Take One Weekend of Egg and Call Me in the Morning

Sometimes, when you've had a week that steals your thunder and kicks your soul around a bit, when you're tired and cranky and in need of a good mental hug, an old friend lands at an airport only an hour away, and you scurry off to retrieve her.






And you find, in no time at all, that even though you now live 1,000 miles apart, when you used to sleep 10 feet from one another, time and distance mean very little to people who are the best kind of old friends. Because even though it's been almost 30 years, and you look very different and you lead very different lives, what made you friends when you were assigned to one another in Room 222 binds you to one another to this day.





And it doesn't matter if you find yourselves in Boulder, San Francisco, Kansas City, Chicago or Michigan, all you need is a stack of books, some old photographs, and a nice sunny spot to sit and be together.





She finds, in studying the bookcases and asking about the art work, that this version of her old friend is strikingly similar to the one she knew so well so long ago. Although when snooping in the pantry she finds basmati where they used to be Minute Rice, and Dijon where they used to be none, but it's been 30 years, and we've all grown up a bit.




And after three days she leaves, her work here done. We go back to lives 1,000 miles apart, which is quite a bit more than 10 feet, but distance is nothing when you are the best kind of old friends.

Summer by Definition

"How was your summer?"
"Lazy."

It's the best answer to the question most frequently asked in the first week of school.  Busy, exciting, exhausting, accomplished...none of these work quite as well as lazy.

We had company almost every weekend, doing what I had hoped we would do when we decided to decamp to Michigan for summer: relax, cook, laugh and enjoy the friends who feel like family and the family who feel like everything.

We picked blueberries, played at the beach, made s'mores, rode bicycles to the farm market and, in short, did everything we possibly could to cast ourselves in one of those glorious Pure Michigan television commercials.  There were none of the big moments that grow over time to make memories, just day after day of beautiful weather and lazy girls who rarely got out of bed before 11:00. 


Kate climbed a tree without screaming in terror the entire time, Mary plowed through four volumes of Harry Potter, I did not write a book, and Jack did not not take off a limb with his new hatchet. It seems we all accomplished just what we needed.

Summer afternoon... the two most beautiful words in the English language.  Henry James

The Girl Next Door

Here is what I would like to say to the child who is always here, "do you have something to do at home? Maybe help your grandmother? Unload the dishwasher or put away laundry?".

Early in the summer she appeared at the back door, in the morning as I turned on the tea kettle, the rest of the house still sleeping. She startled me; in the city people do not show up at your back door, or your front, both being behind gates and locked entry doors. She waved and I opened the door, "the girls are still sleeping", and she skipped off to another house.

She's been back every day, and more often than not she finds two very willing play mates. From time to time I must tell her no, that they cannot come out as they are reading, or cleaning their room, or doing something far less exciting than running from yard to yard with no direction or purpose. Occasionally she catches me alone, as she did last week when the girls, back from the beach, were showering, and I was savoring those moments of anticipated solitude on the back deck with a book. She sat down on one of the chairs when I told her the girls were busy inside.

"What are you doing?", and she looked as though she just might stay.
"I'm going to read my book, at least until the girls are finished showering."
"And then what are you going to do?"

She stayed. And I put down my book and learned that her mother has just returned after a long absence, exact whereabouts unknown,  and that her father lives in a state very far away and calls occasionally. That she lives with her grandmother and brother, and now her mother, who works as a waitress in town, and that they have two bedrooms and no dishwasher, so there is no dishwasher to unload.

And here is what the child who is always here said to me, "You spend all summer with the girls? Really? You do everything with them? That's amazing".

Come on in, but you may need to help with the dishes.

Disorderly Conduct

To begin with, it is not a conversation about the culpability of the victim. It is not about what she is wearing or what she is doing, or what she might have done before. It is a conversation about making good choices and always knowing where you are and what you are doing.

