Whilst waiting out a torrential downpour in our tent last week, I ran out of animals / vegetables / minerals to draw for Hazel, and for some reason thought to draw West Virginia. Then we made a list of people from WV. Then Mikey drew Ohio and we listed people from there. We were desperate to keep her entertained, and she seems to enjoy memorizing lists lately.

“How about Clint… Clint is from West Virginia. Who else?”

“Hawvey.”

Hazel has met Clint & Kelly’s dog, Harvey, only three or four times ever. He’s a youngin’. She saw them two weeks ago and can deduce that since Clint is from West Virginia, his dog must be, too.

I feel like I’ve been saying this a lot lately, but HOW DID WE GET HERE. My BABY is DEDUCING INFORMATION. Terrifying.

Of course, we blew the whole thing twenty seconds later when we informed her that Paisley is, in fact, from Ohio.

Two West Virginia natives (one by way of Indiana) meet, adopt a buckeye dog and manufacture a Canadian child. Figure that one out, kid.

Today she examined photos clipped to a string on the wall and instead of naming the people, named their dogs. I died a little.

“Ea-wuh, Paisee, Hawvey, Cah-win.”

Earl, Paisley, Harvey, Carlin. We met my parents this afternoon to reclaim that buckeye mutt of ours. I missed her and Hazel missed her. I don’t know about Mikey, sometimes. Clint says “I’ve never known someone who had such loathing for their dog.”

I know my parents are really good dogsitters because Paisley is always depressed and won’t eat for two days when she comes back from their house. Thanks, parents. Welcome home, daggit.

The first week of August hangs at the very top of the summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color. Often at night there is lightning, but it quivers all alone. There is no thunder, no relieving rain. These are strange and breathless days, the dog days, when people are led to do things they are sure to be sorry for after.

(I’ve been thinking about a childhood favorite all summer, and then Erin posted this – this is why we’re friends.)

Music music music, tiny family, far-away friends, cramming into tents to wait out downpours, ice-cold beer, dancing, happy kid, her “I love my life” and everyone else’s “I love mine, too” while passing around a jar of moonshine and bobbing in the coldest swimming hole in Fayette county (at least…)

…bliss that you could cut with a knife.

We’re all stuck in here together like a big family… let’s drink.

Clifftop 2009

Today we left for Clifftop. I planned diligently, squirreled things into a tidy heap for weeks, made food, made lists, made it the most organized trip ever. Got on the road two minutes ahead of schedule – just in time to get us there a few hours before dark when it would be nice & cool for setting up camp and finding friends, two minutes early EVEN after a mad half-hour search and rescue of Andy Floppinberg (and two worried phonecalls to places that she might have been left behind)…realized ten minutes from home that the only thing we’d forgotten was one of our camping lanterns …not a big deal. Picked up a couple of last minute things in town and Hazel was almost asleep, sure to remain that way for the whole two and a half hours of driving that lay ahead, banjos and fiddles comin’ through the ipod, killing time until the real things put me to sleep later this evening.

And then we hit traffic at construction and sat still for awhile. And then our air conditioner died. And then we hit more traffic at an accident, where we sat at a standstill for 45 minutes while sweat poured in buckets from my child’s head and she kicked me repeatedly and I actually YELLED at her (Mikey’s banjo & guitar get to ride shotgun). And then we heard a weird rattle under our hood and smelled something funny for about four and a half seconds, that may have been us or may have been the huge truck we were behind. And then we made calls for car advice. And then we stopped at an auto parts store to check our coolant (fine) and belts (fine) and figured we must just need freon in our AC (deal with it later) and decided to get on our way and just set up the bare minimum of camp in the dark and get totally settled in the morning. And then we needed to make an impossibly fast dinner stop and chose Taco Bell. Couldn’t find it (seriously? we’re 15 minutes from home), did a u-turn at a bank and stopped for some cash while we were there. Called friends to let them know we were on our way south, and that if something else happened traffic-wise we might not make it to the campground before they stopped letting new people in for the night – if so, knowing they have a group this week, a random tent in their yard in the morning would be us. Weird rattling noise started again as we idled in the bank parking lot, talking on the phone. Drove next door to a(nother) auto parts store. Employee and random customer and Mikey stare at the innards of our car for 15 minutes. Still nothing visibly wrong and it won’t make the rattling noise of course. Mikey is very mad. Hazel is SCREAMING. It has been three hours since we left home and we are only actually twenty minutes away. We should have set up camp an hour ago. Walt tells us to bring our car to his house so he can look at it. We do. The noise magically happens but nothing is going to fall off of it anytime soon, he says. We each drink a beer in his driveway. I get 27 bug bites, Hazel gets none. We go to Black Bear as a consolation prize (and since we’re saving the $30 we would have paid to camp tonight). Hazel freaks. We order our food to go. I hug an old friend I haven’t seen since 2006. I iphotograph a giant yellow moth laying eggs in the parking garage. We drive back home and unpack a single toothbrush, a binky and four beers.

