Happiness Is...

..sleeping until you wake up naturally, with no alarm clock.



...eating something sweet for breakfast.



...hiking on the Kal-Haven trail


...taking photos of bright blooms and butterflies on the Kal-Haven trail.


...a covered bridge.


...waving to a kayaker on the Black River.




...when the Black River kayaker interrupts his paddling rhythm in order to wave back.


...sharing a giant bag of pink and blue cotton candy.


...having dessert first.  At this place.

...reading a book on the beach.

...a perfect frisbee throw.


...grilling the perfect burger.  And then eating it.


...a whole day of no kid-bickering.  Not that I would know.  I'm just sayin'.

South Haven, Reprised

Three-fifths of the Peevies returned to South Haven last week, accompanied by our friends the Dr. and Mr. Paradigm Shift and their two kids, SamWise and E-Dude.

We staked out our beach claim, and headed out into the warm-for-Lake-Michigan water.  While we were far out from the beach, on the sand bar past the over-our-head water, we noticed a blond-headed kid swimming toward us.  As he got closer, I thought to myself, "Hey, that kid looks a lot like Type A, A. Peevie's good friend from school."  But that would have been ridiculously unlikely, so I turned away. 

He kept coming, invading our swim-space, but before I could get annoyed, I realized that it was, indeed, Type A, who lives a mile or two away from us in the city, but who somehow found us 130 miles away, in the middle of Lake Michigan, without pre-arrangement.  I would like to know, if any of my readers have the statistical savvy and inclination to do the calculation:  What are the odds?

The kids found a huge log, which they spent hours moving around the water.  They used it as a flotation device, as a boat, as a king-of-the-hill prop.  We could not have purchased a better beach toy.  While they logged time lugging the log, the grownups sat on beach chairs, getting skin cancer, drinking carbonated beverages, reading Brave New World (Dr. PS) and The Second Civil War (me), and chatting about how perfect our lives were at that moment.

We played 500 off the deck with a soccer ball.  We watched shows like People Getting Their Arms Bitten Off By Sharks and Jobs That Make Normal People Throw Up. Plus--bonus!--I got to watch my boyfriend Vincent in the season seven finale and season eight opener of Law and Order: CI.  Sigh.

I miss you, South Haven.  See you again in a couple of weeks, I hope.

No Stories, Just Pictures

My muse has departed.  I have stories flitting around in the back of my head, but my words are failing me.

More on this later, but for now, I just feel like posting a few photos of Paradise.

Sand boy, AKA A. Peevie

Cousin T-Bone, airborne, watched by C. Peevie.

A. Peevie, C. Peevie, and Cousin Ri-Ri over there in the right corner

A fierce predator, sculpted by J-Sell.

Happy Girl, M. Peevie, expressing her joie de vivre

Cousin T-Bone and C. Peevie

Old-fashioned fun.

Sleepy Hollow, 11A.  Highly recommended.

Sleepy Hollow

Arrived Sunday at 4:30.  Unpacked car, ate subs and pizza, and headed for the beach by 6 p.m.

Waves so big, thought we were in Ocean City, NJ.  Heard rumors of riptides; kept eagle eye on M. Peevie who apparently has no fear of waves or being carried out to sea.  Kept calling her to come closer to shore.  Agreed with SIL that both of us were strong enough swimmers to rescue her.  Agreed with BIL that neither of us felt like going for a swim at the moment.

A. Peevie's anxiety kicked into gear, and he hollered at M. Peevie over the breaking waves and stiff breeze to come in closer.  "You're going to drown!" he screamed helpfully, and looked over at me with a worried expression on his face.  I walked down to the wet sand and waved her in. 

"M. Peevie," I instructed, "You must stay near the boys.  Don't go out any farther than they go out."  The boys were fairly safety-conscious, having learned a new word (riptide) in the last hour.

"But mom," M. Peevie said, "It's not even deep!  It's barely up to my waist!"

"M. Peevie," I said sternly, "Either come in out of the water, or stay near the boys.  Your choice."  Fine, she harrumphed, and waded back out into the crashing surf.

Now it's Wednesday, and I fully admit:  I could get used to this: hanging out at the pool, hanging out at the beach, playing tennis, taking naps, drinking adult beverages, and reading.  Oh, and I got to watch several epis from a L&O:CI marathon featuring my boyfriend.  Now that he's on cable, I don't get to see him as often as I used to.

