Leaving on a Jet Plane

If I were a better photographer, this picture of Boy#1 would be all special effect-y. When I snapped it I meant for Boy and his carry-on to be a blur, with the remainder of the photo crystal clear, instead of having the whole picture be a blur. My intention was too ambitious for my point-and-shoot camera, though.

The blur would have been a good analogy for One during the past week. On Monday he was watching noon hour Law and Order re-runs with me and snarking about Jack McCoy's righteous indignation; four days later he's in his first full day of work back in the Washington law firm where he spent a year as support staff. This time he's at the firm as an intern, a state of limbo that isn't quite secretary and definitely isn't lawyer, but is inching along the path toward becoming a lawyer.

The e-mail that sent him packing Monday was memorable because it (a) affirmed that he had left a good impression and happy supervisors when he left our nation's capital a year ago, (b) meant he would have to scramble to find someplace to live or would be (as his father so optimistically predicted) living with the homeless people in the public library, and (c) effectively put a stop to all the projects I had lined up for him to do during his leisurely summer at home. If you see me with spattered glasses in the next few weeks, it's because I've been painting the back entry myself instead of sub-contracting it to One.

The blur is now reviewing literature and documents and surviving the East Coast heat wave. He's happy, and we're happy he's there.

But I miss my Law and Order commentator.