This past week has been complicated to say the least. Family Day found us in Nikiski, enjoying the pool as we have done on many family days in the past. We were laughing and splashing and diving to the deep end and remembering the islands, where we came from, all of us, together. It was glorious.
And then the lifeguards found poo in the pool right where we were all swimming and immediately closed down the pool. In the van on the way out of Nikiski we laughed, blaming each other for pooing in the pool. We were all a bit disappointed we had to leave early, but were all in agreement that this year would stand out in our memories as the year of poo.
We went to an early dinner in Soldotna. Chinese buffet. Afterwords we drove around looking for something to do. The movies were only playing rated R movies this week. No one wanted to walk around the grocery store. Instead, I made them go to a furniture store. Who would have thought that a furniture store could be so entertaining?
In the midst of all this amusement, Vince started noticing that we were the only people there and that the salesmen were asking us often if we were interested in anything. He put two and two together and realized that we'd, 'closed down Bailies' and that the manager was waiting by the door with the key.
This gave us another reason to laugh on the way home. "That's the kind of party family we are! Closing down Bailies!"
In other news: dispite the miserable summer weather, our garden has performed AMAZINGLY! We will be digging potatoes sometime this week. Falcom and Marina won first prize for their "Largest Vegetable" entry at their school harvest fair with this cabbage!
We have Steve and Donna's darling yellow lab Winchester for a visit while Steve is hunting and Donna is at college. This morning I was feeling very self congratulatory as I walked Chester down the road in the semi sunrise dawn BEFORE sitting down for a cup of coffee. We got a little ways down the road when Chester and a critter startled each other. Chester got very animated. I called him back to me and waited as a big porcupine waddled away. Winchester and I walked back to the house from there, me, again, feeling very self congratulatory as I had had a porcupine interaction without having to experience any consequences. I reached down to pat Chester and realized that I would be dealing with the ramifications when I saw the quills coming out of his snout.
Why this dog did not even yip is beyond me! Here I was thinking I was going to have to wrap him in fish netting to extract the quills but no. He just sat there and let me yank them out. I was nearly finished when I realized this was an event in need of documentation.
I am now a Brownie Girl Scout Troop Leader. Another reason to feel blessed that we have the kind of family life that allows me to do something important and fun for the young girls in our neighborhood. The elementary school in town has plenty of girls for a troop, but no adults able (or willing) to take them on. This should be interesting!
Marina decided to wear Willie's McDonald's hat to school the other day. Hope she gets out of the habit of wearing that while she's young!
How many times have we gone vast distances to procure the blessed blueberry? This year we learned that they are actually living much much much closer than we had ever dreamed! Maygen has been taking Marina picking while Falcom has been having play dates and I have been in bed sick with the flu.
Yesterday, when they got home from picking Marina embodied being a young girl in the Alaskan summer: her clothes were filthy from being out picking, her hair was messy but sparkling with golden highlights, her fingertips were stained blue, her bucket was only half full. She apologized for this saying, "I couldn't pick much today because I had to nap in the willows." Maygen was delighted with her trip and with the amount of berries they found in the sun. Iris was content from the quiet in the blueberry bogs, playing with the red and gold fireweed leaves.
Absolutely perfect beauty.
It must be difficult to have a parent who is a total documentation dork and who insists on following you around taking pictures of your every "first". For me, documentation does not stop at walking, or talking, oh no! I will be there camera in hand at nearly every event these kids can imagine.
In the car on the way to the dance the kids were reading over the contract they had to sign to enter the dance. This contract lined out all the expectations the school had of the students behavior and terms of expulsion from the dance. Two of the most memorable contractual points for me were that girls could show no bra straps except those that were clear or see through. Good thing this isn't Saipan, hu? Boys could not wear a shirt which showed their nipples. Is this a prejudice against boys with 'man boobs' or a declaration that 'wife beater' t-shirts are out of the question? As a heterosexual woman I can say that a man nipple is not what first attracted me to Vince. I wondered if this was a new fetish category that I hadn't known about... Vince liked the line in which a "girls skirt length must be longer than the point to which their hands hung to their sides." Vince said, "Can't you hear it now, 'finally, this short arm disability is paying off!'".
