Tu(n)esday

My sister-in-law took this picture of the girls last weekend. We all immediately thought they looked like rocker chicks and this photo should be their first album cover.

I hope they grow up to be Heart...

"I Like Adult Women Named Liz"

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We are now home from our week-long Fowler Family Funtime Extravaganza Vacation last week in Long Island, Maine.

We rented a house on the island so we could hang out and drink beer while watching the girls play on the beach. It couldn't have been more perfect. The house was lovely, the weather was great - we totally missed the heat wave that plagued all of our home cities while we were enjoying the ocean breezes - and the logistics of getting 12 people and a week's worth of junk on and off an island worked out as well as can be expected. Plus, no one had to be life-flighted to the emergency room. Vacation Success!!

I'm working on a post/posts with more pictures and stories about our beach fun with which to regale you, so check back tomorrow and the next day.

Beach Girls
*photo by Super-SIL Amy B.*

So, here's one more fun thing to get you in the mood...

OCMS played this song at a show they did in Boothbay Harbor, ME, last month just before the official summer season started for the Down Easters. So in honor of our time as the dreaded "Summer Folk," I offer up this video as a sincere apology and a hearty thank you to the kindly and welcoming people of Maine. Cheers!



My favorite part is the reaction of the Mainers in the crowd! Standing ovation.

Summer Fun: Aquarium

Yesterday we had a brief break from the tropical heat and thunderstorms that have been tormenting New England ever since school let out. We ran downtown with Gram to have a fun Girls Day Out in Boston.

First we had some lunch with Mike at his office and then headed off to the waterfront to check out the Aquarium. We realized that we haven't been there since Maggie's first birthday; we took her as some kind of attempt at celebrating a baby's birthday (What's "special" about a day to a baby? They're totally oblivious.), but just as in every single year since, the day fell at the beginning of the state school holiday week and the place was absolutely mobbed with desperate families. Kate's never even been there at all. So it was time to go.

Being summer, the place was packed with tourists and day camp kids and folks like us just trying to make the most out of summer in the city, but it still wasn't as nutso as that first school vacation week trip. We spiraled up the coral reef tank and watched the penguins eat lunch. Kate got to see an octopus, as requested. Maggie liked the purple starfish. They both were thrilled every time the giant sea turtles swam past.

After we escaped from the balmy damp of the Aquarium crowds, we decided it was time for "adult beverages" (and possibly a donut) and set off to find a Dunkins or a Starbucks, but then Jane had the wise idea to hit up the North End. On the way, we stopped in Columbus Park so Kate could run in the grass and Maggie could climb on the fountain.

Rose Kennedy Memorial Rose Garden



Caffé Vittoria in the North End - My Favorite

And the pièce de résistance: the girls can not resist the fountains in the Greenway between the North End and Haymarket, even when the sun goes behind some rainy clouds and it suddenly gets quite cool. We've been here before a couple of years ago when the girls got drenched and Gram had to run over to Quincy Market and buy them some dry clothes. Then when the girls and I came downtown last summer, I was prepared for the inevitable and brought extra clothes and a towel. This time, again, I knew better than to imagine that we would not need a complete wardrobe change in order to get out of town. Taking a bath in a public fountain has become our yearly summertime ritual.

Dry

Sprinkly

Damp



Splashy

Kind of Soggy

Drenched!

Sorry, I thought all of these pictures were too cute to choose from.
Don't mind me - just posting a million photos of my kids.

Hope your summer adventures are keeping you cool and dry!

Milestone

Last Friday, Maggie got her very first, very own library card! She had to be able to sign her first and last name on the application and on the card, and she did it! It helped that there happened to be a book on display right behind the circulation desk written by someone with our same last name. She noticed it and told me, "Now this is going to be SO easy!"

She is extremely proud of herself and her new card, and so are we.

Notes From the Nightstand: Hard Laughter

When I cracked open Anne Lamott's first novel, Hard Laughter, and saw my favorite e e cummings poem on the very first page, I was convinced that she and I were soul mates. I have really enjoyed a couple of her nonfiction books, Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year and Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, and was looking forward to exploring some of her fiction writing. I viewed that "I thank You God for most this amazing/day:" as a sign of great things to come. Unfortunately, I really struggled with this book, and it took me forever to read (because I rarely can allow myself to completely give up on a book - I just end up dragging myself through the ones I don't like at a snail's pace).

