7.3.16 - Pizza party and karoake

Jack got to bed very late so I’m glad I went to bed early. I felt perfectly rested by the time Clara woke up so I got up with her and let him sleep. I dressed Clara in a very cute maybe even slightly gothic dress Merlene got for her. We had more chocolate muffin for breakfast and then headed to Dad’s.

Clara enjoyed playing with bath toys in the downstairs bathroom and later exploring the path alongside the house and examining many rocks. Dad started prepping his wood-burning oven for (an enormous number of) pizzas and Jill went to the store to buy any missing ingredients, including the very crucial pineapple chunks.

I’m trying to remember every summer visit to interview the kids (Harrison, Sola, Rocket, Zoey, and Malcolm) so that over the years we can see montages of how they’ve grown. I interviewed Sola first and then Rocket on the front porch swing. It’s enjoyable—I ask them what their favorite things are and how school is going and it’s a nice check in. Sola in particular is very sweet and articulate.

At some point Jack took Clara back across the street for her afternoon nap and he joined her. They were asleep for probably close to two hours, which again shows how great it is to have the Air BnB so close by—they had a quiet place to go that was easily accessible and they could sleep as long as they wanted and come back over whenever they were ready. No rides needed.

While they were gone I played Say Anything with Neil, Ellen, Everett, Bryon, Jill, Sola, and Henry. That game gets really hilarious. At one point my question was “What’s the best way to impress a woman?” and while most people tried to think of whatever impresses me, Everett—ever the literalist—wrote “shove her into a giant pile of silly putty.” Later someone had a question about the best first date and he used the same answer, and he and Neil kept making jokes about pushing her into the silly putty while shouting “Aren’t you IMPRESSED?” “I am IMPRESSING you right now!” etc. I laughed so hard I cried.

After we finished a game of Say Anything, Dad asked us to help prep the many ingredients for homemade pizzas. Collectively we chopped onions, mushrooms, bell peppers, and tomatoes and set out containers of sausage, chicken, pepperoni, mozzarella, ricotta, parmesan, black olives, artichokes, pineapple, and who knows what else. I’m getting hungry just thinking about it. Oh, there was also a choice between red sauce or pesto.

Somewhere in between all that, Julie, Henry, Ellen, Clara, and I went for a walk around the neighborhood in the nice weather. Ellen didn't want to leave her drink so she brought her glass of wine with her. It's really pleasant walking around Dad and Jill's neighborhood--very wide streets and decently wide sidewalks and big houses with wrap around porches and well kept large yards. And very few pedestrians. It was nice and peaceful and good to get out of the house.

Then we got back and we all took turns rolling out the dough Dad had prepped and adding our own toppings. Apparently Dad decided to do an experiment where Ellen would bring him the pizzas and he would try to guess whose was whose based on the topping choices, but I don’t think I ever heard how many he got right.

I’d been eating seemingly nonstop all day already. For example, Jill had set out veggies and dip as well as meat and cheese and crackers plates while we were playing Say Anything. So by the time we were making pizzas I wasn’t even that hungry. Henry and I decided to split one pie, which was a good idea. Really we probably could have had three or more roamers and still had pizza leftover.

After dinner the adults all got ready to go to the local dive bar for karaoke. Miss Kristin stayed with the kiddies. At first I thought that seemed like a lot for you but then I realized the older kids are old enough to kind of watch themselves and actually Sola ends up helping with the littler ones.

So the rest of us went to the bar to try out the new karaoke DJ. Since this is the Joy Inventory I won’t spent a lot of time on why the DJ ended up sucking, but I will say I still really enjoyed singing, especially “Son of a Preacher Man,” and dancing, and listening to Jack sing CAKE, and watching Ellen do her Charlie Brown-esque hair flipping dancing. But actually I especially enjoyed making fun of the DJ with Neil and to a lesser extent with Jack, Dad, and Everett. Neil and I started counting the number of “strikes” against the DJ and eventually got past 10 and started just flashing ten fingers at a time each time he did something else that annoyed us, and it actually made me laugh pretty hard. I also collected a series of pics of how everyone felt about the DJ. Hard to pick a favorite.