I removed the power cord from his computer after Parker "borrowed" my cell phone.

Parker pulled another power cord from an unspecified hiding place and was back in business in no time.

I removed the second power cord from his computer after Parker used some very rough language, verb, pronoun, and noun, to respond to me when I insisted he follow a house rule,  a pretty normal rule about no girlfriend in the house without a third more mature party being present. 

Parker pulled a third power cord out of thin air and the computer games with online buddies played on.

I pulled the third power cord and the internet and speaker cables out of the computer and carried the thing out of the house and locked it in the back of my car when Parker again indulged in abusive language to me.  My car is leaving tomorrow morning to take Jean back to the university and it won't be back until Sunday.   Let's see Parker Copperfield work his magic now and make that computer reappear in the house. 

It's a beautiful Saturday today, the last one of "official" summer and I'm not appreciating it at all.

Jean left this morning for the long journey back to the university and I'm putting her room back in order.  This would be a sad enough way to spend the day, restoring the house to its state of GuyVille, but I keep finding things that I wish I hadn't.  I've called her twice already, once feeling concerned about something left behind, and once livid at something I found.  I'd chuck the whole project for the day, or maybe  nail the door to the room shut and forget about it altogether, but Eric will be here looking for a place to sleep Wednesday night and her room is the most vacant in the Inn.

I wish it would rain today--a good bad-tempered thunderstorm would suit me just fine.

There's been a marked change in Parker's habits where school is concerned.

Yesterday marked the end of the first week and each and every day of that week, Parker got himself out the door on time and presentable.  This is the boy who, four years old, would throw his shoes behind large pieces of furniture so that we could not leave for preschool on time.  This is the same boy who never took the school bus because it took a parent shoveling him in a car and dumping him off at the school door to get him to class at the l a s t  p o s s i b l e moment.  This is the boy who had a truancy watch put on him by his middle school because his attendance was so spotty.  That was the past, the past as recent as last June.

But this year is different.  He has actually been so early that he has had to sit and wait for it to be time for him to leave.  Backpack on, watching the clock lest he be too early or too late.

What's changed?  What is working magic on the boy?

His good buddy, three doors down now goes to the same school he does.  They meet up every morning and head over to the interesting experience of The High School World where there are other kids who look for them.  After school there are more interesting things to do than go home and plunk in front of the computer or television. 

I guess that it's a powerful lesson in the importance of the atmosphere of the workplace.  Now, I'm not saying that the boy's grades will zoom up from their abysmal status, but who knows?  At least he's IN school;  at least he's ON TIME;  at least he's READY to be part of the endeavor.

The stores here have been packed with people eager to molt their lightweight summer wear and assume the richer tones and textures of fall/winter wear.  It looks nearly as busy as it will be right before Christmas but instead of buying shiny geegaws people are trying to get kids into back to school clothes and themselves into something that will keep the chilly air we've already got here away from their skin.

I've been in the stores too, though with a very short list of things to shop for.  That gives me the time to do a little people watching which is always fun.  I've noticed a couple of things about these September shoppers.  The first is that they often travel in pairs consisting of a teenaged girl and her mother.  Sometimes the teenager is eager, sometimes she wears a pained expression, but the mothers usually have a little smile on their faces, at least while they are walking in the parking lot towards the mall entrance.  I've been that mother and I know how the day will play out--the mother will not be shopping for anything for herself, though she will run though plenty of cash and credit.  The pair will drag themselves back to their car, loaded down with shopping bags from the "right" stores.  The girl will look a lot happier on the way out and the mother will look a lot more tired.  She still has the girl's father to face and a lot of explaining to do about the bills that will arrive in a few weeks.

