How 'Bout That

Every now and then you want to live in a place that seems, at least in the suburban metro New York area, to exist only in books or movies. That feeling that people are really looking out for each other, and kids can have a fun summer walking around their neighborhood and biking to play ball with their friends.

In these parts the last two items happen, but the first is certainly on display...less.

However, the other day I witnessed the coolest thing. It was almost 4pm, a time when lots of day camps are done for the day, which means traffic on the busier roads in town as parents drive to pick up their charges. I was tootling in my vehicle down one of theses roads, where lots of cars were driving in both directions, when suddenly traffic stopped. I looked ahead, and notice a mini school bus from a camp out of the area was stopped and had his flashers on.

No one from the neighborhood goes to that camp, so he wasn't discharging any passengers. When I looked a little closer, I saw the driver had stopped and turned on his flashers to stop traffic so that a group of boys could cross the street to skateboard in a parking lot!

That's Entertainment

We're not swimming this week, which leaves a few hours after camp that the kids need something to do. More me than the kids. We could come home and play, but part of what's great about this part of the summer is that we get home from swimming late enough that the kids eat dinner and go to bed. The house stays really neat. That's why I like to find things to do. Out of the house!

Yesterday I went to the park with my kids and two friends with their kids. The weather had really cooled off there was a gorgeous breeze. The two and three year olds had a grand old time climbing the playground equipment, and running around. The six to nine year old group ran around playing cops and robbers, then a really cute (and short) game of baseball.

It's so funny how the six year old boys have all the moves, stances, postures, but ability is still that of a six year old boy. They get so intent (and these are both very laid back kids) about the rules, and how to hold the bat, and they get in their stance and you think "this ball is gonna go outta here!" In reality, it pops up a little and dribbles over to the pitcher, who is standing about six feet from the batter. It doesn't matter, they had a great time, and the Mommies had fun too.

When we got home my kids nixed the supper that was planned (salmon burgers), and we improvised pizza bagels. Simply made with bagel thins (a new product from Thomas'...yaay Costco)sauce and cheese, then popped in the microwave. Not a first choice, but it was seven o'clock.

Today we went to visit recently married niece and see her very-not-three-year-old-proofed apartment. Not that it should be three year old proof, but I think we made her a little nervous. Luckily she had freeze pops in the freezer, and everyone was happy. We discovered the freeze pops as we toured her cabinets. After a little while I couldn't take it anymore, and I told her we HAD to look in her fridge. I mean really. Is there anything more exciting than looking in the fridge of newly married people, and seeing what delicacies are in there? It's a chance for them to go shopping and bring all the things into their homes that their parents never wanted to buy. It's not a stage that lasts long, because generally after the first time you realize WHY your parents never wanted to buy it, and then you don't either. There was some cool ketchup in there, and other delightful things, but I was disappointed.

THERE WERE NO PICKLES!!!! Forget newly married. I don't know how THIS particular person could have NO pickles in her fridge. My flabbers were gasted. We got over it quickly, and had a really nice visit, which was extended by a massive downpour, and the relative distance of our vehicle. So freeze popped and nail polished (not the boy)we took our leave, having injected an hour of chaos into an otherwise serene abode. At least we didn't break anything. I wonder if she realized she was our "activity" for the day.

Tomorrow.....who knows? Wednesday is sundae at Carvel.....

Annual Trip

For those Visiting Day haters out there, avert your eyes!

We had a great day. The girls are doing great, and are so comfortable in camp. Even the one I accompanied to the infirmary for a strep test (positive) minutes after we got there was in great spirits. (I just feel a little bad that I spent almost NO time in one of the bunk houses, but I did see her bed and steal a Hershey's kiss...cookies and cream, by the way, which I now know I don't care for.)

The traffic was a non issue, espescially since we are right over the New York- Pennsylvania border, we have ways to avoid Route 17 on the way home. I think it's all about expectation. If you just know that you will be spending one (or two, possibly, though we only send one half) Sunday in the summer at visiting day, and that will be your day, you can actually enjoy it.

My brother (not the lawyer)wins the title Visiting Day King. He is the opposite of all those complaining parents and all those parents who bring their kids home on a van on visiting day (would that make them Visiting Day Serfs?).

He voluntarily went up to visit someone else's kid!!! Granted, it is his nephew, and his sister lives in the Midwest, too far to come in for visiting day, but with all the belly-aching you hear about the trip, I am impressed. Would I do that? I like visiting day, but would I go for someone else's kid? I don't know.

