What Was the Score, Anyway?

It's late on a Saturday night/Sunday morning, and I'm blogging again to stay awake for a bit in the hopes that maybe I won't dream about work all night. Here are some random thoughts presented in a disjointed and aesthetically displeasing manner:

Farewell to another season of football ushering. It was a good time. It occurs to me that while it's true that supervising new employees each week who've never worked a game presents challenges, supervising returning employees who've grown comfortable with their position and their supervisor presents challenges of its own. I love working football, but I can't say I'm sad to see the last home game of the season come and go.

Maybe next season I'll write notes so I won't forget to tell them things during briefing.

The French professor who forced Aerie and me to like each other died suddenly. Three years ago. I've thought of him periodically in the years since we lost contact, and I Googled him now and again. It turns out he died more than a year before I wrote this, in which I should have featured him more prominently. He had a laugh that could send birds fluttering madly from the trees and make strangers many yards away jump in alarm. He, like the incomparable suttonhoo, lived life in a way that I admire, with art and books and food and travel as his meat and his bread. He was a joy to spend an evening with, and the world is not a better place with him gone. Bonne nuit, Monsieur le Docteur.

Well crap, now I'm feeling sort of morose again, as I was last night when I heard about the good professor. Uh, hmmm, a cute toddler anecdote... OK, here are some thoughts on the toddler:

I don't know where he learned it, but he likes to clasp his hands together next to his cheek and declare, "I'm the cutest boy."

Cooking has become one of his favorite pastimes. "We can cook," he says. "If we want to. Come on! Sit on the carpet?" He says that a lot: "Come on!" And I realize that I say it a lot to him. His has more enthusiasm, though, and mine has more exasperation. So I sit on the carpet, and he cooks for me. He makes meatballs of the many marbles, golf balls, etc. in his toy collection, or cracks plastic eggs left over from his Easter basket. We make "vegeble beef soup" and cakes and cookies of all sorts. Strings become noodles. "I'm a good cooker," he tells me, and he is. "I'm Iron Chefing."

If the language he uses reflects the language we use, I think we can be happy with our efforts. While I'm not so proud of the "dammits" he throws around, I think Aerie and I can be proud that he often uses "please" and "thank you" unprompted, that when I drum or play the piano or the harmonica or the "phylozone" with him, he tells me "That's a great song, Daddy! Good job!"

Well, anyway. That's enough of that. As I've mentioned, he's brilliant. He's beautiful. I love him. Yadda yadda yadda.

OK, I'm in a better mood now, and I think I can go to bed.