Hot summer days and nights

Well, it's been a hot week. Not as bad as I expected -- we had at least a little rain almost every day. Colorado has been having a good summer, compared to practically everywhere else in the country. 

But it's still late July, late summer. And Teen B still has to finish up his online PE class, so we had another hike to do. Studying the forecast for the week ahead, today really looked like it was going to be the best day for it (yesterday would have been better, but oh well). So we chose a trail (the South Boulder Creek West trail, which I'd never done) and planned to go out early this morning.

But it's Sunday. Starbucks day. Teen B wanted his Starbucks before the hike.

OK, I said, knowing that a big argument might kill the whole thing. We'll get Starbucks and I'll eat my breakfast and we'll go after that. It'll be hot, but it won't kill us.

We got to the trailhead at 11:29 am. It was 87 degrees, with a little more humidity than we usually get -- but of course nothing like what most of the country experiences. I was wearing my big hat and I actually managed to get Teen B to wear a hat (his father's) and SHOES. Teen B is the flip flop guy, no shoes normally. But I convinced him to wear them and I'm glad I did.

As part of the assignment he has to submit at least 6 photos taken on the trip that show him on the trail. So I set the timer on my phone to ring every 10 minutes and each time it rang I took a picture of him. Of course, I can't show you any of those pictures, only a couple that I remembered to take of just scenery.

It was really a gorgeous day, stupendously pretty, and the trail was awash in wildflowers.

But it was hot. I just don't do heat well anymore. Old, fat diabetics are supposed to be careful about getting overheated. 

They don't say what to do if you're an old, fat diabetic with a teenage son who needs to go on one more hike to pass his PE class and your husband is in St. Louis and you don't know anyone else who could take him out instead.

So, basically, what you do is, you go on the hike. We had to do at least 1 mile and at least 1 hour. At the 50-minute mark, we reached a clump of pine trees and I decided we were good. So we turned around and walked back to the car. It took us 84 minutes total and we obviously walked more than 1 mile -- I'm guessing closer to 2.5 miles.

I am so out of shape! My feet were killing me by the end of the hike and my legs were wobbly.

I should hike more. I should go out every weekend and do a hike. Or one weekday morning when the kids are at school. Must think about this.

Time for the Summer Update:

1. Summer movies: Still don't know how I did it, but somehow I got Teen A and Teen B to go to the "Barbie" movie on Wednesday. I'm still blown away by this. I loved it! It's such a good movie, not at all what I was expecting. They -- I don't know. I think they may have been the only males in the crowded theater. But they got something out of it, because we've been talking about it all week.
   
   On our hike, Teen B and I discussed what to see this coming week. Probably we'll see the new "Haunted Mansion" movie, but he's also interested in "Oppenheimer" -- but not in a 3-hour movie about some guy's life, which is what it is.
   
   
2. Ice cream: We all went to Glacier on Friday night, the one down near the Bookworm since the one closer to us closed a few years ago. We all had coffee caramel crunch ice cream -- very good.
   
   
3. Driving: I took both boys out several times. Teen A and I did a bunch of errands together on Thursday and he also got his first 17 night-driving minutes by taking me to Sprouts that evening. Teen B and I drove up to NCAR, around the parking lot, and back home. Another day we drove around the parking lots behind the office buildings on East Pearl and then took 55th to Baseline and went to the Dollar store. On Friday I took my car in for an oil change!
   
   
4. 
   Yard work: Teen A didn't want to work again this week, and frankly neither did I. But I pruned along. One day, I took down a portion of a volunteer tree in the front yard. It was big enough that after I finished, I realized that I'd let a whole lot more sunlight onto the driveway, which will make it hotter for future work in that area. Also, another consideration: little birds like to sit in those volunteer trees. When the hummingbirds are worried that I'm coming too close to the feeder, they go and sit there, and today I saw a lot of little birds in one tree that didn't look like they could fly very well. So maybe I'll be more cautious about my cutting -- until fall, when the hummingbirds leave and the little birds are all grown up.
   
   
5. Teen B's PE class: In addition to the hike, Teen B and I learned about volleyball this week and he also had to track his sleep for 3 days (when he went to bed, when he got up, and how he felt). This coming week I think we will be learning about hockey, we'll do the last fitness test, and then he has a final exam. And then we'll be done with this stupid class, and I'm going to encourage both boys not to take anything else in summer school, ever!
   
   
6. Teen A's tennis class: The regular teacher was back this week, for the last class. It's funny -- last year when both boys had this teacher, I was pretty iffy about him, because I thought he wasn't very nice to Teen B (and I actually complained). This year, I have no problem with him at all. He's a good teacher for Teen A. Teen A actually got pretty good at tennis! But he has no one to play with, since Teen B didn't take this class.

This coming week, as we cruise into August, I'll have to think more about what else to do before school starts. If Rocket Boy were here, of course, we'd do lots of fun things. We'd go to the cabin, we'd go to the Denver museums, we'd go out east, down south, all over. But I'm kind of a wuss. Still, maybe I can come up with something.

***

I keep meaning to write something down -- so here might be as good a place as any. It's my rules of thumb for dealing with my teenagers, based partly on what we learned from the family counselor we saw for a while, and my parent network group, and things I've read. I'll probably forget some of them -- maybe I'll come back and add to this later. But this is most of it. (I've needed to refer to the list a lot this summer, what with driving and PE classes and too much togetherness.)

