A Year About

We need Conor and Taylor back! The furnace ran a lot last night because C&T were not here to help keep the trailer warm. Just shows what a little extra body heat can do!

We spent yesterday at the trailer, doing very little. I got another round of laundry done, Bobby put away a few things and worked on taxes, but mostly we just hung out. I was hoping for another walk on the beach before we left, but Elise and I soon figured out that was not to be. As we left the trailer to take showers, the wind was so strong that Elise was literally propelled forward, unable to stop herself! The trailer was a very cozy haven. The very large motorhome next to us was rocking back and forth in the wind, but we didn’t. It was a lovely day.

Today we leave Pacifica and continue our journey north. We are aiming for Hendy Woods State Park. It is inland, so warmer than the coast. We are looking forward to being in the forest again (there are two virgin redwood groves there). We’ll hang out for a few days and then decide where to next. We have no plans for where we are going, we just know we’re heading north.

Taylor expresses her sadness at having to leave Aunt Dan, Uncle B and Elise-the-Niece with a “tear” from her water glass.

It had to happen. None of us expected it to happen so quickly, though. After six days of non-stop activity and lots of fun, it was time for Conor and Taylor to fly home. So that we didn’t focus on it too much, we filled our last day with more non-stop activity to distract us.



Our first order of the day (after stopping at a yummy bakery for breakfast) was a trip out to the Rock — Alcatraz. It is definitely one of the “things to do” when in San Francisco. Run by the National Park Service now, Alcatraz gets over a million visitors a year and going on a Saturday, we were accompanied by many of them on the ten-minute ride across the bay.


The guard tower by the dock.

Conor, Taylor and Elise picked up another Junior Ranger packet and got to work right away. Conor had originally thought to not do this one, but the lure of a plastic badge was just too much for him to resist. Next time you see Conor and Taylor, ask to see their badges!



Included in the price of the ticket is an audio tour of the main prison. It is a well done 45-minute presentation that moves you through the cell blocks, dining hall, recreation yard, solitary confinement, library and guard areas. Things I learned: in the ceiling of the dining hall were canisters of tear gas in case the prisoners started to riot, inmates at this prison were treated to hot showers to prevent them from acclimating to cold water so that they would not attempt to swim across the bay in an effort to escape, in 1962 three prisoners escaped using spoons to dig through the concrete walls and were never found, and the prisoners could smell the chocolate from the Ghirardelli factory in San Francisco.


This is one of the cells from the 1962 escape. The prisoner dug behind the grate over time to get through the wall.


The escapees climbed these pipes to get out on the roof and escape the prison.

After Alcatraz, we headed uptown on the street car to get Taylor’s iPod fixed. She got it right before she came here and it conked out unexpectedly earlier this week. We made an appointment at the Genius Bar at the Apple store and it turns out her iPod was corrupted so they replaced it. Now she has an iPod from San Francisco — how cool is that?!


Downtown on a Saturday.

We took the street car back to the Fisherman’s Wharf and walked the rest of the way to Ghirardelli Square, not that we needed more sugar or anything! Before we went for chocolate, though, we treated ourselves to a delicious dinner at McCormick & Kuleto’s. Everyone had a fish entree of some kind and all were scrumptious. Elise, of course, stayed true to herself and had linguine with butter. Conor was flabbergasted that she would to this, but Bobby and I were not surprised. We were planning on going over to Ghirardelli for ice cream sundaes for dessert but made the mistake of looking at the dessert menu at the restaurant. Taylor and I split a Dark Chocolate Bag, Conor had a crustless Key Lime Pie and Elise had vanilla ice cream. Bobby mooched off us all.







The Dark Chocolate Bag was filled with white chocolate mousse and whipped cream. The bag was surrounded by an orange sauce with berries and drizzled chocolate. So delicious! Before dessert was served, the waiter brought a steak knife to our table. He later explained that it was for the bottom of the bag. The chocolate on the bottom is over 1/2″ thick. I tried to saw through the chocolate but was unsuccessful due to the movement of the chocolate on the orange sauce. The only way to get through was to approach the task in a Psycho-esque way. With a firm grip on the knife, a straight downward jab and constant pressure, I was able to break the bag into pieces. Taylor found this hilarious.



We walked around a little after dinner, stopping to shop at Ghirardhelli and watch an artist paint an otherwordly picture complete with planets, the San Francisco skyline and the Golden Gate bridge — all with spray paint and a few tools.



