Family Day

For the first time this summer, we reprised our family activities, roping in everyone to see the latest Harry Potter movie.
Grace and Spencer had already been to see it, but Earl, Tucker and I hadn't seen it yet. So we trooped out Tuesday morning to beat the crowds and cool down in the theater.

My family loves, loves, loves the Harry Potter stories and movies. We have been going to the release night for books and movies as long as I can remember. Every family car trip is soothed with the sounds of Jim Dale, the narrator on the Harry Potter CDs. Even now, we're in the middle of listening to the last one again.
My kids loved growing up with Harry Potter.
One of my friends said she didn't want to see the movie characters all grown up because she felt like she was seeing her own kids grown and moving on.
I don't feel that way. I was okay with seeing Harry and Ginny with their own kids.
(I would say spoiler alert, but if you don't know how the book ends then you shouldn't go see the movie anyway, IMHO.)
I did get a little teary in the movie when Harry's parents appear, along with his godfather. They tell him how proud they are and I felt my eyes well up. And again when he was a baby and his Mom was about to die and she turned to the crib and just kept saying, "Mummy loves you, Harry. Daddy loves you." Those are the words you would want your child to hear before you die.
Anyway, in spite of what some people might say, and in spite of the fact that the producers didn't follow the book exactly, the movie was spectacular.
My own family left blinking in the sunlight and when we turned on the car to drive home, there was Harry again, still on his adventure.
It's like we teach students when writing about literature. You write in the present tense, because literature is always happening in the present, it will never be past.
And Harry's adventure will come to life again every time we open the books or slide in the disks.
Plus, someday, I'll have grandchildren who won't know the story of the boy wizard, the boy who lived.

Of Course

As if to prove me wrong in my past two blog posts, yesterday I managed to run 3.5 miles, work on my novel, exercise with Grace, make pancakes for Grace before she left for work and Spencer after he finished his workout at the gym. Then I answered emails to my students and planned my next class. I successfully wore all my hats, although my husband, who did laundry and moved a new refrigerator into the basement, may point out that I didn't play the role of wife very well. Today, I'm just tired and going to get to work on grading papers.
My other blog post, reminiscing about those chubby little hands, was put to rest when both of my boys were incredibly surly rather than snuggly. They both got grounded in the space of 10 minutes as they sniped at the rest of the family. Of course, this was as we were planning family night -- enforced time together.
All three of the kids requested an at-home family night. I think they were afraid we'd plan another 22-mile bike ride. We talked about dinner and renting a movie. Grace was scheduled to work until 5. In the middle of the afternoon, a thunderstorm came through so she walked in the door at 3. Shortly thereafter, we lost power. We opened the windows and the air outside that had cooled during the thunderstorm quickly heated back up into the 80s so we had a nice sauna effect.
I looked through the newspapers for a movie we could all agree on. At least it would be cool in the theater. No concensus.
So I made dinner early, goat cheese pasta with peas and ham. Sitting around the dinner table, we were sweltering. I grabbed a section of the newspaper to fan myself. Earl remembered the hand fans we had at our outdoor wedding, little paper fans shaped like palm fronds on wooden sticks. He got one for each of us and we sat at the dinner table fanning ourselves in the heat. Well, Tucker, in a snit about something, had already abandoned the dining room for the couch.
We talked about walking to the ice cream shop downtown, but the kids protested. The car had air conditioning.
"Couldn't we just drive around in the car and listen to Harry Potter?" Spencer asked. We all still love the Harry Potter CDs.
We drove to get ice cream then, ever the optimists, decided to rent a movie in case the electricity came back on.
I stood outside the grocery store waiting in line for the Redbox Video rental. It began to rain. Thunder rumbled. Lightning struck close enough to make me jump. Still, I valiantly waited for the video. (Where are all the heroes today? People willing to brave a lightning strike for a good movie?)
I got Men Who Stare at Goats and when we returned home, the power was back on! We closed the windows and turned on the air conditioning. We're becoming such typical Americans. We used to go most of the summer without air conditioning so I could leave the windows open and hear the kids playing outside. Now they don't play outside.
No complaints from the movie. Everyone stayed to watch, but family night broke up early after that. I went to bed, Grace went out with friends and the boys headed to the basement of entertainment -- XBox and computer games.