Rules of Thumb for Dealing with (My) Teenagers

1. No matter how hard you think your life is, their lives are harder -- because they're adolescents and they don't know how to handle things yet. Being a teenager sucks, more now than ever, and they're just trying to cope. Be kind.
   
2. It's harder for kids/teens to self-regulate than it is for parents. When they blow up, give them some space and time to pull themselves together. And when you blow up, give yourself some time and space too. Useful conversations do not take place when the participants are dysregulated.
3. Therefore... try not to escalate things. If they're looking for a fight, ignore them or deflect their comments. If you're looking for a fight, go in your room or go for a walk and think about something else.
   
4. When they ask you to do something that they can and should do for themselves, it's OK to just say no. You don't have to go into a big spiel about how (a) you're not the maid, (b) they're old enough to do it, (c) if they would just LISTEN once in a while, they'd know how to do it, (d) blah blah blah etc.
5. Likewise, if you ask them to do something and they refuse, maybe just drop it (as opposed to throwing a fit about how (a) they never help, (b) they're so selfish, (c) who do they think you are, the maid?, etc.). Ask again another time. Nudge them in the direction of helping -- they will get there eventually. Maybe.
6. Do you like having someone criticize you? Do you respond by saying, "Thanks, what good advice, I'll change everything about myself now?" Teens don't like it any better. Criticism is almost entirely pointless and just makes them feel worse (see #1 above). Look for opportunities to praise, but avoid criticism or make it as gentle as possible.
7. A further note about criticizing: it's almost always done in anger, i.e., when you're emotionally out of control (see #2 and #3 above). You may be angry at the person you're criticizing, but sometimes you're actually angry at someone who criticized you (e.g., if a friend criticizes your child-rearing efforts, you may get angry and criticize your kids for not being perfect like your friend's kids). If you hold your tongue and revisit the issue later, when you're calmer, it may turn out that the problem is structural, like dinner is happening too late for your kids to do their homework after dinner, or it might not be a problem at all (who cares what your friend thinks?). Don't criticize.
   
8. It's too late to mold them into those perfect little people you were planning for them to be. (It was always too late, but it's REALLY too late now.) Let it go, even if your friend's/cousin's/neighbor's kids are perfect. Your kids are who they are (they always were).
9. It's not too late to improve your relationship with them, and in the end, that's what really matters. Think about how much you like and love them. Enjoy them. Lighten up. Laugh with them, hug them if they'll let you (mine won't). Life is short and rough. Try to make it a little more pleasant for everyone.
   

And that's what I've got this week. Goodbye to July, welcome August.

Late July activities

We are about to start the last full week of July, and after that, summer might as well be over. School doesn't start until August 17th, but Picture Day is August 7th, so... 

We had some glorious rain this past week, but the coming week looks to be mainly hot and dry. I cannot complain about the heat -- we are doing so much better than so much of the country, especially the West. Still, I don't do well in heat, so I'm kind of dreading it. There's a slight chance of thunderstorms every afternoon, though, so I'll hope for those. A thunderstorm on a 90-degree day is a marvelous thing.

Nothing too exciting to report from this past week.

1. 
   Summer movies: Teen B and I saw "Joy Ride" on Thursday, my choice, of course. It was raunchier than I expected, but still in many ways kind of sweet and innocent. There was female frontal nudity, but only below the waist, something I don't ever remember seeing in a mainstream movie before (the actress used a body double). I enjoyed it. Laughed a lot. Cried a little, toward the end. When it was over, Teen B asked me, "Why did you keep laughing?" So that probably tells you what he thought of it.
   
   I'm hoping we can see the "Barbie" movie this week, but since it's his turn to choose, I doubt it.
   
   
2. Ice cream: We all went to Sweet Cow on Friday night, because it was almost 9 pm when I thought of it, and Glacier closes at 9:30. I had coconut cream pie ice cream -- very good. Teen A had cookies & cream ice cream in a waffle cone and Teen B had a root beer float.
   
   
3. Driving: Both boys had their second 3-hour driving sessions with the TopCops and I also took both of them out driving by myself. Teen A is really getting the hang of it, so I just have to keep taking him out. Teen B is *not* really getting the hang of it, so I also just have to keep taking him out, but probably on quieter roads until he gets more comfortable. Of course, I do not actually want to take anyone out driving, but I will do it. ... Now it's later and Teen A and I just finished a long drive with many stops -- the library, the gas station, Safeway, Home Depot, and the other Safeway (Teen A wanted to get a gift card). It was stressful, but he did very well.
   
   
4. Yard work: Teen A didn't want to help with pruning this week, so I did the work by myself. That was OK, though -- I worked on some areas that I knew he wouldn't want to do. For instance, there's a big dead juniper in the southwestern corner of the back yard and I spent two half-hour sessions laboriously cutting off branches. It will take several more sessions to get rid of the whole thing, but I made visible progress. In the front yard, I cut a big branch off a volunteer tree that needs to come down. I had 9 leaf bags, plus the compost bin, for pickup on Friday.
   
   
5. Teen B's PE class: Teen B continues to be not at all interested in this class, so I continue to drag him through it kicking and screaming. This week he had to learn the rules of tennis (by watching a video) and take a quiz afterwards. The quiz questions seemed to have nothing to do with the video, so we googled them and he ended up with an 8/10 which we decided was good enough. He also had to look at a Prezi about flexibility and write a paragraph about his thoughts on body image (I wrote most of it). Yes, I know, I'm not setting a good example here. But it's a really, really dumb class, and we're just trying to get through it. Today is the last day he can take his mid-term fitness test, so we'll have to go out to his old middle school and run around the track in 95-degree heat. His fault for putting it off this long -- there were many cooler days last week. I said we could do it after dinner -- and he can drive us there. (Post-note: it was actually down to 88 by the time we went out there, and we did the run, aka walk, in less time than at the beginning of the class, so it seems that we are actually getting fitter. Ha.) (Post-post-note: it turns out that it actually took us one minute LONGER to do the run/walk this time, so we are NOT getting fitter. However, it wasn't 88 degrees the last time we did it, so there's that.)
   