Finally, it was time to head to the airport. We arrived in plenty of time and had another 40 minutes together before Conor, Taylor and I went through security to the gate. As soon as we got to the gate, they boarded the plane and they were gone.

Conor and Taylor are great kids. They are helpful and thoughtful and incredibly fun to be around. It was a complete pleasure to have them with us this week and we’re so glad they chose to spend their spring break with us. We’re hoping they can make it out to see us one more time before we head home, this time with my sister and her husband. We sure hope they can.

We headed over to the Golden Gate Bridge and Fort Point today. The fort was built for the Civil War and sits on the southern side of the mouth of the bay. The bridge was built around the fort to spare it. I’m glad they did. It’s a marvel of brick and stone. It’s what I wish Fort Sumter was. Fort Sumter is mostly a concrete bunker now, but once looked similar. We wandered all around Fort Point. The top of the fort provides excellent views of the city, the bridge, the bridge’s massive steel structure, the ocean, and the dozen or so surfers riding the waves that enter the bay.


Fort Point really is underneath the bridge.


Lots o’ bricks

We were all fascinated by the surfers. They hang out very close to the rocks near the base of the fort. The water is no doubt cold and I’m sure the rocks are not soft. We gradually learned who was good and who was not. The guy on the white board farthest out was not. He let every wave pass him by. The guy on the blue board was the best. He rode most anything, and rode it well. At least it looked good to us.


These surfers were born without the very helpful fear-of-severe-bodily-injury gene.

After exploring the fort we walked out on the bridge a little ways to check things out. The walkway is crowded with cyclers and tourists and cycling tourists. As soon as you get to the concrete pier before the main span, there are signs for crisis counseling and a number you can call. The bridge has long been and remains a popular site for jumpers. However, the surfers seem to have found the most creative way to imperil themselves.




This is what a cross section of one of the two massive cables holding everything up looks like. There are over 27,000 steel wires bundled in the 36-inch diameter cable.

We drove straight into downtown and in so doing wound along famous Lombard Street. It was fun. Many of the streets really are improbably steep. I’m sure glad the truck isn’t manual transmission. We had a couple errands to run near Union Square again. We timed our trip perfectly so that we’d be heading back to the trailer at rush hour. Ahh.



Conor and Taylor whipped up some pasta and a tasty cream sauce with peas and bacon. You can never go wrong with bacon. Even more delicious was dessert: Grilled peanut butter and banana sandwiches sprinkled with powdered sugar. This gave us the energy we needed to play some board games.



Tomorrow we are heading out to Alcatraz in the early afternoon. We’ll stay downtown until it’s time to take Conor and Taylor to the airport. We cannot believe it is already time for them to leave. The week has flown by!

Shawn met us at the trailer this morning and we all drove through town, across the Golden Gate Bridge and up the winding road to Muir Woods National Monument. The heart of the monument is a little valley of redwoods, which I am told are not as large as their relatives to the north. However, they were plenty large to impress us. The forest was quiet — once we branched off the main path — and sunlight shone down in beams. We were continually moving through shadows and bright light. This was pleasant, but not very easy to photograph. In fact, taking pictures was folly. Between the immense size and incredible height of the trees, and the twilight, it was impossible to take a good picture intentionally. So these are pure luck.



All three kids decided to do the junior ranger packet. They don’t give out badges here though, only stickers and a certificate that is sent to your home. The adults just wandered around a bit dumbstruck. I felt the need to keep quiet, and when I did talk it seemed to be inappropriate, like we were at the library. Conor and Elise did not feel this way, but they may have been a decibel quieter than usual.



We spent quite awhile in the park and didn’t get going until rush hour. It was a long slow drive back to the Airstream highlighted by the fact that I didn’t have to pay the toll coming back across the Golden Gate Bridge because all the kids qualified me as a carpool.





Shawn hung out with us while Danine made her delicious corn soup. We ate. Unfortunately, Shawn had to head out. Unlike us, he still works and had to finish a book review. It was a great treat visiting with him the past two days.

We descended on Shawn around 10:00 a.m. Wednesday morning. He showed us his apartment and then he very graciously allowed me to take advantage of his printer. After I had gone through an unexpectedly exorbitant amount of paper, we headed out to see what Fairfield and the surrounding area had to show us. Since our truck only seats five and his Accord does too, we couldn’t all fit in one car. That meant that I got the rare treat of driving around with just Shawn while Bobby manned the three kids in the truck.

