ever-fixed mark

Dog and I were walking in the high-rent cemetery yesterday — it’s one of our favorite (pardon the expression) haunts — when we came across a human body sprawled prone on the ground in front of one of the headstones. This is it, I thought. After ten years of fruitless dog walks during which I’ve never found a body (at least, not a whole one), here was my moment in the sun. At last, when the newspaper stated, “The body was found by a woman walking her dog,” I would be that woman.

Fortunately, my involuntary “Oh, my god! Are you okay?” had the effect of rousing the supine person. No dead body to see here, folks. False alarm. After ascertaining that she was not in need of assistance, I apologized for disturbing her and we continued on our way.

She could have been sleeping off a high, but I don’t think so. As familiar as I am with that cemetery, I “know” that grave. It was erected fairly recently, and since it’s the only headstone in that section of the cemetery that was put up in the past hundred years, it stands out. Judging from the age of the deceased and the age of the young woman, I’m assuming that she was “visiting” her mom. How lovely and how sad. I’m glad she at least had good weather for her visit.

The academic year is four weeks young, and already we have received two notes home, a call from the principal, and an invitation from the school psychologist to participate in a “social skills” group which is, I gather, a sort of finishing school for kindergartners.

But! He is awfully cute, no?

Already this one has more disciplinary actions entered into his permanent record than the rest of the family put together, and yes that includes Dog’s six-week stint in obedience school.

Luckily, the academics are going pretty well. That’s important; with years of confinement ahead of him, he should be capable of producing a literate manifesto.

Minor: My school has a secret code!

Me: Really?

Minor: It’s nine dash nineteen dash eleven.

Me: What’s the secret code for?

Minor: They changed it. It used to be nine dash sixteen dash eleven.

Me: I don’t understand. Why is there a secret code?

Husband: I think he’s talking about the date.

Aitch’s latest obsession is the size of his shoes, a topic he pursues relentlessly: How big they were last year vs. this year. How big they’ll be next year. How they compare to Eamonn’s shoe size, and Timmy’s shoe size, and the kid who is only in third grade but is already a size six, can you believe it, Mom? And, also, tragically, how we’re all conspiring to force him to wear shoes that are too small, and why he really, really needs new and bigger shoes.

Moved by his complaints about blisters, we actually did buy him a second pair of sneakers this summer before we caught on. Since then we’ve had him measured by every shoe salesman in town, and believe me, that kid is a 1, but he insists he’s a 3. We’ve told him very firmly that we won’t entertain the topic of new shoes until Christmas, at which time we’ll have him measured again to see if he’s grown.

He’s pretty sure he’ll be a 4 by then.

Anyway, this weekend, Aitch awoke early; Husband and I were still asleep, Husband in our room, I in the guest room. (We’re not on the outs, but Dog had kicked me out of bed. See here for a description of our nighttime habits.) Aitch was downstairs, amusing himself quietly, but after a half-hour or so he came back upstairs to hand Husband a piece of paper with a word written on it, and he asked what it meant. The word was “Company,” and Husband gave a short if sleepy disquisition on the various meanings of the word. Aitch thanked him and went downstairs.

A few minutes later, Aitch came upstairs with another word: “Province.”

At this point, Husband’s suspicions were aroused, and he went downstairs to find that Aitch had logged on to Reebok.com, selected a pair of shoes (size 3, natch), and started to fill out the order form when he was stumped by the unfamiliar words. I’m thankful that Husband stopped him before he got to the credit card page. We had a long conversation about ordering things on-line (short version: DON’T), and I’m watching the mail carefully for any unexpected items.

Last night, I was reading the boys a story when Aitch pulled up his shirt and, contemplating his abs, said, “I almost have a six-pack like those guys on TV.”

Shoes? Abs? This kid is one character flaw away from landing a role on “The Jersey Shore.”

Tropical storm? Meh. We activated the Catastrophic Emergency Disaster Preparedness Plan for this?

It’s hard to prepare for a hurricane when the beach is this inviting. I think we’ll wait to start battening down the hatches until the first raindrops hit.

