Things I Did This Summer Instead of Blogging -- in random order because I've lost track of my head

OK, so I had quite the event-filled summer with the family.  Much (though not all) of it was even fun.  Some lousy stuff happened, too -- and between the happy and the crappy, I was hoppin' all summer.  Hoppin' -- but not bloggin'.

And the whole summer really has gotten all jumbled up in my head, so I"ll just ramble.  Try to keep up.

1.  (Or maybe 4.)  The tall boy's freaking lung collapsed.  Again.  So once again he and I made the familiar jaunt to the Emergency Department of the good old Virginia Hospital Center, where once again he was admitted and scheduled for surgery.  This time the procedure (called a pleurodesis) was a little more dramatic, but all went well.

After five days of quality time with a chest tube and a morphine pump, the tall boy was released into his family's capable hands.  Facebook friends already know that the Tall Boy Care Team consisted of the girl in charge (very bossy, so perfect for ensuring that the grueling walks around the happy little cul-de-sac took place as ordered); the sunny girl (a total night owl, so she was a companion on those long and sleepless nights when he couldn't get comfortable, so they watched zombie movies until 4:00 in the morning); and HER (she was a little frantic with worry all the way up in Boston, so she came back for the fall semester of school a few days early, so she could lay eyes on the tall boy, and help us get him moved into his dorm room).

The tall boy's current status is: shockingly good!  He has begun the fall semester at Catholic University, and although he's still moving slowly and is not yet quite up for a game of Frisbee, he's better and stronger every day!

2. (Or is it 7?) I told you about the awesome family vacation in lovely Nag's Head, North Carolina, back in June -- and I introduced you to the fabulous small boys (so stinkin' cute!).

But as is our family tradition, we also had a little car drama while we were at the beach.  And can I just say that I am all for tradition (I even know the words to the song!), but this particular family tradition blows.  This car crunch didn't even look that tragic from the outside of the car.  It did suck though -- trust me! SHE and the tall boy had gone on a Sonic run (their good deed for the day) and were t-boned at an intersection.  A vision I wish was not in my head is the sight of an ambulance and a stretcher, with my tall boy's tall legs dangling off the end.  Dreadful.

The crappy news is that my beautiful car -- purchased to replace the P.O.S. minivan that was stolen on a previous beach trip, if you can stand the irony -- was totaled.  The good news is that the tall boy and his lovely girlfriend came away relatively unscathed.

3.  ( Or perhaps 2.)  The girl in charge turned eighteen, y'all. 

Look how pretty and grown-up she is!  Aack!  My heart can't take much more of this.

* * * * *

OK, so a whole lot of other stuff happened this summer, but I've worn myself out re-living the traumatic shit.  So -- coming up in future posts: 

• The un-family reunion -- as fabulous as ever!
• The girl in charge goes to college!
• My sunny girl is a hipster.
• Moms' Week at the Beach should be a federally-enforced mandate:  

  "NO MOMS LEFT AT HOME!"

Yes, I'm back from the beach -- but I'm not happy about it.

So I went to the beach for two weeks in July, and I have spent the first part of August moping that I'm not still there.

The generous and loving husband sent me for a week with my besties (no dudes allowed).  Then he and the girl urchins met me, and we stayed for our cherished week with the beloved un-family.

Coming home from the beach means it's time to start getting ready for school.  Blecch.

Let's go back to the beach!

Introducing . . . the small boys!

 So we spent last week at the beach in wonderful Nag's Head, North Carolina.  This annual family get-together is a trip we look forward to for the entire year.  Sometimes we have a full contingent of cousins, aunts, grandfathers, uncles and grandmothers.  Other times a cousin or two has work obligations; last year the tall boy was unable to make the trip, but we were happy that the not-so-tall boy (the soldier's West Point pal) was able to take his place.  This year, although my sister's three oldest urchins all had obligations that kept them away, we were thrilled that SHE was able to be part of our shenanigans for at least part of the week.  Uncle Doctor does his best to stay out of the on-call rotation so he can join us (the nerve of some women!  Daring to go into labor while Uncle Doctor is trying to log jet ski hours!).  My fairy god-sister is always up for a week at the beach, and so are Carolyn and her husband the preacher.

