dog days

Is today this first day of summer? I think it might be. It actually begins in late February here, so by the time it actually happens, it seems like it should be fall already.

I took the dog for a little walk last night because it had been raining all day which makes her reluctant to step out into the backyard because of her aforementioned expectation that some sort of manservant is supposed to toss down his cloak over the wet blades of grass so she can step upon it so as not to get her itty bitty (stray dog of indiscriminate breed) paws the least bit damp. When Jeeves is otherwise engaged and this doesn't happen, she then assumes she has permission to relieve herself inside the house on the new carpet. So on our walk I noticed a small egg (intact) under a water oak sapling. I didn't see the nest, but I did see a single feather right next to the egg. Which was ominous. Then a few feet down the sidewalk were the tattered remains of the mama bird. I felt more melancholy than is probably normal, then hummed a few bars of "His Eye is on the Sparrow" to remind me of the significance of these things, and that maybe it's okay to feel melancholy. Maybe it's even divine to feel melancholy about these tiny tragedies which serve to remind us that we weren't made for this place. Although it wasn't actually a sparrow. It was a mockingbird. So obviously whatever got the mama bird has never read Harper Lee.

 We don't seem to have any cardinals or robins here at the new place. Perhaps they are the inside-the-loopers of the Houston bird world.  Here we have lots of mockingbirds and sandpipers and herons and hawks. Walking home from the pool today, a new friend was telling me she has seen a couple of rats running around the decorative lake near the pool. Which probably explains the hawks. And is also disgusting.

Hudson is in full Star Wars obsession mode. He has watched bits and pieces of the older movies with the husband as he's been able to record them from random cable channels. The husband now tells me we really need to buy a Blue-ray player so that we can buy all of the movies, to which I responded something like "Don't you realize you are playing right into THEIR insidious little game??" THEY, of course being the titans of technology who finally forced me to buy my first VCR circa 1993, and then have thrown it back into my face every couple of years by inventing some new technology that makes me seem positively antediluvian if I don't have it. Anyway, Hudson was oddly obsessed with Star Wars before he had even seen a moment of the movies (can anyone explain this phenomenon to me?) and now his ardor is consuming. Anytime there is a pause in conversation or activity, he will posit some variation of the following questions:

1.Mommy, why are light sabers called light sabers?
2.Mommy, who is your least favorite Star Wars character?
3. Mommy, who is your second least favorite Star Wars character?
4. Mommy, who is your third least favorite Star Wars character?
5. Mommy, WHY does Darth Vader choose to become bad?

The husband came home from Kroger with this mask yesterday, and Hudson takes it very seriously. Harper put together this whole costume (Batman cape, Ninja jumpsuit, cowboy boots) and Hudson came stalking slowly down the stairs, after first sending Harper down to make sure Helena was asleep so he didn't scare her with his Fierce and Terrible Visage. He likes to think of himself as Luke (and has even asked me to call him Luke a few times) so he made sure to clarify, before he donned the mask, that in the end, Darth Vader chooses the right thing.

Helena has lately been mixing up her tenses. She'll say, "When I was seven, I saw a spider under the table and it is going to EAT ME UP!" and it drives the other two CRAZY. They will say, "Helena NO you have never been SEVEN and you will not be SEVEN for FOUR ENTIRE YEARS and besides that, spiders do NOT eat people." Then Helena will say something like, "Well, when I was seven, I had a monster, and it got you and it is going to FROW YOU IN THE TRASH!" and that is also received very well.

Speaking of spiders, Harper is on the last couple of chapters of Charlotte's Web and I think she has realized what's coming. She was giving me a summary of what is happening and she said, haltingly, "I think Charlotte is going to die," and I gently confirmed her suspicion. I don't think she is quite as emotionally involved as her mother, so she'll probably be okay.

My parents were here this weekend to see the new house and babysit. It was a great feeling to be able to show them to an actual room with an actual bed for them to sleep on instead of asking my 75 year old dad to sleep on the floor on an air mattress that slowly deflates in the night. Also my brother came with his family and we celebrated my niece's birthday and Father's Day and it was a delight.