Today we came home from Clifftop.

Try again tomorrow.

…just as fast as my feet can fly…

August, please don’t leave me as fast as July is seeming to slip through my fingers. How is it possible that we were just digging ourselves out of more than three feet of snow and now we’re making piles of stuff to pack for Clifftop, and this morning Maggie and I trekked to our favorite consignment shop to get fall clothes for our little ladies? How how how?

It has been insanely hot for the past couple of weeks, and over the weekend our godfamily came to stay over night as heat-refugees from their inferno of an apartment. We had a delicious feast that reminded me that in the summer, really all I want to do is roll around in the delicious food and mourn the fact that there is no rational / logical way for a family of drifters to put food by for the winter. We just… don’t eat tomatoes or strawberries for months on end. Will I buy a four-dollar pint of strawberries from California in December because my precious, fruit-fly toddler pleads for them with her big brown eyes in the grocery store? Probably… on occasion.

And also, I really just want to have another baby so we can have more compadres. They’re all the fun and awesomeness rolled up in love and funny of real family, but, you know… you hand-pick them. Ha!

(delicious little rainbow of tealights / PJ-homebrew and Kate-made butter / the essence of summer / a feast / ohmygod I love comparing the aesthetics of a meal on several different colors of Fiestaware / the g-fam)

Bring a song and a smile for the banjo
Better get while the gettin’s good
Hitch a ride to the end of the highway
Where the neons turn to wood…

- CCR

(I know that song is supposedly about draft-dodging, but really, I just feel like it’s about summer.)

Listening: CCR
(I am) Reading: Never Let Me Go (which so far I totally do not understand, but it seems really amazing in a The-Giver-for-adults kind of way, possibly…)
(Hazel is) Reading: Freight Train
Working on: random little things – I need to try to make Hazel a strap for her little toy banjo, but I’m still pondering this one. Sew? Crochet?

…and now I have this kid. This tiny little Scout Finch lookin’ kid with whom I can play footsies under a blanket as we lounge at opposite ends of the couch for half an hour before dinner. Me reading the new Mothering and she watching a 70s episode of Sesame Street, saying the next letter seven or eight times while listening to an alphabet song.

This kid who responds with a list when asked “what’s in the sky?”

“Moon… buhds… ay-payne… stahs… wain… sun…

The kid who points to my “H” necklace and says “H… Hazies.”

This kid who tells me to “back up!” when I’m in her way. Who casually names the animals and people who live at Grandma’s house while she pees on the potty. Who lifted up her shirt and “nursed” Andy today. Who stares at a bunch of photos of she & her people clipped to a string on the wall and ticks of a list of everyone in them: Ca-ca… Cana… G’ma & Pa-Pa… Dada… Pais… Walties… Mama… Cinty & Mah-yo… Mo…

This kid who applauds wildly and exclaims “yays!” at the end of her own songs, of anything Mikey plays on guitar and banjo, and at the end of an assortment of recorded songs, most consistently Bad Moon Rising.

Most of her songs are about dogs and Andy. She looks for her daddy first thing every morning, pats his back gently (because he’s always asleep on his stomach), mutters “Dada” and cuddles against him for a few more minutes of rest. She bursts into tears if she sees another person crying. She talks about Luca and Aunt “Miney” about seven thousand times a day. She wants to know the name of every person and animal and thing in the world. She tries to keep every single grain of sand in the sandbox. She pages through at least fifty books a day – on her own, aside from what we read to her – in their entirety. She is starting to talk about things she did a few days ago or a week ago. I think that so far we disagree less than most parent-toddler teams. I feel like our ratio of hangout time : simply taking care of her time is getting more even every single day.

Her intellectual growth over the past month or six weeks has been the fastest and most alarming thing yet about having an always-getting-bigger offspring in my care. And also the most entertaining, fun & fascinating. I am so excited to watch the rest of her life more than ever.

May God bless and keep you always,
May your wishes all come true,
May you always do for others
And let others do for you.
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung,
May you stay forever young,
Forever young, forever young,
May you stay forever young.