Pool of Ambivalence, Pool of Doom

The pool is great.  The pool is awful.  The pool provides hours of active fun in the sun.  The pool sits idle, like a brackish, mosquito-nurturing swamp.  I love our pool.  I hate our pool.

We set up the pool in mid-May, during one of Chicago's brief interludes of sunny weather. Since then we have had enough rain to support a rice paddy, which I think I might prefer to this stupid pool.  We--and by "we" I mean M. Peevie and two of her little girlfriends, plus A. Peevie--found the pool parts in the garage and took it upon themselves to put it up.  They stuck all the tab As into the slot Bs, putting the metal frame together without too much trouble.  It kept them busy for a couple of hours, so everybody was happy.

We filled it up, and the water was sparkling and clear--for about a week.  The kids played and screamed and made whirlpools and generally enjoyed the kind of simple childhood fun that you could imagine showing up on a Norman Rockwell canvas.

Then the rains returned, and my amateur chemical maintenance program failed miserably.  My amateur chemical maintenance program involves dumping a random, unmeasured amount of chlorine bleach into the water every day or every other day, and stirring it around with the handle of the broken leaf skimmer.  (The filter pump only worked for one year, so pool maintenance has been less-than-ideal for three years.) Last year this program worked just fine; but this year?  Not so much.  So the rains came, and the pool turned green.  Yuk.

We emptied it out, adding even more water to the rain-saturated ground--but the drain plug on the stupid pool isn't exactly at ground level, and about two or three inches of water stagnated in the bottom, turning greener by the day.  Finally I Tom Sawyered the neighborhood kids into helping me scoop the water out so we could clean it up and fill it again.  Two Peevies and five neighborhood kids kicked off their shoes and socks, grabbed primary-colored beach buckets, and hopped into the murky mess. 

"Are there leeches in here?" one kid asked.

"What are leeches?" said another.

"Jahaylia is throwing water on me!" somebody complained.

"This is my section! Move over!" a territorial water-flinger ordered.

They scooped and flung buckets of icky water until the vinyl bottom appeared; and then they kept going until only tiny puddles remained.  Then C. Peevie and I tipped the pool up on its side, snapping off one rusted support pole in the process.  We hosed it down, scrubbed a bit with rags to loosen the more stubborn algae stains, hosed some more, and set it back down on the bare mud-circle (like a crop circle, only without the crops, and without the mysterious origins).


In about six hours the pool sparkled and tempted, and everyone ran and got their bathing suits and goggles and started whirlpooling and bouncing on bright tubes.  Happy screams and the vocabulary of newly-invented water games wafted through my kitchen windows, and once again, I loved our pool.  In a little while, I grilled hotdogs and sliced a watermelon, and everyone took a break to scarf down a perfect summer lunch before leaping back into 1250 gallons of fun.


Two hours later, they were still at it.  I could hear their raucous hilarity through the windows--my poor neighbors--and occasionally I'd go deckside to make sure everyone had a turn with a tube and no one was bleeding.  Finally, when it was almost time to close the pool down and send the neighbors home, I went outside to give a 10-minute warning.


The pool was dark brown and murky.  It looked like someone had dumped a bucket or ten of mud into the water.


"Wha...wha...?" I stuttered, uncomprehendingly.  "What in the hayride happened to the pool?"


"M. Peevie dumped MUD into it!" the boys screamed in unison, quick to tattle.  M. Peevie just stood there, not denying it.


"We were playing in the pool, and she just dumped a bucket of mud in!" they reiterated.  "And then she did it again!  We told her to stop, but she kept doing it!"  M. Peevie's stood in stoic silence, but a tiny crease of worry appeared between her eyebrows.


Oh, she better worry, all right.  Smoke started coming out of my ears, and I felt my natural goodwill evaporate.   I sent everyone home, and took M. Peevie down to the dungeon. I closed the chains around her wrists, a la Phoenix and Crowe in Gladiator; and I began to interrogate her.


"What were you thinking, M?" I asked.  "Why would you dump mud into the clean pool?"


"I don't know what I was thinking!" she said.  "I wasn't thinking about what would happen!"  The tears started to fall, but I remained unmoved, and continued to interrogate her, but without success.


Later that evening, I tried once again to understand what would motivate an otherwise smart girl to ruin her best summer fun activity.  This time I tried gentleness instead of harsh torture techniques.  Not surprisingly, I got better results.


