Saturday

I've said it so often but that's because it's strikes me so often: were it not for kids I'd never see anyone and I'd miss the entire landscape. This is, I suppose, not very good. But time limits me now, so it's all academic: things are as they are, and so am I.

A year or so ago, when I was writing that article about single parents here in town, I interviewed a woman who lives down the road from me. Cushy house, Pottery Barn-type furniture everywhere--big and overstuffed and luxurious--and colorful linen panel curtains. Her ex- is a trader on Wall Street, and whatever her worries might be, they're not the standard stuff of single parenting; she bemoaned the complexities of dating with children, mostly. She's quite pretty--olive skin, smiling eyes. Her children resemble their father: angular features and a brooding, tough-guy-Queens look. He himself is easily 6 1/2 feet tall and ominous. Hard to describe. Don't want to bother; don't like him.

Their children are disasters, each in his and her own way. The mother, on her own, has surrendered to them, so it's hopeless. Today, at the ball game, was the first time I'd seen them all together--mother, father and kids--and M and I sat in the grass listening to the father ripping into the daughter--calling her all kinds of awful names--and then slapping one of the boys for blowing the fuzz off one of those wild flowers/weeds--what are they called?--and getting a few pieces of the fuzz in his Dad's hair. "Don't look at them," I had to keep whispering to M, who was aghast. Their youngest boy is on L's team; we get to see this every Saturday.