Adjustments Have Been Made

So Wednesday morning I went out and scoped out my deer stand. I knew about the isolated apple tree, and brought with me a couple of blaze-orange items to hang in it and then back away to see what my best shooting lanes might be. But as I approached the tree, I came across very fresh deer tracks in the snow. I followed them, and they appeared to skirt the clearing heading south in what may actually be a regular route for them. So I now had two potential shooting lanes to scope.

I dropped my blaze-orange hat on the trail, and then went and hung the vests I'd brought (and dropped my gloves there in various spots for good measure), and then paced back to see just how I might be able to position myself.

I found the base of a tree that would break up or disguise my mass to deer approaching either along the path where the tracks were, or approaching the apple tree from the south, and which allowed very open shooting in either direction. The apple tree at 12:00, the path at 9:00. Great spot.

I then spent an hour or more scoping out my approach, making sure I'd be able to find it in the dark. And when occasionally I ran across a squirrel, I'd do my best to try to bring him down. And I am man enough to admit that they all got away from me.

Now, I shoot a .22 for squirrel, so when they're way up there in the tree, there's some skill involved. No scope - just me and the open sights. And they maneuvered well enough to never allow me a very open shot, and all got away clean, either by scampering to other trees that had holes in them, or, in one instance, by deciding that the treetop was no safe place and blazing down the trunk - even as I ran toward it to try to scare them back up - and then high-tailing it cross-country to where it doubtless knew there to be a rabbit hole. Because it dived under a brush pile, and no amount of stomping would dislodge it.

What I needed, was a dog. And as soon as I have one - one that is not old and deaf - I think I will teach it to chase squirrels. Because had I had a dog - a bull terrier, say - eagerly awaiting the squirrel at the bottom of the tree, he'd have stayed up. And I'd be frying him right about now.

So the land where I'm going to hunt is public, and there is the danger that some other yahoo will have scoped out the same spot, and will be sitting there - or maddeningly near - tomorrow morning. All I can do is get there earlier than they're willing to. The sun comes up around 6:00, so if I'm there by 5:00, I have to imagine that would make me the champion. But we'll see. I have all my gear already laid out in the front room - I'll probably sleep on the couch tonight so as not to bother Janneke.

And that is much more than enough about that.

T and Janneke are off watching a puppet show in Albany with T's friend Conor and his mother, Denise. Leaving me and Q here for the afternoon. Q's settled in to watch the Giants and the Redskins, and I'm doing this until my school website is up and running. I hope it comes up before too long - I have a standard sub document that I alter for any given day that I'm going to be out, and if I can get to the website, I can access it. If not, no - and I'll have to do the whole thing from scratch. Bla.

On the squirrel front, we've taken Auntie Jayne's advice and purchased a squirrel-proof feeder. The Yankee Dipper, I believe - curved little perches with a spring that will hold up the weight of a bird up to a cardinal, but buckle under anything heavier. And today we saw a squirrel try it, and by crackee, that thing works - plunk!, right to the ground. Here's some evidence:



What did I do with the old, non-squirrel-proof feeders? Take a gander:




Squirrels can't get up the aluminum siding, and can't scamper down from the roof. (He said, arrogantly.) And here, it's visible from the vantage point of the couch, looking out through the patio door. Nice. And the other one:



I resurrected from the pile at the side of the house the pole with the inverted-cone-shaped squirrel baffle that the previous owners left us, and hung from its top the suet, and bolted the other feeder to the flat platform on top.

See how the squirrels stare longingly from the closest possible leaping point, which is still just slightly too far away:



I have no sympathy whatsoever.

There's other news, but I'm about to get set composing from scratch a new doc for my sub tomorrow. (Bleah.) Still no response from the Lenox server. Man, I tell you, the timing of that couldn't have been worse. It was working yesterday! They had warned us that it might be down for a while during the vacation - but to wait until Sunday to have it go down?! Grr...

