What a day I had. It started of just grand. I woke up mostly painless, and I was not going in to work, because today I would pick up Eliot and his friend at noon – the last day of school. Both kids knew we were walking home, so my singular job for the day was simple: leave house at 11:40am, arrive at school by noon, accompany boys home on foot and monitor until dinner time. With no urgent plans, I meandered through my morning, doing laundry, shuffling endless piles of artwork, updating the shopping list, planning to make granola that afternoon, etc. Making the list, I decide, I could easily go to Berkeley Bowl for a few things. I haven’t taken any pain meds, so I can ride, and I’ve plenty of time. I take a quick shower and hop on the bike. Not three blocks after my departure, my pancreas decides to wake up with pet
Picante
ulant, “Miss me?” That’s when my day started to go downhill. Instead of strolling through the isles of the East Bay’s most interesting market, I end up a spacey Quasimodo played by an off-key Julia Andrews. (I hum and sing badly, when in pain.)
Fortunately, the shopping itself is uneventful, I glance at my watch, and begin biking home doing a mental inventory of pain relief at home. I realize that I need more cannabis, and since the dispensary on the way, and it’s a Thursday morning, so it cannot be busy, and I should have just enough time, I swing my bike around and pull into their gated parking lot. It’s only after I get into the full service line that I realize it’s pretty crowded there. Turns out it’s buy 3 get one free on baked goods. Oh no, should I go? No freaking way, that’s a great deal because mostly I buy edibles. So the time just slips by as you might imagine it would at a dispensary.
Once I get my cheeba chews, I rip into one in the parking lot, which I’m sure they frown upon. Still, I’m a mom on a cargo bike with groceries. Cannabis chewy candy stuck between my teeth, I get home. 11:40. I only put away the groceries that I am certain the dogs will eat upon my departure, choke down 30mg of codeine, and then I’m out the door, hauling ass on foot to get to the school on time.
In the meanwhile, the boys and I have been invited to join other families from the school at a local taqueria. For me, Picante is an excruciating experience with 2 kids on a quiet day, when I can eat, I’m not in pain, and Sandy handles the ordering. But it’s the last day of school, and we’ve been offered a ride, so reluctantly I agree. The prospect of spending social time in a chaotic environment when I’ve just partaken of 50mg of CBD (cannabis) and 30mg of codeine was weighing heavily upon me as I approached the school at mach speed. As I go to open the gate, I realize, I forgot to put on deodorant. My life.
Fortunately, our ride and friend has some appreciation of my medical and mental state. She corrals three hyperkinetic 10 year old boys, gets us to the minivan, and shuttles us to the restaurant. Picante is an experience. Like many taquerias, a long line gives you ample time to talk to your friends and neighbors. Unlike other taquerias, the restaurant has ample seating, so it has become a chaotic family favorite. I approach a seemingly endless line stunned. I notice my friend taking orders from her kids before I realize that my kids aren’t going to stand in line with me, not when half of the elementary school is running in and out of doors alternating between shrill screams and chilling laughter. I grab the two I claim responsibility for, open my notes app on my phone, and thumb in their orders. I know myself to know I won’t remember anything beyond burrito on my own. Then the wait and the awkward conversations begin.
As my friend introduces me to parents who will have an incoming kindergartener next year, I recognized a dark underbelly to having both kids in the same school at the same time: my kids social worlds are colliding. You must understand that if I’m lucky and if I cram the school directory into my head before attending one of the boys’ events, I may be lucky to remember 60-80% of the kids names and maybe 25-45% of their parents names. Eliot’s been with the same class of 20 kids give for the last four school years with maybe a +/-3 change each year. Auden, similarly, has been with his preschool class of 12-20 kids for three years. But their events have always been separate. Now, I’m looking at needing to double the number at any given event. I practically started hyperventilating there in line.
Before I had to remember the latest couple’s kid’s name, I was being served. I attempt poorly to convey what the boys want – one bean and cheese burrito with cheese, guac and beans, a carnitas taco, and agua frescas (different flavors). I pay, have another kid grab the boys to get their drinks, and grab our pager. We head outside where the boys settle at the table with all of the kids. I look helplessly at the seating possibilities. I can’t sit with the kids, and as much as I really want to sit at the table in the corner that has been stripped of all but one of its chairs, I realize I’m going to have to join some parents at another table. I stall by going to get napkins for the kids. Then I go back for straws. Then I go back again for silverware. By the time I’m done stalling, the order has arrived. Sadly, the guacamole has ended not in the burrito, but on the single tiny carnitas taco that I ordered when I misunderstood that I was supposed to order three tacos not one. Sigh. The boys, naturally, are devastated. My mom friend notices and tells me to just go take the burrito to the kitchen window and ask for guac. I dig around for a receipt that I apparently never picked up, and my friend must have seen the panic in my eyes, because she even offers to go get it for me. I feel so stupid for feeling helpless. So I grab Eliot and his doe-y eyes and make him hold the burrito mournfully at the kitchen window while I request guacamole. They kindly accommodate us, and we return to find the other kid starving over an empty plate. I ask if he’d like for me to get more tacos for him. Sheepishly, and for that I loved him just a bit more, he said, please.
Inadvertently, I had found my escape. I head back to the end of the line and prepare to avoid social interaction by pulling out my phone.
I breathe a sigh of relief at my opportunity to erect the social walls around me – there are at least ten people in line ahead of me. Just as I exhale my relief, a lady behind the counter recognizes me from my earlier order (?), comes over and invites me to jump in line because I had already ordered once. aaaahhhh. I order, get my new pager to pop at the kids table, and face the fact that I am going to have to sit at a table with fellow adults. By this time the few parents I know have congregated and my friend waves me over.
Surprisingly, and maybe this is just the combination of cannabis and codeine, but conversation almost comes easily. I am able to gab around, expertly avoiding narratives that require name references. My only major challenge politely dodging invitations to continue this gathering after lunch at a park or bowling alley or other venue. I survive the next five minutes without raising any obvious alarms, when Eliot sidles over and quietly asks me if we can go. I whisper back that we unless we want to walk almost 2 miles home, we have to wait for our ride – who has invited us to go bowling – to finish. Eliot goes back to confer with his comrade. They return and assure me that they don’t mind walking almost 2 miles home.
That’s when I realize that we had fully indoctrinated our son – he, too, is an introvert. My sigh of relief could be heard above the din of elementary school children celebrating the year end. So we left, enjoyed a pleasant walk with the boys, and retreated to the safety of home.