Last weekend the house next to ours was occupied by a herd of men in their twenties, in town for a golf weekend. Friday night they rolled home around 2:00 a.m., all driving, and all clearly drunk beyond any reasonable measure of fun. They poured out of their cars and into the street, our driveway, our yard, their yard and whatever other space they could loudly occupy in our quiet little town. From my window I peeked cautiously at the madness happening outside. Getting out of a car, parked at the end of our drive, were three young girls, all giggling and screaming and enjoying their wild night, and all, from my view, well potted. They were whisked into the growing party by several of the men.

Back to bed, back to trying to fall asleep, back to staring at the ceiling, and now worrying. The celebration went on until 5:00 a.m. when a crowd gathered at the end of the driveway, a fight over who knows what, that thankfully ended before anyone was hurt, and was perhaps the impetus for them to finally be quiet. When I got up, two hours later, the girls' car was gone.

So many things could have gone wrong but thankfully it seems, as far as we know, none of them did. The lesson, for me, is to teach my girls about making good choices. Putting yourself, your drinking self, in a house full of drunk men, is not a good choice, no more so than walking down an alley at night in Chicago. It's not about blame but about keeping yourself in a safe place, trusting your instincts, and keeping your instincts sober enough to have a voice.

The problem of drunk driving is not lost on me, its just not my focus here. That they were all drinking and driving clearly only escalates the situation.

The Sky is Falling

On Saturday I broke a plate. Nothing valuable, but a nice plate, one we liked. About one hour later I broke an old tile, acquired from my post college days at Laura Ashley, now used as a trivet. But we knew, that wasn't bad luck. Not when Friday night we walked into this,

which, when you come home to find your living room ceiling on your living room floor, gives you a little perspective on the subject of bad luck.

Kate was the first one in, "um Mom...Dad! What happened?".

What was once our lovely living room in our little Michigan home was now a soggy mess of drywall, standing water and yuck. We all stood and stared until I panicked and realized that, like the Titanic, this ship was not yet sunk. Jack just stared.

What we found was an overflowing toilet in an upstairs bath, one that had been allowed to gurgle over for the two weeks that we were away. In the coldest  winter that I can remember, we were flooded not by snow but by toilet. So fitting.

Thankfully we are quite deep in architect friends, one by one they were called, messaged and mailed, until one, home on Friday night with sick children said yes, yes we could stay. No Chicken Little, the sky was not falling, you are safe upstairs. When I woke up Saturday morning in my bed on the second floor I believed him.

The experts came on Saturday. A total loss we were told, everything in the room destroyed.

On the inherited table we had painted white, a pile of books meant for sharing: a guest book, a gift from my friend Brenda on her first visit; the Aspen book, a nod to my childhood summers, given to me by my oldest friend in the world, who spent those summers with me; a book of pictures from our trip to France last summer; a book of alliterations made by Mary and Kate's class, purchased as a school fundraiser, all soaked and ruined. Two decorating books, now needed more than ever, full of water.

The furniture, not ours long enough to develop emotional attachments, all destroyed. The one exception, a wonderful old trunk we found last summer at a sale in an abandoned church, once an antique store that hadn't been open in years. The contents, papers and photographs belonging to the previous owner, ironically safely housed in a waterproof plastic tub in the basement, waiting for a rainy day for me to sort and discover. The trunk now a warped disaster, having lived for so long to be felled by a over eager toilet.

Two rugs, one easy to replace, the other belonging once to my father, a nasty old field blanket used to cover the ground on many a Boy Scout camping trip, worth saving. It will be cleaned and dried, and loved again, now with the wear of not just my father but of this family also.

Two paintings on the walls, plus one large photograph of the girls, all spared thanks to their location on the dry side of the room. But the pictures, those kept in the wooden box Uncle Kenny gave me, pictures from every point in our lives, ones that I wander through and love to share, all sitting in water. Jack and I were up too late, peeling them from one another, covering sheets of newspaper with pictures taken by cameras that required film, pictures I have been meaning to scan for years but never did.