Rugged Individualism

So Janneke went to Philadelphia and spent several days at a conference. She did all kinds of professional stuff, including facilitating panels and...Hey, you know what? If you want to know so much about it, go and ask her, fer chrissakes.

Because back at the ranch was where the rubber hit the road. Back where no one reimburses us for our travel, where there's no complementary cocktails and no Christmas room at the B&B. Back where two kids have hungry mouths that need to be fed, there's a pile of laundry sky-high, outdone only by the tower of dishes and the dog that's clamoring to be walked at the end of a long, hard day in the salt mines of public education. Back in the real America.

Ronadh was instrumental in my foray into single parenthood. She let me dump - er, drop off the kids at her house around 6:45 Friday morning, which allowed me to get to work on time for a day of restraint training. Kid rasslin', as I like to put it. (I get re-certified every year. It's usually the same stuff - what you're allowed to do, legally, to keep students from injuring themselves or each other in case of a melee or some such. This year, the bureaucrats down in Boston finally saw reason and reinstated the throat punch.) Of course, I work at a district so bucolic that one of my students, when told why I wouldn't be in the classroom Friday, asked, without irony, "Why would you need that in a high school?"

At the end of the workday I came home, grabbed the kids, and headed south again to have pizza and movie night the way Papi does it - in style. (Which is to say: the way we do it when no one in the house knows how to actually make a pizza.) We went to eat at Pizzatella and watch "Bolt" on the day of its global release at the Berkshire Mall. After a quick stop at the side of the road at the suggestion of one of Massachusetts' finest. (I had a tail light out, apparently - T cried as we sat and waited, afraid we'd miss the movie; when I assured her, after being told what the issue was and while we waited for him to run our plates, that we weren't being ticketed, that this would take five minutes tops, she kept crying, but changed the reason: "I don't want to waste our time!") The kids were spectacularly well-behaved, and a grand time was had by all. Except for when T dropped her little blue plastic mouse, which she had purchased with the tickets that the "Squash-a-Spider" machine had spit out following her very good run. I had to jog back out to the concession stand and ask for a flashlight so I could crawl around in the stale butter and juju-bees until I found the worthless little trinket, which she had infused with a great deal of love over the previous hour and a half. Still, it wasn't so bad - I came out the other end looking like a hero.

When we came out, there were scads of teenagers lined up waiting to get in and see "Twilight". Among them were many of my students, in a huge group, all of them female, and they squealed with delight upon seeing...Q and T. They got a good look at Q, but T buried her face in my shoulder the whole time we were near them. It was nice to see them outside a school context - I remember seeing my teachers in shorts and tee-shirts at different points when I was young, and it was a very healthy adjustment for me to see them as actual people. Though it did kind of remove some of their magic.

Saturday morning, we loaded into car and went to Caretaker Farm, Stop & Shop, Wild oats, and the hardware store - because there has been rodent trouble of late.

All revolving around the birdfeeders. The larger rodent issue is the squirrels that continually eat the birdseed out of the feeders. Readers of my facebook page will know that I want to get a slingshot and shoot chickpeas at them to dissuade them - the tennis balls we lob from the deck just haven't been accurate or effective. I think they find them entertaining, honestly. But until I can manage a foray out of state, the slingshot purchase will have to wait. Because, as Dave, of Dave's Sporting Goods, said to me over the phone on Thursday: "Not in the State of Massachusetts. I can sell you a .44 Magnum, but I can't sell you a slingshot." First the throat punch, now this.

Until my contraband Wrist Rocket is in place, I've had to come up with an alternate plan, and have taken to sneaking out our back door with a hatchet in my hand. Why a hatchet? You certainly don't think I plan to harm them! These are town squirrels - killing one would be like killing the pigeons that eat out of your hand at the park, or the revered and holy cows that wander the streets of Des Moines. No, no. I don't try to kill them. Instead I creep as close as I can before one of them sees me, then charge the rest of the way, and as they scramble up the chain-link fence around the yard I underhand flip the hatchet in their direction. What are the odds I'll ever hit one? It clatters and bangs against the fence and scares them to absolute death - they sprint across the neighbor's yard for a good fifty yards before taking to a tree again. It's been very effective.

