We had tentative plans to watch fireworks with a group of friends in Riverside Park, but on the morning of the 4th, Jennifer suddenly said, "Let's rent a car and go to a small town." So we did: about an hour away in Ridgefield, Connecticut. We like being city folks most of the time, but it's fun now and then to be small-town folks, the way we grew up.
We spent Friday at Six Flags Hurricane Harbor--along with everyone else in the Tri-State area.
Six Flags shrewdly removed half of the tubes from the Lazy River so they can charge $7 for "personal" tube rentals. So it's now the Slightly Less Lazy River, as everyone has to walk. Hey, we all have revenue goals to meet.
On the way home we stopped at Target to pick up a few things. Jennifer bought an 18-pack of toilet paper. She's gone for the 12-pack now and then, but this was a new record. I remember going to my grandparents' house as a little kid, opening the bathroom cabinet, seeing every square inch filled with rolls of toilet paper, and thinking, "I will never be like this." Alas....
Today we went to a public pool in the city. The upside? It's free. The downside? You have to stand in line for an hour to get in, and you're not allowed to wear colored T-shirts, as they want to discourage gang activity.
We survived.
No profound lessons learned from the weekend, other than that family is important, jumping in water never gets old, and DQ Blizzards probably have a lot more calories than what you just burned off walking around a Lazy River.
One of my favorite little kids' clothing stores is closing.
I blame Jennifer. I gave her ample opportunities to have more kids, which would've kept them in business for at least a few more years.
What I love about Granny-Made:
They smile when you walk in the store.
They have a dog that hangs out in the store all day and likes to be petted.
They celebrate childhood with creations like a lime-green toddler swimsuit with a pink tutu. If there is beauty in the universe, it is a smiling toddler wearing that swimsuit.
The front window makes you feel good when you walk by--like you're not the only person in the world who believes in the magic of lime-green toddler swimsuits, or pink butterfly dresses with tiaras. Everybody deserves a little magic in life, and there's too little of it, dammit.
One of the owners is a guy, which makes me feel less creepy about liking pink dresses.
They've graciously featured my books in their window, which was a great way to impress friends that came over for dinner--I'd casually walk them past the store until they said, "Hey, isn't that your book?" Then I'd act mildly surprised in a jaded, successful-author kind of way.
They're one of those little neighborhood stores that makes the Upper West Side the kind of place in which Jennifer and I wanted to raise our kids and block other pedestrians with our strollers.
They'll still be on the web at grannymade.com. But I will miss the little bit of magic they brought to the block.
We did absolutely nothing this weekend except stay up late, sleep late, and bask in the laziness of our loafing.
On Saturday I got a signed contract in the mail for my third children's book, BEEP, BEEP, GO TO SLEEP, which put me in a good mood for the rest of the weekend. We discussed whether we should use the advance to take a trip to Atlantis or put it into our DeLorean fund. We decided to make our mortgage payment.
Yesterday we ate bagels, did laundry, watched TV, and griped about how lazy we are. At 6pm we picked up a pizza and joined friends for a picnic by the Turtle Pond in Central Park.
All the kids in the photo above went to elementary school together. Zoe, the littlest one in the middle, now lives in Nepal but is visiting for a month and has remained part of the NYC gang via Minecraft and Skype.
It's nice to take off your shoes, sit in the summer grass, and see your children happy.
Just got back from a four-day trip to Colorado to see my niece Emily get married. The highlights:
Thur, 6/20:
Flew on a regular plane from NYC to Denver, then on a rickety prop plane to Farmington, New Mexico. It was a bumpy ride over the mountains, made worse by the fact that the guy sitting next to me eked out a horrid fart, causing the other nine passengers to open our air vents and pretend we didn't notice.
Dinner Thursday night at Francisco's, my favorite restaurant--there were thirty of us in all.
Fri, 6/21:
Rafting down the Animas River with my sister April and her family. Not exactly whitewater, but still fun. Cheeseburger and milkshake afterwards at Sonic.
Rehearsal dinner at a restaurant next to the Durango train depot. This is my niece Addie and nephew Ryan.
Sat, 6/22:
Went to Cascade Canyon with my niece Mary (I have a lot of nieces), her boyfriend Freddie, and a couple of her dancer friends, Neile and Jessica, to wade through icy mountain creek water and jump off some waterfalls. Here we are in the giddy moments before we nearly lost our lives.
The water was ice cold and the current was strong. We had trouble staying on the rocks. At one point we had to slide down a rock into a pool below, and Mary and I both went about ten feet under and had to struggle a bit to get back to the surface. I hit my head on a rock on the way up, lost my hat, and got a mouthful of water.
Then Mary looked downstream and said, "No way. It's too turbulent." The walls of the canyon were steep, and there was no way to go back upstream.
So Mary climbed up a cliff with a 20-foot drop to the rocks below. If you fell it was a broken bone at minimum, but the rest of us decided that was a slightly better option than dying of hypothermia. As the others climbed up I thought, "Well, if I die here, at least the last thing I see will be dancers' butts." Then Freddie went ahead of me, so I willed myself to live.