Shawn and I are six years apart and growing up spent a lot of time together since our older three siblings were heading off to college. We used to watch GI Joe and Transformers together in the afternoons after school. When we were older we would go rock climbing together at Great Falls on the Maryland side. (Although I remember not making as much time for that as I should — something I regret now.) I love spending time with Shawn. He is very easy to be with.

We first headed to the Jelly Belly factory tour, but since this is spring break for many, the line was incredibly long. We abandoned ship and headed to Suisun, a nearby town for a short walk along the marina and some lunch.



Everyone ordered fairly standard fare (BLTs, chicken nuggets, gyros) except for Conor. He ordered fish and chips, expecting a few pieces of fried fish. This is what he got:



Regardless of the size, Conor enjoyed his lunch, as did we all, and thus happily filled, we headed back to Jelly Belly. The line was slightly shorter and so we waited. I got into a verbal altercation (which I hate doing) with an incredibly rude woman in front of us, but beyond that, the wait was fairly ho-hum.



The tour was interesting and the machines were great to watch. Jelly Bellies are the only jelly beans that are flavored both inside the bean and on the outside of the shell. We saw Jelly Bellies churning in a machine that looked like a cement mixer. This was where the outer shell was put on, with alternate applications of a confectioner’s glaze and a liquid goop that contained the flavoring and colors. The tour ended, of course, in the gift shop so we did our part for the professional dental community and spent wads of cash on sugar. We’ll start calling for dental appointments tomorrow.








Everyone has to wear a hat on the tour. Shawn and I had trouble getting them to fit on our Miller heads!

The kids sugared up, Shawn took us on a hike at a beautiful park overlooking Fairfield.





Elise and Conor led us on an arduous climb up some rocks, definitely not on the path. But the view from the top was great, well worth the effort.



After the hike, we refortified ourselves with coffee from Peet’s and then Shawn gave us a tour of his work at The Daily Republic. Shawn is the assistant news editor at the paper and we got to see it all, including his desk and the printing press.



For dinner we met Shawn’s California family — Tony and Andrea along with their 14-year old twins, Daniel and Stefanie. Shawn and Andrea worked together at The Daily Republic and they have been friends for many years. They are a wonderful crew and we had a great time getting to know them. All of the kids (except Elise, of course) were pretty quiet in the beginning, but had warmed up to each other by the time the main course was over. This might have had something to do with the fact that Andrea told her kids that tonight they would be meeting their future spouses, but I could be wrong. By dessert, Conor and Stefanie were doing the “Soulja Boy” for all of us!



Shawn picked a wonderful restaurant for dinner and we all left stuffed. Tomorrow we get another day with Shawn. I think we’re going to see some redwoods. Should be cool!

I am one of six people left in America who loves Wheaties. I have never met the other five. We have Wheaties in the trailer, but it’s a special occasion, what with Conor and Taylor here. So we got up and walked over to the bakery for breakfast this morning. It was hopping (a good sign) and everybody got something they enjoyed. On our way back to the Airstream we stopped at Safeway and got some groceries: three pints of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream (on sale) and some other, less important stuff.

After getting our collective act together, we headed out to try our luck on the BART. It functions, and even looks, very similar to the DC Metro. We took it downtown to go shopping around Union Square. Elise’s clothes have been getting a little small. She appears to be growing somehow. To remedy this — the small clothes, not the growing — we purchased one of everything in her size at the four-story flagship Old Navy store. While Danine accomplished this task with Elise, Conor, Taylor and I went to the Apple store so Taylor could get a cover for her iPod. Then we all headed up to the spiritual center of Conor’s universe, Williams-Sonoma. From the outside it doesn’t look too big. Inside it is four-stories of fancy cooking paraphernalia. Conor bought himself a Le Creuset skillet that weighs 84 pounds. It comes with a training manual so you can develop the upper body strength required to lift it. Luckily it’ll be shipped directly home.




Wedged between larger buildings was this funky Frank Lloyd Wright building housing a folk art collection.

Even browsing cooking utensils can make you hungry, and we eventually left and ate panini for lunch. Very good! We couldn’t stop with the whole cooking-slash-food theme. Therefore we proceeded to Sur La Table. It is at the center of Conor’s spiritual universe too. I think that means the two places operate like binary stars. Not sure. I may be taking the metaphor a bit too far. A number of things were purchased, but I can’t remember them all. I do know this, today I was much better managing real money than Monopoly money. At Sur La Table I spent a mere $4.95 on 100 tea filters. Yet I overpaid Conor for the cheap light blue properties and this led to his total domination of the game.



