Category: Summer

These things I know to be true…

Some damsels just aren’t interested in being rescued…they’d rather redecorate.

The perfect frame will bring the sunshine into any room.

Bruschetta is positively scrumptious with mostly fresh ingredients. More on this later.

There is only one proven way to keep wee folk out of the freezer when there are Popsicles inside.

A variation on a theme of oatmeal is still oatmeal and therefore…good for you.

Watching a cul-de-sac on fire is a splendid way to spend a summer evening.

It is perfectly acceptable–sometimes–to let someone else make the dessert.

Cottonwood is a magical, floating, fairy-like thing…unless it makes your sister sneeze–then, of course, it should be banned from the kingdom.

When you’re not quite 2, it’s really ok to be a great, big chicken.

Water really does taste best from a garden hose.

Amen and amen.

Back in the days before mandatory booster seats and shoulder restraints it was a pretty common thing to look in the back seat of the car, on a warm summer day and find your children in a knotted, cozy pile…fast asleep. It seemed to me that there was something particularly hypnotic about the freeway that knocked my kids out—routinely on any trip more than 20 miles long. Likely it had to do with the fact that they could scooch around into any position that suited them–on the floor of the car even.

I know now that the danger of unbuckled children is real and dreadful–and I am so grateful that we never had a tragic accident without the seat belts all in place. Thank Heavens! But in our ignorance–I will say that it was–at the time, a lovely thing to be able give each child a turn sitting up front between mom and dad, especially on long, tedious road trips–something I can’t fathom doing now. In fact, the memory of my kids climbing back and forth over the seats during trips is a sweet one to me, I think because I remember doing it myself as a child. I can still hear my mom say, “Watch your feet and don’t kick daddy.”

Sounds absolutely crazy to me now.

Of course it’s a better, safer, wiser day now, but we do have some sweet memories of those rides, singing and laughing and playing road games–looking for the elusive “white horse” that daddy would give us a dime for…yes, a whole dime, and that’s only if we saw it before he did.

Still, some of my favorite pictures are of these sweet babies, years ago, in those cuddly, tangled piles…

fast asleep.

When I was a kid…

we spent a week or two in Utah at my grandparents house each summer. We flew from Los Angeles, to San Fransisco, to Salt Lake City–then drove the hot, tedious 45 miles to grama’s little brick house in Provo.  We did all kinds of things that were impossible at our place like–climbing trees and exploring rivers and swinging on rope swings. We usually even got to walk to the grocery store–by ourselves. That might not sound like much but growing up in L.A. in a rougher part of town–we didn’t even play outside much because it was too dangerous. Funny way to grow up.

So when we came to Utah–it was like being free for one little speck of time. Another thing that my brother loved to do when he came to the mountains was go fishing with my grandpa. I thought it was a pretty sick thing to do but they had a wonderful time and would come back with a ba-zillion trout or catfish in tubs. The year this picture was taken, the guys brought home catfish by the busloads and strung them on a broom for pictures’ sake. My brother asked me to hold the bristle end of the broom while he held the other side. He warned me not to mess with them–like I would–because they had whiskers that would sting you bad. I respect that.

Only trouble was that he was much older and taller than I was and no matter how hard I tried to hold the stupid broom up, those nasty fish kept sliding towards me…almost like someone was raising the broom on purpose. I wanted to believe that those creepy fish were trying to poke the wits out of a screechy little six year old…but I had to wonder. Brothers can indeed be a bit naughty sometimes–after all.

Scared me to death. I had nightmares of giant,  jabbing, stabbing fish for weeks afterwards.

Never looked at my guppies the same again.

Positively detest catfish.

Other than that…

I’m over it.

heh.

One summer, when I was little, my dad bought a swimming pool at Sears. Just like that. Came home one day and said, “Let’s set up the pool, shall we?” None of us kids had a clue what he meant but mom had us stay inside for a while–a long while, so he could set it up in peace. Then of course, once it was up, it still needed to be filled. I remember thinking, “How big of a deal will that be? Just fill it up!” Like maybe it would take twenty minutes or something. This pool was pretty big–as far as backyard pools went in those days, and it took about a day and a half to fill it with the garden hose. We kids kept running out side to see if it was full yet.

At one point my dad got annoyed and said, “Quit running outside every five minutes. It’ll be full sometime tomorrow.” But my mom said, “Oh, let ’em go. They aren’t hurting anything. They’re just excited.”

It was nearly full the next afternoon and then we learned that there had to be some kind of chlorine solution put in it for 24 hours before humans were suppose to poke a toe in the water. SHEESH!

It was complete and total torture for a 6 year old. Then finally, finally the day came when we got to climb the latter and plop down into our very own swimming pool. I don’t remember ever even getting out again. Suppose I must have. But it felt like all we did that summer was swim…and turn tan…and swim…and get very blond…and keep right on swimming.

One day momma came out and said, “If you don’t get out sometime, you’ll turn into a fish!”

From the looks of this picture–that was fine by me.

More on the magical pool.