Shaken, not Stirred

It would be fair to say that as a friend group, ours has consumed a goodly amount of alcohol over the years. Our weekly bar night is at, well, a bar. Our camping dinners are frequently accompanied by a big-ass jug of strawberry margarita or peach bourbon lemonade or something called a Hypnotique that made us all cluck like chickens. 

I don't worry about this, exactly. I do think about it on occasion. We're all children of the late sixties and early seventies. Most of our parents drank liberally (mine still have happy hour every single day, and they are in their eighties and doing really well, so...) A lot of university had a boozy film over it (Century Club - what the hell were we thinking?) I get uncomfortable with a lot of the 'wine mom' discourse on social media these days - I understand the underpinnings, and honestly a lot of the memes are funny, and I've probably said similar stuff on occasion without really meaning it. First of all, it seems a little dangerous to position alcohol as a way of dealing with the hardships of parenting (just observing, not judging, because downing my weight in m&ms was also not the best way), and second of all it seems insensitive to anyone reading who is in recovery, so I try to check myself on alcohol intake and attitude periodically.

But anyway. I'm pretty comfortable that we're within the bounds of decency and health. Nobody gets pressured to drink if they don't want to. One of us gives up alcohol for Lent every year even though he's not Catholic. When I'm in a depressive episode or just don't feel like drinking on a Tuesday it's a non-issue. The annual Christmas party can get a little rowdy, but mostly none of us has the time or inclination to spend the next day incapacitated, and it's been years since I've drunk enough to actually have a hangover (Michael's fortieth birthday party, oy. Drank like I was twenty. Subsequently felt like I was eighty. Eve was mortified - for the next few weeks every time anyone offered me a beer she would hiss "she's fine".)

Admittedly, this is all so I can tell you about last night, which was really fun, and not have you worry that we should be looking for group rates at the nearest rehab centre. 

Lucy, on the other hand, leads a life of appalling debauchery

Our friend Tony is extremely knowledgeable and skilled in matters spirituous. I think he's taken courses in wine, beer and scotch at least. Occasionally he invites us over for drinks and has an actual drink menu. 

In case it hasn't been obvious, I am a bit preoccupied with the photographic record. I like having pictures and I also have kind of a crappy memory. I was bad enough when I had to use a camera - now that I can just use a phone, I'm unstoppable. Generally everyone is pretty agreeable about this, because it means they get pictures and don't have to worry about taking them. At one point at Sandbanks this year, I asked four teenaged girls and one nine-year-old to jump on a picnic table for a pic and they all instantly fell into formation. I said something about being one of our kids really teaching you how to pose and Rachel said "especially when you're dealing with the Group Photographer". Then Eve said "now imagine she goes with you everywhere" (when I retell this she claims I make her sound meaner than she actually did, which is probably fair). 

So we were sitting around Tony's table, across the island from his beautiful kitchen, with immaculately mixed, poured and garnished cocktails, and I kept thinking I should take a picture, because even though at some point in every evening things devolve into ridiculous battles over the music, and I maintain my assertion that many of my friends are ridiculous obnoxious musical snobs, and I defend my hurling of a handful of heirloom carrots at Mark when he said 'a wall of sound, not a mountain of sound' for the seventh time, I love these people with my whole heart and my life would suck considerably more without them.

But I didn't. I basked in the warmth and laughter instead. I drank something lemony and something purple with lavender bitters and a couple other things.

Near the end of the evening, Collette was finished her drink, and Tony turned around and grabbed a bottle of Kraken and a can of Coke Zero from the island for her to mix a new one (she had dispensed with the fancy drinks at this point). She opened the bottle of Kraken, started to tip it over her glass, squinted at something in the middle distance, and put the bottle down without pouring it. We asked her why, and she said "because I see twelve tomatoes".

There were only four tomatoes. She knew there were only four tomatoes, but she was seeing three groups of them, so she was exercising a hitherto unseen discretion in foregoing more alcohol.

This would have been slightly more impressive if she hadn't glance down five minutes later and exclaimed indignantly "why didn't I pour my drink??" (I mean, her memory is notoriously bad, maybe it wasn't the booze at all).

So the whole evening, I only took a picture of the ass squash on Tony's counter and the four tomatoes that almost saved Collette from herself. 

And I am comfortable with that decision.

