Fun for the whole family!

Bethany Beach, Delaware might just be

paradise on Earth for three-years olds.

There are the aforementioned parades...

...fireworks and sparklers

There's picking blueberries with grandma

and then eating so many your poop turns violet.

There's Fun Land and with your cousins.

There's also walking into town for ice cream, going to the beach, water slides, a Care Bears tricycle that plays music while you pedal, and a grandmother who makes roll 'em up pancakes with powdered sugar every morning for breakfast.

And although I could do without the Care Bears song, it's a pretty good place for gown-ups too (we add booze, blue crabs, board games, and sleeping in while grandma makes breakfast).

Tomorrow we head out on the next stop of our great East Coast adventure: road trip to Vermont! Swimming in lakes, catching fireflies, and eating maple syrup to follow.

What if I start wearing mom jeans?

Since I am no longer the home editor at Sunset and my mind has turned temporarily to travel, I've sort of fallen off my manic home makeover bandwagon. This also has to do with my newly refreshed urge to move out of our boxy, tiny house and into something a little more open, with a little better weather, and maybe some decent public schools nearby.

Yes, I am contemplating suburbia. Marin County, to be exact. Or sort of. I waffle. Part of me wants to raise cool city kids able to converse in Mandarin and navigate MUNI and enjoy a film in translation. And part of me remembers the childhood pleasures of hot summers, school yards with grass, and the feeling of having free reign over our little town.

A lot of my friends are crossing the Bay and settling into the land of parking lots and ice cream trucks. But I don't know. What if it makes us soft? What if my kids grow up thinking everyone is white? What if I start taking Pilates and walking around in my workout clothes with a giant nonfat iced latte in my hand at all times? It could happen.

A thing I like

I know he hasn't exactly fixed the economy (yet) and, well, the troops are still in Iraq. Healthcare looks like it's probably not going to get the radical full-body makeover it so desperately needs. But, I can't help it, I still love Obama with a purple passion. Which is why I like to waste my time scrolling through the White House Flickr page. My current favorite? This one of Michelle cradling a woman's face on Fourth of July. It's just so full of heart.

The great fireworks gobsmacking

I've always been ambivalent about Fourth of July fireworks. I feel about them the same way I feel about going to concerts, meaning I mostly enjoy them, but never quite enough to stop anticipating the moment they end and I can get on with the business of living quietly. I don't like noise. I don't like crowds. Plus, I live in a city where the fog mostly just obscures the fireworks so they look like a distant strobe pulsating behind the clouds.

Oh, and I grew up with a phonophobic mother, so firework displays weren't exactly a priority in our house.

In fact, the only one I remember as a kid was in Vermont. I was with my dad, step-mother and new baby sister. We were out in a field with a bunch of other people toting blankets and coolers (only we probably didn't have a cooler—we weren't the types to make special snacking arrangements). What I remember most is standing at the crest of a grassy hill, holding my baby sister in my arms and sobbing because I couldn't cover my ears while my dad and step-mother laughed at me.

But Bethany Beach takes their fireworks display very seriously and there is no greater parenting pleasure than introducing your kids to something you think they might find delightful (I can't wait for movies, Yosemite, and Disneyland). So on Saturday night we trekked the block and half to the beach and sat in the sand with the American hordes and watched fireworks. It was pretty impressive, actually.

The kids were, I think, ambivalent. Startled, awed, and a little annoyed. They covered their ears and sometimes hid their eyes, but part of them liked it. Mostly, they enjoyed talking about them once they were over.

Oliver practiced oohing and ahing beforehand and he performed admirably

Maggie figured out that if I held her ears, she was free to suck her thumb

A thing I like

The word "gobsmacked." It's come up a lot in the last couple of days and it's just so darn onomatopoetic: first the jaw drops—gaw—then the palm slaps the forehead—smack.

Maureen Dowd uses it here, in her skewering of everybody's favorite cuckoo bird, Sarah Palin. And Mighty Girl uses it here to describe her face while she tap dances (you gotta see this cuteness).

Happy B-day, America

It's the Fourth of July and that means two things:

1. The Bethany Beach, Delaware parade, complete with marching bands, candy thrown from fire engines, and about a million kids on bikes. Maggie and Ollie got to ride on their first float (it won first place!), and double-fist lollipops thrown at them by strangers.

2. My mother-in-law's Blueberry Yum Yum. It takes just about everything I've got not to eat the whole pan. Here's the recipe. You can thank me later, as we are waddling down the street in our stretch pants and mu-mus.

Blueberry Yum Yum

recipe originally from McCabe's Blueberry Farm, Selbyville, DE

(serves 15)

2 c. blueberries

1/4 c water

2 c. sugar--divided*

1/4 c. cornstarch

3 tbsp. water

1 c flour

1/2 softened butter

1 c. finely chopped pecans

1-8oz. package of cream cheese (softened)

1 pint heavy whipping cream

* I use about half the sugar called for.

