And Peej may or may not have sunken a dinghy.

It is currently a balmy 63 degrees in Cape Cod.

This is strange for so many reasons:
a) We are at the beach. It should be well over 100 degrees.
b) All summer long- in Chicago, mind you- it's been well over 100 degrees.
c) I only packed halter tops. For Nora.

That said, our digs this week are a stunning "cottage" with three floors of window seats, wraparound porches and mind-boggling amounts of alcohol. Even more mind-boggling is how quickly the supply will be decimated with three sisters, two parents, two husbands, a boyfriend or two and a plethora of pals. (There's also four kiddos, but they aren't hitting the stash yet. Overmuch.)

Nora, for her part, has been chasing her big cousins, shoving objects (sand, shoes, mini front-loader trucks) into her mouth, and passing out each night with a sleepy giggle. She has effectively been aired out.

My new obsession: looking up real-time star charts and pretending to see them in the cloudy sky. P.J.'s? Listening to an CD he found in the TV room called "Angela's Bachelorette." The gentlemen residing here initially hoped for a DVD. No such luck.

I also have my new gadget to keep me outta trouble: a refurbished iPhone 3Gs. This a big deal. A really big deal. I've been a loyal, tried and true Blackberry Pearl user for the past four and a half years. I love the Blackberry Pearl. I love it. Sure, it has a limited capacity for web browsing, memory storage and camera speed. And absolutely, the trackball tends to implode, rendering the entire cell phone a useless mini brick. (But it's so cute!)

Regardless of its shortcomings, I've come to acknowledge the BBerry as a general extension of my right hand. I am disgustingly good at texting on the thing. I ask things of it that it cannot possibly deliver- accurate GPS, an updated blog, etc.- yet, somehow, it does. Slowly, but it does.

But the other day, the trackball on the phone died. Again. Stuck itself so far inside the phone that it became a pebble. And about as helpful as one. Suddenly, I was unable to make calls, answer calls, look up numbers or addresses, text, email, take or receive or view pictures, or do anything generally associated with an actual phone. It became a lovely object with which to thwack things- precisely the activity in which I engaged for the full day I was without any means of communication.

And I was embarrassingly inept at dealing with this. Could. Not. Handle. It.

So I needed a new phone- pronto. Peej thought that I could do without a cell- smart phone or otherwise- for the week we were on vacation. He was sorely mistaken...and won't be making such inane and unhelpful assumptions again any time soon, I promise you this.

And we looked at comparable phones on T-Mobile (which I love) and found that even the nicest ones were iPhone ripoffs- for about two hundred more dollars. So we contemplated the iPhone, even though:
AT&T Has Terrible Reception In Chicago, and
We Don't Need An iPhone, and
The Data Charges Are Crazy, and
It Is Trendy.

But it turned out that it would be cheaper to get a refurbed phone (named The Furb) on a comparable data plan with a phone that- get this- allowed me to ask waaay too much of it, media and communication-wise.

Which is good. And bad.

And very bad.

But I'm in good company. Nothing says Family Time like six Flynns and their various family members attached to a laptop and iPhone apiece. We've actually played word games in person (on paper) and across the room (on Facebook.)

As soon as the sun comes back out I'm sure it'll be a little different.

At least outfit-wise.

Time for smaller jorts!

I was all set this morning. Yep, I knew what issues were going to be blown to smithereens and how pointedly- and yet self-deprecatingly- I was gonna lay it down.

And then Nora needed breakfast. Again. (Just like yesterday!) And then while she was playing so happily with a mixture of kitchen utensils and bath books, I decided it was a good time to work out; i.e. thwack at the Wii Fit with a half-dead Wiimote. 

And after the usual guff from the console- ("Oh, hello, P.J. Wait, is that Keely? It's been SO LONG." =actual 'tude.)- I did the body test where, most mornings, it tells me that I'm overweight, am on a fast track to hunchbackville and limp like a pirate with a peg leg. 

But today- the day where I had been utterly prepared to rip into the notion of losing the "last five pounds" (bones become heavier after babies, I was gonna say) and magazines and self worth and fitness and the fact that the ice cream cartons in our freezer seem to be multiplying and making delicious offspring- on THIS day...the Wii Fit informed me that I'd met my goal.

