Chaos and Daffodils

[Did I say "serenity?" If one's boyfriend and one screaming at each other as the canoe spins into yet another stand of riparian brush is serenity, give me chaos.]

[It wasn't all bad. The night before, the parents, John and I sat around the picnic table, illuminated by a 35-year-old Coleman lantern, playing Hello Kitty Uno (the "0" cards have Miss Kitty dressed as a leopard, yay!), and laughed and laughed. I didn't expect my parents to have so much camping equipment left over from my childhood. Cups and flatware I haven't seen in 18 years, a plastic plate on which I drew a design and signed my name when I was four, that sort of thing.]

[Even in the canoe, after we managed to get a paddling pattern going, we made pretty good headway down the river. We didn't stop for mozzarella sticks and pitchers of beer at the Waterline cafe, though the sign beckoned temptingly. On the ride home stuck in solidly atrocious traffic from Santa Rosa to the Golden Gate Bridge, we sang new Kelly Osbourne and old Adam Ant at the tops of our lungs. "Send the judge a token, token/Write it on a pound note, pound note!"]

[Oh, and Mom proposed a trip next spring to England to finally dispose of Grandma's ashes (which have been in residence in a unprepossessing plastic box behind the parents' fireplace since last fall) at an undisclosed but very well-known stand of daffodils near the Thames. (We'll have to smuggle the ashes in; it'll be vaguely Edward Gorey, which I think Jean would appreciate.) I first saw English daffodils at this very site with her back in 1977, how fitting.]

Previously Next