Rocking the weekend - Part II

Before I start gushing about the weekend, I should mention that school started this week and it's been wonderful! Bruce was a bit whiny during the last few weeks of the summer. Anytime he looked bored, I would say, "Find something to do or I'll find something for you." After a few episodes of matching socks and practicing handwriting, he knew better than to lounge around on the couch complaining about how there's nothing to do. Anyway, school whipped him into shape. He loves his new teacher and feels so much older as a first-grader.

Also this week was Scott's birthday. He always likes to ignore his birthday and pretend he's not getting any older, so we generally respected that this year. We did make a birthday cake and sang the traditional song, but that was about it. Since his birthday, Phoebe has been singing "Happy Birthday" for the rest of the week.

I ran a 10K on Saturday: the Run to the Rock 10K in Plymouth. The race was point-to-point, so it started in some random parking lot on an ugly industrial road but ended at the shore right next to Plymouth Rock. I ran 38:26 (according to race officials anyway. My watch said 38:19 and there was some question as to where the start line was and when the timing chips started), good enough for 7th overall, 1st woman. There was a big hill at the beginning of the race, and a few smaller ones throughout, so I'm hoping for a faster time at the Tufts 10K in October.
After the race, we headed to Crane Beach for the Arlington Ward annual Clambake. We caught up with old friends and enjoyed the sun and sand. We arrived late because of my race, so we missed out on the traditional food but still got platefuls of potluck food.
On Sunday, I listened to way too much NPR and thought of all those who were affected by 9/11. Bruce asked me why a lady on the radio was so sad and I replied that she'd lost her friends and coworkers. Bruce said that with the billions of people in the world, she should be able to find more friends. That's true, I said, but it's sad to lose individuals. There's only one Bruce, for instance. He understood that, and then asked about the 9/11 attacks. I tried to explain to him that some bad guys got on airplanes, killed the pilots, and steered the planes into some skyscrapers in New York City because they wanted to kill a lot of people. Bruce was baffled. He could not believe that people (even bad guys) would crash themselves into a building just to kill a lot of people and kill themselves while they're at it. "Was there a storm? Or a big cloud? Maybe they just didn't see the building," Bruce said. I told him there was no storm, that the bad guys knew what they were doing, and that it's not likely to happen now since there are more security measures taken than there were 10 years ago. I wrapped up the discussion by concluding that Bruce was right: none of it made any sense. Why did I even try to make sense of it?!