And this year, the newest cousins joined us!  You've met the tall boys -- so now:  meet the small boys!  These pumpkin pies are my sister's new sons!  She and the preacher are in the process of adopting them, and how swell is that?!

 

 

Lucky small boys!  Lucky mom and dad!  Lucky family!

God is good!

Snapshot: Who knew waves could beat the crap out of a girl?

So we spent a great day on the beach today, because there's a hurricane coming. OK, so maybe she's not a hurricane any more but she still has quite the temper.

Sounds weird, doesn't it? But it's true -- the fresh breeze and the rough surf (perfect for boogie-boarding and body-surfing) made for a perfect day of sun, sand, and water -- all courtesy of Tropical Storm Emily. Please note the girl in charge, who realized too late that this was the kind of ocean that makes a girl hold on to her two-piece.

Get the adoption papers ready . . . .

So here we are in beautiful Sandbridge, Virginia, spending another week with our beloved un-family. The tall boy is feeling pretty lucky because the Department of Justice released him from his cubicle for a little while. We're feeling pretty lucky to have him with us too -- we missed him while we were in Nag's Head in June!

I know it's Thursday already, and I kept meaning to tell you something pithy and meaningful every day about how much fun we're having, and how delicious the food has been, and how much I love spending time with these people. But seriously -- every time I considered whether to sit down and write, or lie back down on the sofa or beach chair or recliner or bed and read another hundred pages, guess which one I did? I could lie to you and say I was out there boogie-boarding or kayaking or going for an early morning bike ride -- but no.

And I'm telling you -- pretty soon I will have to stop calling them my un-family; I am considering all kinds of nefarious plots to get myself officially related to them. Most of these involve legal adoption or arranged marriage (sorry, tall boy -- you just thought you were in charge of your own destiny), so give me some time.

Check out our week:

The girl in charge and I picked the sunny girl up at camp on our way to the beach. While we were traveling it became necessary to try on Princess Kate hats.

Angel girl . . . .

Taboo seems to be the chosen game of the week . . . .

Not me on the sea kayak -- I took the picture from my beach chair before I sank back into my book.

Not me on the boogie-board either -- but look at this dude go!

My birthday dinner!

Dear ones . . . .

The husband and an un-brother -- getting that birthday cake ready!

This one is helping me get the adoption papers ready . . . .

And she is working with me on the arranged marriage angle. I'm telling you -- the two of us really, really want to be related to each other. It will happen.

And just a reminder -- I know I keep saying it, but it really is true: I am the luckiest mom.

In the blink of an eye

So when all the urchins were younger we used to bring our friend Katey along for our family beach week. Just twelve years old when she started coming to the beach with us, Katey was a gift from God because she (and later her sister Betsey, too) was just so great with our kids. She played with them non-stop, and didn't care what the game was: chasing each other on the beach games, or princess-y "let's paint our toenails" games, or rollicking games that involved swords or bows and arrows -- she was up for anything. Sometimes they combined the princesses and the swords to play a kind of "knights storm the castle to rescue the princesses who are painting their toenails while in captivity" game. That was a good one. Here's Katey with the girl in charge -- who adored Katey, and was quite willing to let Katey be in charge of everything.

See, Katey was young enough that she still had fun playing with seven (at the time) kids, but the real beauty was that she was also old enough (and even more important, mature enough) to keep them safe, and to distract them with another fun game when tempers flared, or read a pile of stories to them when nap time loomed. And she never, ever implied that she knew we were using her as slave labor while we lounged in our chairs and read books all day. A gift, I'm telling you, from God. Here the girl in charge and Katey join the (future) soldier at Funland -- the swingin' amusement park at Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. All our best beach memories have Katey and Betsey in them.

So you can imagine, I am sure, how fabulous but mind-blowing it was that Katey and her husband and daughters were able to spend some time with us at the beach this year. This picture of my sister with Katey and her baby was a joy to take, but I swear as I looked at the image on the screen of my camera I felt dizzy at the speed of the earth turning so many times on its axis -- in the blink of an eye.

A new tradition?

