centre of the universe

Category: Family

  • A Terrible Time

    A Terrible Time

    This must be a terrible time to be a bookkeeper, accountant, or tax prep person. Especially in the prairies. I’ve heard horror stories from our auditor at work of people showing up on their doorstep with a couple of ExMas orange boxes and a garbage bag full of “receipts”, handing them over and saying “have…

  • The Kids Are Alright

    This is what it is to have children: When The Captain was just only three, we took him to see Monsters, Inc.. His da was concerned it would be Too Scary for him, but I was confident it’d be okay. A little bit scary is good for you, I always say. The Captain was always…

  • Small Kindnesses

    Small Kindnesses

    When my mom died, we asked people to bring rocks (she liked this Jewish tradition of remembrance) to put in a basket in her memory. Some folk painted rocks, some folks brought little ceramic knickknacks and gewgaws, others brought rocks from their gardens or farms, or maybe just from out in the parking lot. I…

  • The Kids are Alright

    It started out fairly inocuously; Kid the Younger and their paramour, a few friends we haven’t seen in a while, and a few of KtY & P’s friends just hanging out and watching movies, playing games. Some of us were upstairs in my childhood home and some of us were downstairs. There was a bit…

  • Caymanaymans

    I had just returned from some kind of an RPG convention where we’d been camping and doing LARP outdoors when it was nice and playing tabletop games indoors when it wasn’t. The Convention was way down Stateside somewhere but not Indianapolis. Like, we’re talking Louisiana or Georgia or something. I had managed to leave one…

  • The Last Thing

    Grief is an oscillation between want and have, between need and want, between here and gone. It does strange things to a person. When my mother died I kept saying to my aunt, over and over, “this must be so hard for you”. A Freudian might call it transference. My aunt finally broke and asked…