Kids

[mallorys_camera]

Mildly social weekend -- Robin's very first basketball game, and then rendezvousing with Lisa in San Juan Bautista. Woke up this morning in the throes of an enormous panic attack -- well, it's justified: who knew when they forced you to read Death of a Salesman back in the 12th grade, one day it would have uncanny significance to your own life? I begin to understand the relevance of religion -- it's a lesson plan for middle age and death.

Lisa is always fun. She just took a new job with XXXXX, the biotech monster in XXXXXX. "My official title is Vice President and Treasurer. Me! Treasurer! Can you imagine it? I'm the one whose signature is on all the checks!" None of it has gone to her head, she is essentially the same person who was making impulsive trips to Poland in the middle of the winter back in nursing school. Showed me pictures of the new house which is utterly gorgeous, white beams rising in the middle of the meadow surrounded by rose-gardens, inside high ceilings with skylights and great expanses of hard wood. Even has a guest cottage. "That's yours," she says.

I laugh hollowly, thinking, well, it does look more comfortable than the refrigerator box under the bridge.

Lisa's riff for the morning was sports and parenting. "I never realized you had to take them out and throw balls at them," she said. "If they don't do sports, then they end up on drugs. Who knew? Poor Christopher, stuck with criminally negligent parents."

"Wait!" I said. "Tennis. Isn't Robert always taking Christopher out to play tennis?"

"Robert plays tennis," said Lisa. "Christopher sits on the bench playing Gameboy. Should I sign him up for rehab now?"

"It may be too late for basketball and football, but you know there are a lot of sports that are under-represented. Get him interested in curling and he still has a shot at the Olympic team. Or maybe fencing."

"I wonder if any fencing instructors set up near tennis courts?" said Lisa. "That's the only way Robert would ever remember to bring him."

Robin surprised the hell out of me at the basketball game by being an aggressive guard. He doesn't know how to shoot a basket, and can only master the mechanics of dribbling if he stands in one place, but he's fearless on the court. These are the first and second graders that Bill Sullivan is coaching with Max as assistant coach. We got special dispensation from the YMCA to let Robin on the team since even though he's a third-grader, he just turned eight in October. I was a little worried about the Max/Robin dynamic, thought perhaps that Max would use his awesome powers to torture his little brother even more than he does during those impromptu WWF matches that take place constantly throughout my house, but Max is actually pretty good.

Max's acne has gotten worse. It had almost entirely cleared up when he went down to Tustin for Xmas, but when he came back up he looked like that part of the control group that had gotten the full dose of Dr. Saddam's magic smallpox virus. My own parental self-reproach alarm is clanging hard. Ben said this morning in the carefully neutral tone of voice that he knows is going to make me look for the nearest window to jump out of, "You don't see skin that bad these days because most parents put their kids on Acutane --"

Acutane! No, no and no.

Retinol is Vitamin A, right? Carrots have Vitamin A, right? Vitamin A and facials - worth a shot...

Gonna bike 15 miles today and finish up the Universal Identifier so I can send it out to Lucius' girlfriend for the new anthology.