Author Archives: branch

Eight — A Place I Don’t Need to Go Again.

From an e-mail I received today:

“There is no better time time to book your Mackinaw City vacation at AAA’s highest rated properties at great discounted early bird rates. These prices will not stay like this for long so be sure to book your reservations now to enjoy these special savings! We guaranteee the lowest rates on the internet for Mackinaw City Hotels!”

Last summer when we were in Ontario for three weeks, SA and I decided to leave the children with their grandparents and travel to Mackinaw City, MI, for some Adult R&R. We reserved a room at the Travelodge and refused to be saddened by the cheaper and dirtier than usual bedspread, the stains on the wall and carpet, the lack of (advertised!) wi-fi, and the proximity of the balcony to the next room’s balcony. (hint: it was about from heretohere.)

We put on clean clothes and walked down to downtown Mackinaw City, drank some cheap American beer and ate four pounds of fish and chips even though we ordered a plate to share (if you order a plate to share, they give you a ‘bit extra’ and charge you $2 for sharing it, resulting in still nearly a pound of fish and chips between us OHMIGOD I WASN’T THAT HUNGRY THAT’S WHY I ORDERED ONE PLATE NOT TWO JESUS) and walked around looking at the tourists who went into the t-shirt shops, bought shirts that said “Mackinaw City: Where Bros Go To Get it ON” and then wore them around the city while they looked for fudge.

And on the topic of fudge, of course we promised to bring the kids some, it was the only way we could convince them that their grandparents would NOT kill them in their sleep if we went away for two days — hey, they are fine grandparents, but apparently the kids are attached to us, whatevs — so on our second day away we went first to Fudge Brothers or suchlike, for a 1/4 lb of fudge and then to a Candy And Fudge Emporium Extraordinaire Est. 1921 where I tried to buy a bag of candy corn from a salesgirl who was a) from an Eastern European country and b) worked on commission.

Salesgirl: HI!
Me: Hi, I would like just a small bag of…
Salesgirl: Two bags for $5! Three bags for $7!
Me: No, that’s OK, I just want one small–
Salesgirl: Ohhhhh, NOBODY buys small bag. Everyone gets big bag! Big bag is $10, or two for $15!
Me: I just have two kids. Two small kids. I only need a small bag of candy corn.
Salesgirl: I don’t sell ANY small bags. All day. No small bags.
Me: Well, I want this one.
Salesgirl: Fine. $3.
Me: Here you go!
Salesgirl: Fine.
Me: Thanks a lot!
Salesgirl: Fine.

The kids ate two bites of fudge, half the candy corn, and forgot about the rest.

So no, Tourism Michigan, we have no need of Mackinaw City this year.

Although I just remembered the $30 gummy bear the size of an actual bear. I might need to go back for that, someday.

My feet, straining to be free of their Travelodge prison; Mackinaw City, MI, 2012

My feet, straining to be free of their Travelodge prison; Mackinac City, MI, 2012

Seven — And Counting

It became clear to me when I looked over the past few days’ posts that I can’t count properly or use consistent spelling (numerals or words? PICK ONE) and should be shut out of the Internet entirely. Post 4 was titled with a 3. Post 6 was titled with a 7. This post, which is number 7, is titled Seven. Onward!

***

From age six to seven, Arlo has seemed mentally scatterbrained, like a squirrel chasing many different sorts of nut. He’s been pulled in many simultaneous directions; to anger, hysteria, meanness, sweetness. Sometimes all in an hour. In this way, six has not been very different from four or five, as ages go.

In the last month, though, I’ve noticed a change. He is focused now, but not on anything I can see. He seems perpetually like he’s coming down with a cold; unsmiling, staring off into space. I have been asking him if he’s OK, if everything is all right, apparently too much because he’s got a new habit of prefacing his statements with “everything is fine…”

Don’t panic. MOM.

There is a series of books about child development, year by year, by Drs. Ames and Ilg of the Gesell Institute. Each book has its own compelling title, like “Your Three Year Old: Friend or Enemy,” and contains plenty of comforting statements like “three year olds are the devil…they just are…don’t sweat it” (not an actual quotation) or “the average four year old wants to karate chop the universe six times per hour” (ditto).

I love these books so. I recommend them to people all the time. I read Your Two Year Old, Three Year Old, Four Year old and Five Year Old but recently realized that I skipped Six and now am approaching Seven, the title of which is “Your Seven-Year-Old: Life in a Minor Key.”