The ceiling can be rebuilt, the walls can be saved. All the original trim and details still in place; the one great loss, so difficult to replace, these 130 year old pine floors. They are soaked and now warping, deep valleys appearing all over the room as they dry. We'd like to save what we can, have a table made from those planks that are salvageable. Someday I hope to have floors so clean you could eat off them, at a table, in the dining room.
  
 
By Saturday night we had looked at this long enough, the incessant hum and droll of the fans and dehumidifiers too loud to enjoy the Olympic ice skating showing in the next room. We went out to dinner. Jack pulled into the roundabout, and immediately red flashing lights appeared behind us. The State Trooper inspected the car thoroughly and then, after asking for Jack's license, announced that we had a headlight out. A headlight out? That we can fix, we can deal with that kind of bad luck.

Au Revoir Summer

All spring I waited, counted the weeks until I could buy a full gallon of milk at the small town market, one that would be tippled for more than a two day weekend, one that would last for an entire week, or longer. That time has come and gone, summer is officially kaput.

To ease the transition, today was cooler than any day last week, clear and blue and beautiful but definitely crispy. That it warms up this week matters not at all, the official last day of summer reminded us all why we love the autumn months, although not quite as much as summer.

And what a summer, the highlight being the removal (finally) of the training wheels (theirs, not mine). At eight my urban children, with very little space to bike ride, found the wide open spaces of a small town and decided, after much debate, to free themselves of the clickety clack of training wheels. I held on, I let go, and they were off. Sunday night, just after sunset, they rode with us the four blocks to the beach, on only two wheels (each), the cap to a much accomplished summer.

They swam to the buoy, picked blueberries, ate ice cream, and suffered from assorted scraped knees, elbows and chins. Kate got stung by a bee, five times, and survived (she was much braver than her mother). We watched movies on rainy nights, learned to play gin rummy, and began the arduous process of building a doll house.

My old leather calendar stayed in my bag and the computer came out only after bedtime, and only for writing. I cut my hair, got too much sun on my nose and loved every minute of living without a schedule.

We're back, a very long and traffic congested car trip later, but we're back. As I brushed Mary's shower tangled hair before bed, police sirens screamed outside the bathroom window. Dinner arrived in 45 minutes, noodles from the Thai place down the street, and the grocery man comes tomorrow. Jack's busy two nights this week, I go back to work tomorrow, and, even though the girls are one week into fourth grade, summer didn't seem officially over until tonight.

In no time we'll be back savoring everything we love about the city but for now, for one last minute, I'm allowing myself to miss the sound of quiet on the small town back porch and the incessant chirping of the cicadas.

Au revoir.

Fear is a Factor

Several months ago, while wandering the aisles at my favorite used book store, I came upon a stash of Agatha Christie books. Immediately I scooped up four of them and have been on the lockout for others ever since. I'd forgotten how much I loved her books, how much I loved hiding away in my room, safe on the second floor with my parents down below, as I read story after story of Jane Marple or of Hercule Poroit. Miss Marple was my favorite, her tottering self so sharp and so far ahead of me as I struggled to piece together the clues that were so obvious to the seemingly ancient detective.

Those lovely books are gathering dust on the shelf in the guest room; I'm afraid to read them. I haven't watched one Law & Order rerun all summer, scary movies are not even mentioned and sadly, the local news is proving to be a bit too much. Small towns terrify me.

This summer, for the first time, the girls and I are spending most of our days, and nights, in our favorite Michigan beach town, a charming, and small, spot on the water with a population that swells to less than 10,000 during the summer. Terrifying.

Jack assures me that absolutely nothing happens here. My neurotic checking of online data shows that this is simply not true; just last week some poor man was stopped for a minor traffic violation (specifics not revealed to protect the offender) just blocks from our house. I am fairly certain that I remember hearing the sirens on that fateful day, quite possible in that the only other audible sound for blocks was my children screaming at each other over the badminton net in the back yard. Also a possibility, me screaming at my children to lower their voices so as not to disturb our quiet neighborhood.

