Drifting into June

If April is the cruelest, then May is the fastest.  Superman succeeds Lex Luthor.  My son graduated from the first grade.  With honors.  Math honors to be exact, since it's math after all.  Here is holding his award, distinguished among all first graders (about 100 of the them, or so)

Notice his math award is upside down.  Going to have to work a bit more on the literary side.  He loves books, and stories, and movies, and creating stories, so no worries in the long run.  He'd take the cruel month of April and pit it against the superpowers of May, throw in some tornadoes for added external conflict ... all action, no love scenes, and completely unpredictable.  Incredible mind, that boy.  I'm a very proud dad.

Speaking of tornadoes, I escaped the Moore, Newalla, Shawnee tornadoes last weekend unscathed.  On Sunday, I bunked  literally in a van down by the river, dug into a hillside, with a backhoe (as the owner demonstrated with scooping motions of his hands like a retriever when I exclaimed genius towards his construction).  I'm having some trouble uploading those images.  I should seek help from my brilliant son.  But since there are no pictures or video at this time, I just want let you know that for $200 and a broken down rusted out van with reinforced walls covered in asphalt, I know a farmer who will dig, not with his hands, but with a backhoe, a hole into the side of a hill so that you can feel safe, and a bit like a post-apocalyptic Walking Dead renegade trooper seeking refuge from the world, from tennis-ball sized chunks of ice falling from the sky, concrete-piercing tree branches flying by, and suddenly mobile unmanned vehicles and homes spinning toward Oz.

It seems my sentences are emulating tornadoes in May ...

And my wife and I found a house.  Safe in the Piney Woods of East Texas.  Away from wind, earthquakes, floods, and other acts of God not to exclude wild-fires, which seem unlikely this year with the rainfall (perhaps a relay hand-off from April to May).  It has a fireplace, a pool, an office for me, a screened in covered patio, and ... wait for it ... a pond at the back of the property.  This wasn't supposed to happen so soon.  We had just decided to start looking.  And this is our first home.  So, needless to say, we don't know much about it.  But the experience has been easy and painless.  And wonderful.  We are very happy.  Busy.  Full of life.  Full of weather.  Full of blessings.  And appreciation.

I look forward to writing another blog post for you in a few weeks from the redwood deck of the pool, playing with my son and admiring the tan lines around the corners of my wife's swim suit, under the pines and the Texas sun.