ZimWex Family Blog

First day of summer break!

And I woke up in a bit of a panic.

The wife is leaving town for a business trip; school's out; camp hasn't started.  How does this work again?

But slowly, very slowly, as the day went on, I remembered how these unscheduled days have their own rhythm.  And...somehow...found time for all of the following:

homemade waffles cooked by love with Ruby and Violet....and served with whipped cream

a few minutes alone on the Elliptical (watching my new favorite "Weeds") while the kids vegged out on Ben 10 Upstairs

a bubble bath with Ruby and Violet--complete with candles and stories

Lunch with good friends

A little listening (of course) to Wicked

A walk outside, with a stop for gelato

Homemade Bolognese Sauce for Ima's farewell dinner

Another (!) Ben 10 episode

A little "Ramona and her Mother"

Some card tricks

The first chapter of "The Hobbit"

Now I'm just trying to remember what it was I was so worried about this morning!

AZ

7 things I learned this Memorial Day Weekend.

1.  I am not all that good at Capture the Flag.

2.  The Georgica Pond is like an amusement park when it is cut to run into the ocean.

3. If you need to walk a long way on the beach, it is easier to dance your way there.  Particularly if you incorporate a few arabesques.  And sing "Tonight" from West Side Story.

4.  We have been doing things backwards for ten years.  In shocking reversal, all seven children (including our house guests) made the grownups lunch while we swam in the pool.  They made menus, prepared (yummy) food, and served us. *

5.  All sandwiches are better with Pepperoncini.

6.  My children's concept of a Haunted House is a little bit off and involves more assault and swordfighting than fear.

7.  The dumb cheerleader on Glee doesn't have a single line in the first six episodes.**

Happy Memorial Day to all!

*And billed us.

** We had to get our good friends J & A caught up on what they had missed on Glee so far.  And of course we had to watch with them, silly!

Wish Wall.

Lots of you liked the Wish Wall .  And so do we. Thanks for all of your nice feedback...

I will definitely have to figure out a way to incorporate the Wish Wall into normal life, but I haven't yet figured out what that is.  Any suggestions welcome.

In the meantime, updates on a few Wish Wall Items that have been ticked off:

1.  Lunch at the Candy Kitchen.  As predicted, the children ordered things they only semi-liked, then spent the rest of the meal trying to assess the exact number of bites of the now-hated food (likely hotdogs or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches) that will allow them to go to the candy counter after the "meal" is finished.

2. Blueberry Pie.*  My favorite thus far of all items on this wall.  I meant to take a picture of this beautiful pie, and then ate the whole thing in less than six hours, before I could locate the camera.  I plan a repeat pie bake on Wednesday, so stay posted for pictures.

3. Main Beach.  This was my birthday trip.  Most glorious day of the summer. Even including the 30 minute wait in line for a bad greasy lunch surrounded by people who do not like to wait.  

4. Extra Movies.  We have had lots and lots of extra movies.  Because Mommy is a little tired.  And also, because she loves her kids that much.

5. See Bambi.  Not as sad as I remembered. I think when we were kids there was nothing else out there where a parent dies mid-movie.  In Cinderella and Snow White you never get to know the mother, so its totally different.  But now we have Lion King.  And Finding Nemo.  My kids were completely** unfazed by the hunters killing Bambi's mother, and the fire.  Said they liked it all, especially the scary parts.  

6. Bowling. Bowling in East Hampton during a hurricane in the last week of August is a funny thing.  Funny in these ways:

First, when you call at 10 AM and ask to book a lane for sometime that day, they tell you they are fully booked until 8 PM.  Huh.

Next, because you live in East Hampton (at least some of the time) you don't really believe that this restriction will apply to you, so you show up anyway and beg.  At least no one in the family is stressed out during your manic dash from the car and to the front of the line. Or when you tell everyone, "they will only let us have the lane for one hour. So shoes on! Now!"  But the fun has just begun.

As you bowl, the lovely gay couple with kids next to you will begin to chat with you.  They will assume that because you are gay parents and they are gay parents that you will know the same people, even though they live 3,000 miles from you.  They will be right.*** 

Eventually, the bowling "scene" becomes too much, you suffer from enormous claustrophobia and have to leave, but only after you get a turn on Ms. PacMan and Guitar Hero.

So we did that.

We still have a few more wishes.

However, if this were like a legitimate wishing situation with a genie or something, at this point, I think I would ask for more summer!

AZ

 *From my friend A, a baking goddess.

** I went a little italics crazy in this post. Sorry!

*** Always right. We have been indignant, especially when random straight friends of ours give us the "oh! we know a gay person! Maybe you know him, too?"  But then we usually do.  Doh!