This is the problem, it's a little too quiet here. Also, very dark. Maybe one or the other but together, scary. We don't have quiet in Chicago, and we certainly don't have dark.  Last week the girls and I drove home around 9:30 pm after dropping Jack at the train. We passed one car. I cannot remember the last time I went outside in Chicago and didn't see another soul. In a city where the rising crime rate consistently makes national headlines, where the idiots in the neighborhood think shooting at each other is just as acceptable as yelling insults from car windows, I feel safe. Er.

It's been over twenty years since I lived on the ground floor of anything; for 20 years I have lived in a world where access to one of our windows required a ladder or climbing equipment. Our bedroom window in Chicago faces a brick wall. The only people that can see in any of our windows are the Vietnamese couple whose kitchen sits about one arm's length from the dining room windows. Watching Mrs. Pham putter around her kitchen is comforting, I open our windows to smell the fish sauce and garlic and wave when she looks up from her chopping. The entire world, or almost 10,000 of them, can see in the windows when we are in Michigan. You know what is outside the dining room window there? Darkness. Scads and scads of dark, as far as you cannot see.
 
It's back to reality next week, home to the familiar paranoia of living in the city and away from the comfortable horror of living with open windows and unlocked doors. Several days ago, not far from our apartment in Chicago, five people were shot when a few gang geniuses got confused about which side of the street they were allowed to stand on, or something equally important. That should be terrifying but sadly it's not, it's home. Nothing Miss Marple faces could scare me more than that.

A Not So Simple Apology

On Sunday afternoon, in the small Michigan beach town where we are spending the bulk of our summer, I bumped a teenager with my too large bag. We were in the small ice cream store, made smaller by the great amount of people crowding in on a warm summer day, and quite by accident, I cut a corner too close and bumped him on the shoulder.

"Oh, I'm so sorry", and I turned and smiled, having not seen the target of my purse assault.

And then it began, "are you all right? I'm so sorry, I just didn't see you! Oh, of course I did, it's just there are so many people in here, what a warm day! Wow! Time to really expand the little ice cream store isn't it? You're sure you are all right? Why on earth do I need such a huge bag? What do I have in here that is so important? So, ice cream store needs to get bigger and my purse needs to get smaller! Right!"

His mother smiled at me, that warm lunatic accepting smile, and he said "really, I'm fine".

Had it been Saturday afternoon a simple "I'm sorry" would have been perfectly fine but because I bumped him on Sunday, and because his skin was brown and mine was white, and because I blather incessantly when I am embarrassed or uncomfortable, a rambling apology for a simple whoops happened.

As if I could apologize for all the wrong that was done on Saturday.

No Need to Bring a Camera

Into the big tote bag went the old plaid beach blanket, bug spray, hand wipes, and the blanket that is on the sofa, in case it got cool, but not a camera. You can't take pictures of fireworks, I didn't need it.

And so this is my picture, of the four of us on the grass in front of the church, sitting on the bluff above the beach, watching the annual firework display. It's an unseasonably cool night, cool enough that I have on jeans and my favorite gray cardigan, the girls are both wearing striped pullovers over their summer play clothes, and Jack is wearing shorts with a navy fleece. We are layered on top of one another, on the beach blanket: Jack and me on the bottom with Kate to my left, her head on my chest in hopes of muffling some of the sound, and Mary to my right, in between us. She is clutching a bag of popcorn that her dad bought from the Lion's Club tent, just across the grass. The blanket they brought, one given to us at our wedding with my name misspelled on the embroidery, is across our feet.

The old tote bag, that has taken us to the beach and back so many times, is now folded behind my head, a pillow as I lay back, and from my vantage point I see all three of them, the people I like best in the world, as an amazing array of fireworks blows up beyond them, over the water.

No need to bring a camera, this is my picture. Enjoy a wonderful Independence Day with those you love, and fireworks.

