I had one of the most marvelous group outings last night. I will put up pictures later and hopefully they'll say it all.

I was thinking about summers past ( since I'm sooooo old ) and realized I had a really awesome childhood. My mom was great with kids. She let us destroy the livingroom with our multi-chambered tents and "spiderwebs" ( a game we played with yarn and tape. you taped the yarn from one side of a room to the next and had to run through it without touching the yarn or the spider would get it. ) We were allllways in the summer reading club or "book it!" at the library, and would win prizes for so many books read. We were never rich but it felt like it because we always got free passes at chuck e. cheese for good report cards. And, when wet & wild was in Garland, we all had summer passes which at the time cost 30 bucks. They would be paid for in 2 visits, and we would go twice a week.

I would play barbies at Beth's ages 6-10 for hours. Since it was always more fun to get a new Barbie instead of a Ken, there were only 2 Ken's. We would rock-paper-scissors to see who got the Ken with the missing leg. And whoever did usually made up a story about him losing it in a war.

Then I wondered how on earth, since I ate so much crap ( little debbies, grilled cheese sandwiches, cheetos, soda), how I stayed so punky skinny when I was growing up. Then I remembered that my friends, my sister and I rode our bikes EVERYWHERE. In the summer in middle school, even when it was 110 outside, I would meet up with my girls and ride through residential streets and alleys to the store. We would buy cokes, cheap nailpolish, or gum and look at seventeen magazine or something lame like that until we cooled off. There was one alley we would ride through that we called 'dog alley' because it was just a given you would have to vamp up the ol' 10 speed and pedal like hell to escape the dogs that could jump over the fence.

When Emily moved to firewheel in 6th grade, there were no kids around and nothing to do. We were both kind of naive outsiders...( it's funny to recount my 6th grade Austin Academy experience and then hear Fred's...when I was building mini bonfires in the streets of developing neighborhoods as my friends and I's most devious crime, his friends were dropping acid at age 13...) anyway, yeah. We still "played" when we were 12. I don't know if that's normal or not, but we would run around with supersoakers, have cannonball contests in the pool, and once or twice, run through the golf course sprinklers naked and do cartwheels in the wee hours of the morning.
When Jessie was in the picture though, it was all about being "cool" and I always felt like such the dork. Emily had older brothers who introduced her to Pearl Jam and Nirvana and other loud grunge. Jessie at age 11 wanted to be just like Courtney Love. I didn't know how that was at the time, but I wasn't about to show how lame I was. I was afraid to have an opinion of my own at all. But that's another story, about how much being in middle school sucks. If you can relate, I suggest a movie called "thirteen". It's sad, and luckily I never got involved with any of the crap that happens in the movie.

It feels like Matt just went home but now I have to go get ready to go to the Improv! He is so fun!!