"M. Peevie," I said, putting my arms around her sturdy shoulders and kissing the top of her head, "M., tell me about when you put mud in the pool."


She looked up at me, still worried, but better able to think clearly.  "Well," she said slowly, "We were playing, and then most of us got out, except New Neighbor M.  NNM started swimming around and pretending he was a squid."  A light went on in my mind, and suddenly it all made sense to me.


"And the mud?" I asked, wanting her to tell the rest.


"He was being a squid," she continued, looking at the ground, "and squids squirt ink, and I thought it would be fun to give him some ink."  She looked up at me to gauge my reaction.  "I put the mud in because I wanted the squid to have some ink."  She started to sniffle again.  "But I didn't realize that the mud would make it so brown.  I'm sorry, Mommy, I'm sorry!"


I sighed and held her close.  The pool was still brown and murky, but I felt relief, and a strange sense of pride.  M. Peevie wasn't motivated by meanness, like Sid in Toy Story II; she wasn't being intentionally thoughtless or randomly inconsiderate.  Actually, she was being sort of creative, and her choice to dump mud in the pool was prompted by her big imagination.  How could I stay mad at her?

The pool stayed muddy for a few days, and the kids swam around in it anyway.  Gradually, with the getting in and the getting out and the stepping into the muddy puddles around the outside of the pool, the muditity levels became too much for me to bear, and I ordered the pool to be emptied once again.  It leans like a smelly vinyl wall up against the deck, waiting for its next tour of pool duty.


I don't know whether to fill the pool again, or to toss it into the alley for the metal scavenger trucks to pick up--and instead, plant flowers or vegetable in the circular brown scar that remains as a reminder of happier pool days.

What would you do?

Yummy Summer Salad

Courtesy of a friend of a friend (my friend J-Ro's friend Lyn), here is a light, tasty, limey summer salad that will be gone before you get a chance to taste it when you bring it to a church pot-luck. I speak from experience.

I took liberties and gave it a name:

Grape Tomato and Black Bean Salad with Garlic Lime Dressing

1 pint grape tomatoes, halved
1 yellow bell pepper, seeded and diced smallish (1/2 inch dice)
1 15-oz can of black beans, rinsed and drained
1/2 c. red onion, diced
2 T. jalapeno peppers, seeded and minced (about 2 peppers)
1/2 t. freshly grated lime zest
1/4 c. freshly squeezed lime juice (about 2 limes)
1/4 c. extra-virgin olive oil
1 t. kosher salt
1/2 t. black pepper, freshly ground
1/2 t. garlic, minced or pressed
1/4 t. ground cayenne pepper
2 ripe avocados, peeled and diced into 1/2 inch or larger pieces

Gently toss tomatoes, yellow pepper, black beans, red onion, jalapeno peppers, and lime zest in a large, attractive bowl.

Whisk together the lime juice, olive oil, salt, black pepper, garlic, and cayenne pepper until it looks almost creamy. Pour over vegetable mixture. Toss well.

Just before serving, fold the avocados into the salad. Serve at room temperature.

I was going to post a picture of the colorful deliciousness that is this salad, but I couldn't find my camera. Then by the time I found my camera, the salad was all gone. So you're just going to have to use your imagination.

20 Things Besides TV

Once baseball is over, we've survived summer school, and vacation is a fond memory--then what?

One kid in particular seems to believe that his lot in life is to sit in front of the TV watching Frasier DVDs, movies, and non-cable re-runs.

"C. Peevie," we said to him. "Get up and do something besides watching TV!"

"But there's nothing to deeewwwww!" he whined. Aha! I said to myself. A teachable moment.

"Turn off the TV, C. Peevie," I said. "I have an assignment for you." He looked at me from under glowering eyebrows. "Off," I reiterated. He complied, grumpily.

"Here's the deal," I told him. "I want you to write me a list of 20 things you can do instead of watching TV and playing video games."

"Awwwww, Mom!" he arghed, "That's completely lame."

"It's going to be 25 things instead of 20 if you argue with me," I said cheerfully.