We wrapped up the shopping before rush hour really kicked in and headed home. Everybody was settling in when Danine said, “There’s a para-glider right outside the trailer!” Indeed. Since we are on the edge of a cliff — pray that it doesn’t erode this week — the para-glider was sailing at eye level. It looked fun in that sort of precariously-close-to-death kind of way.



Danine had started a delicious crockpot meal of beef tips in wine sauce in the morning, which we devoured for dinner. Taylor and Elise did the dishes and then came a long, painful game of Monopoly. Elise and I were a team. She was in charge of paying and collecting our money. I rolled the dice, moved onto someone else’s property, and then told her to pay them. This happened over and over. Conor had only three properties, the green ones. What a fool. Those are so expensive and overpriced and nobody lands on them. Well, unless you count me, Taylor and Danine three or four times each. The end. Actually the first half of the game was great because we ate 70% of those three pints of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. Mmm.



Tomorrow we get up early and head to Fairfield to spend the day with Danine’s brother Shawn. He will introduce us to all the delights that town has to offer. And they are legion.

We successfully retrieved Conor and Taylor from Oakland International Airport this morning. They got up at 5:30 this morning (EST) to get here, so we cut them some slack and didn’t make them swim out to Alcatraz. We’ll save that for another day. Instead we fed them Quizno’s and goofed off back at the trailer.

After we made the trailer as messy as we could (5 people in this aluminum can is going to be interesting!), we headed down to the beach for some sun (Taylor is desperate to get a tan) and surf. Little did we know just how much surf some of us would get.


Our trailer is at the top of this cliff somewhere.

The beach here is very dramatic. The cliff comes right down to the water with a few large boulders in between. We found a spot in the rocks and everyone spread out to do their thing. Elise and Taylor got out Elise’s Polly Pockets, Conor found great big dirt balls to throw around and Bobby and I simply enjoyed the kids. Soon enough, though, Bobby was throwing dirt balls with Conor and things digressed from there.





Conor was the first to brave the water. We warned him it was colder than the Atlantic and he soon found out we were right. It takes very little time for your feet to become completely numb, as you can see from Conor’s expression.



Soon Bobby, Elise and Taylor joined the fray. They started with feet in the water and then things got quickly out of control. Here Bobby, Conor and Taylor are checking out the incoming wave.



Here are Bobby, Conor and Taylor when the wave got to them.



I realize that you can only see the top of Taylor’s head, but please believe me when I tell you Bobby and Conor are in there, too.




Conor, Taylor and Bobby couldn’t avoid the wet. But Elise did!

After a quick dip in the heated pool and very long hot showers, we regrouped at the trailer for dinner. Teriyaki chicken, grilled pineapple and salad filled our bellies sufficiently until movie time. Conor and Taylor gave Elise “Enchanted” on DVD for Easter so we watched that while we stuffed our faces with popcorn.

Tomorrow we are going shopping and sightseeing in downtown San Francisco. Conor has to see the Williams-Sonoma flagship and Elise is looking forward to seeing Old Navy’s. Here we go!


Not sure what he’s singing, but he seems happy!

A concrete ship slowly disintegrates off shore of Seacliff State Beach.

Seacliff State Beach is nice if you come to visit for the day. If you bring your RV, the upside is that you are right on the beach and can listen to the crashing waves as you fall asleep. The downside is that it’s another cramped parking lot, and if you have friendly yet staggeringly inconsiderate neighbors, you will be annoyed for most of your stay.



We left Carmel Friday and crossed the narrow, one-lane bridge we came in on. It wasn’t so bad, but we are glad it’s behind us! The drive to Seacliff, which is ten minutes down the coast from Capitola, was short and easy. In fact, we took a half hour detour just to go to Wal-Mart in Salinas. Yes, it was as thrilling as you imagine it to be. We arrived at Seacliff early and found that our site bordered the site of a motorhome that had disgorged piles of chairs, tables, rugs, coolers, and toys. These folks had so much, uh, stuff that they decided to use about three feet of our site as well. The sites are defined by painted white lines. These lines will not protect you from noise or ever-more-encroaching junk. We squeezed into the site with a very high degree of disenchantment.

