Bug City

We bought a top of the range tent, with the intention of luring visitors with deluxe guest accommodation. It is tall enough that Daniel, who’s 6’3, can stand comfortably in either of its two rooms. In fact, the tent may even be larger than the Airstream trailer.
It boasts bay windows, screen doors, stowage areas and cupholders.
I don’t know what it is about cupholders in America, but they seem to be very important and are prominently mentioned as key features of many products such as camp chairs and cars – my sister Annie says her car has 16 of them. Sophia loves the two that fold out of her new booster seat and likes to put all kinds of things in them. We use the two we’ve got, both in the front seat, for coffee and tea when we buy them on the road. What we notice is that cupholders make it harder to throw cups away.
Anyway, here’s the tent:
http://www.amazon.com/Columbia-Cougar-15-Foot-10-Foot-Person/dp/B00170JZE4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=sporting-goods&qid=1253248054&sr=8-1
We ourselves also plan to use the tent, despite the fact that I’ve only slept in one on a handful of Girl Scout trips and then again on the Inca Trail, while Daniel says camping makes him feel sick. Sophia, though, has been asking if we can start sleeping in the tent ever since it arrived in the mail.
Daniel managed to follow the included instruction pack and set up the tent at my aunt Jean’s farm in Iowa, with help from my cousin Vince, his wife Amy and two of their three kids, Leah and Daniel.
Vince, who’s always taken his role as Eldest Cousin very seriously, drove everyone down from their home in Mankato, Minnesota, especially to see us. He greeted us with his trademark bear hug, made sure we were all happy and healthy, charmed Lulu when she screamed, and then took us on a ride in the huge John Deere tractor he uses when helping my uncle, Richard, out with the farming.
Minutes after the tent went up, Daniel ran over in a panic: “There are millions of bugs in the tent, it’s Bug City!”, he cried, searching all our faces for an explanation. There was none.
Does anyone know whether tents are supposed to attract bugs? There was no mention of this phenomenon in the many customer reviews on Amazon.
A few hours later, there was carnage in the tent, where all the bugs had met their end. Ladybugs, gnats, flies, sweatbugs (they look like small bees, but don’t sting), strewn all over the tent floor, in between the mesh screens and zip-up windows and lining the seams. To say say they numbered in the thousands and were measured in half-inches is not an exaggeration.
So the tent remained erect from Sunday afternoon until Thursday evening, when Sophia and I went in with a Shop Vac, trying not to hoover up the couple dozen or so daddy long-legs feasting on the carcasses.
Of course, then a bunch more bugs flew in. And then the poles for the bay windows got bent out of shape.
We have to call Columbia and figure out the tent thing.

The Baby Who Came to Tea

Sophia has a great kids’ book called ‘The tiger who came to tea’, about an unexpected visitor joining a little girl named Sophie and her mother for teatime. Offered some afternoon treats including buns and tea, the eponymous tiger is so hungry and thirsty that he proceeds to eat them out of house and home.
My friend Ceara, whose parents gave us the book, has a theory that the tiger’s existence is concocted by a mother anxious to conceal her afternoon drinking habit from her husband.
Anyway, I was reminded of the story the other evening when Lulu had her first proper meal.
Owing to Lulu’s extreme hunger and my inability to satisfy her, we had to ignore the UK National Health Service’s recommendation that solids not be introduced before six months.
http://www.nhs.uk/Planners/birthtofive/Pages/Weaningfirststeps.aspx
And man, did she eat: the girl needed no instruction on how to swallow, and managed to pack away two helpings of rice cereal followed by one of sweet potatoes. Each time we paused, she banged her arm on the highchair tray, demanding more.
And she would have kept going if we had let her.
I swear she’s changed since that food went in, gaining weight and becoming even more alert.
Only problem is, her loving gaze, once reserved for me, has shifted to whatever I’m eating.

Rockford, Illinois – run for your life

Note to anyone planning to take Business Route 20 from Illinois towards the Iowa border: avoid the west side of Rockford!
Around the tenth time we cursed ourselves for missing the Route 20 ring road, a lady and her daughter pulled up beside us.
“You look like you’re lost – you are on the wrong side of town. Keep driving and don’t stop for anyone”. Kindly, she mentioned which gas stations she did not use for fear of safety, but said it was all right to stop for police officers.
Having thanked her for looking out for us, we drove off, aware that towing an Airstream with a giant bright red truck is anything but inconspicuous.
It was then that we had a good look around us, noticing the falling-down houses and firearms shops.
So off we sped, into the Friday sunset.

American Gothic

Chicago was a flying visit, just 36 hours to spend in an incredibly fun, friendly and clean city, the gateway to the West.
The first night we spent with my cousin Lisa, her husband Francisco and their sons Sebastian and Amadeo. Upon arrival, we realized it was Amadeo’s first birthday, but we did not have a gift (sorry). We did enjoy some birthday cake, though. We also enjoyed Francisco’s mom’s homemade salsa – a properly hot one, a yummy tomato sauce that involved very special treatment of tomatoes and best of all, their ‘house drink’.
Served in a large martini glass, the house drink is composed of gin, Pernod Ricard(?), lemon, lime and rosemary. And something else. It was refreshing, and not fussy-tasting at all.
Must post the recipe.
The next morning, four kids plus my very unpunctual self made leaving the house take something like six hours.
By 3:45pm, 1.25 hours before closing, we had arrived at the Art Institute of Chicago. Daniel immersed himself in the collection of drawings, while I concentrated on the American art from 1850 onwards.
‘American Gothic’, the painting by Grant Wood depicting an Iowa farmer and his wife, was especially emotive because of my family ties to that state, and farming.
After rushing back to the north side of Chicago, where we emerged breathless from a cab that had carried four kids and four adults at 71 miles an hour up an expressway in rush hour, we zoomed back downtown to spend two precious hours with Trista, one of the first two friends I made at the University of Michigan, and her husband Anish catching up on the events of the last three years. So into the night we sat, reminiscing about drag queens, criminals and other happy college memories.