It was 24 hours and no TV later that the boy handed me my list. Here's what he came up with, in its complete and unedited beauty:

1. reading
2. bike
3. scooter
4. drawing
5. park
6. hang out with pals
7. stroll
8. write a book
9. knit woollen scarves for the homeless
10. found a charity
11. clean windows
12. making Stouffer's family size mac & cheez
13. making money
14. cleaning
15. shopping
16. goin 2 the bathroom
17. checkin email
18. talk w/ friends
19. cook
20. pray

I like this list. Next time he tells me he's bored, I will whip out this little list and remind him that there are at least 20 different ways he can spend his time that does not involve sitting in front of a screen.

M. Peevie found the list on the couch, and read it. She was intrigued, and decided to write her own list of "20 things you can do other than watch TV:"

1. read
2. play outside
3. climb a tree
4. go shopping
5. try on everything in my wardrobe
6. plant a flower
7. cook dinner
8. hang with pals
9. make a new club
10. re-decorate my room
11. have a garage sale
12. save money for something I really want
13. go to collage [where, presumably, she'll learn how to spell "college." She is, after all, only 8.]
    
14. get my own house
15. make a tree house
16. visit all the places I want to see
17. go to swim class (I really want to!)
18. learn how to golf
19. go to the park
20. get old stuff from the dump
    

Get old stuff from the dump? Seriously. Because our house does not have enough crap in it that belongs in the dump, so we need to bring more stuff home. I think I saw a square millimeter of uncluttered space in the dining room earlier today, so we can definitely fit some dump treasures there.

I have more items to add to their list of things they can do instead of watching TV:

1. Start a blog
2. Visit an elderly neighbor
3. Swim
4. Toss the baseball with your little brother
5. Write thank you notes to anyone who has ever done something kind for you
6. Make a gratitude list
7. Listen to music
8. Learn to play an instrument
9. Learn a language
10. Learn to juggle
11. Clean something. Anything.
12. Make a list of birthdays you want to remember
13. Make cards for people on the list
14. Write in a journal
15. Burn a CD for a friend
16. Go for a jog
17. Offer to take a neighbor's dog for a walk
18. Wash the car
19. Bake cookies
20. Make a scrapbook

There. Sixty things (more or less) that you can do when you're bored and your mom or your conscience tells you to turn off the TV.

What's on your list?

Where the Buffalo Roam

I'm back! Didja miss me? What's that, you say? You'd like to hear about our fast and furious trip to South Dakota and back? Well, you don't have to ask twice!

Here's the short version: Drive, drive, drive. Eat. Drive, drive drive. Arrive in beautiful, mostly deserted, downtown Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Eat. Swim. Sleep.

Eat. Swim. Drive, drive, drive. Eat buffalo jerky. Drive, drive, drive. Arrive in starkly beautiful Badlands, South Dakota. Have heart attack as kids walk too near the edge of sharp thousand-foot drop-offs. Eat at the rustic (to put it nicely) Wagon Wheel Bar in Interior, South Dakota, population 67. Hike the Badlands. Hike. Fall. Cry. Hike. Fall. Cry. Repeat. Sleep.

Biscuits and gravy at Cedar Pass Lodge. Drive, drive, drive. Watch buffalo making their home on the range. Try to get close to prairie dogs. Read sign saying, "Beware of prairie dog plague." Back slowly away from prairie dogs.

Drive, drive, drive. Shop for trinkets at the famous Wall Drug, the most famous gift shop in the West. Drive, drive, drive. Visit Mount Rushmore. Visit Mount Rushmore gift shop. Play on mountainside next to Mount Rushmore. Eat at DQ, because there's nothing like driving for 20 hours to eat at the same damn place you can eat at in Chicago. Drive. Visit Crazy Horse mountain. Drive, drive, drive. Climb the Badlands. Fall. Cry. Climb some more. Watch stunning lightning storm over the Badlands from motel balcony. Sleep.

Biscuits and gravy at Cedar Pass Lodge. Climb, fall, cry, repeat. Fossil talk with Ranger Joe. Climb, fall, cry, repeat. Lunch in Wall. More climbing the Badlands. Prairie walk with Ranger Joe. Visit Badlands gift shop. Climb, fall, cry, repeat. Watch Badlands evening slide presentation. Sleep.

Drive, drive, drive, drive, drive, drive. Sleep in own bed. Aaaahhhh.

Trip stats:

Total miles driven: 2,050.6
Total cost: approximately $2,000 (both families, for gas, food, lodging and sundries)
Total hours of driving: 35-40, including side trips
Total trip days: 5
Total pictures taken (E. Peevie only): 101
Total times pulled over for speeding: 2
Total number of speeding tickets: 1
Total number of times someone asked "Are we there yet?": 8,761

I'll leave you with this famous quote from M. Peevie: "How come South Dakota has all the cool stuff?"

