... it's been a long time coming....

... so, where have you been? Not busting down the door of my in box asking why there were no new posts on this blog, that's for sure. But you're busy, I know, I get it. So it's ok.

And where have I been? Uh... busy? Apparently there are times when I'm too busy picking up the pieces of abandoned toys to write about picking up the pieces.

We've actually had a lot of stuff happen that, in the moment, seemed like perfect blogging material:

• a trip to Maui to visit my mother, sister and nephew (which started with an emergency appointment to the doctor on the morning of our flight because L, who'd been fighting a cold for 2 weeks, suddenly mentioned that her ear was bothering her -hmm... ear infection, 0-30,000-0 feet in just over 5 hours? better get thee to the physician!)
• K's first outrigger race
• a "date day" courtesy of M's brother and sister-in-law and nephews during which M and I got to try and talk to one another.
  
  This went fine, after the initial panic about what we might find to talk about. We did yard work together (ah, how romantic!) and walked to the Junction to eat at Easy Street Records (your local record store doesn't serve brunch? you don't have a local record store? tally one for West Seattle!), we did a dog walk, we ate brie and drank champagne...
  

But none of this has made it further than partially written posts in my brain, which means I'll likely lose them before you ever see them.

Which is all a long and rambling introduction to this, a fully compostable blog post, made from a recycled message I sent M earlier this morning.

I was in charge of getting the girls off to school/daycare, and if that doesn't deserve a post, I'm not sure what does. By the way, I had to do this because M went into work early because we're going to a baseball game, just the 2 of us, as an anniversary present from our neighbors. How cool is that? (Oh shit, now what am I going to talk to M about?!?)

email:

Hey my love,

got the girls off this morning. K was the mom, L was the sister, and I was the brother (and our older sister was already at school - I think that might have been you, but I didn't press for details). As long as I played along, things went fairly smoothly. "Playing along" meant stuff like saying "Sister, do you want more pineapple before I got upstairs to take a shower?" and "Mother, could you come up and change for 'work' while I'm in the shower?" and "Mother and sister, I'm going up to take a shower."

Then I went upstairs to take a shower. And mid-way through, post-shampoo but pre-soap, there were tears being had by my sister (L), for no discernible reason because water had spilled on her dress. (The water was visible, barely, if I turned examined the dress at the proper angle in the light.) With the shower running I tried to convince my 'sister' that the water would dry, while simultaneously trying to convince my 'mother' that she needed to get dressed for 'work.' And I kept stumbling on the sister/daughter thing until I found myself asking K "are you still the mother?" just like L sometimes will ask "K are you still a horse?" as a way to determine if a game has ended or not, and when she said "no" I became the dad again.

L was in the midst of tearing off her dress ("I'm can't wear this any more!!!"), K was busy stalling to avoid getting dressed for school, and I was half-washed. I told L we could find another dress, told K to get dressed, and rinsed.

By the time I got out of the shower, L had found an alternate dress - she wanted to wear K's flower dress (the one you bought at Old Navy on Maui I think) but K said "no" so there were more tears and an inconsolable L until I suggested we use the hair dryer on her "wet" dress. ("Will it dwy?" "Yup, it'll dry." "Oh, ok!") And it was ok. At least for a moment.

All there was left was to prod K to dress. The jeans didn't work for her. (Thank you for pulling out the backup pair!) Then next door to drop K, and I kept thinking about being more neighborly and I'm holding L and listening to a description about car trouble, wishing I could go back and get my coffee and finally I kissed K and I retreated with L and in the bathroom I pointed the hair dryer at her while she covered her ears and she giggled as it blew warm air and waved her hair and she asked me to turn it off and everything was fine with her dress once more and then I got the dogs outside to pee (w/ L's help: "She not going to pee.... she going to pee!!! She not peeing!!!!! She peeing!! Dada, Cay-thee peeing!!!!") and back inside and somehow got L into the car with her stwawbewy Os and we had a nice drive down to Miss R's with L making loud chewing sounds ("Lithen to thith twemendouth loud cwunch!" "Wow, tremendous." "Now lithen to this one!!"). And I was fine because I'd already decided I wasn't going to make the 8.45 boat. And I didn't. So I stood down at the dock and read my book until 9.15.

And I hope you have a grand day. I'm looking forward to spending the evening in your company.

xxox
p