The First Day of Second Grade

This morning we were up and at 'em at 7 a.m. By 7:15, I was frying bacon and scrambling eggs to give Grayson a good start on the day. G-rex was dressed and ready at 7:30, bouncing on his stool in the kitchen, eager to start the new school year.

Though January first is technically the new year, all us with kids in school know that the real new year begins on the first day of school. This is the day we return to our routines, make promises to ourselves to do better this year, look forward to a new year of adventure and learning, friends and activities and forward motion for another three seasons.

The only thing missing for us is the thrill of the purchase of new school supplies. At Wilson, you just make a donation of $20 at the beginning of the year and the school purchases all the supplies in bulk. It really makes a lot more sense than preparing a list and having the parents go out and shop for all that stuff. But I miss the fun of picking out new folders and pencils and crayons. Ahhhh, the smell of new crayons! I read recently that there is a company that makes a perfume called "Crayon," and another that smells like Play doh. That might be a BIT much, but I know where they're coming from.

Grayson is in Mr. Hopper's class this year, on the SECOND FLOOR. He is definitely moving UP the pecking order. Gray says that Hopper is a no-nonsense kind of guy, but the kids really like him, so that's good news.

Now it's time for me and Gray to get our act in order, too. No more late mornings sipping coffee in bed until 8 a.m. No more late nights for Grayson, plugged into the video games or Cartoon Network until 10:00. Got to start living by the schedule again. It's always a bit of a relief to have structure in our lives after the long loosey-goosey summer.

The rain does not let up. I have always said that you know when summer is over when the rain hits in August. We think of Oklahoma August as being a brutally hot month, but in truth we usually start getting serious rain in August toward the end of the month. This year that is true in spades. Its been raining almost non-stop for days. And it's been cool enough to keep the "kitty play yard" (the window to the sunroom roof from our bedroom) open all day and all night this week. The cats like to go out and sit under the eaves and watch the rain and feel like wild cats. One drop on their fur and their right back inside, but you can see that they feel like Kings of the Jungle when they're out there.

Grayson's birthday is, of course, another harbinger of fall. We are still undecided about where to have the party. I told him that today was the deadline. He has to make up his mind by tonight about whether he will have it at home or at some other venue. I'm pulled two ways. If we have it at home, it's more fun for the adults because we all hang around downstairs and drink Mojitos while the kids run rammpant. But if we do it offsite, I don't have to clean my whole house before and after the party. Last year it looked like the Mob had rifled Grayson's room after his party. It was a complete disaster area! I wish I had taken pictures of the mess, it was truly Olympian in scope.

This weekend is the JBF (Just Betwee Friends) consignment sale at the fairgrounds. I have about $300 worth of stuff to sell: I printed out 106 tags for items. It's amazing how much STUFF Grayson acquires in a year. It's a good thing that this sale takes place every year shortly before his birthday. It gives us a chance to make some room for all the incoming loot. Plus, I always buy almost all of Grayson's fall and winter clothes there, for about a third of what I would pay retail.

Ah, fall. It's in the air. Soon there will be football and falling leaves and chilly mornings. It's my favorite time of year.

Quartz Mountain is Dead... Long Live Quartz Mountain

We had a very nice "weekend"... really a "week start" at Quartz Mountain. I had not been back there in more than 10 years.

It's completely changed, of course. At least, the lodge is all new. Those of you who knew me from of old remember the years I spent working for the Oklahoma Arts Institute. I spent three weeks at Quartz every year in June, and six weeks, on and off, from September through the end of October. I knew the place... the old lodge, anyway... intimately. It was full of memories and meaning for me. I knew the smell of the old lodge building -- a mixture of aging carpet and a particular type of cleaner and disinfectant. I knew what was in all the cardboard boxes packed on shelves upstairs in the outdoor amphitheatre shell. (The one labeled "knee pads and tennis balls" actually contained... knee pads and tennis balls. Don't ask me why) I knew the trees and bushes around the old site like the back of my hand.

But the lodge burned down about 12 years ago, and then, after I left the Institute, they rebuilt it on a grand scale. The entire footprint of the place is different. The only thing that was the same was the row of pavilions behind the lodge by the lake, and the old amphitheatre.

I went with mixed feelings, expecting to be bombarded by memories of my time with the institute. It was a good place, but filled with anxious memories of hard work, long hours and exhausting duties. When we first arrived, I took Gray and Grayson on a quick tour of the pavilions, and those did, indeed, evoke memories. But then we went back to our room, and it was all new. The ghosts, good, bad and indifferent, don't live there anymore.

