Neighborhood-Kids All Local. All for Kids. All the Time.

The water ban is off. Whew. I’m so glad because after four days of being away, I came home wondering about my plants and whether I would be allowed to water. (Today they’re okay, but next week? Likely not so good.)

Like other Bellingham residents, I was a good conservationist last week (according to the Bellingham Herald, we ‘Hamsters did a great job). In fact, I emptied the skanky water from my kids’ little swimming pool onto my landscaping—if you can call it that—in lieu of turning on the hose. Wait, I’m not sure if I’ve painted that picture adequately.

Picture the watering can being hand-dipped into the pool and carted to the various plants around the back yard and to the front of the house, up and down the walkway through the raised beds from the front yard to the back yard and back again, trip after trip after trip, dip after dip after dip. I’m not sure how many trips I made. Twenty, maybe?

I won’t claim to understand what it’s like to live without running water in a remote village, but I will say the experience did take me right back to my childhood. So back. So familiar. Kind of eerie that I can do water conservation without a thought.

I grew up on acreage with a surface well—something like only ten feet deep—that dropped precipitously every summer even though I grew up in the Northwest. With back-to-the-lander parents who lived for conservation, running out of water was no big deal (this green living, small carbon footprint thing was the definition of my early years—I’m pretty sure it’s why I love buying canned food and taking long showers).

Every summer we used our outhouse all summer (even now my parents continue to use it out of habit despite the hundred-odd-ft. well they’ve had dug since my childhood).

Every summer we took shallow, shallow baths.

Every summer, we carted the gray water from the washing machine to the flower beds, easily done because we used a wringer washer that somehow was the norm in our house although the rest of the nation had long before converted to automatic washers. You haven’t lived until you’ve devoted a day to laundry with a wringer washer, I tell you, equally as time consuming as watering with bailed swimming pool water, but that’s a tale for another day.

Suffice to say, I know how to do hard work, but I prefer not to. I appreciate my automatic washer and sprinkler every day. However, if the world comes to a grinding halt, and we have to go back to earthy living, I’ll be able to thank my parents for my work ethic.

This morning I dropped off Leah at the YMCA for her first foray off to Camp Orkila on Orcas island—a weeklong sleep-away camp (her first; I'll let you know how it goes). Later I drove Ty to the Keystone Ferry, where we boarded as walk-on passengers to rendezvous with Ty’s auntie Lisa and cousin Ruby for Ty’s own three days of Camp Lisa. I caught the same ferry back.

Can you hear the silence? It’s deafening.

Driving to Keystone and back with a ferry ride in between is no small task, I tell you, but on a day like today, I can’t complain. The ferry crossing to Port Townsend was glorious, and it’s much more fun going as a walk-on than a drive-on, I discovered. I’m already plotting how to get the family to Port Townsend for a car-free weekend of great restaurants. But never mind that now, what I really mean to say is this: we live in a truly spectacular part of the world. This fact (that I only remember in the summer) was corroborated by an elderly New Zealander, whom I chatted with on the way back to Keystone. He now lives over the border on the Sunshine Coast and wouldn’t have it any other way.

Today, neither would I.

I can’t believe how much sunny weather we’ve had already. It’s not even July 4th yet. Anyone who’s lived here for any length of time knows not to expect the sun till after the 4th—I certainly don’t—but the season is surprising us all.

Here’s what I love:

The sound of the screen door slamming

Grass already looking dry

Swim lessons in an outdoor pool (Ty, not me)

Lying on the hot porch to get dry (him, not me)

Ripe berries

Park concerts

Mallards

Riding bikes

Going barefoot

Day after day of blue, blue sky

So I’ve recently discovered the ultimate challenge for me as a mother: It’s watching my kid (any kid, actually) compete in track and not getting all het up about it. Cello recital? No problem. Soccer, I’m pretty laid back. Horse riding? Totally clueless. But track, oh, I can’t help it—I just get soooo excited about track. My heart flutters, my legs tense, my body leans forward, all while sitting in the stands, mind you, with no physical involvement whatsoever, except for clapping for kids pounding down the track (or jogging or straggling or barely finishing, whatever the case may be).

