Critters have been on the move all week � deer near the foot of Williston Point Road, flocks of turkey along the roadsides, a pair of raccoon dead on the roadside Friday morning, possum (dead and alive) everywhere and (for furtive sniffers) dead skunks galore.

Before I made these pages public, I did a roadkill report on nearly every entry, and I posted compulsively every day. Having reread a few older entries recently, I can assure any readers out there that they can be grateful that I've ended both the roadkill report and the daily posting.

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Kid Updates:

Josh returned from his sailing competition last weekend in Dallas having won his races and earned his place as skipper of his own boat. One of the university's little 420-class sailboats is his to lose now.

This comes as a mixed blessing. I'm pleased at his quick success at something that he has undertaken on his own. However, the nagging to buy one of our own has begun, and although I'd love to have a little Laser, it ain't in the budget now or next spring and he hasn't indicated that he himself is interested in an equity position in any sailboat we might purchase. The other downside to his participation in the sailing is a matter of academics versus athletics. I am pretty certain that the team's practice hours come at the same time as his calculus class. I can only guess what he's choosing to do, and my guess is that he's cutting class and spending those hours at our local federal reservoir. Now that he is in college, however, this is on him. I'm butting out. It's sink-or-swim time (old maritime clich� � I crack myself up sometimes.) Okay, nevermind.

Owen. God, I wish I had had time to take a picture. Yesterday he spent too much time a few blocks away at a buddy's house. He has no program installed that tells him that time is passing, and he never remembers to wear a watch, so he was late for dinner and was due for a light tongue-lashing. He was, however, saved by the beauty of his youth. By the time he arrived home, he had to know he was late � it was nearly dark � but as he loped across the back yard, he saw me smiling through the screen door at his loose-limbed, lazy beauty. He was a joy to see, and thankfully a commonplace one. He had seen my smile, he knew he had already been forgiven, and he smiled back.

Taylor is gifted. He's not Doogie-Howser gifted; that is, he's not a kid who will finish medical school before he starts shaving, but he is the kind of kid who might be predicted to breeze through school, max his SATs and walk out with National Merit Scholar honors, all while riding his bike with no hands. His mother and I know he is gifted without having seen the results of a standardized test. We also recognize, as do the school district personnel who know him and who have been in touch, that no standardized test will begin to evaluate all his skills � his extraodinary social and emotional skills, for instance.

His teachers and the counselors and administrators in his elementary school know he is gifted, and they want to do something about it, namely, test him and then place him with appropriate enrichment activities and classes. I see two decisions to be made: the decision to test and the decision to do something about the result, assuming that the results indicate that extraordinary measures might benefit him.

Taylor thrives at the top of the regular classroom, and he thrives without any of the unattractive behaviors that sometimes afflict the precocious. His mother thinks that the regular classroom is best for him and that there's no need to put him through the stress of a test or through the disappointment he might feel if he didn't do well on the test. Might he be capable of doing more, I ask. I am in favor of at least testing him, answering her objection to the test itself with the information that he admits to loving standardized tests, except when they interfere with recess. I want to make this choice with better information than I currently have about his abilities.

Discussions continue. I will visit his teacher next week.

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And that's where (or nearly where) this entry was to end, sometime in the middle of a lazy Saturday afternoon. But then, during the radio broadcast of the North Texas University-KSU football game, I heard the most godawful political commentary by a sponsor during the halftime report. I won't address it here until my knee stops jerking, but I'll probably be back with something to say about it by tomorrow, or no later than Monday afternoon. It demands quick but considered action.

Reading:
Finished The Hobbit. I can die now. Well, maybe after Titus Andronicus.

Weathering:
The boys wore long pants to school this week. Taylor lays out his outfit for the next day on the floor of his room overnight. Owen strews his outfit from the previous day all over his room and the bathroom.

Watching:
Olympics