-Bob Dylan

We are back at the 433, and happy to be “home”. Mikey did well on his exam he thinks, Hazel cut the last of her teeth (until second-year molars, that is), and I was mildly useful for over a week as a single parent. I napped almost every day with Hazel, and I plowed through the last half of The Poisonwood Bible (omg), and did silly things like paint my nails and let them dry all the way and watch bad lifetime movies while my mom bathed my child. I am still trying to get my bearings and try to figure out how to catch up from being away. I keep puttering around, floating from task to task, and not completing any of them.

My friend Jenn got married over the weekend, and asked me sometime last year if I’d create jewelry for she and her girls. I happily obliged, excited to have almost totally free rein. This ended up making it a lot more difficult to decide on a design in the end, and I have spent A LOT of time bead-shopping over the past several months. I’m super happy with the finished products, though:

More importantly, Jenn’s face lit up when I handed them over two weeks ago at Panera – where we met for old time’s sake – and they all looked stunning on the big day. I’m not used to making such fancy things. Her photographer, Amberlee Christey, did a MUCH better job of making the jewels look pretty than I did, so I emailed her to ask if I could use this photo on my blog. She didn’t mind at all, and casually mentioned that I might know her brother and sister-in-law. Of course I do, because I live in the smallest world ever.*

*I am still working on blanket information, but have so far gathered the following tidbit: the priest Mikey thought of when we discovered the woman’s name on the label? The one who I found out is the cousin of the blanket-maker’s husband? Someone very near & dear to me got drunk for the first time at age 15 at that man’s ordination. Am I allowed to say that on the internet?

Listening: Hank Williams
(I am) Reading: Last Child in the Woods
(Hazel is) Reading: Each Peach, Plum, Pear and a bunch more yardsale books
Working on: trying to organize my life

It’s summertime
And the living is easy
Fish are jumping
And the cotton is high
Your daddy is rich
And your mommy’s good looking
So hush pretty baby, don’t you cry

One of these mornings
You’re gonna wake up singing
You’re gonna spread your wings
Take to the sky
But till that morning
There’s just not a thing that can harm you
With daddy and mommy standing by
- Nick Drake

(Coincidentally, or perhaps not, Hazel has been asking for this book at least twice a day for a week.)

10:00 a.m.: listening to Papa play banjo

11:00 a.m.: whining

12:00 p.m.: shaking some wooden egg shakers in the car while listening to bluegrass

12:30 p.m.: whining

2:15 p.m.: running as fast as her legs will carry her to be scooped up by Walt (<--- she has never done this to a non-parent or non-grandparent before), happy as can be to see him

2:16 p.m.: whining

2:30 p.m.: riding in the shopping cart at Kroger, waving Mama's grocery list in the air and jabbing her finger at the paper, yelling "paaaasssss-TA" repeatedly

2:31 p.m.: delighted with the gifted sticker from the cashier at Kroger

2:32 p.m.: whining

2:45 p.m.: sooooooooo excited to see one of her most favorite people - Michelle at the post office

2:50 p.m.: whining

3:00 p.m.: home, whining, refusing to nap

4:45 p.m.: eating cheese, whining for me to put her sunglasses on for the 37th time in a row

4:46 p.m.: running back over to the TV to continue watching Shrek, which she realizes she can't do in sunglasses, and takes them off for the 38th time, runs back to the kitchen and whines for me to put them back on...

4:47 p.m.: flings herself on the ground in true toddler fashion when I fold her sunglasses and put them away

4:48 p.m.: suckers Mama into returning sunglasses; overjoyed

4:49 p.m.: abandons sunglasses on livingroom floor

5:30 p.m.: watches Mama pouring a sippy cup of juice and points and yells "gooks!!!" (<---------- um)

6:15 p.m.: happily chows down on supper with Morgan in the seat beside her, banging their forks on their plates in rhythm and chatting

7:14 p.m.: thinks Mama is super funny and clever for standing upright in the tunnel and laughs hysterically

7:15 p.m.: cries with unbridled fear when Mama and Papa try to fit in the tunnel together; nurses for comfort and falls asleep in about 30 seconds in my lap with a room full of people <—- this has not happened in months

7:45 p.m.: wakes up when Mama shakes her iphone too hard (playing boggle) and disturbs Hazel’s slumber

8:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.: something happens here, but Mama has retreated to a bath with a book and a beer

9:00 p.m.: listens to Papa play banjo

9:45 p.m.: gets a diaper change from Papa and practices yelling “bye guys!!!” at the top of her lungs during the whole process

10:00 p.m.: will read some books with Mama and hopefully conk out like a sleepy little teething baby who… didn’t nap all day long and then passed out for half an hour at 7:15 in the evening……?