Marshall and Debbie

These are our friends Marshall and Debbie:

We met them years ago, camping near eachother at a state park in Florida, and we immediately became fast friends. Maybe it was because we all enthusiastically partook in the bottles of wine that appeared? Maybe it was because none of us were senior citizens? Maybe it was because we were all cool and had a great time? Who knows? We've been pals ever since.

Marshall and Debbie moved to St. Augustine from Key West several years ago, and they work at this bar.

Cool, isn't it?

We hightailed it right to that bar the moment we arrived in St. Augustine, and there they were, our long-lost lovely friends, right where we left them.

We met some of their lovely friends, too.

We stayed for sunset . . .

. . . and admired that iconic St. Augustine lighthouse in the distance.

One good thing about states where you can still smoke in the bars?

Mistah can get shots like these . . .

Anyway, we made our way back to their house . . .

. . . and had a dance party.

Of course we did.

And we cooked dinner. Both nights. These guys like to cook dinner as much as we I do. We combined our resources . . .

. . . and in the course of prepping, chopping and sauteing wildly . . .

. . . and looking good doing it . . .

. . . really, spectacularly good . . .

. . . we made a kick-ass dinner. Two kick-ass dinners.

Debbie and Marshall have a cat that's a crack cucumber addict and they both spend a lot of time feeding the kitty her junk.

Mistah Schleckah, our intrepid photographer, dazzled us all with his layered look.

Marshall was especially impressed. But Mistah called Marshall his guru, so I guess they're even.

And then? Before we knew it? We had to say goodbye. Marshall and Debbie were off to work, back to the bar where it all started.

I never once changed my clothes in the 3 days we were there so actually, in my mind, I never left the place where we all started . . .

Marshall and Debbie. Our grand and glorious friends.

We miss you guys.

phoning it in

Ah, peeps. I had lovely intentions.

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I knew I'd be hard pressed for time to get a post up for Tuesday knowing that we would have a very long and full day on Monday, and that we'd need to be up and out early this morning.

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I figured I'd throw out a few choice photos from our weekend getaway, and call it a day.

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However, I am unable to locate my camera cord, and I have no earthly idea of where to begin searching, and the floor is all wobbly and I'm so addled by food and drink and family love, I can hardly think straight.

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So I'm sorry, but all I've got are the three photos that I took with my phone during the first five minutes that we were aboard the beautiful, funny, alternate universe of the Carnival Elation. Three photos that have already been shared with anyone who would listen on facebook. Ah, well.

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The best thing about a local cruise vacation is that within minutes of leaving your driveway, you step on to the Lido deck, complete with steel drum band, abundant sunshine, and happy peeps milling all about.

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I just had to have a photo of this sign, which captured our mood perfectly. I like the editorial addition I offered by sticking my head in front of the punchline.

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it says "blenders"

Mom and I were more than happy to oblige, but we left the blending to others and simply enjoyed the results.

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The kids had their vices, too, which I expertly captured despite the glare that made me shoot this photo blind:

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24 hour self-serve ice cream. Enjoyed at regular intervals throughout the cruise, from this first moment all the way through to breakfast on the last day.

A weekend cruise to Baja with my parents, my husband, and my kids. Great weather, great times, one earthquake.

I can't wait to share the stories, and the photos!

Monday moaning: clothesline

Two things.

First, why do clothing manufacturers think there are no 9 year olds? It astounds me. My 8.5 year old is my oldest, so maybe parents of older children already know some work around for this phenomena, but for me, the secret of the no-size-9 is completely puzzling.

I cannot find a swim suit to fit my daughter.

Admittedly, I shop for girls swimsuits primarily at Target, but this is not a Target-only issue. I’ve shopped Old Navy and other stores online and it just does not exist. You’ve got your 7-8s and your 10 -12s, or sometimes the gap is narrowed, and you’ve got your 7-8s and your 10-11s. But where the hell is the size 9?????

I know the 7-8 is too small -- her cute little booty hangs right out. But the 10-12 leaves big gaps everywhere it shouldn’t. Is my job really to decide between the obscenely too small and the obscenely too big?

Where is the 9 year old love?

Second thing. Why, when you by a new pair of jeans, do they put the size sticker (you know, the clear one with the size repeated 8 times vertically) down the middle of the back of the leg? Yes, they are helpful when you are shopping, if they happen to be displayed horizontally, on a shelved rack, but they rarely are. If they’re not, if they’re displayed on the usual circular rack, the transparent sticker is completely unnecessary overkill. You’ve already looked at the top of the jeans that clearly advertise the size and price tag, you have no use for the back-leg sticker.

