Camp starts today

If you step out of the shower in a hotel room, reach for your comb to fix up your freshly washed hair and find that you forgot to pack it, you do the following: 1. call guest services and ask how come they dont provide those cheap little combs in bathrooms like they used to (even though you know that this was a wasteful practice and few guests were dumb enough not to pack, of all things, a comb); 2. quickly get dressed and hop over to a nearby Walgreens where there are plenty of combs for your purchasing pleasure; 3. shrug your shoulders and get on with the day, believing that a rat's nest on your head isn't going to make the slightest difference to your day. If you picked number 1 you are a rational human being, ready to fight for your rights in life. If you picked number 2 you are a wimp that will spend any amount of money rather than ask politely for help. If you picked number 3 you are like me -- indifferent to the small stuff. Weightier issues fill your head and you're not going to be bothered about a rat's nest.

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Looking out my hotel room window. I'm on the 14th floor (that is an upgrade for no reason I can think of except maybe that the hotel is not very full). It boggles my mind that the apartments on the top floors of these buildings (see photo) go for millions. Who would want to live that high? And I say this having grown up in Manhattan, though never living higher than the 18th floor. (The building hiding toward the back of the tower here is the John Hancock, well, officially no longer called that, though unofficially, it's the John.)

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I walk over to Eataly for breakfast. I could simply Uber back to my daughter's house and eat there, but I know that once I get there, I should quickly whisk away Primrose and allow my daughter to get on with her work and honestly, I need a few more minutes to process the events of this past week.

I had a wonderfully soothing conversation with my girl, with her husband too last night, but perhaps you know this from your own experience: crises, especially ones that have sizeable medical components to them, are like wrecking balls. They swing left and right and destroy everything in sight and you have to find ways to guard against that (if you can). Talking helps, but so does thinking and worrying and processing. I'm no shrink, but I have to think it's better to acknowledge your fears than sweep them under the rug. 

Besides, I like Eataly.

(empty at this early hour)

 

 

(capitalism, telling us what our home really needs, making you feel the anger of not affording it even as others can)

 

 

(urban mirrors: I always look for them in Paris, never in Wisconsin...)

 

 

(my hotel's art: I think it's for the soccer tournament and for America's birthday)

 

 

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And now it's time to hit the road for Grandma Camp, listening to Primrose's playlist all the way. Primrose is 8 years old and there's a lot of Taylor Swift on it. I tell my grandgirl that I so admire Swift to have managed at her young age the business aspects of her career so well. Primrose responds -- grandma, she is in her thirties!  Oh, oops. Really ancient! 

We pick up the two older cousins and go to Culver's for lunch. Their choice.

I let them set the activities for rest of the day, which indeed may be a mistake. What do 8 and 11 year olds know about structure and mood adjustments? In the past I've always just insisted on my framework. Camp is camp. But I want them to have a looser rein and so we try it. They reject water activities in favor of going back to Steffi's House and taking a look at the art loot I amassed thinking that I may just have Primrose for the week. And eventually they do settle upstairs and get to work. Something about notebooks and stories.

Oh I see. Three plays were written. And then acted out for me and Millie.

 

 

 

*     *     * 

Sandpiper comes over after his school day ends and joins the three older kids for a dinner of crunchy chicken and corn and pasta. And a movie (they all love my very favorite-cant-live-without-them wheat crackers).

And then quiet settles over Steffi's house. Well, except for the occasional woof.

So where was Millie in all this? Well, for much of the afternoon she hid in her crate. Last time she came back from Julie's (her loyal babysitter), I had moved. This time? A troop of kids invaded the normally quiet house.  If I were her, I'd think Julie was some kind of a witchy person who transformed the world as we know it. Or maybe that Julie was her savior as the planet spun out of control behind her back.

(At Millie's pickup)

 

 

We will see how the night goes. For Primrose, For Millie. For my friend. For me.

with so much love...