It's just one, but it feels like five. My daughter is a champ!
So after church (I just wrote work instead, which might tell you something) I took the daughter, at her request, to the
Purple Cow on Cantrell here in Little Rock for lunch. She was listening to music and I was eavesdropping (not by choice until something caught my ear) on the next table, when a girl in (I later saw) a Pan-Hellenic Council shirt said something about it being hard to be a single white girl somewhere or other, I guess at the University here in town but maybe somewhere else.
There are places that could go that wouldn't be terrible, but you can't get to most of them from here. Since I'm a fool and a glutton for punishment, I tuned in, but I couldn't hear her clearly after that. Possibly she lowered her voice, which suggests but doesn't prove she was going someplace unpleasant with it. Apparently what was on my mind was on my face, because the kid said to me, "Daddy? Is something wrong?" This took me aback. I thought she'd been listening on the ear buds and drawing on the menu and not paying attention to me.
I said, "I was just following an unpleasant line of thought. No big deal." I paused, and then I said, "But I really appreciate you saying that, for two reasons. First, it was perceptive and caring of you to notice I was in a bad mood. I appreciate you doing that." I started to choke up just a little but got past it possibly without her noticing (yeah, right). "And second, you knocked me off thinking about something unhappy that I couldn't do anything about and that wasn't doing me or anybody any good, and I appreciate that, too."
She's a great kid. I couldn't be prouder of her.
The sooner we put those assholes in the grave&piss on the dirt above it, the better off we'll be