In the loop…but not for long.

Every day, I pick up Tyler from school and ask him how his day went.  And every day, he is silent.

Today when I picked him up, he said, “We had circles today.  We stood up four times, then sat back down again.  I spelled ‘w-o-r-m’ and ‘d-i-r-t’ on our magnets.  But not ‘p-i-e,’ cause that’s not a word.  My classroom has an easel, a kitchen, rubber bands, and cocoons.  It goes ‘egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, butterfly.’  It’s a circle that never, ever ends!”

Finally, I am in the loop!  At least, until he discovers that girls his age are way cooler, smarter, and far more glamorous than his mom.

Bugs need pity, too.

As it is day three of watching the fruit flies struggling on fly paper, I decided they join the ranks of several other bug forms who have earned my sympathy and/or rescue efforts: beetles swimming for their lives in the dog bowl; spiders endlessly trekking in circles around a laundry basket; bees losing their battle on a window sill; and ants carrying little white beads of poison to their hungry babies’ nests. You can call me overly sentimental, but then again, that’s why I’m coming back as William and Kate’s great-great-great-grandchild, and you’re all coming back as cockroaches.

The fruit flies have invaded my house in swarms.

For the past thirty-six hours, I have been watching their pitiful struggle on a strip of Black Flag fly paper.

Today I learned they have a three-day life cycle, which means already they’ve spent half their lives—the pinnacle of their careers, the grandparent years, self-actualization and retirement in my banana bowl—stuck knee-deep in adhesive goo.

And you thought you were having a bad weekend.