in the morning

Bird feeders, hanging within viewing distance of my kitchen counter stool, are ridiculously pleasing. Better than fish, because you don’t have to clean the tank. Not better than fish, because the fish don’t exit stage right when you approach to pour another cup of coffee. Perhaps they’ll get used to our morning bustle. Whether they learn to accept Hazel the cat wiggling her hunting haunches at them from the countertop window is another thing.

I made Gabe drive to Quizno’s and back last night. It is easy to see that his confidence with vehicle operation is increasing as he willingly zips into turns and maintains a lively monologue on the Absurdist drama he penned in school while exceeding the speed limit at erratic intervals. It’s a little disconcerting actually, as his other mode is a style I’d call “Grandpappy’s monthly outing,” wherein he adheres stubbornly to exact speed limit, even when there’s not another car in view, and spends 5 stopped minutes preparing to consider possibly turning. I sincerely hope that the time he spends away at college, car-less, will be sufficient for his brain wiring to ripen such that his two modes can synthesize into placid but confident good judgment.

Last night Rachel videochatted me from Costa Rica. Her six weeks will have been a striking juxtaposition of beach-combing relaxation and an immersion in some of human society’s harsher realities--how a corrupt administrator in a poorly regulated school system robs children, how means of redress can be vastly less accessible than in this U.S. system about which we love to complain, and how the horror of opportunistic murder (in this case, a son-in-law of her host family,) can strike with jarring randomness. I will be glad to have her home, but will absolutely be unable to keep up with her Spanish.