A Bit of Calm

We were fortunate enough to have both Christian's and my entire family in town for the last couple of weeks. As you can imagine, it was tough to divide the time. My family is resplendent with toddlers and babies, beautiful, funny, squeezable, sometimes crying, sometimes vomiting (they all got a stomach thing, efficiently passed from tot to tot) red, tow, and chocolate-headed wee ones. Christian's family now seems staid in comparison to mine (yes, I'm referring to the riotous, combative, hilariously fun Asplunds). Today I had breakfast with two of my four sisters before driving the last one to the airport. Christian's brother Mark is freshly in town from his new home in Delhi, and I'm looking forward to hanging out with him in the near future.

At the moment there's a rare lull in the summer fun: Lula invited in-town cousins "The Twins" to our house for a tea-party, over which she is presiding with aplomb. Christian, Eva and Ingrid are headed for Salt Lake to see Bon Iver perform, and I will soon take Lula, Cecy, and Momo to the Creamery for burgers and then to Kiwanis Park so Lula and Cecily can hit a few balls on the tennis courts.

I'm taking a quick blogging break from reading War and Peace--it's really funny and entertaining, did you know? Because the big girls and I are holding an impromtu W and P book club for the summer. Let me know if you wanna join. You'll need to read about 50 pages a day for the next five weeks to keep up. I'm surprised at how fast it's going. I'm not sure I chose the right translation (Constance Garnett, Modern Library Edition). We're discussing every Thursday. The thing I'm really happy about right now is that I have the entire rest of the evening, minus a time out for dinner and bedtime routine, to read a big, absorping novel. Nothing better than that.

No real cooking has occured here for at least a week, but some good eating happened: Green Corn Tamales at McCondo, Potato Rosemary Pizza from Pizzeria 712 (and Amano Chocolate Pudding), Shrimp Dumplings and Grilled Potatoes with lime mayo and srriacha from Rooster, a Veggie Scramble at Guru's and oh yeah, the one thing I did make: a decent, but not perfect, rice pudding. I'm still working on getting a consistency that is pleasing when the pudding is hot or cold, and on getting the right amount of sweetness. I have to confess that I also loved eating KFC at the park in South Fork, right by the river, with the really, really delicious watermelon that mom brought. If you have to eat fast food from a chain, it's hard to beat the Colonel.

Tell me more summer stories. I know there are some good ones out there. Especially from people who are in Trinidad right now, all hot and sweaty.