The Full Moon & Half Sun

The past week-end  made me think of our Seattle-Vancouver vacation again. We trooped into the house after making a hash of things at the Annual Arts Fair in the sun. We looked like the grass in California with the signs on them saying “Brown is the new Green!” Parched, in other words. The son, approaching the color of a roasted salmon, put his hat down and said, “There is a half moon. There is a full moon. Why is there no half sun? Always full sun!”

I could not have expressed it myself better, and thought about our sentiments during the vacation.

As far as experiences go, the previous vacation was marvelous. We had many firsts. Almost missing a flight by arriving at the wrong airport in time notwithstanding.

The sun rose like it was being called to bake cookies in the open grass at 5:30 a.m., and long after the cookies were baked, the fish dried to make karivaadu (dried fish fries) and the vattals (some sun-dried lentils) dried, it blazed on. Around 10:00 p.m. it would reluctantly start to set, assuring us that it will be available at 5 a.m. the next day.

All this wonderful Sun meant that we were harder-put-than-ever to pass up any part of the day for resting or otherwise missing out on the fun. We went traipsing from waterfalls to rivers and bays with gusto. At 10 p.m. we took a short breather before heading out to night-time activities such as fireworks and taking in the lovely images of the Seattle skyline by night.

I have to also make a honorary mention of the fact that we were almost thrown out of a coffee shop. The Son has a loud-ish sort of voice. The kind of voice that make apples leap out of their skin. When excited, bananas peel themselves too. He was excited when we stopped at one of Seattle’s famous coffee shops for a refresher.

He had been spending time with my friends’ sons: two adventurous lads of 7 who looked like demi-Gods to his 4-year old self. When they leapt, he tried to leap too even if it it looked like a dull thump of a jump to retrieve his pride. The boys were having a blast in the car. They laughed at their own wit and the son was beaming trying to join in on everything. We were trying to keep things classy.
“Guys! No Fart jokes please.”
“Let’s try some other things to talk about. Poop is not cool.”
“Yuck! Guys! You know – let’s move it back to the classy Fart jokes again.”

When we tumbled into the Coffee shop, the boys were singing songs.

The son had learned a line or two from these wonderful boys-of-7 (He had to keep saying their age, like you call someone Dr Doofenshmirtz). They had taken him in to their circle without asking a question. He beamed at being included and used that wonderful voice of his to belt out the Lego movie song, “Everything is awesome. Like over-priced coffee.” The daughter can show a remarkable sense of propriety when she can boss over the little fellow and she clamped her hand around his bass tones chiding him for singing about coffee. “They won’t give us coffee then!” she said to him, and he replied quite logically, that he wanted ice-cream and not coffee.

All in all, it was a wonderful treat to hang out with friends, even if it got us nearly thrown out of a coffee shop, in Seattle.

We then popped into Vancouver and finished up with bicycle rides along Stanley Park, rope bridges, gondola rides and what not.

I must say the long days were lovely and though the husband and I on occasion looked like drooping dogs who could be mistaken for carpets, there were no such problems for the children. They were truly indefatigable. At the end of a long day, they would perk up again at the mention of ice-cream or a swim.

It is wonderful how Vancouver made a thing about rope bridges and we swerved and swayed with the best of them. The children were thrilled when shown nature’s model and we spent a few minutes crouching to see this marvel at 96 F before heading back indoors.

In 5 days, we had thoroughly exhausted and enjoyed ourselves. We headed back hot and happy. The half-sun would have been good, but the half-sun is what those poor folks get in the Winter I suppose.