   
6. Teen A's tennis class: There was a substitute this week and he really rode Teen A's ass, as they say. Teen A has a lot of upper body strength, so he can stand still and hit the ball pretty well. The problem is that the ball isn't always hit right to him. "Move your legs!" the teacher kept shouting at him, and eventually he started moving around the court. (I would shout "Move your legs!" at him regularly too if I thought it would do any good.) By the end of the hour his face was dark red. Since he had chosen to wear a black t-shirt that day, I was not very sympathetic. He drove us to and from the class, by the way.
    

In Pet News, Miss Sillers gave us a scare this week when she decided to stop eating. She's been leaving little poops around the house, and over the weekend she twice exuded a smelly brown liquid onto my bedding, necessitating a lot of laundry. I was wondering if she was getting blocked up again, so on Tuesday we took her to the vet. 

It turned out she was not blocked at all, and in fact the vet thinks we're giving her too MUCH laxative, not too little. So he gave us permission to drop the dose to 1 ml a day (from 2 ml). However, she also had very dirty ears, so the vet cleaned them while Teen B and I watched (6 Q-tips per ear), and now I have to give her ear medicine twice a day for 7 days (2 days left). If you thought Sillers hated being given oral laxative, that was nothing compared to how she feels about ear medicine. I now choose my outfit for the day based on how I think it will show the spots from the medicine, which get furiously shaken onto me by a very angry cat.

Although Teen A didn't want to prune this week, he decided he was willing to clean gutters, so we worked on that yesterday. I can't show you a photo of him (photos of the twins have been banned from the blog, per their request), but here is the roof he was sitting on as he worked. He went all around the roof, only skipping one section above the patio where I realized wasps have a nest (sigh). I'm not sure what kind of wasps -- they left us alone as long as we left them alone, so that's good. 

I was involved the whole time -- holding the ladder, chatting with him as he worked, receiving bucketfuls of slimy yuckiness from him to throw in the junipers (see, junipers do have a purpose), bringing him the hose (and turning it on and off) to rinse the gutters and make sure the downspout extensions were clear, etc. He worked for 1 hour and 45 minutes and at the end of it I was a wreck. I had promised to pay him $20/hour, so that was $35. A lot of money, but much less than I would have had to pay a professional, and he did a good job. He can be very careful when he's interested in what he's doing.

Rocket Boy was pleased and impressed to hear about Teen A's work. The last time we cleaned the gutters was two years ago, and RB was very involved that time. I don't think he was too sad to have missed this clean-out job, but I could be wrong. He's really trying hard to move back here -- applying for any job that comes along, exploring every sort of possible option, talking talking talking to different people who might be able to help. I understand! He needs to get back to Boulder before our babies are all grown up -- and that is happening, so fast.

In bird news, I had a revelation the other day about our little brown birds. I was reading yet another description of a vireo or a kinglet or something, and it included a description of their NESTS. Most birds build nests! They do not raise their babies in a hole in a dead aspen. So I googled "little brown bird cavity nest" and what comes up but House Wrens. Which is what I thought they were originally, until I decided they weren't because they don't hold their tails up. 

I still don't understand why ours rarely hold their tails up, but I've decided they are House Wrens. I played their song a few times and it really sounds like them. So I think that's what we've got, and I'm very happy about it. House Wrens. What a wonderful bird to have nesting in your yard.

Of course, flycatchers apparently also nest in cavities. So they could be flycatchers. But I think they're wrens. I think.

***

What's coming this week? I forgot to mention that Teen B got his braces off last week, so he's very happy about that and has been living mainly on Jolly Ranchers ever since. On Monday we go back to the orthodontist for him to get his retainer, so I am gearing up to nag him night and day about wearing it.

On Tuesday it's my turn: to the orthodontist to get my bands off at 9 am, to the dentist to have my teeth cleaned at 9:30 am, and back to the orthodontist at 11:30 to have the bands put back on.

Wednesday and Thursday we don't have anything planned, so I suppose we'll do some driving. Maybe another movie. (Barbenheimer?) Mostly we'll just be trying to stay cool, since it's supposed to be in the 90s every day. 

And Friday I'm taking my car in for an oil change. It was supposed to be a very serious appointment, because warning lights were coming on in my car (this was a couple of weeks ago). And then one day the warning lights went away (this can happen on an old Subaru Forester). So we'll just be getting an oil change, and hopefully they won't find anything else wrong with it.

Saturday, Teen A has his last tennis class. At some point, Teen B and I have to do his second hike for PE class, so that could be Sunday or maybe early the next week.

And then the month will be almost over and we'll be looking ahead to August.

Summer moves along

Every morning when I turn on my computer, the first website I go to is weather.gov -- this has been true for decades, probably nearly as long as weather.gov has existed -- and I've been impressed this week by the nation's weather. Horrible, endless heat in the southwest, flooding in the northeast, and bad air all across the midwest, still from those Canadian wildfires. 