Despite never moving or apologizing for their intrusion of stuff, the neighbors seemed friendly. They talked about how they like to come down here with a big group and party. How lucky for us. We had to open the door of our truck carefully so as not to whack one of their tables. When we attempted to utilize the meager space left to us, random family members or friends would grudgingly scoot their chairs a few inches. They did indeed stay up really late, but to their credit Danine and I were able to fall asleep anyway.

The next day we were expecting to have to move one site over due to reservation limitations. This would be good because it would provide a buffer to the party people, but it was not because moving in the tight space of the campground was not easy at all. In the end we got the worst of both worlds. The folks in the site we were to occupy, had reserved our current site. So we’d only be swapping sites, which didn’t seem very useful. However, the campground checklist guy told us we had to pull our trailer forward the two feet it was hanging over the painted white line into the public walkway. That means we had to hitch, move two feet carefully, and then unhitch. And after all that, we still had our special, special neighbors.





All right, enough of the lows. The high of the day was having friends, Elizabeth, Tony, and their kids, come to visit us. Danine has kept in touch with Elizabeth for the last four years. Elise went to preschool with their oldest son, Walt. They’ve moved around a bit: Falls Church to Hong Kong to Cupertino. We had a great time catching up and chatting. Elise and the boys (in age order, Walt, Nate, Eli, and Graham) played on the beach. Sarah, the youngest at three months, did not play on the beach. She napped a bit and maintained a high state of cuteness. I nearly blew up our grill cooking hamburgers. They were delicious. The time flew — a sign of a good day. We were glad they made the time to meet up with us. Hopefully they’ll stop moving eventually and end up in Falls Church again.



We decided to go to the Easter Vigil at Holy Cross church in Santa Cruz. The church, which dates from the 1800s, is on the site of Mission Santa Cruz. It’s one of the most beautiful we’ve seen. The vigil service was also lovely. We knew it was going to be long, and it clocked in at two hours and fifty minutes. Ten people were baptized and fourteen were confirmed. It was a moving Mass and Elise didn’t fall asleep!



Besides the untold graces showered upon travelers who attend a three-hour Mass in a strange town, another upside of our evening out was not being around our camping buddies. Their party had been growing all day and was still going strong when we got home at 11:30. Fortunately, Elise fell asleep despite the noise. We fell asleep too, thank goodness.

Needless to say, we were motivated to get on the road today. We didn’t clean the trailer up like we usually do. Just stowed our stuff and hitched up. I carefully pulled us out of the site with Danine’s invaluable help and we were on our way. The trip to Pacifica is hilly and windy thanks to the Santa Cruz Mountains. The brakes got a workout, but performed well on those long descents. I kept the truck in third gear for most of it.

Now we are settled into a well-maintained private campground on a cliff that overlooks the ocean. Our site backs to the cliff. All of us worked to clean and prepare for our guests this week. Our niece and nephew, Taylor and Conor are flying in to Oakland tomorrow to spend the week with us and explore San Francisco. We’ve been looking forward to this for a long time. It’ll be fun!


The view from the back of our trailer.

I have been sitting here for the past five minutes trying to think of a clever way to start this post, but my mind is blank. So I’ll just start.

We went back to the Carmel Mission tonight and Mass was really great. What a complete treat. The church is beautiful. I spent the first 10-15 minutes before Mass started just looking at all of the artwork and design. There is a lot of history here. How cool that we got to come to Mass here, where people have been praying for 200 years?


The sarcophagus of Padre Junipero Serra, founder of the first nine California missions. This is not in the church sanctuary, but in the museum attached to the church.

Most of the Mass was what you would expect for Holy Thursday. The Liturgy of the Word, though, was done in a way I hadn’t seen before. (The Liturgy of the Word is the readings from Scripture and the homily.) Elise thought it was “Cool!” Normally, there is the first reading (Old Testament), a (usually) sung psalm, a second reading (New Testament), and the Gospel. Tonight they were all mixed in together. There were four readers, an incredible choir and two Ministers of Movement who invited the congregation to use some simple hand movements during the singing of the psalm. The readers told the stories of the readings, the story of Passover and why we celebrate it. The language was very simple so that children could understand it, too. Underneath the readers, a musician played the clarinet and the choir had incredible dynamic range and expressed the psalm exquisitely. Elise was fascinated by the Ministers of Movement (two ladies sitting on very large pillows in the aisle) and their movement was lovely. Not something you would see in the Arlington diocese! I’m not describing it well enough to do the Mass justice, but suffice it to say we’re considering coming back for the Easter Vigil even though we will have moved about an hour north of here by then.


