Monday Mash Up, May 14

Well? How was your weekend? For those of you who celebrate it, how was your Mother's Day? In all honesty, we did not rock Mother's Day around here, I'm afraid. We had a nice weekend, but Mother's Day, notsomuch. More on that in a moment. We started things out quite nicely with an impromptu neighborhood happy hour. I love our neighborhood so much. It's so lovely to slip outside and settle on a blanket in the front yard. Everybody did something different for dinner, but we all ate together (and my godson Landon ate his mom's keys) and settled into the evening. The sun went down. The kids played across the yards and sang us songs, and we all sat and talked in the deepening twilight. It was nice.

Saturday, hey hey! No baseball. But boo. EXAMS. Cal starts his final exams this week, and I'm convinced that the person who created this exam schedule hates his mother. He studied math and English on Saturday and more math and social studies on Sunday. What a way to spend the weekend. I managed to pull out all my spring and summer clothes and Neel painted the new fence (which, sadly, looks too much like Fenway Park) while Callum worked (which means it'll be cold and rainy all week), and we treated ourselves to dinner al fresco, but STILL. What a way to spend the weekend. Mother's Day itself started with a bang. The phone rang at 3 a.m., and that's never good. This news wasn't the worst that we all fear, but a freezer in Neel's lab was failing (the freezers have alarms on them and if the alarm gets triggered someone from security calls) and Neel had to go in and check on it. And because we have vicious attack guard dogs, he can't sneak back home unnoticed either, but they all have to bark their dang fool heads off an hour later when he came back home. No one slept well.

When we got up, (too early) Cal and I went for a walk, and we did manage a nice breakfast, but the freezer and the exams loomed over our day. I'm ashamed to admit that I did not purport myself well in this endeavor, and I feel convinced that we all need a do-over. It's not exactly that I'm ready for the work week to begin, but I am ready to have another go at a weekend. I do feel much tended to and loved by my family, no matter what (people, Neel got me nighttime moisturizer). I hope you did too, whatever you did. Honestly, I hope it went better than things did around here!

Monday Mash Up, May 7

Hello my dears! How was everybody's weekend? We had loads of busy and loads of fun. We have a new Friday night tradition of ordering pizza and salad from a local pizza place. Neel swings by on his way home from work (and has a beer at the bar while he waits) and orders our special and we tuck in for the night. We'd considered taking Cal and a friend to a minor league baseball game that night but everyone was so wiped out, Neel especially, it was nice just to come home. He'd actually had a great week, but unfortunately, on the way to get the pizza, he popped a tire on Blanche, our Mini Cooper, and had to change it. Neel was really intrigued that no one offered to help him. Sure, in part it was because he is a man, but as Neel said, he'd at least ask if someone needed help! I told him it was because he was grinning so much from all the good news he got that people thought he was happy to change his own tire.

Saturday was, frankly, crazytown. Cal had a baseball game at 11, but it was also Field Day at his school. This is a big deal. It's an all-day event with races and games on the Midway (the grassy area in the center of the track), all those inflatables that kids love to jump on and in. There's face painting and spray paint for hair and talent shows and plant sales. It goes on and on and on. There's delicious food and everyone volunteers for some part of the event. We went for a bit, dashed for baseball, and dashed right back. The cool thing about Callum's Field Day is that it gets greener every year, and this year's goal was zero-waste. It was a Bring-Your-Own-Water-Bottle event, and the entire day was run on one solar panel. A popular item are lemons, sold for a dollar, that have a hole carved in them with a peppermint sticking out. Cal had about four. When we pulled in at home that night we ran into our neighbors, and the wife of the couple is an alumni of Cal's school. "Field Day!" she cried. "I love Field Day. Do they still have those lemons with the peppermints?" At the end of the day everyone gathers in a place called "The Pit" for the Faculty Follies where a group of faculty perform a dance, but the high point of Field Day is the raffle. The Lower School alone sold over 20,000 raffle tickets for prizes like baseball tickets, surfboards and beach cruisers. We never have any hope of winning, but it's fun to watch. A final traditation comes at the very end, when the raffle is over, everyone throws all their tickets up in the air. It's a neat celebration. It's tiring too. Still, despite our fatigue and all those lemons, we managed to go for ice cream after dinner.

Sunday was nice and slow. Callum has exams coming up (as evidenced by my kitchen island), so he studied while I edited photos and Neel worked (of course he did) in the garden. What started gray and cool ended sunny and cool and very lovely. Oh, and here's something funny that happened. Callum was sitting with me finishing up a book for homework while I was at the computer, and all of the sudden, I felt the whole energy of the room change. The mood completely shifted. The air grew heavy and dark, and I thought, suddenly, "Callum's sad." Almost as soon as I thought it, he closed his book and said, "This book was good, but it was really sad." How weird is that???

Still, it was a nice day. The house is definitely livelier with Neel in it. It's so nice to have him home. We had the windows open all afternoon, and it felt so nice to stand in my family room and feel the breeze move all the way through the dining room and living room. I finally put away all my winter clothes. Summer is calling isn't it?

What's everybody's week like? I can feel things winding up for Callum and me too. I'm ready. Summer really is calling, isn't it?