Don't Be a Chicken, Grab Your Spoon and Shoulder Your Burdens

 Bless me father for I have sinned, it has been... *checks last post* 15 days since my last blog post. I am just starting to get back into a routine, at the start of my second full week without any kids at home, which will hopefully include blogging regularly again, although I don't really know what that means, precisely.

Both kids seem to be doing well. I got them both instant pots in the summer when Canadian Tire had a fantastic deal on the one we have here, so I could show them the basics before they left. They've both managed to break theirs in long, long before I got over my fear of mine (I bought it in a really good Black Friday sale and then was too scared to use it for a year and a half). I FaceTimed with Eve while she made some curry chicken in hers, and Angus uses his daily and texted that it's the greatest invention of all time.

Instant pot chicken with the homemade taco seasoning I sent with him

I drove Eve to Hamilton because Matt was in Vegas (poor guy, his job is so rough, wtf). On the way there we stopped at a Burger King and both went to the bathroom before getting food. The music being piped in was an appallingly lugubrious Rod Stewart song about a girl leaving home and presumably getting hooked on drugs or something and her mother crying herself to sleep every night. We both left our respective washrooms making weird faces about it. We lined up to order, and after a minute or two Eve put her head on my shoulder and I put my arms around her. At the exact same second we both started fake-emotionally singing the song and then burst out laughing and had our usual discussion of sharing a brain and I worried briefly about how it was going to go for me when I had to go home with only my half.

I drove home Wednesday, worked my first couple shifts at various school libraries Thursday and Friday and then we went to a friend's cottage on Saturday. 

It's a lovely place with only one bathroom that we generally fill to bursting with at least four families with at least two kids each. Our kids are away now and a few others were working so it was a tiny bit less crowded. We are a close-knit crew who nevertheless delight in challenging each other to diverse feats of strength or intelligence and engaging in some truly terrible trash-talking in the pursuit of said feats, so if you looked in one direction you would see a cottage with a wide, welcoming deck and a bunch of chairs for conversation and tree-viewing, and if you looked in the other direction you would see what resembled a redneck shooting gallery - a target board with all the family names at the four corners and one on top so we could all fling knives and axes at the names of our beloved friends, and beer and pop cans for bb guns and slingshots. Inside was ping-pong and spoons (a card game where you try to get four of a kind and when you do you try to grab a spoon from the pile in the middle of the table where there is one less spoon than players - like musical chairs with more violence. Matt said he assumed the game was suited to the talents of the family who proposed it - 'pattern recognition and extreme aggression').

It was all lovely except I threw the axe too hard and now I have to go back to physio for my shoulder - I an officially too old for this shit. Oh well, I would have buggered it up at some point again anyway, and this way I get to sound slightly cooler saying I hurt myself axe-throwing rather than gardening or baking (hey, rolling out empanada dough takes some muscle, shut up).

Sometimes I feel lost and sad at the beginning of fall, even though I like fall and look forward to getting back into a routine. Right now I feel pretty good. I do keep forgetting that Eve isn't just down the hall in her room, but I still get her daily download most nights over FaceTime. I'm looking forward to having students in the library in both schools. My friends make life absurd and fun and only occasionally dangerous. And it's finally cooled off and I'm going to go read outside.

Let Me Entertain You With My Awkwardness Part ???

 I think it's only Part 2, technically, because I keep meaning to make it a series but haven't yet. 

So I mentioned that last week I took Eve's friend Davis for her fourth Covid vax shot because she has a tendency to faint and her mom, my friend Jody (HI JODY) is doing a very demanding very terrible training course at work and couldn't get away. The week before, Eve and I had gone for the same shot.

For our first couple of shots, I was pretty anxious about making sure we got there on time and did everything correctly and didn't do anything to mess up our chances of getting the vaccine that we really, really wanted, because we were a bit more naive about what the vaccine actually meant in terms of what life would look like afterward. I have no regrets about getting it, I'm just a bit more clear-eyed about the fact that we can't vaccinate our way out of this pandemic. By our third shot, I ran a bunch of errands with Eve beforehand and Matt and I showed up just on time and out of breath, after he took the time to change his t-shirt which he realized read "Killin' It" just before we left.

Our first booster shot was in December, which is quite a few months away now, and I was a bit anxious again (I also started an antidepressant booster medication (wow I'm saying 'booster' a lot in this post, or maybe just this sentence) which can temporarily increase anxiety). We left with lots of time, and picked up a giant pack of Timbits to give to the staff, because I appreciate what they do so much and always mean to do something like this but usually forget or chicken out.

