Back to the Bag

I didn't mean to take the whole weekend off, but on Saturday my big trip to the Midwest caught up to me. Although I got a lot of work done in the morning, including getting back on the yard and cutting a section of it, later I was so weary I took not one but two catnaps and then slept the whole night through. Then, yesterday morning, over my white tea with lemon juice, I spent the morning happily writing away at a meandering post that went everywhere and nowhere. I had great fun writing it, hopping from one half-formed thought to another. Before I posted it, fortunately, I realized that it had some problems and needed to be edited. So I decided what the main theme should be and cut out everything else. After which there were only a couple of little stubby paragraphs left! That didn't work. So I put the banished parts back in and resolved to shape it up. I worked on it for a while, then went away, then came back and worked on it some more. Late in the day the truth began to glimmer at the edges of my brain, and I realized that I had created possibly the worst post I have ever written. By the time darkness fell I had decided not to inflict it on you. I put the poor thing out of our misery.

When my son was a very little baby—I raised him myself, without experience or knowledge—his daycare provider, Pam Goebbels, a mother of many kids herself, realized I didn't have a lot of baby clothes, and took up a collection at her church. She presented me with a great big plastic leaf-bag full of old baby clothes donated by all the kindly Seventh-Day Adventists. Dressing the baby every day, I would fish around in the bag to find whatever we needed—pants, a shirt, socks, what have you. And mostly I did pretty well making one thing match with another; not as well as an experienced mother might do, but something passable. And of course he was too little to care about style or appearance. But occasionally, just occasionally, I would look down at my adorable baby looking back up at me in a ridiculous ill-fitting outfit that made him look like a miniature demented clown and think, naw, I can't do that to the kid. Back to the bag. Try again, Dad.

It's pool day here at TOP World Headquarters, but I'll get back to the bag later today. Happy Memorial Day, to those of you who celebrate it. The lakeshore is crawling with people, and fortunately for all of them the weather is idyllic, cool and sunny. All's well here, except perhaps for my pride, which might be a touch sore.

Mike

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Grant: "You would make a great politician. You manage to cover up your mistake, make a weak apology and then distract us with a cute baby story. Foolishly we fall for it. Are you running for Congress, or the Senate?"

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Comments

[darlene]

That bag held much more than clothes. Happy holiday to you, Mike. Today is my birthday, a special one I have been looking forward to. Now I will get 50% off my fees at my favorite campsites and begin my retirement, although I will have work to do, just not as much. For part of my childhood, I wore donated clothing, mostly outdated, but they were clean and kept me warm. The only hand-me-down I did not care for was my Girl Scout uniform because it was a different style than what the other girls wore, and I never enjoy standing out in a crowd.

[Richard Parkin]

It’s the stress from doing something different from your usual. Doesn’t have to be bad stuff. Dogs just sleep it off over the next day in my experience and shouldn’t photo-dawgs be the same ;) Welcome back!

[Kirk]

Funny, it's "Pool Day" here too. But maybe that means something different....

[Dan Khong]

Mike

Thank you for your frank sharing.

Can you share a photo of Xander dressed up by you? I have read that kids raised by single dads can do as well as those raised by mothers.

Dan K.

[Mike Potter]

I bet the post was better than you're able to acknowledge, Mike. I hope you had a nice pool day.

[robert e]

Maybe this is what Henry James meant when he called the novel a "loose and baggy monster". Maybe thou art a novelist and don't yet knowest. (That's my shot at a very loose and baggy sentence.)