A Photograph of You

This weekend was the kind of weekend that makes you remember why you had a family in the first place. Don’t get me wrong — I’m always glad for my little family, but every weekend isn’t wine and roses, you know what I’m saying? Saturday was lazy, but Sunday we went into Boston and hit the public garden and tooled around Beacon Hill, and oh, I love my city. Have you ever been to the public garden? You should go, because it’s one of my favorite places in the whole world, and it’s shockingly pristine and stunning for a park in the middle of a city, and looks like this, even right now, smack in mid-October:

{Photo from Flickr member Wallyg under Creative Commons}

Sam was in high spirits and loved every minute of it, including lunch, which consisted of … ketchup. For Jesus’ sake, I have to hide the ketchup around this kid, because if it’s present, she wants a plate of ketchup, and she basically wants to drink from the bottle. Fool me, I gave her some to dip in (kid loves to dip!) and HA HA, oh my God, here, kid, have a lunch of ketchup while my fellow diners call the department of social services.

I forgot to bring the camera, of course. Genius!

Monday, we hit the pumpkin patch, and you know, I might not remember my camera, like, EVER, but at least I don’t scream at my children to “Line up on top of the pumpkins! JESSE! GET YOUR ASS OVER THERE ON THE PUMPKINS! LOOK LIKE YOU’RE HAVING FUN! STOP POUTING! SHUT UP! JESSE! JUST HAVE FUN! HAVE FUN!”

Speaking of not bringing my camera, I was absent from this space last week because I went to Vermont to visit my good friend Kate, and oh! OH! It was so lovely. I love Kate so, along with her entire family, really. Did you know Kate’s husband COOKS? Like, Kate stays home with their son (and works her ass off doing so, I hastily add) and her husband works outside the home, and when he comes home, he MAKES HER AN ENTIRE MEAL. FROM SCRATCH. Like, GOOD MEALS. DELICIOUS MEALS! From recipes I have already appropriated and made, less than a week later!

I don’t know why I’m so flabbergasted by this — perhaps because while Adam has many fine domestic qualities (he vacuums! he does the dishes EVERY NIGHT!), cooking is not one of his special skills. He makes a great egg sandwich and sure, he can do the requisite stir-fry (and did I ever tell you that when he cooks, he narrates the whole thing in a Julia Child voice?), but that’s pretty much where it ends.

The point is, I spent three days in Vermont with one of my best friends and her beautiful son, who played beautifully with my daughter (chase! they played CHASE! AND GIGGLED!) and here are the photos I took while I was there:

Beautiful, aren’t they? YES, GORGEOUS. GORGEOUS WHITE SPACE PHOTOS OF WHITE NOTHINGNESS BECAUSE I FORGOT TO TAKE MY CAMERA OUT OF MY SUITCASE.

It means so much to me that I get to spend time with Kate, even though I moved away. It’s the sign of a great friendship, I think, and we’ve consoled ourselves with the fact that though we are no longer minutes (as in, uh, 45 — it IS rural VT you know) away from one another, now we get to spend more concentrated, quality time in nice chunks. I feel very, very lucky and I mean that in the most earnest, uncool way possible.

Finally, I can’t thank you enough for your kind, thoughtful comments and emails on my post last week. I know it’s a touchy subject, but every single one of them was thoughtful, considerate and respectful. It was one of those weeks where I wished I could have sat down on the Internet all day, every day and talked about it at length with all of you. Thank you again.

Happy Tuesday!

*Depeche Mode

15 comments October 11th, 2010