Katie Dog and I walked to Ocean View Park last Sunday afternoon. It was the fourth Sunday of the month so the bluegrass players and afficionados were in full swing. Groups of 3 to 10 players and singers with banjos, mandolins, guitars and violins, even a bass were scattered around the park. Children were playing and parents were chatting in the playground area. Dogs were frolicking and chasing frisbies and balls in the other end of the park.

I heard "Hi Parmalee" in a little boy's voice and my four year old friend Owen rode up on his two wheeler. Katie likes him and gave him a kiss. Owen recently had mastered balancing and today was practicing pushing off with his feet, then lifting them onto the pedals while balancing, pedaling round and round the paths and concentrating on coming to a controlled stop. Yeah!

I knew my daughter would be at the park and I wanted to see her. I found her at a picnic table with half a dozen friends. Katie adores her so this was becoming a good afternoon for finding friends. I arrived just in time to take a group photo! These were very special friends, as they had known each other for eighteen or more years, from when their children were babies through all the growing up years. They gave each other support through good times and rough times, cheered for each others' children's successes, covered for each other in emergencies, celebrated birthdays, had beach rendezvous, saw each other at soccer games and once in a while had moms' nights out together.

As the children grew older the formality of the babysitting coop dissolved and some drifted away.  They had always had an annual ornament exchange in December but even that dwindled.  Then this Christmas they made a big effort to reconnect.  Twelve showed up and they had such a good time re-kindling those early friendships that they determined to get together more often. 

With children off to college or out in the world supporting themselves, this round would be for the moms! They began having monthly potluck lunch gatherings. Someone had brought the scrapbook with photos of children, themselves in bikinis --"...wouldn't be caught in one now" was heard-- husbands at parties, but mostly children playing together. I expect the picture I took will go into that scrapbook, to be looked at in years to come.

With Spring Break about here, Suki offers some personal recommendations for fun places to go. Have a wonderful week with the children!  If they're in one of those great camps (see below) enjoy the stories around the family dinner table.

                                                                                                         Parmalee

One of my favorite things to do with my kids is see people really at work on something they know a lot about. Museums are great, but just watching someone doing something that you've never done and asking a few questions can lead to a depth that just looking at the results of the work can't.

Some recent trips we've taken in this vein were when we went to San Jose Tofu Company and also when my friend Daniella Woolf taught a class in encaustic. It's one thing to eat the stuff or admire it; it's another to see it being made and talk to the person who was making it.

Another local experience that I can't recommend highly enough is......... Read more>>>

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