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We spent most of today at the beach.  I didn’t really go in the water but the day was beautiful, and the kids had a good time.  Christina brought Evie to join us and that made for good conversation and kid activity.  She and Bill are getting married, sooner rather than later.  It was warm but a little cloudy, and we shared a grill and a picnic table with some strangers for a few minutes.

This last week was so busy that it flew by; I can’t believe tomorrow is Monday.  I decided that because of our excess of cucumbers I would make dill pickles for party guests this coming weekend.

First Batch:

Batch #1

I ordered custom labels for the top, and Cassondra gave me ribbon to embellish the jars.  I think they will be cute.

Eddie and Rosie are back in the house as of yesterday, which is always warm and grounding.  Eddie has been working a ton of hours at Kroger, taking an SAT Prep course at Sylvan over the summer, and is dating a new girl, a young Julianne Moore, a vegan, and a year older than him.  She going to Western in the fall.  ‘This one is going to be rough at the end,’ was the way he described  feeling at the beginning of the relationship.  (Obviously, he has his father’s unusual brand of fuck-it pessimism.)  I adore her, and she seems to adore him, and that makes me happy.  He is almost an adult.  It’s odd to watch someone who was born an old wise man nearing the responsibilities and freedoms of an actual grown man.

Rosie is beautiful and moody and either creating art or engaging with it.  From what I can gather.  She is full and vast, an ocean of a person, and mostly unknowable, I think even to herself.  We will walk or lay in bed or be running errands and she won’t stop talking for the entire hour or two about all of her loves and interests, but she won’t once actually mention herself.  But it’s the closest you get to her, Rosie, Norah Rose, Alex Rose, all of the things she calls herself.  So you listen with drippy anticipation to dialogue about Detroit Becomes Human and Lin Manuel Miranda and her new Photoshop brushes and you look at her inking and sketches and offer advice on her plot lines and you accept every bit of reciprocal interest and smile and laugh and thank her.  Because it feels like a gift.

The littles are becoming people too, not just babies.  Even June.  She will fall and get hurt and when you offer her help she’ll slap your hand away and shout ‘WALK’ and get back up on her own, still crying and moaning, dusting off her chubby baby fingers as she rights herself.  It’s awe inspiring, really.  Ari is rowdy and impulsive as ever, but he will also double check with a hurt friend, ‘You OK?’ even after parental intervention and almost out of earshot.  He will spend five minutes trying to make sure June gets down from the trampoline safely, even if she’s refusing his help.  And Kaelen is at that age where he is SO filled with yearning for things beyond his years, and I think struggling with the tumult of living in two very different households.  His world as a newly independent reader is big.  He is filled with ideas and a want for things beyond his years, alongside a true extrovert’s desire to share his beloved life experiences with the people he loves.  He is always the one to suggest a day full of exciting activities.  And today he insisted he was ready to read The Hobbit.

Megan will be home from AZ in a few days.  I want to share my porch with her again.

I’m getting a dress tailored.  I finished The Handmaid’s Tale.  Nick is looking at buying houses.  We’ve lived here for four years.  I think that’s the longest I’ve lived anywhere.  I feel like moving a city away isn’t far enough.  Does it count as moving if you can still circle your old neighborhood between the grocery store and the car wash?  I don’t want to move and drive past here again.  Either stay, or leave it completely.

Without fresh starts, I don’t know if I am even myself.