Friday 18 Nov 2005
8:47am

On nights when I take Everett into town for his piano lesson, we often go out for supper together afterward. It’s a sort of “date night” for the two of us, and he loves it.

In the photo above, while we wait for our food, he is filling out the envelope for the 50/50 draw the ladies hospital auxiliary puts on every month as a fundraiser. You put your dollar in the envelope — a stack of them is left in small wooden boxes set atop the napkin dispensers on each table in the restaurants around town — and the ladies collect them at the end of the month, draw a name, and split the proceeds with the winner. I always buy at least one if I have any change in my wallet. Last night I gave one to Everett to fill out, and did one for Emil.

Everett’s usual order is a grilled cheese sandwich and fries. He carefully bites off the ends of fries that are too long to fit, and arranges them on or in his sandwich. This seems to please him considerably.

Don’t ask me. Kids. What are you gonna do.

This morning, the parent-teacher interviews are going on in town and I have to confer with several teachers about Everett’s low marks in their classes. Scott’s going to come along, and we hope to come up with some sort of strategy to help the boy complete his assignments. Not doing so has caused a failing mark in one class, and a near-fail in another, English, that it would make more sense for him to be doing well in.

So the boys are home today, another long weekend for them. Everett's sitting beside me here, annoying the hell out of me with the "music" that accompanies his Gameboy. The playstation has been packed away until his next report card a couple months from now, where we hope to find improvements. Getting it back will be a motivation for him, we hope; it's not as if it's the cause of his few academic failures, since he is only permitted to play with it for a couple hours on weekends.

Best go get some breakfast down my neck.