We had some hot days (good for drying laundry). Then it cooled down. Today it's supposed to get to 92, but right now (around 2pm) it's only 84 on the porch. Warm, but pleasant. Tomorrow it's supposed to be 98, and 95 on Tuesday, so by Tuesday night it'll be icky in the house -- but then it's going to drop back down into the 80s on Wednesday, and stay there a while. We really are lucky to live where we do. 

I mean, it's good that we live where we do, because even a little heat lays me out flat, and of course we don't have air conditioning. I did yardwork every morning, Monday through Friday, and I paid for it afterwards, so hot, couldn't seem to cool down. I slept badly at night, woke up already hot, that kind of thing. It was a great relief when it cooled off on Friday. So I'm bracing myself for tomorrow.

***

I'm really enjoying the yard as we prune it down, although what we're mainly uncovering is bare ground -- all the grass has died. Still, it's satisfying to have the outlines of the formal yard reappear, especially the sprinkler heads which haven't been used in years. 

I'm getting a huge kick out of my plantings too -- my window boxes (hanging off the side of the porch), the flowers I planted in our "flower bed" that is usually just weeds, my one tomato plant and my one planter of herbs. There's no order to any of it -- I just buy things that appeal to me and plant them, I don't arrange them artistically.

I wish I could be a real gardener who knows what she's doing. My mother knew how to garden, and her father was a master gardener, but I'm pretty ignorant. I wish I knew how to choose plants and how to grow them better, and what mulch is (people always seem to talk about mulch). I walk through the neighborhood and everyone's flowers and vegetables look better than mine. 

I get a great deal of enjoyment out of what I do, though, so maybe that should be enough.

I don't see hummingbirds at the feeder very often, but every couple of days one will come (probably they come more often than that). The yard has really been alive with birds recently. There was a group of fledgling blue jays (great, sigh) in a tree the other day, and we even had a magpie on the front porch! I was sitting on my bed (the window is just to the east of the porch) and I heard a magpie talking. Baby Kitty jumped up on Rocket Boy's pillow and looked out, and the magpie went on talking to him. I knew it was a magpie -- they're really unmistakable -- but I wanted to see it, so I sat up and looked out the window. And it flew away. "Magpie, I love you!" I called to it, but it went across the street and disappeared in the neighbor's trees.

Magpies just don't understand my devotion to them. Whenever I see a magpie I tell it how much I love it, and if Teen B is around he says, "Die, magpie." The magpies ignore us both.

The hole in the dead aspen in the side yard (where chickadees raised a family earlier this year) is now occupied by some little brown birds, and I cannot for the life of me figure out what they are. First I thought they were wrens, but only once or twice have I seen one with its tail up, and wrens always have their tails sticking up. So then I thought they might be bushtits, but they aren't plump, they're more streamlined. Then I decided they were vireos, but which vireo? None of the vireos in the books seem to be so plain brown. Today I got the idea that they could be Dusky Flycatchers, but their heads don't seem quite right. 

What I need is for a good birder to come over and say, oh, it's this. I don't have good birder contacts anymore, though. Also, I think the birds might be close to fledging. Earlier today there were two birds that weren't flying very expertly and I thought, oh! It's the babies, fledging! But later I saw a parent bird go back to the nest. Is it possible that two fledged and one or more are still in the nest? I don't know. (There's one in this photo, kind of in the middle, if you want to take a guess.)

***

The kids had their first formal driving lessons with TopCops this week. Teen B's cop took him out on quiet roads in eastern Boulder County, but Teen A drove on US 36, I-25, downtown Denver -- the works. I don't know if it's the difference between instructors, or whether they picked up on Teen A's and Teen B's relative (in)competence very quickly and adjusted their "lesson plans" accordingly. This coming week, Teen A will go out with the cop that Teen B had last week, so we'll see what they do together. Teen B has a woman cop who isn't even listed on their website. So we'll see how that goes.

I managed to avoid taking either teen out driving all week. "Air quality alerts" were my excuse, and yes, it's an excuse, I'm not just being a good citizen. I'm promising myself that after this coming week's driving lessons, I won't make any more excuses. I'll take them out. One each day, for half an hour. Horrors.

I'm continuing to work with Teen B on his PE class, but it's not going well. He is completely, utterly, thoroughly uninterested in it, so it's probably more accurate to say that I am dragging him through it, kicking and screaming. I am not sure whether he would actually flunk the class if I wasn't doing this, but it's possible.  

***

I'm trying to think about Summer, with a capital S, and all the things we should be doing to have a Good Summer. Consequently, on Thursday we went to Dairy Queen for Blizzards, and I told the kids we'll go out for ice cream somewhere different each week from now until school starts. We have lots of choices: Sweet Cow, Coldstone Creamery, Glacier, and several places on the mall, and there are some places that serve ice cream along with other things, like the General Store at Chautauqua. Since we only have five weeks left, we won't run out of options.

Maybe we should go to TWO ice cream stores a week. Or we could branch out and go to ice cream places in other towns.

Another thing we should be doing is going to Summer Movies, so Teen B and I finally did yesterday. We saw "Elemental" -- his choice. It was OK. Well, no, it was not that OK. I mean, if you'd never seen a Pixar movie, it would be fine, but I've seen many Pixar movies, and I was bored. A few times I just closed my eyes and thought about taking a nap. Girl from Dispreferred Ethnic Group (in this case, Fire) meets Boy from Preferred Ethnic Group (in this case, Water), Obstacles are placed in their path, True Love wins in the end, and the Girl realizes she needs to be True to Herself. It's never a good thing when you feel as though you could have written the movie yourself. 

