Ry's birthday time--pirates and smoke

Ry turned 6 a week ago Friday. The night before he went to bed early so he could get presents early in the morning. The last thing he said to me the night before was, see you when I'm six. The boys did the same thing the night before their last day of class: see you in the summer, they both said. Ry gets excited when these dates come--Christmas, Easter, and his birthday. Each time he counted the days, then the hours, and went to bed early. Usually, he stays up until I go to bed.

Jackson was also excited about Ry's birthday. He loves participating in the planning, the purchases, the wrapping, and all the decorations. He left a trail of Lego things for Ry to follow in the morning. He made sure there were balloons, and he made the card.

Cyndi was busy. We got Pirates of the Caribbean invitations for his entire kindergarten class, and at least 8 children RSVPed before, along with parents and siblings. Cyndi made arrangements to use the club pool and it worked out wonderfully. She got pirate bandanas for all the children, along with some other party gifts which she and Jack wrapped up to hand out. A cake, of course. Chocolate. I picked up pizzas. Ry reveled in the attention, having his friends at the pool, and all the presents that were his own.

This season has all been about pirates. Ry got a Lego ship, called the Queen Anne's Revenge, and some other smaller sets from the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie. He's got them all set up in his room. On display. Cyndi took the boys to see the new film, and I took Ry again this past weekend. Jack got the new Lego Wii game version of the movie. Ry dresses up in his pirate's hat and sword, jumps around the house, and tells us about the pirates and the story. There's Barbosa and Blackbeard, but his favorite, of course, is Jack Sparrow. Ry imitates his distinctive walk and quotes lines from the movie.

On the eve of his birthday, a thick smoke blew in all the way from a forest fire in Arizona and blanketed the city. I smelled it inside the house before 8 p.m. and walked outside. The twilight was eerie--red and yellow and gray. You could not see the sky or the mountains. It got to be like sitting next to a campfire. They started reporting the haze and said it was going to get worse and last for days. I wondered if it would affect the birthday party. I wondered if it would trigger some asthma for Jack. I shut down the swamp cooler to see if that would help. I even considered whether I should evacuate the family.

Strange. There are so many stories in recent days of natural disasters all over. Record breaking floods. Devastating tornados, even one the other day in Massachusetts. We are in a drought and in danger of fires, but I thought we might survive with the spring winds finally dying down and the promise of monsoons once the jet streams change. The cover of smoke was a reminder that we were not immune.

A week and a half later, the smoke still threatens. Only once did it blanket us like that first night. It came in about 7 last Monday night. The sun was still out. I walked by the hot tub, looking for Jack's shoes. There was a little boy with his father in the hot tub. The boy told his father, the sun is bleeding. Indeed it was. A short time later you could not make out the sun.

There's a little haze in the mornings now. Visibility is good during the day; you can't smell the smoke. You can see the mountains during the day, with only a light haze, but the smoke comes in the evening. There is no rain forecast; the winds haven't changed much. The wind blows the smoke from the southwest, 200 miles away in Arizona. After a week and a half, they say the forest fire is only 10 percent contained. It is the second largest fire in Arizona history.

We had hamburgers and hot dogs in Belen on Sunday, and this weekend we go to Durango, as we have for many years now, for Father's Day. I hear the skies are good, though the river is overruning its banks.