He sat up at 8:05. Blinked a bit, then threw himself back down on the bed for a few minutes. We got ready and headed down to breakfast in the hotel. August has started lying down in the elevators again. He called them something like his “quick elevator rest”. And he said “I have a sensanation that tells me when an elevator’s about to stop at the right floor.” He spotted the “colorful cereal” (Fruit Loops) and had that first. I had biscuits and gravy and hard boiled eggs and yogurt. He was refusing most of the food items, but finally started eating cantaloupe for small pieces of the sweet bread I had.
Back in the room he had a flying car that took us to the raspberry stew stand. Carly noticed our suitcase was starting to break and he got really worried about it. He wanted us to call someone to fix it: “Turn on the telephone!”
We left at 10:10. He sang the “Sidewalk sealant” song in the car. We played the pirate game on the iPad and finished it. We then stopped at Alexander Park as we were running a bit early. he went on the merry-go-round, then Carly got him up the slide but he wouldn’t go down. He swung from the bar on top though, making Carly nervous. There was a slightly-older boy there banging on the slide, and August banged on it too. He went on the swings next to Carly and was pretending to be a record player, getting stuck and having me put on new songs. He sang “Wood ship, go let’s go by the wood ship.” We headed to the car about noon and as we drove he looked out and sang a couple songs: “Garbage can garbage can, you are full.” And “Flower, flower, you are wilting.”
At the motor home Cherie made us corn fritters. We were afraid August wouldn’t eat them because he’s been refusing corn because it sticks in his teeth. But he declared “Perfect amount of corn”. They played random Candy Land and Carly got the splay balls to play with and we did slo-mo videos of them splatting on the table. As we left, he wanted to see the batteries in the motor home. He told them “Chief Joseph Dam had a truck for tours with an entire set or batteries!” He then kept asking Chuck questions about the motor home and they spent a few minutes looking at the wires and hoses connected to the motor home. And Cherie had shown him how the awnings fold in.
We drove over to Claremay and Steve’s. We found them down in the garden area. Claremay gave him some blackberries, and we opened up a head of garlic so he could see what it looked like. Claremay showed him an animal hole in the yard, and gave him a green blackberry to try after she thought he said he wanted a “white berry” when he said “ripe berry”. August had the idea of giving Steve one of the unripe berries, and the two of them had a lot of fun as August tried to get him to eat it, and Steve hid the berry in his hand and pretended to eat it.
He then went on an edible plant tour with Cherie. They had nesturtium, snapdragons, lemon balm, and a couple others. He said the lemon balm was his favorite. He’d gotten a licorice when we came in the house, and now had more. He then acted like a fish and had Carly catching him with a fishing pole. Claremay surprised us with a white cake with chocolate chips. August wanted a second piece, and when I was asked permission I explained my philosophy that grandmothers were allowed to feed him whatever they wanted to. Moved on to rocks for awhile, then he asked “Can we eat a daylily? Is day lilies edible?”
We got going north and stopped for gas at 3:20. He helped wash the windows. We played the chess game and read some of the first Sisters. He needed to use the bathroom so we stopped at. Starbucks. We played more chess and he got a card that talked about how to use two rooks for a checkmate. When we came across that scenario a few minutes later he said “So, let’s do what that card taught me.” We were listening to the Songs for Lipton playlist. From the car I ordered three pizzas from Good Guys Pizza to be delivered to Derek’s house. We sang the sidewalk sealant song together.
Carly talked about him needing a bath “sooner or later” when we got to the house. He told her “Stop thinking about sooner or later, please!” He wanted to wait until the nighttime.
We got to the house and Thatcher was spraying the hose up in the air and letting it fall. August didn’t get wet. He said “Let’s wait for the spraying to go by then we’ll run by like in the pirate game.” In the pirate game we had been timing the character’s run through a tunnel when lava would drop down. As we got out of the car Thatcher brought the hose down to spray the sand box thing and hit us indirectly. August was not amused. I took him in and dried off in the bathroom. He wanted to stay in the bathroom forever.
Eventually got him in the kitchen area and he found a bouncy ball. He bounced it around and talked about how it had momentum. The pizza came at 6 and we ate it outside on the grass on a blanket. He was nervous about dog poop on the lawn and wanted me to carry him between the house and blanket.
Inside they went up to the playroom and Carly was with them. When Thatcher and Kayla cme up he announced through the microphone “Don’t make the towers too tall, okay?” He had been telling Carly to stop building a tower and it fell down. He then delivered shapes to them for building, using a truck.
I headed off for my concert, the 30th anniversary concert of the Posies at the Neptune. The Neptune is now a theater and concert venue. I remember seeing a few movies there, particularly Das Boot. I parked across from where the Mac Store used to be, on 45th, and walked to the Ave. I walked north to 50th, then back south along the Ave and a bit on 15th. Book store was closed for the day. Gyro-cery still exists. Saw a sock store for Carly, and appropriately, a Korean BBQ place two doors down. Lots of Vietnamese places now, although still enough teriyaki joints. The best name was Pho-Shizzle (or was it Sizzle?) I walked up to Red Square, then headed back up to the Neptune.
After the concert I returned to the car, then got cash at the WSECU. Tried to go to the two Dick’s on the way back to the house, but both were crazy busy. Back to the house at 12:30. Had some leftover pizza and juice and went to bed.
While I was gone they had a bonfire and made s’mores. August cooked a marshmallow but didn’t want to cook it too much because he didn’t want it slipping off. But then he remembered that he wanted to try. Raw marshmallow, so he switched for that. Had his s’more in parts. He decided cooked marshmallows were better, but he was fine with what he had. He was upset when they didn’t pour water on the fire (they just put the cover on it) as he wanted to help (and perhaps Smokey was in his head telling him they were doing it wrong). They then all had bath time together, and he was asleep right at 9. She didn’t wash his hair, and when I went to bed he was sideways at the top, his head in my spot. So I put my head right next to him and could really smell it.