Lighting Up The Night

In the city, the lights often hide the stars, leaving us with a smooth gray night sky to ponder. The first time I visited Jack's family, in Nebraska, I was agog at the amazing light display after sunset and immediately sprawled myself in his grandmother's yard, content to spend the rest of my evening entertained by the light show. Having never lost their starry view to city lights, they had no idea what I was doing and quite certainly spoke in hushed voices about the odd new girl who refused to move from her spot in the yard.

Some things never change. For everything that I love about living in the city, I still feel robbed when I see the stars that blanket the sky in Michigan. Without agenda, I could easily lay quietly in the yard with the girls for hours, awed by the depth and brilliance of the lights available on the other side of the water.

Mary and Kate are keeping a night sky log for school. Every evening at 7:30 we tromp out to the back deck, pajamas on, and look up, hoping to find something of interest to note in their journals. In two nights we have yet to see the moon; Mary thought she saw a star but it was only a very slow moving plane. Our night sky is glowing not from stars but from these lights,

which shine for the last time tonight. The end of summer, the end of yet another sad and dismal baseball season in Chicago.

Tomorrow, perhaps, we will see the moon.

Beach Necessities

We needed a vacation. Jack was having one, hours away on his annual four day weekend golf bender, and the girls and I were left at home with all the responsibilities of summer. We were ready for a day at the beach but this time we chose a one hour drive over a 15 minute walk. There was no planning, and very little actual thought beyond wanting to see the view from the other side of the water.

Bag packed, dog walked, children in the car, and one hour later we were as far away from the city as you need to be if you only need one day of vacation. We remembered bathing suits, towels and sunblock; we forgot pails and shovels and the big blue umbrella.

"Girls! We forgot your sand buckets!"
"That's all right Mom, we have these cups from Starbucks, they'll work".

Really?

They did. We had a nice sandy picnic, we played in the water, and for several glorious hours, we built a sand village with nothing more than the plastic cups we had accumulated throughout the day. For the first time in months, the girls collaborated, rather than argued, and worked well together to create a neighborhood of small sand huts, with no worries as to whose turn it was or whose bucket was last used for water, the usual banter of the beach architecture.

As one who has gone to great lengths to limit the amount of toys we own, who firmly believes that the best tool for play is a vivid imagination (and a sister), the Starbucks cup sand suburb was reassuring. My children might understand. While they will always want, they don't always need; adorned with shells and rocks and feathers, it was simply beautiful. A fine reminder to their mother who usually brings scoops and shovels and castle shaped buckets to the beach, all we really need is six hands, a few plastic cups and
time.

For one day, we had all the time we could need.

Two Hours From Home

From the front porch of our apartment, planes that have been routed over the water fly just north of us, on approach to O’Hare. On clear days I can make out the markings on the tail, American and United the most common, but it’s Alitalia, Aer Lingus and Lufthansa that always take me away. To the girls I will say “where do you think that plane has been?” but it’s really a game for me. It’s easy to see myself inside the plane, so eager to be on the ground after seven hours in the air. When asked to prepare for landing I reach under the seat to push my almost finished book back into my once organized bag. Now full of airport magazines, shortbread and a tea cup I’m worried might break, it’s a disheveled mess. I’m ready to be home but full of adventure, and soon will be ready to go again.

When my friends played Barbie, I played flight attendant. On a flight to Florida I found, in my young flyer activity pack, a shiny gold pair of Delta wings. It was as if I had been handed a magic superhero cape, assigned as an apprentice to the brave cabin crew. Certain that I had been singled out from all other able bodied eight year old passengers , and would be called upon to help should an emergency arise, I dutifully studied the evacuation procedures in my seat pocket, and wore my wings on every flight thereafter, until the back fell away and the gold shine fell flat. From then on flying outfits were carefully considered, so as to be flight crew appropriate; always a skirt, best to have a short jacket, for showcasing the wings, and if possible, a coordinating beret. The Pucci designed Braniff uniforms directed my young fashion sense; at ten I ached for turquoise pumps.

