Victimhood

I get the feeling somebody thinks we are perfect victims or something.

A year and a half ago, our house was the target of a drive-by shooting with a BB gun. The only casualty was the picture window in our living room. It was scary at the time, because we were home when it happened. The BB only penetrated the first of the two panes of glass, but it did kind of mess up the insulating properties of the double-paned window. It was rather expensive to replace that window, but we have a much spiffier front window now.

At some later point that I have not been able to identify, it appears that the bay window over our kitchen sink got a similar treatment. (We have not yet replaced or fixed that window.)

Now, some hi-lariously funny asshat has destroyed our extra-large rural-route curbside mailbox. It appears the vandal swung for the fences right through the hinged door from the side, and it looks rather less like a box and more like a shallow cave. I assume the tough Rubbermaid plastic only shattered because of how cold it is around here this week. It’s been below freezing for several days. Today’s high is due to be 32 degrees Fahrenheit. Oh, joy, the weather underground says that tomorrow the high will be 31 and we have a 90% chance of precipitation, in the form of ice pellets. (Eat your heart out, thecranewife.)

Aieeeeeee

The big yellow slide at Jungle Java Ann Arbor is *huge* and so fast that there is a cushioning mat *on the wall* where it dumps out, about 7 feet away from the lip of the actual slide. I have only narrowly avoided either bowling kids over or being thrown almost to that wall, and I have been on it twice now. I somehow managed to land on my feet both times. I suppose I must have had a rather surprised look on my face that last go, because two other parents who were near the bottom of the slide and I exchanged looks after I landed and then they burst out laughing.

Play Café

The sounds of over-excited children and café stereo mingle.
I read the day’s news and events
With one eye on the screen,
And another watching for bumps and bruises to the person or the ego of my charges.

It is noisy and lively, echoing with conversations banal and sublime,
Between adults and between children,
With an occasional cross-generational discussion,
Often involving food, but sometimes on the subjects of politeness or safety.

Birthday parties come and go as the afternoon winds away,
With bright bows on paper-wrapped packages,
Zebra- and leopard-print balloons,
And children in inappropriately dressy clothes.

Another mother mentions that her child has just been in his first fight,
Deep in the bowels of the play structure behemoth.
She looks concerned, but does not attempt to follow the boy into the sprawling labyrinth,
Only watching from the outside, craning her neck to see.

Other parents gamely if awkwardly navigate the narrow, low-ceilinged, twisting pathways.
The rope walkways hurt my knees; the slide is too fast.
The children are more suited to the close quarters, darting like chipmunks.
I suppose that is the point.

Macaroni and cheese sits unattended and growing cold,
The child who demanded it having eaten a few bites and then run off to play again.
My latte is sweet and slightly astringent, growing colder with each passing moment.
My laptop is warm, my mind blank.

The children do not want to leave, though they have been playing for hours.