Family Night Rides Again

With the temperature in the mid-80s rather than the mid-90s, we decided that a bike ride would be a perfect family night.
It was a little complicated with five people and five bikes. We ended up taking two cars because the bike carrier holds three bikes, so we put the top down on the convertible and stuck two bikes in the back of it. Of course, one of our bikes was missing because Tucker had ridden it to a friend's house and left it where it was locked in a garage. We borrowed a bike from Earl's sister's husband.
Spencer was focused on getting family night over with. "How many miles?" he asked.
Eleven there, eleven back with ice cream in between, I told him.
And he took off. The bike trail runs from Johnstown to Granville. The trail is shared with walkers and runners and crosses several roads, most of them not too busy.
As we started off, we came to a wooden bridge. A squirrel ran onto the bridge at the same time Spencer rode onto it. The bike scared him and he scurried across Spencer's path then ran and dove off the edge, hopefully onto a tree.
That was about the last we saw of Spencer as he decided to ride ahead. He later told us he managed the whole 11 miles in 35 minutes. He turned around and came back to find us since he didn't know where the ice cream shop was.
The path goes through woods and farm fields. It was full of strong odors, like skunk and cow manure. It also had butterflies and birdsong. The woods were protecting and ominous. The fields full of corn that stretched as high as an elephant's eye.
Tucker's bike has issues. Earl says it's because he throws it on the ground when he finishes using it. I say they should have put a kick stand on it if they didn't want kids throwing it to the ground. Nevertheless, he would be riding and the chain would just pop off and he would pedal going nowhere until it reattached.
I found this hilarious. Him, not so much.
Some swear words were thrown around when we left the flat path of the trail to climb the hill up to Granville. It's a steep hill and I called "every man for himself" before we got to it.
Earl and I rode on the street, but the kids all headed for the sidewalk, which meant they couldn't pass each other so were limited to the speed of the person in front of them. Anyway, they all made it to the top without stopping to push their bikes, which is more than I could say for myself the first time I did it.
The ice cream parlor in Granville served up floats and milk shakes that helped get us the 11 miles back to the cars.

This guy fed ice cream to his dogs. He made them take turns and share a spoon. He used a different spoon and somehow thought that was sanitary, even though they were all eating from the same bowl. Ick.
After ice cream, Tucker needed a grilled cheese.
Grace and I headed back to the trail while he waited for his food. We knew we would be slower than the guys. We rode steady for a total 64-minute ride on the way back, along with a few stops for photos. I figure less than a 6-minute mile isn't bad for us.
The boys stayed at the ice cream parlour to eat the grilled cheese sandwich then took off at a pace that might have done the peloton on the Tour de France proud. They shoulted a hello and Spencer's red shirt billowed in the wind as they passed and rode toward the lowering sun.

The sun was setting as we finished at the grain mill in Johnstown.
We were all pretty tired when we got home, except Spencer who of course ventured out to "hang" with his friends at "the turf" which is the high school football field.

Family Night, The Sequel

I wish I could say family night was a hit. It was better than last week. This photo may have been the high point, but I had to tell them to smile.

We went to a Clippers baseball game. I've blogged before about how great this field is, and we had nice seats in the second row. Unfortunately, it was one of those 95-degree days so we were dripping sweat in the sun.
My favorite part of a minor league baseball game is the hot dog races. I don't know why they have hot dog races, but the hot dogs -- one with mustard, one with ketchup, and one with relish -- race down the first base line. So far this season, mustard has won no races. Oh, my heart goes out to mustard who fell again during this race and still has zero wins.
I did get this great photo of one of the other hot dogs jumping over the fallen mustard hot dog.
When I try to explain something like hot dog races and call them mustard hot dog or relish hot dog, it feels like maybe I've fallen down the rabbit hole with Alice. So strange.