My grandparents took me to Europe when I was twelve, first to Vienna followed by a cruise down the Danube, through Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Romania, Russia and finally Turkey. From the roof of our hotel, Istanbul at night was, and remains now, one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. My grandmother took me on an Istanbul city bus, my father on the Mexico City subway, all so very far away from my suburban childhood, and all preparing me for the requisite six week post college Eurail-facilitated sojourn, with not one sense of where I was going. Occasionally lost, and eventually found, I discovered that German food was not my favorite, beaches in Italy are beautiful, and England really did feel like home.

Our first trip together, for many couples a quick weekend excursion, was a hastily planned, and then executed, trip to Italy. Decided upon after finding flights to Rome less expensive than to Denver, our intended destination, my future husband and I took off without one reservation. There was no itinerary, nothing beyond landing in Rome, and leaving from the same spot 12 days later. He was new to this kind of travel, having never before left the states; an emergency passport, one worn copy of Rick Steve’s guide to Italy, and we were as prepared as we wanted to be. Traveling is an interesting way to get to know someone, traveling sans itinerary in a country where your combined knowledge of the language amounts to buon natale, pesto and Prosecco, is an entirely different definition of getting to know you. In ten days we knew, not how the other squeezed the toothpaste, but more importantly, that traveling was something we could do together forever.

We got married. We amassed frequent flyer miles and spent long romantic dinners planning our next adventure. We went to England, Ireland and Mexico. He got a taste for adventure, I got pregnant. Nine months later there were two babies; we sent American Airlines a birth announcement and waited for their Advantage numbers to arrive in the mail.

Their first flight was at three weeks. Bundled and carried, they slept the entire time. After that, flying was easy. Dallas, Boston, Phoenix, Ireland, Philadelphia, Denver, Puerto Vallarta, for two years, two glorious years, we flew wherever we wanted, with little effort and little discomfort. And then it happened, vomit. Once, twice, three times, every time; one of our frequent flyers had developed a horrid aversion to air travel.

Three years ago we went on hiatus, our flying days over until someone either outgrew this affliction or grew old enough to be heavily medicated for the entire flight. We began searching for getaway options within two hours, by car, from Chicago. For a brief time I explored the idea of moving the entire family to Boston, or London; so much more to see, I believed, in our two hour road window. My husband, with an office in downtown Chicago, protested. Nearby vacation choices were limited; we considered Wisconsin, dismissed Indiana and settled on Michigan.

From the front porch of our small town Michigan beach rental I see kites flying overhead, the nearest airport being over one hour away. My urban children, at home restricted to supervised play at the neighborhood park, are free to run from one end of the yard, around the cottage and back, shrieking wildly as they chase each other through the sprinkler. They kick balls, play hopscotch and lay in the grass creating animals and shapes from the infrequent clouds that float lazily by. We eat fresh blueberry ice cream (not a scoop of gelato to be found in the three block downtown area), grill hamburgers and savor the corn bought on Wednesday morning from the small farmer’s market. We trade in the city bus that takes us about our neighborhood for two wheels, bicycles being the only form of transportation required. Fireflies, s’mores and sand pails define our holiday; passports and guidebooks are left at home.

I never thought I would think that a small town by the beach, only two hours from Chicago, was the perfect vacation destination, but now I do.

Alfresco

For two little girls whose idea of outside time is a walk down the street to the park situated directly under the el tracks, who never wander outside the watchful eye of their mother, or father, this relative unrestricted access to the outdoors must be pure heaven.

Within minutes Mary and Kate had figured out how to open both the back and front doors, and discovered that a lovely loop could be made by running out the front door, across the porch and round the side of the house to the back patio where one could meet their sister who had gone round the other side. The timing was perfect, doors equidistant so as to meet each other having covered just about the same amount of yard. And the yard, landscaped as if it was a hide and go seek playing field, just the right nooks and out of the ways to allow for decent hiding but nothing too frightening, never having been left and not found.