Here is a picture of someone else, as no photos were recovered from our waterlogged camera.
Saturday afternoon was the wedding, which we were happy to be alive to attend.
My dad officiated the ceremony, even though he is obviously not ordained. If you're allowed to grow your own pot in Colorado, I guess you can also officiate a wedding ceremony.
Here I am with my brother Brad, the father of the bride. Note my new hat, which I bought an hour earlier.
My favorite part was playing with the flower girls...Addie and Adelyn, both missing the same tooth, shy Taylor, Skyler the dancer, Stella, who wouldn't let go of my hand and demanded to be swung in circles until my nose bled, and 4-year-old Lily, who had pretty blue eyes, a pink polka-dot dress, and was just learning to jump rope.
The world would seriously be a better place with more dogs and flower girls.
Sunday, 6/23:
Mary and Freddie picked me up at 9:15 and we climbed Hogsback, the mountain overlooking Durango.
It was much easier when I was sixteen.
Mom and Dad drove me back to the Farmington airport (with a stop at the Wendy's drive-thru for a Frosty), then back onto the prop plane for another bumpy ride to Denver.
Here's my little town of Durango from the air:
I took that photo about five minutes before the guy in front of me threw up. Suffice it to say the plane rides were not the best parts of the trip.
He was slow getting up, as always. I had to throw the covers off of him to get him out of bed and into the shower.
He decided to wear his favorite shirt, a Minecraft Reaper t-shirt, but it was in the laundry, so he went with his second-favorite, the skeleton.
He opted for Cinnamon Toast Crunch over Crunch Berries and Froot Loops. He doesn't like the new Froot Loops with marshmallows because "they just don't go together." Note to Kellogg's consumer research team.
He informed me that he and Brooke are getting married on Minecraft and are going to adopt Dominic, but he is worried that Aaron and Zoey might get married first. He said he might get married someday in real life, but he won't have actual kids because he doesn't like them.
Samuel, meanwhile, has Regents Exams this week, and didn't have to be at school today until 1pm. So while Ethan ate breakfast, Samuel trudged from his bedroom into mine and Jen's, because he likes our bed better. (Jen had already left for work.) He then covered himself with the comforter because Ethan was talking too loudly. It's difficult for Ethan to speak quietly.
On the way up Amsterdam in the cab, Ethan told me that he wasn't excited about the last day of school. For one thing, he probably won't get as much time as he wants this summer to play on the computer. For another thing, there's supposed to be a picnic after school with a water gun fight, and he forgot to bring a swimsuit--or a water gun. So life will be continue to be one misery after another as he leaves the sixth grade behind.
I want to tell him he has nothing to feel miserable about. But I don't have anything to feel miserable about either, and I'm still sad to see him grow up so fast.
Occasionally I display my altruism by sharing my waterpark secrets. In celebration of summer, here is the holy grail--my overview of all ten major waterparks near NYC.
Pros: Well maintained, decent sized. It has all the features you'd expect: slides, wavepool, lazy river, and a great play area for little kids.
Cons: Lots of concrete and fiberglass trees. Its location draws people from NYC and Philly, so it tends to be on the crowded side. Also, you will not be able to get the song "Kokomo" out of your head for the next three days.
Pros: It's large. It's less "fake" than Hurricane Harbor, with natural landscaping and trees. You can get there via LIRR and a bus (but so can everyone else).
Cons: If you added up every single person at every other waterpark on the list on any given day, it would probably not equal the hordes at Splish Splash. I'm being facetious, but not really. Everyone who likes it should keep going there. Please.
Pros: Built on the side of a mountain (it's a ski area in winter). Large, well maintained, and people don't seem to know about it, so it's generally not crowded. One of the best!
Pros: It has the most extreme attractions for big kids: Cowabunga Falls (huge vertical-drop slide), a 20-foot cliff jump, Tarzan swings. Built of the side of a mountain, with lots of trees and grass.
Cons: It's an "early" waterpark, and several of the attractions feel homemade and slightly dangerous. Or maybe that's a pro?
Pros: One of the less expensive waterparks, due to its smaller size. Food and parking are also reasonable. It is best for younger kids, and the lines are relatively short. And it's the closest waterpark to NYC!
Cons: It's smaller, and Keansburg can be a bit seedy. In short, it's good if you're in a hurry, on a budget, and want to say you went to a waterpark--or if you live in Keansburg.
Pros: It's open 365 days a year. It's family oriented, with mostly younger kids. It's well maintained. It comes with a hotel room! And you get two full days of access to the waterpark with one overnight stay.
Cons: It's not cheap, particularly on weekends. It's obviously not as large as an outdoor waterpark.
Distance from NYC: 1 hour, 40 minutes.
(2017 Addendum: Since this post was originally published, two more indoor waterparks--Aquatopia and Kalahari--have opened in the Poconos within a few miles of Great Wolf Lodge. All three are terrific. Great Wolf is best for little kids, Aquatopia is best for teens, and Kalahari is best if you have a mix of ages. I haven't anything about Runaway Rapids lately and if I were to write this post again I'd leave it off the list.)
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