(TMI alert): I always go pee before we leave to drive somewhere. Today I went twice, and by the time we got to the school, only about fifteen minutes away, I had to go again - like I said, anxious. I was annoyed but I figured I would just find the bathroom when we got inside. There was no line, though, so we walked right in, dispensed our Gratitude Donut Holes (they were very well received), and walked in to get our shots.

We had the loveliest nurse, who complimented my Sandbanks tan and gave Eve the last fun band-aid even though she's nineteen. When we were done, of course we had to wait the fifteen minutes to make sure we didn't faint or have a reaction. I should not have forgotten this, but I had. I left my daughter and my purse on the chair and went to find a bathroom.

After I had gone and returned to the gym and waited with Eve and we left, I burst out laughing as we were exiting the school. Eve asked me what the hell was going on and when I could breathe again I explained that every other time we had gotten our shots, when we were leaving we had to show our paper with our departure time at multiple checkpoints to make sure we weren't leaving early.

This time no one asked us anything and we walked right out. Which means that me telling every single person I encountered in the hallway "I'm just going to the bathroom!" was unnecessary at best, and aggressive oversharing at worst.

Eve said "oh great. You've gone from being the wonderful lady who brought all the Timbits to the weird lady who told everyone she was going to pee".

Heyyyyyy

I mean, I only blog once a week at most anyway. That means I've only missed, what - three posts? Four? I could miss that many meals and not die. I could forget to water my plants that many times and they'd recover. I could skip that many pills - wait, could I? I'd be snotty, and maybe have heartburn, and get restless legs, but I wouldn't die, or (even worse) get pregnant. It's NOT A BIG DEAL.

The happy news is that I haven't been not-blogging because I'm depressed, but because my funny adorable damned children and super hilarious stupid friends have been keeping me busy with summer fun. We went to Bluesfest! We went downtown to the market! We shopped in quirky little stores! We had gelato! We sat on patios! We drank wine in back yards! We coached baseball! (okay, not 'we' so much as 'Angus', but I'm doing a thing here). We read books outside! We built fences! (okay, not 'we' so much as 'Matt', and I'm starting to feel like I got the best of the summer deal). We did backyard beer tastings and sang backyard horrible karaoke! We chased spectacular sunsets! We went camping! 

Then summer lovin' came to a rude end (sort of) when Angus left for Ithaca on Monday, his little car stuffed to the veritable gills. He sent us videos of where he's living - they're called Circle Apartments, and they're in a ring around a community building with a gym and laundry. He has two roommates, and they all have lockable doors with a common living area and kitchen. It looks like a good set-up. He changed the family group chat name to 'Angus's grocery club' and included us all on his first trip for groceries as a kitchen-having self-feeding grown-ass man (Elmira College requires all students to live in residence and have a meal plan for all four years, which made sense when he had school as well as baseball). He took a really great cooking class in high school and last year when he was in residence alone on a break I talked him through making chicken fingers from scratch, so he'll do fine, but I'm fine with him asking questions because I remember how hard it was learning how to meal plan and figure out what to buy and how much.

Eve has almost two weeks left, a few precious days of which she is currently spending recovering from having four wisdom teeth extracted. Yesterday the first few hours post-procedure were pretty miserable, both from a pain perspective and because we both get pretty severe dental appointment anxiety and I think the adrenaline withdrawal was nasty. She started taking the prescribed painkillers and ate a little and has improved quickly.

Today I took Eve's friend Davis for her second Covid booster because her mom was on a work course and couldn't get away and Davis is a fainter. The nurse could not have been lovelier and they had little curtained areas where Davis could lie down for the shot and the fifteen-minute wait after, and the nurse just hung out and chatted with us. She mentioned that actually with Davis's low blood pressure some salt would not be a bad idea along with fluids, and on the way home Eve texted and said she thought she could handle some McDonald's fries, so we took that as a message from the universe and did french fries all around. 

So I've been thinking a little bit about whether I want to keep blogging, and how. I sometimes don't blog because I don't feel like I have an organized post with an over-arching theme, or I don't have time to load pictures first, or I didn't do anything terrible interesting that week, along with the ever-present reasons of laziness and inertia. I'm thinking I might sometimes just post a bit of stream-of-consciousness about stuff I'm trying to work out in my head. So if that happens, just rest assured that I haven't had a stroke (probably), I'm just trying something. (After I got Covid, people kept asking if I had Covid brain. I would usually say "yes, by which I mean I have the same brain as before but now I blame Covid for it"). 

