Cherries, Heat, and Missing Bits

Yesterday was another annual ritual - picking cherries from Bev's remarkably prolific little tree. It was a scorching hot day, but nice in the shade of her yard. We picked cherries, ate, cooled our feet (and the dog) in her metal tub (a repurposed cattle trough that she keeps cool water in for humans - not to drink!), picked more cherries. Now today I need to pull out the industrial pitter and prep about 6 pounds to freeze. The kids are singing the pie song. (All together now, "Pie pie pie. I like pie." Repeat. Repeat. Repeat... ) Anais was here visiting with her daughters, who like cherries too - a good thing! Today Reed and Vivian pitted enough cherries for our first pie of the season - with home made cherry ice cream! Read it and be jealous!

Some things I missed telling

On the weekend of May 30 I went up to Seattle with my mom. We stayed at the house of some very dear old friends, Pien and Tom, and celebrated the wedding of their son David.
It was marvelous to be up there - all of us who stayed in the house, as well as the bride's family and others, helped to cook, and prep, and cook, and prep, and had a great time hanging out together doing it. We told stories, and laughed a lot, and learned a few recipes. Pien has always been one of my heroes (what little girl wouldn't admire a vivacious, funny, pretty woman who tells it like it is and swears like a sailor?) and it was really nice to be able to be there and be part of such an important event.

Pien had a funny story about me that I didn't know. (I'm going to censor it slightly, but only because this is the internet.) When I was 4 and Bryan was 8, Pien and Tom babysat us one day. We went hiking, and it was really really hot. So when we got to a nice cold river, we all went skinny dipping to cool off. Apparently I checked Tom out thoroughly, and solemnly told him, "My father's _____ is MUCH bigger than yours!" Pien said the funniest part was that Tom didn't mind, but SHE got defensive and started to explain about cold rivers and male anatomy to me, before realizing that I was just 4 years old and it REALLY didn't matter!


Another trip I took this month was the 4th grade overnight field trip to the Gold Country. I say you haven't lived until you've spent 4 hours on a bus while 15 4th graders sing The Bazooka Gum Song, and the other 15 sing Wimoweh, very loudly. But a good time was had by all! Well, all but the parents foolish enough to sit in the back of the bus. We went to Malakoff Diggins State Park - saw the devastation that's still there, all these years later, from the hydraulic mining. It looks like the cliffs of Abiquiu in New Mexico - strange orange and white eroded shapes. We camped out, then the next day took a tour of a hard rock mine. It was really cool and, though I have to admit I was dreading it just a tad, I had a really good time.

Plus there's been live theatre - my mom took me, Carson & Reed to see The Wizard of Oz at the Mountain Play - it was very well done - they added some humor that helped a lot. Plus, the play is always a little unique because of the concessions they have to make on account of being on the side of a mountain, in a stone amphitheatre. For example, Glinda the Good Witch arrived from the sky by cherry picker, and the bad witch flew by in an airplane towing a "surrender Dorothy" banner (at least, we assumed it was her!) It was hot, but we survived, and the kids really had fun. Then, just this week, my mom and I went to see Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris - it was marvelously done. So I'm not feeling as totally uncultured as I usually do.
Add to that houseguests (I love guests -but so few are brave enough to stay in the House O' Bedlam) and cherries and I'm a happy camper!

Festivalities

Today was one of my favorite "gosh I love my hometown" events of the year: the Fairfax Festival & Parade. If you live in Fairfax and are involved in the local community in any way, chances are you'll get invited - perhaps by more than one group - to be in the parade, and it's worth it. In the 10 years since we bought our house and got involved at the grade school, I haven't actually seen the parade once. But it's always fun to be in it, and this year I actually got to see about the second half by heading back once we were done and sitting with Geoff et al. (As a bonus, we actually saw Will for the first time in a few days - it being summer vacation and his girlfriend being home from her semester away at art school, he hasn't really shown his face around here much.)


So what is it that I love so much about it? For one thing, it's totally home-grown. There are tons of kids in it, many on bikes, scooters, skates. There are people in it that I'm fairly sure never actually signed up anywhere, but just joined in anyhow, sometimes planned and in costume, sometimes just apparently ambling along with a friend they saw. There are big floats - this year we had a volcano, a castle, a baby whale, and the earth - but they're generally funky, and there's more tie-dye than you can shake a stick at. There are also boy scouts, and Native Sons of the Golden West with a giant flag, but there's definitely a pretty overwhelmingly earthy feel to it.


This year we weren't with the preschool (for the first time in many years), but Carson (first photo, blue shirt and Cooper's Hawk mask) went with his teacher and some of his classmates in endangered species masks/costumes, accompanying the aforementioned baby whale. Reed rode his bike in the Safe Routes to Schools group, and I walked with them.

I had fun in a chauffeur costume with 7 other moms, all of us carrying signs that said things like, "Moms are not taxi drivers" and "Walk to School". Luckily there was some fog hanging out over the ocean so the air wasn't too toasty, as I was in a black wool jacket I'd borrowed from Geoff. (Geoff said we were pretty funny, as we'd all obviously borrowed our husband's jackets and it made us look like big kids.)

My favorite group in the parade was the dancing/marching green bins from the local garbage company - they had a whole routine worked out, using the lids as percussion - it was great. But then, the stiltwalkers dressed as red airplanes protesting the spray (the state wants to spray against a moth) were pretty good, as was the man dragging a year's worth of plastic garbage for one person (scary!), the Indiana Jones/African Queen group (okay, so they were a little confused but still, they built a boat AND a volcano), the synchronized Karate students, the Bubble Man, the drummers, and so many more.

After the parade, Carson, Reed and I went to the kids area where we helped to sell chocolates for Carson's teacher and they got to see a pretty cool magic show. A short visit to the creek so they could get their shoes wet, some father's day shopping at the booths, and around 3 we hopped on our bikes to head home. Tired, dusty, and ready to hit the pool, but we had a great time.