Daily Kup (What I Did on My Reality Vacation)
Princess Potatohead is looking forward to kindergarten and mourning the loss of her preschool companions. She was especially close to a couple of the little girls and has been crying herself to sleep, sobbing, "I miss my friends." I promised her that we would visit the preschool before her buddies left and we made a surprise trip today to coincide with the preschool's last day before 'graduating' this group of children and scattering them to the world. 
We found the class on the playground. They let out a "whoop" and gathered in a mob around my kids. Small children have their own elaborate social rituals worthy of study by Jane Goodall. There was a lot of running around, hugging and general goofiness. Later when I looked at the photos, I came across this detail, blown up at the right, in one of the shots. The delight of this child, another international adoptee, in seeing my son shines from her radiant face.
We left the preschool with a little more sense of closure and there was no weeping at bedtime tonight.
Since our summer bowling passes expire on the 31st, this was one of our next stops on the Summer Summary tour. I bowl at the level where I can almost be beaten by a toddler using bumpers. But the three kids (two little and one college-sized) and I had fun. Here's a shot taken with the freebie Mavica from the last century that I acquired at the school district rummage sale. It's bulky, loud as it writes to the 3.5" floppy disk, and the output is grainy and lacking in depth of field. But look how it transmutes colors and reflections and makes movement look like MOTION. The photos don't look like a brochure -- they look like a memory.
Riding on the high from almost breaking 100, we continued the quest for summer at the Farmers' Market. In a moment of irresponsible optimism last month, I promised that we would make pickles together. With time ticking down, we bought a whole lot of cucumbers. We who are about to brine salute you.
We finished the day with All-You-Can-Eat Tacos at a local chain and then made rice krispy bars at home. It was a simple but glorious summer day.
Kids love summer because they think it will never end. And when it does, they can only imagine that the next summer will be eternal and better than the one before. When, in the sweep of life, the hands on the dial point to Autumn, you have no such illusions. You know that summers are limited in time and space and sparingly doled out over a lifetime. That makes them worth all the more.
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