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1239 days ago
We just returned from the last great family adventure: a camping trip on the Maryland shore. Camping for our family means using a tent and cooking on a campstove or maybe even a campfire. No sissy pop up trailers or RVs for us. We were on Assateague Island; we pitched our tent maybe 200 yards from the surf. It was wonderful. We walked barefoot everywhere, we played in the waves, built a fire on the beach, got up early to watch the sun rise over the ocean. I realized as I sat on the beach with my kids that when I was younger the way I dealt with endings of pleasant things was by assuring myself that I'd do it again sometime. As a fourth grader the only thing that made leaving Disneyland bearable was the thought that I'd come back. As a young family we visited Pickett State Park in Tennessee, and I liked it so much we went back for three years in a row. One visit to Glacier Park wasn't enough, we had to go back again two years later. But on the beach I realized that I'll never be able ...
1272 days ago
My children have been in Florida for the last week on a trip with the band and choir from our school. Yesterday I washed their sheets, and because it was a nice day and I had the leisure to do so, I put them on the line to dry. Seeing them waving on the line made me smile; nothing says "home" like clean, fresh sheets on your own bed after a long week of travel. Later in the afternoon I had the opportunity to go along with Fotomama to shoot engagement pictures. The bride and groom-to-be were a cute couple, obviously in love, and Cherie shot some incredible pictures. I stood there wishing that I was twenty-something again and newly in love. Then I sort of shook my head and thought, "No, I'd much rather be where I am now." The place I am now is the place where I'm happy putting laundry on the line because I know it will make my kids glad to be home, and I guess you call this place "family." That couple just starting out is getting married so they can get to ...
1280 days ago
Graduation is over. Around here graduation really is celebrated as a rite of passage. We went to the party of our neighbor's grandson. He and Grace have known each other since they were in third grade. He used to mow our lawn for us when we were on vacation; we once brought back a shark's tooth for him as a souvenir. Grace used to ride to school with him and a couple of other guys (chivalry was completely dead-- they wouldn't even get out of the car but would make Grace clambour over them, French horn and all, into the back seat). He was in band with our kids. We used to sit near his parents at his basketball and football games. When we left his party, I observed that it is a wonderful thing to watch and be a part of someone else's growing up, and I feel so privileged to have lived here long enough that I can say I have done that. Then as we hosted our own party for Grace I found myself feeling completely humbled by the presence of so many people who have shaped the person she ...
1301 days ago
I am on a leave of absence from blogging now because I am getting ready for graduation. Actually, I am not really getting ready yet; I am just in the thinking about getting ready stage and that is stressful enough. I can't really get ready yet because there is so much going on that gets in the way of getting ready, though we did this week go out and buy four tiki torches for the party (an oft quoted line in our house from Gilligan's Island:"better keep those tiki torches lit."). Last week we had three track meets and a band/choir contest. When we paid at the door of the band contest and they marked my hand I commented that the black mark fit nicely between the blue mark from Thursday's track meet and the red mark from Friday's meet both of which were still visible. Between going to all the events and doing the necessary laundry between the events (what I call "two sport laundry night-- a whole load of Grace and Jed's maroon uniforms and sweats and warm ups), there ...
1324 days ago
It's finally spring. The trees are budding. Yards are green again. And, because the grass has grown all of 2mm since the snow melted, our next door neighbor is-- even as I type-- mowing her lawn for the first time in 2006. This is a red-letter day for those of us who live on either side of her, as it marks the official start of the yearly lawn mowing games . The woman is obsessed with having short grass ("short" meaning relative to the grass in the other yards on the block). She mows. That is our cue to mow, which we will get around to in a day or two. Then our grass will be shorter than her grass, so she will have to mow again. The game is to get her to mow as often as possible. It works best if we and the other neighbors stagger our mowing so she has to mow again to be shorter than ours and then yet again to be shorter than theirs. The real prize, though, is when she mows, say on Thursday, and then we and the neighbors on the other side mow as late as possible on a ...
