Picnic

Summer smells like sunscreen, chlorine and bug spray and it tastes of cupcakes. M and I have been waiting all year to have a picnic, and we made these little beauties...

They ended up looking a lot better than they tasted. We had many struggles with the icing, including the moment when the tube of it exploded, got on G's foot and she tracked blood red foot prints all across M's kitchen.

 After our lovely picnic in the park (complete with a checkered picnic blanket), we had a bunch of 'I love the world' cupcakes left so we went on a super secret delivery mission. We left the cupcakes on our friend's doorsteps - the plates had personalized messages written on them too.

Everything in a Summer Day's work.

Over and Out.

A Lorax Day

Mother used to tell us that some days are just "terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days - even in Australia." She saved this particular literary allusion for when we were throwing fits. Either that or she'd tell "If you keep acting like Veruca Salt, you'll go down the chute with the goose eggs."

This is what happens when you have a writer for a parent. Especially one with a preoccupation for children's books.

But I have found that along with each day that turns southward, terrible, no good and very bad, we can choose to act more like the Lorax than Veruca Salt.

Go ahead, Pick yourself up by the seat of your pants.

A Walk??

"Hey, Katherine, this is Judith."

"No, duh, phones have had caller ID for years now. What's up?"

Uhhg... I sigh internally. I still introduce myself every time I make a phone call. Force of habit? From when I was like, eight? Whatever.

"Do you want to go on a walk?"

"A Walk??" Her voice rises, implying incredulity "What do you mean a Walk?? Where would we go?"

"I don't know, around. We could walk to Jeni's and get ice cream" The last part might have been a bribe.

"Isn't that, like, reeeeally far away?"

"Umm... yeah?"

"How far is it?"

"Like an hour - walking" It might have been a modest estimate.

"How about let's drive over to the parking lot behind it and we can walk from my car to Jeni's?"

"All the way through  the parking lot? Funny"

She giggles.

"How about walking in the mall? May and I were going to go tonight. We could walk there. You want me to pick you up too?" You could hear in her voice she was smiling.

Katherine. Note to self: you can't win over a fashionista.

Not even with ice cream. 

Little Prayers

Four over-ripe bananas sit in the fruit basket. Their yellow peels are speckled with deep brown spots. And so you say,

"We should make banana bread" because their perfect-meant-to-be-baked-bananas. You can already almost taste it.

But it has been a long week and your mother sighs do-we-really-need-to? You look at her, worn down and remember how much she has always already-done-for-you. It starts at birth and ends with cleaning the dishes from yesterdays party. We're always indebted to the mothers who already do-so-much.

"It just seems like a lot of work," she says, "and it's hot and that would mean turning on the oven"

It is hot. Sweltering.

"Alright" you say and smile. And it really is alright.

But then you hear a knocking on the door. A small tap, tap, tap. And a loud little voice calls out "I hear the t.v. on, I know they're there. Why aren't they answering?"

Mattie's mother calls out to him from their yard to stop, come back later.

You open the door. He smiles up at you from the 3 feet 6 inches of himself, a big grin. "This is from Beverley," he says, handing you a package all wrapped up in a clear plastic film.He runs back out into his yard.

It's a loaf of banana bread. From the neighbors.

and also maybe from God.

Summer Morning

The mulberries are ripe this time of year. Saturated with the dew, they're so plump and full they hang heavy on their stems. They drop off the trees and scatter across sidewalks. I think if I'd brought Tupperware with me on my morning walk, I could pick enough to bake a mulberry pie. 

Today, the whole sky feels plump enough to drop at any minute; fat raindrops down on my head. It's classic Ohio humidity. 

Summer is ripe as well - big and deep and cherry-purple. The hours are long and delicious - full of  possibility. I remember somewhat distantly that decay is implicit, and this abundance is not boundless. Before I know it, Autumn will have fallen and these mulberry trees will be bare.