Family Night Fiasco

I declared Sunday nights as family nights this summer. After all, Grace is getting ready to leave for college and the boys hang out with their friends most nights of the week. I wasn't expecting a night with the Walton family, but apparently, my expectations were a little high.
We started with a family dinner of chicken and vegetables on the grill. Normally, it would have been shish kebab, but we skipped the sticks. So with a bowl of grilled chicken and a bowl overflowing with zucchini, summer squash, tomatoes, mushrooms, onions and carrots on the table, Tucker declared himself not hungry and refused to eat. He sipped on a glass of water and pondered whether he could add mint syrup to it. I vetoed that idea since he wasn't even eating dinner. He informed me he didn't like shish kebab. What's not to like about chicken? And I know he eats carrots. I didn't argue though, just made him turn forward and get his elbows off the table. He had spent the night at a friend's house so I wrote off his bad behavior to tiredness.His silence and refusal to eat as he sat sullenly at the table pulled a wet blanket over the beginning of family night.
After dinner, we chose a game to play. Since it was father's day, we let Earl choose poker. It wasn't Texas hold em, but five card draw and five card stud with a few hands of black jack thrown in. I couldn't find the poker chips, so used these colorful plastic tokens that the kids sorted when they were little. We started with 25 and I quickly lost all of mine, so we added some more.
As Tucker won a few hands, his mood improved. As Grace lost every hand, she grew morose.
"Why can't we play euchre?" she asked. She listed other card games she would be willing to play -- Egyptian ratscrew, spoons. To no avail.
The poker continued. She said it didn't bother her to lose, she just hated that it all seemed to be about the luck of the cards instead of skill. I suppose the skill is a little more subtle than in a card game like euchre.
As they got into the game, the guys put on their poker faces. Some more successful than others.
Finally, the pain of the poker game finished and we took up Spencer's suggestion to walk downtown for ice cream. Of course, I told Tucker he couldn't have any since he hadn't eaten dinner. He wanted to stay on the couch and watch TV. Nope. I told him he had to come along. He spent several minutes explaining in a condescending voice why this was not logical, stupid even. But since I was walking to the ice cream store and not planning to get any ice cream, I was not swayed by his arguments.
Thus began the three-quarter mile walk to the ice cream shop, where the line on this sweltering father's day was out the door. Tucker had a gift certificate to the store and he had walked with Earl part of the way, so I knew that the two of them had hatched a plan that allowed him to buy the ice cream himself and eat it. I decided not to fuss about it. The point wasn't about who would pay; it was about eating healthier. At 14, those points get lost in the fog of adolescence.
Grace came out with a waffle cone with a dip of chocolate and mint. Spencer had a trio, three small scoops of different flavors. He'd ordered Buckeye and Belgian chocolate then "I panicked," he admitted. The pressure of ordering ice cream with the long line waiting behind him made him choose strawberry as his third scoop. He didn't regret it, he said. Earl came out with a scoop of goat cheese and sour cherry. Hmmm. My favorite ice cream from this shop that specializes in strange flavors like salty caramel and thai chili.
When we got home, we decided to choose a "movie on demand." That's a movie that is out on video, but when we order it from home, the cost goes on our cable bill. Grace and Spencer voted for Youth in Revolt while Tucker pushed for The Blind Side. We erred in the favor of the majority. Spencer kept saying, "I thought it would be funnier." It was pretty raunchy with pictures of sexual positions floating out of books and sex tips between 16-year-olds. Tucker headed to the basement. I decided to abandon family night and Grace was right behind me. Earl and Spencer made it through the end of the movie. I'm glad it only cost $4.99 for that mistake.
Next week, we'll try family night again. Maybe I'll order pizza. Everyone likes that. Now to come up with a game everyone can agree on.