So after we got one kid on antibiotics, and the three year old sampled something from everyone's nosh box, we went to Lake Wallenpaupack. We sat lakeside enjoying our lunch, then took a scenic boat tour of the lake for an hour. That was really nice, and we had a great time. Then it was back to camp for slushies from the canteen, loooong good-byes, and off we went. We left them happy and I hope they stay that way.

We got home fairly quickly, and we're waiting for next year!

You Never Know

One of our summer "rituals" is a trip to a small local family owned amusement park. (by local I mean within 60 miles)In the evening. It's a small park with some very kiddie rides, middle kiddie rides and a few rides that are fine for adults/teens. The reason I like to go in the evening, is that I enjoy it immensely when the sky gets dark, and the rides are illuminated. The pulsating white and red lights punctuating the dark humid air, accompanied by the soundtrack of rides rumbling, and shouts of glee rising into the night sky, are quintessential summer.

Though it's a little early in the season to get the full night effect, as the sun sets right around the park's closing time of 9 pm, we like to go when the big kids are in camp, and this week worked out for us. We picked Wednesday, partially because that was the best day logistically, but mostly because they instituted a deal for 5 pm to closing for Tuesday and Wednesday nights. This park is pretty small, so four hours is really not necessary as it tends to be fairly empty in the evening. Especially when it's so hot.

Tuesday evening I picked my daughter up from her day camp, and as she got in the car she said "bad news." I asked what the problem was, and she said the camp was going on a trip the next day...to our amusement park.

We all "awwwwed," and I told the kids we'd try to go another night, and that we'd still have a fun evening trip on Wednesday night, we would work it all out when MBB got home.

The more I thought about it though, the more the trip the camp was taking made me uncomfortable. Wednesday's temperatures were supposed to be in the 100 degree range, and HUMID, and I didn't trust a nine year old, or her 16 year old counselor to ensure that proper hydration would occur. I vacillated and we talked about it (she was willing to stay home and have us all go in the evening, but that wasn't a good reason not to go), and came upon a solution. We both talked to her about how much she had to drink, and wear a hat, and we froze one water bottle, and put the other one in the fridge.

We made a plan for Wednesday evening. We would go bowling, then to Carvel and possibly a night swim. Yay, fun!

The next morning she applied sunscreen, and took a bottle of the easy on sunscreen spray for reapplication. We again told her how much she had to drink, and reminded her of the girl we saw faint at the blueberry picking. (That girl's father yelled for her mother, Linder..that's Linda for you non New York readers, to come quick and bring water. Apparently Linder had left the water in the car. MBB started to head over to where they were with our extra bottle of water, but by the time he got there someone else had given them some. Once the crisis had passed the father went into an obscenity laced diatribe against Linder for not taking the water out of the car. Dude, if it was that important why didn't YOU take the water out of the car?)
Our intrepid camper promised to drink and wear her hat, even if she was the only one, and off she went.

That afternoon I went to pick her up, and she happily proclaimed "We didn't go, we went bowling instead!!!"

I was very pleased that literally COOLER heads had prevailed and they canceled the trip, but now our second choice of activity had been usurped by the camp! I immediately called MBB, and Plan A was back on!!!

So even though the lights did not go on, the girls had a blast, came home sticky from ices and sweat, and my summer remains intact.

Next up.....

VISITING DAY!!!

The Red Menace

I'm back.

While many of IcebergCarwash's loyal followers have probably been wondering about my whereabouts for the past couple of months or so, by now it's become quite obvious.

I was deep undercover, working hard to root out a band of extremely dangerous Russian spies.

As much as I wanted to post blogs on at least a semi-regular basis, I simply could not risk having this blog fall into Soviet hands.

[Blogger's Note: My editors have just informed me that the Soviet Union no longer exists, having been broken up in latter part of the last century. I will now pause to notify my colleagues at the CIA, NSA and other agencies too secretive to name].

As you are all now aware, for the past several years, several Russian spies, posing as regular Americans, infiltrated our society, and...actually, didn't really do anything, it seems. At best, they fed their superiors back in Russia a steady diet of sensitive information about the New York party scene.

As an American, I'm deeply offended.

Does Russia mean to tell us that they couldn't find more competent spies than this group of knuckleheads? Has the United States become so unimportant in the arena of international espionage that Russia can't send their best people here? Most of these people didn't even bother to hide their thick Eastern-European accents. Is that really the best they could do?!

Where did they send their competent spies, to England?

Of course, Russian President Dimitry Medvedev, and his puppet-master, Vladimir Putin, have said that they want the recently chilly relationship between Russia and the United States to thaw.

Showing us the proper respect, by sending over some real spies, would be a good start.

SUMMER!!!

My love of the summer has been well documented on these virtual pages. This summer things are a little different with a newborn, as it somewhat precludes us from doing certain things, at least as one big group.

