Summer Vacation, Day 82: Closet

We bought this house on my recommendation. Jodi was still in Michigan when I put the offer on it, in part because we needed a place to live and I’d been here a month already, living in the the Residence Inn in downtown Minneapolis.

I’d looked at a number of homes, and this was easily my favorite – some of what I wanted, some of what she wanted, three bedrooms, 1-3/4 baths, etc. Jodi saw photos of the place, but never walked around in it until we’d already agreed to buy it. At that point, she walked into the downstairs bedroom, and said, “Huh. There’s no closet.”

Sure enough, there wasn’t. I’d noticed many, many other things, but not that. “Oh, well,” I said. “We can put one in when the kids are older and need it.”

“But without a closet, I don’t think it counts as a bedroom,” she said.

“So? We’ll still use it as one, won’t we?”

In her infinite patience, Jodi neither hit me nor called me a moron. She simply said, “We’re paying for a three-bedroom house, not a two-bedroom house.”

D’oh! To this day, I always warn young men against house-hunting without their brides, and if they must, I warn them to especially note the closets.

Today – five years later – I put shelves and rods up for the boys closet. So tired, but Jode is so happy! Good night, all.

Summer Vacation, Day 81: Trevor’s Malt

We picked Betsy up at the airport this morning, then took the older boys to tai chi, and finally, to lunch at Annie’s Parlor in Dinkytown. Had burgers and fries, of course, except Emma, who had chicken fingers, and Trevor, who ordered a corn-dog. Once we had eaten more than our daily allowance of calories, we ordered two ginormous malts for the table to share. Hot fudge and wild blueberry. So good.

Trevvy wound up with blueberry and insisted upon using his straw, not the spoon. As a result, as he put it, “This ice cream is going down reawwy slow!”

Brendan finished his hot fudge and asked if there was blueberry left. There wasn’t – but I suggested that he might help Trevor finish his. Trevor, however, was showing no signs of letting up – until he decided he needed to use the restroom. I went with him.

When we returned to the table, Trevor took one look at his malt cup and said, “Hey! Who drank some of my malt?”

No one thought he’d notice. Everyone laughed.

Now, Trevor considers Bren his best buddy, and Emma is closest to him in age, so he has made it known that Gabe is his “last favorite.” He scowled, turned his squinty gaze to Gabriel and asked, “Gabe! Why did you drink my malt?”

“I didn’t!” said Gabe, and Brendan roared with laughter. “No, Trevvy – I did it!” he said.

Trevor looked at Bren, then a smile broke across his face. “Is it okay that Brendan had some?” I asked.

“Yeah,” said Trevvy.

Gabe decided to test him further. “Actually, Trevor, it was me!”

The look of anger was instant and unmistakable on Trevor’s face. His buddy Brendan was fine, but not Gabe. Never Gabe. We all laughed again, and Brendan reiterated that he had, in fact, been the culprit.

* * * * *

Trevor finished with what Bren had left him, and he used his straw the entire time. We warned him he wouldn’t be able to get the blueberries out of the bottom of the glass, but he proved us wrong.

We all watched as a great gob of blue traveled slowly up the straw to half-way and stop. “See, Trevvy?” I started to say, but he was focused, his cheek drawing deeply inward.

Suddenly the berry burst loose, upward into his mouth, exploding into a delicious grin.

Summer Vacation, Day 78: On Writing

Blogger’s Note: I’m cheating a bit on this one, because technically it’s taken almost entirely from a comment I left on a post in Jacqui’s Room entitled “A Room of One’s Own.”

I have no space of my own. To get in the mood, I tell the kids I need to write; set up a card table in the bedroom; get Trevor a drink and ask him why he never wants anything to do with me until I need to write; fire up my laptop; ask Jodi if she’ll remind the kids that when Puck barks, it means he wants to come in; pull up a chair; calmly remind the kids I need to write; answer a few emails; write a lame Facebook status update; visit Jacqui’s Room and Hubba’s House (see Friends and Good People, at right) for half an hour; bark at the kids that, although I’ve yet to write anything, I am write-ING, and they need to play downstairs or outside if they are going to be loud; complain to myself that it’s too quiet; build a custom playlist for the day’s fiction; open a beer; and press play. Later I counteract the beer with a cup of green tea or black coffee.

Music is critical. For the kung-fu screenplay, it was indie hip-hop (like current local fave Doomtree) and traditional Chinese music on shuffle. For the fantasy novel, country/folky/bluesy stuff seems to work – She & Him, Neko Case, Carla Bruni (yes, the supermodel first lady of France sings), etc. …

Summer Vacation, Day 77: Quite a Coincidence!

This evening we’re getting our first family photo in ages taken for the church directory (and possible purchase and dissemination). We were talking about how long it had been over supper last night, and it came up that, the last time, four-year-old Trevor was not in the photo. (In fact, he was not yet an agreed-upon eventuality at that moment.)

“Was I still inside Mommy?” asked Trevor.

“Sort of, yeah,” I said.

“When did I get out of Mommy?” he asked.

“June 21, 2004,” said Jodi.

His face broke into a surprised smile. “So when I popped out, it was my birthday?!” he asked.

We all laughed long and loud over this, and Brendan attempted to explain that that’s what a birthday is. It was lost on Trevvy, who could not believe his good fortune, having “popped out” on his birthday.

Jodi laughed loudest, I think – I suspect at the notion that, at 12 pounds, 2 ounces, Trevor “popped” at all!

Summer Vacation, Day 72: Gang’s All Here (Belated)

Been sleeping on the houseboat with the full moon for a night light. Jill and her kids (plus her boxer) came up to the lake, too, and the boys (minus Trevvy) went fishing. Lots of too-small walleye.

Then Brendan finally hooked something. The pole bent double. The drag whined as line was pulled out against the reel’s wishes Dziadzi was ready with the net, and Gabe and Kyle were cheering him on … and it spit the hook. Oof. We all felt terrible, and Dziadzi shouted something it’s best I don’t repeat here.

Brendan took it in stride. He imagines a massive fish and tells a good story. Dziadzi tells him his great-grandpa caught few fish, but always caught the biggest. He sees himself in that light.

Gabe suspects the fish was “Old Mocker” – the fish who’s been jumping on all sides of the houseboat this entire trip. Gabe imagines a wise and clever fish who, like Moby Dick, can show up in one place and then somewhere else entirely nearly simultaneously.

He called the fish “Old Mocker,” of course, because it continued to mock us each time we set out …