More later. Because there is much to tell, of course.

NOTE: I don't know how to write on my photos, or put captions below them, so I'll just tell you here: in the mountain photo, the person on the top is C. Peevie, and the climber in the white shirt is A. Peevie.

Summer Value, Simple Fun

My 8-year-old Peevie Child and her 8-year-old pal M. Black Hair and I put together our metal frame and vinyl pool in about an hour last week. (That's how easy it is.)

This little pool (which takes up most of our typical Chicago back yard at 10' diameter and about 3' deep) has served us well. Every year it gets a little more off-kilter, and it currently doesn't have a working filter (kilter, filter--it rhymes! I'm a poet!), and the vinyl is bleached, and we had to plug a filter hole with a sock--but this pool was the best summer entertainment value that I ever purchased. Assuming we get through this year with the pool still functioning, I think the cost works out to about 16 cents per hour of summer fun or less, not including the cost of filters, chlorine, pool toys, and other accessories.

They're running about $129 at Target this year*, but when we bought ours three years ago, it was $99, including the water filter, plus about $50 for the chemical kit. The filter gave out during the season last year, but we continued using the pool without it. I also stopped buying expensive pool chemicals, and just started using regular old chlorine bleach to kill the germs; and I used a skimmer net to skim off the leaves and dead animals that accumulated on the surface of the water.

(I still used the testing supplies to make sure that the Ph and chlorine levels were appropriate. It vastly amused me and made me feel like a mad scientist when I dripped the yellow and red solutions into the test beakers. But then again, I am easily amused.)

So for the first two days that the pool was up, M. Peevie spent great chunks of time in it--even though the temperature has barely reached 70 and the water temp is probably just shy of icicle. She floats on hot pink inner tubes, swims laps around the perimeter, practices holding her breath under water, and generally splashes happily for hours on end.

The good thing about having this pool in our tiny Chicago backyard is that it's fun for our kids and their friends. The bad thing is that sometimes I become slightly irritable at the parade of kids needing food, drinks, bathing suits, towels, sunscreen, and Band-Aids tracking watery footprints through my kitchen.

At this moment I have an 8-year-old, a 9-year-old, and a 10-year-old floating on inflatables and telling stories in the pool. It's sweet, innocent, and simple, and it makes me happy and grateful for my life.

*I saw the pool on sale for $99 again yesterday.

Magical Moments

Have you ever had one of those moments when time slowed way down and you felt like you had entered a magical alternate dimension where you were eternally young and you were surrounded by happy children, friendly adults, sounds of laughter and cheering, and there was cake, too?

Me neither.

However. This week we came pretty close to that moment. The eighth-graders challenged their parents to a softball game to celebrate their emancipation from grade school and to demonstrate their "superior" athletic ability.

We creamed them. It was awesome.

But wait: let me backtrack for a moment. First of all, we (and by "we" I mean Poor Man's Ricardo Antonio Chavira (PMRAC), who is a 4th grade parent; yay, PMRAC!)) reserved a field at Thillens Stadium for two hours on Wednesday night. Thillens Stadium is an iconic part of Chicago history, where generations of Little Leaguers played under the lights, and Jack Brickhouse announced the play-by-play during the 1950s.


To play under the lights at Thillens is to be a part of something bigger than yourself. To play third base at Thillens as a 48-year-old, mini-van-driving, capri-pants-wearing mother of three, against about 40 eighth-graders and their younger siblings and schoolmates, and to throw your own son out at first base* in a slo-mo-replay moment, is to make history that will never be written, but will also never be forgotten.

After we shut the kids down in the first half inning, we grabbed our bats and took the kids to school. I put myself first in the grown-ups' line-up because I got there first, and the dads were too polite to object. I smashed a single between the cocky teenaged infielders, who were no doubt thinking to themselves, "Sink in, boys, sink in; it's just C. Peevie's mom; she can't hit!"

I rounded the bases when Eddie "The Babe" sent one into orbit, and crossed home plate gasping for air and begging for the paramedics to administer oxygen. "I need a defibrillator!" I wheezed, and Mr. Peevie said, "You need a work-out program." Like I have mentioned in the past, he has a bit of a mean streak.

