1. All Star Line Up | 2. All Star Gelato | 3. All is Calm on the Water

So I made that gelato, and it was so good it almost deserves its own post. Although it was so easy that I'm not sure what I can say? "I love gelato" over and over again? Even Neel eats it and he's not an ice cream man. Or fan. Really right now, it's all baseball all the time around here. Cal's on an All Star team, so he's had practice every day and their games started this weekend. We won one and lost one. Harumph. We'd like to win every game, of course. All hope is not lost, however. Double elimination means that this team can still make it to the state championships. Just win three more games. They can do it if they keep their heads out of their butts. (That's my sage coaching advice: Get your head out of your butt.")

Two things occurred to me while sitting at the games this weekend. The first was that I'm completely guilty of a less tragic version of Joan Didion's magical thinking. If I don't watch this at-bat, he'll get a hit. If I keep flipping through this magazine, we'll get this last out. Neel does it too, I'll have you know. He gets up and walks around. He claims his butt gets sore, but I think it's to try to shift momentum. Does it work? Of course it doesn't. But it's better than just sitting there and helplessly hoping.

There's another thing I do, and I probably do it with more than just baseball, but that's to make things about more than what they are. Being on this All Star team is more than simply playing baseball. I find myself saying to people, "This experience is so good for Cal." And when I say that, it's about more than the act of playing baseball. It's about dinner with the team, and spitting in the dugout, and coaches yelling over dropped balls, and coaches cursing in excitement. It's about fist bumps and picking yourself up after a missed play. It's about picking a teammate up after a missed play. It's about banging on the water cooler and joint effort to a common cause. It's about a teen boy being among boys and men and all that entails (from the spitting to the cursing to the fist bumping), but of course it's about all that. What is it about me that wants this experience to be all baseball and more? Can it just be baseball? Does it have to be this experience that's good for him too?

Well, I'm his mother, so I guess of course I'm always looking for the more to what's there, even if to Cal it's just a team and a game. One at a time. He plays tonight at 6:30. Wish us luck.

I think I'm still processing this trip. I told you I was in a photography funk, and when I finally looked at the 1,000+ photos on my memory card, I was, "meh." Seems a shame, doesn't it? Honestly, this vacation was so... weird. All little things, but if something could go wrong for me, it did. I lost my favorite sweater (more on that later). I slammed my knee into a stainless steel bench at Termini Station in Rome. I slammed my toe into the back of a bus seat on the ride from Sorrento to Positano (causing much icky blood and the loss of my big toe nail...TMI, I know). I had two migraines (one on the flight back home, so triple UGH). See? Little things, but they add up.

And then there's the mom factor. My friend Kim and I were talking about this at lunch. The mom factor says that the mom never gets to do the things she really wants to do. I know I sound incredibly bitchy right there, and I promise I don't mean it that way. We had an absolutely amazing time, and I'm so grateful for all we did. But when we went to get fried artichokes in the Jewish ghetto in Rome it was simply too hot to make the trek. And when I finally made it to Positano, it stormed and we had to grab the last boat out at the early (rainy) hour of 5PM.

Neel will read this and (likely) think I'm being whiny, and my dad will read this and worry that I didn't have fun. Not true! (Well, maybe a little whiny.) No one can fault the fact that it was the hottest week in Rome, ever, and no one can fault the storms that moved through Positano. Everything we did do was spectacular and amazing, and I'm so grateful for every moment we had. I'll share them in the coming days (with all the lousy photos -wink-), but there's no mistaking the fact that Violet's death threw me off my game (And I promise, I'll stop bringing up the dead dog. After one last post, which I'm not yet ready to write.)

How's this for horrible? I did not buy a single souvenir. See? Clearly not thinking straight. (And I'm starting to think Neel and I need to go to Positano for our 20th anniversary... Next October, Neel!) But you know what? It was amazing, and there were spectacularly wonderful moments each and every day. I just figured I'd better get the negative stuff before sharing the good stories. Except the one about my dad, the pigeon and the steps of the Vatican. That's kind of a negative story, but I'll be sharing it later anyway.

Bet you can't wait.

weekend recap, june 30

across the world in 10 photos {still + life}