So little use, in fact. that you often even forget it’s even there. Case in point, I wore some new jeans to work a few weeks ago. I arrived about 7:45 am, and jetted out about 1:00 pm for some lunch. I ordered ahead, like always, and when picking up the order in the express line, I had some kind soul tap me on the shoulder to tell me the (god damn) back-leg vertical size sticker was still affixed to the pant leg of my jeans. (Yes, I'd only been at work for 5 hours!). Not only that, as embarrassing as it was, but I’d bought three new pair of jeans that shopping trip, with each displaying a different size, in increasing size order. Doesn’t it just figure that the biggest of that number was the one I was unknowingly advertising?

Weekend 3-way: Do it yourself

I'm not handy. I have no problem admitting this. I'm good at lots of things, but household repairs simply do not make this list.

Consequently, my home tends to have little "projects" in need of doing. My husband is pretty handy -- I mean, he fixed the front door latch with a baby pacifier, which is nothing if not resourceful. But when you're not willing able to fix things yourself, you can only ask someone else to do it a time or two. Asking more than that is downright obnoxious.

Which means that there are things in my house that drive me crazy, because I don't do and have stopped asking.

I'm betting that you have an item (or two) like this of your very own.

So what is it that drives you most crazy? Is it a broken shelf, a cracked driveway, a leaky sink, your neighbor's yapping dog?

Beth:
Every time I walk into the master bath, it's hard not to notice this:

I always feel like a member of the Clampett family when I see it. There's just something so trailer park about it, isn't there?

Jacquie:
This corner:

That counter top had a teutonic shift nearly from the moment it was installed, and all sort of crap gets stuck in there. Also, the grout where the counter meets the backsplash is cracked. I look at it every morning and grumble.

Ellie:
Well, I'll tell you one thing that doesn't drive me crazy.

I got home from work yesterday (I know, I know, "work" is a relative term for my job) and immediately poured myself a giant lovely icey glass of charrrrbonay and said to Mistah, "I only wish I put pretzels on your shopping list; I'm craving rods." Mistah said, "Did you look on the shelf?" I hadn't. Then I did. And this is what I saw:

It was full when Mistah brought it home. We did have our friends Dorothy and Jim over for a couple of hours, but I did my square fair share. And am all the better for it.

What bugs me about my house though? What's the anti-giant-bucket-of-pretzels for me??? Well, what bugs me the most I can't show you. It's too embarrassing. Two years after moving into this house we're still without dressers or bureaus or armoires or even hooks in our clothes room. It's a disaster. I have eyes only for my pile of clothes when I walk in and hope the rest goes away. La la la la la.

But what I can show you, and what I can tackle, is this:

Spring project, baby. I smell a blog post.

The Lap of Luxury

A six-week road trip to Florida is not all work and effort and camping, you know.

Take for instance a random Monday last month. We packed up the Westy . . .

. . . and we hit the highway heading north . . .

. . . and crossed that iconic, wildly cool Sunshine Skyway bridge . . .

(The Sunshine Skyway even has its own fishing pier for its citizens.)

. . . and crossed Tampa Bay to find ourselves on the West Coast of Florida, in St. Petersburg, for the first time ever. Where the one and only Pat -- also know as Beth's Mom -- was there to greet us, right into the Lap of Luxury.

Beth's mom Pat just got a brand spanking new knee put into her body, to replace her old spanking knee. But did that stop her from inviting us into her home?

No. No it did not. Pat's friend Ariel was there, too, taking care of her girl . . .

Not every community in southwest Florida is entirely friendly and accepting . . .

. . . but Pat's is. And Pat made us feel right at home. I felt right at home in Pat's hot tub.

Pat's condo is lovely, and it's a really fun place to play Late Night Fun With Self-Portrait Photography.

And in the morning? Well, Pat let us borrow her car.

This car.

This Audi convertible fast cool awesome car.

I spoke to Pat on the phone during our day out and about and said to her, "It's so fast! We're not speeding or anything but it's just so different from our 1987 VW Westy. It's got so much more pick-up!" Pat replied, "Ya think?"

She also sent us off with 2 hand-drawn maps. This one is of all the cool beach bars in St. Pete Beach. For us to visit in her awesome car. Pat rocks.

So we drove to St. Petersburg, which is a cool, retro, happening town . . .

. . . and then we headed West . . .

. . . toward St. Pete Beach. Hey, Pat told us to!

Ah, the Don Caesar. Puts me in the mind of Coral Gables' Biltmore. I need to explore the Don Caesar more thoroughly . . .

