Full Time Aunt

It’s official, as of July 2, a Saturday, I will be a full-time aunt. My mother-in-law and her husband will descend on Torino to drop my niece and nephew off for about 2 weeks. At first the kids did not want to come for a visit but I think they may have changed their minds. Needless to say this weekend we ran around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to figure out a way to empty the guest room of clothing and boxes in a vain effort to make it homey. The room so far is furnished with a table, lovely rug of mine, 2 guitars, an amp, a gumball machine, some photos for the wall and a bookshelf with all sorts of books, comics and English children’s books I bought at a library sale in Seattle. All we need now are the beds and a dresser.

Summers in Seattle are heavenly and I miss them, usually Sophie, Jamie sometimes Rachel, Daniel and/or Charlie head out to enjoy all that Seattle has to offer. One year Sophie, Jamie and I rented a canoe from the UW and went on a leisurely ride across the Montlake cut and into the Arboretum. We ate our lunch in the canoe and had cherries for dessert. The highlight of the day was watching silly UW students jump off a part of the 520 floating bridge that either sunk or had not been completed. We watched as guys coaxed girls to jump, as guys jumped and then belly flopped, all in the comfort of our canoe.

The summer before that Rachel, Daniel, Marc and Caroline and I went to our usual spot in Marysville to pick fresh raspberries. We walked about 200 yards out to the canes, talked and shuffled our feet in the dusty fields while we argued as to who would fill their baskets more quickly. At the end of two hours, we had picked 13 pounds, not counting all the ones we are along the way. The afternoon ended with lunch at a great Mexican place. I miss everything about Seattle and the children that I spent so much time with. In two weeks, I’ll get a chance to do the same sort of things with Ginevra and Giordano.