Summer Camp for Grownups

Grand Camp is the best kept secret of parenting, if you have engaged and bodily able parents like I do. A remote location like Pittsburgh helps. Robin is at sleep-away camp this week, spending 12 days with my parents, bouncing between their households and visiting the driving range, baseball games, amusement parks and the pool. Want to see some pictures?

Here’s us on an epic date night. Happy hour at Caffe L’Aquila to start…  And an art opening at the Barnes. We took illegal selfies in the permanent collection, which was eerily empty. We swayed to reggae in the crowded main hall, and even got to talk to the artist, Nari Ward, who is brilliant and down-to-earth. And no one interrupted our conversation to announce he had to poop! No one called it boooooooooring.

I get to work 9 or 10-hour days like a normal person. This was a treat. For real. I’m super glad to be able to do it, finishing projects completely and getting serious traction after 5:30pm. And then stopping off at Saks Off 5th or Marshall’s on my way home. And dining after 7. And only washing myself before bed. Only brushing one set of teeth.

There have also been bars, like Mermaid Inn and Bar Hygge. And Tired Hands. Refreshingly, it’s a clever name, not a state that accompanies sore feet and weary body. I will work though. I’ll spackle and paint. Clean the house. Harvest radishes from my garden. I won’t even need caffeine to do it as I slept until almost 8 this morning. I will wash three loads of laundry and get it all folded in a single day. Then blog about it. I feel downright superhuman!

We’re hosting friends for dinner and watching R-rated movies. On weeknights.

Of course I do miss my guy, more than I had imagined. I enjoy the text messages and photos my parents send. He’s taking in all of Pittsburgh’s pleasures with the only people on this planet who come close to loving him as much as Randy and I do.

And while I savor the freedom of spending a whole morning writing and reading entire articles in the newspaper, I feel a small wave of sadness. Life before my Robin was fun and free. But I can’t imagine a life without his love and raw energy. I miss the warmth of his little busy body and the chaos he leaves in his wake.

I am painfully aware that these days are fleeting. The years are stacking up. Our time together is short and beautiful, if hectic and tiring. In his week away he will probably lose that single front tooth, his precious hockey player smile transitioning to something else.