Fort Richard

Richard has been a little frustrated that we moved our furniture since the last time he was here. Our old arrangement made it easy to build a cozy den behind the couch, and last summer he spent hours there playing on his iPad. He even slept in it at Thanksgiving.

Oh, he gave it a good try, but with nothing to drape the blankets over, the first fort he built was generally unsatisfactory. In fact I didn't even think he was in there this afternoon when I told Annabelle that it might be time to take it apart. He popped his head out at the end of the conversation and shrugged. "Go ahead," he told me and headed upstairs. That made me a little sad. The day is coming when Richard will set aside his fort-building, but I was sorry to hasten it.

Sitting on the couch a little while later, I tried to problem-solve. We had looked for alligator clips to fasten blankets to our bookshelves the day before without success. What else could we do? I pondered the puzzle when a Eureka! moment struck. There was a length of climbing rope with carabiners at each end in the car. We got it years ago in Maine to allow Isabel to run the clothesline (instead of running away!) in the yard of our rental house.

Richard and I went out and fetched it and then fastened one end to the curtain rod and the other to the railing separating the dining room from the living room. A few cushions and several pillows and blankets later Richard had built a nifty little tent fort into which he crawled happily.

Against the Odds

"Oh no! I lost my earring!" Annabelle cried at the pool this afternoon. The other three of us frowned. We knew that she treasured those earrings because Aunt Emily had just given them to her the other night, but we also knew that she had been all over that pool in the last hour and a half.

"I'll get my goggles," I told her, "but I'm not hopeful."

Annabelle's face fell.

"I can hold my breath a looooong time!" her brother Richard proclaimed. "I'm sure I can find it!" he assured her as he swam to get his face mask.

Heidi, already in goggles, began to search without a word.

The water was warm and blue in the shade as I made my first pass, and filtered light dappled the pool in fishnet patterns as I scanned for a tiny blue glass flower. It had been a long time since I had swum purposefully under water, but regulating my breath and flotation came back to me as I kicked along in the shallows. I had not noticed how many little bits of leaves and bugs littered the bottom, but knowing the odds were against us did not make a difference. In the emotional waves of the last few days, the clarity of searching the aquamarine silence for a single, concrete thing, no matter how small, was comforting, and I wasn't surprised at all when I found it.

Poolosophical

There was a little sibling bickering at the pool this afternoon between Richard and Annabelle, followed by a philosophical discussion about treating people the way you want to be treated, rather than as they have treated you.

"You must want me to grab that noodle right out of your hand!" said Richard to his sister, "Since that what you did to me!"

"You must want me to hit you in the face with the noodle!" replied Annabelle, "Since that's what you did to me!"

"No no no," I told them both calmly.  "That's a rule for each of us to follow for ourselves, not to use to judge others."

"I want people to treat me the way I want to be treated," Richard said innocently. "How do I know by how they're acting that that's not what they want, too?"

He's a smart one, that kid. "Have you ever heard of reverse psychology?" I asked him.

And that was another conversation.

Batchin It

Heidi's been out of town the last couple of days, back in Buffalo to visit with her folks and brother while I stayed home to take care of the house, the garden, and the cat and dog (in reverse order of concern!). It turns out my version of the single life involves eating at the kitchen counter and falling asleep on the couch with the TV on.

Thank goodness she'll be back tonight!

Boxing Day in July

On the last day of school I still had kids writing to make the 100 Day Challenge, and I think that's awesome. I'm only sorry I have to draw the line somewhere and disappoint those writers with 96 days. Oh, one could argue that they had plenty of time and notice, but sometimes it takes a while to get going, and they definitely got going. (Plus, they are only 11 or 12 years old and that planning thing is definitely an emerging skill.)

When all was said and done, I had 12 kids who got the prize of ordering the whimsical t-shirt of their choice from a popular website. Since I waited to the end to see who made it, I also had to wait to the end to put my order in. Most of the shirts are custom-printed, and they finally arrived last week right before I returned from vacation.

I've developed a system over the years where I give kids an order form to fill out with their selection, size, and address, and then when I mail the shirts in the summer I write a personal note on the back of their form and include it in the package. Yesterday I went to the post office to pick up the boxes and labels, and today was the day when I sorted the order, composed the notes, addressed the labels, and boxed everything up.

Tomorrow, in literally my last official duty of the 2015-16 school year, they will be sent on their way. But for an hour or so on this hot, hot summer day, I considered each of those twelve writers fondly, admired their clever t-shirt choices, and strived to compose the perfect note to capture how proud I was of their accomplishments.

GoPro or Go Home

I got a GoPro for Christmas a couple years ago, but until a week or so ago I had not used it. I think it's because on the one hand while I'm flattered that anyone thinks I do exciting enough things to warrant recording them, I don't always see it that way, and on the other hand, it seemed kind of complicated to figure out how to use it.

I did see a movie not too long ago where one of the characters was an aspiring moviemaker, and he definitely used his GoPro to film anything he thought was good, which gave me another perspective on my little video camera. I also happen to store it in the gear bag for my other camera, and so it was that the GoPro made it to Maine with us in early July. Not just there, but actually strapped to Kyle's pack as we climbed the infamous Beehive of Acadia National Park and recording our great adventure for posterity!

It turns out the GoPro I have is kind of complicated (at least to me!) and I did not have the proper equipment to view the footage of our conquest until I got home. To be honest, it wasn't at the top of my list then either, but this morning serendipity struck when I came across both the cable and the camera in a free moment and plugged them into my desktop. The on-screen message alerted me that it would take an hour to download, but that was okay, too, because I was on my way out to run some errands. (Don't worry, the 8 second recording of me squinting cluelessly into the lens downloaded immediately, and so I was able to confirm that I'm an idiot right away.)

Anyhoo, when I returned home a few hours later in a horrific thunderstorm, once my soggy groceries were put away, I sat down to watch Kyle's perspective of our climb ten days ago. WOW! First, it was a lot scarier on video than in person-- my palms were sweating just watching it. Second, do I really look like that when I'm hiking? It wasn't bad, but I didn't cut quite the mountain woman image I imagined, either. (Emily and Heidi looked fantastic, though!)

And last, I really wish I was back in Maine.

Lucky Thirteen

We took our dog swimming for her 13th birthday today. Truth be told, she has been rather slow and lethargic over the last few weeks and we were hoping that one of her favorite activities would perk the old girl up.

It's hard to find clean swimming spots in our urban area, and so we were more than willing to give a new place about 30 minutes from our home a try. It was primarily a new-agey kind of rehab facility for older and injured dogs, but they had open swim time in their chlorine-free pools, too. The place was empty when we got there, but the set-up was not what we expected.

An employee in a wet suit led Isabel away to suit her up in a canine life jacket while the owner of the establishment made small talk with us. Once she was in the pool, we were allowed to go back and watch, but the attendant would not allow her to get in and out of the water at will. She paddled around a little while, fetching a floaty and a tennis ball, but she never really got into it.

Towards the beginning of her swim, the owner came over to watch as Isabel made her way serenely around the perimeter of the small lap pool. "Her energy!" the woman said. "It's so, so? So... wonderful!" she finished.

That it is, I agreed silently. Happy Birthday, Isabel.