From The Archives: SIX!

I guess if I'm going to finish my summer blogs and write about Emerson's seventh birthday, I should probably share something from her sixth.  To be honest, it's a bit deceiving to label this blog "from the archives" when the only thing in the archival blog were photos. No words. 

There were the before photos, when everything was normal:

And the after photos, when everything was...well...not.  But we'll get to those in a minute.  First I want to think about all the things I remember about Emerson's party. 

It was hot.  SO HOT.  In the high 90's with humidity near 100%.  We had central air on in the house, but it couldn't keep up with all the people inside.

Almost everyone Emerson invited came, the house and yard were full of girls (and a few boys).

All the kids tie-dyed t-shirts (with sharpies and alcohol, not the traditional way) and ran in the sprinkler and beat up a pinata.

The food was good, the beer was cold and despite the number of kids present, everyone got a piece of the rainbow or the flower, or whatever frosting design they wanted.

The kids had fun, the parents had fun, and most important, Emerson had fun.

It was a wonderful day.  It was also the last day I would spend with my father on this earth.

It's not unusual, I know, to immediately feel regret when someone close to you dies--I should have, I could have...--and my experience is no different.  I had been thinking about calling him, and his girlfriend, for a couple of days after Emerson's party to thank them for the tremendous amount of help and effort they put in to  make it such a wonderful day for her.  Despite the heat, my father was--true to form--running all over the place, setting up, cleaning up, finding kids bathing suits, taking photos, taking a whack at the pinata... But in all of this activity, I have not a single photo of him.  In all the chaos of the party, he was always in the background somewhere.  Before he left, he spent about a half and hour trying to get Emerson's undivided attention for just a minute so that he could give her his birthday card, but she was so enraptured with her friends and the running and the screaming and the sugar that it never happened.  He left the card for her to open later, thinking he would see her again in one short week. (We had planned a family vacation with all the grandchildren for the coming week--a vacation my father never saw).

Yes, I should have called him.  I should have spent more time with him at the party.  I should have made Emerson stop for a minute to open the card from her beloved Poppi.  Come to think of it, I should have called more, spent more time with, and stopped for a minute my entire life, when I was so enraptured with my friends, and the running, and the screaming, and the sugar, and my father was offstage, in the background, quietly making sure everything was taken care of.

And that's the thing about my dad: he wouldn't want me regretting.  Wherever he is, I know he doesn't care that I didn't call him to say thank you, and he understands that I was too busy to spend time with him at my daughter's birthday party.  I know that he wanted to see Emerson's expression when she opened his birthday card, but I know that what he wanted even more was for Emerson to have a good time with her friends.  My father was the most unconditionally giving, caring, and understanding person in my life, and the only thing I regret is that he has to miss the pure joy it gave him to spend time with his grandchildren, and that they will never truly know what a wonderful person was taken from them.

Emerson did open the card after he left.  It had a picture of a piece of cheese on the front with googly eyes, and when she opened it (which she did, about a hundred times) it sang a song: "if you're happy it's your birthday just say cheese!"  It was a typical card from my dad, and Emerson loved it.  She and her friend danced around for the better part of an hour singing "If you're happy it's your birthday stinky cheese!"  In fact, they still remembered it and sang it this year.  Kids...

And then there are the after photos:

True to my father's character, he died the day before Emerson's birthday.  He never would have wanted anything to stand in the way of or taint her special day in any way.  I came home the day of her birthday, after spending three days in the hospital, and that night we did just what Emerson had planned to do for her birthday - "walk around town."  Actually, she wanted to go out for sushi and then walk around town, but she settled easily for hot dogs at home, because she's easy like that.  So we went out into the hot summer night, and took in the sights and sounds of "town."  There just happened to be a side-walk sale, so the streets were even more alive than usual.  It was a lovely night for a lovely girl, who--come to think of it--also spends a lot of time, graciously, in the background.  But that night, with Poppi looking over her, she was a shining star.

Summer Memories: June at Assateague Island

What I love about camping doesn't change much over time, and this year was no exception, but this year's camping trip did have a twist: we camped on the beach.  We've camped near the beach before, but this right on the ocean business...this was new.

