Boys, Snot Rockets, and Date-Making at the DZ

Jujubee and I sat at the drop zone for a large sweltering chunk of Saturday afternoon. We watched planes load, take off, and land between shifts of skydivers swooping to earth only yards from our shelter. In the intolerable heat, 100 degrees plus a heat index that increased the aura of that sun-bake to a bloody 120, we parked ourselves fairly comfortably: under a tent, in deck chairs, with our feet plunged in a baby pool that we had filled with ice and water. Of all that amused us and inspired our conversation that day were men, certain ones at the DZ in particular. Let me elaborate:

At one point, one of the packers came over to ask my step-daughter on a date, except his manner of delivery was all convoluted. It took me a while to figure out what was going on. His statement to her was that the last time he had made plans, she had "flaked out on him" and he wanted to make sure that this time he wasn't wasting his money buying her a ticket to a concert that she might not attend. "Good Lord!" I announced. "That is not how you ask a girl out!" And then after he left our tent:

"Good Lord! Did you lead him to think you were going on a date?" But before I could chastise her, she explained their conversation from the previous week, I understood, and then set back and announced how glad I was not to be young and dating. It's all too hard to manage. Expectations, hearts broken, wishes led astray. Marriage, for all its problems, is so much better than dating. Watching young folk do the delicate dance is exhausting.

To Jujubee's credit, I see her point about young men. This same packer came over later and borrowed our pool to help recover from heat exhaustion. He plummeted his face into the ice water and we leaned forward to drizzle his arms and the back of his neck with cool relief. When he leaned up, he shook his head like a dog spraying us with the cold, blew his nose into his fingers, threw the snot-wad onto the ground, dipped a bottle into our baby pool, and washed his hands with water from the bottle. I was so shocked, I couldn't speak. My girl, though, didn't miss a beat.

"Dude," she cracked, "did you just blow a snot rocket?"
"Yeah," he answered.
"Tsk. I am so disappointed."

Taboo Tattoo

The other day, Jujubee and her cousin were headed out for an evening of fun, but before she left, she paused to tremble and fidget a bit in the hallway.

"I am going to throw up!" She cried urgently. "I cannot hold a secret!" And at that she turned to show me what I so hoped was someone's beautiful Sharpie art on the back side of her shoulder. Juju had come home with her fourth tattoo. She is nineteen. I called out her full name, the standard cry of disapproving parents, and then after telling her she was going to turn into the tattoo lady at the circus, stated that at least she didn't violate the big three.

We sat around for a few moments discussing the big three: pregnancy, drugs, and jail. Every parent reading this column completely understands this (some more than others). Of course, there is nothing worse than violating all three at the same time (many times, I have known a person to hit two out of three simultaneously, but never the full trifecta).

My husband and I mused about this later. Wisely, he had decided to refrain from saying anything that might cause her to feel angst or resentment, but worried that she might end up like the artfully and heavily etched  Queequeg from Moby Dick, that professional opportunity might be hindered if her artwork were too visible, that she might later come to regret her choice, et cetera--all the normal concerns a parent has. His daughter is well aware of his feelings, as discussions have taken place about this in the past.

"You know," I said, "this doesn't change how much we love her." Frankly even if she had violated the big three, we would still feel the same. We love her, all of her joyfully good qualities outweighing the fact that she just went and inked herself again.

Her tattoo has a story, and she described to us the reasons for the three birds in flight on her shoulder. Significant relationships seem to happen in threes, she said. And she named some of them: her, her sister, and her mother; her father, me, and her; and others. Seems sweet to me, that among her threes, all of which are about love, I have a place among them, represented in permanence on one of the most beautiful bare shoulders in the world.