All I needed to see was the title and this:

“Your Seven-Year-Old is devoted to the delightful but often anxious and withdrawn child of Seven. Although any seven-year-old will have moments of exuberance, security, and happiness, in general this is an age of introspection. As it begins, parents and teachers may welcome the quiet after the tussles and tangles of Six. But once the child of Seven starts to withdraw it’s almost as though he doesn’t know where or when to stop.”

and I got it, bing, like a small, sharp rock to the forehead. It’s not that Arlo feels physically out of sorts, it’s that his emotional sands are shifting.

We went for a walk through the neighbourhood today, just the two of us, hand in hand, not talking about much. I developed a habit of talking a lot to my children when they were babies because it’s good for them (and they were my only company for a while) — and now I have to learn to shut up. I have no problem doing this with adults, letting there be silences and spaces in the conversation, but it’s hard to do with my kids. I want to know so much about them. I used to be their only theatre. The original TV.

I need to work on it, to let those spaces in the conversation go, let them expand like lungs full of breath. I’m trying. Be cool. Everything is fine.

7 Thoughts on June 1st *

I had forgotten how bad the song “My Humps” by the Black Eyed Peas is. It’s like a car crash in your Chardonnay. In the past year I’ve only been paying attention to Jeff Tweedy’s (of Wilco) renditions of BEP and I think I will go back to that existence because it’s way funnier. Here, go see it. Don’t watch the original afterwards. It will just make you sad for humanity all over again.

I feel this overwhelming solidarity whenever I see another woman my age with grey hair. I want to go fist-bump-five her.

We went to a parade today and it occurred to me that parades are like a very passive Halloween. Kids sit and watch people go by and some people come over and hand the kids candy. In Ontario, Arlo is quick to point out, they THROW candy at you. (we went to a tractor parade on his birthday in Ontario last year)(and it’s true. They did throw candy.) I guess this relates to the softness of the west coast in general.

June 1st is the beginning of the last month of school. Here is a funny post about that. Which you have probably already seen because it’s had 4,000 likes on facebook already.

It being June 1st also means Arlo’s 7th birthday is one month away. I want to embrace the idea of planning his birthday party and have it be the challenge mountain I overcome / climb for the month of June but I think it will probably end up more like me lying at the bottom of said challenge mountain in a pile of poison ivy, weeping. Metaphorically speaking.

I used to be ashamed of myself for going to bed so early. But now I just shrug because I love sleep and sleep loves me and we are going to be together forever and you can’t break us up, no never.

Today I found myself critiquing the parade we went to, compared to the parade we attended last weekend. This is the new thing I’m ashamed of myself about.

*edited to add that of course this is only post number 6 / 100 and I am so tired I titled it with a 7 by mistake.

5

Today Arlo had a friend come over after school, a nice kid that comes over a lot. First they all played outside because it was sunny, then they were inside, then outside again. And through it all: BICKERING. YELLING. CRYING. Someone’s feelings were hurt and then it was PAYBACK TIME and then the PAYBACK made the other kid’s feelings hurt and it was not at all manageable by them (sometimes it is!) so I had to keep stepping in. At first I was good.

“Sounds like you’re having some trouble,” I said calmly. I like to channel Clippy in these situations. How would CLIPPY phrase this, if god forbid he could talk. “Is there something I can help with?”
“HE SAID AND HE DID AND THEN AND HE AND THEN AND”
“Maybe it would help if you sat over there for a few minutes until you feel better.”

After continuous repetitions of this, there was a turning point. I went around the corner from good to slightly bad.

“You guys are too loud. TOO LOUD. Too loud. Stop it or you have to come inside.”
“BUT HE AND THEN HE AND I AND THEN HE”
“I don’t care. I already warned you. I can hear you from inside the house and that’s too loud.”
“BUT HE”
“DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?”
“Yes.”

After a while, the friend went home and it was just me and my kids again and we came inside to find it was 5:22 — the time of day when I make dinner and they watch some TV or have computer time.

“Are you going to be using your computer?” Arlo asked very politely. Sometimes if I am cooking something complicated (at the moment I am sauteeing onions, so can use my computer at the same time) (and drink a beer), I let them have computer time on my laptop.

“Yes,”I said. “I am.”

He sighed. He huffed.

