My in-laws are fun to talk to. They notice things and have opinions. The kids are getting an education just by sitting around and listening in on the conversations that we are having about neighbors and cousins and neighbors' cousins and cousins' neighbors. They are learning how people dissect the lives of others in an attempt to make sense of the world and their place in it. These lessons are especially valuable in that they are taught by their grandparents, so they are infused with generosity and fairness. As lives are held up for inspection it is with gentle hands and hopeful eyes; the benefit of the doubt is always within reach.
The first thing that we did today was head down to the beach. The Boy wanted to make a castle with some deep trenches and bridges and The Girl was hoping to find a shark's tooth.
My phone promised nicer weather than what was delivered. It was windy, no shark's teeth surfaced, and Judd the Red Chicken's shovel snapped when the trenches were half done. I would have still stayed on the beach (wrapped as I was in a blanket), but the kids decided to be done. We stopped by the treehouse for a while and encouraged by The Sister, who knows how to play really well, they all ran about like so many industrious gerbils until some tiny kids came. No longer sole residents of the habitat, the kids lost their interest and we moved on.
Later in the pool (today we had to opt for the indoor pool), they met some other children closer to their age and they played Marco-Polo with them for a while. I commented to their grandma how much I love friendly interactions with people that you're never going to see again. There is something cool about making a memory with someone who will only have the smallest of roles in your life. The Girl decided that she wanted to learn how to do handstands like The Sister. It always makes me smile to see legs sticking up in the pool, as that was the speciality of Big Sister when we were kids. It took a while for The Girl to get the hang of it (dear reader, if you've never tried to do a handstand you might be unaware of how tricky it is to get the bum properly submerged), and she was getting frustrated. Many things come so easily for her that she gets disproportionally irritated when all things don't come to her in a snap. Today she was reminded that practice, practice, practice pays off. After a while she was able to consistently do underwater handstands. Hurray for another generation of pale legs breaking the surface of the pool water!
The social activity that we decided to join today was "Family Bingo -- $2/card." Apparently what "family bingo" really means is "all age" bingo, and all age bingo really means older folks who take bingo pretty seriously. I didn't notice any talismans placed about, but there was a palpable intensity. We came in late and then The Girl promptly won games two and three. Somebody actually grumbled, "We should have locked the doors when it was time to start." We discovered that one of the prizes was a certificate worth $12 for the wine tasting party -- so at $2/card there were some hopeful gamblers there... But not being from Reno, like we are, they must not have realized that it's a gambling culture cliche that every night in every casino, some cute young thing will come in, bat her eyelashes just so, and beat the odds. Calling, "BINGO" on two out of the five games, The Girl picked candles for her prizes and tonight we ate dinner by flickering light.
After dinner we went a couple of buildings over to where there are gas fire pits on the porch. Though the wind that has really kicked up made lighting difficult, we persevered and got all settled in to start making s'mores when a random man appeared out of nowhere and asked if he could join us, as he dragged a chair over and somehow found room for it in our circle. It was so clearly a family gathering that for the first few moments of shock we weren't super hospitable. In fact my mother-in-law, The Sister, and I all had to look down at our laps because we were getting the giggles.
Apparently we have a collective family doppleganger and it manifests as an overweight man in his 60's with curly hair. If you were to sit down and list 25 key words that described your family's personal history -- names of cities, hobbies, random experiences, and then somebody materializes and in the amount of time it takes you to make two s'mores he manages to insert all 25 of those key words into the conversation would you find it odd? The Boy said that if he had mentioned one more thing that connected to our lives he would have had to contact Homeland Security. Our doppleganger's enigmatic existence prompted my father-in-law to ask how he was able to travel to so many great places so often, how it was that he was able to retire so young, and he provided an important message that I honestly do hope my kids always follow: "Live below your means."
Towards the end of our time together the conversation turned to the weather and he said, "A storm is coming, but we will be fine." Should any storms loom up -- be they literal or symbolic -- I'll swear that he was some sort of Myrtle Beach mysterious messenger, and I will hold to the promise that we will be okay.
