Bone-headed

Folks, I'm not so smart sometimes.

We are still living on the surface of the sun, and for some reason I thought it'd be a br-i-ll-i-ant idea to walk T home from school today. Now you can tell me all about horsies and carriages, and how your grand-daddy walked 3 miles to school, uphill, etc. etc. That still doesn't diminish the fact that it's flippin' hot out there, and more importantly, my girl had different expectations about her return home.

Expectations and routine control our lives. It's much better than it used to be, but it's still difficult sometimes to know what is real petulance and what is perserverant/ritualistic behavior. Generally what distinguishes the two is the actual existence of a basic routine or expectation: if we usually do something a certain way, there will be hell to pay if we do it differently.

Well, I usually pick up the girl in the "blue car" but today I didn't. And about fifty yards into our walk home (with her hanging half-heartedly on my back), she began to scream for the "blue car." Like, right in my ear--it was handy. This continued all the way home, and the two of us--both sweating and sticky and angry--drew out a half dozen neighbors who happened to hear T's piercing screams. (Yeah, hi folks!) Nor did it stop when we made it safely into the air-conditioning. No. T spent the next hour being miserable and coming down from her fit. There was much throwing of tissues and demanding of wet washcloths. And as miserable and tired as we both were, I didn't fight it.

On the upside, T discovered my wedding ring at the bottom of the empty tissue box. Big smile.