However, that's over, and now we can see other movies. I'm interested in "Joy Ride" and "Asteroid City," and of course next week there's the "Barbie" movie (but I don't think I'm going to be able to convince Teen B to go with me, forget Teen A). We saw a preview for the new "Haunted Mansion" film and I'd be willing to see that too.

What else should we be doing? Swimming, although you can do that all year. We could go to the outdoor pool at Scott Carpenter Park. Not sure the kids would really want to do that (especially with their mom). Teen B and I have to do another hike for PE -- maybe next weekend? Friday and Saturday look decent, especially if we go in the morning. Highs in the low 80s, chance of rain in the afternoon. We could go to Chautauqua, maybe get ice cream at the General Store afterwards. Fun times.

The rest of summer

OK! So now comes the rest of summer. The twins go back to school in five weeks and four days (Thursday, August 17th). Their last day of school was Thursday, May 25th, which was six weeks and three days ago. So we've passed the midway point -- it was actually last Thursday, the day after my birthday. 

Rocket Boy left yesterday around noon and made it to Russell, Kansas, where he usually spends the night (380 miles). He stayed at the Fossil Creek Hotel -- we stayed there with him last year. I got a text from him around 10 pm saying he'd swum in the hotel pool and now was watching an episode of "Odd Squad" (PBS Kids -- our family's favorite show). That means he has to drive 493 miles today, but that's do-able if he gets an earlier start. We did it, last year, with complaining twins.

We all miss him already. The mood around the house is subdued. It's fine -- we're used to him being gone. But it was so much nicer when he could be here the whole month, every other month. Now we won't see him again until September, and that'll probably just be for a few days. I wish he could find a job in this area -- or retire.

This past week was good, I guess. Fourth of July was pretty much rained out, but we did barbecue a piece of salmon on the patio (very expensive salmon -- Skuna Bay farmed salmon from Canada, which is supposed to be very good, and it was). We ate it with two kinds of potato salad from Sprouts, garlic bread, and honeydew melon (and hot dogs, for those who either don't like salmon or who like salmon AND hot dogs). Unfortunately there weren't enough coals left for roasting marshmallows. Teen B and I tried to do it over a candle, but weren't very successful (my marshmallow kept catching on fire and his just turned black without softening). 

My birthday was fine, though it got off to a bad start. I got up early and was just having a cup of tea, thinking about how nice it was that I don't get all upset about my birthday anymore, when Teen A came out and demanded that I wash his sheets because they smelled funny. I had so many choices for how to respond -- why did I have to snarl at him to wash his own sheets, it's my birthday? Despite his tough exterior, he doesn't like being snarled at -- as who does? So then he didn't speak to me for the rest of the day.

Sigh. When will I learn? Of course, it would have been nice if Teen A had not said what he said, but he's the teenager and I'm the 63-year-old adult, and I know better. Oh well.

Oh, and I did end up washing his sheets, as penance. He still wouldn't speak to me. Once you go down that road, it's hard to turn around and come back (hard for a teenager, that is).

Anyway, that was the only bad thing that happened, so the day was mostly OK. I got nice cards and presents (including three new Barbie dolls), I found a garish pink cake at Safeway, and we went out to dinner at the Gondolier, which everyone likes. Rocket Boy's present to me was to have my almost-17-year-old car "detailed" which meant we had to drop it off at the detailing place in east Boulder that day. I did not particularly want my car detailed -- it was filthy inside, but I'm used to the filth. But the twins, who are now learning how to drive it, have been complaining about the dirt, so this was more of a present for them.

I'd say the detailing shop did a pretty good job -- the car is vastly cleaner than it was. The only problem is that it stinks. Maybe it's on purpose, maybe it's supposed to be the "new car smell," but it's horrible. I've read that some people get their cars detailed in order to remove bad odors, but my car didn't smell bad before. No one's ever smoked in it, and I don't drive any wet dogs around. But it sure smells terrible now. We're driving around with all the windows open and the fan on high, and right now the car is sitting on the driveway with the windows down. I guess the next step would be a container of baking soda. I don't know what else to try.

Rocket Boy worked on some other projects while he was here, too. My laptop has been acting really sluggish, so he took it to his computer guru in Evergreen and the guy reloaded Windows. The problem is that I lost all my programs in the process and I'm having some trouble reinstalling them. Office just refused to download -- I think my copy was too old -- so I've switched to LibreOffice for now. The next problem is my camera, which is no longer supported by Canon. I downloaded a driver for it, at least I think I did, but I don't know if it's going to work -- my camera battery is charging right now, so I'll be able to test it out soon. 

Tech companies REALLY don't like you to use old stuff. "No longer supported" means "Spend more money on us, you cheapskate!" 

OK, the download worked and the software downloaded ALL 1370 photos currently on my camera and organized them nicely (the old software wouldn't organize them, for some reason). So that's nice, especially since I haven't been able to find my pictures on my computer since the Windows reload. I think they're there somewhere, which means now most of them are on there twice, but oh well. My laptop has an enormous hard drive, room for thousands more photos, so it's OK.

Rocket Boy also worked on the bathroom sink, which has been draining slowly, but although he took it apart and replaced some of the pieces, it still drains slowly. It may be tree roots again, I don't know. I'll watch it (and all our other drains) closely this week. The thing is, the tree root problem has never shown up first in the bathroom sink before. Well, we'll see.