Since there were little kids playing on the kid team, we let them have five outs per inning. We let them swing until they got a hit, and we "accidentally" fumbled the ball in the field. See, we wanted the little ones to have fun and success, but we had no such concern for the big kids.

O-Daddy and I formed an unbreachable wall covering third and short. I think he took one look at my out-of-shape self and thought to himself, "Oh well, it's just a game." But then! Then I fielded a short-hopper to third and threw to first with precision and grace (if I do say so myself), and O-Daddy's jaw dropped to the ground.

"Wo, Momma!" he said with admiration. "You got some mad skilz!"

"Yes, O-Daddy," I said. "I may look like a zaftig, past-her-softball-prime mama, but when I'm in ready position in the infield, I am still 17!"

The rest of the Mamas and the Papas did great as well, recalling the skills of their lost youths ("yutes," for those of you who are fans of My Cousin Vinny, one of the funniest movies of all time), some of them more lost than others.

The bleachers were filled with additional moms, dads, siblings, and friends who opted to watch the game in the comfort of their blankets (yay! Chicago in June!), coolers, and snacks. I joined them after the first game, having already caused enough damage to my so-called muscles and joints to keep me sore for three full days.

We beat the kids soundly in the first game, and then we sang "Happy Birthday to" C. Peevie because it was his actual b-day, and then I served homemade sheet cake, passing the slices around the bleachers and to the players on the field. The playing, the talking, the trash-talking, the celebrating, the remembering, the laughing, the hanging out in a truly cool locale--these were all gifts of grace and beauty in a troubled world.

It was magical. In the Presbyterian sense of the word, of course.

*My son remembers this differently. In his version, I bobble the grounder, and he's safe at first. But he's been known to have a distorted view of reality.

Good Coach, Bad Coach

Last night at C. Peevie's game, the opposing coach got kicked out of the game. After grumbling, arguing, and complaining most of the game, he started arguing plate calls late in the final inning when his team was down by five or six runs. The ump got tired of the abuse, and after warning him to stop, he finally gave an ultimatum.

"One more word, and you're out of here," he warned Coach Obnoxious.

"One more word, one more word, one more word!" Coach O. singsonged like a nine-year-old, heading down the third base line toward the plate.

Ump kept his cool and stood his ground. "One more word and your team forfeits the game," he said. "Keep on walking. We're not re-starting the game until you're in your car." Now that's what I call setting boundaries! Go Ump!

"I thought there was going to be fisticuffs!" C. Peevie told me later, after he had made the game-ending put-out with a back-handed scoop-from-the-dirt at first base.

If I were a parent of a kid on that team, I'd be embarrassed and angry. I'd ask the league director to get rid of the coach; and if he stayed, I'd yank my kid off that team. There is no excuse for such childish, inappropriate and unsportsmanlike conduct from anyone in Little League, let alone a coach.

In other Little League news, A. Peevie's coach continues to impress with his kindness. We coaxed, bullied, persuaded, urged and ultimately forced A. Peevie to attend his team's game on Saturday. This two hour process took about as much physical and emotional pain and energy as actual childbirth.

We finally agreed that he would play one full inning, and then if he wanted to come out and sit on the bench for the rest of the game, he could. The coach started A. Peevie in right field. He was in full uniform, his cup was right-side-up, and he was not screaming, crying or complaining, so I considered it a personal victory. I prayed that the ball would not come anywhere near him.

At his first at-bat, A. Peevie placidly watched four pitches in a row sail over his head. I suspected that he would just have placidly watched four pitches in a row sail directly through the strike zone, but I counted my blessings. Four times that game A. Peevie walked on four pitches, scoring twice. He stayed in the game the whole time, and felt like a champ.

I felt my bones melt in relief that we gotten through one more little league trauma.

This little drama doesn't even take into account how excruciating minor league baseball really is, especially early in the season: tiny ten-year-olds try desperately to get the ball over the plate while parents bake on the bleachers, or, more likely in our lattitude, wrap themselves in blankets until mid-June. Games go on and on while players walk the basepaths and teams score 14 passive runs in a single inning.

Occasionally there's a pitch in the vicinity of the strike zone, and a lucky batter makes a connection. Inevitably the ball squirts through the legs of an infielder, and comes to rest in shallow right field. The right fielder jogs over, picks it up from where it's resting on a clump of grass, and attempts to throw it to first base without regard for where the runner actually is.

