Friends in high places

So many times this summer I have found myself mid-activity thinking oh my god, this summer sucks so bad. Usually I'm at work. More often, though, I find myself mid-activity thinking best. day. ever., which means I'm prolly a little nutso and need to talk to someone. I'm up, I'm down, I'm all around. I'm coming down from one of those best-weekend-ever feelings and am just about to crash into worst-workday-ever, so before I arrive at the door of the bitter barn, I best recap all that was good and wonderful in my weekend, trying to savor all the details in hopes of making it to the next.

I took a day off on Friday, and after hanging out with my dear little C. all morning, we packed up and headed out to the post Grosse Pointe area, where my friend Courtney's parents live. Grosse Pointe may be all that is evil in a suburb, right down to the fence--literally a fence--constructed in parts of its border with Detroit, but when you have a friend who can help you make that evil work for you, it's all good. GP has these fabulous city parks with pools, rolling hills, boardwalks along Lake St. Clair, barbeques, etc. etc., but you have to have a park pass to enter them. You have to live in the particular Pointe (there are confusingly several--GP Farms, GP, Park, etc.) in order to get the pass. No, you can't even buy your way in for a day--you must be a resident in order to use the facilities. While it's a little country-clubbish, I have now seen the dark side and it is beautiful. Call me a hypocrite, call me white bread, call me a cake eater, call me whatever--the GP parks are amazing, and I will officially do all I can to get there whenever possible. Courtney and I packed up young lovers Clementine and Hudson and set off for the "splash pad" park, a wonder which is hard to explain but so fabulous to experience I can't even begin to describe. It's like a little water wonderland, where kids can run through various water sprays, stand beneath pails of water that dump on their heads, run over water jets. At first Clementine was a little overwhelmed, but eventually she was ready to pitch her crib in the corner and live a homeless lifestyle just to lay claim to the splash pad every day. I think the city would probably frown on that, but it really was fun.

We got home in time to take Nate to our favorite Cuban restaurant and then hit the bookstore in downtown Royal Oak, which is apparently what many parents of young children decide to do when trying to have some semblance of a life. The kids' section was packed with obnoxious kids who were fighting over the Thomas the train set, so we let Clementine tug all the stuffed animals off the shelf before pretending she picked out this book so we could justify buying it. Such cool pictures! Of course the rock n roll one is on its way to my house soon as well.

On Saturday, we went to the Detroit Urban Craft fair, which was pretty fun, although it was not air conditioned and Clementine was like a little heater on my back. I've been to the Bizarre Bazaar in Cleveland, Art vs. Craft in Milwaukee and Renegade Craft Fair in Chicago, so I have seen a lot of the stuff people were selling there before. One can only buy so many wacky stuffed animals, shit made out of records or cool t-shirts before enough is enough. I did, however, purchase a fabulous shirt that has a necktie as a collar, and some shoes made of flooring. Yes, it sounds weird to buy shoes made of flooring, but they are really cute and cool, and I've been wearing them non-stop since I got them. Check them out here, but she sold them at a reduced price at the craft fair, so I'm not sure what her whole pricing scheme is.

Saturday night we went out with our favoritest rocking friends David and Laura to celebrate her birthday (Happy Day, Laura!) and see The Raconteurs. We started with some fine Chinese food and then proceeded to one of the best shows I've been to in a while. Their set was short, but they rocked hard, and I must admit that although I've been over the Jack White phenomenon for a while, I was totally blown away by the way he jammed on his guitar. They all seemed to have a ton of fun playing together, and it felt very spontaneous and fun--not rehearsed, polished and boring. The highlight for me was an ear-splitting cover of Nancy Sinatra's "Bang Bang," which I must find a bootleg of or I may die. I keep singing it and hearing Jack's rebel yell in the chorus, and it may dive me nuts is I cannot possess it and listen to it at will.

After the concert we had drinks and dessert because it was so painfully early, and by the time we got home, Clementine was fast asleep in her crib. Did you see that? In her crib. She slept there all night, and we didn't' hear a peep from her until 7 the next morning. Glory, glory! Had we managed to go to sleep at a normal hour, we would have had so much more sleep than we have in the 11 months since her birth, but I'm not griping. Not waking in the 2-4 spot is a glorious thing. Are we turning over a new leaf here? Let's not talk about last night and pretend it is thus.

We woke up Sunday and biked into Ferndale for breakfast before an old college friend and her very cool husband brought their daughter over for a day of play. It was all very parent-ish and exhausting but fabulous. I kicked their daughter in the head accidentally, so they'll probably never call us again, but if they do we'll be very psyched to hang out with them.

And now work. I'm scheduled to visit my family in Chicago this weekend since none of them has been here all summer and they won't come meet me at the beach for a weekend of fun. No, instead I'm hauling my cookies there for the third time, and my mom is being a total head case. Every time I talk to her I shorten my trip by a day, so I'll be breezing through once again with a week's worth of things to do and only three days to fit it all in. Clementine and I are taking the train so that Nate can join us later and we can all travel home together. That is, unless we pick up a new used car along the way, which is what we're hoping because, crazy as it sounds, I can't wait to see my new car and get one that can run on veggie oil. Yes, veggie oil. But that's a post for another day.