Last week was a rebuilding of sorts. I started seeing a counselor again. I had started with him at this time last year, but stopped after a couple of weeks. The American Pharmaceutical Industry is a companion of mine, I guess you could say, and we had a misunderstanding the week before that caused an unintentional estrangement. I can't do that again. It was brutal. It was not the week for it to happen either. There was a good four day period that only Dante would be brave enough to write about.
Mancub and I have started seeing our family counselor again as well, just the two of us. Our second session on Thursday was more hopeful than the first. We listen better to one another when there is that third person in the room, listening to us both. Mancub complains of not wanting to see one, or has in the past, but once there he unlayers that onion pretty quickly. Fascinating to watch, but I am now experienced enough to know that won't translate into an immediate 50's sitcom when we hit the homestead.
Mancub and I also had eye doctor appointments. I'm getting my first pair of bifocals. Right now I have contacts for distance, and reading glasses for up-close. These will be my back-up glasses, but I haven't had the joy of bifocals before. Getting them does not make me feel years younger. On the other hand, Optometry appointments bring me a great deal of pleasure. I've always loved going to see the Eye Doc, the only medical appointment I enjoy. No kidding here, I love going. It is fun, exciting, and the machines are way cool.
The entire family - let me repeat that - THE ENTIRE FAMILY - went to see Abe Lincoln in Illinois at the Intiman, thanks in part to the kindness of a friend who has connections to cheap seats. "Cheap" as in comps - freebies. Free is about the only thing that we can do as a group now, with the extra mouth in our home. In spite of the fact that the boys had some gripe with the adults right before we left the house (I think it was a scolding about grades and homework) and did not want to engage with us or do any pre-play reading or viewing of material posted in the lobby, instead opting for sitting outside of the Men's Room and entertaining each other with "drinking stories" for all to hear (makes a Dad/Uncle so proud), they both loved the play. That surprised me, for I found the first act a bit dry and confusing - but then again my attention as usual was lost as I was worrying about what they were thinking/doing. I have to let it go.
It did build, and the third act was very impressive indeed. Mancub later told us, then his friends, then our family counselor, that it was "actually really, really good - and really emotional". Best gift ever. I have to remember these things.
Thursday was Curriculum Night at Mancub's High School. This is where the parents and guardians get to go through a mini-day of their child's, showing up for each class for a 10 minute talk by the teachers and getting five minutes between classes to get to the next class. Physically, I could not be in High School again. I was winded and sweaty going up and down stairs and running down halls to get there before the bell rang. Oh, the pressure. We had already met two of his teachers - one kind of a slacker football coach teaching Government and one a very popular, most excellent Japanese teacher. The rest were kind of flat-liners. Too bad. This will not help the emphasis we are putting on school, studying, and homework. We always take the teachers side and support them, but I wouldn't last a week with a couple of them myself. The Japanese teacher however is AWESOME. He even had the parents do a little sign to take home to encourage the students to study, learn, practice, and DO. Still no word if I will have a job in January, but I sure did have one last week. Having been out a few days, and having had some technical issues one the days when I was there, I had a lot of catching up to do, plus I had a few days I had to scoot out early to take care of some of the business above.
One day I walked down to the Market after work to get the fixin's to make dinner. It is three blocks from where I catch the bus, but I never stop there - I'm always wanting to just get home. I walked after my counseling appointment, and I was thinking of all the times I used to stop there when I was a solo kind of guy, leaving work to go live in my solo apartment or solo room in shared housing and doing my solo guy kind of stuff. Life is so very different now, and there are several decades wedged in there to make it so, but there is something at the core that is still the same, but is buried deep now and doesn't know how to resurface.
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