ANTICIPATION

‘Today’s the concert. Are you excited?’, he asked as we sat together at breakfast.

‘Not as excited as if it was somewhere else’, I admitted. The only reason was that I wasn’t thrilled about having to drive downtown. All of the other times seeing them in the past ten years have been in various cities in Europe where I either took public transportation or walked, as my son and I did in Rome this past July. Austin is not as safe as it was when we first moved here and I would prefer not to have to drive so late at night. But I will take that chance tonight.

We continued our conversation and moved on to the next topic. I enjoy our talks at mealtimes. Though they might not always be filled with conversation, the time together is important.

‘How much is a ‘B’?’, he asked about the bonus pay that I decided to do this year for the four core classes.

‘$10 for a B’, I reminded him. I would raise that to $25 for every ‘A’, which would be a possible total of $100 per 6-week grading cycle.

We continued to talk about grades. He mentioned sending a text to his father letting him know he had an 88% in World Geography class for the first six-week grading period, which I thought was really good. My son was proud that he was only ‘2 points’ away from an ‘A’. However, his father decided to rain on his parade and send him some long-winded calculation explaining how that was 20 points away and not ‘good enough’.

‘Why do you bother?’, I asked my son about his texting about his grades. It was frustrating to see his efforts go unnoticed and for perfection to be expected.

I changed the subject to something more pleasant as we talked about Seattle and finished our oatmeal. I told him it was 9 degrees Celsius currently and 22 in Austin at only 8:00.

‘Why don’t you just say it in American degrees?’, he pleaded as always.

Since I had agreed to let him stay home, I decided to have little geography lesson before he returned to sleep. He had not been feeling well the past few days and did not remember having fallen asleep on the floor last night alongside his homework papers and computer.

We looked up the latitude of Seattle and compared it to Stockholm, Sweden. Stockholm was more north, so it would be colder. I asked him if he wanted to come with me to see Seattle. And Canada as well.

‘How would that work’, he asked about the passport control to Canada. We had not travelled too much within the States, and never to Canada. I told him they would check our passports before boarding the train. But that is a new plan, so I need to look into a few things.

My son then returned to bed and I started on my work for the day. The maintenance guy arrived before noon and was finished in a little over an hour. He determined that the coils in the back of the refrigerator had frozen. After I had removed everything from the freezer, he removed the freezer door and thawed the coils. No need for a new refrigerator, which would have been a lot more work.

I completed my work for the day, ate lunch with my son, and cleaned up a few things around the house. The rest will have to wait for the weekend. My son returned to bed to rest a bit more before going to the homecoming game later tonight. Depending on when the concert ends, we might arrive home at the same time.

The hours passed by and I started to feel the anticipation. Slowly, I started getting ready. I wondered whether to wear my new boots. The ones I hadn’t yet taken out of the box to try on since they arrived last week. I have a few more hours to decide.