My pre-baby weight. 

Kinda. 'Cause- and this is a huge Schoeny family secret- we lie to the Wii Fit. When it asks what kind of clothing we're wearing to work out...we tell it "parkas." No joke. Our console thinks we're doing yoga in the Arctic Circle. (They shouldn't give you the OPTION if they don't want you to take it.) So, I guess I'm pre-baby weight plus some winter gear. But- and this is the truly confusing part- I'd been lying to the Wii Fit for so long now that I can't remember if I had told it my true pre-kid weight or if I'd been adding "parka" since well before Nora came to play.

Serves me right. That said, I guess my bones lost weight. I am of some indeterminate poundage floating around my "ideal" weight. (Which is a riot anyhow- what am I gonna do now? Wear an evening gown? A bikini? A Spandex unitard? Nope- still yoga pants and an earnest tee-shirt.) 

I'll be wearing an earnest shirt tonight, by the by, at the premiere of Snapshots 2010. My play, Right On Cue, starts the evening off! Care to join? It runs through Sunday with a two performances on Saturday night (one's late, for all those folks with other shows to perform, watch, write, whatever) and it will be a grand ol' time.

And speaking of grand 'ol (but youngish, too) times- fare thee well to one of my bestest pals, Miss Annie Gloyn, soon to be Martzell, moving to L.A., gettin' outta Dodge, leaving me fabulous furniture, also terrific memories for which the photos have long been destroyed....The kind of pal that doesn't need an event- hanging out is the event. When travesties or joyfulnesses occur, she's the one to bring a baked good, a scented candle and a hand-written note- she's also the kind to write a thank-you for a thank-you (and one time, even, for a thank-you.) She'll have a drink waiting for you at the bar and a spare toothbrush in the apartment. Yet, while all of these things are nice, they don't make a best friend.

Nearly eight years of trips, randomsauce sleepovers and impromptu dinner parties make a friend. But remembering and celebrating important, whimsical, trivial and teensy tiny things (like caring for an ice chip in the eye- with an ice pack/ how ferrets get fursty/ why certain napkins are for display and display ONLY)...those make a best friend.

One that I'm already missing dreadfully.

So, smooches, sugar- seeya in a couple of short months. I'll be the one in a divine bridesmaid's gown, drinking the best that Napa has to offer, and celebrating a happy couple.

If you're free, we should try to meet up.

That whole "noon" thing was really ambitious.

     This past weekend was a doozy.

     After a slight change in plans allowed me to attend our darling pal Caitlin's going away party at Mrs. Murphy's Irish Bistro (go rock the West Coast, sugar!), Peej, Nora and I left for Indiana eaaaaaarly Saturday morning.

     I'm pretty sure I'm a part time Indiana resident at this point.

     We headed to Bloomington for the wedding of Natalie and Dave- she of my Pilates-classes-gettin'-me-back-into-jeans-without-elastic fame. Also, Peej's high school friend. But I've commandeered her.
     Their wedding took place at the State Forest, overlooking a gorgeous dropoff full of foresty goodness. (Nora was surprisingly good during the service, although she did start singing to herself during the vows.)
     The reception was at the Museum of Art- kinda the most wundy place to have a party, ever, but also a locale where I was terribly afeared for my daughter's tendency to grab/poke/Frisbee things.
     She enjoyed an exceptional cocktail hour supper of canapes, cheese truffles, and some sort of rad sweet pea gazpacho. You know, typical baby food.
     THEN we handed her off to P.J.'s folks- who had driven in from Cincy for some solo Nora Jane time- and they took her back to the hotel to give her lollipops and ponies. (I don't know what grandparents do, but she's always really stoked after spending time with any of the four of them.)

     Seriously, the wedding- and the bride- was stunning. She's the kind of gal whom you look at and say- I could be like that someday.

     If I learned how to really do my hair.

     And wear better clothes.

     And acquire a completely different metabolism.