Today, when I charged, three of the four there gathered beat it in short order - but a fourth, the most daring, still clung to the sunflower seed feeder. He was turned in such a way that he couldn't see me - I could see his back side hanging off to the right, but his head was behind the feeder. And he waited there, not sure what to do or what the threat was. This is a very stupid squirrel, who probably deserved, in a Darwinian way, to be cloven in two there as he hung suspended between the feeder and the ground.

And keep in mind, I eat squirrels.

I barreled down on him, hatchet in hand, not believing how close he was going to let me get, wondering, in that split second, whether anyone had before stalked and hand-killed a wild - Spoiled, sure, but still technically wild - squirrel. So I raised my hatchet -

...and I poked him in the behind with it.

Hard, I must say. I was running, after all. He (she?) flew spraddle-legged and panicked off the feeder and crashed through the fence. I could actually feel the squirm and spasm of his (her?) terror through the handle of the hatchet - a live and wriggling jolt straight from (ah, screw it) its heinie to my hand.

And after that little incident, which took place this morning around 11:00, I did not see a single squirrel back there all day.

But I still want a slingshot.

The other rodent-related birdseed caper, which was the reason for the stop at the hardware store, is a chipmunk that had burrowed into the garage through a gap in the lowest...I don't know, "rung", I guess, of siding at the back of the house, and could regularly be seen scrambling off the shelf where I keep the bird seed, across the floor, and back under the woodpile when I'd go into the garage. I was concerned about how he might be getting in, so I moved the whole woodpile last week and found the entry point. I then took some nails and closed off the hole forever - and in subsequent days, Janneke observed him from the patio door, running back and forth, trying to jump up toward his former point of entry.

This little sunflower addict must have been waiting at the door when I charged out after the squirrels, leaving it banging open behind me, because even after closing off his entry point, I kept seeing him in there.

This was bad. He had no way out now - if he got in while I chased squirrels (or when the garage door was left open), he'd be trapped, and would probably have to try to chew his way out. If we leave the doors open in hope that he'll get out, how do we know for sure we're not just letting him in again? He's cute and all, I said to Janneke, but he's got to go.

So I took advantage of Janneke's absence this weekend and purchased a rat trap.

And I will simply say this: They are highly effective.

And I bravely stood up to all these rodential challenges without a helpmeet, with wailing, clinging brats impeding my every move with their endless tooth-brushings and behind-wipings and in-tuckings. Q made things easier by going away Saturday night for a sleepover birthday party, which left T and me to go out and have a night on the town.

T picked the restaurant in the car on the way back from dropping Q off, hollering it in wide-eyed glee as soon as I solicited ideas.

"COYOTE FLACO!"

Run by Ecuadorians, it's Williamstown's only Mexican restaurant. And as anyone who knows me well can attest, I could eat mexican food every day until I die and would never complain. T had crispy tacos and avocados (her own and mine), and I had a plate of enchiladas. And we shared the utter bliss of a cold, sparkling bottle of Mexican soda, made with actual, honest-to-Go sugar. The Mexicans, being a fine and wise people, simply refuse to drink anything with corn syrup in it. Try it some time - go get a Mexican soda from your local Mexican grocer's, and keep in mind as you try it that it isn't just different. It's better.

That was last night. Today we had pancakes, and then T did a lot of self-directed play while I took the underwear off the lampshades and mopped up the tequila and otherwise removed evidence in anticipation of Janneke's return this afternoon. We picked up Q around 10:30, and had leftover pancakes for lunch - in the afternoon, T's pal Hazel came over, and between that and the Fox Soccer Channel (Q's new favorite pastime), I was free to continue wiping up the bloodstains.

(Of which, all kidding and hyperbole aside, there actually was one this weekend. Like I said: Highly effective.)

