Another Evening

1) Bella and I finished Harry Potter 4 - The Goblet of Fire. This is the "pivot" book where things start getting pretty dark in the series, and I was a little worried about whether Bella would track it all... but heck, she was right there with me, and I loved revisiting it. I must confess that the full three chapters before the last one were very full of "monologuing" - first Voldemort, then Moody/Crouch, then Dumbledore - everybody was giving these very story-heavy speeches that explained all the strange happenings in the book in detail. On one hand, I sort of resent the spoonfeed method, but on the other hand, Rowling was really trying to make sure everyone (kids kids kids) understood all of the things that were happening. And Bella got it.

2) Isaac and I had our Tuesday MAN DATE, since Pamela and Bella were at Synchro. We went to Edinborough Park again, and he was WORKING me hard - we had a game of tag around the gym that had us running top speed for 6 laps, before we both collapsed. After a while of this, I told Isaac to "go find some kids and just PLAY will you?" I turned to my iPhone for a minute and when I looked up I saw Isaac standing with ANOTHER DAD, playimng bounce-catch with a basketball.

Basically since his dad crapped out, he found another dad and just started playing. The other dad had his eye on his own kid (WHO WAS PLAYING WITH OTHER KIDS), and indulging Isaac pretty well, but I had to get up and get engaged again - don't want to look TOO much like a deadbeat.

3) Tonight Isaac said he was sad that there were no real superheroes "In This World". In This World is his way of saying the real world vs pretend, but what I love about the turn of phrase is that it really doesn't deprecate the other world: It's equivalent, just not this one. Scooby Doo lives, but not in this world.

Anyway, I asked if he wanted to be a superhero, and he said no, not really. He just wished there WERE real superheroes, and he'd want to have their costumes to dress up in. He doesn't like that he can dress as spiderman and batman, but that they're not in THIS world. He thinks it would be much better to dress as a "REAL" superhero.

4) Ok, I'm over my snit about the Washburn Reunion. The popular people and I are now reconciled, and I'm helping plan this with them. Actually the committee is three people, a popular girl, a burnout who got expelled, and me, the arty nerd. It's like some sort of unholy trinity, and it's actually an excellent metaphor for how the walls and the labels disappear as the years go on. I'm very happy about it now.

And that's it!