Symbols

Well the symbolic fire-lighting has backfired extravagantly, as one might expect. I of course explained the fire symbolism to the kids, because we had one moveable fire pit from each household, from which we took fire and used to light the new permanent fire pit of our shared family home. See? Symbolic as hell.

So for the past couple weeks, my younger son has been coming to me with small complaints like “Haisam punched my butt.” Or, “Haisam mohawked my hair without my consent.” Whereupon I speak to the elder brother about not punching butts and not mohawking hair.

His response? “I was just doing it symbolically, Mom.”

Twerp.

On another note, we are approaching the end of the semester, or as I like to call it, The Craters of Hellfire. Well, that’s a bit extreme so let’s say maybe more like the Dimples of Hellfire. At any rate it’s heavy duty writing time, supplemented by extensive research and torment. In all fairness I really like school, including research and writing. Unfair, then, to name it so wickedly. I believe the accusations of hellfire might in fact be related to recent events in the workplace, whereupon co-workers were strangled, punched, and thrown against walls. It’s possible I was conflating those incidents with the pain of schoolwork, which is both unjustified and uncalled for. Everyone is all right, but once again it is confirmed that I work in a Stygian pit of folly and desperation. Good times, though–good co-workers make the difference here, and one does not go into emergency medicine thinking that it will be a tranquil environment.

On a sadder, more awful note, the younger son’s favorite teacher in the world, last year’s teacher, died suddenly of unknown causes the night before Thanksgiving. Devastated is not too strong a word here, for both my son and for the school at large. The teachers are holding it together well but suffering mightily, it sounds like. Young guy, with young kids. A moment of reflection on the fleeting nature of life, and the certainty of the unexpected, then.