6 33 pm pst   [ induldge me? ]

This entry is laden with photos and if you have a slow connection (like me) now would be an excellent time to go make yourself a pot of tea.

Now that you've made that pot of tea, will you indulge me? Today I visited my elementary school for the first time since I graduated. It was an adventure in nostalgia.

The plan was that Matthew and I would help Alexandra and her mother set up their booth at a craft fair being held at my elementary school. Matthew and I ran a bit late but I knew it would be a good day when Matthew gave the big gourd his name: Bubba.

Bubba sat on the ground while we arranged tables, lights, lattices, and branches. My main job was to weave branches through a wooden frame. My hands quickly smelled of pine. We later draped it with little points of light. The final product made me laugh each time I looked at it.

After setting up I had to check out the playground. When I went to school there, they had a tremendously unsafe tire structure consisting of wood, metal, rubber, and cement. Once a kid fell and hit his head on one of the wood stake; he had to be airlifter by helicopter to the hospital. I also remember hours spent curled inside those old used tires. they were perfect for someone as small as me. The entire structure has been replaced by a safe, colorful jungle jim. I had to test it out with a little swinging.

After setting up, Matthew wandered around arm in arm with me. I pointed out different sights around the school, and couldn't resist snapping a shot of one of the many anti-drug posters.

When I was in sixth grade, we filmmed a rendition of Little Red Ridinghood called Little Red Rambo. I was Little Red Rambo taking a basket of grenades to my grandmother. Can you imagine a stranger plot for an elementary school play? I remember that I had forgotten my red t-shirt and my mom had to drive to school in the middle of the day to bring it to me.

Now is when the indulgence comes in. My boyfriend has a bitty passion and I just love to see him in his element. His birthday present to himself (and the envy of all young boys) is his 190 mm remote control car. It flew down from Berkeley in his lap. The sunny day begged for Matthew to take his toy out to play.

He gets embarassed when I encourage him to play, but I do so love to see him happy. It didn't take too much prodding to get him outside with remote control in hand.

Our relationship is all about simple pleasures -- I indulge his and he indulges mine. I sat on the lawn and watching him play. Our street gets very little traffic, so it's perfect for a lazy weekend toy car drive.

He let me take photo after photo without complaining.

And when I invited him to lay on the grass with me, he let me curl up on his belly and in his neck. I nuzzled and coo-ed and was as "lovey-dovey" as one can get.

We whispered thoughts about our future that would later have no consequence, but served to fill the sun-drenched minutes of the afternoon.

He was sure flies we on his legs and he kept hopping up to shoo them off, which made me giggle each time.

While we were in Germany, we spent a lot of time driving on the autobahn. Matthew absolutely loved it, but wouldn't bring up how happy he was until I would say "Who loves the autobahn?" Then an enormous smile would sweep across his face, only partially masted by his embarassment at deriving so much pleasure from it.

I have to really work on him to get him to smile. He says that when he smiled broadly he feels unnatural. I can't imagine very many more ideas which are more silly, so I try to get him comfortable with smiling by making him do it as often as possible.

Matthew's toy car brings him that same level of pleasure, and I seem him resisting the unfiltered enjoyment of his little machine. I have dubbed it the remote controlled autobahn. Even the name makes him smile.

I work hard to encourage him to enjoy whatever delights him. It is a strange role to teach someone to be happy, but I have always been sharing that lesson with him, and he has already learned so much.

When we first began dating, I had to encourage him to communicate with me and I loved showing him how much fun life could be if you can ignore the annoying stuff.

I don't know how he got to feeling guilty for having fun.

I can't imagine living like that.

I firmly believe that people should take pleasure wherever thay find it [if it doesn't hurt anyone else].

His car battery lasts for maybe twenty minutes, so he has a built in time limit on his playing. I am a big fan of the time limit. Of course, he does have two batteries...

It was a glorious afternoon, and it felt good to help out a friend. We are going back tomorrow morning to halp layout all of the contents of the display (gourds and jewelry).

While we were outside and Matthew was playing with his car, my dad came home. I could tell he wanted to play with the toy. He ran it head first into the curb, as I had. Thank goodness that plastic frame is fairly durable.

I tried to get my dad to pose for a photo. "Smile!" He made a tremendously fake smile. "C'mon dad, made a real smile!" He put in a good effort, but still was making a fake smile. "Think of Adam," I suggested.

His shoulders began moving up and down and soon he was laughing out loud.

I was proud of myself for getting a real chuckle out of him.

Matthew was laughing at the way we interacted.

Smiles were shared all around, and then my dad went inside and left us to the sunshine.