Music and Cats

Seven days ago, our nephews Max and Reed arrived. They were entranced by the view of our sleeping volcano.

Six days ago, they went to the aquarium while I met with our kitchen contractor. They petted sea anemones and starfish. Next stop, our neighborhood park, where the boys splashed around in the wading pool. Max was king of the mountain. Reed was happy to run through the water. Later that afternoon, the boys met our carpenter, Bob. “Bob the Builder,” Reed exclaimed. Bob smiled. While I talked with Bob, the boys and their mom and grandmother built a tower of the scrap lumber from our kitchen.

Five days ago, we picked blueberries. Here’s a word problem for you: take five adults and two boys. Give them five three-gallon buckets and one and a half hours. How many blueberries will they pick? (Remember that any amount of blueberries looks small at the bottom of a 3-gallon bucket, and that blueberries eaten while picking do not count.) Answer: eleven pounds of blueberries. Eleven point one five, to be precise. Even with fruit monster Reed around, that’s a lot of blueberries.

Four days ago, we went to the zoo. First stop? The farm, where all the domesticated animals live. Future farmer Reed milked a plastic cow and petted Velvet the rabbit. Max rode a tractor and herded kid goats. Then we were off to visit the African savannah, an Asian jungle, Australia, and wherever (South America?) those little penguins originally called home. (The zoo had pretty flowers, too.)

Three days ago, we took the ferry to Vashon Island. What a funny thing, to little boys, to drive a car onto a boat. (They know about ponies on boats, but cars are something else.) The view from the forward deck of the boat was compelling, but chilly; we were outside, then inside, then outside again. There was some swinging on the deck. After stopping by Vashon’s tiny, charming farmers market, we drove all the way down the island to the Point Robinson lighthouse. Rainier shimmered miragelike in the distance, the Blue Angels were heard but not seen. On the boys’ first trip to a beach, they gathered smooth rocks and fractured shells, and made angels in the sand.

Two days ago, we went to the Ballard farmers market. Max remembered the cute clogger from last year; Reed will remember her next year. Max met a parrot called Sam I Am. Sam likes girls, including Max and Reed’s mom. Reed wanted to taste everything; fortunately, there are many nibbling opportunities at the market. We bought a picnic’s worth of bread, cheese, smoked salmon, tomatoes, peaches and cherries, and took our picnic back to Little Howe park. The boys splashed and climbed and slid. A single Blue Angel buzzed us, a few hundred feet overhead.

Yesterday, they were on an airplane back to Houston.

This morning, I miss them something fierce.

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