Monday mish-mash

As I sit in my nest I look out the window at the sunlight shining on the tree outside, just the top leaves are in the sunbeams now. There's a lovely gentle breeze, not too warm, not too cool, coming through the open window fluttering the edges of today's newspaper. It is early evening, 5:30 as I begin this post. This is just about my least favorite time of day, even on a gorgeous day like today. As the sun sinks lower in the western sky my heart seems to go with it, down, down, almost extinguished now. Once the night takes over and there is nothing left of sunlight except the faint traces of color on the western horizon, then I get a second wind and can work on into the night. But right now I am all sadness. It isn't a specific sadness, I can't tell you what I'm upset about, but I feel as though I'm about to cry. 

I had another interesting conversation with Twitch on the way home from school this afternoon. Almost every conversation with Twitch is at least interesting, quite often surreal. Nevertheless,we saw the school bus that comes through this neighborhood, the one he would ride if I wasn't such a softy to take him to and from school. He rode that bus once or twice when we first moved to this neighborhood. It was a negative experience. I waved to the driver as she went by (an acquaintance of mine, of course) and Twitch said "That's an awful bus." I asked if he refered to the bus itself or the students who ride the bus. As I suspected, it's the students. He said he didn't like them because they all thought he was gay.  HUH? I need more information about what you just said there, boy. He says there's nothing wrong with being gay (good, glad you agree). Is there something wrong with other people thinking you are gay? No, not if that's all there is to it. What he objects to is the way he is treated if they think he is gay. Ah, I begin to see the light. And he begins to feel the sting of homophobic bullying. Just a small taste, but I think it will help him to be more sympathetic to the plight of the repressed.  And it increases my general sadness.

On a somewhat lighter note, I thought I'd share with you the costume idea Superman has for this Halloween season. He did this to me Friday night. It was painful. Frightening. Shocking, as he rounded the corner and I was assaulted with THIS.

It's Dr. Plaid!

He defeats the evil foes (and everyone else within sight range) by blinding them with his offensive fashion sense.

His suspenders are red with little images of Christmas ornaments on them. He has a pair of rainbow suspenders that I think would be more (in)appropriate. We shall see. Though it is hard to tell from this picture, he is wearing argyle socks. He says he wants to find a plaid cap, something like these tam o'shanters. 

(when I was taking these pictures and groaning about how terrible he looks, Diva asked if I would delete the pictures, since he looks so bad. I told her "No, honey, I'm going to post them on the internet for the whole wide world to see.")

And while we are on the subject of frightening images, this is a picture Sproing took of me.

He wanted me to take off my glasses, so when I did I also shook my hair around. When I looked like this he exclaimed "Mom! You look just like a rock star!" and took my picture. Oh dear.

You may rest at ease now. I come to inform you that Sproing has new shoes. His wonderful daddy took him to get new shoes late last week, shortly after I told you the story of the poor boy being without shoes that fit. He is very proud of his new shoes.

When Sproing and I were goofing around with the camera the other day Superman was lying down like a tired man in the bed.

 

I took this picture because I like his feet. Doesn't he have nice feet? (To those of you who aren't averse to feet) I like the way there's a bit of hair on the top of his arch, and the feet are attenuated, alluding to a grace he does not possess. I like the way his legs flop when he's lying in bed like this. I like that it's cool enough for him to wear sweat pants. :-)

There is more news on the laundry/washing machine saga, but I think I'll wait until tomorrow to post that. This post has gotten long and has too many elements to keep track of anyway.