Panini

I could hear Charlie's voice tunneling down the narrow hallway. I was at the back of the house in the bedroom chamber. Clothing covered the bed. A heap of cotton and wool and polyester and spandex, stitching and weaving, rivets and zippers, threads, buttons, dyes. In the front of the house, Charlie played independent of my supervision. He has proven to be trustworthy. He can bang all he wants. It is the silence that catches my attention.

"Panini! Found a Panini!" I heard him say.

He is good at finding food crumbs around the house. Most days he has an appointment with detail small. The convergence of his exploration and the fact that I haven't run the vacuum for a couple days translates into a great many stale food objects uncovered. I can't normally get to him before he consumes the food. I don't get too worried. The vast majority of his finds are goldfish crackers. We were standing on the steep part of the back yard. Charlie lost his balance and rolled down the grade. His hat fell off his head. When he went to put it back on, one of those goldfish crackers fell out the hat lining to the ground. Charlie smiled, said "Goldfish!" scooped the cracker from the grass and ate it.

I could not remember the last time I had made a Panini at home. It had been weeks, I was sure. The image of rotting meat and sour mayonnaise motivated me into action.

"Charles!" I shouted. I ran down the hall. I hoped I could make it.

When I rounded the corner, I found him standing there with his arm outstretched.

"Panini! I found a Panini!"

It wasn't a Panini. He was holding a penny.

Sheridan, Wyoming

Charlie started yawning on the way home from the mall while Willie sang us a song about angels getting too close to the ground. We are both tired. Jill is out of town. She is in Wyoming. Her absence throws Charlie out of his rhythm. He woke up this morning at 4 am. I brought him into bed with me. After stacking pillows on the edge of the bed so Charlie would not roll off, I told him in a soft voice it was sleepy time. He laid his head on my pillow and was still. I began to drift off. Several minutes later. I was awakened by Charlie's dark face hovering above me whispering, "It's sleepy time."

He woke me at least six times just like that. I may have been dreaming of two of the occurances though.

I finally decided to get out bed at 730am, an hour and a half after Charlie began bringing books into the bed from the living room shelf. I was in and out during that time. I thought I heard the front door open once. That gave me alarm.

The chaos of getting him ready was somewhat controlled. He has been on edge because he hasn't passed a noteworthy stool in some days. At least I haven't been privy to one. I added a stool softener to the orange juice I served with his oatmeal which he prefers "just right", not too cold or too hot, with brown sugar, sans raisins. Daddy likes raisins. Charlie does not like raisins.

I told him a story before his nap because he was wanting Mommy.

His calls they were a homing

to his mother there in Sheridan,

in Sheridan, Wyoming.

She is somewhere, I said,

she is nowhere,

Where the bighorn sheep are roaming.

She is in a meeting in Sheridan,

in Sheridan, Wyoming.

Don't fret dear child,

Don't fear the churning sea,

the tempest gurgling and foaming,

'cause there's no water there in Sheridan,

in Sheridan, Wyoming.

It was enough to put him at ease.

Play ball

Charlie is learning how to throw a baseball. He terrifies me. He prefers his right hand to throw. He holds the ball in his right hand over his head. He walks around like that with his outstretched arm over his head and the ball in his hand; the Statue of Liberty pose is what I call it. He gives me no indication when he will throw the ball, not a cadence, not a windup, not a glance. He doesn't release his grip on the ball until his unbent arm is at 90 degrees. If he is more than four feet away, I anticipate where the ball land on the floor and the hop it will take. These throws are easier to field. But most of the time he charges me and is directly over me when he delivers a high speed fastball. The best defense for me is to shield my face with my arms. It is a cowardly reaction. I am a coward, but my face is uninjured.

Charlie loves listening to music in the car. As soon as he is strapped in and buckled he begins demanding it. "Listen to music!" He says. "On road again!"

I carry two CDs in my car and one of them I don't listen to. The one I do listen to is Willie Nelson's Greatest Hits. Charlie special requests "On The Road Again" and "Unclouded Day" every time we go somewhere. Jill has a larger selection of music discs than I have. He knows which music goes with which car. From Jill's albums Charlie enjoys, "Yolanda" from a compilation and "Upside Down" by Die On The Cross (This is not religious music, it is just the way he pronounces Diana Ross.)

He is quite the music critic. After the first three measures of a song, if he hasn't said "different" he will listen to the entire song. When he especially likes the song, when it is over he says, "Good one! Yeah."

I bought Charlie a globe. He can locate Madagascar off the East coast of Africa where the Aye-Aye lives. It also lives at the zoo, in the "dork".

We are dancer

The results of the poll are in. We are dancer.

Charlie wants candy for breakfast now. I don't give in to his demands. He has quite a bit leftover in his bag. The neighbor adjacent to us gave him a handful of those orange wrapped peanut butter flavored confections. I don't like those. He couldn't hear very well. I have never yelled at close range and been calm.

The Halloween turnout was marginal. I shut the porch light off at 8:15 and stood in the dark by the front picture window with a cocked air rifle concealed beneath my robe. The moon was bright here in Denver. Not sure if it could be seen over game 3 of the World Series of Major League Baseball. Charlie and coyotes howl at the moon. He is good at howling.

I strung some Christmas lights around the twisted branches of the crabapple tree out front. That crabapple is sensitive to weather. We had a late snow the killed the fragrant pink blooms this spring. One day last fall I just happened to be at the window in Charlie's bedroom looking out at the tree when a dozen or so songbirds swarmed the branches and in a matter of minutes stripped the entire tree of its small berries. I missed the birds this autumn. I was hoping Charlie could watch them plunder the branches bald.

It is early for Christmas lights but I wanted to take advantage of the break in weather. Half of one strand doesn't work. I removed the lights from the gazebo. The roof of my gazebo took on too much snow and collapsed. The aluminum frame bent at each of the four corners. I took off the canvas covering. I should have done that before the heavy snow fell. It is now a sad skinless structure.

All is quiet. The whole house fan is running. It suppresses the sound my keystrokes make. Charlie ate a peabutter-jelly sandwich, a container of sweet potatoes and a container of prunes for lunch. He self regulates his diet. When his bowels haven't moved for a day, he begins to special request prunes. I am serious.