Hi Hi

If you wanna have a really bad vacation, try smuggling a 5 month old black lab puppy into your hotel in Palm Springs. The puppy was really great, actually, she's not a barker, and she was happy that she got to go along and terrorize tiny cousins right at lick level. But for me it was like taking the Anne Frank vacation. She cannot really be here. Terrified everytime the doorbell rang. But stuffing the fear because it is my special talent.

Since the dog wasn't allowed to be seen at the place, I had to get up and smuggle her into the car and drive to a mountain to take a pee. The good thing is it forced me to hike to the top of mountains I had only looked at as scenery (not something I'd go up without a horse doing all the leg work under me), and in a million degree weather (wow, only 104? Feels like I'M ON THE SUN). But Becky and I got to climb up near Bob Hope's old house, and if I ever crash land on the moon, I will feel right at home now. Because that's what hiking in Palm Springs looks like. Like a meteor hit and destroyed all of civilization. And then the heat comes down and envelopes you like a stifling wool blanket.

The plus sides of the vacation were lots of rice crispy treats, swimming in the 99 degree pool, going to the water park, where Lilly begged me to drag her into "the big waves now Mommy!" in the wave pool. Which required me to drag her and her innertube deep into the waves, heave her into the highest crashing wave, and have her slam back into my body, and then heave her forward again. For like 40 times, until the wave pool guy feels so sorry for me he turns off the waves, or maybe it's on a cycle. I still can barely walk since I haven't apparently used my lower shin muscles that much in my life. Family is good. The family was there, and crowded and loud, and the kids love riding bikes and having traditions, and in the other room at night I'd hear them giggling until all hours and I remember that time with my own cousins, when I got to be the one giggling in the other room. That was maybe the best part.

Also, someone brought a new boyfriend, and he brought his old mom, (that sounds weird, but she was in town), and in the pool we were floating around and I said to the mom, "So what do you?" and she said "Oh, I make fairy furniture." They must pay with like really tiny money. I said "Like out of wood?" "No, sticks!" I imagined this lady with piles of sticks in her garage, roping eensy pieces together with dental floss, her hair gone wild, like "no, I'm not crazy! It's for the fairies!!" But then we discussed how fairies are really big right now, and fairy furniture - a whole uncornered market.

It's nice to see different surroundings and explore new roads with new stopsigns, and climb mountains previously not assigned to me. This vacation felt like someone else's vacation (perhaps the dog's), but it was still worth the trip. It felt like long luscious summer, the kids have their glossy tan, we got to be away from everything we know, and that always opens the door for finding out something new and uncharted. Like at the arts and crafts session at the hotel (we went because it was free ice cream), we met the art lady who was from Denmark. So I showed her my kids, who are descendants of Denmark, and they all stared at each other and then kept making necklaces. But she taught me that "hej" (pronounced "hi") is "Hi" in Danish. And to say goodbye you say "Hej Hej!" Hi Hi!

My poor great great grandfather, Hans Siegfried Julius Jensen, who spoke all Danish. And all this whippersnapper great great granddaughter can say is hej hej. But it's a start.