Apparently there is some innate inner child sense, when faced with a door and a back yard one must run and spend as much time outdoors as possible. From my perch in the kitchen, peering out from the beautiful window over the sink, a place I have long dreamed of, I could see a flash go by, often a wet bathing suit covered flash, racing to the front yard to find a lacrosse ball, or a slower trot chasing a small butterfly. Mary appeared one day with a small green caterpillar on her hand, Kate following behind with a bug jar, soon to be full of fireflies, leaves, sticks and ants. They serenaded the neighborhood from the front porch, a perfect stage for two melodic voices who just happen to know all the words to every song from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

And one afternoon, the beautiful yard became the perfect place to stretch out and have an nap, something I dream of, but certainly resisted had it been offered at four.

Not this one, a lazy stretch and she was back running, refreshed.

One Week Ago

Oh yes, the curse of the good vacation, a week spent playing "one week ago". Today's option,

but that was last Monday. Very few blueberries to be picked around here, plenty of laundry of course, and plenty of blueberries to be eaten, but none to be picked. Jack went off to the office, the dog got into the garbage, Mary and Kate passionately reunited with the toy basket, the stuff that real days are made of, although I still have five days of "who knows what we were doing last week at this time?" left to play, thankfully.

We will all be bored with me by Wednesday.

Time Off

It used to be that vacation meant a week away from work, a week to escape and relax, to read and regroup, an opportunity to clear my head of the madness of the daily office. Things have changed. There are two books packed, and a stack of unread magazines, although I have no aspirations whatsoever of actually reading anything; I'm a foolishly optimistic realist. There is no office to flee, and in every sense, the work just comes along with me. I wouldn't have it any other way.

We take a week every summer to escape to our favorite small town and pretend, just for a few days, that we live this slowly addictive life. The girls play in the
backyard, the screen door banging as they run from house to yard and back again, dragging in sand with every step. They chase butterflies, run from bees and marvel at spiders building webs on the back deck. We spend our days at the beach and our evenings in the backyard, making s'mores and catching fireflies. Mary and Kate eat ice cream every day and believe, for just a week, that this is the most magical place on earth.

Vacations used to mean far away places, and someday they surely will again, but for now I can imagine nothing I like better than spending a week in our little town in Michigan. Perhaps if you don't want to escape you don't have to go as far.

Autumnal

Autumnal. It's my favorite word, hopelessly overused, used way before and beyond appropriate times, completely perfect. This past weekend we went to Michigan for our now annual autumnal getaway, apple picking, foliage admiring, breath watching, and we were not disappointed.This tree does not exist in Chicago, not where we live. I forget how much I miss the space and the yard and the trees, and then I quickly remember when faced with these amazing autumnal images.

Once again we stayed in our little camping cottage, fool me once, and this time, no heat. None. And without warning so I did not pack accordingly, we had only pajamas for sleeping, not pajamas for igloo camping. Do they make pajamas you can plug in? Sherpa lined PJs? Foolishly we brought just one coat each when clearly we needed at least two. I considered warming the bedding with a blow dryer and then realized I had not packed a blow dryer, nor a bed warmer. We even left Eleanor Roosevelt, the best bed warmer around, in Chicago with her very best friend Amanda. We were cold.

So we made a fire in the backyard, because you can do that in Michigan, huddled around and warmed our hands, made s'mores, and then dashed inside to find it quite cooler than outside. Kate pointed out that if we only had a house with a fireplace, well things would be much better. I considered setting fire to the entire place but was talked back to reason by the ever sane Jack, wearing a sweater and a fleece, a towel wrapped around his ears and bundled under a really ugly comforter. We made microwave popcorn for the warmth.

The temperature on our autumnal getaway weekend last year was a record 90 degrees. We spent the first day at the beach, in the water. Our pictures from apple picking are of very red faced children in shorts and t-shirts, which was actually a nice picture with the red apples, but that is not the point. Who knows? Next year it might snow, which will ruin the vibrant color and chase all the leaves from the trees but we'll love it.There are over 60 pounds of apples in my kitchen. Monday's breakfast was scrambled eggs with apples and cheddar. For dinner I made scallops, couscous and carrots with a curry sauce, and apples. Tonight? I'll be incorporating apples into pasta, maybe pumpkin ravioli. Very autumnal.

