Raindrops

My husband and With-a-Why left town this afternoon on a trip they've been planning for a while: they've driven to Town That Sounds Like Dishware. Right now, they're settled into a hotel room and are snuggled on the bed together, reading comic books, and tomorrow, they are going to Famous Glass Museum. With-a-Why has always been fascinated with glass statues and glass artwork, and he's looking forward to seeing the glass-making demonstrations.

What's most unusual is that we have no extra kids here tonight. Most of the kids in Shaggy Hair Boy's grade are sleeping in their own homes because tomorrow they have to get up early to go take a standardized test. But Boy in Black is here. As he lounged on the couch, eating potato bread dipped in balsamic vinegar (one of his favorite snacks), he and Shaggy Hair had an earnest discussion about the Ultimate Frisbee Club that Shaggy Hair is starting over at the high school. An English teacher and a gym teacher have agreed to sponsor the club, and their first meeting is Tuesday. "If Gym Teacher wants to help explain the game, let him," advised Boy in Black, "and if he gets something wrong, you can just tactfully correct him."

Soon the two boys had their guitars out and were deep into a conversation that made absolutely no sense to me, filled with phrases like, "the dorian mode of the A major scale." After they jammed on the guitars for a while, Shaggy Hair moved to the piano and Boy in Black to the drums. It's funny: when Shaggy Hair was younger, he and Boy in Black always seemed like such different personalities to me, but as they get older, they seem to get more and more alike.

So it's an unusually quiet Friday night here. Sitting on the couch with a computer in my lap and a cat at my feet, I am listening to the music and chatter from the two boys and during pauses, the sound of the raindrops hitting the window panes.