So our extended family adds up to seventeen members, and we wanted to do something that all of us could plunge in to together. Movies are fabulous, but really, a movie means that we all sit and watch passively (which believe me I'm all for, especially if popcorn is involved). A game night was another excellent option, but it's tricky to find a game that we can all play together. The age range of this family starts at kindergarten and continues on for several decades. Luckily all of us are readers, so we decided that it would be fun to choose a hilarious play, and read it together.

My step-sister and I chose Dinner at Eight, and she arranged for all the families to have access to the script. One night of our family beach extravaganza, we dealt out the roles and gathered together to read the play out loud.

The sunny girl (who has the best fake British accent in the family) had no problem at all taking on the role of Carlotta (Marie Dressler in the movie), the fading stage beauty -- down on her luck but still imperious and hilariously cynical:

And then I had a restful, nice luncheon... with four lawyers. On the 88th floor of the Chrysler building. You know, the Sky Club. A cloud floated right into my soup plate.

Her cousin the soldier was Oliver Jordan, the goodhearted (but weakhearted) business man (Lionel Barrymore in the movie), who tries to shore up his failing business, knowing all the while that he is dying. And in this picture it just looks like my husband is avoiding the shenanigans; in reality he was whipping up milkshakes, and returned in time to play both a sinister chauffeur and the manager of a washed-up actor.

My sister and I read the parts of the two sisters in the play. I probably had more fun than she did, because I got to play the hilariously self-absorbed Millicent (that's Billie Burke -- "Glinda the Good" in The Wizard of Oz!), while my sister was the level-headed and ironic Hattie.

This one got some of the best lines in the play, since she played Kitty, the former hat-check girl who tries to push herself into high society (the movie stars sexy, sexy Jean Harlow in her best role). One of my favorite Kitty lines: "Politics! You couldn't get into politics -- you couldn't even get into the men's room at the Astor!"

Uncle Doctor was hilarious as the rich and greedy former miner who is full of shady business schemes, while his youngest urchin (who just finished kindergarten) did a fantastic job as the room service waiter. He got the biggest applause of the night, for lines like, "Your coffee, sir -- and this time I made sure it was good and hot."

Some of us were talented enough to double up on the roles: my dad took on both the hotel manager and the assistant manager. Since most of their conversations are with each other, this was a pretty impressive trick. Grandma Carol, who refuses to be photographed, played the part of the cook, who worries all day about her lobster aspic. And can I just say, you should have heard the squeals of fear and disgust when the urchins were told what lobster aspic is. No class, any of them. Check out Grandma Carol's manicure!

My fairy god-sister (my step-sister, who waved her magic wand, and bibbity-bobbity-boo! -- my job teaching college English appeared!) took on several roles as well. And check out Grandma Carol's manicure -- and the fairy god-sister's, too!

This middle school cousin in the foreground was the snarky bellhop, while the recent high school grad was suave and sophisticated as a philandering doctor . . .

. . . . and the grad's own sister played his nurse (his other sister was his mistress, which was, as they both declared, "awkward").

The not-so-tall boy and honorary cousin may have just finished his first year at West Point, but he obviously has a little thespian in him in addition to his airborne and soldiering skills. He was a most excellent snooty butler.

The girl in charge played young Paula Jordan, engaged to be married, but secretly having an affair. [Texting fingers alert -- looks like she takes after the tall boy.]

And the person who took the Scenery Chewing award for the night was my sister's husband. He's always been one of the funniest people I know, so while in real life he is the pastor of a lovely Bible-believing church, he plunged in hilariously to the role of Larry Renault, the alcoholic has-been movie star (John Barrymore in the movie, if you're keeping track). People, this is a man who never takes the Lord's name in vain, and rarely drinks anything stronger than a beer. So you can imagine that when we heard him declaim with gusto, "My God, Paula! Can't you see that I need a drink? I've got to have one, I tell you!" it brought down the house.

I will say that we were reading the script from the Broadway play, not from the 1933 film. So we did miss one of the funniest exchanges of dialogue ever, which was added to the movie:

KITTY: I was reading a book the other day.
CARLOTTA: Reading a book??!
KITTY: Yes. It's all about civilization or something. A nutty kind of a book. Do you know that the guy says that machinery is going to take the place of every profession?
CARLOTTA: Oh, my dear, that's something you need never worry about.

IMAGE CREDITS:
All movie stills are from Dinner at Eight (MGM, 1933, dir. George Cukor)