After I realized that, it was a whole different experience. I didn't have to have "ownership" of the place. I didn't have to be the expert. Nobody there knew me from the old days. I was an innocent civilian, just there to enjoy the beautiful mountain landscape and the nice new lodge facilities. What a relief. Quartz Mountain is dead.

Long live Quartz Mountain.

We had a good time. We climbed mountains and saw wildlife and paddled in the lake. It was a good experience because we all could enjoy it together. Gray was, of course, in his element. Climbing and hiking off ahead of us. I enjoyed the chance to really climb and explore the mountains that I had been near so many times and never had much of an opportunity to really experience. And I was pleasantly surprised at how enthusiastic Grayson was for rock climbing. I was worried that it would be too tiring for him, or he would be scared. But he marched bravely on, relying on Gray's strength to haul him up over some of the more difficult places, and not seeming particularly afraid of the heights and the climb. There were a few times, in truth, when I had visions of the damage a real fall would do, but I just put it out of my mind. I can't protect him from everything. And he's big enough to climb rocks. So we climbed. Up one mountain, down between two, then up again the next one. Then down a very steep and difficult drop to the lake where Grayson did a little skinny-dipping and I went wading. I would have been happy to get in, myself, but we were within sight of the road and I thought I would spare innocent travellers the vision of my saggy ass wading into the lake. Venus on the halfshell I am not.

It was a three and a half hour climb, and Grayson did great right through to the end. Afterward, he claimed he was scared on the descent, but at the time he was a real trooper.

I've decided we're going to take regular weekend trips to experience all the cool places Oklahoma has to offer. Last fall we went to Beavers Bend, to do a little canoeing on the river. This summer, Quartz Mountain... and next, I think Alabaster Caverns up by the panhandle, to see the bat flight. Or maybe Little Sahara for some dune-buggying. The state has lots of cool places to see.

Starry skies

I'm looking a four-day weekend in the face. The boys and I are going to Quartz Mountain on Sunday to spend a couple of nights watching the Perseid meteor shower. You just can't see the sky here in the city, and Grayson has never experienced a meteor shower. I remember from my days with the Oklahoma Arts Institute that Quartz Mountain is about as good a place as any in the state to see the night sky, so I thought we'd give summer one last hurrah and go check it out.
I haven't been back to Quartz since it burned down, more than ten years ago. It's a completely different place since I was there, and I hear it's really nice. It was a shabby, second-rate state lodge, smelling of disinfectant, with scorpions marching down the hall. Now it's a beautiful facility with a very nice restaurant, indoor-outdoor pool, etc. Even internet service, so Gray won't go into withdrawal or anaphylactic shock or something. We should have a nice time, swimming and hiking and exploring. I never got to show the place to Gray when I worked there. It will be nice to be there as purely civilian, though I'm sure I'll have all kinds of flashbacks.

We're going to take Grayson's telescope. We've really never used it, though he's had it for a couple of years. Again, there's just no good viewing in the city. But we should be able to see a lot out at Quartz.

Oh, I meant to mention that you can see my museum on some episodes of the new series "Jurassic Fight Club" on the History Channel. This coming Wednesday, the episode is about Deinonychus and Tenontosaurus and they did quite a bit of filming in my museum for that episode. Also some for the short-faced bear vs. megalion episode, so check it out.

Speaking of the museum, I suddenly realized that I haven't written about the museum drama taking place. Last month our director announced her resignation. She's going back to Milwaukee to be close to her mom, who is getting pretty old and needs care. We were all expecting a national search for another new director, but were told that an "internal" search was being conducted and the new director would be in place by Sept. 1. It gradually became clear that the "internal search" was really a reappointment of the old director, Mike Mares, who stepped down five years ago.

Now, I have nothing against Mike. I worked with him for several years and we got along just fine. But his autocratic style is just about a polar opposite from the consensus building we've all gotten used to under Ellen's leadership. It makes a lot less difference to me than it does to the curators who have power and autonomy issues that I don't have. I figure, hell, I'm in pr, I just say what they tell me to say. But the curators are in an uproar over it. To intensify the issues, Mike is already taking the reins and making changes. There are murmurings that he's planning to chuck the new logo we devised four years ago and have worked so hard to make recognizable. That he means to open the museum on Mondays again. That he is considering canceling certain exhibitions that have been on the calendar for months. How much of it is true, I don't know. And I don't think it matters. There's not much we can do about it. We will all have to adapt to a new World Order. But it has some people all wound around the axle. Some days, at the museum, the term "kicked ants nest" comes to mind.

It will be interesting to watch the transition and see what is fact and what is fiction. Only one thing is absolutely certain: things will change.