it almost felt like vacation

Father’s Day was Mark’s first full day off in like a month. We let him sleep in and then went for breakfast at a big diner near my parent’s house. Sometimes you just feel like sitting in a booth in a typical American diner where all the menus are identical and you know you will get ridiculous portions of food. Plus we know that picky Claudine will eat pancakes and sausages, and lots of them. Win/win all around.

We then spent a leisurely 3 hour visit to the town pool after breakfast, the first visit of the season, where we always pretend to be residents of my parent’s town, only we’re not because we have to wear brightly colored guest wrist bands and we don’t really fit in and it’s not only because we’re from Brooklyn.

We drove back into the city early Monday morning and dropped Mia off at school. We found this Father’s Day note in her backpack. Later in the afternoon, the neighbors and I sat on stoops and on towels spread out on the sidewalk while the kids ran amok with the sprinklers. Innocent pedestrians tried to dodge hose-wielding children as they walked past our motley gang. Bottles of beer were passed around. Such a different scene from the suburbs the day before. But that’s how we hang in 90 degree weather here in Brooklyn.