Summer Camp

For years I have been trying to convince my husband that I would like to go camping. I'm not sure I really believe myself but I think I'd like to try it. Done. We're camping. We've rented this little cottage, only one block to the beach, three houses from the children's park, and a short bike ride into the town. Perfect. But they forgot to put screens in the windows, big oops. And there are no fans, none, so the wonderful close to the lake air doesn't move, it just sits like a big humid poof in the sparsley furnished living room. There are no blinds, or curtains, or any window coverings of any kind, save the one used to drape the big ugly chair (we've yet to peek underneath). The cottage faces south, the girls room east so Mary wakes up every morning with the Michigan sun, about 6am, or 5am on our side of the lake. The fully stocked kitchen includes some plastic handled silverware, a few paper napkins, a cookie sheet and bugs. I had hoped to do some cooking, the summer bounty kind, taking full advantage of all the amazing things I find at the local farmer's market. I took a picture of us at dinner tonight, it stormed so we were inside at the table in the kitchen. We're eating on paper plates with plastic forks (which horrifies me), there is a ketchup bottle and a mustard bottle on the table. The girls have milk in red plastic cups and we are drinking Coronas in the bottle. Our serving platter is one of those aluminum pans you buy at the grocery store, presumably to take a sheet cake to the grade school bake sale. The whole look is hideous. But the meal wonderful, two very happy children, just in from splashing like mad in the blow up pool in the backyard,

a dripping wet husband who stood in the rain over the beaten up Weber grill and four ears of perfectly roasted Michigan corn. Camping is out but this little buggy cottage is in, as long as the bug covered family is included.

Postcard From the Beach

Off for a week at the beach, girls are in bed and Jack and I are sitting on the front porch of a rented cottage in South Haven, full of bugs and sand and beach toys. It's really the most peaceful place I could imagine, I can hear, over Otis Redding, the quiet humm of the neighbor's air conditioner. Actually the quietest place I have ever been is Strawberry Point, Iowa, but that is another story.

I have an odd longing to live in a Little Country Town (see Mary and Kate's favorite book list, Little Country Town by Jandelyn Southwell), odd because we live in a very dense and busy area of Chicago, full of diversity and zanies and everything I love. Once when I was little I told my mom I wanted to live where Opie lived, Mayberry looked just perfect to me, (Opie could walk to his dad's office for God's sake!) and she said NEVER, she would never consider it, everyone would know your business. I remember wondering just what was my mother's business.

My husband grew up in a small town. He will have no part of my Mayberry needs, he loves the city, and is convinced that I have no idea what I am talking about, having never lived in small town myself. He believes that I have romanticized the small town experience and it's possible, just possible, that he might be right. I'm looking for the cafe on the town square, the volunteer fire department, the old men sitting in front of the barbershop...he tells me I will find Hardee's and old men wondering who in the hell I am. To be fair, we once drove to visit his parents, I stopped in the town gas station and when I went in to pay (you had to go in to pay), everyone stopped talking and looked at me. He explained to me later that they all had to see who had the out of state license plates. To that, please read Bill Bryson's book, The Lost Continent. For that matter, please read every book he has written.

How I digress. We are spending a week in South Haven and I love it. We bounce around the idea of buying a place here, and I think we'll do it at some point. Mary asked us tonight, as we roasted marshmallows, why we don't live here. In the summer, she's right, I could spend every day playing with them on the beach, riding bikes, chasing fireflies, and letting Eleanor wander freely about (we did lose her on the first day but our very nice neighbors found her) but Jack's right also, in February I think I'd lose my mind. I'd miss my neighborhood, I'd miss Melvin, Mr. Salsa, Pho from Hai Yen, the anticipation of baseball season, sushi from Katachi, and urban blech, I'd really miss that.

But for today, this is the very best place to be. Good God, did I really feed my children marshmallows?