“Why do you ALWAYS use your computer,” he said.

“Because it’s mine,” I answered. I looked down at the sidewalk and saw that the berries and leaves they had picked and scattered, which I had asked them first not to do and then to clean up, were still scattered all over the sidewalk.

“But why can’t you use it other times?” he said, “Like when Eli is at school?”

Oh! You mean the 2.5 hours, three times a week that I spend either cleaning, shopping or occasionally running? Sometimes all THREE? F WORD YOU, KID.

I did not say that. I took a deep breath and had a 50s housewife moment.

“I make your food,” I said, “I wash your clothes. I BUY your clothes. I clean up after you, I harass you to clean up after yourself, I read you stories, I take you places, I entertain and discipline your friends, I explain things to you all day long, I buy groceries, I plan meals, I wash dishes, I take down garbage, I remember the crackers your friend likes and buy them if I know he is coming over, I give you treats, I let you watch TV even when you’re nasty to me and it’s MY COMPUTER SO I GET TO USE IT WHENEVER I WANT.”

I could have gone all the way back to pushing him out of my vaginal canal but I might save that one for a rainy day. There’s bound to be a rainy day.

4 — Explorers

Two weeks ago, the Queen’s Park neighbourhood Garage Sale happened. It’s an annual event where several city blocks take part in a garage sale and people wander through a very nice, old neighbourhood. It’s a lovely walk. We always go. Usually we toss the kids a dollar each and they come home with plenty of deals. This year they got two dollars each and came home with hockey cards (which, when asked, Eli admitted he doesn’t collect, but that he might start..NOW) and some other stuff that I’ve already forgotten because it’s been absorbed into our house full of stuff where more stuff is definitely not needed.

Contents of Closet

(this is what was in our hall closet, besides all the coats. Don’t worry, I cleaned it up.)

Arlo and his friend from school set up a cookie-selling table at a house near his friend’s house and made $34 which they split down the middle. Despite making 1/4 of the cookies, I did not see a red cent! But was informed that a lot of people chose my cookies. I will accept this as payment, THIS YEAR.

Eli said, make your funniest face! So. Yeah.

Eli said, make your funniest face! So. Yeah.

When we were nearly home, a kind (?) woman who was walking past us said, “Oh! Boys! There’s a FREE BASEBALL BAT across the street!” and Arlo got there first so now he owns a baseball bat.

Real Wood!

A couple days later the kids decided they would go out in the morning before school and explore our local environs, knowing always to not go through any gates or on to anyone’s private property. Arlo needed to dress the part, so he came downstairs in his shorts and fleece jacket, with binoculars and a backpack. Eli followed suit. At the last minute, Arlo decided he also needed his baseball bat.

Exploring

There are a couple of new hoodlums in town.

3 — Internet Cleanse 2013

A few weeks ago we tried to switch internet service providers. The reasons are not important. It was meant to be a routine prisoner transfer and we ended up without an internet connection for almost two weeks. Ten years ago, that would have been ‘enh,’ kind of like if now you had no home phone service or no chequebook for two weeks — most people know how to find you without using the phone or writing a cheque.

Well I have carefully crafted a life where people other than family should *not* phone me or ask me for cheques because I won’t answer/write one. They are trained to e-mail. I love e-mail. Except when I don’t have access to mine.

Without an internet connection, our house has no e-mail, no world wide web, no tv (we are Netflix only) and no music other than the dusty CDs we dig out of the milk crate and play through the DVD player and TV because there’s no such thing as a CD player any more. We listen to internet radio, or we listen to our own music, copies of those CDs ripped and streamed over our server. None of which works without the Internet.

(This is my panic face.)

For the first day without internet access I was OK. Well, first I sulked a lot, and then I was OK. I have books, after all, and amusing children! and a radio. And a car. I took the car to the library and took out five more books and the maximum amount of DVDs, which is ten (10).

The next day I realized I was reading four books at the same time, trying to replicate the internet experience of multi-tasking, like when I go to Twitter and five people have posted interesting links so I open all the links in new tabs and then read the first three sentences of each tab and move on — oh, but don’t close the tab, don’t be silly, I’ll probably go back and read the rest SOMEDAY.

I was doing that with books. Two fiction and two non fiction. Just like the Internet!

