Time seems to be flying by. Jo has been in Nebraska twice in the last two weeks and has probably crossed back over the Red River sometime this afternoon. Vivian is enjoying her first weekend alone at home. I’m sitting at Memphis airport watching Fedex planes take-off every few minutes (about 400 planes loaded with overnight packages go through FedEx’s Memphis every day). Evan is sitting across from me, computer on his lap. He’s supposed to be working on his Mandarin homework but he could be playing video games. He is here for soccer and had two hard games with zero subs yesterday and today, so he claims he’s a bit tired. Earlier in the morning we had a nice brunch at Paulette’s. From our table outside (74 degrees) we see the giant cottonwoods on this bank of the Mississippi and bits of the double arches of the I-40 bridge to Arkansas. Large swaths of sandy river bank are visible on both sides of the meandering wide river.
On Friday night Vivian had three friends over and I dropped them off and picked them up from the Arctic Monkeys concert at the Moody Center (dad/climate change joke that made them all groan “so, y’all are off to see the tropic monkeys?). They seemed to have had a great time without involving alcohol or other substances, which is good, especially given that she is going to have free reign of a home and car for the next two days.
We get back home on Sunday night and everybody is back together again. Ouiser is the most excited by this. The kids have whiled away another perfectly good weekend and get down to finishing up homework around the dining table which is rare. They have entered a new phase in their relationship. Vivian now sees Evan as more grown up. They have an easy chit chat about teen fashions and language and chemistry experiments. Vivian occasionally asks Evan for help with a word in Spanish. Or a question about nuclear waste. He is happy to prove that he’s up to snuff. Jo grabs her book and heads to bed after a long 12 hour drive. I drag my computer upstairs to stare at data. “Don’t stay up too late.” “And turnt out the lights”.
They are almost grown up. Yay and Ugh.
Notes from Dad 