Nathaniel's vacation

We finally found a good time to ship Nathaniel out to my parent's house in Sebastopol, CA.
On day one Dad took him sightseeing in San Francisco.

Here is where Nathaniel tries to look relaxed in a borrowed sweatshirt from Aaron when he is actually freezing his butt off. The first text he sends me when he found his bus stop in Oakland was that it was, "umm, kind of cold." Which is why I told him to bring a sweatshirt. But he argued with me and I felt sure he was old enough to learn this one on his own.

There are apparently a lot of things you cannot do at Golden Gate Park.
I'm not sure I can identify them all.

Sarah was unhappy he didn't buy her one of these hats.
Maybe we can find her one online.

These were some type of botanical gardens where there were a bunch of bug and even man-eating plants! Cool!

The story behind this is interesting I think. Constructed for an exposition in 1915 it wasn't built to last and was supposed to be demolished after the event was over. But the people of San Francisco protested and so it stayed. But by 1950 the temporary plaster structure was crumbling apart so they had to tear almost all of it down to replace it with concrete and steel. I've been going here since I was very young. It really is incredible.

The last day Dad took Nathaniel kayaking. Nathaniel said it was "really pretty" which in teen translation means, gorgeous scenery.



Here is a cute picture of dad. The best part for me in all this was the description of things through the eyes of Nathaniel. He said everyone went to bed at pretty much the same time, except for my Dad, who instead would "just wander all around the house." See I get what my Dad is doing because I know how he is, but it is so funny coming from Nathaniel.

"Then it would be all dark outside and suddenly there would be this bright light that would scare the heck out of me." That would be Dad with his floodlight-style headlamp on, wandering around the yard checking on his plants in middle of the night.

These things are pretty foreign to outsiders, but to me there is reason behind the madness. I get it. Night is the most efficient time for brains in our family. No distractions. Everybody does this once in a while.

But for a person with serious attention-deficit problems this is much more than that. There is not enough time in a day filled with distractions to get important things done and so we do it when others are sleeping and our brains don't have to filter out all of these other static and noise of the day. While others are slowing down, we are just getting into our groove.

I rarely do this anymore. Like almost never. Kids get up too early and demand too much for me to have been up until 4am.

The beer shack built by some local surfers.*
*all pictures courtesy of John Tracy:)

My favorite story is of when they were kayaking. Nathaniel says they were just floating along when all the sudden my dad pulls out some corn on the cob and begins to eat it with fervor. At which point he turns to Nathaniel and asks, "Want some corn?"
Even if he did happen to have a hankering for some corn on the cob just then
I think he was too confused to say yes.

The conclusion to this is that Nathaniel had a really great time. A blast really. He ate some fabulous food, including a salmon salad made by gourmet cook Linda with real flowers in it, that he thought was surprisingly good. He got to go to Great America with Aaron, his girlfriend Sam, Lily, and her friend-who-is-actually-not-just-a-friend-but-I'll-call-him-that-just-to-humor-her-named-Peter.
Lily has always been jealous of my man so she keeps finding other guys with
the same name to date. It's really sad.

(That one was for you sis, my love biscuit;)

He got to learn about important things like listening to his mother when she tells him there will not just be a chill in the air but he will actually feel cold to his bones if he doesn't bring a jacket, how to totally pimp out his PSP and many other computer ninja moves from Aaron, about conversing with strangers without grunting one word answers (social skills) and saying thank you (more social skills).

So kudos to you Mom and Dad.
He had a great time and if we're lucky he may have even come back with some new life skills.