vacation post #2

mommy and i take turns with the mornings on the weekends because they tend to be early. sometimes very early. bebe. one of us gets up while the other sleeps in, and it seems like the most fair way to break up the bebe duties. during our vacation we tried to tweak that formula a little so that our days were broken up in a way that would make it easier for us to get some rest and get some of our own work done.

we decided that whoever took the early shift would be on bebe supervision until the sleeper woke up. once breakfast was done, the person who got up early had the rest of the day (through afternoon nap time) to do as they pleased. the one who slept had beebs for the rest of the morning, gave her lunch, and put her down for her nap.

after nap was typically family time when we all would get together and hang out.

the mornings often involved trips to one of many area playgrounds. it turns out they're everywhere, in various levels of construction and skill level.

one prerequisite of any playground we visit is baby swings. even though bebe is a big girl

...she loves the baby swings.

she was also really into picking clover. after she tried each of these swings, she paused at the end of the line to do some lawn grooming.

then faced off against the caterpillar.

a formidable foe.

"hey! how about some swings?"

back

and forth.

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

she picked up this move from her cali pal nora jane.

she hangs in the swing limp while you push

and then springs into life, all chompers and pig tails!



since all that playground really had to offer was swings, we tried another one downtown. the best part (and only really good part, actually) was that it was right next to the skate park. it's never a good sign when you roll up to a playground and the only other little kids there are playing with trash instead of toys. it was pretty beat.

and now allow me to digress momentarily to reflect on the nature of the city skate park. this is a sore subject for many skaters across the country. we spend a lot of time getting harassed by asshole cops and told we can't be here, we can't be there, don't skate on the sidewalk, don't skate on the road... i even got hassled by a cop once while i was in a friend's driveway! anyway, in response to this we plead and plead with city officials to build skate parks to keep us out of the downtown areas (best skate spots usually)- and all we usually ever ask for is the land. we tend to raise the money for construction ourselves and do some of the building along side the people we hire to build it (the last thing we want is some councilman designing our park. would you like the people that build dishwashers designing the airplanes you fly in? neither would we). and after years of begging the city finally decides to graciously donate a plot of land.

do you know why a city government ever does anything for free? it's either to cover their asses and give in to enormous public pressure, or to unload some useless dump. well, in the case of skate parks it's usually the latter. the land they give us is either twenty miles out of town and completely inaccessible to most young kids, or it's conversely in the very heart of the city, in the middle of the most unsafe, unclean neighborhoods, on a totally uninhabitable piece of land. some of the best skate parks of my generation were hand built underneath bridges and overpasses. and by hand built, i mean we scrounged together enough money to buy a bag of quik-dry cement and built transitions on banks and big curbs. for the uninitiated, a transition, or tranny, is the part of a ramp that curves upward, connecting the lateral plane with the vertical plane.

some of the best trannies i've skated have been right next to some of the nicest working trannies i've had the pleasure to get to know from frequenting "parks" located right next to huge drug warehouses and prostitution rings. and i swear this is not a lie: one day, while out skating with my friends, we stopped to talk to one of the hardest working "ladies" in the city, a bit of a legend in the industry. and as we stood talking to her, holding our boards in our hands, a cop rolled up and gave US the hard time, threatening us with trespassing and vandalism, etc. and then drove away while our friend made a love connection with some john. really?

my point is that many skate parks get put in the worst places, and this one was no exception. yes, it's right down town, and yes, it's on the town common, but that also happens to be one of the dirtiest, trashiest, most abused spots in the city to buy drugs. which we saw happen twice in the time it took bebe to eat her banana snack and refuse to play on the broken equipment:

"um, daddy?"

"i, uh, don't think these swings are the right shape."

"aren't they supposed to be inviting ovals?"

yeah, i guess so...

"this one's kind of a forbidding rectangle. and that rusty chain is about to break."

well, let's at least go buy some drugs before we head home.

JUST KIDDING.

almost sunset time! but first...



it's corn-shucking time!

there's a farm right across the street that sells the freshest, tastiest corn. every summer we make sure to eat our fill.

we've been getting corn on the cob from our weekly farm share at home and bebe has become quite the expert shucker.

i usually start one, and then she pulls off each husk until we see corn, at which point she shouts: "we made it to corn!"

with a house full of people, we had our work cut out for us.

shucking

...and shucking

...and shucking

...and shucking

..and

shucking

...that's the same piece of corn, by the way. a real tough one, by the look of it.

this may take a while.

"you're telling me. i'm gonna' be a grown-up doll by the time you guys are done!"

that's a little creepy, new josh... *(actually ba-ba baby. sorry, ba-ba.)


but you have a point. we better get to work!

we made it to corn!

teed and ade were golfing in a tournament all weekend, and on sunday, they won their division! woo hoo! congratulations!

ah, you know what this means...

"did that really just happen? was there not just a giant fiery eyeball in the sky looking right into our very souls?"

you've got the heart of a poet, beatrix.

see you at vacation post #3!