Now I can go catch up on all your blogs without feeling guilty. I leave you with a picture of Lucy in my neighbour's yard, being The Most Interesting Dog in the World.

Sorry For Being a Boob that was Unclear About My Boob

 Whoever was "a wee bit fretful" on my boob's behalf, I adore you and I apologize for my superstitious fear that if I said unequivocally "I do NOT have breast cancer", cancer would drop out of the ceiling and punish my hubris. My doctor did, in fact, say "everything's fine", and I had been on such a sine wave of absolute denial and abject terror (for something that millions of women go through every day), I wasn't even sure how to feel. 

No, that's dumb, I feel good. It's the summertime, my children are home, my best friend was just here for Bluesfest, we found a perfect desk for Eve at IKEA yesterday and my mom bought it, my dad is feeling better, and I yesterday I made TWO phone calls I'd been dreading and got two annoying things crossed off my list. Local corn is out, and I just made a really good turkey sandwich.

Pat, you live next to Hamilton? For some reason I thought you lived near Nicole - probably because I first saw you commenting on her blog, and as we all know, that's how geography works, right? It was the Tiny Shop Bakery at Hanes Corn Maze that we went to, and everything we got was fantastic. Matt and Eve are headed back to Hamilton (the city) this week-end to take delivery of her bed and put the second coat of paint on her room. 

I bought the bed when we were down the last time, and the staff at Sleep Country in Ancaster were so lovely and helpful and found us the perfect bed and assured me that we could buy it and schedule the delivery later (because we weren't sure when Matt and Eve would be coming back). So I bought it and had to pick an arbitrary day for delivery which they said I could change later, and then immediately started worrying that they were just shining me on and when I tried to change the delivery it would be an issue. And then when I called back to change the delivery they called me back within five minutes, changed everything and sent me an email with the updated delivery date immediately. Now that I'm talking about it, I need to go leave them a great review online and send a thank-you note. I am so pleasantly surprised and delighted with the whole experience. Or maybe I should wait until they actually deliver the correct thing? Oh Lord, now I'm worried I've jinxed myself. If I've ever said I'm not a superstitious person don't believe me, clearly I'm seconds away from throwing chicken bones and reading tea leaves.

Photo dump from our last visit to Hamilton (the city). Eve worked her butt off building her Target bedside table and painting. The colour it was wasn't terrible, but it literally looked like someone had walked on the walls. We went to the nearby Canadian Tire and got some paint, then went to look for a hammer because we had realized we had everything but. We ended up finding the same employee who had sold us the paint in front of a glass case of hammers that was locked (are hammers a big theft risk?) and a bit intimidating - there were a lot of them, and they were mostly really expensive. When we told him we needed a hammer he said "are you doing carpentry, or putting together IKEA furniture?" Eve told him kudos for not making assumptions, but she was literally in the midst of putting together IKEA (Target) furniture, and he sold her the tiniest most adorable and very affordable hammer (with a surprising amount of heft to it) that was exactly what she needed.

And while we're on the subject of Hamilton, and in reply to Steph's comment, on Sunday we SAW Hamilton (the musical) - twice postponed, we didn't really believe it was going to happen until the music started. I think I said last year that after listening to the soundtrack a million times and getting to see the movie of the Broadway version that maybe I was okay if I didn't get to see the real thing. Eve said "that's dumb", and she was correct. It was wonderful. Eve and I had a subscription to Broadway Across Canada that year so we had our regular seats pretty far up in the orchestra section. We had bought another pair for Matt and someone else, still in the orchestra section but a few rows back. We ended up taking Eve's friend Jackson. I asked if she was going to sit with him and she snorted and said "uh, no, I'm sitting in the good seat". All's fair in love and theatre, I guess.

Then we went home and picked up another friend and went to the grocery store to get snacks before Drag Race. So the vibe for the whole day was artistic, you might say.

Oh Hey

 I just remembered that I have at least one of the esteemed-and-beloved Nicole's blog posts to read and comment on, possibly more, which reminded me that I usually make myself blog before I read other people's blogs as my reward, which reminded me that oops, it's definitely been a while since I blogged, so I checked and... oof, nearly a month, what the heck? 