The Spring Fair.

Ice cream, face painting, and a warm spring day.

Btw, she is a red butterfly, if that wasn't immediately obvious...

AZ

Mommy and Ima, Esq. or DS part III

The contract has been typed.

The money has been withdrawn from Jerry's bank account.

And the DS has been purchased.

Thanks for all of your advice.

I ended up feeling pretty good about the way that we handled it.

Our intentionally-legalistic (It seemed like fun) contract has anticipated most situations, so that we are not caught in a constant can I or can't I use it conversation.

We bought him one game and he bought one for himself.  (also, okay sweet boy, he bought a game that Ella could use when she borrows it, because he knew she was feeling left out....)*

He is pretty excited.  Although his friend who came to visit last week did let me know that it was lame that Jerry has his time limited.  Thanks, friend.

Jerry looked like this this afternoon.

Another milestone.

AZ

*Its good that he has at least one of these moments for every five where he whacks her with a toy sword or otherwise invades her personal space...

Opening Day.

(photo by TW)

This was a weekend of Little League Firsts:

1.  Violet got a high-five from Mister Met, which she is still talking about.

2. Jerry got the first hit of the season for his team.  We were all relieved.

3. Jerry also got his first "cup", or as he calls it, a "penis guard".  There was general excitement among all the girls at the house.

4. Ruby got a hit, but then got completely befuddled by all the people yelling at her to run to first base.  She spent the rest of the game in Tanya's lap.  Her return to the teeball season is questionable.

5. Violet was probably (but not necessarily) the first younger sibling to root for a Little League team while wearing a Cinderella costume.

AZ

DS Update.

So if there are DS naysayers out there, none of you came forward.

Only a few of you commented, and you all seemed to think that the DS was less evil then I feared and thought that we should allow Jerry to buy one.

So after a long bout of procrastination, we finally informed Jerry of our decision last night.  He was a little tiny bit excited.

The contract (courtesy our friend Dave's suggestion) is yet to come, but our plan is to work it out this week.

Will share it as soon as we have it!

Thanks, blogosphere.  You really can solve any problem.

Love, 

Me

Book Reviews.

I love a vacation where I actually get to read.

Last week, while in Colorado,  I read two really excellent books.*

The first was A Mercy  by Toni Morrison , the story of some of the earliest slaves in America.  Written in Morrison's amazingly beautiful and dense style.  As soon as I finished reading it, I felt like I should read it again, because I felt like I had missed so many layers.**

The first of her books I have loved in such a long time...more like Beloved or Song of Solomon or Sula then some of the newer stuff.

The second book was The Book Thief  by Marko Zusak. This one really surprised me.  Although it is another holocaust story (this story the story of a German family living outside of Munich who hides a Jew in their basement), it is surprisingly fresh and new.  Style of writing is totally engaging and the main character, a young girl, is the kind of protagonist who stick with you.  Generally he evokes small-town characters in a very riveting way. I couldn't put this one down, and in fact chose to read several nights instead of watching TV.  A monumental accomplishment, given the fact that there was a never-ending MSNBC option available, courtesy my wife.

Now I'm reading The Shadow of the Wind . Review coming soon....

AZ

* I also got to play a lot of solitaire in a kind of obsessive way.  One night I played for 3 1/2 hours straight because I just couldn't win.

** For a real book review by someone who did understand it, see this New York Times Review.

Gaming

Getting my butt kicked Playing Scrabble with Jerry:

Yesterday Jerry whipped out the scrabble game. I tried to dissuade him (my mad skills are legendary) and point him in the direction of Yahtzee, Boggle, War, anything where the playing field could be more level. He was not distracted. Reminded me that he has a “Very Big Vocabulary” and began setting up.

So we played. Open handed. First couple of words I gave him a few helpful pointers, like directing him towards the all-important double and triple word scores. Pretty soon, however, he needed no help from me whatsoever and was whipping out words left and right. For the first half of the game I played not exactly “easy” but didn’t spend the average ten minutes looking for THE MOST highscoring word everytime…however by the time he crossed the 200 point mark, I began kicking it into the highest gear. To no avail. The kid totally kicked my butt and scored more than 300. It was sick. When he put ZEN in the triple word score, I knew it was over.

In a last minute move of desperation, I even played the word “FAG” because it got me more points than whatever else I had available. I was torn, sure. Do I play a word with such obvious negative connotations just to score a few points on an eight-year-old? Did it anyway. Gave some very very rushed explanation about cigarettes.

So, proud? A little. Mostly waiting for a rematch.

AZ