I have a lot of sympathy for those mothers.  I also see families with little children in tow and one that was wearily trying to get through a big department store while their very little baby cried--hungry, I thought.  The mother was harried, the father was hurrying, and neither of them--well none of them, actually--was enjoying a fun afternoon at the mall.  They charged westward and I continued eastward through the beautiful shining cosmetic department, enjoying the rich colors and scents that changed as I passed each counter.  A little girl caught my eye, standing alone on one side of a counter, no saleswoman in sight.  The youngster's head was roughly the same height as the counter which was ladened with all sorts of delights.  Her hand moved up towards a tantalizing display of lipsticks, tempting her in a line at the edge just above eye level.  Her eyes said it all, "I will wear that pretty stuff.  No one is looking."  Her fingers nearly closed around the tube when her father's voice came back, low tone booming on top of her baby brother's screams.  "Libby?  Come here NOW."

Libby looked hard and long at the forbidden fruit.  It was so close, she was a minute away from being beautiful. 

"Libby!"  Loud, impatient.

Libby scrambled off in the direction her dad had called her from.

It just goes to prove that Francesco Petrarch knew what he was talking about when he said:

"Rarely do great beauty and great virtue dwell together."

He was a father too, you know--the father of the Italian Renaissance in the fourteenth century.  He didn't have Libby in mind when he said it though--the good girl was extremely cute.

I went to a farmers' market this morning, looking for a pretty bunch of flowers fresh from a field.

The only problem was that I didn't rise like a farmer, early in the dew and get there while the sunshine crept over the horizon.  I took my sweet time about getting dressed and having a cup of coffee and went over an hour before the farmers packed up the leftovers and took them back home to plunk in the stands they have on the edge of the road in front of their farmhouses.  By the time I got there the only live plants left were huge potted perennials which required a year's time and labor to get even one bloom on the them and I wasn't willing to make that kind of commitment.

Pretty posy-less as I was, the heaps of vegetables and the precious new apples and plums were still a delight to see.  If all vegetables were as winsome as the ones I saw this morning, there would be no such thing as coaxing children to eat veggies, nor adults either.  Variety made shopping here very unlike the sleep-walk through the supermarket produce section.  Brilliant perfect peppers crowded each other nearly out of baskets on one counter. Beets seemed antisocial and a bit grubby on another one. There was a huge section devoted to brussel sprout towers.   I love the weird alien look of kohlrabi;  if one asked me to take him to my leader, I wouldn't bat an eye.  There were normal looking potatoes that have red interiors--healthier than their plain white cousins--mounds of beans, tons of tomatoes, squash both natural and gussied up for fall decorating, and broccoli so pretty that maybe I didn't need those flowers after all.  There were other veggies, tons of them, I think, and melons that gave you no doubt that they were picked from the patch just hours before you saw them, and pumpkins made their first appearance this morning.  Fall is coming and in a few weeks the farmers won't be coming to the city with their gorgeous fare.

I'll try for those flowers next week, but I'll have to be lucky.  Flower time won't last long.

Before my foot even touched the floor this morning, something in my house that I truly like (I'd say "love", but it's a material thing, not a person) was picked up and crashed down and is now broken. 

The pretty little woman doesn't have a skirt anymore, no more leaf-shaped openings for the scented candle to send me light and spice.  The pumpkin she held so effortlessly is in two pieces.  But her face still looks untroubled;  her hat still sits above her serene brow; she looks as if she didn't notice the fourteen year old's temper tantrum that caught her up as if it was a tornado tearing up her pumpkin patch, destroying things without reason.

She is a trifle, a terra cotta harvest token.  I picked her out and paid for her with money my mother gave me for my birthday a few years ago.  I liked her so well that I went back later and bought one for my best friend who also loves gardening and who also has an autumn birthday.

The Harvest Woman is just a possesion, not something that really matters;  well, not something that really matter.  When my rambunctious brood was young I wouldn't have risked having her.  Back then I would only buy metal things to have, but I really liked her so much, she stayed on the entry table from as early in September as I thought I could get away with having her there until something Christmassy replaced her for December.

I'm trying very hard to be mature about this today.  I may not succeed.

But she, it  is only a material thing, after all.