I think what happened is I kind of got in the habit of blogging on Thursdays (Nicole blogs on Mondays, her cheerful, lovely way of greeting the week, which is so fitting, and me blogging on Thursday as I crawl to the end of it, covered in bagel crumbs and bits of book tape, is also kind of appropriate), either in a Surly way or otherwise. Then the last two weeks of school got a little nutty, as they are susceptible to being, and then it was the summer which means I lose track entirely of what day it is. And also there's the probable-ADD thing, and my ever-prone-to-going walkabout memory, and, well, here we are on - *peers around for a calendar* - July 6th.

Hey, remember my sort-of-long-drawn-out boob-related saga? The whole thing was delayed by the tornado-ish weather event, and then finally my doctor's receptionist called and said we needed to make an appointment for her to give my results, and it was on my birthday, but it could be a phone appointment. Which led me to think that it must be good news, because what kind of monster would make a phone appointment to tell someone they have breast cancer on their birthday? And my doctor is decidedly not a monster. I literally read on Twitter about someone who found out they had cancer on their birthday just before the appointment, and if this was before Covid a phone appointment wouldn't have even been a thing, so that saved me a bit of spiraling. My doctor is also going on maternity leave again, which is one of those good news/bad news things (how wonderful! But shit! It's hard for doctors to take maternity leave, so good for you! But crap, I hate having to go to a different doctor! Did I mention I think I have ADD, and I've been working on addressing a long list of things since I turned fifty, and now she's leaving just as I was about to get to this one? Oh well, the last locum she had was really good, hopefully the new one will be too). 

Eve and I had a fantastic few days in Hamilton (not at Hamilton, which my friend Steph says she always thinks when I mention Hamilton, which is entirely fair, and in fact this Sunday we are going to SEE Hamilton, not visit Hamilton, so the confusion will be even more justified). We scoped out her room in her student house for next year, met two of the six other girls she'll be living with, dropped off stuff from home, picked up stuff we had left in Matt's brother's garage, visited our professor and her daughter and grandkids, I visited my brother in law and his lovely wife and children while Eve hung out with some university friends, and Eve did some work on her room while I ran errands. 

Friday morning before we headed to the house we went on an adventure to find a little bakery I had scoped out because my professor's daughter loves pie and we thought it would be nice to pick some up for dinner that night. It was a beautiful drive sort of out in the country, and at one point the next GPS direction was "take highway 52 to Copetown". I thought this would make a fantastic insult, and it is one of my enduring regrets that I didn't instruct Eve to get her camera out in time to get a picture of the sign so I could Tweet it back to racists and transphobes on Twitter who get a hair up their ass about other people being accorded basic human rights. "Pronouns chapping your butt? Try taking the Highway 52 to Copetown". (It's good that I amuse myself, right?)

When we got to the bakery I was backing into a parking spot and I spotted the guy parking beside me and thought he looked a little scary - I'm not sure I can articulate why. He was sort of thickset and hairy and looked a little glowery? Anyway, it was nothing but a passing subconscious observation. We got into the bakery and I heard him describing things to his companion and immediately revised my earlier estimation because he was sweet and earnest and possibly gay and lovely. After we bought our stuff and were leaving, he was also returning to his car and Eve said "I saw that guy and thought he was kind of menacing and then he was so cute - he said 'oh no, they're out of raspberry? Son of a BEEhive'", and then I burst out laughing because what are the odds we were thinking the same exact thing? Well, quite high actually, but funny that one of us said it out loud or we wouldn't have known.

Earlier in the hotel room was one of our other moments of week-end telepathy. I was in the bathroom and I said disconsolately, "I made sure to get Dad to give me a tape measure so we could see if you have room for a double bed and I put it somewhere and told myself to remember where but I don't." Eve said serenely, "I know where it is". I said something motherly like "shut up, you do not", and she said "Dad opened the little shoebox you put my glasses in and I saw it and thought 'I'd better remember that's where that is because Mom never will'". Hmph, but also, thank goodness.

Well crap, this is easy, why did I stop? Do you ever stop blogging and then can't figure out what you're supposed to blog about anymore? How am I? Well who cares, that's self-centered. But wait, it's my blog, it makes sense to blog about how I am. World events? Buggerfuck, that way lies madness. 