I also took my laptop to the library and to Starbucks because there is wi-fi there, so I could log in, collect my e-mail and open up a bunch of tabs with articles to read later when I absolutely needed something to look at while I ate my lunch or after breakfast.

Why is reading a book so much harder? I love books. But sometimes (more often in the past few years) I want something quick. I don’t want to get all involved in some IDEA. I just want a hit, man.

It’s kind of sad and scary, actually. I have methodically destroyed my attention span over the years. I used to have a very good attention span.

But it is possible to recover. It is possible to wean yourself from the constant news / not-news / opinions / etc. cycle and then, when you go back to the playground that is the Internet, just limit yourself to climbing a structure OR sliding down a slide OR doing some monkey bars; not all of them halfway, over and over, like some demented five year old who spent the whole day inside.

While I was internet free, I missed: the BC election, various natural disasters, political scandals breaking, and countless instances of hilarity and poignancy. And, of course, all the bullshit that accompanies politics, natural disasters, political scandals, etc. namely: everyone in the world’s ability to instantly pronounce opinions on same.

But I didn’t really miss it. At first I felt like I was missing something; possibly everything. A limb! Then I realized I was carrying on with my life just fine, that the radio is very informative, that everything else is just noise and without noise, I don’t have to try so hard to filter out the important bits. Result: I was more relaxed. I only had to focus on real noise: the kids, the leaf blower, the telephone, my own inner voice. Other peoples’ issues were no longer relevant or pressing.

Which is how it should be, most of the time.

(And which doesn’t mean I wasn’t glad to see the connection come back.)
(This is my gorging-on-netflix face)

Two *

* The second reason I am using numbers for titles is because I am going to try posting every day for one hundred days! Maybe this is a subliminal result of me watching the first five? seven? episodes of House of Cards, which everyone did months ago but I am a non-joiner when it comes to TV and movies, I will hold out until everyone has forgotten about a thing and then pretend I discovered it.

I liked House of Cards after it had been discovered, revered, dismantled, and then discarded, like a box of forgotten tissues in the middle of allergy season. That sort of thing.

And in the first or second episode of House of Cards, the president, sorry, President, has to deliver something within his first hundred days of office and I was thinking, “A hundred days is not so long.” Then I added up the days and one hundred days from yesterday is September 3rd. 1. That is quite long, actually, as time goes. But 2. it had a nice symmetry to it, in that this is the last month of school and when I finish one hundred days of posting it will be the first month of school.

Really what this tells us is summer vacation is just short of one hundred days long.

I suppose I could claim to want to preserve this last summer before Eli starts Kindergarten SHUT UP! I KNOW! IT’S HAPPENING! NO WAY! but really I just want to write here every day because it’s good practise.*

I can’t stand the smirk of Kevin Spacey’s mouth / I love the smirk of Kevin Spacey’s mouth.

That sort of thing.

* 100 words minimum. Because I am a freak about numbers.

One *

When I first had two children, I used to go to big box stores like Costco and Superstore as a form of meditation. Oh sure, I did the shopping while I was there. It was a pleasure to do so, I volunteered for it, because my daily life was executed in a cloud of constant noise and need. At the big box stores, no one needed me. I wandered, silent, picking things up and putting them down, following the list, crossing things off. It was as good as a nap.

Actually, it was BETTER than a nap because at the end, there was food to eat. I could never nap when the children napped because it was a waste of time. At the end of a nap all you are is rested, maybe. Maybe not! Maybe you’re just mad that you couldn’t sleep longer. Naps are a wild card. And then, you haven’t done anything. You’re right back at square one, but with worse hair.

I will never tell anyone to sleep while the baby sleeps, I swear it.

Anyway, that was five years ago. (almost to the day!) Today I went to Costco while Eli was at preschool. I didn’t especially want to go. I would rather have gone for a run, which is what I’ve been doing every preschool class for weeks, or to the library, or stayed home to work on the slowest short story revision ever. But, we were out of peanut butter and multivitamins and nearly out of coffee. It would need to be done this week sometime and would I rather go with Eli? No I would not. Would I rather go on the weekend, with TWO children? NO I WOULD NOT NO NO NO.

Very little makes me feel more like an adult than having two hours free and choosing to go to Costco for the simple reason that it needs doing.

I don’t miss being the All Important Sun-Like Mother of Two Needful Beings. I really like that my kids are now mostly reasonable small people who can butter their own bread. But I do sort of miss that I used to think shopping was a magical, spa-like experience. Now it’s just a chore — albeit one that nets me coffee and really tasty pesto.

