Alley Cats

Too busy chatting to capture the 5 year old's intermittent splits and lip syncing though I did manage to click this one. 

Yesterday we met. My support group. Yes, I belong to a support group. A sorority of sisters who have pledged to educate our younguns to the best of our abilities so.HELP.us.GOD. Yesterday we met in a dark alley where cheap beer flows and the food is questionable. Of course we did not partake-of the food or the beer. We were on the clock. It was 1:00-in the afternoon afterall. And it was senior citizen day-at the local bowling alley.


While our children rolled spares, strikes and kept the dear bowling alley staff busy with their haphazardly rolled tossed balls, we sisters of the homes-who-school chatted-with more than the occasional interruption, "Mom, George is doing the splits every time someone rolls a split". 


One is adopting her third baby! He's coming in a matter of weeks. God's timing is sweet and scary and sometimes chaotic, but always perfect. She made us laugh as she confessed her oldest daughter's quirky obsession-collecting eye balls from animals she dissects in science. I fell into my normal banter..."to homeschool or not to homeschool...that is the question". There is always boarding school too. One regaled us with tales of what is to come once our anklebiters are in a new, challenging class-debate. This year her daughter's class argued such topics as the legalization of marijuana. 


We didn't judge when one divulged her children had not finished their school work any day this week. Been there. None of us gasped when one confessed she had lost her temper over an unkempt room and her daughter's sassy mouth. I was there yesterday with one of mine. We talked schedules and fitness and husbands and futures and presents and joys and struggles and hardships and victories. But we came back to a familiar, hopeful place. O, the ground is level at the foot of the cross, dear sisters. 


It was a good time. Such a needed allotment of 2 hours. Sometimes we need to force ourselves out of the house, to put on some lipstick for a good laugh and banter. I had originally wanted to back out of this gathering. It was a cold, rainy day. We had not finished our school work-not even close. The house was a dis-aster. But the boys had some serious ya-yas that needed working out so we went. To the alley. With my comrades, these extreme renegades and rascally rebels whom I really enjoy. They are like me. We are akin, in purpose, vision and truth. Isn't that the ambition of every support group? And like AA, we are taking it one.day.at.a.time.(Sweet.Jesus.)