After Mass.

Tomorrow we move to Sea Cliff State Beach for two nights. We will see a friend of mine, Elizabeth, and her family. One of her sons and Elise went to preschool together, but then they up and moved to Hong Kong! They have been back in the States now for a little over a year, but live here on the West Coast. It will be good to catch up.

Sunday we leave there and head to Pacifica for a fun-filled week with Conor and Taylor, my sister Lyn’s wonderful kids. They are spending their spring break with us (flying out from Virginia) and we can’t wait to see them! They are effectively Elise’s older siblings and we have all missed them very much. We will also get to spend some time with my brother Shawn who lives out here. We haven’t seen him since our brother Chris’ wedding in September. Can’t wait!!

We probably won’t post again until Sunday, so Happy Easter everyone!!

Yet another amazing picture of the Pacific. Yawn.

Remember Mike from yesterday? He was the guy who taught us all we now know about jellies? When we got home from our outings today, there was a comment on this blog from him. We talked to him yesterday so Elise could ask him her question, but we never told him about our trip or our blog. How he found us, we don’t know. But it was a real kick to see his comment. You never know who’s going to be reading this!


A close up of some flowers at the Carmel Mission.

The most pressing thing we did this morning was decorate our Easter eggs. We tie-dyed them since that was the only kit I could find at the grocery store. They are an eclectic bunch and they brighten up the trailer. Easter is going to be a little bit harried this year, I’m afraid. We are traveling on both Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Good Friday is my favorite day in the Triduum and I will be sorry to miss the services. Luckily, though, we are in California Mission Country, so we are going to Holy Thursday Mass at the Carmel Mission and we hope to either go to Mission Santa Cruz or Mission Juan Bautista for Easter. If you have to be away from your home church at least you can go to one that is a couple hundred years old!



We dropped by the Carmel Mission to see what time Mass was tomorrow night and took a couple of pictures since we won’t have our camera with us on Holy Thursday. It’s another beautiful church and I’m looking forward to seeing the inside. I thought the window above the door was curious. It doesn’t look straight, does it?



From the Mission we headed back toward Monterey for a round of mini golf. Before getting there, though, we decided to go on 17 Mile Drive, which turned out to be, in our opinion, completely overrated. Our first inkling was that it cost $9.25 just to get on the road! I found out later that if you eat at one of the swanky restaurants along the way and show them your receipt, you get a credit on your bill for the price of the drive. But how many people stop and eat at the Pebble Beach Golf Course restaurant?!


Checking out the tide pools. Green sea anemones everywhere!

17 Mile Drive is what it sounds like it is. The road takes you through the Del Monte Forest and some pretty posh neighborhoods. The junkiest house in there costs at least a million cool ones. From the neighborhoods, you pass a few golf courses, the most notable, of course, being at Pebble Beach. I don’t play golf so I don’t get the whole dressing up to play a sport while spending a lot of money thing. That said, it’s got to be pretty cool to be playing right next to the Pacific Ocean.


This is not one of the junky ones.

I think the most absurd stop on the drive is The Lone Cypress. Not because of the tree – it’s lovely. Because of what they’ve done to it. The brochure you get when you pay at the gate says this, “As one of California’s most enduring landmarks, The Lone Cypress has prevailed on its rocky perch for over 250 years. This icon of fortitude has inspired many and is revered as the eternal symbol of Pebble Beach Company.” Pebble Beach Company produced the brochure. What’s absurd is that the tree is standing on top of a reinforced wall and lashed onto the hill with support cables. It couldn’t fall down if it wanted to. So how is it, exactly, an “icon of fortitude”?


The Lone Cypress. (Cue music.)

Elise wanted to play mini golf today. The only one I could find in the area was inside an outlet mall, although I wasn’t looking very hard. This was a blacklight one, so everything in the place glowed fluorescent. Our teeth never looked whiter. Our faces looked like the Oompa Loompas from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. In a stunning, come-from-behind move, I won the game. I can’t remember the last time I beat Bobby in mini golf. I promise that my victory dance was understated if you don’t count my running up and down the hallway of the mall screaming, “Who’s your daddy now?” until security showed up.

After I was released of my own recognizance, we headed home to eat Kraft Mac ‘n’ Cheese and watch “Mary Poppins”. Tomorrow we plan to visit the children’s museum and hope that no one from the mini golf place recognizes me.