This will be a rushed post. I want to take care of the past week and then make excuses for the next week.

I have somewhere to go tomorrow.

I am going home to NJ tomorrow. And I am bringing Oscar B. And then we are going to my grandpa's memorial service.

It's going to be a doozy of a weekend.

 Poor Arlo caught a bug. Coughing, stuffed up nose, feverish. He is smart: he becomes very cuddly and yummy when ill.

Oscar gets older, and more handsome. Don't tell him this, but there's this 4th grade girl who has a younger sister in Lucy' dance class. She has gym with Oscar (it's a mixed age gym class). She likes hanging out with him after their sisters' dance class and needles him and is genuinely affectionate with him. She is about six inches taller than him, and Oscar is unabashedly in love with her. She tolerates him, just above a tiny extent that I think that if they were a bit older and the 14 month difference in their age wasn't such a big deal, I'd actually have to worry about this relationship. Until then, I just encourage Oscar to be flattered.

 

We bought a wee little pool. Best $25 spent. 

 Last Saturday, I took the kiddos to the beach while Evan fought the hipsters at record store day. 

Base camp.

It was a gray day at the beach, and still, there's nowhere else I want to be. We investigated tide pools, climbed into caves, and built rock walls. We checked out sand sculptures and acted like goofballs.

 

Arlo munched on watermelon, and all I could think of was our trip to Cabo when he ate only watermelon. Why, look at that, I have pictures!

 

 Seriously, can you stand it?

 California girl.

 Monsters coming up from the deep.

 Someone set out their wetsuits to dry with their board on a bed of my favorite succulent flowers. It's a little creepy, right?

 These flowers are everywhere. On the side of the road, on the edge of parking lots.

We stopped in the way home and bought six pints of gorgeous strawberries for 11 bucks. Arlo and I ate three pints on the way home. There's my future summer house on the beach in Malibu.

Evan was successful in Record Store Day. Flaming Lips, Dr. John, and the reissue of Pretty in Pink on pink vinyl.

 The next day, I took off to Hollywood to check out the farmer's market and see Cabin in the Woods with my sister from another mister. Now, I love the Burbank Farmer's Market, but the Hollywood one is five times bigger, has multiple venues for live music, plus balloon animals and entertainment for the kiddos. Also, it is bookended by this:

 And this:

I tucked my veggies into my car and went to the Arclight to meet my girlfriends.

 The movie was fantastic. A final exam for fanboys.

I witnessed an accident on the way home. A girl jaywalked between my car and a bus and walked right into an oncoming car, and went ass over teakettle. She gashed the back of her head; I called 911, and sacrificed The Goose's monogrammed beach towel to sop up the blood streaming from her head.

She was okay. The towel was a loss. I've been having nightmares about my kids walking into traffic.

On Tuesday, Arlo's class went on a walking field trip to our local grocery store. We waited for them to walk by the house and The Goose and I went out on the front porch and waved. Arlo's teacher said "There's Arlo's mommy!" and his friends said "No fair! How come you get to live so close to school?" and "Wow, Arlo! That's your house!" And my Arlo beamed and beamed, ran over and gave The Goose and I a kiss, and ran back to his class, feeling like a rock star.

So, our upcoming trip.

My grandfather passed away a couple months ago. He lived a fine, long, full life. I am happy to celebrate his life and I can't wait to see my family. But, hoo boy, am I gonna be a wreck. I am a big sap at weddings and funerals. My grandpa lived a long, full life and it was his time to pass over. But I will still sob at the service. My darling baby cousin, Kaeti, is getting married early next year. Oscar and I will be staying with her and her young man, and I look forward to giggling long into the night with wedding plans. And I will sob like a baby when she gets married, and probably whilst we are planning it.

I haven't seen my brother in almost a year. I've seen my folks once in 8 months. I haven't seen my extended Rochester family since my grandma's funeral 16 months ago.

This is going to be AWKward.

This weekend was already strewn with emotional timebombs, and I decided to let my practical side take over and work in a visit to NJ before all that family drama.

Oscar and I are flying to JFK tomorrow and driving a rental down to NJ. We will be staying with our Brody-Kaplan family, and my dearest Elizabeth, the plural wife of my heart, is having a brunch open house for us on Friday morning. I want to go pick up Lila and Jed at Playhouse so I can hug Lisa and Anat, and then we'll see lots of friends at our favorite playground. We'll end up at the Trattoria in South Orange for pizza and ravioli with more friends, and then we drive our rental back to JFK, fly to Rochester, and memorialize my grandfather. 

It's going to be an emotional couple of days.

Burbank on Parade

Sunday was Burbank on Parade.

Burbank, behind all of its studios and media districts, is really a small town. A small town full of subpar marching bands, gaggles of realtors tee-heeing and dressing up as stewardesses, and local dance clubs. And horses. This is a very horsey town.

 The parade was started off with 6 helicopters flying over the parade route. Burbank is very proud of its aviation history and its small, but immeasurably better than LAX, airport. It's named for Bob Hope, the patron saint of Burbank.

