SUMMER OF THE FRUIT CUP

Several remnants of the graduation still linger about my house...the main one being the giant Happy Graduation banner in the living room. I’m toying with leaving it up until Rachel graduates...because it would be one less thing on my "to do" list next year. My sister Sally, operating on the same principle, sometimes leaves her Christmas tree up year-round. And no one seems to mind. Also, if I take the banner down now and store it somewhere, there’s a pretty decent chance I won’t ever find it again. So it’s probably best that I leave it where it is.

Also thanks to the graduation, I have some of those yummy fruit cups in my freezer. They aren’t actually leftover from the graduation, of course. After all, I believe it was my mother that once said this family is like one of those swarms of grasshoppers who sweep in, devour everything in sight, then sweep out leaving nothing but stubble behind. So the actual graduation fruit cups are long gone. But since I bought way too many of the ingredients for them, we’ve had to keep making them. And that’s a good thing because lately when David asks if we have anything in the house to eat, I just say, "How about a fruit cup?"

Speaking of David, he’s made the painful discovery that his lazy, hazy days of summer are a thing of the past. In general, he hits the ground running (or more like trudging) at 6:30 a.m. with weights, and falls into bed sometime after 11 p.m. when we get home from his baseball games. In between those activities, he squeezes in basketball and football workouts, driver’s ed class, and some score keeping for the rec. So naturally, he spends his intermittent free time lying on the couch in a literal stupor. And since he’s so worn out, there’s a good chance he’s drooling on my couch pillows. But I haven’t complained.

And speaking of baseball, sure enough, since I wrote about David’s surprise baseball skills, he has been in a miniature slump. Last night, his hitting was off and he missed a couple of throws to first base that were catchable. But the real downer of the game occurred earlier when Emily and I first arrived at the ball park. That's when a ferocious gust of wind caught and bent our car door so badly that we were unable to shut it. So Emily held it shut while I went for help. Fortunately we were in the town where our friend Steve lives, and he used a block of wood to bend something in the door mechanism and soon the door was shutting just fine. So I'm wondering if the jinx I put on David's baseball skills is somehow bleeding through to all our baseball related activities. If so, the second half of this baseball season could be a long one.

Emily has Fridays off, so she made nachos for lunch and brought them to my office and ate with me. I will miss this when she is gone.