the middle coaster

Art appreciation

Molly and her auntie staging a photograph of Daisy "holding up" the cherry. 

Cabin

The Cabin was the not-so-secret number one reason we moved to the Midwest.

It used to be the only place we ever went on vacation. We went every 4th of July, a few days before and after the fourth usually, depending on which day of the week Independence Day fell. It was not optional, to the extent that in all the years I lived in the Bay Area, I never once saw a San Francisco gay pride parade, because we were always already out of town. But the whole family always gets together over the 4th and to miss that would be unthinkable. One year we even coerced our friends to join us, a plane ride full of toddlers where miraculously nobody got Home'd Alone, and which we should like to re-enact as soon as is humanly possible, only this time, even more so.

The cabin is a classic Big Deal thing in this part of the world but with real estate prices what they are, we are lucky to have a) access to a cabin, b) access to one that has nice beds and toilets that don't stink, c) access to one that is awesome in every other way that a cabin can be awesome, including but not limited to: boats, nearby bars, another boat, enough space that a person can go hide somewhere if it gets too crowded, still more boats, nearby wilderness activities year-round, ample supplies of beer, and a kayak.

Now that we are here, we don't have to focus all our Cabin Energy on the week of July 4 (not that we won't be there that week, and not that the cabin doesn't demand Full Throttle Being of its denizens at all time, focused or not, but the pressure is a little lighter). And sometimes we can even make the drive on a non-holiday weekend, which I'm sure will be a revelation, but it wasn't so bad on Memorial Day, after all.

Here's to Summer 2010, our first as Minnesotans.

 

 

Lilac Time

I'm pretty sure that whatever I'm horribly allergic to and which is threatening to kill me, whatever has Zyrtec foiled and the neti pot stymied, it's not the lilacs (it's probably the cottonwoods).