Wisconsin, II

Wisconsin, I

The night before we had an early morning flight to the Dairyland, the Vining Sisters and their Husbands went to a delightful wedding. People had a hard time paying attention to the bride and groom...



Ella was entranced by the ruffles along Maggie's collar, as many people were; Ella gained many compliments from guests of various sexes on her dress, and you can see why!



Okay, Wisconsin. First stop: Milwaukee. Shorewood. After a brutal trip we got to the D'Amato Manse. And from there, to the Pancake House, where some chocolate chip cakes quickly made us forget the troubled airline moments:



Also, the excellent and progressively-minded Sophie D'Amato came along! She even packed her leftovers to take along for her lunch. She's a champion swimmer.



This beauty here is a champion Swedish pancake eater. Clean plate!



Soon, or after a particularly unpleasant and strangely long drive up the peninsula, we were at the Rock Compound. Check it out on the beach:



That's the Compound behind Ida, there:



If you look out the other direction, it's the lake ("the wake!") and the raft, which Ida liked to swim to and jump off of. She also liked to take off her life jacket in twenty feet of water. Her fearlessness is her greatest strength and greatest weakness. It is like she is a Greek Hero or something. Tragic flaw? We'll see.



These foxes, too:



Horseplay inside the Compound:



Oh, you say you've never been inside the Compound? Many are curious. This short/long film made by Ida gives you a pretty decent tour:



How about that! We're not kidding! This swimsuit has a lot of fans, and was made in Portland by Americans!



The sunsets from the deck where we got married (13 years ago) are phenomenal... (though Sophie's brother Samson D'Amato, who uses an ungodly amount of Axe Body Spray and has ten kinds of Old Spice Deodoarant, including "Vice" and "After Hours," claims they all look the same) ...



(to be continued)

Thanks, Grambee & Jim!

After twelve hard hours of travel, I was standing there in the PDX baggage area, and Ida looked up at me and said, "I want to go see Grambee and Jim. I want to play with them. I want to play with all the wonderful games they have at their house."


Let it be known that there were moments in the last two weeks where Ida bewailed the games-to-toys ratio at the Rock Compound. Still, man, we are really indebted to these two for the excellent hospitality they showed us.



There's a life's worth of photos and memories to be recounted, but I thought I'd start with this key note of gratitude. Thanks!

Word from the Dairyland.

Ida's favorite game in Wisconsin is to have me stand fifteen feet away from her in the water and say loudly, "I think my daughter is drowning." She becomes angry if I don't say it loudly enough as she submerges herself.

Summer Daze

Still not so warm, here, but the days are longer. As you may have guessed, Arthur's out of town. Some days when I go to pick up the Bradford girls, no one's there, or no one's awake. So I creep right inside, up the stairs, and what do I see?

Anyway, I promised you the second half of the fourth of July. Here it is! Arthur was in town and he set up the pool! (There are some very nice pictures of Ella in her swimming suit, but I can't post them here right now because I know on which side my bread is BUTTERED!

And he also got some fireworks, some of them illegal; that made Ida happy!

Miki wasn't quite so sure.

This was right around the time Ida got her new haircut:

Elsie claimed some sparks got into her eyes. What's that in Maggie's eye?

Have you heard about Eddie? Look below, and fall in love. Ida shunned the first half of her first lesson because she had a boy teacher, but now she can't talking about him. The girls run from the car, down to the pool, shouting, "Eddie! Eddie! I need you, Eddie!"

And when Eddie's teaching other lessons, Ida runs up and down the edge of the pool ("No running," the lifeguard shouts) saying "Hey Eddie, we're going to have pizza for dinner! What are you doing, Eddie?" There's Elsie, by the way. She's into Eddie, too.

Theo is in the goldfish class! Her first swimming lessons! She sometimes has to get out right away to poop, but that's why I'm here.

