Can We Just Give All the Months Cute Animal Metaphors? It Would Make Me Feel Better

Look at that: it's another month. Last I felt all mouthy and writey, it was the lion of March but apparently that lamb has split, and now it's April and you know what that means?

I don't know what the hell that means, except that we've lived to see another month and two whole weeks have passed without

a puppy training accident

a kid of mine breaking a bone

me refusing to buy/cook/do anything for anyone ever again

something leaking and/or flooding in my house

my father disclosing a serious medical procedure -- ten days after the fact

anyone getting arrested! Hurrah!

It's obvious my daughter Rory should be encased in bubble-wrap 24/7 -- which is why I am secretly working on a cool looking bubbly body suit, patent-pending. It's also obvious that all members of my household should greet my generosity, culinary or otherwise, with a sweeping round of applause and the occasional trophy. The other stuff is less obvious but for a mere 20 grand, at least one of them can be fixed for 30 years gahr-un-teed. And I'm not talking about the dog.

(The Kid to roof salesman: "if we tile Name Of Your Company into our roof, will you give it to us for free?" Roof salesman: "uh, well, um..." The Kid: "Howzabout 75% off?")

See? Some funny stuff happened. Just couldn't find the keyboard -- or something.

I thought when The Short Drunks were all at school I'd have buckets of time and energy to be all Professional Writer Like but as it turns out... It turns out I am mostly lazy. Maybe a little busy fighting the good fight for Small Town schools and scrubbing the kitchen floors on hand and knee (which just made me laugh) but yeah, mostly lazy and also very day-dreamish. That's how weeks can pass with me barely typing more than a To: or a TO. (Oh I went there CarolynOnline.) It's very easy really to be extraordinarily busy accomplishing very little.

But that doesn't mean that I don't see, as in thinky see, what is happening. Time is like some dude in cowboy boots in the bar of my life. The sauntering click-clack of his boots seems so out of place and also mildly annoying but I can't take my eyes off of him and his hat.

The trees are busting out all their chartreuse promise for the future and each of my Drunks is oddly doing the same: I am watching them get shockingly more sober by the day. Write a schedule for multiple team practices? They read it and gear up accordingly. Refuse to put laced sneakers on the feet of a six year old? He opts to find his Crocs. When we walk across the street together, I rarely need to reach for the hand of scrappy runaway, though I still love holding hands.

The garden is coming back to life -- my eleventh in this pile of dirt! -- and I know that April is here again. I know my kids are in the sweet spot of their childhoods when everything is mostly fun and love between them and me, easy at last, and I know this is what I will want to remember. But the easy: it stokes my daydreamy laziness and has turned me inward and indulgent. At last? At the wrong time?

Lions turn to lambs and April showers can beat it. And though I see it, I need some karmic kick in the ass to write it. So there.

*****

PS: I did post this over at Polite Fictions where we've been writing the Alphabet of Regret. Shit doesn't stink, people. Really. Go here for all kinds of ways to be made happy and sad and utterly delighted. Really. GO. Now.