Combine blueberries, 1 c. sugar and 1/4 water in a saucepan, cook over low heat until berries are soft. Combine cornstarch and 3 tbsp. water in a small bowl, stir well. Add mixture to blueberries, cook stirring constantly until thickened. Set aside to cool. Combine flour, butter, and pecans in a bowl, mix well to make dough. Press dough evenly into a 9x13 inch pan. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes, let cool. Combine cream cheese and 1 c. sugar, beat until smooth. Whip cream until stiff, fold into cream cheese mixture (I add a teaspoon of grated lemon zest to this mixture). Spread topping evenly over cooled crust. Pour blueberry mixture evenly over topping and refrigerate. Cut into squares and serve.

Goodbye dear boy

I am slowly learning that everything for which I once expressed disdain, I will someday make manifest. Forty-year-old writers still plugging away at their less-than-lustrous careers? Present. People stupid enough to ride motorcycles? Married one. Women who talk about their children's eating habits. Uh oh.

And then today, we gave up our dog. They call it "surrendering," which is probably as good a word as there is for relinquishing your family pet, a dog that has lived in your house like family for seven years.

It took us two years to finally make this decision. It's been obvious since the day we brought our twins home more than three years ago that we were no longer up to the task of properly caring for Woody, but I just couldn't imagine becoming one of those people, someone who could find it in their hearts to turn out a loyal dog. But here I am.

I was finally convinced that giving him the chance to spend his remaining years with someone who could care for him and love him and lavish him with the attention he needs was in fact the compassionate thing to do (I am also well aware that the Humane Society could decide he is not adoptable and euthanize him). My guilt and shame were not reason enough to keep him.

It's been a very difficult day. Very sad. A sadness laced heavily with guilt and shame and tinged as well with relief.

More than anything, it's made me feel like a grown-up, for real. Grown-ups are the ones who have to make decisions like this, where neither choice feels exactly right, where both sides are apt to leave a scar. I am starting to think that that may be the very definition of adulthood: having to see the world as it really is and having to make decisions you would rather not.

I will probably never see Woody again, the dog I liked to call "the little mammal who lives in our house." I will miss him. A lot. He was a very good boy (you can see him in action here).

Here is a piece of a longer essay called "Puppy Love" I wrote about failing my dog back when I still couldn't image actually giving him up. It's just the part about how much I once loved him and how awesome it was to be his person.

There was a time when I could lie, spooned against Woody’s back, flipping the velvety tip of his ear against my lips for an hour just to feel his warmth and softness. I used to sneak him into bed. I have picked actual fights, with actual insults hurled at my poor husband, over whether or not Woody should sleep with us (me: yes, Pete: no). When I first adopted Woody from the stinking cement slab at the pound I lost ten pounds from our daily brisk beach walks. Watching him frolic on the sand, running madly after the mission-in-life tennis ball, was something I referred to as “the transference of joy.” It made me happy to see him happy.

I have hours of video documenting my dog’s athletic prowess. When he jumped for the ball, sometimes soaring 8 feet straight up and covering a distance of almost five yards (I measured) my heart would stretch with pride. Throwing a ball for Woody at the dog park actually boosted my self-esteem. I often did that thing where I pretended not to notice the admiring attention of strangers, all the while basking in it. What, my blank face said, doesn’t your dog do that? It was the “transference of achievement.” Woody’s abilities made me seem able. His existence made me a better person. I was friendlier, peppier, possibly even prettier back when I loved my dog.

Sailing, take me away

Number 9? Check.

A 10-foot Laser totally counts, especially on a 80 degree day on Tomales Bay.

A thing I like

Chubby, bald guys singing about sailing and burning candelabras on stage. Seriously, I like this song. It reminds me of being young, before I cared what other people thought of my musical tastes.

Quesadillas, the Solar System, and Michael Jackson

My dad and brother are in town and we are out in West Marin living the good life (there are oysters and wine and Cowgirl Creamery cheeses in our future so I am happy).

Whenever my dad is out, he tests my kids on their language skills. My kids go to Spanish immersion daycare and are getting quite good at their second language, something my dad is really into it. He's always asking me what they can say and understand and testing their comprehension. He likes to test kids. During the summers he used to make me do my times tables in Roman numerals and write essays about the solar system (mine explained in exquisite detail about how the sun circled the Earth). It sounds tortuous but I enjoyed it at the time. I've always been kind of sick about impressing my dad, hence deciding to do my junior years abroad in Hungary. Hungary? No one goes there.

Anyway, today in the minivan on the way to West Marin he was testing Maggie. And for the most part, she was doing pretty well.

Dad: Como se dice "cat" en Espanol?

Maggie: Gato.

Dad: Como se dice "rat" en Espanol?

Maggie: Raton!

Dad (entering a tunnel): Como se dice "tunnel en Espanol?

Maggie: Quesadilla!

It's the three-year-old version of the essay about the sun circling the Earth, I guess.

A thing I like

I leave with this, because, whatever else he was, he was the pop star of my generation. And this is a great song.