You’ll be relieved to know that this fine driftwood edifice withstood our recent earthquake. Actually, I was parked right in front of it when the earthquake hit, and we didn’t feel a thing, didn’t even know about it until friends started texting us. Whether it will stand up to Irene remains to be seen.

A few weeks ago, I was buying cheese at one of Port City’s two cheese emporia, and the proprietor (the better to assist me with my selection) asked, “What’s the occasion?”

“A few friends of mine get together every week to watch Masterpiece Theatre-type shows on TV,” I said, “and we always have wine and cheese.”

“Oh,” he said, “how long have you been doing that?”

“About eight years,” I said.

Then I thought: wow. Eight years. Nearly a decade of Masterpiece Theatre. How ancient does that make me sound? “The girls and I never miss our stories!” I’ll always remember that as the moment I took a right turn at Middle-Age and landed squarely in Elderly. “And we know it’s naughty, but we like our nip of sherry and wheel of Brie!” (Although we’re actually much more adventurous than that. It would shock you, the things we get up to in the cheese department.)

The spouse of one of our founding members recently christened us the Newburyport Period Piece Society, inspired by our preferred viewing material, mostly historical dramas and BBC adaptations of Victorian novels. We’ve permitted the occasional contemporary series, but we’re largely at home in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As is the BBC — surprisingly, in eight years we have not run out of viewing material. They just keep churning it out. The latest is “The Hour,” which we’re very excited about, and which we will (I hope) review on our sadly-neglected blog.

Yes, one day blogging will be a quaint habit restricted to little old ladies. In the 22nd century, the BBC will probably make a period piece about it.

Do you think maybe it’s time for me to go back to work?

I took the boys to see the Glee 3D movie. No, I’m not particularly proud. In my defense, it was a rainy Sunday; we were coming down from an activity high after a week spent at the Tyler Place; and it was the only film appropriate for all audiences that I thought I could tolerate. I’ve never seen a whole episode of Glee, but I was a theater geek in high school.

Aitch enjoyed it. I thought it was mostly inoffensive but not particularly memorable. Minor hated it.

“When is the MOVIE starting?” he asked about ten minutes in.

“This is the movie, honey.”

“No, it’s JUST SONGS!”

“It’s a concert film.”

“I don’t LIKE concerts!”

Sorry, little dude.

There was only one moment in the movie that made me sit up and take notice, and that was Gwyneth Paltrow’s performance of the song “Forget You.” (Is it just me or does Gwyneth’s dress style skew younger and younger the older she gets? I mean, she’s pushing forty, and the other young women in the cast looked positively mature next to her.) Gwyneth is an adequate singer, I guess, but it was the song itself that really grabbed my attention. So catchy! When I got home I Googled its identifiers so I could find it on iTunes and realized that every other person in the country is already aware of this Cee Lo Green song, because it’s gained notoriety in its unexpurgated form, titled “Fuck You.”

I thought long and hard (double entendre completely unintentional I assure you) about which version of the song to download. On one hand, I’m not unopposed to a bit of well-placed musical profanity. One of my favorite songs to scream along with in the car in the pre-child era was Ben Folds Five’s “Song for the Dumped,” which features a soul-satisfying, “Well, fuck you too!” Also, I’m not crazy about the practice of bleeping or otherwise obscuring offensive words in songs; I’d rather not hear it at all than have to suffer through the Bowdlerized version. (Don’t even get me started on that rendition of “Brown-Eyed Girl” that replaces the line “making love in the green grass” with “skipping and a jumping” from an earlier verse. Oh, my virgin ears.)

On the other hand, at least “Forget You” is a legitimate alternate version produced by the original artist. Also, it’s such a poppy tune that the note of anguish that “fuck you” brings to the song isn’t really necessary; “forget you” is just as appropriate, although rhythmically a bit awkward. And I want to be able to listen to the song when the kids are present.

I downloaded both versions.

Turns out there are quite a number of songs with similar titular sentiments.

Three topics frequently covered in this space aligned in today’s Daily News coverage: John Updike’s grandson won this week’s final Newburyport road race, the High Street mile, barefoot.

Per the article, he’s not a proponent of barefoot running, but he had wounded his foot and couldn’t bear the pressure of a shoe.

I call that a good excuse to skip the race.