The evening's fun came when I realized that, when I had cracked open the well holding the failed tail light, and had discovered that by simply twisting it, I could, as if by magic, re-activate the offending bulb, I had simply walked away, happy with myself - and left the lights on. So I had to jump start the Prius - a car with a thousand-pound battery in it. The irony! But it didn't take long, and it allowed me to erase my image as forgetful buffoon with still another in a long series of images of steely-eyed manliness - this time, automotive, rather than man-versus-nature. Either one works.

And that's it, in a nutshell. Janneke came home and the rest is history. So I'll sign off, having brought you up to speed, and having made Williamstown safe again for sunflower seeds. Take care, be in touch, and, as always: Don't tell Janneke.

Correspondence

A few documents that have passed through the ranch of late, verbatim:

Front side of crumpled paper found at the bottom of Q's backpack:

"Q

"Donna

"Letter"

Other side, originally folded in:

"Q

"I know you are a smart child in the school. I think you are very asome."

And another, this time a letter addressed to Miss T Johnstadt, and accompanied by a roll of stickers, three State quarters, and a crisp dollar bill:

"Dear Granddaughter;

"Just a note to go along with the important stuff in the envelope.

"Blue is laying here guarding me. He is a killer dog. He kills things he doesn't like. Its a good thing he likes you & Q. He doesn't like rats & mice and skunks, and racoons, woodchucks, snakes, moles and some other tings. I think he likes you best.

"I love you too.

"Grandpa John"

In case you don't know about Blue, here's a picture, which I believe I posted here previously:



Yesterday evening after supper, Q climbed into my lap where I sat at the table and asked me to tickle him. I asked if he thought he could keep his arms raised while I did so. He said, "What will you give me?" I said, "If you can keep your arms up while I tickle you for one minute, I'll give you five dollars."

He thought about it, twitching spasmodically as he did so, and finally agreed. A couple of false starts later, he thrust both high in the air and, wild-eyed, began pre-emptively howling.

I tickled that boy pretty darn mercilessly as I slowly counted to sixty, and by God if he didn't keep his arms up the entire time. Wriggling, squealing, laughing screaming, wailing, writhing - and I never let up, even though I was laughing so hard myself that my stomach muscles still hurt today. I don't think I've ever laughed that solidly, for that extended a period, for decades. Janneke and T looked on in horror from the opposite end of the table, also laughing but also sympathetically suffering.

If that boy ever ends up a POW, he's going to pull a John McCain and spit in their eye as they string him up.

Except when he comes back, he won't turn into a jackass.

Halloween Interpretive Dance

Really - I ain't kiddin'. This is what T and Q concocted off the cuff the other day, inspired by the season (which was still to arrive, as you can see by the distinctly non-rotten pumpkins that still adorn the floor). Q began playing the tune you hear, something of his own invention, and T grabbed the prop you'll see and away she went. They had gone through one iteration of it before Janneke alerted me to things and I scrambled to the front room with the camera.



In other news, tonight's supper was a particularly delicious and narratively interesting one, for the main dish consisted of two pheasants, prepared by Janneke and shot by me. (In reverse order.) Matt B, father of Alex, Q's best friend, had invited me to go out pheasant hunting, and he and his father and his father's dog and I drove to Hatfield, MA on Saturday morning to do just that. And I have to say, it is a way of hunting that I could definitely get used to.

Things to love about it: The dog is a thing of utter beauty. So well trained, so obedient, so dedicated and energetic, literally trembling with anticipation - but never, ever barking. If ever she got so far out ahead of us that she might spook a bird that would be too distant to shoot, Matt's dad would say, in a hardly-even-raised voice, "Gretchen, you're too far." And she would stop and wait. To watch her "get birdy", as Matt put it, and to stalk in after her and suddenly hear and feel the bird go up and draw on it and fire - What a thrill. The first bird we ("we" - Gretchen, I should say) found was a rooster, and the boys sent me in after it, as I was the guest. All day long they worked like crazy to get me as much shooting as they could, since this was my first time. And I actually saw it on the ground before it took off. Once it did fly, my first shot went wild, but the second, I feel confident, was pretty accurate. Of course, so were Matt's and his Dad's, so there's no telling who got it. But that was the first.

