hello june

I never thought you’d get here. Summer, the season, officially begins in June, though, in terms of the weather and my mental state, it's here now. June is also when my little family has decided to take summer vacation. It’s early, I know, but we want to get a jump on crowds and feel like we have some little corner of the world to ourselves.

We wrapped up May with a quick trip to Watertown. In an unusual move for us, we left town on Saturday morning rather than straight from work on Friday night. I was hoping for a less stressful start to what is often a stressful weekend with my parents. John and I got a little extra sleep on Saturday morning, and we took the boys to Bread and Chocolate for pastries before pulling out of town. Perhaps many Twin Citians left for The Lake on Friday because Saturday traffic was minimal. Nice. The skies were bright blue, which is always a perfect foil to the endless brown prairie.

Watertown was hot and windy when we arrived. If you’re an 8 or 10-year-old boy, then this is the perfect weather for a dip in chilly Lake Kampeska. On Sunday, the temps dipped to cool high 70s, which was a pleasant reprieve unless you wanted to go swimming and sliding at the water park. Without going into a play-by-play, we had a lot of quality family time. My sister Michele, who recently spent six months in Nepal and India, pulled out all the stops with a Nepalese dinner. We had a urad dal but also a stewed kale and carrot dish that was really nice. But the best thing we ate was the result of an error. Michele tinkered with a recipe for tomato and cilantro chutney that apparently didn’t turn out the way that is was intended but that was so delicious that I can’t stop thinking about it.

In a nutshell, we saw lots of people, played miniature golf at Thunder Road (this was a first), had a bonfire, and slept in our spacious six-person tent. The latter was an adventure. The wind was strong off the lake the first night, which I found wholly disconcerting. Mostly the wind rustled the trees overhead, but occasionally it would pick up and cave in the sides of the tent. Around 4:30 a.m., a nice, drenching rain started. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep very well. The second night was still, and—best—we had pillows for our heads.

Apropos of Memorial Day, I spent some time thinking about some of my favorite people who have passed—my grandparents, my Uncle Leo (my grandfather's closest friend, who was a second grandfather to us and could do the most amazing and realistic animal impressions), Geo J (a fellow bookseller from OBSP days, always put a book in people's hands, hip to John Grisham before he became a NYT bestseller), and Frances (our dear neighbor and kidsitter who died way too young, a month short of graduating high school and setting the world on fire).

And, I thought about my friends S and L, who were married on Memorial Day weekend fourteen years ago. I don't know the exact date of their wedding but it will forever be linked to this holiday. Last night I wished S a happy anniversary and he snorted but said thanks. I know that his marriage has been troubled for some time, but they always seem to put on a good face when they're together in public. I'm trying to avoid making this gossipy but last night I learned that they've hit an especially rough spot. I can't help but think about the promise I made at their wedding to stand by them but he's pretty unhappy and it's hard to know how best to help.

Heavy stuff aside, it was a very good weekend.