies and Green Thread plants. There are red and pink and white/lavender Salvia Greggii. There are new Blue-Eyed Grass about to open their blue blossoms. And the white/purple explosion on the Thyme Juniper. And of course, there are the Bluebonnets.

It has given us great pleasure to watch it all unfold this spring. But do other people notice when they walk by?

This afternoon I was sitting here with the blind up and the window open as I was typing at the keyboard doing work (of course), and a high school girl walked by on her way back home from the bus stop down on the corner. She was on our side of the street, choosing our sunny curb to the shady sidewalk on the other side of the street probably because the weather is so nice right now. And I recognized her, because she walks down the street every day about that time.

I looked up to see her walking by and to see her looking at the Irises and Green Thread plants and the Thyme Junipers and the … well you know: all that I said. I looked up to see her look at them and continue walking and then look at them again and then continue walking and then (believe it or not) look at them a third time.

So yes, I guess other people do notice — even high school students walking home at the end of the day, and that’s saying something.

1. Introduction

1.1 Identification. These are requirements your family is levying on you as a condition of their ongoing support of your college education. They constitute a set of deliverables for which we are holding you accountable as part of our continued willingness to shell it out. How about that!?

1.2 Scope. These requirements are applicable to you as long as you are working on your undergraduate degree and want continued financial support from us. Feel free to ignore them if you want to strike out on your own.

2. Documents

2.1 Applicable Documents. Documents? We don’t need no stinkin’ documents. This is a family for heaven’s sake. Who on earth would apply formal documentation to family life!?

2.2 Reference Documents. Well, perhaps there are a lot of these, ranging from Dr. Spock’s Baby Care Book to You Majored in What!?. Truth is, I’m making this all up. It’s what they taught us in lamaze class.

3. Requirements

R0. You shall submit a report to your father each month summarizing what you did during the previous month.

Rationale: We worry when we don’t hear from you. We’d like to hear from you more often, even though our parents didn’t hear from us.

R1. You shall include in your monthly report one or more photographs taken by you representative of your college experience.

Rationale: You’ll be sorry later if you don’t do this, so we’re gonna make you. One photgraph per months isn’t too much to ask — or give us back that camera!

R2. You shall include in your monthly report a summary of one more more conversations with your family other than your father.

Rationale: Do better than your father. Enough said.

R3. You shall include in your monthly report a summary of your academic progress in school.

Rationale: This one doesn’t really need any further justification, does it? Does it?

R4. You shall include in your monthly report a summary of one more more things you have done in the last month to enrich your life outside of school.

Rationale: Smell the roses. Don’t let them pass you by.

R5. You shall include in your monthly report a summary of your current thinking about your life after college.

Rationale: The great fear of all parents: boomerang kids. This is how we’re mitigating this risk.

R6. You shall include in your monthly report a summary of where you plan to work next summer.

Rationale: From here on out, buster!

4. Verification Requirements

VR0. Requirement R0 shall be verified by demonstration. The demonstration will consist of the arrival of a letter in your father’s mail box, arrival of a letter in his email inbox, or a phone call to his home or cell phone.

VR1. Requirement R1 shall be verified by inspection. The inspection will be deemed successful if your monthly report includes one or more physical or electronic photographs taken by you (or a link to one or more photograph taken by you).

VR2. Requirement R2 shall be verified by inspection. The inspection will be deemed successful if your monthly report includes a summary of one or more conversations with specific members of your family drawn from the following list: your grandmother, your grandfather, your mother, uncles, aunts or cousins.

VR3. Requirement R3 shall be verified by inspection. The inspection will be deemed successful if your monthly report includes a description of one or more of the following things: grades on papers written, grades on quizzes or tests, mid-term grades, other feedback from your professors.

VR4. Requirement R4 shall be verified by inspection. The inspection will be deemed successful if your monthly report includes a story about one or more extracurricular activities drawn from the following list: musical events, invited talks from respected academics, speeches by well-known celebrities or college alumni, or original art rented by you from the college museum and hung in your room.

VR5. Requirement R5 shall be verified by inspection. The inspection will be deemed successful if your monthly report includes a discussion of one or more of the following topics: what major you would like to select, thoughts on how what you are learning/doing could be used as a credential in some future job search or application to grad/med/vet/dental/law school, or what courses you would like to take in the future along with a discussion of how those courses make sense for your future.

VR6. Requirement R6 shall be verified by inspection. The inspection will be deemed successful if your monthly report includes a discussion of one or more of the following: thoughts on where you might work, people who might be good recommendations for a summer job or internship, thoughts on general categories of summer jobs and how they might apply to your life after callege. Alternatively, the inspection will be deemed successful if you get a summer job.

I was a grad student once. I believe perennial is the word. Last night I had a dream about it.

I was still in school, but it was becoming obvious that I needed to move on. I had flown to Los Angeles, because some people I knew out there had once offered a job interview. We talked tentatively about an interview date, and in this dream evidently I just booked a flight and went out there, assuming that they were expecting me.

The weren’t expecting me.

When I arrived (It was a university campus in the middle of the city with large white marble monumental buildings and guards deployed at the gates), I into the library and began looking for the offices of the people I needed to meet. I couldn’t find them, and the rest of the dream was a pathetic wandering search for someone to interview with. (Think: Are You My Mother?)

Somewhere along the line, I lost my notebook that had my technical portfolio. And I lost my camera. And I didn’t have a hotel reservation, nor did I know where the hotels were. And I didn’t think I knew many people there, except that I kept running into folks I did know: former grad school colleagues (who had graduated), people that I recognized from the library back home (and who vaguely recognized me, although they squinted to fetch up the recollection), and even high school friends (who I happen to know also finished their PhDs).

As the dream drew to a close, I had found a place to stay overnight. It was a tiny, dark place with a small living room in front and a bedroom in the back. A chair in the bedroom sat up against a narrow window that looked out on a small courtyard and the doors of the other rooms. I was sitting in the chair with the blinds drawn just enough so that although I could see out, no one could see me.

I was a grad student once. I believe perennial is the word. I don’t regret the time, far from it, but you sure wouldn’t be able to tell it from dreams like these.