We kicked up another one in that field, but were unable to down it - I hadn't even gotten a look at it. And then were on to another, where Gretchen found and Matt jumped a hen out of the hedgerow between picked-over potato fields. (Hatfield has got to have the absolute best agricultural land on God's green earth. No stones, flat as a pancake, well-drained, and black as tar. Gorgeous. I think I grew an inch just from walking on it.) It was a hen, and it rose up and fluttered straight for me. Boom, and down it went, which brought cheers form both my partners. I have to say, I felt like I was ten years old, grinning ear to ear. I could definitely get used to that.

Things not to like: The birds are all raised and seeded to be shot, either by the state or by the town. Doesn't quite feel totally fair - but then again, without Gretchen, and without the hours of training (she goes out every, single, day to practice), we'd never have known they were there. So it's not as if there's no skill involved. And you do have to shoot a bird as it quickly flies away from you. That ain't easy.

So that was Saturday - I came home not only with both the day's birds, plucked and ready to cook, but with a recipe book. And today, Janneke prepared them. They were delicious.

And it's Janneke's birthday! We went out to the Blue Benn in Bennington to celebrate - it's one of those pre-fab diners from the 50's that you could get by mail and set up as an instant business. There's another one still standing in Adams, and this one in Bennington. Big fun, followed by a jaunt over to the big municipal park in Bennington with the gimungous wooden castles for the kids to climb in. Janneke and I groused loudly to a man who didn't pick up after his dog. His cleverest retort: "Shut up!"

We had a lot of interesting talk with the kids about the whole incident afterward...Home to leaf-raking, birdfeeder-filling, laundry-doing, kid-tickling and other domestic tasks. I even managed to follow the Packers online as they failed to win the game with a 52-yard field goal and lost their third or fourth by three points or less. It's starting to get to me- I'll have to swear off them. I mean, I didn't even see the game, and I'm spittin' mad about it.

Professional development day tomorrow, followed by a day off Tuesday. Updates as time allows!

Q Gives Us All the Vapors

It’s currently 8:00 by the clock on the wall, but our bodies think it’s 9:00. T this morning, while we (she, Q and I) sat snuggled up on the recliner, watching “The Aristocats” (they watched – I snoozed), suddenly announced, from where she lay, extended out on the footrest atop my shins, chin in hands: “Es diferente hoy. Yo no se que es, pero es diferente.” We had said nothing to them about the change of time, but she could feel it.

And sure enough, around 7:00, her body, knowing full well that it was really 8:00, gave out. She finished her dessert and crawled into Mami’s lap, where she lasted hardly any time at all. We changed her into he pajamas and dumped her into her bed half an hour later.

It was a pretty lazy Sunday, all in all – though Janneke, who flies about doing laundry and cooking on Sundays, would probably clobber me if she heard me say that. We awoke and set about walking the dog, reading the paper, eating breakfast, etc. With all her busywork interspersed in there. She sneaked off to our bedroom during “The Aristocats” and, later on, during the Packer game (miraculously broadcast in the Land of the Clam-Eaters), to read and otherwise prepare for her precious Job. The only work I did was to rake the front lawn, which went from 10:30 to noon or so, and then to do some odd laundry-folding as I shrieked at the screen, and then walked away grumpy at 4:15 or so, having watched the Packers give away the game. It was really not a very positive experience, and all in all I’m pretty glad that circumstances prevent me from watching them more often. I get very little positive out of it, even if they win. And if they lose, my day’s just shot.

But less so nowadays, because T and Q are such great distractions. T wanted to go to the “eyeball park” in town – that’s where the great steel eyes with glowering blue lights inside them inhabit the strange moguls in front of several of the College’s dorms. I had promised her we’d go there and play, and so we trooped over and spent probably twenty minutes climbing and otherwise possessing them. Then she got tired of it, and we trooped home.

