jumpingfish

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.

The sun is shining. The sky is blue again after a brief rain at noon. A breeze is blowing in thru the window beside me, a window that wasn’t functional a year ago, a glorious breeze coming in here and going out the back.

A moment ago I was hot and sweaty. Now it is cool. This is why we replaced the windows late last spring: for days like this.

The Irises are blooming. The Four Nerve Daisies and Blackfoot Daisies have put out their first blossoms. And the Salvia Gregii. And the Agarita. And the Holly bush The Oaks have buds on them straining to poke out. And the Possumhaw has already begun.

75 degrees. Sun. Blue sky. And a cool breeze blowing thru the house.

I’d say a run is in order, wouldn’t you? Time to … step away from the keyboard.

I know you saw me reaching for the cookie after we finished dinner last night — that half a chocolate chip cookie you saved from lunch.

It was wrapped in cellophane, and I struggled to get it out, yet you just kept reading the newspaper and eating your enchilada, ignoring my furtive glances in your direction, since after all it was your cookie I was unwrapping, and certainly you’d object. I struggled with the cellophane and glance up at you and struggled and glanced, but still you kept doing what you were doing, and my act of petty thievery went unremarked.

So when I finally held the partial cookie in my hands and ate one half of it and looked longingly at the other half and glanced back up at you only to see you still reading the paper, I had no choice but to say something.

“So can I finish the cookie?” I asked.

You nodded. Or mumbled. Or maybe you just said, “Yes.” But whatever you said, it was clear that you knew all along what I was up to, that I was busted without even being busted.

But here’s the thing: I got to eat the rest of the cookie.

And here’s the other thing: I am so awash in guilt. Guilt for having taken your cookie. Guilt for having eaten not just part but all of what remained. Guilt for having thought that you didn’t know what I was doing when of course you did. And guilt for being up so late on a school night making this confession.