Family Camping: Take III

It's 6 am and I am up baking biscuits. They are from a can, but still, it is nearly impossible to express how unlike me this is. In my natural state I sleep until 9 and go out for brunch. Alas. My natural state is long gone.

I am up at this ungodly hour (it gives me headache to be up before 7) because Maggie woke up to announce her need to pee at 5 and the thought demons took this as the cue to worm their way into my consciousness, where they enjoyed a rowdy game of monkey-in-the-middle until I gave up on further sleep. Everyone else in the house is still snoozing away.

I'm keyed up because tomorrow morning we leave bright and early for Camp Mather. It's a family camp up near Yosemite that only residents of San Francisco can go to. You have to enter a lottery to get a spot. We did. We won. And now I spend my dawn hours making mental lists of things like nail scissors and duct tape and bug spray and all the other 5,011 things that will supposedly help us to actually enjoy this experiment in group family camping.

As many of you know, I've been scarred. I was never a big camper to begin with (I like soft pillows and showers too much). Then I went camping with one-year-old twins. Now I get the tremors when anyone mentions the words "Coleman Stove." Seriously, our track record as a family is bad.

But this is supposed to be better. It's all sing-alongs and lifeguarded lakes and cafeteria dining (no Coleman stoves!). And our kids are four now, not one, or three. And we have a cabin and I am bringing down comforters and Christmas lights and a couple of cute throw rugs (I kid you not), so I think we have a chance. I'm counting on it actually. Because, honestly, I really need a vacation. And a little sleep.

I'll be back in a week or so with tales to tell and an exciting announcement. I'll let you know if those nail scissors came in handy. In the meantime may your days be filled with the comforts of modern civilization.

"I have to think these things up, you know"

The kids and I spent the weekend with my mom, helping her do things like open jars and wash dishes because she had surgery on her thumb and her arm is wrapped up like a burrito, a giant, gauzy, arm-y burrito.

The weekend has been an opportunity to take over and secretly throw away some of the papers my mother passively collects. So far a bunch of coupons for carpet cleaning, a stack of 30 or so catalogues for cheap crap (singing Christmas bath mat anyone?), and a pile of brightly colored pamphlets about Honduras she picked up at some political rally have met their fate in the recycling bin.

I dutifully kept the newsletters from every non-profit she's ever given money to, and made a neat pile of the remaining 143 mail order catalogues (self-warming toilet seat anyone?)

My fever to sort through her junk mail started last night, after we watched Grey Gardens and I started to get a creepy feeling. My mother is about a 100 cats and as many marbles away from being even close to Big Edie. But still, a stack of expired coupons and a collection of old real estate listings is a slippery slope. Pretty soon we could be wearing old sweaters on our heads, sharing a tub of melted ice cream and throwing our cat food cans in the fireplace. I'm just saying.

Santa's real identity

This is last Christmas

MY DAD:What do you call grandma? (his very ex-wife)

OLIVER & MAGGIE:  Old grandma!

ME: But what's grandma's real name?

OLIVER & MAGGIE: Caroline!

MY DAD: And what's my name?

MAGGIE: Cowboy!

OLIVER: Santa!

Note: It's actually Wayne, but the kids call him Yeh Yeh.  And Cowboy.  And Santa.

A thing I like

This recipe for Spaghetti Carbonara is really so delicious and it's by my friend Molly Watson of The Dinner Files and other things.  I add kale and use whole wheat pasta.  Try it, you'll like it. Be generous with the parm.

Yes we can

Just back from a cuckoo's nest east coast vacation with Pete's family in Delaware.  All screened porches and walks into town for ice cream.  The beach, fresh corn, a million little cousins screaming and playing and fighting and eating sand.  My children's first donuts (and, alas, Gogurts and Capri Suns--nasty).  Good times.  It makes me happy to see my little twins all dirty and scratched up trailing after their cousins through the brush.  It feels very Americana and wholesome, even if the adults were busy downing cheap white wine and Mai Tais all the while.

And speaking of Americana. . . because of friends in high places, Pete and I got to attend a fancy-pants Obama fundraiser last night at the Fairmont with our friends Chris and Lee Anne (also not fancy-pants).  All the other attendees had coughed up $2300 for the privilege.  We sort of felt like frauds with our blue VIP wristbands.  Sort of.

We spent all the initial waiting around time (lots of this as candidates are not timely people) nibbling tiny ham-and-cheese sandwiches and scoping out a strange line-up of celebs.  We spied with our little eyes: Alice Waters, George "I-guarantee-it" Zimmer, Carl Pope of the Sierra Club, and Craig Newmark of Craig's List.  We also liked to watch the secret service guys--they look exactly how you think they'd look--all serious and suited-up with little coiled wires springing from their ears.  I kept try to imagine them having sex, but couldn't.  Oh, and they all have a major penchant for hair gel.

Here we are, hobnobbing (ie: drinking free hooch).

After a little warm up from Graham Nash (Pete calls them "Crosby, Stills and Cheese Ball") and Jackson Brown (he of the limp hair and earnest lyrics), and a super-canned introduction from Nancy Pelosi, out came Obama in all his glory.   And glorious he is.  Man, that man is handsome and smart and in possession of an eerie talent for public speaking.  He pushed all my buttons: education, healthcare, single moms, the environment (I know, super girl-liberal lineup). He completely un-jaded me.  I'm hooked.  I'm a true believer.  I even got to shake his hand. 

 You can see from his expression that he was as unhinged by me as I was by him. Sigh.

 

Sonoma County Fair

I went to the Sonoma Co. Fair every summer as a kid.  Cotton candy.  Horse races.  Rides on the Zipper to Van Halen. Free scoops of Clover vanilla ice cream if you were willing to wait in line for it.  I pined for the huge stuffed Tweety Birds and longed for the sparkling white 4H uniforms.  Oh, the smell of fried stuff and manure.

I couldn't wait to take my twins this year.  First carnival rides.  First funnel cake.  And, most importantly, first photo booth.

Highlights:

1.)Pony rides!  Oh my God, my kids are so brave and cool.  They let the strange mustachioed men hoist them up on Franky and Cinnamon and then they rode those ponies like little buckaroos (okay, they were strapped onto the saddles and the horses just clopped along in a small circle, but still). 

2.)Watching the kids do interpretive dances to the bluegrass band until Mags threw up her funnel cake onto the parquet.

3.) Not having to go into the commercial building to look at automatic beds and astounding vacuum cleaners with my mom!

What we ate:

funnel cake with powdered sugar

tri-tip sandwich

pretzels

apple pie

blackberry pie

corn on the cob

Yum!  A great day.