. . . next time. This time was all about the beach bars, a la Pat, although it was freezing that day. In fact, it was so freezing, and we did have that sweet car, so we only stopped at one beach bar . . .

. . . the fabulous PCI -- at the newly-revamped Postcard Inn.

Mistah and I feel strongly that the next family vacation should take place here.

It is nothing but pure awesome, and would be a great place for a family of 22 or so to have some serious-ass fun for a week.

It's all just been re-vamped, much like Beth's recent Desert Ho experience,

. . . and had a big write up in January's Travel + Leisure. Our friend Renee told us we had to pilot this restaurant for her -- she says things like, "Pilot this place for me"; she's very hip. She said she'd heard the bar's "a sandwich and burger king of joint, with a quality twist." T&L chimed in, "it's an easygoing beach hotel with a bohemian edge."

They're both right.

Next we went to Pass-A-Grille. Pass-A-Grill! I thought the fact that St. Pete Beach is not short for St. Petersburg Beach, but is actually called St. Pete Beach was cool. Then I discovered there's a place called Pass-A-Grill. Sorry, but that wins.

We stopped at The Wharf (on Pat's beach bar map, thank you very much) . . .

. . . and hung out on the back deck . . .

. . . and checked out the cool lighting . . .

. . . and checked our northeastern sensibilities which said, "Where's the railing?! Someone could fall in the drink!"

We got over it, though. Well, I did. Mistah Safety always worries.

See? See how he worries?

After a great time out on the town, we made our way back to Pat's where we cooked in her kitchen and drank her tequila, and drank her coffee in the morning, and slept in our own bed wing and absolutely luxuriated in the lap of Pat's luxury.

Pat? We're on our way back.

nature

Within moments of the start of spring break, my children started in with the: “what are we gonna doooooo today?” On the first Saturday morning, despite the fact that we had been out to dinner the night before and had really fun plans for that evening, the question was begged. I made a few suggestions, offered a few options for nearby outings I was willing to undertake. The one that seemed the least offensive to my spoiled, media brainwashed appreciative offspring was a scooter jaunt, but they wanted to go somewhere new, somewhere we’d never gone before. Hmm. Okay, well we’ve lived here for nine years, but I was willing to go along with the fantasy that there was some secret avenue within scooting distance that we had yet to discover.

We set off, and I let the kids direct our turns and tried to keep up without a scooter of my own. They would inevitably turn back at the end of each street, chagrined to report that the hopeful corner actually led back to our street. Funny how blocks work that way. They were losing hope.

I remembered that there was a cul de sac a couple of blocks up that was big and kind of tilty, and might provide some scooterific fun for the delicate young royalty. We headed over.

When we got there, the kids informed me that they had been here before, with Daddy, and he had promised that next time they came, they could go explore the canyon! Yay!

Shit. Okay, I was not prepared for a canyon hike, I was in flip flops and my girl was in Uggs. I carried nothing but a hardcover library book and a can of seltzer. We had no sunscreen; and we had the scooters, for the luvva!

But what were the odds that we would actually find a place we’d never been before, right in our own backyard? And it was really pretty and inviting.

There was a bit of a trail, which I suspected would run along the backyards for a block or two before looping back up to the street, so we brought the scooters along. Yay!

It was a great feeling to traipse along that pretty path, I thought about Richard Louv’s work and my sister Julie’s affinity for trail hiking and exploring nature with her kids. I planned a better day for exploring this canyon when we would be a little more prepared, this canyon was huge, we could make a whole day of it! We could use a compass and carry canteens. Yay!

As we walked, the trail split and half of it went down into the lush, green canyon toward the top of big palms. It looked very tropical and welcoming and adventurous. We had to check it out. My girl was ahead and my boy in the middle, I brought up the rear.

Suddenly my girl stopped and exclaimed: “Ew! Look at those clothes!” She had come across a pile of clothing and was, of course, horrified at the possiblity that there was a naked person nearby.

My brain: redflag alert alert chelsea redflag murderers amber ohmygod alert summer redflag danielle alert holyshitgetusthefuckoutofhere

My mouth: “hey guys, let’s head back up this way!”

And there it is. The death of exploration.

I know that we can’t live in fear, and we can’t assume that our kids are safer at the asphalt playground than deep in our neighborhood canyon. How can we parents possibly survive in this world where monsters prowl? How do we let them out of our sight, or take them to explore nature, or celebrate their independence when the vision of a mother’s raw devastation haunts our memory?

I know, I know, I know, I know. We just do. We pray and we plead and we hope and we trust. We do what we can to help our kids find the way to be smart yet free, careful yet spontaneous, safe yet brave. And we try to slay the monsters.

Yay.