More often than not, the ball squigs past the first baseman, rolling clear over to the fence, and the runner keeps running. Minor leaguers throw the ball behind the runner, so most hits end up becoming home-runs, which is the only other way a team scores other than by walks.

Only eight more regular season games to go.

Meanwhile, we've had a reprieve from having three kids playing ball at the same time because of M. Peevie's season-stalling broken wrist. Cast comes off Thursday, then removable velcro cast for a week, then she's back in the swing as well.

It's All About the Kids, Part II

Sometime during our stay in Door County, we lost the Sangria Poltergeist--although we still have the fumes and fruit flies. Maybe my mechanic is not so crazy after all. I'm kind of going to miss the Korean alt hip-hop, though.

On Saturday we took the herd to a campground to swim and to somehow lose six golf balls in the water hazard on the miniature golf course. (The only reason the golf balls matter is that it was my driver's license that was being held hostage until the golf balls were found and returned.)

We set up camp in a picnic table clearing, and while the kids splashed and dunked and slid down pool slides, Mr. D'Onofrio cooked up a storm. Actually, it was more like an entire tornado system.

Earlier that day Mr. D had created a huge batch of homemade potato salad, complete with hard-boiled eggs. We were originally planning on having deviled eggs, but we waited too long to peel the dang things, and the peeled eggs were so pock-marked they looked like ovoid golf balls.

I do not know what Mr. D included in his mayonnaise mixture, but it was so delicious that if they had trading cards for picnic side dishes, the Mr. D Unbelievably Delicious Potato Salad card would be as coveted as the 1909 Honus Wagner.

He laid out a feast of burgers, hot dogs, sausages, and a huge pan of BBQ ribs. Then, after everyone had piled their paper plates to the tipping point, he said, "I guess I'll throw the steaks on now." Oh yes, he did. We all just looked at him like, "Dude, you're insane." Then we looked at each other and shrugged. "OK," we said; and we proceeded to eat ourselves into the greatest meat coma of all time.

After we all regained consciousness, we drove north for the Big Sister Bay Fireworks Extravaganza. We spread our blankets and folding chairs on the lawn overlooking the bay, and waited for dusk to turn into dark. Someone near us had what sounded like a transistor radio tuned to a station playing patriotic numbers.

As the fireworks began, I suddenly missed Mr. Peevie, so I borrowed a cell phone. It was hard to hear, what with the bombs bursting in air and the rockets' red glare and all. We passed the phone around for a few peeps to say hi; and when C. Peevie started talking, I almost cried. "I really, really miss you, Dad," he said. "I wish you were here." He might be almost as tall as me, way smarter, and with twice as much B.O.--but inside, he's still just a little boy who needs his daddy. Aw.

When I saw that A. Peevie had snuggled into the lap of C. Peevie's friend X-Man to watch the light show, I got all misty again. (Anytime somebody is kind and gentle with one of my kids, it just makes me all verklempt. I can't help myself. Sometimes I am just a big crybaby.)

Eventually we made it home to the shack. The adults were exhausted, but the teenagers found a second wind and decided to hang out by the bonfire until the wee hours of the morning. Several had brought guitars, both acoustic and electric. They played music and talked and made s'mores--it was like a scene out of a teenage-angst-but-with-a-happy-ending movie.

Most of these eighth graders have been together since kindergarten. A couple have even left our school for other education options--but they still choose to be a part of this unique and diverse collection of kids from all across the city: black, Asian, white, faithful, faith-free, long-hairs, crew cuts. They are actors, musicians, artists, athletes.

Mrs. D'Onofrio might be a tiny bit insane for putting together this "It's all about the kids" Door County farm weekend--but sometimes insanity is a good thing. What a great finale to what feels like not just the end of the summer, but the end of an era. Next summer, these kids will be getting ready to head off to high schools across the city. Some will keep in touch; some won't.

But I bet when they're 20, or 30, or--heaven help us--40, memories from this farm weekend will still crop up from their subconscious. They'll smile, and one or two of them may even press a button on whatever cell phones have evolved into, and reach out to one of their eighth-grade buddies, and say, "Hey, remember when we went up to Door County that one week with that crazy Mrs. D'Onofrio? Fun times. Wanna get together for lunch sometime?"

Thanks for that, Mr. and Mrs. D.

(The fireworks photo comes from PD Photo.org. The other photos courtesy of J.Ro.)