Janneke was downstairs on the treadmill, watching TV with Q in tow, so I sent T down there and in the gloaming loaded all the neighbors’ leaves, which they had raked into piles, onto my tarp and trooped them back to my leaf pile. Come spring, those leaves will all compost down into the best fertilizer a lawn could ask for. Who’ll be the sucker THEN!?! And then I came in and we all sat down to supper.

That was today. The story of yesterday was soccer.

Q’s last game, against Pittsfield. A friend of his who moved to Pittsfield a couple of years ago was on the team, and her mother, who used to be a daycare teacher to both our kids, was there to watch, so that was nice. But the game itself was all business. Q and the boys had their work cut out for them – this was the team they had beaten 3-2 in Pittsfield, and they had been doing some growing in the interim by the look of things.

The Pittsfield boys were fast, skilled, and tenacious. Williamstown had two platoons working again – one group of five would leave the field entirely and be replaced by the other. And neither team really did better than the other – Q and his friend Alex, along with Crow, with whom Q had hooked up productively in Great Barrington last week, were the main offensive players on the second squad, and got some good penetration, but just couldn’t turn anything into goals. And Pittsfield kept getting behind our defenders. It was a surprise – usually these guys stay with whoever they’re up against and don’t let them get past, but these little curly-headed jukers were giving our boys fits. And before you knew it, it was 1-0. And then it was 2-0…and then it was 3-0. Williamstown got some good things going, but just couldn’t close the deal. If I recall correctly, the half ended and Williamstown still hadn’t gotten on the board. It could have been a lot worse, but Jay, Williamstown’s goalie, plays with the instincts and timing of a thirty-year-old and single-handedly anticipated, charged, and thwarted probably four other scoring chances. We had a bad feeling over on the parents’ sideline.

The second half, Alex took over. He scrambled and squabbled and fought his way through the defense, followed by Q, for one of the most tenacious and gritty goals of the year to get Williamstown out of shut-out territory, and then his shift ended. Brady and Sammy D came on with the other squad, and Brady’s persistent attacking down the right-hand side, which had always ended up in him being forced into the corner or losing the ball, finally paid off in a lovely goal – 3-2. And then Sammy D, who can almost never be shut out in a game, came through on the same shift, fighting his way through traffic on the left side and putting one past the keeper. 3-3.

Q’s squad took the field again to end the game, and before too long those gnat-like Pittsfield attackers had gotten just past Q, and then just past Jacob, and then just past Jay for another score. 4-3 now, and time was winding down – this had already felt like a really long half, and it looked to end the year on a downer for the boys. I had been exhorting Q to hustle throughout – even Janneke had gotten into the act. Maybe because this was the last game, maybe because she didn’t want him to end on one of his stand-and-look performances. He’d had some good runs at different points, but overall it was not much of a hustle day. He’d nearly put two crosses over for goals, but they were both the sort of play where he seems like he’s half-paying attention until the ball is right at his feet and then lamely pokes at it. Same situation, week 3, he’d have been firing it through the back of the net. But in this back half of the season, you were lucky if he managed to stop fiddling with his shirt long enough to notice the ball. It looked bad.

But others were seeing something I wasn’t. His sheer speed had a lot of people seeing him as our only hope, as the one kid Pittsfield couldn’t stop in this, what hadе to be the last minute. 'Give it to Q!', screamed Crow's mom. 'It's up to you, Q!' screamed somebody else. 'Man,' I thought to myself. 'That's not who I think should be taking over right now.'

Pittsfield mounted an attack that got all the way to Jay, and Jay boomed a punt down the right-hand side, where Q was playing. He came under the punt and looked straight up at it. I was reminded of situations last week where the same thing would happen, and Q, afraid of being hit in the head, would get to the right spot but then duck out of the way and laugh, even as the other team charged toward the goal with the ball he could / should have controlled. I was fully expecting the same thing here.

