some time went by

It's been a while since I posted a blog about us, and there's plenty good things to say about things during that time.

Ariel is closer to setting a date for the wedding. It looks like New York, the upper Hudson River valley, New Paltz, Mohonk; perhaps the beginning of June.

I'll begin this quick catch up with Saturday a week ago. That was a long day of chess and soccer. We went to a chess tournament in the morning and the boys played a game against a young world chess master who just moved here. It was very impressive. The chess master played simultaneously against about 40 people, mostly children and a few adults. He commented on the boys' soccer uniforms, introduced himself, and shook hands before play began. Rylee hung in there, and Jackson was one of the last children to survive. The boys kept track of their moves. The chess master very graciously shook their hands after each check mate. Their coach was glad they came, so they can get familiar with a big tournament in November. I think the coach especially likes Rylee, easily the youngest there. Ry asked me a few days ago if we could go to the tournament instead of going to the skateboard park. Jack has his first inter-school match this week. I picked the boys up from chess club the other day and was surprised by how many kids were in the club. There's also a beginner session and a varsity session, in addition to the boys' Wednesday session.

We couldn't stay for the tournament because the boys had soccer games in the afternoon. Poppa and Grandma came up from Belen to see Jack play but had to return before Ry's game. I don't think Jack got to play as much as he'd like, and Ry was exhausted by the time his game came along. We went to Bravo for dinner afterward. It was so nice and sunny, we sat outdoors. Unusual for us to stop, sip some wine, enjoy a good meal, even have dessert.

The boys have been going to soccer practice twice a week. Jack was less than enthusiastic when the season began, especially because the coach has really been pushing conditioning--running laps before practice. But he has been hanging in there, and all of a sudden, beginning with last weekend's game, his skills have really improved, along with his confidence and enthusiasm. At yesterday's practice, he made a couple of spectacular goals and the coaches have really been talking him up on the field.

Ry is fun to watch. He puts his head down and pumps his arms and legs when he runs, and he often will run around the pack to get in front of the ball. At half time during Saturday's game, I told him not to hang back so much or wait for someone else to kick the ball. I told him, it's your ball; take it to the goal. He remembered that and got a kick out of it, wondering, what if it were really my ball? So in the second half he broke out of the pack and took the ball to the goal. So far, neither has made a goal but it's not long in coming.

Most weekends have been about soccer, and Ry and I consistently go first thing in the mornings for coffee, hot chocolate, and skateboarding. We go so early, we are almost always the first ones there. On recent weekends, we've been watching the balloons floating over the west side. We counted 24 in the air last Sunday. Sunday afternoon, I ran my jog up the trail through the center of the Academy fields and Ry joined me on his bicycle. It's about four miles. When we got back, Ry said he wanted to do it again next Sunday. I can't seem to get Jackson interested in these little excursions. He likes to sleep in on the weekends, and he's much more interested in making movies or watching movies or playing games on his computer. One of the balloons Ry and I watched from the skateboard park ended up landing behind our house after we got home.

A while back, we had a particularly busy weekend, which I haven't written about, even though it's been a long while now since we went. I moaned and groaned about how much the weekend cost, and I'll try to spare you with that theme as much as I can.

It started with the state fair on Friday night. We met Cyndi's friend Roxy and another family, friends of Roxy, with a girl about Jack's age. [$25 admission right off the bat; followed by another $25 for Indian tacos, etc.] It was a blast. We talked and talked. The kids got to see the animals. Ry and I ate pie a la mode. It was a delightful evening, and we kept bumping into people we knew all over the fair, from the entrance gate to the Indian Village to the petting zoo to the exhibition hall and to the food plaza.

The next day was a Lobos football game. We went mostly because Jordyn is a "spirit dancer". [Another $50 just to get in for general admission.] Now, the thing is, the Lobos have won about two games in the last three years, and once in three years is about how often we go. The head coach's head was on the chopping block. There was almost no one in the stands. They were playing some po-dunk Texas college, not even in the same division...but, still, a Texas college. We sat on the east side of the stadium, which was pretty much vacant. The boys got to roam around the stands.

Somewhere near the end of the fourth quarter, the Lobos caught up from two touchdowns behind, after a new quarterback came in, and the game was tied. We got to watch the final touchdowns in the regular time and the sudden death overtime with an unobstructed view, just off the field, along the lines of scrimmage. It was very exciting, and Jackson was jumping up and down and cheering along with me and Pete and Brendon. It was the best game we ever saw, but the Lobos lost in the overtime and the next day the coach was sacked. We got ribs that evening on the way home.

Then Sunday was the Corrales Harvest Fair, with another fee to see some arts & crafts booths and a barbecue lunch. Cyndi planned it so Ry skateboarded with some friends at the park there. Ry's friends are pretty impressed with his skateboarding skills and they are putting skateboards on their Christmas lists. Ry gets a new skateboard for Christmas, too, since his is pretty beaten up now. And both boys should get a scooter they can ride at the park.

Jack's test results from last year's big standardized test came in, and he scored in the top 4 percent in mathematics for the state and just as substantially high in the other categories. Ry is doing really well at math and reading. He's always testing himself in addition and multiplication, and reading anything in sight. He came up with this equation and wrote it out, and then figured out it applied to any number: 1 + 1 - 1 x 1 ÷ 1 = what? He's fascinated by the idea of infinity. I told him once that there's always one more number, and now he's applied that to negative numbers.

He drew a picture of a grave stone that read, RIP, with a dark moon and stars overhead and a hand reaching out from the ground. Hilarious. (He knows that the buried body is supposed to be resting in peace.) The boys are dressing for Halloween as ninjas, and today Ry is coloring his hair for crazy hair day at school. Ry was telling me about how the characters on Phineas and Ferb were half brothers, and how Ariel was his half sister. Jack beat me three times at chess a few weeks ago. When I finally won a game, he was disappointed. I told him he played so well. He said he only won before because I let him take back moves. Then a couple days later, he said that he thought the chess lesson he had in Greenwich Village made him smarter. Another stellar thing about Jack I have to say. He always asks permission, especially when it comes to what he watches or downloads on his computer or IPod. I appreciate that. Ry's not there yet. And if you watch Jackson play long enough, you will often see him do a spontaneous pirouette during a lull and, of course, there's his non-stop commentary. Ry's still at the stage where he talks loud. And the boys still rough-house together, but with less tears. Rylee, however, does know when he can milk an injury, either by Jack or one of his cousins.

Beth is recovering nicely from another surgery on her back. She sounded good when I talked with her. The relief was instantaneous.

Last Sunday, Jackson and Rylee did a magic show for everyone in Belen, with Jackson the consummate showman. He even brought along a felt bowler hat. When we returned that night, the boys were in the back seats playing their old IPod or Cyndi's new IPhone. I hardly heard them make a peep. As we approached Albuquerque from the south, a light flashed falling from the sky over the road before us. Cyndi saw it, too, and asked, was that a shooting star?