Hard Laughter was Lamott's first book, and first novel, which she wrote in her early 20s for her father after he was diagnosed with brain cancer (from which he eventually died). As so often is the case, the first book is never the best book, and I think you have to cut this one a little slack as such. However, I couldn't recommend this book to anyone as it really has no plot and the characters are all so odd that probably very few people would identify with them enough to pull you through the stream-of-consciousness meandering.

As is her usual style, Lamott has some truly hilarious observations and there are some honest and heartwarming moments, but there are too many head-scratching, bonkers, Northern California hippie commune moments and characters that overburden the good points. There also just isn't enough storyline about her father's battle with cancer - supposedly the point of the book - to carry the rest of the nonsense.

The main character, Jennifer, who is a stand-in for Lamott herself, is a complete nut. And one of her best friends is a precocious ten-year-old girl, which I never could get into. Her other friends and lovers are also fairly annoying personalities, although her family members are endearing in a kind of kooky Royal Tenenbaums fashion. I don't usually have a problem with drugs and weird sex and mental institution escapees in my reading material, but I could have used less of them here, replaced hopefully by more plot.

Where she's best, as she is in all of her books that I've read, is when Lamott is writing about writing. Jennifer and her father, Wallace, are both writers, as are Lamott and her own real father. The passages describing Jennifer's writing process and why she chooses to be a writer are the only parts where I turned down the corners of the pages to mark the good spots. As she says in the book, "Happy work is as gratifying as sex or hard laughter or love or good drugs." I believe her.

If you're looking for a book to take on the airplane to Vacationland with you, I'd say skip this one - unless perhaps you're on your way to Marin County to drop a lot of acid for your summer holiday. Then, by all means - you can have my copy. Everyone else would be better off to pick up Operating Instructions instead.

Tu(n)esday

Pokey LaFarge and the boys have a brand new album out, called Pokey LaFarge, on Jack White's Third Man Records. With the addition of a horn section (I think that's why they aren't using "The South City Three" part of the band name, since they're no longer just three), it's even swingier than their last album. I'm hoping they don't traipse too far towards the whole 90's big band swing craze sound, because right now I'm preferring this Bob Wills-style western swing meets St. Louis riverboat jazz thing they've got going on.

Here's the first single off the new album, "Central Time."



Another song off the album that I really like is, "The Devil Ain't Lazy."



As I wrote in this previous blog post about them, I think they are astonishingly talented musicians. I love that they write creative, new music of their own that still preserves and celebrates some of our American musical heritage at the same time.

If you're interested, you might also head over to Rolling Stone to listen to a single that Pokey recorded with Oklahoman artist JD McPherson to benefit the Oklahoma City Community Fund's tornado relief endowment. The song is "Good Old Oklahoma," originally by Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys.

Summer Vacation is Finally Here!

Today is the official first day of our summer vacation! And it's pouring rain! Hooray! That's OK though, because all the girls want to do is go to the bookstore. That's my kids' idea of "summer fun." I couldn't be more proud!

The last few weeks have been kind of a blur with all of the end-of-year school activities and whatnot. Kate's actually been out of preschool for about a month now, so she's thoroughly bored of me already and very glad that Maggie is finally home during the day. Let the bickering begin!

I'm not going to post a ton of pictures of the girls' programs here because you can see the faces of all the other kids in them and I'm sure their parents wouldn't appreciate that, but here are a couple of photos of Kate's pirate-themed graduation:

She said she wanted her hat to come down over the side of her face because she was pretending it was her eye patch.

She's moving on to the Pre-K program at the same school next year. Growing up!

Maggie's program was hilarious. They did a dance to the Superman theme song because they're "Super Kindergartners," and they sang a song to the tune of Surfin' USA with surfboards and sunglasses.

In her cape and star sunglasses with her surfboard. The cape is signed by all the kids in her class. So cute!

Each child in the class got to read a short book that they wrote themselves about what they learned or liked about kindergarten. Maggie's was about constellations.



Accepting her diploma from her teacher

Me and my girls (and Joyce the Cat)

Note: Kate was a little distressed at all the attention being lavished on Mags, even though we reminded her that we had already been to her graduation program.

Note: You can't reason with a 4-year-old, especially when sibling rivalry is on the line.

***

Here are few extra pictures of random stuff we've been up to:

The Barbie Jeep at Gram and Grandpa's is up and running.

Bikes inherited from Cousin Ana - now with training wheels.
Watch out, neighborhood, the Pink Ladies scooter gang is about to kick it up a notch.

Kate spent the night at Gram and Grandpa's all by herself last week and got to go to Gram's school and do crafts!

Tea parties. Always the tea parties. I predict this summer is going to involve a lot of tea parties.