From the Tourism Conference.

I'm in Tulsa for the annual Governor's Conference on Tourism. This is the fabulous and exotic view from my window at the Renaissance Conference Center. I call it "Target parking lot with Oklahoma skyline."




I'm kind of missing my kid. He spent Thursday through Sunday with his dad, then G dropped him off with my folks where he will remain until Tuesday afternoon. So it's been almost five days since I saw him. Probably he's not missing me much at all. He got to play with his best friend in OKC, yesterday. And today his Papa's taking him to Scouts, so there's plenty to do.

He tells me he feels equally at home both at our house and at his Dad's place. I'm grateful for that. I noticed, though, on a poster he made as an assignment for school... where it asked him to draw a picture of his family, it was just the two of us. At the beginning of the school year, when he filled out a little booklet about himself, the family he drew was the three of us: G., (recognizable in his green shirt), Grayson in the middle (in glasses), and me (wearing red). Maybe he feels he has two families now.

Yesterday was something of a big day. G dropped off Grayson with my folks, marking the first time he has seen or spoken to either of them in a year. My mom was the only one present. My dad is just not ready to take that step. The new tattoo on his ankle is still healing where he had G's initials tattooed over last week. (My dad had all of our initials tatooed onto his ankle several years ago. Last week he had a sailboat tattooed over it, and fresh initials tattooed onto the opposite ankle: just mine, Grayson's and my mom's. Kind of makes me glad I never etched G's name into my skin.)

Anyway, they both said it was cordial, if awkward. It's another step toward getting On With our lives, I suppose.

Now, in other news: Mambo is now able to eat large crickets. This is great because large crickets are only 1 cent more than small crickets, but he eats 50% fewer, saving me a lot of cash. I have not yet had success in breeding my own crickets, however. The cricket farm seems to be doing okay as far as keeping the adult crickets alive, but I'm not seeing much in the way of eggs. I may have to tweak my techniquesw. Play a little Barry White for them or something... I dunno. I wish they'd get on with it.