You’ll also hear me say things like, “Wow, that kid can run, look at her pace, hope she knows what she’s doing, hmm, she does look like she knows what she’s doing, check out that kick, wow, I wonder what her time was, well, we’re going to be reading about her in the paper for sure when she hits high school.” It’s a running commentary I am hardly aware of. And then some parent will ask if I ran track, too, and, well yes, I ran the … and here we go. I even still remember my times.

So anyway, yesterday, at the middle school city meet at Civic, I decided to support Leah by hanging around the long jump pit, where she was competing in her only event of the day. Up till now, I’d always watched from the distant vantage point of the stadium shade. She seemed happy to see me, or at least the water bottle I’d brought along for refreshment in that baking heat. (Naturally, most kids didn’t have water bottles.) But then came the unsolicited advice after each jump. “You have to explode down the runway, sweetie. The faster you run, the farther you jump.” And this: “Throw your arms out in front of you when you leap. That’ll pull your body forward.” And this: “Try lifting your legs higher—thrust them out in front of you.”

I have no idea what I’m talking about. I never did the long jump in school. But I can’t resist analyzing the strategy and form of any track event that involves some kind of running (okay, pole vault, I’d know better). To her credit, Leah didn’t brush me off or seem irritated but simply took my comments in stride. “Okay,” she would say and look like she was actually considering the information, and then she’d go and jump exactly as she had been doing all along. 

I’ve heard those ex high-school football players replay games from their deep, dark past. Those replays don’t make them sound like they know anything, they just make ‘em sound pathetic, as if high school football was the only worthwhile experience of their small little lives. Oops, only now it’s me. Um, yeah, no. These poor kids don’t want to hear my stories; they don’t need to hear my commentary (I wonder what she says about me, they’re surely thinking). They don’t need my advice (but if they ask for it, of course…).

Today is the second day of the meet. I get to watch Leah run the 4 X 100 relay, an event I know a lot about, including what it feels like to completely botch it at the state level and disqualify (nasty feeling, I tell … but there I go again).

Today, I resolve to clap and congratulate and cheer (or cheer up). And under my breath, my new commentary? It’s not about me, it’s not about me, it’s not about me.

Wish me luck.

Our family is buzzing with the latest network news: Kris Allen has won this season’s American Idol competition, and no one in our family can quite believe it (“No guy who spells Chris with a K should win,” my husband said). Leah, who has been tuning in to this show every week on our computer, is spinning. She was so sure Adam would win. So were we all. America surely got it wrong. So says I, the person with no musical talent whatsoever.

We got hooked on this season’s line-up back in January when we were at Disneyland and had three evenings of cable TV at our disposal. Just so happens that American Idol auditions were going on, the very early stages of them, and we laughed and laughed and looked forward to the next evening’s worth of bad performances and what Simon would say.

“Are these people delusional?” I asked (did I mention what a Simon fan I am?). “Do they not know they can’t sing?” Apparently not.

Kris can sing, but I do believe this is a case of good looks winning out. Kris is just so dang cute in a boy-next-door kind of way, while Adam is a little edgy with his guy liner and spiky hair. Even so, I thought the country was ready for Adam. And yet, when it came to voting off the cutie, the country couldn’t bring itself to do it.

Kris seemed shocked, and a little sheepish, when his name was announced, and yet that's part of who he is and what makes him so likeable. He was pleased, too, of course. But I wonder how he feels today. A friend of mine, whose kids also tune in, says being voted #1 is overrated, and most often the #2, 3, and 4 singers do more with their singing prowess.

But maybe I know less than I thought. This Idol article points out why Kris came out the winner, so maybe there’s more to Kris than I give him credit for. Or not. This article describes the polarizing effect Adam had on people, and why Kris was the beneficiary. I felt embarrassed for him last night, but I’m rethinking that today. Adam will find his way, no doubt, and if there’s a place in the music world for the self-effacing nice boy too, I'm good with that.

American Idol's newest fans will be keeping track.