     Some other notable moments on the [10 hour total time in the car over 29 hours] trip: the extremely mellow group of collegiate kids outside of the Art Museum...on their backs, feet up against the wall, enjoying the atmosphere. Out of their gourds on some sort of substance rarely found in nature.
     Or the ladies who informed me on Sunday morning that Nora had been the prettiest girl at the previous night's event...and when I later found out they had attended the hotel's other wedding. 
     Or the colossal tip the Waffle House staff got after our darling girl tornadoed the facility with waffles, bacon, tomatoes and grits. (She eats everything.)
     Or the Mulch Castle on the side of the road in Indiana. Seriously, a castle with turrets and everything, with each spire full of a different kind of mulch. Stuff dreams are made of. At least mine. Minus the mulch. I don't dream of mulch. But I like reimagining castles.

     Happy Monday, everyone. Hope the week is lovely- enjoy nature and the last few weeks of summer.

     Find a building and lean upside down against it.

     Mood-enhancer optional.

     Nora prefers grits.

But who's gonna meter my rage?

            Today's post is a failed attempt at guest-blogging for a bigger site. So I'm using it here- 'cause I LIKE it, even if it met none of the previously-non-mentioned-but-yeah-it-kinda-makes-sense criteria. It's just as well- I'm horrid at following directions (baking, unplugging my laptop during a storm, that whole waiting after eating to swim...)
            I wrote it about a month ago. Ah, how simple things were back then. They were different times.


******
      

            The water people have just left. I think they have a real name/company/title, but that’s what I’m going with.

            They’ve been here three times.

            Optimistically, we signed up for a water meter that would- ideally- cut back on our usage. Or, rather, what the city thinks we use. (For those non-Chicagoans, you don’t get your own water charges- oh no! You get what the City of Chicago- a wonderfully, refreshingly honest town- thinks you’re using based on what your neighbors are doing. Or what the city thinks they’re doing.)

            This means that, based on the fact that we live in a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood with multiple families living in the same three-flats, the great Windy City thinks our water usage equates that of eighteen related people fighting over three showers.

            A water meter seemed like a no-brainer. And of course, that’s exactly what it turned out be; a project with zero brains involved.

            The first team, having shown up late and having hung out for a good hour, couldn’t figure out how to turn off our water. (Given that our previously foreclosed rehab is less House of Dreams and more Money Pit, we believed him.) They told us about a B-box or somesuch that needed a blowout. (Look, if we’re handing out city-funded blowouts, my hair has been standing in line since last November. Also, I originally heard “beat box,” rendering me tragically excited.)

            My husband called to reschedule the water meter install and the B-box blowout- but sadly, no accompanying a capella group- and was informed that the B-box thing had already been done. Wow! Okay…

            The second team showed up a couple of weeks later. Late. (It is the city, after all.) They informed us that our water wouldn’t shut off and that the B-box needed to be blown out. Hmm.

            This morning, the third team arrived- including, as the supervisor put it, his “best guy.”

            I was prepared to be less than impressed. In fact, I was riled up to be downright snotty. My husband, who had been here for the previous attempts, offered to work from home this a.m., something that I waved away. I wanted a confrontation. Tuesday mornings are my time off from nannying with our infant gal in tow, a couple of hours that I can enjoy writing while she naps- in other words: Me Time. Now these fools were going to waste Me Time with a third vocal acknowledgement that we needed a blowout of some sort? I didn’t want my husband to temper me. I didn’t want witnesses.

            Turns out, all we needed was a “best guy.” He turned off the water indoors (“I don’t know why the other guys couldn’t get this!”) He turned off the water outdoors (“No prob.”) He installed a water meter (“You’ll be seeing a big reduction in water bills.”) And, for our troubles- a free rain barrel! Sure, people in more civilized, green and outdoorsy parts of the world already have these. But here? Cutting. Edge. Technology. (Also with a multi-month wait list. Suckers.)

            Now we’re the home with only three residents- and a water bill to match- plus the means for a slightly more sustainable backyard. (Hey kids, it’s your pal Whitey McHippie!)

            So now it’s on to dealing with the 2010 Census; folks with a razor-edged vendetta, bent on proving that our single fam home is a secret haven for multiple apartments, tenants and doorbells.

            I am only one woman.

            Regardless of what they might have in their file.