I should post some pictures. I'll do that tomorrow. Or Thursday. Wait, tomorrow IS Thursday? Sigh. How are you? It's my blog, I'm allowed to ask. 

Some Kind of Thursday

 It's Thursday again. I am not surly today. Neither am I serene. On the May long week-end (Canadian), Ottawa was hit by a derecho, a term I had never heard before and would happily never hear again. Defined as "a line of intense, widespread, and fast-moving windstorms and sometimes thunderstorms that moves across a great distance and is characterized by damaging winds", it was an extremely violent and destructive event that took down a ton of trees, caused a lot of property damage and had some people powerless for ten days. We got off pretty easy, which we appreciated extra because we were sick with Covid at the time. 

For the last couple of days the environmental news was full of dire forecasts for today, including a tornado watch. I think we all have a touch of PTSD, and I think this precipitated a small-scale but significant mental health crisis for me. I knew rationally that it was better for us to know, that we should just do what we could to prepare and then let the funnel clouds fall where they may, but I was extremely anxious and on-edge all day. As it happened, we got nothing but a heavy downpour and some thunder and lightning both at school and at my house. I'm grateful for this, of course, but also exhausted and kind of weepy.

Eve and I are going to Hamilton tomorrow to spend the week-end visiting friends, including my/her professor and her daughter and grandkids and some of Eve's classmates, and bringing some stuff to her house for next year and starting to fix up her room. Matt is going Mexico for work on Saturday for the week. Angus left on Tuesday for a baseball trip with six college friends, culminating in a night in the house where they filmed Field of Dreams, which was one of his friends' grad gift. It's all good, but a lot of moving parts, and my covid-recovering brain is slow-moving and I think that just added to the anxiety, trying to remember where all of my family members are and are going to be. In one funny-very-nearly-not-funny turn of events, Matt was packing the car for us and opened the center console and found all of our passports still in it from when we went down to Angus's graduation. Eve and I separately heard him say this and went "yeah? So? OH MY GOD", realizing we were about to blithely drive off tomorrow with the passport he needs to fly to Mexico the day after. Whew.

And oh yeah, Angus graduated! We were extremely happy, of course, that there was going to be a graduation and that we could get across the border for it, but we were still recovering and not quite sure how everything was going to go. It was a really fun week-end. Everyone else in residence had moved out the week before and the previous week had been nothing but senior activities, many involving alcohol. Friday night was a booze cruise and then a party at a house one of the baseball parents had rented.  Saturday Angus showed up at the hotel to have lunch with us, walked out the door and started to cross the parking lot to the Red Robin and then realized he was too hungover. We found this absolutely hilarious and gave him our room key so he could go have a nap instead. I did take a picture of his shame, though.

If he hadn't been on the baseball team we probably would have kind of been at loose ends, so in this case the baseball relationships were a really nice thing to have. Someone's parents were staying at an AirBnB above a restaurant that had an outdoor area and a little garage-type party room, so we gathered there in the afternoon. Angus was recovered, but his friend whose parents had flown in from California was down for the count until after dinner. They had all missed rehearsal, so we told them to find someone who had been sober to follow the next day. Angus said he wasn't going to drink anymore, but then somehow everyone ended up doing homemade limoncello shots.

We got one final picture with Angus and Jack, who we called Fake Angus for the first two years because they were the only two freshmen with full beards and when their hair was the same length they were indistinguishable on the baseball diamond - we had to tell my mom to stop waving at Jack multiple times. 

Everyone made it to commencement on time, and the ceremony was lovely. It was outside in a gorgeous space that was too sunny for any amount of sunscreen we could slather on our pasty Canadian skins. Eve got a major tan/burn line quite high on her chest that has hampered her ability to wear low-cut tops since, leading her to profess than she "should have dressed sluttier at Angus's grad".

all the baseball players who came in as freshmen together

Angus had to move out of his room right after grad - we went up and grabbed a few things to put in our car, and a couple of high school friends who had driven down to see him graduate helped him load the rest into his car.

I still think that Covid made the middle two years of his four-year experience sort of squish together so it feels faster than it would have otherwise, but I realize it probably would have seemed fast anyway. On the whole, he had a really good experience and I think he grew a lot. 

I don't want to end on a schmaltzy note, so enjoy this picture taken right after Lucy, who had also been nervous about the weather all day, took a massive leap onto Eve, who was both impressed by the acrobatics and unimpressed by the result.