So, what's on the calendar for this week? Teen A has a 3-hour driving lesson on Tuesday and Teen B has a 3-hour driving lesson on Wednesday, so those are the big things. Teen A has started a tennis class on Saturday mornings and Teen B will have to continue with his online PE class, which I help with.

Rocket Boy's brother's 71st birthday is next Friday, so I'll probably make a trip out to Longmont to bring him a cake and a present. We usually give him a King Soopers gift card. I should have gotten him a birthday card and had Rocket Boy sign it before he left, but I didn't think of it. It's OK. His brother is actually very laid-back about that kind of thing.

The cats are happy that Rocket Boy has gone back to St. Louis because now they can sleep on the bed again. We had some problems with that while RB was here -- cats insisting on sleeping on the bed even though there was NO ROOM. To help with the problem, I put the old cat blanket/cat bed on the floor next to my side of the bed, and Sillers slept there at night, pretty happily. She likes to be close to her mom, and apparently that was close enough. But as soon as RB left, I put the cat blanket back up on the top of his dresser -- and Sillers jumped up there to sleep. She had never slept up there before, but she apparently decided that if the cat blanket was there, she would be there too. Baby Kitty did not like that, however, so even though he hasn't wanted to sleep up there in several weeks, he's decided it's the place to be once more. So now it's become a very quiet cat fight: whenever one of them jumps down to use a litter box or check out the house for burglars/spiders, the other cat jumps up and claims the space.

I must ask the kids how they want to spend what's left of their summer -- just playing video games and practicing driving, or do they have other ideas? I don't think we're going to visit the cabin this summer, unless Rocket Boy wants to go in September. I guess I could drive there with the twins if I had to, but I don't want to. Maybe we could see a movie? Explore ice cream shops in the Denver metro area? I'll ask them.

As for me, I don't think I have any big summer plans. I'll keep doing yardwork, with or without Teen A, keep trying to take care of the house with the FlyLady's help. Maybe I'll try some new summer recipes. Working on my novel is pretty much on hold until the kids go back to school. I'm doing a lot of reading -- at the moment I'm reading three books at once. I read a chapter of one, move it to the bottom of the pile, read a chapter of the next, and so on. 

I feel a little bit guilty about my lack of ambition -- am I frittering away my one wild and precious life? Or am I reveling in it, spending time with my "little" boys, enjoying my favorite activity (reading), and watching the days go by? It would be perfect if Rocket Boy could be here too, but nothing's ever perfect.

Back from vacation

It is July and we are home from our whirlwind trip to Yellowstone (which I keep accidentally calling Yosemite -- so odd that the names of the two most famous National Parks start with the letter "Y"). We were gone only four days, but it seemed longer. A strenuous trip. We had glorious weather, though. I thought we were going to have heavy rain every day, but the rainstorms were brief and just left everything clean and shiny. Most of the time the sun shone and the sky was a brilliant blue.

Yellowstone is an incredible place, so many things to see. Because it is so incredible, everyone in the world wants to see it, and they were all there, with us, seeing it. Maybe two-thirds of the people we encountered were from another country. Also, due to the floods last year (and probably general wear & tear), road construction was going on all through the park. So everywhere we went, millions of other people went too, and we kept having to stop because it was a one-lane road due to the road construction. And if there wasn't any road construction, people were stopped anyway, to look at wildlife.

It took us hours to go anywhere in the park, see anything. And the crazy thing was, it was totally worth it. I mean, Yellowstone is amazing. Everyone should see it. All at once, all 8 billion of us. In cars, clogging all the roads.

***

We packed up Rocket Boy's rental car and left Boulder at exactly 10 am on Tuesday, June 27th. My goal had been to leave at 9:30, so 10 wasn't bad. We got gas in Cheyenne, but drove on to Wheatland, Wyoming for lunch (167 miles), which we ate in a hometown kind of place called Western Sky's Family Diner. It was nothing special, but nice to eat somewhere other than a chain restaurant. After lunch, we put in some serious mileage (325 miles), driving through Douglas, Casper, Shoshoni, Thermopolis, and finally reaching our destination -- Cody, Wyoming, where we stayed at the Kings Inn. 

We were struck by how little traffic there was on the roads. It's possible that most people take I-25 and US-14 to get to Cody, but that's much longer. We were very happy to be cruising along on US-20. The Kings Inn was a little strange -- the lobby is full of taxidermied African animals. But we had a room on the second floor with three very comfortable beds, so I was happy. 

After snacking all day in the car, Teen A wasn't hungry, but Teen B, Rocket Boy, and I went to the restaurant in the historic Irma Hotel where we had an absolutely delicious dinner. I had something called a Bear Salad, made up of food that a bear would like to eat, not actual bear meat. The Irma Hotel was also full of taxidermied animals, or at least their heads, but since they were locals -- deer, elk, moose, pronghorn -- not endangered species, it didn't seem as bad. 

One thing I should mention: on his way out to Colorado, Rocket Boy stopped to take a walk at a rest stop in Kansas and managed to acquire several dozen chigger bites on his legs! This was a great worry on our whole Yellowstone trip, because we were afraid his lymphedema leg would get infected. His legs both looked terrible, covered with big red dots, but no infection developed, thank goodness.

Wednesday morning we had a rather unfortunate experience at the free breakfast in the hotel. When the kids and I went down to the lobby, all the tables were full, so we waited around and suddenly I noticed a free table. That is, no people were there, but the table was still covered with plates and glasses and lots of food. I asked the people sitting nearby, and everyone seemed to think the previous occupants had left for good, so I carried all their plates and cups to the trash. I was coming back for one last load when the previous occupants returned. 

