the underwear drawer

sunday times

It seems like the summers in this neighborhood are just one constant street fair. Yesterday there was a street fair down Second Avenue, and today there's one up Third Avenue. It wouldn't be so bad if they still had that family that sells the kettle corn, but I haven't seen them for months now. Where are you, kettle corn family? There's only so much room for Gyros and grilled corn on the cob.

We had to drop by Bed Bath and Beyond this morning to pick up something (something of the "Beyond" variety--a picture frame, if you must know), and we tried to sweeten the deal for Cal by getting him a box of animal crackers shaped like a bus. He was disinterested in the cookies themselves, but very interested in the box, which he insisted on driving along every building on the street until it got dragged into a puddle of offal and crushed.




And yes, between the jean jacket and the Converse sneakers, he does look like he's going to challenge some other kids to a breakdance contest. He just needs his boombox and flattened out cardboard box first. Word.






Isn't it funny how different playgrounds have different personalities? There are a couple of playgrounds where we usually bring Cal, one which has a distinctively yuppie vibe (which actually conveniently gets kind of empty on summer weekends, as it is a Hamptons-type crowd), and one which is more middle class, located in the center of a large housing complex. Today we went to a different playground at Union Square, which is a little seedier than our usual haunt (see: empty Bacardi bottle behind the chicken wire, scary sandbox with yellow caution tape perimeter--however, no effluvia of spilled beer and puddled urine, like the really seedy playground across right near our apartment) and which gave out kind of a hippie vibe. Long-haired dads, sandals with socks, lots of interracial families, that sort of thing. It was unabashedly run-down, but nice in its own way, kind of like an old VW bus. (Those vehicles, incidentally, always remind me of the plutonium-wielding Libyans in "Back to the Future.")

Speaking of long-haireds, I'm looking at those pictures of Cal and I see that he needs a haircut. Again. Maybe that's why we fit in so well at the hippie playground.