It's All About the Children, Part the First

That's what my insane friend Mrs. D'Onofrio says: "It's all about the children."

The hell you say.

I might be willing to spend my entire Labor Day weekend at a "shack" in Door County with 400 eighth-graders and their assorted siblings and pets--but I refuse to get on board with this "it's all about the children" insanity.

But I'm ahead of myself. Mr. and Mrs. D'Onofrio invited the whole eighth grade class to hang out at their Door County farm property for an end-of-summer-eat-play-chill-fest. From Monday to Labor Day Monday, people came and went. Mostly, they came. Twenty-two children, ten adults, two dogs, three goats, and a pot-bellied pig swarmed over the property, in and out of the two small farmhouses, up the hayloft, and across the soybean fields.

By the time I arrived with the two younger Peevies on Friday evening in my sangria-infused van, I was ready to sit back, put my feet up, and partake of an adult beverage. Seven or eight sweaty teenagers were playing basketball against the side of the barn, dribbling and passing on the packed dirt "court." C. Peevie, the clear leader in the Sweatiest Boy of All Time contest, held up the game to come over and say hi.

I hugged him gingerly, trying to avoid a massive sweat transfer. "C. Peevie!" I said, happily, "I missed you!"

"Hi, mom," he said. "Missed you, too." He had been at the farm since Wednesday afternoon, and I suspected that I was looking at two or more days of accumulated sweat and grime. I saw it as a positive thing: three girls had bravely joined the class outing--but what 13-year-old girl would want to get within a yard of a boy that smelled that bad? Apparently an eighth-grade boy's aversion to showering was the equivalent of an adolescent prophylactic.

Mr. D'Onofrio whipped up a dozen frozen pizzas for the younger set while the grown-ups patiently sipped margaritas. Then he set to work putting a more mature feast out, including steak, Boursin-and-spinach-stuffed chicken breasts, rice pilaf, fresh green beans, and gravy. If this is what Mrs. D. means by "it's all about the children," then I'm totally on board.

Between the six bedrooms and the four tents in the yard, everyone found a place to sleep. Mr. and Mrs. D. selflessly gave up their air-conditioned Chinese bedroom (adorably decorated with Chinese checkerboards and Chinese-themed art and bedspread) to me because I was cranky, seasonally allergic, sweaty, and menopausal. I believe that Mr. D'Onofrio actually slept in his car.

I'm pretty sure they were all a little afraid of me.

During the night, the tent that housed the three younger boys mysteriously collapsed. I believe it had something to do with the teenagers jumping up and down on it. So the pre-teens abandoned their collapsing abode and dragged their sleeping bags upstairs to the stuffy corner bedroom where Mrs. D. had finally collapsed at about 2 a.m.

Then, because "it's all about the children," she cheerfully got up with A. Peevie at 5 a.m. to take him downstairs to the bathroom. (He was too afraid to go down the dark stairs by himself.) Meanwhile, I slept blissfully, the white noise of the AC drowning out the sounds of things going tinkle in the night.

I awoke refreshed and cool as a cucumber, thanks to Mr. and Mrs. D's insane level of hospitality. When I left the Chinese Room, delicious smells of pancakes and sausage wafted toward me. Mr. D. was hard at work preparing breakfast for the tribe, which had grown since I went to sleep the night before.

Tune in tomorrow for It's All About the Children, Part the Second.

I'm Not Ready for Back to School

The Little Peevies have barely been out of school for three weeks, and already the stores are stocked with back-to-school supplies. We haven't even had our family vacation yet! We have barely begun to enjoy sleeping in, making designs with chalk on the sidewalk, splashing in the pool, and soaking up sunshine.

I'm not ready for back-to-school. You can just put your spiral notebooks and colored pocket folders and 50-count #2 pencils right back in the warehouse, because I refuse to even think about school supplies when I'm still thinking about pool supplies.

I'm not ready for assignment notebooks, gluesticks, and Crayola washable markers in classic colors, and I'm definitely not ready for homework. (I hate homework, even more than I did when I was a kid.)

Please, please let me just have summer, before you drag my thoughts back to early morning alarms, school routines, and bus routes. Let me first put up a lemonade stand with my kids, and invite the neighbors to spend a quarter on a Dixie Cup of sweet sunshine. Let me first find some garage sale bargains, and regret my first inadvertent sunburn.

I want more summer! I'm not ready for back-to-school yet.