How We Livin

July, oh my! Per usual, this space is about to turn into ghosttown tumbleweedsville as I'm taking the bulk of my vacation days over the next two months. And I have no shortage of vacation days, so, nice knowing y'all, and so long, weekends at home. We'll be packing in a year's worth of wonderful, top notch stuff between now and Labor Day, which I guess we do every summer, and it requires some tricky navigating in regard to making the household work, but I'm at peace with the silly pace of it.

There will be time to write about it all later, or not. There's no possible way to frame all this richness as a negative, and I'm not trying to. Life won't always be a trail dotted with happy destinations--I mean, sure, I hope it is, but contrary to what you might read here I don't exist in a state of denial about reality--but from where I'm sitting I can't pass up a single stop. Life's very insistence on being an unpredictable fuck is all the reason I need to do everything I possibly can now.

This past weekend we got the ball rolling by going to Mike's youngest brother's promotion ceremony which was pretty cool (congrats, Sgt. Dave). We were a little late because there was a matter of a sweet boy getting carsick, but we got to celebrate with Mike's family and it was great to spend time with them in general. HR was in heaven because there were Munchkins to eat after the promotion (which is the one thing he remembers about being in the police station, err...) and Grandma's house is chock full of FARM EMMULS and other new-to-him toys left over from her sons' childhoods so he got to line them up to his heart's content. He also got to play with his cutie pie cousin and blow bubbles on the deck and have the run of the complex's pool. A trip to Connecticut is a hell of a lot closer (and cheaper) than Orlando, just saying, so maybe we'll just keep Disney World under wraps forever and ever.

If only we could find a way to cure our guy of said carsick problem...





You can't dispute that the kid is wide open to living (the long pause is when a truck he got distracted by a truck in the distance). What's a little barf along the way?