* so titled because one of my biggest stumbling blocks in posting to this blog has been choosing titles. Seriously, I have ten drafts that I could publish right now except then I’d have to think of titles. I’m not saying I’m rational! I’m just saying the titles will be numbers unless I can think of something better.

I Wasn’t Really Sure What Was Going On

We are most of the way through Spring Break, or March Break as it is known in many parts of Canada because calling it “Spring” is far too cruel. It is definitely March. Can’t argue with a calendar.

On Monday it was sunny, although very cold and windy, so we went to the park and ran around to warm up. It was awfully nice to do this. I did wear just a hoodie and gloves and though I put the hood up from time to time, if I found a nice sheltered spot where the sun was shining, I did not lose feeling in any of my extremities. West Coast, Represent!

On Tuesday I had promised to take the children to the arcade at Metrotown, the Mall that is so legendary I spent twenty minutes talking about it to strangers at a party in Saskatoon, SK! For the record, I was asked about the mall when I said I was from BC. I did not start a conversation about Metrotown.

The arcade was wonderful; the kids each got a bonus 50 tickets from different machines and they cashed in their tickets for dumb little prizes that make them happy while I tweeted about it because what else am I going to do in the arcade? Then we went to Old Navy and bought cheap sweatshirts; Arlo’s in tomato red and Eli’s in neon mandarin orange. The cashier also gave them each a balloon on a stick, so that was us you saw, wandering through Metrotown glowing like balls of fruity sun.

By Tuesday afternoon I realized I was out of ideas and three days remained of Spring Break (don’t get me started on the idea of a two week Spring Break because I will still be ranting about it at this time next year) so I texted some friends to see what they were doing. The first friend who got back to me has two kids the same age as mine, both boys. The older one is Arlo’s oldest friend, dating way back to 2009 and the younger is now in preschool with Eli.

This friend–the mother, not the child–has a much higher threshold than I for chaos. That about sums it up. She also gets lots of coupons for places so if I stick with her I never pay full price, and she thinks nothing of going to a populated area in the middle of Spring Break, whereas I would, if left to my own devices, choose to sit in a dark closet weeping while the children beat on the door. She would prefer to go to a water park, that her children might have fun. Probably everything will be fine, she thinks. Usually it is. She is good for me, this friend.

True to form, “I have two for one coupons for WATERMANIA,” she said. “It’s awesome!”

I looked it up on the Internet and it looked very much like an indoor swimming pool in Richmond. We left our house in the torrential rain and somewhere over the Queensborough Bridge, the sun started shining. By the time we reached WATERMANIA, the sun was completely out and we looked ridiculous in our gumboots and slickers.

WATERMANIA may look, on the Internet, like an indoor swimming pool, but there are key differences: at random intervals, a wave machine is activated and then all the children are tossed about like, well, children in waves. There is also a climbing structure with a slide (in the pool), above which are buckets that are being filled with water and which periodically fill to tipping and then dump on you as you’re walking by, or struggling to stay upright because Where THE FUCK did all the waves come from.

So it’s Spring Break, there are fifty kids of varying ages in the pool, including two of mine who can’t swim, the friend’s kid who can and the other who can’t, and everyone is shrieking, because: mania. There are waves pounding the “shore” ie: me, and buckets dumping water on us and at various intervals these overhead shower things come on, and the water tastes salty, why does it taste salty? My friend informs me that they use a different chemical to purify the water, so the salt is that, instead of chlorine? OK, I will believe that for the length of my visit.

The great thing about minding small boys in swimming pools is THEY ALL LOOK THE SAME; half naked and wet-headed, running around waving pool noodles like light sabers and shouting BANZAIIIII. It’s incredibly hard to keep track of your own spawn and my head was a swivelling, bobble-headed, salt-encrusted ball of confusion. If I don’t see you, have you drowned? Oh there you are. Waves! Shrieking! Buckets of water! Splashing! More waves! Jesus, are we at war? There was a day camp there, a DAY CAMP, with fourteen children and three adult minders whose constitutions must be much stronger than mine.