One thing I failed to mention in my camping blog from last year was that we (knock on wood) have had extraordinary good luck on our camping adventures.  Our first time camping as a family, Ophelia was around eight months old and we went for two weeks to Acadia National Park in Maine and Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia.  We packed the car as tight as we could--no minivan, no roof rack--and drove a hell of a long way with our children buried in a midst of bags and bins (our longest leg was from Cape Breton Island to Vermont...20 hours), but nowhere in our stash did we have anything in the way of rain protection, and for all we knew it could have rained the entire time...

but it didn't.  Not only did it not rain, but the weather was so incredibly hot and sunny that the two-thousand-degrees-below-zero water in Maine actually felt good.  And not only did it not rain the entire week we were there, but the day after we were scheduled to leave, a hurricane hit.  In fact, some very sad things happened the day after we left Acadia...but by that time, we were all cozied up at a hotel in central Nova Scotia (our reservations just happened to coincide with the timing of the hurricane) and were camping again in Cape Breton two days later--as planned.  After another week of sun and sand, we headed home again--dry and tan.

Our next camping trip was to Lake George in New York, and although we had commented on last year's luck for an entire year, we never actually got around to readying ourselves for bad weather.  Once again we set out with a full car and some hope, and once again, hope delivered.  Although this time it was in the form of timing and good neighbors, because it poured.  Let me rephrase that--it POURED...for hours.  But only at night, when we were either sleeping in our tent (I awoke one night to one of the loudest and closest electrical storms I've ever experienced) or over enjoying cocktails with our great neighbors, who were both fun and prepared.

Last year's trip we couldn't press our luck anymore, so we brought a tarp--just a tarp--that gave us a dry outdoor eating, playing, reading area when it rained.  Which it did. A lot.

But this year...oh this year...

We spent our first night on the bay side of the island and were amazed at the beauty of our campsite there.  It was huge, beautiful, and private.

It did have its drawbacks, however.  All that lovely grass in the foreground was pocked with some sort of prickly cactus, and there were also some uninvited dinner guests...

The "wild ponies" (feral, really) were nice to look at from afar, but a little unnerving at the picnic table.  (And believe me, this one really cozied up to us.)

After dinner, we walked to the the beach to check out our campsite for the rest of the week--as close to the ocean as we could get.  After about ten minutes of ear-splitting winds, we turned around, happy to be heading back to our bay side camp.  We commented to a woman on our way back and her reply was "lucky for some wind...it keeps the bugs away."  Bugs, schmugs.  Bugs we're used to.  Rain--we're ready.  Bizarre acting flora and fauna--bring it on.  But wind...wind was something new. 

And new can be scary.  There was actually a fleeting moment the next morning when we considered staying in our comfort zone and saying "screw-it" to what--on the campground map months earlier--seemed like our dream camping spot.  It only took a few sharp thorns and a herd of horses waking up and heading our way to snap us out of it, however.  And really, what were we thinking?

We struggled getting our tent up in strong winds, and we slept with then walls blowing against us, but it was the ocean.  It's what we came here for. 

And sure enough, after a day, the wind died down, and all we were left with was soft sand to sleep on, sun to keep us warm, and the sound of the waves to rock us to sleep.  Oh, and the horses, which were much nicer to behold as they walked the beach along the fence line that separated us (and our food) from them.

We spent all day everyday right where we were--swimming, digging, eating, drinking, sitting by the fire in the evening eating smores.  The wind stopped blowing.  The sun kept shining, and it kept getting warmer and warmer...

and warmer and warmer and warmer, until we didn't need fleeces when we took our evening walks on the beach, and we didn't need to wear warm clothes to bed, or anything really.  In fact, we found ourselves sleeping on top of our sleeping bags, and wait a minute...are the backs of my legs sunburned?  Suddenly, we found ourselves camping in the middle of a record-breaking heat wave, and yes, the backs of my legs were sunburned, and so were my husband's shoulders...and arms...and head...and back...and did we have any shade?  Uh...no.

Being on the ocean (in the ocean, really) did offer some respite from the heat, and if we had had some shading device (we did bring our trusty tarp from last year, but, um...well...let's just say there weren't really very  many trees from which to hang it) we probably could have made it through our last day in bliss.  But alas, two sunburned (read: stupid) parents cannot last the whole day, or any part of it, on the beach on a sunny day.

We tried spending some time inside our tent, but it hadn't even been a half-hour before we felt like we were inside a furnace.  What to do?

I don't know what you would do, but we hit the town, found the most out-of-the-sun basement eatery that dumps blue crab all over your table, and planted ourselves there for a few hours.  Maybe more than a few. 

And that was it.  Our camera broke the last night of our camping trip, right in the middle of taking this picture, so our future travels to visit friends in Maryland and D.C. went undocumented, but they were fun too.

 

Fun which included food poisoning, and a sweltering day trudging around DC, but fun all the same.  Come to think of it, I think our camera broke on our Lake George trip too, and maybe there were some other things...

 

So maybe it isn't really luck that follows us as we traipse around the country, but the ability to laugh at ourselves. Either way, I'll take it.