I apologized PROFUSELY for throwing away their breakfast, and we grabbed our food and hurried to our room to eat there. It was awful, and of course the kids teased me about it all the rest of the trip.

We checked out of our hotel around 10 am, still rather hungry, and drove the 50 or so miles to the East Entrance of Yellowstone National Park. 

My original plan had been to spend Wednesday seeing the sights on the eastern side of the park. But when we stopped on the side of Yellowstone Lake and the kids got excited about the little fumaroles in it, it occurred to me that it might be better to do the stuff Yellowstone's known for (i.e., Old Faithful) on the first day, before the twins got bored and fractious. (I mean, they're perpetually bored and fractious, but, you know.) 

So we drove another 65 miles around the lake and over to the historic Old Faithful Inn, where we thought we'd have lunch. It took us approximately One Million Years to drive there, due to traffic and road construction, but when we arrived (at about 2 pm), they were still serving a buffet lunch, so we had that (it was OK, nothing special, but they were nice enough to charge the kids the "children's" rate), and then went outside to look at geysers.

Old Faithful erupts more or less on schedule, about every 70 minutes, but there's no internet in the park and we hadn't looked it up ahead of time, so we didn't know, when we left the inn, what time it would be erupting next. We also didn't know where it was (it's right across from the inn). But we could see something erupting off to the left, and there were a lot of people there, so we walked over there. As we walked, many of those people left that geyser and walked back toward the inn, but I just thought they were tired or something. So we went and looked at the geyser ("Castle Geyser") and only later realized that the people were walking to Old Faithful to watch it erupt.

No matter. We started walking along the boardwalks to other geysers, more and more and more geysers. Teen A got tired quickly and went back to the car, but the rest of us continued for over an hour. It was quite warm, and I was glad I had my hat (Teen B had no hat and was wearing flip flops, as is his wont). But it was so fun! Every few feet there was something else to look at. Geysers, pools -- everything was bubbling away like mad. And the sky was the bluest blue and the clouds were white and puffy and the wildflowers were so brightly colored they seemed almost fluorescent.

Teen B ended up finding the coolest thing of all, though, and it wasn't a geyser. Past the "Chromatic Pool" (in the photo above) there was a little bridge across a stream, and there were wooden pillars along the bridge (holding up the railings) with holes in them, on top and on the sides. Earlier, crossing another bridge, Teen B had looked in the holes and found a disgusting assortment of garbage, so he looked again here to see what people might have thrown away. But on this little bridge the holes were full of birds! 

We found two Violet-Green Swallow nests (one with a parent sitting on it) and one Mountain Bluebird nest. I know we scared the birds, but I couldn't stop looking at them (though once we figured out those really were bird nests in the poles, I stopped putting my eye up to the holes). Two of the prettiest birds in the world, and there they were, busy feeding babies (in one case I think a Violet-Green Swallow was sitting on eggs).

For me, this was better than geysers and chromatic pools, even though those were great too.

Finally we walked back toward Old Faithful (we'd been walking about 70 minutes), just in time to see it erupt! We'd missed it the first time by being idiots, but that long walk on the boardwalk gave us another chance to see it. We missed the very beginning, but it was still going strong when we got there. And it is impressive. Even more impressive, a bison walked over just then and stood in front of it, as if posing.

Then we walked back over to the inn and found Teen A, who had also seen Old Faithful erupt, and we got back in the car and started driving again. And I said to Rocket Boy, I think we need to just head for the hotel (56 miles north). We've done our big thing for today -- this is enough. So we skipped the Grand Prismatic Spring, which I had really wanted to see, and the Norris Geyser Basin -- but you know, it just means we have lots of things to see the next time we come.

Anyway, it took Nine Million Hours to get to our hotel in Gardiner, Montana, so we really couldn't have stopped anywhere else. The old road to Gardiner had apparently been washed out (along with access to the Boiling River hot springs, which we had hoped to visit), but there was another, very winding one that we took. We saw some mule deer along the way, and other people stopped and took pictures of the mule deer, which we thought was funny. (In Colorado, when you see a deer, you worry that it's going to jump out in front of your car, you don't stop and take a photo of it.) This pic shows the Roosevelt Arch, which is supposed to be the Gateway to Yellowstone (back when the North Entrance was the main one).

The Gardiner hotel was a little strange. It was called the Cowboy's Lodge and Grill, and it was basically a restaurant with some rooms behind it. We had an apartment with two bedrooms, which was nice, but there was only one bathroom and it was down a long, steep flight of stairs. We tried to go out to eat, but the only restaurant in town that sounded good (the Wonderland Cafe) was full: we arrived an hour before closing, but the rather harried host told me that they had exactly enough people on the waiting list to fill that hour, so he turned us away. 

And at that point, I snapped. I was tired, hot, stiff and sore from our walk, cross that the bathroom was downstairs, and then this dumb thing with the restaurant. I said, I'm not going out, and Teen A felt the same. So Rocket Boy and Teen B found a cafe next to a gas station where they could get a grilled cheese, and I took a shower and climbed into bed. 

And then things got better. From the window in our room I could see the mountains and the river -- and it was nice. And it stayed light very late, because of course we were so far north, in Montana. I slept better that night than I have in months. A deep, refreshing sleep. I woke up feeling great, not hungover like I so often do at home. I don't know what it was -- the altitude was the same as Boulder's. Maybe the exercise? The soft bed? It seemed funny that I would sleep the best in the hotel I liked the least, but you never know.

