What I Did Next Summer

Oooops, next summer has already started, but only just. If all goes according to plan (tfu tfu tfu), my summer will begin with a four-day excursion to Rosh Pina, to visit a friend relocated from Iowa, who insists on keeping her country bumpkin persona alive in Israel. In Rosh Pina I intend to do a lot of knitting, reading, and listening to the birds, with breaks for eating and sleeping. I am pushing for the title Queen of Hanging Out. This also counts as my pre-vacation vacation, because what comes next is almost too exciting to contemplate: Prowesslessnesslessness, Pippi Bluestocking, and the Little Bear, are coming to visit! Me! Here! In Israel! We will have much to celebrate, not the least of which is Little Bear's First Birthday, which happens the day they land on Holy Soil, and all the other birthdays we missed together this year.

But that's only the beginning: when they return to the USA (to Florida, in August), I plan to fly with them as far as Noo Yawk. There will follow NINE DAYS of gallery- and museum-hopping, perhaps a play or two, perhaps some Central Park summer evening events, and visiting the old friends who for whatever reason aren't chic enough to go away in August like most New Yorkers (chic was never a high priority for friendship with Savtadotty.)

Then follows my annual swing through the West Coast: first to visit Big Brother Sailorman and a phalanx of cousins in Southern CA, and then up to the Pacific Northwest for the Grand Finale: Mermaid Girl's Fifth Birthday, my puny grandmotherly contribution as a once-a-year nanny while elswhere and Renaissance Woman go on retreat for a few days, and the First Day of Kindergarten.

Why does my stomach go into knots? Because I hate airports and suitcases. John Travolta, where are you and your private Boeing jets?