Today was a great day. 

Mickey’s Cartage Company picked up the gross garbage from the prior renters and added a second dumpster.  Throughout our travels today, we kept seeing a Mickey’s Cartage Company truck on the road.  We wondered whether someone was just driving our garbage around because there was no room left at the landfill. 

We had a lazy morning.  My partner read on the porch and our son played games, read and watched a little TV. I zoned out.  Then we set out for my partner’s dad’s beach house in East Hampton where her sister and nephew live for now.  I snuck out to go to the gym and work on the sagging around my long-ago arm muscles. Here’s the fab thing about the Hamptons: the prices are unconscionable regardless of the quality of the services.  $30 for an underground gym with old equipment and no amenities.  You just have to pretend it is in pesos and pretend it is a good deal.

Ok so far.

Feeling guilty for leaving my partner and sister-in-law to contend with two 7 year-olds who, when together, feel like ten deranged alien beings, I drove back to the house.  The noise level was deafening.  The two moms were beleaguered and trying to create order around the pool.  I jumped into service (literally) by jumping into the pool, which is freezing cold because it never occurred to my father-in-law to get a heating device.  It is refreshing only in August when you are in the sun; otherwise, it is a little like falling into an ice-fishing hole. 

The great day is being downgraded to a hurricane.

Having kids around a pool is one of the most nerve-wracking experiences I can imagine.  Danger to life, limb and brain development is everywhere.  Might as well toss a 7 year-old the keys to the car. 

The boys were intent on having a sleepover, even though this was an afternoon playdate.  The last sleepover was a misnomer.  It was a shriek-a-thon and finally ended when my son came into the livingroom and asked to sleep with us because he was really tired.  Of course, he doesn’t remember that insanity.

Hurricane now downgraded to a tropical depression. 

My son needed to sulk over dashed hopes of a sleepover tonight.  Then, he wanted to go back to the City.  No more vacation.  He NEVER gets to do anything HE wants (dude, we’ve had 3 hair-raising playdates with your cousin within 4 days).

How do all kids know how to sulk this way?  It is part of the human genome in which I have the most interest.  I don’t care what makes his eyes blue or gives him a slightly weird looking big toenail.  I want to know why all kids whine exactly the same way and say the exact same things when they don’t get what they want.  Then we could replace those chemicals in the genome with Stepford Wives-like chemicals (a boon to the pharma companies) and, presto-magico, we would never have to fantasize about separate vacations from our children.

Schlepping from Montauk to East Hampton and back again, with all of that traffic and all those lunatic drivers in their fast cars is exhausting.  So, my understanding partner told me to take a nap (it was either sleep in bed or lie on the floor moaning, “woe is I”), so really I didn’t give her a choice. 

We grilled, we ate, I am blogging.  My beloved, our terrific son (even with the whining) and I are together, chilling out listening to Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong.

Tropical depression upgraded to a great day on the road to Utopia.