The only problem with this weekend was figuring out what we could do a) in the oppressive heat b)that avoided the crowds on the 4th of July.
Basically it eliminated anything water related.

Luckily, I was on the web on Friday, and thanks to the lovely G6 we were inspired!. Blueberry picking!

It really wasn't a beat the heat activity, but it was a quick activity that gave us time to come home, make muffins (thanks again, G6!)and then go swimming. Really, had it not been July 4th we would have saved this activity for the nine days, but it worked today. We opted not to head in the direction of all those mountain goers, (next week's bane), and found a place in Jersey under an hour away. Really when you think blueberries, you should be thinking New Jersey.

We stayed true to form and took the directions off the website as a backup to the GPS. These directions were so good, they were almost as good as asking a friend. They used landmarks, and mentioned things the GPS didn't. At one point there's a left turn, but as you turn there's a fork. The directions from the farm website advise that the restaurant stays on your right. With the GPS we would have had to guess, and if we opted wrong,let it recalculate and turn around. Not a big deal, but it was nice to know what to do in that moment. You know the moment. Where you HAVE to make a decision, and you can't IMAGINE the person behind you being patient, and that panicky feeling of "AAAGH!!! which way should I go, I'm in a traffic pattern, I can't just stop!" (as opposed to drivers from say...Maryland, who would very probably just stop "ehhh, I don't know what to do!!!")

Am I a convert to this device? Not all the way, but it definitely allows for more on the fly stops and decisions. We've always done those, but they've been more happenstance. Now we can just look at "points of interest," and know what excitement awaits. Hmm, I'm going to have to think about which I prefer. Though the GPS did allow us to fearlessly exit the highway for a bathroom stop.

The kids had a blast. When we got home I washed all the berries, and they were merrily eating them while I made the muffins. The six year old picked one up (from almost four pounds), and said "I think I picked this one!"

I'm Shaking My Head at Myself...

...I doubt it will be the last time.

I never thought I would succumb, but I guess I'm not as strong as I thought. We got a GPS. MBB convinced me that it will pay for itself in a few years because when we are away and rent a car we won't need to rent a GPS. I think he convinced me because I figured that meant we actually, possibly, would go away at least once a year (Though as soon as I opened the box he said "oh, I can take that on my next business trip." My thought was "hmm, I thought it was for US to take" and then, "yeah your company can pay US the ten bucks a day to rent the machine!" and then "as the guy in charge of the bottom line there, maybe he was trying to save the COMPANY money").

Why don't I like GPS machines? Maybe, because some of the people I know who use them are silly, and never look at a map or know anything about their destination until they get in the car, and SOMETIMES will look at the whole route before driving. Though mostly they plug in the address while driving, so they probably sit back and wait to be told what to do. Hmmm, maybe the machine was developed by aliens (who came down to earth and made themselves look like people)so they could get humans so used to following directions that once they actually take over the world it will be easier because of all the people so inured to following the GPS.

But I digress.

We haven't used the GPS yet, since we've only gone places that have been well traveled. However, I know people who will use the GPS to go places they know how to go, which makes no sense to me (or the aliens are on to something). People like to be told what to do, they love direction and the ability not to think. Makes for a comforting feeling when you're on the road....knowing that the cars on the road with you are driven by mindless drones, who are not only talking on their bluetooth enabled GPS, and eating a sandwich, but paying no attention to where they are going until the VOICE tells them where to go.

I contend that it is not hypocritical that we have used GPS systems when we rent cars on vacation. We ALSO print out mapquest directions to places we know we want to go, just as a backup. (though for local driving the best resource is someone who lives in that town). I'm not a complete rube, I know the benefits of this machine, quick change of plans, and wrong turns are easily fixable (though once in Minneapolis we had a GPS whose voice literally sounded ANNOYED when it said "recalculating." We had a few people listen to it, and they agreed. Basically say "recalculating" in a voice that would be followed by a pursed frown. That's what it sounded like)without fighting with a huge map while trying to drive, or putting yourself in danger by pulling over into a shoulder of a six lane highway with a speed limit of 70...try getting back into THAT traffic.

I do see some cool features that could be very helpful, especially when driving with kids. Knowing how far to the next gas station or convenience store (read: bathroom)and HOW TO GET THERE is invaluable. I just don't want to lose the desire to know where I'm going before I get there, or the different possible routes ahead of time. I'll just have to be strong for myself.

Plus, now I'm not dreading the drive home on visiting day, as much. I'm sure this machine can easily direct me out of the bumper to bumper traffic through alternate and less traveled routes.

Me and everyone else with a GPS.