Life These Days: Nachos and Cheese Sauce

Some time ago I utilized every brain cell I had available to rationalize to Jon that we needed to buy these special and possibly overpriced Tupperwares with two compartments, and that our overflowing Tupperware drawer of glass, metal and plastic containers and sauce jars could definitely absolutely 100% fit these new, non-matching Tupperwares. I finally broke him and I got them in and it turns out they are also perfect for nachos and cheese sauce, like we’re at the movies or a baseball game. I have been totally vindicated in my purchase, and the satisfaction of it is pleasing.

More satisfying things to add to the pot of the soup of life:

• I used my wax seal lighter to melt Caleb’s shards of rosin into one shiny mass.
• Junia has chewed both ends my plastic straw from my water bottle until it cracked, and now whenever the kids drink from it while I’m reading, I hear a  distinctive slurp/slosh noise which is sort of a very unique and totally non-related-to-the-story sound effect and not at all disruptive to my reading aloud.
• The stars aligned so that I was out of both gas and windshield wiper fluid at the same time. In addition to various other lights, my dashboard was very colourful as I drove slowly through Toronto’s traffic.

The soup of life is thick and bubbling. We are burning bright, each day filled to the brim and heavy and rich. We are at the end of March, as you may have already deduced. It’s a new term of swimming lessons, and I tried to convince the swimming people that Junia, who turns 3 in May, could eek into the ages 3-5 classes, which would mean that she doesn’t require an adult (i.e. me) to be in the pool with her, but they rejected me outright, so once again, on Tuesdays, I am mentally bracing myself to get into the pool. Jon suggested that I sign up for some of the aqua fit classes with all the seniors so I could become more robust at getting in and out of the pool. It’s mostly just getting in that’s the problem.

I was in the shop the other day when Jon was off, and also the heating was off, but it was cold out, and also cold in the shop. There was some consultation around whether or not we should turn the heat back on, but the boiler is in the basement, and it’s pretty scary down there, dark, lots of spiders, possibly dead bodies, so I put on my coat. Spring is around the corner, I keep insisting, at every cold turn. I had to order soup for lunch.

We continue on. Caleb (finally?? At age 10?? Is that normal?) having to read more substantially in school and is learning the difference between reading his own books and reading for homework. There’s been a lot of moaning. Naomi found a perfect stick in the school yard and has been walking around with it in her pocket. Junia keeps asking for yoodles, by which she means noodles.

We’ve occasionally been playing Scrabble together. Junia is illiterate (pre-literate?), and not allowed to touch anything on the Scrabble board, but still thrilled to be a part of any heated competition wherein she might drop a tray of letters and reveal everything to everyone. Naomi is pretty non-committed to the game since she’s a flexible speller, which Jon, as you might predict, is not flexible on, so she’s mostly there to mess up the board for everyone else with two or three letter words, which adds a nice spice to the game. Caleb often has these wild swings from confidence, buoyed by being the most advanced child in the family, to total desperation at losing to his parents (Jon triumphant and taking no prisoners) and euphoria at finally coming up with a word from the crumbs on his tray, usually a non-word, funnelled from the depths of his brain in some Japanese anime manga, which is promptly challenged and declared null by his father, back down in the purgatory of falling behind in points to his younger sister Naomi, with help from his very own mama (that traitor) with JUG on a triple word square. Jon, also, aghast at his own score, declares there’s no more helping. Scrabble is great for bringing out the best in everyone.

Junia set this up on my desk, and then took this photo with my phone, which I discovered later. Each part of this composition represents so many different layers and facets of life, none which I want to think about.