Karate Chops, Big Rock and a Wedding

The Bohemian and I step away from domestic home routine. Pack some snacks and a beer and head to the beach to watch the sunset. Look at seaside vacation rentals and dream of wedding locations.

We look for that one house he went to – the one where they had a DJ on the deck and a dancing bride and groom. We find the big, dirt square in the lawn where the house once sat, and realize that now, it’s simply gone. Vanished.

We set out our blanket, eat our tortilla chips. Watch the family nearby practice martial arts moves on each other. Head butts that stop just short. Fake karate chops to throats. They go on like this for an hour.

We wander up the one lane road that winds along the ocean. Watch the sky turning pink. Round a corner and see one table set out on a seaside point. Eight chairs, tiki torches and photographers. Looks like a simple wedding. A small group sitting among lava rock and lapping waves. The caterer’s parked nearby with a barbecue grill on the back of her pick up truck.

Our feet trace the road. Ocean on one side, lush cliff side on the other. We find a big rock by the water and sit.

Then we hear the rumble. Look up to see the movement in the grass along the mountain. The earth shakes.

We go towards the sound and find a good size boulder has landed squarely in the road.

Jessica Dofflemyer ~ all rights reserved

The sky is not falling, it’s the mountain that is crumbling to the sea. And we’d been walking in the fall-out zone only moments before.

Demolished houses, martial arts and rolling boulders. A wedding banquet off the back of a truck.

These are just the sights we see on one evening when we dare to shake routine, adventure out our own front door.Jessica Dofflemyer ~ all rights reserved

Through the Hobbit Hole

When moving through small, tight places
one never knows what may be just on the other side…

Jessica Dofflemyer ~ all rights reserved

Spellbound

hard
showing
reading
early
amphibian

These are just some of the spelling words Jeb has to learn this week. Test is today and last night we were studying.

It’s become a family affair.

Not having been taught English in school, the Bohemian has learned the language solely by listening. This leaves a little room to brush up on his spelling and he’s taking advantage of Jeb’s second grade weekly list of words.

There they are. Jeb and the Bohemian, their blank pages numbered one to fifteen, pencils poised.

“We’re ready,” the Bohemian says with that slightly rolling ‘r’ of his.

Tonight’s prize is a special dessert to the one who gets the most right.

And when it comes time to correct their work, it’s all stars on the right ones and a little furrowed brow and shake of the head from the Bohemian on the wrong ones.

Afraid he may miss a sweet treat, Jeb tries to finagle out of misspellings.

“I just forgot that ‘n’ there, but I meant to put it in – can that one count, Mom?”

Words that give trouble: since, species and amphibian (though, for the record, Jeb gets ‘species’ right and a short dance with triumphant hands in the air ensues).

In the end, we don’t even tally who got the most right. We know there is the Bohemian’s left over birthday cake and everyone’s going to get a slice.

Homework with Jeb has been a downer all year. I honestly don’t know who dislikes it more, him or me.

But I can chalk another one up for the Bohemian, in the countless ways he makes the unpleasant, pain-free. Thank God my fiancé’s at the second-grade spelling level.