Of course, the hotel didn't offer free breakfast and the Wonderland Cafe had a sign up saying "No Breakfast." Of course. So we ate at the restaurant attached to our hotel. They had an extremely meat-based menu, as befitted a cowboy-themed diner, but they did have a yogurt and granola parfait, which both of the twins ordered, and you could get scrambled eggs and a biscuit off the "sides" menu, which Rocket Boy and I both had. It was fine.

Then we drove back into the park. Right near the North Entrance is Mammoth Hot Springs and the Travertine Terraces, which Rocket Boy had particularly wanted to visit, so we spent a lot of time there. It is a totally cool place.

We were early enough to snag a great parking place, but as we walked toward the terraces, it started to rain. The kids wanted to go back to the car, Rocket Boy suggested we go back and get umbrellas, but I said, oh who cares about a little rain. And I turned out to be right. We got a little wet, but then it stopped and the sun came out and we dried out.

I walked on some of the boardwalks, but I was getting tired, so I didn't take the one that led to the top. I missed out on some good wildlife by doing that -- RB found a gopher snake at least three feet long! He said all the other people were just walking past it, not seeing it.

After this we walked over to the Mammoth Terrace Grill and had lunch (the Mammoth Hotel dining room hasn't opened for the season yet). Everywhere we ate on this trip was out of important items, but this place was the worst. All they had was "hoagies": ham & cheese, roast beef & cheese, or veggie. The kids and I had ham & cheese, and RB had veggie. 

Then we got back in the car and started driving east, followed by south. All we needed to do that day was get to our hotel in Dubois, Wyoming, before 8 pm, but it wasn't easy. About 180 miles, much of it covered at, oh, 15 mph? First there were the people stopping for wildlife. Twice, people were stopped for bears! The one thing I'd really wanted to see in Yellowstone and we saw three of them! So that was cool.

Then there were the sights! Even on the east side of the park, away from Old Faithful and all that, there are so many things to see, it's exhausting. We stopped at Tower Fall and took the short walk to see the waterfall, which was very dramatic. Then I drove around a loop where you could see bits of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. Then we stopped at the Mud Volcano, because Rocket Boy said it was worth seeing. Boy, was he right about that. So interesting. My favorite was this one, the Dragon's Mouth.

It was like a buffet, where you want to try everything but you know you'll get sick if you do. Or like an amusement park, where you want to go on every ride. I can't think of anything I've done before that compares to Yellowstone. Oh, and there were magpies everywhere. Heaven.

That said, I don't think I want to go back right away. I prefer more peaceful (less crowded) places. But it was amazing.

We finally made it to Dubois, after a lot more gorgeous scenery. To get there we had to drive through a little bit of Grand Teton National Park, and THAT looked amazing too. Huge, stark, snow-capped mountains rising up above a beautiful lake. At one point I thought we might stay an extra day and visit that park too. But the boys were tired and so were their parents.

In Dubois, we stayed at the Twin Pines Lodge & Cabins, where we had two rooms joined by a bathroom in the middle. That turned out not to be the best arrangement. With four adults/teens, someone always needed to be using the bathroom (with the doors closed), and it was disruptive to have it in the middle of the rooms. Also, the beds were not as comfortable as in the other two hotels, and the curtains were thin, and light came under the door, and we were woken up early in the morning by people having coffee and talking loudly in the lobby down below us. Still, it was a quaint hotel and it had a nice feel to it. If we went there again, we would try to stay in one of the cabins out back.

We also lucked out on restaurants -- the Cowboy Cafe down the street had excellent food and we bought a whole peach pie to take home to Boulder with us. We also went there for breakfast Friday morning. (Teen B said to me, "Why is everything called the Cowboy something out here?" I said, "Well, it's Wyoming.")

Friday we had the long drive back to Boulder, but the first few hours were lovely. Wyoming is beautiful at this time of year, so green and big and wild and open. Later, I got tired and we couldn't find a place to eat, and we ended up having a lunch/dinner at the horrible Iron Skillet truck stop restaurant in Laramie, and it rained, and we got lost coming back on 287 because of the stupid roundabouts and yeah. Driving home is never as much fun.

But we made it. It's funny -- Boulder is such a gorgeous place to live, I almost laughed as we came into town. Boulder is where other people come to visit, when they want to get away from the ugly cities where they live. Boulder also looks a lot like Wyoming. The only real difference is that there are a lot more people here. And, of course, it's blue, and getting bluer all the time. I know right now Wyoming is redder than red, but I wonder how long that will last. If I couldn't afford housing in Boulder, I'd think about Dubois or Lander or Laramie or Cheyenne. Hmm.

***

Well, now we have the month of July. Rocket Boy will be with us for probably five more days -- I think he'll leave to drive back to St. Louis next Saturday. Such a short visit, really, and we won't see him again until September. 

I have a long, long honey-do list for him, so maybe we can check off some of that stuff before he goes. He'll also drive with the twins as much as he can. We'll probably do a barbecue on the 4th (Tuesday) and maybe eat out on my 63rd birthday (Wednesday). The week will go fast. 

The photo shows our two cats looking at fledgling crows on the porch roof. Sillers in particular adores those crows -- we call one of them Sillers' boyfriend.

I don't like July as much as I love May and June. But it's still a good month. We'll do lots of practice driving, eat lots of fruit and ice cream, take lots of long walks. It'll be good.