 Realtors.

 Burbank! On Parade! Let's celebrate our aviation history! (Lockheed Martin was here. Lots of WW2 action from here.) My friends concede that the parade was kind of a let down from last year. Last year was Burbank's centennial so it was a big thing.

After living in New York most of my life, it feels very bizarre that I live in a place that has only been around for 100 years. Or, at the very least, incorporated for 100 years. Put it this way: my house in New Jersey was a year older than our new town. I am pretty convinced that there is plumbing in the house I grew up in that is older than our new town.

 Here's what's behind every small town: a bunch of sweaty, potbellied union guys that were persuaded by their wives to walk for miles in the hot sun pushing an unwieldy sign. Thanks, gents.

I grew up with those guys. I served them at the Burger King drive through when I was in high school. They were all absent on the first day of hunting season. They all live in my neighborhood now and they have giant campers filling up their driveways. I used to say that I was a reformed redneck -- learned how to drive in a standard-shift pickup; have shot a woodchuck in my day; the best concert I've ever been to was a metal band, Queensryche. (It was the Silent Lucidity tour. It's like the Upstate NY equivalent of seeing Roger Waters doing a tour of Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking. By the way, Roger, if you are reading this, I was perfectly happy to pay all that money to see you do The Wall but I would pay twice the amount for a full-on Pros and Cons tour. You could have a CGI Jack Palance at the end just like Tupac at Coachella!) I seem to have moved back to my old town.

It was 87 degrees. I guarantee none of these guys were wearing sunscreen.  

The fire department. Every so often they'd let out a fountain of water. Ladies (and discerning gents) of SO and M: I am here to tell you that we have a professional, not volunteer, fire department here in Burbank. They are pretty spectacularly hunky.

 

The police gave out little balsa airplanes. Arlo broke three of them in roughly six minutes.  

 This is one of our random elected officials. I need to get up to speed on local politics.

 There were a lot of Snoopy references.

 Should we stay here, this will be our kids' high school. This is their alumni band. They were having more fun that should be legal.

Girl Scouts!

Here's our local band: Captain Cardiac and the Coronaries.  They did not suck.

Our local naval base sent a truck towing gigantic missles. Part of me is like "Yay, go Navy!" (I come from a proud Navy family.) The other part of me is all "Really? Let's celebrate our town by showing weapons that were used to kill civilians in Afghanistan?" Dear local Naval base: weapons might be impressive, but even a bluestocking liberal like myself loves and respects our service people. Show me a tank, or a boat, and some sailors. I will continue to send my kids over to thank you for your service every time I see you on the street,  and I will continue to buy you a drink when we are in the same restaurant. But I would prefer to celebrate how you keep us safe rather than how you kill people.

 This, I loved. It was a sign on the car identifying the John Burroughs High School Photographer's club. it was followed by a pack of gawky teenagers scuttling over to the curb and taking pictures of the crowd. It was adorable. Our babysitter Jared attends John Burroughs, and so will our kids, should we stay here. Every time we drive by the school, all the kids yell "That's Jared's school!" I love that there is a bunch of creative kids at that school that thought, wouldn't it be funny if we had a float in the parade and then just took pictures of everyone? Yes, kiddos, it was funny. I hope you got some awesome photos, and I hope my kids are in your ranks someday.

 Marching bands. Marching bands make me cry. Always have; always will. The bands from our two local high schools were pretty good but nothing compared to the Columbia Marching Band. I think West Coast marching bands don't have the influence of the African American drum line culture.

 The school superintendent went by on a classic car. A bunch of waving walkers followed. I followed a hunch and hollered out "Sheri Taylor!" Sure enough, our principal was walking along. She was thrilled we called her over, greeted Oscar and Arlo by name, and took a picture of our family watching the parade (and I took a picture of her taking a picture).

Wild Bill Hickock's Wild West Parade.

 In the words of my dad, the Hysterical Society. They've tricked out an old school bus to look like a locomotive (trains and horses are big out here).

Here's representatives from all our sister cities. I usually fall asleep before I can watch Parks and Recreation, but I love the show. My mom was the Recreation Director in my hometown and it is very familiar to me. There were a couple times when Evan turned to me during the parade and said, "This is very Pawnee." This was one of them.

I haven't encouraged my parents to watch Parks and Recreation, even though it is very similar to their lives, being very involved with their beloved small town, as employees, volunteers, and active citizens. I know that the minute they watch it, it will be just like their review of Christopher Guest's "A Mighty Wind." "We didn't think it was all that funny." It's a little too close to them. I grew up listening to their vinyl copies of The Kingston Trio, Peter, Paul and Mary, and, yes, Up With People.

I must say that my folks assume that Waiting for Guffman is pretty much the best movie ever made, after The Quiet Man. There will be no more discourse on my parents' taste, since they are correct in their assumptions.

 The local Mexican dance troupe. They were glorious.

 Lots and lots of classic cars. How much do I want that purple pickup?

 A bit of our Rose Bowl float, encouraging citizens to volunteer to help build the float. Next year.