Thankfully, after just over an hour Eli told me, “this was really fun at first but not any more” so I got him out and shortly thereafter the announcement was made to EVACUATE THE POOL (apparently standard operating procedure during Spring Break–the pool is chlorinated every day at 12:30) so we tripped back outside and blinked at the sunshine and ate Hickory Sticks from the vending machine (just as good as I remembered) and took a nice, relaxing drive home where I sat panting for a good half hour and then ate a giant salad full of meat and potatoes and fried cheese (and lettuce) because stress makes me hungry.

One day of Spring Break remains. Perhaps a trip to IKEA! Or that dark closet is sounding pretty good.

Good Days Come to Those Who Wait

It all came together today. You know how it does, when it’s Friday, and sunny and everyone in the house is healthy and going to school and you get two-point-five hours to yourself and even though you have two-point-five days’ worth of things you would like to do, you whittle it down and prioritize (sidenote: whenever I say or write ‘prioritize’ my mind also says ‘priorize’ because I used to work with someone who said that) and everything is just fine. Just fine.

First we took Arlo to school and he was between first and second bell (I think there’s a second bell…I’ve never heard it, but how else do you know if you’re late?) and then I took Eli to preschool and it was pyjama day so all the children were more adorable than usual.

OK, there has been one off-note to the day. I’m wearing this very confusing shirt. I rescued it from the discount bin at Superstore the other day. It’s comfortable and drapes well, is a good colour, 3/4 length sleeves. Big open neck. Just the kind of shirt I need and enjoy. But at the hem, there’s a seam that makes a sort of pocket but just on the right side of the shirt. And I’m wearing it and enjoying it, and then I see the pocket and it’s weird. Did the sewing machine make a mistake? Or am I supposed to look blousy? It kind of looks like a tumour pocket. Forgive me. It does. Here’s a picture:

Here. Another:

I’m not going to stop wearing it–from most angles I think it’s quite attractive–and I can’t take it back because it was final sale and $5, but it’s weird, right? Do any of you fashion-forward types know what I’m supposed to do with the tumour pocket? Did I miss a trend last season?

After preschool drop-off, I got groceries and chatted with the check-out lady about how nice it is here compared to her home country where it’s 33C and very humid. There was much singing along in the grocery aisles as the muzak played the best mix of Debbie Gibson/Lionel Ritchie/Chicago and of course Kokomo. What a terrible song! I haven’t heard it, like really HEARD it, in years, and it’s just awful.

Liquor store next, where the music mix was much more modern. Beer was acquired.

My final stop during preschool time was the library. My intention was to return my three books and then sit in a sunny corner of the study area and revise a short story I’m working on. I can’t revise unless I have a paper copy and pen and I don’t have a functioning printer so I

make a lot of excuses? Yes. And also

had to ask SA to print it for me, bring it home, sit down and read it, etc.

First I walked into the library and was accosted by the New Release shelves. Can anyone resist the New Release shelves? Librarians, how often do you have to restock them, because I almost always take at least one book right as soon as I walk in the door. And I feel bad because it leaves a hole on the shelf, which irritates my sense of symmetry but on the other hand, it’s a library and it’s the books’ jobs to appeal to me and then come home with me, right?

I got a novel called “Tell The Wolves I’m Home” by Carol Rifka Brunt. And “My Leaky Body: Tales from the Gurney” by Julie Devaney. A copy of Best American Short Stories 2009 because those collections are like boxes of delicious chocolates. And a book on running because yesterday I signed up to run a 5K fun run in May and I have no idea how to actually train for a real run with free t-shirts and everything.

Oh, right, I wasn’t going to take out any books today because I still have two from the other library, plus my book club book, plus three I got for Christmas and haven’t started plus two I bought before Christmas. Ha! HA HA!

I am weak in the presence of paper with words on it.

Finally got sat down in a sunny corner of the library, pulled out my short story and them rummaged unsuccessfully through my purse for a pen. A while ago I stocked my purse with pens the way they stock rivers with fish, but I guess I’ve been fishing too much and not restocking because I had NO PENS AT ALL WHAT?

Fine, I read over the story, which is good to a point and then bad at the end. I end stories the way I leave parties: abruptly and by sneaking out the door. Analysis forthcoming.

Picked up Eli and told him I’d bought lemons so he could make lemonade. He squeezed them carefully and mixed the juice with water and sugar and then took the seeds outside to plant in our dirt area* and hope for lemon trees to grow.

*not a garden, much as we all might wish for it to be so.

Birds are chirping and the sky is blue. A happy weekend to all of you.