A Respite at Wise Acres

We set down our law books and laptops, our drills and drywall for the weekend and we drove.

We drove on forest-lined highways where orange and yellow and red were making their first appearances and where the road twisted with the contours of the land. We left the city and then the state and entered the Poconos.

Just a few hours later we were at Wise Acres surrounded by friends and drinks and laughter and no work.

Leah and I just relaxed for two days without cell phones or computers. We threw darts, played 20 questions and ate well. We exhaled.

And it was only when we were about to leave that I remembered bringing our camera.So here is at least proof that we were there, even if you don’t get to see the nice people we shared this little respite with.

Lil' Matthew Gets Caught

There I was crouched behind a red Ford Taurus parked up the block from our house. I had no shirt on. My hands were wrapped around a scooter that Leah had given to me 10 years ago as a birthday gift. Just a few minutes ago, I had been zooming up the block and then riding the downhill back to our driveway on my swank Sharper Image scooter, the wind billowing in the hair — both on my head and on my chest.

But then I spotted my neighbor Kevin leaving his house. I ducked behind the Taurus. I would rather not be spotted by my tough manly neighbor riding my scooter shirtless.

I was hoping he was just getting something he left in his car. Nope.
Then I was hoping he was going to drive the other way down the street. Nope.
He came right toward me. I had to make a snap decision. I didn’t want to be caught, but worse I didn’t want to be caught hiding.

So I decided to own it.

I emerged from my hiding place jumped on my scooter and stood tall as I coasted home.

Kevin stopped the car, rolled down his window and waited…

I pulled to a stop. He leaned out of his window and with a big grin on his face said: “Time to go home lil' Matthew. Time to go home.”

A public plea

Dear Lafont eyeglasses,

It has been five months since we’ve been together. You resting fashionably on my face. Me looking fashionably through your lenses. I’m still missing you and think of you often, like the other day when I rifled through the couch cushions for the 50th time hoping to find you.

Many a night I have imagined with fear what might have happened to you. I have pictured your beautiful black titanium frame crushed to bits in the garbage man’s truck, your sparkly white, genuine Swarovski crystals trickling out of the broken plastic cat-eye cover like teardrops.

You are the fanciest and by far the most expensive pair of glasses I have ever owned...an impulse purchase really... bought with unused flex spending money on a deadline. I wasn’t looking for anything special, but as I browsed, there you were, all French design, imported and exotic on the shelf. I had to take a day to think about the investment, but when I chose you I went all out, even getting the special lenses for you that fade to dark when we would go out in the sun.

I walked past an eyeglasses store on my way home from school the other day and I considered buying another cheaper, more utilitarian pair, just to get by until you come home. You were my only pair with my recent prescription, and now seeing is a little bit more of an effort. But I decided to wait, because I still hold out hope that I will serendipitously discover you months or years from now in one of my many Tupperware storage containers. Maybe I set you in it by accident and you got covered over? Or worse, maybe a cat jumped on the table and bumped you into the nearby uncovered recycle bin where you tumbled to the bottom, unnoticed? Maybe you were clinging to the cabinet and fell in the bathroom garbage when no one was home? I shudder to think of the possibilities, but I hope that you are just hiding somewhere in the house, waiting for our reunion. Please show yourself. I miss you, Lafont eyeglasses. I really do.

Leah