Sleepovers are an important part of the girl friendships here. They happen constantly. The girls either seem to be at someone else’s house or they are at ours. All good. I never tire of girlie giggles. The kids live further apart and some live in more remote areas. Sometimes they have to take a boat to see each other. For the older girls they may leave with their friend after school and come back with them on Monday.
Madi’s sleepover in her own words: I went for a two-day sleepover at a friend’s house across the lake in Santa Cruz. I went directly from school to my friend’s dad’s office for about 45 minutes. Then we tuked it down to the boat and we went across the lake to Santa Cruz. Their house is really pretty and it is on the side of the mountain. It’s right next to the docks because their town is so small. They are from California and are staying here just like us, and don’t live here all the time.
They have two cats. One is Puck and the other is named Frieda. The cats are siblings. We made a huge fort outside in their yard out of a table and chairs and a bench. We sat inside and listened to a virtual book of Harry Potter on my friend’s Ipod. At night we watched Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince on her dad’s computer because they don’t have a tv.
For dinner we had teriyaki chicken and buttered noodles. I ate everything and for dessert we had frozen strawberries. The next morning we played Littlest Petshop for a while. We listened to more of the Harry Potter book in the fort. Then I called my parents and they said I could stay for another night at their house. We made a different fort up in the loft of their house which is a storage area, so we could rearrange what we wanted.
Then we went down to the lake to a kayak rental place. The family is friends with the lady who owns it so we could go out on the kayaks for free. I kayaked out to the boat that was doing lake tours. The lady also owned that boat and does the lake tours. My friend tipped her kayak when she went from her kayak to the boat and tried to get back into her kayak. We had to pump the water out of her boat with a special pump. when we got back someone helped helped us dump out the kayak.
When we got back my dad came to pick me up. We went down to the dock to meet him, He was totally soaked because the boat got him wet. There were 27 people on his boat and it was very low in the water. He was getting drenched, but there was no where for him to move. Then my dad stayed and met the family and talked for a while, then we left. We rode back on the boat and he biked me back from the dock in Pana. The end of my sleepover.
Paul went to pick Madi up from Santa Cruz. I went down to the lake for about an hour to see if I could meet their boat, but had to go back in order to get Cali to her sleepover in time. I did see two parasailers land right next to the beach.
While one girl was being picked up from her 2-night sleepover, Cali was waiting for hers to begin. She wanted to do a double-nighter too, but I said no. That’s either way too long for a seven year old or for me to be separated from my seven year old. I forget which. But I have found that little ones get sick of each other faster, not to mention the parents. She was going over to hers at 4pm, so she started asking me at 7:30 a.m. how much longer until 4 p.m. She asked, on average, every 15 minutes.
Her friend called at 3:30 and asked where she was. Cali got organized and by the time we got there, it was almost 4:30 p.m. She decided to take a sleeping bag over with her. Before my family came to visit, we had zero sleeping bags, and they brought us three. We went from sleeping-bag poor to sleeping-bag rich. Cali said she is often cold at her friend’s house because they don’t have an extra blanket. So she took a sleeping bag with her. Then she was carrying her overnight bag and kept complaining how heavy it was. I asked if she put rocks in there and she said, “Yes.” She wasn’t kidding. Apparently her friend’s house doesn’t have enough rocks either and there were projects to get done.
Two things were happening consistently all day. Someone was attempting to practice the trumpet, and someone was smoking pot. If if was the same person doing both it would explain the caliber of the practicing. I’ve practiced enough to know inefficient practicing, and this person had mastered it. He was trying to play along with extremely fast music, randomly fishing to find the right notes. It did not get better throughout the day. He didn’t try to slow down the notes to try to master a few and then go on and master a few more. He just fumbled along loudly with the fast salsa music. But what he didn’t have in terms of natural learning ability, he made up for in stamina. Sadly. He practiced for hours and hours. What a persistent guy. He’d take a break for 10 minutes, then go back to that same song and re-butcher it all over again. Meanwhile, pot is being smoked somewhere in close proximity to our backyard so when the breeze blew a certain way, it filled our house. It’s a popular hobby here, pot-smoking. Madi kept saying someone must be burning some kind of nasty garbage.
Went to The Porch for supper. We were able to go a bit later this time, since Cali was at her sleepover. She usually falls asleep on her favorite bench at the Porch around 7:30. Tonight we didn’t even get there until 8:30. The band had just started to play.
Spring break is upon us, the streets are full. Some of us were going to go dancing, but when we went out, if felt so Spring Breakish, and everyone was so young, and there were people throwing up on the streets in front of us, that we just didn’t fit with the kind of fun we wanted to have. It was also making us feel incredibly….old! We decided to call it a night. Kier went to a friend’s house where they were having a bit of a get-together, which was better than the crazy crowded streets. There are so many more people in Pana. Apparently this is the quiet weekend, the end of Spring Break is supposed to be the crazy one. We’ll brace ourselves.