May 20, 2014

Shed-petals and a pause

Yesterday I saw a blossom storm. 

The GIS application I was working on had been frustrating me all day before finally giving in to my debugging efforts.
About 5 minutes before I had to leave for my train home. 

One of the biggest challenges of doing iterative problem-solving in my job is that its often 'two steps back for one step forward' . My breakthroughs are almost always timed to make me miss my ride. 

So as often happens on these days of karmic comeuppance, I got to put a mental check on my task list but lost a neat half hour of the evening waiting for the next train.

Back in Waltham, I peeled out of the parking lot trying to make it to school pick-up and the rest of the tight evening routine when....the light turned red at the very first intersection. 
But of course. 
How else would this day go?

As I fidgeted impatiently in my seat, the ring of cherry trees (?) on Waltham Common drew my eye with its picturesque carpet of shed blossoms. 



Good thing, otherwise I probably wouldn't have noticed the woman clinging to one of the branches. She was bouncing it to make the boughs rain petals on the  toddler below. The little girl pranced and squealed in delight as the air around her filled with pink wisps. My phone was zipped into my bag so with one eye on the light and the other on the sheer glee under the trees, I did a quick blind grope. By the time I got to my phone, the toddler was part of the action. 




The light changed to green sooner than I now wanted and the giggling and whooping faded as I drove away. 

My evening did not actually get less tightly scheduled thereon, but I found I didn't fixate as much on the clock. 
I relaxed all my rules.
I played Oyon's favorite tune ('What does the fox say') and homework actually got done more smoothly than in weeks. 
I let him dawdle a bit and we actually got to karate early! So I let him practice jumping  from the top of the entrance stairs before class instead of the usual after-class treat. 
Later, over dinner, I read 'Fantastic Mr.Fox' out loud in a departure from our usual routine. Lately he hasn't been as interested in being read-to as he has been in reading-out-loud himself. But he obligingly let me take him on a roller coaster ride with a desperate fox family, some grumpy farmers and many hapless chicken. 

Last night I managed  to shake the boughs a bit. 

There were petals everywhere. 









Oyon-isms, 7+
On hearing from his friend that a coyote in the neighborhood had killed a small pet dog...
Oyon: That makes no sense! Coyotes evolved INTO dogs...why would they kill them?!
Me: Dogs aren't coyotes anymore though. Coyotes are still wild and have to eat small animals to survive.
Oyon: That's too bad. I wish we could give them other food so they'd leave the pets alone but that's dangerous.
Me: Correct! Never feed a wild animal or they lose their hunting skills.
Oyon: Yeah, but it would also be really bad because in a few minutes it would evolve into a dog and then we'd have too many DOGS in the neighborhood.

Addendum:
Hi. This is Oyon. Mammam read this to me and this is a thingie I made her put in.
Mamma said that the Coyotes evolve into dogs in many years. But what if  a wolf is 17 when it forms into a dog? It would already be dead. So it would die in the middle of evolving right? So when DO they turn into dogs? That's my question.


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