Happy Memorial Day

OK, I admit it. I was going to title this post Mind the Gap in honor of my brother Mike’s missing crown, but I’ve resisted the urge—just. But I’ll tell you the story anyway.

This a.m. Sarah woke us up at 4:20. “Mummy! MUM-mee! MUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM-MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

“What? WHAT?!!!”

“My legs are cold. And I can’t find my sweatpants.”

Now, in general, I usually wake up in a pretty good mood. I am a catch-the-worm sort of person. 5:30 a.m. is no stranger to me. But I do NOT like to be woken up, especially when I know that even if I eventually fall back asleep, 5:30 is just right around the corner. Wake me up any time after 4, and I’m usually up for the day.

So Sarah was pushing her luck when she changed her request to pajama bottoms, specifically, Tinker Bell pajama bottoms. As it was, I had to shuffle on back to our attic space, where, during Friday’s heatwave, I optimistically packed up all her sweatpants and winter pajamas, basically shooting myself in the foot. I’m afraid I pretty much tossed them at her, along with hissed instructions to GO RIGHT BACK TO SLEEP. I also managed to snap a few words at Tim, just for being in the room. Not only did he pay the price but I did as well, because when I eventually did fall back asleep for a few minutes, I dreamed that I looked out the window to see which car he had left me in the driveway, only to discover bits and pieces of his car in the road in front of our house after a terrible accident. My dad was there and I tried to say “Call 9-1-1″ but the words wouldn’t come out. I woke up shaking. Clearly, I need to work on my 4 a.m. temper overall.

But the rest of the day was actually ok—in fact, a truly happy Memorial Day. Sarah stayed in bed til just after 6, and then we visited with the cats on my bed and packed up for a day at my parents’ summer camp, making a pit-stop at Me & Ollie’s for chocolate chip muffins en route.

At 8:30 on a holiday morning there was literally no traffic. And, I think, because we had just made the trip on Friday it had lost its Are-We-Nearly-There-Yet edge. It hardly seemed to take us any time at all. Sarah had brought chapter books to read in the car, and we listened to 99.5—classical music. She made me laugh out loud when they played a piano concerto by Haydn: “Mummy, what nice piano music. And it’s so slow, I think YOU could play it! If we bought you the book, of course.” Well, she’s right. My fingers don’t fly as fast as they used to.

When we arrived at 9:40, after chanting the traditional “Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!” down each of the hills on Shaker Road and singing “Bumpy Bumpy Bumpy” down their dirt lane, my dad was frying bacon and my mom was puttering around in her bathrobe. Sarah made a beeline for my brother’s camper at the far end of the driveway to see Nick and Chris. I parked the cooler, cookie cutters, and Play-doh—enough to see the kids through until Labor Day—and joined them. Immediately, Mike said “Hi-iy” in a goofy voice and grinned a full grin. Then he hit the repeat button and did it again. “Look what I lost with my bacon!” he added. Oh. Mind the gap.

“Is the tooth fairy coming?” I asked, not completely grasping what had occurred. Did his entire tooth fall out, just like that? Is this what I can look forward to in ten years?? I took a step backward. But no, it was his crown, the one his dentist hastily slapped on last year after grinding off most of his tooth. Ugh.

“Well, at least you have a straw hole,” I told him. All the kids in Sarah’s class like to slip the straw through their new gaps when they suck up chocolate milk. He grimaced and went back to digging through his fishing lures.

I had brought up my new inflatable kayak and my dad got involved trying to sort out the batteries and fan on the pump I bought yesterday in the summer aisle at the grocery store. I have not said much about my dad in this blog, but when I do, the title will probably be something like “My Father’s Backhoe.” He really does own one. And basically, the man can fix anything. A few hours later, we noticed him up on the roof in his flip flops, fixing the chimney. (“At least we don’t have worry that he’ll trip on his shoelaces, ” I told Lynda, my sister-in-law, as we watched him from below.)

Anyway, no $7.50 pump was going to get the best of him, and whereas I would have shrugged my shoulders, hauled out the receipt, and stood impatiently in the “returns” line at Stop & Shop, in no time at all he had the pump up and running. (“I stuck a pencil in and fooled around with the blades,” he explained.) And then he and Lynda (who, technically minded, is much more of his kindred spirit than I will ever be) helped me put the paddles together, because even though the instructions said “Screw shafts together,” period, there was indeed a trick to which end went first and so forth. “You put the first one together correctly,” Lynda told me consolingly, as they unscrewed the second one. “But I think it was a coincidence.”

Eventually, my father gave the Kayak Inflation Level his stamp of approval, and despite the extreme wind, which was actually tossing up whitecaps from time to time, agreed to go on the maiden voyage with me. We put on our life jackets, rolled up our pants, and hauled the kayak over to the water.

There was a serious twinkle in my dad’s eyes. He grew up at the edge of the same river where he lives fall-winter-spring now, and even at 82 still launches his 22-foot-sailboat on the not-much-wider-than-22-foot pond, with, you guessed it, the backhoe. But it is still too early in the season for that (and those of us who have watched him teeter on the edge of the deck in his worn Sperry top-siders always half-hope maybe this will be the year he’ll discover too many holes in the sails), so he was clearly delighted to be back in the saddle again. “This is a really great boat,” he kept repeating, as he slid his bottom onto the seat. A small puddle immediately formed around him—guess a little more air was required—and he laughed. “When you get in, it will all slide down your end,” he said. And it did.

It was so much fun to be with someone who was having so much fun. And he knew exactly how to navigate our trip: down to the dam, with the wind at our backs; then quickly along one edge (the waves at one point actually breaking over the bow, making me laugh); into the sheltered cove, for a quick rest; past the blueberry bushes to the midway point (the swaying pines on shore breaking the strength of the wind); and then straight across the middle, centered, with the blue sky above and the blue pool below. The waves bounced us up and down like a mother jiggling her colicky baby, but my dad steered us straight and true, until finally we reached the other side and let the wind just take us home.

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