No. Q let it strike the ground and then settled beneath it, and headed it down to himself on the bounce. Two Pittsfield defenders were right on him, and he sprinted past them down the right side, gaining maybe a few inches, half a step. And these guys were good – forget about angling toward the goal. They were charging to put themselves between him and the center – he was not going to turn the corner. He was rapidly sprinting himself out of having an angle on the goal at all – it was now or never.

Two defenders draped on him and moving to cut him off, Q launched himself forward, laying out feet-first as the ball skittered ahead, left leg curling beneath him, right leg arcing as far ahead as he could send it. He slid to the ground and connected with the ball right in the sweet spot in one unbelievably graceful and powerful stroke.

Past the stabbing cleats of the foremost defender. Past the fingertips of the diving goalie. Across the face of the goal. Just inside the far post.

It was, from start to finish, a thing of absolute beauty, which I did not film. I would love to be able to share it with you, but I had completely forgotten the camera in my pocket, and am kind of glad I did. Because I watched it with such intensity that I remember it vividly. It was just gorgeous.

He jumped to his feet and raced back toward midfield, fists curled upward, elbows locked to his sides, high-stepping and screaming primally as his teammates chased after him and the sideline went wild. Williamstown was smelling blood – in the next few seconds, they mounted another charge, and had the game gone on, I think they probably would have gotten a couple more across. But as soon as Pittsfield managed to clear the ball to midfield, the whistle blew. And all the parents, from both towns, looked up at each other and laughed and shook our heads and said 'Thank goodness.' Because those are a couple of good, good teams, and neither deserved to lose. It was a privelege to watch and I am still not completely recovered. I was wrong about Q's heart and about his drive, at least at the end. And I am glad to have been so.

I don't know whose idea it was, but the jubilant Williamstown Strikers, next I looked up, were all shirtless, waving their jerseys around their heads in whirling circles of purple as they ran in and around and among each other, howling. I know in my bones that never in my life did I experience a sporting day like that one. It warms me up just to think about it.

Today I was saying to Q that Alex, for example, is like a wolverine. Aggressive always, scrappy, fighting through the tackles, always charging everyone else's shot hoping for a rebound, scrambling and never giving up. And Q is like a deer – seemingly effortless, graceful, but suddenly and shockingly powerful and fast, with one move flowing seamlessly into another. They compliment each other beautifully. It was so fitting that the 4 goals scored were by Brady, Sammy, Q and Alex – those were the four top scorers on the year. What a fantastic season they had, and what a fabulous job their coaches did.

«Estoy contenta de que la temporada de Q se termino,» said T this morning. «Porque cuando la gente grita, me hace doler las orejas.» ('I'm glad Q's soccer season is over. Because when people scream, it hurts my ears.')

Same for my blood pressure.

Going bird hunting for the first time in my life next week - let's see if I get hooked on it the way Alex's Dad, who's taking me, has been. His father has a German shorthaired pointer that they use, and boy, it might be a lot of fun. Still...if I had my druthers, I'd go shoot some more squirrels. Them's good eatin' - and weren't released into the woods from a pheasant farm twelve hours before I shot them. Not sure how to think about this...Matt (Alex's Dad) brought three shotguns over to the house for me to try out Saturday night (they came for dinner), and man, they are some beautiful guns. And he's an enormously generous guy to be bringing me along on this - sounds like a bunch of very serious bird hunters we'll be going with. I'm excited - a little afraid to be laughed at, should I miss my first flying target ever, but pretty confident. I am not a bad shot.

Just ask the squirrels.

October 25: The Movie

So last week, when Q played his game, I got a lot of footage, and without really knowing how good it was, I decided to also film the kids carving pumpkins. And when I had all that filmed, I thought, "I should just make a movie about the whole damn day." So I kept filming, and here it is. Probably only diehard fans of Q and T will stick it out through the whole thing. But maybe not - the music is interesting. It's all from the CD that we listened to in the car to and from Great Barrington - an hour ride in each direction, so we got to know it pretty well. The whole video is too long to fit as just one, so I've broken it into two. Here's part one:



And here's part two: