Friday Nights

By Friday I feel like a caged animal.

I have a speech therapy box, and a physical therapy box which rounds out my week.  I GET to go read to the kids at the school but it feels so short I’m still a starving women when I’m finished.  I GET to do the art program in Big Guy’s classroom, but making fun of twenty kids while we pretend to be artistic just gets my juices flowing, never fills me up.  So by Friday I’ve made three trips into town for spine care,  two trips into the other town for speech therapy…and I feel boxed…like a caged animal. 

I have to break out.  Although this week I did hit the grocery store with Moose.  I made him push the cart.  So while I bagged limes, he walked halfway across the deli section thinking it was terribly funny to see me do laps back to our cart.  I’m still not really allowed to grocery shop.  And I felt really dumb asking for help to take my measly groceries to the car, worse when I called the neighbor to load them in the house, and better when Moose’s dumper truck did the trick.  But still people!….caged animal.

I called Burns from the road.  “Where should we meet you?”

“I’m already on my way home.”  He remarked.

“We are already on our way out!”  I responded quickly.  He sighed.  We made a plan.  At first it was going to be a burger joint.  But I’ve had this need for macaroni and cheese that is base in nature and I probably shouldn’t talk about my compelling addiction in public.  NEvertheless, we found Carino’s and had some tolerable mac and cheese.  It did not fill me up and the children were pretending to be caged animals. 

The next place we visited…er, ransacked…was a warehouse store for shoes.  Except we broke through the ‘window shopping’ experience and went inside.  Of fourteen thousand shoes,  Burns saw none he liked on him, one he loved on me, and I found none I liked on either of us.  But the children were allowed to run the length of the aisles in a constant game of sweaty chase…assuming they neither ran around other customers, raised their voices, or found themselves in anyone’s way.  Breaking any of those rules meant they were sequestered at our sides.  Would you believe it, they lasted like forty five minutes.  We wandered the store together, whispering whenever we passed by a stranger about those children who were left unattended to silently race each other.  It was delicious even if the window shopping was not. 

On our way home, we chatted ear piece to ear piece.  So when the raging man behind me sped up so that I couldn’t merge onto the freeway, Burns wandered dangerously out of his lane in front of me to freak him out.  It was nearly as funny as when I pulled in front of him, despite his attempt to box me out.  He blows his horn, flashes his light, matches my brilliant smile and wave with a single finger and then gets edged off the road in front of me by an equally obnoxious stranger.  Oh don’t worry.  There was plenty of room for him.  But he did have to turn in the u-turn lane when the colluding citizen in front wouldn’t give him access to the merge lane he so desired.  Ugh.  Sometimes driving brings out the worst in us.

At home, I made Burns keep the earpiece on.  He thought I was ridiculous.  But this way I could still talk to him while I hunkered down in the laundry room.  We scrambled to massage the house through the Saturday’s chores in under an hour.  It was family movie night and while the children danced like wild animals in the shower, I figured we could get the first two hours of Saturday out of the way tonight.  Burns smacked dishes around in the kitchen while I stuffed clothes into the gaping mouth of the washer.  It was a violent episode while we talked politely into our earpieces about…who can remember. 

Most of the work was finished by the time a naked drippy Moose burst on the scene ripe for some bum pinchies.  He angled toward the train table making a flip turn twice before he was flanked on both sides.  Burns had him sailing through the air before he could tuck into a ball and proclaim ‘lumpy bumpy’ status, thereby making himself an unassailable island off limits.  My job is to catch cheeks during the sailing with my fingernails and squeeze tickles out of him.  It was a success.  

The big kids came to his rescue with light sabers and an equally delicious desire to have their cheeks squeezed as well.  Some were spanked in fun. Others I could not bend low enough to catch, and one little Jedi was smacked in the head by his Obiwan.  It was a devastating and traitorous act.  There were tears, hugs, and more bum pinchies.  Of course. 

I don’t even remember what the movie was.  They asked for a movie which was already loaned across the street.  Burns and I made popcorn on the stove while we debated over the stale debacle.  Sometimes the kernels pop slow and careful, resulting in a less stiff popcorn.  Other times, they pop fast and furious and create the most perfect bowl of crisp butter-less popcorn.  We can’t figure out the perfect technique.  Same pan, same oil, same temperature, same timing, same kernels…different results.  Oh well.  I ate four handfuls, placed my lap top across my body and fell straight to sleep.  I have no idea how the movie ended, when the three floor children were returned to their rooms, what time the rest of the house drifted off to sleep. 

Instead I dreamed of people I care about finding happiness enough for me to feel at peace.  It was just what I needed.  That and to break out of the cage!