A Gal Like Me Has Got No Right To Struggle With Depression

... or alternately, The Hills Are Alive With The Sound of Music.

(It just depends on how comfortable you are with pretending that life is a romantic adventure, or whether it relieves you to know that everybody's got shit and small potatoes to deal with.)

How well I remember that house on the hill where all was alive with the sounds of children, and kittens, the dog Daisy, the pretty hens, and the refreshing melodies of cascading gin.

Its time for a refresher course in all things rural, so I thought I'd unschool the children for a few days and haul them off, kicking and screaming, to spend a few days in paradise. Well, screaming with joy as they ride the moterless lawnmower down the hill is more accurate....

So, as if that's not enough to pull my chin out of my navel, tonight Brian and I are taking our daughters to Rainbow Stage to sit in the outdoor concert hall and experience the production of The Sound of Music. I've not been to the stage since I was a teenager so it goes without saying that the girls have never been. Julia Andrews is like an old family friend. I grew up adoring the story and although we never had a television, the Von Trapps felt like family from all the hours I'd spend lying on the living room floor listening to their sounds of music and studying the faces on the record album, pretending I was the youngest in that family instead of my own.

So, a few more hours to get on the old timecard, and then a chance to indulge in the last glorious days of summer.

My heart shall be blessed.... by the sounds of music.

The Runway

Its going to be pretty tough to reach my goal of becoming a runway model in my forties if things don't start changing up around here. I suspect sabatoge when the husband invites friends over for dinner to share his artichoke and olive linguini, washed down with crisp white wine, and tempered with nutty brown buns. He's lured eldest daughter into his sinister plot, giving her the role of baking endless pans of chocolate chip oatmeal cookies instead of playing with her gameboy like sensible children do. Then there's all these lazy evenings spent slouched around a roaring fire in the backyard, turning marshmallows till they droop with golden temptation. Even at the lake, between fitting in the numerous meals that must be consumed, the Mike's hard in the cooler down by the dock, and the mid-afternoon nap, that lake can serve just as well as a backdrop. Its not limited in function to being a place to thrash about in, wet and miserable, and looking like an exercise junkie fool.

Oh, its noble to have goals and all. But if all the people around here don't start sitting down more and cooking and baking less, I'm going to need a whole lot of support. I may even need to sleep in your living rooms.

But only if your people are more supportive than mine.

Summer

"Hi. I'm Sam. Remember?"

I guess its true what those blue-haired ladies in Safeway used to say.... "They grow up so fast..." At the time I wanted to shove my screaming, mangey crew at blue-grandma and say; "Oh, yeah?! Well how about you take them for an hour so I can shop? Or a week, if it goes as fast as you say, you romantic old biddy." But I'd twist my features into an imitation of a grateful smile and pat them on the arm instead. (Dementia. Odd what memories it melts away...)

Well, its been thirteen short years of parenting now, and we just realized yesterday that we've done a week of activities with practically no tension. No meltdowns. No peeing of the pants. No packing the stroller. None of it.

And we even had fun!

The summer list of good intentions has a few tick marks on it now. Zoo? check. Folk Fest? check. Beach? check. Fishing? check. Picking strawberries and raspberries? check. Tinkertown? check.

Maybe I'm growing over-confident here, but with this successful unfolding of events so far this summer, it seems a good weekend to take the girls and their friends on a camping trip to Birds Hill. With temperatures in the mid-thirties. In a tent. With precious few shade trees.

Where's that blue-haired lady when you need her?