After spending a beautiful sunny weekend in Healdsburg chasing Max around and ‘round Papa's house, I can't help but post a gushing entry on the ever fabulous little bean. We spent all of Saturday and Sunday tossing pebbles in the 'lil Monet fish pond, bowling with lemons on the front porch and digging for bugs with our special buggy sticks (and fishing the purple ball out of the pond). Hearing Max say "here buggy buggy" is so damn cute — I so wish we hadn't run out of video tape. Being a toddler and all, he would run back and forth countless times to see the fish, then back to say hi to the tractor, and turn off and on the light switches in the garage again and again and yet again. Repetition is the thing to do you know. He loved to point out al the cactus and say ouchie and then say otros (spanish for another) while pointing to all the other painful points. He still calls all cats "Maa-ggee-gaa" {Madeline} and would sqeal it loudly while death squeezing papa's cat Alex. This was followed by a little tail pulling but then also some endearing nose beeping too. Then he would trot over to the piano for some key tinkling, then strum a few chords on the ukulele and back out to the pond.

I know Max had a marvelous weekend and it's such a joy to see him free to run outside in any direction, to throw pebbles and sticks, to get his hands dirty, and scream loudly with delight and have all be ok. Getting out of the city is such an important thing to do. I have to remind myself of this often, or post it in public as is the case. I never want to sign up for weekend outings 'cause I know we'll have to sit in endless traffic and because driving on the road with other people well, it drives me crazy. I have serious irrational population issues, I can't believe there are really this many people in the city, in the bay area, California, America - the world, holy shit my brain just shut down. Ha ha, you're thinking? No it's pretty much sad and true, I think I'm borderline agoraphobic. Well, after looking it up, I'm not exactly a freak about open spaces. I actually like open spaces and a civil society too, yes civil is the operative word there. Apparently there is no fear of traffic, congestion, roadblock, not even an overpopulation phobia. What?! Am I really alone on this? Closest I can find is ochlophobia: a fear of crowds or mobs. Guess I'll self diagnose with that and submit traffikaphobia for the board of mental health's review. Anyway I digress. Guess I’m just telling myself, and you, that it’s important to take mini break holidays even if the heavy traffic makes you swear and sweat all the way there.