The back-to-school project for all the grades (even kindergarten) is to prepare a time capsule. What would you tell about your life and this world? What are your wishes? Becca wishes for world peace, and peace with the Martians if that is who finds it. She wants the world to know about her summer camp in Sturbridge and that she hopes to be an actress, and at the last minute she added a little troll doll from her collection but then took it back. Jeff, at Frank’s urging, said he wants the Red Sox to win the World Series, and he put in a photo of Carl Yastrzemski he cut from the paper and an old Duncan yo-yo and those clacker balls that are no longer allowed in school because somewhere (Ohio, maybe?) one broke and blinded a child. (Glad to send it to the moon!) Together, the children took a Polaroid of Margot and the new puppy, Rudolf, and added another photo of the four of us we had our neighbor take. Jeff touched it before it was dry, so there’s a big smudge on me, and I said that was just as well. I wrote that I hope my father’s good health and happiness will continue, that we will have a nice Christmas this year, and that I hope my dance school can survive, and I included a program from last year’s recital (yet another woodland forest free-for-all with bunnies and sunbeams). We put in a copy of the latest Billboard hits, and I added the front page of the Globe. I’m not sure what Frank wrote; he took his time, sealed his envelope, and handed it over to Becca, who is in charge of collecting and wrapping it all up airtight. The whole process reminded me of that old cartoon, where that frog is stuck in the cornerstone of a building and leaps out singing and dancing with a top hat and cane. That song has been stuck in my head ever since.

Now we are into the routine of homework and early bedtimes. The kids get to choose one night a week to sit up a little bit later and watch a show. Usually they pick “Bewitched,” and I enjoy that one, too. Wish I could twitch my nose and get everything done in the kitchen! Becca is also obsessed with that spooky afternoon show “Dark Shadows,” and there’s all this talk of vampires and drinking blood. These girls act it out, silly and carrying on in ways I don’t remember ever doing. I take great vicarious pleasure! And I am about to do what I do every year and buy up all the cheap discarded perennials that have been marked down to nothing at the nursery, just empty pots with roots in dirt. But come spring, what a bounty. I have yet to be disappointed.

Becca’s back to school list: