Saturday

You can't tell from there, because you aren't here, so you must simply trust me that this is proof of insanity. My father likes to make jam, though he can't eat it (he's diabetic) and none of his friends and relations particularly care for jam. Once a year he drives upstate and buys flats of berries--packed to the roof of the car--and spends days preparing them and boiling them down and scooping them into jars, inevitably during the hottest week of the summer. He marks his calendar--he looks forward to this for months. But in the actual experience of it he is an obsessed, raging beast--overwhelmed, overburdened, as if somebody else came up with the idea and ordered the quantity and chose the day. Today he tried to make it my problem.

I want to take this moment to say thank you to Alex, my long-ago therapist, whose voice still calls out now and then from inside my head.

It's hot here. Now that the pool's gone, we're reduced to slip-and-slides (piece of crap--the hose attachment pulled off in the first five minutes of use) and sprinklers. Should have known: you can't beat a good sprinkler. Or even one that only sprays to the left and has two clogged holes.

He's perfect. Even when he's clawing my feet.