These pictures were taken by the babysitter Margaret, who got in trouble for going into the men's showers and then wasn't too happy about being scolded. But she did help out! And Miki made me get her this slush puppy. Why?
Because in the past this Mountebank purchased large ones and shared! Slush puppies remind him of his youth, when his friends threw their baseball mitts in his face and socked him right in the gut!

Miki is "too little to go in the pool," but she does like to take a lot of showers while there. She also likes to watch the baby lessons, and is very curious when they do a "drowning baby" drill with the doll.

Summer!

Ella Made Us Go Blueberry Picking in a Frickin Rainstorm!

It was really raining way too hard to take pictures





We then spent a very exciting and steamy fifteen minutes in the mini-van with everyone stripped down to their underpants and shivering. Maggie took off her skirt and wrung it out! It was like six gallons of water in there.

Everyone is fine

Yes, I've been really busy and meanwhile many things have been happening. Even Arthur has been helping out while I teach at a writer's conference. And the girls are busy--



Miki's doing crap like this:


Here's a really tough photo of Ida after she tagged up this fence with some spraypaint!

"Mount Saint"

So, over at Tumbleweeds, Aron has really got everyone worked up about volcanoes! Which really isn't hard to do, but still. He brought in noted Chemist "Sarah's Mom Daniel" to do a cool Brady-like volcano experiment. Freaked everyone out.


So, spurred by ERV, we headed to Mount Saint Helens last weekend! It wasn't easy--Elsie threw up on everyone in the car, and then Ida had a meltdown where she alternately wailed that the mountain was too tall or not very tall. Once we got to this vantage point and ate some salami, things started to look up. The girls looked through the telescope and saw steam emitting from the crater! The ranger helped them (though Theo referred to her as a "STranger," which caused everyone to wonder if they should shout and run away whenever the ranger approached).

There's really not much shade up there. Why? Because the sonic winds and dust cloud and sheer force of the explosion destroyed all the trees!

These ladies did not forget their sun hats.
Nor this little foxlet. (Note, by the way, that dress of Maggie's I warned you about, last post. One clue: it has a bra built right into it!)

A little later we went down to this amazing little lake where it was cooler and Theo fell down and scraped her knees and really screamed. Sound carries across water.

This man caught several trout. He is only allowed to keep one each day, and it must be sixteen inches. He caught one that big earlier, or so he said, but let it go since he was sure he'd catch another. He didn't, but he did catch about fifteen fish, all about twelve inches. The girls had a good time questioning him and getting in his way as he tried to get his pontoon personal watercraft thing into his truck.
Miki threw half the beach into the lake.

These girls are so familiar with the volcano that they just call it "Mount Saint." Ida told us yesterday that she would like us to move closer to Mount Saint.

4th of July, part one

Hello Americans, Canadians, and other people! Ella helped the girls decorate their bikes for the Eastmoreland Parade! And then we raced through the neighborhood to the parade.


Yes, Miki is fast.


Lining up for the parade was kind of tight, and there were many large dogs in costume, but this did not scare Miki too much or throw her off her game.


Chaos:

Ida ran into the back of a lot of people's legs because she was watching the fire engine and other assorted distractions ("I got distracted" is one of her favorite phrases) rather than paying attention to where she was going. More about Maggie's dress, glimpsed here, when I catch you all up on our trip to "Mount Saint" on Saturday--right now I got to take care of America's birthday.

Elsie rode it all like a champ, no training wheels. However, somehow Arthur and Maggie lost her in the crowd and I myself had to locate her. She was crying, and being held by a woman with dark frizzy hair who was wearing a Toob top. Let me tell you, Elsie was glad to see me! I was the hero! And then a little later I found Maggie, who was looking for Elsie. And then we all ate hot dogs (Arthur cut in line in front of about 200 people, snagged four dogs, didn't pay, said this was the American way, was upbraided by Ella who continues to silently fume, etc) and some popsicles.

Both of our girls crashed on the way home. They were wearing helmets, though.

There may be another report from 7/4/11. We'll see if anything noteworthy happens.