long weekend

rich away this weekend making music in mendocino county, and i've got one borderline sick kid and one quite sick coughing mucous-filled kid but we worked it out. saturday we met our good friends at the library downtown, where we checked out no books but played sorry and the strawberry shortcake game, then ran around at the park in front of city hall, walking past the most joyful loud laughing totally crazy person ever on the way. her head thrown back and huge huge laughing mouth with shining white teeth in the sun. said friends came over afterwards and the kids puttered around together so well, miles and jonah drawing skeletons and monsters, z and maya dressed like tinkerbells and parallel playing in parallel small worlds. these friends are moving to the east bay, but i won't get too sad about it because, well, i guess i am becoming hardened and tough about losing friends to distance.

yesterday evan came over and we took the kids to hipster st francis for a fabulous brunch and returned to find i had locked us and evan's bag with his keys out of my house. upstairs neighbor in sacramento, rich 4 hours away. evan kept cool and we walked to my neighbor's bday party one block away. i left the kids there and cabbed it to my brother's, got his spare key from the hiding spot, found the set of keys to our house in his basket of mail, bought a bottle of bushmills whiskey and some ice at the corner store, and went back to the party. soon the kids were watching pokemon, evan was facilitating shots for all, there were ribs and chicken and cookies and the day flew by until bedtime.

and today our backyard became part of a decentralized urban farm, myfarm. we hired a bunch of young eco-warriors to crush all our grass, haul in tons of dirt, build beds with drip irrigation, put up a huge trellis and a potato tower. for the next nine months our farmer will come each week to weed and harvest and leave us a box of veggies, taking another box to a member of myfarm not as lucky as us with our sunny mission yard. yes, i wish i could do all this gardening myself, but times are wierdly busy, my back and leg have been killing me, and this is all good, right? allll gooood. the farmers ride their bikes around the city and the food is only transported from yard to kitchen. it is supposed to taste better too. we will see!!!

miles asked tonight if i was going to die first since i am a grownup. i said i didn't really want to talk about it (bad answer), and that we should enjoy our time together. he replied that we spent a lot of time not together, and that made him sad because i am his best friend. lord, he is a pain in the you know what, but i love that crazy little dude SO MUCH. maya then spent an hour driving me nuts not going to sleep and then threw up from coughing ten minutes after she passed out. i washed her gross milky vomit hair in the sink and she smiled up at me with her red cheeks and exhausted eyes.

i know i am lucky right now, even if i often forget. my life has terrible and wonderful parts. the terrible are not on this blog. it is possible to turn towards the wonderful, and writing, growing things, kids and friends help.

you know what i mean, right?
love, j