World Keeps Spinnin'

And it's making me really tired. (Not like Lily Von Shtupp in "Blazing Saddles," one of my favorite movies, but close.)

It's May. Busy month for kids, busy month for those of us in sales-related occupations trying to see people before the summer (particularly when one's employer's offerings kind of...well, suck at this particular moment in time), busy month for teachers just trying to hold their classrooms together against summer's call, etc. Add to it a lot of family birthdays/anniversaries, Mother's Day, etc., and I'm just fried. Plus I just got back from a totally-worthless 2-hour one-way trip to a business meeting that was a complete and utter waste of my time, with travel on the mind-numbing Pennsylvania Turnpike. Came home with both daughters out (one at choir, one babysitting) and Mrs.Po headed out to a meeting. Happening more and more these days. Needless to say, did not feel like cooking (which I usually enjoy, and would take up as an avocation, if not profession, immediately after winning Powerball) - so it's leftovers and the obligatory vodka (or three) this evening.

But, in the back of my mind, what really makes me feel tired, or at least tugs HARD at my consciousness, is the upcoming high school graduation of our first daughter. It doesn't seem all that long ago that she was just an infant, then a lobster-lovin' toddler, growing up in New Hampshire...fast-forward to teenagerhood here in Philly...and it's kind of exhausting just to think about what's passed and what's coming. I think a recent trip back to NH, where Mrs. Po and I spent nearly 15 years and where both girls were born, kind of refocused us on the old days...we visited the old Concord, New Hampshire haunts (which hadn't changed much!) and took a day trip to Boston while there and, with daugher L.Po's enthusiastic consent, I took a 2006 version of one of my favorite photos of her, taken when she was 4 years old, in the Public Garden, hugging the bronze statue of Mrs. Mallard (from Robert McCloskey's classic children's book, "Make Way For Ducklings."). Bringing them back up to New England really made me think about how far and how fast things have moved, and here I am, with one soon off to college and a second into high school already. What the hell happened and why did it happen so fast? Yes, I am living a quiet, normal life (extra credit to the reader who can identify the album title and artist), but why does it seem to take so much out of me?

Sigh.

OK, enough of this personal thought-spilling. Back to Bush-bashing and critical observations of popular society soon, I promise. Move on. Nothing to see here. Time for another vodka.