The Matron's Super Bowl Sunday

Morning

Me (in the spirit of Participation): "Do you guys want to buy special snacks and watch the Super Bowl tonight?"

Hey--spending money and watching television! What a good American I'd be.

Stryker: "Not really."

Scarlett: "What's the Super Bowl?"

Stryker: "The world's biggest baseball game."

We are so tapped into the cultural pulse.

Afternoon

The children and I spent most of the day at my mother's house. Much commentary on that tomorrow. For now, suffice it to say I was treated to driving, cooking, and parenting lessons, nonstop.

On the ride home, I tried to reach John--on three different telephone lines--for nearly an hour.
Utterly exasperated, I tossed up my hands: "Why doesn't Daddy ever answer his phone!"

Stryker: "He's probably seeing someone else."

This is quickly disproved (I checked when John finally answered).

Me: "Stryker. There is no other woman."

Stryker shrugs: "Not yet"

He's eleven. Doesn't my future loom, exhausting?

Evening

We attend a Super Bowl party where most of the guests struggle to place a team with a color: "Who are the blue guys?" "What's a 'down'?"

The guest list? The hosts are Syrian, another family Palestinian, a third Israeli Jews and then the Matron and her bunch. Politics or football: which do you think we batted about?

On the way home, Scarlett said: "Who won?"

Stryker: "New Jersey, stupid."