Hah.
He actually gave them to me, he just doesn’t remember.
I’m sitting at the computer in the old Malvern house, surrounded by half-packt boxes and crates, unable to sleep due to some counterintuitive effect of the benzodiazepine. I simply don’t care that I’m tired. My flight leaves Nashville in a few hours; Mom is taking me to the airport. Stopover in Denver, arrive in Portland at 11:40 a.m. local time. Stay exactly one night and fly back home Saturday. Like I was never gone.
On the corkboard by the computer desk is tackt a recent photo of Juni (who wants to drop the “e” from the spelling of her name) showing off her new garb from Hot Topic, where hitherto Mom has refused to take her… but not Nana & Papa. She sports an oversized Jack Skellington tee and two chain necklaces, a thousand bracelets on her left wrist and a sweatband on the right that says in white letters “You break it, you buy it” with a little red heart on black background, eyes leveld at the camera over glasses and mouth purst in a street-tough mug. If she could have her way she’d dye her hair black, but even Nana & Papa have their limits—so the natch “rusty” blonde is haphazardly parted down the middle like always.
On the screen in front of me are infrared images from the Gulf of Mexico where Hurricane Rita just yesterday became the most intense cyclone ever recorded in the Gulf, with lowest pressure at 895 millibars and sustaind winds of 180 miles per hour. It has since diminished to Cat-4 but still bears down on the Sabine coast. This year’s Atlantic hurricane season has been insane, the kind of stuff my dad lives for. I guess we’re also flying across the continent to escape its wrath.