Fast Times in Saugatuck, Michigan

The best way to catch up with long-lost friends is to attend a costume party. Well, for me, anyway.

My university friends Veronica Beckman and Tim Baker have been hosting an annual 1980s party every Labor Day Weekend for the last nine years in Saugatuck, Michigan, where Veronica’s extended family own summer homes.

To mark the American close of summer, all the cool people in Chicago decamp to this resort town on the shores of Lake Michigan for a serious party. And serious costumes, the best of which wins a prize – and the chance to have one’s name engraved on a Rubiks Cube-shaped trophy.

It seems like Tim or this guy Jason take the prize most years.

This year did not disappoint. Tim, who gets top DJ billing, and a friend of his went as the Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd characters in ‘Trading Places’, a 1983 movie about the accidental changing of luck for a conman and trader. So Tim made his entrance as conman posing as disabled homeless man, while the other guy was in a suit. By the end of the party, Tim was in the suit and the other guy was in a Santa costume.

Other top costumes: Jason, as a Rubiks Cube that actually turned, a literal interpretation of ‘99 Red Balloons’ and my girl Tia (Breakin’, complete with boombox and Jheri curl!!). Veronica, for her part, is the only mother I know who can pull off a purple dress borrowed from a friend’s former swinging aunt.

I wanted to go as Cyndi Lauper but couldn’t find colored hairspray anywhere, so ended up as a Molly Ringwald-esque 80s girl dressed in pink, pink and more pink. Thanks, Ingrid for the backcomb and amazing metallic make-up!

Daniel, extremely kindly, stayed home with the girls so I could go to the party – THANK YOU - despite having his own amazing costume ready to go. Luckily, he can save it for Halloween.

Please see my profile on Facebook for a full range of hilarious photos…

GPS

My uncle Tom gave us a very fancy GPS device, since his new car comes with its own tracking system. We’re not sure whether or not to employ it – is GPS in the spirit of the trip?
So, we have it all charged up and ready to go, just in case we lose our way in the not-fun kind of way. After all, sometimes you discover new things by getting lost, while other times, all you get is more intractably lost.
Either way, Tom and my aunt Gretchen did give us direction.
Twice we stayed with them in Perrysburg, Ohio, a suburb of Toledo, at their palatial home on the banks of the shimmering Maumee River – once on the way from my parents’ in New York, and another time after we looped back from Chicago and were about to set off to visit another aunt, Jean, in Iowa. So they were the middle sister-to-sister point.
Two times they watched our kids as we packed up the car, attempting to improve upon previous hurried efforts. And twice Gretchen made everyone individualized breakfasts, and packed food for lunch on the road. I think she also had to change the sheets twice, since our second visit was slightly unexpected.
Both times we departed calmer, more rested and more organized than we had arrived.

In the photo is the view from their driveway. There's also a lovely photo of Sophia and Lulu with Gretchen, but I had to promise not to post any images of her...

Breakfast in Jackson

Having spent too much time visiting the Henry Ford Museum in the large Detroit suburb of Dearborn, and then too much time in Ann Arbor looking at the town, getting lost and then stocking up on second-hand gear at vintage emporium Value Village, we were unable to get to my university friend Veronica’s summer home in Saugatuck in time for bed.
So we stayed at Motel 6, a budget motel chain about which I am sure we will write more over the course of these months, in Jackson, Michigan.
Despite having attended university nearby, my only knowledge of Jackson was that it was the home of Philip and Dave, or ‘Big Girl’ and ‘Little Dave’, as we knew them in Ann Arbor.
The night attendant communicated by grunting and was missing a few teeth, but kindly acquiesced when we asked to change to a less stinky room than the one we had been assigned.
Since we hit the road, Starbucks, a place I normally disdain, is now something I keenly seek out for its distinctly above average coffee. Yes, when it comes to coffee, I am a yuppie. Sorry.
Anyway, Sophia, Lulu and I were heading over to the Starbucks next to Motel 6 when a little boy all dressed up in his Sunday best poked his head out of the neighboring room’s door to stare at Sophia. Each time she tried to make contact, he jumped behind the door, too shy to chat.
When a group of finery-clad ladies emerged from the room, I greeted them and asked whether they were off to a wedding.
Big mistake.
“No honey, we’re off to church”. One of the boy’s female relatives then told me the name, address and pastor of that church and suggested we join them, stopping to check that I knew Jackson well.
When I admitted it was my first time in Jackson, she popped the question: “Are you a believer?”
“Um, I’m um, kind of agnostic”, I mumbled, aware that I was trapped.
Trapped, and tired. Who was this woman trying to convert me before I had even had coffee?
Weakly, I attempted to ward off a vague effort to convince me of my sins before participating in a very unwelcome series of hugs, handshakes, pleas to come home to God and mispronunciations of my name.
Sophia never managed to say hi to that boy, who silently waved at us from the car as they finally pulled away.
Pictured is our breakfast, which we eventually enjoyed right outside our room.