Monday night came fast with Bob here. It was both a hard weekend and a good weekend. I feel pretty wiped out tonight, which worries me a little since the work week will be intense. SO many people I see are struggling big time, and I also just have scheduled a lot of appointments. I'm tired in mind and body, but tomorrow is a new day.

The stress of applying for teaching jobs in the local area and caring, really caring, both of us now, that Bob gets one, is hard. Details and forms are hard, and putting your heart and soul down on paper saying essentially Choose me! Choose me! I empathize with Bob and with anybody who is job hunting. I helped him cut words in his very well done piece about how and why his elementary teaching experience is relevant to high school math jobs. I admire the patience with which he is attacking this job hunt. It will really be fine if he stays in Corpus, either at Menger or in a high school math job, but we've decided coming home is preferred. It is hard to care and not care at the same time about whether a change happens, to just give it to the universe and still work to make it more possible. I think the job search kept the atmosphere a little heavy - still, like a muggy June day.

But not every minute. Friday night after dinner when the whole house group plus K.K. all ended up dancing (imagine marching, swaying, clapping and a bit of polka) in the kitchen! And Saturday afternoon Bob, K.K. and I attended a superb Broadway revue done by her mentors Danny and Rocker and danced in by many of her dance world friends. She'll be in the next revue, in December, instead of in the Nut Cracker. She is moving her focus away from ballet (and the point work that aggravates her injury to jazz, Broadway and hip hop, will still take some ballet in the community school, but not the super intense classes. This feels like a loss in a way, so much time and discipline at the academy, but ballet is such a specialized dance form and she has been finding more joy as well as less pain in other forms. Last weekend she helped Danny and Rocker lead a public dance event at a local arts festival, jazz style and hip hop, and I could really see the joy there. Everything is changing it seems like, for all of us in big and little ways.

Liam ate his soup with his spoon at the table tonight and sat through dinner, actually longer than any of us adults. He is a gem, a joy, a human who crawls up on my bed to give me kisses and TALKS (his mom estimates at least 40 working words in his vocabulary) What I noticed tonight is that whenever I speak to him by name he meets my eyes, looks at me talking to him, knows I'm wanting him and wants to respond. He is such a PERSON and I love him so. Last week Ruth mentioned how it is possible still that Liam (or any kid his age) could show up autistic around three - how we could lose this person who knows and loves us and lets us know he loves us and looks in our eyes - lose him not to death but to some kind of neurological screw up that would leave us someone else, mysterious, probably hurting and over stimulated, in his body. How freaky. We can't know it won't happen, though it probably won't. There is so much that could go wrong, always. One more reason to focus on each moment.

And this moment I should go to bed.

With the poetry prompts, we're back to our own little group and Judy's prompt for today was to do something with a recipy, poetry, and memory. We don't have a garden this year, but Bob and I had the salad I wrote about, as close as you can without the gardxen for lunch. Writing about it in memory made me happy.

Sunshine Salad

Warm afternoon in May,
pour iced lemonade into
the glass with blue ducks .
Go out into the garden, hopeful,
find three firm red tomatoes,
just barely past orange, sun warm,
palm sized and the first two cucumbers
of the spring, green and prickly. Pick
each vegetable with careful hands and
thankful heart. Arrange in basket,
preferably your grandmother's garden
basket, Carry into the kitchen, wash
each vegetable carefully. Peel cucumbers.
Slice each vegetable carefully on cutting
board, remember to cut away from yourself.
Arrange slices in see through salad bowl,
glass or crystal, sprinkle with lime juice,
black pepper, a tiny bit of kosher salt.
Eat with someone you love, in bowls
you find beautiful, with lemonade,
at the table, before the sun's warmth
leaves the vegetables you grew.

This is my Grandma Anna's summer love food. I've made it from so many gardens, as the little girl, the young mother, the family elder with grand children. It always tastes of love to me, and connection. My Grandma never had much money, always took pride in feeding us well on a little, always tried for pretty presentation. Bob likes the salad better with mayonnaise added and I usually do it that way now, but I still prefer it with just the lime juice as I learned to eat it as a girl.