thoughts from the red corduroy couch

Me and mom at the ballpark tonight eating pungent hunky chunks of salty garlic glopped onto greasy parsley fries. “So delicious, but I can’t eat them all,” she says. “Who will share with me?”    Al’s face puckers as he says she shouldn’t sleep with him tonight. Pinkie earnestly asks if Grandma will spend the night with us, then. You know she fervently hopes the answer is yes, but everyone just laughs. We sip Coors Light from our silver cans and share a gigantic bag of pink and blue cotton candy. Pinkie sits on Grandma’s lap, helps her clap. Mom notices when the blue guy’s bat flies off and hits another of his own players. Pinkie remarks with wide-eyed amazement how fast the guy in white runs around the bases, just like that. She finagles a mister out of Grandma on a trip to wash stickystuff from her hands. This is our first ballgame together, the sun is gone; it is not hot. We don’t need a mister, but that’s not the point. Anyway, we can use it tomorrow at the zoo. ...

Annie's in the kitchen fumbling with the dishwasher, a dirty dinner dish in her hand. "Those dishes are clean. You can make money by emptying that," I say. "I need to shower," she says, abandoning the dishwasher. Annie never valued money enough to faithfully execute chores. I'm not so good at that myself. She's leaning over the sink, and I notice her tan boot slippers, black short shorts, grey tank top, and black and grey hoodie. Batman belt. She's cute. "I'm addicted to you," Shakira's belting her new song from a pink iPod in the other room.   "Mommy what will get me money?" My little one Pinkie has noticed there is money to be had. "Going to bed will get you money," Annie says. I'm taking notes. Annie and I share the red corduroy couch tonight, now. She's curled up with a book, the second in the Hunger Games trilogy. I'm just glad she's found her book lust. We do family readi...